The Con Man's Daughter

Chapter 42

Friday

11:30 A.M.

Even a layman could tell that the scene in the Emergency Room of Coney Island Hospital was more frantic than usual. Men and women in blue scrubs carrying stethoscopes hustled past men and women in blue uniforms carrying guns. Word spread quickly that the shattered redhead strapped onto the gurney was the Yonkers kidnap victim, a nurse, the child of an ex-cop. A powerful emotional bond exists between cops and nurses. Constantly thrown together in the worst situations, they learn to protect and care for one another. Babsie could hear Kate's name being repeated over and over again in hushed, worried tones.

"No witnesses yet," Babsie said. "The squad is widening the canvass."

"It doesn't matter," Eddie said. "She's alive." They'd found her on the boardwalk on her hands and knees, struggling to get to her feet. The car from the Sixtieth Precinct, making a routine patrol of the boardwalk, had spotted her at 4:30 a.m. At first, they figured she was a drunk who'd wandered out of a Coney Island saloon. But apparently, she'd stumbled for blocks. Traces of fresh blood were found in several spots going back toward the Abe Stark ice-skating rink, a dark and desolate area of the boardwalk. It appeared she'd been dropped off there and had been moving toward the lights. The cops requested an ambulance for an unknown white female. Later, they were apologetic. They said they didn't recognize her from the picture. It wasn't until hours later, when the ER nurse asked her name, that the wheels began to spin.

"As soon as they get her stabilized," Eddie said, "I'm going to have her transferred to St. John's Riverside."

"Let her get strong first," Babsie said. "They'll take good care of her here."

The preliminary diagnosis was indefinite. She was badly dehydrated. The skin on her forearms and wrists was rubbed raw. Her right wrist might be broken. She'd been heavily drugged, and she kept slipping in and out of consciousness. Her legs, back, and rib area were badly bruised, particularly her left side, down her hip and left leg. A rape kit had been ordered.

"She'll be fine," Eddie said. "She'll be fine."

He believed it, too, but regretted saying it aloud. He knew how quickly things could turn from fine to tragic in a hospital. Don't let God hear you saying everything will be fine. That's all He needs to shove it back in your face. But God did this. God brought her here. And Eddie was grateful. Not overconfident, just grateful. A fighting chance is all I ask for, he thought. Give her a fighting chance.

"She didn't escape on her own, Eddie," Babsie said. "Not the shape she's in."

"No. Borodenko did this. That's why he had all his hoods on the road. He wanted her found and released before he got home."

"Don't mistake good business for an act of kindness," she said.

"He could have killed her and dumped her body at sea, Babsie. He could have easily done that. It would have been safer."

People wearing rubber-soled shoes squealed past, some glancing over. He stared back into their faces, looking for the messenger, expecting the messenger, the solemn-faced one who says, "We did everything we could, but…" God, he hated the smell of hospitals.

According to Babsie, the Yonkers Police Department had mobilized all available detectives to search for Zina. They'd issued a county wide alert for the car and the woman. Police departments, hospitals, clinics, toll bridges, bus stations, and airports all got the word. Matty Boland was coordinating the New York City end of it. He'd sent two teams of investigators to West Nineteenth Street. They'd found it in flames.

"Zina might be in that fire," Eddie said.

"That bother you?"

"You kidding?" he said. "The crispier the better, but we can't count on it."

"I get the feeling you're on Borodenko's side all of a sudden."

"Right now, maybe I am. Everything I did to find Kate amounted to shit. Then bang, she's here. I have no idea why he'd let her go."

Helpless was the worst feeling for guys like Eddie Dunne. He stood against a wall in a long corridor that led to other long corridors, holding a torn and bloody green flannel shirt in his hand. Babsie wanted to bag it for evidence, but she let Eddie hold on to it.

Babsie said, "Don't forget Borodenko was behind all this grief in the first place."

"I'm not so sure."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Eddie fought to keep his focus, but his world spun in slow motion, as if all energy had drained out of him. The spaces between objects in the corridor seemed random and changing. He could hear Kate calling him, her voice a soft reverberation, like a whispered echo, but so real, the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He knew this was in his head. She was in the room down the hall. If he walked twenty steps down the corridor, he could see her, tubes crisscrossed over her face, machines beeping, nurses prepping her for surgery. She was fine. A nurse came out of the room, walking toward them.

"Five minutes," the nurse said, holding up her spread hand. 'Try not to excite her."

His beautiful daughter had aged terribly in twelve days. She looked like her mother in those last mournful moments of her life. Her eyes, so dark underneath, appeared sunken in bruised half-moons. Eddie put his hand on hers, trying not to disturb any of the attached lines. She squeezed his hand immediately; then she squirmed, trying to get her arms up in the air. She was trying to tell him something. But her eyes spoke for her, wide and unblinking, staring directly into his face.

"I love you," he said, fighting for his calmest expression, wanting to transfer hope, to let her draw a sense of serenity from him. "It's all over. We'll have you home soon. Grace is fine, can't wait to see you. We're all fine. Kevin is fine. Everybody is fine." He talked in a rush, knowing that words were too weak to climb the wall of her anguish. Saying them was the only thing.

Babsie held up a picture of Zina.

"Was this the woman who kidnapped you?" she said. "Just nod if you can, Kate."

"Not now, Babsie," Eddie said, but Kate was nodding furiously.

"It was this woman?" Babsie said, confirming her answer.

Kate went on nodding and trying to raise her left hand. She got it up a few inches and held her fingers in the V sign.

"Two?" Babsie said. "Two people?" She could see in Kate's frustration that there was more. But with tubes down her throat and her mouth covered by a square patch of blue material to secure the tubes in place, she couldn't speak. Enough, Eddie thought. She's too fragile.

"Let's do this later," Eddie said.

"She's stronger than you think," Babsie said, overruling him as she'd done for eleven days. "Two women?" Babsie asked as it suddenly came to her. "Two women." Kate nodded. Two women.

She kept reaching for Babsie's notebook. Babsie put the pen in her left hand. She held Kate's arm as the young woman scrawled letters over the page sideways. Four shaky letters, but unmistakably the word ship.

"A ship?" Babsie said. "They kept you on a ship."

Their five minutes ended in three; Eddie wanted the questions over with. Kate's heart rate set off alarms. "Let her calm down," he said. He and Babsie went back to the hallway. The hospital PA system reeled off a series of names: doctors summoned here and there. He recognized none of the names from his days and nights in this hospital. Times change, he thought. Your past evaporates in change.

"I thought your pal Boland had the Coast Guard looking at Borodenko's freighters," Babsie said.

"Doesn't matter now."

Babsie grunted something clearly sarcastic, then walked away, talking on her cell phone, ignoring the sign that prohibited that practice. A wheelchair was ordered for the cardiac unit; a priest was summoned to the OR.

Doctors had assured Eddie that barring unseen complications, she'd be fine. Everyone is fine. The next twenty-four hours are critical-another old hospital saw. We all resort to cliches at a time like this. How about closure? he thought. Why doesn't this feel like closure?

"Believe it or not," Babsie said, snapping her phone closed, "Martha went to pick up Grace from school. You might have to rethink some of your opinions of that woman. She's a tough old bird."

"The cops still with her?"

"Of course. Martha just thought a family member might reassure Grace. It was a nice idea, Eddie."

"How's Kev?"

"Critical, but stable. He knows about Kate, and that perked him up. Probably gonna downgrade him tomorrow."

"The next twenty-four hours are critical."

"Always are," Babsie said, searching his face for whatever that meant.

"We're never going to feel safe until we get Zina," he said.

"When Kate gets a little stronger, she'll be able to tell us more. You're right, though. We don't want to push her right now. Let's hold off until she can handle it. Until then, we'll put a couple of cops here, around the clock. I'll get Yonkers to supply a body."

"Sophie Borodenko knows where Zina is hiding," Eddie said.

"Like she's gonna implicate herself and tell us? Yuri's calling in all his lawyers now. If she's not already on a plane to Moscow."

"Let's go over there."

"Borodenko's house? He has no reason even to let us in the door."

"He'll let us in. I'll tell him who killed Sophie's mother."

"Nunez and Vestri," Babsie said.

"They pulled the trigger. I know who killed her."