Jacobs was beside the back door, standing over a young guy who was lying on the kitchen floor. I recognized him as another detective, Genelli, from the Nineteenth Precinct.
“Oh, my God,” I said, striding toward them. “What the hell happened to him?” Had somebody bashed him? Was our shooter here after all?
Genelli briefly tried to lift his lolling head, but it thunked back to the floor.
“He’s okay,” Jacobs said. “Dumbass rookie, he got bored out by the pool, started drinking beer and playing quarters with a couple of the college girl guests. Next thing, one of them comes to tell me he passed out. Sorry to be coy, Mike, but I didn’t know what else to do. We don’t get him out of here before the mayor sees him, he’s going to get fired.”
“Him and me both,” I said, grabbing Genelli’s arm. “Open that back door and ring the freight elevator before anybody sees us.”
Chapter 80
Mary Catherine was drying her hands with a dish towel when the back doorbell rang. She assumed it was a delivery that the doorman downstairs had okayed, which happened fairly often. Nobody could get up here without going past him.
But her towel fluttered to the floor as she stared at the man standing there. Her gaze went first to his bloody hand, then flicked to the two evil-looking guns he was holding, then to the wide grin on his face.
“Bennett residence, I presume,” he said, pressing the snub-nosed black barrel of one of the machine pistols to the tip of her nose. Blood streamed down his wrist, within inches of her staring eyes.
Oh, my good Lord, she thought, struggling to stay calm. What to do? Scream? But it might enrage him, and who would hear her, anyway? Sweet Jesus – this man here, and the worst of it was that all the kids were home!
Still smiling, he tucked the threatening gun into his jacket.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he said. She stepped back reluctantly. There was nothing else she could do.
“Thank you,” he said with mocking politeness.
When he spotted Shawna and Chrissy at the kitchen island, he lowered the other gun and hid it behind his leg. Thank God for that, at least. They watched him with mild curiosity. At their age, the sudden appearance of a stranger was just one of thousands of other mysterious things. The flu that had kept so many of the Bennett kids home from school had also wreaked havoc with their bedtimes.
“Hey, who are you?” Chrissy said, sliding off her stool and starting toward him to make friends.
Mary Catherine swallowed, fighting the urge to dive across the kitchen and scoop the child up. Instead, she stepped forward to intercept Chrissy and caught her hand.
“I’m one of your daddy’s friends,” the man said.
“I’m Chrissy. Are you a police officer, too? Why is your hand bleeding? And what’s that behind your leg?”
“Put a sock in the brat,” the Teacher said quietly to Mary Catherine. “This ‘why is the sky blue’ crap is really pissing me off.”
“Go watch the movie now, girls,” she said.
“But I thought you said Harry Potter was too scary,” Shawna said, giving her a distressed look.
“It’ll be okay this once, Shawna. Just do it. Now.”
The little girls scurried away, finally frightened by their nanny’s harsh tone rather than by the man who might kill them.
He lifted a carrot stick off the cutting board and bit into it.
“Get on the phone and tell Mike he needs to get home fast,” he said to Mary Catherine as he chewed. “You won’t be lying if you say it’s a family emergency.”
Chapter 81
“All right, young man, it’s Judgment Day,” Seamus said as he guided Eddie through the Bennetts’ front door.
Then someone on the other side of the door yanked it open, jerking the knob out of his hand.
Indignant, he started to say, “Well, that’s a fine way to welcome? -”
His sentence died at the amplified click in his ear. He peered to his left and saw a gun, a big one. A tall blond man in a suit pressed it to his temple.
“Another kid?” the man said, looking at Eddie. “What is this, a day care center? And a priest, too? Wow, that’s normal. Now I see why Bennett puts in so much overtime. I’d work twenty-four/seven if I had to live in this psych ward.”
Seamus’s stomach clenched as he instantly put it together. This was the serial shooter Mike was trying to catch. He must have fixated on Mike. Talk about nuts.
Maybe he could calm the man down, Seamus thought. Be the fatherly counselor. It was his job, after all.
“I can see you’re troubled, my son,” he said as the gunman guided him into the living room. “There’s ways to make this right, and I can help you. Unburden yourself, confess your sins. It’s never too late.”
“Just one little problem, you doddering imbecile – there is no God. So I’m going to take a rain check on the sin thing.”
Doddering? Seamus thought angrily. Time to switch to plan B.
“Well and good, then,” he said, ignoring the gun and turning to stare defiantly into the killer’s eyes. “I’m happy to know you’ll be going straight to hell where you belong.”
The kids gasped.
“Watch it, padre. Shooting kids isn’t against my religion. Priests, either, for that matter.”
“It’s Monsignor to you, asswipe,” Seamus said, still glaring at him like they were about to go fifteen rounds.
Seamus heard another, even louder gasp. Then he realized with shame that the killer was right. He was acting like an old fool. He had to tone down the temper and look out for these kids.
The psychopath grinned.
“I like your guts, old man, but mouth me like that again, and you’ll be saying midnight mass at the pearly gates with Saint Peter.”
Suddenly Fiona, the closest of the huddled group of children, let out a troubled grunt and doubled over. When the gunman realized what was happening he jumped back. But not fast enough to avoid her upchucking a stream of vomit onto his shoes.
Good girl, Seamus thought.
The man made a face of pure disgust as he flicked puke off his fancy footwear. Then his look turned confused when he noticed that Jane was furiously scribbling the whole scene in a notebook.
“You people are something else,” he muttered. “Bennett’s going to thank me when I put him out of his misery.”
Chapter 82
After the Genelli “incident” was safely taken care of, I got a call from Mary Catherine. She said that Jane had become really, seriously ill – temperature of a hundred and two, and she couldn’t stop vomiting. Mary didn’t know whether or not to take her to the emergency room. Could I come home right away?
I didn’t see any choice. Luckily, things were still quiet here. I put Steve Reno in charge and headed for the door. The mayor, having a photo op in the foyer, gave me a nasty look as I walked by him. Was he pissed that the killer hadn’t shown?
Outside, the cold air and lack of headache-inducing dance music hit me like a refreshing tonic. I crossed the street to my Impala, taking deep breaths and rolling my stiff neck. I turned the engine over and squealed a right onto Eighty-fifth.
As I cut through pitch-black Central Park toward the West Side, I went back to brainstorming. Why did somebody kill Thomas Gladstone, his family, and a bunch of other seemingly random, hoity-toity New Yorkers?
Insanity? The guy was a psycho, sure, but he was organized, smart, very much in control. I didn’t believe that the killings were random, on impulse. He had a reason for what he was doing. Revenge? Maybe, but revenge for what? There was no way even to guess. Maybe both those things figured in, along with God-knew-what-else.
About all I was sure of was that he had to be somebody connected to Gladstone.
I turned down the Chevy’s police radio and turned up the real one to soothe my aching skull. Fat chance: 1010 WINS was going on about the serial shooter. So was CBS 880, so I twirled the dial over to ESPN sports talk.