"We could," said Jane, "but a decent defense attorney can always create doubt. So this is just for you."
"The cook, Malcom Cheswith," said Hawkes. "He's related to Connor Custus."
Jane nodded her agreement.
Stella was too weary to be stunned, but not too weary to be very curious.
"It's all relative," said Stella.
"What is?" asked Jane.
"That's what Custus said to me in the hospital. Said it three times. He was playing with me."
"Let's go talk to Custus," said Hawkes.
"Let's," said Stella.
As they headed for the door, deep thunder rolled outside and lightning cracked somewhere not far away and the rain came down.
Stella was confident that she would come up with the right questions for Custus. What she wasn't confident of was what she would wear on Tuesday night for her date with Devlin. That would depend on whether or not the rain stopped by then. Like so many others in the five boroughs, she was beginning to think that the deluge might not end for a long, long time.
To say that the pain was great would be unfair to the pain that was monumental, epic, even awe inspiring. He had felt pain many times before, a few which came close to this moment as he got out of the hospital bed.
The trick was to keep the weight, all weight, off his right ankle. No mean trick, but he was accustomed to performing tricks.
A greater trick would be to find something to wear. He could hardly escape from the hospital hopping on one leg in a white and blue striped gown that tied in the back and showed his sunny backside.
He had spun a tale, but the threads were thin and would no doubt be torn apart by the doctor named Hawkes and the detective named Stella.
Had he not broken his ankle and fallen into the darkling maw of the fetid earth, he would not have had to create the identity of Connor Custus. He, Charles Roland Cheswith, could have simply wandered off into the rain having pressed a button on his phone and disposed of his brother and Doohan. But Doohan had seen him. Doohan had run into the rain to stop him. Doohan's alibi wasn't in place.
Doohan's dentist had canceled all appointments. Besides, Doohan had second and third thoughts about the whole thing. The man with the Irish accent who called himself Sean Hanlon had told him that he had set up an insurance policy with a Dutch company for Doohan's. Payoff price: one million and two hundred thousand dollars. Doohan had bought the lie and signed his name to the policy, which Charles Roland Cheswith planned to let fall into the hands of the police. Poor Doohan had, they would conclude, bought the policy, blown up his tavern and died in the effort, especially when Cheswith called the police to confess that he had been hired by Doohan to blow up the bar.
There should have been no connection made between Charles and his brother, Malcom, the cook who would cook no more, the brother who had parlayed salary, a small inheritance from a co-worker with no relatives and some remarkable luck and skill at sports betting, into almost two million dollars. The two million, of which Malcom had proudly written his brother, was to be a down payment on a very small restaurant in Soho.
Cheswith, well stoked with pain relievers, managed to stand.
Charles had learned his bomb-making skills before he was twenty in Dublin. He had not been particularly good at it. He had the scars to prove it.
At the age of twenty-five, he had taken to the stage, had become an actor. Dinner theater in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana. A rare, small part in a television series episode, twice as a corpse. People would recognize him on the street but have no idea where they had seen him before. Perhaps the highlight of his long and unsuccessful career was his appearance on a network game show in which he won twenty-six thousand dollars.
Connor Custus had been a rather good improv character, especially considering the pain he had been in and the great likelihood of impending doom under water of such filth as to best not be thought of.
He had succeeded in his performance and failed in his plot. Now, to get away, Charles Cheswith would have to improvise as he never had before. He still had hopes. If he could get away, get back to Australia, wait to be contacted by lawyers about his brother's estate, he would be fine.
There was no police officer guarding his room. He was not a suicide threat and he could hardly move from his bed with a broken ankle and full of painkillers with nurses checking on him. But he would do it. The great disappointment would be that the performance he would now have to give might be seen by few and appreciated by none.
He almost fell as he took his first hop toward the door. He steadied himself on the night table. The plastic water pitcher fell over. The table quaked. Charles did not fall.
"Harder than playing Stanley Kowalski," he said, biting his lower lip.
Charles had never really played Kowalski. He had understudied the role in A Streetcar Named Desire when it was being played by a soap opera actor in a summer one-week run at a dinner theater in San Antonio.
Charles had eight thousand dollars in cash in the hotel where he was staying. He had a passport with his real name on it, an Irish passport. It was enough to get him out of the country.
Time for the next hop.
Hand against the wall, Charles made his way toward the door.
15
FLACK FOUND A VETERAN DETECTIVE in the precinct near the Gun Hill Road subway station. The detective, Stuart Bain, had been a friend of Don Flack's father.
"Buildings being painted," Bain said, standing outside the precinct under an eave where he could smoke without violating the law and getting wet from the rain. "How big a place we talkin' about here?"
"Don't know," said Flack.
"We've got a list we watch," said Bain. "Unoccupied places being built, remodeled. You wouldn't believe what people'll steal. One place they took new tile right off the floor at night while the glue was drying. I'll get you the list. But you know it might not be on there."
"I know," said Flack. "How's Scott?"
Bain finished his cigarette, fieldstripped it and said, "My son, Scott, is off fighting in Iraq. Was a time he considered becoming a rabbi. You know that?"
"Don't think so," said Flack.
"Now all he's considering is coming back alive and in one piece," said Bain. "Come on. I'll get you the list. I'll go with you. Check it out. Guy killed how many yesterday?"
"Four," said Flack.
"Maybe some backup wouldn't hurt," Bain said.
"Maybe it wouldn't," said Flack.
"Ellen?"
She wouldn't have taken any chances, not after she had been fooled the night before. The voice of the caller last night, the man she knew as Adam, wasn't really like Jeffrey's, but she had deluded herself. Not again. She was no fool.
"Jeffrey?"
She was alone in the hotel room. The room wasn't as nice as the one she had been in the night before. She had the feeling the police were punishing her for leading Adam to the hotel, for getting Paul killed.
The police had asked her to give them her phone. She had refused, said she needed it to stay in touch with her parents because her father was very ill, that she would tell the man in the bathroom if anyone called.
This call had come at the perfect moment. It was almost a sign. The officer, David McCord, had gone into the bathroom. The phone had rung. It was Jeffrey. No doubt. But she asked to be sure, to be reassured.
"Jeffrey, you sound- "
"I have to see you," he said. "Now. Soon."
He sounded like the sixteen-year-old boy he was, not the fourteen-year-old man-child she had first known and loved and wanted and needed.
"I'm sorry, Jeffrey. I can't. Not for a few days. Then we'll find a way to be together. I promise."
She had almost called him "baby." He didn't like that.
"I've got to," he said.
She heard the toilet flushing. Not much time. Seconds.