"How long?"
"Soon," Tucker said judiciously. "Next step, I think, we start feeding stuff north. Tony is up there talking to some people today, matter of fact."
"What about now? I could use something juicy."
"Three guys with a ton of grass good enough?" Tucker asked.
"Do they know about you?"
"No, but I know about them." That was the point, after all--his organization was tight. Only a handful of people knew who he was, and those people knew what would happen if they got a little loose. You just had to have the stones to enforce discipline.
"Take it easy on him," Rosen said outside the private room. "He's recovering from a major injury and he's still on several medications. He's really not capable of talking to you with a full deck."
"I have my job, too, doctor." It was a new officer on the case now, a detective sergeant named Tom Douglas. He was about forty, and looked every bit as tired as Kelly, Rosen thought, and every bit as angry.
"I understand that. But he's been badly hurt, plus the shock of what happened to his girlfriend."
"The quicker we get the information we need, the better our chances are to find the bastards. Your duty is to the living, sir. Mine is to the dead."
"If you want my medical opinion, he's not really capable of helping you right now. He's been through too much. He's clinically depressed, and that has implications for his physical recovery."
"Are you telling me that you want to sit in?" Douglas asked. Just what I need--an amateur Sherlock to watch over us. But that was a battle he couldn't win and wouldn't bother to fight.
"I'll feel better if I can keep an eye on things. Go easy on him," Sam repeated, opening the door.
"Mr. Kelly, we're sorry," the detective said after introducing himself. Douglas opened his notebook. The case had been booted up the ladder to his office because of its high profile. The first-page color photo on the Evening Sun had come as close to the pornographic as anything the media could publish, and the mayor had personally called for action on this one. Because of that, Douglas had taken the case, wondering how long the mayor's interest would last. Not very, the detective thought. The only thing that occupied a politician's mind for more than a week was getting and holding votes. This case had more spin on it than one of Mike Cuellar's screwballs, but it was his case, and what was always the worst part was about to take place. "Two nights ago you were in the company of a young lady named Pamela Madden?"
"Yes." Kelly's eyes were closed when Nurse O'Toole came in with his morning antibiotic dose. She was surprised to see the two other men there and stopped in the doorway, not knowing if she should interrupt or not.
"Mr. Kelly, yesterday afternoon we discovered the body of a young woman who fits the physical description of Miss Madden." Douglas reached into his coat pocket.
"No!" Rosen said, getting out of his chair.
"Is this she?" Douglas asked, holding the photo before Kelly's face, hoping that his proper grammar would somehow lessen the impact.
"God damn it!" The surgeon turned the cop around and pushed him against the wall. In the process the photo dropped on the patient's chest.
Kelly's eyes went wide in horror. His body sprang upwards, fighting the restraints. Then he collapsed, his skin pasty white. All in the room turned away but for the nurse, whose eyes were locked on her patient.
"Look, doc, I--" Douglas tried to say.
"Get the hell out of my hospital!" Rosen fairly screamed. "You can kill somebody with that kind of shock! Why didn't you tell me--"
"He has to identify--"
"I could have done that!"
O'Toole heard the noise as the two grown men scuffled like children in a playground, but John Kelly was her concern, the antibiotic medication still in her hand. She tried to remove the photograph from Kelly's view, but her own eyes were first drawn to the image and then repulsed by it as Kelly's hand seized the print and held it a scant twelve inches from his own wide-open eyes. It was his expression now that occupied her consciousness. Sandy recoiled briefly at what she saw there, but then Kelly's face composed itself and he spoke.
"It's okay, Sam. He has his job to do, too." Kelly looked down at the photo one last time. Then he closed his eyes and held it up for the nurse to take.
And things settled down for everyone except Nurse O'Toole. She watched Kelly swallow the oversized pill and left the room for the calm of the corridor.
Sandra O'Toole walked back to the nurses' station, remembering what she alone had seen. Kelly's face turning so pale that her first reaction to it was that he must be in shock, then the tumult behind her as she reached for her patient--but then what? It wasn't like the first time at all. Kelly's face had transformed itself. Only an instant, like opening a door into some other place, and she'd seen something she had never imagined. Something very old and feral and ugly. The eyes not wide, but focused on something she could not see. The pallor of his face not that of shock, but of rage. His hands balled briefly into fists of quivering stone. And then his face had changed again. There had been comprehension to replace the blind, killing rage, and what she'd seen next was the most dangerous sight she had ever beheld, though she knew not why. Then the door closed. Kelly's eyes shut, and when he opened them, his face was unnaturally serene. The complete sequence had not taken four seconds, she realized, all of it while Rosen and Douglas had been scuffling against the wall. He'd passed from horror to rage to understanding--then to concealment, but what had come in between comprehension and disguise was the most frightening thing of all.
What had she seen in the face of this man? It took her a moment to answer the question. Death was what she'd seen. Controlled. Planned. Disciplined.
But it was still Death, living in the mind of a man.
"I don't like doing this sort of thing, Mr. Kelly," Douglas said back in the room as he adjusted his coat. The detective and the surgeon traded a look of mutual embarrassment.
"John, are you all right?" Rosen looked him over and took his pulse quickly, surprised to find it nearly normal.
"Yeah." Kelly nodded. He looked at the detective. "That's her. That's Pam."
"I'm sorry. I really am," Douglas said with genuine sincerity, "but there's no easy way to do this. There never is. Whatever happened, it's over now, and now it's our job to try and identify the people who did it. We need your help to do that."
"Okay," Kelly said neutrally. "Where's Frank? How come he's not here?"
"He can't have a hand in this," Sergeant Douglas answered, with a look to the surgeon. "He knows you. Personal involvement in a criminal case isn't terribly professional." It wasn't entirely true--in fact, was hardly true at all--but it served the purpose. "Did you see the people who--"
Kelly shook his head, looking down at the bed, and he spoke just above a whisper. "No. I was looking the wrong way. She said something, but I didn't get around. Pam saw them, I turned right, then started turning left. I never made it."
"What were you doing at the time?"
"Observing. Look, you talked to Lieutenant Allen, right?"
"That's correct." Douglas nodded.
"Pam witnessed a murder. I was bringing her in to talk to Frank about it."
"Go on."
"She was linked up with people who deal drugs. She saw them kill somebody, a girl. I told her she had to do something about it. I was curious about what it was like," Kelly said in a flat monotone, still bathing in his guilt while his mind replayed the image.
"Names?"
"None that I remember," Kelly answered.
"Come on," Douglas said, leaning forward. "She must have told you something!"
"I didn't ask much. I figured that was your job--Frank's job, I mean. We were supposed to meet with Frank that night. All I know is it's a bunch of people who deal drugs and who use women for something."
"That's all you know?"
Kelly looked him straight in the eyes. "Yes. Not very helpful, is it?"
Douglas waited a few seconds befo
re going on. What might have been an important break in an important case was not going to happen, and so it was his turn to lie again, beginning with some truth to make it easier. "There's a pair of robbers working the west side of town. Two black males, medium size, and that's all we have for a description. Their MO is a sawed-off shotgun. They specialize in taking down people coming in for a drug buy, and they particularly like the gentry customers. Probably most of their robberies don't even get reported. We have them linked to two killings. This might be number three."
"That's all?" Rosen asked.
"Robbery and murder are major crimes, doctor."
"But that's just an accident!"
"That's one way of looking at it," Douglas agreed, turning back to his witness. "Mr. Kelly, you must have seen something. What the hell were you doing around there? Was Miss Madden trying to buy something--"
"No!"
"Look, it's over. She's dead. You can tell me. I have to know."
"Like I said, she was linked up with this bunch, and I--dumb as it sounds, I don't know shit about drugs." I'll be finding out, though.
Alone in his bed, alone with his mind, Kelly's eyes calmly surveyed the ceiling, scanning the white surface like a movie screen.
First, the police are wrong, Kelly told himself. He didn't know how he knew, but he did, and that was enough. It wasn't robbers, it was them, the people Pam was afraid of.
What had happened fit what Pam had told him. It was something they had done before. He had allowed himself to be spotted--twice. His guilt was still quite real, but that was history now and he couldn't change it. Whatever he had done wrong, it was done. Whoever had done this to Pam, they were still out there, and if they'd done this twice already, they would do it again. But that was not really what occupied his mind behind the blank staring mask.
Okay, he thought, Okay. They've never met anyone like me before.
I need to get back into shape, Chief Bosun's Mate John Terrence Kelly told himself.
The injuries were severe, but he'd survive them. He knew every step of the process. Recovery would be painful, but he'd do what they told him, he'd push the envelope a little bit, enough to make them proud of their patient. Then the really hard part would start. The running, the swimming, the weights. Then the weapons training. Then the mental preparation--but that was already underway, he realized ...
Oh, no. Not in their wildest nightmares have they ever met anyone like me.
The name they had given him in Vietnam boiled up from the past.
Snake.
Kelly pushed the call button pinned to his pillow. Nurse O'Toole appeared within two minutes.
"I'm hungry," he told her.
"I hope I never have to do that again," Douglas told his lieutenant, not for the first time.
"How did it go?"
"Well, that professor might make a formal complaint. I think I calmed him down enough, but you never know with people like that."
"Does Kelly know anything?"
"Nothing we can use," Douglas replied. "He's still too messed up from being shot and all to be coherent, but he didn't see any faces, didn't--hell, if he had seen anything, he would probably have done something. I even showed him the picture, trying to shake him a little. I thought the poor bastard would have a heart attack. The doctor went crazy. I'm not real proud of that, Em. Nobody should have to see something like that."
"Including us, Tom, including us." Lieutenant Emmet Ryan looked up from a large collection of photos, half taken at the scene, half at the coroner's office. What he saw there sickened him despite all his years of police work, especially because this wasn't a crime of madness or passion. No, this event had been done for a purpose by coldly rational men. "I talked to Frank. This Kelly guy is a good scout, helped him clear the Gooding case. He's not linked up with anything. The doctors all say that he's clean, not a user."
"Anything on the girl?" Douglas didn't need to say that this could have been the break they'd needed. If only Kelly had called them instead of Allen, who didn't know about their investigation. But he hadn't, and their best potential source of information was dead.
"The prints came back. Pamela Madden. She was picked up in Chicago, Atlanta, and New Orleans for prostitution. Never came to trial, never did any time. The judges just kept letting her go. Victimless crime, right?"
The sergeant suppressed a curse at the many idiots on the bench. "Sure, Em, no victims at all. So we're not any closer to these people than we were six months ago, are we? We need more manpower," Douglas said, stating the obvious.
"To chase down the murder of a street hooker?" the Lieutenant asked. "The mayor didn't like the picture, but they've already told him what she was, and after a week, things go back to normal. You think we'll break something loose in a week, Tom?"
"You could let him know--"
"No." Ryan shook his head. "He'd talk. Ever know a politician who didn't? They've got somebody inside this building, Tom. You want more manpower? Tell me, where do we get it, the kind we can trust?"
"I know, Em." Douglas conceded the point. "But we're not getting anywhere."
"Maybe Narcotics will shake something loose."
"Sure." Douglas snorted.
"Can Kelly help us?"
"No. Damned fool was just looking the wrong way."
"Then do the usual follow-up, just to make sure everything looks okay and leave it at that. Forensics isn't in yet. Maybe they'll turn something."
"Yes, sir," Douglas replied. As so often happened in police work, you played for breaks, for mistakes the other side made. These people didn't make many, but sooner or later they all did, both officers told themselves. It was just that they never seemed to come soon enough.
Lieutenant Ryan looked back down at the photos. "They sure had their fun with her. Just like the other one."
"Good to see you're eating."
Kelly looked up from a mostly empty plate. "The cop was right, Sam. It's over. I have to get better, have to focus on something, right?"
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Hell, I could always go back in the Navy or something."
"You have to deal with your grief, John," Sam said, sitting down next to the bed.
"I know how. I've had to do that before, remember?" He looked up. "Oh--what did you tell the police about me?"
"How we met, that sort of thing. Why?"
"What I did over there. It's secret, Sam." Kelly managed to look embarrassed. "The unit I belonged to, it doesn't officially exist. The things we did, well, they never really happened, if you know what I mean."
"They didn't ask. Besides, you never really told me," the surgeon said, puzzled--even more so by the relief on his patient's face.
"I got recommended to them by a pal in the Navy, mainly to help train their divers. What they know is what I'm allowed to tell. It's not what I really did, exactly, but it sounds good."
"Okay."
"I haven't thanked you for taking such good care of me."
Rosen stood and walked to the door, but he stopped dead three feet short of it and turned.
"You think you can fool me?"
"I guess not, Sam," Kelly answered guardedly.
"John, I have spent my whole damned life using these hands to fix people. You have to stay aloof, you can't get too involved, because if you do you can lose it, lose the edge, lose the concentration. I've never hurt anyone in my life. You understand me?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
"What are you going to do?"
"You don't want to know, Sam."
"I want to help. I really do," Rosen said, genuine wonder in his voice. "I liked her, too, John."
"I know that."
"So what can I do?" the surgeon asked. He was afraid that Kelly might ask for something he was unfitted to do; more afraid still that he might agree.
"Get me better."
9
Labor
It was almost grim to watch, Sandy thought. The strange thing was that he wa
s being a good patient. He didn't whine. He didn't bitch. He did just what they told him to do. There was a streak of the sadist in all physical therapists. There had to be, since the job meant pushing people a little further than they wanted to go--just as an athletic coach would do--and the ultimate aim was to help, after all. Even so, a good therapist had to push the patient, encourage the weak, and browbeat the strong; to cajole and to shame, all in the name of health; that meant taking satisfaction from the exertion and pain of others, and O'Toole could not have done that. But Kelly, she saw, would have none of it. He did what was expected, and when the therapist asked for more, more was delivered, and on, and on, until the therapist was pushed beyond the point of pride in the result of his efforts and began to worry.
"You can ease off now," he advised.
"Why?" Kelly asked somewhat breathlessly.
"Your heart rate is one-ninety-five." And had been there for five minutes.
"What's the record?"
"Zero," the therapist replied without a smile. That earned him a laugh, and a look, and Kelly slowed his pace on the stationary bike, easing himself down over a period of two minutes to a reluctant stop.
"I've come to take him back," O'Toole announced.
"Good, do that before he breaks something."
Kelly got off and toweled his face, glad to see that she hadn't brought a wheelchair or something similarly insulting. "To what do I owe this honor, ma'am?"
"I'm supposed to keep an eye on you," Sandy replied. "Trying to show us how tough you are?"
Kelly had been a touch lighthearted, but turned serious. "Mrs. O'Toole, I'm supposed to get my mind off my troubles, right? Exercise does that for me. I can't run with one arm tied up, I can't do push-ups, and I can't lift weights. I can ride a bike. Okay?"
"You have me there. Okay." She pointed to the door. Out in the bustling anonymity of the corridor, she said, "I'm very sorry about your friend."
"Thank you, ma'am." He turned his head, slightly dizzy from the exertion, as they walked along in the crowd. "We have rituals in uniform. The bugle, the flag, the guys with rifles. It works fairly well for the men. It helps you to believe that it all meant something. It still hurts. but it's a formal way to say goodbye. We learned to deal with it. But what happened to you is different, and what just happened to me is different. So what did you do? Get more involved in work?"
Without Remorse (1993) Page 16