by Davis Bunn
“Boys. Be nice.”
Crowder was a perfect pain to everybody within reach. Which was why he would never make it into the ranks of political appointees.
D’Amico said, “I’m thinking Crowder should come with us too.”
“No, thank you,” the lieutenant replied. “I got me some real police work to do.”
“They see us as a team,” D’Amico went on, “maybe they’ll rethink their strategy.”
“I have trouble not shooting out a window in the mayor’s office every time I park my car,” Crowder said. “You folks go have yourselves a time without me.”
“No, no,” Bernstein said. “Lucas is right.”
Crowder’s features pinched down until the furrows ran from his nose to his ears. He said to D’Amico, “I advise you never to stand a watch with me again.”
D’Amico said, “Maybe we could bring the sergeant as well.”
Crowder said, “Now I know you’re asking for it.”
“Good idea.” Bernstein said to Crowder, “Go ask the gentleman to join us.”
Crowder shook his head. “Lucas, here I used to think you were smart.”
When they were alone, Bernstein said, “We’re going to look like a bunch of ducks in Saturday suits, waddling across the street.”
“When we get in there,” D’Amico said, “let’s you and me find a reason to disagree.”
“Give them the good cop, bad cop thing?”
“Nothing obvious,” D’Amico said. “Just offer them a reason to think maybe they can call one and exclude the other.”
Bernstein rose from her chair at the sound of two men complaining in the hallway outside her office. “You ever think of going for an admin slot?”
“Sorry. I don’t have the talent.”
She smiled. Touched his arm. “Is that what they call it these days?”
The NBC affiliate station was a charmless redbrick building. A trio of towers served as lawn ornaments. The station’s letters and a rainbow peacock took the place of windows. Inside, Matt found an empty reception area and the sound of distant shouting. He checked his watch, then glanced at Pecard. They had less than ten minutes to airtime.
Footsteps pattered down a concrete hallway. A woman raced into view, demanded breathlessly, “Kelly Junior?”
“Yes.”
“Where have you been? We’re going national and you need makeup . . . Sandra!”
“Right behind you, hon.”
“This is the son. You’ve got to do something about that scar.”
“No can do, sweetie.” The second woman was taller than Matt, rail thin, and unflappable. “New York wants it big and glaring.”
“Whatever. I’ve got to go tell . . .” Her words trailed off down the hall.
“This way.” When Pecard started to follow them, she asked, “And you are?”
Matt replied, “With me.”
“Whatever.” She hustled Matt down a narrow hall. “Everybody’s supposed to sign in and show ID, but an al-Qaeda brigade could waltz through here today and nobody’d notice.”
Sandra seated Matt in a cramped overlit room, tucked a napkin into his collar, and went to work. Up close she smelled of cigarettes and a lot of hard years. Two minutes later an older man, balding and portly, bounced off the doorway. He glared at Matt and said, “He’s late.”
Sandra did not look up. “He’s fine.”
“New York wants to know if you can accent his scar.”
“I suppose I could dab it with Mercurochrome and abrade it with sandpaper. The kid might complain, though. I know I would.”
It was unlikely the guy heard her. He moved in closer and whined, “His scar’s on the wrong side.”
“Excuse me?”
“Great. Now we’ve got to shift the candidate.” He raced off.
Matt asked, “Why do they talk like I’m not here?”
“Hon, you and your dad stopped being people the instant the national morning show took you on. Shut your eyes.”
Matt held his breath while Sandra shellacked him with hair spray. When she was done, he said, “I don’t like attention being called to my scar.”
She liked that a lot. “Sugar, be glad New York didn’t ask for floppy ears and a bunny suit.”
A man’s voice called in falsetto strain, “Sixty seconds!”
“We’re done.” Sandra patted his shoulder. “Go get ’em, tiger.”
Matt entered a doorway with an unlit On Air sign overhead. Sol Greene halted his conversation and came over. “Where have you been?”
“Following up on a lead.”
When worried, Sol Greene took on a fretful air that aged and emasculated. He patted his forehead, touched the knot of his tie, sighed, straightened his lapels, and said, “Matt, we’re friends, right? I’ve always thought of you as the son I never had. Your being late to these gigs is not having a good effect on your father. Could you please—”
“Kelly Junior!” The portly man now wore a headset. His bald head glistened. “Can you move a little faster, please.”
The studio was a concrete cavern filled with wires, lights, machines, and portable walls. The set was blindingly lit. Matt was led to a half-moon table with two swivel chairs and a padded neon blue backdrop. His father was talking into his cell phone as Matt stepped onto the stage.
The producer told him, “Take this chair. Wait, put this battery pack into your back pocket. Unbutton your jacket, clip this mike to your tie. No, a little lower, please.”
His father shut his phone and asked, “You felt like making an entrance?”
“Sol told me nine-thirty.”
“Correction. Sol gave you airtime.” His father sipped from a studio mug. Eight days of campaigning left, and Paul Kelly was living on coffee and energy drinks. “Sol doesn’t make amateurish mistakes. Unlike my son and his single-minded determination to go against the grain.”
“Okay, Kelly Senior, your sound checks. Kelly Junior, speak in a normal tone.”
“This investigation is vital. You of all people—”
“That’s good. Okay, we’re live in ten, nine, eight . . .”
There were two interviewers, both female. Their faces occupied two monitors set so Matt and his father looked straight into a camera. All three cameras were remotes, operated from the control room positioned high over the exit. The camera’s rubber wheels hissed softly as they moved about the studio. Matt felt a total sense of disconnection to the interview. His father came on with the camera’s red eye, a real pro, able to set everything aside and perform. Matt retreated behind his mask and stewed. When the announcers asked him something, he wasn’t sure what they had said. He answered tersely enough for his father to turn and give him that smile. The one he had known since childhood. The one that mocked him for not measuring up.
The studio’s dark reaches swallowed everything and gave nothing back. The only other people in the studio were two shadows. Portly and erratic for Sol Greene. Tall and still for Pecard.
Finally one of the announcers segued into the closing. Matt could not say which one, or how long they had been on. “Paul Kelly, Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Thank you for joining us this morning, Mr. Kelly.”
“Thank you for having me.”
The red light on the close-up camera died. The producer announced from his glass cage, “We’re off-air, folks. Thank you. Weather, you’re up in forty.”
Paul Kelly fiddled impatiently with his tie-mike. “Get this thing off me.”
Sol rushed over. “We’re due in Annapolis in less than an hour.”
“Can I at least wipe this cake off my face?”
“Do it on the bus, Paul.” Sol gave Matt a final worried look as he shepherded the candidate toward the exit.
Matt dropped his mike and battery pack on the table and hurried after them. Pecard fell in beside him. The television people ignored them entirely, already tense over the next ninety-second storm.
Outside they were enveloped by a colorle
ss day. The still air smelled of highway fumes and coming friction. He followed his father to the bus. Pecard stepped up beside him. When Matt remained silent, he said, “Mr. Kelly, we need to ask you something.”
“Not now,” Sol replied.
“Sir, this cannot wait.”
Paul Kelly stopped beside his picture on the campaign bus. He smirked at his son. “Who’s your English pal?”
Matt studied his father from an incomplete distance, the moment joined to a lifetime of others. Pecard replied, “Allen Pecard, sir. Affiliated with the FBI.”
“Affiliated doesn’t mean a thing to me.” His father continued to address Matt. Too caught up in a treadmill of his own making to notice that his son no longer ran alongside. “Either this man is FBI or he’s not.”
“Not,” Pecard said.
“Great. So I’m being confronted by a boy who’s not a cop and a Brit who’s not FBI. Wait. Is there a detective in sight? No, there is not.” He started for the bus door. “The police must think you’re on to something really important here.”
“Sir, we need to ask you about the battle where you won the Medal of Honor.”
Sol Greene clambered onto the bus. “Paul, we are seriously late!”
“We believe we’ve uncovered what could very well turn out to be a crucial lead.” Allen Pecard pulled a battered notebook from his back pocket. “Would you happen to remember what day—”
“What, so you and this other no-account can invade my day with this drivel?” The pancake makeup lay like orange stucco on Paul Kelly’s rage as he stormed onto the bus. “Why aren’t we moving?”
Pecard watched the bus drive away with what might have been a smile. “I believe we might class that as a debt in my favor.”
“We got nothing out of that except my dad is going to cook from now to next year.”
“On the contrary. This time your father is angry with me. From my initial observations, I believe that makes a distinct difference.” Pecard resembled a feisty tom with a distinctly polished air, one who counted any battle where he was left standing as a satisfactory exchange. “Shall we be off?”
Pecard led him back to the Grand Cherokee and headed for Cherry Point. “What do you suppose happened back there?”
“We caught my father on a bad day. Can we talk about something else?”
“Most certainly. Would you care to comment on the silent statue you resembled in that little exchange?”
“How I handle my father is not anyone else’s business.”
“You did not handle your father, Agent Kelly.” Pecard granted Matt a chance to argue, then, “You are headed for ops, are you not?”
“Eventually.”
“Successful field agents discover their natural abilities and hone them. Their lives depend upon this. You have a knack for reading the subtlest signs in people. It is recognized by those closest to you as one of your most remarkable traits. That and your facility to merge with whichever shadow is closest.”
Matt swiveled in his seat. “Who have you been talking to?”
“Let’s move beyond that.” Pecard was so quietly focused he made a lie of his smile. “Your problem is, you let others shape your response. You adapt according to what somebody else wants you to be.”
His heart rate accelerated until it matched the tires drumming across the Inner Harbor bridge. “My problem, is that what you said?”
“What I said, Agent Kelly, was move on. It’s time you start learning to manipulate events.” Pecard took the off-ramp but did not head back to the memorial. Instead, he pulled into the marina parking lot and halted in front of the restaurant. “Why do you think I pushed your father? Because I’m looking to see his reaction, and that of his handler.”
“Sol Greene.”
“The police have obviously written them both off as suspects. But the police also have an unsolved murder. So I arrive on the scene. A rank outsider. And I manipulate the situation and observe their responses.” Pecard reached across the seat and poked Matt in the ribs. “Something you should be doing.”
“Back off.”
Pecard kept poking Matt’s chest in time to each word. “You could learn a great deal if you would simply stop permitting others to dominate your responses, and control matters yourself.”
Matt grabbed for the hand. And missed. And discovered Pecard was grinning at him.
“Do you see?”
Matt opened his door. Stepped onto the pavement. Stared back inside the car. Filled with an urge to crawl back inside the car and pop this guy. Hard.
Pecard’s eyes tightened slightly. It might have been another smile. He was finding genuine pleasure in pushing Matt to the edge. “Here’s a thought, Agent Kelly. The next time you confront your old man, try being the controller. Instead of the clown.”
As they headed from police headquarters to City Hall, D’Amico walked a couple of steps behind the chief. He liked the view more than a little. She was a strong, tough woman, not so much softened by her femininity as spiced. Her gray hair was cut full to oval-frame her face. Steel gaze to match the hair. Suit a shade darker. Black turtleneck and stockings and heels. D’Amico knew from office scuttlebutt that she had lost her husband to a stroke and been single for more than a decade. The lady was trying to be stone-cold in front of her troops, ready for the battle ahead, but there was nothing she could do about her walk. The lieutenant caught D’Amico smiling over the view and shook his head in amazement. D’Amico didn’t mind. It’d been a long time since he’d enjoyed anything this much.
City Hall was a marble and brass tomb on weekends. They took the elevator to the third floor. The power hallway mocked them with echoes and the smell of old wax. Bernstein knocked on the deputy mayor’s polished door.
The next door opened. “In here.”
They filed into what had formerly been the aldermen’s meeting chamber. Nowadays it was reserved for official meet and greets. D’Amico had seen it any number of times on television, been inside twice for awards ceremonies. The room was all gilt and polish, twenty-foot windows, domed ceiling, gold drapes, bronze chandeliers. Six of them.
The deputy police commissioner frowned. “This was supposed to be a confidential meeting.”
“You didn’t say anything about private,” Bernstein said, then turned and told her troops, “Sit.”
“We want to speak with you alone.”
“There is nothing I care to hide from my division.”
Two men faced them, the deputy mayor and the deputy police commissioner. Both were holdovers from the last administration. The deputy commissioner was a long-term Baltimore politico, squat and muscular with toneless eyes. The deputy mayor was taller, leaner, more handsome, but cut from the same political mold. The commissioner said, “They’re yours only so long as we say so.”
“Is that why we’re here?” Bernstein looked from one face to the other. “You’ve decided to fire me?”
“That depends on the next three minutes.”
“Now, now, there’s no need for threats.” The deputy mayor had wavy hair and a polished gleam. “We’re all friends here, right, Major Bernstein?”
“I’m still trying to figure out why I’ve been called downtown on my day off to get rousted.”
“The Kelly case,” the commissioner said. “We want you to stay on target.”
“I thought that’s what I was doing.”
“Then you thought wrong. The proper line of inquiry has been clear since the outset. Right-wing fanatics are behind the attempt on the senator’s life.”
“A couple of corrections are needed to that statement.” Bernstein gave as good as she got. “A homicide investigation has to remain openminded. Tunnel vision is the most common reason investigations go wrong. We have to go in the direction the leads take us.”
The commissioner thunked the table between them. “Focus, Bernstein. That’s how you solve the case. Everything points toward right-wingers being behind this.”
“Do you have evidence I’m
not aware of? Because what I’ve seen recently isn’t all that cut and dried.”
“This is the way it has to be,” the deputy mayor said. “For the next nine days.”
“You’re telling me to stonewall a murder investigation until after the election?”
D’Amico took that as his cue. “Chief, we’re not just talking a week here. Once Kelly is elected, they’ll shut us down.”
The two men seated across from them both gave D’Amico the slow burn. But his boss did not even glance over. “Thank you, Detective.”
The deputy mayor continued to take aim at D’Amico as he said, “We have a lieutenant in Division One who assures us he can make this happen.”
“Last time I checked, homicide cases are handled by homicide cops.”
“They are if we say they are.” This from the commissioner. “We’re thinking this case is so vital to the city’s good name we need to assign a special task force. With a fresh pair of eyes.”
D’Amico’s ire was real now. “It’s Hands, isn’t it. Calfo has agreed to be your tame puppy.”
“I resent that slur against a good officer almost as much as I resent hearing your voice at all, Detective.”
“Back off, D’Amico,” Bernstein said. She continued to the pair, “Evidence we’ve uncovered over the past couple of days points us to the armory job. Remember that little incident, gentlemen?”
The two men gave her nothing. They didn’t need to. The press had publicly fried them both over that one.
“We’ve finally got a chance to return the favor. If we’re right, you can give the fibbies a black eye that’ll shine all the way to the Hoover Building.”
There was a moment’s silence before the deputy mayor replied, “Come see us after the election.”
Bernstein clamped down on whatever else it was she wanted to say. She lifted her troops with a motion of her head.
“Chief, one more thing.”
“Sir?”
“The Kelly kid. He’s off the case as of now.”
Bernstein said, “We put him on because your office called me and specifically ordered I make room for him.”
“That was then.” The deputy mayor directed his words to the spot Bernstein had just vacated. “Get rid of the kid.”