Silent Night

  Brian shrank against Cally. He was so afraid of the man that he was trembling. Was the man going to make him go away with him?

  “Jimmy, leave him here. Please.” Cally thrust Brian behind her.

  Jimmy Siddons’s mouth twisted in anger. He grabbed Cally’s arm and yanked her toward him, roughly twisting her arm behind her.

  She screamed as she lost her grip on Brian and slipped to the floor.

  With eyes that denied any history of affection between them, Jimmy stood over his sister, again holding the gun to her head. “If you don’t do what I tell you, you’ll get more of that . . . and worse. They won’t take me alive. Not you, not nobody else is gonna send me to the death chamber. Besides, I got a girlfriend waiting for me. So just keep your mouth shut. I’ll even make a deal. You don’t say nothing, and I’ll let the kid live. But if the cops try to close in on me, he gets a bullet in the head. It’s as simple as that. Got it straight?”

  He stuck the gun back inside his jacket, then reached down and roughly pulled Brian to his feet. “You and I are gonna get to be real pals, sonny,” he said. “Real pals.” He grinned. “Merry Christmas, Cally.”

  6

  The unmarked van parked across the street from Cally’s apartment building was the lookout post for the detectives watching Cally’s building for any sign of Jimmy Siddons. They had observed Cally come home at just a little after her usual time.

  Jack Shore, the detective who had visited Cally in the morning, pulled off his earphones, swore silently, and turned to his partner. “What do you think, Mort? No, wait a minute. I’ll tell you what I think. It’s a trick. He’s trying to buy time to get as far away from New York as possible while we take up the collection at St. Pat’s looking for him.”

  Mort Levy, twenty years younger than Shore and less cynical, rubbed his chin, always a sign that he was deep in thought. “If it is a trick, I don’t think the sister is a willing accomplice. You don’t need a meter to hear the stress level in her voice.”

  “Listen, Mort, you were at Bill Grasso’s funeral. Thirty years old, with four little kids, and shot between the eyes by that bum Siddons. If Cally Hunter had come clean with us and told us that she’d given that rat brother of hers money and the keys to her car, Grasso would have known what he was up against when he stopped him for running a light.”

  “I still believe that Cally had bought Jimmy’s story about trying to get away because he’d been in a gang fight and the other gang was after him. I don’t think she knew that he’d wounded a clerk in a liquor store. Up till then he hadn’t been in really serious trouble.”

  “You mean he’d gotten away with it till then,” Shore snapped. “Too bad that judge couldn’t put Cally away as an accessory to murder instead of just for aiding a fugitive. She got off after serving fifteen months. Bill Grasso’s widow is trimming the tree without him tonight.”

  His face reddened with anger. “I’ll call in. Just in case that louse meant what he said, we’ve got to cover the cathedral. You know how many people go to midnight Mass there tonight? Take a guess.”

  * * *

  Cally sat on the worn velour sofa, her hands clasped around her knees, her head bent, her eyes closed. Her entire body was trembling. She was beyond tears, beyond fatigue. Dear God, dear God, why did all this happen?

  What should she do?

  If anything happened to Brian, she would be responsible. She had picked up his mother’s wallet, and that’s why he’d followed her. If the child was right, his dad was very ill. She thought of the attractive young woman in the rose-colored coat and how she had been sure everything in her life was perfect.

  Would Jimmy let the boy go when he got to wherever was his destination? How could he? she reasoned. Wherever that was, they’d start searching for Jimmy in that area. And if he does let him go, Brian will tell how he followed me because I took the wallet, she reminded herself.

  But Jimmy had said he would shoot the child if the cops closed in on him. And he meant it, she was certain of that. So if I tell the cops, Brian doesn’t have a chance, she thought.

  If I don’t say anything now and Jimmy does let him go, then I can honestly say that I didn’t tell because he threatened to kill the kid if the cops got near him, and I knew he meant it. And I know he does mean it, Cally thought. That’s the worst part.

  Brian’s face loomed in Cally’s mind. The reddish brown hair that fell forward on his forehead, the large, intelligent blue eyes, the spatter of freckles on his cheeks and nose. When Jimmy dragged him in, her first impression was that he wasn’t more than five; from the way he spoke, though, she was sure he was older. He was so scared when Jimmy made him go with him out the window and onto the fire escape. He had looked back at her, his eyes pleading.

  The phone rang. It was Aika, the wonderful black woman who minded Gigi along with her own grandchildren each afternoon after the day-care center closed.

  “Just checking to see if you’re home, Cally,” Aika said, her voice rich and comforting. “Did you find the doll man?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Too bad. You need more time to shop?”

  “No, I’ll come right over now and get Gigi.”

  “No, that’s okay. She already ate dinner with my gang. I need milk for breakfast, so I’ve got to go out anyway. I’ll drop her off in half an hour or so.”

  “Thanks, Aika,” Cally put down the receiver, aware that she still had her coat on and that the apartment was dark except for the entryway light. She took off the coat, went into the bedroom, and opened the closet door. She gasped when she saw that when he took Frank’s suede jacket and brown slacks, Jimmy had left other clothes crumpled on the floor, a jacket and pants, and a filthy overcoat.

  She bent down and picked up the jacket. Detective Shore had told her that Jimmy had shot a guard and stripped him of his uniform. Obviously, this was the uniform—and there were bullet holes in the jacket.

  Frantically, Cally wrapped the jacket and pants inside the overcoat. Suppose the cops came in with a search warrant! They’d never believe her, that Jimmy broke into her place. They’d be sure she gave him clothes. She’d go back to prison. And she’d lose Gigi for good! What should she do?

  She looked around the closet, wildly searching for a solution. The storage box on the overhead shelf. In it she kept whatever summer clothes she and Gigi had. She yanked the box down, opened it, pulled out the contents, and threw them on the shelf. She folded the uniform and coat into the box, closed it, ran to the bed, and fished under it for the Christmas wrappings she had stored there.

  With frantic fingers she wrapped candy-cane paper around the box and tied it with a ribbon. Then she carried it into the living room and put it under the tree. She had just completed the task when she heard the downstairs buzzer. Smoothing back her hair, and forcing a welcoming smile for Gigi, she went to answer it.

  It was Detective Shore and the other detective who had been with him this morning who came up the stairs. “Playing games again, Cally?” Shore asked. “I hope not.”

  7

  Brian huddled in the passenger seat as Jimmy Siddons drove up the East River Drive. He had never felt so afraid before. He’d been scared when the man made him climb up that fire escape to the roof. Then he’d practically been dragged from one roof to another as they went the length of the block, finally going down through an empty building and onto the street where this car was parked.

  The man had pushed Brian into the car and snapped on the seat belt. “Just remember to call me Daddy if anyone stops us,” he had warned him.

  Brian knew the man’s name was Jimmy. That was what the woman had called him. She had looked so worried about Brian. When Jimmy pulled him through the window, she had been crying, and Brian could tell how scared she was for him. She knew his parents’ names. Maybe she would call the cops. If she did, would they come looking for him? But Jimmy said he’d kill him if the cops came. Would he?

  Brian huddled deeper in the seat. He was scared a
nd hungry. And he had to go to the bathroom, but he was afraid to ask. His only comfort was the medal that now lay against his chest on the outside of his jacket. It had brought Grandpa home from the war. It was going to make Daddy well. And it was going to get him home safe, too. He was sure of it.

  Jimmy Siddons glanced briefly at his small hostage. For the first time since he had broken out of the prison, he was beginning to relax. It was still snowing, but if it didn’t get any worse than this, it was nothing to worry about. Cally wouldn’t call the cops. He was positive of that. She knew him well enough to believe him when he said he would kill the kid if he was stopped.

  I’m not going to rot in prison for the rest of my life, he thought, and I’m not giving them the chance to pump me full of poison. Either I make it, or I don’t.

  But I will. He smiled grimly. He knew there had to be an APB out on him and they’d be watching all the bridges and tunnels out of New York. But they had no idea where he was heading, and they certainly weren’t looking for a father and son traveling in a car that wasn’t reported stolen yet.

  He’d pulled out all the presents he had seen the couple stash in the trunk. Now they were piled on the backseat, bundles of Christmas cheer. Those presents, coupled with the kid in the front, meant even if toll takers had been alerted to be on the lookout, they’d never glance twice at him now.

  And in eight or nine hours he would be across the border and into Canada, where Paige would be waiting. And then he would find a nice deep lake that would be the final destination of this car and all the nice presents in the backseat.

  And this kid with his St. Christopher medal.

  * * *

  The awesome power of the New York City Police Department ground methodically into gear as plans were laid to assure that Jimmy Siddons did not slip between their fingers, just in case, at the last minute, he panicked and decided not to surrender after midnight Mass.

  As soon as their wiretap recorded Cally’s phone calls from Jimmy, and to his lawyer, Jack Shore had called in the information. He had let the higher-ups know exactly what he thought of Siddons’s “decision” to surrender. “It’s an out-and-out crock,” he had barked. “We tie up a couple of hundred cops till one-thirty or two in the morning, and he’s halfway to Canada or Mexico before we find out that he’s made us look like a bunch of fools.”

  Finally the deputy police commissioner in charge of the manhunt had snapped, “All right, Jack. We know what you think. Now let’s get on with it. There’s been no sign of him around his sister’s place?”

  “No, sir,” Jack Shore had said and hung up, and then he and his partner, Mort, had gone to visit Cally. When they got back to the van, Shore again reported in to headquarters. “We just were back to Hunter’s apartment, sir. She’s fully aware of the consequences if she helps her brother in any way. The baby-sitter dropped off her kid as we were leaving, and my guess is Cally’s in for the night.”

  Mort Levy frowned as he listened to his partner’s conversation with the deputy police commissioner. There was something about that apartment that was different from the way it had looked this morning, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Mentally he reviewed the layout: the small entryway, the bathroom directly off it, the narrow combination living room–kitchen, the cell-like bedroom, barely large enough to hold a single bed, a cot for the little girl, and a three-drawer dresser.

  Jack had asked Cally if she would mind if they looked around again, and she had nodded assent. Certainly no one was hiding in that place. They had opened the door to the bathroom, looked under the beds, poked in the closet. Levy had felt unwilling pity for Cally Hunter’s attempts to brighten the dismal flat. All the walls were painted a bright yellow. Floral pillows were randomly piled on the old couch. The Christmas tree was bravely decorated with tons of tinsel and strings of red and green lights. A few brightly wrapped presents were placed under it.

  Presents? Mort did not know why this word triggered something in his subconscious. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. Forget it, he told himself.

  He wished Jack hadn’t bullied Cally Hunter. It was easy to see that she was terrified of him. Mort hadn’t been in on her case, which had been tried over two years ago, but from what he’d heard, he believed that Cally honestly thought that her troublesome kid brother had been in a gang fight and that the members of the other gang were hunting him.

  What am I trying to remember about her apartment? Mort asked himself. What was different?

  They were normally scheduled to go off duty at eight o’clock, but tonight both he and Jack were going back to headquarters instead. Like dozens of others, they would be working overtime at least until after midnight Mass at the cathedral. Maybe, just maybe, Siddons would show up as he had promised. Levy knew that Shore was aching to make the arrest personally. “I could spot that guy if he was wearing a nun’s habit,” he kept saying, over and over again.

  There was a tap at the back door of the van, signifying that their replacements had arrived. As Mort stood up, stretched, and stepped down onto the street, he was glad that just before he left Cally Hunter’s apartment, he had slipped her his card and whispered, “If you want to talk to anyone, Mrs. Hunter, here’s a number where you can reach me.”

  8

  The crowds on Fifth Avenue had thinned out, although there were still some onlookers around the tree in Rockefeller Center. Others were still lined up waiting to see Saks’s window display, and there was a steady stream of visitors slipping in and out of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

  But as the car she was in pulled up behind the squad car where Officer Ortiz and Michael were waiting, Catherine could see that most of the last-minute shoppers were gone.

  They’re on their way home, she thought, to do the final gift wrapping and to tell each other that next year, for sure, they won’t be rushing around to stores on Christmas Eve.

  Everything at the last minute. That had been her own pattern until twelve years ago, when a third-year resident, Dr. Thomas Dornan, came into the administration office of St. Vincent’s Hospital, walked over to her desk, and said, “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  Tom, so easygoing, but so organized. If she were the one who was sick, Tom wouldn’t have stuffed all her money and identification into his own bulging wallet. He wouldn’t have dropped it into his pocket so carelessly that someone either reached in and grabbed it or picked it up off the ground.

  That was the thought that was torturing Catherine as she opened the car door and, through the swirling snow, ran the few steps to the squad car. Brian would never have wandered away on his own, she was sure of that. He was so anxious to get to Tom, he hadn’t even wanted to take the time to look at the Rockefeller Center tree. He must have set off on some mission. That was it. If somebody hadn’t actually kidnapped him—and that seemed unlikely—he must have seen whoever took or picked up the wallet and followed that person.

  Michael was sitting in the front seat with Officer Ortiz, sipping a soda. A brown paper bag with remnants of a packet of ketchup was standing on the floor in front of him. Catherine squeezed in beside him on the front seat and smoothed his hair.

  “How’s Dad?” he asked anxiously. “You didn’t tell him about Brian, did you?”

  “No, of course not. I’m sure we’ll find Brian soon, and there was no need to worry him. And he’s doing just great. I saw Dr. Crowley. He’s a happy camper about Dad.” She looked over Michael’s head at Officer Ortiz. “It’s been almost two hours,” she said quietly.

  He nodded. “Brian’s description will keep going out every hour to every cop and car in the area. Mrs. Dornan, Michael and I have been talking. He’s sure Brian wouldn’t deliberately wander away.”

  “No, he’s right. He wouldn’t.”

  “You talked to the people around you when you realized he was missing?”

  “Yes.”

  “And no one noticed a kid being pulled or carried away?”

  “No. People remember seeing him, th
en they didn’t see him.”

  “I’ll level with you. I don’t know any molester who would even attempt to kidnap a child from his mother’s side and work his way through a crowd of people. But Michael thinks that maybe Brian would have taken off after someone he saw take your wallet.”

  Catherine nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s the only answer that makes sense.”

  “Michael tells me that last year Brian stood up to a fourth-grade kid who shoved one of his classmates.”

  “He’s a gutsy kid,” Catherine said. Then the import of what the policeman had said hit her. He thinks that if Brian followed whoever took my wallet, he may have confronted that person. Oh God, no!

  “Mrs. Dornan, if it’s all right with you, I think it would be a good idea if we tried to get cooperation from the media. We might be able to get some of the local TV stations to show Brian’s picture if you have one.”

  “The one I carried is in my wallet,” Catherine said, her voice a monotone. Images of Brian standing up to a thief flashed in her mind. My little boy, she thought, would someone hurt my little boy?

  What was Michael saying? He was talking to the cop Ortiz.

  “My grandmother has a bunch of pictures of us,” Michael was telling him. Then he looked up at his mother. “Anyhow, Mom, you gotta call Gran. She’s going to start worrying if we’re not home soon.”

  Like father, like son, Catherine thought. Brian looks like Tom. Michael thinks like him. She closed her eyes against the waves of near panic that washed through her. Tom. Brian. Why?