Day of Reckoning

‘No, I’m done listening. And talking.’

A limousine pulled up behind. Fox got out and said to Falcone, ‘Aldo, you make this good.’

‘At your order, Signore.’

Fox got in the rear limousine and was driven away.

Katherine tried to open the door, but Russo was there, his great hand raised. Falcone cried, ‘Leave it. I don’t want bruising.’ He found her neck and yanked her forward on her knees on the rear seat. Her skirt rose up.

‘Go on, get on with it.’

He held her as she struggled. Russo took a box from his pocket, opened it, and produced a hypodermic. ‘You’ll like this, girlie. Best heroin on the market.’ He jabbed her left thigh, then injected her again, this time in the right buttock. ‘There you go.’

She cried out and slumped forward.

Russo patted her. ‘Hey, she’s not bad looking. Maybe I could do myself a little good here.’

He turned, reaching for his zipper, and Falcone gave him a shove. ‘You stupid bastard, that’ll blow the whole thing. Come on, give me a hand.’

Grumbling, Russo picked up her feet while Falcone took her arms, and they carried her to the edge of the pier.

‘Easy now,’ and she was in the water.

‘Come on, let’s go get a drink.’ They walked back to the Lincoln, and a minute later they drove away.

Neither of them noticed Katherine Johnson’s purse, where it had fallen out of the car, in the shadows beside a packing case.

The following morning at six o’clock, rain drove in across the East River, rattling the windows of the old precinct house. Harry Parker, brought out of bed only an hour before, drank coffee from a machine and made a face as a woman detective sergeant named Helen Abruzzi came in.

‘This is disgusting,’ Parker told her. ‘Reminds me of why I switched to tea. Okay, what have we got?’

‘This kid is called Charlene Wilson. She was working a strip bar not far from here.’

‘And doing business on the side?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘What happened?’

‘A man called Paul Moody took her home. When we found her, she’d been raped orally, half-strangled, her wrists tied.’

Parker frowned. ‘That sounds like those two murders in Battery Park.’

‘That’s what I thought, Captain, and that’s why I phoned you to come here. Charlene got away because he got drunk and fell asleep and she managed to loosen her hands.’

Parker nodded. ‘Okay, let me know when the line-up’s ready.’

She went out and Parker went to the window, the rain driving against it, and found a Marlboro, having long since stopped pretending to have quit. He lit it and looked out at the river morosely, a huge black man who had started life in Harlem, earned a law degree at Columbia, and then decided to join the police rather than a law firm. He’d never minded seventy-hour weeks, although his wife had, and had divorced him for it.

For three years now, he’d been captain in charge of a special homicide unit based at One Police Plaza. Sometimes he got depressed dealing with one killing after another, in a never-ending series, and when you were close to fifty you began to wonder if there was something better to do. He wondered if Blake had really meant what he’d said that there might be room for him in that special intelligence unit of his in Washington…

The door opened and Helen Abruzzi called, ‘Show time, Captain.’

The girl in the viewing room was in a bad way, a blanket around her shoulders, her face swollen, one eye black, bruise marks on her neck. Helen stood behind her, a hand on her shoulder, while Parker read the file. He finished, nodded, and she pressed a buzzer. A light flared and five men appeared on the other side. The girl cried out.

‘Number three. That’s him,’ she said and then she broke down.

Compassion didn’t come easy at six o’clock in the morning on the East River, but Parker put an arm around her.

‘Hey, take a deep breath. I know it isn’t easy, but I’ll make you a promise. I’m going to take this fuck out.’ He squeezed her shoulder and nodded to Abruzzi. ‘Take her away, then bring that bastard in.’

He stood at the window, looking down at the water, and after a while the door opened and Helen Abruzzi came in, followed by Paul Moody, cuffed between two police officers.

‘And who the hell are you?’ Moody demanded.

‘Captain Harry Parker. Sergeant Abruzzi’s got quite a list of charges against you, Moody, beginning with aggravated sexual assault.’

‘Hey, the bitch wanted it. She was into sadomasochism, all kinds of stuff. I mean, I was shocked, man.’

‘I’m sure you were, and I was forgetting physical assault on a minor.’

There was silence. Moody said, ‘What’s this minor crap?’

‘Didn’t Sergeant Abruzzi tell you? The girl, Charlene Wilson, was fifteen two weeks ago.’

Moody’s face paled. ‘Now, look, I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, you do now,’ Helen Abruzzi told him.

‘Another thing,’ Parker said. ‘There’ve been two killings in Battery Park within the last three months, using the same technique you prefer, Moody. Girls tied up, abused, beaten, and young.’

‘You can’t pin those on me.’

‘I don’t need to. We have good DNA samples retrieved from Charlene Wilson. We’ve got the DNA of the Battery Park killer. I’d bet my pension we’ll have a match.’

‘Fuck you, nigger bastard.’

Moody lunged at him and the two officers restrained him.

Parker said, ‘Why, Paul, you should conserve your energy. You’re going to need it to keep you going for the next forty years in prison.’ He nodded to the officers. ‘Get this piece of shit out of here.’

He turned to the window as the door closed. Helen Abruzzi said, ‘It’s a bad one, sir.’

‘They’re all bad, Sergeant.’ He turned. ‘I need air. I’ll take a walk if you can find me an umbrella. I’ll come back to sign the papers later.’

‘Fine, sir.’

He smiled, and suddenly looked charming. ‘You’ve been doing a good job here, Sergeant. I’ve been noticing. There’s an inspector’s job coming up, if you’d like a posting to Police Plaza. You deserve it. I can’t promise, mind you.’