“We’re not about to discuss police business at your wife’s wake, for Chrissake!”
“Police business is all I have right now. My wife’s at peace and I’m not about to sit home and stare at the walls. I’m gonna need distraction. Big time! And work will be just the ticket.”
“You sure?”
“Very.”
“You’ve been assigned to the tourist homicides.”
“Says who?”
“Mayor Reirdon. That was him on the phone.”
Chapter 7
Angus sat on the cold slab of slate that encircled the top of the well. They had done it. Finally done it. Yet, he didn’t feel satiated like he thought he would. Thoughts ran rampant inside his head. That was the norm. His eyes were distracted, though, lost to the efforts of the orb-weaving spider that was crawling surreptitiously across its web. A nocturnal feeder, the spider. Angus appreciated that, for he, too, despite all that had happened, preferred the night and its often undetected happenings.
He was born at night. Or so he had been told. A harsh night, bitter cold and unwelcome, was how his father had described it. “As unwelcome as you,” he’d scoff. His cruelest derision coming when he was drunk, which was nightly.
Angus’s eyes were still fixed on the spider, but the timbre of Father’s voice bellowed in the recesses of his mind, unleashing uninvited memories.
“Angus! You little bastard. Get in here!”
“With another can of beer” was left unsaid, but I knew better than to rile the guy, and remembered, robotically, to stop at the fridge before entering the smoke-filled room where Father sat, eyes fixed on the black-and-white screen of the Emerson TV.
“We’re not finished yet,” he reminded me with a sneer, causing me to tremble and often wet my pants. “And that sister of yours? I’ve got something real special in store for her!”
Most nights the Budweiser worked to my advantage, acting as a soporific godsend. But only for the night. Another day would follow, giving way to another night. One more spell of darkness I’d need to live through, saddled with dread. And when the beer didn’t work its magic I’d be hauled into the godforsaken room behind the furnace, forced to strip, and climb atop a cold porcelain enamel-topped table.
“Lay still, Angus. Don’t make me have to say it again.”
Father would then reach for the rubbing alcohol and sanitize a portion of my skin. With the cold tabletop pressing hard against the side of my face, I eyed the row of shot glasses that held the assortment of inks. I cringed, feeling the touch of Father’s rough fingers as he applied the Vaseline. Next came the feel of the small stencil being placed on my body, accompanied by the whirring sound the electric machine made when it was turned on.
It was then that I closed my eyes and forced my thoughts to carry me to that faraway place where I wouldn’t feel the sting of the needles perforating my flesh.
Chapter 8
Three days had passed since Driscoll appealed to his boss, Captain Eddie Barrows, that he be allowed to tie up some loose ends on a prior case. Something didn’t feel right. He couldn’t stay focused until he resolved it. Besides, the latest murders were being investigated by capable homicide detectives, and it was Driscoll’s feeling that they should stay there. It would give the rookie a chance to sharpen her teeth. So what if the victims were tourists? New York was full of them. His curiosity was piqued, though, by the scalping. What was that all about? He also wondered what the Mayor’s reaction would be to his resistance, but that thought would have to stay on hold. Right now, there were more pressing matters at hand. The Mayflower Moving Company had just completed packing all of Driscoll’s furnishings and personal belongings aboard their truck. It was time now to pay his last respects to the house that had served as his sanctuary for the past twelve years.
He whistled the first few lines of “Time after Time,” turned his back on the moving truck, and climbed the three wooden steps to his porch. Sinatra’s rendition of Jule Stein’s love ballad had been his and Colette’s wedding song. Driscoll hummed or whistled the opening lines often.
As he pushed open the front door to the Toliver’s Point bungalow, the sharpness of Betadine antiseptic and the sterile smell of bleached linen still hung in the air. What had once served as a makeshift intensive care unit for his comatose wife was now a barren room, reminding him of the hollowness of his own life. The hospital bed and the cluster of life support equipment were gone. It had been no small feat to convince an anxious hospital staff to agree to such an unorthodox arrangement as home care for a comatose patient. But that’s where Driscoll had wanted his wife. Home. Surrounded by her treasured paintings. And, after his acquisition of some pretty costly medical equipment, funded in part by Driscoll’s health insurance and supplemented by a sizable advance against his pension fund, Saint Matthew’s hospital had granted his wish.
But now that chapter of his life had ended.
Colette. It was she who had discovered Toliver’s Point. While she was a landscape painter at the New York Art Student’s League, a friend had invited her to spend a day at the beach. She found the Point’s natural setting in an urban environment enchanting. She returned often to sit at the water’s edge and paint. She fell in love with the locale to such a degree that five years later she put a down payment on her first piece of waterfront property: a summer bungalow in Toliver’s Point.
The first night Sergeant John Driscoll was invited to the bayside community, he thought he had been transported to some distant island. After he and Colette married, the summer bungalow was renovated, winterized, and transformed into a comfortable residence they were proud to call home.
Trying to keep feelings of abandonment in check, he cast one last glance at the walls of the bungalow, emptied now of their aquarelles and serigraphs, bolted shut the door, and headed for his parked cruiser, where he sprang the lock on the trunk and retrieved the for-sale sign, which he planted in the lawn. It was then he heard the sound of tires creeping on asphalt. Two shiny black Chryslers, bookending a Lincoln stretch limousine, pulled in at the curb. Driscoll watched as the limousine’s tinted window slid down.
“If Mohammad doesn’t come to the mountain, well…then, the Mayor of New York must pay a visit to his top cop,” the Honorable William “Sully” Reirdon said as he stepped from his automobile.
It annoyed the hell out of police brass, but the newly elected Reirdon prided himself on being a hands-on Mayor. Bypassing the police commissioner, borough commanders, and bureau chiefs was commonplace for the man. Hell, he once had a one on one with a beat cop because some alarmed Bronx resident complained of strangers in her neighborhood when she called his weekly Concerned Citizens radio forum. And here he was now, in Toliver’s Point.
“You’re trespassing, Mr. Mayor. This is Democrat country.”
“Well, will you look at that? You’ve got a million-dollar view of my city,” said the Mayor, casting his stare across the bay.
“You could buy the place, Mr. Mayor. Keep a close eye on your city.”
Sully Reirdon smiled at the suggestion.
“But something tells me you didn’t travel out here to discuss beachfront real estate.”
“You know why I’m here, John.”
It was Driscoll’s turn to stare across the bay. “I’ll sure miss the view, but the efficiency I’ll be buying in Brooklyn Heights will cut my commute time in half,” he said.
“John, I am very sorry about your wife. I know I should’ve been at the funeral, but I was in Albany arm-wrestling with the governor. He knows we need more cops, but he won’t release the sixty-three million he promised the city when he was elected.”
“How about assigning some of those cops to a drunk-driving detail?”
“I’ll give it every consideration,” the Mayor said with a nod, aware of the automobile accident that had robbed Driscoll of his wife and daughter. “John, despite what Katie Couric says, I’m not an insensitive man.”