Saints Of New York (61 page)

Radick
frowned, tilted his head to one side.

'Yes,'
she said, 'of course we will. We're on the way now.'

She
hung up, looked at Radick, looked back at the phone.

'What?'
he said.

'It's
Dad,' she replied, the shock evident in her voice.

'What
about him? What's happened?'

'He's
at Holy Family Hospital. He's been stabbed.'

V
alderas
called Marie Griffin, picked her up enroute. By the time they arrived at Holy
Family Hospital Valderas had secured at least a few details of what had
happened on Sackett Street from the attending officers. He knew that both Carole
Paretski and Frank Parrish had been in Richard McKee's house. From what he
understood, Carole Paretski had every right to be there, but Parrish -
predictably - did not. Whether they had gone there together or separately he
did not know. He guessed the latter. Carole Paretski was under arrest; she was
being held at the 11th, and as soon as the lead detective there had some
further and better particulars he was going to call Valderas. When it came to
the wounding or murder of a fellow officer, the territorial lines seemed to
disappear and everyone co-operated one with another.

Aside
from Jimmy Radick, Valderas didn't know the people that had gathered in the
waiting room.

'This
is Caitlin, Frank's daughter,' Radick told him.

Both
Marie Griffin and Squad Sergeant Valderas expressed their concern for Frank,
their willingness to do anything to help.

'And
this is Mrs Clare Baxter,' Radick added, and Valderas shook hands with a
stone-faced woman who looked like she resented their presence.

'Frank's
ex-wife,' Radick added, and Valderas remembered a conversation he'd had one
time with Frank about this woman. He allowed nothing in his expression, but
smiled as sympathetically as he could, and once again iterated his desire to
do anything he could to help .

'So
what have you been told?' Valderas asked Radick.

'Very
little. Stabbed once, but deep, and somewhere in the upper abdomen. They took
him right into surgery.'

'I
spoke to him before he went in,' Caitlin interjected. 'He was delirious. He
didn't really say anything about what happened.' She paused, looked at Jimmy,
then at Valderas. Her expression said everything that needed to be said: she
was fighting with her emotions; she looked ready to burst; she looked
terrified.

'Do
you know what happened, Sergeant?' she asked.

Valderas
shook his head. What he did know did not belong in a conversation with the
man's daughter. If Parrish had gone over there alone then he was going to get
busted out of the PD, no question. Already on pay-hold, already without a
driver's license . . . and that prompted another thought - the fact that
Parrish might have been the one who took a car from the pool. One was missing,
and in that moment Valderas would have put his paycheck on it being Frank
Parrish. So it would be theft of PD property, driving without a license,
BE, illegal search, harassment of a witness . . .

Valderas
turned at the sound of the door suddenly crashing open.

'Robert!'
Caitlin said, and rushed towards a young dark-haired man. The likeness to Frank
was unmistakable. This was the son.

Following
him was an elegant brunette, mid-thirties perhaps. Great looking, very
self-assured, but again that telltale strain in her face of dealing with
something she didn't understand.

Caitlin
and Robert hugged, and then he asked her what was happening, how Dad was, if he
was okay, if he was going to make it.

'I
don't know enough, I don't really know anything,' she said.

Clare
Baxter was with them then, and though she said nothing she was obviously
sincerely concerned for what was occurring, perhaps more for the mental state
of her children than the physical state of her ex-husband.

Caitlin
introduced Robert to Valderas, to Jimmy Radick, to Marie Griffin, and then
Robert turned and nodded at Eve. She came forward, perhaps a little tentatively.
She was evidently out of place, felt as much, but didn't want to be anywhere
else in the moment.

'This
is Eve Challoner,' Robert said. 'Dad's friend.'

Eve
smiled, shook hands with everyone. She said nothing.

There
were seven of them there - the ex-wife, the kids, the daughter's lover, the
psychotherapy counsellor, the squad sergeant and the hooker - all of them
waiting for word back from Surgery. Frank Parrish had been stabbed, seriously
wounded by all accounts, and there was nothing they could do but wait.

Valderas
and Griffin were the first to sit. Eve followed suit, and then Robert sat
beside her as if he felt some obligation to be the link between her, his
family, and Frank's professional life. Caitlin sat beside Robert, Jimmy Radick
beside her, and Clare Baxter paced the room like she was caught between staying
and leaving. After a moment she said, 'I need to smoke,' and left the room. She
had been gone no more than four or five minutes before she walked back into the
same awkward silence she'd left behind.

'Anything?' she
asked Caitlin.

Valderas
perceived tension between the mother and the son. Was it because he'd brought
Eve, someone he could only imagine was Frank's current girlfriend? Was there
still something there between Frank Parrish and Clare Baxter? Or was it purely
the son and the mother? Valderas didn't know, couldn't guess. He didn't really
care, he was just trying to fill his mind with things that weren't about
whether Frank Parrish would die, and beyond that - if he survived - how it
would be his job to kick Frank Parrish out of the NYPD.

And
then there was the case Frank had been working on. Already he'd heard from the
lead at the 11th that something had been found at the McKee house. 'Something
heavy,' was all that he'd been told. 'Soon as I get anything else I'll call
you,' the detective had said, and Valderas had thanked him. It would be ironic
if Parrish had broken the case. Parrish and this Carole Paretski working in
consort. Had they found the guy? Was McKee their guy?

'What can we
do?' Robert asked suddenly. 'Caitlin?'

She
shook her head. 'There's nothing we can do right now, except wait.'

Robert
frowned. 'You're a nurse, aren't you? Can't you go through there and ask them
what the fuck is going on?'

'No, I can't,
Robert. I just have to wait like everyone else.'

Robert stood up.
'This is bullshit,' he said loudly.

Eve reached out
and touched his arm. 'Sit down,' she said.

Robert sat down.

'Does
anyone know where he was?' Radick asked. 'What he was doing?'

'All
I know is that Carole Paretski was involved,' Valderas said, 'and that stays
inside this room, okay?'

'Who the hell is
that?' Robert asked.

'She
is the wife of a man Frank was looking at; a case he's working on. That's all I
know, and that's all I can say.'

'And she was with
him when he was stabbed?' Caitlin asked.

'I
don't know any details,' Valderas replied. 'All I can tell you is that Frank is
here and she is being held at a local precinct.'

'Was she the one
who stabbed him?' Eve asked.

Valderas shook
his head. 'Like I said, I don't have any details—'

'Can't
you call someone?' Clare Baxter asked. 'Can't you find out what happened?'

'I
have to let the arresting officers and assigned detectives do their jobs, Mrs
Baxter, just like your daughter has to let the doctors and surgeons do their
work here. I'm waiting for a call to let me know what they've found out. Soon
as I hear anything I'll obviously let you know what I can.'

'So
we just wait,' she replied, stating the obvious. She walked to the door and
stood there looking out through the porthole window.

'He's
done something crazy, hasn't he?' Caitlin said. 'This case he's working
on
...
he got frustrated and he went and did
something crazy, right?' She was looking at Valderas but her question seemed
to be directed at anyone. Her anxiety was evident in her face, her hands, her
whole body. She was trying to persuade herself that it was all going to be
okay, that her father was going to pull through, that he would come out the
other side of whatever he had gotten himself into.