“Yes?”
“No one is playing a prank. It is the cruelty of her disease. We understand when it is something physical- losing a limb, needing a transplant, whatever. This is similar. It is not her fault. It is something chemical in her brain. And sadly, as I’ve tried to stress, this isn’t a problem that will get better. Which is why you and your husband really need to seriously reevaluate Agnes’s living arrangements.”
Megan’s phone felt suddenly heavy. “Let me speak to Agnes please.”
“Of course.”
A few seconds later, the scared voice was back. “Megan?”
“I’m on my way, Agnes-and I’m taking you home. You just stay put, okay?”
29
When you first get to the Atlantic City boardwalk, you are pretty much stunned by the seedy albeit lively predictability of it all. Skee-ball arcades, funnel cakes, hot dog stands, pizza stands, time-share salesmen, mini- golf, suggestive T-shirt shops, souvenir stands-all perfectly blended in among giant casino hotels, the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum (this one featured a “penis sheath” from New Guinea used, according to the caption, “as decoration and protection against insect bites,” not to mention a heck of a conversation starter), and upstart new malls. In short, Atlantic City’s boardwalk is exactly what you expect and probably want: total cheese.
But every once in a while, the boardwalk threw you a surprise. If you’ve played the board game Monopoly, you know the geography, but there, tucked in an alcove where Park Place meets Boardwalk, with the tacky Wild Wild West-themed facade of Bally’s Hotel and Casino looming as its backdrop, was a Korean War memorial that, for a few moments anyway, had the ability to strip away the kitsch and make you reflect.
Broome spotted Ray Levine standing next to the memorial’s almost supernaturally dominant figure-a twelve-foot-high statue of The Mourning Soldier sculpted by Thomas Jay Warren and J. Tom Carillo. The soldier had his sleeves rolled up, his helmet in his right hand, but what struck you, what gave you pause, was the way the bronze figure looked down, clearly grieving, at the too-many dog tags dangling from his left hand. You could see the devastation on his brave, handsome face as he stares at his fallen comrades’ tags, the rifle still strapped to his back, the dagger still on his hip. Behind him, a group of weary soldiers seem to materialize from a wall of water, one carrying a wounded or perhaps dead comrade. Next to that, under an eternal flame, the names of 822 New Jerseyans killed or missing are engraved.
The effect would normally be sobering and reflective, but here, shoehorned among the flotsam and jetsam of the Atlantic City boardwalk, it was profound. For several moments, the two men-Broome and Ray Levine-just stood there, staring up at the dog tags clutched in the mourning soldier’s hand, and said nothing.
Broome moved a little closer to Ray Levine. Ray sensed him, knew he was there, but didn’t turn toward him.
“You come here a lot?” Broome asked.
“Sometimes,” Ray replied.
“Me too. Kinda puts it in perspective somehow.”
Tourists walked mere feet away, checking out the casino signs for jackpots and cheap buffets. Most never saw the memorial or if they did, they cast their eyes away as though it were the homeless begging for change. Broome got it. They were here for other reasons. Those guys on the wall, the ones who had fought or died for such freedom, would probably get it too.
“Heard you were in Iraq during the first war,” Broome said.
Ray frowned. “Not as a soldier.”
“As a photojournalist, right? Dangerous work. Heard you took shrapnel in your leg.”
“No big deal.”
“That’s what the brave always say.” Broome noticed Ray’s backpack and the camera in his hand. “You take pictures here?”
“I used to.”
“But not anymore?”
“No. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
Ray shrugged. “It’s stone and bronze. It never changes.”
“As opposed,” Broome said, “to something like, say, nature. Or like something growing near ruins. Those are better places to take pictures, right?”
Ray turned and faced him for the first time. Broome could see that Ray hadn’t shaved. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. Megan had told him that she’d met up with her former beau last night for the first time in seventeen years. Clearly he had reacted by hitting the bottle, something, according to those who knew him, Ray Levine did with a fair amount of regularity.
“I assume, Detective Broome, that you didn’t call to ask me my theories on photographic subjects.”
“Maybe I did.” Broome handed him the anonymous photograph of Carlton Flynn at the park. “What can you tell me about this?”
Ray glanced at it, said nothing. “It’s amateurish.” He handed it back to Broome.
“Ah Ray, we’re always our own toughest critics, aren’t we?”
Ray said nothing.
“We both know you took this picture. Please don’t bother with the denials. I know you took it. I know you were at the ruins the day Carlton Flynn disappeared. And I also know you were there seventeen years ago when Stewart Green disappeared.”
Ray shook his head. “Not me.”
“Yeah, Ray, you. Megan told me everything.”
He frowned. “Megan?”
“Oh, that’s her name now. You know her as Cassie. She’s married, you know. Did she tell you that? Two kids?”
Ray said nothing.
“She didn’t want to sell you out, if that means anything to you. In fact, she insists you’re innocent. She says you sent this picture to help us.” Broome tilted his head. “Is that true, Ray? Were you looking to help us find the truth?”
Ray stepped away from the statue and started toward the dancing water in the Fountain of Light. Sometimes the fountain, which had been there for nearly a hundred years, danced high, but right now the water was barely visible, bubbling maybe two or three inches.
“There’s two ways I can play this,” Ray said. “One, I lawyer up and not say a word.”
“You could do that, sure.”
“Two, I can talk to you and cooperate and trust it will work out.”
“I confess that I prefer option two,” Broome said.
“Because option two is dumb. Option two is how a guy like me gets in a jam, but you know what? We’re in Atlantic City, so I’m going to roll the dice. Yeah, I took that picture. I go to that park once a year and take pictures. That’s what I do.”
“Hell of a coincidence.”
“What?”
“You being there the same day Carlton Flynn gets grabbed.”
“I was there February eighteenth. I go there every February eighteenth, except when I spent a little time out west.”
“What’s so special about February eighteenth?”
Ray frowned. “Now who’s playing games? You talked to Cassie, so you know.”
Fair enough, Broome thought. “It’s like a pilgrimage or something?”
“Something like that. I go, I sit, I take pictures, I contemplate.”
“Contemplate?”
