Уильям Макгиверн - Rogue Cop

Someone came into the room behind him, and Carmody turned and saw old Father Ahearn standing in the doorway.

“I came as quickly as I could, Mike,” he said.

Carmody turned and looked down at his brother. “We were all too late,” he said, holding his voice even and cold. “Too late, Father.” He put out a big hand and pushed the lock of hair back from Eddie’s forehead. For another moment he stood there, staring at the pale quiet face, and then, moving deliberately and powerfully, he walked past the priest and out to the sidewalk. The night was cool and soft; a faint wind moved over the city and a diffused light was spreading thinly along the horizon.

The door behind him opened and Father Ahearn came to his side. “Why can’t you face me, Mike?” he cried softly. “Who did this thing to your brother?”

“I warned him,” Carmody said, swallowing hard against the pain in his throat. “I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“You warned him!” Father Ahearn took Carmody’s big hard arm and tried to pull him around; but the detective’s body was like a post set in stone. “What do you mean by that, Mike?”

“He wouldn’t listen to me,” Carmody said again. “They meant business but he wouldn’t believe it.”

“You knew this was going to happen?” the old priest said in a soft, horrified voice. “Is that what you are saying?”

“Sure, I knew it would happen...” Carmody said.

The old priest took a step backward, quickly and involuntarily, as if the face of evil had appeared before him without warning. “God have mercy on your soul,” he said, breathing the words softly.

“Save the mercy for the men who killed him, Father.” Without looking at the old priest, Carmody turned quickly and strode toward his car.

Half an hour later he pulled up before Karen’s hotel. The street was quiet now, the squad cars had gone back to their regular duty. Only a few groups of people remained on the sidewalk, smoking a last cigarette and exchanging their final words on the shooting. Everyone prefaced his recapitulation with an “I was just—” “Just getting into bed.” “Just locking up.” “Just opening the ice-box — when it happened.” For some reason, Carmody thought, listening to the eddies of talk in the silent street, they all felt these commonplace activities had assumed a shape and significance through their temporal relationship to tragedy. And maybe they did. I was just getting drunk, he remembered. Just passing out after accepting Beaumonte’s word that Eddie would be spared for two more days.

A middle-aged patrolman was posted in the small foyer of Karen’s hotel.

“Is the witness back yet?” Carmody asked him.

“Got in about fifteen minutes ago, Sarge.”

“You’ll be here all night?”

“That’s right. And there’s a man in back and one just outside her room. You going up?”

“Yes.” The cop unlocked the inner door and Carmody walked by him and took the elevator up to her floor. He nodded to the alert-looking young cop who was on guard there and then rapped on her door.

“You’d better start asking everybody for identification,” he said.

The young man flushed slightly. “I’ve seen your pictures in the paper lots of times, Sarge.”

“Okay. But be on your toes when anyone gets off that elevator. If the guy she spotted comes up here he won’t give you a chance. Remember that.”

“I’m ready for him,” the cop said, putting a hand on the butt of his revolver.

Carmody glanced at his youthful, clean-cut face, and swallowed hard against a sudden constriction in his throat. Another Eddie, confident and hard, willing to take on all the trouble in the city. How did they get guys like this for sixty bucks a week? Where did they find these brave dumb kids?

The door opened and Karen looked up at him. She had been crying but her face was now pale and composed. For a moment they stared at each other in silence. Then she said, “What do you want here?”

“The whole story, everything,” he said, moving into the room and closing the door. She sat down slowly and locked her hands together in her lap. “Eddie was killed, that’s what happened,” she said, struggling to control her voice. “Just the way you said it would.”

“You saw the killer. I want to know what he looked like. I want every detail you can remember.”

“I’ve told the police everything.”

“Tell me now.”

“Why should I? You’re a friend of the men who killed him. You stood by and let them murder him.” She rose suddenly and turned away from him, her small face beginning to break and crumble with emotion. “You said we were the same kind of dirt, didn’t you? But you let them kill your brother. I’m not in that class.”

Carmody took her frail shoulders in his hands, twisted her around and sat her in the chair. When she attempted to get up, weeping helplessly now, he caught her wrist and forced her back with a turn of his hand. “I don’t want any speeches,” he said coldly. “There’ll be plenty of speeches from everybody else. The Mayor, the newspapers, priests and ministers, they’ll all make speeches. But they won’t do any good. When they’re all through talking, Eddie will be just as dead. So don’t waste my time with a speech.” His voice went low and hard, “Start with the beginning. Eddie was here tonight, wasn’t he? When I called?”

“Give me just a minute,” she whispered.

“Okay, take your time,” Carmody said, releasing her wrist. He lit a cigarette and drew the smoke deeply into his lungs. Then he sat down and stared at a picture on the wall. Finally, he glanced at her. “Okay?”

“Yes. Eddie was here when you called. But he told me he didn’t want to speak to you. He listened to the conversation and broke the connection when you began to yell at me. I begged him to be careful but he said you were more frightened of Ackerman than he was.” She stopped, breathing slowly, and put the palm of her hand against her forehead.

“We watched television until eleven-thirty. When he left I tidied up the room and found his wallet in the chair he’d been sitting in. His badge was clipped inside it and I knew he’d need that on duty. So I went downstairs to see if I could catch him. The street was dark but I saw him walking toward the corner, about fifty yards away. I ran after him. I didn’t call because it was late. Eddie didn’t hear me until I was eight or ten feet from him. I’d changed into slippers and I didn’t make any noise, I suppose. Then he turned around quickly and reached for his gun. When he saw me he laughed and started to say something. But he didn’t get the words out.” She shuddered and rubbed her arms with her hands. “That’s when it happened. A man stepped from behind a tree and into the light of the street lamp. He had a gun and he shot Eddie twice in the back. Then he ran to the corner. I began to scream and he looked around and stopped. He started toward me but a woman came out on the balcony across the street and began to shout for the police. The man stopped again, under the light at the corner, and then he turned and ran into the next block.”

“Okay. You’ve been looking at pictures at Headquarters. Did you find this man in any of them?”

She shook her head slowly.

“Tell me what he looked like. Everything you can remember.”

“He was big. Not fat, but tall and wide. His hair was blond and long. I couldn’t see his eyes, they just looked black, but his face was heavy and brutal.”

“How old?”

“Young, not more than thirty.”

“How about his clothes?”

“He was wearing a sports jacket and a sports shirt. The shirt was open at his neck and the jacket was a light color. Gray tweed or camel’s hair, something like that.”