Saints Of New York (46 page)

'Yes,
I know that, but they rely on me in a professional capacity. You're a police
officer. You're a detective. They see you arrive somewhere and they think you
know all the answers to all the questions. This was different.'

'How so?'

'Well,
she lives alone. With her kids, of course, but she doesn't have a guy there as
far as I can work out. We went through her place with a fine-toothed comb and I
didn't see any evidence of another guy. She divorced McKee back in 2005. That's
three years ago. Maybe there's been boyfriends or whatever, but I kind of get
the idea that she's concentrated on the kids. Two of them. One of them's
fifteen, the other's a year or so younger. She worries about them. She sees him
take them away every other weekend, and I can imagine she's anxious until she
gets them back. She knows he's a creep. I think she stayed with him for all the
same reasons that so many people stay together. Routine, predictability, financial
security, the fact he - whoever
he
might be - is the father of her children. Some of the same reasons me and Clare
stayed together, you know? Anyways, I think she was relieved to get him out of
her life, but he's not out of her life, and whatever fears she might have had
for the safety of her own kids has resurfaced due to our involvement.'

'And you feel
responsible for her state of mind?'

'I
feel a little responsible for her worry, yes, but at the same time I feel like
she is making me responsible for resolving it.'

'But
you
are
responsible for resolving it, Frank.'

'Yes,
I am, but only if he
is
the guy. Only if McKee
is
the guy can I do anything to resolve her worries. If he's not the guy then
she's left with him, and there's nothing she can do about it. And then worst
case scenario, he is the guy but we miss the boat on him and he goes after the
daughter at some point.'

'You're
certain he's the guy now?'

'Certain
as I can be. Certain as you ever get in this job. I think he's either the perp
or . . . actually, I think it's more likely that he's involved in the supply
line.'

'And
you have confirmed that one of these girls was filmed in some kind of SM
thing?'

'Yes.'

'And
the others?'

'I
don't know. Maybe they went the same way. I think this is snuff movies. I think
they are killed on camera. This movie that Jennifer was
in
-1
think there's an edited version which
went on the open market, and then there's a rumor that the full version, the
version where she is actually killed, is out and about there somewhere.'

'Let's
go back to his ex-wife. What's her name?'

'Carole.
Carole Paretski.'

'Are
you attracted to her?'

'Jesus
no. What the hell do you ask me that for?'

'Frank,
don't react. Just think for a moment. Are you attracted to her?'

'Attracted?
Let's not even go there, eh? I have a job to do, that's all. I am concerned for
her state of mind. I don't like to think that she is carrying all that worry
for the welfare of her kids.'

'Are
you attracted to her vulnerability?'

'Hell,
that's a bit fucking deep for this time in the morning, isn't it?'

'Listen
to me, Frank. I believe that we've made a little progress. I don't know if you
feel that way and I'm not asking you to tell me, but from what I see you are a
little less wound-up. You seem a little less tense. You don't talk about your
father anymore. You don't talk about your ex-wife or your own kids. You're
talking
about things that are now outside
your immediate personal sphere. The cases you're working on, the way this
particular case is progressing, and now you bring up your concern for someone
who you consider is a victim of this terrible, terrible situation. This tells
me something, Frank.'

'And
what would that be, Doctor Marie?'

'Don't
be sarcastic, Frank, please.'

'Okay,
okay ...
so what does it tell you?'

'It
tells me that we might be starting to turn the corner. People come here and
they talk about themselves. Endlessly, for hours and hours and hours they talk
about themselves. When they start to talk about other things - external
situations, things that are happening now as opposed to things that happened in
the past, and especially when they start to express a concern for the well-
being of others, well that tells me a great deal about where their attention
has turned.'

'So
I'm all better now?'

'Frank!
Listen to me, Frank. I'm trying to explain something to you here, something
that might have a little positivity to it, and you have to come back at me with
a wisecrack—'

'Look,
Doc, for me it's real simple. My life is a fucking mess. Let's be straight with
one another. I was thinking about this only yesterday. I wanted to come here
today. Probably for the first time in all the days we've been talking, I wanted
to come here and tell you about what I was feeling. It was really simple. I
thought to myself "Oh jeez, how about that? That's something I can tell
Marie Griffin about tomorrow". And you know what else I thought? I thought
that maybe what was happening here was no more complicated than what happens
when you get to talk about shit with your friends. But I don't have any, you
see? I don't have any friends. I have work colleagues, I have a partner I've
known for about three hours, I have a daughter who thinks I'm a pain in the
ass, a son who doesn't even call to let me know he's still alive, an ex-wife
who's a bitch in stilettos, and you. That's what I have. You happen to be the
closest I got to a buddy. So I talk about stuff to you. I told you about my
father, my mother, about this that and whatever. It's no big deal. I happen to
be drinking a little less, but I believe that has more to do with the fact that
this case has really got to me. I want to know who is drugging and strangling
teenage girls. I want to know if there's a snuff movie out there where Jennifer
Baumann gets the life choked out of her while someone's fucks her in the ass;
and I want to know what kind of sick fuck thinks this is the kind of thing he
wants to watch while he beats off. That's what I want, and right now that's
all
I want—'

'Frank,
listen—'

'No,
hang on there a minute. You listen to me. That's what you get paid for. I like
you, Doctor Griffin, I think you're a good person. I think you care for people
and your job is important. I also believe that a great deal of happiness comes
from doing something worthwhile in life, and I can clearly see that what you
are doing is worthwhile, at least in your own eyes. My job is something
entirely different. I get paid to find people like Richard McKee and make them
feel an awful lot worse. If someone like Carole Paretski feels better because
her scumbag pervert ex- husband is behind bars for the rest of his life, well
that's a secondary thing. It's good, it's fine, but it's not the reason for
doing the job. We're on the other side of two entirely different fences. My
world isn't yours, and yours isn't mine, and I don't think there's a great deal
of hope that they'll ever meet—'

'Frank,
I don't understand why you're suddenly being so defensive and aggressive.'

'I'm
being defensive and aggressive because I'm kind of worn out with being told
what I think and what I feel, Marie. That's the truth, and whether you like it
or not that's the way it is. You know the prayer we say around here? It's
really simple. Lord God, just grant me one more day. That's what we say. We
also know that our day starts when someone else's day ends. We also know that
we cannot escape the power of small things. The truth is small, and so are the
lies. Sometimes the smallest lies are the ones that kill us. You know what else
I used to say to myself? It was like a little chant, a reminder of where I was
at and how my life was going. I used to say that every day in every way I was
not
getting better. It was my attempt to
remind myself that I needed to change, but you know what? I never fucking did.
I also know that no-one ever got better from drinking but I still do it. Am I
self-destructive? Does that make me a born loser, because I am doing something
that I know is no good for me, and hell
it
might
even kill me if I do it enough? Sure it does, but you know something else? It
doesn't matter, because when I finally hit the deck, when it's all over and the
lights are going out, I'll know that because of what I did there are some
people out there who are still alive. People who don't even know that they came
this close to a bad and unnecessary end. I sit on the subway sometimes. I sit
there and look at people and I wonder who isn't going to make it to Christmas.
Well, some of those people are alive now because I took some scumbag off the
streets and put him in a six by ten and they threw away the key.'

'Frank—'

'We
are the brightest lights, Marie. We believe that here. We
have
to believe it. But the problem right there is that we also cast the darkest
shadows. That's what we have to carry, and we carry it every day. People live
and die by what we do. Always have, always will. It's a burden sure, but we
carry it and we try and smile the best we can, and right now I really don't give
a fuck what my father did or didn't do, and how that might have damaged me. It
doesn't matter, and I'll grant you that, okay? I think you have managed to take
my attention away from the past and direct it more towards the future. Well,
perhaps not the future. We're not very good at future. Maybe you've helped
direct it towards the present, and the present is right there, right there in
front of me on DVDs and in magazines, in the sickening image of a teenage girl
left with a broken neck in a cardboard box behind a dumpster. Someone did that.
Someone is going to go on doing that. I think I know who that person is, and
I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure he never does it again.'

'And
what happens if you collapse, Frank? What happens if the pressure and
responsibility costs you your relationship with your kids, and your health and
sanity as well?'

'That's
the drill, Doctor. That's what we do. I think it's called an occupational
hazard.'

'You
are the occupational hazard, Frank. You just can't see it.'

'Too
busy looking elsewhere.'

'Well,
I'm going to recommend—'

'Nothing,
Marie. You're going to recommend nothing at all. I'll come back tomorrow, and
maybe I'll be in a different mood. But if you do or say anything that causes me
to be taken off this case . . . well, I don't know what I'll do. If you really
are concerned for my mental welfare then you won't do anything to jeopardize my
work on this case. I am only so far away from the truth . . .'

'I
wasn't going to say that, Frank. Who the hell do you think I am? All I was
going to say was that once this case was over I was going to recommend that you
take some paid medical leave. I think you should get out of the city, go
upstate maybe. Perhaps Robert and Caitlin could go with you. Do something outside
of what you've been doing for the last God-knows how long.'

'Well
okay, we'll talk about that when this thing is done.'

'Deal?'

'Deal.
Now I have to go.'

'I
understand, but do something for me, please?'

'And
what would that be?'

'Take
a moment every once in a while to remember that there is more to you than a
homicide detective. Like what you were talking about, what you felt towards
that woman.'

'And
what good would that do?'

'You
might be surprised. Like you said, sometimes we cannot escape the power of
small things.'

Parrish
asked Radick to go over to Erickson at Archives and help look for any more
pictures of the dead girls. It was a diversion and Radick knew it, but he did
not question it.

'You
doing something useful?' he asked Parrish.

'Perhaps.'

'Something
you have to do alone?'