“Did you read this?” Rachael asked, picking up a copy of that morning’s New York Post from the kitchen table.
The two-word headline practically filled the front page:
NOT GUILTY???
Rachael opened to page three and read out loud. “‘In a shocking turn of events in the Kimi O’Keefe murder trial, the jury brought back a verdict nobody expected. They found her mother, Rachael, not guilty. Judge Steven Levine sounded halfhearted and totally insincere when he thanked the jury for their service. It was as if His Honor, like virtually everyone else in this city, believed the jury got it wrong.’ Well, that certainly sounds like fair and balanced journalism.”
“Honey, a lot of people thought you were guilty,” Liz said, turning the corkscrew so the wings spread to the sides. “Why do you think they snuck you out in the middle of the night? Whatever the verdict, there’s always someone who says it’s wrong. Look at O.J.”
“O.J. was guilty,” Rachael said. “I’m not.”
Liz pulled out the cork.
“Did you hear me say I’m not guilty?” Rachael said.
“Of course,” Liz said. “I was there when the jury brought in the verdict.”
“Damn it, Lizzie, that’s not what I’m asking. I said I’m not guilty, and you clammed up. Tell me the truth—do you believe I’m not guilty?”
“Rachael, I am so happy that you’re free and not in jail,” Liz said. “And that is the truth.”
Rachael shook her head. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “My own sister. You think I’m guilty of murdering Kimi, don’t you?”
“It’s been a long day. A little wine will take the edge off,” Liz said, removing the dead cork from the corkscrew and tossing it in the garbage. No sense saving it. The two sisters had never recorked a bottle in their lives.
“A little wine will not bring my daughter back,” Rachael said, and she flung the newspaper across the room. “I asked you a question. Yes or no—do you think I’m guilty?”
The door between the kitchen and the breezeway crashed open, and two masked men stormed in, guns in hand.
“I do,” one of them said. “Now get down on the floor. Both of you.”
Chapter 45
Liz still had the corkscrew in her hand. She lowered her arm and slowly let it drift behind her back.
“Drop it, bitch!” one screamed. “Do we look like fucking amateurs?”
The corkscrew clattered to the tile floor.
“Kick it across the room.”
Liz studied the two men. They were dressed in black from head to toe. The one giving orders was about six two. His voice was slightly muffled by the mask, but it sounded young, white, and deadly serious. Nothing about him said amateur.
Give in, but don’t give up, she thought as she kicked the corkscrew to the far corner of the kitchen.
“Both of you. Face down. Hands behind your back. Now.”
The women stretched out on the floor, their hands behind their backs. The man in charge holstered his gun, knelt beside Rachael, put a zip tie around her wrists, and yanked hard. She yelped in pain.
The second man was still standing, straddled over Liz. He holstered his gun and reached into his pocket for a zip tie. Liz made her move. In one swift, fluid motion, she rolled over onto her back and jammed her knee into his balls.
He doubled over as Liz reached up, pulled him to the floor, and began scrambling for his gun. His partner sprang up and kicked at her hand. He missed, and Liz grabbed his leg, toppling him to the floor.
She clambered to her knees and pummeled the downed man with her fists, looking for a vulnerable point. His temple, his throat, anything.
A boot struck her on the back of the head, and she pitched forward. A pair of knees dug into her back. The man on top of her grabbed a handful of hair, yanked her head back, and wrapped his arm under her chin.
“Don’t move or I’ll snap your bitch neck like a twig!” he yelled.
She let her body go limp, but the man kept the pressure on, cutting off her air supply. She knew he had her in a death hold.
“Enough!” the other guy yelled. “She’s not who we came for.”
His partner relaxed his grip, and Liz sucked in greedy mouthfuls of air.
One of them grabbed her arms and the other her ankles, and they carried her to the bathroom. The one who had almost choked her held her head over the toilet bowl.
“Any more shit from you, and I’ll drown you right here, and my partner will piss on you while you die.”
They laid her facedown on the floor, duct-taped her mouth, wrapped her legs around the base of the toilet, and zip-tied her ankles. Then they stretched her hands over her head and zip-tied them to a pipe underneath the sink.
One of them turned on the water and began filling the bathtub. Five minutes later, the other was back with every phone in the house, including her cell, and dropped them all in the tub.
“We should kill you just for harboring a child killer,” he said.
They turned off the lights and shut the bathroom door behind them.
Liz lay there on the cold tile floor, her arms and legs stretched painfully wide, the zip ties cutting into her skin, and she listened.
She could hear them carry Rachael out the back door.
Then a car door opened. Finally it shut, followed quickly by two more car doors opening and closing.
An engine roared to life, and the car pulled out.
And then silence. She heard nothing. Nothing except for the agonizing sobs that emanated from her battered body.
Chapter 46
Bridget Sweeney, the housekeeper at St. Agnes’s Church, was a large, robust woman with a bawdy sense of humor and an Irish brogue that was every bit as thick as it was the day she started working there forty-two years ago.
She had three responsibilities: cook for the priests, supervise the maintenance staff, and, most important, function as Father Spinelli’s eyes and ears.
She was dusting the blinds in the rectory when she saw the black Cadillac Escalade pull up in front of the church. She hurried down the hallway to Father Spinelli’s office. She didn’t bother knocking.
“Father…,” she said, winded from the brief journey, “you got company.”
The priest took a quick look at his watch. “I have morning Mass in ten minutes. Who is it?”
“Eye-talian royalty,” Sweeney said. “Take a gander.”
She ushered Spinelli to a window, and the two of them watched as the driver of the Escalade got out and opened the rear door.
Joe Salvi stepped out. He was wearing a perfectly fitted dark gray double-breasted suit, white shirt, blue tie, and black wingtips.
“Will you just look at him now,” Mrs. Sweeney said. “All dressed up spiffy like John Gotti and riding around in one of them big black SUVs like Tony Soprano. Is he thinking maybe we don’t already know he’s in the Mafia business?”
The priest shook his head. “Mrs. Sweeney, ‘Thou shalt not go up and down as a dispenser of gossip and scandal among your people,’” he scolded. “Leviticus nineteen, verse sixteen.”
She clasped her hands over her cheeks in mock penitence. “Mob boss Joe Salvi indicted on federal racketeering charges—Daily News, page one.”
The priest chuckled. The old woman was incorrigible. But he’d be lost without her.
“It ain’t Christmas nor Easter,” she said, “so what in God’s name is he doing here?”
“Not your concern. The Salvis are our biggest benefactors, so kindly hustle your aging Irish arse to the kitchen and bring us a pot of fresh coffee. Oh, and ask Father Daniel to take the Mass for me.”
“Yes, Father,” she said, taking one last look out the window. “But you gotta wonder what he wants at this hour of the morning.”
“I have no idea,” the priest said.
“Sure as hell he ain’t here for confession,” she said, cackling as she hustled her aging Irish arse out the door.
Spinelli stifled a laugh. And goo
d thing for me he ain’t. I wouldn’t have time to hear it all.
Three minutes later, Salvi stood outside Spinelli’s door. “Good morning, Father,” he said. “I was hoping to catch you before Mass.”
“Father Daniel is celebrating the Mass this morning, but if you’re attending, I’ll get my vestments.”
“I’m flattered, Father, but Teresa does enough praying for the two of us. I just came here to make a donation to the church. Ten thousand dollars.”
“Praise God,” Spinelli said. “And if I may ask, what is the occasion for such joyous tidings?”
“My son Enzo’s diary. It means the world to us,” Salvi said without a trace of joy in his voice. “I want to thank you for finding it and bringing a little piece of our boy back into our lives.”
“Joseph,” the priest said, “we’d be more than grateful to receive your gift, but I can’t accept it under false pretenses. As I told Teresa, one of our parishioners found the diary. She turned it over to me to pass on to you.”
Salvi nodded as if he’d just heard it for the first time. He took a checkbook from his breast pocket. “In that case, we’ll make it twenty thousand dollars, but I want the donation to be in her honor. Please tell me who she is so Teresa and I can send a note of gratitude.”
“I’m sure she’d welcome that,” Spinelli said. “Her name is Emma Frye. Let me go to my files, and I’ll get her address.”
Mrs. Sweeney entered, carrying a silver tray. “Good day to you, Mr. Salvi,” she said. “And how’s your lovely missus this morning?”
Salvi flashed his best benevolent community benefactor smile. “Wonderful. And you?”
He handed the priest a check, and Spinelli in turn handed him a three-by-five index card, which Salvi folded and tucked into his jacket pocket.
“I’m well. Thank you for asking,” Sweeney said. “I brought you both some hot coffee and fresh-baked scones.”
“I wish I had time,” Salvi said, “but I must run. Peace be with you, Father.”
“And with your spirit,” the priest replied.
Salvi nodded politely at Mrs. Sweeney as he brushed by her and left the room.
I guess you got whatever it was you came for, she thought. And ’tweren’t no fecking scones.
Chapter 47
When I first met Cheryl, I decided she was totally out of my league. She had a doctorate from Fordham University; I had a tin badge from the Police Academy. She was salsa; I was mayonnaise. And, of course, she was married to Fred Robinson, and I had a flat-out policy about not hitting on women whose first name was Mrs.
But that didn’t stop me from fantasizing. And then her marriage crumbled. Still, I held back. I told myself she needed time to adjust, but I think it all went back to my first impression—she was totally out of my league.
Apparently Cheryl didn’t agree, and three months ago she invited me to go to the opera with her. It was a magical evening, and even before the fat lady sang, it was clear that the door to a serious relationship was wide open. But I wasn’t ready to commit. That very same week, my ex-girlfriend joined Red as my new partner, and despite the fact that Kylie was happily married, I was still pitifully hung up on her.
For the next three months, Kylie and Cheryl and I all lived together. The three of us shared cramped, unsafe quarters inside my twisted brain. I wanted them both, even though I was sure neither of them wanted me.
Had I manned up and told Cheryl what I was going through, I’m sure she would have diagnosed me as certifiably bonkers, but I kept my feelings buried, which is a basic tenet of my white Anglo-Saxon Protestant upbringing.
But when I woke up that morning after dinner at Paola’s, everything had changed. I felt different. Good different. Fantastic different. It was more than the morning-after euphoria that warms you when a night that looked as if it were going to crash and burn ends in heart-pounding sex.
I felt something I hadn’t felt in months. Centered. I finally knew what I wanted, and what I wanted was the bright, funny, incredibly hot, sexually adventurous woman lying next to me in bed, her thick black hair cascading over her smooth bronze shoulders.
I headed for the shower. Two minutes later, Cheryl, wearing nothing but a mischievous grin, joined me. One thing led to another, and I didn’t question how lucky I was. I just accepted it.
Two hours later, I was in Matt Smith’s office with Kylie.
“I pulled together a list of people Parker-Steele called on her cell phone, her landline, and her office phone,” Smith said, “and I cross-checked to see if any of them owned black SUVs. A lot of her contacts live in Manhattan and don’t even own cars, and of the thirty-seven who do, one drives a ten-year-old black Jeep Patriot. Her dentist.”
“What’s his name?” Kylie asked.
“Her name is Jo Ann Kinane,” Matt said. “We’re not looking for a female, and besides, the way the victim’s teeth were mangled, do you really think her dentist would—”
Cates opened the door.
“Captain,” Smith said, “we were just—”
“Save it,” she said. “You people all know who Rachael O’Keefe is? She was accused of murdering her daughter, and the jury acquitted her?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. Half the world knew who Rachael O’Keefe was.
“She was kidnapped last night at gunpoint. She was in Jersey with her sister. Two masked men stormed in at about three a.m. and took Rachael. They tied up the sister, and it was five hours before she managed to get loose. She was smart enough to call the Manhattan DA instead of the local cops. The DA called the commissioner, who called the chief of D’s, who called me. We could be dealing with Hazmat. This one is different from the first four kidnappings—the other victims weren’t taken by force, but if anyone sounds like a candidate for a couple of days of torture and a video confession, it’s Rachael O’Keefe. I want you to get out to Jersey and interview her sister.”
“It’s not our jurisdiction,” Kylie said. “You think we’ll piss off the locals or the Feds? It’s a little early to be crashing their party.”
“Well, well, well,” Cates said, “look who suddenly wants to play by the rules. Do you think I have time to ask some police chief in Leonia, New Jersey, if I can trample through his sandbox? It’s my job to worry about the political bullshit. It’s your job to get out there before the locals or the Feds have it on their radar. I already have a CSI team on the way. I want you two to dig up anything you can that relates to the Hazmat case, then get the hell out fast.”
“Who knew where Rachael was going once she was released?” Kylie said.
“Just a handful of people, but it was on a need-to-know basis. It was supposed to be a well-guarded secret, but secrets have a habit of leaking.”
“Maybe the sister told someone.”
“I don’t think she’d be that dumb, but if she did, find out who and track them down.”
Kylie and I headed for the door.
“And just in case preventing another homicide isn’t enough incentive for you two,” Cates said, “let me remind you that Election Day is only six days away.”
Chapter 48
“Damn,” Kylie said as we got into the Ford Interceptor. “I could kick myself.”
“Because you were trying to suck up to the boss by pretending to care about the rules, and she called you on it?”
“I wasn’t sucking up to her, and she already knows I’m not exactly a Girl Scout when it comes to following directions. But I figured if she tore me a new one because of Damon Parker, I should at least let her know that I’m aware of the rules I’m going to break. She’s sending two New York City cops to investigate a high-profile kidnapping that happened across a state line. We’re about to violate more jurisdictions in one morning than most cops do in their entire careers. It’s not just the locals we’re screwing with. Everyone is going to want a piece of this—the Bergen County sheriff, the Staties, and, of course, the Feds.”
“Sounds like your kind of fun,” I said. “So w
hy are you kicking yourself?”
“Because I knew this was going to happen. I knew Rachael O’Keefe was going to be kidnapped.”
“And when was this?” I said as I got on the FDR at 96th Street.
“Monday night when the verdict came down. Everyone on the planet knew O’Keefe was guilty, and the first thing I thought when the jury let her off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist was, I’ll bet the Hazmat Killer could have a field day with her.”
“You should have said something.”
“To who? And even if I did, what good would it have done?”
“Exactly. Nobody would listen to you, and even if they did, nobody would have done anything,” I said. “So stop kicking yourself.”
Kylie’s cell rang. She looked at the caller ID and muttered two words. “Oh, shit.”
She answered. “Hello, Shelley. What’s wrong?”
For the next sixty seconds, she just sat there listening. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew who Shelley was. Shelley Trager was born in Hell’s Kitchen and grew up to be one of the richest and most likable TV and film producers in the business. Over the years, Shelley’s company, Noo Yawk Films, provided jobs for tens of thousands of New Yorkers who would otherwise have gone hungry or, worse yet, been forced to move to LA. One of his most successful protégés was Spence Harrington, Kylie’s husband.
“Which hospital?” Kylie said into the phone. “No, I’ll get there as soon as I can. Thanks for calling.”
I pulled over to a narrow grassy strip on the left and stopped the car.
“It sounds like something happened to Spence,” I said.
“Something did. He’s in an ambulance on the way to Elmhurst Hospital. He was on the set, stumbled over a light stand, hit his head on the studio floor, and got cut up by the broken glass. Why are we stopping?”
“We’re three-quarters of a mile from the George Washington Bridge. I don’t have time to run you to Queens, but I can get off at 179th and drop you at the bus terminal. From there you can catch a cab to the hospital.”