The Red Queen Dies (3 page)

She stepped to the side, about to order him to raise his arm behind his back so that she could slip on the first handcuff.

“You got him!” Mike Baxter said, running up. He was sweating, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with excitement. “That was great.”

“Cuff him,” McCabe said, trying not to let Baxter see that she was breathing hard.

She was thirty-four to Baxter's twenty-nine, and, yes, she had outrun him. But she should be in better shape than this. Today's air-quality reading was no excuse.

Baxter snapped the cuffs into place and McCabe retracted her bola.

Baxter hauled the perp to his feet.

“Hey, man, this is police brutality, you hear me?” the perp said. “I'm gonna sue both of you.”

“That all you got to say?” Baxter said.

“Say? You're supposed to read me my rights, man.”

“You got it, man,” Baxter said. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you…” He recited the words with the controlled irony of a cop who had been saying them for several decades. But he looked like a college kid. That was why he had been recruited from patrol to work undercover vice. But word was that he had wanted out of that and played a commendably discrete game of departmental politics, involving his godfather, the assistant chief, to get reassigned.

Sirens screeching, two police cruisers pulled into the alley.

Baxter grinned at McCabe. “Great way to start the day, huh, partner?”

“Absolutely,” she said, scraping her shoe on the edge of a mildewed cardboard box.

She hoped he realized that the likelihood that this was the guy they were looking for was about zilch.

 

2

 

Outside the station house, two uniforms were hauling a drunk hooker out of the back of their cruiser. Hands cuffed behind her, purple wig askew, the hooker kicked one of the uniforms in the shin with her pointed-toe stiletto. Her momentum sent her sprawling.

The perp McCabe and Baxter were bringing in laughed. “Bitch down on her—”

“Shut up,” McCabe said.

The perp glanced at her and closed his mouth.

The uniform who'd been kicked dragged the hooker up from the ground by the handcuffs. The hooker's colorful complaints filled the air.

Baxter greeted the two detectives coming out of the station house. “Hey, guys, what've you got?”

“Two thugs in an alley,” Sean Pettigrew said. “The vic's at St. Pete's.”

“Looked like a professional job from the cam,” Walter Yin, his partner, said.

Yin squinted up at the sun, then at the gray fedora in his hand.

“New hat?” McCabe asked.

“Casey bought it for me,” Yin said, referring to his wife. “She said my old one was too dirty to clean and too hot to wear anyway.”

“That one's nice,” Baxter said.

“Very nice,” McCabe agreed.

“It's made of some kind of new material,” Yin said. He stared at the hat, squinted again at the sun.

He put the hat on his head and tugged at it to give it a tilt. “Let's move, Sean.”

Pettigrew, his own head hatless, waved his hand in farewell. “Off to the war, fellow gumshoes. Crime's breaking out all over this fine day.”

Baxter and McCabe headed into the station house with their perp.

“If the weather report's right,” Sid Wallace, the desk sergeant, was saying to a uniform, “a big storm's supposed to come through tonight. That'll clear the streets. But then tomorrow, we got a full moon. The loony tunes are going to be out—” He broke off when he saw McCabe. “Hey, McCabe, you got a visitor. That old lady from the droogie boys' case. I put her in Interview A.”

“Thanks, Sarge,” She glanced at Baxter. “Mike, can you handle—”

“Got it under control,” he said. “I'll make sure our guest here gets checked into our best accommodations.”

“I'm still going to sue,” the perp said.

“Go for it,” Baxter told him

“Wait for me to start questioning him,” McCabe said.

He nodded, but McCabe didn't want to leave him on his own too long. Baxter was eager to prove himself.

She opened the door of Interview Room A. The room had no windows. Someone had turned on scenery. Clear, sparkling morning sunlight dappled a meadow of wildflowers. Birds chirped and butterflies fluttered. McCabe touched the console, replacing the dewy meadow with white walls and silencing the sound effects.

She smiled at the woman. “I can do without a spring meadow this morning. Seems a little silly when you walk out of the building and it's already eighty-five degrees, with the air smelling of smoke from north of the border.”

Mrs. Givens, who had been sitting rigid, her face blank, nodded. “Scenery's pretty to look at. But sometimes it can wear on your nerves.”

McCabe sat down across from her. “I'm sorry you had to wait for me. I had to make a stop on the way to the station.”

Mrs. Givens was in her late seventies. Bifocals that were not a retro statement perched on her nose. “It wasn't like you knew I was coming by. I just decided I'd better come on down here.”

“Now that we're both here, what can I do for you, ma'am?”

Mrs. Givens pushed at her glasses. She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.

McCabe reached across the conference table to touch her hand. “What is it, Mrs. Givens? Has something happened?”

The woman glanced down at McCabe's pale brown hand covering her darker one. “Honey, how'd you hurt yourself like that?”

The scratch from the fence was red and jagged. “I was chasing someone,” McCabe said. She drew back her hand, covering the gesture by reaching for her ORB.

Mrs. Givens said, “Well, I guess if you like your job.…”

“Yes, ma'am, I do. I think it's important work. But let's talk about why you came in. Do you have questions about the call you received from the DA's office?”

“No, I understand what they want me to do. That's why I needed to come in and tell you in person.”

“Tell me what?”

“I feel real bad about this. But there's no point in me meeting with that assistant district attorney. No point at all, because I can't testify.”

“Has someone threatened you? If someone has, we can provide protection for you and—”

“No, it ain't that. I can't testify because I don't remember that night like it happened.”

McCabe sighed inwardly, afraid she knew what was coming. “How can you not remember, ma'am? It was only a couple of weeks ago. You made a statement at the time.”

“I know I did. But since then…” The woman pushed up her glasses. “I'm going to tell you the way it is, Detective McCabe, because I appreciate how you handle yourself with people in the community.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Givens. Now, why can't you testify?”

“It's like I said. I can't testify because I don't remember about that night. I can still see some of it if I think about it real hard, but it's like I'm not there.”

“Like you're not there?”

Mrs. Givens cleared her throat.

“What do you mean it's like you're not there?” McCabe said again.

“I … my niece, she's studying to be a medical technician. She told me about this stuff you could take.…” Mrs. Givens's gaze held McCabe's. “You know about it, don't you? About the stuff that they been using with the soldiers who get hurt fighting in the war? They call it ‘lullaby.'”

“I know about it. Lullaby is the street name for the version that's available on the black market. It's an illegal drug.”

“I know you can't buy it in no store. But I couldn't eat, and I couldn't sleep. I was about crazy with what I was seeing in my head.”

“I know your memories of what happened must have been upsetting, Mrs. Givens. But, ma'am, you—”

“My niece said you didn't need me to testify. She said you had them boys right there on your cameras. One of them got his mask yanked down when they was fighting with that other boy. And you got their DNA, don't you?”

“That's true, Mrs. Givens. But you are our most important witness. Your testimony about the attack—”

“I told you I can't do that now. My niece said there won't no reason for me to keep on suffering. ‘Being traumatized,' she called it.”

“So your niece got you some lullaby?”

“No, she didn't. She just told me about it. Then somebody else gave me the name of somebody who could get me some. But I ain't going to say who.”

“Did your niece tell you that this drug can be dangerous? That the black-market version is sometimes laced with—”

“I got it from somebody who guaranteed his batch was okay. He said he knew the man who made it.”

“The effects of the drug don't always last, especially when it isn't taken within the first few hours after the event. You may start to have flashbacks again, nightmares that are worse than—”

“Then I'll take some more.”

“You don't want to do that, Mrs. Givens. You don't want to get addicted to a drug that messes with your mind.”

“My niece will make sure I'm okay.”

“Your niece isn't a doctor. If you're having problems, you should see a doctor and get help with—”

“I'm not having problems no more. My niece told me that the drug would work better than talking to somebody, and she was right. I ain't had one bad dream since I took it. I'm sleeping fine now. Don't dream at all. But I feel bad about not being able to testify, and I wanted to come in and explain.”

The door of the interview room slammed back against the wall. Jack Dole, all six four of him, loomed in the doorway.

“Lieutenant Dole,” McCabe said. “Did you need something, sir?”

Dole glared at her witness. “That's nice of you to come in to explain. You want to explain to the family of that kid who got himself killed helping you? You want to explain how you couldn't testify and those little savages who bashed his head in and stomped on his dead body ended up back out on the street?”

Mrs. Givens blinked at him. “My niece said I … I don't—”

“You don't what, lady? Explain it to me.”

A tear trickled down the woman's cheek, making a trail beneath her glasses. “I was having dreams. Awful dreams. And you ain't got no call to speak to me like that. I know you got what you need. I can't be no help to you.”

McCabe scraped her chair across the floor and stood up. “Lieutenant Dole? Sir, the DA's office may be able to make its case without Mrs. Givens's testimony. We have the forensics—”

“I know what we have, Detective.” The flush that temper brought to his ruddy brown face was still visible when Dole turned back to Mrs. Givens. “Who did you buy the lullaby from?”

“I didn't know him. He was … he was just a man I went to meet in the park.”

“Which park?”

“Why you want to know that?”

McCabe tapped her fingers against her pant leg, uneasy, on the verge of reminding the lieutenant that Mrs. Givens had the right to a lawyer if this was about to turn into an interrogation about a drug buy.

But she had opened it up by asking the woman if her niece had been her supplier.

“Haven't you seen the billboards?” Dole said to Mrs. Givens. “‘Keeping Watch to Keep You Safe'? The surveillance cameras we've got all over the city? The ones that caught the droogie boys' attack on you? If you bought lullaby in the park, one of our cameras would have picked up—”

“I'm an honest citizen. You ain't got no right to harass me because I don't want to remember being hurt and frightened. My niece said—”

“I don't give a rat's … I don't care what your niece said. You were a witness in a homicide case. You aren't any use to us now.” Dole stepped aside and gestured toward the door. “Don't let us keep you.”

Mrs. Givens stood up. She was trembling. She glanced at McCabe.

McCabe said, “Take care of yourself, ma'am.”

Mrs. Givens nodded, then made her way out, her head bowed.

In the silence that followed, McCabe said. “You were pretty rough on her, weren't you, Lou?”

“I'm getting fed up, McCabe. I'm getting fed up with victims who decide they don't want to be victims, and witnesses who decide they don't want to be witnesses.”

“Maybe the ADA can get around the problem by giving Mrs. Givens immunity on the drug charge. Then he can put her on the stand to explain why she can't remember clearly what happened. She's an elderly woman. A jury would understand how upset she was about being attacked and then seeing her rescuer killed in front of her. And with the court ruling about overwhelming forensic evidence—”

“You think the bozos on the jury are going to care about that? All we need is one bleeding-heart juror who looks at our droogie boys' sweet little faces … We've even got diversity, a black one, a white one, and two Hispanics. Wanna bet their public defender claims the cops profiled them because we don't like that kind of race mixing. Before their PD's done, the jury will want us on trial for using our technology to frame the little darlings. Why the hell couldn't the woman put up with a few nightmares until after she'd testified?”

“I think she was already scared about testifying.” McCabe reached for her ORB on the conference table. “And then came the nightmares. That can be hard to deal with.”

Dole touched the console, shutting down the camera and recording equipment in the room.

He turned and looked at McCabe. “You ever think of going that route, McCabe? You ever think of swallowing some lullaby and forgetting?”

McCabe stared back at him, her gaze holding his. “Have I ever given you cause to think that, sir? Have I ever given you cause to think that I would take an illegal drug?”

“You must be dealing with some memories now that your brother's back in Albany.” He squinted at her. “You look tired, McCabe. Bad dreams keeping you awake?”