CHAPTER 13
Parker felt like a real cop again.
A working detective.
The feeling was somewhat exhilarating.
The newspaper story accompanying the headline told him everything he needed to know about the liquor-store holdups tonight. The story extensively quoted Detective Meyer Meyer who had been interviewed in his room at Buenavista Hospital. Meyer had told the reporter that the heists and subsequent felony murders had been executed by four midgets being driven by a big blonde woman in a blue station wagon. One of the holdup victims had described the thieves as midgets. She had further told the police that one of the midgets was named Alice.
Parker did not have to be a detective to know that there couldn't be too many midgets named Alice in this city. But making the connection so quickly made him feel like a real cop again.
He put Peaches in a taxi mdash;even though they were only four blocks from her apartment mdash;told her he'd try to call her later, and then hailed a cruising patrol car. The two uniformed cops in the car advised Parker they were from the Three-One mdash;which Parker knew anyway since the number of the precinct was on the side of the car mdash;and they didn't know if they had authority to provide transportation for a detective from the Eight-Seven.
Parker said, "This is a homicide here, open the fucking door!"
The two uniformed cops looked at each other by way of consultation, and then the cop riding shotgun unlocked the back door for him. Parker sat in the back of the car like a common criminal, a metal grille separating him from the two cops up front.
"Four-oh-three Thompson Street," he told the driver.
"That's all the way down the Quarter," the driver complained.
"That's right, it should take you fifteen, twenty minutes."
"Half hour's more like it," the shotgun cop said, and then got on the walkie-talkie to tell his sergeant they were driving a bull from the Eight-Seven downtown.
The sergeant said, "Let me talk to him."
"He's in back," the shotgun cop said.
"Stop the car and let me talk to him," the sergeant said. He sounded very no-nonsense. Parker had met sergeants like him before. He loved trampling on sergeants like him.
They stopped the car and opened the back door. The shotgun cop handed the walkie-talkie in to Parker.
"What's the problem?" Parker said into it.
"Who's this?" the sergeant said.
"Detective Andrew Lloyd Parker," he said, "Eighty-Seventh Squad. Who's this?"
"Never mind who this is, what's the idea commandeering one of my cars?"
"The idea is homicide," Parker said. "The idea is two cops in the hospital. The idea is I gotta get downtown in a hurry, and I'd hate like hell for the media to find out a sergeant from the Three-One maybe stood in the way of a timely arrest. That's the idea. You think you got it?"
There was a long silence.
"Who's your commanding officer?" the sergeant asked, trying to save face.
"Lieutenant Peter Byrnes," Parker said. "We finished here?"
"You can take the car downtown, but I'll be talking to your lieutenant," the sergeant said.
"Good, you talk to him," Parker said, and handed the walkie-talkie to the shotgun cop. "Let's get rolling," he said.
They closed the back door again. The driver set the car in motion.
"Hit the hammer," Parker said.
The blues looked sidelong at each other. This kind of thing didn't seem to warrant use of the siren.
"Hit the fucking hammer," Parker said.
The driver hit the siren switch.
They were sitting in the living room when Brown got off the phone. Marie and her sister-in-law side by side on the sofa, Hawes in an easy chair opposite them.
Brown walked in looking very solemn.
"Hal Willis," he said to Hawes.
"What's up?" Hawes said.
Brown tugged casually at his earlobe before he started talking again. Hawes picked up the signal at once. Little dog-and-pony act on the way.
"They found the rest of the body," Brown said.
Marie looked at him.
"Head and the hands," Brown said. "In the river. I'm sorry, ma'am," he said to Dolores, "but your brother's body was dismembered. I hate to break it to you this way."
"Oh myGod !" Dolores said.
Marie was still looking at Brown.
"Guys dredging the river pulled up this aluminum case, head and the hands in it," he said.
Hawes was trying to catch the drift. He kept listening intently.
"Did you know this?" Dolores asked Marie.
Marie nodded.
"You knew he'd been hellip; ?"
"Yes," she said. "I didn't tell Mom because I knew what it would do to her."