He had nothing against them, but he had nothing to say to them. Actually, Rutgers was happy to see them. The two detectives had taken a good number of homicides over the years and cleared them from the homicide board. They had helped make the statistics look reasonable, and he was lucky to get this call because he knew Lieberman and Hanrahan would follow up.
Rutgers had left after fifteen minutes of taking notes and asking the uniformed cops what they had learned. It turned out to be nothing except the time of the murder when the gunshots were heard. The woman who had made the call had not seen the shooting. No one had seen it unless it was someone who was not in the alley.
In a case like this, it wasn’t likely that witnesses, even if they existed, would step forward to identify a person who had rid their neighborhood of a man who had caused them months of terror.
When the body was finally removed, what remained of the crowd disappeared. Eventually it was just Lieberman and Hanrahan looking through the alley, moving garbage cans and mounds of dirt, seeing two cats and a few rats. They had put on rubber gloves for the search though a rubber glove wouldn’t stop the needle in a syringe from infecting them with HIV. They moved slowly, carefully, eventually making their way all the way down both sides of the alley.
They were into their second hour and Lieberman was on his knees shining his light into the grating of a sewer. Hanrahan had gone off on his own. There was nothing down the sewer that he could see, but that didn’t mean much. He would ask Forensics to come back and check out the sewers. It would not make them happy. Depending on whom he talked to, it might even result in a serious argument, but the detectives on the case, Lieberman and Hanrahan, had the final say though Forensics could appeal to Kearney or Homicide. Both Kearney and Rutgers would back them up.
Lieberman got up with an ache in his knees and moved to some cracked concrete steps leading down to a small square of space and a basement door. In front of the basement door stood a dog that had, until this moment, been totally silent. Now the mess of a creature stood erect, showing his teeth and growling low at the person who was blocking his escape.
Lieberman sat on the top of six steps. His behind felt the cold concrete.
“You a witness?” Lieberman asked. “I’ll take your statement.”
The dog with no name cocked his head to one side. No human had ever spoken to him like this. He had heard anger, fear, but not this. He had no idea of what to make of it. He wanted to escape, but the man sat in his way.
“You are one of, if not the, mangiest mongrel I have ever seen. That’s a fact, not an insult.”
The dog stopped growling.
“No collar, no tags, and from the filthy mess you are, I’d guess you have no owner. I’m not going to arrest you. Don’t worry. I can do without dog bites. I like the way you stand. I wish I had —”
Lieberman stopped and remembered that he did have half a bagel in his pocket wrapped in a small zip-lock plastic bag. It was supposed to be emergency food to keep him from being tempted by something he should not eat. He took out the package. The dog growled and took a step forward.
“Most dogs would have gone back a few feet. You’ve got spunk.”
Lieberman slowly opened the bag and threw the bagel slice in front of the dog with no name. The dog backed away not knowing what this thing was. It was still in the air when he knew it was food.
“What I do not like about dogs,” Lieberman said, “is that they want to be loved, petted, played with, walked. And when you go somewhere you’ve got to find someone to take care of them. I think you are definitely a different kind of dog.”
The dog sniffed at the bagel, looked at Lieberman, and tore the food between his teeth. He began to gnaw, finding it difficult to tear off pieces small enough to chew.
“That,” said Lieberman, “is a good bagel. My brother made it. It’s not soft like they sell now. It’s hard, lean like a bagel should be.”
The dog wondered about the sounds without anger or fear that were coming from the man. The dog kept eating.
“Take care of yourself,” Lieberman said, standing and wiping the rear of his pants. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
Lieberman stepped away from the stairway and the dog came up slowly, watching him, wondering if the man had one of those things that spit death. He had some of the bagel between his teeth, but he could drop it and either run or attack if this was some trick of the man.
“Go home or wherever,” Lieberman said with a sigh. “Maybe we’ll have another nice heart-to-heart conversation some other time.”
The dog started to run down the alley, night parking lights pointing him out as he ran. He was about fifty feet away when he stopped, turned, and looked at the man. Lieberman waved to him and the dog disappeared.
Hanrahan came back and said wearily, “Found the weapon.”
Lieberman stood.
“Where?”
“Garbage can,” said Hanrahan, “inside someone’s plastic garbage liner. Probably stopped for a second or two, opened the liner, threw it in, tied it, and put the lid back on.”
“Let’s take a look at the can and get the gun in to the lab,” Lieberman said looking around the alley once more though he didn’t expect to see anything.
“Weapon looks old, Rabbi,” said Hanrahan. “Real old.”
“So do I,” said Lieberman. “It wasn’t too old to kill Clark Mills.”
“I’ll take this in and start doing some checking,” said Hanrahan. “You got a few hours to go home and sleep.”
Hanrahan had told his partner about the visit from Woo and the others. Hanrahan didn’t want to go back to the empty house, not this morning. In fact, it was getting harder and harder to go back to the house. Working for a few more hours suited him.
“See you in a few hours,” Lieberman said, gladly accepting his partner’s offer.
“A few hours,” Hanrahan said, looking at the weapon in the see-through bag.
CHAPTER 9
THE SUN WAS CONSIDERING whether to come up or not when Lieberman got home. Parking was a little hard, but not hard enough to have to wrestle with the garage door. He found a spot about a block from the house, took it, and walked back. There was a smell of rain in the air and a strong breeze. Lieberman liked it this way.
He entered the dark house quietly. No one seemed to be up, probably wouldn’t be for at least three hours when the children had to be awakened for school. Lieberman’s plan was simple: Have some cereal, set the alarm, and go to sleep. He had a feeling that his insomnia demon was as tired as he was.
At first, things were just fine. He took off his shoes and left them in front of the hall closet. He didn’t want to open the closet door because of the squeal the door would make. He walked to the kitchen, turned on the light, and closed the door.
Lieberman poured himself a bowl of something called Oat Clusters. Bess had told him to eat Cheerios. She had been reading and watching the news. They were good for his heart. Lieberman didn’t like Cheerios. They had compromised with the other oat cereal. He got a spoon and the milk and sat down to eat more quickly than Bess would have approved of.
And then the kitchen door opened.
His daughter, Lisa, stood in the open doorway in a blue trench coat over her pajamas. Her hair was disheveled.
“I was waiting for you,” she said, closing the door and sitting across from her father at the table while he continued to eat. “Marvin’s at the hotel. I heard you come in. Actually, I heard the refrigerator close. Abe, I have to talk.”
“Lisa,” he said, tilting the bowl to get at the last of the milk. “I’ve been up all night and I’ve got about two or three hours to try to sleep. You can talk, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to listen. Or, if I do, I can’t guarantee that I’ll absorb it or that anything I say will make a hell of a lot of sense. I suggest we talk tonight when I get back home or maybe for a while when I get up, before I have to go back to work.”
“Five minutes, Abe,” Lisa said, leanin
g forward. “You might be in another big hurry when you get up and I’ll be gone when you come home from work.”
There was definitely a plea in his daughter’s voice, a sound he was not accustomed to in Lisa who had, in the past, been critically silent, occasionally demanding, often angry. To hear something that might be more than a request from his daughter was more than the exhausted Lieberman could resist.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I’m going back with Marvin this afternoon,” she said. “I love my children. I love my husband. I’m not a good mother. I talked to Todd. Actually, Bess talked to him. We agreed to leave things as they are, maybe review the situation with the kids in a year.”
The word “love” was an alien one coming from the mouth of his reserved, dispassionate daughter. It would take Abe some time to absorb what all this meant.
“You’re coming back for Barry’s Bar Mitzvah?” he asked.
“Yes, both of us, if it’s all right with you and Bess.”
“Why wouldn’t it … ah,” Lieberman said, understanding.
Marvin Alexander might be a doctor. He might speak all kinds of languages including Hebrew. He might be well versed in Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, but Marvin Alexander was black.
“Marvin and I don’t want to embarrass Barry, Melisa, you, and Bess,” she said. “Abe, I’ve changed since I married Marvin.”
“You certainly have,” Lieberman said, pushing his bowl away. “But you’re not being particularly perceptive about your mother, your father, and your children. You can ask them in private, but I’d say the odds are one hundred percent that we all want Marvin there. Lisa, I like your husband. All my life other cops have said to me, cops who’ve had to work the streets for twenty years or more, cops who had seen ghetto drug murders and family butcherings, mostly in black neighborhoods, ‘You talk the game, Abe, but would you want your daughter to marry one?’ Well, you did marry one and your mother and I are delighted with him. How I would feel if you’d married a drug dealer is a different story, but that wouldn’t have been because he was black. It would be because he dealt drugs.”
“I know,” Lisa said, brushing strands of hair from her face. Combing her hair out would be a nightmare.
“Good,” Abe said, standing and walking to the sink to rinse the bowl and spoon before putting them in the dishwasher. “And you know your mother and I love you.”
“I know,” she repeated softly. “You think I’m a bad person for not wanting to take Barry and Melisa to California?”
“No.,” Lieberman said, turning to face his still-seated daughter. “I can’t say I understand it, but we’ve had one hell of a time understanding each other since you were old enough to prove you were nearly a genius and to make clear that I was going to be the cause of all your misfortune.”
“I’ll work on that,” she said.
“Good,” Lieberman said, moving to his daughter and leaning over to kiss the top of her head.
She didn’t pull back.
“If you have to leave before I get back,” Abe said, “call me and I’ll get away long enough to say good-bye.”
“I will,” she said.
“And one more thing I’ll throw in while you’re feeling vulnerable. It’s one of the things cops do when they want something. If you can’t make an effort to call me Pop or Dad, at least make an effort to call your mother Mom more often. The only time you call me Dad is when you’re exasperated with me, usually for reasons that remain forever a mystery to my aging and addled brain. You need a ride?”
“No, I’ve got the rental car. I parked right outside in front of the fire plug.”
“You’re probably safe,” he said. “Good night. If I don’t see you, have a good trip back and I’ll call.”
Lisa nodded and left the kitchen. A few seconds later he heard the front door open and close.
Lieberman moved quickly to the bedroom. The sun was definitely starting to come up. He put his weapon in the drawer, locked it, and got undressed. He’d shave when he got up. Lieberman shaved often. He didn’t like seeing his father in the mirror. He had gotten along with his father. There had been problems, but the two had gotten along though his father had been sorely disappointed that neither of his two sons had gone to college.
He put his clothes on the chair, moving as quietly as he could, and then climbed into bed under the covers. Bess, accustomed to her husband’s unpredictable sleep, which was a result both of his job and his insomnia, rolled on her side.
Lieberman checked the alarm. It was already set for 7:30 A.M. That would give him a few hours of sleep. He was sure he could sleep if he could keep his conversation with Lisa in a small sealed sack in his chest.
If things were as they usually were, Abe would not have bad dreams, not that he couldn’t remember Clark Mills dead in the alley. No, he had learned to cope with such images, to turn them into causes. The people were dead. It was Abe’s job to find out who had killed them and why. The only thing that still caused him nightmares were brutal murders of children. Fortunately, the last one like that he and Bill had caught was almost a year ago. Now … and Abe was asleep.
When Abe Lieberman walked into the T&L Delicatessen at nine-thirty, he was running far behind his plan for the day. First, Bess had turned off the alarm and let him sleep. He had had a solid four hours when his wife finally woke him.
“Kids?” he had asked, sitting up.
“Already took them to school. Lisa and Marvin came and helped them get ready. Something’s happened to our daughter,” she said, adjusting an earring.
“I noticed.”
“I think it’s good,” she said. “How do I look?”
She was wearing a peach suit with a pearl necklace and pearl earrings. Her still-dark hair was cut short and off her neck the way he liked it.
“Great,” he said, getting up. “Meeting?”
“Temple presidents of the North Shore,” she said. “Brunch. Now that the temple is in Skokie, we’re North Shore. What can I tell you?”
“Calls?”
“None,” she said. “Abe, I’ve got to run.”
They came together, the same height with her heels. Maybe she was even a little taller. He kissed her and he said, “Quick coffee?”
“No time,” she said. “Stop and see Maish before you go in. I’m very worried about him, and so is Yetta.”
“I’ll stop,” he said.
He had shaved with the electric razor though it wasn’t as close as a blade. No reason it should be. The electric was almost thirty years old. He tried not to look in the mirror when he shaved, but he couldn’t resist. There was his father. The depressing thing was that even after he had finished shaving, his father was still in the mirror.
And so he walked into Maish’s deli on Devon at the height of the convening of the Alter Cockers.
“Nice jacket,” said Al Bloombach.
“Matches the pants,” said Rosen.
Howie Chen added, “You look like a real goddammit, Abe.”
“I appreciate the compliment, gentlemen, and I will try to continue to live up to my present state of sartorial splendor,” Abe said, looking around.
Except for the Cockers, the place was empty. The breakfast crowd was gone. It was a nice day and people weren’t ducking in to get out of the rain, cold, snow, or mad winds. Lieberman moved to his usual booth and Maish came out from behind the counter carrying a bowl, which he placed in front of his brother with a spoon.
“What’s this?” Abe asked, looking at the thick tan soupy mixture.
“Oatmeal,” said Maish. “Bess called. Said give Abe oatmeal.”
“I had something with oats last night,” Lieberman said, shaking his head and putting two spoons of sugar into the steaming oatmeal. The sugar did not alter texture or color. “I think I read somewhere you could go into convulsions from an overdose of oats.”
“I’ll call the paramedics,” Maish said, starting to turn.
“Sit, Maish,” Abe said. “Y
ou can watch to be sure I eat it all and don’t pour it someplace unsanitary.”
Maish shrugged and slid his 240 pounds into the seat across from his brother. Before his son David’s death, he had weighed more than 300.
“Heard Lisa’s back,” said Bloombach.
“For a few days,” Lieberman said, taking a spoon of oatmeal. He had eaten the stuff before and it wasn’t so bad. It just wasn’t all that good when one was yearning for a lox, onion, and cream cheese omelette. “She’s going back today.”
Terrell came from the kitchen with a cup and a pot of coffee. He put the cup in front of Abe and poured.
“Talk to the man,” Terrell said, nodding at Maish. “He needs some new tires. He’s skidding all over the place.”
“I’ll talk, Terrell. How’s it going?”
“Fine,” said Terrell. “My ex-wife sent me a card. My son Ben is graduating from high school this summer back in Texas. He’s goin’ to the University of Texas. First one on either side to go to college.”
“It’s good to have a son,” said Maish. “But watch out for God, Terrell. I told you. He’s evil.”
“Congratulations, Terrell,” Abe said, thinking that oatmeal wouldn’t exactly become a staple in his diet but it wasn’t as bad as he remembered.
Time moved so damn fast. He remembered Terrell as a kid. Now he was a father with a boy going to college.
Terrell walked back toward the kitchen.
“We’re giving Terrell a bachelor party when his son graduates,” called Bloombach.
“We considered a graduation party but Weintraub, that dirty old man, said we’d have more fun at a bachelor party and Terrell qualifies.”
Weintraub, eighty-one years old, shook his head knowingly. Weintraub husbanded his smiles, but when he gave one, it was a sincere reward. The other Alter Cockers courted his approval. There was, however, no chance that Weintraub would ever suggest a bachelor party.
“I’ll be there,” said Abe.
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