The Daughter She Used To Be

by Rosalind Noonan

  Bernie edged closer, dropping down the stairs behind her father, still vacillating about whether to interrupt him or to just let him be.

  “We’re out of here.” One of the cops shook hands with Sully. “You need a lift somewhere or you got a car here?”

  “What idiot would drive a car to the courthouse? I took the bus.”

  “So you need a ride?”

  “You headed back to the precinct?”

  “Going in that general direction.”

  “You can drop me at Queens General then.”

  They all turned to go then, Sully walking with the group of cops descending the courthouse steps. He passed within five feet of her without noticing. She started to call out to him, but restrained herself. He was in his element, with the guys, and she didn’t want to spoil it.

  As she turned toward Padama and Indigo at the top of the stairs, she wondered why he’d asked for a ride to the hospital. Why would he be going there?

  Her first thought was that he wasn’t feeling well ... a heart attack? That was her inner drama queen acting out. He looked fine.

  Then it hit her. Oh, no.

  She had to get to the hospital.

  She searched the streets beyond the courthouse for a yellow cab. There were none in sight, and she would wait an eternity if she called for one.

  She turned and raced up the stairs.

  The reporter and other people crowded around Indigo made it impossible to get to her. Bernie saw Padama on the fringes, trying to press into the group.

  “I was in the coffee shop,” she said, tapping one of the cameramen on the shoulder. “I was there for the whole thing.”

  The cameraman ignored her, focusing on Indigo.

  “Padama, did you drive here?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, swatting Bernie away as if she were a pesky fly.

  “Can you give me a ride to the hospital?” Bernie grabbed the girl’s arm. “I need to go. Now.”

  “What? Are you having a baby?”

  “It’s an emergency. We have to go now.”

  Padama rolled her eyes. “Not now, Bernie, I—” When she faced Bernie, her expression changed. “You’re serious.”

  Bernie nodded. “Where are you parked?”

  “On the street, two blocks that way.”

  Her pulse roaring in her ears, Bernie was already hurrying down the stairs.

  Chapter 39

  What a beautiful day.

  It was unseasonably warm for March, and Sully kept thinking he would ditch the jacket, but he needed to keep it on for now. He didn’t want to alert anyone at the hospital to the fact that he was packing. For the moment, his old off-duty five-shot revolver was best kept a secret if he was going to get a chance to use it.

  He approached the hospital entrance and the electronic door whooshed open for him. Two black security cameras caught his eye, but he walked right past, whistling as he headed toward the elevators. If they caught him ... not if, but when, well, he hoped no one got in trouble for not stopping him. He wasn’t out to hurt a working man trying to make an honest buck for his family.

  But who in their right mind would stop an old man from whistling his way down a hospital corridor?

  That was the challenge of security on a hospital or college campus. You needed to allow access for the community, but you were mandated to keep members of that community safe from each other. It was quite a pickle, an enigma within a dilemma. Sully was glad he wasn’t director of security in a place like this.

  He paused in front of the elevator bank, then changed his mind and headed to the cafeteria. He’d had no stomach for coffee this morning, had left the house without it in the bluster of that argument with Peg. No breakfast or coffee, but now he had a craving, and who knew? This could be his last cup for a long time.

  Sully’s Cup.

  It was the coffee shop that had gotten them all into this mess in the first place. Maybe it was too much of a vanity, to have his own little café to serve cops. Maybe he shouldn’t have put his name on it at all. Vanity.

  The cafeteria coffee was serviceable, and not a bad price. He ran into a few uniforms down there who knew him. They gave their condolences, and he felt the blade turn in his gut. Did that terrible feeling ever go away? Probably not. In his experience, only the good things like hair and taste buds and sex receded.

  He couldn’t place these guys, with his mind jam-packed with stress and exhaustion right now. Their name tags said Woods and Ammitrano, but they could have said Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for all he cared. The only cop he cared about right now was the kid guarding Curtis’s room on the third floor. According to the schedule, a young rookie named Kelleher was on duty right now. Sully had been counting on it being a rookie, and he hoped these guys weren’t some last-minute replacement.

  “So what are you guys doing here at the hospital today?” he asked Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

  “Getting a cup of coffee,” the short one said, cackling.

  Woods explained that they’d responded to a domestic dispute that had turned ugly. They’d come to deliver a cop for an MRI after someone had winged a kitchen pan at his head.

  “It’s a tough job you guys do.” Sully rubbed his chin, freshly shaved that morning. “How’s your guy doing?”

  “He seems okay,” Woods said. “But it’s worth checking out.”

  “Absolutely.”

  With the bitter sting of coffee on the back of his tongue, Sully left them in the cafeteria and headed up to the third floor where Cahill had told him the prisoner was being lodged. He’d sweated the details of this for days, worried that he’d fall apart, that the schedule would change, or that the young cop would call him out. But he’d awakened this morning with the clearest head he’d had since the shootings. He knew what to do. Every step had led here. And now that he was in the midst of it he felt robotic, like a machine programmed to tap this elevator button, turn left in the corridor, press through the double doors. None of this was difficult, not when you knew you were in the right.

  He’d spent the days since Curtis’s arrest trying to think of a reasonable distraction, and yesterday, he’d thought he had it. The roster. He had to hit the room when the guard was a rookie. But to do that, he’d had to do some fishing. He’d made a few phone calls, found out the name of one of the cops he knew who’d been assigned guard duty. Officer Billy Cahill, a real stand-up guy. Cahill had sounded pleased when Sully touched base and started asking questions about the guard detail at the hospital.

  “Sully, this guy’s a cop killer,” Cahill had said on the phone. “We’re watching him like a hawk. Not that he’s given us any problems. Mostly he’s been unconscious, but he’s cuffed to the bed. Cuffed, and the nurses keep those restraints on him.”

  The third floor smelled like all the others—antiseptic mixed with paint and that iron smell. Sully’s shoes trod lightly on the tile floor, calm, steady footsteps. Curtis’s room was down at the end. A private room, lucky bastard.

  Halfway down the hall, Sully chucked his coffee cup in a trash bin by the nurses’ station. He had to look somewhat professional here.

  He opened up his coat so that his gun was exposed, then reached into his pocket for his old badge. It was actually a replica he’d had made, probably thirty years ago. Most cops paid to have a replica pressed in metal, as the penalty for a lost or stolen shield could be a week or two of vacation. The replicas looked so authentic that most cops wore the fakes and kept their real shield in a safe place at home. And an added bonus was that cops like Sully got to keep the fake shield after retirement. He clipped the silver shield onto a lanyard and took his ID card out of his pocket. The card had RETIRED stamped across it, but the rookie probably wouldn’t ask to see it if Sully talked the talk.

  With his shield and weapon showing, Sully continued down the corridor. He didn’t see the officer standing guard until he passed a gurney sitting in the hall, and there was the cop. Definitely a rookie. The kid actually had freckles scattered
over his nose. Thick reddish hair, and lots of it. Kelleher; that was what his nameplate said.

  “Good morning, Officer.” Sully didn’t smile; he didn’t want to come on too strong. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.” Kelleher squinted over Sully’s shoulder, as if expecting to see others behind him. “How you doing?”

  “Very good. I know you’re new to the 109. Don’t think we’ve met. I’m John Keenan. Street crime. Sergeant Todd is shorthanded today, had to tap into the plainclothes unit. Looks like I’m your meal replacement.”

  “Is that right?” Kelleher checked his watch. “That’s weird. I’m not really due for a break till sixteen hundred.”

  “I guess this was the only way the sarge could work it.” Sully kept his tone even, though the back of his mind was shrieking what an idiot he was. All the time people told him he didn’t look his age, but he was banking on this guy buying that he was around ten years younger. Counting on the kid not to have ever stopped into Sully’s Cup, though Cahill had said he’d only been transferred over from the Bronx a few weeks ago.

  Kelleher scratched the back of his head. “I wish Todd would have called me. I’d rather go later.”

  “You know, I can mention that when I get back to the precinct. Maybe he can send someone to relieve you again later.” Sully paused a moment, trying to sell it, but not too hard. “But if I were you, I’d take a meal now. You know how this job is. Use it or lose it.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sully nodded toward the closed door. “How’s the patient doing?”

  “Quiet. The nurse said he’s still pretty drugged up.” Kelleher picked up his duty jacket from a chair and shrugged it on. “You won’t have any trouble.”

  “Good.” Sully slid his hands back along his belt, pushing his jacket back to reveal the holster clipped to the side of it. The weight of the gun on his hip reminded him of his days on the job, urban cowboy days.

  “I’ll be back in forty minutes or so,” Kelleher said.

  “Take your time.” Sully stood at ease, his legs three feet apart, weight evenly distributed, and waited for the kid to disappear. He was dying to peel off his jacket and wipe the sweat from the back of his neck, but he didn’t want the kid to see how the back of his shirt was drenched. Probably the pits, too.

  Jesus, he’d come close there, but that was what happened when you scrabbled together a half-assed plan.

  A nurse came out of the station halfway down the hall and fell into step with Kelleher. Good. Maybe she could keep him distracted awhile.

  Once he saw them turn the corner to the elevator, Sully let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, tore off his jacket, and pulled his damp shirt away from his chest.

  Good Lord, he was too old for shenanigans like this. He looked down at his balled-up jacket leaning off the chair. Peg’s red paisley oven mitt poked out of one of the inside pockets; his idiot flag. He tore it out of the pocket. “You’re lucky you got this far,” he muttered. The pot holder was to muffle the sound of the gunshot. He’d thought of that when he thought he might have a chance of getting away with this.

  Now ... now he figured that the finest police force in the world was going to catch up with him, no matter how carefully he covered his tracks. Between the descriptions Kelleher would give of the “bald, tall senior cop” and the question of who had reason to want Curtis dead, well ... all roads would lead to his modest house in Bayside.

  But that didn’t matter now.

  Brendan’s life was over, and Sully’s life had started to eclipse even before his son’s death.

  He’d had a good run, and he would go out doing the right thing.

  For the hell of it, he slid the oven mitt onto his left hand and opened the door with it. There were two beds in the room; only one was occupied.

  The man in the bed seemed smaller than Sully had expected from his photos, thin and spindly. He was either asleep or drugged out. There was a monitor behind him that showed blood pressure, pulse, and whatnot. But there was no breathing tube, no lifeline that could be yanked.

  Curtis would recover, just fine. Three good cops were dead, and this guy was in a cushy bed, getting the good drugs to ease the pain.

  “Wake up, you son of a bitch.”

  When Curtis didn’t respond, Sully smacked his feet. Still, no sign of consciousness.

  It would be better if he was awake. Then he could see what was happening to him. Feel the sting of fear, the hot metal of the round.

  Curtis’s shoulder was bandaged from where they’d removed the shredded bullet. Sully stepped closer, found a spot that he figured would be tender, and gave a shove.

  “Aaah ...” Curtis moaned and turned his head to one side, but his eyes didn’t open.

  “Okay, fine. Sleep through it, for all I care. But for the record, I want you to know that I’m here to help you pay for what you did. My name is James Sullivan, and you killed my son Brendan. Brendan Sullivan. He was a cop. You killed two other fine young men, too. Their names were Sean Walters and Kevin Puchinko.”

  Sully took the gun from its holster. Fuck the oven mitt. He didn’t care who heard the explosion of the shot.

  “All three of those young men will be missed,” Sully told the sleeping monster. “They will be missed, and you?” He pressed the barrel of the gun to Curtis’s forehead. “People will applaud your death.”

  Chapter 40

  Oh, dear God, please let me be wrong.

  Bernie repeated the prayer that had run through her head all the way here as she hurried through the halls of the hospital. She had never been to Queens General, and the two different wings connected in odd ways.

  Still, she knew that Peyton Curtis was on the third floor. It was one of the bits of information Keesh had gotten from his friend in the Queens DA’s Office. Curtis was on the third floor, but in what wing?

  She was going to have to ask.

  On the third floor, she stopped at the first nurse’s station she could find, but it was unoccupied. She stopped a passing woman in pink scrubs and asked if she knew.

  “Peyton Curtis?” Bernie asked breathlessly. “He’s a prisoner, in police custody.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just a volunteer here, but even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you. We’re not supposed to give out any personal information, you know.”

  “Oh, I’m here on business.” Bernie fished in the pocket of her coat for her wallet.

  “What, you’re going to bribe me?” The woman’s painted-on eyebrows shot up.

  “No, no, I just wanted to show you my ID. I work for the district attorney’s office. I’m here to interview the suspect.”

  “Oh.” The woman peered at Bernie’s card. “You changed your hair since then.”

  “Yes, yes, I did. But I need to find Mr. Curtis right away. Do you know his room number?”

  The volunteer looked over her shoulder cautiously. “Who knows numbers?” She gestured with her head. “He’s at the very end of that hall. Last room on the left. You’ll know it from the adorable young cop waiting outside. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Of course. Thank you.” Bernie took off running down the hall.

  “No running,” the woman called after her. “You’ll hurt yourself!”

  There was no cop standing guard, just a chair with a jacket strewn over it. Bernie pushed open the door frantically and froze, her wildest nightmare realized.

  The man with his back to her was her father ... her father pressing a gun to the patient’s forehead.

  “Dad, no!” Bernie rushed forward, her arms stretched out in front of her as if she could reach out and stop the terrible scene from unfolding.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Bernadette! What are you doing here?”

  “I figured it out, Dad.” She came up behind him, then swung around and put her hands on his forearms and tugged at the straight line of muscle and bone leading to the sickening steel weapon.

  God, he was strong ... but she had to shift ... his ... ai
m.

  “Stop it!” Sully’s face hardened as he held tough. “Just get the hell out of my way! You won’t win, Bernie. Get the hell out of here before you become an accessory to murder.”

  “Grrr!” She growled in frustration and banged her body into his.

  Although her weight had no impact on his stance, it angered him enough to lower the gun and turn to her.

  “You know better than to mess with a man with a loaded gun. I said get out.” His face was beet red, and the malice glittering in his eyes chilled her to the bone.

  “I’m not leaving,” she said steadily. A pulse drummed in her ears, but she ignored the fear.

  He didn’t shoot yet. He’s not aiming at him now.

  This is progress.

  “Darlin’, you need to get out of here or you’re going to have an image in your mind that will haunt you the rest of your life.”

  “I’m not leaving, and you are not shooting this man. I won’t let you.”

  “Oh, please. You’re the daughter, Bernie. The liberal, litigating daughter who thinks everyone deserves an equal chance. You’re wrong.”

  “Okay, okay, then let’s talk about it. Put your gun away before someone comes in here. Talk to me.” She tried to force her way between him and the bed, but he kept pushing her away. “Talk to me, Dad. Because you can take words back, but if you fire that gun, you’re going to destroy everything you’ve worked for. Your reputation. Your family. Our family.”

  He stared straight ahead at the sleeping man’s face. “You don’t get it. I wish you hadn’t walked in here, but nothing you can say will change the truth.” He went up to the monitor behind the bed and pressed a few buttons until it was off. “Go, Bernie. Get out of here,” Sully said, raising the gun to Curtis’s head.

  Fear was a fist, squeezing tight in Bernie’s chest. She had no doubt her father would kill this man, and then ... then they would both be guilty of murder and there would be nothing separating them from the most barbaric animals, from rats who killed and consumed their own young.

  She left her father’s side and went behind the bed, slipping into the narrow space between the headboard and wall. “Okay, Dad. Go ahead and shoot, and with any luck your bullet will go right through him into me.” She braced herself on the headboard. “If it doesn’t, then promise you’ll finish me off with another shot, because I’ll be as good as dead. You will, too.”