The doctor hesitated. Nichols already knew from the look on his face that one of them would have to call Dobbs’s wife.
He only hoped Hogan would volunteer for the job.
Less than a mile away, in Battery Park, a Hassidic Jew wearing a rumpled dark suit, an equally rumpled black fedora, and a tieless white shirt, got off the first ferry to arrive from Liberty Island that morning.
No one paid him the slightest bit of attention.
They arrived at the Thirteenth Precinct downtown at a little past eleven o’clock that Sunday morning. They had gone there to talk to Detective-Lieutenant Albert Ryan, who’d invited Elita to his Homicide South office to ask whether or not he should clear her mother’s case.
“What does that mean, clear?” Elita asked him.
“Well, clear it. Stop the investigation.”
“Why do you need her permission to do that?” Geoffrey asked at once.
“I don’t, actually,” Ryan said. “This is a police matter, actually.”
“Then why are you asking her advice?” Geoffrey said, and Elita realized all at once that she had a champion.
“Well, the Westhampton Beach Police are already working the case, so if we clear it here, we’ll be saving a lot of duplication.”
“I see,” Elita said.
Never mind duplication. He was merely trying to save the city time and expense by stopping the investigation.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said, and turned away because she was on the verge of tears again. In her heart, she felt Sonny was the one who’d killed her mother. But suppose it had been someone else entirely? Suppose by giving her tacit approval to... clear the case, had he said? Suppose she did that, and the real killer escaped? Wouldn’t it be better to have the NYPD investigating in tandem with the Suffolk County cops? Weren’t the New York cops superior to a small-town police force?
“What are you truly concerned about, sir?” Geoffrey asked.
Her champion again. Directly to the point. Riding in on a white charger, her favor tucked into his gauntlet.
“I’m not concerned about anything,” Ryan said, far too casually. “Now that the likely perpetrator is dead, we’re just thinking of leaving the case to the department that had original juris...”
“That’s the key word, isn’t it?” Geoffrey said. “Likely.”
“Well, yes. We have no positive proof that Hemkar...”
“Exactly. But if you clear the case here... by the way, that doesn’t mean solving it, does it?”
“Well, no. Clearing is clearing, solving is solving. They’re two different things. Related, but different.”
“Related how?”
“In that the case would be closed.”
“I see. And if five years from now, someone turns up...”
“That would be Suffolk County’s...”
“... and confesses to having killed Elita’s mother and ten other women...”
“Suffolk would handle that eventuality.”
“But that wouldn’t look so good for New York, would it? That eventuality?”
“The case originated in Suffolk. If somebody kills somebody in Indiana, and the body washes up in the East River...”
“But how would it look if New York cleared a case and then the killer turned up later?”
“Young man...”
“Merely asking,” Geoffrey said, and shrugged innocently.
Elita suddenly wanted to kiss him.
“If you’d like my advice,” she said. “I think...”
“Well, that’s why I asked you to...”
“I think New York should continue the investigation.”
“Certainly. We appreciate...”
“We don’t even know he’s dead,” she said.
“No, actually we don’t.”
“If he’s the one who did it.”
“That’s right.”
“And if he isn’t the one, then you should find the one. You should find whoever’s responsible for my mother’s death.”
“I can assure you...”
“Because she lived in New York, you see.”
“Yes, I rea...”
“And she loved this city.”
The room went silent.
“And we owe her at least that much,” Elita said.
And her eyes filled with tears.
Arthur came to see him at the hotel at four o’clock that Sunday afternoon. It was a quiet day down here in the financial district. The two men shook hands, and then sat at the table near the windows overlooking the Hudson. They were not here to celebrate. Sonny was hoping that Arthur had come to discuss their next move. He had, after all, aborted the plan only so that he could serve another day. To sacrifice himself without having accomplished his mission would have been absurd. Arthur agreed with him.
“I was watching it all on television,” he said. “I was puzzled at first, couldn’t understand why you’d turned away, hmm?”
“Well, the moment I saw...”
“The shield, yes. I realized that later.”
“Trimmed with bunting, but unmistakable.”
“A bulletproof shield, yes.”
“I wasn’t expecting it.”
“They sometimes use it.”
“It just never occurred to me.”
“You did the right thing. If there was no way to get to him...”
“I’d have given my life to’ve done it. My very life if only...”
“Yes, I know. But don’t let it trouble you, truly. There’ll be another time. He’ll be repaid, don’t worry,” Arthur said, and smiled suddenly. “At least the boomerang worked, hmm?”
Sonny smiled, too.
This was not a joyous occasion they were sharing, but the thought of how easily he’d outwitted them was cause for at least some merriment. With great animation and obvious pleasure, he told Arthur how he’d swum back to the island instead of swimming away from it — the very principle of the boomerang escape he’d been taught at Kufra. Swimming underwater until his outstretched hands made contact with the island’s retaining wall, his lungs ready to burst, he’d taken the basting tube from his pocket, and pushed it toward the surface until only the thick end of it showed above the water. Capturing the narrow end in his mouth, he’d gently blown the tube free of water, and at last had been able to breathe again.
“That air tasted so sweet,” he told Arthur now.
“I can imagine,” Arthur said.
The makeshift snorkel in place, he’d worked his way underwater around the wall, until he reached the ferry dock. He’d lain hidden just below the surface then, clinging to one of the pilings, breathing gently through the tube, and did not climb ashore again until it was dark.
“And then what?” Arthur asked. “Did you go back to your lay-in position?”
“I couldn’t. I’d left the door locked.”
“Why on earth did you...?”
“Has there been any news of a dead park ranger?”
“No. Should there have been?”
“I imagine there will be,” Sonny said, and smiled again. “The island’s almost deserted at night. I went back to the restroom, fished out my hat...”
“Your hat?”
“Too long a story.”
“Fished it out?”
“Yes. And then spent the rest of the night outdoors, drying off. I caught the first ferry back at ten o’clock. I’m glad you’re here, Arthur.”
“I am, too,” Arthur said.
“When do we try again?”
“Well, we’ll have to wait for instructions, hmm?”
“Of course. But...”
“And in any case, you’re known now, aren’t you?”