Saints Of New York (24 page)

It
was close enough to walk, and had Parrish been alone he would have done. They
made their way across Fulton and Flatbush, took a left on Ashland, and then
stopped at the corner of St. Edwards and Willoughby. A couple of
black-and-whites had already taped the entry to a narrow alleyway that ran
between two sections of the building. To the left was Fort Greene Park, and
already a few stragglers and hangers-on had started to gather. Had there been
forewarning they perhaps would have brought the kids, some sandwiches, a
blanket to sit on. Parrish shared a few words with one of the responding
uniforms. The Deputy Coroner and Crime Scene had already been alerted and were
on their way. Parrish learned that the original call had come in from a janitor
who had responsibility for the dumpsters at the far end of the alleyway. They were
filled and emptied daily, and apparently it was not uncommon to find other
trash dumped there. This time someone had put a large cardboard box halfway
down the alley. The janitor had taken a look inside, and there she was. Right
now he was in back of the building with a nurse and another uniform. He was an
elderly man. Seemed his heart wasn't so good at the best of times.

The
two detectives started down the alleyway towards the box. The buildings on each
side were at least seventy or eighty feet high, and there was limited light.
Parrish squinted into semi- darkness, wondering how many shadows he was
bringing with him. This was where everything he knew had the most relevance.
This was where the specialized knowledge that played no part in any other aspect
of life was the most vital thing of all. The smallest things became the biggest
things, and the obvious became meaningless.

Grateful
in some small part for the relative cleanliness of the alleyway, Parrish paused
for a moment and orientated himself. At one end was a small car park belonging
to the Brooklyn Hospital, at the other an L-shaped bay where the trash
dumpsters were kept. The alley was actually a sixty or seventy foot cul-de-sac
with a single secure fire exit set in the right hand wall approximately ten
feet from the end. The cardboard box was a good thirty feet into the alleyway,
and while Radick surveyed the ground at the alley's mouth, Parrish took a deep
breath and walked on down to see what had been left for him.

Five
feet from the box he put on latex gloves. He felt the first few spots of rain
and inwardly cursed.

'Jimmy!'
he called back down the alley. 'You wanna get a couple of torches and a
tarpaulin from somewhere. It's about to rain. Speak to whoever, and find out
who collects the dumpsters. We need the driver from this morning back here. And
find out where the fuck Crime Scene are.'

Radick
raised his hand in acknowledgement, and made his way back to the car.

Parrish
hesitated again. Without a torch it was difficult
to
clearly
see the ground around the box. He waited until Radick appeared at the mouth of
the alley once more, and walked up
to
meet him.

'Tarpaulin's
on the way,' Radick said, and handed over a torch.

Parrish
went back the way he'd come, and scoured the ground around the box, but saw
nothing of any significance. Stepping
to
the
edge of the box, he looked closely at the uppermost
flaps
where a serial number was crudely
stenciled in black ink, noted the standard heavy-duty metal staples along the
seams; the
box
could
have housed a refrigerator, perhaps a piece of furniture.

Measuring
five foot high, but only three and a half feet wide, either the girl was very
small, or she had been folded awkwardly, perhaps even dismembered. 'Her face,'
was all the uniform had told him. 'The janitor says he opened the box and saw
her face.'

Did
the box contain all of her, or just her head, Parrish wondered, but when he
saw her eyes he knew. When he reached into the box and felt through the
darkness for her hand, he knew.

She
was not beaten, not bruised. There was no blood, no vicious gouges torn from
her shoulders or her breasts or her arms. She had not been hog-tied, or gagged,
or blinded. There was nothing about her that suggested the nature of her death
aside from the indication of ligature around her neck - a rope, a cord, a
length of fabric perhaps - and the hemorrhaging visible in her eyes.

She
looked at Frank Parrish as if she was relieved to see him. As if she was at
peace. She was slight but perfectly proportioned, her hair dark and cut short
at the back, and Parrish estimated she was five-two or three, perhaps a hundred
to a hundred and ten pounds. Age about sixteen. Perhaps younger. He stepped
back and took a deep breath. From all appearances she could not have been dead
more than six or eight hours.

More
than anything, it was her hands that made an impact. The colored nails, so
perfectly varnished, not a smudge, not a mark not a blemish. Just like Rebecca.

Parrish
was quiet inside. Not a sound, not a thought, just nothing at all.

Until
they knew her name she was no-one, except to Frank Parrish.

Because
he knew she was one of them. She had to be.

Forty
minutes later Parrish and Radick had prints and pictures from the ME. Parrish
sent Radick to run the prints for fingerprint identification, and he walked
across Fulton to Family Welfare, District Five South. By the time he arrived it
was closed, and though he spoke with the security people inside the lobby there
was nothing they could do to help him. The place was locked down and empty
until morning.

It
was en route back that he took a call from Radick.

'We
have a name,' he said, woodenly. 'Kelly Duncan. Sixteen years old. Father is
dead, mother's alive, registered with Child Services two years ago.'

'A
definite?'

'Yes,
it's a definite. We had her prints on record from two assaults.'

'Who
assaulted her?'

'Father.
He was around until just over a year ago. He OD'd in July of 2007.'

'And
she was still living with the mother?'

'Yeah,
looks like it.'

'Where?'

'Seventh
Street, down by the canal.'

Parrish
didn't reply right away: Seventh Street was no more than three or four blocks
from where Caitlin lived. And the girl's body had been found back of Brooklyn
Hospital, the same approximate distance from his own place on Clermont.

'Frank?'

'Yeah,
I'm here. Pick me up outside the office. We'll go down there and see her now.'

Janice
Duncan was an ex-junkie. There was no question about it. The state of her
teeth, her skin, the condition of her hair - the telltale signs of a heroin
habit.

Her
reaction to the news of her daughter's death didn't surprise Frank Parrish. She
seemed philosophically resigned to the inevitability of such a thing.

'Shit,'
she said matter-of-factly. She sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette.
Parrish sat on the only other chair in the room; Radick remained standing.

'What
happened?'

'We
believe she was murdered, Mrs Duncan. An autopsy
is
being performed right now—'

'Murdered,'
she said, but it was not a question.

'We
believe so, yes,' Parrish replied. 'Can I ask when you
last
saw her?'

'She
came over Sunday,'Janice Duncan said. 'She was here
most
of the day. Said she was fine. Didn't seem
to be a problem.'

'She
came over?' Parrish asked. 'She doesn't live here?'

'Lives
with her grandma most of the time,' Janice Duncan said. 'We've always had
issues. She was Daddy's girl, no question, but he was an asshole to her anyway.
I didn't know what to do with her. She was always dropping out of school,
hanging around with people too old for her. Then her father died last year, and
she went to stay with her grandma. She came over a coupla times a week, but
sometimes I wouldn't see her for a fortnight. . .' Her voice trailed away. She
was looking at Parrish but she wasn't seeing him.

'So
her grandmother would have been the last person to see her?'

'I
reckon so. You want her address?'

'Please,
yes.'

'If
you want to go see her now, I'll come with you. I can stay with her. She won't
take it so good, you know?'

Janice
Duncan got up and went for her coat in the hall.

Parrish
turned and looked at Radick. Radick's expression said everything that needed to
be said.
How do people get like this? How does
the welfare of their own children become so unimportant?

The
grandmother's place was three blocks away on West Ninth. Here the response was
entirely different. Parrish and Radick were there for an hour, much of it spent
listening to Janice Duncan as she tried to console her mother. All they gleaned
from the grandmother was that Kelly had returned there from the mother's place
on Sunday evening, and then left for school on Monday morning as usual. They
took the name of the school. Parrish guessed that Kelly had been a no-show on
Monday, but they wouldn't be able to check that until morning. Had Kelly come
home from school on Monday? No she hadn't, but she had called to say that she
was going to her mother's place for the night.

Janice
Duncan said that there had been no such arrangement. She didn't see Kelly on
Monday.

Where
had Kelly called from? From her cellular phone, Grandma presumed.

The
detectives left a little after eight.

'Phone
records,' Parrish said when he got in the car. 'What teenage girl doesn't have a
cell phone these days?'

'I'll
get onto it first thing,' Radick said.

'Not
just Kelly - Rebecca. And the others as well. Melissa, Nicole and Karen.'

'You
really think they're all the same perp?'

'I
have no idea, Jimmy, no idea at all.'