Lieberman's Folly

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “A cop just killed a man and a woman.”

  Kearney removed her hand, kissed the palm, and then leaned over to kiss her lips before getting out of bed.

  “Do you know him?” she asked, sitting up.

  Kearney had both his underpants and trousers on before he answered, “Bernie Shepard.”

  3

  THE CORRIDOR IN FRONT of the Shepard apartment was crowded with tenants of all shapes, sizes, and ilks, more tenants than could possibly live on this floor. A young uniformed cop Lieberman recognized but whose name he didn’t know was trying to get information from the crowd, all of whom were eager to provide opinions about the Shepards, Russia, Ross Perot, and politics in the city of Chicago.

  Juggling the plastic foam cups of coffee he carried in each hand, Lieberman eased his way to the apartment. The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open with his elbow. Standing a few feet in front of him, Bill Hanrahan was talking to a gray-haired old man in a robe who looked well beyond nervous.

  “Father Murphy,” said Lieberman, handing his partner a coffee. “They got a microwave? The coffee’s getting cold.”

  Hanrahan nodded and looked at the gray-haired man.

  “Thanks, Mr. Slovin. We’ll get back to you.”

  Mr. Slovin looked at the partly open bedroom door.

  “I can go?”

  “You can go,” Hanrahan said.

  Slovin moved to the door.

  “You want it open or closed?”

  “Closed,” said Hanrahan, and Slovin closed the door.

  Hanrahan took both coffees and moved into the kitchen with Lieberman at his side.

  “Lab’s having a busy night. They’re late, but Ryberg’s here,” said Hanrahan.

  “Saw his car downstairs.”

  “Microwave,” said Hanrahan, putting the coffees down and opening the microwave door.

  “Give it two minutes. Make it hot.”

  Hanrahan complied.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” said Lieberman. “Kearney will probably be here soon.”

  “And?”

  “And you’ve got alcohol on your breath.”

  “A beer. One beer. Look in that bedroom and then blame me, Rabbi.”

  Lieberman walked to the bedroom. Behind him the microwave pinged softly. Lieberman needed a nice quiet ping like that on his microwave. He pushed the bedroom door open. Ryberg, the medical examiner, and his assistant were examining the bodies. Ryberg looked back at Lieberman and smiled, a put-on smile. Ryberg was close to retirement, a thin gnarled man with arthritic knuckles.

  Lieberman closed the bedroom door and turned around to face Hanrahan, who handed him a coffee.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Lieberman.

  “My words exactly,” agreed Hanrahan, sipping the black coffee. “Bernie did it. We’re up to our asses in witnesses. I put a call out on him. Armed, dangerous. Old Rules-Is-Rules Shepard just broke every one of them. It’s going to be a long night.”

  Lieberman nodded. The coffee was bitter.

  “Abe, I have not been drinking. The beer is the first drink I’ve had. Would I lie to you?”

  “No,” said Lieberman. “You might lie to yourself.”

  “I’ve done that before, but I’m not doing it now.”

  The front door opened and a muscular black uniformed cop stepped in, holding an envelope at the corner with the tips of his fingers. The cop’s eyes were dancing with discovery.

  “Parnell?” asked Lieberman.

  “Parnell,” the black cop confirmed.

  “Close the door,” said Hanrahan as the crowd beyond gawked through the opening.

  Parnell nodded and pushed the door closed with his free hand.

  “Checked out a car parked across the street in front of a hydrant. I think it’s Sergeant Shepard’s. This envelope was on the front seat.”

  Lieberman took the envelope and set his half-finished coffee on the glass-topped table. Neat printed letters on the envelope said: TO THE DETECTIVE IN CHARGE OF THE SHEPARD CASE.

  Lieberman showed the envelope to Hanrahan.

  “Officer Parnell,” Lieberman said, “can you go back to the car and see what else you can find without touching anything?”

  Parnell nodded and left.

  “Something bad is definitely coming,” said Hanrahan. “We gonna wait for Kearney?”

  Lieberman answered by opening the envelope, pulling out a sheet of thick paper, and reading.

  “What’s it …?” Hanrahan began, but Lieberman cut him off by handing him the paper. There wasn’t much written on it. He handed it back to Lieberman.

  “Holy Christ. He’s on the goddamn roof.”

  There were no sirens. Shepard hadn’t expected any, but there were sounds on the street. Cars pulling up, voices. Soon, it would be soon. He sat motionless, a high-powered rifle in his lap. The dog looked at the barricaded metal door and growled.

  “Quiet,” Shepard said softly, and the dog was quiet. “I hear them.”

  Shepard checked his watch. It was twenty minutes to four. He got up and moved slowly across the roof to the door. Someone on the other side was turning the handle slowly, carefully. Then a push that didn’t even shake the door.

  “Shepard,” Hanrahan called through the door. “This is Bill Hanrahan. What the hell are you doing?”

  Shepard didn’t answer.

  “Bernie,” came Lieberman’s voice. “It’s Abe Lieberman. You want to talk?”

  The answer was silence.

  “Shepard,” tried Hanrahan. “You might want to think about ending it now and easy. I’d give it half an hour, forty-five minutes tops before things get really bad.”

  Shepard didn’t answer.

  “You think he hears us?”

  “He hears us,” said Lieberman.

  Shepard moved from the door and went to the edge of the roof. Below him he could see a policeman in uniform leaning into his car. There were three police cars, one in front of the Shoreham Towers and two blocking the entrance to Fargo. There was no need to block the other end of the short street. It dead-ended at the rocks a few feet from the lake. There were about a dozen curious bystanders looking at the Shoreham, talking.

  Shepard motioned the dog back, lifted the rifle, wrapping the strap around his left hand. Then he propped the weapon on the edge of the concrete parapet, aimed, and fired.

  A streetlight shattered, hissed and went dead. The cop leaning into Shepard’s car clambered inside. The few cops on the street went behind their cars. The bystanders, unsure of what to do, went running toward their houses or into the lobby. A few simply stood there, not understanding what had happened.

  Then one of the cops shouted, “Find cover. Get off the street.”

  And a woman screamed, went into total panic, and had to be dragged into the doorway of an apartment building across the street.

  Lights were going on in windows all along the block in front of and below Bernie Shepard. He aimed again and took out a second streetlight. And then a third. The street went silent as Shepard moved back inside his concrete bunker.

  The passageway in front of the door to the roof was narrow, not enough room for Lieberman and Hanrahan to stand at the same level. The light was dim, a single bulb behind them at the foot of the stairs where a uniformed officer stood with a rifle.

  Lieberman and Hanrahan had guns in their hands, but both men knew that if Bernie Shepard decided to open the door and use the same weapon he had used on his wife and Beeton, there would be very little left of them to identify.

  “What now?” asked Hanrahan.

  “We wait for Kearney,” said Lieberman.

  That was when they had heard the first shot.

  “Shit,” sighed Hanrahan. “Shit, shit …”

  Then the second shot and the third.

  The radio on the hip of the officer with the rifle sputtered, and a less-than-calm voice crackled, “Sniper fire. I think it’s from the roof. Shooting out streetlights.”

&nbs
p; “Sergeant,” the officer at the foot of the stairs called.

  “We heard,” said Lieberman, touching Hanrahan’s arm and indicating that they should go back down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, Lieberman told the officer to stay low and start shooting if the door above him began to open.

  The officer nodded and got on his stomach, propping the rifle on the stairs. He knew what he was doing, and that made Lieberman feel a little, just a little, better.

  The radio on the officer’s hip crackled again and a voice both Lieberman and Hanrahan recognized came on.

  “Lieberman,” said Shepard.

  Lieberman leaned over, unclipped the radio from the policeman’s belt, and stood up, pressing the SEND button.

  “I’m here, Bernie.”

  “I’ve planted enough explosives up here to take out this building and maybe half the block or more. You read?”

  “I read.”

  “You believe?”

  “I’m a believer,” said Lieberman.

  “Good,” said Shepard calmly. “Make believers out of the rest of them or we’re going to have a second Fourth of July. I want ‘Channel Four News’ up here, the blonde, Janice Giles. Up here with a camera for an exclusive interview.”

  “He’s crazy,” said Hanrahan, looking up at the door.

  “Do it,” said Shepard.

  “I’ll pass the request on to Captain Kearney,” said Lieberman.

  “It’s not a request,” said Shepard. “I want Kearney up here one o’clock tomorrow morning. No sooner. No later.”

  “Or …?”

  “I’ve got food, water, supplies, weapons, and a lot of explosives,” he said.

  “You’re ready to die?” asked Lieberman.

  “I’m ready.”

  “You want to talk? I’m up. I’ve had a coffee and a danish. The day is young.”

  “Come up alone,” Shepard said. “No weapons.”

  Something—it may have been a laugh—crackled on the phone and then Shepard clicked off.

  Lieberman handed his partner his jacket and gun and started back up the stairs.

  “Abe, there’s no point in going up there. He could blow your head off and throw you down for bait,” said Hanrahan.

  “I appreciate your support and confidence,” Lieberman said over his shoulder.

  He was at the top of the narrow stairwell now, and he knocked at the metal door. A scraping of metal on the other side, the flop and clang of metal against the roof, and the door opened slightly, the barrel of a shotgun inching out through the crack.

  “Clean and alone,” said Shepard.

  “Clean and alone,” said Lieberman, stepping onto the roof.

  His first impression was that it was a different world, cool, isolated. The sky was black with bright lights and a huge moon.

  Shepard kicked the door shut and put his back against it, his shotgun leveled at Lieberman’s stomach.

  “Lift the pants legs, one at a time, as high as they’ll go.”

  “I don’t carry a drop, Bernie,” Lieberman said, pulling up his pants legs one at a time.

  “You’re a man of your word, Lieberman, but words don’t mean much tonight. Shirt up.”

  Lieberman lifted his shirt and turned around to show he was clean.

  “Drop the pants.”

  “It’s not a pretty sight,” said Lieberman.

  “I think I’ve seen worse,” said Shepard.

  In the darkness behind the concrete block barricade under the water tower, a dog growled sullenly.

  “Satisfied?” asked Lieberman, pulling his pants up and fastening his belt.

  “It’s going to take a lot to satisfy me,” he said.

  Shepard looked calm, which might be a good or bad sign.

  “You look like you’re planning a long night,” said Lieberman, nodding at the barricade.

  “And a long day,” said Shepard. “We can kick it around awhile Lieberman, but this is no shitcan. Your perp is standing in front of you confessing. Now, are you going to insult me by trying to talk me down?”

  “Depends on what I risk by trying. It’s nice up here.”

  Shepard looked around and at the moon.

  “Peaceful at night,” he said.

  “You’re going to get more people killed, Bernie. That what you want?”

  “What I want I’ll tell you. Now, I want you to look around. See the yellow circle on the water tower?”

  Lieberman looked up at the water tower.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to stay where I can see it,” explained Shepard. “A shot from anything, handgun, shotgun, anything that hits that yellow spot will light us up all the way to the Michigan shore and turn this neighborhood into a people’s rubble park.”

  Shepard had lowered the shotgun slightly so that it was no longer aimed at Lieberman, but both men knew how quickly it could come up and how much damage it could cause.

  “I told you I believe you.”

  “But I want you to make them believe.”

  “I’ll tell them.”

  “Now, you’ve got five minutes to say what you want to say,” said Shepard, looking at his watch.

  “You’ve got a case,” said Lieberman. “You come home unexpectedly, wife’s in bed with a fellow cop. Maybe he goes for his weapon. You—”

  “You believe that?” asked Shepard.

  “No.”

  “You think a jury will believe it?”

  Lieberman looked at the setup under the water tower.

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you suggest we go for temporary insanity? Cop driven over the edge by the knowledge that his wife is cheating on him.”

  “Might go over,” said Lieberman.

  “It’s not the truth, Abe.”

  “Maybe it is and you don’t know it, Bernard.”

  “I don’t want an out. I don’t want to walk out of here in cuffs. I want Channel Four up here in the morning. It’s getting late. Think it’s time for you to go.”

  Shepard moved from the door, raised his shotgun again, and said, “You pull the bar away, open it, and go down.”

  “We’ve got to stop you, Bernie,” said Lieberman, doing what he was told.

  “You’ve got to try,” Shepard countered.

  Lieberman got the bar off and opened the metal door. It wasn’t easy. Below him he could see Bill Hanrahan and the sniper. He took a step down and the door clattered shut behind him.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Hanrahan called up the stairwell as Lieberman came down.

  An answer suggested itself to Lieberman, but it wasn’t time, nowhere near time, to let it out. He took his jacket and weapon back from his partner and went through the door leading back to the elevator.

  The situation was bad, but by the time Hanrahan and Lieberman hit the street, it was much worse. Kearney had parked a block south and come through a backyard and an alley. He had heard the report of sniper fire from the roof.

  Lieberman and Hanrahan were just coming through the front door of the Shoreham when Kearney stepped in front of them.

  “I want the area clear for at least three blocks in all directions, right up to the lake. And find someplace for a command post, someplace where we can see the street and the front of this building. You talked to him?”

  “I talked to him,” said Lieberman.

  They went into the lobby of the Shoreham. Residents, afraid to stay in their apartments, were gathered in small groups, arguing, listening, complaining, looking frightened. Lieberman led the way through the crowd to the laundry room. Hanrahan closed the door behind them.

  Five minutes later Kearney knew what they knew, and the three policemen went carefully back to the front of the Shoreham. An ambulance had pulled up to the front of the hotel. Its lights were flashing.

  Hanrahan grabbed a uniformed cop and started to give him orders to clear the area.

  “How well you know Bernie Shepard?” Kearney asked Lieberman.

  “No
t well but long,” said Lieberman, watching as a large dark car pulled up to the end of the street and was stopped by the police.

  “He’s good,” said Kearney. “Picked the high ground. He can shut down Sheridan Road at rush hour.”

  “If it goes that long,” said Lieberman.

  “It’ll go that long,” said Kearney. “It’ll go till he gets whatever he wants or blows up a good part of this city.”

  “You know what he wants, Captain?” asked Lieberman.

  Kearney rubbed his broken nose and shrugged, but the shrug was a lie.

  “No,” he said. “What do you think he wants?”

  “Someone else dead,” said Lieberman.

  The doors of the dark car were open and two men were being escorted toward the front of the Shoreham. The men were ducking and weaving. When they got close enough, Lieberman could see that one of them was a hastily dressed Marvin Hartz, chief of police, his hair disheveled, anger in his eyes. Hartz’s gray suit and dark tie didn’t match.

  Hartz had fifteen years experience as liaison to the board of education. He had been a forgotten man till he took a chance, bolted the party, quit his job and came out strongly for Aaron Jameson, the black challenger for mayor. Hartz hadn’t risked much. His wife had just died and the insurance and his pension would have left him warm and comfortable in Santa Fe. But Jameson had won and Hartz was chief of police. The man running behind Hartz was Captain Alton Brooks, SWAT director, in full uniform.

  The chief was burly and big with a slightly stooped right shoulder. Brooks, compact, his face the gnarled color of stained oak, was known to his men as the Indian. To the rest of the Chicago Police Department who knew him, Brooks was the Cowboy.

  Before Kearney could speak, Hartz said, “That’s Shepard up there? Bernie Shepard just blew his wife and a cop away and climbed on the roof? What the hell for, for God’s sake?”

  Hartz looked up into the darkness as if it might yield some answer.

  “Sergeant Lieberman talked to him a few minutes ago,” said Kearney.

  Hartz looked at Lieberman, trying to recognize him, a slight look of distaste on his lips.

  “What does he want?” asked Hartz.

  The word was that Hartz was anti-Semitic. Lieberman believed the word.