On the other side of the door she could hear him muttering to himself. Then she started hearing other noises, thumpings and scratchings. A car door opened and a few minutes later slammed shut. Later, he came back and started fiddling with something in the wall. At one point there was the sound of a hammer hitting metal. What metal? What was he doing?
Her terror was like a wild animal. Her pulse seemed to be everywhere, as loud as the hammer on the other side of the wall. What hammer? What metal?
Then silence, for a long, long time. Maybe an hour. Maybe more. She shifted her body, trying to get closer to the torch. Way above her hand, on the table, was the switchblade. She couldn’t reach that, either. She knew he had a gun somewhere, too, but she didn’t see it. She was sure the old woman was dead. Maybe someone would come looking for her. Emma started pushing at the tape with her tongue. She closed her eyes.
69
Waiting for a red light on the street in front of the Greek diner, April felt a mounting excitement. The sight was amazing. Next to her was the diner, exactly as Jason Frank had described its unrelated twin in California. In front of her was the ramp to the Triboro Bridge. Way ahead she could see the bridge, long rather than high, spanning the East River. Just about a block behind her, Twenty-eighth Street bisected Hoyt Avenue. The houses on either side of the wide street were all attached, single-family dwellings. None was more than two stories high.
The stoplight was taking forever. April had some very long seconds to sit there gaping. Right there, all in one place, were the landmarks the psychiatrist had told her to look for, and didn’t think she’d be able to find without him. Ha, she wasn’t so stupid. If Grebs and the Chapman woman weren’t right around here, she’d eat her badge. She gripped the wheel tightly to stop her hands from shaking.
The light changed. She moved forward slowly, taking a moment to look down at her notebook where she’d copied the house number the old lady had given to Officer O’Brien.
Checking out the local precinct had yielded exactly the results she had hoped for. Every investigation was about as successful as the contacts one made. This time April lucked out. The desk sergeant was an old friend from grade school on the Lower East Side. He took the time to ask every uniform coming off duty from the street if there had been any disturbance, any complaint, anything that could help with a case from Manhattan. He displayed the photos of Grebs and Emma Chapman. Nobody could identify them, but Officer O’Brien had an old lady with a complaint about a rowdy tenant and a naked lady in her garage apartment. Maybe the old lady could make the ID.
Bergman had thought there was enough in O’Brien’s story to give April backup when she went in to check out the Bartello house. April had told him what Troland Grebs did to women, and Bergman liked the idea of nailing a possible interstate serial killer on his turf. His proposal was to give April three men for an hour or so, gratis. Just to be on the safe side in case Grebs was there and tried to bail out before her people were ready to grab him. They both understood it was a case from the Two-O, however, and the best thing was for the Two-O squad to follow it through. April appreciated his understanding. Then, because she was getting this much support from Queens, she took a big leap off the deep end. She called Sergeant Joyce for backup without knowing she absolutely needed it. If she was wrong Joyce would kill her.
April could see the house now, halfway down. But it was a one-way street. She had to drive around the block to get to it. She made the turn and headed around the block. On the next block over not all the houses were attached. It was possible to see through a driveway to the backyard of the house that interested her. Overgrown shrubbery hid most of it. But, upstairs, on the garage side, the shades were drawn. She paused for a stop sign even though there were no cars in the four-way intersection. Everything looked quiet. She cruised to the end of the block and turned the corner.
Slowly, April drove back to Hoyt Avenue and finally stopped in front of the house two doors down. Mrs. Arturo Bartello’s house was pink brick with some decorative painted tiles set in here and there to make it fancier. April had seen this block and noted this particular house a thousand times. Maybe ten thousand times. It had a trellis with wisteria on it. The wisteria was in heavy bloom right now. Even two houses down she could still smell it. She wondered if there was wisteria, or any fragrant plant like it growing on the house Grebs lived in in California. Probably was. She got out of the unmarked car she had taken from the Two-O lot and locked it. Then moved in closer.
The house was staked out. One stringy-looking kid was in the backyard abutting the Bartello yard. April saw him down the driveway of the house opposite, hacking away at the air in the neighbor’s yard with a large pair of pruning shears. Now, a shabbily dressed man called Renear, with a baseball cap on backward, pulled an unmarked, mud-colored Chevy into an empty spot down the street. Two minutes later a huge bearded man lumbered up to the phone booth on the corner.
Where the hell was Sanchez? She’d called him over an hour ago. April looked at her watch. Four thirty-eight. After a few minutes, with her stakeouts around her, she had such a powerful feeling about the house the four of them were watching, she decided to displace the beard in the phone booth for a minute and call Dr. Frank.
70
Jason took the time to listen to the messages on his answering machine. Just in case Emma had tried to call him again. There were seven messages on it: three worried patients, and Ronnie and Charles, each twice. He returned the calls from the patients.
Then, reluctantly, he left the office and went into the apartment. He didn’t want to go back in there. The noise of the clocks was like hearing Emma’s life tick away. He closed the doors to the living room to silence some of them. He headed down the hall to the bedroom where Emma’s purse was still on the bed. He left it there, took his clothes off, and went into the bathroom.
He had just gotten into the shower when April Woo called. He jumped so fast at the sound of the phone he forgot to grab a towel.
“Where are you?” he demanded, dripping on the bedroom floor.
“I’m in Queens at the entrance to the Triboro Bridge. Hoyt Avenue around Twenty-eighth Street. Do you know where that is?”
“No kidding, Twenty-eighth Street. Did you find her?” Jason cried.
“No,” April said. “Not yet. But I wanted to tell you. It’s just like you said, right down to the diner on the corner.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m waiting for my partner.” April surprised herself. It was the first time she had called Sanchez her partner. “Look, we may be wrong. This may be nothing. It just fits, that’s all.”
“You don’t think it’s nothing, or you wouldn’t have called me.”
“I didn’t want to leave you in the dark.”
“I appreciate that,” Jason said. “Where can I find you? I’m on my way.”
“I’ll tell you when I have something. I have to go.”
“Tell me where to meet you.”
“It’s staked out. If you come anywhere near us, you could blow the whole thing.”
“I won’t blow it,” Jason promised.
April hesitated, then gave him an address at the end of the block. “Hang around by the diner,” she said firmly. “If you come any closer, I’ll lose my job. Understand?”
“I understand.”
April cut off.
Jason went into his closet and started pulling on his clothes without bothering to dry himself. Twenty-eighth Street in Queens. He passed that whenever he took the shortcut to the airport. He knew exactly where it was.
His hands trembled so much he could hardly button his shirt. If Emma was alive, she was going to be burned.
