The Anniversary Man (48 page)

′You figure him for the Grant girl′s killing?′

′I don′t,′ Irving said. ′I figure him for being an asshole, but from what I′ve seen of him he seems . . .′ Irving paused. ′I′ve got Jeff Turner over there. If there′s something to find he′ll find it. If Hill did the Grant girl then he did all of them, right? We′re holding onto the certainty that this is the work of one man. All of them, right from Mia Grant to the one we don′t even have a name for.′ Irving indicated the cork boards ahead of him. ′You think someone like Gregory Hill would be capable of all of this?′

Gifford was shaking his head. ′I don′t see it,′ he said. ′I mean, shit, I′ve been wrong before but I don′t see it on this one.′

′Which means that the whole thing is a set-up. The whole thing has been rigged by our anniversary killer . . . but for what purpose?′

′Our guy calls Roarke. He pretends he′s Anthony Grant. Roarke hasn′t spoken to the guy for four years, he′s not going to remember his voice. He′s gonna take the guy′s word for it, especially when there′s money involved. So the killer tells Roarke to break into Hill′s house.′ Gifford paused for a moment. ′If that′s what happened, then the killer must have known that we had the patrols out alerting these families . . .′

′That wasn′t difficult to figure after Ellmann′s statement on the TV.′

′Hell, Vernon, he warned us didn′t he? He sent us a letter saying he was gonna do six—′

′And you think he′s gone out and killed another six people? You think this was just a diversion?′

′I fucking hope not, Vernon, but like I said before, he seems to have no difficulty keeping his word.′

′Gonna be the thirteenth for a good while yet,′ Gifford said, glancing at the clock above the door.

′You should go,′ Irving said. ′Get a few hours if you can.′

′And leave you with this? No, I′m not bailing out until we′ve seen the day through to the end.′

′Doesn′t mean anything,′ Irving said. ′He killed one girl in an apartment on Montgomery Street and we didn′t find her for twelve days.′

′Don′t matter,′ Gifford said. ′You′re staying then I′m staying.′

Irving got up and walked to the window. Early mornings, late nights, all of them blurring seamlessly one into another, and all because of one man. Was that man Gregory Hill? Irving doubted it, but nevertheless he had the Hill family securely ensconced in two upstairs rooms while Turner and his people went through the house with a fine-toothed comb, ostensibly to determine whether there was any further evidence to in-criminate Desmond Roarke on his B&E, but in truth to find out whether there was more they needed to know about Gregory Hill.

And that anonymous caller? The one who pretended to be Anthony Grant and who paid Roarke to find something in the Hill house? That could very well have been Grant′s PI, this Karl Roberts character. Acting a little beyond the parameters of the law, a little further than the limits of his brief. It had been known. But as of that moment Irving possessed neither the mental energy nor the resources to pursue the man. He would deal with it once the night was over, once they knew if the attempted break-in at the Hill house was all they′d have to deal with tonight . . . or if there was something else far worse awaiting them.

H
ad Vernon Gifford acquiesced to Ray Irving′s suggestion that he go home, he would have been called back before he′d even reached his apartment.

At four fifty-eight a.m., early morning of Monday, November 13th, a call came in to the Second Precinct. At first the operator had difficulty understanding the caller, for he said the same hurried sequence of words over and over again, and after asking the caller to repeat the message slowly, she finally determined that he was saying ′Fourteen forty-eight, East 17th. Tell Ray Irving once I started, I just couldn′t stop. It went so fast . . .′

Once the caller had established that his message had been understood, he hung up. The call would ultimately be traced back to a phone booth on East 17th, but by the time Irving received word, by the time black-and-whites had been dispatched, by the time he and Vernon Gifford had established that there was no response from the house at fourteen forty-eight, East 17th Street, whoever might have made that call had long since gone. The phone booth would be cordoned, photographed, even the coinbox carefully emptied, and each of the thirty-one coins within would be printed. It would give up nothing.

′Allen,′ Gifford told Irving, as they stood outside that house. ′Howard and Jean Allen.′

There was nothing but silence. The flashing light-bars reflected in the windows of the property lent the scene an eerie carnival atmosphere.

Nothing so scary as a clown after dark, Irving thought, remembering how James Wolfe′s painted face had looked up at him from a hole in the ground.

It was five thirty-six. Farraday had been alerted, had been apprized of the Anthony Grant/Gregory Hill situation, had authorized any action that Irving felt necessary.

′Get the fuck into that house,′ he′d said. ′If it turns out there′s no-one there we′ll repair whatever damage is done . . . just get in there and tell me we don′t have another six dead people.′

Irving was still for a moment, and then he looked back at Gifford. He knew there was something else, something he really didn′t want to hear.

Gifford looked away, didn′t want to face Irving. ′Four kids,′ he said, his voice restrained.

Irving lowered his head, his heart a tight knot in his chest. ′No,′ he said, solely to himself, but Gifford was nodding. Irving had received the message from dispatch, and he knew exactly what it meant. Once I started, I just couldn′t stop. It went so fast.

′Four kids,′ Gifford repeated, and then waved over the two patrol officers who had just emerged from the rear of the lot.

′All locked up,′ the first one said. ′Looks like the back door is alarmed, but it′s a hell of a lot less work to get through there than the front.′

′No response on the phone?′ Irving asked.

′Nothing sir,′ the officer replied. ′We′ve had the phone ringing for a good five or ten minutes.′

′We′ll go in through the back,′ Irving said.

The patrol officers led the way, the detectives following, and two further officers called to assist from a second squad car.

Irving took a leather glove from his overcoat pocket, slipped it on, and then selected a fist-sized stone from the yard at the rear of the house. Before he punched a hole through the small pane of glass nearest the lock he looked up at Gifford.

′Do it,′ Gifford said. ′Let′s get it over with.′

The pane went through with the first strike, and even as Irving opened the door, the alarm strangely silent, the house cold and dark within, he had a premonition and a sense of foreboding that he all too easily recognized.

He turned to Gifford before he′d even crossed the threshold.

′Call Jeff Turner,′ he said quietly. ′Call him and tell him I′m gonna need him.′

Gifford went back to the nearest squad car and put a call through to dispatch. While he waited he looked up at the rear of the property, noticed the severed alarm wiring beneath the shadow of the gutter. Whatever sense of optimism he might have felt - that it was a hoax call, that they were going to find nothing but an empty building - rapidly evaporated.

Irving, meanwhile, stood in the cool silence of the Allens′ kitchen. It was a kitchen not unlike so many others in a thousand homes across the city. The refrigerator door was peppered with magnets, one of them a crude smiley-face in black and yellow. A child had made it, no doubt, more than likely one of the Allen kids. A crude splotch of color with legs and a barely recognizable plumed head adorned another sheet of yellow construction paper that had been pinned to the wall. Beneath the picture was the word turkey, a mixture of lower and upper case letters, the final y sliding off the corner of the page. A Thanksgiving painting from pre-school activities.

The tight knot that was Irving′s heart now felt like a cold fist.

He turned to the two officers behind him, read their names from the tags above the breast pocket - Anderson and Maurizio.

′You stay here,′ he said to Maurizio. ′Wait for Gifford and search this floor and the basement. Look for any sign of forced entry. And you,′ he said to Anderson. ′You come to the upper floor with me.′

At the head of the stairs Irving knew. Almost without hesitation he isolated the single smear of blood on the doorjamb to his right. He turned and raised his hand. Anderson came to a halt on the last tread but one.

′Let me see what we′ve got,′ Irving said quietly. ′At this point the fewer people up here the better.′

Anderson nodded but didn′t speak. There was something in his expression that belied his considerable size. Irving recognized it. Anderson was young, still retained some small belief in the balance of things, pretended to himself that things turned out right more often than wrong. He didn′t want to see what was waiting for them on the upper floor of fourteen forty-eight East 17th Street. He would have bad dreams. The cynicism would start its work - slowly, inexorably - and within a decade, if he stayed with it, he would look and sound like Irving.

The relief in Anderson′s expression quickly dissolved as he watched Irving push open the first door with his gloved hand.

′Oh my God . . .′ Anderson heard him say, and the feeling that suddenly radiated outward from his lower gut, a feeling that seemed to render every muscle in his body utterly useless, was one he would never forget.

Later he would get to see the bodies, and he knew there would be nightmares.

 

Jeff Turner arrived at six-eleven a.m. He met Irving in the back yard.

′Nothing in the Hill house,′ he said. ′But I s′pose Gregory Hill can′t be your man now, can he?′

Irving looked up at the windows of the Allens′ house. ′This happened recently,′ he said. ′Sometime in the last few hours. Certainly during the time Hill was home with his family. Greg Hill couldn′t have a better alibi.′

′I heard word Grant was connected, the father of the first girl?′

′It was all a set-up,′ Irving replied. ′Or not. Jesus, who the fuck knows? There′s a possibility Grant′s PI—′

′His PI?′

′He hired a PI,′ Irving explained. ′Wanted to make sure we hadn′t missed anything obvious. Anyway, that′s not the issue right now.′

′And the fact that Hill has a wife and four kids, and Roarke tries to break in tonight of all nights . . . we′re saying that this is a coincidence?′

′We′re not saying anything right now, Jeff. Right now—′

′Right now we′re just delaying the inevitable.′

′We are.′

′You coming in with me?′ Turner asked.

′Yes,′ Irving said. ′It′s bad . . . real bad.′

J
eff Turner was not a native New Yorker. He hailed originally from California, graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in Criminalistics and Criminal Science, transferred to New York after serving two years′ apprenticeship at CSA Level I in the San Francisco Sheriff′s Department, made CSA Level II at thirty-three. Turner was now close to forty-four, back of him a decade of further studies, a three-year term in the Scientific Investigation Division under the aegis of Support Services, further qualifications and certificates in Photographic, Latent Print, Electronics, Questioned Document, Toxicology, Peer Review and Supervision. He was single, childless, collected baseball cards, and watched Marx Brothers movies. He had seen everything there was to see in San Francisco and in New York, and if he′d not seen it in actuality he′d seen it in stills, on video, on 16mm, in digital.

Turner′s life was populated with the dead. He understood the dead far better than he′d ever understood the living. The dead spoke to him without words. They told him things they never would have communicated in life. And though he was not a religious man, he nevertheless believed in the fundamental spirituality of Man. He credited some higher power with the foresight and imagination to make Man something more than a hundred and sixty pounds of hamburger with a chemical street value of nineteen dollars. And throughout his career there had been moments. That was all he could say. Moments. The feeling that somewhere in the vicinity of the body, the person themself was still there. Looking down at him. Perhaps hoping that he, in his infinite wisdom, might give them some understanding of why this terrible thing had happened to them. The spirit of the individual? The soul? Jeff Turner didn′t know. He didn′t try to know. He just sensed what he sensed, perceived what he perceived. And on the upper floor of the Allen house, in the hour or so between his arrival and when he completed his initial examination of the six bodies present, he believed he′d experienced more moments in that one period than all the others combined.

When Deputy Coroner Hal Gerrard arrived, his presence required by law before the bodies could be moved or examined further, he found Jeff Turner standing in the kitchen, his face pale, his eyes glassy, a thin film of sweat across his forehead.