Tracking Shot

by Colin Campbell

  McNulty tried a smile but couldn’t manage it. “You sound like Darth Vader.”

  Susan wouldn’t be turned. “You ever wonder why you keep finding dangerous situations to put yourself in? The fights you keep picking? The people you keep trying to save?”

  McNulty shrugged. “Because I’m a cop?”

  “You’re not a cop.”

  “I was.”

  She shook her head. “You remember Archie Shapiro? The kid who was always banging his head against the wall?”

  McNulty nodded but let her run with it.

  “He wasn’t trying to bring the wall down. He just needed the pain.” She barked a laugh. “You’re like an angry man version of survivor guilt.”

  McNulty took another sip of tea to avoid answering. He couldn’t argue that he felt guilty about letting his sister down. He’d tried to save her but ended up losing her instead. Sold for adoption abroad. Given a hard time at Crag View before that happened. What sweetness was there in that? Susan appeared to read his mind. It wasn’t difficult.

  “I look back and all I remember are the good times. Some of the kids. The day trips and the holidays. The treacle pudding.” She softened her tone. “You look back in anger and all you see is…”

  McNulty held his hands up. “The mushy peas. Yes, I get it.”

  Susan let out a sigh. “No you don’t.” She indicated the house again. “This is my treacle pudding.” She put her cup down and rested her elbows on the table. “I’m here because of Crag View and Chester Brook. Good things have come out of both of them.”

  She threw her head back to swish the hair out of her face. “Chester Brook still does good things. There are kids living there who rely on it. Harlan DeVries is the reason it’s working. He’s paying back into the community. His donations every Fourth of July are his Golden Syrup.”

  McNulty put his cup down. “You really like him don’t you?”

  Susan sat up straight and flexed her back. “I really believe in him.”

  McNulty looked at his sister. “And you don’t want any of this shit coming back on him.”

  Susan let out a sigh. “It won’t, because he’s not involved. But we both know that being innocent doesn’t mean bad shit doesn’t happen.”

  It was the first time she’d acknowledged the bad shit that had happened. She fell quiet and went back to hugging herself. McNulty nodded and spoke softly. “Okay. I’ll look into it.”

  The siblings smiled at each other but the smiles held a hint of sadness. They both knew that before the sweetness could come forth, there had to be strength. The steam had stopped drifting from the empty mugs. The sky was completely dark. The moth was joined by another and they both bumped heads against the light. Susan blew out her cheeks.

  “So, this fight you’ve picked tonight. I’d say it’s one worth getting into.”

  McNulty looked at his sister. “Does everybody know about that?”

  Susan raised her eyebrows. “I thought you wanted everybody to know.”

  Once again he couldn’t argue with that. He nodded his understanding and Susan nodded back. This was one time that having angry-man survivor guilt was a good thing. They both stood up and there was no awkward pause this time. He put his arms around his sister and gave her a hug.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The crime-scene tape fluttered in a gentle breeze that rose and fell like waves on the shore. It made a different sound than the rustling leaves, more plaintive and sad. Of course that could just be the circumstances leading to its presence. Dead people on a movie set designed to look like the Second District Court of Eastern Middlesex. McNulty stood in the shadows across the street and thought that Chester Brook Orphanage had never looked more like a courthouse.

  Linden Street was dark and still. There was no traffic at this time of night, approaching midnight. Every other streetlamp had been turned off to save electricity, leaving the road looking like a piano keyboard of black and white keys. Stephen’s Industrial Cleaners, where the witnesses had been corralled after the shooting, was a square black presence between two patches of brightness. Farther down the street the real courthouse stood out in a blaze of security lights. Across from McNulty, the only thing that stood out was the crime-scene tape.

  Clouds drifted across the sky, blotting out the stars in patches then letting the night sky back in. There was no moon to light McNulty’s way. Ordinarily that would have been a good thing, but since he wanted to be seen tonight he just had to hope that whoever was watching him could see him. He checked up and down the street. There was no sign of the rusty foreign car that had been following him earlier, but at ten to midnight, the shooter wouldn’t be following him in a car. He’d be hiding in the shadows the same as McNulty. He checked his watch again. It was time to come out of the shadows and hope the bait would be taken. He stepped away from the Aston Martin dealership and crossed the street.

  The main doors to the west wing of the orphanage, the ones replicating the real courthouse doors where the gunman had burst in, were at the front of the building, facing the street. These doors were locked, but McNulty approached them anyway. There was no cover; he was standing in plain sight. He made a big show of trying the doors and checking the adhesive police tape that sealed the crime scene. The tape was intact. The doors hadn’t been opened since the place had been secured. He glanced over his shoulder. He looked up and down the street. He rattled the door one last time, hoping he wasn’t overdoing it, then turned away.

  He walked around to the blind side of the building, scanning the street. Now Aston Martin Boston was directly across the street. Abko Auto Body was farther up Linden Street. He went to the side door and stopped. This was the door into the hallway that led to the main lobby, where he’d charged through to pick up the fire extinguisher. He took the location manager’s keys out of his pocket and tried the door.

  It wasn’t locked.

  He nodded to himself, partly for comfort but mostly because he was glad they hadn’t changed the locks. He threw one last glance over his shoulder, then opened the door and went inside.

  The air in the hallway was oppressive, the silence complete. It was the muffled dead silence of a cemetery. He paused just inside the door to let his eyes adjust to the dark. At first it was total, but after a few seconds, light from exit signs inside the door and at the end of the hall took the edge off. Shapes began to appear. Angles and walls and doorways. He remembered the layout from having drawn the diagram. The hallway that led to the lobby inside the main entrance to the west wing of the orphanage. The space on the wall where he’d grabbed the fire extinguisher. The double doors to the courtroom set, just across from the main entrance, where the makeup chair had been wedged between the doors. And the blood seeping from under those doors.

  As his eyes adjusted so did his ears. The building wasn’t as quiet as he’d thought. Creaks and groans and whispered clicks made the walls and ceiling feel like living things. Settling noises. Straining sounds.

  A clock ticked in the dark. McNulty walked on the balls of his feet and stood next to the makeup chair, which still lay on its side at the entrance to the courtroom. He paused again to gather his courage, then stepped through the double doors into the killing room.

  The large windows let in more light. The room was just as he remembered it. The judge’s bench and the court clerk’s desk stood out from the shadows. The Stars and Stripes were hulking sentinels at either side of the judge’s bench. The witness box was just to the left in front of the door where most of the survivors had escaped. The bodies had been taken away but the blood remained. The police hadn’t cleaned it up. This was still a crime scene. They might have to come back when further evidence came to light. It would remain a crime scene for a long time.

  The thing about leaving the blood is that you inevitably leave the smell as well. Not the rotting-flesh smell of the rat pit that McNulty had discovered at the cabin under the cloverleaf, but the freshly dead smell of body flui
ds and voided bowels. Nobody tells you about that until your first murder case. Muscles relax at the moment of death, and it’s only your muscles that keep your insides in. Then there’s the blood. Organic matter that degrades over time like spilled milk. It all paints a picture more vivid than the eyes alone can see. Death had entered this room and McNulty was inviting the man responsible to come back in. Maybe Susan was right. It was about time he got over his angry-man survivor guilt and started living sensibly.

  He looked up into the corner of the ceiling where the dummy camera was a dull black spider pointing down. The clock above the judge’s bench ticked. The sound was loud in the quiet room. He mounted the wooden platform and walked behind the judge’s bench. It was just a façade. There was only a chair to make it look realistic and allow the actor playing the judge to sit down. The camera looked authentic enough, but the wire into the wall was fake, an added touch McNulty hadn’t thought Titanic Productions capable of. Downloading the CCTV images wouldn’t take place in here; it would be done from the hard drive in the next room.

  McNulty stood behind the judge’s bench and surveyed the room. The main camera and tripod were still in the center of the floor; Larry had had to call in several favors to get a replacement. The double doors at the back of the courtroom, where the gunman had entered and exited, were in the area where Randy Severino had been filming reverse angles—the same point of view as the faux CCTV camera above the bench.

  The building groaned. The clock ticked. McNulty looked up at the big white clock face that stood out in the light from the windows. Midnight. The time that cops never arrest anyone. McNulty wasn’t arresting anybody, either. He was just going to catch the bad guy on camera and duck for cover. He checked that his phone was secure in his breast pocket and that the flash had been turned off. He hadn’t pressed the record button yet. That would come soon enough.

  He crossed the raised platform to the door that led into the room behind the judge’s bench—the place where he wanted to lure the gunman—a smaller space, for close-quarter combat. He tugged at the Kevlar vest where it rubbed against his throat. He’d never liked them, even when he was in uniform. He looked out across the courtroom again, then opened the door behind the bench, but didn’t enter. He ducked down beside the judge’s chair and listened.

  Midnight plus one. The door from the street clicked shut. Quietly, but not quietly enough. McNulty wasn’t alone. The bait had been taken. He settled on his haunches and listened to the approaching footsteps.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Waiting was the hardest part of any police operation. McNulty had been on numerous undercover assignments and he’d sat for hours doing covert observations. The worst part was sitting in a car all night recording license numbers, hoping the right car would come along and spark an arrest. The burst of adrenaline when that car finally turned up was the rush all cops lived for. McNulty shuffled to the side of the judge’s bench, his heart racing and the small hairs sparking electricity up the back of his neck. The right car had finally turned up.

  He listened to the progress of the intruder, which was pretty much identical to McNulty’s twenty minutes before: Footsteps approaching the double doors. A cautious entry into the courtroom, then a pause to get his bearings. A very slow and painstaking move toward the front of the room. Hardly any noise, except for an occasional knock against the furniture. The odd footstep. McNulty thought he could almost hear the gunman breathing.

  The clock ticked. Half-past midnight. Zero dark-thirty.

  McNulty waited until the intruder was halfway to the bench, then he moved quickly, darting through the narrow door into the back room, leaving the door partly open behind him. There was no gunshot. There was no warning shout. Chairs were knocked over as the gunman charged across the courtroom and onto the raised platform.

  McNulty veered right inside the room and dropped to a crouch. He turned to face the door and pressed the record button on his phone. It was all about timing and preparation now. He hoped the preparations had gone according to plan. A hulking figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the dull moonlight in the courtroom. He paused for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the dark, then one hand came up, pointing into the room.

  McNulty clicked his fingers.

  Two enormous arc lights came on behind him. The light was blinding and focused straight into the gunman’s face. McNulty had his back to the lights. The figure jerked a hand up to cover his eyes, obscuring his face. The other hand grabbed the doorframe for balance. The light had rocked him back on his heels.

  McNulty lunged forward and rugby-tackled him to the ground. Something heavy dropped from the gunman’s hand and bounced across the floor. Momentum took both men back through the doorway where they tumbled off the platform. There were muffled words. A hand tried to grab McNulty’s throat. McNulty twisted it at the wrist and spun it around behind the man’s back, the pressure on the wrist and elbow forcing the man to go with it. Larry Unger stepped through the door and turned on the courtroom lights.

  “Okay Vince, you got him. No need to break his arm.”

  McNulty rolled the man onto his back and red-faced anger stared back at him.

  “You just made a big mistake,” the man told him.

  McNulty jerked back in surprise. Detective Jon Harris sat up and dusted himself off.

  “A big fucking mistake.”

  Larry supervised the lighting crew dismantling the equipment in the back room. They didn’t need supervising but he didn’t want to get between the detective and the ex-cop. This had progressed way beyond a pissing contest. This was borderline criminal. The detective was fuming.

  “Withholding evidence. Reckless endangerment. Assaulting a police officer. You just screwed the pooch.”

  McNulty picked up an overturned chair and sat down. “You going to read me my rights?”

  Harris did the same and sat facing McNulty. “I’m going to read you the riot act. What were you thinking?”

  McNulty shrugged. “False trail. Draw the guy out.”

  Harris snorted a laugh. “Everyone in town has heard about this CCTV dump. You don’t think he could smell a trap?”

  McNulty looked at the detective. “You came.” He nodded toward the windows. “And I take it you’re not alone.”

  Harris raised the radio he’d dropped in the struggle and pressed transmit. “All units stand down. I repeat stand down.” Several squawks acknowledged the order. Harris turned to McNulty. “Which brings us to withholding evidence.” He waved toward the back room. “The CCTV download.”

  McNulty sighed and slumped in his chair. “There is no CCTV. It’s a dummy.”

  Harris looked up at the fake camera in the angle of the ceiling, then back at McNulty. He shook his head. “No. You’re the dummy.”

  There was movement through the windows as SWAT units fell back to their vehicles. Engines started across the road. Harris stood up. “And you’re coming with me.”

  McNulty didn’t move, looking up at the detective. “Am I under arrest?”

  Harris didn’t get a chance to answer. There was a flash of light through the windows and a dull thump, followed by an enormous explosion. The concussion shattered the windows and the noise was deafening. Two hundred yards along Linden Street, the real District Court went up in a ball of flame.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The explosion at the District Court made the news all over Massachusetts but didn’t go national. Fox 25 and 7 News gave it plenty of airtime but local broadcaster WCVB ran with it the most. Kimberley Clark came out from the newsroom to be their face on the ground. She interviewed anyone she could get her hands on and even managed to grab a sound bite from “Hanging” Judge Reynolds, whose court had been disrupted. Being nicknamed the Hanging Judge put the fear of God into the defendants on trial, but it was somewhat misleading. Judge Reynolds was a keen horticulturist and favored hanging baskets over window planters. He didn’t look like he was thinking about hanging baskets wh
en he spoke to Kimberley Clark.

  “We will not stand for intimidation or be swayed from our path.” His voice boomed with righteous indignation. “Justice will prevail. And this trial will continue. As soon as they clear the crap out of my courtroom.”

  Kimberley edited that last part out. The crap was all the debris the firefighters left behind after putting out the fire. Their main concern had been the Sunoco Gas Station just across the road at the junction with Main Street. Once they’d made sure there wasn’t going to be any crossover, they did what firefighters always did, destroyed anything that was on fire and stripped away everything that got in their way. The fireball and explosion took out the corner of the building and brought down part of the ceiling. The concussion smashed windows at the CVS Pharmacy, Petco and the Chester Brook Orphanage. More specifically, the part that had been dressed to replicate the District Court that had been blown up. Kimberley edited the next thing Judge Reynolds said out of the interview as well.

  “They damage any more of my baskets,” his eyes were hard as stone, “I swear there’ll be a hanging for real.”

  McNulty watched the interview the following morning in the police canteen at Waltham PD Headquarters on Lexington Street. Next door the Waltham Fire Department was cleaning its fire trucks from the night before. Kimberley Clark had managed to interview the lead detective while he was coordinating the forensic examination. Detective Harris had been brief and to the point.

  “No comment.”

  His demeanor left her in no doubt that that was a closed door. She had even less luck trying to interview the only other person known to have been near the scene: Vince McNulty. Because he was in custody for offenses to be formulated later.

  “I take it breakfast means you’re not going to charge me.”