“Not exactly a neighborhood that’s going to attract people,” Dave said.
It was six hundred square feet of cement block, mold, and rat droppings, with a corrugated metal garage door for vehicles and two wire-reinforced glass windows caked with decades of grime.
It had served them well for Kang and the three houseguests who followed. Now they were driving back to Crane Street to prep it for number five.
“You realize we’re starting to cater to women,” Dave said as they drove over the recently renamed Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge to Queens. “First Evelyn. Now Rachael O’Keefe. Looks like a trend. I think we should spruce the place up.”
Gideon smiled. Dave was nervous, and the best way for him to cope was to make light of everything. Gideon played along. “Like how?”
“I don’t know,” Dave said. “I’m thinking lace curtains. Or maybe a mint on her pillow every night. Or how about a nice clean spackle can for her to shit in? Chicks dig those little amenities.”
Dave could always make Gideon laugh, and today was no exception. “Enough comedy,” Gideon said. “Let’s get serious. The DA’s office just let it leak that they’re releasing O’Keefe tomorrow at noon.”
“I thought they were going to turn her loose tonight.”
“They are. The story they leaked is just bullshit to throw off the press and the picketers. Her sister, Liz, is picking her up at two a.m.”
“Did Mer…did my…” Dave knew that Gideon was getting his information from Meredith. He hated the fact that she’d been dragged into it, but she was their only link to O’Keefe. The only way he could deal with it was to avoid talking about it. “Do you know where they’re going?”
“Jersey. They have an aunt who spends half the year in Florida, and they’re using her house.”
“So we follow them, case the neighborhood, and figure out when to—”
“No,” Gideon said. “There’s no time for that. What happens if we’re casing the neighborhood, and she packs up and moves to an undisclosed location—and I mean really undisclosed—one that Meredith can’t point us to? The only thing we know for sure is where she’s going tonight, which means we have to grab her tonight.”
“Won’t she have an escort on the trip to Jersey?”
“Definitely not,” Gideon said. “According to my source, she has an escort as far as the front door, and then she’s on her own. The city of New York won’t spend another nickel on her. They’re not bodyguards. As far as they’re concerned, she’s just some bitch who murdered her little girl and got away with it.”
“Not for long,” Dave said, a total convert to their mission. “Not for long.”
Chapter 42
“Would you like my take on the Hazmat Killer?” Cheryl asked. “Or as Zach pointed out—the Hazmat Killers.”
“Cheryl,” Cates said, “I’m happy to hear you even have a take. Shoot.”
“Donald Li, the profiler Donovan and Boyle brought in, is a detective, not an analyst. Working with what he knew, he profiled the killer as white, male, strict parental upbringing, connected to fundamental religious principles. The killer expects God to punish wrongdoers, and when the offender slips through the cracks, our killer becomes the punisher. I have no argument with that, but it’s pretty rudimentary, and won’t get us very far.
“I have the advantage of working with two very smart detectives who figured out that these victims are not the type to simply jump into a car with two strangers unless it seems like they have no choice. Two men posing as cops could do it. But I think these guys did more than pose.”
“Meaning what?” Cates said.
“Meaning they think like cops. They knew exactly how to track and kidnap their victims. They have a keen grasp of forensic techniques, and they know enough to leave no viable clues. They could be pretending to be cops, but they’re so good at it, I think it’s more likely that they’re real cops. Or maybe ex-cops.”
“Anybody who watches enough episodes of CSI has a keen grasp of forensics,” Cates said. “It doesn’t prove to me that real cops were involved.”
“Captain, I can’t prove anything. That’s what your detectives do. My job is to study a pattern and come up with a profile. Based on the logistics of the crimes—kidnapping, torturing, transporting the victims’ bodies—I agree with Zach and Kylie that this is the work of a team. Real cops work in teams.”
Cates nodded. “I’m listening.”
“I do a lot of one-on-one therapy sessions with cops—especially detectives. They bust their asses for months, even years, tracking down and locking up criminals who they are positive are guilty, and then for one reason or another, the bad guys go free. I don’t have to tell you how frustrating that is to the arresting officer. I’ve done exit interviews with dozens of cops who resign or retire early because they’re fed up with the justice system. More than a few have said to me, ‘It was either quit the job, or one day I’m going to end up putting a bullet in the back of one of their heads.’”
“Most cops have thoughts like that,” Cates said. “They don’t act on it. If one bad guy gets away, they suck it up, go back out, and catch another.”
“These killers don’t think like that,” Cheryl said. “They exhibit a brash level of confidence by leaving the body on public display. It’s high risk, but they want the people of New York to know what they’re doing. And then once they have our attention, they release the video. That to me is the key to their persona. The videos tell me that the killing is not their main goal.”
“And what is their goal?”
“The confessions. Every video is telling John Q. Public that even though the police are smart enough to track down the murderers, the justice system will fail you and send them back on the street.”
Cheryl stopped and took a deep breath. The more impassioned she had become, the louder she had gotten. “Captain,” she said, lowering her voice and dialing down her excitement, “I hope for the sake of the department that these men are just a couple of impostors flashing a fake badge, but the more I think about it, the more I think they’re the real deal. These men are not just killing people; they’re making a statement. ‘This due process shit doesn’t work. It doesn’t always punish the guilty. We do.’”
Chapter 43
It was 8:30 by the time Cheryl and I got out of the office. I hailed a cab and told the driver to take us to 92nd and Madison.
“Where are we going to dinner?” she said.
“Paola’s. Great Italian food,” I said. And hopefully I’ll be so busy eating, I won’t have time to put my foot in my mouth like I did at breakfast.
The cabbie caught a light at 72nd, and Cheryl grabbed me and kissed me hard. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” she said.
“I’ve been wanting to do that and a whole lot more,” I said. “All night, and all this past weekend. So if you want to bail on the restaurant—”
“Sorry, I’m starved,” she said, snuggling up against me. “How about you?”
“Kylie and I had lunch in Chinatown at one, so I’ve been hungry since two. Where did you have lunch?”
“Do you mean who did I have lunch with?”
“Damn. Was I that obvious?”
“Zach, I’m a shrink, for God’s sake. You were like a neon sign.”
“Did I ever tell you how annoying it is to date a woman who gets inside people’s heads for a living?” I said.
“No, did I ever tell you how annoying it is to date a man who interrogates people for a living?”
Paola Bottero is not one of those larger-than-life chefs you see on reality TV. She’s more of a quiet legend who has been feeding finicky New Yorkers for three decades. Her son Stefano welcomed me at the door. “Signor Jordan, buona sera.”
“You’ve been here before?” Cheryl said as Stefano escorted us to a table.
“It’s my go-to place for dinner whenever I act like an asshole at breakfast.”
“Ahh…so you’ve been here often.”
; Paola’s is a big, bustling, wide-open square room, and despite the soft lighting, it’s a place where everybody sees everybody, and several people stole a glance at us as we walked by. I doubted they were looking at me.
Cheryl and I made a deal. We’d keep the chitchat light. No mind games till dessert. So I talked about my day, and she talked about the one thing we couldn’t discuss when we were in Cates’s office.
Cates.
“She’s quite a role model,” Cheryl said. “A strong woman of color who made her bones in a department that’s dominated by white males. And for a cop who hates politics, she’s figured out how to work the system. She’d make a better mayor than the one we have now, or the one who’s running against him.”
I ordered a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino and drank most of it. Then I ordered another glass. And when dinner was over, another.
“Are you taking the edge off because you had a rough day,” Cheryl asked, “or are you fortifying yourself for our little talk?”
I sipped the wine, trying not to swill it down in one gulp. “I’ve never been great at relationship conversations.”
“I’m fantastic at them,” she said. “Unless the relationship is one of my own. Then I’m as bad as everyone else. So if you want to hold off, fine. Denial is the cornerstone of many relationships.”
She rested her chin on one hand, drilled those dark brown Spanish eyes into mine, and waited. Part shrink, part devil, all hypnotic. God, she was good at this shit. First she let me off the hook, and then she baited it again.
I bit.
“Well, I cannot deny that I behaved like a jerk at breakfast. I apologize.”
“I accept, but if dinner at this restaurant is payback, you can meet me at the diner tomorrow and be as big of a jerk as you want.”
“Thanks, Doc, but I can’t afford that kind of therapy.”
I grabbed my wineglass again. Cheryl reached over and gently removed it from my hand. “How much liquid courage do you need to tell me what’s bothering you?”
Say something, you idiot. Anything. You clam up and this whole night is over before you get to the good part. I had no idea which body part was giving me orders, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my brain.
“What’s bothering me,” I said slowly, “is that you’ve been spending a lot of time with Matt Smith.”
“Have you ever considered that it might be because Matt and I work together?”
“It feels like it’s more than just work.”
“It’s the same as you and Kylie. You guys are joined at the hip fourteen hours a day. You’re either knee to knee in a car, having lunch together, or camped out on an overnight stakeout. It’s called working together.”
“Kylie is different. She’s married. Matt is single.”
“And you’re upset because I gave a single guy a book and he got me great theater tickets?”
“And a soy latte,” I said.
“Which I realize in some parts of the world is considered a prelude to marriage. All I have to do to consummate the deal is ask my father to give his father six goats,” she said.
“That’s the trouble with you shrinks,” I said. “You never take us crazy people seriously.”
“Zach, I’m newly divorced, so you and I have been taking it slow. But do you really think it’s my style to bring in another guy to compete with you?”
“No. I realize you didn’t invite Matt to the party. He horned in. And like you said, you’re newly divorced, so you’re beautiful, vulnerable, and available. That combination is a total testosterone magnet.”
“Beautiful, vulnerable, and available,” Cheryl repeated. “Based on what you told me about Spence’s drug problem, that sounds like Kylie MacDonald any day now. I’m just curious. Is that tugging at your magnet?”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “You know Kylie and I broke up ten years ago.”
“Technically, Kylie did the breaking up,” Cheryl said. “She dumped you and married Spence. How ironic would it be if ten years later she left him for you?”
“Cheryl, I know you’re a trained psychologist,” I said, “but that scenario is…is…ridiculous—no, it’s downright delusional.”
“You’re right,” she said. “Kind of like the scenario you concocted about me and some guy in the next office who bought me a cup of coffee.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
Cheryl slid my wineglass back over to my side of the table. “At the risk of overmedicating you, drink this.”
I sucked down the last of the wine.
“Wow,” I said. “You’re incredible.”
“That’s probably the wine talking, but thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.”
“And despite the fact that I’ve acted like an asshole at breakfast and dinner, please tell me that I didn’t blow the whole relationship sky-high.”
“Zach, you suffer from what we in the profession call ‘the grown-man-dumb-as-shit syndrome.’ But in your own crazy way, you were trying to save the relationship, and that makes me happy.”
“Not to press my luck here, but how happy?”
She leaned across the table and kissed me softly. “Passionately happy.”
“Then let’s get out of here in a hurry,” I said, “before some bloke shows up with a soy latte and screws everything up.”
Chapter 44
Liz O’Keefe drove down the ramp from the George Washington Bridge, rolled down the window of her Honda CR-V, and inhaled deeply.
“You smell that, kiddo?” she said.
Her sister, Rachael, wrapped in an oversized gray sweat suit, slouched lower in the passenger seat. “Liz, it’s Jersey,” she said. “Close the window. I know what it smells like.”
“Not tonight, honey. Tonight Jersey smells like freedom.”
“Great,” Rachael muttered. “Call Springsteen. Maybe he’ll write a song about it.”
“I thought that after eleven months in jail you might feel at least halfway good about getting out,” Liz said, taking the Main Street exit toward Leonia.
“What should I feel good about? That Kimi is dead? That I’m the most hated mother in America? Or that the jury found me not guilty, but if I try to walk around like a free woman, someone from the NRA or the Christian Coalition or maybe Rush Limbaugh himself will try to kill me?”
“You want to go back to jail? You think you’ll be safer there?”
Rachael broke into a smile. “Hell, Lizzie, at least half of those women wanted to kill me. They’d look at me with this attitude like ‘Hey, bitch, I might be a crack whore, but I was still a better mom than you.’”
“Well, guess what?” Liz said. “They’re still in jail, and you’re not. Another forty-five days and the judge will hand down his sentence on the endangerment charge, and you heard what Mr. Woloch said—it’s probably going to be time served. Then you’ll be free to really start getting on with your life.”
“You mean my life without Kimi? Or you mean my life as a moving target every time I walk down the aisle in a supermarket?”
The Honda cruised along Fort Lee Road for less than a minute and turned left onto Broad Avenue.
“Look, the judge set down the rules. So whether you like it or not, you’re going to be locked up in Aunt Pearl’s house for the next forty-five days. After that, he’ll probably cut you loose, and you can go where you want. But if I were you, I’d stay put till April when Pearl gets back from Florida.”
“Are you serious? I’ll go batshit crazy just hanging around an empty house doing nothing for six months,” Rachael said.
Liz jammed on the brakes, and the CR-V stopped hard.
She spun around in her seat and grabbed her sister by both shoulders. “I don’t give a shit how crazy you get. You’re in hiding. You’re a goddamn celebrity, Rachael, and not in a good way like Lady goddamn Gaga. How many death threats have you gotten in the past twenty-four hours? You think you’ll be doing nothing? Staying alive isn’t nothing. Besides, Mr. Woloch sai
d he’s already fielding book deal offers. You’ll have plenty to do when you sit down with a writer every day and tell your story.”
“Why bother? Nobody will believe me. They all think I killed Kimi.”
Liz didn’t answer. She checked her rearview for the millionth time since she’d picked Rachael up. Broad Avenue was deserted. She had stopped the car directly across the street from BonChon Chicken.
“Have you ever had that spicy Korean chicken?” she asked Rachael, pointing at the dark storefront.
“No.”
“I’ll bring some home tonight. It’s to die for.”
Rachael slouched back down in her seat. “Can’t wait.”
Liz put the car in gear, drove another four blocks, and made a right onto Harold Avenue. Calling Harold an avenue was overly generous. It was a dead-end, tree-lined street with only sixteen houses on it. A quiet middle-class patch of Bergen County, New Jersey, where one of America’s most notorious accused child murderers could live in anonymity.
Aunt Pearl’s house was the last one on the left. Liz pulled the car into the far side of the two-car garage, then keyed the door shut, and the two sisters walked through the breezeway into the kitchen.
“This place hasn’t changed since I was a kid,” Rachael said.
“Baby, this place hasn’t changed since Aunt Pearl was a kid. It’s all part of the joy of living in relative obscurity,” Liz said, opening the refrigerator door. “I bought you a welcome-home snack—Mia Figlia Bella cheesecake and a bottle of Chardonnay.”
“Sounds like you were expecting The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Give me a sliver of the cake and supersize the wine.”
Liz grinned. Supersize the wine. That was the kid sister she knew and loved. She found the corkscrew and grabbed two cake plates and wineglasses from an overhead cabinet.
“Fuck them,” Rachael said.
“Fuck who, sweetie?” Liz asked, cutting the seal around the rim of the bottle.