Busted (13 page)

Chris was stunned speechless as Joe went into the room. Joe and Billy O'Malley being related wasn't anything that'd even occurred to him, and there had been nothing in the records he'd found to link them together. The last names were different. Joe was slender while Billy was built like a fat biker. Joe was sophisticated and clever and attractive… Chris shook his head and stopped that line of thought. Yeah, they were both strongly Irish, but that was hardly enough.

The room Joe walked into was done up as a living room. The brick walls had pictures of seascapes and forests hung on them. In one corner was a huge beat up television. There was a pair of couches with worn brown covers over them, and a few tatty Ikea chairs were against one wall.

"Hi Detective Russell," Joe said. His voice had a professional cheeriness to it, hiding the anger still simmering.

Steve was standing by the television. On the couch was Stephanie and Maryanne the social worker who'd met them at the apartments the previous week. Stephanie was wearing a denim dress and the jacket Joe had left with her. She looked nervous.

"Hey, princess," Joe said as he looked at her. She smiled shyly she saw him, and he got a warm feeling in his chest when she did. He felt a little strange about that. If what Chris had said was true she was his niece. It would've been nice if they could have met under better circumstances. It would've been nice if they'd actually
met
.

"Hi," she said shyly.

He sat down next to her. "You doing okay?"

She snuggled into him. He put his arm around her and pulled her into a hug. "The detectives need to ask you some questions. Right Detective Russell?"

Steve pulled up a hassock in front of Stephanie and leaned in towards her. He was trying hard to seem harmless, though it was difficult for a man that large to do so.

"Stephanie," Steve said softly. This was one of the things he hated most about his job. He could handle the drugs and the violence and the despair. Even the bodies weren't as bad as this, pushing kids back into the darkness., back to the monsters. "I need you to tell me who was in your apartment last Friday."

Stephanie started to shiver. Joe pulled her up onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm here, princess," he said. "I know it's tough. You're safe, though. I've got you. You can do this."

Joe started gently rocking her, humming tunelessly until he felt her relax.

"I had a bad dream about Daddy," she said. "But Mommy told me he wasn't coming back and we were safe. We were eating breakfast," she said. "Ricky was getting cheerios. He likes cheerios, with lots of sugar.

"Somebody knocked and mommy got the door. Mommy said he was from the gas company." Stephanie's voice had an almost dead sound to it, like she was in a trance. Joe could barely feel her in his lap. "He smelled funny. Mommy always said it wasn't nice to say things like that so I didn't say anything.

"Cathy asked if that was why he was wearing the hat. I don't know why she asked that, 'cause he wasn't wearing a hat. He said it was, though. They made him wear the hat."

"Can you tell us what he was wearing, Stephanie?"

She looked over at Steve. He had to hold back a shudder. Her eyes looked dead.

"He was wearing jeans and a black shirt. He looked all fuzzy, like when the TV isn't working right. He was all wobbly looking.

"He told Mommy that maybe he should look at the stove and we should go into the other room just in case, because he didn't want us to get hurt if something happened. Mommy and Ricky and Cathy went, but I didn't want to because I still had some marshmallows left in my Lucky Charms. I eat those last.

"The man told me to go in the living room with Mommy. I didn't want to but he smiled at me. He had a scary looking smile and he was holding a knife and I didn't want to be in the kitchen with him any more so I went in with Mommy.

"It got all funny smelling in the living room and Mommy looked funny. The man came in and said maybe she should lie down. Ricky and Cathy should lie down too, he said. He still had the knife. It was all shiny and it looked really sharp. I thought he should be careful or he'd get hurt like my friend Katie got hurt when her uncle cut her. He looked at me and said I could stay on the couch, 'cause I was the spare just in case."

As she was talking, Joe felt the same thing he had back at the apartment complex, before he'd found her. His stomach was starting to churn, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that something was looking for him. He tried to shake it off. He didn't want to spook Stephanie. He wasn't sure she'd be able to do this again. He wasn't sure
he'd
be able to do this again.

"Mommy and Ricky and Cathy laid down on the floor. He told Ricky to move a little. Then he…" she shuddered again, and the nausea Joe was feeling got worse. He'd never heard what happened in the apartment. He didn't pay too much attention to the news normally, and after finding her and what Steve had said he really hadn't wanted to know what was going on.

Stephanie went still again, falling back into the dark place where she was safe. "He cut Mommy with his knife. In the neck. There was a lot of blood. She made a gurgly noise and there was blood all over, but it was mostly all around her. The man was all smiling and happy, but I didn't like it much, 'cause the funny smell was making my tummy hurt, and my eyes were getting squinty watching him.

"Mommy stopped bleeding, and then he cut her open. She had a long pink tube in her and he pulled it out and made a circle around them. He was humming, but I didn't know what song he was humming. When he was done his knife was all red and sticky. He licked it all off and made the knife clean. I could see 'cause it wasn't all shimmery around the knife."

"Could…" Steve's voice caught in his throat. "Could you see his face near the knife, Stephanie?"

"Yeah. He was kind of old, as old as grandma. He had a wrinkly face and grey hair. But he didn't have a hat, no matter what Cathy said.

"The man," Steve said. "Was he as tall as your mommy, or was he a little taller or shorter?"

"He was a little taller than Mommy, but I think he was shorter than Daddy, but he wasn't fat like Daddy. He was kind of skinny.

"When Mommy was all done he did Ricky and then he did Cathy. He was singing a song while he did it, but I couldn't hear the words. They were all shimmery too, like he was. I got blood all over me 'cause Ricky made a mess when the man cut him. Ricky always makes a mess, even when Mommy tells him not to.

"The phone rang when he was making the circle with Cathy's tubes and that kind of made him jump. I got all scared then 'cause Mommy and Ricky and Cathy weren't moving and there was a lot of blood and I ran away when he was looking at the phone. He didn't see me 'cause I hate it when people see me sometimes and I'm really good at hiding."

She looked up at Joe. "Is he going to find me now?" Something broke then, and she started screaming and sobbing. Joe held her tight and tried to comfort her, rocking her back and forth, but it wasn't enough, no matter how hard he tried.

There was someone at his elbow then, a woman with a syringe. She was saying something but he couldn't hear it over Stephanie's screams. He held her as still as he could and tried to move out of the way, hoping it was the right thing. The woman jabbed in with the syringe, and a few seconds later Stephanie started to calm, then fall asleep.

"Here," the woman said. She was young, maybe twenty five, dressed in a sweater and jeans. "I'll take her to her room. She'll be asleep for a while." Joe stood up, lifting the unconscious girl, and handed her limp body over.

Steve and Chris were by the door, talking softly to each other and scribbling notes down. Joe noticed Chris had a video camera, and Steve had a tape recorder with him. Maryanne followed the woman carrying Stephanie out of the room. She looked tired, and for a moment she seemed very old.

"Um," Joe said, "is there a bathroom somewhere I can use?"

"There are some at the other end of the hall," she said.

He felt like a zombie as he walked out of the room. He barely noticed the tears streaming down his face. As he passed, Chris fished a small bottle of mouthwash out of his pocket and handed it to him. Steve gave him an appraising look, puzzled at his partner's actions.

In the men's room down the hall, Joe knelt in front of the toilet and heaved until his stomach was empty and his abdomen hurt so bad he thought it would cramp. Then he slumped down to the ground and cried until his throat was raw and his eyes had run dry.

When there was nothing left but the numbness he got up, straightened his clothes, and went to the sink. He washed is hands and face, rinsed out his mouth a half dozen times, then gargled the mouthwash until he couldn't take it any more. Joe walked back to the rec room to see if there was anything else that Steve needed.

Chris and Steve were sitting at a table in the corner of the room, papers spread out. He had a battered laptop open and running.

"Joe," Steve said, giving him a hard look, "we need to talk."

"Great," Joe said weakly, slumping into a chair. His throat burned and his stomach ached. "All that and you're dumping me, too."

Chris bit back a laugh. "You didn't tell us that she was your niece," he said.

"Look, I didn't know, okay?" Joe said. "Nobody… nobody ever told me." That hurt, too. It was his own fault as much as anyone's that he didn't have any contact with his family. It had been the right decision when he’d made it, all those years ago, but now he was beginning to regret it.

Steve looked at Chris. If Joe was a perp, he'd do the talking and let Chris sort out the truth. That was a pattern that worked well for them, and gave them a conviction rate that few others in the state could match. Joe wasn't a perp, or at least Steve hadn't thought he might be until Chris had told him about Joe's relationship to Stephanie. Now he wasn't as sure.