The Girl Next Door (37 page)

There was a moan—it was probably coming from me—and I tried to concentrate on breathing some more. And I also heard a voice that sounded like it belonged to Detective Owen Smiley. But I couldn’t be certain.

The rain was finally tapering off into a light sprinkle. After having been hammered by globules the size and weight of quarters, the smaller, needlelike drops actually were pleasant by comparison. Besides, it gave me something to think about other than my leg.

Tina had repositioned herself and was now kneeling at my side.

“Don’t die on me,” she said. “You’ve got a story to write.”

“I don’t work for you anymore, remember?” I said.

“Sure you do.”

“Don’t mess with a soon-to-be-dead man. You fired me.”

“No, you quit,” she corrected me. “And I never accepted your resignation. As far as the
Eagle-Examiner
is concerned, you were on suspension, but it has been revoked.”

“All I had to do was get shot, huh?”

“No. Actually, your part-time translator and full-time coconspirator returned to the office this afternoon, telling us you were on the trail of a pretty amazing story and that we’d be idiots not to bring you back in the fold and let you work it. I took it to Brodie, who backed you immediately. You should have told us about the eyewitness.”

“I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“Sorry,” she said, stroking my hand. “I’m so sorry, Carter.”

“I’m cold,” I said.

“I don’t have a blanket. Just hang on a little longer. Is there anything else I can do?”

I heard a siren approaching from somewhere. I was getting a little disoriented. Tina’s curly head was starting to spin.

“Tell that bastard,” I said, then got hit by a surge of pain and had to stop.

“That bastard over there,” I said. “Remind him.”

“Remind him what?”

“That we made our last interview on the record.”

Then I’m fairly certain I passed out.

*   *   *

If I had to choose one city in the world in which to get shot, I would pick Newark, New Jersey, above all others. No matter where you are, from Weequahic to downtown all the way up to the North Ward or out to the Ironbound, you are no more than a short drive away from one of several trauma centers that rank among the country’s finest. There, you will find a team of doctors more experienced with gunshot wounds—and more skilled at treating them—than you will in any of the world’s standing armies.

I ended up at Newark Beth Israel, just a few blocks away. When I came to, my parents were there, as was a rather unimpressed doctor. He informed me the bullet had passed clean through my leg, coming close to nicking both a bone and an artery—either of which injury could have been disastrous for various reasons—but missing both, rendering my wound neither very dangerous nor, to his mind, very interesting.

The night was a blur of bothersome nurses and rounding doctors, buzzing in and out through the evening and into the small hours of the morning. They made it damn difficult for a guy to get a decent night’s sleep, which is what I needed most. I may have grumbled about this, perhaps even created a few profane word combinations in expressing my displeasure. Eventually, my father took over, posted guard at the door, and made it clear to any and all—including my mother—that I was not to be disturbed. Dads are good that way sometimes.

By the next morning I was feeling pretty good. Though, admittedly, my mood may have been aided by the wonders of Percocet. Around ten o’clock, I assured my father I was sufficiently well rested, and he relented, allowing a stream of flower- and balloon-bearing visitors to begin entering my room and paying homage to the wounded hero. Dad only let them in one at a time, so I had to hear the story in bits and pieces—and all out of order, since my visitors were not thoughtful enough to arrange themselves chronologically—but I eventually assembled a fairly thorough account of the evening.

It started with Lunky, who had received my e-mail shortly after I sent it. He said I caught him at a good moment—he had finished Emerson and was just about to plunge back into Thoreau when my e-mail came—and he realized fairly quickly that something was amiss. The tip-off for him was that, apparently,
Sabbath’s Theater
has nothing to do with the stage.

“I was sure you knew Mickey Sabbath is a puppeteer, not an actor,” Lunky informed me gravely. “I considered it a cry for help.”

So while the part about suicide didn’t grab him, the bungling of Roth did. And he was thus inspired to take my note to “Missus Thompson,” perhaps not fully realizing she was one and the same as the “Tina” who was referenced in the note. Tina recognized the entire e-mail as gibberish and acted accordingly.

“I decided you had either lost it completely or you were in real trouble,” Tina told me during her first visit of the day. “Either way, I needed to intervene.”

Tina didn’t have my new number, so she couldn’t call me. And, in any event, my phone was already sitting at the bottom of a Hudson County retention pond, next to some radioactive fiddler crabs. So she asked Lunky for a translation of the Roth stuff, and he remembered our first conversation, where he had mentioned Roth’s childhood home at good ol’ 81 Summit Avenue.

Tina summoned Tommy, and the three of them decided fairly quickly to hightail it down to Weequahic and figure out what was going on.

On the way, Tommy had put in a call to Owen Smiley. Unfortunately, while Tommy remembered Smiley’s name, he didn’t have the detective’s cell number. So he had to go through the Bloomfield Police Department switchboard. And Smiley, whose gun just might have come in handy, didn’t get the message for a little while—which is why I only heard him on scene after the shooting had already happened.

But it didn’t matter, because Lunky was my secret weapon. The lady who lived at 81 Summit Avenue remembered him fondly and invited him and his friends in from the rain. They were huddled in her house, trying to figure out what to do, when they saw my car pull up.

I guess everything happened pretty fast from there. But Lunky said as soon as he heard the gunshot, he knew I needed help—he’s a quick study, that Lunky—and he bolted out the door and bounded down the steps. He saw McNabb walking toward me, ready to shoot, and went in for the tackle. The noise of Lunky’s rapid approach was drowned out by all the rain and thunder.

From there, all ended happily for those not named McNabb.

None of my visitors were allowed to bring in the Friday paper, which was deemed “too stressful” for me in such an early and tender phase of my recovery, but I managed to get the details of what we had printed. The
Newark Eagle-Examiner
reported that Jim McNabb, IFIW–Local 117 executive director, had been arrested for the murder of Nancy Marino and was being held without bail. A spokesman from the prosecutor’s office said McNabb could also expect to be charged with two counts of attempted murder, and a variety of weapons charges for both his use of an illegal handgun and his use of a Cadillac Escalade, which, it turned out, he happened to own and have registered in his name. A reference was made to an “outstanding local citizen” who would be receiving a $10,000 reward for her cooperation with the Bloomfield police.

They had put my byline—and mine alone—on the story. It was accompanied by an editor’s note, explaining to readers that the story had been primarily the work of staff writer Carter Ross, who had been injured during the course of doing his reporting. Tommy Hernandez and Buster Hays had completed the reporting and written the piece.

Since Hernandez and Hays were only beginning to untangle the mess with “Caesar 710” and the sexual harassment angle—and didn’t want to put guesses in the newspaper—they had left the matter of motive fairly vague. It was only in the morning, when Tommy got Peter Davidson of the NLRB on the phone, that things started becoming a little more clear to them. Now that Davidson knew Nancy Marino was dead—and therefore he didn’t have to worry about spoiling an EEOC complaint—he relented on the FOIA request. By lunchtime, Tommy had a small handful of documents, all of which named Jim McNabb as the target of Nancy’s complaint.

Gus Papadopolous’s “involvement”—if you could call it that—turned out to be minor. Nancy had listed the State Street Grill as one of her places of employment, so Davidson had paid a visit there, just to get a sense for what kind of worker she was. Davidson said that Gus had been a little leery, repeatedly saying he “didn’t want no trouble.” But Davidson was ultimately just looking for a character witness of sorts. And the affidavit Gus supplied extolled Nancy’s long history as a loyal, reliable worker.

As for the Jackman-Papadopolous conspiracy I had created, it turns out that the Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce, of which Papadopolous was the president, was one of several chambers partnering with the paper on a new initiative aimed at driving consumers back to downtown shopping areas.

Which is what Tina had just finished explaining to me during her second visit of the day, during the midafternoon.

“So there’s another daily story going in tomorrow’s paper, I assume,” I said.

“Yeah, with a sidebar about McNabb’s long tenure atop IFIW–Local 117 coming to a close. The union board convened a hasty meeting this morning and voted to terminate him.”

“Who’s writing all this?”

“Hernandez is doing the main. Hays is doing the union stuff.”

“Uh-huh. And who is doing the big, beautiful Sunday story that makes sense of it all?”

“I didn’t think you would be up for—”

“Get me a laptop,” I said, before she could finish.

Over the next four hours, I let it pour out of me, indulging my penchant for overwriting, knowing the desk wouldn’t dare take it out. Reporters who have been shot in the line of duty get special dispensation. And since I hoped this would be the only time in my career I could claim that exemption, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

It was definitely better than writing my own obit.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

By now, you’re probably accustomed to reading author acknowledgments that say something like “This book wouldn’t have happened without…” And, most of the time, the words that follow are as fictional as anything else in the novel.

But this time it’s actually true. This book—and Carter Ross as a character—was on life support, perhaps doomed to a premature death, when my agent, Dan Conaway of Writers House, and Minotaur Books executive editor Kelley Ragland conspired to give him new life. I’m a fortunate beneficiary of their many talents.

While I’m at it, I’d like to thank some of the other folks in the Flatiron funhouse who help make Minotaur the true beast of crime fiction: Jeanne-Marie Hudson and Matt Baldacci, who do the dirty work; Hector DeJean, who is as kind as he is tall; Andy Martin, who steers the ship; and Matthew Shear and Sally Richardson, without whom the ship would likely sink.

Thanks are also due to:

My former colleagues at
The Star-Ledger,
who unwittingly provided much of the color for Carter’s world and whose camaraderie and collegiality I still miss.

Teresa and the rest of the crew at my local Hardees, where large portions of this book were written, thanks to them keeping the soda fountain well stocked with Coke Zero.

Joe Hefferon of the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, a fellow writer who helped with some cop questions.

My beloved readers, in particular Dolly Thrift. She knows why and she’ll never tell.

My author buddies, including Julia Spencer-Fleming, Marcus Sakey, and Sean Chercover, who helped me out in a pinch a while back; and Sophie Littlefield, Carla Buckley, and Hilary Davidson, who are just lovely ladies.

The bookstore owners who have given me a boost, in particular Gayle and Ron Harris of Books and Crannies, who showed me what Texas hospitality is all about.

All the library scientists who make literacy their business, including Lesa Holstine of the Glendale (Arizona) Public Library, who has done so much to promote the mystery genre; and Lindsy Gardner of the Lancaster (Virginia) Community Library, who withstands my friendship even as it sullies her otherwise sparkling reputation.

Jen Forbus. That’s all I can say about her.

David J. Montgomery, who has done me more favors than I’ll ever be able to repay.

Jorge Motoshige and Leslie Jennings, who are never-ending friends in times good and bad; Scott Colston, who is generous with his fellowship and his furniture; and Tony Cicatiello and James Lum, who always put a roof over my head.

I also can never stop thanking my family: in-laws Joan and Al Blakely, who have been saviors too many times to count; my brother Greg, who remains my best man in every sense of that term; and my terrific parents, Marilyn and Bob, whose ceaseless cheerleading for my career probably gets tiring to their friends but never gets old to me.

Finally, I am tremendously blessed to have an endlessly supportive wife and two brilliant, beautiful children (they take after their mother in these respects). Every writer needs an inspiration. They’re mine.

ALSO BY BRAD PARKS

Eyes of the Innocent

Faces of the Gone

About the Author