Black Midnight Page 13

  The door to Dr. Ben Altman’s office finally opened. A fatherly Santa Claus figure of a man stood between the frames and smiled expansively.

  “Yvonne. Good to see you.” The glint in his eyes assured her he meant it.

  She stood and hugged him tightly. “Good to see you, too.”

  He ushered her inside, gently closed the door behind. The office was refurnished totally. Gone was the oversized old desk and creaky cushioned chairs, replaced with expensive new furniture of Scandinavian design. One entire wall was mirrored. The Venetian blinds were tightly shut. A single lamp provided the only light.

  “Very prosperous looking,” she admonished.

  Ben grinned. “Time I got rid of the old stuff. Some of my patients were beginning to complain anyway.” He sat rigidly in a large black cushioned swivel chair. She took a seat in the settee opposite.

  “How’s your back?” she asked.

  “Always acts up in this kind of miserable weather. It’ll pass. Always does.”

  “Always the optimist.”

  He chuckled. “Is the glass of water half empty or half full?” He enjoyed fencing with Yvonne. She was always a challenge — and a stimulating one at that.

  “Somehow I miss the old place,” she said.

  “Sometimes I do, too. But there’s something to be said for changing, isn’t there? You look well, Yvonne. Pretty as ever. A little sadness around the eyes, maybe … ” He shrugged in an “I shouldn’t have said that” way.

  “Never miss a trick, huh?”

  “I get paid not to. Cold out there?”

  “Damp. Gloomy.”

  He folded his hands in his lap. “How about some coffee?” He gestured toward the perking coffee maker. Yvonne declined.

  “So then, Yvonne. Is this visit social or professional?”

  “A little of both, I think.”

  He leaned back comfortably. His beard was slightly grayer, stomach just a tad paunchier. “Been starting to diet,” he said as if aware of her thought. She shuffled in her seat and he saw her uneasiness. “What’s happened, Yvonne? Why so restless? Unsettled.”

  “So much, Ben. So much has happened.” She blew her nose. She still wasn’t quite sure of what had motivated her to come. Only that she needed his help — on more than one level.

  “My mother, Ben. She’s getting worse. Much worse. I think it’s only a question of time now.”

  Ben Altman grimaced. He’d never met Rosemary DiPalma, but had heard much about her over the years.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Yvonne let out a long, tired sigh. “I phoned the hospital today. More tests, they told me. I’ve hardly even had a chance to go and see her, and she may be dying. You know, I cried my heart out after I got off the phone. Funny thing, though, I don’t think I was crying for her. I think it was for me.”

  “Feeling remorse? Or is it pity for yourself?”

  She feigned a small smile. “You know the answer to that one yourself. Afraid of living life.”

  “How can I help you, Yvonne? Seriously. Just ask.”

  “I don’t know. My life — everything seems to be in such disorder. Confusion. Sometimes I can hardly think straight. Especially with my work.”

  “You love police work. Don’t try and pull that one off on me. Relish it. It’s more of your life than anything or anyone ever was. What is it you told me they call you? ‘Shark’?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes.” She was wistful. “I do love what I do,” she said honestly. “But my life is beginning to fall apart. Getting out of control. I have to find some way to hold it together. Pulled in too many different directions.”

  “Whoa. One step at a time. How are things with Paul?”

  She hesitated before answering. “Paul? We don’t communicate at all. He gave up on me, I’m afraid.” She cast her gaze away. “Not that I blame him for it. Most would do the same.”

  “Is losing Paul what’s troubling you?”

  “No. We both saw it coming. A long time.”

  “Then what? What’s really going on, Yvonne?”

  She cleared her throat. “Warren’s back in my life.”

  “Oh. I see.” Ben shifted his weight. He’d known all about her past. Was the single person in her whole life who did. “Still feeling guilt about Karen?”

  “No — Yes. Nothing’s developed between me and Warren. We’re working together on a case again, that’s all.”

  “And you want to keep it that way?”

  “I don’t know what I want. But I know that I don’t want to be hurt again, Ben. Oh Christ,” she said. She started to cry without meaning to. “That’s all I’ve been doing lately. Crying. Sometimes I feel so jealous of women like Karen I can’t stand it. Other times I feel sorry for her. For Warren also. They’re not happy. I know they’re not.”

  “And how about for yourself? Feel sorry for you also?”

  “Mostly for myself, I guess,” she admitted. “But it’s more than that, Ben. It’s everything. I don’t like what I’ve become. What I do, or should I say what I have to do. Maybe you were right. P.D. might have been a mistake.”

  “You went into P.D. with your eyes wide open. What did you expect to find?”

  “Honor.” She looked away from his piercing gaze. Ben could always see right through you. “I’m no Girl Scout. Thank God, though, that at least I’ve managed to maintain most of my self-respect. It isn’t easy in the things I’m expected to do. I witness a very different world from what most people see. Even you. Bleak and tormented. Sick. Ugly. Often vicious.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you, Ben?” She shot him a harsh glare. “Do you really? Then did you also know I give out drugs to my junkies? Just like a dealer. Keep them supplied and alive so they’ll continue to inform for me? Sometimes I have to withhold it. Make them cry for a fix. Beg for it. Not a pretty sight, I promise you. I threaten them, too, if the situation calls for it. So what makes me so damn different than the pushers that sell it on the street? I have the same power of life and death. And I use it. Without ever questioning why.”

  “You have a badge. It’s part of your job. No one ever said it would be easy to take. Cops crack, too. Believe me, I’ve treated my share of them over the years. But right now I’m more interested in you.”

  She laughed hollowly. “You’re making me feel like I’m in the confessional. Noble priest instead of a Jewish Santa Claus. Does that mean my badge absolves me, Ben? It’s really okay? That I’m still pure and innocent. This power I wield, do I honestly have that right?”

  “I’m not judging you. And I won’t. You know that.”

  “I know.” She dried her eyes. “Yesterday I saw the mutilated body of a young woman. She’d been stabbed to death with a kitchen knife repeatedly. Savage. As brutal a murder as I’ve ever known. I stared down at her, lying there on the floor. Blood was everywhere. I stood there and talked over her corpse as though she were an artifact. A lump of clay. Feeling no emotion about it, either. I suppose I’ve seen so much of this senseless brutality it’s robbed me of all my feelings.”

  “If that were the case, Yvonne, you wouldn’t be here to see me now. What I think is that you feel too much. So you bottle it up. Hold it and hold it until, like the boy with his finger in the dam, it’s going to burst wide open.”

  “Maybe. Deep down I think I’m crying all the time. It was all so different somehow when I was a child. Family, friends. Love and caring. The world was supposed to be different. What do I see now? Hopeless, unsheltered souls who wander the street. Girls turned into hookers for a fix. Young boys selling their bodies. Society’s outcasts. There’s nothing I can do for them. That’s something I would have liked. To help people.”

  “You do. You help them all the time. Saving lives. That’s precisely what made you join P.D., remember? It was the biggest decision of your life. We talked about it endlessly. Days, weeks. My other students were ecstatic because they’d been accepted into graduate programs. You, Yvonne, came running to me with
absolute joy because you’d passed the police entrance exam. Accepted into the academy. I never saw anyone exude so much happiness.”

  She nodded. It was all true. Police work had seemed the only way she could make the most impact on people, and helping to better their lives. On a personal, gratifying level. In her way of thinking, it was the best avenue to truly achieve good. The good of all society, not just isolated individuals. The stuff dreams are made of. It still didn’t alter the way she was feeling now, however.

  “Then why does it all seem so sour, Ben? I don’t understand it. Where did it go wrong? I’ve tried. I’m beginning to doubt myself for the first time.”

  “I think there’s more going on here than you’re telling me. Want to share it?”

  “It’s the case I’m on.” She said it without emotion. An officer is never supposed to discuss an ongoing investigation with anyone outside the force. But she didn’t want to shoulder this alone. Ben would hold it in confidence, she knew, and she needed to let it out. “The One Hundred Thirty-Fifth Street bombing. I’m leading a squad for TTF.”

  Ben leaned forward and listened. “I’m impressed.”

  “So was I. Want me to be honest? This is the biggest chance of my whole career. Maybe the biggest one I’ll ever have. Crack this one open and I stand to really make my mark in P.D.”

  “You mean you might profit from the deaths and suffering of others?”

  “I mean I stand to prevent it happening again. Other lives really are at risk. Even if it means I have to kill to stop it.”

  “So the glass is half full after all, eh?”

  “Wise guy” She dried her eyes. “Yes, Ben. There is conflict. Cracks in that tough exterior. Listen, I don’t have many friends, but the best ones are my partners. I trust them. With my life. And they trust me. But them — my work, career, — that’s all I have. And I think there should be more. I don’t kid myself. Not anymore. I’ve committed too many sins for that. Broken so many laws of man and God I don’t want to think about it. But you pegged it well. Call it selfish, vain, anything you want. All that’s ever been important is my work. My marriage? I threw it away. Let it tumble down the drain. The other men in my life? Transients. Just passing through. They knew it and I knew it.”

  “Including Warren?”

  She paused. “No. Not Warren. He — We’re too much alike. Cut from the same cloth. That’s what makes knowing I’ll never have him all the harder to take.”

  “I’m beginning to understand you better, Yvonne.”

  She lighted a cigarette, coughed. “If we find this killer it stops more crimes.”

  “And also happens to fuel your career, no? You are still ambitious, aren’t you?”

  “Dedicated to my work. Relentless. Ruthless.”

  “A shark, like your friends call you.”

  “Ben, I … I don’t want to become cold, callous. Not like that. I want to stay human. I want to love. Be loved. I want a home someday, a family. Is that asking too much?”

  “No, Yvonne. It’s not.”

  “Then why?”

  “You still believe in yourself?”

  She nodded.

  “Then don’t try and convince me you’re something you’re not. You’re not cold or callous. Just confused, like the rest of us. Don’t turn your back on your work. Or on those other nice things people seem to get but you never have. That home. That family. Be as dedicated toward achieving those goals, detective, as you are on the hunt. Then you can’t miss.”

  “I guess you think there’s hope for me yet.”

  “Un-uh. You have to think it. Just like when you were that kid in church. If a sinner loses his faith, he has to find it again.”

  *

  It was wet and cold as she left the office. Warren was waiting for her in the car. He saw Yvonne dry her eyes. She slid in and shut the door.

  “Sorry if I took longer than I thought.”

  “No problem. Did you discuss your mother’s illness?”

  “Yeah. He helped me understand a lot of things.”

  XVII

  Yvonne sat at the computer. It was close to midnight, and from the window she could see a procession of car headlights glowing eleven floors below as they raced along the East River Drive. Another mist had settled over the city, obscuring the tops of skyscrapers, the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge. The water of the river was dark and still. The weather remained dank and uncomfortably humid, the forecast predicting days more of the same dismal pattern. A huge low pressure center was sitting stagnant over New York, adding to the gray and cloudy gloom.

  Her fingers deftly typed at the keyboard. She stared at the green screen watching white letters scroll line by line. Another set of commands brought a multitude of new information. She leaned back and read slowly, isolating the useful from the useless. Link came into the room and leaned over her shoulder. “What have we got, shark?”

  “Trouble.” She drank the last of her lukewarm coffee, tossed the container into the trash basket. Then she turned and reached for the telephone, slowly dialing seven digits, covering the mouthpiece as she looked at Link. “It’s confirmed,” she informed him. “We finally have the records. Some dentist up in Washington Heights. He treated Gloria Popolos for years, from the time she wore braces, to making her first crowns.”

  “It’s an interesting way to measure someone’s life,” Link mused thoughtfully. “From the braces of childhood, to an adult’s crowns, and if you survive that long, your first set of dentures.”

  “Interesting observation on life, I agree, but don’t start getting philosophical on me. We’ve got enough headaches.” She strummed her fingers. “Gloria’s records don’t match in any way with the Albany corpse. Smell something rotten?”

  “Like crud on cheese. Sounds like your hunch was right. So what’s been holding up Vanessa Santiago’s New York records?”

  Yvonne bit at her lip. She wished there was fresh coffee. “Seems Vanessa’s childhood dentist died some three years ago. His practice was split up, divided, turned into a clinic. We’re having trouble tracking them down.” Link made a sour face. “So we don’t know for sure.”

  “Not conclusively.”

  “Yeah, life’s a bitch.”

  After about six rings Winnegar came finally on the line. “You have my message?” said Yvonne. “We need to talk. Urgently.”

  “Yeah. I got it.” He sounded groggy, and she knew she’d woken him up. “Listen DiPalma, you’re asking a lot. Maybe too much for what you have.”

  “I’m hoping to come up with more.” She continued to drum her fingers nervously. She was restless. Wanting a break in this case as much or more than he did.

  “When?” was all he said.

  “As fast as I can, I promise you. Meanwhile we’ve run into a small snag. Delays in the dental comparisons. But we do know who isn’t buried up in Albany.”

  He understood what she was referring to. “I see,” he drawled. “So when the commissioner starts to breathe fire on my ass, what do I tell him? Not to worry because DiPalma’s uncanny abilities are as good as hard evidence? Her hunches are reason enough to delegate hundreds of officers out on the street?”

  “Captain, Halloween is three days away. Time is running out on us. We have to move.”

  “I can read a calendar,” he replied tersely. “Just pull your act together, okay? Results. Have your team give me something I can show and back up.”

  “Look, I’m going to drill Ellen Booker raw, and get myself back up to Attica, if I have to. Squeeze Ruben Pulido until he chokes.”

  “Do it.”

  “And the APB?” She was talking about an All Points Bulletin, alerting all officers to be on the lookout.

  “I must be as nuts as you, DiPalma. This has to be a first. N. Y. P. D. and the FBI are putting an APB out on a corpse.”

  Yvonne breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to reprimand her. “Thank you, captain. It’s worth the effort. We’re doing all we can to get you results.”


  “That remains to be seen.” He was about to hang up, hesitated and said, “Just don’t make me look like a fool, all right? I really do like my job.”

  *

  “Karen?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Yvonne. Yvonne DiPalma. How are you?”

  There was a moment of strained silence. “Hello, Yvonne. I’m fine. How about yourself?” She spoke indifferently.

  Yvonne toyed with the telephone wire, walking back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. “Tired, but hanging in there. How are the kids?” She’d only met Karen Resnick a few times; found her to be polite but remote, never overtly unfriendly, but always distant. Even over the phone when, as partners, she had need or reason to call Warren.

  “The kids are fine. At school today. Both had colds, Susan’s allergies are acting up again. You know how kids are.”

  “Susan must be all grown up since I saw her last.” Yvonne was searching for small talk. She felt uncomfortable, and assumed Karen did likewise.

  “She’s become quite a young woman. She’s in her second year of high school.”

  “God, they grow fast. I’d love to see her — ” Yvonne was instantly sorry she’d said that. She sensed Karen wasn’t pleased she’d be calling the house again. This was the first time in more than two years, and still a mistrustfulness seemed to be there. Yvonne would have gladly tried to dispel it: Assure Karen that her suspicions were unfounded. Trouble was, Karen most likely wouldn’t believe her.

  “Warren’s still asleep,” Karen said. “If you want I’ll get him for you.”

  “No, no. Don’t. He was Downtown half the night. Just have him call me as soon as he can, okay?” She quickly added, “It’s about an investigation.”

  “I know that, Yvonne.” Her tone softened. She didn’t sound as defensive. “I’ll have him get back to you. Are you at the office or home?”