by Con Lehane
Dominic was dead. He knew without going nearer the body He’d killed a man. That seemed not possible. He went back over what happened, trying to recall every detail in sequence. He couldn’t. He’d spun and twisted Dominic’s arm. The gun went off. Dominic was dead. It happened fast. He wasn’t sure he’d even been there.
Next, Mike Cosgrove was standing over him. “Don’t get up.”
Ambler shook his head. “Is he dead?”
“What the hell happened?”
Ambler shook his head. “Dominic. Is Dominic dead?”
“If that’s Dominic, he is.”
“I killed him.”
“We’ll sort out what happened. First, we need to know if you’re hurt.” He called to the medics, who came to look at Ambler.
Chapter 29
Cosgrove watched the medics examine Ambler. They looked for bullet holes first. Surprisingly often, folks have a bullet hole in them without realizing it. Ray’s face was ashen. Pain. Shock. Whatever happened took a toll on him. If he did kill Dominic, as he said, it would weigh heavily on him. Bad enough for anyone, even a cop. You don’t get over killing someone. Most people never know the feeling. Not even cops. One in a thousand, not even that. His bad luck to be one of them; years ago, and the nightmares still woke him. For Ambler, it would be worse—for all his interest in crime, if there ever was a never-hurt-a-fly person, it was Ray; he’d be a mess. Made no difference the guy deserved it.
What they had down here were three deaths, all by gunshot, one self-inflicted. Maximilian Wagner ate the gun. The woman was shot in the chest. With Wagner beside her, it looked like a murder-suicide. But the woman took more than one bullet. Same with Dominic, shot more than once. His gun was a semiautomatic. The gun in Wagner’s hand was a revolver. So it might not be what it looked like.
For the other death, it seemed likely that Dominic was holding the gun; it was on the ground underneath him. Ray grabbed at it; they wrestled; it went off. Accidental. Justifiable. It could be that; it could be something else. He’d take a statement from Ray when the medics finished with him. Not something he looked forward to, walking the guy through it again. It would be best to get it over with, so he’d do it, neither of them liking it.
From the looks of things, he’d be here all goddamn night. He could see the News and the Post in the morning: “Carnage at the 42nd Street Library.” They’d hound Ray once they figured out he was in the middle of it. It would make the headlines because everybody in the city, everybody everywhere—people in Iowa, for Christ’s sake—knew the 42nd Street Library. What the papers might not get would be the connections.
The killings here; the death of the woman in Hell’s Kitchen; her father’s murder; the murder at the library a week before that; the earlier killing when everyone was young and Emily Yates a damaged child. He wasn’t sure yet who killed whom. What he was sure of was that the events of that earlier time led to this. He was inclined to think it was over now. He could tell Ray the chickens had found their roosts. Everyone part of the twisted scenario was dead, except the two people he suspected early on, the ex-priest and Kay Donnelly. Things often aren’t what they seem.
He wondered how long it would be before he could sit down with Ray and piece it together. Ambler wasn’t a guy to think good triumphed over evil. After all this, he’d say good people sometimes did evil and evil people often did good. He was like that. You’d wonder if killing someone, accident or not, would change him.
Watching the medics examining Ray, it took a minute for him to notice a uniformed cop coming toward him with two bedraggled citizens in tow. He recognized Kay Donnelly and Benny Barone.
“And what have we here?” he asked.
Neither of them answered. They were subdued and scared.
“They were in this dungeon when the shooting went down,” the officer said.
“So, what happened?” He looked from Benny to Kay.
“What about Ray?” Benny asked. “He’s hurt.”
Cosgrove gestured toward Ambler and the medics. They were helping him to his feet and seemed prepared to let him go on his own.
“We don’t know,” Kay said. “First, someone was shot. I think Laura Lee because Max screamed her name. But we didn’t see. Right after the shot, Ray Ambler came down into the stacks and called to Dominic.”
Cosgrove broke with his usual practice, which was to let the suspect or witness talk without getting in the way, and interrupted. “Why were you down here?” He shifted his gaze to Benny.
“She came to warn Max Wagner. I came after her. I guess Ray came after me.”
“Why would you all do that?”
Kay and Benny looked puzzled.
Cosgrove tried again. “Try to stop a guy with a gun.”
They stood in front of him, arms around each other. The idea of it, budding love in the midst of murder, said something about life, how you find hope in the worst of things. Looking at it the other way, you find evil and cruelty and despair all around you that love can never overcome. However you choose to look at life, it’s a wash.
“I got my daughter back,” he said to Benny.
* * *
It was late when Cosgrove finished his work. He popped two Tums into his mouth and stood for a few moments on the broad landing in front of the steps leading from the massive bronze main door of the library to Fifth Avenue. That door had been closed for hours. What was left of the cruisers, ambulances, ME vans, lined the curb on 40th Street in front of a side door. Those who had business there, detectives, uniformed cops, shift supervisors, crime scene and medical examiner’s office technicians and investigators, went in and out the side door there.
A couple of hours before, the president of the New York Public Library in a tuxedo, the police commissioner, the Midtown South commander, and a half-dozen others—white shirts and gold badges—stood where he was standing. Facing a battery of TV cameras, the steps lit up like Yankee Stadium, they reassured the city there had not been a terrorist attack. A shooting took place. Three people were dead, including the perpetrator. None of the victims were library employees, and there were no other suspects.
Yellow cabs streamed down Fifth Avenue despite the lateness of the hour. But the sidewalks were quiet. The small crowd, mostly tourists, that gathered for the press conference dispersed as soon as the klieg lights were turned off. A lone cruiser idled at the curb beneath the watchful lions.
Cosgrove had spent an hour or so interviewing Kay and Benny separately, and then another hour with Ambler. After all the books Ray read and after knowing murder as an abstraction, he’d taken part in one, and he couldn’t get his mind around it. Going over what happened, step-by-step, more than once, he stumbled when he came to what happened with the gun. “It went off” was what he said each time. He couldn’t say who was holding it, didn’t know if they were wrestling for the gun, couldn’t say where he was when it went off.
“You’re going to suffer for this, Ray,” Cosgrove told him. “I’m telling you that upfront. It wasn’t your fault. It’s the way it worked out. The guy brought it on himself. He deserved it. But he’ll follow you. You’ll see him in your dreams. You need to talk about it. Get it out of your system. Not now maybe. Soon. You can talk to me. I’ve been there. It’s better talking to someone who’s been there.”
Ray nodded. He had that hollow-eyed look, already seeing his ghosts.
The DA’s office would decide if there’d be charges. He thought about trying to fix it—arrange Ray’s answers so there’d be no doubt it was self-defense. The problem was Ray was distracted. He might not remember and come up with a different story when the ADA interviewed him. If that happened, one of the stories would be a lie—not confusion or forgetfulness—so he’d be in trouble. The way Ray was feeling, all that guilt hanging over him, no telling what he might cop to. Tired as he was, he decided to truck over to 80 Centre Street to call in some favors.
As he walked down the steps, he recognized a burly figure coming toward him.
&nb
sp; “Sorry I got you wrong, padre.”
“It’s a form of hubris to judge but difficult not to.”
“You’re wrong, Father. I don’t judge. I gather information.”
“It’s Harry. You didn’t judge me?”
“I tell you what, Harry. Let me take you to dinner when your life gets back to normal to make up for my error in judgment, to talk this through. Neither of us may be what the other thinks.”
Chapter 30
After a fitful sleep, Ambler woke, did his tai chi exercises, and went for a walk. He kept picturing Dominic’s face in the moments before he died. He didn’t look angry, more like exasperated and determined, like he wanted to say something and either thought better of it or couldn’t get it said before the gun went off. If the gun hadn’t gone off when it did, who knows what would have happened? Dominic wanted to kill Max, and Max was dead. Dominic might have walked out of there and left him and Kay and Benny alone. Dominic might not have had to die if Ambler had done something differently, waited, thought about it more.
Walking didn’t help. Working through the tai chi form didn’t help either. Usually, he could stop thinking when he did the form. This time, it reminded him of what became a dance of death in the stacks of the library. He knew what he wanted to do. Cosgrove told him he should talk to someone. A couple of blocks below Astor Place and the Alamo cube where Third Avenue became Bowery, he took out his cell phone and called Adele.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you. Promise you won’t tell me to turn myself in.”
“You can’t hide forever.”
“I’ll stay in hiding if I have to. I’ll move somewhere and start over, start a new life.”
“I won’t tell you to turn yourself in.”
“I’m at McNulty’s apartment on the Upper West Side.”
* * *
She hugged him when she opened the apartment door. “I knew it was terrible for you. I wanted to call. I knew you’d feel awful. I was afraid we’d get caught if I called.”
Ambler nodded. Words wouldn’t come. He’d told her he wanted to talk to her. She was the only one he wanted to talk to. Now he couldn’t find any words; he wanted her back hugging him again. Johnny ran out from somewhere inside the apartment, took a flying leap from deep inside the hallway, and landed in his arms. Adele put her arm around his shoulder and led him into the apartment.
“I made you some lunch. I bet you haven’t eaten in ages.”
They sat together at a table in a combination living/dining room. Adele and Johnny watched while he ate pasta and meatballs.
After a few minutes, Adele sent Johnny to the bedroom to read one of the books she’d gotten for him from the library on Broadway. She understood Ambler wasn’t ready to talk about what happened and didn’t ask him to. She did want to talk about what would happen with Johnny.
“He does have a maternal grandmother,” Ambler said.
“Who deserted her daughter and never laid eyes on him.”
“I don’t know how these things work. We’ll get a lawyer.”
“What if we lose?” Tears sprung from Adele’s eyes.
He didn’t answer. He thought he might persuade Lisa Young to let Adele adopt Johnny. She seemed reasonable enough, and she hadn’t shown any signs of wanting a grandchild. Ambler hadn’t exposed her connection to Nelson Yates or Emily.
* * *
Adele decided that she and Johnny and Ambler should go to the Museum of Natural History since Johnny was missing school and should do something educational. Visiting the museum with Johnny was strange. The boy was quiet, taking things in. Adele would say something or read from the display cards. Johnny nodded. He was interested in everything they saw. Ambler didn’t care if he didn’t want to talk. The boy had lost his mother. Ambler killed a man. They had lots on their minds.
He was reminded of taking his son to the museum. John was a quiet kid, too. Their outings were forced, not fun. He never knew what to say to his son, mostly because John had a way of taking charge of the conversation by not talking. Thinking about him now, he realized he’d now killed someone, as his son had. It wasn’t the kind of bond he’d wished for. Once he began thinking about John, he couldn’t stop. Every few minutes, it seemed, for the rest of the day, another memory of his son popped into his head, when it wasn’t an image of Dominic.
After the museum, they walked to Broadway and down to 72nd Street where they stopped at Gray’s Papaya for hot dogs. Johnny was more upbeat about the food.
“These are good. The hot dogs at Yankee Stadium are better,” he told Adele.
Ambler smiled. “We’ll go to another game soon.”
Johnny nodded, munching on his hot dog.
Ambler watched him for a minute. “I have an idea.”
On the walk back to the apartment, near 99th Street on Columbus Avenue, Ambler led them into a sports store and bought two baseball gloves and a couple of balls. He played catch with Johnny in Riverside Park for almost an hour, talking about good throws and nice catches and getting your body in front of grounders. When they finished and walked the block and a half to McNulty’s apartment, Ambler draped his arm over the boy’s shoulder.
“There’s something I was wondering,” Johnny said. He looked up at Ambler. “Will there be a funeral for my mother?”
When he dropped the boy off, he spoke with Adele in the hallway for a moment, telling her he wanted to talk with Lisa Young.
“I’m scared.” She clutched at him, her face close to his. “What will we do if she says no?”
* * *
As soon as he heard Lisa Young’s voice on the phone, he knew he was wrong. She volunteered nothing. He could picture the condescension, the haughty stance, the lifeless expression in her eyes. He spoke quickly and nervously. He was sorry for her loss. Emily loved her son. Adele was a friend to them both. Emily would want Adele to take care of Johnny. Could they meet and talk? “It’s complicated, I’m sure. We’ll do whatever it takes legally. I wanted to know your thinking—”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Mr. Ambler.”
“I’m hoping … Johnny—”
“This is a family affair, Mr. Ambler. I don’t see how it concerns you. If you can tell me how to reach that woman, my attorney will contact her and make arrangements for—”
“You don’t understand—”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Ambler. My family will take care of the final arrangements for Emily. We’ll take charge of her son and do what’s best for him.”
“You’re going to raise him? Can we meet and talk about this?”
“You’ll hear from my attorney. Neither you nor your lady friend has any legal right to the boy. I do.”
He closed his cell phone and stared at it. How would he tell Adele? This woman deserted her daughter. She never acknowledged her grandson’s existence; now she had a legal right to the boy? That couldn’t be right.
He called Adele and said they needed to talk
“It didn’t work,” she said.
“I promise we’ll fight this. There’s got to be a way.”
“Can we meet and talk? McNulty took Johnny out for the afternoon.”
“McNulty? Where?”
“He said the park. Belmont?”
“That’s the race track.”
* * *
Saturday morning, the third day after the incident in the library, Ambler went to a tai chi class for the first time in months. It was a corrections class, ironic because he’d received a phone message the evening before from his son asking him to visit him at the correctional facility.
The tai chi teacher, an ageless Chinese woman, who’d studied with one of the masters of tai chi chuan in China, was also a Taoist priestess. He’d studied with her for more than twenty years, first learning tai chi for exercise and later as a martial art. He came this time in search of the inner peace and harmony with life that tai chi and Taoism promised. Following the hour-long practice in th
e form, and the meditation that went with it, he boarded a train for Beacon and from the Beacon station took a cab to the Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a trip he’d made almost monthly since John’s incarceration.
He and Adele talked for hours the afternoon before in a café near McNulty’s apartment. They’d mapped out a number of possible plans, with Adele saying the best one would be for her to disappear with Johnny. She’d spoken to a lawyer, who wasn’t encouraging. The court would first have to deny the grandparent rights, not at all a sure thing, and then would require Adele to go through an adoption process that had no guarantee of success.
At the prison, he went through the usual rigmarole; the interminable wait; the guards harried and irritated; the visitors frustrated and angry, as the short amount of time they had to visit with someone they cared about was frittered away. He was curious about the timing of the message from John, coming when he’d been thinking about him so much. It was as if his thinking about John had summoned his message.
John looked thinner when he walked through the door of the visitor’s room ahead of the guard. His hair was close cropped, as it had been since he’d been in prison. Before prison, he’d worn his hair long and shaggy. It fit his image as he’d played the guitar and sung in quiet bars or coffeehouses. When John finally did meet his gaze, his expression, as always, was slightly mocking, slightly defensive—and embarrassed. He looked away before he spoke.
“I read about you. You shot a guy, Mr. Violence-Is-Never-the-Answer. I guess your time came when it was the answer.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
John met his gaze again. “I’ve said that a few times myself.”
“I never doubted you. I’ve always believed it was an accident.”
John smirked. “Yeh. But you’re out there and I’m in here. No charges against you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Some guys get the breaks.”
He wanted to say more. But John went back into his shell, discouraging more talk. “Is this why you wanted me to come?”
“That and something else.” He hesitated.