by Archer Mayor
Sammie drove through a gatehouse that looked as if it had been stolen off the front of a thousand-year-old French cathedral, and after asking directions from a bored guard, meandered along a narrow half mile of curving, forested, paved hill-and-dale roadway, aware of the fact that the higher she got, the more spectacular became the view facing west, overlooking New York Bay and the rigid, serried ranks of stalwart Manhattan skyscrapers. The contrast between the two impressions-the cemetery's contrived Valhalla and the city's concrete commercialism-made Sammie feel she was part of neither, like a fly crawling across two overlapping photographs.
She slowed among a copse of trees near the top of an incline and pulled over on the outside of a gentle curve, having finally discovered William Tweed's headstone, downright demure given the setting and his own flamboyant reputation.
Sammie killed the engine and got out of the car, enjoying the sense, however artificial, of being in the countryside once more. She hadn't fully admitted it yet, but New York's unremitting geometric solidity-its hard angles, lack of earth, and the peculiar way everything seemed to either run up and down or left and right, but rarely in nature's random way-was getting to her.
As if to communicate that fact to a kindred spirit, she crossed over to a nearby tree-large, old, and supporting a broad, comforting canopy-and laid her palm against its rough surface.
"Hey, Sam."
She turned to see Willy cautiously emerge from behind a statue-topped monument. He looked tired and worn.
She went to him, put her arms around him, and kissed his cheek, feeling his one arm loop around her waist and a shudder run through his body.
"I forgot how good this feels," he said, barely above a whisper.
"You should practice more," she suggested, rubbing his back.
"Along with a lot of other things."
She pulled away enough to look him in the face, struck by the total absence of his usual edginess. "You going to survive all this?"
He gazed at her with a sudden wave of tenderness. In its utter simplicity, it was a wonderful question: caring, supportive, and pertinent, all while being discreet. She wasn't asking for what he couldn't tell her. She'd neatly sidestepped the fact that they were both police officers and avoided asking him anything that might force him to either lie or admit to a malfeasance.
All she'd posed was the single core question. And all it had done was to render him speechless.
He buried his face in her neck and shut his eyes, feeling for the first time something other than the slow buildup of an indefinable, all-consuming heat that had been kindling inside him for longer than he could remember, and threatening to explode for the last several days.
"Come over here," she finally said, leading him to the low stone wall surrounding one of the lots. "Sit down."
They sat side by side for a long time, watching the gentle breeze barely ruffle the nearby branches, enjoying the smell of grass and the sound of water running, even superimposed as it was over the low, steady thrumming around them.
"Why do you stay with me?" he finally asked.
She'd asked herself the same question so many times, she didn't hesitate to answer, "Because your trying so hard has made it worthwhile. So far."
He smiled bitterly. "A man on the road to redemption?"
But she shook her head, well used to his deflecting cynicism. "I don't know where you're headed, especially now, but you've never taken the easy way."
His voice betrayed his skepticism. "And that's good, the way you see it?"
She took her eyes off the scenery to look at him. "Think about it, Willy. The people we deal with every day, most of them didn't start any worse than you, or suffer more than you have. They just quit."
He looked over the past few days, not just at what had happened recently, but at what he'd been forced to confront from years before, all the way back to his childhood.
"I don't know about that. Feels like I quit a bunch of times."
"Stopped, maybe. For a while. Like you're doing now, I hope."
She'd gone back to gazing at the trees before saying this, and he studied her profile with a sudden sense of revelation. What was it that made some people see things the way they did? He was so self-absorbed most of the time, he never paid much attention to such philosophical musings, finding it easier to simply ignore them. He was a pretty good student of human nature, funnily enough, smelling out people's inner motivations and often getting them to reveal what they didn't want others to see. But that was when they were opposed to him, like another hockey player in a face-off. He wasn't as good when it came to his own teammates. The effort expended on his behalf by people like Sammie or Joe confused him, since it wasn't something he ever practiced himself.
Looking at this woman whom he'd never bothered understanding, he was struck by her thoughtfulness, and embarrassed by his own lack of depth. When they'd become lovers, he'd been in turn stunned by his good fortune and dismissive of her common sense, but in both guises, he hadn't chosen to consider her view of that decision. It had merely been something he figured she'd soon see as a giant mistake.
Now, as stupid as it seemed, he realized she hadn't come to him on the rebound or out of pity or simply because she wanted someone to hold. She'd made a conscious choice.
And there was something else, something that harked back to an earlier situation that had baffled and angered him. During a case the previous winter, Sammie had gone undercover as a ski instructor, dying her hair blond and sporting the tight jeans and high-waisted parka she thought suitable for the job. He'd been furious with her for that, for looking so good, for making the role seem natural. He'd seen how everyone had appreciated her in purely physical terms, and had realized how easily he could lose her. Then, of course, that fear had only made him lash out as usual.
Not that this sudden revelation would necessarily help now. For his newfound respect for Sammie came saddled with an equally powerful conviction that he'd never be able to express it. Even as he watched her, filled with this sudden knowledge, he was at a loss for what to do.
As if realizing this, she stood up and looked down at him. "Do you know why you wanted to meet?" she asked, looking faintly surprised at how the words had come out. She corrected herself. "I mean, why did you want to meet?"
He considered both questions, and knew neither one could be given an honest answer, the first because of his own emotional inability, and the second for legal reasons.
He therefore chose the latter's more familiar terrain- he'd certainly skirted the law's finer points before.
"I was wondering how the case was going," he stated neutrally, hoping she'd work with him in tiptoeing through a metaphorically mine-laden conversation.
She did. Avoiding the shootout and the wounding of- and silence of-Riley Cox, she answered, "We found out Ron Cashman had two apartments, one clean and listed under his name, the other somewhere over near Kennedy Airport. They're going over that one right now. Joe called in with an update about a half hour ago."
"Find anything yet?"
She paused and rubbed her lower lip with her thumbnail. She was in a real quandary here. There was strong circumstantial evidence linking Willy to the shootout, although no actual witnesses who would talk, and certainly it made sense that he was the one who assaulted John Smith's neighbor in Broad Channel, possibly stealing something in the process. Not only did that make him someone whom the local authorities would love to put in an interview room, if not worse, it also certainly meant she shouldn't be discussing details of the case with him. Just being with him now put her in professional jeopardy.
Not that any of this was all that relevant, of course. Willy was going to motor on regardless of what she did or didn't tell him, and maybe her judicious release of some information might help him go where he needed to without getting killed or jailed. She wouldn't violate the black letter of the law, but she would tell him what she could because in her heart she knew it might be his only route to salvation.
"I don't know what they've found at the covert address. I only heard that Cashman was using the name John Smith, and that Mary called him there once from her home phone."
"She did?" he asked, surprised.
"Not only him, but other people connected to him. From her receipts and Metro cards and whatnot, we found out she was going regularly to Brooklyn and maybe meeting with several of these guys. Ogden has people knocking on those doors right now, too. I don't know what or how, but something's definitely starting to break with this case. For example, we think now that even though she wasn't rolling in dough, she had access to some secret assets. It would explain why she never went the traditional welfare and assistance route."
He absorbed that for a moment, remembering Cashman's last words about Mary becoming greedy. "What else?" he asked.
"Not much. We took your suggestion to look into the Re-Coop a little closer. Turns out some nonprofit named the Seabee Group is their major backer, but that's all we've got right now. I think Joe was going to study that more, but he and I are almost on the outs now. We've outlived our welcome."
She didn't explain why. She didn't need to.
There was an awkward pause. Now that they'd moved from their personal feelings to discussing the case, each of them was anxious about the other's welfare. The first topic made them yearn to stay here longer, the second almost guaranteed that any more time together endangered them both.
Willy ended the unspoken debate by getting to his feet. "Thanks, Sam. I better go."
She stood next to him and laid her hand on his forearm. "I can't ask what I want to. Maybe that's the way it'll always be-"
He interrupted her. "If you want to know have I stepped over the line, the answer is no. Enough to get me fired, maybe. But not the way you're worried about."
He looked ready to say more, to tell her things that seemed to be brimming up inside him, but he pressed his lips together tightly, as if physically biting the urge back.
She made the choice easier for him, kissing him and stepping away. "Will you at least try to come back in one piece?"
He smiled at her, again struck by how much she seemed to know of his inner struggles. "I will now."
He watched while she retreated across the narrow roadway, got back into her car, and drove away with a small wave of her hand. Then he stepped in among the surrounding headstones and extracted from his pocket the top sheet of the calendar he'd stolen off Ron Cashman's desk. Circled several times in blue ink on a date just following Mary's death were the initials "CB," followed by a phone number. The face of Carlos Barzun-La Culebra-rose up in his mind like a specter. Ward Ogden sat back in Ron Cashman's rickety office chair and stretched his arms high above his head. The setting sun was angling in through the dirty window overlooking the boat slip, filling the dingy room with a greasy yellow light. He and a search team including Jim Berhle and the young detective he'd brought with him hours earlier had been combing through the contents of Cashman's two filing cabinets, deciphering what they could of the dead man's arcane and half-encrypted notes. What they had made for interesting if frustrating reading, detailing a range of activities far beyond what Ogden would have guessed from these modest surroundings. It was true that Cashman had also maintained that other apartment, as clean and respectable as the proverbial hound's tooth, but if his records were any reflection of his income, he could have afforded twice that and much more. Whether it was a credit to his discretion or simply because he had no love of material possessions was anyone's guess.
Ogden lowered his arms and studied the scene out the window. Joe Gunther was sitting on the edge of one of the docks overhanging the narrow, slightly mired boat slip, staring out over the view as if he were taking in the Grand Canyon. He liked Gunther, respected his low-key, hardworking style. The man gave credit where it was due, shared what he found, didn't put on airs, and nurtured his younger colleagues. In short, a cop without swagger or self-righteousness. Ogden could only rue that such a creature was so rare.
Which made his own predicament all the more unfortunate, since he was gong to have to tell Gunther that regardless of what Willy Kunkle might or might not have done-and the lack of any hard evidence so far was galling-the Vermont contingent was no longer welcome. The case was simply becoming too big and too complex, and it involved too many unanswered questions about both Kunkles, Mary and Willy.
It was a shame, and meant the loss of two good extra brains, but even Ogden could only skirt the rules for so long and by so far. The NYPD held its own fully accountable, often unfairly and sometimes with a vengeance. The dinosaur wasn't going to trade on his hard-won reputation and seniority for a bunch of outsiders, especially when one of them was running the risk of landing some serious jail time. In fact, Ogden was feeling a little uncomfortable that, having stretched this alliance out for as long as he had, he'd not only been carried away by a combination of intrigue, mutual respect, and cooperation, but had fallen prey to a pinch of old-timer's arrogance. He was still not above thumbing his nose at authority now and then, but in the past he'd usually been a little less obvious about it.
Until they all returned to the office, however, where he would finally lower the boom, he didn't mind passing along the interesting bits he'd collected. He felt he owed Joe Gunther at least that much, if only as a kindred spirit.
He leaned forward over the top of the ramshackle desk and rapped his knuckles against the glass.
He met Gunther at the front door as the Vermonter was rounding the corner of the house. "Go for a walk?" he suggested. "I need to stretch my legs."
They fell into step side-by-side and headed west, where the street ran straight to the water at the far end of the block.
"I'm sorry I've had to park you on the sidelines," Ogden apologized. "I think I've abused the system all I can on this one."
Gunther was already waving his hand dismissively. "I appreciate all you did. I know everything past the first five minutes has been pure courtesy. I thank you for that. Not many people would've been that generous."
Ogden laughed. "I wouldn't overdo it. I think I was more curious than anything, not to say a little embarrassed at having dropped the ball with the initial investigation. If you hadn't come knocking, we wouldn't be where we are right now."
"Which is where, if that's okay to ask?"
Ogden immediately set him at ease. "Of course. That's why we're taking this walk. I didn't want to push my luck back there with so many people around. It's starting to look like Ron Cashman was a high-ranking lieutenant in a major car theft ring, among other things. He ran guns and drugs to a lesser extent, I think mostly to keep his options open and maintain a sense of independence, but the big money was cars."
"Did you know anything about this ring before now?" Gunther asked.
"I didn't," Ogden admitted, "but Customs did. They have a task force with some of our people and they've been trying to get a handle on this bunch for a couple of years. Berhle's been on the phone with them for a half hour or more and they're about to show up, which'll pretty much bring our involvement to an end-another reason I'm going to have to cut you folks loose."
"Sort of frustrating, isn't it?"
Ogden shrugged. "Yes and no. They need something for all their efforts, too, and it's not like I don't have other things to do. Besides, we cracked it for them. I can rub that in if I get in the mood."
They continued walking a little farther before Ogden added, "It's not all altruism, either, so don't go thinking I'm plain old Mister Nice Guy. I didn't have Jim call the feds till now 'cause I wanted a long look at all that stuff first." He tapped the side of his head. "The old brain cells may not be what they used to be, but I love filing little factoids up there. You never know when they might come in handy."
Joe Gunther wasn't sure if this conversation allowed him to ask questions. He sympathized with Ogden's position, and while he didn't want to abuse that, he still had a big investment in reaching the truth.
"You find any reference to
Mary Kunkle?" he asked with intentional vagueness.
Ogden smiled. "One thing we did find was a small electric key-cutting jig. Also, a lot of the names on her phone records match what we found in Cashman's files. Does that make you wonder what her role was."
"What do you know of the setup?"
"I'm no expert," Ogden cautioned, "but it looks like Cashman ran a whole crew of spotters, thieves, drivers, choppers, money handlers, and whatever else he needed to identify, steal, and get rid of high-end cars, mostly SUVs. From what I could see, he was shipping them right out of New York to places like Russia, the Dominican Republic, South America, you name it."
"How did that stay under wraps for so long?"
"He had a cell system. Old trick: You make sure none of your people knows anybody else inside the organization. That way, one of them gets busted, he's all the cops end up with. Pretty neat, really, but it takes brains and a flair for organization."
"Which explains why you think Cashman was a lieutenant and not the boss?"
"No doubt in my mind," Ogden agreed. "The problem with that kind of structure is that sooner or later, one guy is going to have more knowledge than the top man is happy with, unless, of course, that boss is running the whole show, which is pretty unlikely."
"Why?"
"Skill levels. The real brains with the international contacts is probably not going to be the same man who knows where to find and control the local worker bees. It's just asking too much of a single individual. Besides, it's clear from Cashman's files that he had someone he reported to."
"And that is?"
Ogden shook his head. "Dunno yet. That'll probably be up to the task force to figure out. Cashman just used a cipher name. It won't be hard to figure out, though, not with everything we found. We-or they-just need to turn over that one last rock. Then maybe we'll all get what we want, including you."