Fixation…’
‘I think you’re solving my problem,’ said Barbara. ‘All we need now is to know where she is.’
‘And who she’s with,’ added Hanlan. He looked at the policewoman. ‘You think your guys could get the initial statements?’
‘Sure,’ nodded Barbara. To her waiting squad she said: ‘OK guys,’ and followed Hanlan towards the window view, making room for the other detectives to start work. She said to Hanlan: ‘You going to bring in a big team?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ admitted Hanlan. ‘What I don’t want are any media leaks. If she’s being held, we’ve got to avoid spooking whoever’s got her into doing something in a panic to get rid of her. You warn your guys?’
‘Sure,’ agreed the woman again. ‘But a thing like this, it nearly always gets out.’
‘Let’s just do our best. If it is a kidnap, there’ll be ransom demands. We’ll need to get this place wired: people here permanently. And the Northcote building, as well. Have negotiators there, too.’
Barbara Donnelly looked at him sceptically. ‘And you want to keep it under wraps!’
‘Let’s just do our best,’ Hanlan repeated. ‘And…’ He stopped, abruptly, looking back into the apartment. ‘And at the moment we’re a hell of a long way short of doing that.’ He called out: ‘Mr Reynolds? Dr Pritchard…?’
The security guard and the gynaecologist crossed the room together.
Hanlan said: ‘Downstairs, in the lobby. There’s got to be CCTV?’
‘Sure thing,’ agreed the guard.
‘And a viewing room?’
‘Of course.’
‘You mind coming with us, Dr Pritchard?’
No one spoke in the descending lift, but Barbara Donnelly was smiling faintly and when she glanced in his direction Hanlan smiled back, hopefully. There were four monitors in the viewing room but Alice was only on the loop of the primary camera, directed at the main door. The film showed her turning away immediately after her first exchange with Reynolds and Barbara said: ‘She’s trying to cover herself: seen there’s a camera.’
Jane was between Alice and the camera as they left and the detective said: ‘Here she’s using Jane as a shield. And look, she’s holding her arm, forcing her along!’
‘Supporting, not forcing her,’ qualified Hanlan. To the gynaecologist he said: ‘Well? Do you know her?’
‘I think I do,’ said Rosemary Pritchard, although with doubtful slowness.
‘Who?’ demanded Barbara, eagerly. ‘Give us her name!’
The gynaecologist shook her head. ‘I don’t have one. I’m fairly sure that I know her, that I’ve seen her or met her. But I can’t recognize her: give her a name. There’s something…’ She shrugged. ‘… something, but I don’t know what.’
On the second re-run Hanlan realized that he’d seen her, too. That morning, at John Carver’s wake at the Plaza Hotel.
Jane had remained asleep, only occasionally stirring, during the drive up to the cabin and was very confused when Alice tried to rouse her, needing all Alice’s support to get her into the cabin, so unsteady and still so half asleep that Alice continued straight on into the bedroom and laid Jane under the comforter, only bothering to take off her shoes. Jane snuffled and shifted for a position, but slept on.
During the drive Alice had tried to put some sort of reason into what she’d done and justified most of it, but not all, and the part she couldn’t justify was the most important. But the major concern was Jane herself. However exhausted Jane might have been by the funeral it was surely unnatural, maybe dangerously so, to have slept for so long in a jolting car and to go on sleeping now, although the bed was far more comfortable than the Volkswagen’s passenger seat. Jane should be seen by a doctor. Who would ask questions about medication which Alice couldn’t answer. Want to know what Jane was doing there and maybe why. Alice reached out and felt Jane’s forehead. Jane stirred at the touch but didn’t wake up. She wasn’t running a fever and was breathing quite normally. She’d wait, Alice decided. Sit where she was, here in the bedroom, alert for any discernible change in Jane. She’d definitely get a doctor if Jane became obviously ill but at the moment she wasn’t obviously ill. Just deeply asleep. Which made Alice’s other difficulty the most important thing.
She’d kept the radio on low, throughout the drive, tuned to breaking news for the first flash on Jane’s disappearance, surprised she hadn’t heard it. There’d be a panic, though, police and FBI: Gene Hanlan involved, almost inevitably. It would be a hell of a risk, calling from here, but she had to do it to stop the panic. Stop them thinking something bad might have happened to Jane. It would only take a minute, maybe two: it would be all right to leave Jane alone for just two minutes.
But Alice hesitated at the telephone, the Federal Plaza number beside it, and had to force herself to lift up the receiver. The moment she said ‘Martha’ into the mouthpiece Hanlan was on the line.
‘You got her?’
The lobby camera, Alice knew. ‘She’s all right.’
‘You know what you’ve done?’ Hanlan certainly knew what he’d done, risking his entire career putting everything on hold in expectation of getting this call after seeing the CCTV film.
‘Of course I know!’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘To get the evidence you said I needed.’
‘She got it?’
‘She can get it.’
‘Now here’s what you’re going to do, Martha. You’re going to come in, like I’ve been asking you to all along. Come in, and we’re going to sort it all out. And now I want you to bring Jane to the phone so I can talk to her, hear that she’s OK.’
‘You can’t talk to her. She’s asleep.’
‘Martha! You could be in a whole lot of trouble. Serious, criminal trouble. I’m keeping a very tight lid on everything to protect you but …’
‘That’s what I want, protection!’
‘I know. And I promise I’ll give it to you. All you’ve got to do is come in. Or tell us where you are and we’ll come and get you.’
She’d held on the phone too long. ‘I’ll call again, later. I want to think.’
‘Martha! Don’t hang up!’
But Alice did.
The Bonanno’s Vito Craxi said: ‘I want to put things on notice here. We’re looking at a fucking disaster.’
‘A major fucking disaster,’ endorsed Carlo Brookier.
No one was admiring the Central Park view or helping themselves to drinks.
Bobby Gallo, the Gambino consigliere, said: ‘That’s my Family’s feeling, too. How we going to get what’s in Carver’s Citibank box? We don’t get it, the system’s bust. It’s a collapse we don’t want and can’t have.’
Charlie Petrie knew clearly enough it wasn’t general conversation. He, in particular, and the Genovese by unarguable association, were being held responsible. ‘What about Burcher’s idea, going to the firm direct, get back what belongs to us after Carver wrote his letters?’
‘We can’t be sure we know of everything Northcote held back. Who might be identified,’ warned Gino LaRocca. ‘We’re over a barrel here.’
‘We gotta shift something,’ insisted Gallo.
‘I’ll speak to Burcher about a strictly legal approach,’ undertook Petrie.
‘I think it’s dangerous,’ protested Craxi.
‘Let’s vote on it,’ suggested Petrie.
Craxi was the only objector.
Petrie said: ‘I’ll speak to him.’
Craxi said: ‘After this, Burcher is superfluous.’
‘He gets the stuff back from the Northcote firm, he provides a service,’ said Gallo.
‘He’s still superfluous,’ insisted Craxi.
‘He gets the stuff back, then he’s superfluous,’ agreed Petrie. ‘Right now he’s got a use.’
