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Authors: C. K. Chandler
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little. Jordan and I haven’t made a secret about who we want. Why did you wait this long before talking?”
“Maybe if I knew what your case was all about I’d have come sooner. You guys are being pretty secretive about it. And you’re a hard one, Nicholas. A fucking hard one. When was the last time you did me a favor? You want to be a fucking loner, I figure, fuck you, be a loner.”
“What did it say, Daley?”
“Made no sense. I tore it up and flushed it down the toilet. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe ’cause I was still green to the job. I think the woman wrote it. It said, ‘God told me to.’ Do me a favor and keep it to yourself that I tore it up.”
In a Brooklyn hospital Nicholas and Jordan discovered a twenty-one-year-old record documenting the birth of a male child to a Judith C. Phillips. They hadn’t found the record earlier because no Christian name had been given the child before it left the hospital. The child was simply listed as Baby Boy Phillips. He was born in a charity ward. The intern who attended the delivery was now a successful Park Avenue obstetrician.
The neighborhood where the dual suicide had occurred was much changed from what it had been ten years ago. The corner grocery store was now called a bodega. The Sanitation Department didn’t make as many pickups as it used to. Nicholas and Jordan went knocking on doors. They found a few residents who hadn’t moved with the change and who remembered the suicides.
The victims had kept to themselves and seldom said more than a couple words to anybody. They had moved to the neighborhood shortly after their marriage. Judith Phillips was already pregnant. Her husband was rumored to have had his own accounting business which he gave up after the birth of their child. The child had rarely been seen. The woman remembered the child as being very beautiful with pale skin and delicate features. He never played with other children. Two women blamed the child for the Phillipses’ isolation. They believed he suffered from a defect which embarrassed his parents. This, they said, would explain why the father gave up his business to stay home. And as proof of their theory, they pointed to the child’s awful paleness and the fact that guardrails were kept on the Phillipses’ ground-floor windows.
The Deputy Commissioner placed his hands over their report and slowly shook his head. His eyes narrowed with suspicion and his thin lips were pulled tight. Ice was in his voice.
“There is little that is specific in this report.”
Nicholas said, “Sir, it’s as if somebody deliberately and carefully has kept Bernard Phillips hidden all his life.”
Hendriks stared coolly at Jordan. “You two wouldn’t be trying to put something over on me.”
“Everything we’ve learned is in the report,” said Jordan.
“That isn’t very much.”
Nicholas spoke up. “Sir, the lack of information is what’s significant. It’s the exact opposite of a case which has too many suspects.”
“Lieutenant, this whole business is the result of your talking me into it. I gave you a shot. Once you turned up with a name, I gave you free rein. Don’t think this hasn’t been noticed by others. People are becoming curious. Both about what it is you’re doing and by the expenses you are running up. Do you have any idea what would happen if this report should get out? Frankly, we would all look like idiots. I have no intention of letting that happen. Do you understand, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. I think you—”
“I assume you have no objections to answering a few questions which this report has prompted?”
“No, sir.”
“Fine. Now it says here certain people suggested that the child known as Baby Boy Phillips on the records, and whom you claim is Bernard Phillips, possibly suffered from birth defects. Why haven’t you checked with the doctor who delivered the baby?”
“The man is vacationing in Europe,” Nicholas answered. “I’ve made an
“Maybe if I knew what your case was all about I’d have come sooner. You guys are being pretty secretive about it. And you’re a hard one, Nicholas. A fucking hard one. When was the last time you did me a favor? You want to be a fucking loner, I figure, fuck you, be a loner.”
“What did it say, Daley?”
“Made no sense. I tore it up and flushed it down the toilet. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe ’cause I was still green to the job. I think the woman wrote it. It said, ‘God told me to.’ Do me a favor and keep it to yourself that I tore it up.”
In a Brooklyn hospital Nicholas and Jordan discovered a twenty-one-year-old record documenting the birth of a male child to a Judith C. Phillips. They hadn’t found the record earlier because no Christian name had been given the child before it left the hospital. The child was simply listed as Baby Boy Phillips. He was born in a charity ward. The intern who attended the delivery was now a successful Park Avenue obstetrician.
The neighborhood where the dual suicide had occurred was much changed from what it had been ten years ago. The corner grocery store was now called a bodega. The Sanitation Department didn’t make as many pickups as it used to. Nicholas and Jordan went knocking on doors. They found a few residents who hadn’t moved with the change and who remembered the suicides.
The victims had kept to themselves and seldom said more than a couple words to anybody. They had moved to the neighborhood shortly after their marriage. Judith Phillips was already pregnant. Her husband was rumored to have had his own accounting business which he gave up after the birth of their child. The child had rarely been seen. The woman remembered the child as being very beautiful with pale skin and delicate features. He never played with other children. Two women blamed the child for the Phillipses’ isolation. They believed he suffered from a defect which embarrassed his parents. This, they said, would explain why the father gave up his business to stay home. And as proof of their theory, they pointed to the child’s awful paleness and the fact that guardrails were kept on the Phillipses’ ground-floor windows.
The Deputy Commissioner placed his hands over their report and slowly shook his head. His eyes narrowed with suspicion and his thin lips were pulled tight. Ice was in his voice.
“There is little that is specific in this report.”
Nicholas said, “Sir, it’s as if somebody deliberately and carefully has kept Bernard Phillips hidden all his life.”
Hendriks stared coolly at Jordan. “You two wouldn’t be trying to put something over on me.”
“Everything we’ve learned is in the report,” said Jordan.
“That isn’t very much.”
Nicholas spoke up. “Sir, the lack of information is what’s significant. It’s the exact opposite of a case which has too many suspects.”
“Lieutenant, this whole business is the result of your talking me into it. I gave you a shot. Once you turned up with a name, I gave you free rein. Don’t think this hasn’t been noticed by others. People are becoming curious. Both about what it is you’re doing and by the expenses you are running up. Do you have any idea what would happen if this report should get out? Frankly, we would all look like idiots. I have no intention of letting that happen. Do you understand, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. I think you—”
“I assume you have no objections to answering a few questions which this report has prompted?”
“No, sir.”
“Fine. Now it says here certain people suggested that the child known as Baby Boy Phillips on the records, and whom you claim is Bernard Phillips, possibly suffered from birth defects. Why haven’t you checked with the doctor who delivered the baby?”
“The man is vacationing in Europe,” Nicholas answered. “I’ve made an
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