Sinner's Ball (11 page)

“Not your fault, Franny.”

“Yeah it is. I never should've had that man's children.”

“You knew what he was when you married him.”

She nodded. “No getting around that,” she said. “Dave was like a thunderstorm. Unpredictable. Violent. But with me he was always gentle. Loving. Nothing could ever hurt me when I was with him. Romantic, huh?”

“You were young.”

“But not stupid. I knew. Whoever said people are stronger in the broken places didn't know what he was talking about.”

“Tell me about Anthony.”

Franny's eyes were beginning to glass up. She took another sip of whiskey.

“I know my son. It's like when he was a kid and he'd done something wrong. I always knew. Could see it in his eyes. And I always managed to get it out of him. Anthony never was able to carry a secret for long. But he's different now. He's carrying a heavy load, Steeg. And I can't get it out of him with a pry bar.”

“He's not a kid anymore, Franny.”

“And therein lies the problem.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Talk to him. See if you can make any sense of it.”

“He won't talk to me. I tried.”

She pushed the whiskey away.

“What am I going to do? My son is turning into his father.”

“So you're really going through with the divorce.”

She shook her head. “If I did, who would protect my son?”

T
he next morning I rented a car with a GPS system and headed for the leafy—at least in summer-suburb of Danners Ferry, New Jersey.

The inventor of GPS should be honored with a national holiday. You punch in an address—and voilà!—even the most directionally challenged can find their way to any spot on the globe. I crossed the George Washington Bridge, took a scenic trip north on the Palisades Parkway, and made it in under an hour.

Danners Ferry was pretty much what I'd expected. Tidy homes. Snow-covered lawns. Freshly plowed streets. A terrific view of the Hudson. And sidewalks completely devoid of people.

According to the file Luce had given me, Charles Bingham, vic number one on my list, had lived alone. To get a sense of the late Mr. Bingham—put him into some kind
of context—I decided to check out his house. I pulled into a spot in front of 110 Oak Street and parked behind a late-model Honda. The house was your basic Cape Cod with white siding and peeling black paint on the shutters. I walked up to the door, but it swung open before I had a chance to ring the bell.

A pretty teenaged girl with spiked hair and studs running up and down her left ear stood in the doorway. She had twin boys in tow. They were all dressed for the coming Ice Age.

She appeared startled.

That made two of us.

“Is this Charles Bingham's house?”

“Duh! This is
110
Oak,” she said, revealing a tongue stud as big as a marble. It was a wonder she could form words. “The creepazoid lives at 109, across the street.”

I looked across the street.

“The white Colonial with the U-Haul truck parked in the driveway?” I said.

“That's the one.”

“Why'd you call him a creepazoid?”

“Because he's a
freak!”

“That clears it up. Define
freak.”

She shrugged as if losing patience with giving self-evident answers to my pointless questions.

“I don't know,” she said. “He just is.”

I took another shot.

“Could you try being a touch more specific?”

“He's weird, that's all. Got this train set that takes up the whole living room. Invites all the neighborhood kids to play with it on Christmas. On Easter he dresses up in a pink bunny suit and buries eggs all over the property. Everyone thinks it's a hoot.”

“Seems like a good neighbor.”

“Maybe. I don't know. I just don't like the way he looks at the kids. Creeps me out.”

“Anyone in the neighborhood he's close to?”

“Puhleeze?
Look, I've got to get these two little rug rats to their playdates. If I'm even a minute late I'm gonna be fired.”

She grabbed the kids by the hand and dragged them to the Honda.

I crossed the street, climbed the stairway to the porch, and rang the bell. A white-haired woman opened the door.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“Is this the home of Charles Bingham?”

She looked at me as if waiting for another shoe to drop.

I handed her my card. “I'm investigating his murder. And I wonder—”

Her gaze had drifted to my card, but then came back to me.

“You from the insurance company?”

“No.”

She made a face and handed my card back.

“You'll have to speak to my husband. Wait here.”

She closed the door.

A few minutes later a white-haired gent, with a scowl on his face and a stomach that slopped over his jeans, opened the door.

“What's this about?” he said.

“Are you related to Charles Bingham?”

“I'm Sam Bingham, Charlie's uncle. And you are?”

I skipped the card routine.

“Name's Steeg. And I'm sorry for your loss. Do you have a few minutes?”

“You're not from the insurance company? They said someone would come by.”

“Afraid not.”

“Then what do we have to talk about?”

“Well, maybe I can help make the insurance thing happen.”

“Come back when you have the check,” he said, slamming the door in my face.

Bereavement takes many forms.

I went back to the car and punched in the address of the Danners Ferry Youth Center, Bingham's last place of employment.

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot.

The lobby was a jumble of activity. Phone ringing off the hook. Hyperactive kids. Somewhere out of sight a pool pumped out enough noxious fumes to stun a herd of wildebeests. And the reception counter was four deep
with people who had problems that needed immediate fixing. Three harried-looking women stood behind the counter doing their best to handle the load. I didn't envy them.

I got in line and waited my turn. It took a while, but I finally made it to the counter.

A pretty woman with tired eyes hung up the phone and gave me what passed for her full attention. Her name tag said “Deb.”

She flashed me a warm smile. I had the feeling she really meant it.

“How can I help you?” she said.

“Is it always like this?”

“Pretty much. Kind of frantic, isn't it?”

“Like a Chinese fire drill.”

Her smile widened.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“Who can I talk to about Charles Bingham?”

Her smile faded.

“It's so sad,” she said.

“Yeah. Good guy?”

The telephone rang and Deb reached for it. She seemed relieved. After a few seconds of conversation she transferred the call and turned her attention back to me.

“I think you ought to speak to our director, Ralph Patterson,” she said. “Your name?”

I told her.

She picked up the phone and punched in a number.

“Ralph, someone is here asking about Charlie.” She paused. “Fine. I'll bring him up.”

She turned back to me.

“I'll take you to his office.”

Deb came out from behind the counter. I followed her up two flights of stairs and down a long corridor to an open door. A very large black man stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.

“Here we are, Mr. Steeg,” she said. “Ralph should be able to answer all your questions.”

“Thanks, Deb,” Patterson said.

He had a short-cropped beard, a tiny diamond in his left earlobe, and a decidedly unfriendly expression on his face.

I held out my hand. His arms remained crossed over his chest.

This was going well.

“You're here about Charlie Bingham,” Patterson said.

“Just need a few minutes of your time,” I said, handing him my card.

He glanced at it, and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

The office behind him was small and crowded with sports trophies.

Patterson didn't invite me in.

“All I can tell you is that Charlie worked here up to a few months ago,” he said.

“When did he start?”

“Couple of years ago.”

“And his job?”

“A little of this, and a little of that.”

“You're not exactly being forthcoming here,” I said.

“Telling you all I can tell you.”

“Bingham quit?”

“We had a difference of opinion.”

“Over what?”

“That's confidential.”

“Why?”

“'Cause I said so. What's your interest in Charlie?”

“He died in a fire along with five other men. They were stashed in packing crates in the basement of a warehouse. And sexually mutilated. Bingham was probably alive when the fire took him. For reasons known only to them, the NYPD is losing interest in the case. I'm not.”

Patterson's face never changed expression. Even the mutilation part failed to move him.

He took my card out of his pocket and looked at it again.

“You're not a cop,” he said.

“Was. I'm doing this on my own nickel.”

“Hell of a way for Charlie to go. But I can't help you.”

“Why not?”

“What do you think of our facility?”

“Looks like you're doing the Lord's work.”

“And that's exactly what we're going to keep on doing. You have a good day, sir.”

My next stop was Queens.

•   •   •

B
eginning at the Queensborough Bridge and ending over seven miles later in the bowels of the borough, Queens Boulevard is a particularly daunting stretch of twelve-lane thoroughfare. And the late Augie Frena had lived smack dab in its center. Without my trusty GPS, I would have wound up in Nebraska.

Frena's apartment house was a looming monster of a building that probably held enough tenants to stock a reasonably sized small town. It took half an hour to find a parking spot.

The lobby was long on mailboxes. Short on amenities.

I hopped an elevator and rode it to the fifteenth floor. Metal doors lined the corridor. Gray floor covering. The smell of disinfectant in the air. It brought Sing Sing to mind.

I rang the bell of apartment 15C.

There was the sound of shoes scuffing against a hardwood floor.

A few seconds later, a dark and watery eye appeared at the peephole.

“What do you want?” it said.

“Mrs. Frena? I'd like to talk to you about Augie.”

“He was a good boy. Get lost!”

The eye disappeared, and I heard it shuffle off.

And that ended my second interview of the day.

But I was in the mood to poke around a bit.

The lobby of the building was empty, and the glacial cold dissuaded any neighbors from shooting the breeze
out front. Figuring that Frena needed a carton of milk every now and then, I stopped in at a convenience store down the block. It was empty. A glum-looking Hispanic guy manned the counter. To get him in the right frame of mind, I bought a Diet Coke and a bag of chips. The perfect lunch for a man on the go.

“Shitty weather,” I said.

He glanced outside at a cold, flat day. “Tell me about it,” he said. “Took in just about enough cash today to buy a rope to hang myself.”

I ripped open the bag of chips and dove in.

“Augie Frena ever stop in here? Lives in the building up the block?”

He looked up at the ceiling, as if the mystery of the name was somehow nestled in the light fixtures.

“Augie Frena. Augie Frena,” he repeated.

“Lives with his mother?” I prompted.

“Oh, that Augie Frena,” he said, as if Queens was crawling with Augie Frenas. “The fucked-up guy who lives with the
bruja
, the witch.”

“Sounds like her.”

“That old broad is some piece of work. Don't know how he does it. Yeah, he comes in every morning. Same routine. Checks out the
Enquirer
. Picks up the
Post
, gets two coffees, and stuffs his pockets with sugar packets. Guy has a hell of a sweet tooth. Haven't seen him around lately, though.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why do you wanna know?”

I plucked a Milky Way off a shelf and laid it on the counter along with a twenty.

“That about cover it?” I said.

He pocketed the twenty.

“He's a fucking grown man living with his mother. What more do you need to know?”

“Did you two ever talk?”

“About what?”

“Anything. His job. Girlfriends. Why the Yankees suck this year. You know. Stuff.”

“Never mentioned a job. Smelled like a sewer. Dressed like a bag lady. Who the fuck would hire him? And girlfriends? Gimme a break!”

“Why do you say that?”

“He was kind of off.”

“Define
off.”

“Like not normal, for a guy.”

“Can you narrow that down?”

An elderly couple entered the store and walked up to the counter.

The counterman shook his head in a way that said this conversation was over. “I got a business to run. Want another Milky Way? On the house.”

I passed.

It was getting late, and I figured I'd save Brooklyn for another time. But the day wasn't a total loss. Bingham and Frena fit a profile: loners who by reason of preference, or glitches in their internal wiring, lived out their lives in the dark places where the secrets are stored. Cady
fit the profile too. Donnelly had been married. But from what his wife had told me, it wasn't a stretch to include him.

I was beginning to get a pretty good idea of what those secrets were. That got me to thinking that Martine was a sidetrack, and my original theory needed a major overhaul.