The 8th Circle (20 page)

“T
here’s a monster in my closet.”

Conor stood at the foot of the bed with Beowulf at his side. He wore his Batman pajamas and gripped his blue lightsaber in his right hand. His hair stood up around his head in a sleep-tousled mess. “There’s a monster in my closet. I can hear him, Daddy. Make him go away. He says he’ll eat me.”

Danny reached out but felt nothing. He shook with cold, and he moved so slowly, he didn’t know what was wrong with him. Then he realized it was the mothballs. Thousands of mothballs. They lay in shining heaps on the floor. He tried to push through them, but they grasped his ankles with tiny hands and held him back.

“Daddy! Make the monster go away!”

Danny could hear Conor crying in the dark, and he tried to call to him, but his voice was paralyzed.

Panic settled over him, thick and suffocating, and he could hear his own heart thunder in his chest. Dear God, he needed to move. What the hell was matter with him?

The monster screamed, “Where are you, you little shit?”

Danny saw the closet door ahead, but when he jerked it open, Andy Cohen stood inside with a .357. He held it out to Danny and grinned. “This is for you, pal.”

*

Danny knocked against Kate’s orange crate bookcase. It caught his elbow and sent a shot of agony to his fingertips. At six o’clock in the morning, enough ambient streetlight washed through the window to enable him to see. He could hear the cars move down Spruce Street. Somewhere, a door slammed. A siren wailed.

He took a deep breath. There was comfort in the early morning traffic, the warmth of Kate’s body, the shivers of pain that ran from his left elbow into his hand. They were real. He could focus on them.

Don’t think about Conor. Don’t think about Beowulf. Don’t think about the monster. Don’t think about Andy and his one of four cards
.

Kate shifted and moaned, and Danny eased himself up. He pulled on his jeans and went into the bathroom. He needed to act normal, but his life no longer bore any resemblance to normal.

He rested his head against the mirror. Waiting for the tightness in his chest to pass, he gripped the sides of the sink.

It was never going to end.

He had to pull himself together. Danny lifted his head and stared at himself in the mirror. People used to tell him all the time he looked young for his age, and before the accident, some smartass bartenders or liquor store clerks would card him. No one would make that mistake now. He looked as waxen as Conor when he lay in the morgue.

Danny went back to the bedroom. Kate had left the window open, and he could see his breath. He closed the window, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at her, at the way her hair spread in a dark tangle across the pillow. He leaned closer to finger an errant curl.

Kate had awakened the desperate need in him to be close to someone again. When he was with her, he wanted to memorize her body with his hands, every curve and plane and line, every glorious imperfection. It scared the hell out of him because she was opaque; shadow and form he could feel but not understand.

They moved well together, their rhythm perfectly matched. If less frenzied than with Beth, it was also less of a battle. Loving Beth was ferocious. They devoured each other.

Kate was different. When he kissed her, he tasted both her hunger and her doubt. Her loneliness. It curled about her like a faint echo. She was like the dreams he used to have when he first left home. He would be walking down corridors opening doors, but after every door there was another door to open, another knob to turn.

She knows about the Inferno
. The thought came unbidden. He wanted to push it away, but it wouldn’t go—the way she reacted last night when she saw the card Theresa gave him. He wondered if she knew about Andy. Kate knew Michael, Novell. Something about her accent bothered him. That flat voice. She was no more from Maine than he was.

Danny looked around the bedroom. Who lived like this? She had no pictures. None of the little personal things, the mementos people collected over time. If his home was too filled with memories and reminders, it at least bore witness to the lives lived there. If Kate disappeared tomorrow, she would go without leaving any footprints.

He squinted at her bookcase. Jammed among the paperbacks sat a worn copy of
The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
. His mother had loved Yeats; he remembered reading the poems out of a similar volume to her when she lay dying. He wondered what had happened to it. Kevin never had much of a poetic streak.

He leaned closer and pulled out the book. How many afternoons had he spent reading to his mother? “Brown Penny.” She loved that one. “The Wild Swans at Coole.” Peculiar. This looked just like her book with the same water stain on the front. He began to flip through it when he found a photograph stuck between the pages as a marker.

Danny almost dropped the book. The photograph inside had to be at least ten years old because Kate was little more than a kid herself. Slender and small with her thick hair hanging over her shoulders, she looked like a good Catholic schoolgirl in her St. Maria Goretti uniform, and she held the hand of a man who smiled down at her as if she were his most precious treasure.

Thomas Patrick Ryan. His father.

“D
anny?”

He heard her groggy voice and slammed the book shut, shoving it behind him. Kate pushed herself up, her face still soft with sleep, and he stared at her in a sort of panic.

She slid her hand down his arm, and her fingers left a warm trail against his flesh. Even now he could feel her begin to melt into him, seep beneath his skin. “Get under the covers. You’re freezing.”

He started to lean toward her when the vision popped into his head: Kate and the Iceman, Lolita in a Goretti uniform with her grinning Humbert Humbert. He jerked back as if she’d grown a viper’s head.

“What’s the matter?” He watched her coil up inside herself, shutting him out. Before his eyes, she was turning into someone else. A stranger.

“Who are you, Kate?”

She pulled the covers around her, her eyes flat and wary. “You know who I am. What’s the matter with you?”

“How did you know my father?”

She caught her breath. “What do you mean?”

“My father. Thomas. Patrick. Ryan.” He fumbled for the book.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He pulled out the photograph and shoved it under her nose. “Does this jog your memory?”

“Oh God.” She pressed her hands against her mouth as if she were going to be sick and began to rock on the bed.

“How did you know him, Kate?”

She had to know the man in the photograph was his father. She had to know. Unless . . . Danny’s stomach twisted. It wasn’t possible that the old man had another family stashed someplace in South Philly, was it? He caught Kate by the shoulders. “Jesus Christ, Kate. Who are you? How did you know him?”

“Danny, please—I can’t—I didn’t—I—”

“Don’t lie to me. How did you know him?”

“You won’t understand.”

He wanted to understand, but nothing made sense in this alternate universe. Maybe he wasn’t really here at all. Maybe he was lying in restraints in the psych ward screaming his head off because he had finally gone over the edge.

“Talk to me, Kate.” He should’ve been moved by the look of terror on her face, but he was way past that. His fingers dug into the flesh of her arms, and he tried to relax his grip. Deep breath. Couldn’t anyone tell the truth? “Goddamn, you!” His hands squeezed tighter. Christ, he’d leave bruises if he didn’t stop. His fingers caught in her hair when he wrenched himself away.

His breath came in painful gasps, and he pressed his shaking hands against his face. Just like the old man. No. He wasn’t. He could shove his fury back into the closet. Lock the door. Christ, he hurt, but to let go was to fall into the abyss. The surge almost doubled him over.

He felt a movement behind him and turned. Kate had started to slide toward the edge of the bed.

“Please.”

He wasn’t sure if he spoke aloud, but she stopped. He could see she had given in by the way she bowed her head and held up her hands, like she wanted to push the memory away but no longer had the strength. And he knew then that he didn’t want to hear what she was going to tell him.

“Who weeps for the lost ones, Danny?”

A chill started in the base of his gut and began to work its way up. “What do you mean?”

“You wrote it. Don’t you remember?”

“I know I wrote it.”

“But you didn’t weep, did you? Your father did.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was your father’s last case.”

The impact of her words hit him like a bullet. “But that was . . . the Sandman case. You would’ve been—”

“Fifteen. I was fifteen. He liked us young.” Her body trembled, and her eyes were wide as if she stared at something only she could see. As if he were no longer there. “We were the lost ones. We lived in a cellar.”

“Kate . . .”

“Once you got taken, you never came back.” Her voice sounded so small, so faint. Danny could see the red imprint of his hands on her skin. Contrite, he tried to put his arms around her, but she shoved him away. “No! You wanted to know the truth. Now you can listen.”

Danny tried to comprehend the horror of a child waiting in a cellar to die. He could almost see Jane Doe One stroll into the room to sit beside Kate on the bed. For a moment, they were all there, the lost girls, and the walls of the room seemed to fill with the raw stench of blood. Danny pressed his fists against his eyes.

“Pretty little girls all in a row.” Kate’s thin voice snapped him back. “He liked to dress up and play games. The Sandman. ‘We’re off to Never Never Land.’” She swayed back and forth and stared at him with unseeing eyes. “Once they were finished with us, some went away—I don’t know where—but some of us were given to Mason.”

“Oh, Jesus. The lost girls,” Danny whispered.

“They told me I could be an au pair. Work with kids. I spoke English. A lot of the girls didn’t.”

“They kept you with Mason?”

“Before. They kept us in a basement before and after. I don’t know. He made films. He’d show us what he did to the others. He said they’d been bad. He used razors and other things. He said if we didn’t cooperate, they’d do it to us. Some tried to run away anyhow.”

“You ran?”

“Only once.” She began to tremble. “He strung me up. He said I had beautiful skin, but I had to be punished.”

“Kate.” He wanted to hold her until her pain soaked into him.

“Hinky dinky corny cup, how many fingers have I got up? She said two but three it is, and now she’ll feel the razor’s cut.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

Danny watched her clutch at the comforter and ball it into her hands. He wished she’d strike out at him rather than make those strangled whimpers of torment.

“Who had you in the cellar? Was it Paulie Ritter? Was Mason’s real name Paulie Ritter?”

“No. Not him.”

“Who then, Kate? Who hurt you?” He kept his voice soft, as if she were a child.

“Thomas said not to tell. Thomas said not to tell anyone or they’ll find me. ‘They’re above the law,’ he said.”

“But you have to tell now, Kate.”

“Not you. Thomas said if I told you, you’d get me killed.”

The bitterness welled up. Why did it matter anymore what his father thought? Funny, after all this time, the old man still packed a punch, or maybe some wounds never did heal.

“Kate, he may still be out there.”

“He’ll put me back in the cellar.”

“He won’t put you in the cellar, Kate. I swear it.”

Danny moved closer. When Kate didn’t push him away, he slipped his arms around her, and she clung to him as if he were a spar on her storm-tossed ocean. He murmured quiet words of comfort until her breathing slowed and her trembling eased.

It struck him then that Beth had stopped seeking solace from him. Was it because she thought he had none to give? Had he
become that much of a cipher to her? Or maybe the crushing weight of things left unsaid had suffocated them. Love, like any living, breathing thing, needed air and space to thrive, but their marriage had become a vacuum.

This time had to be different. He couldn’t screw this up.

Danny rested his cheek on Kate’s head. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

“Funny. You almost sound like you care.” Her voice sounded too small for her to bring off the sarcasm.

He tightened his arms around her. “I do care.”

Kate went rigid for a moment before she relaxed against him. He wanted to tell her he loved her. But the words wouldn’t come.

In the photograph on the bed, the old man smiled, and Danny looked away.

God is watching you, boy
.

Kate stirred in his arms. “Your father was a good man, Danny. I’ll never forget him. He was my angel. He saved my life.”

K
evin Ryan’s jaw cracked when he yawned, and he rubbed the back of his neck. His bones ached. Jean was right. He needed to cut down on his drinking. He picked the last jelly donut out of the bag and finished it in two bites. Powdered sugar dusted the front of his coat, but he didn’t brush it off.

“Why d’ya suppose they asked for us this morning?” he asked and picked up his coffee to take a sip.

His partner, Jake, maneuvered their unmarked car through the early morning traffic. He swore and jammed the brakes when a taxi cut him off.

“I should give that cocksucker a ticket.” Jake lifted his arm to make his favorite Italian gesture and then shook his head. “Fuck it.” They lurched to a stop at the light on Eighth Street.

“Well?”

“They wanted you. We’re a package deal.” Jake grinned at him, and his newly whitened teeth seemed a little too bright for morning. He drummed his fingers on the wheel. Kevin looked away.

A scrawny Salvation Army Santa rang his bell in front of the Gallery. Even decorated for Christmas, the mall seemed forlorn. “Space for Rent” signs were as prominent as wreaths, and trash whirled across the wet street into piles of dirty snow. Under
swaying tinsel Christmas stars, drunks sat propped on steaming grates already sucking down rotgut from brown paper bags.

Peace on earth.

Who the hell came down here to shop anymore? Everyone went to the suburbs. Or moved there. Like Danny.

Why couldn’t he stop thinking about his brother?

“He wouldn’t even stop in for a beer,” Kevin had said to Jean last Sunday. “Too high and mighty.”

She’d just shaken her head. “What did you expect, Kevin? Didn’t you even look at him? He’s half a ghost.”

When he’d seen Danny that day, Kevin almost hadn’t recognized him. It hadn’t just been that he’d lost weight. It was the emptiness in his eyes, a look Kevin had only seen in rape victims, kids who’d been abused, and a twelve-year-old gangbanger he’d been forced to strip search.

An instant flare of remorse had burned through him. Kevin had let a year pass without so much as a phone call to check on his brother. All because of a stupid fight, one he’d started. What difference did it make where Danny had buried his son?

Grains of sand. Wasn’t that what Ma used to say? Life was like grains of sand that slipped through your fingers? Must’ve been some stupid Irish thing.

Kevin swallowed the rest of his coffee. He still felt cold inside.

Jake rolled down Market and turned right, twisting in and out of traffic to the address they’d been given. He parked next to a squad car. Once Old City was the commercial district, packed with warehouses and taverns; now it was the trendiest part of Philadelphia, a neighborhood of pricey loft apartments, upscale restaurants, and cute cobblestone streets that ripped up your tires and suspension. Danny’s kind of place.

It hadn’t always been. Maybe what he resented most was the way Danny had repackaged himself. Turned slick and forgot who he was. Thought he was better than the rest of them when he was nothing more than . . .

A punching bag.

Christ, was that what pissed him off? Kevin didn’t know anymore. How was it Danny always made him feel like an asshole?

Kevin’s stomach tightened when they got out of the car at the far end of the alley. Someone banged out a manic “What Child Is This?” on a piano. The notes crashed through an open third-floor window, and Kevin shuddered. Despite the cold, sweat ran down his neck under his collar. A group of uniforms and CSU people were already at work.

“The elves are busy,” Jake said. “Must get the mess cleaned up so the civic association don’t bitch.” He pulled out a camera from the trunk.

Kevin held up his ID to a uniform who stood guard and signed them in. The uniform offered him a pair of latex gloves, and Kevin snapped them on.

“What’ve we got?” Kevin said.

The uniform waved toward a black tarp that lay in front of the dumpsters. “White male. Ain’t pretty.”

“And he was found by?”

“The trashmen.”

“We still have trashmen?” Jake said and shot Kevin a grin. “Hell of a way to start their day. You start to canvass the area?”

“Nobody’s seen nothin’ so far.” The uniform nodded at the tarp. “Uh, Detective Ryan, you really need to take a look at this.”

Kevin exchanged a glance with Jake. Another shiver of unease ran down his spine. The uniform looked pale, shaky, like maybe he’d hurled. This guy was no rookie. Not a good sign. “How bad?”

“You better see for yourself.” He jerked back the tarp. Overhead, the pianist pounded out the insane carol.

Kevin clenched his fists, and he heard Jake say, “Holy fuck.”

The corpse was a male with a terrific head of white hair, though it was matted and stuck out around his head in greasy clumps. He appeared to be in his sixties. Naked, his ankles and wrists were bound with duct tape; his body was a mass of bruises, cuts, and burns.

Someone had hacked off the poor bastard’s penis and scrotum and shoved it in his mouth. A red-and-white, candy-cane-shaped
pen protruded from his right temple. A green bow tied around his neck fluttered in the breeze.

Kevin felt his breakfast rush into the back of his throat, and he forced it down. He leaned closer, unbelieving, to read the words scrawled across the victim’s belly in crimson marker: “For Detective Kevin Ryan. Send this gift to your brother.”