Final Cut

by Colin Campbell

  The dog was lying on the porch when McNulty came out of the trees. It was panting from its exertion at having raced through the woods. It also looked a little sad. Like a poor boy coming home only to find he’d been abandoned. McNulty approached at an angle so he could see two sides of the shack. Alfonse Bayard would have been taking notes. The windows were closed. There was no movement behind the glass. There were no twitching curtains or faces at the window. The only door he could see was the one on the front porch. He angled wider but still couldn’t see the back door. All he could see was a narrow path leading to a creaky wooden jetty that jutted into the bay, a public jetty for the houses located around the other side of the point.

  He turned his attention to the shack. Single story. No upstairs apart from a dormer window in the roof that overlooked the front yard. There were no car tracks out front. No cars had been along here in a long time. The tractor mower for cutting the grass would be stored at the school.

  McNulty stood at the foot of the porch steps and gave the windows one final sweep. The dog rested its head on crossed paws and let out a sigh. No one was home. The dog-walker was gone. That thought made the short hairs on the back of McNulty’s neck stand on end, because the dog-walker had been a fourteen-year-old girl who was friends with the last girl to go missing.

  He climbed the porch steps one at a time. Slowly. The porch creaked under his weight. His eyes scanned the windows and door. He crossed the porch and tried the handle, then stopped. He remembered his advice to Alfonse. When a cop approaches a door, he never knows what’s on the other side. When you’re going to break in, always knock first.

  McNulty knocked on the door.

  The heavy copper’s knock echoed around the clearing. It rattled the glass in the window frames. There was no reply. He wasn’t expecting one. He knocked again for completeness. Still no reply. He prepared to break in, but didn’t need to; the door was unlocked.

  McNulty nudged the door open with the toe of his shoe and quickly stepped to one side. The hinges groaned. The door swung open. The bad feeling in McNulty’s stomach intensified. The interior was dark and murky, not because the curtains were closed but because this was a dark and murky house. The trees sucked all the light out of the day. The water out back looked muddy through the dirt-stained glass. There was a broken pane next to the back door. A chair had been knocked over. McNulty walked through the front door then moved to the left so he wasn’t a silhouette in the opening.

  “Hello? Anybody home?”

  That was the other thing cops always did so the owner didn’t think you were a burglar. Especially in a country with liberal gun laws.

  “Got a dog here belongs to you.”

  He knew he was simply going through the motions. The house was empty and it had been emptied with violence. The broken window and overturned chair told him that, and complete and utter silence cloaked the shack like a pall. He went to the back door and looked out. The door swung easily. Shards of glass crunched underfoot. He wasn’t preserving the scene for forensics. He shouldn’t even be here. He raised his voice one last time.

  “Suzanne? You in here?”

  No, she wasn’t. He checked the floor near the chair. No blood. Good. But there were scuffmarks on the carpet. Not good. Then he saw something that turned his blood cold. Dangling from a hook beside the kitchen door, a silver disc glinted in what little light there was. The dog collar and leash hung where it had always hung when Yorkie wasn’t being taken for a walk. Because Suzanne Cipolletti hadn’t been snatched in the street with the dog, she’d been taken from home. McNulty tapped the leash and it swayed gently like the chains at South Shore Hardcore.

  His cell phone began to ring.

  McNulty stood for a moment, contemplating an industry that targeted girls from broken homes and chewed them up like meat in a grinder. He balled his fists until the knuckles turned white.

  His phone continued to ring.

  Yorkie came in the front door and sat in the opening. The sad look on the dog’s face was echoed by the resignation in its shoulders. It looked at McNulty and then at the back door.

  The phone continued to ring.

  McNulty reached in his pocket and brought the phone to his ear.

  “Yeah?”

  Sam Kincaid sounded excited.

  “You won’t believe what I’ve just found.”

  That’s when McNulty heard the creak of the floorboards and spun toward the back door. A big man blocked the light but it wasn’t his silhouette that was threatening. The gun was held loose at his side. He pointed it at McNulty’s phone and gave it a little wiggle. McNulty got the message and shut the call off. He put the phone into his pocket.

  “You keep sneaking around like this you’ll be getting a Double-Oh number.”

  The man who’d attacked McNulty on the boat shrugged.

  “Funny thing is, boats are quieter. Go figure.”

  He came in and shut the door. Now that he was inside the floorboards creaked even louder. He waved the gun at the dog.

  “Since we missed getting the dog, we knew it wouldn’t be long before you turned up here.”

  Goosebumps ran up McNulty’s neck. The car on Shore Avenue. It hadn’t been trying to run McNulty down, it had been after the dog. The knife attack on The Helen of Troy too. It had been an attempt to cut the dog’s throat, not silence McNulty. Because they didn’t want anyone finding out the dog came from this address. The man from the boat tightened his grip and raised the gun.

  “So? You got any last requests?”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Guns change everything. McNulty had already learned that on the rooftop of South Shore Hardcore. There’d be no dodging the bullet this time. He was too close to present a moving target and too confined to make a run for it. The other thing he’d learned since coming to America was never piss off a man holding a gun. The dog hadn’t learned that lesson. Yorkie started growling the moment the gun was raised. The man kept his gun pointed straight at McNulty’s face.

  “Unless you want the dog’s brains all over the carpet, you’d better shut him up.”

  McNulty kept his hands loose and his voice calm.

  “It’s not my dog.”

  The growl became louder. The gun hand remained firm.

  “You won’t mind if I shoot it then.”

  McNulty shrugged and held his hands out.

  “Nobody ever shoots the dog.”

  The gun moved left and down, targeting the dog for a second before coming straight back up to point at McNulty. Center mass. Not a headshot.

  “You movie people always believe your own publicity. This ain’t no movie. Damn right I’ll shoot the dog.”

  McNulty slowly lowered himself to a crouch and made a clicking sound with his tongue like he’d heard dog owners do. The dog trotted over to him and he ruffled its fur. The growl softened and disappeared. The dog looked at the gunman then back at McNulty, clearly confused by the mixed messages. Undecided, it settled on being quiet but refusing to wag its tail. McNulty made soothing noises, ruffled its fur one more time then stood up. He looked at the man with the gun.

  “Your boss didn’t want me finding out the girl was taken from here.” He waved a hand to indicate the surroundings.

  “Gunshots in a quiet suburb. Everybody’s going to know.” He tilted his head to one side as if talking to an idiot. “I don’t think he sent you here to shoot me.”

  McNulty’s phone began to ring again. Kincaid calling back, no doubt. The gun hand tightened. Still center mass. No chance of missing from this close. The dog looked up. The gunman shook his head. McNulty nodded and reached in his pocket. The phone stopped ringing.

  Then ringing started again but with a different ringtone. From a different pocket. The gunman looked embarrassed. Keeping the gun dead center on McNulty’s chest, he took his phone out and listened for a moment before speaking.

  “Yeah. He’s here.”

  Telephones change
everything. One call can change the course of history. Or more simply, change McNulty from being shot to being kidnapped at gunpoint. That was the result of the brief conversation. A few words, either end of the phone. A curt response and a disgruntled gunman. He ended the call and put the phone back into his pocket.

  “Okay. We’re going for a ride.”

  McNulty glanced out of the front window. “I didn’t think you could get a car this far back behind the school.”

  The gunman smiled. “I didn’t say we were going for a drive.”

  Turning the other way, McNulty saw the jetty through a window in the back door. He smiled. “I always wanted to go on a boat trip.”

  The gunman backed toward the door and jerked his chin at the dog.

  “Dog stays. Just you and me.”

  McNulty walked slow and steady. No sudden movements that could get him shot. His voice was calm and steady.

  “You going to point that gun at me all the way to the jetty?”

  The gunman’s voice was even steadier. “Damn right I am.”

  He opened the back door and stood to one side. McNulty passed through and the door was shut behind him, trapping the dog inside. Yorkie started barking as soon as the door closed. The barking obscured the excited voice coming from McNulty’s pocket—Sam Kincaid shouting to know what was going on. McNulty hoped the detective had caught enough of the conversation to know he was in deep shit.

  Telephones change everything.

  Telephones and tidal waters. They were halfway down the path to the jetty before the gunman noticed what had caused McNulty to smile.

  “No fuckin’ way.”

  McNulty ended the call in his pocket and looked at the jetty. Yes fuckin’ way. He didn’t know how long the gunman had been staking out the shack, but it had obviously been long enough for the tide to go out. The motorboat that was tied to the mooring post was knee-deep in mud and tilted to one side. The boat trip would have to wait.

  The dog continued to bark inside the shack. The gunman tried to ignore it as he read the tidal chart on the public noticeboard. The jetty was short and narrow with a dogleg at the end, giving it an inverted L shape. There was no handrail or fencing, just the noticeboard and a wooden bench. McNulty was sitting on the bench so the gunman could keep the gun trained on him while he figured out when the tide was due back in. Three feet to the right of McNulty. Two feet in front of him. Legs slightly apart for balance.

  The dog stopped barking.

  McNulty gauged angles and distances. Calculated levers and pivot points. Core stability and impact. A swift kick to the balls and a lunge up from the bench. None of that meant anything as long as the gun was pointed at his center mass from three feet away. You can’t argue with a bullet. It’s either a hit or a miss. Best way for it to be a miss is to provide a moving target. You can’t be a moving target sitting down. That was the best decision the gunman had made. And the worst.

  It was the silence that tipped McNulty off. The gunman was too busy reading the timetable to understand the significance of it. McNulty recognized it straight away. The dog had been barking because it had been shut in the house. It had stopped barking because it had got out. There was only one place the dog was going to go—follow McNulty and the man who had taken him.

  The gun wavered slightly as the man focused on the tidal chart.

  Soft panting breaths came from up the hill.

  Seagulls screeched as they fought over food trapped in the mud.

  McNulty noted everything around him, but his eyes were glued to the gun. The man was using the fingers of the other hand to keep his place on the chart. The dog sprinted down the path. McNulty braced himself against the back of the bench and flexed his right leg. The dog found its voice again and began to bark as it pounded wood on the jetty.

  Now. The dog launched itself at the gunman. The man swung the gun toward the threat. McNulty kicked up from the knee between the man’s legs. Worst pain a man can experience. It doubled him forward and McNulty lunged upward and forward, catching the man in the chest. A short palm-heel jab to the jaw snapped the man’s head back and he was tumbling backward off the jetty before he knew what had hit him. He flailed his arms for balance but it was too late. The gun went off. The blast echoed around the cove and scared off the seagulls.

  McNulty stopped himself from following the man over the side just in time. Legs braced and shoulders balanced. He watched the gunman hit the mud with a squelch, his gun hand stuck in the mud. He tried to pull it out, but like shoes in a quagmire the mud sucked the gun from his hand. He tried to stand up but that was the wrong thing to do.

  Within seconds, he was up to his knees in soft, squelching mud. The dog looked over the side. McNulty watched the man sink farther. The gunman struggled to get his legs free but that just sucked him even deeper. He was up to his waist now. Panic flared in his eyes. He threw his body from side to side but that just made things worse. Up to his chest now. He flapped his arms against the mud as if he might fly his way out. One arm got stuck and he began to sink lopsided up to his shoulders. Then his neck. He didn’t shout for help. He didn’t speak at all. He just looked at McNulty as he was sucked beneath the surface and disappeared with a gurgle and a pop of muddy bubbles.

  Yorkie wagged his tail. McNulty let out a sigh and sat on the bench. His phone began to ring again. Trembling hands made it difficult to answer. It was Sam Kincaid. McNulty spoke first:

  “You’d better get over here. I think we’ve got another missing girl.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  McNulty didn’t sit around waiting after he’d given Kincaid the address. He returned to the groundskeeper’s shack and had a look around. Suzanne Cipolletti might have been friends with Jenny Eynon but she hadn’t enjoyed the same home life or family stability. The house on Bay View Street was the polar opposite of the shack in the woods behind Snug Harbor Elementary School.

  For a start, there was no sign of a stable family life. The kitchen was basic and unclean. The living room, although tidy, was devoid of trinkets or family photos. There were no cuddly toys or ornaments to lend the room a warm and friendly atmosphere. McNulty reckoned the girl’s only friends were the dog and Jenny Eynon. Since the dog had ended up at Bridgewater Photo Lab, he reckoned Suzanne had probably suffered the same fate as Jenny.

  The question was, when? McNulty had rescued the dog four days ago, so he reckoned that that was when Suzanne had been taken. Surely these people wouldn’t have tolerated the dog for more than a day. He didn’t understand why they’d kept the dog at all.

  He wasn’t looking for the answer to that, though. He was looking for the girl’s photographs. One thing that Suzanne probably did share with Jenny was a lack of imagination. McNulty found the photos in exactly the same place that he’d found Jenny’s. He slumped onto the bedside chair and took a deep breath.

  Suzanne’s pictures weren’t as clean and sharp as Jenny’s. They were creased and dog-eared and not entirely in focus. That didn’t mean you couldn’t tell what was in them. That much was very clear. Sex. Sucking and fucking and all variations thereof. There was plenty of naked flesh on display. Suzanne’s body had matured faster than Jenny’s, but it was still smooth and firm with no hint of sag or stretch. Her nipples were harder. Her pubic hair more evident. The things she was doing looked more natural but that was only because her body was more like a woman’s than a girl’s.

  The twinge of guilt burned again. No matter how much McNulty tried to repay his debt by doing good deeds, the girls of Northern X would always haunt him. It made him angrier at the men in the photos. The links between the girls had solidified. The photos showed Brad Semenoff having sex with both girls. The second AC was getting his clapper sucked in various positions. With both girls at once. Together or separately. There was some girl on girl, girl on man, girl and girl on man, and girl on man on girl.

  McNulty felt sick. The connections were firming up. Because Brad Semenoff wasn’t the only man
in the pictures. The hook-nosed motherfucker from the photo lab was in on the action, too. And in some there was a well-dressed man in the background, covering his face. Out of focus. Most shots had been taken in a seedy backroom, but there were also candid shots taken outside. The last photos would have looked like innocent holiday snaps if they hadn’t featured the same people—laughing and smiling as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Blue sky. Twinkling waters. But it was the solid wooden jetty that shocked McNulty. Boats moored at various slips along the wooden dock. A big boat blocking out the background near the ice machine and the fuel dock—at Marina Bay.

  Red and blue lights flashed through the windows. Kincaid had brought the cavalry. McNulty looked at the pictures one last time, trying to determine the specific dock on which they’d been taken. Car doors slammed outside. He shuffled the prints into a neat pile and put them into his pocket. He’d decide how much to tell later. For now, there was a missing girl and a dead man stuck in the mud.

  FORTY

  Kincaid was forced to take a backseat because this wasn’t his jurisdiction. That meant Armstrong was lead detective, and Armstrong already didn’t like McNulty. Add a body in the bay and another missing girl and you had a recipe for disaster. McNulty should have been more upfront or kept quiet. Instead he came right out and said it when Armstrong asked him.

  “So you killed the guy?”

  McNulty shook his head.

  “I pushed him. The mud killed him.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. If McNulty had shown Anderson the photographs right away, he might have got around it—but that was another misstep. They didn’t find the photos until after Armstrong had been arrested. Back at the Quincy PD. Being interviewed for murder.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re going to bring that up now?”

  McNulty was sitting opposite Armstrong in the interview room at police headquarters. Not the one in the Detectives Bureau, but the one with the screwed-down table and chairs in the custody suite. He wasn’t handcuffed to the metal ring of the table, but he had no doubt that he was in deep shit. Armstrong straightened his papers and lined a pen alongside the manila folder. The folder was now thicker than ever.