the wall had a beer-bottle cap nailed to it like some alcoholic mosaic. The jukebox played “Love Me Do” by the Beatles. A couple of old men hunched in the corner, nursing pints and arguing about Giuliani. The typical bar aroma of booze and cigarettes was accented by a subtle but definite hint of vomit.
Piselli and Malone sat across from Lydia and Jeffrey in a red vinyl booth; they’d parked Dax’s wheelchair at the end of the table.
Lydia really looked at them for the first time. They were both pretty good-looking guys, Piselli with slicked black hair and dark eyes that observed sharply and missed nothing. He had a fashionable bit of stubble on his square jaw and a slight hook in his nose didn’t detract from his face but made it almost aquiline, at once sexy and regal. They were both young, but Malone had more of a boyish look to him, a soft innocence around the corners of his eyes. The acne scarring she’d noticed when she’d met him the first time didn’t seem as angry or red as it had. His skin was unlined, shaven, and clean. He smelled of Ivory soap.
Lydia and Jeffrey ordered Amstels from the bartender; Malone ordered a Coke. And Piselli drank coffee from a white ceramic mug that read ONE DAY AT A TIME. Dax sulked.
“This is what we know,” said Piselli, lighting the fourth cigarette he’d smoked since approaching them at the Rover. Lydia fantasized about asking for one but didn’t.
“He had a uniform take Anthony Donofrio down to the station while he hung around the scene for a while with us. He poked around the apartment, then headed down after them. We know that he spent about forty-five minutes with Donofrio; he taped the conversation. During this conversation he learned that Annabelle Hodge had entered the building just hours before you and Ford found Eleanor Ross dead.”
“I talked to him right after he learned about Annabelle Hodge,” interjected Piselli. “He wanted me to cooperate with Rawls, the head of MCU. Make sure he got anything he needed from our files. But I didn’t ask him where he was going and he didn’t say.”
“We know he spoke to his wife briefly that evening late, after midnight. She called from Houston,” Piselli said.
“Did you talk to Donofrio?” asked Jeffrey.
“We can’t find him.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lydia, taking a sip from her beer.
“Rawls headed back there and spent some more time with him, but he basically just went over and over the same stuff he’d told Ford. Rawls had nothing to hold him on, so they had to let him go. He never made it home after he left the precinct.”
“You think he fled?” asked Jeffrey.
“With no money, no change of clothes, no call to his mother? No,” said Piselli with a shake of his head.
“Do you have the videotape of their conversation?” asked Lydia.
Piselli pulled a videotape from the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to her. “I didn’t know if it would help you, but I thought I’d bring you a copy.
“They talked about Annabelle Hodge, mostly,” he said, and then ran down the general content of the conversation. “How much she hated Julian Ross and a bunch of other crap about how she was a voodoo priestess or some shit.”
Lydia and Jeffrey exchanged a look.
“You think she’s the shooter? That she took the twins?”
“She’s suspect number one as far as the Missing Children’s Unit is concerned.”
“Have you been up to Haunted?” asked Lydia.
“We been up there, looking for Ford and Geneva Stout, a.k.a. Annabelle Hodge. No sign of either of them. But we got a warrant and with the help of the locals up there, we took the Hodge residence apart. They’re still watching the place.”
“What did you find?”
“We found a knife that was consistent with the injuries incurred by Richard Stratton. But it had been thoroughly cleaned, no prints, no blood evidence.”
“You talked to Maura Hodge?” asked Jeffrey.
Malone and Piselli shook their heads.
“Can’t find her, either?”
“She’s gone, too,” said Malone.
“The Missing Children’s Unit is working around the clock. Julian Ross’s attorneys are riding them like you wouldn’t believe. Those kids are worth millions.”
“No leads?”
“Nothing, and I mean
Lydia felt a flutter of panic and a little guilt. She’d been so overwhelmed with the events of her own life that she hadn’t even thought about the kids since she’d left Eleanor’s apartment that night. Lydia thought of their sweet faces, remembering shaking each of their little hands that day at the hotel. She felt a little ache in her chest, wondering what had happened to Lola and Nathaniel, their father and grandmother dead, their mother locked away.
“It’s cold and getting colder. The case is at a dead end. Two bodies, two missing children, one missing detective, the only survivor whose whereabouts we know of,” said Piselli, showing the palms of his hands, “in the nuthouse. Crazy, talking about ‘destroyers’ and monsters eating her young.”
“Eating her young…” said Lydia. “She’s been saying that from the beginning.”
“She has, hasn’t she?” said Jeffrey.
“A cop disappears like that,” said Malone, apparently not listening to the conversation but thinking about Ford, “people figure he turns up somewhere having parked with a bottle and his service revolver. You know what I mean?”
There was a look of worry and sadness on his face; the job hadn’t yet taught him how to hide his emotions better, hadn’t desensitized him to the ugliness of a cop’s life. Lydia found herself hoping that maybe he’d get out before it did. There was something refreshing about a young man whose feelings you could read on his face. Even Jeffrey had learned a game face; Lydia couldn’t always tell what he was feeling by looking into his eyes.
They were all quiet for a minute. “We been to Ford’s place in Brooklyn,” said Piselli. “Rose came back; she’s worried sick, of course.”
“Though maybe if she was so worried she wouldn’t have left in the first place,” said Malone with a disapproving snort.
“Not your business,” said Piselli, giving him a look.
“You said he talked to Rose the night he disappeared. What was that conversation about?” she asked.
“She told him she was coming back so that they could talk.”
“He would have been happy about that; the conversation would have made him hopeful,” said Lydia. She remembered her conversation with Ford when they’d driven upstate. He’d seemed very depressed then, unsure about the future and doubting the way he’d lived his life. Those things and the pressures of the job, the lack of an outlet for his emotions and a viable support system… well, it led a lot of cops to the end Malone feared. But not with Rose coming back. Unless that added a whole other set of pressures that he couldn’t handle.
“Ford wouldn’t go out like that,” said Jeffrey, sounding certain. “Especially not with Rose coming back. It doesn’t make sense.”
“So what can we do, guys?” said Lydia.
Now that they were talking about the case again, she was infused with a sense of urgency. It gave her a jolt of energy that she hadn’t felt in a while. Her fear for Ford and the twins and the itch of curiosity awoke a familiar fire within her. She felt a little guilty, but part of her was relieved to have a problem to solve. Her work had always helped her keep her mind off of her life… for better or for worse.
“Nothing,” said Piselli with a shrug and a sideways glance. “We’re just following up with you, Lydia, since you were one of the last people to see him.”
“Nothing?”
“Yeah, since you know,
