VC03 - Mortal Grace (66 page)

A silence fell.

“Have you spoken with him?”

She nodded.

“How is he?” Cardozo said.

“Wonderful—and amazing—as always.” Her eyes came around. “He’s worried what will happen to Eff.”

“With a plea bargain, Eff will get three years for killing Pablo. It’s not much, but when he’s out he’ll be an adult and the next crime he commits maybe they’ll give him life.”

“Poor child.”

“I guess there are certain subjects you and I are never going to agree on.”

She smiled. “Never in this life.”

He felt the nurse’s touch, firm on his elbow. “The doctor’s here. You have to go now.”

He kissed her on the forehead, beside the bandage. He backed away from the bed. Bonnie’s eyes followed him.

He stepped into the corridor, suddenly exhausted. His legs could barely carry him.

The nurse came clattering after him. “There are no vases left.” She was holding his flowers. “Not even a pitcher.”

“You keep them.”

“We’re not allowed—” she started to say.

“I’ll take them.” Ellie Siegel glided smoothly between them and rescued the bouquet. “These will brighten up my desk. Thanks, Vince. It’s been six years since a man’s given me flowers on my birthday.”

“It’s your birthday?” Cardozo gave her a long glance, wondering how she’d found him and why.

“Every July—regular as clockwork.”

An elevator was waiting. They got in. The door hissed shut and the elevator dropped eighteen floors through whispering silence.

“Vince—stop brooding.” Ellie took his arm. “You had to fire. Any cop would have done the same. I was there—I saw what was about to happen.”

“She was there, too—and I don’t think she agrees.”

“That’s why people like her need people like us.”

He looked at Ellie with her mild dark eyes, with her hair catching flashes of fluorescence from the light.

“Happy birthday,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t remember.”

They walked to his car and piled in.

“Where to?” he said.

“I know a terrific Chinese place on Forty-ninth—they have a lunch special for families. Think we can pass?”

“We can damned well try.”

They were driving west on Forty-ninth when Ellie said, “The D.A. hid and falsified evidence. He should answer for it.”

“Don’t look at me. I’m only a cop.” Cardozo steered around a disabled cab. “It’s up to Fairchild. She says she can prove indictable fraud.”

“Will she?”

“Wouldn’t do much good. Kodahl would claim he didn’t know. He’d say the cover-up was Thoms’s brainchild.”

“And if Fairchild doesn’t go public?”

“That’s the interesting alternative. If that happens, somewhere not too far down the line Kodahl will take early retirement and Deborah Fairchild will make D.A.”

“Think she’d be any good?”

“A hell of a lot better than what we’ve got now.”

Ellie pointed. “Slow down. There’s a parking place.”

All New York must have heard about the Chinese lunch special. Chattering diners at tiny tables jammed the narrow, brightly lit restaurant.

“Look who’s over there.” Ellie tossed a nod.

Cardozo peered over bobbing heads and galloping chopsticks. He saw Terri sitting at a table by the far window. Suddenly it felt like a setup: Ellie’s birthday, which he’d never heard of happening in July before; this restaurant, Terri just happening to be here.

Ellie sidestepped flying trays and mandarin waiters and led the way to the table. They were standing close enough to count the pieces of chive in the wonton soup when Terri looked up. “Hi, Dad.”

“Didn’t know this was one of your lunch hangouts,” Cardozo said.

Terri was sitting with a friend, a slightly older girl with dark hair and studious-looking glasses. The friend broke into a big grin and there was no question—she was grinning at Cardozo.

Okay
, he thought,
I’m funny.

The friend pushed up from the table. “You look great.” It was a voice that struck memories. “Really great, Uncle Vince.”

That word
Uncle
hit with almost physical force. “Sally?”

She stepped into his embrace.
This is my sister’s little girl?
he wondered. His arms told him that this was nobody’s little girl, this was no little girl.

“It’s really you?”

“It’s me.” She kept grinning. “Really.”

“You’re all right?”

“Sure, I’m all right.”

“I hate to nag, but where the hell were you?”

She stepped away from his arms and sat down again. “Sawyer’s Island, New York.”

“That’s an island?”

She nodded.

“Where?”

“Lake Erie.”

“Why? Why didn’t you write? Or phone?”

“I don’t know why. I just kept putting it off.” She was poking a chopstick at a mound of brown rice. “And after a while I couldn’t, because I hadn’t.”

That poking movement recalled something. Cardozo remembered a mound of frozen yogurt and a sixteen-year-old girl with a dessert spoon.

“I can’t even explain it to myself,” she said. “I knew what Mom must have been going through. I felt guilty because I didn’t feel guilty. If I’d heard from Mom or you maybe I would have felt guilty enough to phone.”

“You don’t hear from people unless you leave a forwarding address.”

She gave him a look that was almost mischievous. “But Uncle Vince, you’re a detective.”

“I thought I was.” He felt his eyes filming and then things wobbled a little. “How did Ms. Sherlock here find you?”

Ellie pulled out a chair and sat. “How does any case get broken after six years? A lucky break. A witness came forward. Kind of.”

Cardozo flexed his memory, trying to match now to then, trying to see his niece with long hair, without the glasses, the face a little less full, the figure a lot less full. “Sally—can you tell me—why did you go? Why didn’t we hear from you?”

“I was pregnant.”

It was a simple statement of fact. Didn’t seem to matter who else was at the table. No embarrassment at all.

Cardozo dropped into a seat. “So that was it. And Father Joe helped you disappear.”

She shook her head. “Father Joe told me to go back to Mom. Father Chuck said, have the baby and then decide. He gave me the money and the address.”

“What did you do with the baby?”

“He’s still with us. He’s five years old.”

“Us?”

“I’m married.”

“To a fireman,” Terri said. “Sally’s been telling me everything.”

“And we have a two-year-old girl of our own.” Sally opened her purse and brought out color photographs of two children playing in a backyard.

A delayed shock hit Cardozo. The words pouring out around the table seemed to have no relation to reality. The pictures in his hand had no connection to his life. He could have been watching a television screen, listening to a bunch of chirpy newscasters reciting the weather.

“I work for the fire department too.” There was a quiet sort of pride in Sally’s voice. “I’m a firewoman.”

He didn’t know whether she had actually said that or he was hallucinating it. “That so? I thought you looked…” He searched for a diplomatic word.

“Big.” She laughed a no-regrets laugh.

To Cardozo’s ear there was something about that laugh, about the very act of letting herself laugh that freely—something that wasn’t exactly hayseed but almost. She was no longer a Big City girl. He didn’t know how he felt. Happy for her, definitely; sad for himself, maybe.

“I had to get big to pass the physical,” she said. “The guys hate me. I’m the first woman on the force.”

If this was the truth, there was some part of him that was going to fight it. “Can you be a fireperson and wear glasses?”

She twirled the glasses. “For menus.”

“What happened to acting?”

She looked down at the brown rice. Just a dipping glance down, then back up. “Life got real. I had to get real.”

“We’d better think about eating,” Ellie said. “The orders have to be in by one
P.M.
to get the special.”

“Your mother would like to hear from you,” Cardozo said.

Sally hesitated. “I’m kind of rushed this trip. I have to be back on Sawyer’s Island tomorrow. I have the afternoon shift.”

“You’ve got time to drop in and hug her, let her know you’re alive.”

Sally’s eyes were big dark question marks. “I don’t know, Uncle Vince. If Mom starts nagging the way she used to—she’ll drive me crazy all over again.”

“Your mom’s changed. She’s got Nell to worry about now.”

“Who’s Nell?”

“A lost little girl your mom’s decided to save. In my opinion, the savee has saved the savior. It’s a long story.” Cardozo reached across the table for Sally’s hand. “Just take a half hour and say ‘Hi, Mom, I’m alive.’”

“All right.” Sally smiled uncertainly. “A half hour.”

Ellie raised a Chinese teacup. “Here’s to welcome home.”

“Welcome home,” Cardozo said.

Four cups clinked.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Vince Cardozo Mysteries

ONE

Five years ago

April 15, tax day

“W
E’RE INTO COUNTDOWN, BOYS
and girls.” Walter Egan, a red-faced man with curly brown hair and an oddly sweet voice, slapped three white plastic belts down onto the kitchen table. Scottie Egan, the greatest five-year-old who ever tumbled out of a crab-apple tree and laughed at his skinned shins, made a face. “Why are they so lumpy?”

Walter patted the boy’s copper-blond head. “Because they won’t work without the lumps.”

Maria Egan lifted up Scottie’s blue-striped polo shirt. “Now just hold still a minute, Mr. Flibbertigibbet.” She placed the smallest belt around his little tummy and fastened the Velcro-tipped ends together.

“Ouch!” he groaned. “Too tight!”

“It has to be tight, honey, or it won’t stay up.” Maria picked up the middle-size belt. “Look the other way, guys.”

Walter faced the wall. His heart gave a jump when he saw that the hands on the kitchen clock were tiptoeing around to 8:30.

Maria unzipped her skirt and fastened the belt around her waist. Scottie jammed two fingers into his mouth and let out an ear-fracturing wolf whistle.

Maria turned around with that I’m-going-to-be-mad-at-somebody face, and Scottie put on his nobody-here-but-us-mice look, eyes all sky-blue innocence, staring up at the ceiling.

“And Daddy gets the biggest.” Walter opened his shirt and slipped the third belt around his stomach. “Anything showing?”

Maria examined him. Boss shirt, Calvin Klein necktie, hair slicked down from the shower—he looked good, he smelled good. “You look great, hon. What about me?” She held her hands out in a fashion-model pose and slowly twirled. She had a body to stop time and not even a floppy cardigan could hide it.

“Perfect.”

Maria smiled, but the smile died when she saw the kitchen clock. “Oh, my. Twenty-seven to nine. Shake the lead out, fellas, or we’re going to be late!”

Scottie took a leap over the kitchen chair, startling the dog, and the kitchen was full of running and laughing and barking. Any other day Walter would have told Scottie to cut it out, but today was special; ordinary rules didn’t apply. He felt his hip pocket for the small white plastic box that had come with the belts in the Fellowship carton. He snapped the box open to check that the four AA batteries were aligned correctly, positive to negative. Everything looked copacetic. “We’re all set, boys and girls.”

Maria checked details. Window curtains were closed. Formica tabletop was wiped clean. Dishwasher was clackety-clacking. After she was gone, she didn’t want anyone saying she’d been a poor housekeeper.

Walter saw tears beginning. “Come on, hon.” He gave her a cheer-up squeeze and steered her toward the back door. Scottie and Robespierre ran ahead, shrieking and yapping.

Wham
. The screen door banged open. Walter Egan stuck his head out into the morning. The day had a brand-new smell. Sunlight rocked the trees and the houses like the oompah of a brass band.

The Egan family piled into the Ford pickup.

“Robespierre stays behind,” Walter commanded. “Today’s a people day. Dogs aren’t included.”

“Shoot.” Scottie tipped Robespierre over the window and the dog landed light on his front paws and scampered across the lawn.

Walter drove down to the center of town, savoring the rush-hour traffic and the tangerine haze that hung over the streets like a sweet pout of Mother Nature. Scottie kept tugging under his shirt.

“Don’t pull at it,” Walter warned. “It won’t work right if you keep fiddling with it.”

“It itches,” Scottie whined.

“Now, just sit straight,” Maria said, “and think about something that
doesn’t
itch.”

Walter pulled up at the garage entrance of the White Plains Post Office Building. People called it the P.O. Building, but it also housed the offices of twelve separate U.S. government agencies and bureaus. Over four hundred federal employees worked there. Smoky windows climbed twelve stories of shimmering black granite facade.

Walter kissed his wife and son good-bye. He could feel Maria wanting to cling. She looked into his eyes, but he let her see only calmness behind his sunglasses.