Four Walls Page 3

  But it was hard being a white guy in any prison-suddenly, he was the minority, which, as a white male Christian, Jack wasn't really used to. And then at the baseball game yesterday that asshole Barker had to go and do the takeout slide.

  You just didn't do that. When Jack was a kid, he used to watch the Yankees' second baseman Willie Randolph jump over guys who tried that. Jack had always liked Randolph-in fact, he started paying attention to baseball again when the Mets hired Randolph to be their manager.

  But Jack was no Willie Randolph. Barker's foot slammed right into him, and Jack couldn't leap out of the way fast enough. His shins still hurt.

  Then they had to go and put him in the goddamn box. He spent the whole night in solitary confinement, with no windows, no light except when they opened the food slot. It was a nightmare. It was torture. He could barely sleep, mostly because closing his eyes and opening his eyes were the exact same thing. It was like living with a blanket over his head.

  In the morning, they let him out. That was the first piece of good luck, as usually you were in the box for at least twenty-four hours. But Sullivan said something about how everyone thought the ball game was stupid anyhow, so they only gave him and Barker an overnight stay. Jack was grateful, as just the one night had left him exhausted, sweaty, and hyper.

  They'd put Barker in the box, too, and he looked just fine coming out of it, like it was a day at the goddamn beach. Sweat plastered Jack's short hair to his scalp, but Barker only had a few dots of sweat on his dark forehead, and his hair was dry. Bastard.

  From the moment of the takeout slide, Jack had wanted Barker dead, but it wasn't until the other man came out of the box pretty as a picture while Jack was a total wreck that Jack decided he needed to kill Barker himself.

  First thing he did was go to Karl Fischer, as he couldn't retaliate without permission. Jack hated talking to Fischer, though. A major-league skinhead, in for murder, Fischer was only in RHCF because he was in the middle of a long appeal.

  But nobody white did anything in RHCF without talking to Fischer first. Fischer had pull, and he had people. Most of the few white folks in RHCF banded together under Fischer, giving them strength in numbers, and part of that was protecting each other. Fischer had given Jack his blessing, and Jack knew that Fischer would have his back.

  His good luck held: Ciccone was the CO in his block today. He'd pulled the razor out already and was pretty sure he'd be able to sneak it past Ciccone. If it had been Bolton or Sullivan, or that new guy, Andros, Jack would've been worried, but Ciccone didn't know jack or shit, so he figured he was clear.

  Then Jack saw the magnet and panicked. He'd shoved the razor under his tongue, which was fine as long as he didn't talk.

  But the magnet wasn't on. And Ciccone looked like hammered shit in any case. Sure enough, he took the empty safety razor, left the magnet off, and dumped it. He didn't even acknowledge Jack.

  Now Jack had a weapon. He'd never killed anyone before. Beat lots of guys up, but that was it.

  Barker, though, he'd earned it. He'd shown Jack up, not once, but twice. So now Jack would kill a man for the first time.

  He wondered what it would feel like.

  4

  THE LAST TIME DETECTIVES Stella Bonasera and Lindsay Monroe had investigated a murder in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, the victim was also a teenage girl. Then, Lindsay had bolted from the scene, as seeing a dead teenager brought back all-too-vivid memories of being the only survivor of a massacre in a Bozeman, Montana, diner ten years earlier.

  Lindsay had been in the bathroom when Daniel Kadems came into the diner. He had planned on robbing the place after it was closed but before the staff locked up; however, Lindsay and her friends' exuberant gabbing had kept the diner open later than expected. Kadems panicked when he realized his robbery attempt had gone sour and shot all the witnesses.

  All but the one in the bathroom. Lindsay's response to the sound of gunfire had been to curl up in a corner until it went away. Afterward, she had felt compelled, for the sake of her best friends, to do something to stop people like Kadems from hurting others. But her paralyzed reaction to the shooting meant, in her mind, that becoming a police officer was probably not the right choice for her, so she went into forensic science instead.

  Eventually, the memories of her friends and their violent deaths made it too painful to stay in Bozeman, so she moved as far away as she could: to New York, to join the Crime Scene Investigators of the NYPD, under the supervision of Detective Mac Taylor.

  Which was fine, as long as she didn't see any dead teenage girls. Unfortunately, one night around Christmas last year, she'd come to Riverdale to find the body of Alison Mitchum, and Lindsay hadn't been able to handle it. Stella had been the one to cover for her with Mac.

  Since then, the Bozeman cops had caught up with Daniel Kadems, and he'd been tried and convicted, in part on the strength of Lindsay's own testimony. So when they got the call to join Detective Angell at a new crime scene in Riverdale, Lindsay figured she could handle it this time, as that particular demon had finally been laid to rest. At least, that was what she had told Stella.

  They drove up in one of the department SUVs. The Bronx was the northernmost of the five boroughs and the only one attached to the U.S. mainland. They were making good time; this early in the morning, most of the traffic was going into Manhattan, not leaving it. The last time, they had gone up the West Side Highway, but this morning Stella chose to take the FDR on the east side. "We got a memo," she explained as they took the exit for the Third Avenue Bridge. "Apparently, the crime lab's spending too much on E-Z Pass, so they want us to avoid tolls wherever possible."

  Lindsay shook her head. "All the money we spend on our crime-scene equipment, and they're worried about tolls?"

  Stella shrugged, her long curls bouncing slightly. The SUV pulled onto the bridge, taking them over the Harlem River. Looking to her right, Lindsay saw Randalls Island and the Manhattan skyline through the haze of this humid morning.

  "Apparently," Stella was saying, "we passed our toll allocation for the year by Memorial Day, so some bean counter got pissed. Hold on."

  "Why should I-" Lindsay cut herself off when the SUV hit the end of the bridge and got back on regular paving. Or, rather, irregular paving. The road was one long series of massive potholes, and even the SUV's state-of-the-art suspension couldn't keep her from bouncing around in the passenger seat, the seat belt biting into her ribs.

  After a few minutes, Stella made the left onto the entrance ramp that would put them on the Major Deegan Expressway. "That was fun," Lindsay muttered, now holding on to the handle over the SUV door for dear life. "You know, we don't even have toll bridges in Montana."

  "You also can't get a decent cannoli, I bet." Stella grinned.

  Lindsay grinned right back. "I wouldn't know, I've never had a cannoli."

  After merging the SUV into traffic, Stella stole a shocked look at Lindsay. "You've been in New York how long now, and you've never had one of the finest Italian delicacies?"

  "I thought that was pizza."

  Stella shook her head. "Pizza's an American invention. Cannoli are real Italian food. The best ones I've ever had were at this place down by the courthouse in Little Italy." Stella got a momentary look of rapture on her face. Lindsay had never understood Stella's fascination with food. But then, Lindsay's idea of exotic food growing up was the Olive Garden. She'd made the mistake of saying that to Stella once, which had prompted a look of disgust on Stella's face that Lindsay had previously only seen reserved for serial killers.

  Lindsay looked out the window again as they passed Yankee Stadium, with the massive edifice of the Bronx County Courthouse looming behind it. Lindsay had been up here to testify a few times. Each borough in the city was its own county, so each had its own courthouse. While most of the time Lindsay testified in the New York County Courthouse on Centre Street in downtown Manhattan-the one near Little Italy, as Stella had said-she'd been to the ones in Broo
klyn, Queens, and the Bronx several times, and even to Staten Island once.

  The last time she was up here, Danny Messer had made noises about taking her to a game. She'd also seen the broken ground for the new Yankee Stadium that was scheduled to open in 2009-or, as Danny had called it, "the abomination." That was part of why he wanted to get her to a game; he wanted her to experience the "real" Yankee Stadium before it was gone.

  Lindsay hadn't had the heart to tell Danny that she had no interest in baseball-football, yes, but not baseball. He was so cute when he started waxing rhapsodic about Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Reggie Jackson and Don Mattingly and how much he hated the Red Sox, not to mention his own short-lived minor-league career.

  Soon they reached West 230th Street, where Stella got off and then navigated her way through some local streets that Lindsay quickly lost track of. Lindsay only did the driving when they stayed in Manhattan, with its grid-pattern streets. Once she got into the outer boroughs, she tended to get hopelessly lost.

  They went up a very big, very steep hill, then pulled into an area of the street that was designated as a bus stop but in which two cars were parked-one a departmental sedan, probably Angell's, and a blue-and-white from the Fiftieth Precinct. Stella pulled in behind the blue-and-white.

  Detective Jennifer Angell was standing outside the door to Belluso's Bakery, which faced the bus stop. A svelte brunette, she'd originally been temporarily promoted to take on Flack's caseload when he was injured and had been groomed to replace him if he didn't make it back. Flack did come back, but Angell did well enough during her probation that they gave her the full promotion anyhow. She'd put down a lot of good cases in the past year.

  She also never got the memo about the dress code. Plainclothes cops who worked homicides were supposed to dress formally. Angell, however, mostly stuck to denim. Lindsay was surprised she hadn't gotten called on it. Today was no different: she wore a plain light-blue T-shirt and faded jeans. Her long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail in deference to the oppressive heat and humidity. Stella had actually done likewise with her curly locks, and Lindsay was starting to think she should have done the same.

  Peering through the large picture window, Lindsay saw two long display cases perpendicular to each other, filled with pastries. There was a staircase in the center of the space going up to a balcony-style second floor. Around the staircase were several small round tables surrounded by three or four wooden chairs each. Two uniforms were inside, along with three young women and one older man.

  "Vic's name is Maria Campagna," Angell said without preamble. "She works here part-time. She was one of the ones who closed last night. Two other girls found her when they opened this morning." She smiled. "And now you know everything I do-I only just got here."

  One of the uniforms came out through the glass door. Lindsay briefly felt the enticing cool breeze from the air-conditioned interior.

  The uniform's collars had "50" pins on them, indicating his home base of the five-oh, which Lindsay knew was the local precinct. He was tall, barrel-chested, crew cut, and was pale except for his nose, which was bright red with sunburn. His name tag read O'MALLEY.

  "How you doin', angel face?" he said with a grin.

  Angell winced. "Deej, what'd I tell you about calling me that?"

  Still grinning, O'Malley said, "That you'd shoot me. But I've seen your range scores, I ain't worried."

  Shaking her head, Angell said, "Detective Bonasera, Detective Monroe, this jackass is D. J. O'Malley. We were at the two-four together back in the day. Deej, these two are from the crime lab."

  O'Malley nodded. "You guys work with Mac Taylor, right?"

  "Yeah," Stella said. "You know him?"

  "Nah, just heard about his getting reamed over that scumbucket Dobson. Glad he got off."

  "Us, too," Stella said with a nod.

  "So," Angell said, "who're the players?"

  O'Malley didn't take out his notebook, which surprised Lindsay. "Dina and Jeanie found the bodies. Dina's the big one, Jeanie's the skinny hottie. The old fart's Sal, he owns the place, and the cute blonde's Annie-she closed with Maria last night."

  Stella frowned. "These people have last names?"

  "Probably." O'Malley shrugged. "Me and Bats come here all the time. I know all these people-including the vic. She was a good kid-always knew how much milk to put in my coffee." He turned to Stella and Lindsay. "Nobody touched anything, so you two're all set."

  Lindsay nodded, wondering why O'Malley's partner was nicknamed "Bats."

  "Let's get out of the oven," Stella said, moving toward the bakery entrance. O'Malley jumped to grab the door and hold it open for them. Chivalry right after describing the women inside in terms of how good they looked. Lindsay sighed-but she'd been in law enforcement long enough that the contradiction didn't surprise her.

  As Lindsay walked through the door O'Malley was holding, she noticed the bakery's hours stencilled on the glass. Sunday to Thursday 7 A.M. to 11 P.M., Friday and Saturday 7 A.M. to midnight.

  As soon as they entered the bakery, Lindsay felt goose bumps on her flesh as the air-conditioning evaporated the sweat on her forehead and neck. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation for a second as the door shut behind O'Malley.

  When she opened them, O'Malley was pointing at the corner behind where the two display units met. "Body's over there."

  Lindsay followed Stella around the counter facing the door. The owner, a large man with a bulbous nose, liver spots all over his skin, and thin white hair, was muttering something in an accented voice-Italian, she assumed. He was standing by the staircase, near the table at which the three young women-Dina, Jeanie, and Annie-were seated. All three had bloodshot eyes, indicating that they'd been crying, and Annie still was. She was the only one of the three not wearing makeup-the other two looked like raccoons thanks to smudged mascara. Standing next to the owner was another uniform from the five-oh with a nametag reading WAYNE, which went some way toward explaining the nickname. Lindsay wondered if his first name was Bruce.

  As she passed by the young woman, she heard Annie mutter that it should've been her.

  Angell spoke to the owner while Lindsay and Stella went to check the body. They came around the corner and stepped up onto a boardwalk-like set of wooden slats that put the people behind the counter a little higher up than the customers. Lindsay saw the logic: all the employees here seemed to be young women, who tended to be shorter than men, and it didn't do to serve the public when the counter only came up to your chin.

  Lindsay stepped up onto the riser and looked down at the body.

  Kelly lying on the floor, a stunned look on her blood-covered face…

  She looked away, forcing the image out of her head.

  "You okay?" Stella put a hand on her shoulder.

  Nodding quickly, Lindsay said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." She reached into her bag and took out her Nikon D200 digital camera, flipping the strap over her neck.

  Then she looked at the body again.

  This time, to her relief, she didn't see Kelly. She saw Maria Campagna, a skinny young woman with short dark hair. She was lying on the riser, legs bent, knees pointing toward the back wall, her back flat on the riser, her head turned in the opposite direction from her knees, her arms splayed on either side of her. She was wearing a white T-shirt with the words SAN FRANCISCO HERE I COME stencilled on the front, hip-hugger blue jeans, brown leather sandals, and no socks. Her fingernails and toenails were both painted purple, the polish chipped here and there, indicating that she'd applied it at least a day or two ago.

  After taking a deep breath through her nose and letting it out slowly through her mouth-a method her former psychiatrist had suggested and that had allowed Lindsay to keep it together on more than one occasion-she raised the camera to her face. She set up Maria's-rather, the victim's-face in the center of the viewer and started clicking pictures. That was something Mac had told her shortly after she joined his team: that it was easier to
work a scene when you thought about the victim or the body, not a name. There was time enough to think about who they were later, but when you were doing the scene, you focused on what happened, not who it happened to.

  She heard Angell say, "Officer Wayne, could you please take everyone except for Mr. Belluso upstairs? I need to talk to each of you in turn, starting with Mr. Belluso."

  "Sure," Wayne said. "Ladies?"

  Lindsay heard the shuffle of feet up the wooden staircase at the center of the bakery, but she didn't look, focused as she was on photographing the body. She made sure to get images of the body as a whole, then from every angle, then close-ups.

  Stella stood behind her, taking in the scene from a distance while Lindsay took her pictures.

  After taking a close shot of the victim's eyes, Lindsay said, "Petechial hemorrhaging around the eyes."

  Nodding, Stella said, "Probably strangled." She moved in closer and looked down. "Lots of scuff marks on the riser, but that's to be expected. She could've been killed here, or she could've been dragged around back here." Stella got down on her knees. "Just eyeballing it, there's trace up the ying-yang here. Good thing we brought a lot of envelopes."

  "Have fun," Lindsay muttered as she continued snapping photographs. Collecting trace at a scene like this-one that had been tramped over and used a great deal-was incredibly frustrating, because ninety-nine percent of what you picked up was stuff that was supposed to be there. The crime lab's job was to find that one percent that didn't belong.

  To make their job even tougher, if the killer was Mr. Belluso or anybody who worked there, they'd have left trace evidence all over the place, but none of it would be indicative of guilt in this crime.

  But that part was Angell's problem. Lindsay's job right now was to document the body.

  Stella had pulled out her tweezers and put on her rubber gloves, and was now bagging and tagging things she picked up off the floor. In a place like this, most of the trace was going to be organic, and Lindsay was now counting the microseconds until Stella asked her for a hand. As it was, she was thrilled that she hadn't simply been asked to do it all in the first place. As the newest member of the team, scut work like that had almost always fallen on her. She still recalled her first case, which involved digging through tiger dung looking for body parts. Took weeks to get the smell out of her hair. Lindsay viewed it as a sign of progress that Stella was no longer treating her like a rookie.