Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 6

THE COP WHO had been assigned to drive Chief of Detectives Doyle met us at the golf course.

“They set up a temporary office for your boss inside the clubhouse,” he said. “He told me to have you wait for him there.”

We followed him into the building. “The manager apologized for the lousy accommodations,” he said, “but they’re in the middle of painting the place.”

As we approached Doyle’s loaner office, I could smell the fresh paint. And then the cop opened the door and flipped on the light.

“I can’t believe it,” Kylie said as soon as the cop left.

Neither could I.

There’s a running joke in the department: if your boss calls you into his office, and there’s plastic on the floor, the odds are you’re going to get whacked.

The first thing Kylie and I saw when we entered the room was the plastic tarp on the floor.

“Hey—they’re painting the place,” I said.

“I don’t care what they’re doing, Zach. It’s a bad omen. A really bad omen.”

The only seat in the room was a desk chair. We remained standing.

Five minutes later Doyle walked in.

“So, Detectives,” he said. “How is your day going?”

“Fine, sir,” I said.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” he said. “Funny thing … when I heard that Ms. Easton was safe and in custody, I thought my day would go well too. But, alas, I was sadly mistaken.” He slid into the chair and rested his arms on the desktop. “Would you like to know why my day is going so badly, Detectives?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My day went into the crapper—in public, mind you—because you, Detective Jordan, and you, Detective MacDonald, fucked up royally.”

Some bosses are screamers. When they’re angry, they want every cop in the borough to feel their wrath. Doyle’s voice was calm, devoid of emotion. In fact, he spoke so softly I had to strain to hear every punishing word.

Very passive-aggressive. Very effective.

“You were the leads on this case,” he said. “You made the call to keep Dodd’s identity under wraps. I believe the argument you used was something like ‘We want him to think it’s safe to walk among us.’ Your captain signed off on it. Her boss signed off on it. We all signed off on it. Why? Because we had faith that you knew what you were doing, and you’d catch the bastard.

“Well, he did walk among us. He brought his assassin’s rifle into our city and walked past God knows how many of our smartest cops, none of whom were looking for him, and then he shot and killed one of our most influential citizens. Only then did you release his name and picture. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Kylie said.

“A few hours later, he was dead, and the press put two and two together and asked how long we’d known Dodd was our primary suspect. I sidestepped with the usual ‘I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,’ but they didn’t let up. They asked how I felt about the fact that this … this celebrity … this woman who is famous for what she wears, where she shops, and who she bangs was able to save herself when the elite NYPD Red Squad couldn’t. I assured them that everyone in the department was relieved to know that Ms. Easton was safe and sound, and that was all that mattered.

“And as I looked across the room, I could see that every one of them was thinking the same thing: Doyle is full of shit .”

He sat back in his chair. “But enough about my day,” he said. “Tell me about yours. Did you determine if Dodd had any accomplices?”

“It doesn’t appear that way, sir,” I said, “but we can’t yet rule it out.”

“So then the answer to my question is: ‘We haven’t solved that one either.’ Maybe you should get some help from Ms. Easton. She seems to be good at bailing you out.”

“We spoke to her briefly, sir, but she was too drained to go on. We’ll be interviewing her as soon as the doctors allow it.”

“You do that. Do you have anything else to say, Detectives?”

We should have said, “No, sir,” and backed out of the room. But Kylie doesn’t walk away from any confrontation without getting in a few choice words.

“We made a judgment call, sir,” she said. “If it turned out to be wrong—”

“ If it turned out to be wrong?” Doyle said, his voice getting edgier, his tone angrier. “Don’t delude yourself, Detective MacDonald. It turned out to be spectacularly wrong. I understand that cops working under pressure can make a bad call. But the rich and powerful people who grease the wheels of this city don’t want to be at the mercy of your average cop. That’s why we created Red. You are supposed to represent the finest of New York’s Finest. But as tomorrow’s newspapers will undoubtedly point out”—he stood up, put his palms on the desk, and leaned into us—“you and your partner did not live up to the hype .”

CHAPTER 55

IT’S NONE OF my business,” Rich Koprowski said, “but the chief of Ds has got some pair of balls blaming the two of you for Veronica Gibbs’s murder. You might have made the call to keep Dodd’s identity under wraps, but everyone up the chain of command—including him—signed off on it.”

“You’re right, Rich,” Kylie said. “It’s none of your business. It’s mine and Zach’s, and we don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine,” Koprowski said. “He’s still a dick because of what he did to me.”

The three of us were in Koprowski’s car driving back to the city.

“He didn’t do anything to you except tell you to drive Jamie Gibbs up to Warwick,” Kylie said.

“I did. I drove him to the edge of town, and then what? Doyle tells me to turn him over to the local cops so they can drive him the last mile to the hospital. What the hell is that about? It made me feel like a goddamn delivery boy.”

“Rich, I hate to break the news to you, but as far as Doyle is concerned, you are a delivery boy. You drove Jamie up, and now you’re driving Zach and me back to New York. We didn’t exactly cover ourselves with glory in this case, and the chief of Ds doesn’t want it to look like the only thing NYPD is capable of is chauffeuring the victim’s husband to her bedside. But if it’s any consolation, we really appreciate the lift.”

She tipped her seat back and closed her eyes. I was aching to talk to Cheryl and dump some of the day’s misery on her, but I didn’t want an audience, so I curled up against the door in the back and drifted off to sleep. The rest of the trip was blessedly silent.

I got home at ten p.m. and called Cheryl as soon as I got in the door.

“Hello,” she said, her voice groggy with sleep.

“Damn, did I wake you up?”

“S’okay … I know you had a tough day … how ya doin’?” she mumbled.

“I’d be a lot better if I were in bed with you.”

“Good idea … bad timing … hostage negotiators’ conference … Rochester … have to be … LaGuardia … five in the morning,” she said, fighting to stay awake.

I’d forgotten all about it.

“Back Saturday … love you.” She hung up.

“Love you too,” I said, too late for her to hear.

No girlfriend , I thought. A perfect ending to a perfectly rotten day .

I reheated some leftover Thai food, opened a cold beer, turned on the TV, and sat down to watch The Shawshank Redemption for the umpteenth time.

I think I’ve figured out why it’s my favorite movie. My job forces me to see the world in black and white. Cops versus crooks. Good guys versus bad guys. But in Shawshank , I root for the prisoners. I hate the warden. The lines are blurrier, and sometimes I take comfort in blurry.

The nap I took in the car threw off my sleep rhythm, and I wasn’t tired enough to go to bed until three a.m. I slept through the alarm and didn’t get to the office till eight thirty.