by Rick Skwiot
Gabriel lifted his shot toward the screen. “Looks messy.”
“So much for St. Christopher. Seems we’re both stuck here.”
Gabriel studied him. “I’m not so sure. Maybe there’s a way out for you, Stone.”
“Meaning a way out for you.”
“Hear me out. We can both come out of this on top. When you first disappeared I did some digging into what may have motivated you. I learned what your students thought of you and what you were doing to help them get on. I saw how you stood your ground with that jackass Betancourt. And I read your research into the public school fiasco—compelling stuff. This is all to the good, even your getting sacked. Puts you in a position where you can perhaps serve best. But none of that will mean a thing if you’re prevented from doing your work—one way or another.
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Even though the charter schools have some autonomy, they’re still run by the city, and Angelo Cira still runs the city. Any number of ways he could screw with you and endanger your gig there and maybe even endanger you. If you persist in outing the mayor and your wife on Stadium Towne, you’re putting yourself in an extremely precarious position. You might get a warning and you might not.”
“I thought that’s what this was.”
Gabriel looked again at the satellite map. “Let me give you the big picture.” He turned back to Stone. “Do you still have that digital recorder you used on Betancourt?”
“Back in my hotel room.”
“Open your coat.”
Stone smiled and spread the lapels of his corduroy jacket. Gabriel glanced at the bartender’s back, reached across, and patted Stone down but found only a cell phone and a wallet.
“Okay. Confession time,” said Gabriel. “Pretend you’re a priest and keep this under your hat. Angelo Cira and I worked together some thirty years ago. I was with him when he shot and killed a black perp in a takedown. Except the guy was unarmed.”
“You saw Cira kill an unarmed man? Then why isn’t he in prison?”
Gabriel set his glass down a little too sharply and the bartender turned to see if there was trouble. Gabriel smiled and waved him away. “Just shut up for a minute, professor. Listen and learn. Maybe Ange thought he was going for a gun and panicked—we were young cops. That’s the charitable view.”
“And the uncharitable?”
“There was some history between the dead man and Cira. He’d busted him earlier and words were exchanged. Ange thumped him, as was customary then—these were the days before goddamn digital cameras—and got spit on for his efforts. To some who knew that history it looked like payback time, and some didn’t care.
“But I was the only one who saw it go down. Cira planted a gun on him. ‘We’re not black and white, Carlo,’ he said. ‘We’re cops. We stick together. That’s the code.’ So I played along. I went to confession about it, but that didn’t help. I told Cira. He says, ‘The guy was a punk. You’ll get over it.’ Apparently he already had.”
Stone sipped his whiskey. “And the seeming purpose of this parable—perhaps apocryphal—is to intimidate me.”
“Let’s say ‘educate’ you.”
“‘Don’t rat out the mayor and your life will be spared.’ Is that your offer? You’ll have to do better than that.”
Gabriel shook a finger at him. “I knew masochistic mofos like you at Catholic school, all wrapped up in some martyr complex. You want to hang on a cross half naked and have virgins swoon at your feet.”
“Either you got it or you don’t.”
“Surprised you aren’t a priest.”
“Only one deadly sin stood between me and the priesthood—lust. That and my pheromones.”
“What the hell’s that?”
“Sexual chemistry, detective. Some guys attract women with big bank accounts or appendages. I have big pheromones.”
Gabriel laughed. “So that’s why the waitress at the diner across the river had the hots for you.”
This time, Stone laughed. “Strange isn’t it, but it happens all the time.”
“I wish you weren’t such a stubborn son of a bitch. I think we’d get along.”
“I don’t think you wish that, not in your heart.”
“I think I know what’s in your heart. You want to work with those kids. And as a good Catholic you want to save your marriage. Sending your wife to prison won’t help you achieve either goal. But you hold a hell of bargaining chip with her. I suspect she’s gotten in way over her head and may be looking for a way out. You can offer a helping hand.”
Stone thought for a moment and said: “I would think a savvy prosecutor might have more to offer her, including a way to stay out of prison and serve society by serving up Angelo Cira.”
“You’re dreaming, Stone.” He lifted his chin toward the TV. “Watching too much Law & Order. I can’t see City Hall letting things get that far.”
“Thanks for the threat, but for some reason you don’t scare me. You don’t seem the violent sort.”
“Wait till I get more whiskey in me.”
“By the way, what’s in it for you?”
“Let’s say my fortunes are tied to those of the mayor.”
“That’ll be unfortunate when he goes under.”
“You mean ‘if ’ and that’s a big if. But I’m a survivor. Just hope we all can survive this.”
Gabriel’s cell phone dinged: a text message from The Gecko: “Call me. Urgent.” He looked to Stone.
“The cell phone in your coat pocket—is it linked to you?”
“No. Prepaid. And I’ve disabled the GPS.”
“Let’s have it.”
He dialed The Gecko’s safe number. Before he could say a word, he heard, “Carlo, Ellen Cantrell is dead.”
Garbriel stiffened. His eyes moved to Stone, then to the unvarnished wood slat floor. He took in a breath.
“How?”
The Gecko told him what he knew, it wasn’t much. Gabriel signed off, handed the phone back to Stone, and waved a twenty at the bartender.
Outside on the sidewalk the blowing snow encircled them. Stone was pulling on his gloves. “What’s the sudden hurry?”
Gabriel looked out across a barren park toward the gray river swirling by not fifty yards distant, relentless as death itself. He reached out and laid a glove on the arm of Stone’s parka.
“I’ve got some bad news for you, Jonathan. It’s your wife.”
“Ellen? What?”
“She’s … She’s dead.”
Stone stood staring at Gabriel, jaw slack, the snow now clinging to his eyeglasses, clouding his gaze.
“Dead?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Who says?”
Gabriel sensed the murmur of the river sluicing by. “Second District patrol found her in Forest Park, in her car. A gunshot wound to the head, self-inflicted. I’m sorry, Jonathan.”
Stone brought his hands to his ears, as if trying to silence Gabriel, and dropped to his knees in the blowing snow. He leaned back, seemingly to howl, but no noise emitted from his throat.
As usual, Gabriel had no idea what to do or say. Everything he could say—my condolences, be brave, she’s gone to a better place, buck up, or whatever—seemed clichéd (he’d read about clichés in his grammar book the night before) and insipid. So he turned away, another mute.
Then a sob broke from Stone. Gabriel turned back to see him scrambling to his feet then bolting across the street toward the park, sliding over the railroad crossing at the corner and heading for the rushing river. Gabriel tore after him.
But Gabriel’s Ferragamos gave poor traction in the snow—he slipped and stumbled to one knee, painfully, in the street. He rose, kicked off his loafers, and raced after Stone in stocking feet.
But Stone was staggering, not sprinting toward the river. He moved as if inebriated—drunk on sorrow, drunk on guilt. Gabriel caught him at the river’s edge before he could take the plunge—if that’s what he was intending—embracing him in a
bear hug and pulling him away from the water.
“Easy, Stone, easy.”
Gabriel held him, feeling him clinging and shaking in his arms like a child.
- 23 -
Days earlier Jonathan Stone had taken a musty room in an old downtown Quincy hotel that rented “Efficiency apartments by the week and month,” according to a sign out front. Now he lay on the green vinyl loveseat—head on one worn armrest, calves on the other. Gabriel sat at an old wooden desk searching the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department I/LEADS website from his laptop. Over his shoulder he stole a look at Stone, who seemed better now that the initial shock and grief had come and gone. Gabriel, too, felt better since he had muddled through his usual inept performance as bearer of bad news. He turned back to his computer. After a minute he said, “Here it is.”
“Read it to me.”
“I’m not sure you want to hear all the details.”
“Read it.”
“The idiots can’t write—misplaced modifiers, comma splices … I’ll paraphrase. White female discovered in a late-model Ford SUV, property of the City of St. Louis, at 5:45 this morning in Forest Park near the Muny Opera parking lot. Engine running, doors unlocked. One fatal shot to the right temple apparently fired at close range from a Seecamp 32 found at the scene and registered to the victim. No signs of struggle. Purse containing credit cards and some two hundred dollars in cash on the passenger seat. ‘Nothing to suggest that the wound was other than self-inflicted’—quote, unquote.”
Stone pulled himself up and went to the window. “I pulled the trigger.”
“Don’t, Jonathan.”
“Morally I’m responsible. I abandoned her. I wanted her to suffer. My actions precipitated this.”
Gabriel turned to him. “It seems to me she abandoned you. Put herself in the situation that led to this.”
“How goddamn selfish to run off without a word. What was I thinking?”
“Let me see what I can find out before you start nailing yourself up. This may be related to something else.”
A gooseneck lamp lit the desk where Gabriel sat. Feeble gray afternoon light came from the window where Stone stood.
“Is that what you think? That it’s nothing to do with me? Just coincidence?”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t have anything to do with you, but we need to know what’s really going on before we draw any conclusions. Before we know what to do. Your phone?”
He lifted his chin toward the Formica-topped coffee table by the loveseat, where his cell phone lay amid newspapers and books. Gabriel grabbed it and dialed. After a few buzzes he got a voice mail message and said:
“Laura, Carlo. Give me a call back at this number ASAP. Urgent, relating to Ellen Cantrell.”
Gabriel went back to his laptop. Laura Berkman called within minutes.
“I’m working on a story now,” she said, “waiting for relatives to be notified before identifying her by name.”
“Off the record, I can help with that.”
“You found him? Where are you?”
“Can’t say. When I can, you come first. In the meantime, whatever you can turn up on this could be helpful. Including who’s handling the investigation. As well as any rumors. Any detail could be crucial.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Yeah, well I don’t like saying it, either. And don’t tell anyone we talked. Seriously. No one.” His own cell phone began beeping on the desk. “I gotta go.”
He returned to the desk and studied the caller I.D.: Captain Elijah Hancock, Seventh District commander, who was Gabriel’s nominal supervisor while detached from headquarters and, at this moment, a likely pipeline from the mayor. He decided he better answer.
“Gabriel, you hear the news?”
“Yeah.”
“You making any headway finding the husband?”
He looked at Stone. “He’s alive. I’ve been communicating with him and informed him of his wife’s death. Now I’m trying to coax him in.”
“Good work. I’ll let the mayor know.”
“Tell him I have everything under control.”
When he hung up, Stone swung his legs off the couch and looked at him and said, “Now what?”
“I don’t know.”
“I need a drink.”
Gabriel went to his briefcase on the floor beside the desk and withdrew the fifth of bourbon. Stone got glasses. Gabriel turned the desk chair around, sat, and raised his glass.
“My condolences, Jonathan.”
“I’m trying to picture her. Where is she now?”
“Likely the city morgue.”
“I meant spiritually. Suicide’s a grave sin. I pray there’s a merciful God.”
“As do we all.”
Stone sat on the loveseat and drank. He looked to the ceiling, tears welling.
“She really wowed me when we met. Eager, ambitious, bold. A good complement to my introversion. She looked up to me. We helped each other, pushed each other, strove together. And drifted apart.”
“Sounds like she did most of the drifting … What did her parents say when you called?”
Stone lifted his eyeglasses and wiped away tears with the back of his hand. “I talked with her father. What could he say? He never much cared for me. Thought she could have done better—i.e., a Protestant lawyer or doctor. He’ll feel vindicated in that opinion once I blow the whistle on her.”
Gabriel set his glass on the coffee table. “What the hell you talking about?”
“There’s nothing stopping me now. Her death will be rendered meaningless if I don’t act.”
“Slow down. Give it some time. You’re emotional and not making good decisions. Besides, all the research and documentation you had in the cloud has evaporated. You’ve got nothing to go with.”
“Detective….”
“Professor.”
“What do you want me to call you?”
“Lieutenant Gabriel, to be correct. But I’d prefer Carlo or just Gabriel.”
“Carlo, do you know how we succeed in life? By acquiring property and wealth? By earning trophies? By gratifying our sensual selves? No, by helping people. By serving.”
“I know you’re in a sentimental mood, Stone, but you’re starting to sound like my old man.”
“Ask any business owner, any teacher, any honest cop.”
“So you say.”
“Nietzsche was right, evil springs from weakness. The world’s wickedness is not perpetrated by malevolent devils but by the cumulative effects of our own moral failings and cowardice. Giving an undeserving student a passing grade, bending rules to please superiors, cheating on your spouse, taking a kickback, doctoring your product, cutting corners, hiring your friend or mistress instead of someone more qualified—”
“Human nature. We’re born sinners.”
“But we don’t have to die that way. I can’t fix all the corruption in the world, but I can fix what’s inside me—or at least try. Maybe then I can help fix what’s broken in our schools. And maybe then we can throw the moneychangers out of government. Who knows? But I suggest we start now.”
Gabriel picked up the bottle and poured himself more whiskey. “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?”
“I mean I need your help and complicity.”
Gabriel held up a hand. “Hold it right there. I’m not looking to change the world. I just want to get my rank back and cruise on toward Pensionville. Five years and out.”
“Then what?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Tell me.”
“I too plan to go into education, schooling lovely brown-eyed, honey-skinned Mexican ladies half my age.”
“Not exactly what I meant by service.”
Stone reached for the bottle, poured himself another, and leaned across to top off Gabriel’s drink. His cell phone buzzed, and Gabriel grabbed it, looked at the number, and pressed a button.
“Hey Laura, what did you find ou
t?”
“Embargo’s lifted and the story’s hitting electronic media now. The mayor’s closeted. Chief Donnewald’s acting spokesman and issued a statement. ‘The mayor and everyone at City Hall are devastated by this personal tragedy,’” she read. “‘We ask that the news media respect the privacy of her family members and friends during this difficult period.’ In other words, nothing political here, just a troubled young woman with too much stress taking her own life—and don’t bother talking to her husband. Let’s move on.”
“Who’s handling the investigation?”
“Donnewald himself, ‘given the sensitive nature of this tragedy.’”
“In other words, more snow on the way.”
He hung up and recounted the conversation to Stone. He reached for the TV remote. “Want to see what they’re saying on TV?”
Stone shook his head. “I’d rather hear what you have to say.”
Gabriel pursed his lips and set the remote back on the table.
Stone stood up and started pacing. “When did you say my files were wiped from the cloud?”
“Three or four days ago.”
“Yet at breakfast this morning you said you were going back over some of the material last night.”
“I said that?”
“Yes, you did.”
Now Gabriel poured them both more whiskey. “Okay, honest cop here. I’ve got a couple flash drives with everything on them. But I planned on chucking those into the Mississippi on the way back.”
Stone stopped and looked down at him. “I’ve a better idea. Let’s email the contents to your friend Laura Berkman. I know she covers City Hall for the paper. And we can post it all on the Web.”
Gabriel drank down a dollop of liquor. “You may think you have nothing to lose since you don’t seem to value your own life, but I do.”
“There’s more at stake here than our personal fortunes.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Stone studied Gabriel. “Okay, I will… Last semester, maybe the third week of class, my grammar students were haunting me. I was doing what I could, but they just weren’t getting it. I was beginning to think maybe they couldn’t get it. Maybe that was the reason the public schools had passed them on. They really were just dim. Or after years of suffering from educational malpractice they had grown slow, their faculties atrophied.