Hold Still (27 page)

FIFTY-THREE

November 12th

Luckily, when Pia Grant and
her friends went into the minimart on Germantown Avenue to get soda and candy, she had been in the back of the store trying to decide between regular and Diet Coke—already at ten years old—when two armed robbers entered from the front of the store in a pretty rapid blitz attack. Pia had the good sense to hide behind a display of chips and had miraculously emerged unscathed. Her friends were not so fortunate. Their phones, iPods, iPads, and the little bit of cash they had on them was stolen. All three of them were thoroughly terrorized, and yet, Jocelyn couldn’t help but think they’d been lucky.

The other girls had been picked up hours ago. Pia sat in a chair next to Chen’s desk, playing idly with her iPod, one earbud in her ear and the other dangling over her lap. She was completely silent on the ride home, despite Jocelyn’s efforts to engage her in conversation. At the apartment, she unlocked the door with a key she pulled from her coat pocket. She gave Jocelyn a backward glance and left the door ajar after scurrying through it.

Jocelyn closed it behind her, following Pia into the living room where Anita sat in a recliner. She had puffy brown slippers shaped like dogs on her feet, a square of gauze showing along one of her ankles. Thin white bandages looped around each of her hands, just covering the holes left by the nails.

Pia jumped into her lap, jarring the chair. Its springs let out a loud groan. Anita squeezed her daughter and stroked the back of her head. She tried to gather Pia in more closely, but the girl was almost as tall as Anita and her long, gangly legs sprawled over the arm of the chair. Jocelyn realized that she was going to hate it when Olivia got too big to hold in her lap any longer.

“It’s okay now,” Anita whispered. “You did good. It’s over now.”

After a few minutes, Anita sent Pia to her room with orders to change into her pajamas and a promise to make her macaroni and cheese with real cheese in it. After Pia departed, Anita held out a hand to Jocelyn.

“Thank you,” she said as Jocelyn helped her stand. She hobbled into the kitchen and Jocelyn followed, watching as she prepared a microwaveable bowl of macaroni and cheese. Anita glanced at her. “You don’t look good, Rush. You sick?”

Jocelyn shook her head. Anita stared at her for another beat, as if she didn’t believe her, and then went back to mixing shredded cheddar cheese in the bowl of Easy Mac. “You making any progress on my case? I saw the news. They did that to a schoolteacher?” Anita shook her head.

Jocelyn glanced over her shoulder to make sure Pia wasn’t in earshot. She licked her dry lips. “They got my sister, and the only witness we had who saw this guy’s face is dead. It doesn’t look good. I’m sorry, Anita.”

Anita looked stricken, her eyes wide as saucers. She opened her mouth to speak but froze when Pia walked into the room wearing long, pink pajamas with cupcakes on them. Anita gave her the bowl of macaroni and cheese and sent her into the living room to watch television. She sat at the kitchen table and beckoned Jocelyn to do the same. Jocelyn continued to stand in the doorway.

“Your sister?” Anita said. “Camille, right?”

Jocelyn nodded.

“Did they—”

“Exactly what they did to you and to the other woman.”

Anita stared at the table, fingering the cloth placemat in front of her. Then she shook her head quickly, as if shaking herself from a trance. She met Jocelyn’s eyes. “How is she?”

Jocelyn shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s—”

Been gang-raped twice.
How did someone survive that? Camille wanted to be done with a life of drugs and violence, and Jocelyn believed her. In all the years that their mother had tried to set Camille straight, all the years Jocelyn had made the drug and prostitution charges against her disappear, Camille had never once expressed a desire to get clean. Only tonight. Maybe she was really finished now. Jocelyn thought about Alicia Hardigan.
“But the scars on my hands—they remind me. When I think about it, all I want to do is score.”
Camille wanted out, but would this make it harder for her to get straight? Or would the vicious cycle—that had started when they were teenagers and their father failed them—continue?

“Where you at, Rush?” Anita said, breaking into her thoughts. “You look like you’re about to drop dead. So sit your ass down. I’ll make some coffee.”

Jocelyn looked back over her shoulder. Pia lay on the foldout bed, the bowl of pasta cradled in her hands, her eyes glued to the television. It cast flickering lights over her face.

“I’m on duty,” Jocelyn said.

Anita’s chin dropped. She eyed Jocelyn with a look only mothers give to lying children. “And I’m a victim of a crime that you’re actively investigating. So sit your ass down.”

Jocelyn obeyed, peeling off her coat and settling into the seat across from Anita. For the first time that night, the adrenaline that had been propelling her from the scene on Kelly Drive to Camille’s hospital room to her conversation with Inez began to wear off. She felt bone tired, the way she used to feel when Olivia was a newborn and she only slept two hours a night. Anita stood, using the table to support her weight and made her way to the coffeemaker on the counter.

“You want me to do it?” Jocelyn asked.

Anita waved her off. “I have to be able to do things myself.”

“But you’re not even fully healed yet.”

Anita turned and met Jocelyn’s gaze. “I can make a pot of coffee, Rush,” she said pointedly.

A few minutes later, a steaming cup of it sat in front of Jocelyn. Anita pushed cream, sugar, and a spoon across the table so Jocelyn could fix it.

“How long have we known each other, Rush?”

Jocelyn thought about it as she stirred cream and sugar into her coffee. “I don’t know. It’s got to be almost ten years. I think Pia was two the first time I—”

She broke off. Anita smiled. “It’s okay,” she said. “The first time you arrested me, yes. Not talking about it don’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve seen you in a lot of different situations, and you’ve never looked this bad. You need to talk, Rush, so spill it.”

Jocelyn closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to tell her family’s deep, dark secret to one more soul, but it came out anyway. The whole sordid story: her waking up from a grievous head injury at seventeen after a car accident; finding out her sister had been gang-raped and that her father was making the whole incident disappear; Camille’s descent into drug addiction; Jocelyn adopting Olivia; their parents’ death; and now Camille a victim once more. Anita listened carefully, her eyes never leaving Jocelyn. When Jocelyn was finished, Anita said, “You saw it? You don’t remember anything? At all?”

Jocelyn drained half her coffee cup. “Nothing. I have these nightmares about it, but I have no idea if they are memories or just something my mind made up.”

Anita reached across the table, as if to touch Jocelyn’s hand, but she didn’t quite reach. Jocelyn stared at her bandaged hand. The blackened edge of a scab peeked out from beneath the edge of the gauze. “Rush,” Anita said softly. “You need to let this go.”

Jocelyn smiled grimly. “I wish it were that easy. How? How do you let it go? Every decision I’ve made in my life since that time has been because of what happened to Camille and what my dad did—or didn’t do.”

Anita pulled her hand back and regarded Jocelyn steadily. “Like what?”

“I left Princeton and joined the police academy to spite my father because of what he’d done. Because he covered it up. I stopped speaking to my parents. My mother—I kept in touch with her for a long time, but when Olivia came along . . . It’s different when you have kids, you know?”

She looked at Anita, who nodded, and continued. “I kept looking at this tiny, defenseless little newborn, thinking this is how it starts with your kids—you get them when they’re like this so you truly understand the gravity of your job as a parent—to protect them. Every fiber of your being is geared toward protecting them. When I looked at Olivia, I just couldn’t understand how my mother could allow my father to brush the whole thing under the carpet. She could have done more. She knew it and I knew it. I didn’t let her see her granddaughter because of it. I didn’t go to my parents’ funerals.”

“Okay,” Anita said. “I think I would have done the same thing if I was in your shoes. But Rush, you gotta start living your life.
Your
life. You cannot make everything about what your dad did wrong. Camille shouldn’t either. I don’t know what it’s going to take—some rehab, some therapy, or what—but you two need to move on. For real.”

Jocelyn looked into her coffee mug. She swirled the last quarter of the fluid around in the bottom of the cup. “I know you’re right. But even when I’m trying to put it behind me, it rears its ugly head.”

“Like how?”

“I talked to one of the rapists last week,” Jocelyn told her.

“You what?” Anita exclaimed. “How did that come about?”

Jocelyn filled her in on the encounter with Zachary Whitman. Anita shook her head the whole time. When Jocelyn was finished, she said, “You sure have a fucked up past, Rush.”

“I know,” Jocelyn said.

“That’s some Jerry Springer shit right there.”

Jocelyn laughed.

“Actually,” Anita said. “I think that might be too fucked up even for Jerry. Rush, go on in the living room and get the laptop off the coffee table.”

Jocelyn retrieved the laptop without asking any questions. Anita popped the lid up and turned it on. She winced as she placed her hands over the keys. “Going to take me a while to get my typing back,” she muttered.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, you said this kid from Society Hill that Whitman told you about was in the news, right?”

“Well, yeah, but his name was never released.”

Anita raised a brow at Jocelyn. It was just visible over the top of the computer screen. She clucked her tongue. “Sometimes you cops are so smart, you’re dumb. His name wasn’t released, but I’ll bet you fifty dollars his mom’s was.”

Jocelyn wanted to palm herself in the forehead.
Of course.
Why hadn’t she thought of it? It was so obvious. “Are you going to Google it?”

“Nah, that many years ago? You won’t find shit on Google. I’ll check the
Philadelphia Inquirer
archives. All the good stuff is in there.”

Jocelyn sighed as Anita clicked away, a permanent grimace on her face. A few times she had to stop using her left hand altogether and peck away with the right hand one finger at a time. “Well, you can look,” Jocelyn said. “But my friend Inez thinks it’s—”

“Here it is,” Anita said, nearly popping out of her chair. She waved Jocelyn over to her side of the table. “A Society Hill mother crucified and killed in her home by two black drug dealers. The police thought that her teenage son had done it. He was on trial when he was exonerated with the help of his defense attorney, none other than Bruce Rush.”

Jocelyn stood over Anita’s shoulder and squinted at the screen. She was so tired, her eyes burned. “What was the woman’s name?” she asked, still scanning the tiny print for it.

“Rosalind Finch.”

FIFTY-FOUR

November 12th

The coffee that had tasted
so good at Anita’s burned Jocelyn’s stomach as she made her way through the Thirty-Fifth District and up to Northwest Detectives. She kept darting glances around her, looking for Friendly Fire. She hoped he wasn’t upstairs. She breathed a sigh of relief when she reached the top of the steps and saw only a handful of detectives, including Kevin and Chen.

Kevin sat on the edge of a desk, arms folded across his chest, eyes fixed to the small television that was on again for the second time in two months. This time it showed a building in flames, thick black smoke billowing out of its shattered windows and ascending into the night sky. It looked familiar. She pointed to the television. “Hey, isn’t that—”

She stopped talking when the words “Inferno rages at Fox’s Sports Bar” flashed across the bottom of the screen. She swallowed, trying to get her larynx to work again.

“That’s Vince Fox’s place,” Chen said from two desks over without bothering to look up from the paperwork in front of him.

Kevin met Jocelyn’s eyes. His whole face seemed to frown, his eyes taking on the look of sympathy he usually reserved for victims. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, her eyes pleading.
Don’t bring it up
, she wanted to say. She didn’t want Camille to be the hot topic of the night. Not tonight.

He seemed to get the signal. He forced a smile, pointing at the television. “Isn’t that the guy you talked to a couple of weeks ago?”

“Vince Fox,” Jocelyn said. “Yeah. He’s retired. He had a nice place there.”

A loud “puh” sound came from the direction of Chen’s desk. “That guy probably set it on fire himself for the insurance money. He’s dirtier than a lot full of used needles on the Stroll. Brass could never prove it, of course. Too bad Friendly Fire is such a shitty shot. Could have done us all a favor.”

Jocelyn’s mouth hung open. She looked at Kevin, whose brow was crinkled in confusion. Then she addressed Chen. “What did you say about Friendly Fire?”

Chen leaned back in his chair, twirling his pen between his fingers. “They were partners in the Northeast a few years back. They were out on a call—in pursuit of a suspect. Friendly Fire shot Fox in the leg. Almost took off his dick. Where do you guys think he got the nickname? Anyway, Fox had nerve damage, had to take early retirement. He opened that place right away. You’ve been in there—you think he could afford that place on a cop’s salary?”

Kevin and Jocelyn exchanged another look. Chen went back to his paperwork, obviously not expecting an answer to his question. Kevin’s gaze stayed locked on Jocelyn. “He didn’t mention Friendly Fire to you when you talked to him?”

“Well, no. I only asked him about Warner and Donovan. When I asked him about retiring, he said ‘accidental discharge.’ He made it sound like he’d shot himself.”

“Well, that certainly is interesting,” Kevin said.

Jocelyn nudged his arm. “Can I talk to you in private?” she asked quietly, but not quietly enough for Chen, who missed nothing.

“Private, huh?” he heckled. “I see how you guys are.”

Kevin rolled his eyes and led Jocelyn to the interrogation closet—the same one she had found Finch in attempting to flirt with a victim only a few weeks earlier. It was close and hot, and in spite of the fact that someone had recently taken the time to wipe it down with lemon-scented cleanser, the smell of cigarette smoke lingered. Jocelyn noticed someone had carved their initials into the back of the bench since the last time she had been in there.

Kevin pulled the door closed behind them and put his hands on his hips. “Look,” he began. “About Camille—”

“I don’t want to talk about Camille,” Jocelyn said, cutting him off. She held his gaze steadily. “Kev, I think the third guy is Finch.”

Kevin’s face creased, then smoothed into an uncertain smile—as if he were waiting for the punch line to a joke and wasn’t really sure where it was going. “Rush,” he said slowly, carefully. “You’ve had a long night. I think you—”

She grasped his wrist. “Kevin, listen to me. Remember what I told you about my conversation with Zachary Whitman? How he said he thought the third guy was that kid from Society Hill?”

Kevin looked down at her fingers curled around his arm and back at her face, his hazel eyes sad. “Jocelyn, listen to yourself. Whitman’s not a part of your investigation. He has nothing to do with the Warner–Donovan case. He’s about to go down on child pornography charges. He would say anything to try to get you to help him. He has a history with you, and he’s trying to exploit that.”

“But, Kevin,” Jocelyn said seriously. “The Society Hill victim was named Rosalind Finch.”

When Kevin said nothing, she went on. “Did you hear me? Finch. As in Friendly Fire. We’ve always thought this guy was a cop—”

“
You’ve
always thought this guy was a cop,” Kevin said. “Jocelyn, this is a stretch. There are lots of Finches in this area.”

“But, Kevin,” she implored. “The Society Hill kid was sixteen years old when it happened. That was seventeen years ago. Friendly Fire is the right age. Think about it—these guys just crucified my sister. You said it yourself, why go from women like Anita and Maisry to a street hooker like Camille? It’s personal. Finch hates me.”

Kevin rubbed a hand over his scalp and looked at her as if she had some kind of terrible incurable condition. Like she was terminally ill. “You two have issues, yes. That doesn’t mean Friendly Fire is a sadistic rapist. You have nothing to connect him to your case except a similarity to a decades-old case involving a lady named Finch. A case you only know about because a sex offender told you about it.”

“But it makes sense,” she tried. “Hear me out. It starts with Vince Fox killing Warner’s son. Warner does time for attacking Fox. When he gets out, he wants revenge. Somehow he hooks up with Friendly Fire—Fox’s new partner. Friendly Fire uses Warner and Donovan to play out his sick little fantasy and in exchange, he helps them get revenge on Fox.”

Kevin massaged his temples. “By doing what? Watching Fox open a sports bar?”

Jocelyn cracked the door open and pointed to the television, which still showed Fox’s bar engulfed in flames. “By burning his place down,” she said. “Maybe they were trying to kill him. Maybe that accidental discharge wasn’t an accident.”

Kevin sighed. “Rush, you know I’ve always got your back, right?”

She nodded.

“I think you’ve had to deal with a lot in a very short amount of time. I think you’re tired and upset, and you’re not thinking straight. I think you need to go home and sleep on this, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Jocelyn put her hands on her hips. “Don’t coddle me, Kev.”

He held up both hands. “I’m not coddling you. Now you hear me out. If the star witness in my big case turned up dead the same day my sister got raped, what would you tell me? For God’s sake, Rush. Just go home and get some rest. Take a breath. See your daughter.”

She reached out and gripped his wrist one more time. “Kevin,” she said, hating the plaintive note in her voice. “This is not exhaustion talking. Please. I need someone to back me up on this—to tell me I’m not crazy.”

“Rush.”

“Fine. I’ll go home. I’ll even take a day off, but please, Kevin, just think about it. I’m right. Please.”

Kevin looked at the floor, his fingers kneading his temples once more. “Are you coming at me with this because Inez thinks the third guy is Phil?”

Jocelyn’s head reared back. She hadn’t been expecting that. But of course he and Inez had spoken in the last couple of hours. They were her best friends. They were worried about her. She swallowed. “No, that’s not why I’m bringing this up. Yes, Whitman is a coward and a criminal, even if he’s not guilty of having child porn. But he’s also a criminologist at an Ivy League school. That has to count for something. Can it really be a coincidence that the Society Hill crime is so similar to these crimes and that the woman’s name was Finch?”

Kevin gazed at her, looking less pitying and more exhausted. “Have you shared this theory with Lover Boy?”

“Who? Vaughn?”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “No, Finch. Yes, Vaughn.”

She shook her head. “We haven’t talked since you and I left the scene at the Schuylkill.” She slid her phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen. “But he’s sent me three text messages and called once.”

“That sounds serious.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Kevin pulled the closet door all the way open. “Okay, okay, Rush. If you promise to go home right now, I will promise to seriously consider your little theory. But for God’s sake, get the hell out of here.”