I shook my head. “We get lulled into a false sense of security in this town. We think all that big-city crime is far away. Did you call your wife, by the way?” I added. “This’s been on the radio by now, maybe the TV, too. They’re going to make a big deal about it.”
“Yeah. She was crying. I told her it would be hours before I could get home. She’s pretty upset.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Go home, then. Give her a hug. You’ll have to come back to the office for a post-stress debriefing tonight, but that gives you a couple of hours at least. Leave your phone off the hook. We’ll page you if we need you before then.”
He looked at me doubtfully, but I rose and took his elbow in my hand, forcing him to stand. “Go on. I’ll see you later.”
He nodded tiredly and walked toward the door.
I stopped him just as he reached the threshold. “Thanks for what you did today. You not only went by the book, with no mistakes, but you probably saved my butt as well.”
He gave me a wistful half smile. “Thanks. You, too, Joe.”
It was getting dark outside. In an odd replay of what Ron had been going through a short time earlier, I found myself sitting on an upstairs bed in the Leung home, my back against the headboard, my eyes watching the endless flickering of red and blue lights reflecting off the ceiling. I wasn’t traumatized by what I’d just gone through but, like Ron, I was experiencing the weight of the day’s events, and feeling very, very tired. Despite Hollywood’s willful misperception, killing a person wasn’t something a cop ever took in stride, especially if your beat involved but a single homicide a year, as it did in Brattleboro.
I was still lost in my thoughts when Tony Brandt’s voice softly broke the silence. “Joe? You in here?”
I could see his pale shadow settling into a nearby armchair. “Yeah-kind of sorting my brain out.”
“Don’t you think you ought to be heading back? We’re basically done here. The debriefing’s in half an hour.”
“I will soon.” I jerked a thumb I wasn’t even sure he could see toward the window. “What’s happening out there?”
“’Bout what you’d expect. Phones flying off the wall, politicians scrambling for an inside angle so they’ll look informed, reporters swarming like proverbial locusts, cops wondering how the hell the whole thing went down. I’ve already held one press conference, along with Mitch Gauthier-he’s heading the VSP post-shoot team.”
“How’s he seeing it so far?”
“Right now, he says it’s clean. He does think you two were a little casual in your approach, given you thought this might’ve been an extortion, but that’s hindsight, and he knows it. He does credit Ron having the SRT close by. He’ll back you up-he won’t have any reason not to. And Derby’s already issued a preliminary decision clearing you both, pending Gauthier’s investigation. So you’re back on the job whenever you’re ready.”
“What did Michael Vu say?”
“That he was stopping by to see his old pal Peter Leung. That he can’t believe Brattleboro has joined the ranks of New York City. He claims he had no idea what was going on inside the house, and that he’d never laid eyes on any of the hoods, including Vince Sharkey.”
“So he’s out?”
“Free and clear. But you know what that means. Our screwing up this little deal cost him plenty in clout. He’s going to have to move fast to save face.”
I shook my head mournfully. “Christ, if only I hadn’t pulled the plug on Sharkey’s tail, some of this could’ve been prevented.”
Instead of letting me off the hook, however, Tony slipped in one of his own. “If you hadn’t put that bee up Sharkey’s nose about Sonny screwing him, you wouldn’t have needed the tail in the first place. That was your first mistake.”
He was right, of course, and it reinforced how little control we had over this case, and how desperately I had been grasping at straws. With today’s events, we were now engaged in the bloodiest investigation in the police department’s history, and I still was no clearer on where we were headed than when I’d been staring at Benny Travers’s charred remains.
Something was going to have to break soon, or Tony’s irritation was going to be the least of my troubles.
10
Gail stirred next to me, and I turned my head to look at her, happy to have her back home, regardless of the reasons. I had tried to call her yesterday, before news of the shooting reached her otherwise, but she’d been unobtainable, and I’d been forced to lay down a paper trail of calming messages instead. Notwithstanding that the gist of those had been to tell her to stay put and not worry, by the time I found her waiting for me after the post-stress debriefing, I was delighted she’d ignored them all.
We didn’t talk much during the short drive home. The emotion of our initial embrace had rendered most of that redundant and trite. And afterward, we immediately went to bed. At first we were content to merely hold one another, knowing the following morning would be ours to enjoy alone. But that had finally proven inadequate. Giving in to a need more demanding and soothing than sleep, we’d made love as long and as passionately as I could ever remember. Only then did we stop fighting exhaustion and give in.
And yet I woke early, the dawn’s light not quite washing the skylight overhead. I hadn’t been wracked by nightmares, or by misgivings concerning Ron Klesczewski’s shaky mental state. It was the persistent frustration of the night before, coupled with the knowledge that, by killing Henry Lam, I’d eliminated one of the few suspects who might have been of use to me.
Gail opened one eye, half veiled by long brown hair, and stretched her arm across my chest. “Yesterday catching up with you?”
“Not the way you mean. The sole effect of yesterday’s fireworks will probably be to attract some federal agency who’ll swallow the case whole and leave us looking like dumb yokels.”
She watched me for a few seconds in silence. “What was it like, being shot at?”
I thought back, pretty sure where she was heading. “A slow-motion blur, mostly. I just remember thinking I better do everything right.”
“How ’bout now?”
“I don’t know… It’s over,” I said dismissively.
She scowled slightly and sat up straighter.
“How are you doing?” I thought to ask, just a bit too late.
“The first radio report said a shooting with three dead and one cop wounded. All the way to Brattleboro I tried to keep calm, but after what happened to you last year, I knew the cop was you. That your luck had run out.”
Last year I’d been knifed by a man on the run and had spent several weeks in a coma. “I tried to reach you.”
She gave me an odd glance, and I realized I’d selfishly missed her point. “The whole drive down, I wasn’t telling myself that you’d be all right. I only thought about how I’d react to hearing you were dead.”
As she finished, I saw a tear cascading down her cheek, wetting the rumpled sheet she’d pulled up to her chin.
Embarrassed, I put my arm around her and drew her against me, kissing the top of her head.
She returned the hug. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “There’s not much anyone can do about it anyway.”
The silence that filled the room made a lie of that statement, and I found myself forcing the obvious words into the void. “I could quit. God knows I’ve put enough time in.”
But mercifully, she shook her head. “You can’t do that. I don’t want you to, either.” She craned her neck up and kissed me softly. “Thanks for saying it, though.”
I frowned, suddenly unsure to what degree I’d meant it, imagining the media circus I knew was almost upon me. “Sure.”
“So, you’re worried the feds will take the case away?” she resumed in a stronger voice, as if setting off on a brisk walk.