Black and Blue

by David Rosenfelt

  “But he killed his high school teacher; what else could he have gotten out of doing that?”

  Nate has no answer for that, so we just drive the rest of the way in silence.

  The note was delivered today, which is no surprise.

  By the time I get home, Jessie has already had a forensics team out to the house. They opened it in her presence, and she copied down what it said for my benefit. Then they took the original back to the lab, where they will learn nothing from it.

  The note says: “ANOTHER VICTIM GOES UP IN FLAMES. BUT SO MANY LEFT, AND SO LITTLE TIME.…”

  I tell Jessie about the events of the day and then settle in to read the investigative reports that I wasn’t around to see earlier. One of them has some significance. Alex Randowsky, the victim shot at the tennis courts, was a 50 percent owner of a restaurant in Englewood that Phelan was known to have frequented on occasion.

  Randowsky was an investor and absentee owner; he had little to do with running the place. But so what? I have it all figured out: Phelan and his unknown accomplice ate there and didn’t like the service. Maybe the soup was cold, or the waiter forgot to fill their water glass promptly.

  So instead of not leaving a tip in protest, they murdered an investor in the restaurant.

  Makes perfect sense.

  I’m ready for bed at around eleven o’clock. Jessie is already in bed reading, which is a sure sign that it’s up to me to give Bobo his nighttime walk. I would have done it anyway; with Phelan’s preoccupation with me, I’ve followed Nate’s advice and taken extra precautions.

  One of those precautions, because I’m a chauvinist pig, is making sure that Jessie is not the one to walk Bobo at night. Phelan could be trying to get to me, and there would be no surer way to do that than go after Jessie.

  I’m also walking a different route, going along the back alleys between houses in the maze that is our neighborhood. And I even go through different alleys each time, so as not to be predictable.

  All of this keeps me from having to be on open streets that would provide Phelan with a clean shot, while at the same time giving Bobo new routes to explore and sniff. As an added benefit, it further assures Jessie that the reckless “old me” has matured into the careful, measured “new me.”

  Bobo has a rather strange idiosyncrasy: he likes to piss on garbage cans. He’d rather bust a bladder than piss on a fire hydrant or a telephone pole, but garbage cans set him off, and these alleys are full of them. I think he must drink a gallon of water in anticipation of our back-alley walks, because he doesn’t miss a single one.

  Unlike our walks on the street, these are at a very leisurely pace; it’s a few steps and then a stop at a garbage can. So it’s a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I don’t get my arm pulled out of its socket. The downside is I spend a hell of a lot of time in alleys watching Bobo piss.

  We’re on the way back, going through different alleys than we took on our outbound route, when Bobo suddenly tenses, alert. I react, and I see the slight glint of metal about seventy-five feet away, around the side of a garage.

  My instincts kick in and I dive behind a metal can—actually two cans side by side—pulling Bobo with me. As I’m doing so, I hear the shot, and the bullet hitting the back door of a house. I was standing in front of that door; I don’t have the slightest doubt that had I not moved, that bullet would have exploded my heart.

  Bobo saved my life.

  For now.

  As I pull out my revolver, another bullet comes crashing into the can. Fortunately it’s sturdy, but I don’t know how much more it can withstand. It moves back with the impact, and I steady it and keep it in place.

  The noise is deafening against the silence of the night, as it rebounds off all of the structures in this relatively enclosed area. I peer out; I need to know where this guy is. Otherwise I have no chance of making it out of here.

  The situation, when I get my bearings, turns out not to be as bad as I thought. While Bobo and I are pinned down and can’t move without exposing ourselves to fire, Phelan is in a similar position. If he tries to get away without finishing the job, then I will see him and will have a clear shot. There’s enough light from the houses to do the job.

  Bobo does not want to be here, and it’s all I can do to hold on to him. He’s excited and anxious, panting and pulling on the leash. I think the gunshot sounds are freaking him out, and I can’t say I blame him.

  But if he ventures out where he could be seen at all, in the dim light Phelan might think it’s me and take a shot at him. I need to protect him; the big dope saved my life. While keeping an eye on Phelan’s position, I tie Bobo’s leash to a hose bib that is on the house behind me.

  I tie it as tight as I can, leaving Bobo very little room to move. It will piss him off, but I think it will hold—though I can’t be sure. At Bobo’s size, it would make more sense to tie him to a hitching rail in front of a Western saloon. But one way or the other, this is not going to take long. “Hang in, buddy,” I whisper. “I’ll get us out of this; you’ll be pissing on garbage cans for many years to come.” I’m talking to him and petting him to calm him down; I don’t want him to use his strength to pull loose.

  “You can’t move, Phelan,” I yell. “I can’t either, but time is on my side; I’ve got all night. Give it up.”

  A voice responds, but it’s not Phelan. “What’s going on down there?” A guy in one of the houses has just opened a window and is calling down.

  He is my solution.

  “Call the police,” I yell. “Report an officer-involved shooting that is ongoing. Then keep away from that window!”

  He doesn’t answer, but leaves the window immediately. I have no doubt he’ll call the cops, and the balance of power will totally turn against Phelan when they get here. He’s got to make a move before they arrive. I don’t.

  “The cavalry is on the way, Phelan!” I yell. “Give it up.”

  “Okay.” He stands up, holding a rifle with an extended arm. “I’m done.”

  “Drop the rifle.”

  He does so, and the noise clangs and reverberates in the alleys. Once I see him do so, I stand up, my gun pointing at him. He walks a few steps toward me, still mostly shrouded in darkness, and I say, “That’s far enough.”

  He stops, and I say, “Walk over there to that house, put your hands against the wall, and spread them.”

  But as he turns to do so, I see him make a sudden move. There’s a gun in his hand, or at least a piece of metal that reflects light.

  I fire, twice, and he’s blown backwards and goes down.

  I can hear the sirens in the distance as I walk toward Phelan. He’s lying on his back. One of my bullets hit him in the heart, which one could say is his final irony.

  There’s no doubt that he’s dead; but I move closer to check his pulse anyway. I hear the noise of the cops approaching, but I’m not paying attention.

  There is no pulse; he’s dead.

  He’s also not Danny Phelan.

  He’s William Gero, the owner of the rifle range, and at least one M4.

  Fortunately, among the first group of cops to arrive is Sergeant Juan Santana.

  He’s Englewood PD, which makes sense, since I just killed William Gero in an Englewood alley. I know Juan; I worked with him on a couple of operations maybe two years ago. He’s a good guy with a terrific sense of humor.

  The reason it’s fortunate that he’s here is that this way I don’t have to lie on the ground, spread-eagled, while they figure out who the good guys and bad guys are. When cops show up and someone is standing in an alley with a gun, having just shot someone, they have a tendency to assume the worst until they find out otherwise. In this case, Juan knows otherwise.

  One of the good guys, who is suddenly standing next to me, is Bobo. I had momentarily forgotten about him and not untied him, which is why I’m somewhat surprised to see him standing here. And also why I will owe someone money for a broken hose bib, which is rattling on the other end
of his leash. I’m not surprised he pulled off the hose bib, but I’m a little surprised he didn’t pull the house down with it.

  I ask Juan to call Nate and Jessie, not necessarily in that order. Englewood PD is processing the scene, and there will be no reason for state cops to intervene. Not only is this local and something they are totally capable of handling, but since I’m a state cop, our taking over might give the appearance of impropriety.

  I won’t have any trouble convincing anyone what happened here, especially since there is an M4 rifle on the ground, about seven feet from Gero’s body. There’s also a revolver, which looks like a .38, about a foot from the body.

  My hope is that the rifle will be tested and found to be the weapon used in the recent killings, going back to Brookings. I also hope that the .38 proves to be the weapon that killed Helen Mizell. They are not just my hopes; they are my expectations.

  In any event, with all this weaponry on the ground, it will be obvious to any investigating body that Gero was not in the alley to take out the garbage.

  Jessie arrives before Nate, since our house is so close. She hugs me and Bobo; my hug comes first, but I think his is a little bigger. Not that I’m keeping track.

  I tell Jessie everything that happened, ending it with, “Bobo saved my life. That big, dumb dope literally saved my life. He will hold this over me forever.”

  This prompts Jessie to bend down and give Bobo another, even bigger, hug. Of course, bending is not really necessary, since he’s as tall as she is. She throws in a couple of “you’re the best boy” to him. Then she asks me, “Why is there a faucet tied to his leash?”

  “Why are you asking me? Ask him.”

  Nate shows up along with Captain Bradley and about a dozen other state cops. I really appreciate the support, especially since once I give a statement, Bradley arranges for me to be able to go home, pending further questioning when the Englewood cops need me. Without his intervention, I could have been stuck there all night.

  So Jessie, Nate, Bradley, Bobo, and I head back to our house. Jessie makes coffee for everyone except Bobo, who gets a two-biscuit reward for his efforts. Then, having received enough hero worship for the night, he goes off to sleep, and the rest of us talk about the significance of tonight’s events.

  Bradley says, “I understand a lot of this depends on the ballistics, but for the moment, let’s assume they check out. The chance that they happen to be a different M4 and .38 is well off the possible-coincidence meter. So, assuming they are the guns we’ve been looking for, where are we?”

  I answer first. “Well, it’s fair to say that our shooter is dead. But it still leaves Phelan out there.”

  “Maybe he’s out there because he was afraid he’d be arrested and convicted, even though he’s innocent. Maybe he thought the odds were stacked against him, so he ran.”

  Jessie shakes her head. “There’s too much to tie Phelan to this. Do we think that Gero coincidentally murdered Phelan’s English teacher and a guy from Phelan’s basic-training unit?”

  “Let’s not forget Phelan’s ex-wife,” I point out.

  “Actually, there’s one more thing,” Bradley says. “We just got the report about a half hour before I came here. The gas station owner that was killed, Richard Decker … he was in a car accident about six years ago. He pulled out in a parking lot without looking and hit Phelan’s car.”

  Jessie frowns. “And that turned out to be worthy of a death sentence.”

  “We figured that there were two of them,” Nate says. “One person couldn’t have pulled off the murder of that woman from the library. So we know that Phelan is still out there, and his buddy is the latest victim of Wyatt Earp over here.” He points to me, so as not to leave any doubt that I am the Wyatt Earp he is talking about.

  I turn to Nate. “You’re the next notch on my gun, you fat piece of shit.”

  Nate feigns a wounded look. “Captain, can’t you suspend him for that? He demeaned a fellow officer.”

  “You’re both idiots,” Jessie points out, and nobody argues with that.

  “There are two things I don’t understand,” I say. “Actually, there’s a lot more than two, but I’m talking about the two main ones. The first is: What did Gero have to gain from this? Phelan’s got the ridiculous grudges, but why Gero? Mrs. Mizell can’t have flunked both of them in English 101.”

  “We’ll dig into his history tomorrow, but maybe he just gets off on shooting people,” Nate says.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so. If that was it, he wouldn’t have been out of commission while Phelan was in jail. He didn’t need Phelan to find victims, and he didn’t need them to be people Phelan didn’t like. He could have picked people out at random. But he waited for Phelan to be released before he started shooting again.”

  “I don’t see how it could have been for money, either,” Bradley says. “Phelan does not appear to have any.”

  I nod. “But Gero definitely did Phelan’s dirty work, so he must have had a reason. And now we’ll get to see if Phelan will pick up the slack.”

  “What’s the other thing you don’t understand?” Jessie asks.

  “Why they went after me at all, but especially why now? I was their foil; they were having fun playing with me, mocking me. Why take me out? It’s not like I was close to nailing Phelan. I wish that was the case, but we know it’s not.”

  “You’re a name,” Nate says. “You’re a media star. They hit you, and the media attention gets even bigger than it is now. They’re stepping up their game.”

  Bradley nods. “I’m going to have a black-and-white on your street twenty-four/seven. If they came at you once, they can do it again. I think Nate is right.”

  “I don’t,” I say. “It doesn’t feel right; it’s not like I’m suddenly in the media spotlight. That’s yesterday’s news, but they didn’t try to take me out yesterday, they tried today.”

  “You have a better answer?” Nate asks.

  “No.”

  “I think we should get engaged.”

  We’re up, showered, dressed, and about to leave for the station when Jessie drops this bomb. As sentences go, this one is about as expected as her saying that she was just named starting right tackle for the Green Bay Packers.

  “You do?” I ask.

  “Yes. Why do you look so surprised?”

  “Because every time I suggest getting married, you break into a cold sweat and start shaking violently. Then, when you’ve had a few minutes to think about it, you say, ‘No … absolutely no … no chance.’ I’m paraphrasing here.”

  “Who said anything about getting married?” she asks. “I said we should get engaged.”

  “I thought one followed the other.”

  “It didn’t last time.”

  I’m not sure Jessie will ever get over the fact that I broke up with her after being engaged. It was before I was shot and lost my memory, and before I re-fell in love with her.

  “I know that, but this is the new me. The old me was an idiot.”

  “No argument there,” she says. “Anyway, I think we should get engaged.”

  “I totally agree, but I’m just curious why you’ve come to this conclusion now.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that myself,” she says. “I’m really not sure, but it might have something to do with you getting shot at in the alley. You obviously could have been killed, and it’s not the first time and won’t be the last. You have a dangerous job.”

  “And getting engaged will make me safer?”

  “No, but it would get me into the obituary as the grieving widow.”

  I shake my head, sensing an opening. “Being engaged doesn’t make you a widow.”

  “True, but I could at least be the grieving fiancée. Grieving ex-girlfriends don’t make the obituary at all. I deserve better than getting shut out like that.”

  “This is a beautiful moment,” I say. “Uplifting, really.”

  “So are you going to propose?”

/>   “When? Now?”

  “I could change my mind. But it’s your call; I can’t make decisions for you.”

  “Since when?”

  “You going to do it or not?” she asks.

  “Okay, but I didn’t get you a ring yet.”

  “I’ll accept an IOU on that.”

  I get down on one knee. Bobo thinks something is going on and wants to be a part of it, so he comes up next to me and sits on his backside, front legs up. Jessie starts laughing at the sight of me next to this enormous black hairball, who towers over me in this position.

  “It’s not funny,” I say. “This is a very serious, vulnerable moment for me.”

  She wipes the smile off her face. “Okay. Sorry. Do your speech; convince me.”

  “Jessie, I love you and want you in my life forever. I also want you in my obituary. Will you engage me?”

  She doesn’t answer right away, seeming to ponder how to reply. Then she says, “I don’t know what to say … this is so sudden.”

  I nod. “I know, but I’m a spontaneous person. The idea just came to me in the moment.”

  My knee is hurting, so I start to stand up, but she says, “Stay.” Bobo and I both obey the command. Then she ponders some more, and then, finally, “Yes, I will engage you.”

  “Can I rise and kiss the potential bride?”

  “You may.”

  So I get up, as does Bobo, but I’m the only one who gets to kiss Jessie.

  “Not bad,” she says. “Let’s go to work.”

  The work part of the day does not appear to be starting well.

  Jessie and I, newly engaged as we are, arrive at the station at seven thirty and already waiting for me is James McKinney, Julie Phelan’s fiancé. I have no idea if she agreed to get engaged to him so she could get in his obituary, but this may not be the best time to ask him.

  He’s got a look on his face that is somewhere between very anxious and distraught. I think he looks worse than me, and I spent the night getting shot at.