F Train Read online

  Flo approached the end of the third and last row of metal folding chairs, fifteen chairs in all, where the only mourner was a woman in black. In her thirties, blond hair cut short, an angular and pretty face, a slight build, slim shoulders, waist, and hips. The woman, her face immobile, looked up at her.

  “Mrs. Reilly?” Flo said.

  The woman nodded.

  “I’m Detective Florence Ott.”

  The widow slid over a seat and motioned for Flo to sit down.

  A younger woman wandered in looking very upset. She sank to her knees in front of the coffin and began praying, then stopped abruptly, squinting at the open coffin before looking around and realizing she’d wandered into the wrong wake and was caught up in mourning for a total stranger.

  Throughout this brief farce, John James Reilly’s widow remained rigid, still as a statue, not looking at Flo or at the coffin, but somewhere off into an unfocused middle distance, into a future alone, only her and the kids.

  “Mrs. Reilly, we want to say how sorry we are and pay our respects.”

  “That’s all?”

  The widow didn’t give Flo a glance.

  “I’d like to talk with you alone, Mrs. Reilly.”

  “Sure, why not? Come and see me, it’s your job. You want to know about the bitch he was with, right?”

  For a moment, Flo was taken aback. “We have several things to discuss, Mrs. Reilly.”

  “It’s all about the bitch, I’ll guarantee you that much right now. Come to the house, okay, not here. The kids are at my father’s place. I don’t want them hearing anything. They’re in enough pain. Someone from the Bureau coming, too?”

  “No, just me.”

  “Those shits. They’ll be around eventually. They covered up for him long enough.”

  Flo was unable to reply. Only instinct and habit moved her to the coffin to say a prayer. She knelt beside Frank and Marty and glanced down at John James Reilly, first at his face—good-looking, fair, still youthful even in death, eyelids closed, no sign of violence—and his hands folded over a rosary. On his left ring finger, a gold band.

  “Better leave now,” Flo whispered to Frank.

  Then, back outside in the car with her colleagues: “I’m on my way to her house. Put people on her, Marty, around the clock.”

  “His wife? Think she’s in on it?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so. But seems she’s kind of got a motive of sorts.”

  11 A.M.

  Bay Ridge, Brooklyn…

  A three-story, two-family brick house. Arlene Reilly stood in the doorway, quiet and expectant as Flo Ott mounted the stoop up to the family’s apartment.

  Similar two-family brick homes lined the block. A pair of plainclothes police watched Arlene Reilly from a car parked in midblock.

  Facing the street in Reilly’s living room were two windows, in each frame a second set of aluminum storm windows.

  “John James installed these storm windows every year on All Saints Day, always in time for winter. Even this winter, when he was so goddamn busy.”

  Despite the widow’s hurt and angry tone, Flo sensed coziness in the Reilly home. Several bookcases lined the hall and living room, the shelves heavy with volumes. Three leather easy chairs, a dark brown leather couch, an old oak coffee table, all well worn, a domain for children as well as adults. Through an open door, Flo saw the kitchen and heard the dishwasher humming. The eat-in kitchen overlooked the backyard.

  Observing the homes of killers or victims, Flo never detected a constant. She saw residences high and low, townhouses and tenements, the backseats of cars and cramped trailers. A writer whose specialty was interviewing imprisoned murderers told her the only personal common denominator he observed in all killers was that every killer sported at least one tattoo, but that writer only interviewed men.

  As she sat on the couch in Arlene Reilly’s apartment, Flo’s doubts about vengeance persisted. Still, there was no denying the anger in the widow’s bloodshot eyes, no matter how drained and weary her face. Arlene Reilly was righteously pissed off.

  “Like a coffee, Lieutenant?”

  “That’s okay, I don’t want to—”

  “No trouble.” Arlene Reilly seemed to welcome an opportunity to delay conversation. “Anyway I’d rather sit in the kitchen, if you don’t mind the dishwasher.”

  They sat at the kitchen table and she poured two cups of coffee. Flo said nothing, waiting for the widow to unload her burden.

  Arlene Reilly looked at Flo over her coffee cup rim. “I’ll just have to try and get used to him being dead. The way I had to get used to him having another woman. Except I never got used to it.” She smiled sadly and shrugged. “So what do you want to know?”

  “That night, did he say where he was going? Were you at home?”

  “I’m home every night. With the kids. And he was out most nights. Work, he said. And so you’re wondering, how did I know?”

  Flo didn’t reply. Arlene Reilly clearly wanted to answer her own question.

  “I discovered some pictures. And I’m no dope. That’s how I found out. But I’m a mother and I’m still a Catholic, so divorce was out of the question. He was a good father to our kids. Only a lousy husband, that’s all.”

  “I know it’s hurtful. And I’m very sorry. But you think we could see those pictures?”

  “I burned them.”

  “Could you describe them then? Please.”

  “It was my husband and this woman, and a couple of shots with another man there, too. It looked like they were in a restaurant.”

  “Who was the other man, did you recognize him?”

  “No. But he wasn’t white either. Chinese or some other kind of Asian. Maybe he owned the restaurant. I don’t know.”

  “Did your husband say what the work was, the work that kept him out at night?”

  “Bureau work. He never talked details, he was totally loyal. And they were loyal to him, all his buddies. He could lie to me and they’d swear by it, every one of the creeps. But if he hadn’t been out with her that night, he’d be here at home right now, I’m sure of it. I don’t mean to say she had something to do with it, like she was a killer or anything like that. She’s dead, too. God forgive me, but let’s face it, she was a bimbo, a bitch without a conscience. And if he’d have been home in the middle of the night instead of running around with her, he’d be alive now. Our kids would still have a father. Instead they’re scared, they’re terrified after this, they think someone is going to kill them, too. I can just see it, months, maybe years of therapy trying to calm them down. But I don’t want them taking pills. Can you understand, Lieutenant, can you see what I’m really up against here?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Reilly. I know it’s an impossible situation.”

  “You can help me with one thing. Can you tell me what actually happened that night? I have a right to know, don’t I?”

  The widow sat stone still, never taking her eyes off her visitor while Flo related the circumstances of the massacre’s events, as far as she and her colleagues were able to reconstruct the slaughter on the F train. Certain details, like an absent wedding ring, she omitted.

  “See what I mean, Lieutenant? If it hadn’t been for her—”

  “Do you know where he was earlier that day?”

  “Don’t you know? They don’t know at the Bureau?”

  Flo hesitated a moment. Then: “They told us the last time they saw him was the week before it happened. When he took a week’s leave.”

  “He told me he was working all the time.” The tears welled up in Arlene Reilly’s eyes. “See what I mean? This is how she did it to him. He wasn’t working, he was partying with her, he was with that bitch the whole time.”

  “He was never home?”

  “He was home on the weekend. He took the kids ice-skating. He was here for Sunday dinner. You know, Lieutenant, I’m really all talked out now. I keep thinking about it anymore and I’ll be an even bigger mess. We hardly ever saw
him after the weekend, okay? Yes, he came home to change, sleep a few hours, and then whoops, got to run, honey, and off he goes again. Work, he said. And that’s the way it was for months, not just last week…”

  12:30 P.M.

  Farrell’s.

  Retired FBI special agent Raymond O’Hara agreed to meet Flo Ott and Howard Gerald, PhD, at Farrell’s bar.

  Flo’s idea was Raymond O’Hara would retrace the hours he knew by heart. Offer his hypotheses and subject his credibility to Dr. Gerald’s professional scrutiny. Be a cooperative witness. A reliable source. And above all, he would keep the mayor off Brooklyn homicide’s backs by placating the mayor’s man.

  Dr. Gerald wasn’t pleased about the idea of meeting his informant in a saloon, but Raymond O’Hara had insisted. His home was out-of-bounds—after all his years with the Bureau, Mary Margaret deserved her peace.

  Even more to the point, Flo Ott was loath to have Howard Gerald, PhD, nosing around her office again, much less risk letting him learn anything about John James Reilly’s widow and her late husband’s occupation.

  Flo had phoned ex–special agent O’Hara in advance of their meeting in the saloon.

  “The victim on his knees, Raymond?”

  “Reilly.”

  “You were right about the weapon. Bureau issued.”

  Silence.

  “But he was off-duty, Raymond.”

  “I got the gun right. Maybe the rest will fall into place.”

  “Raymond, the gun is for us. Not for Dr. Howard.”

  “Even better.”

  Midday and Flo sat at the bar with Howard Gerald in Farrell’s, each nursing a glass of ginger ale, waiting for retired special agent Raymond O’Hara.

  The psychologist cast an assessing glance down the bar. “All these places stink of stale beer, stale sweat, stale dreams,” he said. “The atmosphere is so absurdly bathetic, always. And you know, Florence, I really believe I’ve got our informant here typed quite well now, not to put too fine a point on it, certainly after this. If this is where he spends his spare time hanging out…” Dr. Gerald eyed the only two other patrons, solitary drinkers, sitting a few stools apart.

  “They remind me of my father,” he whispered. “Worthless. Yes, I think I’ve got a good idea of what we have to dismiss here. And what we keep and what we add. We can’t afford to be dependent on a solitary witness, not if he’s the type I think he is. A rumdum. We have to find reliability elsewhere. We can’t wait till this gets to court and a barfly is all we come up with. Forget what he used to do, it’s what he does now, wasting his time, pissing away his life in bars.”

  Flo looked at her watch, drummed her fingers, stifled a yawn. She gazed at the front window, out at the empty gray street, at the red-brick Holy Name Church on the corner, at the liquor store across the way, the sort of place that used to showcase signs like Yes, we have the ’Bird on ice. What’s the price? 70 twice!…and where a window banner now announced Russian River Chardonnay—Organic—No Sulfites—Discount by the case.

  She regarded the bartender at the far end of the bar, a wiry little man reading the Daily News and chewing Tums. The tabloid’s front-page headline unavoidable: F TRAIN MASSACRE BAFFLES COPS. Subheads: Slaughter Victims Pages 3, 4, 5…Secret Witnesses? And a photo of the glowering mayor and his mackerel-eyed police commissioner.

  Nothing reassuring there.

  “But,” the psychologist said, “I’ll still have O’Hara fill out my questionnaire. You know how it is, Florence, private consultants like me, we’re responsible for our own living nowadays. Finally on our own two feet. No more handouts. A boon for entrepreneurs like me.”

  Howard Gerald, PhD, smiled his tombstone smile and again that smell, like a grave open too long, assaulted Flo’s nostrils, penetrating the atmosphere of stale beer and old sweat.

  He was unstoppable. “I enhance my consultancy with added value. The G.A.S.P. test, as I call it, is worth every cent I charge. The Gerald Advanced Semiotics Predictor. Fall-on-your-sword loyalty…fall-on-your-knees reliability…total allegiance…these are qualities my clients prize.”

  He didn’t have to spell out the rest for Flo. She imagined the worst qualities were independence, skepticism, a sense of irony, all those other extremes were the utterly undesirable.

  “The Gerald Advanced Semiotics Predictor tests for the signs. Good and bad. No loopholes. G.A.S.P. pins down exactly what my clients are on the lookout for. And what we should be, too. The most reliable witness in the world. So far, the mayor and the commissioner, they’ve been very pleased. I’m one of only ten people in this country qualified to identify the desired traits, plus spot all the chaff. Indispensable, especially when you’re stuck with only one lousy witness. One witness still alive and he came on the platform after the fact of death. The living passengers on that train aren’t witnesses, they were only bystanders who didn’t see a thing. They’re useless. But for us, forewarned is forearmed. We don’t want to disappoint the mayor and the commissioner, not this time around, not with something as big as this baby. Seven bodies? The subway? You don’t get any closer to real New Yorkers than the subway, right? So while I’ve already got a very strong theory—eine Anschauung, shall we say—I just want to get it all down on paper, what this witness O’Hara is actually made of. Sometimes people, when they retire, they let themselves go, they lose something, no matter how good their training used to be. Know what I mean, Florence?”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it, Howie. I’m a long way from retirement.”

  Flo waved to Raymond O’Hara as he entered. “What’ll it be, Ray?” she said. “Dr. Howard here wants you to take a test.”

  “A what?” He motioned to the bartender for a draft Guinness. “What kind of test?”

  “The G.A.S.P.” A distinct note of pride enlivened the psychologist’s voice. “Gerald Advanced Semiotics Predictor. A questionnaire you have to fill out. It only takes a few hours. Tell us about yourself. Who you are and so on. The usual. The mayor swears by it, Raymond, and he’s my client, he’s our boss.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Howie.” Raymond O’Hara squinted at the psychologist. “You take your questionnaire, your G.A.S.P.? You take it, and you take your billable hours, and you take your degrees, and you stuff the whole enchilada, okay, pal. You and the mayor.”

  Flo touched his arm. “Relax, Ray.”

  “I’m relaxed, Lieutenant. I’m retired. You want to test me, Howie? You can test my eyes, that’s it. I already told the police what I saw. And what I think about it now on reflection, my hypothesizing, that’s a whole other matter between me and Lieutenant Ott here. She can assess for herself the value of what I think, wouldn’t you agree? What the hell are they doing now anyway? Privatizing homicide investigations? Howie, you ever see that movie Capote? Terrific movie, Howie. Hell of a book, In Cold Blood. And you remind me a little of him, pal, that whiny little snob midget out to cash in on a mass killing.”

  “I resent that. It offends me.”

  “Glad to hear. Except you don’t have that guy’s brains. Or sense of humor. Or talent. Your kind of bullshit, Dr. Gerald, is exactly what’s wrong now. You belong on TV and nowhere else. You have no authority. Guys like you, you’re so twisted, you swallow a dime, and you’ll crap a corkscrew. Tell me something, if I pull your chain now, will you flush?”

  Howie Gerald’s actions were quick and precise, exhibiting considerable pique, practice, and a noteworthy economy of movement. He packed his briefcase with his notes, questionnaire, digital Dictaphone, and marched out of Farrell’s, his parting bark: “The commissioner will receive my report.”

  The door closed behind him and Flo couldn’t help laughing. “The commissioner. That’s a hot one. Raymond, you’re incorrigible. Hands down, a troublemaker, in a class all your own. This might cost me my job, you know that? Although I got to admit, you put on a hell of a performance. Did you behave like that at the Bureau?”

  “I wish.” He appeared content with the results now, Dr. Ge
rald out the door.

  “I like your attitude, Raymond, if only I had some of it myself. Simple, straightforward, no nonsense. But I’ve got a strong distaste for creating problems and obstacles that might otherwise not exist. I like most people, Raymond, and most people seem to like me. That one there, that jerk who just stomped out, he’s a glaring exception, I got to admit, but I can’t afford to make him my enemy. I still have too many years to go before retirement. And a family to support. Enemies in the commissioner’s office, Ray, even worse an enemy with the mayor’s ear, that much trouble I don’t need. Even if I do understand how you feel. It’s so insulting, it’s demeaning and patronizing. Only thing is, rubbing it in like you just did, Ray, doesn’t help me much. Won’t help the DA either.”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” He appeared genuinely apologetic, conscious of the damage he caused. “I owe you big-time. But you know, when I was with the Bureau, I actually had an uncomplicated outlook, you could say that. Only now when I run into an idiot like this guy, this boneless wonder with delusions of mediocrity, I don’t have to take it anymore, know what I mean? Wait till you’re retired, you’ll understand what I’m driving at. Things change.”

  She regarded Raymond O’Hara with a mixture of curiosity and appraisal. Several opportunities presented themselves in the person of the retired FBI special agent, and questions came to mind. She put away her notes and closed her briefcase, readjusting her face, aiming for an expression of patience and acceptance.

  “Ray, I understand, a guy like Howie Gerald can be pretty unbearable. And there’s one thing maybe you can help me with. Which would really be great.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “At the Bureau, you still have friends there, people you can talk to?”

  No reaction. Only a blank, cautious stare into his glass. He sipped his beer in silence, and after a moment Flo took a gamble and expanded the question.

  “Anyone who could tell you something about John James Reilly?”