Fairstein, Linda - Silent Mercy

The television was on in the main squad room, and all the news channels — local and national — were interrupting broadcasts to show photographs of the man wanted for the abduction of Chastity Grant and the possible murders of five other people from Georgia to New York. MANHUNT FOR CLERGY KILLER was the continuous crawl running at the bottom of the screen.

“I’m ready to start mainlining caffeine,” Mike said. “Another hour and it probably makes sense to accept the captain’s offer to drive us back to New York.”

“Whatever you think,” I said, yawning as I settled into a high-backed chair and curled my legs up beneath me.

“Did you reach Mercer?” Mike asked.

“He’s not picking up. I left him a message.”

“Where are you, Coop? You’re thinking something you’re not telling me.”

“The one piece that stumped me was why Zukov was at the trial this week, why he was there when Bishop Deegan testified. He certainly didn’t have his eye on me — I was a surprise guest, the designated hitter stepping in for the young prosecutor.”

“And the bishop?”

“No. Deegan’s his kind of guy. Old-fashioned, misogynist, trying to uphold the dignity of the church. No, no. He was scouting his outcast.”

“Who?”

“The defendant on trial. Denys Koslawski. Think of it, a disgraced priest who had molested children.”

“Yeah, but how would he know?”

“I’ll take the hit on this. There was a story in all the papers about Koslawski — no mention of Deegan’s court appearance at the time because he wasn’t expected to testify — when the original trial was supposed to start.”

“December?”

“Yes, December. There was a feature about rogue priests. And then we had the idea to adjourn the case for three months because juries tend to be so generous to the bad guys around the holidays. I didn’t want a Christmas verdict for Koslawski.”

“So Koslawski goes and waives a jury in the end — wouldn’t have been a problem—”

“And Fyodor Zukov had another pariah to stalk,” I said. “I’m going to put that assignment in your lap when we get home. You check with Bishop Deegan. I’ll bet he doesn’t know Zukov and just nodded to him because he spied the clerical collar and assumed he was a friendly spectator.”

“Sure, I can do that — if you shut yourself off for a few minutes. You’ll be no good to either of us if you’re all worn down.”

I rested my head against the hard wooden slats and closed my eyes. Just a fifteen-minute catnap might help refresh me.

I went out so fast and deep that I didn’t even hear my phone vibrating on the tabletop ten minutes later.

“Just a minute, Faith,” Mike said. It was his voice that woke me up. “I’ll put her on.”

He handed me the cell. “Are you all right?” I asked her, startled out of my short slumber.

“Yes. But I’ve just had a call from Jeanine Portland.”

I sat up. “Is she back on Nantucket? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, Alex,” Faith Grant said. It sounded like she was choking up as she tried to talk to me. “Chat called her.”

“When? Was that tonight?”

“No. I wish that were so. It was this morning. Late morning, maybe right after her call to me.”

“Why did she call?” The timing made it all the more likely that Chat had been abducted shortly after she left us with Faith at the seminary.

“Chat told Jeanine she needed to talk to her. You see—” Faith’s voice broke, and she took a few seconds to put herself together. “I didn’t know this. I feel like I failed my sister entirely.”

“You know that’s not true. Stay strong for us. Tell me.”

“After they met at Ursula’s play, in December, it seems Chat and Jeanine struck it off. She said she found it easier to talk to Jeanine than to me. That she was — well, less judgmental than I am.”

“That’s not about you, Faith. It was probably easier to unload some of her troubles on a person who wasn’t aware of the whole backstory. You’ve been Chat’s lifeline. You keep that going all through this night, you hear me? She’ll need you more than ever right now.”

“I so very truly want to believe that. I know I can give her all the love, all the support that she could possibly want.”

“You’re the only one who can,” I said. “Did Chat see Jeanine between Christmas and this week?”

“No. That’s why Jeanine said she thought the call was so strange. She went up to Boston yesterday, from Nantucket. She got the call today, saying Chat needed to see her. Urgently.”

“What about?”

“Chat didn’t say. Just that she needed help, and she couldn’t rely on anyone but Jeanine to give it to her,” Faith said. “She asked Jeanine to meet with her tonight.”

My head was pounding. “Where? Meet her where?”

“On the Cape. She told Jeanine she could get herself to the Cape. She asked her not to take the boat home to Nantucket, but to wait for Chat to arrive. There was a friend, Chat said to her — a man who needed help too.”

“And Jeanine?…” It sounded as though Zukov was shooting for two victims, using Chat to draw Reverend Portland into the trap.

“Agreed to do it, of course. She told me—” Faith had dissolved into tears. I could hear the voice of a woman in the background trying to comfort her.

“Are you there?” I waited a few seconds before asking her.

“I’m all right. Jeanine told me that Chat sounded like she was in pain. I can’t bear to hear that, Alex. About the pain. You’ve got to find her.”

“We’re going to do that. I promise. Is Jeanine with the police?”

“Yes. The officers have her at a hotel room in Hyannis,” Faith said, sounding as though she had found something lighter to say. “She’s not terribly serene about that, Alex. She understands, but she’s not happy about it. We’re a stubborn lot.”

“That’s how you came to be ordained. I’m counting on stubborn to help us here. I’ll call her now, Faith. Get some rest, if you can.”

“The Reverend Portland?” Mike asked when I hung up.

“Yeah. I’ll call her to get more details. I say you ask the captain for a cruiser and we head to Hyannis right now. Scratch what I said about the perp heading south.”

“I’m on it, even though I gotta think the fishing is better in Florida this time of year.”

“You’re right, Mike.” I thought of the photograph of the four women, the third victim already in the killer’s weakened hands, and the fourth one being drawn into his web. “But tonight there’s live bait in Hyannis.”

“YOU don’t need to waste time programming the GPS,” I said. “I know this part of the world like the back of my hand.”

It was close to midnight on Friday when we pulled out of the trooper headquarters.

“The back of your hand has gotten me lost more times than I can count.”

“In Brooklyn, maybe. But not on Cape Cod.”

“How long you figure?”

“No more than an hour and forty-five minutes at this time of night.”

After my brief conversation with Jeanine Portland, she had agreed to let the Hyannis police take her in to their station. She knew she would get no sleep in any event, and we would oversee a plan once we reached the famous resort town.

“Did the rev give you any more information about Chat?”

“Nothing new. She sounded drugged, terrifically frightened, and complaining that she was cold — and now, hurt. And in the company of a man who needed help.”

“That’s our best hope for believing he’ll keep Chat alive throughout this road trip,” Mike said. “What was she talking to Portland about that she wouldn’t confide in her own sister?”

“More of the same. She’s just very needy, is the way Portland described it. I don’t know if that’s the truth or she simply isn’t ready to offend Faith Grant yet with some deeper unburdening,” I said. “Did you bring Peterson up to speed?”

“I did. And he tells me that Yuri Zukov’s phone shows no calls from his brother since yesterday. Same cell zone as Chat.”

“Secaucus?”

“Yeah. So he’s backed off communicating, even with his family, for the time being.”

We had traded our hot caffeine for cold. I flipped open the tops of two soda cans and placed them in the cup holders between us.

“You’re going to take I-95,” I said. “Through Fall River and New Bedford. Then the Sagamore Bridge and on out to the Cape.”

“Keep talking, kid.”

“Sleepy? Want me to drive?”

“I just want you to concentrate on the territory, the geography. You were totally thinking outside the box when you hit on the idea of the circus train this afternoon. Now find me a perp.”

We were in a marked black-and-white car, so the fact that Mike was doing eighty on the highway wouldn’t get us stopped. We batted facts and theories back and forth, none of them particularly inspired.

“Is it twelve yet?” Mike asked.

“Quarter after.”

“Do me a favor, will you? Dial my mother’s number, okay?”

“It’s late for that.”

“Friday-night bingo at the church. One of her favorite forms of worship. She doesn’t leave there till after eleven.”

I found Mrs. Chapman’s number in the address book, pressed it, and passed my cell to Mike.

“Did you get lucky or what, Ma?” Whatever her answer, it made him laugh. “Next week I’m gonna get a Brinks guard to drive you home. You shouldn’t be walking around with fifty-six bucks in your purse at this hour of the night. Do me a favor and pour yourself a double — I’m grounded tonight.”

Mrs. Chapman chatted on with her favorite — and only — son.

“On my way to Cape Cod, Ma. Yep, she’s with me — my lucky charm, like you say.”

She had called me that since the first time we worked a case together. I smiled at the thought of their loving, good-humored relationship.

“Did you TiVo Jeopardy! for me?” Mike asked. “Great. Well, just leave the answer on my cell after you play it back. I’m looking to score on Coop tonight. You sleep tight, Ma. You tell Father Bernard we’re gonna catch this son of a bitch. You tell him that when you see him on Sunday, and no, I swear to you he won’t mind the language at all.”

He handed me back the phone.

“I meant to congratulate you on the great restraint you showed while we were on the train,” I said. “Not turning on the television, I mean.”

“I just lost track of time is all that was. Never meant to miss it. She’ll fill me in.”

“There’s practically no traffic. The only trucks I’ve seen are supermarket semis and gas tankers.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“When we get out on the Cape, you’re going to have to watch out for deer. They’re everywhere at this hour of the night.”

“So what did Oksana say about Fyodor’s juvenile record?”

“No specifics. Just enough to send him away to a school for troubled adolescents.”

“Peterson hasn’t been able to track anything yet.”

“If it’s juvie, it’s likely to be sealed. Who knows? She was just trying to give me her ‘Officer Krupke’ pitch.”

“I’ve heard way too many of those,” Mike said, speeding past the WELCOME TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS Signs that bordered the highway. “He’s disturbed, he’s misunderstood, he’s got a social disease. It’s never the bad guy’s own fault. I’m surprised she didn’t throw in growing up in a leotard and tights. Maybe that’s what twisted him.”

“She might have reached that point by now. I think I shut her down,” I said. “Tell you what. I’ll be Alex Trebek. Here’s your substitute question: The Final Jeopardy! category is FAMOUS AERIALISTS.”

“One ride on a circus train and suddenly you’re a freaking expert on the subject?”

“The answer is the daring young man on the flying trapeze, Detective Chapman. I’ll give you twenty seconds.”

“Give me nothing.”

“Who was Jules Léotard?”

“You and your damn ballet lessons. That’s how come you know from leotards. And the guy was French, to boot? Another likely heartthrob for you.”

“A lawyer who left the bar for a career on the high wire. It was Léotard who developed the art of trapeze, and for whom the song was written, in 1867. And he started a trend — wearing the one-piece outfit that dancers use too.”

“Then maybe this case is all his fault, you think?”

“I’m expecting that will be part of the defense — blame the victims, and then throw in a little bit of what was a man in tights supposed to do?”

We made small talk and bantered trivia and tried to reassure ourselves that every cop and agent in the northeast was doing something to find Chastity Grant while we made our way to Hyannis. By the time we reached the Sagamore Bridge, one of the two spans that crosses the Cape Cod Canal, it was one fifteen in the morning and the only thing lower than my hopes for Chat’s safety were my spirits.

The cell phone slid off my lap as it vibrated. “You losing it?” Mike asked.

“Not entirely.” I leaned down and picked it up, recognizing the displayed number. “Hey, Mercer. Thanks for calling back.”

“I wasn’t avoiding you, Alex. I had no reception. I’m just outside the ER at Bellevue.”

“Listen. We’ve got news—”

“And I’ve got news for you. What brought me here tonight is Gina Borracelli.”

“What?” I assumed the teenager and her box of bad things was behind me.

“Hold tight and don’t let this throw you off course,” Mercer said. “She’s doing fine, Alex. But she tried to kill herself tonight.”

“Oh, my God. Is she all right?” I slumped down in the passenger seat, my head against the car window.

“She’s going to be just super. Acting out, is what the docs tell me. Not a serious effort in anyone’s view, except her parents’.”

“What happened?”

“She was out clubbing with her friends. Got liquored up. Every one of them had fake IDs so they got served. She went into the restroom around midnight. Swallowed a handful of pills and passed out on the bathroom floor.”

“Where was she?”

“The Limelight.”

“I should have guessed that. Uncanny, isn’t it?”

“Unholy,” Mercer said.

The Limelight, on Avenue of the Americas at 20th Street, had been a nightclub for longer than I was a prosecutor. Drugs were as readily available there as alcohol, and many of our date-rape cases started as casual encounters in the trendy club.

For more than a hundred years before that, the landmarked building was anything but notorious. It was the glorious Church of the Holy Communion, an Episcopal church whose parishioners once included the millionaires Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor.