“Clarence, it may not look like it,” I say, “but things are turning our way.”
“How you figure that?”
“Those magazines burning on my front seat are filled with stories that are going to help us win this case. Even my car is going to make a great picture and will open people’s eyes to what’s happening out here.”
But nothing I say registers on Clarence’s face. It’s as if whatever optimism he has been able to muster and cling to over the course of a hard lifetime has been exposed as bunk.
On this Monday night in January, the Ditch Plains neighborhood is quiet and dark. Not Mack’s place, though! It’s lit up like a Christmas tree, and when we pull up, Mack stands in the doorway in his raggy plaid bathrobe. Two police cars are just leaving.
“Oh, no!” cries Kate, and jumps out of the car. But Mack, who’s got his walking stick in one hand and a scotch in the other, won’t hear of it.
“It’s nothing at all, darling girl,” he says. “Just a pebble through the window. At my age, I’m grateful for whatever attention I can get.”
Despite Mack’s protests, I insist on leaving Wingo with the two of them. A sweet-natured pooch who hasn’t met a face he didn’t want to lick isn’t much of a watchdog, but at least he’ll make some noise.
Then I get back into the car with Clarence. “You hear that shite Mack was saying to Kate on the porch,” I say with my best Irish brogue. “No big deal, darlin’ girl. Just a pebble. It’s the same shameless tripe I was saying about my car ten minutes ago. That son of a bitch is after my girl, Clarence, and we’ve got the same strategy.”
“You better keep an eye on the old goat,” says Clarence, almost smiling. “I hear he’s been stockpiling Viagra. Buys it over the Internet in bulk.”
“That’s not even close to being funny.”
Chapter 68. Tom
I DON’T LIKE leaving Kate at Mack’s, but she insisted she’ll be okay, that they’ll be okay. The thing is, I wish that Kate would stay with me tonight. I’ve felt that way for a while, and it’s driving me a little crazy, but especially after what’s just happened.
It feels strange to enter my house and not hear Wingo scamper on down the long, dark hallway, to not hear the jangle of his collar against his metal bowl or his tongue slurping up water.
Along with the dogless quiet is a faint metallic odor I can’t quite identify. Unpleasant, like dried sweat. Maybe it’s me. It’s been a long day.
I follow the hallway into the kitchen, grab a beer, and stare through the sliding glass doors at my backyard. I still don’t care that much about my car, but the intensity of the town’s hatred toward Kate and me is getting me down, particularly because I realize it’s never going away.
I’ve got two choices: the couch and some cathode rays, or the vertical pleasures of a hot shower. I opt for the shower, and as I walk back to my bedroom, that same metallic scent stops me in the hall.
This time it’s even stronger, so I guess it can’t be me.
Then I realize what it is. It’s the smell of fear, and then a floorboard creaks, there’s an urgent rustle of fabric and a rush of movement, and a large fist hits me square in the face.
Blood pours out of my nose, and the force of the punch throws me into whoever is standing behind me. He hits me too. My elbow digs a grunt out of the bastard, and the next half minute is the red-hot chaos of flying fists, elbows, and knees. This is my house, my hall, and even outnumbered, I like my chances, right up till the moment I start to go down.
I’m on the ground taking kicks to the head and ribs when a voice cuts through the pain. “That’s enough, I said! That’s enough.”
But I can’t say for sure if I’m hearing it, or thinking it, or praying it.
Chapter 69. Kate
WITH THE RUCKUS Wingo is raising in my car, it’s hardly necessary, but I grab the wrought-iron ring and deliver three hard raps to Tom’s front door.
It’s eight in the morning, so Tom has to be in the house, but neither Wingo’s barking nor my steady banging gets a response. I’m guessing he’s in the shower.
A towing service has dropped off what’s left of Tom’s car in the driveway, and Wingo and I walk around the burned-out shell to the backyard.
The sliding doors off the patio are locked, but I can see inside the house well enough. A living room chair has been knocked over. So has a bookcase.
I dial Tom’s cell and get his voice mail, and I’m starting to panic, when on the far side of the house, Wingo barks as if he’s treed a fox.
I race over and find him howling at a small shed off the kitchen.
The door has been left open. Inside are two tattered folding chairs and a musty beach umbrella. I call Tom’s cell again, with no more luck than the first time.
I hadn’t told Tom I was going to pick him up, so instead of breaking in, or calling the police just yet, I cling to the hope that he arranged a ride with Clarence. I shove Wingo back in the car and race toward our office in Montauk.
With everything going on in my head, and the steep early morning sun in my eyes, I very nearly hit a cyclist pedaling furiously along the shoulder of the road.
Only when Wingo yelps deliriously and tugs at my sleeve do I see in the rearview mirror that the man on the bike is Tom. I brake to a stop, then back up in a hurry.
My relief is enormous, but it only lasts as long as it takes me to see his face. One eye is completely shut, the other raw purple. There are welts and cuts on his neck and ear, and a jagged gash over one eyebrow.
“Two guys were waiting for me when I got home,” says Tom. “I mean, four guys.”
“You call the police?”
“Didn’t see the point. Like Mack said, it was more symbolic than anything.”
“It’s not a good idea to get hit in the head like this every couple of months. Concussions can be dangerous, Tom.”
“Tom? Is that my name?”
“That’s not funny.”
“No, it’s pretty funny.”
“It is pretty funny actually.”
“I’m getting better with age, Kate, admit it.”
“You left yourself a lot of room for improvement.”
I stop at Barnes Pharmacy for disinfectants and sterile pads, tape and bandages. Back at the office, we clean the cuts. I do my best to remind myself that this is a slippery slope and that I didn’t take this case to hook up with Tom Dunleavy one more time. But beneath it all, I guess I’m just a sap, because I’m also wondering how smart it is to hold a grudge against someone based on how they acted when they were twenty-two, and if there isn’t a statute of limitations on bad behavior.
Chapter 70. Tom
AT THE OFFICE the next day, Kate writes up some interviews we did around the apartment where Dante was hiding out in New York City. Meanwhile, I pull the file on the.45-caliber semiautomatic pistol found behind the diner the night Dante turned himself in. In some ways, it’s the prosecution’s most persuasive piece of evidence.
So how can we use it?
The file includes five black-and-white, eight-by-ten photographs of the weapon, and I lay them on the table. According to Suffolk County Forensics, there was one set of prints on the handle, and they’re a perfect match for Michael Walker; ballistics tests prove the weapon was used to kill all four victims. But Dante swears he’s never seen the gun before.
“It’s not even close,” Dante told me in that first long, grueling session in Riverhead. “Michael’s gun was small, cheap, a Saturday-night special. This is a real gun. Twice the size and a different color. You were there, bro.”