Bruce DeSilva - Cliff Walk

“The girls are fine,” Parisi said. “We called their school to confirm. And young lady,” he said, pointing a finger at Gloria, “put the camera away or we’re done here.”

“So who’s under the blue tarp?” I asked.

“Don’t know.”

“A kid?”

A five-second delay, and then: “Pieces of one.”

“Which pieces?”

“So far we’ve turned up a female torso and a couple of limbs. Tedesco will have to test the DNA to be sure they’re from the same kid.”

“How old?”

“You’ll have to ask him that.”

“He never talks to the press.”

“Not my problem, Mulligan.”

The coffee was ready now. Simona poured us each a fresh mug, took a seat at the table, picked up a string of rosary beads, and wrapped them around her wrists. To me, they looked like handcuffs.

“Who found the body parts?” I asked.

“Joe Fleck,” Cosmo said.

“One of your workers?”

“Yeah. He upchucked his breakfast and then came running for me. I took a quick look and called the captain.”

“Fleck just found the torso,” Parisi said. “My men unearthed the rest in the same garbage heap.”

“That garbage been here long?” I asked.

“Came in on a truck this morning,” Cosmo said.

“Any idea where it was picked up?”

Cosmo started to answer, but Parisi cut him off. “That’s still under investigation.”

“What about the arm from last month? Could it be from the same kid?”

“I can’t talk about that on the record, Mulligan.”

“No?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why is that?”

Parisi glared at me.

“Okay, off, then.”

“Definitely a different kid.”

“You know that how?”

Five seconds of silence, and then: “The torso’s just starting to decompose. And the two limbs we found today?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re both arms.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. For a moment, no one spoke.

“What the hell are we dealing with here, Captain?”

“Hard to say.”

“A serial killer?”

“Don’t jump the gun.”

“What it looks like.”

“I’m going to ask you not to write that, Mulligan. It would cause a panic. If I see the words serial killer in the paper tomorrow, you and I are done.”

“Okay, I’ll play along. But it’s gonna get crazy once the Van Susteren wannabes at the end of the drive get wind of this.”

“From what I’ve seen of their journalism skills,” he said, “that could take a while.”

As it happened, it took only three days.

By the time I got to Hopes, Attila the Nun had three dead soldiers on the table in front of her and a fourth in her sights.

“You’re late,” she said.

“Sorry, Fiona. The copydesk was shorthanded, so I got drafted to edit state house copy and just finished up.”

“What’ll you have?” she asked, and waved for the waitress.

“Club soda.”

“Ulcer acting up?”

“It is.”

“Maybe you should give up the cigars.”

“I don’t eat them, Fiona.”

“No, but I read somewhere that they’re bad for what you’ve got.”

“Most good things are.”

“I didn’t see you at the press conference,” she said.

“Lomax had me cover it off the TV.”

“The attorney general holds a press conference to announce that a serial killer is on the loose, and the Dispatch doesn’t bother to show up?”

“Appalling isn’t it? But it’s the sort of thing that’s bound to happen after three-quarters of our reporters are given walking papers.”

“Hard to ask questions if you’re not there, Mulligan.”

“Even harder to get answers.”

“Anything you want to ask now?”

“Yeah. Have you heard from Captain Parisi yet?”

“I have.”

“And?”

“He’s mad as hell. Says I’ve turned his case into a quote, fuckin’ circus, unquote.”

“And you said?”

“That parents have a right to know someone out there is butchering kids.”

The operatic theme song for Channel 10 Action News, which seldom offered much of either, burst from the TV set over the bar. Fiona lit a cigarette, and we both turned to watch the teaser.

“Is a serial killer stalking Rhode Island’s children, hacking them to pieces, and feeding them to pigs? We’ll be back in a moment with our exclusive investigative report. You’ll be shocked!”

The exclusive investigative report turned out to be neither exclusive nor investigative. It consisted of a sound bite from Fiona’s press conference, an angry “No comment” from Parisi, wild speculation by on-air reporter Logan Bedford, and a reassurance from anchor-babe Amy Banderas that “the monster among us is a threat to every child in Rhode Island.” Then she beamed at the camera and exclaimed, “Get ready for an unseasonably warm weekend! Next up, Storm Surge with the weather.” Probably not the name his mama gave him.

This is what will pass for local news once the Dispatch ’s death rattle falls silent. I looked at my friend and shook my head sadly.

“Fiona,” I said, “look what you did.”

“Think I was wrong?”

“I think you should have listened to Parisi.”

“If what I did saves just one kid…”

“It won’t,” I said.

“It’s going to make parents more watchful.”

“Not all of them, Fiona. Some of them are stupid. Some are on drugs. Some just don’t give a shit. Besides, not even the best parents can stand guard over their kids every minute of the day. If the killer wants another kid, he’ll snatch another kid. It’s as easy as picking up a quart of milk at 7-Eleven.”

Fiona didn’t have anything to say to that. Her vanquished Bud joined its fallen comrades, and she ordered another.

“Got the autopsy report yet?” I asked.

“It’s not final. Tedesco’s waiting on the DNA.”

“What’s he saying about cause of death?”

“That unless we turn up more body parts, we’ll never know. Of course, he’s pretty much ruled out natural causes.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Off the record?”

“Okay.”

“I’m afraid there is.”

“What?”

She just stared at me and shook her head.

“Rape?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Violently and repeatedly.”

We sat quietly for a while, she guzzling her Bud, I sipping my club soda and pretending not to notice that Attila the Nun had begun to cry.

On the TV, the sports guy was showing NBA highlights. Fiona locked her eyes on the screen as Paul Pierce drained a last-second three-pointer to ice a game for the Celtics. Then she clunked her Bud down on the tabletop, looked at me with wet eyes, and said:

“I wonder what he’s doing with their heads.”

In the days following Fiona’s press conference, parents all over Rhode Island showed up late for work and skipped out early so they could ferry their children back and forth to school. Elementary and middle schools held assemblies so Officer Friendly could repeat the customary warning to avoid strangers. Grandstanding local officials pledged stepped-up police patrols of schoolyards and playgrounds. The cops complied, knowing full well that it wouldn’t do any good. The killer would hunt where the police weren’t.

Four days after Fiona’s press conference, on a clear and cold Tuesday morning, Angela Anselmo rapped on my apartment door and asked if I could drop Marta off at school.

“I hate to bother you with this,” she said, “but the nursing supervisor yelled at me for being late yesterday, and I’m too afraid to let Marta walk to school alone.”

“It’s no bother,” I said. “I’m happy to do it.”