Saints Of New York (16 page)

Frank
Parrish woke late Sunday morning. He could remember little of the night before.

On
the kitchen counter was a half-opened can of chili. He had never gotten as far
as putting it in a pan to warm up.

He
made some coffee, sat for a while in the kitchen, looked through the window at
nothing in particular. He thought to call Caitlin, decided against it. He
wondered whether he should have Radick check up on her. He thought of the dead
girls, and when he pictured their faces he saw nothing but their naivety, their
vulnerability, the utter pointlessness of their deaths. Caitlin wasn't so much
older. She traveled back and forth to work, sometimes late at night, alone and
in the dark. How much distance was there between her and a dumpster? Very
little, in all honesty. And was it always opportunist? Was it always just random
- the way these guys just snatched girls from the street, used them for
whatever purpose they saw fit, and then disposed of them? Parrish did not
believe so. He believed that the files in his desk drawer would provide him
with something more than just dead and missing girls. Besides Rebecca and
Karen, if even one of them had been adopted, had been processed through the
County Adoption Agency or Child Services, then he was going to pursue it. He
would speak to no-one. He would employ his own energies, his own contacts, his
own resources, and if it came to nothing then nothing would have been lost.

But
now it was Sunday, and he would not be going to the office. He would go and see
Robert, perhaps Caitlin, and he would try and get through the evening without a
bottle of Bushmills. The likelihood was slim, but he would try.

He
took a straight route to his old house, the one where the bitter ghosts of his
marriage still resided, stopping en route to spend a handful of minutes in St.
Michael's church. He spoke to nobody, merely walked the length of the aisle,
deposited the remainder of Danny Lange's money in the donation box, and then
left.

Arriving
in front of the house where so much of his life had been spent, he paused on
the sidewalk and hesitated before climbing the steps and banging on the door.

'You
don't look so good,' were her first words.

'Hi,
Clare. How are you? How have things been? You know something, it must be the
better part of three weeks since I last saw you, and
you're
looking pretty damned good, Clare, even
though it pains me to say
it. . .
you're looking pretty hot.'

'Fuck
off, Frank.'

Parrish
smiled. He went back down the steps and stood on the sidewalk. He buried his
hands in his overcoat pockets and looked left.

'You
gonna ask me in,' he said, 'or are you going to stand there and watch while I
come in anyway?'

'What
do you want, Frank?'

'I
came to see Robert.'

'He's
not here.'

'You
know where he is?'

'He's
gone for the day. He has a girl now, but you wouldn't know that because you
don't give a crap about what's happening with him, do you?

Frank
didn't rise to the bait.

'So
he's not here and I don't know when he'll be back, and
if
and
when
he does come back I'll tell him that
you called for him, okay?'

'That's
very good of you, Clare.'

'I
know.'

She
slammed the door and Frank Parrish stood there until he could no longer hear
her footsteps.

It
was always the same tune, the same exhausting aggression and bitterness. He
couldn't understand why she held onto it with such ferocity. Surely now, after
all this time, they could converse without the tension and angst and melodrama?

Frank
Parrish walked back to the subway.

Today
was not turning out as planned.

An
hour later he stood in the hallway outside Caitlin's apartment and knocked for
the third time. She was not in. He knew that now, but he had nowhere else to go
and nothing else to do. He waited patiently, fool that he was, and then he
knocked once more. Finally he conceded defeat.

He
arrived home mid-afternoon. He called Eve and it went direct to her answer
phone. She was with clients, or she was out, or maybe she was visiting her
mother upstate. Eve's mother believed that her daughter was a Human Resources
Manager for Hewlett Packard. She would go on believing that until she died.
Whether she suspected that your average Hewlett Packard HR manager did not look
like her daughter no-one would ever know; and if she did, it would never go
further than suspicion. There were some things it was better not to know, even
when you knew them.

Frank
Parrish turned on the TV, sat patiently for fifteen minutes, and then he could
take no more.

He
put his coat back on, headed out of the apartment, and made for Clay's. At
least there were people down there. At least there was Tom Waits on the
jukebox. At least there was a bottle of Bushmills and a clean glass, and no-one
to tell him he couldn't.

'It's
just a feeling, nothing more.'

I
'Don't you trust your feelings?'

'As
a cop no, not really. They talk about hunches, about intuition sure, but I
don't give a great deal of credence to such stuff.'

'Maybe
you should.'

'There's
a great deal of things I
should
do, and using my intuition is somewhere down near the bottom of the list. I've
used intuition before and it's gotten me in trouble.'

'I
was thinking about you yesterday, Frank.'

'Okay,
so here we go. I knew this was coming—'

'Frank,
listen to me. Joking aside now.'

'Sense
of humor is very therapeutic, isn't that so?'

'I
was thinking that you have to learn how to trust yourself.'

'What?'

'Perhaps
re-learn. Perhaps it's not learning, but re-learning. It happens with a lot of
people who have gone through divorces, who've had difficulty with their
children
...
all the important things in life, you
know? Those things start to go wrong, or don't turn out the way they intended,
people can start to doubt their own ability to make the right decisions. Does
that make sense?'

'You
wanna know what happened on Saturday?'

'Saturday?
Sure, tell me what happened on Saturday.'

'I
met someone in a bar, an old-timer, someone who knew of my father. You know
what I told him?'

'What?'

'The
truth. That's what I told him. What my father was really like. The kind of
asshole he actually was.'

'And
what did this person say?' 'He said that maybe I shouldn't drink so much,
refused to buy me another, didn't seem to find what I was saying too
interesting.'

'And
how did you feel when you said these things?'

'I
don't remember. I think I was drunk.'

'Hardest
thing that people have to face is the truth, Frank. I'm sure there are a lot of
people who saw your father as a role model, as an example of what it's like to
be a good cop, and they don't like to have that ideal taken away.'

'His
whole life was a lie.'

'I
know that, Frank, but I can imagine there are many people who wouldn't want to
hear you say that. Some of them because they were involved with him, others
because they don't want to lose their ideals.'

'But
I can say what the hell I like to you and it never leaves the room, right?'

'That's
right, yes. And I think it's a good sign that you said these things to this
person.'

'Why?'

'Because
it signifies that you're now willing to face up to some of the truth about you
father.'

'I've
always known the truth about him, about what he was really like.'

'Sure
you have, but you've never said anything. You've had to defend him.'

'Defend
him? I don't think so. It was more a case of being ashamed for who he was.'

'I
see . . .'

'So
what do you want me to talk about today?'

'You
were going to talk about Lufthansa, remember, and your father's involvement in
that, but we don't have to. We can talk about whatever you like.'

'I
do want to talk about that, but I have this case on my mind.'

'Okay,
tell me about that first.'

'I
just want to say some things out loud. Just me talking and you listening,
that's all.'

'Okay
. . . what do you want to say?'

'This
case I have going on, the girl that was strangled. I went to her school to
speak to some of her friends, and this guy tells me about someone up at
Waterbury, this girl who had a friend who was found strangled last Christmas. I
went and spoke to this someone, and I get a line on this dead girl. I go see
her parents and I find out that this dead girl from last Christmas was also
adopted, also processed through Child Services, and for some reason I cannot
get this out of my head.'

'You
think they're connected?'

'I
. . . maybe,
but...
I don't believe they are, no.'

'I
sense some hesitation there, Frank.'

'Well,
the first girl, the junkie's sister . . . she had her hair cut and her nails
were done with colored varnish. And this girl from Waterbury, she was dressed
in clothes that her mother said she would never wear.'

'I
see. And is there something else?'

'Well,
I got interested in other missing girls, you know? I did a search and went
through all the disappearances and homicides that fitted the same demographic,
and I ended up with five more girls - two homicides, and three apparent
runaways.'

'And
they went through Child Services as well?'

'I
don't know for sure. I haven't followed them up yet.'

'But
you're going to.'

'Yes.'

'And
they're all your earlier unclosed cases?'

'No,
they're not
my
cases. Never were, still aren't.'

'Well,
won't it cause trouble between you and your colleagues?'

'If
they find out, yes.'

'But
you're not going to tell them.'

'Only
person I'm telling is you.'

'Well,
Frank, I don't know what to say. I'm a therapist, not
a
detective,
but in your circumstances I think it might be a good idea to tell the original
investigating officers that you're taking over their cases—'

'I'm
not "taking over" their cases.'

'What
would
you
call it?'

'Homework.'

'Seriously,
Frank, you cannot forget the situation you're
i
n.
You
have a dead partner, you've had your
drivers' license taken
from
you,
you're assigned to see me every day until further notice,
and
you're on a one-third pay hold until the
end of the year.'

'Good
that my shrink comes for free then, isn't it?' 'Frank, I really don't see how
you can afford to be so facetious—'