Daddy's Gone a Hunting (27 page)

When Jose Fernandez had arrived home the evening before, he had opened his computer and looked up the Connelly complex on the Internet. Sitting in the kitchen of the four-room apartment in the housing development near the Brooklyn Bridge, he had told his mother about what he was researching.

“Mom, take a look at the pictures of that museum, the way it was until the explosion. That furniture must have been worth a fortune. They called that room the Fontainebleau bedroom. The real Fontainebleau was where Marie Antoinette slept before the French Revolution.”

Jose’s mother, Carmen, turned from the stove and looked over his shoulder. “Too fancy. Too much trouble keeping it clean. Who’s Marie Anter—”

“Antoinette. She was a French queen.”

“Good for her. One hundred thousand dollars in student loans and you’re clearing trash that used to be expensive furniture.”

Jose sighed. It was a familiar refrain. He knew it would have been smarter to get a business degree, but there was something in his DNA that had made him want to know everything he could about ancient history. I’m still glad I studied it, he thought. I just wish I didn’t have all these loans. But I’ll get a teaching job someday. He was already going to City College on weekends to get a master’s degree to teach Spanish. He knew he’d make it. And his student loans were a fact of life. He’d pay them the same way he’d pay off a mortgage or a car.

The only problem was that he didn’t have a house or a car.

But for some reason, all day Wednesday, as he shoveled and hauled debris at the Connelly complex site, the sinkhole kept capturing his imagination. In ancient times, new cities were built on top of the ruins of the old ones that had been devastated by warfare or floods or fire.

During the summers of his junior and senior years in college, he had walked and hitched his way through the Middle East and Greece. When he was twelve, he had read a book about Damascus and he remembered how excited he’d been when he finally arrived there. At that moment, he had whispered to himself the first words of that book: “Damas, Damascus, oldest city in the world, city upon a city . . .”

Then, the next summer when he was in Athens, he had learned that, even with all the archeological excavations that had already been done, as they had started to widen the streets to prepare for the Olympics, they had uncovered another layer of settlements from ancient times.

I must be losing it, Jose thought, as he hauled and carried and pushed and pulled in his area of the cleanup. I’m comparing a sinkhole
in a parking lot in Long Island City with places like Damascus and Athens.

But at five o’clock, as the tired crew gratefully wrapped up for the day, he could no longer resist the impulse to take a closer look at the sinkhole. It was almost dark but there was a flashlight in the truck. He got it and started to walk to the rear of the parking lot.

From behind him, Sal called, “Are you planning to walk home, Jose?”

Jose smiled. Sal was a nice guy. “Just want to take a quick look over there.” He pointed to the sinkhole.

“Well, be sure to make it quick if you’re riding back with me.”

“I will.” Breaking into an easy jog, Jose covered the distance in seconds. As Jack Worth had done hours earlier, he stepped over the orange tape and, careful not to get his weight too close to the edge, switched on the flashlight and pointed it down.

It was not the medallion on the necklace that he noticed first. Even through the grime he could still make out the engraving on it.

Tracey.

It was the sight of strands of long hair still attached to the skull of the skeleton that made him too numb to move or even call out. The incongruous memory of a high school biology class flashed through Jose’s brain. He remembered the teacher saying, “Even after death, hair and nails continue to grow.”

62

A
s usual, Peggy Hotchkiss attended the daily 8
A.M.
mass at St. Rita’s, her parish church on Staten Island. Even though she had not closed her eyes all night, it had not occurred to her to break this habit of forty years. Daily Mass was an integral part of her life and St. Rita, the Advocate of the Hopeless and even the Impossible, was her favorite saint. But this morning her usual prayer to her was even more intense. “Let them find him, please. I implore you. Let them find him. I know he needs me.”

The fire marshals were so kind, she thought. When they came to the house, they had been so careful to say that it was entirely possible that the homeless person in the van had found, or maybe even stolen, that picture from someone else.

“He didn’t,” Peggy had told them. “I will stake my life that Clyde kept that picture. I saw what happened to the Connelly complex on television. I can only imagine if Clyde was sleeping in that van right by the explosion. Of course he would have rushed to get away and wouldn’t have had time to even grab that picture.”

She had observed the skepticism on the faces of the marshals but they had been very polite. She could tell that they did not want to upset her by indicating that the homeless man might have been Clyde, but she had made it easy for them.

“I want to find him,” she had told them. “His son wants to find
him. We’re not ashamed of him. He went to Vietnam and he was proud to serve his country. He didn’t give his life there, but because of what happened to him there, he lost the rest of the life he would have enjoyed.”

St. Rita’s was only five blocks from home. Unless the weather was terrible, Peggy always walked. At quarter of nine, she was turning onto her own street when her cell phone rang. It was Fire Marshal Frank Ramsey.

“Mrs. Hotchkiss,” he said, “a homeless man was just brought into Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. They recognized him in the emergency room there. They had only discharged him yesterday. He gave his name as Clyde Hastings. We think he may be your husband.”

Peggy tried to keep her voice steady. “I’ll be right there and I’ll call my son. I know Bellevue is around Twenty-third Street. Isn’t that right?”

“Where are you right now, Mrs. Hotchkiss?” Ramsey asked.

“A block away from my house.”

“Mrs. Hotchkiss, go home and wait. I’ll have a police car pick you up in five minutes. I am very sorry to tell you that the man in the hospital is dying of pneumonia. If he is your husband, even after all these years, you might be able to persuade him to tell us what he may know about a girl who is missing.”

An hour later, Peggy was in the emergency room of Bellevue Hospital. Skip had arrived minutes before her. “Are you okay, Mom?” he asked, quietly.

“Yes, I am.”

Frank Ramsey was waiting for her. “They have him in a private room down the hall. The doctor told us that he doesn’t have long. We are hoping that we can get him to talk to us about a young college
student who may have tried to interview him about living on the street.”

Her throat dry, unconsciously moistening her lips, her hand clutching the steady arm of her son, Peggy followed the tall figure of the fire marshal until he stepped aside to let her precede him into the small room.

Even before she took a second look, Peggy knew that it was Clyde. The high forehead, the slight widow’s peak, the almost invisible scar on the side of his nose. His eyes were closed, his harsh, belabored breathing the only sound in the room. Peggy took his hand. “Clyde, Clyde, dear, I’m here.”

From far away, Clyde heard a remembered voice, soft and gentle, and opened his eyes. Sometimes he had seen Peggy in his dreams but now he knew he wasn’t dreaming. The woman looking down at him with tears slipping down her cheeks was Peggy. He pulled in a breath. He had to talk to her. He managed a smile. “Do I have the honor of addressing the beauteous Margaret Monica Farley?” he asked, his voice weak and tired, then added, “Oh, Peggy, I missed you.”

“I missed you, too. So very, very much. And Skip is here. We love you. We love you.”

Clyde weakly turned his head to see the man standing next to Peggy. Both of their faces were so clear but behind them it was starting to get dark. My son, he thought, and then he heard him say, “Hello, Dad.”

“I’m sorry,” Clyde murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

Frank Ramsey and Nathan Klein stepped forward. Before Peggy arrived at the hospital, they had tried to question Clyde about Jamie Gordon, but Clyde had closed his eyes and refused to answer them. They both could see that his death was imminent. Bending over Clyde, his voice urgent, Ramsey said, “Clyde, tell Peggy about the notebook. Tell her if you saw the girl.”

“Clyde, it’s all right, dear. You would never mean to hurt anyone,” Peggy whispered. “I want you to tell them what happened.”

It was so peaceful now. Peggy holding his hand. It felt so good. “The girl followed me. I told her to go away. She wouldn’t.”

He began to cough. This time his breath wouldn’t come back.

“Clyde, did you kill her? Did you throw her in the river?” Ramsey demanded.

“No . . . no. She wouldn’t go away. I punched her. Then she left. And I heard her scream . . .”

Clyde closed his eyes. Everything was beginning to go dark.

“Clyde, she started to scream,” Frank said. “What happened then? Answer me,” he demanded. “Answer me!”

“She screamed, ‘Help me, help me!’ ”

“You were still in the van?”

“Ye . . .”

He could not finish the word. With a long sigh, he exhaled his last breath. The tormented life of Clyde Hotchkiss, husband and father, Vietnam veteran, hero and homeless drifter, was over.

63

O
n Wednesday afternoon, Hannah and Jessie met for a quick lunch at a small restaurant in the Garment District, a block from Hannah’s office. Hannah had stopped by the hospital briefly that morning. Now that Kate was no longer in a crisis situation, Jessie knew that she and Hannah needed to talk. They both ordered a sandwich and coffee. This was not going to be like their dinners at Mindoro’s, where they would sip wine and eat pasta and catch up with each other.

Jessie looked approvingly across the table at her friend. Hannah’s eyes were bright. The shadows under them were gone. She was wearing a high-neck white sweater with a designer scarf in shades of blue around her shoulders. “You look great,” Jessie said. “I would guess that you slept well last night.”

Hannah smiled and said, “You look great, too. That’s another suit I’m glad I talked you into buying. Green tweed is perfect with your red hair. I passed out at eight o’clock last night and woke up at eight o’clock this morning. I didn’t even get to the hospital yet but when I phoned they said that Kate was sleeping quietly and her temperature is normal. I know I can’t ask for more than that at this point.”

Jessie did not waste time engaging in meaningless optimism. “No, I don’t think you can, but the fact that the fever is gone is the best possible news.”

“Yes, it is. Jess, how does the fact that someone might have been in the van the night of the explosion affect the suspicion that Kate and Gus set it off?”

“It certainly adds a whole new dimension. I gather you didn’t see the news last night?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“They found a family picture in the wrecked van. It’s all over the media. They’re hoping to use it to identify whoever was there.”