by Steven Henry
The faint metallic click wouldn’t have meant much to a civilian, but Erin recognized the sound of a pistol’s slide chambering a round. She froze again for a fraction of a second, weighing her options, then jumped off the ladder.
Even as she was airborne, she heard the gunshots, four shots in such rapid succession that she hadn’t landed by the time the fourth bullet splintered the plywood exactly where she’d been.
She hit the hard-packed dirt with a jarring shock, her legs buckling at the impact. “Damn!” she grunted.
Paulson was already moving with the reflexes of a combat veteran. He didn’t go up the ladder, or back off to get a better angle on the upper floor. He went into the unfinished house, through the gap where the front living-room window would be, so he was standing directly beneath the room from which the shots had come. Pointing the shotgun at the ceiling, he fired straight up. The twelve-gauge buckshot tore through the thin subfloor. He pumped the shotgun, stepped to one side, fired again, then a third time.
“Okay! Okay! Jesus Christ!”
The cry, more frightened than injured, came from the second floor. Paulson, unmoved by the plea to his lord and savior, pumped another shell into his Remington and sent a fourth shell through the ceiling in the direction of the voice.
“This is the NYPD! Throw the gun down!” Erin shouted. She held her finger tight on the Glock’s trigger, aiming up.
After a long moment, a Sig-Sauer automatic was hurled over the side of the second floor to land in the dirt with a thud.
“Come down!” Erin called. “I’d better see your hands, and they’d better be in the air!”
“I can’t!” came the panicky response. “I’m hurt! I’m shot!”
“Where?” she demanded.
“In the legs! I’m bleeding! Oh shit, I’m gonna die!”
Paulson shook his head in disgust. “Call for backup,” he muttered.
Erin grabbed her radio. “Dispatch, O’Reilly, four-six-four-oh. I have a 10-10S at 77th Avenue, between 164th and 166th. Building under construction. Request backup, and a bus, forthwith.”
“Ten-Four, O’Reilly,” Dispatch said. “Units inbound.”
Erin put away her radio. Then she began climbing the ladder again.
“You don’t want to go up there alone,” Paulson warned. “He may have another gun.”
“He’s hurt,” she replied. “I have to make sure he doesn’t bleed out.” The man above her was moaning quietly.
“For Christ’s sake, let him,” was Paulson’s opinion. “He just tried to kill you. What if both of them are up there?”
“He’s giving up,” she retorted, still climbing. “He needs first aid. We’re cops, Paulson. You’re not in Baghdad anymore.”
“Shit,” Paulson muttered, feeding fresh shells into the breech of the shotgun. “You get killed; I’m not doing the paperwork.”
“You’re all heart,” Erin said, reaching the top of the ladder. She thrust herself the rest of the way up, bringing the Glock in line.
A quick look told her there was no danger. A lone man in jeans and a dirty white T-shirt sat on the bare flakeboard, clutching one of his legs. Both lower limbs were peppered with buckshot. Blood was soaking his jeans.
“Come on up, Paulson!” she called down. “He’s alone and he’s hurt.”
She recognized one of the four men from the heist, both from her own experience and from Cal’s description. It was Mike, the weightlifter, the one with the shaved head and the crazy eyes. Those eyes didn’t look so crazy now. He stared at Erin with a mix of terror, pain, and an odd, wrenching hope.
“Mike?”
“What?” He said, his voice tight with pain. “How’d you know my name? Shit, this hurts! I’m dying!”
“You’re under arrest,” she said, moving into the room. “For murder, armed robbery, attempted murder, and resisting arrest. But I’m going to take care of you. You’re not going to die.”
Paulson clambered up the ladder into the room. He regarded the wounded man dispassionately, the muzzle of the shotgun trained on Mike’s head.
“Point that thing somewhere else,” Erin said. She needed to administer first aid, and the last thing she wanted was a gun aimed anywhere close to her. She holstered her Glock and knelt beside Mike. The man was too frightened and hurt to even think of further resistance.
“Take off your shirt,” she told him. “Wrap it around your left leg, where the bleeding is worst. Put pressure here, and hold it.” Sirens were already loud and coming rapidly nearer. It must be the squad cars from the crime scene two blocks south.
The reinforcements were there quickly, four more cops spilling into the yard and securing the area. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the ambulance. A quick examination of Mike’s wounds had told Erin they were painful, but not life-threatening. It was all meat and muscle damage, no punctured arteries. He’d recover, given time and decent medical care, both of which would be provided to him as a guest of the state of New York.
Chapter 12
Erin hadn’t expected to be back at the hospital so soon. She, Rolf, and Paulson rode along in the ambulance. She had plenty of questions for Mike, but the paramedics had doped him up. He was so spaced out on painkillers, blood loss, and shock that he might as well be on the far side of the moon.
They pulled into the parking lot. The medics hopped out and deployed the stretcher. Erin stepped onto the back bumper of the ambulance and froze in surprise.
Camera flashbulbs went off like a firing squad. A dozen hands thrust microphones at her. Reporters shouted questions that blurred together into a chaotic wave of sound.
“No comment,” she snapped, holding a hand in front of her eyes and wondering how the press had gotten word. Someone in the department must have leaked it, or someone with a police scanner had heard about the shootout and made a lucky guess. She took a firmer grip on Rolf’s leash and followed the ambulance crew inside. Paulson, at her side, glared at the reporters and said nothing.
Inside, the medics wheeled the wounded man into surgery. Erin, Paulson, and two more cops took up positions guarding the room. She fingered the grip of her Glock and thought back over what had happened. Now that the danger was past, she felt suddenly shaky. If she hadn’t jumped off the ladder when she did, she’d have taken a bullet. Her vest might have stopped it. Otherwise, she could’ve ended up like Brunanski. She shuddered, remembering how warm his blood had felt on her hands.
“O’Reilly! What the hell are you doing?”
Erin jumped. She spun and found herself face to face with Detective Spinelli. The little man had his hands on his hips, his thin mustache quivering with indignation. Just behind him, Detective Lyons stood with arms crossed, scowling.
“I’m guarding my prisoner,” she said, hating the way her voice quivered. Erin berated herself for showing any weakness in front of these bastards.
“Our prisoner,” Lyons growled.
“Screw you,” Paulson snapped, taking a step forward. Spinelli reflexively backed away. “I tagged him, O’Reilly put the cuffs on. This is our collar.”
“Yeah, good work, tough guy,” Spinelli said, recovering himself. “You’ll get a gold star on your fitness report. But we’ll take over from here.”
“The suspect’s not in any condition to be questioned,” Erin said. “He’s under anesthetic and in surgery.”
“Yeah, O’Reilly, I know,” Spinelli said. “Whose fault is that? Now we’ve got to wait for hours to find out if he knows where the other one is, and those are hours we don’t have. There’s a cop killer still on the loose, and you’ve screwed up our best lead.”
Sheer outrage rendered Erin incapable of speech for several seconds. Her hands clenched into fists. “You realize,” she said at last, “that if we hadn’t tracked him, there’d be two cop killers on the loose, not one. You didn’t have a lead. If you hadn’t rushed the takedown at the apartment—”
“That’ll be enough, Officer,” Spinelli interrupted. “I’ll alrea
dy be recommending a disciplinary board review your actions, and those of your trigger-happy partner here. I don’t see any point in going over the same ground they’ll be covering. I’m giving you an order. Go home. You are off this case.”
“You can’t order me to do Jack shit,” Erin shot back. “I’m not in your chain of command.”
“Okay, I’ll get Murphy on the phone,” Spinelli said. “He’ll order you to do the same thing.”
Murphy was on her side, but her Lieutenant wasn’t about to pick an open fight with Homicide. Knowing she was beaten, Erin turned to Paulson. “Let’s let the dicks watch Sleeping Beauty in there,” she said. “We did the hard work, let them coast down Easy Street.”
Paulson nodded. “Catch you later,” he muttered and stalked away, his shotgun slanted over his shoulder. Erin didn’t look back, not wanting to see the smug satisfaction on the detectives’ faces. She and Rolf went out a side door to avoid the reporters clustered around the emergency room. They took a cab back to her car. Then, hands gripping her steering wheel in frustrated fury, she drove back to her apartment.
* * *
Erin didn’t let her temper out until she was safely behind the closed door of her apartment. Then she slammed the heel of her hand against the wall and gave a cry of helpless rage. Rolf came up close beside her, tail wagging anxiously. She looked down at her partner and let some of the anger seep out of her. “It’s all right, boy,” she said. “I’m okay.”
Rolf wasn’t convinced. He flattened his ears back and thrust his muzzle against her hand. She stroked his head and sighed.
Maybe she should just walk away. The case was almost wrapped up anyway. Jake Gallagher was just a common street hood. Only dumb luck and quick motion had kept him out of police custody so far, and she couldn’t imagine him staying ahead of the NYPD much longer. Find him and they’d find the painting. Then they’d lean on him to get the name of the buyer, and that would be the end of it.
“I’m not a detective,” she said to Rolf, sinking onto the love seat opposite her TV. “I’m just a beat cop who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Rolf didn’t disagree. He liked it when Erin talked to him, so he encouraged her as well as he could, staring intently into her eyes and cocking his head, making her the center of his attention.
Her phone rang, startling her out of her self-pity. It was an unknown number, with a New York area code. She considered letting it go unanswered, but her dad had driven that lesson into her early.
“A police officer never lets it ring, kiddo,” he’d said. “You’re always on duty, even when you’re not.”
She swiped the screen. “O’Reilly,” she said.
“Ah, my dear girl!” a man exclaimed.
The round, rolling tone was unmistakable. “Dr. Van Ormond,” she said.
“Please, call me Van. As I told you at our first meeting, I wish to count you as a friend. And how are you, my dear?”
“I’m fine,” Erin said. “How’d you get this number?”
“I prevailed upon our mutual acquaintance to provide me with the means of contacting you,” he said. “Dear girl, please accept my condolences. Such a terrible, terrible business.”
“Yeah, it was,” she said. “Dr. Van Ormond, is there something I can help you with? I’ve had a long couple of days and—”
“Of course, of course,” the Englishman said. “I shan’t keep you long. I merely wished to commiserate with you on the subject of the late unfortunate events, and to inquire as to the status of your investigation.”
Erin blinked. “Doctor, I don’t know what the rules are in England, but over here, we’re not allowed to talk about details of an ongoing investigation.”
“Oh, I say,” Van Ormond exclaimed. “I shouldn’t dream of placing you in any sort of false position. I suppose you are not close to the heart of the investigation in any case.”
“What do you mean?” Erin asked sharply. She was still feeling raw from the tongue-lashing Lyons and Spinelli had given her.
“Only that you are an ordinary patrol officer, my dear,” he said, and though his voice was still cheerful, there was a hint of condescension in it that raised her hackles. “A bobby, we call them. I shouldn’t think they would trouble you with the tedious details of such an investigation. Back onto the street with you, dear girl. The thrill of the hunt, tally-ho and all that. You must find the very idea of detective work a dreadful bore. All that sitting behind desks, filling out papers.”
“We do a lot of paperwork in Patrol Division, too,” she said, becoming increasingly annoyed. She wished she hadn’t taken her dad’s advice. “Look, Doctor, I really can’t help you right now.”
“Indeed not, poor girl,” he said. “Alas, I fear the glory of recovering the Madonna may go to some other bold investigator.”
Erin saw Spinelli in her mind’s eye, the little man with his ridiculous scrawny mustache, preening at a press conference he’d called in his own honor. Her jaw tightened. “No one’s recovered the Madonna yet,” she snapped. “For all I know, it’s out of the country, or at the bottom of the East River. And for all I care, it can stay there. You think this is about glory? One of ours got killed, Doctor. I was there, and I got his blood all over me, and that’s what this is about. It doesn’t matter if the bastard who did it runs to the other side of the goddamn world; I’ll find him there. We’re close.”
She ran out of breath and paused to let her lungs catch up. Rolf was on his feet, sensing her agitation, awaiting instruction.
“I seem to have hurt your feelings,” Van Ormond said in a much softer tone. “I’m terribly sorry, my dear girl.”
“Officer,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s Officer O’Reilly. I’ve been wearing a shield for eleven years,” Erin said, speaking slowly and distinctly. “I’m not your girl, dear or not.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, I’m terribly sorry if I have offended you. I certainly intended no such thing. I shall leave you to your duties and your ruminations. Again, please accept my condolences on the passing of dear Officer Bukowski.”
Erin put a hand over her face and rubbed her eyes. “Brunanski,” she growled. “John Brunanski. You could at least get his name right.”
“Yes, of course,” Van Ormond said. “Brunanski.”
“Goodbye, Doctor,” Erin said firmly.
“Good day, Officer—” he began, but she hung up on him mid-sentence.
The buzz on her apartment intercom followed so quickly that she hadn’t even put her phone down. She punched the button on the box. “What?” she snapped, much more sharply than she’d intended.
“It’s Luke,” the answer came, sounding cautious. “I’ve got a guy here who wants to talk to you.”
“What guy? What do you want?” she demanded. She wasn’t happy about him giving her phone number to Van Ormond.
There was a short pause. Then another voice, heavily accented, spoke. “Fräulein O’Reilly?”
“Dr. Schenk,” Erin said in surprise.
“Ja. May I speak with you?”
“Okay, sure,” she said, for lack of a better idea, and buzzed them in. She had a few moments before they arrived, and used them to straighten up the apartment as best she could. Fortunately, she’d always been fairly neat, and didn’t have much stuff to begin with, but she wasn’t used to visitors. A few clothes were lying out and some books were strewn on the coffee table.
She was still arranging the books on her shelf when her guests knocked on the door. She ran a hand through her hair, looked down at herself, realized she was still wearing her uniform, and decided she didn’t care. She opened the door.
Luke smiled at her, but his glance was wary as he took in the lingering irritation in her face. Rudolf Schenk seemed not to notice. The gaunt German stalked into her apartment and cast a contemptuous glance around the place. Erin winced inwardly. She favored black-and-white photos of New York cityscapes, and she coul
d imagine what this student of the Renaissance must think of her choice of décor.
Rolf checked out the visitors. He recognized Luke with a brisk wag of his tail, but gave Schenk a long, careful look.
“A very fine Hund, Officer O’Reilly,” Schenk said. “He is German, ja?”
“From Bavaria,” Erin said. “The NYPD gets most of its dogs from German breeders. He was trained in your native language, Doctor.”
“Sehr gut,” Schenk said, nodding. Rolf, having decided the man posed no threat, retreated to Erin’s side.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked awkwardly. “I’ve got Guinness in the fridge.”
“That would be great,” Luke said. “Thanks.”
“Ja, thank you,” Schenk said. He folded his long, spindly limbs down onto the love seat, clasped his hands above his knees, and leaned forward. Erin thought of old men she’d seen sitting on park benches. They always looked a little lost, like they were waiting for something that would never come. Luke sat beside the professor.
Erin fetched three bottles from the refrigerator, filled the glasses, and brought the drinks to the coffee table. She pulled a straight-backed chair from her little dining table into the living room and took a seat.
“Okay, what’s up?” she asked.
“I have spoken with Herr Devins regarding the Madonna,” Schenk said. “I know you are seeking her. This is a matter in which I have some… small interest.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, recalling what Luke had told her about the professor. “You’re an expert in lost Nazi treasure.”
“That is true,” Schenk said. “But this is ein bisschen anders. This painting has personal significance.”
Erin, thinking back to the art gallery, recalled how Schenk had recognized the marks on the Raphael as bloodstains. A sudden thought struck her with the force of a fist to the stomach. “Did you already know about her? Before she was found?”
Schenk stared at her with his haunted, burning eyes. “Ja, Fräulein. My mother told me of her.”