Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(90)

“Oh, hush, everyone,” she tells them above mad barking. “Come in, Detectives.”

Rocky steps into the busiest apartment he’s ever seen. It’s packed with furniture, and every flat surface is covered with stacks of mail, magazines, books—thrillers, mostly—along with evidence of myriad hobbies and relics of devout Irish Catholicism.

She moves a stack of newspapers from a sofa and gestures for them to sit.

They do, wanting to relax her, though they’re pressed for time. They’re meeting Dale Reiss in about a half hour downtown.

“Would you like some tea?” Diana Wade asks with a trace of brogue. “I can turn on the kettle and it will be ready in a flash.”

Brandewyne shakes her head. “No, thank you.” What she wants, Rocky knows, is a cigarette. He can tell by the way she’s holding a pen between her index and middle fingers.

“We just have a few questions for you, Ms. Wade,” Rocky tells her, “and then we’ll let you go back to sleep. Again, I’m sorry we had to wake you up.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble. What can I do for you?” Diana sits on a chair across from the sofa. The canine crew settles at her feet, three sets of puppy dog eyes warily fixed on the visitors. Their mistress looks to be in her early sixties and barely tops five feet, but more than likely surpasses two hundred pounds.

For all her warmth, she’s got a no-nonsense aura about her, courtesy of her past occupations as a nanny and schoolteacher, and now running a soup kitchen in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

“Emily Reiss said that we should speak to you about a man we’re trying to find,” Rocky tells her as Brandewyne opens a notebook and switches the pen’s position, ready to write with it.

“So you said on the phone. Who is the man?”

“His name is Jerry—I don’t know his last name—but he and his mother used to live in the neighborhood.”

“Jerry Thompson?”

Rocky looks at Brandewyne and shrugs. “He would be in his early to mid twenties, stocky build . . .”

“Mentally handicapped,” Brandewyne puts in.

“That’s Jerry Thompson.”

Thompson—it would have to be a relatively common last name, wouldn’t it? Why couldn’t it be something like Di Bernarducci?

“Poor thing was sharp as a tack before his injury, you know,” Diana is saying, and Rocky snaps back to attention.

“Injury. What happened to him?” Brandewyne scribbles something in her tablet.

“His twin sister bashed his head in with a cast-iron skillet, that’s what happened.”

Rocky’s eyes widen. Brandewyne’s head jerks up and she meets his startled gaze with raised eyebrows.

“When was this?” he asks Diana Wade.

“Maybe five, ten years ago—yes, ten,” she amends with a firm nod. “At least. Time goes by so quickly, doesn’t it?”

Brandewyne agrees that it does.

Thoughts whirling, Rocky asks, “What happened, exactly, with the sister?”

“There was always something off about her, that one. Lights were on but nobody was home, if you know what I mean. I always kept a close eye on her when she was around because she gave me such a bad feeling. Some people are just . . . evil. That girl was one of them.” Diana shudders and crosses herself.

“Do you remember her name?” Rocky asks.

“Oh, sure. I never forget a thing.”

“What was it?”

“It was Jamie.”

“Jamie,” he echoes, and Brandewyne writes it down. “And do you know where we can find her, by any chance?”

“Oh, she’s at Pinelawn out in Farmingdale.”

“Pinelawn?” he echoes incredulously, certain he must have heard wrong.

“Yes. We took up a collection for the cremation and mausoleum because her mother couldn’t afford to bury her, and—”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Brandewyne cuts in.

Simultaneously, Rocky asks, “Bury who?”

They can only stare, dumbfounded, as Diana Wade pulls the rug out from under them with a matter-of-fact “Jerry’s sister, Jamie. She was killed just a few days after she attacked her brother.”

Crouched on the floor beside his mother’s bed in a fetal position, Jerry rocks back and forth, terrified.

A few minutes ago, all he wanted was for Jamie to come back.

Now, he’s terrified of what will happen when Jamie returns.

Jamie does bad things. Jerry knew that before, but . . .

“I only do bad things to people who deserve it, Jerry. You know that, right?”

That’s what Jamie said.

But Jamie is a liar. Jerry didn’t know that. Not until now.

Jamie said Mama left, but she didn’t. She’s right here. She was right here all along . . .

Dead.

Jerry knew she was dead the second he laid eyes on her, lying there in her bed on stained sheets, her skin dark and rotting away.

Jamie must have known it, too. Maybe Jamie is even the one who did this.

Maybe that’s why Jerry wasn’t supposed to come in here. Jamie was protecting him again.

I should have listened. I shouldn’t have come in here.

Now I’m trapped in this apartment with Mama’s dead body, because Jamie said not to leave. This time, I have to listen, because if I don’t, Jamie will be even madder at me.