Little Girl Blue Part 8

EIGHTEEN.

NINETY MINUTES later, with Corry and Robert Reid gone, Julia took advantage of her imposed leisure and went back to bed. She slept soundly, and without dreaming, for two hours. When she awakened she found herself thinking, not of Corry, but of Peter Foley. She'd snitched, of course, exposing the roles played by Lily Han, Peter Foley, and Theodore Goodman in response to Harry Clark's imperious, "Spill it, Brennan."

Lily Han was a prosecutor. Peter Foley was a cop. Theodore Goodman was a registered informant. They could not be left out of the progression that led to the Clapham Apartments on East Seventy-third Street. But Julia had made no mention of Bea Shepherd. Nor had she revealed the disappearance of Foley's child or the suicide of Foley's wife. On the spur of the moment, goaded by Harry Clark's att.i.tude, she'd kept those little details to herself.

Pulling on a white terry-cloth robe, Julia strolled into the bathroom and started water running in the tub. She added capfuls of bath oil and bubble bath as the tub filled, a pure indulgence on a weekday morning. Well, she would make up for it, maybe clean the oven, a ch.o.r.e she'd been putting off for several weeks. And she'd get a laundry going, too, wash the comforters on the beds; she'd been intending to clean them for longer than she cared to remember.

These practical concerns simply vanished when Julia lowered herself into the tub. The water was as hot as she could stand, and it only took a moment for the heat to radiate to her bones. Her nostrils filled with moisture and sweat beaded her face as every muscle in her body relaxed. She closed her eyes, drew in the scent of jasmine, leaned back against a folded towel on the lip of the tub. Maybe, she mused, she'd call a hotel up in Lake Placid, take Corry skiing over the weekend. Monday was Martin Luther King's Birthday and the schools were closed. Or maybe she'd call Mr. Raymond Singer, her former lover. True, on their last date she'd threatened to shoot him if he didn't cease ogling a certain waitress's nicely rounded posterior. But that was four months ago. Most likely, he was over it by now. Most likely, he'd made peace with his offended male dignity.

Foley's image flickered into Julia's consciousness, wavered momentarily, then jumped into clear focus, an excessively handsome man, his nose and chin strong, his forehead as well. His hair was just a shade lighter than auburn, a color so unusual if Julia had seen it on a woman she'd have a.s.sumed that it came out of a bottle. But there was something else, more elusive, in addition to Foley's good looks, an air of playful self-confidence. Foley in charge. Foley in control.

What Julia had witnessed in the Mandrakes' apartment, the grisly humor included, may have been the work of a psychotic; she would leave that question to the expert witnesses. But Julia had examined enough crime scenes, enough dead bodies, to be certain the Mandrakes' killer had not only been in control, he'd gone out of his way to communicate that control.

An hour later, dried and dressed, Julia gathered up the laundry basket and headed off for the washer and dryer in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Each comforter would have to be washed separately, and they would take forever to dry. Best to get things started. It was only as she reached for the light switch at the head of cellar stairs that she formulated a very simple (and now obvious) truth. If she were still in charge of the investigation, C Squad would be all over Peter Foley. Gut instinct, he fit the profile.

UUST BEFORE lunch, Julia picked up the phone and dialed Bea Shepherd's office number, another unpleasant task she'd been putting off. She got Bea's secretary and was put on hold for several minutes, feeling exactly like a schoolgirl summoned to the princ.i.p.al's office. Worse, like a schoolgirl turning herself in.

"Julia?"

"Bea?"

"I heard all about it."

"I a.s.sumed that."

"Clark was right."

"Agreed."

"Flannery was right."

"Also agreed."

"You challenged them. You had to be put in your place. I would have done exactly the same thing."

"Bea, do you think you could ask me how I'm feeling?"

"Not until I finish chewing you out. Remember, I recommended you to Clark. Your screw up reflects on me, especially when that screw up is the result, not of a simple mistake, an error of judgment, but of a swollen ego."

"Is that it?"

"Yes. Tell me how you're feeling."

Julia smiled, thinking now that Bea had supplied her with a motivation for her failure to notify Clark, she would not have to explain herself. Just as well, because she could still hear the b.u.mbling attempts she'd made to rationalize her behavior to her uncle. It'd felt like she was guessing.

"I'm doing better than I would have figured, Bea. Now that I've given up all hope of a career in the Detective Division."

"Please, spare me the drama. Flannery likes you."

"This I don't believe."

"Flannery was a detective when you were in junior high school, Julia. You don't think he appreciates the fact that you found Little Girl .. . sorry, Anja Dascalescu? Because I'm telling you that if you'd called Flannery before you entered that apartment, he'd be pinning a medal on your chest."

"C'mon, Bea. Flannery's an a.s.s-kissing jerk and we both know it. If I'd called him first, he'd most likely be pinning the medal on his own chest."

"So what if he did? Every ranking officer in the detective division, including the Chief of Detectives, would have known the truth. And these are the people who count. Not the reporters, not the public. I've explained this a thousand times."

Julia said nothing for a moment, wishing only for the conversation to end. She felt demeaned, though not surprised, by her mentor's patronizing att.i.tude. In the last a.n.a.lysis, Julia Brennan was a supplicant, a beggar at the table, and humiliation was just another cost of doing business with the big boys. Eventually, if she was good, the roles would reverse; she would become the rabbi, the dispenser of blessings. That was the whole, rather pathetic point.

"What's my move here?" she finally asked. "What do I do?"

"You stay home for the next two weeks, enjoy your vacation. Then you go back to your desk, do your job, cash your paycheck, keep your head down. And don't worry about Harry Clark. He's got arthritis in his back and he'll be out in a year. He's not a player."

Y LATE afternoon, the oven clean, the comforters returned to their respective beds, Julia was sitting before the trash pail in the kitchen peeling potatoes when the doorbell rang. Her heart jumped into her throat, the sound of the bell as penetrating as the ratchet of a sh.e.l.l into a shotgun. This is the way they do it this is the way she'd done it when they notify the unsuspecting relatives.

She tossed a half-peeled potato into a pot of cold water, washed her hands, walked into the living room, still unable to shake her fear.

"Who's there?"

"David Lane."

Feeling more than a little foolish, Julia opened the door. Lane was holding his hat in his hands, a stained fedora that would have looked just fine on last year's scarecrow. The only man in C Squad appointed to the new task force. Lane had been up more than thirty-six hours and his beefy, middle-aged face showed every minute of it.

"I'm gonna make this simple," he said. "A certain sc.u.mbag paper pusher who goes by the name of Inspector Edward Thurlow ordered me to come to your home and ask you if you're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Peter Foley?"

"Are you serious?" Julia looked into Lane's eyes, found shame instead of the amus.e.m.e.nt she'd expected.

"This guy, Peter Foley," Lane continued, his gaze dropping to his feet, "we can't find him."

"Say that again?"

"He's not livin' at the address in his file, hasn't lived there for a couple of years. The Post Office forwards his mail to a drop on Ninth Avenue. He picks up there every couple of weeks."

"Lily Han must know how to get in touch with him. She set up our meeting."

"Han's got a phone number that reaches an electronic answering service in the Bronx, Van Cortlandt Messaging. Foley pays for the service with money orders."

"And the service doesn't have an address for him? No phone number?"

"Nope."

Julia took a moment to collect her thoughts, then asked, "So what's this have to do with me?"

"Well, loo, this Foley, he's a good-looking guy, right? So the inspector's thinking, what with you not being married and all, maybe nature took its course and you know where to find him. I told the inspector that you never date cops, but he wasn't impressed. "Let's just cover that base, detective," is what he said. I wanted to f.u.c.kin' strangle the jerk."

"I see." Julia fought to contain her amus.e.m.e.nt. Old boys, she thought, not unlike old dogs, just can't be taught new tricks. What she liked best about Lane was that he didn't pretend to be something he wasn't. "Tell me, Lane, is Foley a suspect?"

"A suspect? Loo, he's a cop. I mean, Thurlow is real unhappy with Detective Foley and he left a message on Foley's service: Report forthwith or pay the price. But that doesn't make him a suspect. Thurlow wants Foley's help, just like you did." Lane ran his fingers through his thinning hair, then abruptly changed the subject. "You wanna hear a good joke? They put me behind a desk. I keep the case files in order, answer phones, relay information to the grownups. I'm a G.o.dd.a.m.ned clerk."

"You handle every sc.r.a.p of paper and you speak to everybody?" Julia waited for Lane's nod, then continued. "So you wouldn't mind telling me what's happening."

Lane smiled for the first time. "I divulge the details of a crime under investigation, my career, anybody finds out, it's in the c.r.a.pper. Like, what's in it for me?"

"How about a beer?"

"A neat scotch'd go down better."

"You got it, Lane, now open up. You've been properly bribed."

But Lane waited until he'd downed his Black Label, smacked his lips and heaved a combustible sigh. Then he belched softly before turning watery eyes to Julia. "Know something', loo? It's better you're out of it. Crime Scene lifted about ten thousand prints, and we're gonna check 'em out, but you'd have to be a complete a.s.shole to even hope the perp who set up that scene left his fingerprints on a lamp." He shifted in his seat, his eyes now glowing softly. "You remember the videotapes? The ones we found in the apartment? Well, Thurlow figures they were being used to blackmail the Johns, one of whom took offense and chopped his tormentors' heads off. I mean, a grown man who rapes children, it's obvious he could do anything."

Lane held out the shot gla.s.s for a refill. "My last one," he said as Julia poured, "word of honor." He drank, then settled back. "Thing about it, loo, the company that got those tapes, Patterson Marketing, we tracked it to an empty storage garage in New Jersey. Guy who rented it paid cash. So what happened to the other kids, that's a pretty much a dead end for now."

"Then it's the Johns or nothing?"

"Yeah. Thurlow's thinking we should take out warrants, put their mugs on the tube, but ..."

"But," Julia finished Lane's thought, "Commander Clark, he's scared that one of 'em will turn out to be the mayor's father."

"Now you got the big picture." Lane rose to his feet, jammed his hat onto his head. "I got a hungry pit bull in Howard Beach needs my attention, loo, so I'm gonna get on my way." He paused long enough to look Julia in the eye. "You need anything, though, you got my home number. Don't hesitate."

"I'm on vacation," Julia returned as she led him to the door. "And by the way, you were right, a hundred percent right."

"About what?"

Julia opened the door, let the cold breeze wash over her face. "About my getting the better of the deal. Because the way it looks to me, you're going nowhere in a hurry."

NINETEEN.

JULIA DIDN'T dream that night. She didn't have to dream. Even as she slipped beneath her freshly laundered comforter, dropped her head to the the pillow, her thoughts flipped, like a card dealt from the bottom of the deck, to the worst day in her life. Turned to that day and stayed there.

She is ten years old and quite skilled in the art of what she calls The Happy Family. Her own family, of course, is anything but happy, her father a drunk and gone, her mother a drunk and still present, at least physically. But that doesn't really matter. The point is to create an illusion solid enough to fool outsiders, the nuns at school, Father Blair, the social worker who pays monthly visits to their apartment.

They are on welfare, the Reid family, and Julia knows the social worker, Mr. Trentino, has the power to put her into foster care. She knows this because that's what he told her mother and her mother didn't argue. Mr. Trentino is a sour man, so thin Julia can see the bones in his Adam's apple when he swallows. He has an olive complexion and talks real slow, as if trying to communicate to people who don't speak English very well. One time he brought another social worker with him, Mrs. Novak, who took Julia into the bedroom and made her undress. "Does your mother ever hit you?" Mrs. Novak asked. "Do you get enough to eat?" Then, finally, the bottom line: "Have you ever seen your mother pa.s.sed out on the floor?"

It's early evening and Mr. Trentino is coming on the following morning. Lillian Reid is seated in front of a flickering black-and-white television. She is watching the nightly news and sipping occasionally at a pint of Gilbey's gin, which she keeps in the pocket of her bathrobe. She wears her plaid bathrobe over a slip and she is having a good day, which means that Julia will be able to rouse her in the morning, convince her to take a shower, put on a clean dress, have a cup of coffee, eat breakfast. Convince her to maintain the illusion for Mr. Trentino. At this moment, Julia has no other aim or desire in her life.

At ten o'clock, just as Julia is beginning the process of getting her mother to bed, the doorbell rings. It's her father, Paulie, come home after an absence of seven months, bearing a quart of whiskey in a brown paper bag.

Julia stands in the doorway, ten years old, sixty-five pounds, and tells her father to leave them alone. He brushes her aside as if she isn't there, as if he doesn't even know who she is.

They drink hard, the reunited lovers, until the bottle is empty. Then they fight, a knockdown, bare-fisted donnybrook that ends with the cops at the door and the little apartment in shambles. Lillian Reid has a black eye and a split lip, but the cops merely send Paulie on his way, then retire to their patrol car.

Somehow Julia does it. She drags her mother to her bed, yanking at her hair when she threatens to pa.s.s out in the hallway, then sweeps up the broken gla.s.s, mops the spills, straightens the upended furniture. She props a broken end table on a book, opens the windows, refills a bookcase, vacuums the faded brown carpeting, propelled by a bone-deep fear so pervasive it seems as solid as the walls that surround her.

At seven o'clock on the following morning, bearing three aspirin tablets and a gla.s.s of water, Julia awakens Lillian, who immediately begins to curse her husband, her life, her daughter. Julia waits patiently for her mother to wind down, then offers the aspirin which her mother smacks away. Julia retrieves the tablets, proffers them again, then again.

Mr. Trentino arrives at nine-thirty. He is in a rush, and if he notices Lillian Reid's makeup-camouflaged eye, her swollen lip, he keeps it to himself. He fills out papers, then leaves without addressing Julia. She has survived. Now it is only a matter of convincing her mother to write a note excusing her absence from school before Lillian is too drunk to hold the pen.

"You're a good girl," Julia's mother declares after her second drink of the morning. Tears stream from her eyes. "I don't deserve you."

I HE INEXPLICABLE part, Julia decided, as she pounded the pillow, tried in vain to straighten the bedding, was that she hadn't called her uncle and aunt, hadn't asked them for help. How could she have believed they wouldn't have protected her? How could she not have known, as she knows now, that Robert and Mary-Margaret Reid would have made Julia Reid their own child before handing her over to Mr. Trentino and the City of New York? But she hadn't known, no more than Anja Dascalescu had known that any life but the one she lived was possible.

Again, Julia heard the slap of bare feet running on cold concrete. In the dark, with her eyes closed, she saw the plume of the girl's breath, turned faintly yellow by the streetlights, saw the two men on the other side of the street, their bewildered expressions as Anja flew by. They watched open-mouthed, scarcely believing their own eyes. How can this be? How can this be?

Eventually, a little after two o'clock, Julia managed to fall asleep. She woke up four hours later when Corry knocked on the door and, all innocence, asked, "Mom? Are you gonna be up for breakfast? Because I have to leave early today."

UULIA SPENT the rest of the post-breakfast morning engrossed in a mammoth history of New York ent.i.tled Gotham, a Christmas gift from her uncle. At noon, she bundled up and headed off to Woodhaven Boulevard where she had lunch in a small Chinese restaurant, the Silver Dragon, then picked up a loaf of seeded bread at an Italian deli.

She was home by two, still a bit restless, when the phone rang. It was her uncle, Robert Reid. "Julia, I just received an e-mail. Anonymous." His breathing was rapid and shallow, the words emerging in little bursts. "I have to read it to you."

Half-amused, Julia responded, "Read away."

"All right." Reid drew a breath, then began. " "I served up the Mandrakes' heads on silver platters. Now I present another tasty dish. On Fifth Street, in Long Island City, in the (alas) abandoned Empire Steel warehouse, in the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt. Take a photographer, don't call the police, don't be a fool."

Julia felt her heart jump into another gear. The silver platters had not been included in Harry Clark's press conference, a detail held back in order to validate any future confessions, such as the one Robert Reid had just recited.

"Is it signed?"

"Yes. Destroyer and Destroyed."

"Say that again?"

"Destroyer and Destroyed."

"Okay, I get it. What about a return address? There must be a return address."

"The return address is I visited the site. It's in Hong Kong."

"d.a.m.n, what an ego," Julia said, following the train of her own thoughts. "What a clever little boy he is."

"Pardon?"

"Just a thought, Uncle Bob. Did you notify the task force?"

"I just got the thing a minute ago."