Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) (8 page)

“What do you mean, ‘for decent money’?”

“That’s my business.”

“You sold it for scrap, you mean.”

“What do you care? Best way to get rid of it.”

“And the container?”

“It’ll be loaded onto a ship bound for Odessa. Nothing can go wrong. We’ll be far away from the scene, and there’ll be no trace of the van.”

“So your van will be used by terrorists in some godforsaken country I can’t even spell.” Ben chewed on his toothpick. “What if we can’t open the container and get the girl out?”

Henry shook his head. “It’s all arranged. My Audi is parked alongside the float facility. We’ll transfer my belongings from the van to the car. That includes the girl in the tarpaulin.”

“If you say so.”

Ben was silent.

Traffic was moving. They were close to Sunset Park.

Henry glanced at Ben, who held up a needle and turned toward the backseat. “You can’t give her another dose so soon. It’s too risky.”

“I think we should have gone the usual way. Turn around and drive across the bridge to the Turnpike.”

Henry breathed in and out. He tried to explain one more time why it was too risky to drive across the bridge. What if someone had seen the van parked on Joralemon and somehow associated it with the girl’s disappearance? These days, there were surveillance cameras all over. Take the highway patrol—they cruised around with video cams. They could track the vehicle from the footage. Henry listened to his voice. Too insistent. He had to calm himself, flatten out. What was wrong with him? He knew how to handle Ben.

Ben hadn’t been listening. He was too busy chewing his fingernails. He insisted they needed to get out of there fast, and going to Sunset Park was stupid, too complicated. It wasn’t too late to turn around.

But in the end, Henry prevailed. Henry was the boss.

“And another thing,” Ben said. “We gotta do something about Phillipa. She looks like a caged animal. In two minutes, she’s going to talk. She loves Trisha Liam. Ever thought about what we’re going to do with her? I’ll tell you what we’re going to do—we’re going to give her the needle.”

Henry stopped breathing. “Don’t you dare touch her. Phillipa needs the money more than you and me.”

“Right. I forgot about the boy. Still …” Ben began.

“Listen to me. Leave her alone. I don’t want you talking to her.”

By the time they arrived at Sunset Park, Ben was like a jumped-up rabbit. He folded, unfolded his arms, shook his hands, stomped his feet. His eyes darted from side to side, surveying the area. “How do you know they’re not watching us from these buildings? I just saw someone move behind that window. There, see?”

“Take it easy.”

Ben acted like he hated the abandoned buildings, the debris-filled brown shrubs, the pitted concrete walks. He paced the length of the van a hundred times during the long wait to load the van into one of the freight cars. Henry listened to the slow screech of metal on metal as the cars were loaded onto the barge.

“Unnecessary.” Ben looked at his watch. “Could be in Central Jersey by now if it weren’t for you and your stupid plan.”

Wind tore at Henry’s hair. “What are you doing with that knife?”

The blade in Ben’s hand caught the sun. “Just checking. Someone’s got to be prepared.”

So they argued in frenetic, whispered tones whenever Ben wasn’t peering into the van’s window at the tarpaulin.

Over and over, Henry explained about the cameras springing up everywhere.

Ben protested. “This isn’t Lower Manhattan.”

“No matter, they’re everywhere. I know. I run across the bridge every day and notice them. They’re multiplying like rabbits. I saw a new one this morning on Joralemon and had to circle, couldn’t park where I’d rehearsed. You remember, don’t you?”

“You’re crazy paranoid.” Ben ran fingers through his hair. His foot wouldn’t stop tapping. Now that the nab was over, Ben’s usefulness was gone. Ben was too much work.

Chapter 12

Brandy. In Chains

My tongue is a thick claw with green fuzz all over it. It’s stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I can’t talk or swallow. Can’t see, can’t breathe. Why did you let this happen, Dad? Why did you leave me? I smell fish. I’m swimming up from someplace, where, I don’t know, but it’s not the subway. I’m getting dizzy. Going to barf. Must have gotten sick already because I stink worse than Masterson. He’s the kid I told you about, remember? Doesn’t have friends. But this isn’t the nurse’s station. Must have peed in my pants. How disgusting is that? Does Mom miss me yet? I hear voices, horns, seagulls. Where am I? Someplace where everything is rolling. Or they’ve given me meds. Why aren’t you talking to me?

“Help, someone, anyone! I’ve got to pee.”

That ought to get them. Footsteps. A voice telling me to take it easy.

“You can leave as soon as we hear from your mother.”

Sure, and in the meantime I can pee in my pants.
“Hear what from her?”
Never mind, she won’t do anything. I should hold my breath waiting for Pah-tricia?

“She’s got to pay up for you, kid.”

That was some kind of nasty voice. There must be two of them
. “She won’t talk to you, scum. She barely talks to me.”

“I should slice you up into little pieces for that remark.”

Scuffling feet. Low voices.

“Don’t worry. You can leave as soon as she pays up.”

That was the nice one talking.
“At least tell me where the bathroom is. I’ve got to pee. I can’t move. Get me out of here.”

No one’s answering me. They must have gone away and left me here to rot. They buried me and left. God! Dad! Someone! I can’t see anything. I think I’m going to be sick again. It’s so dark, and I’m rolling around in here, all alone. Maybe I’ll suffocate, and no one will find me until I’m bones.

Chapter 13

Henry. That Morning, The Car Float

“Told you I should have given her another dose.”

Henry said nothing. He and Ben stood on the barge in the middle of New York Harbor as they crossed to the New Jersey side, hugging the freight car with the van chocked inside, safe, the scent broken, just like Henry knew it would be. He relaxed. This was the way he’d planned it. Even Ben quieted, and the weather was cooperating.

The wind blew at his breaker. Henry filled his lungs with fresh air as the scow, prodded by the tugboat, rode the waves and not too gently, either. He was in his element. He loved bridges. He loved water. He breathed the salt air and watched Ben heave over the side. No patrol boats in sight. He bent down and slipped the girl’s phone into the water, watching it burble and sink slowly like the shiny underbelly of a fish.

There hadn’t been much river traffic. It was too early in the day for the tourists who’d later make their way from Battery Park to Ellis or Liberty Island. They’d just passed the Statue of Liberty, and Henry looked at Ben’s folded form. It wouldn’t take much, Henry figured. He ran his fingers over his combat holster, but he knew he couldn’t shoot Ben. The crew might hear the report above the noise of the wind and the tugboat engine, even if the gun he used was only a subcompact. He touched the rubber mallet in the inside pocket of his windbreaker. Ben was much stronger than Henry. He knew it, but knew it would take only one swift blow to the back of his head. That’s all. The man was getting to be too much, an irritation he didn’t need anymore, and he was nasty to Phillipa the other day, almost as if he were jealous of her. There were moments when Henry thought Ben might be losing his mind. He couldn’t be sure of him any longer. He was becoming a hazard.

Henry looked up over his shoulder. If only he could be sure about the tugboat crew. He walked over to the other side, careful to hold onto the cars, trying to imagine the sightlines from the tug’s wheelhouse. Maybe he could lure Ben to stand between two cars. One swift blow to the back of his head, that’s all it would take. He walked back and stood behind Ben and leaned in closer. One tap, no suffering. And it wasn’t like Ben had anything to live for. No wife, no job, not a real one, no memory of a dead son to assuage. After this whole thing was over, he’d go to Switzerland and grow his consulting company, make a new life. He raised the hammer high over the bald spot on Ben’s head. The barge lurched, and Henry almost lost his balance. The moment passed.

Chapter 14

Henry. That Morning, The Farmhouse

Coming into his farmhouse after the grueling drive, Henry Gruber hunched his shoulders, looking at the familiar carpet. He pulled on his nose, glad the ordeal was over. As he went from room to room checking everything on the first floor, he caught sight of himself in the dining room mirror with its heavy gilt frame. It hung over the mahogany buffet and had done since his childhood. His curls fell dangerously close to his collar. He’d have to get a haircut soon. He felt dirty from the drive, unworthy to be in his grandfather’s house. After he got the girl into her room, he’d take a shower, but the haircut would have to wait until the girl was off his hands.

Ben came into the dining room, rubbing his hands. “Show me the roof. You keep telling me you’ll take me up there, but you don’t.”

It was as if nothing had happened between them, no abduction, no arguments, no girl in the trunk. Ben Small was full of energy and delight, as if he were a tourist in a new world. Still … Ben’s enthusiasm gave Henry new determination.

The farmhouse was built in the 1880s. It was set fairly close to the highway, an ominous presence people could see as they drove by. It was a white clapboard Victorian monstrosity, big and square, with a round turret in the front projecting from the third floor and a widow’s walk on the roof. Inside, the rooms were large and square with high ceilings and crown molding and narrow passageways leading to the kitchen and the back of the house. There were two stairwells, one in the back, which led to the attic and small garret where Henry planned to keep the girl. The main staircase of dark carved wood stood lofty and imposing off the grand entryway. It wound up to the second floor and to the large study and library his father built on the third floor.

Henry pictured the lawyer sleepless and alone, in agony, pitchforks from hell pricking her conscience over her daughter. After she paid up, after she’d suffered enough—not like he’d suffered—he’d give her back her daughter, but he’d take his time. He knew how to do it. He wanted the ordeal to haunt her for the rest of her life. He knew he had to inflict deep pain, almost to the point of killing her daughter, but not quite. He wasn’t a beast, after all. He had a plan, and so far, it was working, smooth and trouble free, except for Ben. He’d do something about Ben after he settled the girl, should have done so on the scow, but there’d be another time, a better moment, one he’d carefully orchestrate, just like he’d done with the capture. He’d sit in the library and look out over the land. He felt safe in the house, his mind back to normal, wrapped in the presence of his father. He knew he could do no wrong. He knew his father would guide him.

When he came to this country in the 1930s, Henry’s grandfather settled in Central New Jersey. He bought the house and two barns. He farmed the land and raised four children. Henry met him once, or maybe it was just his imagination. An old-world figure, his grandfather’s portrait hung in the dining room, a three-quarter pose in burnt umber and black. In a sense, the old man never left Switzerland. The likeness sat in Henry’s mind, a picture of his deepest sense of self-worth. Three of his grandfather’s children died, as did his wife, but Henry’s father carried the name and the tradition and the icy temperament forward, and he passed them on to his son.

Ben’s bald spot gleamed in the dim light of the shut interior. “Are you going to stand there forever? Help me get her upstairs.”

He followed Ben outside to the Audi and lifted the tarpaulin and carried the bundle through the house to the back stairwell, the only way to the fourth floor.

Henry grunted with the load. “She’s not moving.”

“I gave her another shot. She’ll be quiet for a while.”

“I said no more drugs.”

They set the girl down on the bed. Henry examined the room, small but clean with a four-poster bed between two boarded-up windows. There was a closet on one side and another door leading to a bathroom. She’d be locked in here, and he’d have to bind her, but he’d see that she was fed. When she woke up, he’d show her around the room.

“I want to see the widow’s walk. You said we could go up there today.”

Henry sighed. Ben was like a child, really. After pushing the canvas away from the girl’s face, he locked the room and crossed the landing.

There, he opened another door to the attic. The room was bare and smelled of generations. Dust and cobwebs covered everything, just like his childhood spent mostly in Switzerland, here in the summertime. On one wall was an old trunk. It held his Swiss Army uniform where he’d learned discipline and a love of guns and their power. There he’d become a sharpshooter, preferring pistols to assault rifles.

Discarded furniture covered much of the floor space, but there was a path through the middle of the room, leading to a rickety ladder and a trap door.

“It’s up here,” Henry said. Ben followed him up the ladder, and Henry unlatched the door and pushed it open. Henry heaved himself up the last few steps and watched Ben navigate behind him. He thought again of getting rid of Ben. One swift kick to his balls, Ben would fall backward, the railing would break, and he’d plunge to his death. It would look like an accident.

The wind was strong on the roof, but the fresh air pleasant. Henry felt it blowing through his curls and remembered pleasant times with his father on the widow’s walk, a decorative lookout on the top of the house built, his father said, as an afterthought. “On clear days, you can see the bridge in Trenton.”

The walk was big enough to hold four or five people and had a waist-high rail on all four sides. There was a sheer drop to a steeply pitched roof below. A fall from it meant certain death. He pictured Ben’s body lying in a heap.

Henry shook himself. He couldn’t do it, he wouldn’t. Again, the moment passed.