by Con Lehane
Dean responded like a child to the voice of authority. He calmed down. He wasn’t shocked. No outrage. He was prepared. He’d expected an accusation. What you might think would be an incredulous: “Are you accusing me?” “Do you doubt my word?” “Can I call my lawyer?” was instead an acknowledgment. “I’m sure it’s something the bartender told you. Or perhaps that slimy librarian has manufactured some new evidence. He can’t prove his friend innocent, so he’s trying to make me guilty.” Dean spoke quietly. “They’re both slick. The bartender comes off as a clumsy fool. In reality, he’s a master manipulator. He turned my wife against me.”
Cosgrove rubbed his chin and tried to act surprised. “I wondered about their relationship.”
You could see a glimmer of confidence in Dean’s eyes, the lapse of a not-so-good poker player with a handful of aces. “He deceived her. I’d think that was obvious. As he deceives the librarian, and it looks like you, too.”
“Well,” Cosgrove tried to sound confused. “The truth is”—here it was again—“what I want to ask you about is something that came up with the bartender … and with you.”
Dean glanced away quickly and back at Cosgrove. He attempted a contemptuous laugh. “What did he say?”
“Did your wife tell you where she was and who she was with when she called you the night before her murder?”
Dean’s face was too expressive for him to be a good liar. Or he had more lies than he could keep track of. For a moment, his gaze went everywhere except toward Cosgrove. When he did look Cosgrove in the eye, he couldn’t hold his gaze steady. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “I don’t remember the phone call well. I don’t remember what she told me. You can’t expect—”
“Do you remember what you told me about the call?”
His gaze darted around everywhere but at Cosgrove again. “She was sorry.… She said she was sorry. She wanted to come home.” His voice took on a higher pitch. “I don’t remember what else. We talked about things. She was my wife. We had things we said to one another. I was angry.”
“If she was sorry and wanted to come home, why didn’t she?”
“Why didn’t she what?”
“Come home. What kept her from coming home if that’s what she wanted to do?”
Something went on behind Dean’s eyes that made his facial expression almost evil. “The bartender. I told you he manipulated her.”
“Did you argue about that?”
“That and other things. We had—” he glanced around him, searching for help. “Why are you browbeating me?” His uncertain gaze finally landed on Cosgrove. “What are you getting at?”
Cosgrove didn’t get why Simon Dean was reacting as if he’d been found out, when Cosgrove hadn’t found out anything. “I’m asking about the phone conversation with your wife, why you didn’t demand she come home right away. Why didn’t she leave right away?”
“The bartender—”
“She was having fun with the bartender?”
“He manipulated her.”
“She wronged you. Why would you forgive her? She and McNulty were playing you, weren’t they?”
Cosgrove could see in Dean’s eyes that his rage was returning. “He killed her so she couldn’t leave. She wanted to leave. She couldn’t.”
“She wouldn’t tell you where she was because she didn’t want you to come get her just yet—”
“She’d tell me. I didn’t want to know where she was.”
“Why?”
You could see in Dean’s face that he didn’t have an answer; he’d made a false step and he knew it. For a moment, his expression was peaceful, as if he were relieved and ready now to surrender. He was close to tears.
Cosgrove dared to hope he might have a confession coming. “There’s one more thing coming down the pike you ought to know about. We’ve got a private investigator’s report.” Cosgrove kept his eyes on Dean’s face so he saw the recognition. “I don’t have to tell you what’s in it—”
Something beyond Cosgrove caught Dean’s eye. His expression twisted into a sneer. He watched something in the distance. “Are there other police out there?” The sound of his voice was ghostly.
“It’s okay,” Cosgrove said. “No one’s out to get you. You’ve been wronged. Let’s talk man-to-man. I understand. A lot of people will. There’ll be a lot of sympathy for you.”
“What are you talking about?” Dean’s voice was strained. The evil expression that had crept into his face earlier blossomed and took over. Cosgrove stared into rage and hatred.
“Don’t,” Cosgrove shouted, reaching for his gun in a holster on his chest under his arm. Before he could get to it, Dean pushed the front door violently into his face and sprang away from the doorway. In the time it took Cosgrove to open the door again, Dean had dashed across the foyer and the living room into the den with his sister and Carolyn and closed the door.
“Fuck,” Cosgrove said. He called the number he had for Lieutenant Murphy and told him what happened. In a flash, the driveway and road in front of Dean’s house filled with police cars and flashing red lights. Cosgrove kept the front door open and stood in the foyer watching the den with the closed door, his gun in his hand. It was better to keep Dean localized rather than let him have the entire house.
“I blew it,” he said when Murphy came up the walk to the front door. “You got a good sniper? I saw windows in the room they’re in.”
Murphy gestured with his head toward the door to the den. “Do you want to try your luck again before the hostage negotiator?”
Cosgrove said he did.
“Phones?” Murphy asked. “The hostage negotiators will need phone numbers for Dean or the aunt. I can have someone look them up.”
Cosgrove looked at his own phone. “I know someone who has at least one of those numbers.”
Chapter 36
When Ambler’s cell phone rang, he knew it would be Mike. No preliminaries. “Do you have a phone number for Simon Dean?”
From Mike’s tone, he knew there was trouble and not to get in Mike’s way with questions. “I don’t. I have Andrea’s number.” He gave it to Cosgrove.
“Dean is holed up with the kid and the aunt.” Mike gave a quick recap.
“I’m sure he isn’t going to be persuaded by talk,” Ambler said. “What can I do?”
“I don’t suppose you pray,” Mike said.
“I’ll ask Adele.”
When Mike hung up, Ambler told Adele about the call and asked about praying.
“I am,” she said. “What else do we do?”
“Nothing but wait.”
They’d found a lunch counter on Greenwich Avenue, a relic of days past, and sat across from one another in a booth over stale coffee.
“We can’t just sit here,” she said.
Ambler was rethinking everything he’d done trying to find where he went wrong, so he didn’t say anything.
“We have the laptop. We can still try to trade it for Dean letting Carolyn and Andrea go. Why’s that not a good idea?”
“It’s too late. Nothing’s going to change Dean’s mind now. He’s hate-filled enough to have murdered his wife and taken his daughter hostage. What can you say to him?”
Adele stared at him before she spoke. “Someone might talk to him. What about Harry? Priests are supposed to counsel people.”
“Not Harry.” Ambler remembered Simon’s spiritual adviser, the priest who’d been with Simon at Sandra’s funeral. He looked up the phone number for the Catholic church in a phone book attached to the world’s last remaining phone booth at the back of the lunch counter. When he called, he was told by the person answering the phone that the priest was away from the rectory on a police emergency.
“That’s got to be Simon Dean,” Adele said when Ambler told her. “Let’s go.”
He thought about arguing but what else would they do? They could stay where they were and feel anxious and useless or they could stand around outside the Dean residence feeling a
nxious and useless. The counterperson at the lunch counter called a taxi for them and the taxi took them out along a country road until they reached a cordoned-off section on a narrow part of the road lined with stonewalls and acres of fields behind the walls, blocked now by a fleet of police vehicles with flashing lights.
“What’s going to happen?” Adele put her arm through Ambler’s arm and pulled herself closer to him. “This feels ominous.”
They’d gotten out of the taxi and were standing next to a couple of uniformed cops behind a barrier of yellow crime-scene tape that looked tragically out of place in the bucolic setting. “My guess is Simon will ask for safe passage for him and his daughter.”
“Will the police let him do that, let him get away with Carolyn?” Adele spoke out of a sense of wonder, as if they’d come upon a strange new world.
Ambler watched the activity unfold in front of them. A dozen or more police, many of them in riot gear, others in their regular uniforms, stood together in small groups, while others moved quickly from vehicle to vehicle with urgency and a sense of purpose. At the farthest point of the gathering an ambulance was parked and in front of it for some reason a fire truck. Ambler slipped his arm loose from Adele’s arm and put it around her shoulder. “They have him now,” he said. “I think it will end here.”
Adele stepped back from him. “What do you mean?”
“They’ll try to get him to surrender. If he doesn’t, they’ll take him out.”
“Take him out?” Adele’s eyes were wide.
Reporters and TV cameras had arrived. With the police cars, ambulances, and TV trucks, the bucolic, suburban road resembled a grotesque amusement park. No one was going to update them on anything; they’d have to watch and wait. After a few minutes, they listened in as a uniformed police officer spoke to the assembled reporters, telling them mostly what Ambler and Adele already knew. A hostage negotiating team was on the scene. A man with a gun was inside the house with hostages. The next report would be in two hours unless something changed.
After what seemed hours, the priest, Fr. Jerome, came out and spoke to the TV cameras. He was a young man with the aura of a fawn, who looked nervous, if not terrified, stumbling over his words. He said “Mr. Dean is distraught,” a number of times—not a term you want bandied about in this sort of situation—and mentioned praying at least as often as he said “distraught.”
Chapter 37
Cosgrove caught the last couple of minutes of Fr. Jerome’s counseling of Simon Dean. It didn’t go well, and ended with what sounded like a denunciation of God by Dean for the misery He’d sent Simon’s way. The priest was ashen as he approached Cosgrove.
“I’m afraid Simon has lost his mind,” he said when they met in the foyer. “All we can do is pray God gives him the grace to restore his faith, and gives you the grace to get through to him.”
Cosgrove searched the priest’s face. How earnest and humble he was. It reminded Cosgrove that he once believed. At the moment, he could sure use some divine inspiration. He patted the priest on the shoulder. “Maybe what you said to him will sink in. If we can keep him talking, we have a chance.”
Cosgrove took a deep breath and knocked on the door to the den housing Dean, Carolyn, and Andrea. He didn’t get a response. “Hey, Mr. Dean. Mike Cosgrove here,” he shouted. “I said before we should have a chat. You have a lot coming at you, a lot to think about. Things maybe look bleak. I’m not gonna say you’re not in a bad spot. You are. I’m a man who’s had woman trouble, trouble with his wife. I’m divorced now. I know the pain a woman can bring a man. I’m a father, too, of a beautiful girl, like you are.”
He heard movement behind the door. Simon spoke, “You’re wasting your time. I told the first cop what I wanted. A car and an open road and then I want a private plane. Free passage for my daughter and me to a country with no extradition.”
“They’re looking into that. It might not be possible—”
“That’s the only way anyone leaves here.”
Cosgrove found himself nodding for no reason since no one could see him. “I understand. We’re working on it. There’s a lot of pieces involved besides the police to get something like than done: the governor, the State Department. There’s security issues. Even if we can do it, it takes time. Days most likely.”
Cosgrove kept up his patter. He offered to send out for food. He offered to let Dean move his captives to the master bedroom suite, where there was a bathroom. He offered to hand him a bottle of scotch when he noticed a home bar against a wall in the living room. Dean didn’t fall for the scotch offer. He did move to the master bedroom, keeping Carolyn close to him, making sure he couldn’t become a target. Cosgrove followed and stood outside another door.
He began again. “I’m gonna tell you something.” It was weird talking to a blank door. “I know you’ll want to reject this out of hand. The thing is it might be different than you think, so I’d ask you to listen.” He listened himself to silence. “Let’s say you plead to something. You have us over a barrel. I can’t speak for the prosecutor, but I could take a deal to him. Anything you want to propose. Instead of murder one, you plead to manslaughter. You get—”
Dean’s voice was weary. “I’m tired of listening to you.”
Cosgrove was tired of listening to himself, yet he wasn’t giving up. When the food arrived from the Chinese restaurant, he took a break. Murphy asked if he wanted the hostage negotiator. Cosgrove said he wanted to try one more time.
He went back to the door. “Think of something yourself. Anything at all. Who knows? You might get acquitted. Like I said, you’d have a sympathetic audience. A lot of folks, jurors, would understand why you did what you did. You tell the prosecutor about the bartender. What he did to your wife. He turned her against you, lied to her. Manipulated her, you said. If you told the whole story, people would get it. Extenuating circumstances. Who knows what the bartender might have done to her anyway? And then we don’t know the whole story from your point of view. If we did, we’d see things differently, understand what happened differently.”
“Goddamn McNulty!” Dean’s voice shook with anger. Cosgrove had gotten through to him, hit a nerve. “Damn him to hell! It’s his fault. He’s the murderer. He made it happen.” Dean’s tone softened. “I didn’t want to kill Sandra. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want anything to happen to Carolyn. If you want to help, get us out of here. Carolyn and I will be okay if you get us out of here.”
Cosgrove didn’t know if he should approach the angry Dean or the softening Dean. He spoke carefully. “I know you don’t want to harm your daughter. That’s the last thing you want. We—”
Dean roared. His voice blasted through the bedroom door. “Shut up! Goddamn it. Shut up! Get away from here. I’ll shoot through the door.”
Instinctively, Cosgrove stepped to the side of the door. He’d gotten under Simon’s skin. Now, he had to keep him from falling apart. Cool him down, and keep him talking. “I’m gonna tell you the truth,” Cosgrove said. At least this time, he would tell the truth. “You’re not going to get a car and a plane and safe passage. We might set it up to look like we’re doing it. It would be an ambush.” Cosgrove took a deep breath. “I’m giving it to you like a man. You’re trapped. Let your daughter and her aunt go. You can have me as a hostage. Make a run for it like a man, not hiding behind a kid. You and me.”
There was a long pause. Cosgrove thought of another hundred things to say but bit his tongue. If he got the hostages out of there, with a bit of luck he could keep himself out of the way and the sniper would have a shot at Dean. The master bedroom had windows on three walls. If Murphy could borrow a couple of snipers from surrounding towns, the chances were good one of them would get a bead on Dean.
“Not you.”
“What?” Cosgrove wasn’t sure what he heard. He thought to argue and realized he didn’t know what he’d argue against. Before he found the words, Dean spoke again.
“I want the bartender. I want
McNulty. Bring him as a hostage. I’ll let Carolyn and Andrea leave and take my chances.”
Chapter 38
“He’ll kill him,” Adele said.
Mike had finished telling them what Simon Dean proposed. Ambler had the same thought himself and was sure the thought had occurred to Mike.
“I’d rather do it myself,” Mike said. “He wouldn’t buy it.”
“What about me?” Ambler said. “I could bring him the laptop.”
“I thought of that. Someone we send in would know what was going to happen and know to stay out of the sniper’s line of fire. The kid and her aunt don’t know what’s going on, don’t know what to do. It’s risky with them in the room. Our best bet is to get them out. The thing is, he wants McNulty. It’s too late for the laptop. We’re too far in for Dean to care about the emails anymore.”
“Raymond and I could both go.”
Cosgrove rolled his eyes. “And leave Ray’s grandson an orphan?”
They went back and forth until Ambler had enough. “We have to leave it up to McNulty. Can you get him here?”
“Can you get him out of jail?” Adele asked.
“Give me his lawyer’s phone number.” Mike called his captain in New York. After that, he called David Levinson and spoke to him at length. When he hung up, he said “My boss will call the Stamford DA. Levinson can have McNulty out in an hour or so. I talked to Murphy and he’s okay with it. If McNulty wants to do it, we can have him here in a couple of hours.”
* * *
An hour later Ambler got a call from David Levinson “You want McNulty to go from prison to being a killer’s hostage? I can’t think of a reason on earth for him to do that. But he says he will.”
“He wants to be a saint,” Ambler said.
Two hours later, Ambler and Adele watched McNulty arrive. Before they could talk to him, a team from Greenwich’s special response unit took him under their wing. They outfitted him, despite his protests, with a Kevlar vest and a sweatshirt, and taught him how to move in it. They also tried to teach him evasive movements.