Three-Day Town

Chapter


25


Aside from the regular patrolmen there is the Sanitary Squad, that has to do with enforcing health regulation; the Traffic Squad, that regulates the traffic of the great thoroughfares;… the Boiler Squad, that examines engines, boilers, and engineers.



—The New New York, 1909



DWIGHT BRYANT—TUESDAY MORNING (CONTINUED)

I thought you said you’d already searched here,” Hentz said, following Dwight into the dim and cavernous boiler room.

“I didn’t go down to the lower level.” Dwight flipped the switch beside the door and frowned at the low-watt bulb that hung from a cord overhead. “I can’t believe Lundigren kept that thing running with no more light than this.”

He shined his flashlight on the steel steps that led down to the steam boiler. Near the bottom was another wall switch, and this one turned on an array of fluorescent tubes concealed from above by the crossbeams to which the fixtures were attached.

While Hentz watched from the upper level, Dwight ducked under the many pipes and edged past the boiler into a recess in the wall beneath Hentz’s feet.

“See anything?” Hentz called when Dwight disappeared from view.

“Looks like a barrel of rags back here.” Dwight’s voice bounced and echoed off the concrete walls and metal pipes.

He approached the chest-high barrel cautiously and gave it a shove that tipped it over and sent it clanging along the floor. “Nothing but rags,” he called up to Hentz.

As he stooped to avoid the pipes that crisscrossed overhead, he heard an oddly familiar yet unidentifiable noise carried to his ears by an acoustical trick of the pipes. “Was that you?” he asked Hentz.

“Was what me?”

“I don’t know. I thought heard something.” He put his ear close to the return pipes but heard only the faint flow of water. As he started back around the boiler, he noticed a low flush door with simple thumb latch. He stooped to open it and flashed the light inside a space that opened up higher at the back and seemed to terminate in a door secured with a heavy padlock. “Looks like it might have been the coal bin when the boiler was coal-fired,” he said.

Again, he flashed the light all around and under the antiquated boiler, to no avail.

“I could’ve sworn this would be the sort of place he would hole up in,” Dwight said.

As he came back up, he flicked off the bright lights till they were once again in near darkness, and his conviction was stronger than ever. That unexpected noise he had heard while below only strengthened it.

“You ever go deer hunting?” he asked Hentz.

“Huh?”

“Deer can’t count, you know. They’ll stay in the bushes and watch while four guys climb up into a deer stand.” Dwight had gradually lowered his voice till Hentz could barely hear him. “When three guys climb back down and leave, the buck doesn’t know there’s still a man in the stand.”

“Because deer can’t count?” Hentz asked, humoring him.

“You got it, pal.” Raising his voice to a normal conversational level, Dwight said, “No, we can cross the boiler room off. He’s not here.”

He opened the door for Hentz, gave the detective a significant look as the other man passed through, and in one fluid motion flipped off the light and slammed the door loudly.

Then he stood in the darkness and waited. Almost immediately, he heard a faint sigh, followed by that same rustling sound he’d noticed before.

It came again and he finally recognized it for what it was. His first impulse was to dig Jackson out of his hiding place and wring his scrawny neck. Instead, he opened the door and motioned Hentz back inside.

“He’s over there,” he told the detective. “Burrowed down deep in that bin full of tarps and drop cloths. I was sloppy when I checked it the first time. Didn’t go down far enough.”

Hentz walked over to the wooden bin and gave it a kick. “Come on out, Jackson. It’s over.”

They heard strangled noises as that pile of plastic tarps heaved and shifted till the night man surfaced and stood up. His face was contorted and they realized that he was crying like a guilty child who fears there’s a whipping in his future.

“I didn’t mean to!” Sidney Jackson sobbed when he hoisted himself over the edge of the bin. “They made me do it.” He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. “They made me! Phil! And Corey! Oh, God, Corey!” he wailed. “I knew him since he was a baby. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t! I used to help take his stroller in and out. I let him pull the gate back for me when he was just a little kid. Why would I want to hurt him? Three minutes later—three lousy minutes!—and he’d still be alive.” He wiped his streaming eyes and nose and tried to make them understand his hard luck.

“You think I wanted them dead? But they kept popping up. Every time I turned around, there they were—Phil, Corey, even Mrs. Bryant. Every damn time! I couldn’t let them tell, could I? Could I?”

Sobbing as they led him out into the basement, he was a mixture of remorse and indignation. Grief for his victims mingled with petulance and self-pity for what he felt they had forced him to do. He collapsed onto the nearest chair and buried his face in his hands, blubbering and snuffling.

“Where is she?” Dwight snarled. “What have you done with my wife?”

“I didn’t want to hurt her,” Sidney sobbed, “but she was out there on the sidewalk when I got here to beat the garbage truck. She found Corey. She wanted me to call 911. She was going to tell. What could I do?”