The Fourth Angel Read online

  The frosted glass door burst open, and a heavy wheezing and shuffling resonated from the hallway.

  “Did youse guys know they don’t make raspberry jelly doughnuts after nine A.M.? The creams and powdereds, they make all day…Like, what’s with the jelly? Nobody in New York eats jelly after nine A.M.?”

  Georgia’s heart sank. She knew the heavy Brooklyn accent even before she turned.

  “Marshal Skeehan,” said Marenko, with a gallant wave of his muscular arm, “meet your new partner.”

  Gene Cambareri dropped a box of doughnuts on an empty desk, then licked powdered sugar off his stubby fingers. He was sixty-two, balding, and suffered from bunions that made him walk so slowly that he’d earned the nickname “Lightning,” typical firehouse black humor. Most days he spent gossiping and playing gin rummy with the old warhorses on the job. At least sixty pounds overweight, he hadn’t made a collar in years and, with just three months to go before retirement, wasn’t about to make any waves now.

  Cambareri shuffled over and extended a sticky hand. “Pleased to be working with youse, Georgia.” A cheap tie rode halfway up his belly, and his white shirt sported a grease stain across the pocket. Georgia shook hands, then shot Marenko a murderous stare as Cambareri lumbered across the room to greet Carter and Suarez.

  “Nice move, Mac,” she muttered. “You think this one up all by yourself, or did Chief Brennan help your gray matter along?”

  “Hey, a rookie can learn a lot from an experienced hand.” He shrugged, stifling a grin. “That means anywhere you go, Gene goes too.”

  “Oh goody,” Georgia said dryly. “And where, exactly, are we going?”

  “Site protection.”

  Georgia gritted her teeth. Site protection was a fancy name for standing around the scene of the fire all day, making sure no civilians decide to grab a couple of souvenirs from the debris. It was the job of a rookie beat cop, not an assigned member of the task force.

  “You’re a prince, Marenko. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  He popped a stick of gum in his mouth and blew a large bubble. “Anytime you wanna quit the task force, just say the words.”

  “I’d sooner die.”

  “A few days of this, sweetheart, you’ll wish you had.”

  9

  Three P.M. Wednesday afternoon. Gene Cambareri was slumped in the driver’s seat of their department-issued Chevy Caprice, snoring. It felt to Georgia like she had been parked across from the fire scene on Spring Street for four hours. In reality, it had been only forty-five minutes.

  The crime-scene tape was up, the place well barricaded from prying eyes. Every time Georgia saw a pedestrian peering through the plyboard slats at the charred site, she left the car, flashed her badge, and asked her standard questions: Were you here the night of the fire? Did you see anything? Do you know anyone with any information? She paid special attention to people who brought flowers and religious medals or lit candles. Arsonists love to revisit the scenes of their crimes.

  No one had seen or heard anything. Georgia punched the Caprice’s dashboard.

  “I’ll bet Marenko’s at the task force now, laying out the entire investigation with Randy and Eddie,” she fumed. “And we won’t know zip because we’re here.”

  Cambareri opened one eye. “Georgia, what are youse killing yourself for? Anything Marenko wants us to know, he’ll tell us.”

  “He doesn’t want us to know anything. That’s the point.”

  “You can’t get in trouble with what you don’t know. Take it from someone who’s been on the job thirty-five years.” He yawned and scratched his belly. “Youse want something to eat? I know a great little diner around the corner. Best coconut cream pie in the city. Show ’em your badge and they’ll give you a ten percent discount. We can get a table near the window, have coffee, watch the building from there…”

  Georgia shook her head. “You go, Gene. I don’t mind.”

  “Youse worry too much for a young girl. Hey, you know Larry Mancuso? Fire marshal up in the Bronx? He worries about everything, just like you.”

  “I don’t know him,” said Georgia irritably. She wasn’t interested in Cambareri’s gossip.

  “Yeah, well, Larry, see? He got behind on his paperwork. And he had these buildings that were supposed to be condemned or something. I mean, who’s got time for that stuff? And he put the paperwork aside, and bam! One day, one of the buildings turns into a parking lot. Real bad fire. A street mutt dies and Larry’s all worried. He’s thinkin’ he’s gonna lose his job ’cause that building shouldn’t have been there.”

  “So?” Georgia asked impatiently. “What’s your point?”

  “My point?” Cambareri said, spreading his fleshy palms. “Larry made himself sick about this fire. And he didn’t lose his job. Didn’t even get a reprimand in his folder. The department just buried the thing—end of story. So you see? Things work out. Have some coffee and pie with me. We can play a hand of gin rummy.”

  “Some other time, Gene,” said Georgia. “I promise.”

  “Youse sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Cambareri got out of the car and waddled down the street. Georgia watched him, feeling bad she wasn’t being nicer. It was Marenko she was frustrated with.

  In the rearview mirror, she caught sight of a white woman in her early twenties, carrying a scraggly bouquet of daisies. Her hair was dyed the color of eggplant. She wore a ring through her nose. And she was dressed entirely in black, though it looked expensive, not thrift-shoppy. Some rich Westchester girl—a Sally—trying to look downtown cool. The young woman crossed the street and tenderly laid the bouquet on top of several others at the fire site. Georgia got out of the Caprice and flashed her gold shield.

  “Hey, can I talk to you?”

  The young woman looked up, her mascara-caked eyes widening as she took in the badge. Then she did something Georgia was totally unprepared for. She ran.

  “Hey!” Georgia sprinted after her, cursing the weight of her holstered nine-millimeter as it repeatedly banged into her right hip. No point in radioing Cambareri for help. With his bunions, Lightning wasn’t likely to give chase, anyway. She caught up to Miss Eggplant and yanked her over to a warehouse wall by her dyed hair.

  “Are you a cop?” the woman gasped as Georgia frisked her.

  “Fire marshal.” Georgia went through the woman’s pockets. No weapons—just a plastic bag full of pills. “And I suppose these are vitamins, huh?” She waved the bag in the woman’s face.

  “Please don’t bust me. My parents will kill me.”

  Georgia wasn’t about to tell her that the NYPD, not fire marshals, usually made drug arrests. The woman’s driver’s license said her name was Alison Simon. She had a Saks Fifth Avenue credit card and a Parsons School of Design student ID in the same name. Definitely a rich Sally from the ’burbs, Georgia decided.

  “You put flowers down back there. Why?”

  “I knew Fred, the building super? He died in the fire?” Georgia stifled the urge to roll her eyes. Alison was one of those people who turned every statement into a question.

  “Do you know anything about how the fire started?”

  Miss Eggplant didn’t answer. Georgia spun her around. “Maybe you want to think about it while you spend a night in slam for the, uh, vitamins,” she bluffed.

  Alison twirled a strand of purplish hair around a black-painted nail. “It’s not me you wanna talk to. It’s my boyfriend, José.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Fred and José were sort of…business partners…” “Business partners?”

  Alison shifted feet nervously. “Yeah. Fred hired José to fix things? You know—locks, door hinges, that kind of stuff in the building. But José was also, like—”

  “The local supplier.” A pretty common side occupation in lower Manhattan. Georgia knew full well that a lot of handymen dealt drugs, and building superintendents sometimes took a cut. She made a note to get the super’s full name and
address off the building records and interview his next of kin, if Marenko hadn’t done that already.

  “So, why should I talk to José?”

  “José told me that Fred was pissed. He was gonna lose his job? On account of the drugs? He, uh, told José he wished he could burn the whole friggin’ building down.”

  “The superintendent at One-thirty-one Spring Street threatened to torch the building?” Georgia tried not to betray her rising excitement.

  “Yeah. That’s what José told me.”

  If it was true, it was a tremendous break—one Georgia couldn’t afford to let slip away. Unlike police officers, fire marshals have the authority to take sworn statements—affidavits, admissible in court—on the spot. Georgia wrote up Alison Simon’s statement in her notebook and had her sign it. She pictured Mac Marenko’s shocked expression when she placed this little piece of evidence on his desk. The day wasn’t turning out so badly after all.

  “Where can I find your boyfriend? His name’s José…what?”

  Alison shrugged.

  “He’s your boyfriend and you don’t know his last name?”

  “He moves around a lot,” she said, twisting her hair more vigorously around her finger. Georgia’s heart sank. Without a direct witness to the super’s remarks, Alison Simon’s statements were little more than hearsay. And, for all she knew, “José” wasn’t even the guy’s real name. No doubt he didn’t have a Saks Fifth Avenue credit card.

  “Does José have a phone number where I can reach him?”

  “He’s got a cell, but…like…you call him on that, he might take a walk, you know?”

  “Why? Are the cops looking for him?”

  Alison shrugged. “He’s, uh, got a couple of outstanding bench warrants.”

  “For selling drugs?”

  “Yeah.” This college friend was probably one Miss Eggplant’s parents had never met.

  “I’ve gotta talk to him, Alison. As soon as possible. It’s vital.”

  The young woman sighed. “I can probably get him to contact you tomorrow if you promise not to bust him.”

  “Tell him I’m a fire marshal—not NYPD. If he plays it straight with me, and the bench warrants are what you say they are, I won’t ask him about anything except the arson.”

  10

  The chief heard the commotion at six P.M. Wednesday evening, right after he got home from work. Celia Maldonado’s boyfriend, Orlando, was screaming in Spanish. Ramon was crying. He couldn’t hear Luis or Bobby. They had vanished—just as Luis’s bike had the day before.

  The chief opened his apartment door and stood in the stairwell. He still had spackling compound on his hands and paint flecks in his blond hair from the TriBeCa job. Police sirens were screeching in the street. Curious neighbors were crowding the doorways.

  Ramon was clinging to his mother’s hips, his large, dark eyes nearly swollen shut from crying. He looked up and saw the familiar paint-spattered white work pants.

  “Chief! Chief!” the little boy wailed. “Don’t let them take me.”

  The chief squatted before the boy. “What’s going on, squirt?”

  “Somebody said Orlando was bad. But it ain’t true.”

  “Of course it’s not true.”

  “Now we got to go away,” sobbed Ramon.

  The chief straightened and stared down at the short, beefy black woman who had been trying to separate Ramon from his mother. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  The woman frowned at him, suspiciously taking in his white skin in a neighborhood where Anglos were outsiders. “Who are you?”

  “A neighbor…Look, I live above the family. I’ll vouch for ’em. Orlando’s great with the kids. And Celia’s a good mother…”

  “I’m afraid we’ve had a complaint, sir…”

  “From whom?”

  “Complaints to the Bureau of Child Welfare are made anonymously. I couldn’t tell you even if I knew.”

  “The kids can stay with me,” he pleaded.

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible. There’s nothing anyone can do until this is straightened out. Now, please let me do my job.” The woman carried the screaming child down the stairs. Orlando, meanwhile, was spitting and throwing things at police while other tenants looked on.

  “I never laid a hand on those kids,” he shouted. Celia clung to him, sobbing, but he seemed not to notice. His dark eyes were full of confusion and rage. Two cops finally managed to back him against a wall and cuff him. Celia spoke soothingly to him in Spanish, but he didn’t answer. The chief could already see it in the man’s eyes: no matter what the outcome, Orlando would never be coming back.

  Out front, Ramon was being ushered into the back of a dark blue sedan, where Luis and Bobby were already strapped in. The chief got to the street just in time to see Ramon’s toothless face pressed against the rear passenger window, tears and mucus streaking the glass. Orlando, his hands cuffed behind his back, saw it too. He flicked his sad eyes at the chief, a brief, questioning appeal in his stare. The chief looked away. Then a cop shoved Orlando into the backseat of a cruiser and they were gone, with only the bleating wail of the siren to mark their absence.

  The upstairs hallway was empty, the neighbors back behind locked doors. Celia was rooted to a spot by a window, staring out at the thickening darkness. When she did finally sit down on the stairway landing, it was with a finality that suggested she might never get up again.

  “They took my babies. They took my man,” she cried, head in her hands. “For what? He didn’t touch nobody. First decent man I ever had…”

  The chief sat on the grimy step beside her and put a muscular arm around her shoulder. Her bones felt so brittle, he was sure he could snap them in two if he tried.

  “Hey, Orlando’ll be back,” he lied. “The cops will realize it’s all a big mistake and release him. A few house visits, and those rug rats will be tearing up the halls again.”

  She palmed her dark eyes and looked at him hopefully. “You really think?”

  “Of course.” He shrugged. “I’ll make a few calls. Pull a few strings. I’ve got tons of connections where it counts in this city. Cops, firefighters—you name it. If I don’t know ’em, then my old man, God rest his soul, did. Orlando will be out in twenty-four hours, tops. We’ll get the kids back by next week.”

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you,” Celia sobbed, hugging his paint-spattered sweatshirt. “You always been so good to my boys. They worship you. You a hero to them. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  The chief smiled and patted her back. “That’s what I’m here for. To help.”

  11

  For a blue-collar girl from Queens, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Georgia knew that even before she entered the enormous Renaissance-style suite in Sloane Michaels’s new luxury hotel, the Knickerbocker Plaza. Yet it still awed her to be forty-eight stories above the twinkling lights of Manhattan, at a party hosted by a multimillionaire and peopled with network anchors, Broadway actresses, athletes, and models whose faces screamed at her from billboards across New York.

  “Quite a crowd, isn’t it?” asked Lynch, looking even more portly than usual in his tuxedo.

  Georgia breathed in deeply. “Yes, sir.” She made mental notes of the celebrities she saw, knowing her mother and Gallagher would salivate over every juicy detail. But those faces she didn’t recognize—for the most part, the heavier-set, older men—radiated an even more profound sense of stature. Georgia guessed that these were the investment bankers, CEOs, and art patrons whose money and power quietly and steadfastly ran the city when all the razzle-dazzle of the stars had faded.

  Snippets of their conversations drifted over from a marble bar decked out in pink tulips and white freesia: Their house in the Hamptons just made the cover of Architectural Digest…They’re on the priority list for tables at Balthazar…He’s leaving Dalton for Phillips Andover next year…

  What am I doing here anyway? Georgia wondered. Her black silk chemis
e had soaked up so much static from the commissioner’s limo that it puckered like shrink-wrap around her thighs. Her fake patent-leather pumps from Payless Shoes squeaked across the parquet floors. She still had that stupid screwdriver in her handbag. And heaven help her if she opened her mouth. That would be a dead giveaway. Or, as people from her neck of the woods said, Fugedabowdit.

  To make matters worse, Lynch kept introducing her to party guests as “the department’s star investigator.” Each time he said it, Georgia reddened, picturing the marshals in the FART Squad guffawing.

  People were gracious. They asked questions, seemingly fascinated by the work she did. Yet Georgia found herself holding back, fearing—perhaps irrationally—that the drama and pathos of her job couldn’t be communicated over bites of smoked-salmon sushi. No one here, after all, had ever had to look at a charred cadaver up close, peel a flailing junkie off a burning bed, or hold a sooty child and watch her die. They saw death from afar, in sanitized, two-column obits prominently displayed in the New York Times, in formal lavish funerals, in dedications to museums and scholarships in the departed’s honor. To offer up her very real and gut-wrenching experiences in the guise of entertainment would only serve to cheapen them. She’d hate herself in the morning.

  She had no idea, however, that her regrets were about to start even earlier than she could’ve imagined. An hour into cocktails, Sloane Michaels introduced the commissioner to the crowd. Georgia had expected Lynch to deliver a short boilerplate speech. She’d forgotten Frankel’s warning that the commissioner was in this job to grab a few headlines. With network anchors and prominent media people standing wall to wall, he couldn’t have picked a better place.

  “The fire on Spring Street may have been started by an unusual substance that burns at extremely high temperatures,” Lynch told the audience in a lawyerly tone which suggested he had personally come to this expert conclusion. “Since last December, there have been several similar, unexplained fires across New York—”