Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) (24 page)

Tig’s phone was buzzing. He listened, and slowly his face lit up like Christmas.

Chapter 47

Fina. Morning Three, Port Newark

Tig holstered his phone. “Customs found the van.”

I felt blood rushing around my innards. The break we needed.

Tig elaborated. Inspectors at Port Newark discovered an olive green van stowed in a container on one of their ships. “These days that’s like finding a thousand-dollar bill in your garbage can.”

“No such thing.” I breathed charged air.

He turned on his flashing red light and sped away. “Where can I drop you off?”

“Not on your life. I’m coming with.”

He chewed on his inner cheek. “Fine, but you’re on your own getting back. I’ll be tied up.”

I nodded, trying to breathe. I’d agree to anything to see that van. The scenery flew by, but I wanted to stay on the right side of Jane, so I texted her to make sure she’d heard the news.

“Port Newark. That’s the place you can see on the way to Newark International, with all the trains and forklifts and ships?”

Tig nodded.

At the gates, he flashed his badge, and a guard gave us directions. Everywhere I looked, I saw containers. A few were rusted and lying on their sides. Most were piled one on top of the other. There was movement all over, the din of industrial-sized vehicles, smoke, the smell of dead fish and oil, a few men in hard hats. I saw forty-foot containers being plucked up by large forklifts as if they were picking up a crumb off the floor. Huge container ships were docked at a bazillion berths, and gulls were going crazy.

“I’m surprised Customs found the van.”

Tig smiled. “Our luck. They found it in a container on the deck of one of those huge ships bound for some port in Russia.”

“How?”

“Spot check, I guess, looking for drugs. The van wasn’t on the manifest, and that’s a big red flag. Thought they’d find something stashed inside. Luckily the guy didn’t touch it, though. He’d read about a green van wanted in connection with an abduction in Brooklyn, so he called us.”

Jane was on the line. I put her on speaker and told her about the find.

“Why the hell doesn’t anyone tell me anything? Never mind, I’m on my way. Take me off speaker.”

I did, and she told me not to let the Feds have the van. “Stall, do anything.”

I said she’d better get her ass over here and pronto, I couldn’t stop anything the Feds wanted to do. And just to make sure she was moving, I mentioned I’d heard the word Quantico.

“She’s asking which berth.”

Tig shrugged. “Tell her Berth 51.”

When we got there, all I saw were ships and containers and forklifts. My ears hurt from the screeching metal. We parked Tig’s car, and after he flashed his badge, we hitched a ride on the side of some machine or other. I heard water lapping against the piers and smelled salt and oil and rust. Thinking of the time Mom and I watched
On the Waterfront
,
I asked Tig where all the men were. He told me automation had done away with ninety percent of longshoremen, once one of the most powerful unions, now a ghost of itself.

We drove as far as we could in the direction of another black SUV. More federal agents in black suits stood around, faces skyward, watching a Maersk loader swing a container off a ship as if it were a matchbox.

At the sound of whirring, I looked up and saw an NYPD helicopter. Jane. I figured she must have gone to the chief and pulled a hissy. As the chopper hovered over us, I saw a blonde sporting a headset pointing in our direction. Two minutes later, she’d hitched a ride on top of a boxcar loader and was barreling toward us. When she got to within spitting distance, she slid down the ladder and stood, arms akimbo, her eyes hurtling daggers at the special agents. I looked at Tig and shrugged but decided to let Jane fight it out with the Feds, so I stood aside, watching Jane’s gestures.

After ground crew removed the vehicle from the container, a beaten GMC van sat before us. I sensed the ghost of Brandy’s presence. Before they could load it onto the flatbed, Jane motioned with her head to me and snapped on a pair of latex gloves. I did the same. After the talk she’d given them, the FBI didn’t dare object. We went to the back and tried to open the door. Locked. Jane ran to the driver’s side. Locked, but when I tried the passenger door, it creaked. I had to muscle it, but it finally opened. I stuck my head inside and smelled urine and fear, and watched Jane as she crawled inside. I was glad it was her and not me contaminating the scene. After she hit the unlock button, I went to the back and opened the door.

There was the tarpaulin all bunched up. It was the scene, all right. I knew it. I smelled pay dirt and felt my tits shrink. I could see Brandy inside, drugged and tied up. I pointed to something along the side; a small lump, it looked like from where I stood. I reached in and picked it up, holding it high so Jane could see.

“The mate to Brandy’s slip-on, I’ll bet you anything.” I handed it to her.

When the dust settled and the truck with the van drove away, Tig and I kissed goodbye. Not the kind of a kiss you’re thinking of, this was a chaste peck on the cheek, but I thanked him for the morning and followed Jane into the helicopter for my million-dollar ride to Brooklyn.

Lower Manhattan slid into view, shards of sun glinting off tall buildings. Jane told me they’d decided to take the van to the least busy of NYPD’s forensic labs, and a joint team would work on it. While the chopper banked, I held onto a handle and whispered a Hail Mary until my stomach hit the roof of my mouth. I willed myself not to throw up, promising never to ride in one of those egg beaters again.

“How did you get here so fast?” I asked.

She looked at me like I had a screw loose. “Chopper.”

“I know, but you must have pulled strings.”

She smiled. “Told the chief I’d resign if he didn’t get me to Port Newark in five minutes. He called Floyd Bennett Field, and a chopper landed on our roof in three minutes. That’s where they’re dropping us off. Can you make it home?”

“As soon as I get my legs back.”

I told her what Lorraine had discovered about Mitch’s death, and about my morning with Joe Catania, thanks to Tig Able. For her part, she thanked me for everything our team had given her so far, and promised to feed me information as soon as she got it.

“We ought to be able to get information from the VIN,” I said.

She nodded. “Unless this guy is too smart and filed them down.”

“Do you think there’s a connection between the needle man Joe Catania talked about and Brandy Liam’s disappearance?”

“There’s no needle man. This guy Joe Catania’s in witness protection, so it’s a given most of what he says is make-believe. Think about it. He’s in a living hell, and you were there to hear a story, so he gave you one. At the same time, he bought himself a diversion, a five-minute vacation, the only one he can ever hope to get. I’ll admit it’s enticing to think there may be a link between Brandy’s abduction and her father’s death. But don’t go down that road.”

Typical Jane to discount the needle man, but just then I wasn’t in the mood to argue, even though in my gut I knew otherwise.

Chapter 48

Fina. Morning Three, A Body

On my walk home, my phone started buzzing. It was Trisha Liam.

“I was just about to call you. We found the van.”

Trisha didn’t seem to be listening. Her voice rose two octaves. “Phillipa’s not here. There’s no answer at her apartment. She’s been with me for twenty years, and she’s never been late, not once.”

“Did you try her cell phone?”

“Doesn’t have one.”

“What time does she usually arrive?”

“Seven.”

“Could it be this is her day off?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

I listened to Trisha’s breathing and looked at my watch. It was close to eleven. Even if there was traffic or a problem with the subway, it wouldn’t take her housekeeper this long to get to Brooklyn Heights.

“Let me make a few calls just to make sure there aren’t any subway problems—”

“Already checked. None.”

“Do you know where her son goes to school? I’d like to call to make sure he arrived this morning.”

Dead air on the other end of the line for a second. A more subdued Trisha replied, “I don’t know anything about the boy.”

“Do you have Phillipa’s address?”

She gave me a number in Bensonhurst.

I flipped through the notes of our interview with Phillipa until I found the name and location of his school. I called it and talked to the principal, who sounded concerned. She said the office tried reaching his home several times, but there was no answering machine, and no one picked up.

I sprang into my BMW and was about to drive away when there it was, that rawness in the pit of my stomach. Sweat oozed out of my fingers as I gripped the wheel. I should have acted on what I’d known about Phillipa earlier. In my gut, I knew she was mixed up with the abductors, but I did nothing. I’d felt her doom from the moment I met her, and now I heard the brush of her soul on its way to heaven, for surely she must be headed that way. Maybe Phillipa was fine and had overslept, but deep down I knew otherwise. Too late, I could see it all now, Phillipa, the weak link with the vulnerability of most single mothers, the only hope of their children, clawing their way through life just to put food on the table. She’d need more money than most because of Freddy’s disabilities. And if she thought she needed money now, wait until he got a little older and wasn’t so cute and she couldn’t have her pick of jobs, not that her job as Phillipa’s housekeeper was so special. I thought of the devil tempting Faust and his galloping ride into hell, because that’s what my ride into Bensonhurst was going to be, Phillipa’s doomed spirit waiting to greet me. So instead of pressing the ignition, I ran up our stoop and asked Denny to come with me.

As he drove the Jeep, I told him about finding the van, about meeting Joe Catania and his story of the needle man. “You don’t believe there’s a connection between Brandy’s abduction and her father’s death, do you?”

“Don’t try to figure out what anyone else thinks, including me,” he said, driving down Bay Ridge Parkway. “Sure, I might blow away Catania’s story as an entertaining hoax having nothing to do with Mitch’s death or Brandy’s abduction, but the more I know you, the more I see you have a gift. Don’t ignore your vibes.”

For a few minutes, Denny’s words calmed me. But just for a little while, because the closer we got to Phillipa’s address, the worse I felt.

“So you don’t think I’m nuts?”

“Do you expect me to answer that while I’m driving?” He grinned and squeezed my knee.

The address Trisha gave me turned out to be a four-flat on Seventy-Ninth Street near Eighteenth Avenue. Denny parked his Jeep on the corner, reached into the back, and handed me a vest. As we walked toward the building, I noticed the bulge of his Glock. I don’t carry—insurance is too expensive, and what would I do with a gun if I had one?

We bounded up the steps and rang Phillipa’s bell. I didn’t expect an answer. We stood on the stoop for a while and then rang the other bells, hoping to get someone’s attention. While we waited, I texted Jane, telling her Phillipa hadn’t showed up for work and giving her the street number of the housekeeper’s apartment.

“May I help you?”

I turned to face the voice. It belonged to a plumpish woman wearing one of those wraparound dresses with little posies all over it, straight from the 1950s. She wore heels with white socks and held a rake, prongs up, grass and leaves moving gently in the breeze. For a second, I watched them waft in the mid-morning light.

“Are you Gladys Delucca?” I showed her my PI license, and Denny flapped his badge at her, explaining he was an off-duty cop. But we could have been waving pornographic material in her face for all the good it did.

She narrowed her eyes. “Her sister, Forsythia.”

I kept my face immobile.

“Our mother named us all after flowers. Gladys had to go to the vet, a problem with her cat. I’ll be glad to take a message, though.”

“We need to talk to one of her tenants, Phillipa Olinski.”

The wraparound lady squinted up at me and pursed her lips. “Woman on the top floor with the boy?”

“That’s the one, Mrs. … is your last name Delucca too?” I asked.

She crossed her arms but didn’t answer. Either my question was too personal or we looked like Bela Lugosi’s sidekicks. For starters, I hadn’t removed my scarf or shades, and now I wore a policeman’s vest, which hung down to my shins. And Denny didn’t look too normal himself. With his tall muscular frame and his shades and vest, he was Bruce Lee on steroids.

“Phillipa didn’t show up for work today, and her boss is worried. We’d like to talk to her,” I explained.

“Well, what would you like me to do about it?”

“Could you maybe let us in to knock on her door?”

“And why would I let you inside the building? You’re liable to steal everything we own while this man here overpowers me and takes advantage.”

We were getting nowhere when I heard Jane’s vehicle screech to a halt in back of Denny’s jeep. I turned to see her car’s rear end sticking out into the avenue. She and Willoughby ran up to us and flashed their badges.

“I suppose you’re here about the tenant, too, and want to get in, Officers?” Forsythia smiled at Jane and gave us dirty looks.

She led us up to the top floor. Jane knocked. No answer, but when I put my ear to the door, I could hear movement inside. Then I heard a loud, bellowing sound. Freddy.

“She wouldn’t leave her son. Something’s wrong. Do you have a key?” I asked.

“Not talking to you,” the woman said. She looked up at Jane and Willoughby. “Officers, these people arrived asking all sorts of questions.”

“You were prudent to be cautious, but we’re working together. Do you have a key to the apartment? We think there may be an unattended child inside.”

The woman felt one side of her garment and then the other. She shook her head. “Now where does Gladys keep the master key?” she mumbled.

“While you look for it, we’ll just stand here,” Willoughby said, palming a credit card. He waited for the woman to disappear before snapping the lock.