Authors: Alafair Burke
S
ome people would have been puzzled by Mallory’s description of Times Square as a wasteland, but those people would be exposing themselves as non–New Yorkers. To non–New Yorkers—people who called the city the “Big Apple,” who thought of it as stressful, a place to visit but not live, people like McKenna’s mother—Times Square
was
New York City. But to people who lived here, Times Square was the place that gave their hometown a bad rap. It was like Disney World or Costco or the DMV—places you probably went but only under protest, for a very specific purpose.
A few times a year, like every good New Yorker, McKenna ventured into this combat zone for an especially lauded performance or to meet an out-of-town friend at some ghastly hotel bar. Today she had a very different reason.
It was only eleven-thirty, and a line had already formed outside Margon. As McKenna bypassed the line to the entrance, responses ranged from the passive-aggressive (“I didn’t think they took reservations”) to the aggressive-aggressive (“You’re not that special, lady! Back of the line!”).
McKenna had assumed from the restaurant’s demand that it was the latest celebrity-soaked Manhattan hot spot. When she reached the front, she realized it was barely a restaurant at all. The long, narrow space was occupied primarily by a food counter with cafeteria-style service, complete with a sign reading LINE START HERE. The early birds had grabbed the few tables available for dining.
The cashier seemed as in charge as anyone. It took a few tries before he understood McKenna’s request. When he finally did comprehend the question, he laughed quietly and shook his head. “No. No cameras.” He gestured around like,
Look at this place.
When McKenna walked out empty-handed, some of the line occupants gained newfound faith in karmic justice. “Yep, back of the line!”
She followed the line, scoping out businesses whose security cameras might have captured the interaction between Mallory and the man who’d borrowed her phone. Nail salon. Indian restaurant. Tattoo parlor. Three strikes.
Her next try was a parking garage. It was well past the length of the current line, but Mallory had been here during rush hour. It was worth a shot.
The entrance to the underground garage was a steep, narrow ramp. A row of cars was backed up, waiting to be worked into the Tetris-like clump of vehicles squeezed into the cramped garage. She found herself cringing in anticipation of a crunch as the parking attendant lurched a Porsche Carrera from the line. With authority. Nothing but net. It would have taken her fifteen minutes of wiggling to free that car from its knot.
She waited patiently while he retrieved cars for four customers standing nearby with claim tickets. People who needed favors couldn’t be pushy. When she got his attention, he was more than happy to chat. He probably didn’t get many opportunities to socialize in his profession.
“Yeah, we got cameras. A bunch of them. Two years ago, some madman pulled a woman from the street and raped her right there on the ramp. My guy was down here the whole time, but he was washing cars and listening to the radio. Didn’t hear a thing. Me? If I’d heard something like that? Guy wouldn’t have gotten out of here alive. Now we got a bell that rings whenever anyone sets one foot inside the ramp—you walked down here, right? Yep. I heard the bell. Knew someone was coming but didn’t see a car. Works good. Plus we got cameras. A big system. Catches everything.”
“What about outside the ramp? On the sidewalk?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, not like all of midtown or whatever. But yeah, sidewalk on both sides of the garage.”
“Do you have tape?”
“For fourteen days, then it cycles. Not sure I’m supposed to be showing it to anyone. No one’s ever asked.”
She’d heard the anger in his voice when he spoke about the madman who attacked the woman two years before. “I’m on something of an amateur sleuth venture. My little sister was waiting in line for Margon—”
“Oh, man, those rice and beans . . .”
“Well, some guy borrowed her phone, saying it was an emergency. And when she got it back, he had put these crude pictures of himself on it.”
“Now, see? What the hell is wrong with people? Who does something like that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. The police say they can’t do anything about it, since the pictures he left—they’re not exactly of his face, you know? But maybe your cameras caught it on film.”
“Say nothing more. I got you. We’re gonna catch this fucker.”
The number of drivers waiting to drop off keys continued to grow as the attendant scanned through digital video files in the back office. “Just a second, guys. I’ve got a big emergency here. I’ll be right out. Promise!” He had queued up the feed from the camera on the west side of the garage from Wednesday, starting at one, the beginning of Mallory’s lunch hour. They could see people waiting in line on the sidewalk. He played it at high speed.
“There!” McKenna saw Mallory deep in conversation with her friend. “That’s my sister,” she said. “Slow it down.” They watched at regular speed as a man in the line said something to them. Mallory barely looked at the man before handing him her phone.
“Oh yeah.” The parking attendant was now her full partner in the investigation. “There’s the sicko. Yep, he’s doing something. Not taking pictures but fiddling with the controls. Probably had the pictures all ready at some website to download on the phone or something.”
In the video, the man handed the phone back to Mallory and stepped out of the line. “Stop!” McKenna said.
“We got him,” her partner announced, pausing the screen.
McKenna had no idea who the man was.
B
efore Scanlin even opened the glass front door, the two women at the reception desk of Comfort Park exchanged a glance. In that shared look, he overheard their entire unspoken conversation.
Here he comes again.
We keep telling him—
But he doesn’t listen.
It was true. They had kept telling him. They told him Melissa didn’t remember him. They told him she really was happy here; he didn’t need to worry. They told him it was best to come with Jenna.
Easier said than done. Despite all of Jenna’s resentment of her father for putting his work before family, she—in her words—wasn’t “a morning person.” It was all she “could do” to get up in time to make it to her job as a corporate accountant. Her visits to Melissa were strictly in the early evening.
Scanlin, on the other hand, was a cop with comp time that he had to use or lose. He was also the one who’d taken care of Melissa, even after everyone said she needed to move into a “facility.” No one had believed him, but there were minutes back when she was home—sometimes over an hour—when she was almost normal, and it was always in the morning. She’d wake up before him and find him sleeping in Jenna’s room and ask whether he wanted pancakes. Didn’t she have to remember him to know that pancakes were his favorite?
“Good morning,” he said. “I’m here to see Melissa Scanlin.”
Comfort Park. He hated the name. It sounded like a combination of “comfort station” and “trailer park.” He hated the place itself when Melissa moved in. The exaggerated attempts to make it look cheerful—flowered upholstery, flowered curtains, plastic floral centerpieces in the dining area. The dated furniture. The weird smell.
He eventually realized that his discomfort with the place was all about him, not Melissa. He wanted Melissa to be the kind of woman who would hate living here. But she wasn’t. She was a woman who acted like a child due to her dementia. And much like a child, she didn’t care about design or upholstery or even the people around her. She liked arts and crafts sessions, music days, and the fact that the ladies at Comfort Park constantly brought in a rotating collection of hats for her to wear.
“Of course, Detective Scanlin. I believe she’s in the group room right now.”
The group room was a bright, open room filled with nonmatching chairs, small tables, and activity pods for drawing, puzzling, clay molding, and reading. The woman led the way to his wife, who was sitting by herself in front of a TV tray, playing solitaire. It wasn’t actually solitaire, but for some reason, the practice of placing piles of cards in seven columns and then turning over the remainder of the cards, three at once into the waste, remained a familiar pattern.
“As we talked about, Detective,” the woman whispered as they approached.
“I know. Just keep her company. No reminders. No prodding.”
“Exactly,” she said, like he was a student who had recited the alphabet correctly for the first time.
“Not to worry. I’ll act like a complete stranger.”
He couldn’t help himself. He recognized that the people who worked here—most of them, at least—truly cared about the patients. But at the end of the day, their jobs would be easier if the husbands and the parents and the siblings would just go away. Then they could run Comfort Park like a day-care center with giant toddlers and would not have to be reminded that the people in this room used to be adults. A woman like Melissa used to be a mother, a wife, and a kickass cook. Until she agreed to marry a cop, she liked to sneak a toke of doob. And though no one but Scanlin would ever know it, she was sexier than any porn star in the bedroom.
“Hi, there,” he said. “Good game?”
“Oh, yeah. I like this a lot. I always win, too.”
She
never
won, not even when she knew how to play.
“You know how to—you know.” She gestured to the cards.
“I used to play. I could never win, though. Too hard.”
“Doesn’t seem so hard to me.”
“You must be very good at it. My name’s Joe. I was born in Pittsburgh. I’m a police officer, and I have a daughter named Jenna.”
He’d learned that he could recite basic biographical facts without triggering a series of events ending with a staff member asking him to “come back later” with Jenna. As long as he acted like a talkative stranger, Melissa was calm, even mildly entertained. But any statements like “I’m your husband” or “We lived together for twenty-three years” or “How can you not remember?” were quickly followed by stressful pacing around the room, tears, or—the worst—accusations that he was trying to “steal” her.
“When Jenna was little,” he continued, “her appendix almost burst, and we almost didn’t know. Other kids yell and scream the second they get a tummyache, but all Jenna said was that she must have eaten too much pizza. She kept saying it for over an entire day”—twenty-four hours wouldn’t mean anything to Melissa—“and even when the pain got really bad, she didn’t scream or even moan. She said, ‘Daddy, the pizza moved to the right side of my body. I think that means I need to go to the hospital.’ ”
There was a certain irony to the Comfort Park staff’s cordial relationship with Jenna. By the time he decided to place Melissa in a home full-time, everyone they knew could barely contain their relief.
Better for both your sakes. Long time coming. Had to be done.
Everyone but Jenna. If he could undergo a lobotomy to forget all of the hateful words that had spewed from his own daughter that night, he’d happily make the first cut.
“Does Jenna have a mommy?” Melissa asked.
He knew it. Mornings were always better for Melissa. He believed it was because the sleep refreshed her. If it were true that most people used only ten percent of brain capacity, maybe Melissa was able to use more when she was rested.
“Yes, she does. In fact, her name is Melissa. Isn’t that your name?”
Melissa’s brow furrowed, and he wondered whether she was about to have an episode. “That’s nice that you have a—” She waved her hand in the air, the way she did when she couldn’t conjure an appropriate word. “I used to have one. But he’s gone now.”
Melissa could not remember him, but she did seem to remember that she’d had a boyfriend at Comfort Park until he had passed away four months earlier. For her sake, he hoped she would forget. And that she’d forget the ones who were likely to come after. Melissa had long outlived the average life expectancy of patients with her diagnosis.
“It was nice talking to you, Melissa. Have a good time finishing your game.”
“I always win.”
He thanked the women on his way out, who gave him the sympathetic but impatient look they seemed to reserve for him.
He had an entire afternoon in front of him. He wasn’t good at taking a day off. No job. No family. No hobbies.
For a while, he’d thought the Hauptmann case might become his hobby, but he’d hit a wall with Vera Hadley’s notes. So maybe the nosy neighbor had heard Susan argue with a boyfriend. He still didn’t know who the guy was. And he didn’t know whether Susan was dead or alive.
The final straw had been the stunt McKenna Jordan pulled. Most people caught red-handed printing libelous information about a judge would lie low and take their lumps. But hauling out the name of her missing friend on Twitter to try to save herself? The woman would do anything for attention.
The thought of McKenna Jordan reminded him that he wanted to check in with his old friend Scott Macklin to make sure he had heard the news that she had imploded once again.
M
ac’s house was pretty much as Scanlin remembered it. He was never one to swear by his memory, but it was possible they had added the dormer windows to the second floor. Maybe the cedar fence around the side yard was new, too.
The door of the single-car attached garage was closed. The driveway was empty.
He rang the doorbell, expecting Josefina to greet him with that cheerful but busy voice. No answer. Another ding-dong. More silence.
The twenty-five-minute drive had seemed like nothing when he left Comfort Park. But twenty-five minutes times two was close to an hour. An hour of time wasted in the car.
He walked to the side of the house and peered into a window. If the television was on, he’d at least know they were on their way home. He could grab some McDonald’s and come right back.
He tried the phone number and heard it ringing inside. No answer.
He went to his car and found an old oil-change receipt in the glove box and a pen in the console.
Hey, Scott. A voice from your past. Called yesterday. Popped in today. By next week, you’ll need a stalking order. Give me a ring when you have a chance to catch up.
He scrawled his name and cell number and made his way to the porch to drop off the note.
There was no logical place to put it. No screen door to hold it in place. The bottom of the door was weather-sealed, so there was no slipping the note beneath. The mailbox had a lock on it, thanks to identity thieves.
He tried the door. If it were unlocked, he’d leave the note in the front hallway and get on his way.
It opened.
The house smelled like crispy bacon. Scanlin couldn’t think of a better smell.
He bent down to place the note on the hardwood floor in the foyer. That was when he saw the bare feet protruding from the living room doorway.