“Maybe it’s too late to head to Haunted?”
He shrugged. He
“What do you have in mind?” he asked.
“Let’s see if we can’t get an audience with the queen.”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve got some questions for the court jester as well.”
Anthony Donofrio didn’t look happy to see Ford as he and Lydia walked through the front door of the Park Avenue apartment building. In fact, he looked downright pale. Apparently his fascination with the specifics of police work had come to an end.
In spite of Ford’s vigorous objections, Eleanor and the twins had been allowed to move back into the duplex the day before yesterday. Money talks, apparently loudly enough that the order had been handed down directly from the chief of police. He had managed to keep sealed the bedroom where Stratton had been killed. Nobody seemed to think it was at all strange that Eleanor would feel comfortable moving the twins back into the apartment where their father had been brutally murdered.
“It’s late, Detective. They’re probably asleep,” explained Anthony when no one answered his call, pulling himself up and squaring off his shoulders as if preparing himself for a fight.
Ford looked at him and noticed a light sheen of perspiration on his upper lip.
“That’s okay, Anthony. I actually have a few questions for you, too,” said Ford. “Did you know Geneva Stout?”
“Um, the name sounds vaguely fa-fa-familiar,” he answered. He’d developed a stutter.
“The nanny for the Stratton-Ross children,” said Ford calmly, looking around the foyer.
“Oh… yeah. I seen her around.”
“You never spoke to her? She’s a pretty girl,” Ford said, turning his eyes on Anthony with a knowing smile. “I would’ve thought a stud like you would be putting the moves on.”
“Uh, n-no. It wasn’t like that.”
“So you never talked to her? Never saw her outside the building?”
“No,” he said with a shrug. The guy was lying, his eyes dancing all over the place, the sudden stutter. Ford decided to let him dangle a little.
“Sure about that, Anthony?”
“I’m sure,” he said, his face coloring now.
“ ’Cause it wouldn’t be a good idea to lie to me.”
“I w-w-wouldn’t,” he said emphatically. “Let me try that buzzer for you again.”
When there was still no answer, Ford and Lydia advanced toward the elevator.
“I can’t let you go up there unannounced,” said Anthony, a lilt of panic making his voice sound like a teenager’s.
“Anthony,” said Ford as they climbed into the elevator. “Whaddaya gonna do? Call the cops?”
The doors closed and Lydia and Ford were alone.
“What the hell was the matter with that guy?” asked Lydia as the elevator climbed slowly toward the top floor.
“I’ve been thinking about how the camera got turned off. The children’s psychologist that I used to interview Lola and Nathaniel said that someone was exerting a lot of power over the kids, someone intimate.”
“Yeah?”
“And that she couldn’t see Nathaniel acting without Lola, or without someone giving orders.”
“Okay…” she said, not quite sure where he was going.
“So, if Lola was down in the basement and Nathaniel was charged with turning off the camera and then turning it back on when she was done, something or someone had to distract Anthony long enough for him to do that. He couldn’t have snuck into the office alone.”
“And, to a loser like Anthony Donofrio, nothing is quite as distracting as a pretty girl?”
“Exactly. And a nanny would certainly exert plenty of power over the children.”
“Interesting,” said Lydia as they stepped off onto the floor. They walked down the hallway and paused at double doors to the duplex. The door stood ajar. Both Ford and Lydia drew their weapons. For once, Lydia was armed. Every other time she’d needed a gun in the last two months, it had been in her bag, in her car, somewhere out of reach. With the threat of Jed McIntyre on the loose, she had grown more cautious.
“Ms. Ross?” called Ford, looking at Lydia’s Glock with disapproval. “Put that thing away, Lydia. You fire a round in this apartment and I’ve got serious trouble. I shouldn’t even allow you to be here.”
“I’m not even with you,” she said. “I came here on my own with a separate agenda.”
“Put it away,” he said again, pushing the door open, moving in front of Lydia. Naturally, Lydia ignored him.
“Ms. Ross,” he called again, this time louder.
They walked into the apartment, which was dark except for the embers of a fire still glowing in the fireplace of the drawing room to the right of the entryway. Lydia waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, keeping close to Ford. They both noticed at the same time that a form sat stiff and motionless in the overstuffed chair near the fire. Lydia felt her heart start to do the rumba and her fingers tingled with adrenaline.
“Ms. Ross?” Ford said again, this time his voice a question. There was no movement, no response from the dark figure. Ford felt along the wall for a light switch and finally found one.
She sat upright and regal, her head tilted slightly back, the expression on her face one of cool disdain, the corners of her mouth turned down. Her long, thin hands gripped the arms of the chair to which she was bound with rope. Tresses of long gray hair cascaded down over her shoulders. She looked beautiful, except for the dark red bullet hole precisely between her blue eyes.
“Shit,” said Lydia, all the answers she’d hoped to get from Eleanor disappearing up the chimney like the thin black smoke from the embers of the fire.
“Oh, God. Oh, Christ. I didn’t know. I s-s-swear to G-G-God,” cried Anthony Donofrio from behind them. He fell to his knees and started to weep.
Ford spun around to see Anthony in a crumpled mess on the floor, blubbering like a little girl. Ford’s stomach fell out.
Lydia and Ford exchanged a glance, both of them of one mind, and together they ran through the living room. Ford pushed through the door and went down the long hallway that led to the children’s bedrooms. The rooms were across the hall from each other, adjoined by a bathroom. Ford handed Lydia a pair of surgical gloves and pulled on a pair himself. They split up. Ford went into Nathaniel’s room, characterized by a SpongeBob SquarePants motif. Lydia took Lola’s room, filled, it seemed, with every Barbie and Barbie accessory ever made. Lydia could hear the sounds of Ford ripping back the covers on the bed, pushing aside the clothes in the closet, as she did the same.
“They’re not here,” said Ford, breathless, walking into Lola’s room. He pulled out a cell phone and called in the Missing Children’ Unit, as well as backup from the homicide department. While he talked, he and Lydia searched the rest of the apartment. The space was filled with the sounds of Lydia and Ford calling for the twins and with Anthony wailing in the foyer the entire time, pausing only to puke his guts up on two separate occasions.
chapter twenty-eight
“Where are the kids, Anthony?” asked Ford, remembering the days when no one cared about police brutality.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
It seemed like a mantra he was using to calm himself. He’d said little else since Ford had grilled the truth out of him about the night Stratton was murdered. Apparently, while Richard Stratton was being disemboweled on the
