Twice

fourteenth floor, Anthony was getting the blow job of his life from the nanny formerly known as Geneva Stout. Anthony didn’t know he was being duped, or so he claimed tearfully. He just thought Geneva liked him. He still didn’t know how the camera got turned off, but Ford imagined that little Nathaniel snuck in while the couple were otherwise engaged and did the deed. He’d ask Nathaniel himself. But the twins were gone.

“Did it occur to you after the murder that maybe Geneva Stout had just been trying to distract you?” Ford had asked as he sat across from Anthony at the kitchen table.

Anthony shrugged, his face a mask of misery, his eyes downcast. “Not really,” he said sheepishly.

The guy was just too pathetic, too stupid. It had probably seemed just like the plot of every porn movie Anthony had ever seen. Doorman, just minding his own business, sexy nanny from upstairs comes to visit just dying to suck his dick. Anthony probably thought it happened all the time… to other guys.

“Jesus,” said Ford now, shaking his head.

“Who came into this building tonight, Anthony. You’re the fucking doorman. Who. Did. You. Let. In?”

“No one. I swear to God. No one was here.”

“Oh, someone was here.”

“Christ,” Anthony sighed, lifting his eyes toward heaven. Ford thought he might actually be praying.

“So then, maybe you want me to conclude that you came up here, killed Eleanor Ross, and hid the twins, or handed them off to someone else, or maybe even killed them.”

“Nonononono,” he wailed. “God, no way. No fucking way.”

“Then what kind of conclusion do you want me to draw?”

“I don’t know.” Back to his mantra. Ford sighed.

“Look, you’re gonna ride down to Midtown North with one of the uniforms. We need to talk more and I don’t have time right now.”

“I told you everything I know,” said Anthony, panicked.

“I don’t think so,” answered Ford. After a few hours to himself in an interrogation room, thinking things over, the thoughts and doubts would start turning like debris in the winds of a tornado: How did I get here… how did this happen… that bitch, I should’ve known she was up to something. People get talkative after a few hours in their own head.

“I want a lawyer,” he said suddenly, looking up at Ford and crossing his arms across his chest.

“You’re not under arrest,” said Ford calmly.

“Then I don’t have to go anywhere with you. I know my rights.”

Ford brought his fist down hard on the kitchen table that stood between them. Anthony jumped and looked at him with fear and an uncertain anger in his eyes.

“Do not fuck with me, Anthony,” said Ford, getting right in the kid’s face and lowering his voice to a quiet menace. “You think you know how things go because you watch NYPD Blue? You have impeded the progress of my investigation by not being forthcoming with what you know. Cooperate with me, Anthony, and you could be home by midnight. Otherwise, man, I’ll arrest you right now and you’ll need a fucking lawyer. Do we understand each other?”

Anthony nodded and lowered his head. Ford thought the guy was going to start to bawl right there. “Good,” he answered, clapping Anthony on the shoulder. “Stay here until I send someone to take you to the precinct.”

Ford left him in the kitchen and walked out back toward the living room, where the crime scene technicians were starting to arrive. Detectives Piselli and Malone stood with their arms crossed by the door; they looked lost, like they didn’t know what to do with their hands. He was reminded that they were young, new to the detective squad. Though they’d each been on the job nearly five years, they’d had mostly patrol, some “buy-and-bust.” The crime scene was still new to them in this capacity.

“How’s it going? Holding up the wall like that?” he said.

They looked embarrassed, both pushing themselves forward and glancing at him expectantly, waiting for orders. He shook his head.

“Jesus, start looking around. You know… for clues? Something that might help you figure out what went on here?”

Peter Rawls, the head of the Missing Children’s Unit, had already arrived with his team and they seemed to be setting up shop in the room opposite from where Eleanor was found. He was grim-faced and barking orders. At well over six-foot-four with Popeye arms and a chest like a side of beef, no one argued with him.

“I’m trying not to trample on your scene McKirdy,” he said with an apologetic nod. “But we got kids missing. Time is short.”

Ford looked around him. It was pandemonium; even a first-year public defender would have a field day with evidence gathered in this circus.

“We’ll work together. Find those babies, get the shooter.” Ford’s voice sounded sure even though he wasn’t. Rawls nodded.

Ford briefed Rawls quickly on the family history and the homicide case he was working. Rawls listened with his eyes down and his arms crossed, nodding as Ford ticked off the facts as they stood so far.

“What a mess,” Rawls said when Ford was done. Ford just nodded. It was a mess, all right.

“I need some time with that doorman when you’re done with him,” said Rawls.

“I am done for now. Take all the time you want with him and then have him sent to my precinct with a uniform. I’m going to take another go at him in less comfortable accommodations.”

“I’ll tell you what I get.”

“I’ll do the same.”

They swapped cell numbers and Rawls stalked off, his face drawn and determined. Ford thought he looked like a man who didn’t accept failure and he hoped that was good news for Lola and Nathaniel. Poor kids. He said a silent prayer for them, though he was not a religious man.

“Hey,” Ford said, walking toward Piselli. “Where’s Lydia Strong?”

“She left. She wasn’t looking well. Said she needed to get home.”

They walked off and Ford looked toward the door. “Crap,” he whispered to himself. Well, he thought, she’s a tough girl, with a big gun. She can take care of herself. Ford turned then to Eleanor Ross, whose corpse he thought seemed only slightly more cold and stiff than she had been in life.

She wasn’t being stubborn or reckless or any of the things she knew she’d be accused of once Jeffrey realized she’d left Ford McKirdy and headed home on her own. In fact, it was just the opposite. If she’d stayed at the scene or headed up to Haunted, she’d be hurting herself. She knew that. Her heart and mind had never felt more unwelcome in her body. What she wanted had been overridden unequivocally by pain and fatigue. Dax was wrong and she was stupid to have listened to him; she needed time to recover… mentally, physically, and emotionally. For once, she was going to do what was best for her, not what was best for her work. It was a lesson she had learned the hard way.

When the homicide guys arrived and then the Missing Children’s Unit showed up, she had felt as helpless, as useless there as she had been. Standing in the foyer looking at Eleanor’s corpse, Lydia had thought of her mother. Marion would have known which saint to pray to, which saint was charged with looking after children. Lydia couldn’t remember, so she just prayed to her mother. Prayed that Lola and Nathaniel were safe. That Nathaniel had his bunny. When her prayer was done, she knew that there was little else she could do in the state she was in, weak and ill, barely able to hold herself tall.

The energy of the loft embraced her as she stepped off the elevator and reset the alarm system. Home, she thought. And the thought sent waves of relief through her body. It was nice to be alone, too, without the watchful eyes of Dax or Jeffrey smothering her. She shed her coat and put a kettle on the stove. She could smell the warm scent of lavender mingling with the aroma of the Murphy’s Oil Soap that Zel, their cleaning lady, used to wash the floors. She sat at the kitchen table and looked out at the city. The world was different to her than it had been before the miscarriage. Even the cityscape seemed to have changed.

The skyline had always fascinated her, each light representing a life lived, each window a mystery waiting to be solved. She was forever wondering who was doing what to whom, who within those lighted windows was laughing, crying, making love, mourning, celebrating. It was this curiosity that made her good at her work…