Michael Harvey - The Third Rail

“The mayor sends his best.”

“Does he?” Lawson said.

“Yeah, he’s a real prince of a guy.”

“He’s disgusting.”

“Wel, there’s that, too.”

“He gave you the old pep talk, right? Make sure you nail the FBI broad, al that crap.”

“We real y need to talk about this?”

“You’re right. No sexist pig is going to ruin our celebration.” Lawson raised her glass. “Here’s to Kel y. Taking care of the bad guys.”

I shook my head. “My gun hasn’t been fired, Lawson. You know that. So, what exactly did I shoot him with?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know. But if you didn’t shoot him, who did?”

“Exactly my point. If it wasn’t one of your agents, it had to be a third party.”

“And you’re thinking of the accomplice?”

“Yes, I am.”

“The accomplice no one believes exists.”

“Is that what they’re saying now?”

Lawson leaned forward and tapped the back of my hand. “That’s what they’ve always been saying. Listen, putting this guy down is no big deal. He kil ed four people and critical y injured another. And that was just on the Drive today. Between you and me, it’s a blessing.”

“I didn’t shoot him, Lawson.”

She leaned back and sighed. “Don’t fuck up my case. It’s al nice and neat. Wrapped up and put to bed.”

“Not if there’s an accomplice out there.”

“There isn’t.”

“Then how did this guy get his head blown off?”

“You want to hear a theory?” she said.

“Love to.”

“You shot him, then dumped the weapon in the lake. Why, I’m not sure. Wel, no, I am sure. He wasn’t an immediate threat to you and he was clearly going to be apprehended, so there was no way you could justify pul ing the trigger legal y.”

“So I used a second weapon and then got rid of it.”

“Gives you deniability when we have this conversation. Even a little insurance.”

“And kil s someone you and the mayor both wanted dead.”

“Myself, the mayor. Everyone from here to Washington. For Chrissakes, Kel y, we talked about this.”

“You talked about it, but it didn’t happen that way. The trajectory of the bul et and angle of the wound wil confirm it.”

“Assuming any of those tests are done.” Lawson nibbled at a pretzel and waited for me to see the light. Reality is relative, meaning it happened whatever way the Bureau says it happened.

“We’l be at the mayor’s press conference tonight,” she said, “then issue a statement tomorrow, confirming the dead guy was our shooter. He was kil ed by an unidentified law enforcement agent as he resisted arrest.”

“You don’t believe that,” I said.

“I believe someone wants this to end, and that’s fine with me. An accomplice turns up down the line, I’ve moved on and it’s some other guy’s problem.”

“Look out for number one. Right, Lawson?”

“You were a cop in this town. You know how it works.”

I lifted the pint to my lips and drained it. The cold beer felt good at the back of my throat and I rattled the empty glass on the table between us.

“You want another one?” I said.

She shook her head. “No. I had two last night.”

“And?”

“Three drinks a week. That’s the limit.” She tugged a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one up.

“Bartender’s not gonna like that,” I said.

Lawson slipped her shield onto the table. “I’m not a drunk, Kel y.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

She blew smoke in a cool, blue stream over my head. “I don’t even have a problem with it.”

“Okay.”

“Fuck you.”

The bartender got a nudge from a patron. I could see him starting over to us. Then he caught a glimpse of the badge and retreated back behind the taps.

“Why don’t you just tel me your story?” I said.

“What story?”

I spread my hands out, palms up.

Lawson let a smile slip. “Cops al have stories. Right?”

“I know I do,” I said. “Hold on while I get a beer.”

I went up to the front. The six people in the place now had an idea who we were and why we were in the area. I could feel their eyes on me as I waited for my pint. Final y, an old-timer at the elbow of the bar spoke up.

“You involved in that stuff down by the lake?”

His voice was ful of smoke and whiskey. A doctor might cal it a walking advertisement for emphysema. I found it comfortable.

“I was,” I said.

The old-timer coughed up some phlegm and rapped his knuckles on wood. Then he sank into his drink. I had the bartender back him with a second and carried my pint to the table.

“The locals love us,” I said.

Lawson glanced toward the taps. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” I took a sip on my fresh pint. “Now you gonna tel me your story?”

“It’s nothing too spectacular.” Lawson stared at whatever was left in the bottom of her glass as she spoke. “Been an agent for almost fifteen years. Divorced the last five. It was mostly my fault. I let the job eat me up, and Kevin got sick of being in a relationship by himself. Packed up one day and left. Took our little girl with him.”

“He has custody?”

“The relationship was my fault, but the divorce was al him. At the time of the separation, Kevin knew I was heavy into one investigation and had two others in trial. I was putting in twelve-hour days and spending my nights working out the details for what we were going to do tomorrow.”

“And you were drinking?”

Her eyes crept up to mine. “You know how it is. Strategy sessions over dinner, head to the bar afterward. You’re working the whole time, but, yeah, there were a lot of late nights. Thing is, Kevin hired a PI to tail me.”

I whistled. Lawson nodded.

“No kidding. He got me on tape at some places on Rush. Pul ed the bar tabs. Stuff like that. His attorney sent me the whole package one night. Told me it was al going into a custody motion. They’d paint me as a drunk, whether I was or not.”

“And you caved?”

“No choice. That kind of thing gets into a public hearing and the Bureau’s done with you. Especial y a woman. So I gave him what he wanted.”

“How about your girl?”

“Her name’s Melanie.” Lawson’s face puckered around the edges. She wanted that second drink now, but there was nothing for it. “I saw her once a month for the first couple of years. Then Kevin got remarried. They had their own child. Now I don’t see her so much anymore. Sad thing is, I mind it less and less.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.”

Lawson tapped her fingers lightly on the table. “Thanks.”

I took another sip of beer. “You ever wonder if it’s worth it?”

“You ever wonder that when you carried a shield?”

I shook my head.

“Of course you didn’t. Nobody ever does. The job is the job and always wil be. Thing is to make sure you got your bases covered.” Lawson shrugged. “I left myself vulnerable. I paid the price.”

“And you don’t plan on making that mistake again?”

I found Rachel inside an examining room at Northwestern Memorial. She was lying on a gurney and staring up at the ceiling while another woman shone a light in her eyes.

“They’re green and they’re gorgeous,” I said.

The woman snapped off her light and was about to cal security when the judge intervened.

“Ignore him,” Rachel said. “He’s my boyfriend.”

Trumpets didn’t exactly sound as the last sentence rol ed off her tongue, and I thought I might have been better served muttering non sequiturs with the old-timer at the bar.

“Family and friends are not al owed back here,” the woman with the light said. I glanced at her name tag: JAIME SINGER, ATTENDING PHYSICIAN.