by Con Lehane
Halloran’s glare was hard and unflinching. His chest heaved. His mouth tightened. He winced. “What do they have on the Arab?”
“Nothing. Circumstantial. She was monitoring him.” Cosgrove took a breath. “I don’t have much on Paul either. He was married to the victim. He disappeared. Paul worked for Campbell at some point. The Stone woman worked for Campbell. It’s possible Campbell knew about the marriage. If he had someone watching her father’s house in Texas, thinking Paul might show, it’s likely he did know. A witness told me the victim came to her apartment a couple of nights before she was killed, terrified of her ex-husband. Nothing puts Paul at the scene. He’s gone missing. That doesn’t make him guilty.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, Mike.” Halloran gripped the arms of the worn wooden chair he’d ridden for years, his jaw clenched so tightly you could hear his teeth grinding. “Go ahead. I’ll take the heat.” He looked at Cosgrove over his glasses. “Make sure you’re on good terms with your union rep.”
Cosgrove worked out with Halloran that he’d take a couple of days off to go to Boston. The chief would reimburse him from police foundation funds—a kick in the ass for Campbell. When he got to Boston, he’d leave word around he was looking for Paul. Cops live in their own world wherever they go; not unlike their counterparts in the criminal world, they drift toward certain neighborhoods, certain hangouts—greasy spoons for breakfast, bars, often owned by ex-cops, donut shops for coffee.
* * *
Dan Conroy, a friend since Quantico, retired from the Boston cops, met Cosgrove at Logan and took him to Mulroney’s, a cop bar in Hyde Park. The eponymous owner was behind the bar; a half-dozen drinkers hunched over their draft beers in the mottled, faded light of a wasted afternoon. Gerry Mulroney, who didn’t say whether he knew Paul or not, listened to what Cosgrove had to say. Cosgrove didn’t want a beer. He didn’t like drinking in the afternoon; it made him feel logy the rest of the day. He ordered one anyway because Dan did and Mulroney looked to have a couple under his belt already, so it seemed the thing to do.
There wasn’t much to talk about. The TV was tuned to one of those stupid talk shows where a disheveled fat girl was trying to figure out which of the two dumbasses on the stage with her was the father of the unfortunate child who would be born to her, and everyone, including the audience, was screaming at everyone else.
What little talk there was beyond this was about the Bruins game the night before and some polite enquiry about the Rangers that he couldn’t answer because he didn’t pay attention to hockey. He didn’t hang out in cop bars back home. He didn’t especially like to drink and he especially didn’t like being around cops when they were drunk. He didn’t mind a beer with a pal now and then, and a couple of glasses of good wine with a meal, but that was enough.
The bar he sat in now was a refuge for those for whom drinking was a centerpiece of life. All he could do was wait to see if Paul wanted to talk to him. He had a second beer and, the bar’s one redeeming feature, a couple of pickled hard-boiled eggs and watched the doofuses on TV argue, goaded on by the slick MC who came off as slimier than most people he arrested.
It was difficult finding anything to talk to Dan about, too. They were heartily backslapping glad to see one another at the airport, reminisced about their time at the FBI academy on the drive to the bar, complained about their respective departments, lauded the benefits of Dan’s retirement. But they ran out of things to talk about pretty quick. Finally, with Dan half in the bag after a couple of shots to go with his beers, he left the bar in mid-afternoon, telling the bar owner he’d be back that evening. Mulroney told him to come back the following day. That probably meant something.
He didn’t want to ride with Dan, who was undoubtedly legally drunk. He didn’t have any choice, not knowing where he was. He was staying at a hotel near the airport and persuaded Dan to drop him off at a T stop, where he could get a train back to the airport. When he got to the hotel, he took a nap, got up in evening darkness, ate dinner at the hotel, read for a while a Donald Westlake novel Ray had given him, and went to sleep again.
The next day, he took a cab from the airport to Mulroney’s in the early afternoon. Gerry Mulroney’s greeting was a barely perceptible nod. This time, he ordered a ginger ale. He was through trying to impress anyone. The bar owner made a major project of digging out the bottle of ginger ale from deep in the cooler, as if the out-of-the-ordinary request disrupted the normal operation of the establishment. Mulroney finally got the bottle, poured the ginger ale, and plopped the glass on the bar in front of him; then, he went to the far end of the bar to conspire with two men, one considerably older than Cosgrove, the other younger, all three of them turning now and again to look at him.
Cosgrove showed no interest, though he recognized the hard-eyed stare and jaded manner of cops. After a time, the older man walked over to stand next to him. The younger man stayed put watching him, pretending he wasn’t.
“NYPD?” the man said.
“You want a badge?” Cosgrove said.
The man shook his head.
“Mike Cosgrove.”
“I know.”
“I’m a friend of Paul Higgins.”
“So I heard.” He didn’t say where he’d heard and it wouldn’t do any good to ask.
“I’m here on my own time. I take it he doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“How would I know?”
Cosgrove shrugged. “His ex-wife was murdered. I expect he knows that. I’d like to know for sure.”
“Is he a suspect?”
“I was hoping to keep him from becoming one.”
“If I run across Paul, I’ll let him know you came by.” The expression in the man’s eyes was hard, if not cruel. It reflected the cold, hard knowledge that men actually do kill one another. The look might sometimes have been in his own eyes. It might be there now. “I can tell you this. He didn’t kill her.”
“You don’t happen to know who did?”
The older man almost smiled, despite the tension. “Paul knows what he’s doing. You don’t need to find him. He’ll find you when the time’s right.”
Chapter 19
Ray Ambler stood in the hallway of a Harlem middle school with a visitor’s pass pasted to his coat. The antiseptic scent in the building brought memories of middle school, as did the marble hallway floors that were buffed to a shiny glow. At different junctures along the walls there were glass-enclosed bulletin boards. He felt like he was back in IS-62 where he first met Devon. The classroom he wanted was on the second floor. Walking up the stairs, he couldn’t remember if he was supposed to be on the left or right, as a herd of boys cascaded down the stairs toward him.
The woman waiting in the classroom was slight, light-skinned like Devon, with his angular features. He saw the resemblance right away and wondered for a moment if he might have known her when they were kids. She didn’t smile when she looked up at him, yet he saw gentleness in her eyes.
“Mr. Ambler?” She stood and held out her hand. “So you’re the mysterious Ray, the white kid who played second base. I was you when he practiced turning double plays. I could show you the pivot to turn and throw to first base.” She laughed, an easy, pleasant sound.
Ambler must have expected something else, hostility, a general anger at him representing the white world coming uptown to Harlem. White guilt. He didn’t have it when he and Devon were kids, despite the wide gulf between them, the stability and relative prosperity of his life compared to Devon’s. He knew it wasn’t fair. But that was how things were. “I’m so sorry about the loss of your brother.”
“My brother was the best.…” Her voice faltered. The whites of her eyes reddened. “I visited him every month for more than twenty years. We wrote hundreds of letters. He’s why I’m a teacher, why I’m an activist.”
She’d been standing in front of her desk, leaning back against it. He’d stood halfway between the doorway and her desk. When she went behind the desk to sit down, he pul
led a sculpted plastic chair from behind one of the student desks and set it in front of her desk.
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk about things that are none of my business. I’ll tell you why I’m here. You can decide.” He told her about his visit to Devon shortly before his death, what Devon had told him about his brother Trey, and what Devon had asked him to do.
She absorbed what he told her stoically. If she was shocked by what he said about Trey, she didn’t let on. She took a moment, nodded. “We lost Trey long before he died, lost him to the streets. If Devon served that time for him, he shouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have let him do it if I’d known, nor would my parents have.”
“Before Devon went to prison, do you remember what he and Trey were doing … anything you remember about a truckers union?”
“I was the baby of the family. He was much older than me. Trey and I didn’t ever get along, even though we were closer in age. I didn’t like him, didn’t like him from the moment he was born. He was never right even when we were kids, something wrong with his head. God forgive me for saying this. He was born evil. Devon tried to look after him. He was the man of the family.”
“Do you remember when Richard Wright was murdered?”
She stared off toward the back wall of the classroom before she spoke. “I was young and didn’t understand, except I was scared to death when Devon was arrested that they’d take him away from me.… And they did.” She burst into tears. Ambler wanted to comfort her, to hold her or something, but he felt constrained, and instead sat uncomfortably and waited. In a moment, she stopped. She smiled very slightly but didn’t apologize.
“None of us believed the stories in the papers about drugs and payoffs. I never believed it about Devon. Everything was twisted around.” Her gaze traveled around her classroom; she seemed to gather some strength from the place. “I was a nerdy schoolgirl dreaming of college. I didn’t know how the system operates.… I understood when I was older Devon was set up.”
“Did you know Trey was a police informant?”
“We knew Devon was set up … ‘railroaded’ … whatever the term is. We didn’t know Trey had anything to do with it. We knew Devon wouldn’t kill someone, not the way this happened, not someone like Richard Wright, who was an upstanding man. Devon might kill or die protecting me or his family or his friends. Not like that. It was ridiculous, impossible. We were in shock, sick and in pain.”
Her eyes closed. She shook her head like a child banishing demons. “Devon wouldn’t talk about it. Not then. Not ever.” She bit at her lower lip, her eyes reddening again. “We failed him.”
Angela Thomas didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know. What she did do was remind him who Devon was and why he believed what Devon told him, in the face of a good amount of reason to doubt it. Finding the truth and making it known wouldn’t help Devon. It would be what he’d want, though, and would be something he deserved.
Chapter 20
Adele had been back in her apartment for about fifteen minutes after her trip to Dallas when Raymond called. She’d talked to him the night before about the men who’d accosted her in front of Leila’s father’s house and told him what Barbara Jean had told her. It was awkward to talk about Gobi, so she hadn’t mentioned him and neither did Raymond. This time, she told him about Gobi’s release and that the men who accosted her in Texas told her he’d disappeared. “Would you call that lawyer and ask if he knows where Gobi is?”
Raymond said he would but sounded irritated and impatient. Something was bothering him. And, just like a man, he didn’t want to admit it, so he was pouting, hoping she’d figure out something was wrong and ask him.
“What’s bothering you?”
“Denise was arrested for smoking pot.”
“Oh dear. She’s not in jail, is she?”
“No.… Johnny was with her.”
“That’s awful. She should know better than getting Johnny involved in something like that. Was she arrested? Did they take him in?”
“She should know better. They gave her what’s called a desk appearance ticket, so they weren’t hauled in. He wasn’t traumatized. He’s on her side, mad at the police and worried what will happen to her. With that and his father in prison, he’s taken on the attitude of an outlaw; cops are the enemy. I’m worried about when his grandmother finds out. She’ll tell the court I’m an unfit guardian.”
They talked for a few more minutes before he hung up. Raymond wasn’t convinced Paul Higgins killed Leila. He was stubborn like that, and it irritated her. Paul Higgins kept his marriage to Leila secret; he was a violent man; he’d threatened her; he disappeared right after the murder. All of that may not be ironclad proof he murdered her, but it was enough to make it pretty likely.
She was searching through the refrigerator for something to make for dinner when the phone rang again. When she heard the heavily accented voice, she knew it was Gobi. “How are you? Are you all right? Where are you?”
“Adele, I’m sorry.…” He seemed unable to go on.
“You shouldn’t have disappeared like that. It makes you look guilty.”
“I know.” He sounded contrite. “Some things happened I didn’t expect. I wish I could explain.”
“Why can’t you explain?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, his tone was hesitant. “I don’t want to involve you again. But I need your help.”
She didn’t like this. It wasn’t right. “What kind of help? There are limits, you know, to what you can ask someone to do. You already—”
“I understand.”
“It’s not as if I share your cause, whatever it is.” She scowled at her phone as if it could transmit her anger. “I helped you because we’re friends.” Her voice softened, a reflex, to a cooing sound. “Because I like you. You.…” Her voice stiffened again. “You’re involved in some political crusade. You didn’t tell me that part. I thought you were a scholar.”
“There are things that take time to explain, time we haven’t had.” He lowered his voice. “It’s awkward for me to speak now. Can you meet me at a place I will tell you? I need you to bring what you took from my apartment.”
Her heart pounded. She spun around, looking at her apartment as if the couch or the small table or the blue walls could tell her what to do. Things like this didn’t happen to her. She didn’t run off into the dark streets, her heart beating wildly, to rendezvous with a fugitive. She needed to calm down. Really, she couldn’t do this. Whatever foolish romantic notion she had of helping Gobi, this had to end before something terrible happened. “I don’t know.” It came out as a whisper. “I don’t think I can.”
His voice was calm, soothing. “I understand. It’s too much to ask.” She listened to him breathing into the phone.
“You shouldn’t have run off,” she said again. “You’ll get everyone in trouble. You’re doing this the wrong way.… I found out something that might mean you won’t have to hide at all. When I was in Texas—”
He interrupted. “I can’t talk now. Someone is giving me instructions to give to you. Tonight at 9:00 p.m., begin walking west on 53rd Street. Bring my bag with the documents. Cross Eleventh Avenue. We’ll meet with you alongside the park.”
She didn’t know what to say. “I’m not sure I want to do that. Can’t we talk now? I need to tell what I found out in Texas. It’s really important.”
His voice was soft, purring. “You will tell me, Adele. I want to see you. I think about you every day, how much you have become my friend.”
She was taken aback. Speechless. He thought about her? She wasn’t sure she believed him. It might be a trick, manipulating her to help him. “It’s nice that you think about me, flattering. I’d like to see you. I want to help you. Before I do, I need an explanation.” She took a breath and calmed her voice. “You have to tell me what this is about. Why are you hiding? Who are you with?”
There was a long silence again before he spoke. “I wish you believed I
didn’t kill Miss Stone.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I found out something that will help you, that might prove someone else killed Leila—”
He interrupted again. “Someone will pick up the bag. Do as they say. No need to talk.” He laughed, a genuine laugh. “Hard for you, I know.”
When they disconnected, she stood for a moment staring at the phone in her hand. What on earth was going on with her? Why would she take such a risk? She should call Raymond. She knew she should. But she wasn’t going to. She’d asked him to find out where Gobi was. He’d try to find out and call her back. Now, she knew more than he did, and she wasn’t going to tell him.
She paced the floor. It was unlikely she read Gobi wrong, yet it was possible. She’d misread Leila, who it turned out wasn’t even Leila. Gobi asked her to take a big risk taking things from his apartment, including a gun. He was asking her to take another risk now, meeting him when he was a fugitive. Why would he do that? She had to consider the possibility he was using her.
Raymond called around 5:00, before it was fully dark. “He was released. Not on bail. He wasn’t charged.”
“He’s not a fugitive?”
“The attorney told the feds to charge him or release him, so they released him. There’s some disagreement between the NYPD and the FBI. Someone thinks they don’t have enough evidence yet for either charge. They’ll arrest him when they’re ready.”
“He’s not a fugitive? Why did the man in Texas say he disappeared?”
“Because he did. The lawyer doesn’t know where he is either.” He paused before he asked, “Do you want to have dinner?”
“I can’t.” She hated saying it.
“Oh,” he said quickly. “Sorry. Maybe later this week when I’ll have Johnny.”
“Of course. That would be great.” She didn’t like the wheedling sound of her voice and felt awful when she hung up.
She always went to dinner when he asked. She didn’t explain why this time was different, and he didn’t pry. He wouldn’t. He sounded so awkward, so hurt. She should have told him what she was doing. Why keep it a secret? Telling him she was meeting Gobi would hurt his feelings. That was why. And she hurt them anyway. It was all so stupid. She was like a besotted schoolgirl. Gobi was exciting. Handsome. Dangerous. She was charmed by his interest in her. Was she that gullible? She shouldn’t be meeting him. She certainly shouldn’t have agreed to give him back his gun. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to call Raymond back and have dinner with him, have dinner with plodding old, calm, safe Raymond.