The Concrete Pearl (24 page)

Something inside me dropped like a caged elevator. I knew he was searching for something. A motivation. But Jordan’s death had been an accident.

“I…don’t…know,” I said. “But let’s leave it.”

“Answer enough,” he said.

I held back some tears while I drove.

Chapter 56

Fifteen minutes later we came up on the Malden Bridge that spanned the narrow Desolation Kill that provided the fresh water source for Lake Desolation. I pulled into the gravel access area parking lot under the protection of the tall pines and got out. We weren’t alone. There was a boy coming up the bank from under the bridge. He was wearing shorts and no shoes. He bore a sad expression on his smooth face. He looked up at us not with surprise, but with dark eyes glassed over in disappointment.

“Don’t even freakin’ bother,” he said as he passed.

“Excuse me?” I said.

He stopped, turned.

“There’s no fish in that stream and even more no fish in that lake.”

I remembered fishing here as a little girl. I remembered all the trout my grandfather would take out of both bodies of water.

“Maybe you’re not using the right lure,” I said.

Kid rolled his eyes.

“Ahhhh, worms, lady,” he said like a question. “Believe me, if you can’t catch fish with worms, there’s no fish to catch period.”

Kid was right.

“My bad,” I said.

The kid turned, kept on walking across the street and into the field. After about a minute he disappeared into the tall grass.

Like we’d done before (when we weren’t in search of a dead body), we made our way down the narrow path to the stream bank. I gave the underside of the bridge and the gravel bank one more sweep of my eyes.

“This is where Farrell had sex one final time with Natalie,” I said. “After that, she smoked, he chewed tobacco. They shared a beer.”

About-facing, I started back up the path towards the parking lot where I’d first found the shell casing on Monday.

“And this is where Marino confronted his son-in-law.”

I moved in a circle around the small lot, raised my right hand and made like a pistol with index finger and thumb. I pointed the imaginary pistol at Farrell’s imaginary face, brought the thumb down.

“I think Marino shot his daughter’s husband point-blank. Right on this spot. Then he turned the gun on Natalie, told her that if she told a soul, she would die. He knew she had to die. But he couldn’t get himself to kill the woman he loved, even if she was sleeping with Jimmy. So he grabs her, stuffs her inside his vehicle, maybe ties her up. He now calls in his thugs, has them take away Natalie’s car, but leaves Jimmy’s ride behind on purpose so that it gets towed.”

“Which would add to the Jimmy-simply-disappeared theory,” Spain said. “Then Marino dumps the piece and dumps Farrell’s body of evidence. Question is, where?”

As if answering his question, I turned away from Spain, walked into the woods.

I walked the thick woods from the edge of the stream to the opposite side of the public access parking lot. I walked inside the trees one way and then the other, the branches slapping at my face making my eyes tear, the briars stabbing the skin on my arms, the sweat building up under the red wig, dripping down my forehead into my eyes.

I felt under my feet for any soft spots in the pine-covered soil. Nothing there. I walked the woods for a half hour and then walked them again. I was about to leave the woods disappointed when I felt something out of place underneath the leather sole of my right boot. I knelt down, felt under the thin layer of damp leaves and pine needles, and uncovered something that made my heart skip a beat.

It was a pistol.

I walked out of the woods with the pistol.

“Jimmy’s body isn’t there,” I said. “But this was.”

I was breathing heavily, my head feeling very hot under the auburn wig.

Spain pulled a white hanky from his pant’s pocket and took hold of the pistol with it.

“Nine millimeter,” he said.

He released the clip, let it slide down into the palm of his uncovered hand.

He said. “One spent round.”

“But still no trace of Farrell to be found,” I said. “No burial mound, no blood trail, no torn or ripped clothing, no hair. Jimmy’s a big wiry guy. Marino’s out of shape. No way he’s dragging him through those thick woods more than ten or fifteen feet. Not without having a coronary anyway. No way Marino left the body out there.”

“So where is Jimmy Farrell?”

“Only other explanation is that Marino shot him and transported the body out of here.”

“So what now?”

“You tell me. You’re the private dick.”

“I love the way you say that,” Spain smiled.

He gripped the automatic, stared out onto the empty country road, thought a minute.

He then said, “We finally have a weapon that may very well match the .9mm casing you picked up the other day. Plus we’re already working on having the condom, the beer can and the spent cigarette tested for Jimmy’s and Natalie’s DNA. But we also have to secure matching DNA sequences that come directly from Farrell and Barnes’ respective bodies.”

“Why bother?”

“The stuff left on the stream bank was contaminated, left out in the open for two days. If Jimmy’s and Natalie’s DNA is found on them, which I believe it will be, it could very well be contaminated—even the condom. And that’s something the defense would be sure to pounce on in a court of law.

“But—and this is a big
But
—if we provide pure cross-reference samples that match the contaminated ones, at least according to initial tests, then there will be no doubt about the identity of the individuals we’re dealing with here.”

“Okay, so how are we going to accomplish scraping up more DNA samples right off their bodies with one of them definitely dead, the other almost definitely dead and missing?”

“Natalie is still in cold storage in the AMC morgue. She’ll be easy. If we can’t get at Jimmy’s body, we do the next best thing.”

“What next best thing, Spain?”

He stuffed the .9mm into his jacket pocket.

“We go back to his house in East Hills, steal a pair of his dirty BVDs.”

Chapter 57

Back in the city.

A sun-baked concrete and blacktop jungle.

I hooked a right into a convenience store parking lot, pulled around back, stopping on-the-dime beside a big blue dumpster. Hidden.

A glance at my wristwatch.

“Three minutes till four,” I said. “The plan as I see it is to drive to Farrell’s house. We find a way to get in, find something with Jimmy’s DNA on it, then bolt. From there we head to the morgue, do the same thing with Natalie…Agreed?”

Spain nodded. He was making a squishy face like he couldn’t stand the stink of the garbage; couldn’t stand the big green-bellied flies buzzing all around us. Summer in the mean city.

“Tina could be home,” he said. “Peter.”

“Chance we gotta take.”

I backed out of the lot, away from the flies, away from the stench. Pulled out onto Madison Avenue in the direction of the suburbs.

I wasn’t sure what stunk more. That big blue dumpster, or Jimmy Farrell’s ritzy East Hills.

Three minutes later, at the top of the four o’clock hour.

Turned on the radio, tuned into talk radio. WGY-13. Sister station to Channel 13 24-hour news. First came a station identification. Then a media voice I recognized:

“…The search continues for a local Albany businesswoman wanted in connection with the brutal slaying of a local bartender. Early this morning, construction company owner Ava ‘Spike’ Harrison became the prime suspect in the murder of Natalie Barnes, a twenty-nine year old bartender and graduate student who worked part-time as a topless bartender at the Thatcher Street Pub located in Albany’s Pearl Street district.

“Harrison, along with James ‘Jimmy’ Farrell of A-1 Environmental Solutions asbestos removal company, had come under heavy scrutiny by both OSHA and Albany law enforcement officials, including District Attorney Derrick Santiago, for negligence and possible grand larceny in the gross asbestos contamination of Albany Public School 20. Facing imminent indictment by Santiago, Harrison agreed to cooperate fully with his investigation.

“Late last night however, the badly mutilated body of Barnes was discovered lying in a pool of blood outside the PS 20 Harrison Construction trailer. The weapon utilized in the crime? A construction framing hammer reputedly belonging to Harrison. Sources close to both the assailant and victim attest that Harrison killed Barnes after discovering the bartender and Farrell had been frequent lovers. It is also being speculated that Barnes was about to cooperate fully with Santiago, possibly revealing fully the extent to which Farrell and Harrison had been illegally collaborating. While a warrant for Harrison’s arrest has yet to be issued by Albany County, one is expected shortly. This is Chris Collins reporting…”

I killed the radio, continued driving out of the city. Grabbing Tess’s cell, I punched in Tommy’s number. As if knowing it was me, he answered after the first ring.

“Tommy it’s me,” I said.

“Make it quick,” he said.

I heard a commotion in the background. Voices.

“Tommy where are you?” I said.

“You’ve gotta speak up,” he said. “Having trouble understanding you with all these policemen.” He stressed the word “policemen.” I got the message loud and super clear.

Tommy, surrounded by cops
.

“You’re at my apartment, aren’t you Tommy…You went looking for me.”

“That’s right, ma,” he said. “I’ll be over as soon as I can…Soon as the police are finished going through Spike’s apartment and towing away her Jeep. Shouldn’t be much longer, ma, you hang in there. The Albany cops are very thorough but quick.”

“I’ll call you back,” I said.

“Sounds good, ma.”

I hung up, turned to Spain. Told him the cops and Santiago must have acquired the warrant they needed to go through my place and take my Jeep.

“Whad’ you expect?” he said.

I shook my head, eyes peeled on the hilly suburban road bordered by manicured lawns and cookie-cutter houses. Somehow the thought of the police invading my personal space made this all the more real in my hard head.

The pit in my stomach shifted just as I made the hard left turn onto East Hills Drive.

Tina’s white Land Rover Discovery was parked in the circular drive.

Correction.

Half the Discovery was parked on the drive, the other half on the lawn, the driver’s side wheels, sunk deep in a newly planted flower bed.

“So much for searching the house,” Spain said.

“We stick to the plan,” I said. “Fuck it.”

I pulled off the road directly in front of Farrell’s two-story palace, made it across the manicured lawn, past the Discovery, up the marble steps to the front door.

Spain followed close behind.

I rang the doorbell. Tina came to the door dressed in a short tennis skirt and a tight tank top, slim sunglasses masking the eyes, blond hair tied back in a perfect ponytail, Nike tennis sneaks and peds. She seemed to be having trouble keeping her balance.

“I’m calling…the police,” she slurred, the air sucked out of her lungs. The alcohol on her breath hit me like a tennis racket to the face. I’d forgotten about my disguise. She saw through it anyway, regardless of the booze.

I slid the automatic from my waist, held the barrel on her.

“No police,” I said. Then, “Spain, go do what we came here for.”

Spain bounded up the center hall staircase to check the upstairs for something with Jimmy’s DNA on it.

Tina turned, stumbled, looked up.

“Whas…happening? Whaddya you doing…inside my home, Mr. Spain?”

We stood inside the vestibule. I held the pistol on her until Spain came back down the stairs a few beats later. A translucent plastic sandwich baggy was gripped in his right hand. Some rich, black, soil-like material inside it, along with what looked to be a clear drinking glass. Spain had found what we needed: Farrell’s DNA-rich chewed and used tobacco.

I kept the pistol poised on Tina.

She exhaled a sour booze breath that nearly sent me careening against the door.

“Damien,” the trophy wife said. “We…have…a con…a contract.”

He looked at her, then at me again.

“Mrs. Farrell,” he said, slow, controlled. “Your husband has gotten himself into a lot of trouble.”

Tina’s blue eyes filled. Her long legs began to shake, knees about to buckle.

“It’s true…isn’t it, Damien?” she said. “What they’re…saying…saying on the news?”

He exhaled.

“Your husband’s lover was murdered, Mrs. Farrell,” he said. “I believe your husband was also murdered.”

Tina dropped to the marble floor, a pretty, silver-spoon-fed bag of rags and bones.

Chapter 58

We shifted her deceptively heavy body into a cherry-wood paneled library located off the kitchen. We laid her out onto the couch, placed a warm washcloth on her forehead. You got used to people passing out in my business. Over-exertion, heat exhaustion, slamming your head against a door frame. After a while, you knew what to do. Pressing two fingers against her jugular, I then took a step back, took a quick glance at all the books Farrell never read, but displayed for show anyway.

“Let the poor kid sleep it off,” I said.

Spain took the used chewing tobacco into the kitchen, found a plastic baggy in a drawer, stuffed the entire drinking glass inside it.

He said, “Let me show you something.”

I followed him out of the living room, back into the inlaid marble vestibule, up the stairs to the home’s second floor. When we came to the first bedroom on the left, he stepped inside. I walked in right behind him and felt a silent shudder in my heart.

This wasn’t a bedroom, but a nursery.

The room was painted boy’s baby blue. A sky of soft white clouds had been hand-painted against a sky-blue ceiling. A white-railed crib took up the far corner near the long double-hung Pella windows. Below the windows were white cubby-style bookcases full of books.
Dr. Seuss, Thomas the Tank Engine, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Monster Trucks, The Giving Tree…