Soul Patch (31 page)

WHEN THE OVERWHELMING nausea welled up in him, Vijay Patel no longer regretted having been too nervous to eat dinner. Yet when he rolled over and tried to stand, his body exacted a heavy toll. With each futile heave, the pain in his head grew worse. He was blind with pain, but not deaf from it. He somehow sensed he was no longer alone and even in the midst of his body’s revolt, Vijay took comfort in that. The comfort was short-lived, for the pain drove him back into the refuge of unconsciousness.

This time when he felt himself coming to, Vijay did not rush to stand or even to open his eyes. He took deep, hungry breaths, rubbing his hands along his sore abdomen. The retching had ceased for the moment and the fire in his head, though not extinguished, was at least under control. He counted to three and slowly opened his eyes. There was no light to hurt them, but they hurt just the same. He got to his knees in pieces, carefully monitoring himself for signs of coming nausea. Again, he was aware of another presence.
Breathing!
He heard breathing.

“Who’s there?” he called out, his voice cracking.

No answer.

“Don’t try anything. I’ve got a knife,” he said.

Again, no answer.

On hands and knees he groped for the lost flashlight, but it was useless. He remembered the feel of the skull in his hand and realized that it had been a bone cracking under his foot, not plastic piping. Still, he decided he needed to get out of there at all costs. He crawled slowly on hands and knees, making sure to rest every few feet. After his third rest, he put his hand down and it didn’t hit floor. He recognized
the feel of denim under his fingers. As he recoiled, something snatched his wrist.

AS KINNOCK SNAKED his car through the maze of emergency vehicles, he turned to Feherty. “You don’t think Horvath did it, do you?”

“I wish I did. Then maybe I could sleep nights. But we didn’t have a case then and we’ve got less now. Look, pedophiles have certain profiles and tastes. They don’t usually include a range that would stretch from a black, hyperactive five-year-old girl to a white ten-year-old boy. And how is this guy stupid enough to get caught on one video camera just lurking about, but genius enough to somehow vanish with two kids simultaneously without getting caught on another camera? I mean, this is Dirty Tommy Horvath, not Professor fucking Moriarty. No, he didn’t do it.”

“Then what happened?”

“Christ knows, but I don’t. Maybe there are some things that aren’t knowable and this is one of them. What I know is this: those kids went in there and never came out.”

“So you’re saying—”

“Look, Kinnock, we investigated this as thoroughly as any case I ever worked on. And just for the record, I don’t buy into what the psychics and the psychos say. Those kids weren’t abducted by aliens. Jungle Jerry’s isn’t haunted. The shopping center isn’t built on an Indian burial ground. There’s no ancient temple under there, no sacrificial altar. If Atlantis is lost, we didn’t find it. If you want witches, take the thruway east to Massachusetts. All I know is that those kids are gone.”

When they got out of Kinnock’s car, the reporter and Feherty walked into the middle of a wild shoving match. A sour-faced, middle-aged woman had latched herself around the arm of a slight, confused-looking man in his early forties. He was handsome, dark-skinned, his black hair worn slick to his head. Pulling at the man’s other arm with equal ferocity was another woman—the wife, Feherty thought—also darkly complexioned and confused. The second woman held a sleeping boy tightly to her chest with her other arm.

The first woman was screaming something about accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as the one and true savior while trying to pull the
man to his knees. To his credit, he would not be pulled down, but his wife’s grip interfered with his efforts to pull free of the other woman. The wife shouted something at him in a foreign tongue. He growled back and finally pulled free. The first woman went down to her hands and knees and Feherty helped her up.

“Marge Ritter!” He couldn’t believe his eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?”

She smiled serenely. “The Lord’s called again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s called Mark to join him at his brother’s side. Praise be to God!”

“Mark’s gone?”

“Along with their boy,” she said, pointing at the Patels.

Having helped Marge to her feet, Feherty let go of her. His worst fears and hopes realized, he walked away, stunned and guilty. Kinnock caught up.

“When things got bad, did you ever think about turning to religion to answer the unknowable questions?” the reporter asked.

“No, not for a minute. I thought about doing what Corina Davis did. She swallowed two fists full of pills the day Horvath was sent back to prison. Anyway, me and God don’t see eye to eye on things.”

“Most cops I know are pretty religious.”

“I’m not most cops. Let me tell you a story, okay?” Feherty wasn’t really asking.

“Sure.”

“One day I was going to dinner at my first partner’s house and I stopped by a liquor store to get some wine. On the counter there’s one of these jars for spare change to raise money. On the jar, there’s a picture of a little girl and a story about how the family needs money for a bone marrow transplant. So when the cashier gives me back my change, I go to throw a few bucks in the jar, but she tells me not to bother because the kid died the day before. ‘Thanks for reminding me,’ she says. And I watch her pull it off the counter.”

“And I should extrapolate from this what exactly?”

“Nothing. I’m not done and don’t use words like extrapolate. They give me hives. So I get to my partner’s house and he’s like sky high. He tells me that after two years of trying, he and his wife have finally sold their house. While we’re toasting their good fortune, his
wife tells me that it was God’s will, selling the house. Seems she buried a St. Joseph’s medal upside down in the front yard and the Almighty took care of the rest. It wasn’t much of a dinner after that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t guess they appreciated my criticizing God for being too preoccupied with selling their ranch house in Massapequa to save a little girl’s life.”

Before Kinnock could say a word, all hell broke loose. One of the plywood panels at the front of Jungle Jerry’s came crashing down and a volunteer fireman was helped through the vacant window. He held a boy crooked in his arms. In some heretofore unacknowledged part of himself, Feherty struggled with the impossible dream that the boy was Tim Ritter Jr. But before Feherty could even move, a second fireman came through. He too was carrying a body in his arms. Feherty’s heart jumped into his throat, but Marge Ritter’s shrill screams dashed the retired detective’s hopes.

“Marky. That’s my son, Mark,” Marge screamed, tears streaming down her face. “Oh my goodness.”

Feherty saw that the boy’s face was covered in half-white, half-black makeup and understood Marge’s shock. The other boy’s face was covered in ghostly white.

“You Detective Feherty?” a state trooper whispered in Jim’s ear.

“Yup.”

“Please come with me, sir,” he said, putting a finger across his lips. “There’s something inside the detectives want you to see.”

When Kinnock moved to follow, the trooper stopped him. “Not you, sir. I’m sorry.”

Feherty shrugged his shoulders and followed the trooper around to the rear of the building. Just as the boys had held the weeds back for Vijay, the trooper held the weeds back for Feherty. Once inside, Feherty got weak-kneed. It had been a long time, but it all came rushing back to him, all of it. There was enough ambient light because the fireman had knocked down the plywood, but he knew the place so well he could have navigated all its twists and turns in utter blackness. Up ahead of him, Feherty heard confused whispers and saw flashlights cutting swaths in the semi-darkness. As he walked on, he took note of the dusty crucifixes and yellowed envelopes. He reached a line of police
tape behind which people scurried about. A pretty, red-haired detective dipped under the yellow tape and greeted Feherty.

“You won’t remember me,” the detective said, holding out her right hand. “I’m Kaitlin Darby. I worked the original case when I was in uniform. I saw you outside and thought you deserved to see this. And I guess maybe I need your help explaining it.”

All business, Feherty said, “What’ve we got?”

She lifted the yellow tape for him. “See for yourself.”

As Feherty stepped under the tape, all the buzz and activity came to a halt and everyone shined their flashlights at something on the floor. Feherty gasped as he recognized the clothing in which the skeletons were dressed. “Give me a pair of gloves,” he said. “Come on. Now!”

Detective Darby handed him a pair of latex gloves. As she did, she said, “This is fucked up, isn’t it? I’ve heard of elaborate hoaxes, but this takes the cake. Someone went through a lot of trouble for a stupid hoax. I mean, to get the skeletons just right and to match the clothing perfectly. There are some twisted puppies out there.”

Feherty didn’t say a word, but got down on his hands and knees and carefully looked over the nearly perfect skeletons.

“The smaller skull’s over there,” Darby said. “One of the kids must’ve picked it up. One of them also cracked that femur there. I don’t think these kids were the perps who pulled this off. Way too complicated and exact.”

Feherty grumbled something that meant he agreed with her. He touched the fabric of the blouse around the smaller skeleton right arm. Maybe Darby was right and this was all an elaborate hoax, but when he lifted up the right sleeve of the bright green blouse, Feherty couldn’t believe his eyes. Along the underarm seam was a sloppy repair done in brown thread. He heard the distant echo of Corina Davis’ voice as she explained how Tanya had ripped the sleeve during her mother-in-law’s last visit.

Jim Feherty had never shared that fact with anyone. He scrambled over to the larger skeleton dressed in a Guns N’ Roses sweatshirt, jeans, white socks, and Converse sneakers. Without asking permission, he broke just about every rule he knew about maintaining the integrity of a crime scene. He grabbed the left hand bones and pushed
back the sleeve of the sweatshirt. And when he saw what he was looking for, Feherty got lightheaded.

“What are you doing?” Darby screamed at him.

He held up the ulna bone. “See this spot here, that thick ring of bone growth around an old fracture?”

“Yeah.”

“He fell out of tree when he was six.”

“Who did?”

“Timothy Joseph Ritter Jr. did. This is him and that’s Tanya Davis.”

“Get the fuck outta here!” Detective Darby was more than skeptical. “The clothes don’t look any older than they did when the kids went missing.”

“Hey, X-rays and dental records are easy enough to get and I bet Malcolm Davis will identify these clothes. And there’s no arguing with DNA. But that’ll be a waste of time. These are them, I’d bet my life on it.”

“So,” Darby said, “I guess you were wrong about Horvath. I know you thought he was innocent of this, but look. He must have kept the bones hidden and the clothes in cold storage. Then when he got out, he came back here and did this. The sick fuck must’ve gotten a real charge out of it.”

Jim Feherty shook his head no. “Dirty Tommy never got out, not while he was breathing, anyway. One of his buddies up in Batavia stuck the sharpened end of a spoon through his heart about two years after he went back inside and in those two years he didn’t have any visitors or phone calls. The only mail he got was hate mail.”

WORD OF THE skeletons hadn’t yet spread outside and Jim Feherty meant to be gone by the time it did. First, like a benevolent spirit, he watched from the shadows as the two boys were loaded into the waiting ambulance. When it pulled away, Jim turned and began walking down the hill to catch a cab in town. Kinnock caught up to him before he got very far. Feherty decided to tell the reporter what the cops had found inside Jungle Jerry’s.