Молчаливая ночь [with w_cat]

[520] “Well, I was named after St. Christopher myself,” Chris said, managing to snare the bag. “Merry Christmas, Deidre.”

[521] And it will be Christmas before I get a bite out of this Big Mac, he thought as he drove back onto the Thruway. With one hand, he deftly opened the bag, freed the burger, and gratefully took a large bite. The coffee would have to wait until he got back to his post.

[522] He’d be off duty at midnight, and then, he thought, smiling to himself, it would be time to grab a little shut-eye. Eileen would try to keep the kids in bed till six, but lots of luck. It hadn’t happened last year and it wouldn’t happen this year if he knew his sons.

[523] He was approaching exit 40 and drove the car to the official turnaround, from which he could observe errant drivers. Christmas Eve was nothing like New Year’s Eve for nabbing drinkers, but Chris was determined that no one who was speeding or weaving on the road was going to get past him. He’d witnessed a couple of accidents where some drunk turned the holiday into a nightmare for innocent people. Not tonight if he could help it. And the snow had made driving that much more treacherous.

[524] As Chris opened the lid on his coffee, he frowned. A Corvette doing at least eighty was racing up the service lane. He snapped on his dome lights and siren, shifted into gear, and the squad car leaped in pursuit.

[525] Chief of Detectives Bud Folney listened with no expression other than quiet attentiveness as a trembling Cally Hunter told Mort Levy about finding the wallet on Fifth Avenue. She had waived her Miranda warning, saying impatiently, “This can’t wait any longer.”

[526] Folney knew the basics of her case: older sister of Jimmy Siddons, had served time because a judge had not believed her story that she thought she was helping her brother get away from a rival gang bent on killing him. Levy had told him that Hunter seemed to be one of the hard-luck people of this world-raised by an elderly grandmother, who died, leaving her to try to straighten out her louse of a younger brother when she was only a kid herself; then her husband killed by a hit-and-run driver when she was pregnant.

[527] About thirty, Folney thought, and could be pretty with a little meat on her. She still had the pale, haunted expression he had seen on other women who had been imprisoned and carried with them the horror that someday they might be sent back.

[528] He looked around. The neat apartment, the sunny, yellow paint on the cracked walls, the bravely decorated but skimpy Christmas tree, the new coverlet on the battered doll carriage, they all told him something about Cally Hunter.

[529] Folney knew that, like himself, Mort Levy was desperate to know what connection Hunter could give them between Siddons and the missing Dornan child. He approved of Mort’s gentle approach. Cally Hunter had to tell it her way. It’s a good thing we didn’t bring in the raging bull, Folney thought. Jack Shore was a good detective, but his aggressiveness often got on Folney’s nerves.

[530] Hunter was talking about seeing the wallet on the sidewalk. “I picked it up without thinking. I guessed it belonged to that woman, but I wasn’t sure. I honestly wasn’t sure,” she burst out, “and I thought if I tried to give it back to her, she might say something was missing from it. That happened to my grandmother. And then you’d send me back to prison and…”

[531] “Cally, take it easy,” Mort said. “What happened then?”

“When I got home…”

[532] She told them about finding Jimmy in the apartment, wearing her deceased husband’s clothes. She pointed to the big package under the tree. “The guard’s uniform and coat are in there,” she said. “It was the only place I could think to hide them in case you came back.”

[533] That’s it, Mort thought. When we looked around the apartment the second time, there was something different about the closet. The box on the shelf and the man’s jacket were missing.

Cally’s voice became ragged and uneven as she told them about Jimmy taking Brian Dornan and threatening to kill him if he spotted a cop chasing him.

[534] Levy asked, “Cally, do you think Jimmy can be trusted to let Brian go?”

[535] “I wanted to think so,” she said tonelessly. “That was what I told myself when I didn’t call you immediately. But I know he’s desperate. Jimmy will do anything to keep from going to prison again.”

[536] Folney finally asked a question. “Cally, why did you call us now?”

[537] “I saw Brian’s mother on television, and I knew that if Jimmy had taken Gigi, I’d want you to help me get her back.” Cally clasped her hands together. Her body swayed slightly forward then back in the ancient posture of grief. “The look on that little boy’s face, the way he put that medal around his neck and was holding on to it like it was a life preserver… if anything happens to him, it’s my fault.”

[538] The buzzer sounded. If that’s Shore… Folney thought as he jumped up to answer it.