Need You Now

that fucker’s name,” he said, “and then I’ll get well.”

T he hum of an electric motor drew Mongoose from his memories. A blood pressure cuff automatically tightened on Mandretti’s bicep, and the reading flashed on the digital monitor alongside his bed. One thirty over one ten.

Mongoose’s was much higher.

He leaned over the side rail and looked down at the patient. It was exactly the wrong move, and it triggered the pain in his spine-the excruciating pain that had never gone away, that had made him a slave to the pill mills that dispensed Percocet like candy. Mongoose worked through it, focusing.

Mandretti was breathing, but it was barely noticeable. Seeing him in such sorry shape only reaffirmed the decision Mongoose had made from the outset: there was no point in killing a man who was already headed for the grave. The better plan, the only route to true revenge, was to add to his misery in his dying days.

Mongoose leaned closer, his lips to Mandretti’s ear. “Fight to stay alive,” he said, caring not that Mandretti was unable to hear him. Then he stood upright, took hold of his Bible and beads, and resumed his priestly role. “May you live to feel a pain worse than mine,” he whispered as he made the sign of the cross. “The pain of destroying your son’s life. Forever.”

34

C onnie borrowed the zoo’s van for the day, and we headed to Boston. She drove. I tried not to breathe through my nose.

“Sorry. When one of our furry friends has an accident, it can take a week for the smell to go away,” she said.

By “accident” she didn’t mean fender bender. I rolled down the window a crack and drew in the cold air.

I hadn’t decided to visit Dad on a whim. Connie was against it. Had Evan sided with her in opposition, they might have been able to talk me out of it. The idea had blossomed around midnight, as I was taking one last look at Evan’s walls. The photographs he had taken over the years were an integral part of the Cushman timeline. Most required no explanation. Lilly with Gerry Collins. Lilly and me in Singapore. They prompted me to ask about the shots he’d snapped just before I ran him down in the park, the ones of Connie and me talking in front of the snow monkeys-where would they fit into the flowchart? “They don’t,” he’d said, which made me push for an explanation. The hour was late, and perhaps fatigue had caused him to drop his guard. Or maybe he had simply come around to the view that I deserved to know the truth: “Tony asked me to take those weeks ago, when he was still in North Carolina.”

That Dad had asked for pictures of Connie and me was no small thing. It was the reason Evan had suspected that we were Tony Mandretti’s children, the reason my confirmation of his suspicions had come as no surprise. More important, for me it was proof enough that Dad wished his children were still part of his life.

“Coming here is a big mistake,” said Connie.

We were driving through Brookline, ten minutes from Lemuel Shattuck Hospital. Connie had insisted on driving rather than taking the train so that she could talk freely en route-i.e., talk me out of it.

“We’ve been over this,” I said. “I’m not changing my mind.”

“What are you going to say to him?”

It was a good question. Maybe I was tired of being told that the people who mattered most to me were criminals and that I had to keep my distance. Dad. Lilly. It was time to claw back and take control of my personal life.

“I don’t know what I’m going to say,” I said.

We parked in the snow-covered visitors’ lot and followed the freshly salted sidewalk to the hospital’s main entrance. There was a separate registration window for visitation to the prison unit. Connie followed me to the desk, and I told the corrections officer behind the glass that I had come to see Sam Carlson.

“Visitation is by appointment only,” she said. “Department rules require at least twenty-four hours’ notice.”

Connie was shameless in her sarcasm. “Oh, what a pity. Come on, let’s go home.”

“Forget it,” I said. “We drove all the way here from New York. There must be some flexibility.”

“On a normal day, maybe,” the officer said.

It wasn’t a holiday or a weekend. “Today’s not a normal day?” I asked.

The officer didn’t answer. She took our names and asked us to wait right there. A minute later she returned, buzzed us through a locked entrance door, and led us down the hall. We passed an express elevator that serviced only the prison unit on the eighth floor. Just beyond it was a small vacant room, where the officer told us to sit tight. The room had no windows, and Connie took the only chair. The officer left and closed the door, and both Connie and I heard her secure it with a key from the outside. I tried to turn the knob, but it was locked.

“I’m getting a bad vibe,” Connie said.

“Brilliant, sis. It must be all the time you spend with zoo animals that gives you such a keen sense of danger.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t you dare insult me, Patrick. Who knows what kind of mess we’re in now? I told you we shouldn’t have come here.”

I heard I told you so , or words to that effect, several more times before the latch turned and the door opened. Andie Henning entered the room, closed the door, and glared at me with double-barreled death rays.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“What are you doing here?” I replied.

“There was a breach of security. Someone hacked into the hospital computers last night and added the name of a bogus priest to the list of pre-approved visitors. He came to see your father this morning.”

“Is Dad okay?” asked Connie, blurting out my exact sentiment.

“He’s fine,” said Andie. “He’s not even aware that he had a visitor. Needless to say, all visitation to the entire unit is suspended until we figure out what happened.”

Connie rose and formally introduced herself. “I presume you’re the FBI agent who arranged for Dad’s medical treatment?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” I said. Over the past few days Andie had been so much a part of my conversations with Connie, and vice versa, that I had forgotten they’d never actually met.

“No problem,” said Connie. “It’s all that time I spend at the zoo that gives me such a keen sense of common courtesy.”

Touche.

“Did I miss something?” asked Andie.

“Never mind,” I said. “Do you have any idea who the visitor was?”

“Nothing definite yet, but we have two solid leads. Security cameras captured some clear footage. We’re running images through a facial-recognition database, but that’s a needle in a haystack. We also have a match on a shoe print.”

“Match to what?” I asked.

“The floors on eight were polished clean last night, and the video surveillance showed us exactly where our suspect walked, so we were able to pull up a clear shoe print.”

Connie said, “I would have thought you needed a soft surface, like carpeting, to pick up a shoe print.”

“Actually, the best shoe prints are on hard surfaces, like tile,” said Andie. “Or the polished marble floor of a park ranger’s bathroom.”

I caught her drift. As did Connie, who looked at Andie with concern. “So the man who strangled that park