Final Cut
Page 15
McNulty squeezed her tightly and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. She raised her face and kissed him back, gently at first and then with more hunger. Her arms snaked around him and they held each other for a long time. She kept kissing him so he couldn’t answer because they both knew one thing for sure: Vince McNulty was a very good guesser.
They put the dog out on the aft deck with a makeshift bed and a bowl of water. There was no question that McNulty was going to stay the night. There was no question they were going to make love. Helen took the lead. McNulty fought his inhibitions and guilt over the massage girls. The sex was angry and needy and urgent. On the couch not the bed. In the cabin not the bedroom. They shivered and fucked in the dark and held each other like two dying people.
Afterward she cried in his arms. He felt like a knight in shining armor who had helped her through the pain. Then he reassessed that. A knight in tarnished armor, helping himself through the pain. The pain of guilt about not saving the missing girls, something that resonated all the way back to the slap and the scream and the dusty office at Crag View. When it came right down to it, everything led back to Crag View Orphanage and the sister he’d left behind.
The Helen of Troy creaked at her moorings. Water lapped against her in the quiet of the night. A ship’s bell sounded in the distance. Light from the main jetty played across the window. The boat swayed. Helen slept in his arms and let out a sigh. Her body felt good against his. He looked around the cabin but the jetty light didn’t penetrate. Everything was shadows and reflections. The light glinted off Helen’s makeup on the counter and that triggered thoughts of Amy. Damn, why did he always find something to feel guilty about?
There was a gentle thud against the side of the boat. It sounded more solid than flotsam drifting into the hull. A shadow moved across the window. The thud became footsteps on the roof. Then the dog began to growl and somebody dropped onto the aft deck.
THIRTY-TWO
The growl became a yelp. McNulty was on his feet in an instant. He slipped his shoes on because fighting barefoot was a disadvantage but he didn’t have time to get dressed. He picked up Helen’s body spray from the counter and went straight to the door. He didn’t yank it open and he didn’t barge through onto the aft deck. Act in haste, repent at leisure. He opened the door an inch and looked out. Then he yanked it open and barged through.
A big man with broad shoulders had a cord around the dog’s neck. Yorkie dangled in mid-air, unable to bark. Legs and tail flapped in a futile attempt to lessen the pain. A knife glinted in the moonlight as the blade was drawn across the dog’s throat.
McNulty went in low and hard. His shoulder caught the man in the stomach and he came up fast between the man and the dog. The knife hand was knocked aside before it could cut flesh. The other hand was tangled in the cord, leaving the man with no hands free and McNulty with the aerosol. He sprayed the man in the face and snatched the cord out of his hand. The dog dropped to the floor and scampered around in circles, trying to dislodge the noose from his neck. The man brought both hands up to his face. The knife bounced off the gunwale and splashed overboard.
The man doubled over, rubbing his eyes. McNulty brought a knee up into his face and it was game over. The man flopped to the deck like a boned fish and tried to stop his eyes from stinging. McNulty removed the noose from Yorkie’s neck, then stood over the man.
“I had to tell a fella the other day about rubbing his eyes.”
He glanced at the dog, still running scared.
“But I tell you what. Fuck it.”
He leaned down and sprayed him in the eyes again. The man screamed and rubbed them even more. The same as with the CS spray or the makeup, rubbing only made it worse. McNulty wasn’t bothered about worse. He wanted answers. He stepped back and sat in the captain’s chair for some Q&A. Then the second man came over the stern rail and knocked the aerosol out of McNulty’s hand.
Fighting naked is never a good idea for a man. A swinging dick and dangling balls are sensitive targets. Shoes are good for stamping or kicking but having your wedding tackle swinging in the wind gives too much of an advantage to the other guy. McNulty was at a disadvantage from the moment the man came at him. A knee to the balls dropped McNulty to the floor. The aft deck was a confined space. He had nowhere to go and aching balls.
The second man closed in and took one leg back to kick McNulty in the face. That was a mistake. One leg back meant the man was standing on only one leg. Not good for balance and it leaves the attacker’s own balls unprotected. McNulty ignored the pain between his own legs and lunged with a shoulder charge that came up between the kicker’s legs. He crushed the man’s testicles and lifted him off his feet with an upward surge that came all the way from McNulty’s legs and core. The man bounced off the captain’s chair and crashed into the stateroom doorframe.
Helen came out of the opening and swung something heavy. The man’s head snapped sideways and he bounced off the captain’s chair again. McNulty picked the cord up from the floor and whipped it around the man’s neck. He turned him over and pressed one knee into his back as he pulled the cord tight. Hands flapped and tried to loosen the cord. The dog found its bark and snapped at the man’s ankles. Helen dropped whatever she’d hit the guy with and let out a cry.
“Vince.”
McNulty spun around too late. The first man had regained his sight and grabbed McNulty from behind. He got one arm around McNulty’s throat and gave a sharp tug backward. McNulty let go of the cord and used his legs again for leverage. He pushed up, using the man’s own momentum and they both fell backward over the side of the boat.
Noise and chaos. The police raid modus operandi also applied to the police emergency response. On land or on water. The foghorn siren and the knifing searchlight beam were designed to confuse the criminals they were responding to. The QPD motor launch was responding to a report of men fighting at Slip 10 on “C” Dock, Marina Bay. It responded fast and noisily to warn the combatants to cease and desist.
McNulty was too busy trying not to drown to cease and desist.
Shoes that were good for stamping and kicking were bad for swimming. Being naked helped but the shoes soon filled with water and made leg movements hard. He hit the water upside down and in the dark couldn’t tell which way was up until buoyancy gave him a clue. Bubbles from his gulps for breath went upward. His chest cavity, still filled with enough air to help him float, followed the bubbles. McNulty broke the surface and struck out for The Helen of Troy.
Helen waved him to the stern where a diving platform was augmented by a ladder that dipped into the water. McNulty hauled himself over the stern rail and collapsed in a soggy heap on the deck. He coughed up water and sucked in lungfuls of clear night air.
The other man had run off along the jetty. The swimmer had gone god-only-knows where. The dog licked McNulty’s feet. It tickled and he drew his knees up and sat against the railing. The police launch cut through the marina making enough noise to wake the dead. Lights came on among the residential boats.
Helen draped a blanket around McNulty’s shoulders. Once the shock had worn off, she leaned against the captain’s chair and let out a heavy sigh. She indicated the battleground of the aft deck.
“I thought you’d be good at this. You were a cop.”
McNulty accepted the lightness of tone, the best way to overcome the post-action adrenaline dump. He thought about his time as an undercover cop at the massage parlors.
“I was more like, customer services.”
Then the police launch swept alongside and The Helen of Troy bounced in the swell. The dog found its courage and barked at the officer hailing them from the flying bridge. The siren was turned off, but the searchlight raked the stern rail and aft deck. McNulty’s ears were ringing from a combination of the foghorn siren and almost drowning in the cold black water. He shielded his eyes from the light and waved a hand across the water.
“He went thataway.”
Another police report with Vince McNulty’s name on it. Another visit to the QPD Headquarters on Sea Street. As a witness this time, not a suspect. Detective Neil Armstrong looked like he wasn’t in the mood for differentiating. It was late and he wanted to go home.
“If you want, we can get you a bed and you can sleep over until next time.”
McNulty was finishing his statement in a bright and airy booth with big windows just off the Detectives Bureau. Front of house, not in the custody suite. A step up in the eyes of the law. No difference at all, according to Armstrong.
“I’m playing catch-up here. Just run that by me again.”
McNulty put the pen down and pushed his chair back from the desk. The chair and desk weren’t screwed to the floor like in the interview room. He looked through the window then back at the detective.
“Didn’t Mrs. Kozora tell you?”
Armstrong jerked his chin toward the exit.
“She’s already gone. Why don’t you tell me?”
McNulty nodded. Helen had to get back and look after the dog. They both had guessed correctly that McNulty’s interview was going to take longer. His record with the Quincy Police Department hadn’t exactly put him in their good graces. He slid his statement across the desk toward Armstrong. Armstrong pushed it back.
“Give me the short version.”
So McNulty did.
Two coffees and three-quarters of an hour later Armstrong was still scratching at McNulty’s story like a man with an itch. In his view the itch was McNulty, who in the course of three days had been involved in a burglary, a fire, a hit-and-run, a police raid and now a maritime assault. All the scratching in the world wasn’t going to make Armstrong believe the man from the movie company.
“And you’ve never seen these guys before?”
McNulty knew how this worked. Ask the same questions long enough and a suspect will embellish just to make the answer different. Embellishing a lie always leads to tripping yourself up. McNulty didn’t embellish.
“No.”
Armstrong made some little furtive movements with his hands.
“They didn’t swim aboard like in the James Bond movies?”
McNulty folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
“One of ’em swam away. No sign of Speedos or scuba gear though.”
Armstrong leaned his back against the door.
“He didn’t like the dog though, huh?”
“Burglars tend not to like dogs.”
“You did.”
“The dog liked me. There’s a difference.”
Armstrong pushed off from the door.
“Are you admitting to being a burglar then?”
McNulty smiled.
“Dogs tend not to like burglars. Enough said.”
Armstrong shrugged and sat on the edge of the desk. He didn’t really expect that McNulty was going to incriminate himself.
“Dogs don’t like guys trying to cut their throats. I’ll give you that.”
McNulty unfolded his arms.
“They didn’t climb aboard to kill the dog.”
Armstrong tapped the desk with one finger.
“Were they looking to steal Mrs. Kozora’s lingerie?”
McNulty was getting tired of going around in circles.
“It’s obvious what they were after. Me. For the same reason you’re so pissed off. Because I touched a nerve.”
Armstrong leaned back in his chair.
“You got that right.”
It was McNulty’s turn to tap the desk for emphasis.
“They cleared their shit out before the police raid because they knew I’d seen something. They wanted to clear my shit out for the same reason.”
Armstrong stared at McNulty and McNulty stared back. The trouble with staring contests is it focuses your attention straight ahead and you miss what’s coming from the side. What was coming from the side was the cubicle door opening. Sam Kincaid came in and closed the door behind him. He leaned against the wall and let out a sigh.
“I’m inclined to agree with him on that one.”
Being second-guessed by a big-city cop didn’t go down well with Armstrong. The pair stepped outside for a few minutes and went at it with the door closed. The door being closed didn’t make any difference. McNulty heard every word. The result was the Quincy detective storming off and leaving Kincaid to go through the mugshots with McNulty—half a dozen photo albums with white males of any age arrested or suspected by Quincy PD since the dawn of time. They didn’t waste a lot of time on the mug books. McNulty shut the last one.
“You ever notice how mugshots are like passport photos?”
He pushed it across the desk and sat back.
“Nobody ever looks like the pasty-faced fucks caught on camera.”
Kincaid stacked the albums into one big block.
“Doesn’t matter anyway. If you’re right about global distribution they’re not going to use local muscle. Anymore than they’re going to limit themselves to local girls.”
McNulty swiveled in his chair and stretched his legs.
“They might be distributing globally, but they’re filming here.”
He rubbed his eyes to keep awake.
“Quincy. Of all places. Why set up base in Quincy?”
They fell silent for a moment while they both ran through their profiling training. Serial killer profiling for Kincaid. Sex-offender training for McNulty. The picture was the same. Offenders might range far and wide, but one thing always remained the same: You might expand but you always start where you live. McNulty shook his head.
“But from what I can gather this crew aren’t just starting out.”
He drummed his fingers on the desk to help him concentrate. “They’ve been around a while.”
Still drumming.
“And yet the missing-girl posters only started six months ago.”
He stopped drumming.
“Did you check wider?”
Kincaid straightened the pile of albums.
“They haven’t got back to me yet.”
McNulty started drumming again.
“There’s got to be more than we know about. Maybe sex-trade workers.”
His mind went back to another investigation. Missing girls from the massage parlors. Often from broken homes and living on the edge. The least likely people to be reported missing. That had been the problem with Northern X. Finding out just how many girls were involved. You could only find out by counting the bodies, and that was only if you found them. Some of Whitey Bulger’s had only been found a couple of years ago.
Kincaid let out a sigh.
“It keeps coming back to, why the local girls?”
McNulty kept drumming.
“And why so recently?”
He let his eyes wander, taking in the plain walls of the interview booth then through the windows to the workstations of the Detectives Bureau, the standard features of any detective squad room. Desks and filing cabinets and telephones. Coffee machine in the corner and wanted posters on the wall. There was a corkboard above the coffee machine with notices and reminders. A familiar face stared out from the board. Jenny Eynon. Thirteen years old.
McNulty stopped drumming.
“Where did she live?”
He nodded toward the poster.
“The last one that went missing.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Dawn was breaking by the time McNulty got back to Marina Bay. Dull and grey and overcast. It suited his mood as he stepped over the stern rail onto The Helen of Troy. He had much to ponder. People to see. Responsibilities to uphold. A job to perform. He couldn’t do them all. Somebody was going to be disappointed. It was time to prioritize. When he’d been a cop the priorities had been clear.
Protect life and property.
Prevent and detect crime.
Bring offenders to justice.
“You’re going to have to move for the time being.”
McNulty stood just inside the stateroom door, reluctant to sit down. The dog sat between his feet and licked its balls. Helen came around the counter from the galley with two iced teas, then stopped in the middle of the floor.
“What do you mean I’ll have to move?”
McNulty was expecting this.
“After the fellas last night. It’s best you stay somewhere else for a while.”
Helen put the iced teas on the table and folded her arms.
“It’s you they were after. You stay somewhere else.”
McNulty held his hands out in surrender.
“I agree. It’s my fault. But that won’t stop them coming back.”
“What are the police doing about it?”
McNulty didn’t sugarcoat his answer.
“Not a lot they can do. Vague descriptions. No physical evidence.”
Helen unfolded her arms and put her hands on her hips.
“And that’s it? They’re just going to leave me here alone?”
McNulty jerked a thumb toward the jetty.
“You’re from around here. You think Quincy P-D has got cops to spare? Shit. They haven’t forgiven me for using their entire SWAT team yet.”
“So this is about you.”
Helen was practically stamping her foot. McNulty shrugged.
“I didn’t help. But they still can’t put a cop on your door.”
Helen sat on the couch in a huff.
“Well, fuck you very much.”
McNulty sat opposite and picked up an iced tea.