‘Do you remember her name?’
‘Carmen. Montaldo, Montero, something like that. She was Hispanic. A tall woman, quite a looker. If Mitch did run off with another woman, then that was one of the dumbest things he ever did in his life.’
Vivien couldn’t tell Chowsky that this was one dumb thing Mitch probably hadn’t done. Though maybe he had done something even dumber, to end up inside a concrete wall.
She didn’t think she would get any more information from Chowsky for the moment. She had a name, she had a time period, she had a missing persons report filed by a woman called Carmen, Montaldo or Montero or something like that. Now she had to find that report and trace the woman.
‘Thank you, Mr Chowsky – you’ve been a great help.’
‘Don’t mention it, Miss Light.’
They left the man to his bikes and headed for the door. Just as they were about to leave, Russell stopped. He looked at her for a moment, unsure of his next step. Then he turned to Chowsky, who was now back behind the counter.
‘One last thing,’ he said, ‘if you don’t mind.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘What kind of work did Mitch Sparrow do?’
‘He worked in the construction industry. He was really good. He’d have become a site supervisor, if he hadn’t vanished like that.’
CHAPTER 21
As soon as they were some distance from the shop, Vivien took out her BlackBerry and dialled the captain’s direct number. After a couple of rings, he replied.
‘Bellew.’
‘Alan, it’s Vivien. I have something.’
‘Good.’
‘I need you to run a really quick check.’
The captain could hear the thrill of the chase in Vivien’s voice, and it infected him. ‘Quicker than that, if I can. Go on.’
They were both experienced police officers. They both knew that a case like this was, more than anything, a race against time. And the man they were after had time on his side.
‘Write this down.’
Vivien gave the captain a couple of seconds to find pen and paper.
‘Shoot.’
‘In all probability, the name of the guy in the wall is Mitch Sparrow. A witness has confirmed that he belonged to a group of bikers called the Skullbusters. They were based in Coney Island, on Surf Avenue. There should be a missing persons report filed with the 70th Precinct eighteen years ago by a woman named Carmen Montaldo or Montero. A couple of years later she found a new partner and moved to an unknown address. I need to trace her.’
‘OK. Give me half an hour and I’ll get back to you.’
‘One last thing. This Mitch Sparrow was a construction worker.’
That made the captain understandably excited. ‘Holy shit.’
‘Precisely. We’ll need to take a look at the union registers. Can you get someone on that?’
For a whole lot of reasons, most construction companies only used people supplied by the union. If Sparrow had been a construction worker, he had to have been a union member.
‘Consider it done.’
Vivien hung up.
Russell had been walking in silence beside her, listening to her end of the conversation. ‘I must apologize,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘For earlier, I mean. The way I butted in. It was instinctive.’
Vivien had in fact been taken by surprise by the question Wade had asked Chowsky, and had regretted the fact that she hadn’t thought of it first. But she was honest enough always to give credit where credit was due.
‘It was a good question, a really good question.’
Russell went on to explain his motivation, as if surprised by his own intuition. ‘It occurred to me that the reason this Sparrow guy ended up in a block of concrete must have been because he found out something he wasn’t supposed to know, or saw something he wasn’t supposed to see.’ He paused for reflection. ‘So I thought again about the letter I gave you.’
A shadow passed over his face, and Vivien was sure he was reliving the circumstances in which he had obtained that letter. She, too, remembered the words clearly, and could see the rough masculine handwriting.
All my life, before and after the war, I worked in theconstruction industry.
She finished Russell’s line of thought for him. ‘And you concluded there’s a strong likelihood the man who killed Sparrow and the man who wrote the letter are one and the same.’
‘Precisely.’
By now they had reached the parking lot. On the other side of it, beyond a small row of trees, they could see the big tents of the amusement park and the skeletal outlines of the rollercoaster and the Parachute Tower. There weren’t many cars parked here, and it occurred to Vivien that Monday probably wasn’t the busiest day of the week for an amusement park, even on a beautiful if strange day like today.
She looked at her watch. ‘With all that’s going down I forgot about food, but now I’m starting to feel hungry. We have to wait for the captain to call back. How about a burger?’
Russell gave a vague, doubtful smile. ‘I’m not eating. But I can keep you company, if you like.’
‘Are you on a diet?’
The smile turned into an expression of unconditional surrender. ‘The truth is, I don’t have a cent on me. And my cards have been pretty much worthless for a while now. In the city there are places that’d give me credit, but here I’m in Comanche territory. Not sure how I’m going to survive.’
In spite of all she knew about Russell Wade’s erratic lifestyle, Vivien couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, a feeling that immediately relegated him to a place where he couldn’t cause trouble.
‘You’ve had it bad lately, I guess?’
‘Everyone’s feeling the pinch right now. You’re a police officer, you must know about that forger they arrested in New Jersey.’
‘What forger?’
‘He’s been making twenty-five-dollar bills, because these days he can’t make his costs back with just twenty-dollar bills.’
In spite of herself, Vivien burst out laughing. A couple of young black men dressed in strict hip-hop style who were crossing the parking lot turned to stare at them.