Puppets (10 page)

14

B
UT SHE CHANGED HER mind as soon as they got outside. "Would you be up for a walk instead? If what everybody tells me is true, days like this are rare in Manhattan. Carpe diem, and all that."

Mo agreed readily. The rain had blown over, and an expanse of blue was pushing the wet weather away, a ridge of clouds sliding away above the city like an opening eyelid. After half a day of rain, the streets were wet and everything had a fresh, scrubbed look, and yet a nice breeze took the humidity away. She was right, it was not something to be squandered. They turned south on Broadway and headed toward Battery Park.

Rebecca walked with big, easy strides, swinging her briefcase in a wide arc. She looked like an outlander, big and blond and gazing around with the enthusiasm of a tourist."You have to understand," she said, "my one regret about my profession is that it involves sitting inside a lot, talking a lot. I love it here, but I still get a little claustrophobic."

"I can imagine. I'm kind of a city boy, but I still like to walk every chance I get."

She gave him a quick, approving glance."I liked the way you handled Erik when he wanted to yank your chain. You had done some preparation for that eventuality?"

"Some amount of that is typical in inter jurisdictional projects."

"Well,that's what I thought we could talk about." The regretful look was back. "I think you need to be aware that Erik is tough, but he's sincerely trying to make a good job of a complex situation."

"You don't think you're letting your personal relationship with him bias your judgment?"

She glanced over at him to see if he'd meant it the way it sounded, a little taken aback. "You do do your homework, don't you?"

"I'm just trying to keep my own professional objectivity. Critical thinking, question the biases of your sources. A good habit, don't you think?"

"Very wise. You sure it's purely a professional interest? No biases on your part?"

She was getting back at him, turning it back around. But in a nice way, probing but not judging. She must be a knockout shrink, he decided, a hard person to hide anything from.

"Let's speak in declarative sentences," he proposed. "We're both accustomed to interrogating people—admittedly different schools and styles, but I'll bet between us we could answer each other with questions forever."

"Declarative statements only." She nodded with a wide smile, liking the challenge. "Okay. So let's get something out of the way. I think you like me. I think I like you. That's okay with me. Yes, the relationship between Erik and me probably did get in the way somewhat during our Howdy Doody work, but not to any crucial extent. No, I don't think it's biasing me now."

Mo walked along beside her. Jesus, she could spike it right back over the net at you. Jesus, it felt good. Looking at her now, he saw something besides a handsome female: rather, a self-inspected person, unafraid of her own nature, accepting of her own style. Committed to dealing with life on the terms she'd set for it. He wanted to ask, to verify, whether her relationship with Biedermann was a thing of the past, but that was an interrogatory and the declaratory, stripped of camouflage, would be something like /
want you to be available for a
relationship.
Which was way too fast, under the circumstances.

They had come up behind a family of Japanese tourists, a mother and father and four kids who walked in a line across the whole sidewalk, arranged by size like six organ pipes, largest to smallest. They wore shorts and white socks and gaudy running shoes and bright sweatshirts with brand logos on them. The littlest girl jumped over cracks in the pavement while the father wrestled with a large foldout map of Manhattan, turning it upside down and back again. Probably looking for the Trade Center towers, two blocks over. Rebecca slowed, watching them with pleasure, and Mo held back with her. The kids were cute. It was good to let the previous statements settle in. They didn't say anything for a full two minutes.

"I am usually called Mo," he stated finally. "I would like to call you Rebecca."

She looked at him, pleased. "This is fun!" she said. "Who'd a thunk? Oops! Does that count as a question? Oops!" And she laughed at herself.

Four o'clock and Battery Park was nicely spacious, lawns and trees and iron fences ending at stone breakwaters, the water of the Upper Bay beyond. The very toe of the stockinged foot of Manhattan Island, the bow of the big ship. Pigeons patrolling the sidewalks, pecking at cigarette butts and flipping them away peevishly. The usual scattering of lovers, thoughtful solitaries, joggers. A few tourists gazing over the gunmetal blue water at Ellis Island and Miss Liberty, the dirty-orange Staten Island ferry forging along. A park crew was emptying trash containers, two guys working the metal baskets and a woman driving a golf cart heaped with garbage bags. A breeze puffed in from the southeast, bringing in a sea smell.

They stood for a moment at the water, leaning against the railing. Rebecca had gotten serious again."My point about SAC Biedermann was going to culminate in awarning."

"Warning?"

She nodded."You have to understand, I'm relatively new at working with the FBI. The closest I've ever come to the level of intrigue there was consulting on a federal program dealing with early childhood education, that had a lot of political complexity and pressure. But I know that there are dimensions here that simply can't be . . . shared . . . with every police agency that might be interested. I'm not party to them all myself, and I don't want to be. I don't know you that well, but I can guess you're the kind of person, the kind of investigator, who wants to know everything. And who doesn't quit and doesn't. . . take orders well." She gave him a tiny smile to show that she didn't mean it as criticism.

"What was the warning?"

"Just that maybe the compartmentalization Erik wants is the best thing. That you probably don't really want to know everything or get involved asdeeply as you'd usually insist on."

Mo thought about that for a moment, trying to figure out where this was going."Does that guy Zelek have anything to do with these 'other dimensions'?"

"I assume so."

"Can you give me any idea of what these other dimensions are?"

She tossed her head,
yes and no.
"I have my own speculations, but they're just that—speculative. But I think Erik was transferred here from San Diego specifically to handle the Howdy Doody case."

"Do you know why?"

"Not entirely. But just from comments he's dropped, I believe he had been dealing with a similar case out there."

"What!"

The regretful look. "Not a big string of murders. Maybe two."

"Do you know if they caught the guy?"

"I'm assuming not. Hopefully, they'll establish that it was Ronald Parker. We still don't know where he was during the twenty-month period when he vanished, and maybe he was out in California, beginning to develop his ritual."

"Yeah. Except that now this copycat, or whatever, has come along."

"So you can understand Erik's concern. I think he's deeply upset by the copycat."

"You want to tell me your speculations?"

She pondered that, frowned, shook her head. "I'm thinking I'd like to play the declarative game again. You've asked me about five questions in a row." She was trying to be light about it, but he could see that something was disturbing her.

"I would like to keep walking,"he said.

She moved away from the fence and chose to head back toward the park entrance and the looming cliffs of Manhattan buildings. "I consent with the understanding that I'm getting hungry and would like to eat soon."

"I would like to have dinner with you," he said.

She stopped walking and turned toward him. "Mo, there are scary aspects to the study of human psychology and neurology. My work sometimes involves pain and lives that can't seem to get straightened out, but in general it's not so bad, it's about healing. But not everybody comes into psychology with altruistic motives. People also come into it with the intention to use the science as a tool, a weapon, to create suffering and pain."

"Like Ronald Parker, his obsession with control? Manipulating people. Hurting them."

A beat, a hesitation, as if she were about to say something important. Then she appeared to think better of it. "Yes," she said. "Like that."

They turned and walked on, scattering a clutch of pigeons that had crowded around a hot dog someone had dropped. One of the pigeons had to run away, dragging an injured or deformed wing. For a moment Mo felt an intense kinship with the bird. The fellow loser.

When they got to the street, Rebecca put her hand on Mo's shoulder. "I heard your suggestion about dinner. But not now. Maybe another time. I want to get a cab and go home now." No smile at all.

"I'm disappointed. But I'll hail a cab," he said. The declarative sentences were making them sound like automatons now. Using statements of fact to obscure, not reveal, their feelings. He realized there were a lot more questions he would have liked to have asked and a lot more declarations he'd have liked to have made.

A yellow Honda taxi pulled over and Rebecca got in, folding her legs elegantly before swiveling inside. The instant the door shut, he badly missed her presence at his side, the movement and light that went with her. A little wave, a weak smile, and gone.

15

T
HURSDAY MORNING.

Mo had spent the night twisting in tangled sheets, hating Carla's mother's empty house, thinking about Rebecca Ingalls and trying to figure whether the way he'd felt around her was just the product of his vulnerable, reboundy state of mind or was something better. Later, exhausted, he'd had a hard time disentangling the spooky complexities of the case from his attraction to her, and finally he'd slipped into shallow nightmares about sexual rejection and manipulation by sinister forces. And then when he'd gotten up and staggered as far as the bathroom mirror, the sight of his face was a shock that reinforced all the negative conclusions he'd come to. On his forehead and left cheek, the bruises from his fight with Big Willie had turned into irregular rings of green, yellow, purple, and he had insomnia bags under his bloodshot eyes. So he retreated from the bathroom to the kitchen, where he washed down a handful of vitamins and Saint-John's-wort capsules with two cups of black coffee, instant because Carla had taken the coffeemaker when she left. A hot shower and squirts of eyedrops helped only a little. The house was a mess and so was he, might as well go to work.

But first he had a different kind of errand. If there was one perk he enjoyed about being an investigator, it was the relative degree of autonomy. You weren't at the desk all the time, you were on your own, you could set your own priorities. St. Pierre had called to let everybody know Lilly had delivered her baby after an easy labor, the baby was great, and they were back home now. Mike was taking his one day off for the big event. Mo decided to take an hour off himself, bring some flowers over to Lilly.

The flower shop he remembered six blocks from the St. Pierres' had gone out of business, so he had to stop at the A & P, picking the least-dried-up-looking bouquet of carnations and what not. Looking at the thing on the car seat, it struck him as inadequate: bunch of clear plastic, universal-product-code sticker, little pouch of freshness chemicals stuck in. He wasn't in shape on these gestures. His social reflexes were rusty.

But it had been this way the other two times he'd dropped by the St. Pierres' house. After one of his visits, he'd decided that this self-savaging came from being around a real family, which made him conscious of his own lack of one. Mike and Lilly had two kids before this new one, one in first grade and the other still toddling around in falling-down Pampers, both with red-blond hair and ruddy cheeks like their father. Lilly had stayed pleasantly chubby between pregnancies and was now a full-time mom. The house was a chaos of plastic toys and half-finished projects, and it always smelled like baking, diapers, coffee, and a clean-clothes smell emanating from a dryer that seemed to run continuously. Whenever Mo came by, the kids would be hanging on their parents, taking all kinds of physical liberties with their clothes and anatomies. Bunch of happy mammals in their den.

Mo pulled up at the house, feeling like shit. You couldn't help think of the contrast with your own situation, living in your ex's mom's mostly empty house. Your life without any kids or sibs, just a mother and father who had moved from Scarsdale to Kissimmee, Florida, an elderly Jewish lady with a million interests from animal rights to Zen, an elderly Catholic guy with none.

It wasn't envy, who could envy the noise and mess? It was just—what? Finally he decided screw it, stick to the agenda. Give Lilly the bouquet, kiss the baby, shake Mike's hand, get back to work. He got out and went up the walk, beating the plastic bouquet against his leg.

It was a stolid, middle-class neighborhood, and the house looked a lot like Daniel O'Connor's. That same hue of aluminum siding, the same little trees. Which might explain what Mike had been feeling that day at the death house, only a week ago, poor son of a bitch.

Mike let him in, smiling shyly and giving him an awkward hug with his big, lanky frame. Apparently you got emotional at times like this. They went back through the kid mess into the bedroom, where Lilly was up and folding some clothes at the bureau as the two older kids sat on the bed, looking at the new arrival.

The baby was asleep but looked uncomfortable, her red face wrinkled around some internal discomfort.

"She's beautiful," Mosaid. He handed the bouquet to Lilly. "You're looking great, too, Lil. Congratulations."

Lilly was wearing baggy sweatpants and a huge shirt, and she looked tired. But she was also flush with some kind of energy, some kind of authority and self-acceptance. The proverbial glow. She accepted the bouquet and kissed Mo on the cheek."You're so sweet. Thank you."

"Her name is Andrea," St.Pierre's older kid, the girl, told him. "She weighs seven pounds ten ounces."

Mo looked down at the little head lost in swaddling. Babies had a smell around them, he realized, a mix of laundry whites and milk, talcum powder and piss. The toddler, a boy named Peter, looked suspiciously up at him and then started playing with a knitted baby bootee.

Brittany expounded further: "She cries at night. I helped change her diapers. Mom was in labor for only two hours. Do you have a gun like my dad?"

"I guess I'm getting better with practice," Lilly said. "Move over, Brit, let me sit for a minute." Brittany scooted over, and Lilly took the baby on her lap. She leaned back against the head of the bed and just looked over her brood for a moment. The sun was hitting the half-open Venetian blinds behind her, putting a barred halo around her, and Mo thought,
Madonna and child, White Plains, USA.

"How're you doing, Mike?"Mo asked. "Did you get Paderewski's cigars?"

St. Pierre chuckled wearily. "I got pretty wired up yesterday. Didn't sleep a tall last night. It's a good thing I took the day off."

"My handsome stranger," Lilly said fondly, taking his hand. "It's so nice to see my husband during daylight hours. I'm going to have to have babies more often."

Mike rolled his eyes. Mo smiled, joked around, tried to figure out what to say to the kids. Mike sat down on the bed, too, eyes drooping with fatigue, and took the little boy on his lap. After a little while Mo said he'd let himself out, and he left them there, the five of them. Big mammal pile. Happy for now, tired, coping. A family.

Not for everybody, but Mo could see how for a guy like St. Pierre it was really not too bad.

Next order of business: Flannery had commanded an appearance, the first jerk of the chain. So Mo drove across town to the county offices building, a massive glass and steel edifice that Mo thought made a nice palace for somebody like Flannery, full of enterprise and just as big, shiny, and bogus as he was. He took the elevator up and waited ten minutes in the outer office before a secretary showed him into the DA's inner sanctum.

Flannery was on his treadmill, dressed in gray sweats. On the console of the machine were a radio phone, a legal pad, a water bottle. His legs scissored steadily, long, firm strides, as the belt scrolled beneath him.

Flannery didn't slow down when he saw Mo. "Detective Ford! Good to see you. I know it's early in the investigation, but what with this thing up in Buchanan, and you going to see the FBI people yesterday, I figured it was time for an update."

Nice to know Flannery was keeping a close watch on everything, Mo thought. He told the DA about the power-station corpse and brought him up to speed on the precious little they'd learned from the O'Connor scene. Flannery asked a couple of good questions about Angelo's pathology findings, showing off a little and reminding Mo that he had gone to medical school before switching to law. Mo told him about the line, the knots, the other similarities.

"So," Flannery summarized,"even if the power-station corpse turns out to be left over from Ronald Parker, we've got strong parallels in the O'Connor murder. Too strong to ignore. What's your take on the possibilities?"

"A partner of Ronald Parker's that we didn't know about. Or somebody with deep access to information about his crimes."

Flannery bobbed his head thoughtfully, staring out his window at the White Plains skyline as he upped his tempo. The big arms swung vigorously, but he wasn't breathing hard, not much sweat on the tanned bald dome. The guy really was in great shape.

"How's Biedermann like that one?" Flannery asked at last. "The insider scenario? Because this case has been his baby, that'show he wanted it. The connection would almost have to be to his office, right?"

"I suggested that. He was offended. At this point, even with his trying to limit access to information, there are quite a few possible connections—the NYPD, the New Jersey people. It would take an extensive internal review to see just who knew what. I understand your people sat in sometimes, too."

Flannery frowned."Damned right we did! We knew the guy could move into our jurisdiction. And we knew the Feds would bungle it. As they obviously have done. I'm not going to let this new guy kill seven, eight people in my town, thanks."

The phone wheedled, and Flannery slapped the radio handset in front of him, cutting off the ring. For another moment he kept on striding, but their exchange seemed to have spoiled the pleasure of his workout. He punched a button, let the belt carry him to the end of the machine, stepped off. He grabbed a towel, and the first thing he dried was his head, polishing it with a few hard swipes.

When he was done, he fixed Mo with bright blue eyes that were completely without the bearish good humor people associated with Flannery. "You're an observant guy—what do you make of Biedermann?"

"He runs a tight ship. Seems to have taken catching this guy as a personal commitment." Mo thought to mention the presence of Zelek, the silent alien, but decided it wasn't worth bringing up.

Flannery nodded."Uh-huh." Mo could see the wheels turning, the politician figuring his angles. Then the DA seemed to make a decision."Okay. This is good, Detective. This is very helpful. Let's you and me make this a regular thing, you talk to my secretary and set up a catch-up session for once a week. Unless there's a big development and we'll do it often as needed. Given the need to keep information flow contained, I want your contact with this office to be through me, personally.
Not,"
he added quickly, "that I don't trust my staff. Just so we play along with the SAC's plan. Just so nobody starts thinking of my people the wrong way, if this turns into something like that. Which we do hope it won't, don't we?"

The phone was ringing again, and Flannery tossed his towel back onto the treadmill rail.

Mo had been thinking to ask about the DA's plans for the Big Willie investigation, how long his indentured servitude to Flannery might last. But this wasn't the moment.

Flannery picked up the nagging phone. Instantly his face lit up, a big
just you and me
grin.
"May-or Rus-sol!
Just the person I wanted to talk to." He smiled as he said it, but when he looked up to toss Mo a wave of good-bye and dismissal, his face went totally serious again.

A disquieting transformation, Mo thought, not so much the sober look as the ease he moved between moods. He was glad to get out of there and back to work.