The Fifth Angel

by Tim Green

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

From all appearances, Jack Ruskin is a mild-mannered and well-respected lawyer practicing in New York. But he is also living every parent's nightmare - his teenage daughter has recently been the victim of a brutal and horrific attack by a sexual predator.

Release date: December 12, 2007

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

CHAPTER 1

Despite the horror of his crime, there was a chance that Eugene Tupp might go free. The legal system was a board game. Right didn’t always prevail. Chance could supersede justice. That’s what Jack Ruskin was afraid of.

A mist hung in the night air, muting the light. Fluorescent street lamps glowed pale blue. The scent of damp concrete and pavement floated up, mixing with the smell of cooked onions blown outside by an unseen kitchen fan somewhere down the side alley. Jack Ruskin lifted a ream of paper from the passenger seat of his Saab convertible. He tucked the bulky package beneath his long raincoat and, with his briefcase in the other hand, stumbled into the Brick Alley Café.

He stepped up onto the dining room floor and surveyed the tables, looking past the inquisitive hostess. Gavin Donohue was in the back, beyond the old wood bar and its high leather chairs, back near the emergency exit. Gavin sat upright beneath a copied Monet. He faced the quiet crowd, a big dark Irishman with the stoic expression of an elected official. He was the D.A. of Nassau County. When he reached for his wineglass, a silver Rolex Submariner flashed on his wrist.

Jack made his way through the mill of waiters and waitresses. They were dressed in white shirts and black bow ties and moved with expedient politeness. When Jack bumped one he turned to excuse himself, jostling a second, tangling his legs, and losing his balance. His papers spilled in a gusher on the hardwood floor.

Jack cursed quietly and knelt down. He thanked the staff and even the other diners who bent down to help him collect his things. Gavin got up and came halfway across the room to help.

“Not the best place for this,” Jack said, rising, his face feeling warm. He adjusted his glasses, looking through the steam and up into Gavin’s face.

“I thought you’d like some dinner,” Gavin said, handing him a transcript sheet from the floor. “Come on, let’s sit down.”

Gavin tucked himself back in the corner, still upright. He was tall and thick, and his thinning dark hair matched his eyes. His cherry face was made serious by a concrete smile. Even years ago, when they’d been young assistants together in the D.A.’s office in Brooklyn, people had been afraid of Gavin.

Jack set his briefcase on the floor beside his chair, then thumped his stack of papers down on the linen tablecloth. He took off his coat, tossed it over the back of his chair, and sat down, loosening his tie.

Jack knew Gavin had something to say to him and he didn’t like the precipitous angle of his old friend’s eyebrows. He felt short of breath. His heart pumped faster. He moved the brass lamp on the table and the flowers to one side. Yellow stick’um flags sprouted from the ream. Jack reached for the one closest to the top, pulling out the page. He wanted to talk, to keep Gavin from talking.

“I’m not telling you what to do,” he said, “but I just don’t think this Unger woman is the right one to be doing the cross on a witness, any witness. Listen to this: ‘Mr. Billings, do you—’”

“Jack.”

“—‘do you think that you might have been mistaken wh—’”

“Jack.”

“You don’t ask someone if they ‘might’ be mistaken on a cross, Gavin,” Jack said. “I don’t want to sound peevish, but goddamn.”

“Jack, stop.”

“What?”

“Just stop.” Gavin’s face turned to stone. He said flatly, “The judge ruled to exclude the van.”

The quiet din of the busy restaurant suddenly sounded to Jack as if it came through a long tube. He saw the rest of the evidence falling like dominoes. The van. The blood. The chloroform. The duct tape. Without them, they couldn’t hope to prove that Eugene Tupp was the monster who had abducted his daughter. It was the kidnapping charge that would put that piece of human scum away until he was either harmless or dead. His stomach gave a violent heave.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin was saying. “I wanted to tell you in person.”

“You’re serious,” Jack heard himself say.

“Jack, you of all people knew this was a problem from the start. The cop busted into his garage with a crowbar, for God’s sake,” Gavin said.

“The garage was attached to the house,” Jack said, accenting the point of law.

The search warrant was for Eugene Tupp’s house. In New York State that meant just the house. If the garage was separate, then anything found inside couldn’t be used as evidence. The police should have gone back and gotten another warrant for the garage. They were too anxious.

“Not in the traditional sense maybe,” Jack said, “but the covered walkway, that could be construed—”

“Jack,” Gavin said. “He ruled the van inadmissible. He’s not going to change. You know that.”

Jack stood. He looked around for something. Then he lifted the massive transcript off the table and slammed it down to the floor, where it burst into a flurry of paper. The restaurant went quiet. Heads turned. Gavin backed them all down with his darkest scowl.

“Please,” he said to Jack. “Sit down.”

Jack dug into his pocket and took out a wallet-sized photo of his little girl: Janet. She stared back at him with his own glass blue eyes, her long radiant blond hair—also his—tucked back behind her ears, a small smile on her pretty face. She was only fifteen when it was taken. Only fifteen when Tupp snatched her, and left her with a shattered mind.

“This is my little girl,” Jack said in a husky voice. He slapped the picture down on the table in front of his old friend, rattling the silverware and the ice in the water glasses. A messy purple stain began to spread from the base of Gavin’s wineglass.

Gavin didn’t look.

“I’m going to get the max on the rape charge,” he said. “He’ll do time.”

“Time? How much?” Jack said, his voice rising. Heads began to turn again. “Four years? Five? Six? He did time before. Do you know what he did to her? He shouldn’t do time. He should be strapped to the fucking chair!”

Gavin removed one hand from the edge of the table and grasped the knot of his tie, shaking it loose like a dog tugging on a sock. His face was scarlet now. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

“It’s not a perfect system, Jack.” He looked around and lowered his voice into a raspy plea. “This is not my fault.”

Jack felt his anger and disgust peak and then begin to wane. His face drooped. His shoulders sagged. He felt weary, but not weary from being run too hard. He felt instead like a man who had been tied up and beaten with a pipe.

He took a deep tired breath and exhaled his words. They sounded hollow, empty. “I know that, Gavin,” he said, pocketing the photo. “Did I ever tell you why Angela left?”

Gavin cleared his throat and shook his head no.

“She found this rich fat bastard from the club, but that wasn’t really it,” Jack said. “I was supposed to pick Janet up the day he got her.

“This whole thing . . .” Jack said. “It’s not your fault. It’s my fault.”

Jack turned and stumbled back through the crowded tables like a bum. Instead of going straight for the entrance, he turned and banged his way outside through the emergency exit door and into a garbage-strewn alley. An alarm howled after him. Jack didn’t care. He felt Gavin’s hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll get him, Jack,” Gavin said. He handed Jack his briefcase. “I’ll get him for everything I can . . . I wish it were more. I do.”

Jack said nothing. They reached the end of the alley. Gavin stopped. Jack kept going, plodding slowly up the sidewalk through the mist and to his car. The melancholy glow of the streetlight illuminated a parking ticket on his windshield. Jack didn’t bother with it. He drove home with it flapping in protest. It stopped when he reached the assembly of barren trees that lined his cobblestone driveway.

His vast home was illuminated in a haphazard, uneven manner. More than half the exterior lights buried in the yard had burned out months ago. Still, there were enough random beams of light to make out the rich orange brick and the tangled gray tendrils of dormant ivy as they snaked their way delicately across the intricate white trim. The tall mullioned windows were dark and empty. Many of them hid behind ornate wrought-iron balconies. After Jack turned off the car, he sat for a moment in the garage listening to the tick of the engine as it cooled.

Inside the house he found the big handgun he had recently purchased. It lay at the bottom of his underwear drawer under a mess of unfolded clothes. Behind the purchase of the gun was a wild scheme that hadn’t fully taken hold, a rage building up inside him that needed a vent, but now it seemed to him that the gun’s true purpose was more horrible than what he had originally imagined. Or had he known all along in the back of his mind that this was the fate that awaited him?

He descended the long curving staircase with the cool black Glock 9mm in his hand. He found a bottle of Chivas Regal in the kitchen. A pizza box lay open on the table, exposing greasy stains, crumbs, and three chewed-over crusts. In the corner of the sticky floor was a haphazard stack of newspapers. Without thinking Jack filled a tall glass with ice from the machine and then poured in the Scotch until it nearly overflowed. He sat at the kitchen table and began to sip. The ice jiggled noisily in its bath of liquor. Jack’s hands were quivering.

He thought again of Eugene Tupp and what he had done. Without the van and the evidence inside it, the man would spend no more than six years in jail, and given the crowding of New York’s penal system, he was likely to be free in much less. It was so wrong. Tupp would be out and free to attack someone else’s little girl and that ate away at Jack’s insides.

He had taken to drinking Maalox to get him through the day. But Jack believed that he deserved to suffer. After all, this was his fault. Like his wife—his ex-wife—everyone else seemed to know that, too.

The Scotch was nearly gone when he lifted the gun from the tabletop. He brought the barrel to his lips. Tears spilled down Jack’s cheeks. The gun barrel slipped effortlessly into his mouth. He wasn’t bothered by the tangy taste of metal against his tongue. But when the end of the barrel tickled the back of his throat, he had to fight the urge to gag.

Jack felt himself unravel like an industrial spring. His tears were now accompanied by heaving sobs that grew in strength, sobs for Janet, sobs for himself, sobs for the injustice and the futility of life.

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, wondering what it would feel like to die.

Then he pulled the gun from his mouth and slammed it down on the table. If he was mad enough to kill himself, then fine. He could always do that. But he would be damned if he weren’t going to kill someone else first.

CHAPTER 2

Amanda Lee’s eyes burst open at the sound of the radio and she thought of oatmeal. She read in People magazine that Demi Moore cooked oatmeal for her kids. Amanda couldn’t shake the notion that it sounded like a very motherly thing to do, and today she was going to stop thinking about it—whether it was silly or not to do something because Demi Moore did it—and just do it. She flipped the clock radio off and slipped quietly out of bed.

Parker, her husband, moaned and rolled away from her. The ring of faded brown hair that circled his balding head was a wild tangle. Amanda sighed to herself, then kissed her fingertips and placed them gently on the back of his naked head.

She wanted to love him.

She dressed herself in running shorts and a faded Georgetown University soccer T-shirt, crept past the kids’ rooms, and tiptoed downstairs. Six at six. Six miles at six o’clock. That was the resolution she had come up with about a month ago after she’d had to get into a bathing suit at Hershey Park. A small boy had mistaken her for his own mother, and when Amanda had seen the size of the real mother’s rump, she’d decided to get serious. She’d been wanting to get back in shape anyway. In college she was a whip. That all faded after the kids, but she was determined.

At the Bureau women didn’t worry about their looks. It was a man’s world and femininity had no place. That was fine. Amanda didn’t need her looks to compete. Still, there was no reason that with some effort she couldn’t have both. It was like her home life. There was no reason she couldn’t be a successful agent and a good mother. It was like a dual major. It just took effort.

She laced up her shoes on the front steps and stretched a little in the chill morning air. She put on her headset and tuned into Bob Edwards on NPR. Although she’d never met him, she loved Bob. She felt like he could relate. He was understated but smart, and she knew she could count on him to always be up and talking at this ungodly hour.

She ran the streets, passing row after row of squat shingled suburban homes. The sky grew brighter. Finally the day began. The sun came up and she washed away the sweat in the shower. The rest of her family was still asleep, and now she felt good. She looked in the mirror and decided to put on some makeup, not for Parker, but because she was going to see the other mothers today. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with them.

There was never anything to say and she hadn’t had the chance to go to lunch or out for coffee, as so many of them seemed to do. Some of them didn’t work at all. Those who did had nine-to-five jobs. In her family it was Parker who did most of the driving around and the pickups and drop-offs at school. He was the one with the nine-to-five job. He sold heavy equipment for Virginia Supply and when times were good, he could come and go as he pleased.

She pulled on a black Donna Karan sweat suit. She wanted to look good without appearing to have tried. She was neither tall nor short. And while no one would call her ravishing, she knew from the woman at Lord & Taylor that a little makeup applied in the right places brought out the green in her big almond-shaped eyes, the best of her otherwise plain features. Her red hair, too, cut shoulder length, straight and styled, had become an asset—although her more inflexible friends sometimes grew annoyed at the way a certain lock always seemed to curve back across her cheek, sometimes infringing on her eye and begging to be pushed back into place. Occasionally she would wear bright red lipstick to better define her small thin lips, but only on the rare occasions that she and Parker had someplace special to go.

Finished, Amanda smiled doubtfully at herself in the mirror and went back downstairs to cook her oatmeal. The rich aroma of the cereal mixed pleasantly with the smells of spring that drifted in through the kitchen window on a warm breeze. Amanda breathed deep and sighed, considering the next three days. This was exactly what she needed, no travel, no late nights. Instead she would live the life of a normal suburban mother. It was a reprieve from the grind of her latest case.

The children stirred upstairs.

She heard Parker thump his way to the bathroom and flick on the screeching shower. Just as the cereal was ready, they all began to appear. Her nine-year-old son, Teddy, wandered into the kitchen. Teddy had the round red face of his father with Amanda’s hair. He was oblivious to her, tousle-headed, wearing just his pajama bottoms and playing an electronic Gameboy. His little sister, Glenda, wasn’t far behind him. She, on the other hand, was already dressed in a pink jumper. She had pulled her own brown hair into pigtails and tied them off with two pink hairbands.

“Hi, Mommy,” she said, her voice nearly chirping. “You’re going to come with me to Brownies today after school, right?”

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Amanda said, kissing her daughter. “Yes I am.

“And what about you?” she asked her son. “Don’t I get a good morning from you?”

“Oh, hi, Mom,” Teddy said without lifting his head.

“Did you do your homework last night?” Amanda asked.

“Maybe,’’ he said. Not even looking her in the eye.

She watched his face.

“Why does it matter?” he asked.

A thick lump grew in her throat. “You have to do well in school,” she said.

“What was I supposed to do last night?” he asked.

She didn’t know. “Wasn’t it that science project?” she said. “That thing you were doing with worms and electricity?’’

“Electricity kills worms, Mom. That was two different assignments and about four months ago.’’

“What’s this about electric worms?” Parker said in his booming southern drawl. He had burst into the kitchen still working on his necktie. He was flush with the raw cheerfulness that had attracted Amanda to him so many years ago. Now it grated on her, but she let him kiss her cheek and hug her from behind.

Amanda even leaned back into him. Parker was a big man, heavyset and solid like a bear despite a stomach that was beginning to get away from him. She thought it would be good for the kids to see them that way, and she squeezed his thick hand while she stirred the pot. It troubled her to show him affection for appearance’ sake. She wanted to mean it. She wanted this moment to touch her deep down. She concentrated on the sun’s warmth, the smells of the kitchen, and the comfortable sound of a family.

But before she could really feel it, the phone rang.

Amanda turned and looked at it on the wall. She looked questioningly at Parker, who scowled in turn. It kept ringing until he finally said, “Well, aren’t you going to answer it? It’s not for me.”

“Me neither,” Teddy piped in.

Glenda grinned and stuck out her tongue at her older brother as Amanda finally picked up the phone.

“He got another one.”

It was Marco Rivolaggio, assistant special agent in charge, her nominal boss and sometimes partner.

“Where?” she asked.

“Just outside Atlanta,” he said. “Fourteen years old.”

CHAPTER 3

Amanda looked involuntarily at her own little girl. Her stomach plunged and she swallowed the wash of bile. The bubble was burst.

“This time the body is fresh,” Marco said. “Some guy pulled over on the side of the highway last night into one of those rest areas. He wandered into the bushes to do his business and found her. From what they’re saying, it sounds like it might have happened late yesterday.”

“Then he’s still close by.”

“According to your theory,” Marco said, “he shouldn’t be far. There’s a flight from National at eight-fifteen . . .”

Amanda looked at the clock on the wall, trying not to let Parker’s scowl rattle her. Sometimes he acted like he were ten.

“I’ll be on it,” she said. “Let me get a bag together and I’ll call you from the car.”

She hung up and braced herself before turning to face her family.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“But what about Brownies?” Glenda said.

Amanda felt desperate. She looked at Parker. He pursed his lips and shook his head as if he wouldn’t help.

“Parker?” she said, trying not to let it sound like she was pleading.

“Oh, I know,” he said, his features softening. “Drink water on the flight. Helps with the headache.’’

Glenda absently twisted her spoon in the cereal, her head down like her brother’s.

Parker watched her, took a breath, and said, “Your mother is an important lady. She’ll be back soon.’’

Amanda heard her daughter’s soft acceptance as she bounded up the stairs. Minutes later, Amanda was dressed in a navy blue linen skirt and jacket with an eggshell blouse and flat shoes. She kissed Teddy on the head, then stopped in front of Glenda and knelt down.

“Honey, I’m really sorry about Brownies.” She looked up into her daughter’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

Glenda lifted her head toward her father. He nodded. Her lower lip curled a little and she nodded, too.

“I’m the star of the week,” she said. Her little voice was quiet. “I get to go first in everything we do.”

“Well,” Amanda said, “you’ll be a great star.”

She kissed Glenda again, then stood up to kiss Parker.

“Here,” he said gently, handing her a napkin off the table.

“For what?” she asked.

“You’ve . . .” he said. “There’s something in your eye.”

Amanda took the napkin, looked at the clock, and rushed out the door. She called ahead to the airport to arrange clearance with the airline for her gun then dialed up Marco, who said he needed to call her back. That was fine. It gave her time to think. She forced her mind away from the spoiled plans at home.

There was nothing she could do. She thought of Parker’s words about her being important. It wasn’t that. It was her job. Her job was important. Her plans with the kids were a cool fog, forgotten in the midday heat. She was fully focused now on the case she’d been working for the past ten months.

During the last five years, since Glenda had turned two, Amanda had established herself as one of the FBI’s preeminent investigators of serial killers. Her colleagues were almost exclusively male, mostly in their forties and fifties. Amanda knew why she was part of that elite group. She wasn’t conceited, but it was an objective fact that her IQ had enabled her to go through college with a double major in just three years at the top of her class. She’d finished her master’s in one. But beyond being highly intelligent, she soon found as an agent that she had something you couldn’t learn from books, something she was more proud of than her intellect. She had instincts.

To date every case she’d been assigned she had also solved. It had gotten so that it was no longer an embarrassment for even her male chauvinistic counterparts to call her in for an opinion. She was quickly developing a reputation. This case, however, was proving to be her most difficult. It was also the most horrifying.

The victims were young. Amanda couldn’t even think to herself about what happened to them. She had to block that out. With other killers, she had been able to consider the victims with the detachment of a medical examiner. But not these. These were too young, too mutilated. Oh, she had seen the bodies and the detailed autopsy reports. But she’d take the information and plug it into her mental profile formula, then never think about them again. She just couldn’t, not if she wanted to stop him. The hatred would be too much of a distraction.

Her cell phone rang. It was Marco. He was busy helping coordinate with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation as well as the state police. They were covering every hotel, motel, and campground within a twenty-mile radius. It was no small task, but absolutely essential.

“And they all know to be low-k. . .