Canary (41 page)
Authors: Duane Swierczynski
Kevin knows this story is bullshit because of Sarie’s journals.
So his daughter’s memorial service, while touching, is simply part of one big Fiction.
Kevin scans the interior of the chapel. Wildey is here, bowing his head as the choir sings “Ave Maria.” All of Sarie’s professors are present, with the exception of Professor Chaykin, of course, who promptly resigned (and last Kevin heard was assaulted by persons unknown and is currently under police protection). To Kevin’s left is Marty, whose strength and clear thinking through all of this still have him stunned. To his right is Tammy, who’s been spending a lot of time at the Holland house lately. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe she misses her friend; either way, Kevin is happy to have her around.
After the service, they walk back to guest parking. Wildey approaches.
“Hey.”
“Any word?” Kevin asks.
“Nothing yet.”
The day it all happened (Friday the thirteenth, no less) Wildey finally showed up at Kevin’s house in person. Kevin grappled with the urge to pummel the shit out of the motherfucker, demand to know what he did with Sarie, why the fuck didn’t he encourage her to come clean, to ask for help instead of taking this on by herself … but he kept his cool. Wildey, though apologetic, walked in armed with the “official” Philly PD story. Though instead of the “presumed dead” part, he insisted that Sarie was alive and would be located. He’d devote his days to finding her.
“Bullshit,” Kevin said.
“Mr. Holland, I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now, but listen to me. Your daughter is the smartest, toughest, and most resourceful person I know and—”
“Yeah, I know. Which is why I’m calling you on your bullshit.”
And then he showed him the stack of blue exam book journals.
“What’s that?” Wildey asked quietly.
“Pretty much everything,” Kevin replied.
After a moment of stunned silence, Wildey started grilling Kevin on how much of his investigation was in those blue exam books. Kevin gave Wildey enough to make him drop the official line.
“What I’m about to tell you has to stay between us,” Wildey said.
Kevin told him, “We’ll see about that.”
Wildey shook his head. “No. Really. You’re going to want it that way.”
By the end of the conversation, Kevin felt like he’d been whacked upside the head with a sledgehammer. Sarie was gone because Sarie knew she had to stay gone. After all, you can’t prosecute someone for murder when they’re missing and presumed dead.
“This is insane … this is
fucking insane
!”
Wildey told him they both had their fingers on the trigger. Nobody, from the D.A. on up, wanted the truth about Captain Rem Mahoney’s ties to organized crime—it would be a fatal blow to a city already reeling from dozens of police scandals. This, though, would be the nuke that could bring a department down. And Kevin sure as shit didn’t want his daughter tried for murder—even though it was arguably self-defense, her prints were on that Glock, and her victim had no weapons.
“So where is she now? What is she going to do?”
“She told me she wants to make up for her sins,” Wildey said, “and that she’d be in touch.”
“Jesus …”
“Like I said, Mr. Holland, your daughter is the smartest, toughest, and most resourceful person I know.”
That was eleven days ago. And now Wildey is saying there’s still no word.
Laura, our daughter is somewhere out there, alone, this huge weight on her shoulders, and I can’t do a fucking thing about it.
“Happy holidays to you, Officer Wildey.”
“You too, man.”
Yo ho ho ho!
Now
this
is where Ringo should have landed after his long stint in Buttfuck, Kansas. Look at that sun sparkling off those pristine white cruisers! Look at all that money bobbing up and down on the clear blue water! Sure, fucking off to Florida is a cliché, but man, sometimes the clichés are that way for a reason. Florida, man, the Sunshine State, the Land of Good Living, also happens to be a fairly convenient way to flee the country, too. Especially if you have your own boat like this motherfucker here, this Charles Chaykin.
Everybody’s looking for you, Chuck. But listen up: Your secret’s safe. Because even with a couple of slugs in me, I had enough left in the tank to go have a little talk with your dorky brother. He didn’t give you up right away. Only after a couple of minutes (and teeth). Oh, and don’t worry about him talking to the police. I whispered in his ear a little and told him how that would be a seriously bad idea.
Ringo and Charles, aka Chuckie Morphine, need some quality time together.
Ringo won’t kill him right away. That would be foolish. First of all, he needs somebody to teach him how to drive a boat this size. (Or do you pilot a boat? Steer a boat? Ringo reminds himself to ask.) And it’ll be smarter to heave his tortured, broken corpse as far out into the ocean as possible. Forget the Lobster Trap; the Atlantic can’t be beat when it comes to chump dumping.
Ringo boards the ship, which Chuckie has named
KEEPIN’ IT REAL (ESTATE)
. Fuck—this dude seriously needs to die for
that
alone.
Anyway, Merry Christmas, Serafina Holland.
“Yo ho ho ho!” Ringo calls out, as a courtesy.
A mutant canary knocks on the front door of the MI6 building.
Canaries? Marty didn’t add any canaries to this level. He debates sending some of his mutant sheep up there to take care of his avian problem but then realizes something.
Holy shit. No way …
His avatar makes it to the front door just in time to watch the canary fly away. But the bird has buried something in the front lawn. Marty’s av marches over and digs it up.
There’s a password-protected message: five digits. Marty ponders that one for a while before realizing there can only be one possibility. He thumbs: C-I-1-3-7.
HI MARTY. LOVE YOU. MERRY CHRISTMAS
Marty wants to scream with joy, but he’s afraid he’ll wake Dad and Tammy up. They’d both turned in, leaving Marty to leave out the cookies and milk (even though he totally knows the deal with that) and play a little Diggit before going to sleep.
On second thought, to hell with that. Marty runs to tell his father the news. He swears, no more secrets between them ever again.
Dear Mom,
I wish I’d asked you more about Mexico when you were alive. It’s truly beautiful here.
I won’t be writing to you anymore; I hope you understand. But words on a page are very risky where I am now. (Going to burn this the moment I finish it, along with the rest of the pages, but I thought you wouldn’t be able to hear this if I didn’t write down the words. It’s kind of our thing.) So much has happened over the last few weeks, and I can’t possibly tell you everything except the highlights:
I am safe and gainfully employed and well fed and warm. Most importantly, I know that Dad and Marty will be safe from now on.
The guy who I referred to as Partyman before is looking after me. After I reached out to him on that horrible day, he got me out of Philly and found me this job. He says he’s very impressed with how quickly I’ve adjusted. (I finally know his real name but don’t want to risk writing it down, even once.) No, he’s not an undercover cop or anything. He actually works for the cartels, traveling around, looking for new business opportunities. The cartel that employs him—well, us—is VERY interested in Philadelphia. Somehow he knew about my past, about you, and it turns out that you were involved with a cartel, so he sees me as a kind of good omen. But mostly, he says he likes how my brain works, and I’m sort of his protégé. In exchange, Partyman will see to it that Dad and Marty are kept safe. Nobody will touch them, so don’t worry.
I learned more in the past two weeks than I have during thirteen and a half years of school. Does this say something about me, or about school? Maybe both? Do I take after you, or Dad? I guess that remains to be seen.
Did I mention I was warm? I never want to be cold again. I don’t think my blood was meant for Philadelphia. I have more of you in me than I thought.
(I always wanted to go to California. Baja California counts, right?)
I am at peace with what I’ve done, what I must do, and who I am.
If you see Drew, tell him I’m sorry. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, and I will love him forever for trying to save me.
No matter what you hear about me, no matter what I may do, know that I am trying to do the right thing, just like you and Dad taught me.
I love you,
Serafina
Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Wildey tours the desperate streets of the Badlands. Busy, even on this oh-so-holy night. There will always be people looking to get their high on. Not that he’s concerned with that right now. He’s headed to pick up his Auntie M. for Christmas dinner. He thought about making something at home, but the hell with that. He’s going to take her to a nice restaurant. There are a few open for people like them, people without big families. As much as possible, Wildey wants to enjoy the yuletide calm before the storm.
Narcotics Field Unit-Central South is no more. Having lasted just a little over six months, it will be expunged from the history of the department. Conceived in secret, it was buried in secret, in a shallow grave right beyond the land of Who Cares.
Tons of Mexican heroin about to flood the streets. The smaller ethnic gangs have either been forced out or have been compelled to fall in line. What Mahoney and D’Argenio were setting up would have been torn apart anyway. Unlike before, there is only going to be one supplier. One pipeline. Prices will fall, customers will flock. Then will come the stranglehold. There’s going to be a drug war the likes of which this city has never seen.
Good thing Wildey, head of a completely new aboveboard narcotics unit, has a secret weapon in this war.
His burner buzzes. A message he’s been waiting for all day finally arrives. It’s his informant; she’s all the way inside the cartel now.
It’s going to be a good new year.
Canary
was inspired by dozens of true crime stories in Philadelphia and across the country, so let me tip my hat to the journalists working on the front lines, among them: George Anastasia, Emily Babay, William Bender, Mensah M. Dean, Jeff Deeney, Jenny DeHuff, Daniel Denvir, Dana DiFilippo, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Mark Fazlollah, David Gambacorta, Dan Geringer, Barbara Laker, Samantha Melamed, Jason Nark, Mike Newall, Jeremy Roebuck, Wendy Ruderman, David Simon, Joseph A. Slobodzian, Allison Steele, Sarah Stillman, Steve Volk, Aubrey Whelan, Sam Wood, and Morgan Zalot. Also, Matthew Cooke’s 2012 film
How to Make Money Selling Drugs
was an invaluable resource.
Special thanks to Lou Boxer for assisting me with location scouting, as well as an early read. And thanks to the good folks at CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia for providing me with a quiet place to write.
This bird wouldn’t have flown without the Mulholland Books team: Joshua Kendall, Wes Miller, Garrett McGrath, Reagan Arthur, Michael Pietsch, Pam Brown, Morgan Moroney, Kate MacAloney, Jayne Yaffe Kemp, and Janet Byrne. And let me pass the spliff of thanks to the gang at Inkwell, especially David Hale Smith, Lizz Blaise, Alexis Hurley, and Richard Pine, as well as Lindsay Williams and Shari Smiley at The Gotham Group.
At its heart,
Canary
is a family story, and I couldn’t have written it without
my
family. My wife, best friend, and first reader Meredith Swierczynski makes it all possible—you have no idea. My son, Parker, and daughter, Sarah, are sources of constant delight and inspiration, and I’m proud to have finally written a novel they can read without warping their delicate minds. (Too much.)
Duane Swierczynski is the author of several crime thrillers, including the Shamus Award–winning Charlie Hardie series (
Fun and Games, Hell and Gone, Point and Shoot
), which is being developed by Sony Pictures Television. He writes the monthly comic series Judge Dredd for IDW and X for Dark Horse, and has written various bestselling comics for Marvel, Dynamite, and DC. He has also collaborated with CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker on the bestselling Level 26 trilogy. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and children.
