Authors: John Lescroart

Dead Irish (28 page)

WHAT HE THOUGHT he would do was make a couple of jokes as he came through the window. Steven was used to that from him. When he got to the bed he would hold a pillow over his face until he was unconscious. He would have to be careful—he didn’t want another investigation like Eddie’s getting started, and there was no way Steven could suffocate himself.

When the boy was unconscious he would take the switchblade he had once given him and that Steven always kept hidden in the drawer next to his bed, and he would cut his wrists.

It would make sense. After all, the boy had just run away and been abused a few days before. He was deeply depressed over his brother’s death. It would be compellingly believable. Steven had waited until he was alone—his mother had just gone out—then did what he had been building up to ever since his brother’s death.

“Steven?” he said again, hoisting himself up into the window.

Steven willed every part of his body to move. Even with the pills, the pain was awesome. The bandages seemed to be ripping the skin off his whole side, and with the cast on his foot and his arm stuck out at this weird angle.

Still, he got himself sitting upright, though it had to be on the right side of the bed, facing away from the open window. He was trying to stand, twisting to look back, when Father Jim boosted himself onto the sill.

“Hey, why didn’t you answer me?” he said, smiling.

Steven couldn’t stop him from getting in. The only hope was if he could maybe get to the bathroom and lock the door. He stood, wobbly, not yet putting any weight on the bad foot.

“Steven, come on”—still smiling—“what are you doing up?” His upper body was through the window.

He had to move faster. He stepped onto the foot in the cast.

“Steven, what’s the matter?”

It wouldn’t hold him. The leg crumbled and he came down on top of it. He didn’t mean to, but he cried out, a wordless scream of pain.

Father Jim in the room now, over him. Kneeling on one knee, still a gentle look on his face. His arms reached out as though to cradle him.

“Get away from me—”

“Steven . . .”

“You killed Eddie, you killed him. . . .”

Father pulled his arms back, no longer reaching for him. He sank back on his leg.

“What are you talking about? You can’t believe that?” He was actually surprised.

“Now you’re gonna kill me, aren’t you? That’s what you came here for?” Father Jim widened his benevolent smile. How can he be so relaxed if he’s going to kill me . . . ?

“Steven, Steven, Steven,” Father Jim said. “I came here to visit your mother.”

“But she just went to see you.”

“So that’s why she’s not home.” He just kept smiling. “You’d think after all these years we’d communicate a little better. I thought we were meeting over here.”

He reached down for Steven again. “I think those pills might make you hallucinate a little. Come on.” He put one hand under his head. “Just lean into me. Let’s get you back in bed.”

It was hard to keep up this charade.

He lifted him first to a sitting position, then up onto the side of the bed. He had to be in the bed—that was essential. But this movement was so awkward, all plaster and bone. The joints didn’t bend the way they should.

“I didn’t mean it about Eddie,” Steven said. “I don’t know. I just thought . . .”

“It’s okay, Steven.”

“But the other thing, the accident . . .”

“I did want to talk to you about that.” Put him at ease again. It was going to be all right. “Let me go get a beer,” he said. “You get comfortable.”

Out to the kitchen, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, like walking in a tunnel. He opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle, started twisting the neck going back to the bedroom.

Good, he was back lying down. Okay, now put the beer on the bed table. (And remember to take it when you go.)

“Here,” he said, “let me get that pillow for you.”

“Whose car is that?”

Erin didn’t know, it wasn’t Jim’s car. But there was somebody there! In her house, with Steven. “Oh, God!”

Dismas pulled the Volvo up over the curb onto the lawn. She already had her door open, running.

Where’s the knife?

Steven always kept the knife in the bottom of the drawer here—he’d seen him pull it out a dozen times.

Now he was beginning to moan again. He hadn’t believed Steven had had that much strength.

Maybe in the second drawer. And if it wasn’t there, he’d try to put him under again, but the timing of that was tough. He thought he’d held the pillow down too long last time when he’d pulled it up and the boy’s lips were blue.

He opened the second drawer.

God! Dismas had the keys.

“The keys! The keys!” She pushed at the doorbell. “Steven! Steven!”

Dismas was up next to her, giving her the keys. Fumbling, seconds going by.

“Which one?”

Dismas taking the key, getting it in, turning it. Pushing it open, the door, pushing him aside, and running, running into the hall, yelling her son’s name.

Cavanaugh was standing by the bed when Steven opened his eyes. He was holding a pillow in front of him with both hands. And there was Mom in the door to the room.

“He’s not dead? God, say he’s not dead!”

Then she was next to him, her arms around his neck. He couldn’t move at all, or talk. Maybe he was dead.

And Mom saying, “You might as well kill me as kill my baby.”

Her hand running down the side of his face, again and again, like a cool breeze.

Her baby. She thought of him as her baby. He might as well kill her as her baby.

“Erin . . . ,” Father began.

Hardy was standing in the doorway, and his mom started crying. “Oh, he’s breathing. Thank God!” She buried her face into the sheets up by his face.

He thought he heard Cavanaugh say his mom’s name again, but she kept herself up near him, holding him, touching his face, his hair. “Oh, God, I love you,” she said, still crying. “I love you, Steven, I love you. Please don’t die. . . .”

Okay, he wouldn’t, then. He wouldn’t die.

“Leave ’em alone,” Hardy said, motioning with his head, taking hold of Cavanaugh’s arm and pulling him out to the living room. He still held the pillow.

Hardy sat on one of the stools near the bar. “Talk,” he said.

Cavanaugh even now tried his smile, but it didn’t work out just right. “I told you before, it wasn’t fair,” he said. “But you didn’t understand. You can’t know.”

“I can’t, huh?”

“You know what it’s like to live right in the midst of everything you want—day in, day out—and never get to have it? To see the kids growing, perfect. Erin’s kids, Ed’s. We could’ve had that, Erin and me. And she so happy with that, that goddamned gardener. And then it starting to go on, another generation of it, of the perfect Cochrans and their perfect happiness.”

“Well, you ended that,” Hardy said.

“I couldn’t accept it anymore. When Eddie told me they were pregnant. It was just for a moment. I didn’t really plan it.”

“You planned it enough. How’d you get him to fire the gun?”

Cavanaugh shrugged. “I just bet him he couldn’t hit something out on the canal. It was easy. And he had to fire the gun, you see?”

“Sure.”

“And then, once he had, there was nothing left to do.”

“He just gave the gun back to you and you shot him.”

He gripped at the pillow, raised it to his face, left it there, shutting out the world. Himself. Finally letting it down.

“It was too much. I broke—”

“Like you broke out of the seminary?”

Cavanaugh opened his eyes wide. “How did you . . . ?”

“When Erin got married, you couldn’t handle that either, could you?”

“It isn’t right. It wasn’t the sex. Not having sex. Being celibate. It was Erin.”

“Fuck you, Father,” Hardy said. “Fuck yourself very hard.”

Cavanaugh walked halfway across the room and looked out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. “So what do we do now?” he asked.

Hardy, breathing hard, waited a long time. Finally he said, “You know, you’re the expert on suicide. I got a Suzuki parked out by where you killed Rose, looks like a Jeep. There’s a loaded gun in the glove compartment.” His face crinkled up. “You know how to use a gun, don’t you?”

Cavanaugh let his hands all the way down in front of him. He dropped the pillow to the floor. Hardy found himself staring at the pillow, hearing the front door open and close as Cavanaugh went out.

Abe found the note in Father Dietrick’s chair. It was a strange note. “I’m sorry. I’ll miss you.” Did people say they were going to miss people when they were going to kill themselves? Maybe. He didn’t know what minds might do at that point.

He left the note where it was. He’d send one of the team back to pick it up, check it for handwriting, oils, all that. It seemed to close it up for him, though Hardy was wrong on this one.

Speaking of which, where was Hardy? One of the priests from outside, the tan one, was walking toward him in the hallway. “I’m Father Paul,” he said.

“You know anything about this?”

“No. I just got here. From Brazil.”

“Is that right?”

He seemed to be waiting for Glitsky to say something else.

“So what can I do for you?”

“I thought I’d unpack,” he said. “But the car seems to be gone.”

“The car?”

“Father Dietrick’s car. The one we came in.”

“It’s gone?”

He led him to the front door and opened it. “I’m sure we parked it right here, in front.”

So what? Glitsky thought. “Look, Father, we’re homicide. You got a stolen car, you should call the cops.”

“But aren’t you . . . ?” Then he pointed. “There it is. Who’s that driving it?”

The car pulled into the driveway. “That’s Father Cavanaugh,” Abe said. “I want to talk to him.”

The hawk-faced black policeman jogged across the blacktop and got to the Honda as Father Cavanaugh was getting out. They shook hands, and while Father Paul was still crossing the lot, fighting the glare from the van and the other automobiles, he heard a funny, high-pitched laugh. It must have been Father Cavanaugh, as though he’d just heard a good joke, though it seemed poor taste to be laughing right then in the presence of mortal-sin death.

The two other policemen came out from inside the garage. Father Cavanaugh, the hawk-faced policeman and the other two all stood in a knot out in the sun. Father Dietrick had become a statue. Maybe he was in shock. Father Paul should go over to him, try to help him. That would be the Christian thing to do.

But he was more interested in what Father Cavanaugh was saying to the policemen. He hurried his pace a little, getting there in time to hear Father Cavanaugh saying, “I’m not lying.”

And the hawk-faced policeman saying, “I don’t think you’re lying.”

Father Cavanaugh wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You mind if I sit down a minute?” His face had a sick look, shiny white as though he might faint. “I’d like a minute alone.” Telling a joke, like. “I think it’s my last chance to be alone for a while.”

They watched him walk the ten yards or so over to the Suzuki and get in the front seat. All three policemen were quiet, watching him. He sat there, seeming to be catching his breath, taking out his handkerchief and wiping his forehead.

“Father, you all right?” the shorter white man asked. Father Cavanaugh nodded. The other men closed in on one another, and Father Paul stepped up to hear them. Father Paul glanced over to the Suzuki one time. Father Cavanaugh was doing something, like fussing with the radio knobs.

He heard the taller man say, “Well, that was easy,” and the hawk-faced one started to say something when suddenly Father Dietrick yelled “Father!” but it was drowned out almost immediately by a tremendous explosion.

Father Cavanaugh had come halfway out of the Suzuki. His upper body lay out on the ground, one leg caught at a funny angle as though it had stuck up under the front seat.

THOUGH HE GENERALLY preferred to stand in his doorway and bellow, this time Lieutenant Joe Frazelli elected to use his intercom. He pushed the button, got an answer, and said, “Frank, come in here you get a sec.”

Maybe a minute later there was a knock on his door and he was looking up at the tall frame of Frank Batiste.

“Close the door,” he said. Then, “What kind a cake you like, Frank?”

Batiste stayed standing. He was a quiet, thorough officer who was especially good when paired with less experienced men. Of everyone in homicide, he had perhaps the least pugnacious character. Not that he couldn’t mix it up when he had to, but he preferred to leave alone the office posing and pecking. Well, Frazelli thought, somebody’s got to be that way. It sets him off a little, and that’s to the good.

“Cake?” Batiste asked. “I don’t know. I guess they’re pretty much the same. I’m not much of a cake eater, Joe.”

Perfect. Frazelli loved it. “Goddamn it, Frank, I don’t give a shit about what you like. I got Marylouise out there humping her telephone to make a call down to the bakery and get a cake, and if she don’t hear from me in about another minute then the whole goddamn office is gonna know before I want ’em to.”

Batiste, not born yesterday, nodded and broke a smile. “Plain chocolate, sir. Chocolate icing. Chocolate on the inside. Boy, makes my mouth water.”

Frazelli punched the intercom again and whispered to Marylouise that Frank liked chocolate cake. He asked her how long it would take, and she said usually about twenty-five minutes.

“Sit down, Frank, you make me nervous hovering like that. But before you do . . .” Frazelli stood up behind his desk and extended a hand. “Congratulations, Lieutenant,” he said.

“You mind if I call my wife?” Batiste asked.

Frazelli shook his head. “Wait ’til after the cake, would you? The whole timing of this office is centered around Marylouise and her fucking cakes. We can’t get new cops, but we got petty cash for cakes up the wazoo. Well,” he said, grinning, “it ain’t my problem anymore. You’ll get used to it.”

Batiste scanned the office. “How long you been here, sir, as lieutenant?”

Frazelli twisted his wedding ring. “Fourteen years,” he said with a little laugh. “My stepping-stone to chief.” He sighed. “You want a little peace-of-mind advice? This isn’t a step to anything. Just treat it like its own job. God knows it’ll keep you busy. On the other hand, Rigby”—the current chief—“had the job before I did.”

“I’ll do what I do,” Frank said. “See where I wind up.” But a cloud crossed his face. “You don’t mind my asking, who’s going down? The new guys, I mean.”

“Giometti’s staying, let’s put it positive. I decided not to make him pay for getting in the middle of a pissing contest. Being around it he probably learned more than a year here would teach him in the normal course of events anyway.”

“Abe and Carl?”

Frazelli nodded. “That’s the trouble with pissing contests. You wind up all covered with piss.”

They both laughed.

“I really thought one of them had it, the promotion.”

“No, you three were up all along. You, though, had the good sense to not let a murder suspect kill himself in your armed and august presence.” Frazelli got a little worked up. “And thank God it was only himself and not everybody else in the whole fucking parking lot.”

“I can’t believe . . . I couldn’t believe it when I heard that happened.”

“I still can’t believe it.”

“What were they thinking about?”

“Probably what kind of cake they were gonna order when I called them in here.” Frazelli sat back. “Fuck it, though, they’re both good cops. They just timed this one bad. So they’ll get a nod next time—they’re both due.”

“I wouldn’t want ’em off the squad.”

Frazelli said, “Nah, you won’t lose ’em, Frank. They’re here ’cause it’s what they do.” He punched his intercom again. “Marylouise, how many people we got out there?”

“Everybody,” she said. “I haven’t let anybody out.”

“All right, don’t.” He stabbed the button again. “She hasn’t let anybody out. Jesus! You know who runs this department? Fucking Marylouise Bezdikian!” He stopped spewing. “You think we ought to get Abe and Carl in, let’em know before the others?”

Batiste shrugged. “Tough call, Joe. Up to you.”

Frazelli worried it a minute, twisting his ring. “Fuck it,” he said. “Who needs it? It’s their problem.”

In Frazelli’s office, in the outer office, everything went suddenly silent, then picked up again.

“Angels passing,” Batiste said.

“What’s that?”

“Like that, when it’s all of a sudden quiet. My wife says it’s angels passing.”

“Passing gas, more likely,” said Frazelli, poetic as a cement truck. He went back to twisting his ring.

“You know,” Batiste said, “I got one other question you don’t mind?”

“Shoot.”

“Well, you know, you hear things . . .”

Frazelli listened, knowing what was coming.

“Well, point is, I don’t want to come in some morning and find a Triple-A bumper sticker on the door, you know?”

Frazelli knew. Triple-A was department slang for Affirmative Action Asshole. The wedding ring suddenly was getting a real workout. Realizing what he was doing, the lieutenant stopped himself, put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, feet on his desk.

Frank had plenty of time to find out how things worked. Why ruin the moment for him now? “You know, Frank,” Frazelli said, “you hear that shit all the time. But you got the gig ’cause you earned it, pure and simple. Anybody thinks otherwise, you send ’em to me, even after I’m retired and out on the Bay fishin’.”

The intercom buzzed. Marylouise said, “The cake’s here.”

Frazelli stood up. “You ready?” he asked. “Let’s go have some cake.”

Jane was with him, her hand resting easily on the inside of his thigh. She sat close up next to him at the end of the bar by the large windows, drinking a negroni. She’d throw her head back and laugh her deep laugh. She glowed in the Friday dusk.

Hardy had opened up a little after one, working a short shift. McGuire preferred to work Friday night because of the good tips, where Hardy liked to come in and set up, then have Friday night to himself. Jane and he used to call it date night. Maybe it would be again.

He’d gone back to work on Wednesday, using his time behind the bar, he realized—the way he always had—to keep the pretense of being a social animal without really having to interact. It suited him now, the disengagement, so long as he knew why he was doing it. He had felt dazed, somehow, wanting to be alone.

Yesterday, he’d gone downtown and worked out his statement. Glitsky hadn’t been around. The new lieutenant told him that with Glitsky, Griffin and the two priests corroborating their story, they’d declared Eddie’s death a homicide.

Moses’s response had been mixed. At first he was all hyped up, happy to have Frannie covered. But then a distance, a sullen melancholy politeness, crept in that Hardy had only now just figured out.

He understood it, but it didn’t seem right to him. Moses, after all, had hired him to do a job and offered him something as payment. It had been a contract, as binding as anything written up, signed and notarized.

And Hardy wasn’t worried about Moses reneging on their deal—he wouldn’t do that. What bothered him was Moses’s reaction to it. How could they work as partners, after being friends for so long, with that friction between them? And it was obvious that Moses, having thought about the reality of it and not the grand romance of the gesture, was resenting it—losing a quarter of the bar he’d owned for most of a decade.

When he’d come in tonight, with a scowl and a manila folder, Hardy guessed he’d brought some papers to sign. Even Jane, who hadn’t laid eyes on the man in some years, had said, “This isn’t the McGuire I knew.”

The crowd wouldn’t really get going for another half hour. Hardy pushed himself up off his stool. He kissed Jane casually, saying he’d be right back, then walked the length of the bar to where Moses was watching a game of liar’s dice as though it were the World Series. In other words, pointedly ignoring Hardy.

“Hey, Mose.”

He looked up.

“I quit,” Hardy said.

Moses squinted, moved over and forward a step, and leaned over the bar. “What?”

“I quit. I’m not bartending anymore, starting now.”

He flashed him a broad and phony grin and went back to join Jane.

“What do you mean, you quit?” Moses was in front of him again.

“Just send me my profit checks,” Hardy said. “I couldn’t live around you feeling guilty all the time. Let’s go, Jane.”

“You’ve still got this pan?” Jane said. “It looks brand-new.”

Hardy nodded over his eggs. “Treat things right, they last,” he said.

They’d gone to dinner, then back to Hardy’s, then to bed too early to sleep, so now, sometime after midnight, they were eating before going back in and devouring each other some more.

The doorbell rang.

“Reasonable hour,” Hardy said. He yelled down the hallway. “Go away.”

The bell rang again. Hardy swore, went into his room and put on a pair of jogging shorts.

“Who is it?” he asked at the door.

It was McGuire. He held the folder in one hand. “I’m a horse’s ass,” he said.

“Yep, you are.”

“You want this stuff ?”

Hardy shifted on his bare feet. “You want to give it to me?”

“You earned it.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

McGuire gave it a last thought. “Yeah.” He nodded. “You want to sign these papers?”

“No. Tomorrow will be fine. I’ve got some company now.”