Chapter 41
I’m trying to wrap my mind around this,” Desmond said. “Could you repeat that? Because it sounds like you’re saying the man who killed my sister and Gary Cowan is an abducted child.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Westergren said. “Max Brantov went missing when he was seventeen. That was seven years ago. He hasn’t been found.”
Desmond’s mouth was dry. “What happened to him?”
“At first, his family thought he was a runaway. The brother said he’d been upset since his parents’ divorce. He thought Max had run off to be with his dad. The family lived on Long Island, and the dad had moved to Arizona. But he never showed up at his dad’s house, at least not according to the dad. Then the mother found Max’s favorite T-shirt in his laundry hamper, and it had blood on it. That was how his DNA got into the system.”
“I don’t believe this.” Desmond’s mind was reeling. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a white glimmer, like someone moving, but when he turned his head, no one was there. “What can you tell me about the family?”
“I’m looking into them now.” Westergren lowered his voice. “My partner isn’t happy. He thought everything was tied up, but now we’ve got this and he’s pissed off.”
“I’m with a couple of NYPD detectives right now. Could I hand you over to one of them so you can explain this?” Desmond walked back to the cops. He handed his phone to Iorio. “Pennsylvania trooper. You really need to hear what he has to say.”
She took the phone from him and talked to Westergren. From the shell-shocked expression that crept into her face, he knew she was as stunned by the news as he was.
“This is unbelievable,” she breathed, her eyes darting to her partner and then to Desmond. He watched her dash off frenzied lines in the notepad she carried with her.
“So, you’ve got some interesting history,” Reich said to Desmond. His voice was casual, almost conversational. Iorio looked up, frowning, and gave a slight shake of her head, as if warning him off, before going back to scribbling notes.
Desmond didn’t respond to Reich. Cops hated that. They thought they were the only ones who could stretch silence out like a rubber band. They didn’t like it when it snapped back at them.
“You got quite the rap sheet,” Reich added. “Robbery, burglary, vagrancy.”
“You left out loitering.”
Reich’s face tightened like a screw. “You think this is a big joke, huh?”
Desmond was suddenly light-headed, and something swam at the edge of his vision. He remembered Dr. Torres’s warnings and swallowed hard. “What can I say, detective? I made a lot of mistakes when I was a kid. But I turned my life around after that.”
“You’ve managed not to get arrested for anything since you were fourteen,” Reich said slowly. “That’s not the same as turning your life around. I’ve gotta say, your background made for some interesting reading. I know you told us about your mother being a killer, but you left out the really shocking parts.”
The urge to punch the officer in the gut was so overwhelming that Desmond had to take his eyes off the man and cast them across the lobby. His own pulse beat inside his ears like a drum. The only thing that kept him calm was his mother’s voice echoing from far away. Let go. When he turned his eyes back to Reich, he was composed.
“My sister is dead,” Desmond said. “Her boyfriend is dead. Tom Klepper is dead. And you’re standing here in front of me, proud of yourself for looking up my rap sheet? I’m forty years old. You want to talk about what went down twenty-six years ago?”
“You should’ve come clean with us at the station.”
“You should stop playing the fool and start looking at the man who’s connected to all three of these deaths.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Reich said.
Don’t hit him, Desmond warned himself. He didn’t care that he might get hauled into jail, but he didn’t want to give the police a pretext to drop their investigation. “You’re wasting my time and your own.”
“That’s enough, both of you,” Iorio commanded, before returning to her phone call and politely modulating her voice. “Thank you. I can’t begin to tell you how helpful this is. I’ll touch base with you later today when I’m back at the squad.” She handed the phone back to Desmond. Westergren had already hung up.
“You won’t believe this, but Mystery Max exists,” Iorio said to her partner. “His real name is Maxim Brantov. The family lives on Long Island. Maybe we should have the local PD talk to them this afternoon, see whether Max has been in touch lately.”
“So, there really is a Max. Amazing.” Reich didn’t even try to hide his astonishment. He stared at Desmond. “I guess this really is your lucky day.”
Chapter 42
A cloud of dread followed Desmond as he drove out to Long Island that afternoon, even with Edmond Dédé keeping him company. “Mon Pauvre Coeur” couldn’t soothe him now. He didn’t give a damn that the police wouldn’t like him talking to the Brantov family. What troubled him was Marcus Aurelius, and the fact that the words he’d been living by since he was fifteen years old weren’t resonating inside him anymore. If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now. The words sounded wise, but it wasn’t in Desmond’s power to follow them. The more he thought about Max Brantov, the harder it was to breathe. Max Brantov was a runaway who’d turned to a life of crime. He could no more change his judgment about the man than he could bring Dominique back to life again.
He didn’t know which way to turn, except to follow the only real lead he had. He picked up his
