The Snake Tattoo (25 page)

I felt the staggering pulse in his throat, saw the spreading stain on the carpet. I didn't think Haslam was going to be able to deny anything.

Valerie made a gagging noise and that brought me back. I stopped staring at the blood, at the man, and I raced down the hall, found a phone, dialed 911. I requested the police and two separate ambulances. Somehow it seemed important to me that daughter and father not have to travel in the same one.

My hand started shaking when I set the phone down, like some separate hand belonging to another body. I sat with Valerie until the ambulance arrived.

CHAPTER 33

Twenty-four hours after killing Preston Haslam, I was slumped in the passenger seat of an undercover cop car watching a three-story brick building on the corner of Huntington Avenue, near the Jamaicaway.

Joanne Triola, wearing a dark sweater and slacks, sat in the middle of the backseat. A blue-eyed rookie named O'Hara was on one side, a paunchy veteran filled the other. Both wore uniforms. Mooney was in the driver's seat.

Manelli was part-owner of the building, a fact turned up by carefully casual questioning of a fire department buddy. One of his cousins lived in apartment 3F. Neighbors had mentioned the leggy blonde guest to Triola, who'd scouted the building in census-taker guise. Her man in Internal Affairs had more than lived up to expectation, forming a swift and secret unit to come to Mooney's aid. Triola said the guy's eyes glowed at the prospect of getting more goods on Manelli.

“Figure somebody tipped him off?” the rookie cop said, breaking a long silence.

“Which of us you think did it?” snapped the veteran.

“Cool it,” said Triola.

“Hey,” said the rook, “no offense. I meant the brass, you know, somebody high up—”

Triola said, “Probably you ought to keep your mouth shut.”

That was one of the more civil exchanges of the past three hours. Tempers were running high, the way they usually do when the perpetrator about to be arrested is a cop.

Rain dotted the windshield. I watched a drop roll from top to bottom.

The two-way radio sputtered and came alive. Everyone tensed, but nothing happened.

“Look, Joanne, let me in on the bust,” Mooney said, not for the first time.

“After the premises have been secured, we'll radio and you come up. That's the way it's planned and that's the way it's going down, Mooney.”

“Dammit,” he said. “I want to see the bastard when he realizes he's caught, when he sees what he's got himself into—”

“I understand, Mooney,” Joanne said. “And if you don't quit it, we're going home. Okay? You shouldn't be here at all.”

I tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a warning glance. Joanne meant what she said.

The radio static died abruptly and so did the conversation. I closed my eyes, opened them. I didn't like what I saw with my eyes shut.

We sat in heavy silence for what seemed like days. Mooney's knuckles slowly whitened on the steering wheel.

The radio crackled and a tinny voice said, “We have target car approaching the area.”

Joanne let out a breath. The rookie said, “Way to go.”

“Shhhh,” said the vet. It was hard to make out the words on the squawk box. The rookie patted his holster nervously.

“Target car is an '80 Nova, beige, proceeding north on Frawley, turning west corner of Huntington.…”

“That a boy,” Mooney murmured, “keep comin' this way.” I looked over at his face, what I could see of it in the streetlamp glow. I don't think he knew he'd spoken out loud.

We couldn't see the car approach. It was dark, but that wasn't the problem. Our unit was parked around the back of the building, shielded by a dumpster and a spreading tree. The two other units were even farther away. Nobody wanted to spook Manelli.

“Assume ready positions.” The crackling order came after another five minutes of static.

“Go,” Joanne said, and the two back doors eased open. “We'll call,” she said to me and Mooney, especially to Mooney. “You stay put till then.”

Mooney started to protest, stopped. The three cops melted into the darkness.

“You okay, Mooney?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. Then after a ten-count, “How about you?”

I shrugged. “I guess,” I said.

“You wanna talk about what happened last night, the shooting—well, I'm here.”

“Thanks.”

We both watched raindrops for a while. Then I started talking, thinking I'd give him a short version of events at Valerie's house to make the time pass. I found my voice shaking when I got to the confrontation in the bedroom.

“Hey,” Mooney said. “It's okay.”

“It's just I can't believe I killed the guy. I mean, I remember the way the gun felt in my hand, but I don't remember deciding to shoot him. It happened so slowly—and it happened so fast.”

“That's how it goes,” he said. “And the wife never even woke up.”

“She was like a kid herself, Mooney,” I said. “Way younger than her husband. Not more than five-two. Tiny. Wearing baby doll pajamas, and drugged pretty well. She washed her sleeping pills down with scotch.”

“Still—” Mooney said.

“Still what?” I said. “Still, she should have protected her daughter? Sure. But it wasn't her fault. Haslam's the one who raped his kid.”

“Hey,” Mooney said. “I never said different. Relax, okay?”

It was bad advice. When I relaxed I had trouble keeping my eyes open. When they closed I was back at Lilac Palace Drive.

I sat on the gray rug in Valerie's bedroom, my hand over hers, until the sirens wailed. Then I tried to stand up, but my knees and I decided against it. The door was open after all. The cops would find a way in.

“Up here,” I yelled when I heard them enter, stumbling in the dark.

“I think he's dead,” I said to the first man in the door, a white-coated paramedic. My teeth were chattering. I hadn't noticed how cold it was in the bedroom. “This one's been drugged and beaten. Needs her stomach pumped.”

The man stopped at Preston Haslam's side.

“Take care of Valerie first,” I said harshly. “This one first.”

Then cops were everywhere.

Mrs. Haslam was so far under they had to take her along on a stretcher. And little Sherri—obedient, good, and scared—wouldn't come out of her room. Her dad had told her to stay there, and stay there she would. A policewoman had to go in for her.

“Where will they take her?” I asked.

The cop questioning me shrugged.

I said, “There are neighbors, the Tolands. They'd look after her.”

“Address?” he said.

“Across the street.”

“This is a nice area,” the cop said. “Good people.”

“Yeah,” I said.

When questioned by the police, the idea is to answer politely, not spill your guts. Too much information confuses them. And if you start off by telling your story to some patrolman, you have to tell it over and over up the ladder. I knew that so I resisted the impulse to blurt out the tale to the first sympathetic face. I waited until they got the chief of police out of bed.

When I showed him the extract from Valerie's diary, the atmosphere subtly changed. Once I explained how that tied Haslam into the Reardon suicide, the cops no longer looked at me as a disturber of the peace, killer of a respected citizen. They all looked like they wanted to cover their ears, their eyes, wash their hands.

“Do you have an officer who specializes in sexual trauma?” I asked.

“No,” the chief said. “This isn't that kind of—”

“You ought to get a therapist over to the hospital,” I said. “Valerie's going to need a good one.”

The chief nodded to a younger man and he went out the door like he had a mission. I hoped he'd find someone who could help, someone gentle, someone who'd have the right words to tell Valerie that none of this was her fault. None of it …

“How's the girl?” Mooney asked, bringing me back.

“Who knows?” I said.

“It's funny,” Mooney said.

“What?”

“All that time I spent looking for a blonde woman with a snake tattoo, and you say this Janine hasn't got any tattoos.”

“She's a temporary tattoo girl, Mooney,” I said. “Decals, like you used to stick on when you were a kid.”

“Invisible tattoos,” he said. “Yeah. Figures.”

Invisible tattoos, I thought. Like the kind that drove Valerie from Lincoln to the Zone.

A metallic version of Joanne's voice said, “Come on up.”

Mooney and I had the car doors open before her second word was out.

Apartment dwellers were hanging out into the hallway, staring at us wordlessly as we clattered up the two flights. Later, if we needed witnesses, the same tenants would swear they'd never stepped foot over their thresholds.

The door to 3F hung wide open. Inside you could tell there'd been a scuffle by the red faces and heavy breathing. The room was crowded with blue uniforms, six of them; the department was taking no chances on this one.

A cold breeze billowed the curtains. One of the windows was flung wide. Manelli—cuffed arms straining behind his back—must have tried to run for the fire escape.

Now he was busily trying to make amends for his instinctive flight, joking and winking with the cops, telling them an extramarital affair really didn't rate this kind of firepower. He saw Mooney and the jokes dried up.

When Mooney came through the door, the other cops fell back a step, leaving a clear path to Manelli. Mooney got within two feet of him and I tensed, ready for bloodshed. But Mooney just stood there, staring at him the way you'd look at a particularly loathsome slug.

“Get him out of here,” Manelli said finally, lowering his eyes.

Janine recognized Mooney, too, no doubt about it. She wasn't cuffed, but Triola had her by the arm in a no-nonsense hold. The blonde made a quick choice.

“Hey,” she said, “I just picked up the knife, that's all.”

“Shut up,” Manelli said.

“The hell I will. I mean, I thought I could use it. I gave it to this jerk,” she nodded at Manelli, scorn dripping from her nasal voice, “when I saw the stuff in the papers. Figured he'd give me a break the next time I needed one, you know.”

“Shut up,” Manelli repeated.

“And instead of thank you very much, this bozo told me I'd rot in jail if I turned it in. I been rotting here,” she said to Manelli, “I don't know what's the fucking difference.”

“I don't know what the hell this bitch is talking about,” Manelli said. “What knife?”

“Bastard,” Janine said.

We read them their rights. That shut Manelli up, but Janine kept up her end of the conversation all the way down to headquarters.

CHAPTER 34

I didn't feel much like volleyball the next morning, but I forced my body through the motions and pretty soon the rhythm of the game took over, pulsing its urgent beat through my tired muscles: serve and return, spike and dig, setup, setup, over the net. My body loosened, my knee moved smoothly, and my mind woke to the rush of adrenaline. Kristy had a fine service game, and I got hot in the corner. We wound up aceing a tough inner-city Y team, and back in the locker room, panting and sweating, my hair soaked and my right arm practically dead, I was glad to be alive, glad I'd played.

I swam my twenty laps, showered, and dressed, then cut across the Mass. Ave. traffic to Dunkin' Donuts. I ordered two glazed doughnuts and coffee to go, and that's when I first realized I'd decided to visit Valerie in the hospital.

It was the first real spring day, the kind that said forget about winter, this is New England. The sun sparkled on tree branches that burst with tiny spearmint buds, the green new and fresh. I took off my sunglasses even though it meant squinting against the sun. I wanted the colors natural. My Toyota hummed, unharmed by its nighttime adventure, and I wound down the window and enjoyed the wind on my face.

Valerie was in Concord Hospital, a small well-endowed suburban place I'd never had occasion to visit. Still, a hospital is a hospital and the routine held. A plump lady at the front desk told me Valerie was in the A wing, Room 341. Take the elevators to the right.

I didn't inquire about visiting hours. She didn't tell me. I was there and I intended to visit.

Hospital beds diminish even the beefiest cops. Valerie looked tiny, half her age, tucked in the solemn whiteness of the mechanical bed. Her nose was completely hidden under white bandaging and plaster. Both eyes were black: deep, sunken, raccoon eyes. Her right cheek was rough and reddened, her left wrist immobilized with a cast.

Her eyes were closed. She wore no makeup. Without it, her face looked defenseless. I was glad someone had paid for a private room. I wondered who.

The TV was on, displaying some game show. The volume was off. If Valerie chose to open her eyes, she could see smiling faces win and lose, brightly dressed Barbie dolls jump up and down.

I couldn't tell if she was asleep or resting. I stood by the bed a little while, waiting. The lashes fluttered.

“Hi,” I said.

She gave no indication that she'd heard or seen me. Her eyes closed again.

“You okay?” I said.

“No,” she said flatly, in such a quiet voice that I had to lean over to catch the monosyllable.

“Does your arm hurt? Want me to find a nurse who can give you something?”

Her eyes opened again, and her mouth moved in a humorless grimace. “Somebody who can knock me out for a million years, maybe,” she said.

“Your nose doesn't look so hot, but it will. I broke my nose three times.”

“Really?”

“Yep,” I said.

For a minute I thought she might actually smile, but then her mouth shook and she whispered, “It's not my stupid nose.”