John Connolly - The Lovers

“Go wait for them.”

Brad did as he was told.

Ross put the papers beside a set of photographs that had been on his desk since earlier that morning. They came from the previous night’s crime scene on Hobart Street, and showed the symbol that had been drawn on the wall of the kitchen with Mickey Wallace’s blood.

Ross had been informed of the murder within an hour of the discovery of Wallace’s body, and had asked for evidence photos and copies of all documentation relating to the case to be made available to him by nine the following morning. As soon as he saw the symbol, Ross began covering the trail. Calls were made to One Police Plaza, and the symbol was scrubbed from the kitchen wall. All those who had been present at the scene were contacted and warned that the symbol was crucial to the case, and any mention of it outside the immediate investigative team would result in disciplinary action and, ultimately, dismissal without recourse to appeal. Additional locks were placed on all police files relating to the Pearl River killings, the shooting in Gerritsen Beach, and the accidental death of Peter Ackerman at the intersection of Seventy-eighth and First nine months before. The lock prevented those files from being accessed without the express permission of both SAC Ross and the NYPD’s deputy commissioners of Operations and Intelligence, even though all the relevant files had been carefully “sterilized” after the events in Pearl River to ensure that any matches that might arise at a later date would be referred to the commissioner’s office and, when it subsequently came into being, Unit Five. Any inquiries relating to them would immediately be red flagged.

Ross knew that the death of a reporter, even a former one, would draw other reporters like flies, and the circumstances of Wallace’s death, killed in a house where two high-profile murders had been committed a decade earlier, would attract further attention. It was important to keep a lid on the investigation, but it couldn’t be too tight or the more excitable reporters would start to sense a cover-up. Therefore, it was decided, in conjunction with One Police Plaza, that a suitably sympathetic “face” would be presented to the media, and a series of carefully controlled unofficial briefings would disseminate enough information to keep the media at bay without actually divulging anything that might be considered dangerous to the conduct of the investigation.

Ross traced his fingers over the picture of the symbol on the wall, then retrieved copies of four different photos from the various files on his desk. Soon, its surface was covered with variations on the same images: symbols burned into flesh, cut into wood, and carved on R Qd carved stone.

Ross turned his chair to the window and looked out over the city. As he did so, he dialed a number using a secure line. A woman answered.

“Let me speak to the rabbi, please,” said Ross.

Within seconds, Epstein was on the line.

“It’s Ross.”

“I was expecting your call.”

“You’ve heard, then?”

“I received a call last night to alert me.”

“Do you know where Parker is?”

“Mr. Gallagher gave him a bed for the night.”

“Is that common knowledge?”

“Not to the media. Mr. Gallagher had the foresight to remove his license plate when he realized that he might be forced to conduct a rescue.”

Ross was relieved. He knew that, in the absence of a New York lead, reporters had already attempted to track Parker through the bar in Maine in which he was working. A call to the field office in Portland requesting a drive-by at the Parker house had revealed two cars and a TV van parked outside, and the owner of the Great Lost Bear had told an agent that he’d been forced to put a no reporters sign on his door. To ensure that his request was complied with, he’d hired two large men in hastily made no reporters T-shirts to man the doors. According to the agent in question, those men had been waiting to start work when he’d visited the bar. They were, he said, without question two of the widest individuals he had ever seen in his life.

“And now?” asked Ross.

“Parker left the Gallagher house this morning,” said Epstein. “I have no idea where he is.”

“Have you spoken to Gallagher?”

“He says that he doesn’t know where Parker has gone, but he confirmed that Parker now knows everything.”

“Then he’s going to come looking for you.”

“I’m prepared for that.”

“I have some material I’m sending over to you. You might find it interesting.”

“What kind of material?”

“The symbol that was found on the dead women at Shell Bank Creek and Pearl River? I’ve got three more versions of it in front of me, one from two years ago, the others from earlier this year. There were apparent killings involved in each case.”

“She’s leaving signs, markers for the Other.”

“And now we’ve got her opposite number leaving his name in blood at Charlie Parker’s old house, so he’s doing the same.”

“Keep me informed, please.”

“I will.”

They exchanged farewells, and hung up. Ross summoned Brad back into his presence and told him to put a trace on Parker’s cell phone, and two men o R Qnd two men Rabbi Epstein.

“I want to know where Parker is before the end of the day,” he said.

“Do you want him brought in?”

“No, just make sure nothing happens to him,” said Ross.

“A little late for that, isn’t it, sir?” said Brad.

“Get the hell out of here,” said Ross, but he thought: from the mouths of babes…

I MADE THE CALLto Epstein from a pay phone on Second Avenue outside an Indian restaurant that was offering an all-you-can-eat buffet that nobody wanted to eat, so in an effort to drum up business a sad-faced man in a bright polyester shirt had been posted at the door to hand out flyers that nobody wanted to read. It was raining softly, and the flyers hung damply from his hand.

“I’ve been expecting your call,” said Epstein, once he had identified himself.

“For a long time, from what I hear,” I replied.

“I take it that you’d like to meet.”

“You take it right.”

“Come to the usual place. Make it late. Nine o’clock. I look forward to seeing you again.”

Then he hung up.

I was staying in an apartment at Twentieth and Second, just above a locksmith’s store. It extended over two decent-size rooms, with a separate kitchen that had never been used, and a bathroom that was just wide enough to accommodate a full rotation of the human body, as long as the body in question kept his arms at his sides. There was a bed, a couch, and a couple of easy chairs, and a TV with a DVD player but no cable. There was no phone, which was why I’d called Epstein from a pay phone. Even then, I’d stayed on the line for only the minimum time required to arrange our meeting. I had already taken the precaution of removing the battery from my cell phone, and had bought a temporary replacement from a drugstore.

I picked up some pastries from the bakery next door, then went back to the apartment. The landlord was sitting on a chair to the right of the living room window. He was cleaning a SIG pistol, which was not what landlords usually did in their tenants’ apartments, unless the landlord in question happened to be Louis.

“So?” he said.

“I’m meeting him tonight.”

“You want company?”

“A second shadow wouldn’t hurt.”

“Is that a racist remark?”