Irish Car Bomb

by Steven Henry

  “What about him, sir?” Erin asked, startled.

  “What’ve we got on him?”

  “Um,” she said. “Well, there’s the gambling. If we can prove any of it goes through him directly. But he didn’t actually build any of these bombs. He even helped defuse the one that came to the Corner. If anything, he’s… well, he’s an intended victim. Maybe even a hero. Sort of.”

  Webb actually laughed quietly at that. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “But he’s no hero. We’ll pick him up another time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Erin said, with the unspoken thought that Carlyle had proven pretty hard to catch in the past.

  A Patrol Lieutenant approached Skip, who was nonchalantly leaning against the outside wall of the Corner. “We’re clear, Sergeant Taylor,” he said.

  “Thank God,” Skip said. “You do know that nitroglycerin gets more unstable over time, right? It sweats. The chemicals start breaking down, crystals form, it can go off for no reason at all.”

  “Really?” the other cop said, taking a step backward. “I’ll just… uh… wait down the block.” He hurried away.

  Skip turned to the detectives with a grin. “Guess I’ll go get your bomb.”

  “Is that true, what you just told him?” Erin asked.

  “Of course it is,” he said. “But it takes about a year for the sweating to be a serious problem.” He winked. “Oh, Erin? Could I talk to you a second?”

  “Sure.” She followed him a short distance inside. “What is it?”

  “So, who’s this Corky character?” he asked. “And why’s he think you’re a couple?”

  Erin opened her mouth and realized she had no idea what to say.

  Skip grinned. “Never mind. Sorry I asked.”

  Erin left him to his cleanup work and rejoined the other detectives.

  “All right, team,” Webb said. “Now I think we can call this case closed.”

  “Except for the paperwork, sir,” Jones said. “There’s going to be a lot of that.”

  Vic groaned. “Is it too late to just set off the bomb instead? With me beside it?”

  Chapter 18

  Erin O’Reilly took an extra moment to look over her desk. She saw clutter, but it was semi-organized clutter, the look of a workspace with a lot going on. She stood up and stretched. Rolf sprang up from the floor mat she’d laid next to the desk, tail wagging.

  “Quitting time,” Jones said. She was shutting down her own computer and getting ready to leave.

  “Yeah,” Vic said. “But it’s Friday, remember. Everyone else gets the weekend off. The NYPD never closes. Lots of murders on the weekend.”

  “Mondays are the worst day for workplace killings,” Jones said. “Statistically speaking.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Vic said.

  “On that note,” Webb said, “you’re off until Monday, right, O’Reilly?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Guess we may have some work for you when you get back,” he said.

  Erin clipped on Rolf’s leash and headed down to the parking garage. She and her partner got into her Charger and drove out onto the street.

  The rest of the week was quiet. They hadn’t caught another major case, so there’d been plenty of time to deal with the aftermath of the bomb plots. As predicted, Morgan and Knox had both turned on their boss in exchange for plea deals, and Erin didn’t think Frankie Fingers would be hitting the streets again. Not with the number of felony counts stacked up against him.

  Cynthia O’Connell hadn’t come out very well. True to form, William O’Connell’s life-insurance company was refusing to pay out his policy, citing the suicide clause. Even in death, Fourth-Place Billy just couldn’t catch a break. At least Cynthia was free of a husband who, in addition to being a compulsive gambler and aspiring mob thug, had tried to murder her. And her flowers were doing very well, as she’d told Erin when they’d given her the news of the closure of her husband’s investigation. There was a show this weekend. She hoped her damask roses would win first prize.

  Erin shook her head and smiled to herself. What she was doing was probably stupid, but she couldn’t really help herself. She had to look in at the Barley Corner one more time, see how the Irish were handling themselves. Plus, it’d been a long week, she needed a drink, and it was as good a place as any to get one.

  It was a Friday evening and the place was hopping. Ninety percent of the clientele were large, male, tattooed, and inebriated, but Rolf helped her clear a path to the bar. There was Carlyle, in his usual spot, seated on a stool with his back to the bar, elbows resting on the well-worn wood. And beside him sat his best mate, Corky Corcoran.

  Carlyle didn’t miss any new arrival to his pub. His face lit up with a smile that looked truly genuine. “Erin O’Reilly!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet. “What a grand surprise. Welcome!” He extended one hand to the bartender. “Anything you might be wanting, tell Danny. It’s on the house.”

  “In a minute,” she said, sliding into a seat that had become available by some sort of unspoken communication between Carlyle and its former occupant. “Looks like the bomb scare hasn’t done your business any harm.”

  “You must be joking,” Corky said. “It’s been packing the lads in. I’ll be drinking on that story for years to come. It’s not every lad has had a nail-bomb in his hands, and saved a sweet lass from a terrible fate.”

  Erin chuckled. “The way I remember it, the sweet lass saved the reckless lad from a terrible fate, not the other way round.”

  “Either way,” Corky said with a grin. “Erin, love, you’re surely not angry with me anymore, are you?”

  To her surprise, she found that she wasn’t. “You’re incorrigible,” she said. “But no, I’m not pissed. You were just being yourself.”

  “That’s true enough,” Corky said agreeably. “So, what do you say to a drink, and then go dancing with me?”

  Erin shook her head. “No, Corky,” she said. “I really don’t think it’d work out. You do what you do, and I do what I do. Besides, you’re not a keeper.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “But it might be fun to have me around for a while, don’t you think?”

  “It’d certainly be interesting,” she said. “But I think we’d better just be friends.”

  “Friends?” Corky said. “Aye. You can’t be friends with too many coppers, that’s my way of thinking.” He held out his hand.

  Erin rolled her eyes. “Don’t read too much into it. You step over the line, I’ll still be there slapping the cuffs on you.”

  “Promises, promises,” he said with an even broader grin. “I may hold you to that, one of these days.”

  “In all seriousness, Miss O’Reilly… may I call you Erin?” Carlyle said.

  “We disarmed a bomb together,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Erin, then. It’s thanks to you my place of business survives. More than that, I think I owe you my life.”

  She shook her head. “It’s my job.”

  “Call it what you like,” he replied. “You’ve done me a favor I’ll not find it easy to repay.”

  A little warning bell went off in Erin’s brain. “Your world runs on favors, Cars,” she said. “Mine doesn’t.”

  “You might be surprised,” Carlyle replied, with no humor in his eyes. “And you might be surprised how useful a lass in your line of work might find a lad in mine. Should that prove the case, you’ve only to call on me.”

  He was right, Erin knew. Underworld contacts could be worth their weight in gold to a detective. She still didn’t feel comfortable around him, but she couldn’t deny that she liked and trusted him more than she had before. Probably more than she should.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.

  “All right, then,” Carlyle said. “That’s settled. Now, is there any other business you’ve come about?”

  “No,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure no one else had blown up your pub.”

  “Then you’re off-duty,�
�� he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Surely you’d not refuse a drink with us, then,” he said. “A toast for those who cheated the Reaper?”

  “Why the hell not,” she said.

  Danny appeared, using that strange ability of a good bartender to know when a patron was ready to order. “What’ll it be?” he asked.

  What else? Erin thought. “Gimme a car bomb.”

  Danny blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Carlyle and Corky laughed. “Make it two,” Carlyle said.

  “Three,” Corky added.

  Danny poured three glasses of Guinness, half-filled three shot glasses with Glen D whiskey, then floated Irish cream on top of them. He dropped them one, two, three into the beer glasses. “Bombs away,” he said.

  “Here’s to the New York Police Department, and its finest new detective,” Carlyle said.

  “And to the Irish, without whom New York wouldn’t have a police force,” Erin said.

  “And without whom it wouldn’t need one,” Corky added.

  They clinked glasses, tilted them back, and drank.

  Here’s a sneak peek from

  Book 3: White Russian

  Coming Fall 2018

  Vic and Erin rode to the motel together in Erin’s Charger, Rolf in his backseat compartment. They crossed the East River into Brooklyn on the famous bridge. Erin shook her head and stifled a laugh.

  “What’s funny?” Vic asked.

  “I just finished moving into Manhattan,” she said. “Now, my first night in my new place, and I’m spending it in Brooklyn. Not my idea of a celebration.”

  “Maybe we’ll still have time for that drink,” Vic said. “After.”

  It was full dark by the time they got to the motel. They knew the place before they even got close, from all the red and blue lights. It looked like seven or eight units had already responded. There was an ambulance, too, but as they pulled up they could see the paramedics leaning on the back fender looking bored. That wasn’t a good sign.

  Webb’s Crown Victoria was in the lot, too. Erin saw the Lieutenant talking to a couple of uniforms outside the lobby. She hopped out of the Charger, fetched Rolf, and headed over to her CO.

  “What’s the situation, sir?” she asked.

  “I see you brought Neshenko,” Webb said. “Good.” He looked even wearier and more cynical than usual. He had an unlit cigarette in one hand, forgotten. “I just talked to the ME. She’s on her way, should be here in ten to fifteen.”

  He sighed. “It’s bad. We’ve got two victims, DOA. The medics didn’t even bother trying to patch them up. The night manager heard gunfire. She thought it was a movie at first, until she heard the screaming and bullets came through the wall into the hallway.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the lobby. A young woman was sitting in a chair next to a uniformed officer. The woman was crying. “It’s a ground-floor room, number 103,” he went on. “Jones is there now, securing the scene.”

  “Okay, let’s check it out,” Erin said.

  Webb nodded. “Carefully, people.” They crossed the lobby into the hallway.

  “Good thing nobody was walking here,” Vic observed. The wall to their right was riddled with holes. Chunks of plaster and ribbons of cheap wallpaper were scattered all over the floor.

  “Hey, guys. Took your time getting here.” Kira Jones waved from the doorway of room 103. She was dressed for a night on the town, from her high-heeled boots and miniskirt to her spiked hair, which was dyed dark red with blue tips. Erin had heard the precinct had a pool running on how many tattoos she had hidden under her clothes.

  “Jesus, I can smell the gunpowder from here,” Vic said.

  “No shit,” Jones said. “Have a look.”

  They gathered in the doorway, looking into what had been a cheap motel room. Now it was a war zone. Bullet holes were everywhere, perforating the queen-size bed and wood-veneer furniture. An uneven line of jagged holes angled across the TV screen. Cartridge casings were scattered across the carpet, most of them near the window. The window itself was shattered into tiny shards.

  And there were the bodies. Two of them, a man and a woman. They lay close together, beside the bed. The man was face-down, wearing a shirt that’d been white when he’d put it on but was now dark red. He had on very nice shoes and black slacks. The woman was on her back, clad in a bright red dress that did a better job of hiding the bloodstains. One black stiletto heel was still on her foot. She’d kicked off the other shoe, maybe as a dying reflex. That shoe, lying in a dark bloodstain on the carpet, caught Erin’s eye. For some reason, it was the worst detail in the room, that bare foot with the toes thrusting toward the ceiling. It was even worse than the woman’s wide-open eyes, or the bullet hole in the middle of her forehead.

  “Wow,” Erin said.

  “That’s a hell of a lot of bullets,” Vic said, indicating the room with a sweep of his hand.

  Webb was crouching down, looking at a cartridge casing. “.45 caliber,” he said.

  “MAC-10?” Jones suggested.

  “More than one,” Erin said. There were just too many bullet holes. A MAC-10 submachine-gun could spit out plenty of lead, but it only held thirty bullets in a magazine. There were way more than thirty holes.

  “I’m thinking three shooters,” Vic said. “Maybe more. Window?”

  “Yeah,” Erin agreed. The damage to the room was all on the half away from the window. She carefully crossed the room, avoiding stepping on any of the debris or bodies. Rolf daintily picked up his paws, sniffing at everything in his path. She leaned out the window. As she’d suspected, she saw a whole lot more cartridge casings. “Looks like they opened fire from here, through the glass,” she reported.

  “It wasn’t a drive-by,” Webb said. “They had to dismount, otherwise most of the brass would still be in the car. And with more brass inside, at least one of them climbed inside and kept shooting.”

  “So at least three guys come up, look in the window, and blast through it,” Jones said. “Then what? They come into the room? Why?”

  “They had to make sure,” Erin said. She turned at the window and stared into the room, seeing how it would have looked from outside. “I can’t even see the bodies from here. They fell behind the bed. Maybe they were dead, maybe not, but the shooters wouldn’t have been able to tell from here.”

  “I got an empty mag out here,” one of the uniforms said helpfully. “Looks like it came from an automatic weapon.”

  “Christ,” Vic said. “They reloaded? I guess they had to. MAC-10s go through bullets like junkies through heroin.”

  “Okay,” Erin said, walking through it. “At least one of them reloads outside. They climb in through the window, go around the foot of the bed, look down, and finish them off.”

  “No bullet holes in the floor,” Webb pointed out. “Look at the male’s position. He tried to get up and run. They gunned him down before he got to the door. I’m thinking he ducked the first volley, then got hit later.”

  “Right in the back,” Vic said. “Bastards. Mob hit. It’s gotta be. Shitty marksmanship, though, if they didn’t hit him on the first try.”

  “Maybe he way quick,” Erin said. “Or he might’ve gotten wounded but could still run.”

  Movement in the doorway caught their attention. All four detectives saw Sarah Levine, the Medical Examiner. Unlike the other investigators, she looked like she’d come straight from the precinct. She had her lab coat and gloves on, ready to do business.

  “Glad we didn’t wake you up,” Webb said.

  “Huh?” Levine asked blankly. “No, I was awake. I’m working nights this week. Where’s the dead guy?”

  “Her boyfriend’s a doctor,” Jones explained to Erin in an undertone. “She tries to coordinate schedules with him.”

  “She’s got a boyfriend?” Erin whispered, astonished. Levine wasn’t unattractive, but she was one of the most poorly-socialized women she’d ever met.

  “Hey, there’s someone for eve
ryone,” Jones replied with a wink.

  Levine took a good, long look at the bodies.

  “Got a cause of death for us, Doc?” Vic asked with a sardonic smile.

  “Not yet,” Levine said.

  “That was a joke, Doc,” Vic said. “We know the cause of death.”

  Levine looked up. “Okay, Detective. What killed her?”

  “A whole bunch of .45 slugs,” Vic said.

  “No.”

  Vic blinked. “You telling me she was already dead? Or she died of something else? Tell you what. Maybe she had a heart attack. Or how about cancer? Really, really fast-acting cancer?”

  Levine wasn’t good at sarcasm. “I won’t know about underlying medical conditions until I do the bloodwork and the autopsy,” she said. “But I can see she’s got at least three bullet wounds to her legs and lower abdomen. Those didn’t kill her. What killed her is this.” She took a pencil out of her lab coat’s pocket and pointed to the hole in the middle of the woman’s forehead.

  “That’s what I said,” Vic said.

  “You said .45 slugs killed her,” Levine said. “This hole’s too small for a .45. I’d say nine-millimeter.”

  “Nine-millimeter,” Erin echoed, scanning the floor of the room. There wasn’t as much spent brass in here as outside, but it still took her a minute to find the one that was different. Then she saw it. The shell casing had flown a surprising distance, ending up at the base of the TV stand. “I’ve got it here,” she said, stooping to take a closer look. “One nine-millimeter pistol casing. Looks a little funny, though. Not quite like a standard nine.”

  “There’s powder tattooing around the entry wound,” Levine said. “The gun was almost contact close. Probably less than a meter.”

  “Execution style,” Webb said.

  “What about the guy?” Vic asked.

  “He’s got five shots in the back,” Levine said. “Both lungs perforated, along with a heart shot. He was dead by the time he hit the ground.”

  “So they mowed down the guy, then took out the girl to eliminate the witness,” Vic said.

  “Either that, or she was the target,” Erin suggested.