The Cold Room by Robert Knightly Page A

beer and headed for my air-conditioned bedroom, settling on the bed. It was a mistake. My thoughts turned to Adele, to her weary, distant tone, and I couldn’t get her out of my head. I told myself that I was reading too much into a brief and simple message. If Adele seemed reserved, so what? Adele was reserved at the best of times; reserve was one of her assets, it leant her an air of mystery and assurance.
    But I couldn’t convince myself. Like all interrogators, I live by my gut, and my gut was telling me that Adele’s sudden trip to Maryland was more about flight than her mother’s gastro-intestinal problems. No, Adele had been drifting away from me for some time and now she’d taken that extra step the distance was physical. The saddest part was that I might have asked her what was wrong at any point. And I might have continued to ask until I got an answer.
    I hadn’t because I had feared the answer. I’d been through the separation process many times, both as dumper and dumped. I knew that what awaited me on the far end of any break-up was a loneliness so intense it bordered on fear. A loneliness that would soon drive me to the bars in search of any female willing to put her arms around my waist.
    Long ago, as a boy, I’d gone through a phase where I tried to earn the approval of my druggie parents by transforming myself into the perfect child. (God knows, tantrums and whining were of no use at all.) That meant becoming a little adult, responsible, industrious, eager to please. The effort was doomed from the beginning and I gave up after a couple of years. I would always be an afterthought in my parents’ lives and there was no bridging the gap.
    â€˜Oh, there’s the kid. How’s it goin’, kid?’
    I’m good at self-pity. No surprise, as I lived on it until I was old enough to go out on the streets of the Lower East Side and forge alliances strong enough to substitute for family. Then I abandoned my parents as surely as they’d abandoned me, my rejection of them so complete that I did not – and wasn’t tempted to – attend my father’s funeral.
    I rolled off the bed, walked to my sweltering office and waited impatiently for my computer to load. Then I pulled up the image of my victim and created a flier I could pass out. I included my name and rank, an untraceable cell-phone number that I routinely gave to informants, and the simple fact that Plain Jane Doe had been murdered.
    Though I tried to focus my thoughts on the long search ahead, I couldn’t shake off the images presented by Clyde Kelly: the fat man with the narrow eyes; the body dragged over the dirt and weeds; the victim’s chin coming up until her dead eyes met Kelly’s, until she spoke to him, ‘Help me, help me, help me.’ If ever anyone had been abandoned, it was my victim, half frozen before her death, eviscerated afterward, finally left to the mercy of the sun and the flies.
    In the space of a few seconds, I recalled the late afternoon thunderstorm, the clouds flying up and the hail that pounded her body, and the lightning that burst all around me, listening until the noise overwhelmed every other sense. I told myself to let Adele go, if that was what she wanted. I told myself that my first obligation was to this slain girl and I could not abandon her, come what may. Of course, I knew, even then, that I wasn’t about to let Adele go, not without a fight. But that wasn’t really the point. No, the point was that Jane Doe #4805 had a right to justice, my personal problems be damned. Adele was a big girl. She had a good job. She could make her way in the world. For Jane, there was only me.
    I went online and dragged up a list of Polish churches in New York. As expected, the largest was in Greenpoint, but there were others in each of the city’s five boroughs. Eventually, I would visit them all. I knew this even before Jane’s prints cleared every