Sunrise Highway Page 23

  “I guess I should thank you now.” She put the file in her bag. “And not just for paying my bail.”

  “It’s what we do.” He was back to not meeting her eye. “And it’s not just for you, you know. I hate what a man like that does to the job.”

  She stood and looked around. “You took this room for a month?”

  “Where else am I going to go? NYPD made me retire on my sixty-third birthday. I made too many enemies at the DA’s offices to get hired. And that niece I was going to stay with upstate decided she’d rather renovate the attic for her kids than have me living in it.”

  “Sounds like you’re looking for an excuse to keep working.”

  “You’d be doing me a solid,” he said.

  “Yeah? Come on, Daddy. You still got fuel in the tank. What about teaching at the academy or something?”

  He cast down his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this, but I’ve been to the doctor.”

  “Can you give me a little more?”

  “I’d prefer not to. Let’s just say I let a little too much time pass between certain kinds of exams.”

  “We talking about your prostate or something, Sully?” She took a step toward him, thinking to put an arm around him.

  “Oh for the love of God…” He put his hand up. “Just let me be. Okay? All I want is to be useful. Can you grant me that? And allow me my privacy?”

  “Of course. But if there’s anything I can do…”

  “I’m fine for now.” He cut her off. “On your way, you.”

  She kissed him chastely on the cheek, touched him on the arm, and left.

  35

  JULY

  2005

  The girl who had just been led into the conference room looked like a smaller, less durable version of her sister. Her name was Brittany Forster and she was fifteen years old. She was lighter in complexion and had finer features than Alice, who was twenty-three at the time of her disappearance. Brittany’s youth was emphasized by the Destiny’s Child t-shirt she was just beginning to fill out, as well as her tiny gym shorts and the gum she did not bother to stop chewing as she was being introduced to the police chief.

  The detective who had brought her in, Gary Mullins, put an Arizona Lemon Iced Tea down in front of her and sat beside Joey on the other side of the conference table.

  “Good afternoon, Brittany.” Joey reached over to take her hand and test her grip. “Do you know why I asked to speak to you personally?”

  “Um, no? Not exactly?”

  Her palm was damp and she had picked up that annoying suburban white girl habit of making her voice go up at the end of random sentences, as if she was asking a question instead of making a simple declarative statement.

  “Normally, people who are involved in a case the way you are wouldn’t meet with the chief,” Joey explained. “But I wanted to make an exception here for a couple of reasons. Number one, I know your mom has been telling people this department doesn’t care what happened to your sister because she’s a woman of color. And I want to tell you that isn’t so. Okay? We care equally whether you’re from Wyandanch or the Hamptons.”

  “Uh … okay?”

  She snapped her gum and snuck a sideways glance at Mullins, like he was another student in her remedial math class.

  “The other reason is that you reported getting a phone call from your sister’s kidnapper.” Joey leaned forward, careful not to throw an “alleged” or a “supposed” to indicate he didn’t believe her. “That’s something we take very seriously. I want to hear personally what was said to you so we can determine how many resources we can devote to this investigation. Do you understand?”

  “Kinda?”

  He was beginning to think it wasn’t just age difference. She was legitimately not as smart as Alice, who for all her other faults had a sort of insolent street corner intelligence. Maybe the product of a different father. Wouldn’t be that surprising, Joey thought, since the mother looked like she might have been half a hooker herself back in the day, before she got addicted to meth and welfare.

  “And we asked your mother to wait outside because we thought there might be aspects you’d be more comfortable describing privately,” Joey said. “Things to do with your sister and her lifestyle. Is that all right with you?”

  This time Brittany just nodded, too shy to meet his gaze. Or maybe too afraid.

  “Now, I know you’ve already discussed some of this with Detective Mullins, but I’d like to hear about this call from you directly,” he said. “How long after your sister’s disappearance was this?”

  She tipped back in his chair with her legs apart in such a way that the shorts rode up on her tanned thighs.

  “Um, it’s kind of hard to say how long?” She stored the gum in her cheek, licked her lips, and glanced at Mullins like she needed his permission to continue. “Like sometimes we wouldn’t hear from Alice for a long time anyway? You know, like sometimes, we wouldn’t even know like where she was staying? Right? But I got this call like a few days after we reported her missing because she’d stopped answering her phone, which she like never did?”

  The sight of her pink tongue had primed his pump for a second, but all those “likes” made him feel like reaching across and strangling her.

  “I understand someone called your number using her phone,” Joey said, recomposing himself carefully. “Is that correct?”

  “Uh, yeah.” She went back to chewing and he knew he’d have to keep an eye on the gum to make sure it didn’t wind up on the underside of the conference table. “At first, I was like all excited because I thought it was Alice calling.”

  He picked up his pen and clicked it several times, monitoring his own response to her. Was it worth the risk to have her sitting here? He’d never gotten this close to the edge of discovery before, and it was a new kind of kick to be sure. She was so dopey and innocent. Like a fawn in the clearing. It made his hunter’s heart beat faster. Another head to put on the wall. He could already feel the blood rushing to his extremities. But there might be other predators in the woods. The phone call she was describing might be a trap he could fall into. He had to slow down, think carefully. It wasn’t just about the thrill now, but about keeping control of the investigation and making sure it didn’t go the wrong way.

  “By any chance, did you record this phone call?” he asked,

  “Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “When I saw it was Alice’s number, I was just so glad. She’s more like my mom than my mom is. You know what I mean?”

  “I think I do,” he said and nodded, pushing away thoughts of his own mother and what she’d tried to do to him. “So what happened when you picked up the call?”

  “There was like this guy talking. He asked if I was Brittany.”

  “He already knew your name?”

  “Yeah.” She put her legs together and looked down. “It made me feel weird right away.”

  “What did his voice sound like?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.” She smiled, inappropriately, as if he’d embarrassed her by asking the most obvious question in history. “He just sounded like a man.”

  “I think the chief is asking if you can be more specific,” said Mullins. “Did he sound old? Young? Black? White?”

  “I don’t know.” She squirmed and crossed her legs. “He just sounded regular.”

  She brought her seat down and looked at Joey like she was peering deep into a cave.

  “He sounded a little bit like you,” she said.

  He stared back at her, letting out a long stream of breath. There was a definite animal threat in the air now. The prey had somehow gotten behind the hunter and started to show its teeth.

  “Tell the chief exactly what he said,” Mullins prompted her.

  “At first I was like, ‘Hello?’ And he was like, ‘Hello, Brittany.’ And then I was like, ‘Whoa, who is this?’ And he says, ‘I’m someone who’s been spending time with your sister.’”

  “That’s really what he said
?” Joey threw a dubious look at Mullins.

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know?” Joey said. “Did you write it down?”

  “No. But I remember.”

  “Tell the chief what happened next,” said Mullins.

  The detective was one of those perpetually tired-looking men who could sound wry without being particularly acute. Which was one of the reasons Joey had promoted him.

  “I asked if Alice was all right and if I could speak to her.” Brittany was chewing harder. “He said I shouldn’t worry about that. He was taking care of Alice.”

  Joey paused with his pen in mid-click. “Come again?”

  “He said, ‘I’m taking care of Alice.’”

  He put the pen down carefully, with a distant ringing in his ears. “Those were his exact words?”

  “Definitely.” She nodded, her voice not going up for once. “I’ll never forget how he said it. Because it made like the little hairs on my arm stand up.”

  “Go ahead.” Mullins nodded at her. “Tell the chief the rest of it.”

  “Oh yeah, right.” She looked down as if he’d shamed her. “He said he’d been spending a lot of time with Alice and doing a lot of things with her. And it got him thinking he’d like to do things with me.”

  “Is that true?” Joey glanced at the clock above her head, trying to ignore the rapidness of his heartbeat.

  “Yeah, of course.” She kept chewing nonchalantly.

  “What were his exact words to you?”

  “The ones I just told you.” Her mouth cracked like she was trying to blow a bubble with regular Wrigley’s gum.

  “No, I’m asking for the exact words, Brittany. It’s very important.”

  “What I just told you.” She tipped back in the chair again, showing more of her thighs. “He said he’d done things with her and he’d like to come do things to me.”

  Joey looked at Mullins and then at the clock on the wall, as if he was losing patience. His own short hairs were standing up now. Like he was realizing it was not just the prey that had slipped up behind him, but another hunter.

  “Stop tipping back and stop chewing that gum.” He snapped his fingers. “You think this is a joke?”

  The girl and Mullins both abruptly turned like they’d heard a gunshot.

  “We’re trying to find your sister and make sure she’s okay,” Joey said. “Why are you making up stories?”

  “I’m not.” Brittany brought her chair down.

  “Of course you are.” Joey waved his hand. “Tell the truth now. There was never any man on the phone. No one said they want to ‘do things’ with you. No one’s coming for you. Why are you trying to make this about yourself?”

  “I’m not lying,” she said with a sullen pout.

  “Then how come no one else got a call like that?” Joey demanded. “What makes you so special?”

  “I don’t know.” She hung her head, mumbling into her developing chest. “Maybe because I’m her sister?”

  “More like you’re jealous of her. Right?” Joey pointed a finger, as if he was waiting for her to join the growing consensus. “Because Alice always got all the attention when you were growing up with her loud mouth and her stupid boyfriends.”

  “That’s not true.” She began to bang her knees together rhythmically.

  “And what else did this mystery caller allegedly say to you?” He rolled his hand over the top of the pen, letting her know that whatever she was about to say wouldn’t be worth writing down.

  “Um, I’m trying to remember but you’ve got me so rattled.” She wrinkled her big beige forehead, trying to concentrate. “He said I sounded sweet and he was looking forward to seeing me. And that Alice missed me a lot.”

  “And that was it?” He threw a dubious look at Mullins.

  “Um, I think so.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Can I go?” she asked Mullins. “I told him everything, like you said I should?”

  “Yes, why don’t you step out a minute and talk to your mother,” Joey huffed. “I need to speak to Detective Mullins on our own. And please close the door after you.”

  She got up and walked out, pulling down the hems of her shorts as they started to ride up her ass cheeks. Imagine the mother letting her come in like that. He held on to his armrests, trying to collect himself in light of what he’d just heard.

  “Think maybe you were a little rough on her, chief?” Mullins asked.

  Good old Wrong-Way Mullins. Always ready with the wrong question at the wrong time.

  “She’s a goddamn liar,” Joey said. “Or maybe I should say a natural-born liar, now that I’ve got an eyeful of the mother.”

  “You know there was a phone call to her from the sister’s phone, on the day she’s talking about,” Mullins reminded him. “It came from the Jamaica train station at rush hour.”

  “Exactly.” Joey nodded. “Which shows it was just Alice calling to say she was going away. This is what it looks like. Nothing more. Nothing less. Big sister cutting her ties with the family and saying goodbye for good. And now that we’ve seen what a horror show the mother is, we know why. Baby sister is just creating drama to make herself the center of attention.”

  “So you want to just leave it as a missing persons case?” Mullins asked.

  “Not even.” Joey picked up the pen and dropped it, to show his disgust. “Alice is an adult. She’ll probably turn up any day.”

  “And what about that call we got from Nassau PD about that other missing girl from Atlantic Beach?”

  “Leave it be. Nothing in it for us. Just another dumb-ass runaway who’s probably out there turning tricks. We supposed to track every pigeon that flies the coop?”

  Mullins gathered his files and stood up with a heavy sigh.

  “Sad fucking thing if Alice just took off like that,” he said. “You can see how much the little sister needed her.”

  “What can you do?” Joey barely looked up. “People are who they are.”

  36

  OCTOBER

  2017

  “Hang on a minute, B.B.”

  Lourdes hit the door-lock button in the Impala, just as Borrelli was about to get out.

  “What’s up?”

  B.B. rested his hands on the wheel, trying not to appear unduly alarmed that his partner had just kept him from exiting the vehicle.

  They’d come straight from a meeting at One Police Plaza, where they were assured that this business with Lourdes getting arrested and then released out on Long Island had all been an embarrassing mistake, and the brass had talked it out and everyone was ready to put the mess behind them. All the time that Dave Pritzker, the chief of detectives, and Carolyn McGuire, from Legal Affairs, had been talking positively, Lourdes was thinking: Fuck. Everyone is saying they have my back, and nothing has changed but one little mistake and that’ll be me smashing down through the floorboards.

  “You weren’t at the arraignment out on the Island,” Lourdes said, breaking the silence that had stayed pretty much intact from lower Manhattan to this part of the Bronx.

  “Yeah, I thought you heard. I was following up with Gallagher to find out what happened to this Martinez woman. I figured you’d understand.”

  “You’re not lying to me now, B.B. Are you?”

  “Why would I be lying?”

  She noticed how his callused knuckles flexed involuntarily on the steering wheel.

  “You know, you haven’t been right since the jump with this case,” she said.

  “What are you talking about? I’ve been working my ass off, just like you.”

  “How is it you happened not to be in the car when I got pulled over?” she asked.

  “What are you, fucking kidding me? I was banging a broad I know in Massapequa Park. I really have to spell that out for you after all this time we’ve worked together?”

  “Yeah, you do. Especially when I get flaked and locked up and you’re not in court the next day.”

  “
All right, I’m sorry—okay?” He gestured operatically at the wheel. “I felt bad I couldn’t be there. Now can we get past this?”

  She settled back in her seat, letting him know she wasn’t going anywhere right away.

  “What?” he said.

  Even though he was still wearing his starched collar, French cuffs, and pressed Italian pinstripes, he had the voice of a man leaning out a window in a sweat-stained wifebeater on a ninety-degree night.

  “You said your kid was trying to get a job with the Suffolk PD,” she said. “You told me that right before we ran into Danny Kovalevski and Detective Tierney at Renee’s grandparents’ house.”

  “I don’t remember saying that.” B.B. shook his head.

  “You think I haven’t noticed how kiss-ass you were when we were talking to Tolliver and Makris? Or how interested you looked when Rattigan mentioned there were jobs for investigators your age at the DA’s office.”

  “This is crazy,” he said. “I talked to them like I talk to any other witness.”

  “Someone told them about my father, B.B. And I never told Danny who or where my old man was.”

  B.B. crossed his arms and drew his chin back, refusing to look at her, but as defensive in his posture as any skell in an interrogation room.

  “You’ve got no basis for any of this,” he said. “All the years I’ve worked with you.”

  “Maybe you didn’t say anything. Or maybe you didn’t know they were going to flake me and lock me up. Maybe they said they were just looking for a little edge and that’s all.”

  “Never happened,” he insisted. “There was no conversation behind your back.”

  She stared at the side of his face, remembering how he’d lingered in Tolliver’s office after she walked out.

  “My eye is on you, B.” She unlocked the door. “I ain’t playing.”

  They got out of the car and entered the community garden through a chain-link fence door, exhaust from the nearby Cross Bronx Expressway filling the sky.

  Lourdes had never been much of a nature girl, so she couldn’t name most of the things she saw growing on the stakes and in the soil beds. She was pretty sure those yellow flowers were daffodils or black-eyed Susans. It was possible those blooming items over by the chain-link fence were either cherry trees or crab apple trees. And she had a sneaking suspicion that those ascending stalks reaching for the clouds were marijuana plants, except they smelled more like mint than skunk when she got close to them.