Saints Of New York (47 page)

'Something
it's better that I do alone.'

'You
think I wouldn't be able to handle it?'

'Jimmy,
please ...
I just bawled out the doctor. I'm not in the mood for square-dancing. Go help
Erickson. I'll call you. Whatever I might be doing is no more or less
important than finding more evidence about what happened to the girls. Let's
just leave it at that.'

'How
long do you need?'

'Couple
of hours.' Parrish looked at his watch. 'Meet me back here at noon, give or
take.'

Radick
left without further questions. Parrish was gone ten minutes after - heading
right back to Sackett Street and the garage lock-ups where McKee stored his
SUV.

The
street was empty. Windows looked back at him vacantly. He walked purposefully.
Worst thing he could do was appear to be a stranger. In his pockets he carried
two screwdrivers, a box- cutter, a torch, a key-ring with a collection of metal
strips attached to it, some of them straight, some of them angled, others
hooked or turned at the end. He also had a bunch of generic car keys. They were
all routine tools for any car thief. Down back of the alley Parrish waited for
a few seconds to ensure that no-one was arriving, leaving, or currently using
their garage. It was quiet,
so
quiet that even
his own footsteps on the gravel, even his own hurried heartbeat, seemed
inordinately loud. Three minutes is a hell of a long time to wait when you are
simply waiting. Half a dozen times Parrish knew he should walk away. Walk away
right now. Just go, don't look back, don't even think about doing what he was
planning to do. But he simply had to remember how Rebecca had looked when he'd
found her on the bed in her junkie brother's apartment. Sixteen years old. Red
fingernails. Petechial hemorrhaging back of the ears, visible in the whites of
her eyes.

Parrish
pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and then walked quickly to the garage. Within
moments he was inside, had drawn the door back down and closed it. God, he
hadn't even been smart enough to call and ensure that McKee was at work. It was
Wednesday. Less of a chance that McKee would take a day off mid-week? Days off
were usually Mondays and Fridays, trying to extend the weekend as long as
possible. That counted for shit in
the
face of what he was doing. McKee could take a day off whenever he wanted.

Parrish
stood in the dim silence of the lock-up. He breathed deeply. He tried his best
to quell his heart, his pulse, but it was no good. He was out-of-shape, scared,
already so far in over his head that there would be no way out of this if he was
caught. Harassment, BE, invasion of privacy, violation of all the
protocols regarding search and seizure and probable cause. Whichever way it
went, if he was caught he was fucked.

In
back of the garage, there between the front bumper and the wall were the usual
cans of paints, toolboxes, painting tarps, a folding bicycle which looked like
it hadn't been unfolded for years. There was a spare tire for the SUV, a box of
light bulbs, a bag of wire coat hangers, other such things that should have
been thrown out but never were. Aside from that it was just the car.

Parrish
cupped his hands against the glass and looked through the front nearside
window. He found the alarm light in the dash. It was off. Sure, he could
disable an alarm, but it took thirty, forty seconds, and the newer the alarm
the longer that stretched. The likelihood that anyone would hear it out here .
. . well, better not to have to contend with that possibility.

From
the bunch of keys Parrish selected the three or four that he felt might best
fit. Second key he was in. The door opened soundlessly. Once again he paused
for consideration of his actions. Now it wasn't just BE. Now it was far
more serious. If
he
went
through the guy's car - irrespective of whether or not anything was found - he
was committing a serious offence. If he did find something there would be
nothing he could do about it. It would be inadmissible in any investigation,
any police precinct, any court of law. And he would be prosecuted to the full
extent of the system. That much he would have earned. He knew that whatever he
might find he would be unable to use it, but that wasn't why he was there. He
was there simply to try and find something to confirm his suspicions. He
wanted
McKee to be the guy. He
needed
him to be the guy . . .

A
sound. Was that a sound? Something outside?

Parrish's
heart stopped. He heard himself swallow. He glanced down at the thin strip of
light between the ground and the lower edge of the garage door. From outside
would it look like the door had been left unlocked? Would whoever was out there
notice it? Security? Did they have a security patrol during the day, some guy
who got fifty dollars a week to just drive by and check that the doors were all
secure?

Parrish
tried to remember if the door had made a sound when he'd opened it. Had it
squeaked? Would it make a sound if he tried to close it? He left it. He backed
up and crouched down behind the front bumper. He watched the strip of light
along the ground. He waited for the shadows of someone's feet to appear. He
tried to breathe silently. He tried to vacate his mind completely. What would
he say? He could just barge past the guy and run like a motherfucker, hope he
wasn't caught. He could flash his badge, take the guy completely by surprise,
tell him that this was part of an undercover operation and swear him to
secrecy. Security guards - hell, they all were wannabe cops. That would work.
Sure it would . . .

Parrish
silenced the internal voice. He wouldn't be caught. The guy wasn't security. He
was no-one. He was walking down here because he was lost. He would see it was a
dead-end, turn around, disappear. That's what would happen.

Parrish
waited.

There
seemed to be no sound at all, and then suddenly he could hear footsteps again.
The sound of someone walking on gravel. Where was the gravel? Was it just at
the entrance to the complex, or was it all the way down? He couldn't remember.
He closed his eyes. He clenched his fists. He thought about how much he would
have to drink to get over this feeling.

And
then there was nothing.

He
didn't even hear the footsteps recede into silence. They were there, and then
they were gone. It was not so much that he heard silence, but that he
felt
the absence of anyone out there.

Parrish
came out from behind the bumper. He stood up and flexed his knees. He realized
how much he was sweating and took off his jacket. He walked to the garage door
and stood there for at least two minutes. He could hear nothing but the odd car
passing in the street beyond.

Parrish
backed up, got into the car, and started looking through the glove compartment,
the well between the seats, beneath the seats themselves, under the rug in the
foot-well. He climbed into the back, pushed the seats forward, looked behind
them and underneath them, searched through the bundle of maps in the rear door
wells. Once he was done, he got out the car to check the trunk.

It
was here that he found the files. A metal file box, to be exact. Big enough for
legal, maybe two inches deep. It was locked. He went slowly, carefully,
insuring that he left no scratches around the lock or on the smooth metal
surface of the box. It opened within a minute, and he stood looking at the
files for quite some time before he reached for them.

Seven
files, all of them Family Welfare-stamped, a couple of them from CAA, the
others from Child Services. Inside each one were current notes, all of them
handwritten, all of them initialed
RMcK.
Four boys, three girls - the youngest nine, the oldest seventeen. Were these
McKee's active cases? Were these visits he would be making? Did all Welfare
staff have a secure box in their car to carry active case files for when they
made visits? Parrish had no idea. Such a thing seemed entirely plausible, and
from the notes it seemed that each of them were current cases . . .

And
then Parrish looked again. Two of the boys were black, as was one of the girls.
The second girl was twelve, brunette, perhaps Mexican, Puerto Rican. The last
girl, sixteen years old a month or so before, was blonde. She was a pretty
girl, and from the brief scan that Parrish made of the file he learned that she
had been adopted by a family in South Brooklyn more than nine months earlier.
The most recent comment in the file came not from McKee, but someone else.
Someone with the initials
HK.
HK? Was there someone they had interviewed with the initials HK?

Parrish
put down the files. He had his notebook with him. Did he still have the names
that Lavelle had given him? He went through his pockets, found the list,
unfolded it and straightened it out on the surface of the box. HK . . . HK . .
. Harold Kinnear. Yes, he remembered him now. The older guy. Had been in the
department for thirty years. What had he said? Something about the more
civilized and sophisticated we became the less able we were too look after our
kids.

This
was not McKee's case. Jesus Christ, this was
not
McKee's case.

Parrish
turned the list over. He wrote down the girl's name - Amanda Leycross, her date
of birth - 12 August 1992, and the name and address of the couple that had
adopted her back in January. Martin and Bethany Cooper, Henry Street, South
Brooklyn. Parrish knew Henry Street, no more than three blocks from Caitlin,
maybe half a dozen blocks from McKee himself. Take Williamsburg and Karen out
of the equation, put all the locations on a map - Family Welfare Two, the Kelly
Duncan crime scene back of Brooklyn Hospital, Sackett Street, the Coopers'
place in South, Danny Lange's apartment on Hicks - and they tracked a circle, a
circle that went all the way around this part of the city, as far north as
Brooklyn Bridge, as far west and south as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
McKee had boxed himself in. Was this the commuter that the FBI profilers spoke
of, always traveling out to the crime scene, dumping bodies far enough away not
to attract attention? But when you added them all up, when you put them all
together . . . then you saw a different picture entirely?

And
Amanda Leycross? Was she next on the roster? Or was she dead already? Or was
this just another file of another case that McKee was helping out on,
reviewing, supervising? Had Parrish missed the game completely? He could not
afford to think that. Not yet. Not until he knew who Amanda Leycross was and
why McKee had her file.

Parrish
had to get out, and quickly. He closed up the files, returned them to the box,
relocking it carefully. He set it back precisely where he'd found it, grabbed
his jacket then closed and locked the car and walked to the door.

He
counted to five, opened it swiftly, banged it shut behind him, locked it and
walked towards the alleyway. He was out on the street within seconds, walking
back the way he'd come towards Union Street. His heart didn't stop pounding
until he was on the subway. He looked again at the piece of paper upon which
he'd written the girl's name. Amanda Leycross. Sixteen years old. Blonde,
innocent, pretty as hell. Would she be number seven?

 
'How was Archives?'

'Un-fucking-real,
Frank. An hour, that's all I could handle. I don't know how those guys can
spend their working days looking at that stuff.'

Parrish
smiled. 'They get hardened to it.'

'That
supposed to be a wisecrack?' Radick didn't wait for an answer. 'And where did
you go?'

'To
check on something.'

'Where?'

'It's
better we close this line of questioning right now, Jimmy,' Parrish replied.

'Frank
. . . you can't put yourself at risk, not in your current situation—'

'Jimmy,
enough already.'

'One
fuck-up, Frank, and—'

'Jimmy,
I said enough. Okay?'

Radick sighed
and shook his head. 'You ever take any of this shit seriously? Does it ever
cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, they might get a skinful of your
attitude and kick you out?'

'Kick
me out? I'm a fucking institution, Jimmy. They kick me out and the whole place
will fall apart.'

'You
really believe that?'

'No,
of course I don't believe it. You think my ego's that big?'

'Sometimes
I wonder.'