The Granite Moth (25 page)

The entryway led directly into the kitchen to reveal a shoebox on the table. It had my name on it, and I backed away as if it could bite.

“We were betting on you rather than the cops. My brother's a cop,” Mr. Soto said when he saw my reaction.

“It's true then,” I asked, my voice catching on “true.” I had known it would be, but was praying for some kind of misunderstanding, some sort of miracle. I was ready for the villains to be villains, for the victims to stay victims.

In answer, the mother lifted the lid on the box for me to look inside. No severed fingers, but something equally chilling—letterpress funeral invitations matching the one still in my bag. They were tied with a red ribbon, two or three death threats presented like a bouquet.

“But he wasn't sending them,” I said, glancing first at the mother then the father. They were looking at each other, their eyes no longer dry but shining with something that looked like relief. They didn't have to carry this secret around anymore, let it pull them into an abyss.

“Please sit,”
the mother suggested, running water into two cups. She took one for herself and held the other out to me. I gripped the glass, but didn't drink, an image of Ernesto choking to death flashing in my mind. I shook my head to make it vanish, forcing myself not to confuse the boys. I'd been doing that for long enough. Still, I didn't touch the water.

“No,” the mother continued, sitting down across from me and pulling the box toward her. She held it protectively, as if she knew I would take it with me when I left. And I would. “The first threat scared him, of course. It scared all of us. He talked about quitting, and we—well, we encouraged him to get a real job.”

I doubted that they objected to the paychecks, only the lifestyle. Whether they objected to the late nights or the company, I would never know because I didn't ask.

“But then?” I prompted instead.

“I think wanting to quit gave him the idea. He had been talking about this promotion for months, promising us he was going to make big money, get health insurance, the works. But there was this other fellow up for the same position. His boss couldn't make up her mind.”

I hoped that she would continue, but she didn't. She stared at her wallpaper, a green paisley that might have once looked inviting—maybe when Taylor was a boy—but was now flecked with grease stains. The Sotos had all but given up their son themselves, but I could travel the last few feet for them. “He set up the float, hoping to scare his rival, get him to leave The Pink Parrot.”

“I don't think—he didn't mean to kill anyone,” Mr. Soto said, reaching into his wallet to remove a receipt from Al's Hardware and Repairs. Taylor Soto's Mastercard has been charged for ammonium percholate, aluminum foil, and sulfur. $42.95 to kill Bobbie—and himself—by accident.

It should feel better to solve a case. Trumpets should blow, and strangers should cheer. At the very least, I shouldn't have to sit down on the bottom step of a brownstone to put my head between my knees. But there I was, being ignored by college students hustling to catch the bus. I'd never told anyone, not even my department-assignment psychologist, but I regretted joining the police department. I regretted joining the force, regretted going undercover, becoming a detective. Now I wasn't sure how to leave this lifestyle behind. When I quit the NYPD, I thought I might change careers along with identities, but a B.S. in Criminology didn't exactly lead to interviews in advertising or education. I was qualified to follow people around. I suppose I could look into nannying.

The hero complex I'd entertained was tainted, squashed really, by the horrors I'd witnessed, the lack of support I'd experienced. “More evidence” was like some sort of Sisyphean instruction. “Just one more time up the mountain, Kathleen. You can go home tomorrow. With more evidence.” It was appropriate that I would be handing over this case to the department with a bow on top.

After the Maritime Sapphire was raided, I'd never seen Zanna again. I couldn't say for sure that she had a scar on her cheek, but I'd been on the receiving end of Salvatore Magrelli's knife a different time and my thigh still boasted the proof. The prostitutes had run off, of course, and Salvatore had suggested that I take my friend to the hospital.

“Fuck you,” Zanna had shouted, and it was hard not to be at least a little amazed by her guts. I guess I was cowed enough
for the both of us. Salvatore never raised his voice. Instead, he raised a finger to his lips, his whisper plenty terrifying.

“This is the kind of ruckus that must be avoided, you understand?”

He spoke as if he were sending his future sister-in-law to the principal's office, not the emergency room. She slumped down on the ground, and I knelt down beside her, praying that this would all be over soon. I'd said Port Jefferson, 4
A.M.
, and despite my anger at the NYPD, I knew that they would show. They wanted this drug lord as much as I did, if only for the good publicity. Salvatore loosened his silk tie, and I imagined that he was about to bind Zanna's wrists. Instead, he knelt down beside her with me and pressed the material to her wound. She whimpered, but didn't say anything else, the fight entirely gone out of her. I'd never actually seen Zanna give up on a fight before. The blood soaked through the silk.

Salvatore turned to walk away, then paused to look back at me.

“I need someone quiet,” he said thoughtfully. I saw the red, flashing lights before he did.

Part of the reason I was letting myself meander down memory lane was that my next responsibility was calling Big Mamma and telling her that one of her own was a killer. Taylor Soto had planted explosive materials and pushed Indigo Ivan. A sloppy plan at best, but even if the materials hadn't caught fire, they would have been discovered eventually. Panic would have ensued either way. And that's all Taylor wanted. A little mayhem, and his rival hightails it home.

The call had to be placed despite my reservations, and I sat up like a big girl and smoothed the flyways that had slipped out of Vondya Vasiliev's perfect albeit homely creation.

“It was Taylor,”
I said when Big Mamma picked up, dispensing with niceties because they wouldn't help. I waited for a scream or at least a well-mannered “shit,” but instead she waited on the details. I gave her everything I had, gripping the shoebox hard enough to crease the cardboard.

“And we don't have any recourse against the Zeus Clan of Holy Hatred?”

“You can lawyer up, accuse them of aggravated harassment in the second degree. They might claim the invites weren't intended as death threats, just prophesies.”

“Right.”

There was a pause long enough for me to think that I was about to be hung up on for the third time that day, but Big Mamma spoke again. “Thank you, Miss Stone. Send over a bill. You did good, kid.”

I didn't feel good or much like a kid, but I somehow managed to stand up and take the 4 train up to my office. It was about as cheerful as the Sotos' grease-stained kitchen. It had only been a day since Meeza left, but the plants were drooping as if they knew they weren't going to make it under my care alone. I took out the mister and halfheartedly gave the leaves a few squirts. There was a small note scrawled in masking tape on the side: “Try talking to them.” Meeza's girlish handwriting flipped a switch inside me, and I threw the plastic bottle against the wall hard enough to make a dent. Since that didn't do anything to alleviate my rage, I pulled out my cell. Lars Dekker might not be a priority for the NYPD, but Meeza Dasgupta was most certainly a priority to me. I found V.P.'s number and typed a message I'd sent countless times before: “Need ride. A.S.A.P.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A
lways a professional or at least not one to turn down a customer, V.P. responded quickly. A vehicle would be waiting for me on the corner of 77th and Third Avenue in half an hour. I spent a few minutes typing up my case notes and making arrangements to drop off the evidence I'd collected from Taylor Soto's parents. Since the murderer was dead, there was no rush, and I got the feeling that the precinct paperwork would languish for awhile. I wondered if they'd even hold a press conference, let the public know that the explosion wasn't an accident, but that the perpetrator wouldn't strike again. Since they couldn't take credit for solving the case, I doubted it.

There didn't seem to be much point in waiting around the office any longer, so I tossed my Katya Lincoln wig onto a mannequin head and bolted for the elevator. The floor secretary didn't look up as I stormed passed and started jabbing at the down button. If V.P. was responsible for Lars's disappearance, awkward phone call notwithstanding, I was going to find out. Then I was going to convince Meeza that she could do better. Better than V.P. and better than me, too. If I didn't want this
job any longer, I couldn't expect her to want it either. Maybe Vondya needed someone to yell at suppliers for her. I'd be happy surrounded by all those possible lives. A bob from Toronto with an amateur interest in ethnology. A mohawk who ran her own dog walking business. The elevator doors dinged open before I could decide which identify I preferred, and I rode down to the street more or less as myself.

Finding your questionably legal rental car was always a bit of a crapshoot. There were usually telltale signs, though, like tinted windows and rusted bumpers. When he remembered, V.P. or one of his cronies would text you a make and model. Of course, when I turned the corner onto 77th, I spotted my ride immediately—an “eff you” in the form of a 2013 Lexus LS. Meeza's favorite. The classiness of the vehicle was diminished when I reached under the passenger side door to peel off the key. This was more of a duct tape rather than an access card kind of company.

I'd only been to the lot once, a trip that I now very much regretted since it threw my assistant into V.P.'s path. Beyond all belief, she'd been as struck with the car thief as he was with her. Even as I started the ignition, I thought I could smell her jasmine perfume mingling with the leather interior. It usually made me calm, but for this mission, I rolled down all the windows, crisp autumn air be damned.

There was plenty of afternoon traffic along the avenues. The stop and start motion allowed me time to gaze upon residences I could never afford, buildings with doormen bedecked like the queen's guard, tipping their hats to passersby. The pristine awnings boasted names like The St. Laurence and The Christopher, evoking bygones days when you could introduce yourself to strangers with a place name, instant pedigree. I'd like to believe that at least separate service entrances were a thing of the past, but I knew they weren't. Not here, and not even
in the fancier parts of gentrified Brooklyn where low-income renters were expected to go around back while their high-income neighbors waltzed through the front doors. I grew up somewhere in the middle when there was still a middle to be had in the city. I'd taken out loans to pay for college, but my parents' life insurance policy had allowed me to negate them in one fell, awful swoop.