by Delynn Royer
Carter rounded the corner of his desk and sat. Sean remained standing. If he was about to get chewed out by the likes of Carter, he preferred to do it on his feet.
He took in his surroundings. A desk, some chairs, filing cabinet, bulletin board, wall map of the city. No photographs or personal items. It was a vacant office, commandeered for the short term by Carter to use in his position as lead detective. Not fancy, but private. The way Carter settled in the swivel chair behind the desk, though, Sean judged he was getting accustomed to a captain’s trappings.
“You got a helluva nerve coming in here and telling me when Nell Murphy’s decided she’s coming in. I told you to bring her in last night.”
“Nell and I have some history. It’s one reason the chief kept me on this case. What use is that if I can’t exercise some judgment? She’s not going anywhere. She gave me her word.”
Carter sneered. “Yeah? And I suppose she wouldn’t lie to you. Right?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re thinking with your dick, Costigan.”
Sean let that go by. He didn’t believe Nell was lying to him on this count, but with the day he was having, he didn’t have much room to argue.
After a few seconds of brittle silence, Carter scowled. He was a hothead underneath that smooth veneer, but he knew as well as Sean that, with Keegan watching, he couldn’t simply boot Sean from the case. They were stuck with each other. For now. He changed the subject. “You missed the briefing. Big Nose Benny’s alibi fell through. Grottano’s digging deeper into his movements that night. When we get enough to do a search of his records, we’ll pinch him for bookmaking. That should buy us time to put together a case.”
“If he’s guilty,” Sean said.
Carter gave him a cold smile. “Sure.”
Sean didn’t push the point. It would do no good and, besides, he had other fish to fry. “I got something else.”
On his way here, Sean had thought about how to break the news that he had a witness. If Carter chose not to give credence to the possibility of a leak, then Sean was willing to deal with the consequences. He would not bring Danny in until he was sure.
Carter was waiting, his expression hard, so Sean went for broke. “I found the boy. His name is Danny O’Roarke, but there’s a problem.”
Carter’s expression didn’t change. “Trixie Frank told me yesterday that she gave her business card to a kid at the Christmas parade. Did she have anything to do with finding him?”
“She helped.”
The other detective’s eyes narrowed. “And when were you planning on telling me you were working with her?”
Sean was careful to keep his tone conciliatory. This would play out so much better if he could get Carter to see past his pride. “When it panned out.”
“And so it has. Where is he?”
“He’s safe.”
“Which brings us to your problem?”
“It’s not just my problem. If I’m right, it’s our problem. It’s beginning to look like there really may be a department leak on this case.”
Carter’s eyebrows rose but he said nothing, so Sean plowed ahead. “I talked to Danny and I think he witnessed Murphy’s murder. He went to see Trixie Frank at her paper the next day but got spooked when he recognized one of the killers watching the door of the building.”
Carter’s gaze sharpened. He sat forward. “You said ‘one’ of the killers. There’s more than one?”
“Two.” Sean provided some details of Danny’s account. He finished with, “The boy saw them both.”
“Could be anyone,” Carter said, unimpressed. “And he thinks he saw one of them watching Trixie Frank’s office? Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible he imagined it, but if not, that means Johnny’s killers know about her. Maybe they think she saw something, and the only place they could have gotten that idea is in the police reports.”
Carter rubbed his chin thoughtfully before he spoke. “All right. We can’t ignore this. If it’s true, these birds could have us chasing our own tails. I gotta tell Keegan.”
“Right,” Sean said, preparing for the blowback that would come. It had occurred to him on the way over that it couldn’t hurt to take away any temptation Carter might feel to bury inconvenient evidence. “About the chief... I already left him a message.”
“What?” Carter’s face flushed. “You went over my head?”
Sean raised a defensive hand. “All I said was that we found an eyewitness and that it needs to be kept confidential. I said you’d have all the details.”
“Yeah? It’s Sunday morning. Who’d you leave the message with? Is it laying on his desk for anyone to see? How the hell ‘confidential’ is that?”
“I left it with his wife.”
Carter fell silent for several long seconds. His eyes were hot. “You’re a real son of a—”
“So I’ve been told, but what’s it matter? If this pans out, you’ll still get the credit. We agree that Keegan needs to know, but no one else, not even Grottano, and it can’t appear in any reports. Stuckey’s team especially can’t get wind of it, but this could be any one of us.”
“Including me? Is that what you’re thinking?”
“If it’s you, then I’m dead.”
Carter snorted mirthlessly. “I guess that’s a chance you already decided to take. How about shooting for the moon and telling me where the boy is?”
Something in Sean’s gut tightened. What Carter said was true. By taking Carter into his confidence, Sean had already gambled that the man was too ambitious to openly sabotage his own investigation.
“It doesn’t matter where the boy is now,” Sean said. “He needs to be moved.”
Carter shook his head. “No. We can move him together. I want to talk to him. Where is he?” Anger still simmered in Carter’s eyes. Sean had to throw him a bone. How much would it cost to tell him where Danny was? Nothing. Carter would figure it out soon enough.
“He’s with Trixie Frank.”
Carter relaxed, but only fractionally. Sean suspected that he was thinking deeply about what this development meant to his case. Danny was a witness who could either seal it or blow it apart.
“Look,” Sean said. “We can’t bring him in until we know everything’s secure.”
“Right,” Carter said cautiously.
“I have the kid’s trust, so I’m the best one to move him to a better location to wait it out.”
“You sure he’s safe now?”
“As long as this stays between you, me and Keegan.” Sean paused. “And I put a guy on the apartment house.”
“A guy?”
“Yeah, a pal.”
“Uh huh. We already got a guy.”
“This is another guy,” Sean said. “My guy.”
Carter appeared to weigh how much this unilateral decision on Sean’s part annoyed him. Apparently not enough to call him on it. “Where do you want to move the kid?” he asked.
“I got a cousin. Her husband’s a patrolman out of the 62nd. I’ll let you know.”
“You do that.”
Sean waited, expecting Carter to say more, insist that the boy look at mug shots or sit with a sketch artist, but Carter added nothing. For a lead detective who had just received news of an eyewitness, he didn’t look happy. That said a lot about how sure he was of the case he was building against Big Nose Benny.
Sean decided not to mention Murphy’s wallet. If its contents proved useful, he would turn it over later when there was less chance that it might disappear from an evidence locker.
“I want to show him some mug shots,” Sean said. “Now. Today. But not here.”
“Okay.”
Sean debated on whether to say more, then plunged ahead. “Owen,
if it’s not Benny—”
Carter held up a hand. “If it’s not Benny, it could be any one of his boys or button men he paid off. Just get it done and let me know what pans out.”
“Are we finished?”
“Yeah, but Nell Murphy better be parked in an interrogation room tonight or you’re off the case, chief or no chief, got it?”
“She’ll be here.”
Sean had just stepped out into the squad room when he heard Carter bellow. “Costigan!”
Sean turned. Carter was already around his desk and following close on his heels. It was a move that was bound to attract attention.
Carter kept his voice low but loud enough for the closest officers in the homicide squad room to hear. “You pull this crap again, and I’ll not only have you booted off this case, I’ll see you run out of the department.”
Sean took in a deep, slow breath. Carter was putting on a show. Not only to make sure everyone knew Sean had just been chewed out, but also to set Sean up for later, in the event Carter’s case against Big Nose Benny fell apart. Sean would make a good scapegoat. Maybe that had been his true role in this investigation from the start.
Sean managed to choke off a scathing response only by reminding himself that this wasn’t about his pride. There was Danny and Nell and Trixie to think about. He had little enough influence from the inside on how the investigation would affect them, but he would have none from the outside.
“Got it, Detective,” he said tightly, then strode back out through the crowded squad room.
A dozen speculative stares followed in his wake.
Chapter Twelve
Sean spent the next two hours at his desk, ignoring the curious looks of his fellow officers and poring over the latest reports on the Murphy case. True to Carter’s word, it appeared they’d legitimately broken Big Nose Benny’s alibi.
Overall, Sean could see why Benny had captured Carter’s interest. The murder of Benny’s brother might have been over a year old, but it was still a compelling motive. Vengeance was a dish best served cold.
Regardless, Sean couldn’t warm up to the idea and it was for the same reason he’d explained to Sheehan on the first day of the investigation. Aside from the fact that Benny would have had to get to someone close to Johnny to lure him out alone, this didn’t feel like a revenge killing. It felt like business. Swift and quiet and cold.
Sean was convinced this killing wasn’t personal, yet he was equally convinced Johnny had been killed by someone he trusted.
Why?
Money? Power? Fear of exposure?
In light of Johnny’s ransacked apartment, the last possibility intrigued Sean most as he paged through the scant information provided by Agent Stuckey on the liquor syndicate investigation. The feds believed that Johnny kept business records, and it was no small disappointment to them that, in spite of their searches of Johnny’s properties, those records had yet to turn up.
By the time Sean finished, he’d put the ugly scene with Carter out of his mind. With two books of mug shots under his arm, he left headquarters and turned his attention to Danny.
Trixie’s idea about taking him to her father’s house on Long Island wasn’t a bad one. His first choice, though, was the one he’d proposed to Carter.
His cousin, Mary Margaret, and her husband, Fred Delaney, lived in Brooklyn with their six children. If Carter could use his influence to pull some plainclothes guys from Fred’s precinct to keep a watch, the Delaney household was the perfect place for a kid to blend in. Sean took his car and headed back to Brooklyn.
* * *
Danny was perched at the table in Trixie’s apartment working on a pencil drawing of a locomotive and Trixie was in her bedroom getting dressed for the wake when a sharp knock came at the door. Trixie glanced at her alarm clock. It was almost four. She donned her robe over her knickers and brassiere and emerged into the living room. She was certain it was Sean, but she paused before unlocking the door just the same. “Who’s there?”
“Sean.”
She opened the door. “It’s about time. I almost gave up on you.”
Sean carried a large paper sack, two thick leather-bound volumes and a brown paper-wrapped parcel. Trixie wasn’t sure if she was gratified or annoyed that he eyed her with more than casual interest. He seemed amused by her skimpy ensemble. “You could catch a cold running around like that, kid.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Trixie was still nursing a bruised ego from their kiss. She kept her tone cool as she stepped aside for him to enter. “What’s kept you so long, Detective?”
“I was at headquarters, then I paid a visit to my cousin.”
“Your cousin?” Before she could ask more, Danny looked up from his seat at the desk, and Sean approached him. “Say, what are you up to there, Danny?”
“Nothin’.”
“Nothing?” Sean looked over his shoulder and let out a whistle. “That’s nice work. Where’d you learn to draw like that?”
“I dunno.” Danny shrugged and returned his attention to his drawing, but Trixie didn’t miss the blush of pleasure that crept up the back of the boy’s neck.
“As luck would have it, I’ve got just the thing for you.” Sean set the paper sack on the desk and reached inside. He pulled out a box of crayons and Danny’s eyes grew round.
“Whoa.” Danny took the box and emptied the crayons out all over the desktop.
With a satisfied smile, Sean snatched up his bag again and moved to the table to unburden himself.
Trixie set to work untying the wrapped parcel. “So you’ve got a cousin who lives nearby?”
“About fifteen minutes from here with her husband and kids,” Sean said, unpacking eggs, bacon, oatmeal, a stick of butter, some bread, a box of Kraft cheese, two cans of soup and a quart of milk.
“It looks like you raided her cupboard.” Despite her annoyance, she couldn’t help a smile as she tore away the brown paper to reveal a set of boy’s clothing—knickers, undershirt, drawers, stockings and a warm flannel shirt—all hand-me-downs by the looks of them, but clean, starched and pressed.
“Yowza,” she said as she examined each piece. “Jackpot.”
“Anyone hungry?” Sean asked.
“Me.” Danny raised a hand.
“Me too,” Trixie said. “Let’s fire up the stove.”
Sean looked skeptical. “You cook?”
“Eggs? Sure.” Trixie went to her kitchen and rummaged in the cupboard beneath the sink. She could have sworn there was a frying pan down here somewhere. “You just crack the shells and plop them in the pan, right? I’m game if you are. How hard can it be?”
“Mmmm, how about if I cook and you clean up?”
“Ah ha.” Trixie located a cast iron fry pan behind a box of laundry soap and displayed it triumphantly. “Whatever you say.”
She blew a puff of dust from the pan and wiped it clean as Sean took off his coat and hat and hung them over the back of a chair. When he brought the food over to set it near the stove, they were standing so close, Trixie could see the rich blue color of his eyes with unsettling clarity. She offered him the pan. “Here.”
At first, he didn’t take it, and she thought for a breath-stopping second that he was about to say something. Something about their kiss? A blush of her own crept up the back of her neck. And other places.
“Something wrong, Detective?”
He blinked and the moment was gone. “No.” He took the pan from her. “Why?”
“Nothing.” Her mouth had gone dry. “I’ll go finish getting dressed now.”
“Don’t rush on my account.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t. I don’t want to be late for the wake.” Trixie hurried by him, feeling foolish. Her only consolation, and it was a small one, was that he’d looked mightily annoyed at
the mention of her evening plans to attend the wake. Good.
Once behind the closed door to her bedroom, Trixie grumbled to herself as she applied some cheek powder and brushed her hair. She made a face in the mirror as she recalled the sting of his earlier words. It shouldn’t have happened. You’re part of a case.
“Part of a case?” she repeated to her own image. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She pointed at the glass. “I’ll tell you who’s part of this case, Detective. Your old girl, that’s who. Nothing ‘out of line’ going on there, I’ll bet. Ha!”
The more she thought about it, the pricklier she got.
By the time she was pulling on her silk stockings, a tantalizing aroma of frying bacon had crept under her door, distracting her from her miff. She was famished. Minutes later, she emerged, deliberately cool-mannered in a demure black wool dress. The table was set for three and Danny sat at her desk, wearing an angel halo and coloring. Her apartment had never smelled so delicious.
“Dinner is served,” Sean said, portioning off the last of some scrambled eggs from the frying pan onto a plate.
The food tasted every bit as good as it smelled. While Sean engaged the boy in conversation about trains and cars, Trixie ate in grumpy silence, trying not to think about how cozy and right and somehow, oddly normal it felt to be sharing a home-cooked meal with Sean and Danny. It was not something she should let herself get used to. When they were done, she collected their dishes.
“I’ve got some pictures for you to look at,” Sean said to Danny. “If you do a good job, there’s a surprise in it for you.”
“What kind of surprise?”
Sean retrieved the two books that he’d brought with him. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it?”
Trixie listened to their banter as she emptied the ice pan and then searched for an apron. She found it and ran some hot water with soap. By the time she finished cleaning up, Sean and Danny were engrossed in one of the mug shot books. So far, Danny hadn’t recognized anyone. Sliding into a chair next to them, she rested her chin on one hand as Sean patiently turned each page.