Should Have Looked Away (12 page)

TWENTY-THREE

Earlier that evening
, Chrissy had thrown her phone down on the sofa. It was gone nine thirty, and Will was not responding to her texts or calls. The last she had heard from him was that he had been delayed. What the hell did that mean? Will was normally scrupulous about keeping her informed about his ETA home, and if he would be later than expected. He was not the sort of guy to stop off at a bar on the way home, so where had he gotten to?  Louise was asleep; there had been no sounds coming from Jake’s room for some time, so he had probably gone to sleep too. It was so unlike Will not to get home in time to say good night to them, or at least to Louise. If he was going to be home that late, then he would say good night to her over the phone.

Strangely, Chrissy felt guilty. Guilty because she knew she should be feeling worried, but instead she felt angry at him. Maybe slightly worried, but angry as he was keeping her waiting. Being inconsiderate.

She picked up her phone. One person might know where Will was. She speed dialled a number.

‘Hey Chrissy,’ came Dan’s voice. ‘What’s up?’

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

‘I’m at home. With Jia,’ he added.

‘Is Will with you?’

‘Will? No. Just the two of us. Nice and cosy.’

‘He’s not gotten home yet. When did he leave work?’

‘Don’t remember the exact time. Just before I did, and I’ve been home ages.’

‘He sent me a text a while ago, saying he had been held up, and would be home later. What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s seeing another woman.’

‘Dan, that’s not funny. I’m worried.’

‘Sorry.’

Chrissy could hear muffled voices in the background. Dan was explaining what was going on to Jia. ‘Does he have a separate work cell?’

‘No, neither of us does.’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘He’s nearly two hours overdue. I’m going to call the police. Something must have happened to him on the way home.’

‘Maybe you should -’ Dan was stopped mid-sentence as Jia took his phone from him.

‘Chrissy, honey,’ Jia asked, ‘is this true? Will’s not gotten home?’

‘No, he hasn’t. He should have been back nearly two hours ago. Jia, I’m really worried. He’s never done this before.’

‘Chrissy, if it was me and Dan hadn’t gotten back, I would call the police by now.’

‘What will they do? Call the hospitals? Oh my God…’

‘Chrissy, calm down. You don’t know that yet. Hang up here, take a deep breath and call the police. If you need one of us to look after Jake and Louise, just let us know. No, I’m going to come round now.’

‘It’s all right, thanks. Well, at the moment it is. Let me give him till… another half hour, and then I’ll call the police. Then… wait up: there’s a text coming through.’ Chrissy could see from the little toolbar on her phone who was sending her the text. ‘It’s from Will. Look, I’ll call you back once I’ve read what he says.’

‘See?’ Jia said. ‘I told you not to worry. He’s on his way home now. Give him hell when he gets back.’

‘Give him hell?’ Chrissy replied. ‘I’ll damn well kill him.’

*****

Typical, Will thought. She keeps calling or texting, but when I call back, the line’s busy. He sent a quick text:
finally on way back from bronx, long story, tell you when I get back
, put the phone away, and walked south down Creston. He had mixed feelings: he felt frustrated at getting this far and losing the guy who must come from this neighbourhood. Relieved that he was not the one who was assaulted. It was obvious poor George was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then there was the guilt, and plenty of it. Guilt that somebody else suffered as a result of what Will was doing; guilt about what he was putting his family through; Chrissy must be worried sick.

As he reached the corner of Creston and 182
nd
, Will paused one last time and looked up the street. No sign of anyone. He wondered where the man in the hood was: did he actually live on Creston and was safe indoors, at home? Or had he disappeared into the darkness of the streets ahead - 183
rd
, 185
th
, whatever was up there?

Or was he, still hiding in the many dark doorways, still watching and following Will?

He recalled something the woman up the street had said:
thank the Lord he didn’t have a gun
.

That was something Will had not factored in: he had not even considered the possibility that he might have been armed. He did not own a firearm himself, but he was aware that in New York City, possession of a handgun without a permit is a felony, but that was rarely a deterrent.

Despite the warm night, Will shivered and hurried back to the subway station.

TWENTY-FOUR

Chrissy was already
in bed when Will finally arrived home. The downstairs lights were on, but the rooms empty. He could hear the television in their bedroom playing some chat show. Will did a tour of downstairs, checking and double checking the doors and windows. He switched on the back yard light and peeped out of the window. The yard was clear. He switched off the lights, took a deep breath and climbed the stairs. Before he faced Chrissy, he looked in on Jake and Louise: both were asleep.

As soon as he stepped into the bedroom Chrissy threw the TV remote at him. She remained sitting up in bed, arms folded, staring at the television.

Will picked up the remote. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘You know what. Where the hell have you been? We’ve all been worried sick.’

‘Both of them? What did you tell them?’

‘I don’t mean them. Louise was already asleep when you said you’d be late, and Jake - well, he’s been in his room all evening. He doesn’t even know you were late.’

‘Who do you mean then?’

‘I had to call Dan and Jia. I had no idea where you were.’

‘So why call them?’

‘I thought Dan might know where you had gone.’

‘He wouldn’t have known.’

‘He didn’t. Jia even offered to come round here to sit with me.’

‘Why?’

‘Think about it. You might have been lying in some ER somewhere. Next time you decide to go bar hopping after work, do me the courtesy of letting me know.’

‘I haven’t been bar hopping.’

‘So where’d you go?’ She waved her hand dismissively and returned her gaze to the television. ‘Forget it: I don’t care.’

Will sat down on the bed. ‘Just listen to where I’ve been.’

He started to relay the tale, from spotting the guy in the hood outside the house, to his meeting with George up in the Bronx. As he related that evening’s events, Chrissy’s stare gradually moved from Jimmy Fallon to Will, as she listened open-mouthed. Once he had finished she shook her head and sat back, arms folded.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she said. ‘You always were in the 40-watt club, but this just about takes the cake.’

Will took a deep breath, preparing himself for the onslaught.

‘Let me get this straight,’ she continued, turning the television volume down. ‘You get home, you see the same man, or who you think is the same man who
murdered
some poor schmuck in the men’s room, waiting outside our house. Where your
children
are sleeping. Rather than call 911, you decide to follow him, to chase him. You follow him all the way up to the Bronx. You want to tell me how well you know the Bronx?’

Will shook his head. ‘Not well, I admit.’

‘You follow this
killer
on the subway to a part of the city you don’t know. In the dark. What were you expecting to find?’

‘Well,’ he stammered, ‘where the guy came from.’

‘And what were you going to do then? Make a citizen’s arrest? Jesus!’

‘Once I found out where he lived, I was going to call the cops.’

‘But instead you got some other guy hurt.’

‘He wasn’t hurt; he was just shaken up, that’s all.’

‘That’s not the point, Will.’

‘I know. I -’

‘What if he had been injured, or worse? What if this guy you followed had been armed? What if this passerby had gotten shot? Would you have wanted that on your conscience? Because it would have been
your
fault, Will.’

All the time Chrissy was talking, Will sat on the bed, listening and nodding. ‘I know. I -’

‘And what if you had been shot, killed? Where would that have left us? Louise without a father at five.’

Will took a deep breath and rubbed his face. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

Chrissy’s tone mellowed slightly. ‘You just didn’t think. You never do. I keep telling you, time and time again, not to get involved in other people’s shit.’

‘But it’s not other people’s.’

‘It isn’t
now
. It’s our shit
now
. This guy knows where we live, he knows you know what he looks like. Where does that leave us all now? Why in the name of God didn’t you call 911? Maybe the police could have gotten the guy out there, on the street.’

Will remained contrite. ‘I’ll call the police in the morning. At least they know what part of the city to look for them,
and
I can give them a better description than the one they have right now.’

Chrissy switched off the television and turned on her side, her back to Will. ‘Make sure you do. If you don’t,
I
will.’

Will sighed and stood up. He went back downstairs and checked the doors and windows again. Made sure that the outside lights front and back were still on. He pulled a yellow post-it from the pad in the kitchen, scribbled
intruder alarm
, and stuck it on the coffee machine. Checked everywhere one more time, looking out of a window this time. Once had got back upstairs, he checked in on Louise and Jake and their bedroom windows, and went to the bathroom, checking the window there too.

Back in the bedroom, he quietly undressed for bed. Chrissy had already switched off her bedside lamp; Will got in next to her and switched off his. Chrissy stirred slightly as he settled down. Will turned on his side so he faced Chrissy’s back. He moved a few inches closer so they were touching. As soon as they made contact he hardened against her. Feeling him, Chrissy fidgeted away.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ she mumbled. ‘Putz.’

Will edged away and turned onto his other side. He lay in the dark, thinking. She was right: it was a dumb thing to do. He should have just called the cops. He might have ended up the same way as poor George, or worse. First thing in the morning, he would call those two detectives. What were their names? Roberts and Alvarez. At least now they would have a better description and know which neighbourhood to search. They might even know the guy already.

He massaged his pillow and settled down in a foetal position, arms around his chest. He closed his eyes. Chrissy was right: he was a putz.

TWENTY-FIVE

Detective Eric Alvarez
was combing his hair in their bedroom when he heard his wife in the kitchen. Or rather, when he heard the sound of crockery breaking. He quickly finished off and hurried to her aid.

‘You okay, babe?’ he asked, crouching down to pick up the broken pieces of cup.

‘I could have managed,’ his wife said indignantly. She had been leaning down to pick up the pieces; now Eric was on the scene she sat back in her wheelchair.

Alvarez stood up. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said sadly, dropping the crockery into the trashcan. ‘It’s just…’

She wheeled the chair around him and over to the sink. ‘I can manage, you know.’

‘I know. Sorry.’ He leaned against the stove. ‘What have you got on today?’

‘Not much. Have some work to finish off from yesterday. Alexis is coming round for coffee then she’s taking me to the mall. What time do you expect to be back?’

‘About six, I guess, unless anything unexpected crops up.’

‘Pasta okay for dinner?’

‘Mm. Great. My favourite, you know that,’ he replied. He paused a beat, kissed his wife on the forehead. ‘Have to go now. Have a good day,
mi cariño
.’

‘You too,’ she said back, steering her wheelchair after him as he walked over to the door. She sat in the open doorway, watching him as he walked over to the car, and got in. She was still watching as he backed off the driveway and into the road, waving one more time as he pulled away.

Alvarez returned the wave and smiled as he moved off: a sincere and happy smile, but one tinged with sadness. He and Elena had been together six years now, married for four of them. Both were as deeply in love with each other as they had been when they first met, but Eric’s sadness was for how things might have been different. It never seemed to bother her, at least not outwardly, and she rarely spoke of it; when she did, it was in a matter of fact fashion. But Eric just could not believe or accept how one person could be cursed with so much bad fortune. When he did try to discuss it with Elena, she would always say that the good fortune she had by meeting him would always outweigh the bad luck fate had had in store for her.

Eric was her second husband. Her first worked in the financial district - he could never understand exactly what the guy actually did - for a company based on the 95
th
floor of the North Tower. He was in the office when the Boeing 767-223ER of American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the building. Elena was three months pregnant at the time; she lost the baby three months later. Subsequently she was told she could never have children. Happiness of a sort seemed to return when she and Eric got together; until she was hit by a van three blocks from home. The driver was DUI and received a fifteen year sentence. That was two years ago, and she had been in the wheelchair ever since. The insurance settlement paid for them to relocate from their third floor condo in Manhattan to their single storey house in Newark, with the hand rails and bars and ramps out front and back. Eric never ceased to be amazed and full of admiration for the stoic way she handled things: in the early days, she told Eric to leave her, to go find a woman who could walk and have children. He of course refused; he could never do that. He had never strayed either; he just accepted his lot, and was prepared to wait until the driver got out of jail…

Today he had to drive to Newark Penn Station, and get to the precinct by train. Sometimes he would drive; sometimes Roberts might collect him if they had to go to somewhere in Jersey. He would never know from one day to the next, such was his relationship with his partner. They had a strange association: his previous partner was a male officer, and they got quite close, as did their families. He got a promotion some years back, and subsequently Alvarez found himself partnered with Julianne Roberts. It was not that she wasn’t a good cop: to the contrary, she was extremely focussed and conscientious. She was just different to Eric’s previous partner. She was what he called a career officer. She said very little about her private life: she told him once that she was divorced, but he had no idea whether she was seeing someone or not. She might have mentioned someone in passing, but Alvarez could not be sure. She never volunteered any information, and if he ever raised the matter, she would give one word answers then change the subject. Elena said that she seemed to be compartmentalizing her life: maybe something had happened in her past she wanted to shut out. Whatever the reason, Eric had no real complaints: she was a good and loyal senior partner and officer, and he had already learned a lot from her.

Now he was in the captain’s office, listening to Roberts explaining their lack of progress in the case which had become known as the men’s room murder. Captain Nkomo, an imposing six feet three African American was resting his 224lb frame in a plush brown leather chair nodding occasionally as Roberts spoke. Now and again his left hand would stretch over to the small Newton’s cradle on his desk to tap one of the silver spheres. If Roberts was finding the click-click-click of the balls off-putting, she was not showing it.

‘I share your concern over the apparent lack of progress,’ Roberts said, ‘but we are still in the process of following up all the angles. We have drawn a blank so far with regard to direct witnesses, even after media appeals.’

‘Security cameras?’ Nkomo grunted.

‘The CCTV did pick up images of who we believe are the suspects, but the image is of insufficient quality for us to make an identification.’

‘Can’t we enhance it?’

Roberts sighed. ‘It’s quite clear from the footage that both men knew the cameras were watching them, knew the camera range, and were successful in keeping their faces hidden.’

‘Hidden?’

‘They both wore hooded sweatshirts,’ Alvarez interjected. He demonstrated.

Roberts turned round to Alvarez and nodded her agreement. Turning back to Nkomo, she continued, ‘Even with maximum enhancements, there’s insufficient face showing; not enough for us to extrapolate a full image.’

‘So we’re not talking kids, then,’ said Nkomo.

‘No,’ Roberts concurred. ‘The only person we have who could pass as a witness, a guy named Will Carter, was hiding in the restroom stall the whole time and saw nothing. Heard plenty, but saw nothing.’

Nkomo looked up, pulling a face. ‘
Hiding
in the stall?’

‘He was in the middle of taking his young daughter to the bathroom,’ said Alvarez.

Nkomo nodded. ‘Go on,’ he said.

As Roberts opened her mouth to speak, Nkomo lifted a hand to silence her then leafed through some papers on his desk. ‘Does this Will Carter live in Greenwich Village?’

‘Yes. Why?’

The captain scanned one of the yellow sheets. ‘A Will Carter in Greenwich Village was burglarized a few days back. Did you know that?’

Roberts glanced quickly at Alvarez. Both detectives shook their heads.

‘No,’ Roberts said.

Nkomo made a tutting sound and refiled the yellow sheets.  ‘According to that report, whoever it was - probably kids high on something - broke in during the day. It seems they were disturbed, as all they took was a few dollars cash Mrs Carter had left in the kitchen.’

Roberts frowned. ‘I’d like the details, Captain, but from what you’ve told me there doesn’t appear to be a connection. I don’t see how there can be.’

Nkomo sat back. ‘I’m inclined to agree. There’d been three or four similar incidents in that area over the past few weeks, so it looks like one big coincidence. I’ll let you have the details, though.’ He clicked a silver sphere and watched it swing. ‘What about prints? DNA trace?’

‘So far, that’s drawn a blank also.’

‘You’ve not spoken to our FBI friends?’

Roberts sighed. ‘I have, of course. We did find prints, but whoever they were, they are unknown to the Department. I have been in touch with one of my contacts down at Federal Plaza: he has run both prints and DNA trace through CODIS, drawing a blank in both cases.’

The Combined DNA Index System, otherwise known as CODIS is a generic term use with regard to the FBI’s programme of support for criminal justice DNA databases. This national DNA index system, part of CODIS, is a national database containing DNA profiles contributed by federal, state and local participating forensic laboratories.

The captain scratched his vast chin. Roberts and Alvarez could both hear a scraping sound as his hand ran over the stubble. ‘What about the victim?’

‘His name was Carmine DiMucci, from Paterson, New Jersey.’

Nkomo nodded over to Alvarez. ‘One of Eric’s neighbours?’

Alvarez shook his head. ‘Not exactly, Captain.’

‘He was a family man,’ continued Roberts. ‘Wife, three kids. He was a sales representative, a travelling salesman. He sold bathroom fittings: you know, faucets, shower heads that type of thing.’

‘So what was a travelling salesman doing on his own in a New York City shopping mall?’ the captain asked. ‘On a Sunday afternoon?’