James Patterson: The Quickie

The icy rainwater went to about mid-shin.

I kept my questionable balance and motion forward by concentrating on the glitter of the police lights inside the rain pocks. They looked like tiny fireworks, I thought as I waded closer to the tarp. Little red and blue blossoms of light. Kind of unreal, like everything else tonight.

This was stupid, I thought with conviction as I sloshed even closer.

Because there was a drug dealer under the tarp. Or just another junkie. People like me always ended up doing a meet-and-greet with them, just like tonight.

Then I was finally beside the blue tarp under the hot, unforgiving glare of the portable light carts. No more delaying. I couldn't have turned back now if I'd wanted to. Mike Ortiz was right behind me. "Do the honors, Lauren," he said.

I held my breath.

And tugged the sheet away.

JESUS GOD, HELP ME, I thought.

My next thought was even weirder.

When I was seven years old, I caught a men's softball game line drive right in my chest. It was at our Bronx Irish neighborhood's annual NYPD vs. FDNY barbecue, and it happened as I was on the Finest first-base line, cheering on my patrol sergeant dad, who was on the mound, pitching. I don't remember the ball hitting me, don't remember a thing about it. They said that my heart actually stopped. My father had to give me CPR until they defibrillated me. I don't remember any light at the end of a tunnel or any sweet-faced guardian angels beckoning me heavenward. Only pain and the silently moving mouths of the adults looking down at me, seen as if through an incredibly thick piece of glass.

I felt that exact same sense of disconnection as I looked down.

And saw warm brown eyes staring up at me through a foot of bloody rainwater.

I almost hugged Scott right there and then. Almost dropped right into the water beside him in all my clothes, wrapped my arms around him.

Except I was unable to move.

I remembered the first time we met, at the 48th Precinct under the Cross Bronx Expressway. I was working overtime in the Homicide squad room upstairs, and Scott was working OT out of Narcotics downstairs, when the soda machine in the muster room wouldn't take my dollar. He gave me one of his, and when I hit the button, two Diet Cokes dropped down.

"Don't worry," Scott said, smiling. You could almost hear the click as our eyes met. "I won't tell Internal Affairs."

I swallowed as the rain fell around me now. I eyed the tiny circles it was making over Scott's dead eyes.

"One of the uniforms ID'd him. Name's Scott Thayer," Mike said. "He's a detective from Bronx Narcotics. One of us, Lauren. This is as bad as it gets. Somebody killed a cop."

My hands went up to my leaking eyes. I contemplated ripping them out.

"He was beaten very badly," my partner continued, sounding to me like he was speaking from somewhere out past Pluto.

I nodded. Tell me something I don't know, I thought.

Then Mike did.

"Beaten to a pulp," he said, anger seeping into his voice. "And then somebody shot him."

SHOT HIM?

"See the entry wound under his left jaw?" my partner said, pointing as he continued to talk in a soft, mournful way.

I stared, nodded. I couldn't believe that I'd missed it. It looked like a misplaced belly button. I shuddered as I suddenly remembered the feel of Scott's stubble on my stomach.

"And the corneas."

I nodded. Death sometimes makes the corneas look blurry after a few hours. Scott's were clear, indicating that he'd died very recently.

"He's got an ankle holster, but the gun is missing," Mike said. "It's a small holster, so I'm not sure if it was his service weapon… or maybe a throw-down in case he got into a questionable shoot. Who knows what he was doing here? Anyway, better to be tried by twelve than carried out by six, right? But it looks like Scott missed his day in court. God help him."

This was one reason not to get involved in an office romance, I thought as I stepped out of the fountain and collapsed back against the cold, wet edge a minute or so later.

My brain made itself semi-useful by locking onto one word as I sat there. It banged against my skull, ricocheting off the inside like a trapped bird looking for an escape.

Why?

Why? Why? Why?

Scott had been alive. I'd heard him moan when Paul put him in the car. I was a Homicide detective, a trained expert in these kinds of things. Scott had been alive.

Had been, I thought, alternating glances between the tarp and the ground between my feet. After a while, I noticed that it wasn't actually a tarp. It was a Neat Sheet.

I shook my head in disbelief. I remembered clearly the trip to Stop amp; Shop when I bought the picnic blanket for Paul to keep in the trunk of his car.

Paul, you idiot, I thought as tears sprang hot from my eyes.

You stupid, goddamn idiot.

"I know, Lauren," Mike said as he sat down beside me.

"That might as well be you in there," he said. "Might as well be me. Imagine, everything he ever worked for. Everything he ever enjoyed. Ever planned."

Mike shook his head grimly.

"Dumped into a Bronx fountain like so much garbage."

For a moment I felt the immense weight of my guilt. The idea of owning up hovered over me like a waiting avalanche. All I needed to do was turn to my partner and spill my guts. Tell him everything. Commence the end of my life as I knew it.

But I just couldn't make the words come out. Not now, anyway. Was it some instinctual desire to protect Paul? To protect myself? I don't know, I sincerely don't.

But I didn't say anything to my partner and the moment passed.

I kept my thoughts to myself and shook as I cried.

I WAS STILL WIPING MY EYES when a pair of clunky black shoes appeared in front of my rubber boots.

I tilted my head up and saw my boss, Lieutenant Pete Keane. Irish, fair-skinned, baby-faced, and near-skeletal. The overseer of the Bronx Homicide Task Force could have passed for an aging altar boy if not for the flat nail heads of his hard gray eyes.

"Lauren," he said. "Came in when you heard the bad news, huh? I'm really glad you did. Saves me a call. I want you to be the primary investigator on this. You and Mike'll be the perfect team. You're my go-to guys, right?"

I stared at Pete Keane. Things were happening at warp speed. I was hardly reconciled to the fact that Scott was dead, and now my boss wanted me to be in charge of the case?

I wondered suddenly if Keane had learned about our affair. Jesus. Maybe he suspected I knew something about Scott's death and was testing me. Was that it?

No, I thought. That was impossible. Nobody knew at work. Scott and I had gone to painstaking lengths to make sure of that. Besides, nothing except flirting and a few meals had even happened between us. Until tonight, of course.

Actually, it felt like just about every conceivable thing had happened between me and Scott tonight.

It was only that Pete Keane liked me for big cases, I realized after a paranoia-dissipating breath. There were detectives on our squad who were senior to me, but I, his "lady lawyer cop," as he liked to call me, was a perfectionist. I put my law school training to work in the Homicide squad. I went methodically by the book, was completely thorough, completely organized, and I had a very high success rate. Bronx assistant DAs practically fought to take my cases because they could just about read my reports aloud for their prosecutions.

In a big-daddy political-shitstorm case like this, it would be all about reports, I realized. The ones that would have to be sent up the chain of command on practically an hourly basis.