The Devil She Knows

by Bill Loehfelm

  Maureen walked to her room. It was a struggle not to run. She had to get away before that patrol car arrived, but she had to keep her mom as calm as possible. Best not to tell Amber the cops were coming, again. She hurried into her street clothes: jeans and boots, a heavy black sweater, her father’s watch cap and coat. Dressed, Maureen threw her bag over her shoulder. The weight of Molly’s gun thumped against her back. She made a mental note to keep the bag out of Waters’s sight. If he found her with a gun, he’d take it away. She went back into the kitchen.

  “The look of you,” Amber said, turning, holding the empty coffeepot in one hand, “you’ll be lucky the detective doesn’t lock you up on sight.”

  “Make sure you lock the door behind me,” Maureen said.

  “Well, duh,” Amber said, “it’s the middle of the night. No smoking in my car. And bring it back with a full tank.”

  23

  As she made the intersection of Richmond and Amboy, waiting at the red light, Maureen saw that the Gulf station crawled with police. Red and blue lights blazing, patrol cars had the station entrances blocked off. Cops, in uniform and out, stood huddled against the cold in small groups, talking. An ambulance, its back doors hanging open, spilled white light onto the black asphalt around it. A lone medic stood with her hands on her hips, her blue jacket open despite the cold, at the rear of the ambulance, watching the backs of the cops. She was the only female that Maureen could see on the scene. Nobody moved with any urgency. Maureen knew it didn’t take a cop to figure out what the idleness meant. The shooting victim had died before anyone in a uniform had arrived.

  Through the crowd, Maureen spotted Waters on the far side of the gas pumps, over by the garage doors. He stood under the bright glow of halogen lamps, at the edge of a box squared off by crime-scene tape. He pointed at something in the box, speaking to two younger detectives beside him. The traffic light turned green and Maureen pulled her mom’s K-car into the parking lot of a pizza place across the street from the gas station. Enter female number two, she thought, climbing out of the car. Crossing Richmond, her hand out to stop the nonexistent traffic, she wished she had a badge to clip on her belt. Maureen glanced at the medic, now standing with her arms crossed and looking down at her tapping foot. I have no intention, Maureen thought, of waiting around for someone to tell me what to do. Not anymore.

  As she walked around the front of a patrol car and into the station parking lot, a uniform approached her. “Sorry, miss. Station is closed.”

  “I’m here to see Detective Waters,” Maureen said.

  She could hear the creaking leather as the cop grabbed his gun belt. He shifted his weight to one foot. Maureen leaned on the cop car, the hood warm against the backs of her thighs. As the young officer sized her up, she did the same to him. He was young and blond, blandly handsome and thin for a cop. His uniform hung at least a size too big on him. It looked fresh out of the box. He said nothing about her leaning on his car.

  “The detective is working a crime scene,” the cop said. “He’s gonna be tied up for most of the night.” He smiled, relaxed his gunfighter’s stance. “Maybe you can leave me a phone number?”

  As if to emphasize the young cop’s point about the crime scene, the ambulance doors thumped closed. Maureen watched as Waters gave the doors two loud slaps. He stepped back as the ambulance rolled into motion, lights on, sirens quiet. Maureen waved, but Waters didn’t return it. Can’t see me, she thought, through the emergency lights. She looked back at the cop.

  “He’s expecting me,” she said. “I’m a witness in another case of his.” She felt like adding, which means you’re in the way, here, sonny. It’s almost like pulling rank, Maureen thought, and she enjoyed it. “It’s confidential. You understand.”

  The cop narrowed his eyes, seeing her in a different way this time, turning Maureen’s words, she knew, against her in his mind. Witness? Sure. Rat is more like it. Which kind will he pick? Maureen wondered. Junkie prostitute, reluctant drug mule, some car thief’s bitchy girlfriend. What did it matter? Let him think what he wanted. This skinny kid would never see her again. And he’d get his ass chewed something good if he talked the nasty shit he was thinking to Waters.

  “You’re not allowed onto the scene,” the cop finally said, reclaiming some of his authority, “but I’ll tell the detective you’re here.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Walking away, the young cop glanced back at Maureen, as if saying See? I’m still more special than you, then headed over to Waters, who had to stoop to hear him. With his hands, Waters shielded his eyes against the bright lights surrounding him. He peered across the lot at Maureen. She stepped away from the police car and started walking over to him. Waters gave her the halt sign, shaking his big head as he trudged her way. Maureen stopped. She lit two cigarettes as she waited. She offered one to Waters as he reached her.

  “No, thanks,” he said.

  Embarrassed and hoping the young cop hadn’t seen Waters’s rejection, Maureen dropped the extra cigarette. She ground it out beneath her boot.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Waters said. “You’re safest at home.”

  Maureen took a good look at her protector, absorbing his lined and sagging face. She’d never seen anyone, in all her years in the bars, looking more fried, more flat-out spent, than Waters did right then. She couldn’t conceive of him as a newbie like that blond cop, his uniform fresh out of the box, his cheeks shining from a recent shave. If Waters had collapsed at her feet in a rumpled heap, Maureen wouldn’t have been surprised. Despite their falling out, she wanted to stuff him into the K-car and drive him back to her mother’s house, where he could sleep away the winter and wake up in the spring to one of Amber’s huge, greasy breakfasts.

  Seeing Waters this way, seeing the drain of the past days on him, Maureen realized that pursuing Sebastian and protecting her, while at the same time beating back the old, ugly ghosts that her case had resurrected, had grown into something Waters could no longer contain. A tar pit was opening under his feet. He was spread thin as a shadow. Stretch him until he breaks, Maureen thought. That’s Sebastian’s plan. He had to know what horrors Maureen’s case dredged up for Waters. Then, with the big detective out of the picture, he could pounce.

  Despite his bluster and his body count, Sebastian really was a coward.

  “What did he say to you?” Waters asked, tilting his head, impatient.

  It wasn’t even worth going into, Maureen thought. She shouldn’t have called Waters or come to the gas station. Things couldn’t continue this way, her constantly dumping more weight on Waters’s shoulders, him struggling to stay upright. He’d insist he could take it, and maybe he could, but Maureen was starting to feel like Sebastian’s assistant in doling out punishment.

  She had to take matters into her own hands. She had to break the cycle.

  It didn’t matter anymore whether what Sebastian had said was true, that Waters was keeping her around as bait, or whether what Waters himself had claimed was true, that others had bogged down his best efforts to protect her in bureaucracy, politics, and red tape. She’d made a terrible mistake, inserting herself between them, accidentally or not. Waters was doing the best he could for her, operating with the best of intentions. Maureen believed that. But the fact of the matter was that people hadn’t stopped dying around him, hadn’t stopped dying over what Maureen had seen. Things had only gotten worse since he’d come around.

  As much as she wanted him to be her answer, and regardless of whatever he had been in his glory days, Detective Waters was now an old man battling windmills. She couldn’t be part of the end of his days anymore. Not as anything more than a companion over a cup of coffee.

  What had Waters told her back in her apartment the day they met? That no one else could protect her better than she could protect herself, not even him. What was true then was certainly true now. Someday, she’d tell Waters how grateful she was for all he’d tried to do, but right then and there, tonight, h
e had to go.

  “Sebastian didn’t say much of anything,” Maureen said. “The same kind of mysterious shit he gave me outside the library. Forget I mentioned it.” She’d play out this last meeting, go through the motions, and find out what she could that might be useful. After that, he was on his own. Waters said nothing, rubbing his fingertips into his eyes. Maureen wondered if he wasn’t considering taking her advice. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “I got work to do.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “Now more than ever.”

  “You’re gonna get stuck with this case? Aren’t there any other detectives on this island?” She gestured at the multiple cars and the numerous cops surrounding them. “All these other cops, let them handle it. You can’t solve every crime.”

  “There’s plenty of other detectives,” Waters said. “Every one with as much work as me if not more. Every one of these guys is as tired as I am. This homicide, like Dennis and Tanya, is staying with me.”

  “Because of me,” Maureen said.

  Waters agreed. “Sebastian is behind this. It’s as shitty a fake robbery as I’ve ever seen. Worse than your apartment, maybe. Few fistfuls of candy bars missing, some shit knocked over. No money gone.”

  “Could be some amateur-hour thing,” Maureen said. “You don’t know for sure what happened yet. Some drunk, some junkie could’ve gone in thinking simple holdup and botched it.”

  Waters surveyed the crime scene, widening his eyes as if trying to let more light into his head. “Not in this neighborhood. Besides, most amateurs look right up into the security camera, like they can’t help themselves, if they even remember it’s there. You’d be surprised at how often that happens.” He looked at Maureen, blinking. “Whoever did this got the attendant outside at gunpoint while dodging the cameras the entire time. He left us nothing but the body.” He scratched at his stubble. “This guy was shot to get those cops off your doorstep. I’m convinced.”

  “He kills some poor, innocent gas station attendant to spook me? What the hell for?”

  “He’s showing you what he can do.” Waters said. “And what we can’t do, like stop him or catch him or prove anything. So it looks like he’s stronger, like he’s winning. He wants these bodies on your mind, on your conscience. He wants you to think you can stop the killing and make a sacrifice of yourself. Just like the others did.”

  “And if I do,” Maureen said, “then what?”

  “That girl I watched him beat to death in the alley,” Waters said. “She and her junkie partner thought they could use her to stop Sebastian from hurting anyone else. It didn’t work. They failed and got her killed. Twenty years later, Dennis got defiant and then got on his knees, and it wasn’t enough to save him. Who knows what Danielle Price had to go through? Or Tanya?”

  “Twenty years ago,” Maureen said, “you should’ve aimed higher.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Waters said. “Don’t go to him. Don’t go after him. Go home to your mother and let me work. I can’t have another body on my conscience.”

  24

  Before reaching Bay Street, Maureen made a quick stop at an all-night deli for a fresh pack of smokes and a giant cup of day-old lukewarm coffee. She called her mom, told her Waters needed her, and they’d be at the diner. Maureen promised she was safe and she wasn’t smoking in the car. Go back to bed, she told Amber, there’s nothing to worry about. Maureen knew the ruse was doomed. As soon as he was done at the Gulf station, Waters would head for her mom’s to make sure everyone was safe in their beds. He was gonna be pissed when he found Maureen was missing. Amber was gonna be livid when she found out Maureen was off on her own. But until that happened, why worry her mom?

  Maureen parked at the back of the lot across the street from the Narrows, up against the fence and under the busted-out streetlights. Someone leaving the bar might spot the car if they were looking, but she’d be nothing more than a shadow behind the wheel. She killed the headlights. A train rolled past, vibrating the driver’s seat, flashing its empty white windows and blowing trash through and over the chain-link fence. At the Narrows, the golden glow in the front door’s beveled glass told her that the bar was open. Vic would be in there. He had nowhere else to go.

  Low in her seat, Maureen lit a cigarette, cupping it in her hand to hide the glow. Considering the circumstances, she figured her mom would forgive her for stinking up the K-car. She needed her nerves, her focus. She couldn’t be sitting there nic-fitting when the time came. Might slip or twitch and pull the trigger. It was bad enough that after only half a cup of coffee she had to pee so bad her teeth were floating.

  She looked at the foam cup in one hand, the cigarette in the other, and then the Narrows. Would you look at me? Hundred-pound Maureen Coughlin on a stakeout. Shoulda stopped for Chinese. Was this how Waters did it? She shifted in her seat, trying and failing to comfort her aching bladder. One thing Detective Nat Waters didn’t do that hundred-pound Maureen Coughlin was gonna have to do was squat and piss in a dark and dirty parking lot. It’s not easy to feel tough while squatting with one elbow propped on the car’s back bumper and your lily-white ass hung out in the cold, she thought. At least another train wasn’t due for almost half an hour. May as well get it over with.

  Back in the front seat, Maureen watched as staff and patrons stepped outside the Narrows for cigarettes. She remembered that she was supposed to work that night. Did the regulars miss her? she wondered. Did they ask why she wasn’t there? Or was she already just another girl come and gone at the Narrows?

  After three more trains, Maureen’s patience was rewarded; Vic walked the last of the staff to the door and locked it behind them. No Clarence. After Waters’s visit and Maureen’s escapade at the gym, the big man had probably given the Narrows a big peace-out. His absence worked in Maureen’s favor. No Clarence, no Maureen, no Tanya. Vic would be shitting himself. All to the good. The more isolated he felt, the more willing he might be to turn on Sebastian. Vic would take a few minutes for one more sweep of the place, then he’d leave. Maureen moved the gun from her bag to her coat pocket. She wanted to give Vic every incentive to see things her way. She stepped out of the car.

  Crossing the street, Maureen checked the block for other people. Not a soul. She pressed her back against the brick wall by the door. Elbow cocked, she held the pistol up against her shoulder, her head turned toward the door. She forced herself to breathe, her heart punching at her ribs. She tried willing her mind to be calm, her eyes fixed on the puddle of light on the sidewalk before the door. Sell it, Maureen, she thought. You have to sell it. Hard. Like you do with the customers. They don’t have to believe you’re gonna do them, they just need to think there’s a chance, however small, that you might. Vic doesn’t have to believe you’ll shoot him. You only need him to believe you might.

  She heard Vic’s feet on the steps inside.

  Maureen sucked in her breath, held it tight. Toughen up, she told herself. You’re not a scared little girl. You can’t afford it. People are depending on you. The light behind the door went out. The door opened, and Vic stepped through onto the sidewalk. Maureen stretched her arm, pressing the gun barrel into Vic’s temple. He froze.

  “Back inside,” Maureen said, her voice cracking so bad she couldn’t be sure Vic heard her. But he understood the gun. Maureen held it steady, kept the pressure on his temple. Vic dropped his keys and raised his hands.

  “Go.” This time she spoke with force. “Leave the keys. Back inside.”

  Vic did as he was told. Maureen followed him in, keeping the gun pointed at the back of his head. Vic couldn’t see the threat, but she knew he could feel it. She could feel it too, the gun handle slick in her sweaty hand, her adrenaline surging, every muscle in her body tense and ready. So this is what it feels like, she thought, to be on the other side, to be the one giving the orders. She needed to take advantage.

  She hit the lights. “Turn around.”

  “Jesus Christ Almighty,” Vic said. “Not only a
broad, but you?” He couldn’t have looked more shocked if Maureen had been standing there naked. “What the fuck are you doing? First you no-call no-show for your shift and now this? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Shut up.”

  “There’s cameras everywhere,” Vic said. “You know this. You work here. If you needed money I told you I’d give it to you.”

  “I worked here long enough to know those cameras are never on the room.” Both hands on the gun, using both thumbs, she pulled the hammer back, like Molly had shown her. The lazy click of the hammer made her almost giddy with excitement. “Stop with your bullshit.”

  Vic had lost his color. He said nothing, reached a shaking hand behind him, felt for the brick wall. He leaned back. For a moment, Maureen feared he might pitch headfirst down the stairs. What would she do if she gave the poor bastard a heart attack? She recalled Sebastian’s soulless cool under her knife at the gym. Vic and Sebastian may be friends, Maureen thought, but they are different animals.

  “Don’t even try to tell me,” she said, “that you don’t know why I’m really here. Where is he? And don’t fuck with me. I don’t wanna know about his house. I don’t care about his campaign offices. I want the real him.”

  “I have no idea about that,” Vic said. “I haven’t heard from him since Dennis died. Same thing I told the cops. I don’t know any better than you.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “Honest. I don’t know.”

  “You think I won’t do it? He’s been to my house, my mother’s house. If it’s you or us, who you think I’m gonna choose?”

  “Maureen, it’s me, Vic. You know me. I’m harmless. Put the gun down and let’s talk.”

  “I don’t know you,” Maureen said. “I don’t know anybody. Don’t tell me what the fuck to do. You notice anyone else missing tonight? Where’s Tanya? Tell me that.”