That was probably the hardest part of retirement for Sully: working without backup. No safety net, no camaraderie. His employees at the coffee shop, they weren’t colleagues; just a staff of college students who called in sick when they had finals and didn’t have a clue how to scrub a toilet. Or maybe they knew how, but just didn’t care to do it.
Kids today. They wanted the good stuff without getting their hands dirty, his own kids included. Sometimes he wondered if his sons would be gainfully employed if he hadn’t gotten them on track to take the police exam years ago.
At last, Mrs. Jadoon was free, and he moved up to the bulletproof glass with a smile. “How are you, Mrs. Jadoon?”
“I’m very fine, thank you.” A smile graced her round face. Bahaar Jadoon, who’d told Sully she was from Pakistan, was a round woman with a very round face. She seemed to enjoy sparkly things, was always adorned with some kind of bangle earrings, pin, or scarf. “Just the deposit for you today?”
“I’d also appreciate it if you’d run these coins through your machine.”
“No problem, Mr. Sully.” She took the coin bag and went over to the machine.
Sully turned away from the tellers’ glass and eyed the door again. Nothing unusual, though the yelp of a police siren sounded in the distance. He listened a moment, timing it. They were moving fast, and the lights and sirens blared a few seconds as the patrol unit passed. Odd, but it seemed to be going toward the station house.
Mrs. Jadoon returned to the window and slid the deposit ticket under the glass. “Do you want the coins in cash, or deposited to your account?” she asked as two other police cruisers whipped by, lights blinking in the glass doors for a moment.
“Wow. Sounds like your buddies need you,” Mrs. Jadoon said.
“Naw ... I’m an old retired guy now,” Sully said, though he was curious to poke his head out the door and check it out. He asked her to deposit the total from the change, and she made quick work of it.
“Thank you, Mrs. Jadoon. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You have a very good day, sir.”
He moved toward the door, fighting the urge to break into a run. Sixty-nine years old, and he could still do it. He could run ten blocks and still hold a conversation. Maybe it was pathetic that he still felt the urge to be in the thick of it, negotiating with people and making split-second decisions.
“Take your time, old man,” he muttered to himself as he swung out the door. Nothing worse than an old-timer trying to recapture a hit of adrenaline from the old days.
Out on Roosevelt Avenue, the usual flow of traffic and pedestrians clogged the streets and sidewalks. Sully headed back to the shop, pausing to avoid a collision with a tottering young black man in another world. The guy was mumbling something and hugging himself.
Drunk, and it wasn’t even noon yet.
“Better get some help, pal,” Sully muttered as the guy hobbled down toward the subway station. It was a shame women and children had to put up with derelicts like that.
An ambulance roared onto the street. Sully glanced over as the ambulance shrieked to a stop, stuck behind cars that had nowhere to go. Immediately he fell into police mode and tapped on the glass to get one of the drivers’ attention.
“Pull onto the lip of the curb,” Sully shouted, motioning the cars off the street.
The driver cut the wheel and got out of the way, and the cars behind him followed. The ambulance edged ahead, then took off, finding its way down the center line.
All the more intrigued now, Sully continued up the street and rounded the corner at Roosevelt and Union. The action on the west side of the street put his senses on alert with that reflexive feeling cops had walking into possible danger.
The street between Sully’s Cup and the station house was blocked completely with a fire truck, ambulances, and patrol cars swung in at crazy angles. Cops were everywhere; some without jackets had obviously spilled out of the precinct. Had there been an incident in the precinct that prompted an evacuation? From the way everyone swarmed it looked like they were using his coffee shop as a command center.
As he picked up the pace to jog the last block, he noticed that one of his windows was missing. Shit. Someone had hit Sully’s. Some amateur idiot. He searched the crowd for Padama, their barista. He’d always trained his employees to give up the cash. “Money can be replaced,” he liked to say. “You, you’re one of a kind.”
With each lunging step the details gained focus and the scene looked worse. Much worse.
Tinted glass from the broken shopwindow littered the sidewalk on one side of the store. It looked to Sully like gunfire had blown it out. Someone was cordoning that off with crime scene tape.
On the other side, cops were gathering, some with customers.
A stretcher was poking out the door. Damn, somebody was hurt ... a big guy ... and from the way they were working on him, an EMT chasing along, forcing air in through the mask.
Sully grabbed the first cop he came to, a young guy by the name of VanDyke. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked.
VanDyke glared at him, and seemed about to order him away when he recognized Sully. “Some guy went crazy with a gun is all I know. Ah ... I’m sorry. Here. Talk to the boss.” He pointed to a lieutenant who was talking into a radio.
But Sully didn’t want to talk to a boss. He’d been violated. He had a right to access.
He stopped at the door, tapped a cop, and pointed to the stretcher that was being lifted into the ambulance. “Did you ID that victim, officer?” Sully asked.
“That’s Sean Walters, one of the guys in our squad.” The cop’s voice was broken, his face pale.
And suddenly Sully got it. “One of us.”
The cop nodded as images of Sean Walters flashed through Sully’s head. Big guy, almost as tall as Sully. Liked to laugh. Liked his cocktails. The EMTs had been working on him. Sully set his jaw, hoping that Walters would pull through.
Inside the shop, a multitude of observations hit him in a flash. A body. A conscious victim. Blood. EMTs.
The body to his right was covered. From the beefy hand that stuck out, he noted it was a man. Sully would bet he’d been sitting on a bar stool. A pool of blood crept out from under the blanket near the wrappers and trash from the EMT team who had tried to save him. Nearby was another blood smear. Probably from Walters.
In the center of the shop, medical personnel were talking with one of the victims, who was answering. That was a better sign.
The customers had been cleared out, and there were just two other uniforms in here. Keep traffic down to preserve the crime scene; Sully knew procedure, but it seemed bizarre in his own coffee shop. His second home.
A man lay dead on the floor, here. He wanted to yell at somebody to do something, but he had befriended the harsh reality long ago. No one could help this guy now.
You do what you can. Help the living.
Sully moved toward the EMTs gathered around the victim. A girl. In police uniform.
His heartbeat was now a prevalent noise in his chest as he noted her face, felt the sting of recognition.
“Indigo Blue,” he said, keeping calm in his voice.
Her eyes caught him, then snapped with pain. “Sully! Oh, Sully, I’m so sorry.”
“Easy, darling.” He leaned over her and took her hand. “You just take it easy now.”
“I didn’t see it coming.” Tears rolled from her eyes. “None of us did, until it was too late. And now I can’t feel my legs.” Her lips quivered from shock. “Can’t feel my legs and ... and I can’t stop shaking. Is Brendan okay?”
Brendan ... Of course, he would have been with Indigo.
Sully straightened and turned back to the body, sure that it wasn’t his son. Brendan’s hands were thinner, his fingers long.
“Sully!” Ed Conklin hissed. Suddenly, the sergeant was in his face. “You’re walking all over the crime scene. Holy shit.” He turned to the cop guarding the door. “VanDyke! Didn’t I say no
one gets in here?”
“Ed, where’s my son?” Sully kept his voice steady. Calm and in control. “Where’s Brendan?”
The Adam’s apple on Ed’s throat twitched as he swallowed.
From that pause, Sully knew it was over. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. “Where is he? I want to see him.”
Conklin shook his head. “You don’t. It’d be better to ID him later at the morgue.”
“I want to see my son.”
“Okay, Sully.” The sergeant touched Sully’s shoulder. “Let’s stand back, give them room to get Indigo to the hospital.”
The attendants had strapped her to a backboard. As they wheeled her out, she asked if she was going to the same hospital as Brendan.
“You hang in there, Indigo,” Sully called after her. He was tempted to tell her that her partner was gone, but it was too much for her now. Too much until she was out of the woods herself.
Sully turned away from the exiting medical team, his calm fraying from the eerie landscape of his shop. Blood lining the grout of the tiles. An abandoned woman’s shoe. Someone’s laptop, still open. “How’d it happen, Ed? What happened here?”
“Guy standing in line for coffee opens fire on the cops in the place. Brendan was just coming out of the john. Officer Hilson was here, by the sugar and whatnot. Walters and Puchinko were on stools over by the window there. Shooter got them first, close range from behind. They never had a chance.”
“Puchinko?” So that was Kevin over there, bleeding out on the tiles. The poor guy had just stood in his dining room last night. He paused, letting the new brand itself on his brain. Sully realized he had reached his threshold and now any new source of grief or pain encoded itself as hard information, like the caption on a complaint report. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
“Look, you want to step outside?” Ed suggested.
“I need to see my son.” Sully went around the main counter, a kidney-shaped granite creation that had cost him a small fortune, and braced himself. He dreaded the walk down the short corridor to the restrooms but he didn’t need to go that far. The body was on the floor to the right of the counter.
His youngest son.
Ed accompanied him as he kneeled beside Brendan’s body and lifted the blanket. His eyes were closed, as if he were asleep.
How many times had he heard that on jobs? He’d have to sit with a body, wait for the coroner to come, and some family member would remark: “He looks like he’s sleeping.” And he’d always wanted to point out that there was a big difference between death and sleep, and that corpse was dead.
But now he understood. It wasn’t so much sleep we desired for our loved ones, but peace. A lasting peace.
The small bullet wound in his neck didn’t seem to match the volume of blood on the floor.
“Such a small wound,” Sully said. “Honestly, it looks like something a person could survive.”
“But the exit wound’s always bigger. The bullet must have ricocheted. Went out through his skull.”
And took off a chunk on its way out. Sully winced, then reined himself in. He pressed a palm to his son’s smooth forehead, just as he did when checking for fever when Brendan was a kid.
The skin was cold, but Sully used his thumb to make the sign of the cross between his son’s brows.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, now and at the hour of our death, amen.”
Moving carefully so that he wouldn’t disturb the scene, Sully pulled back the blanket. Brendan’s gun was holstered, not even unlocked. “He didn’t even reach for his gun. He didn’t see it coming.”
“None of them did.”
Sully let the blanket drop just below Brendan’s chin and leaned back on his haunches. He didn’t want to leave his son here; it felt wrong, but he understood that a body was part of the investigation. The techs would photograph and videotape, map and measure before Brendan was allowed to leave.
Leave, but never go home again. Oh, dear Lord, what would those two little girls do without their father?
Gently, he let the blanket drop over his son’s head. There was nothing to be done for Brendan on this earth, God rest his soul.
“I want my priest here. Father Tillman. He’ll give Brendan last rites.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Kevin, too.”
Ed winced, scratching his head. “I don’t know, Sully. The bosses won’t like that.”
“He’ll be fast.” He rose and pulled out his cell phone. “And Peg ...” He cupped the phone and pressed it to his chin, suddenly disoriented. What to do first?
There was no procedure for losing your son this way.
He took a breath as he flipped open the cell and thought of the investigation.
“Ed. You got the shooter?”
Ed frowned. “He walked out of here. Exchanged a few words with Officer Hilson, and she gave us a pedigree. Black male, late twenties or thirties. Limping and holding his arm. Sounds like something got to him, maybe a ricochet on these tiles.”
“I might have seen him.” Sully squinted. “The guy I saw was hurting. He headed toward the subway entrance on Roosevelt and Main, but didn’t go down the stairs. He seemed like a local, but I’ve never seen him around before.”
“We’ve got cars out looking, and bulletins going out to all the area hospitals.”
Sully nodded as he located the priest’s name in his contacts. Getting Father Tillman here was his first priority now. After that, his overwrought brain would have to snap out of it.
Calm and in control.
He was playing the role okay, but he’d lost track of the point.
Chapter 17
Bernie yawned as she and Keesh waited for the subway doors to open at Main Street Flushing. They had gotten seats together back at the Grand Central Stop; it was one of the perks of working the night shift. Bernie had fallen asleep dreaming of Keesh, thinking of how comfortable his shoulder was, and of how his new girlfriend would not appreciate this attribute the way she had.
Keesh had probably dozed off, too, as they now climbed the stairs like zombies, dazed and determined to move ahead by forcing one foot in front of another. Bernie had her cell phone in hand, ready to fire. In her mind, Bernie was already on her bus texting Amy.
Did you know Keesh is seeing someone?
But the chaos on Roosevelt Avenue slapped them awake as they emerged from the stairwell to a street where cops were directing people to bus detours and television news teams hurried up the block, as if chasing a celebrity. The traffic light at the intersection of Main and Roosevelt was set to flash red, and cops were in the street moving traffic.
“What the hell?” Keesh scraped his hair back, pausing at the top of the stairs.
Immediately Bernie thought back to 9-11, that beautiful September day when New Yorkers had thought the world was ending. Of course, it could be nothing. Sometimes the city closed streets for a parade or demonstration.
Tucking her phone away, she went straight to a cop at the center of a crosswalk, where he was holding back traffic for pedestrians. “Officer, what’s going on?”
He looked her over, as if testing her reliability. “There was a shooting up on Union. All this traffic has been diverted from there.”
She looked at Keesh. “That’s where the coffee shop is.”
“I’ll go with you,” Keesh said as they both retreated from the crosswalk and hurried up the street.
As soon as they turned the corner, Bernie saw the cluster of police vehicles and ambulances parked haphazardly outside Sully’s Cup.
Without thinking Bernie broke into a run. She pressed through the crowd and skirted around a reporter setting up for a live broadcast. She ran until she reached the yellow crime scene tape, saw the gaping hole in the side of the shop where glass had once been.
Her heart pounded at the sight of it, the wound in her father’s shop, the shards of tinted glass littering the ground like a trashy sidewalk mosaic.
Something terrible had happened. A bomb ... or a robbery.
She ducked under the tape and pressed forward, looking at the cops to find someone she knew.
“Ma’am.” A uniform rushed over to stop her. “You can’t be here.”
“I have to find my father. Sully, the owner.” She spoke quickly, not even taking time to look at his face. She had to find her father.
“We’re with the DA’s office,” Keesh said from behind her. She was vaguely aware of Keesh showing the cop his ID as she moved away.
The door was totally blocked by police personnel, but she went to the gaping windows, her boots crunching over the glass as she crept closer. The tumbled café under siege by crime techs was stained by blood; three massive spots gleamed like crimson paint.
And a body.
She gaped at the lump of human form under a blanket. “Oh, no!” All the air hissed from her body as the dark reality hit her.
And then a hand clamped on her shoulder and she looked up at her father’s dear, pale face.
He was alive.
“Oh, Daddy! Oh, my God!” She fell into his arms, sobbing. “What happened? I couldn’t find you, but I saw the blown-out window and all the blood and the body.”
He hugged her tight.
“Bernadette ...” His voice was thin, almost hoarse, and he used her formal name, as if calling on the saint she had been named after to perform a miracle.
She leaned back and looked up at him, frightened by the hollow look in his eyes, the gray mask that contorted his face.
Something had rocked his world.
“Dad, what happened?”
He bit his lips together, then let out a sob, the sort of noise a child would make when he thinks his life is coming to an end.
Thinking back on it later, Bernie understood why parents did not want their children to see them cry. It wasn’t so much a matter of holding back true feelings as wanting to save a child from a wider dimension of pain. The burden was too great to bear.
Chapter 18
Sarah rode the brakes as the car approached the intersection of Bell and Forty-eighth, hoping for a parking spot on the same block as the pharmacy. She planned to park close, run in and pick up her prescription, then run out and get to work. She cruised by slowly, but there wasn’t a spot to be had.
The Daughter She Used To Be Page 9
