“I admit,” said Delgado, “I never thought Susan was behind it all. But it was everyone’s word against hers, and she certainly wasn’t in any condition to put up much of a fight.”
“Yeah, thanks for the support,” I said sarcastically, which only earned a wider grin from Delgado. “Anyway, Zachetti and I, we tracked him down. It wasn’t hard. He was up to his old tricks again. Still hooked on the dope. Found him squatting in a supposedly vacant building in Central Falls. Setting up Susan as his fall guy actually earned him some street cred, and he had a small crew working for him. Small-time hustles, purse-snatching, that sort of thing. Whatever could get him some cash for their next score.”
Ernie shifted his weight on his feet. I had forgotten he was there. He had been standing very still in front of the door, just watching us all intently. I cleared my throat and continued.
“So Zachetti and I, we bust in, adamant on putting this guy away. Chad gets spooked, reaches for a gun—”
“Now, Harrison,” chided Delgado. “If you want to be truthful, let’s be truthful.”
“I mean, I thought he was reaching for a gun—”
“Harrison…”
“Fine,” I snapped. “There was no gun. But I shot him anyway, okay? Right in the middle of his forehead. I couldn’t let him do what he did to Susan to anyone else. I couldn’t let him ruin anyone else’s life. I couldn’t let him just get away with it.”
“Oh, Harry,” said Chelsea. I couldn’t tell if it was sympathy or disappointment or both.
“Excellent,” said Delgado. “See? Doesn’t it feel good to get that off your chest? Clear the air?”
“It was a long time ago,” I said. “I was in a terrible place in my life. I was angry, and sad, and depressed…”
“Has anything really changed all that much?” sneered Delgado. Before I could respond, he turned to Chelsea.
“So of course, we covered it up. Protected the brotherhood. Devine wasn’t even named in the report, Zachetti was found to have shot poor Mr. Lydecker in self defense. We made sure the evidence matched. Wouldn’t want the trouble of a black mark on the department, a detective with a thirst for vengeance killing an unarmed civilian. Besides, no one could really blame Harrison for his actions. Almost anyone would have done the same thing. Our very job is to ensure justice is served.”
“I couldn’t bear the guilt though,” I said. “So that’s why I resigned. And that’s why I couldn’t let you do something you might regret later. As long as it’s been, and as much as I try to push it from my mind, it haunts me every day that I took a life in cold blood. It’s too late for me to redeem myself, but not too late to save you from making a huge mistake.”
Delgado let out a cynical laugh. “Was that your plan?” he asked Chelsea. “To kill me? Or Temple? You really think that would make everything better?”
She ignored his question and instead responded with one of her own. “Why are you telling me all this?”
Delgado chuckled again. “Simply to illustrate that this is who we are. All of us. Even, as it were, your dear friend Harry Devine. He’s no different. And neither are you, Ms. Woodstern. No matter how above the fray you pretend to be, no matter how straight and narrow, we’re all crooked and self-serving on the inside. So you may as well give up. This is just the way it works. It’s the city. I was like you once. I wanted to make a difference, I really did. But this city…”
He sneered in utter disgust, as if even mentioning the name “Providence” would leave too rancid a taste on his tongue.
“…this city is vile. You’ve seen it. The toxic rot that eats it from the inside out. It doesn’t matter how much you clean up the outside. There’s an evil here, Ms. Woodstern. It courses through the water supply. Floats in the air we breathe. Turns people’s brains to depravity and sin. You saw how people were acting at the WaterFire Ball. This whole wretched state is nothing but a modern day Gomorrah. It’s cursed, Ms. Woodstern. It’s possessed by a demon too powerful for any exorcism.”
He turned and started strolling away, still talking as he looked up at the night sky.
“I’m not saintly enough to become a martyr for what’s right,” he said. “Perhaps you may be, Devine. But rather than fight the battle that I’ll inevitably lose, I’d rather choose the ones I can win. I play the odds, is all. I’ve come to terms with my choices.”
“So you’re saying Marc Winters died because, what…the city made you do it?” I asked.
“I do what I have to do in order to survive,” he said coldly. “Something that you two—you’ve made increasingly difficult as of late. But that ends tonight.”
I braced for Delgado to take action somehow, but it was Chelsea that moved first. Before I knew what was happening, she yanked her hand out of my grasp and pulled Terry’s stolen gun out of her back waistband. She pointed it steadily at Delgado. Ernie, just as quickly, drew his gun and aimed it at Chelsea. Delgado’s back was to her, but he stopped pacing, and looked over his shoulder at her, grinning.
“It wasn’t me that killed Marc Winters, Miss Woodstern,” he sneered.
“You gave the order,” she replied. He shook his head and shrugged nonchalantly.
“Everyone takes orders from someone. It was Providence, Miss Woodstern. Providence killed your partner. His blood is on the hands of 180,000 men, women, and children. It was the city’s wickedness that threw him out of that window. You can burn down the entire town if you want. But the rot is so ingrained, festering so deep in its soul, it won’t change anything. Shoot me if you think it’ll make you feel good about it. If you think it’ll magically make everything better. Providence will laugh at you, Miss Woodstern.”
“Shut up!” shouted Chelsea.
Tears started streaming down her face. Her aim started to waver slightly. I held my hand up to Ernie to try to tell him to take it easy, but he had experience and training a-plenty, and I knew he wouldn’t shoot unless he had to.
I hope to God he doesn’t have to.
“Chelsea,” I said cautiously. “It’s over. Put down the gun.”
“Listen to Devine, Miss Woodstern,” said Delgado. “He’s right. It’s over. Drop the gun and I’ll take you both in. No one else has to get hurt.”
“You’re…you’re just going to let him get away with it?” she asked me, shrieking through her tears. “After all he’s done…after all he’s doing…he just gets to win?”
“It’s hopeless,” I said. “Another Chief Delgado will pop up in his place, and nothing will ever change. Taking a life is a serious thing to have on your conscience, Chelsea. No matter how wasteful that life is. Please…trust me.”
She shouted at the top of her lungs, wiping her tears off her face while keeping the gun on an unfazed Delgado. His hands remained clasped behind his back as he watched her with mild curiosity. Like he had no stakes in this situation whatsoever.
“I…I…this should have been easy,” she said. “Find out who killed Marc and make them pay. It’s not fair.”
“No. No, it’s not,” I said.
“But he’s wrong,” she said, making eye contact with Delgado. “You’re both wrong! Providence isn’t the cesspool you say it is. The world isn’t like that. There’s art, and beauty, and…good people. I didn’t think there many good people left at all. All I encounter are the worst of the worst. But this place has shown me that the good people—I mean, the really good people—they do exist. They are out there. Even here, in Providence. It gives me hope. It gives me faith. People like Harry…they make me want to be a good person. Even though I know I most certainly am not.”
She hurled the gun off to the other side of the rooftop. It bounced a few times and then skidded to a stop with a clang against an air vent. Delgado’s wicked smile grew to almost touch his ears, the wrinkles on his tanned face creasing off in every direction.
“Excellent,” he said. “For what i
t’s worth, you are a good person, Miss Woodstern. A better person than I, in fact.”
He turned to Ernie, who had stood down and was re-holstering his own gun.
“Officer,” he said. “Shoot them both.”
“I…what?” asked Ernie.
“I’ll repeat,” said Delgado condescendingly, “You’re going to shoot these fine people, Officer. We’ll play it as they ambushed us and you shot them to protect me. You’ll be hailed a hero. Make the news. All that fun stuff.”
“I’m not going to shoot them…sir.”
“Are you disobeying orders?”
“They’re unarmed civilians, sir.”
The first cracks in Delgado’s cool demeanor were beginning to show. He spoke loudly and authoritatively. His seemingly never-ending patience was finally wearing thin.
“What are you going to believe, Officer, your own eyes, or what your Chief is telling you?”
Ernie set his jaw and fastened his holster.
“I can’t do that, sir. Harry’s a fine man. Everybody knows it.”
“Everybody knows shit,” Delgado spat. “Fine. Give me your gun, I’ll do it.”
“I can’t do that either, sir.”
“Officer, your firearm, now! That’s an order.”
Ernie stood straight but unmoving, his hand on his holstered gun, silently staring at nothing.
“You’ll be fired for this, Ernest,” said Delgado.
No response.
Delgado’s eyes grew crazed, and a strange look overcame his face. A look I had never seen on him before. He was, by nature, a calm and collected individual. It’s what helped him get him so far in his career. It’s what kept his cool even when Chelsea had a gun pointed at him. But this look—it was more barbaric, more animalistic, more ruthless than I had ever seen him.
“Very well,” he hissed. “I suppose I have to do everything myself!”
He lunged at Chelsea, his hands closing around her throat. I threw myself on top of him, trying to pry him off of her, but he removed one hand from her neck just long enough to sucker punch me in the gut. I collapsed as white hot pain seared throughout my entire body. It was a pain I thought I should have been used to at this point, but I wasn’t.
I pushed through the pain and grabbed at him again. I somehow managed to pull him off of her. She rolled away, coughing and clutching her throat with both hands. It was my turn to be under Delgado next, as he pounced on me.
Instead of choking me, he started punching my face. Violent, frenzied punches that he did not hold back, even as his knuckles cracked open and his blood mixed with mine on the rooftop. My vision all but disappeared as he kept pummeling me. I was too weak, too disoriented to fight back; all I could do is flail my arms and legs around like a fish on a boat deck.
I’m going to die here. He’s going to beat me to death.
The thing that ran through my mind was not, as I thought it would be, Chelsea Woodstern. It was not some brooding, melancholy feeling of what my life would be like on a different path. Nor was it the usual haunting memories of Riley, or what I’ve either lost or thrown away.
It was happiness.
It was a happiness I hadn’t felt in years. Not even with Chelsea.
It was a happiness I had felt with Susan, often. On dates with her, on our wedding day, even just cuddling on the couch with her watching a movie. And it wasn’t just with Susan. It was the happiness of not hating myself. The happiness of just living life without the dark cloud of guilt and anxiety hanging over me.
I had forgotten. I had forgotten how good it felt to just be happy.
Take the happiness.
I was oddly okay with dying. I felt like all the pieces had fallen into place and this was how it was meant to be. Because there was solace in the realization that no matter how fucked up I thought I was, I was still better than people like Delgado. He looked, most of the time, very sane and rational and like the kind of successful community hero that just had his shit together. But, as it turned out, he was secretly a monster. There was more anger and sadness and turmoil inside of him than in me and Chelsea combined. At least I knew what goodness was. And at least, to my surprise, it was a bigger part of me than I had realized.
In my delirium, I smiled up at Delgado through bloody teeth as the punches kept coming. This enraged him even more. I was just thinking, this is it, this next punch will be the one to end me, when his arm froze in midair. His face contorted in surprise and pain. I hadn’t even heard the gunshot behind him.
He looked down at me in such absolute hatred. A sick, twisted loathing that I couldn’t begin to understand, and hoped that I never would. He collapsed on top of me in a heap.
Ernie put his gun away and ran over to me. He pulled Delgado off of me.
“Sorry I took so long,” he said. “Couldn’t get a clear shot without getting you, too.”
“’preciate it,” I coughed. He got on his radio and I crawled over to Chelsea. She was still lying on her back.
“Okay?” I asked.
“Okay”, she said, rubbing her neck.
I collapsed on my back next to her. We stared up at the stars, the city skyline peeking up just above the roof’s edge. I struggled to speak.
“Did the right thing,” I said.
“Did I?” she asked. She turned her head to look at Ernie standing over Delgado’s motionless body. “He was shot anyway. Looks like it didn’t matter.”
“It matters,” I said.
I reached out and grabbed her hand. She held on firmly.
“No matter what happens,” I said, “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’d say the same,” she said, “but you don’t look okay.”
I wiped the blood away from my eyes.
“Just a scratch,” I said. She smiled.
“I’m sorry I’m so difficult,” she said. “I just wanted…I just felt…”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Let’s not talk about feelings right now.”
She squeezed my hand.
“Terry told me we’re awful for each other,” I said.
She coughed out a laugh.
“She told me the same thing. I…think she’s right.”
“Yeah,” I said. But neither one of us loosened our grip on each other.
We gazed at the sky wordlessly for a bit. Lying on our backs, holding hands, a view of practically nothing but stars, it was easy to block out the rest of the city.
“She said to have the good sense to know when the fun’s over,” I said finally. “I guess the fun’s over, isn’t it?”
“Not yet,” she said. “We’ve got tonight. This counts as your date, you know.”
I couldn’t drum up the energy to laugh, so I just smiled and gripped her hand tighter.
“Beautiful,” I said.
“Indeed,” said Chelsea.
I’m sure now that it was just my delirium, but at the time I was certain that the sounds of the oncoming sirens were drowned out by Ella Fitzgerald singing “Isn’t it Romantic.”
Fade to black.
Chapter 27
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY
Chief Delgado was pronounced dead on the scene. The Providence Police Department launched a full investigation, which didn’t bode well for any of us, but it was soon taken over by none other than the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They had been monitoring Delgado for months. He had shown up on their radar after several suspicious bank transfers and more than one tip from the police’s internal affairs division. As alone as we had felt in our investigation, turns out we were far from the only ones concerned about the shady dealings going on.
The FBI ruled that Delgado’s shooting was justified, and Ernie was indeed hailed as hero in the local papers. Just not in the way Delgado had planned.
After being held for a few shitty months withou
t bail, I was exonerated as they discovered the trail of Delgado ordering the hits on Grayle, Slim, and Rocco. And eventually Marc Winters, thanks to testimonies from Ernie and Zachetti. The feds found out how I had been framed and all charges against me were dropped before I even got to trial. My lawyer had procured about four pages of character witnesses just in case, and the letters of support I received from acquaintances and former co-workers were enough to rival Kris Kringle’s in Miracle on 34th Street.
It felt completely undeserved, but it was nice to know people still wrote letters.
Zachetti and I all left out certain elements of our renegade investigation to the feds. We made ourselves to look more like the Hardy Boys, trying to figure out who was behind the counterfeit operation in the Old Mill. We left most of Chelsea’s part out of it completely so she could stay out of the spotlight. The feds never bothered to look too much into her, and they were happy to take all the credit anyway.
We never did find out who sent the initial anonymous email that launched Chelsea’s investigation to begin with.
A string of other arrests and prosecutions followed. Even our old friend Bruce the Thug was captured and linked to dozens of other crimes. Many SmartPark investors faced various other charges of fraud, conspiracy, witness intimidation, planting of evidence, and worse.
The investigation fell short, however, of ever implicating several notable people. A link to Frank Temple was suspiciously never established. And the mayor applauded the work of the FBI in interviews and press conferences, vowing to clean up the rampant corruption within the police department, while he himself was never named in any capacity. Everything from the murders to the whole SmartPark scheme was somehow pinned on Delgado. He was made out to be the mastermind. The mayor won reelection by a landslide.
And the wheels of Providence continued to grind on.
Zachetti was promoted to Captain, and was placed in charge of the Department’s newly-formed Anti-Corruption Task Force. Under his watch, the whole culture of the Department improved—up to a certain point. “Some things never fucking change,” Zachetti had said. “It’s mostly an image thing. But I’m doing what I can.”
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