The park is long but narrow, and even taking a circuitous path it doesn’t take you long to cross from west to east. I found myself at the foot of the hill on whose crest the Cop Cot sat with ten minutes to spare. I climbed it quickly and found it empty, thank god. I didn’t sit and wait, though—the place was too exposed, too open to view from all sides. I walked a dozen yards away to where a cluster of trees offered at least partial concealment.
One man showed up, sat briefly on one of the Cop Cot’s wooden benches, sipped from a steaming cardboard cup. He stood again when Susan arrived, exchanged a few words with her, and left. Very polite, New Yorkers. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
I waited a few more minutes, but no one else appeared. Finally, when it seemed safe, I whistled softly.
Susan looked in my direction, her hand up to shield her eyes. She was wearing knitted gloves and a heavy overcoat and a scarf. The funny thing is that I didn’t feel cold until I saw how she was dressed. Then I realized I was shivering.
“Susan,” I hissed. “Over here.”
She walked in my direction, and when she was within reach, I pulled her toward me by the wrist, led her deeper into the shadows. I sank to a crouch between the roots of a huge maple and Susan took a seat beside me. She pulled a Mini Maglite out of her pocket and switched it on, aiming it down at the ground.
“Did anyone follow you?” I said.
“Of course not,” she said. “But John—listen to me. This is no good. You’ve got to turn yourself in. You’re all over the news.”
“I know.”
“Do you? In the cab over here, on the radio, the top story was how they have footage of you from two ATMs, one downtown and one I think up on 32nd Street.” She reached out, touched the side of my face. My beard was coming in again and the fabric of her glove caught on it. “You can’t keep running like this forever.”
“I don’t have to run forever. Just long enough.”
“What’s long enough?” she said.
“That depends on what you’ve found.”
She set her handbag down, opened it, dug inside. Under her cell phone, her wallet, a pack of tissues, she found a sheaf of papers secured with a paper clip. She took it out. “Well, I saw Mrs. Burke. She’s a piece of work, all right. I can’t say I’d want to be her daughter. But there’s something you’ve got to respect about her. She really loved Dorrie. In her way.”
“I’m sure.”
“She’s taking the body back with her to Philly. There’s going to be a funeral tomorrow morning at a place called—” she flipped through the papers “—Greenmount. Where her sister’s buried, if I got the name right.”
She had. I’d found it online when I’d been tracking down information for Dorrie—Greenmount Cemetery on Front Street, row after row of neatly kept graves, plenty of room for a girl who’d died at 13. Plenty for one who’d died at 24.
“She’s as convinced as you are that someone killed her daughter, though in her case it’s entirely an act of faith. I told her that, told her she was probably wasting her money. You’d have been proud of me.”
“She hired you anyway?”
“She hired us anyway.” She flipped through the papers some more. “I also reached Brian Vincent, by phone. It’s his real name and he was happy to talk to me. He’s an art director with BBD&O, which I guess is one of the big ad agencies. He’s single, 27, looks a little like Matt Damon. I pulled this photo off the agency’s Web site.” She tugged a folded page out of the stack, pointed the flashlight at it. The man didn’t look like Matt Damon to me, but what the hell.
“Seems like a genuinely nice guy when you talk to him. But forget that. The crucial point is that this past weekend he was in Las Vegas at something called the ‘iMedia Brand Summit.’ I don’t think he flew an extra ten hours back and forth to come back here and kill Dorrie.”
Probably not. Brian Vincent was also the one who’d sent Dorrie that e-mail to check up on her after seeing the story in the paper. He’d sounded genuinely surprised, even concerned. No, I could believe this wasn’t the man who’d killed her.
“What about the other three?”
“I only heard back from one. Our Civil War general, Robert Lee.”
“And?”
“Couple of e-mails back and forth. He’s scared. Scared to meet, scared not to meet. I’m guessing he’s married, thinks I’m going to blackmail him. I’m playing it innocent. Meanwhile I sent him some photos to bait the hook.”
“Photos?”
“Just some shots I grabbed off Voyeurweb,” she said. “Some girl with big tits. No one can resist big tits.” Maybe I just imagined it, but I thought I heard a catch in her voice. When she’d been in the hospital, they’d removed her implants, one of which had been slashed in the attack. I’d thought she looked better afterwards but she’d been self-conscious. It’s one of the things we’d disagreed about.
“I’ll get him,” she said. “He’s starting to come around. Maybe even tomorrow. I’ll try. But John...do you really think it’s smart for you to wait—”
“Don’t, Susan,” I said. “Don’t. I need to do this. When it’s done, I’ll turn myself in, I promise. But I’ve got to do this first.”
She looked at me, and in the dark I couldn’t make out her expression. She didn’t say anything. Then she leaned in and kissed me, softly, on the side of my mouth. Not quite on my lips. Not quite not.
“The shaved head,” she said. “I wouldn’t have recognized you.”
“That’s the idea,” I said.
She nodded.
“I’ve got to go, Susan.”
We stood up. I handed her her handbag.
“Don’t get yourself killed, John.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Where are you going to go now?”
“Better if you don’t know,” I said.
“You could stay with me,” she said. “The police have already been over. They’re not going to come back tonight. At least you can take a shower, shave, eat something—”
I shook my head.
“Why, John?”
I ignored the question. “Tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll need to get together again. I need to know what you find out.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Susan, please. It’s very important.” I thought for a second. “You know the place we used to go, in the Ramble? Where the big boulder is? Meet me there at—” I thought about where I was going to be tomorrow morning, how long it would take to get back. “At two. Okay?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Tomorrow at two. No matter what happens in the meantime. Please, Susan.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’ll be there.”
“Thank you,” I said, but she’d turned away.
I walked off, to the west.
When did she notice it was gone? Maybe minutes later; maybe not till the following morning. I felt lousy for doing it. But I needed a train ticket, the machines at Penn Station require a credit card, and I couldn’t use my own. I could have asked her, but what if she’d said no? And it really was better, for both of us, if she didn’t know where I was going.
I returned the credit card to her wallet, slipped the wallet into my jacket pocket, alongside a disposable razor and a tiny can of shaving cream I’d bought at the 24-hour Duane Reade in the station. I’d also used her card to get some cash. She’d understand or she wouldn’t. She knew my situation.
The tickets had Susan’s name printed on them and I signed where I was required to with an illegible scrawl that conveniently covered part of the word “Susan.” I could only hope the conductor wouldn’t look too closely at them. Or at me.