With a sinking feeling, I pointed the car downtown. Traffic was bad, but luckily for me all the bad mojo was going in the other direction as people tried to beat it out of town at the end of the work day. You'd think there was a bomb scare, the way the cars were jammed together on the highways out of the city. I zipped along against traffic, making it to Dupont Circle in twenty minutes, though it took twenty more to find parking. This wasn't something I was used to; for the last thirty years, I'd just parked on the sidewalk if I wanted.
I finally found a spot a couple blocks from the Circle and strolled up 19th Street, noting the businesses and restaurants that had already closed or changed hands in the short time since I'd quit the force. I realized with a shock that it was already a few months since I'd been here. The streets were packed with people, all hustling somewhere. Some had just knocked off work and were heading home for the night. Others were on their way out for a dinner or a drink with friends. People took long, purposeful strides, chatting as they walked, wrapped up in their personal dramas. I missed it. Despite the cold, there was energy in the air, a feeling of doing, a sense of expectation. The faces looked young and well-scrubbed. I felt old and crummy.
The flow of foot traffic took me northwards to the Circle. Clumps of people waited at the crosswalks, stamping their feet and leaning into a chill wind that swept down the street and pushed against all of us. I turned my collar up and jammed my hands in my pockets as I crossed the street, then paced the perimeter of the Circle, taking in the local color.
Die-hard chess players sat at the stone tables on the east side, blowing on their hands to keep their fingers warm between moves. A couple of budding documentarians from one of the local colleges interviewed homeless guys, offering sandwiches and coffee in return for answering questions. Non-profit case workers and admin assistants chatted or sipped from Starbucks cups, somehow managing to look chic and modern on wages hovering a smidge above poverty level.
I needed to kill some time, so I picked a bench near the top of the Circle, slouching down to keep warm. A girl Amanda's age sat at the opposite end, eating some French fries. She gave me the wary, oblique glance of a city-dweller, trying to check me out for potential danger and attraction simultaneously. After a pause, she went back to eating, indicating that I was apparently both harmless and sexless.
At five thirty, I got up and walked across to the east side, skirting the marble fountain in the center, with its eyeless sylphs forever looking to the sea, the stars, and the wind. Most of the chess players had packed it in, but one table was still going at it. A few of the guys, with their portable sets tucked under their arms, had formed a small crowd around the table, smoking and watching the two men at the last table duke it out. I took up a position behind one player, an old black guy with a white beard who looked like he'd learned chess when it had been invented. His moves were precise, economical. He never touched a piece until he was ready to move, considering the whole board before ever raising his hand.
The other had changed remarkably little since I'd last seen him. His black suit, blue shirt, and red tie said he was dressed to take on all the bureaucracy the city could throw at him, though the permanently down-turned mouth registered how much he liked having to do so. His face had the same ascetic, knife's edge features I remembered, though he'd acquired deep lines straight down each cheek and a permanent trench dug along his brow. He was whip thin, having fought off the paunchiness that seemed to be the legacy of all cops over twenty-five. Then again, Vice kept most of its cops simultaneously busy, nervous, and depressed, which might explain the lack of weight gain.
"He got you, Desmond," one of the players said to the old black guy.
"Shut up, man. He's trying to think," said another.
Desmond took a long look at the board as we all watched the clock next to them. I'm not a chess player, so I couldn't have told you who was winning or losing. I knew black was one side and white the other and they had to make their move before the alarm went off on the clock. A few spectators whispered, heads together, pointing out what they would've done or where one of the players had gone wrong. Finally, Desmond let out a long breath that steamed the air.
"Not this time, man," he said and moved a piece shaped like a salt shaker across the board. The crowd erupted with groans and hoots and a couple of laughs. I stared at the board, lost.
"Stalemate, Des?" his opponent said, the shade of a grin coming across his face. "I'm shocked."
"Gotta do what you gotta do," the other said. He didn't look happy about it.
They shook hands across the board and the one named Des started putting the pieces in a box as the crowd melted away, heading for home, or dinner, or a drink. His opponent got up from the table and walked alone towards the north end of the Circle, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulder hunched against the cold.
"Kransky," I called after him. "Jim."
He stopped in his tracks and turned around. He peered at me like he was looking through a fog, though I was standing fifteen feet away. The small grin he'd given his chess partner was gone and the severe frown was back in its place. He gazed at me for a long moment with the blank, noncommittal gaze of a lizard looking at a fly.
"Singer," he said, finally. "What the hell do you want?"
. . .
"Hi, Jim," I said, lamely. I hadn't given much thought to how I was going to approach this.
Kransky stared at me.
I took a step closer, stopped. "I figured I'd find you here. This is where you always went at five to chase the day away."
He got an impatient look on his face. "I know why I'm here. What do you want?"
"I need to talk. Have a sec?"
"No," he said and turned to walk away.
"Amanda Lane," I said.
He stopped and turned back again. "What?"
"Amanda Lane," I said. "Brenda Lane's daughter."
"I know who she is. What about her?"
"She's grown up, back in town, and in trouble," I said.
His face had all the warmth of one of the statues in the fountain. "Singer, it's cold, I'm on duty tonight, and--most important--I don't want to talk to you. You got something to say, I need to hear it. Now."
"It's complicated," I said. "I need a minute. That's all."
He stared at me, considering. We hadn't bumped into each other much over the years, despite both having careers in the MPDC. Having a couple thousand bodies on the force helped with that. It was probably a good thing, since we hadn't parted under the best terms. I could see him thinking those same things. He didn't owe me anything and had probably only stopped--and would only help me--out of curiosity. Whether that curiosity would win out over his feelings for me was a big gamble. I waited him out.
He jerked his head to one side. "Let's walk."
I fell into step beside him as we chased the loop out of the Circle and headed towards 18th Street. I was several inches taller than him, but we matched our pace, walking slowly, uncomfortable with each other and thinking carefully about what we wanted to say. The narrow sidewalk, crowded with outdoor seating, fences, and trees made it hard to maintain a safe distance.
Kransky broke the ice after half a block. "Alright. You came looking for me. What do you want?"
I ran a hand through my hair, composing my thoughts, then described my meeting with Amanda. I told him about her fears and what she'd told me about Wheeler's clandestine friendship: the flowers, the visits. I gave him my first impressions, which weren't good. Kransky was quiet during my monologue, only breaking the silence to swear once or twice and glower up the street. A couple walking towards us took a step into the street to get out of our way.
"You need to find Wheeler."
"Yep," I said. "Sooner rather than later."
"She should've called it in," he said. "And you should've bagged the flower."
"She'd already handled it, tossed it in her backpack. As for calling it in, what's she supposed to say? The guy acquitted of murdering her mom twelve
years ago might be back for her? Or maybe somebody likes leaving flowers at her door?"
"It'd still be a place to start," he said.
"I hear what you're saying, but I know how I would've answered the call and you do, too. You'd take her name and a number and wait for something to happen. Except that might be too late."
We walked another half block in silence. A stab of pain lanced its way through my abdomen and I winced. It didn't hurt that much, but I couldn't help but wonder. Gas? Or cancer? I put it in the back of my head to deal with later.
Kransky, deep in thought, hadn't noticed. "Why me?"
I stepped carefully over the broken remnants of a cement sidewalk slab, victim of the roots of a large, sidewalk-bound oak tree. "Because you've been mad about this for twelve years. Because you felt like we let this girl down when Wheeler walked out of that courtroom."
"Because you need my help," he said.
"That, too."
"Why don't you ask Dods?" he asked, talking about my last partner, Kransky's replacement after he left Homicide to get away from me.
"Dods is a great guy, but he doesn't have the motivation you or I do to see Wheeler put away. He might do it as a favor to me, but the Lane case was just a headline to him when it happened. For us, it's something we lived through."
"Dods is Homicide. I'm Vice. He'd be in a better position."
"Maybe. I'll ask if I have to, but I thought you'd want a piece of this."
Kransky put his head down, his chin almost touching his chest as he walked, then shuddered. "Wheeler should've never gotten off in the first place."
"I agree," I said. "But it's ancient history. We have to focus on what's happening now."
"You can't talk about the one without the other," he said. "We had that son-of-a-bitch nailed to the wall and he walked. If that hadn't happened, we wouldn't be talking now."
"I can't think about that."
"You'd better. If he's really after the girl, you better look in the mirror damn hard and ask yourself how he got off that time and how it's not going to happen again. He strolled right out of the courtroom and now he's back in her life like nothing ever happened."
"I was there, Jim," I said. "You don't have to remind me."
"So show some fucking remorse, then."
My jaw worked as I tried to keep my temper. "Don't tell me what I did or didn't feel. I wanted Wheeler as badly as you did. I wasn't exactly handing out cigars when he got off Scott free. You're not the only one who was invested in it."
"But you were the only one in charge of the case, Marty," he said, stopping and jabbing a finger in my chest. "The rest of us got to stand by and watch it go down the tubes. A good woman died, a girl got orphaned, and we got to watch Wheeler walk out with a smile on his face because you screwed up."
My temper flared and I resisted the urge to take a swing. In the time it took to walk a few city blocks, Kransky had managed to peel back the layers, exposing all of the anger and disgust and self-recrimination I'd buried over the last twelve years. It didn't matter that his accusations were blown out of proportion. I hadn't been working solo on the case, for Christ's sake; there was plenty of lapsed responsibility to go around, from the beat cops to the prosecutor. But blame and guilt don't get used up by sharing; we all have an inexhaustible supply in our emotional wells. The sense of unfairness and rage I'd felt the day of the trial boiled right back up from the depths where I'd buried it, almost scaring me with how close to the surface, how raw and immediate, it was. I pointed a finger at him.
"First, you can go to hell. I did everything I could to put Wheeler away and, yeah, it didn't happen. Sometimes that's the way it goes. It sucks and I hate it but you move on if you don't want to end up going crazy. Second, who the hell are you to lay the blame on me? You were there every step of the way, pal, and while I might've been the one in charge of the case, it was the prosecution that dropped the ball and you know it. Last, what's past is past. Amanda Lane came to me for help today. You can stay stuck in the nineties if you want to, but whatever happened then is going to have to stay there, because she needs my help now."
I turned and walked away, cursing. I'd have to go to Dods now, something I didn't want to do. He was in charge of Homicide and had a thousand things to take care of every day, none of them named Amanda Lane. He didn't need to be running searches and sifting through MPDC records for me or baby sitting someone who might or might not become a victim of a lunatic who might or might not be stalking her.
"Singer," Kransky shouted. I kept walking.
"Marty, goddamnit," he called, and I heard quick footsteps behind me. I turned to face him. He had a hand outstretched, as though to grab my arm and stop me, or offer it in help. I looked at him, not saying anything. He scowled, looked down the street, then put his hands back in his pockets as the wind whipped the coattails on his blazer. We stood that way for a half minute.
"Look," he said. "I'm mad as hell. Still. You'd think after twelve years it'd be gone and forgotten, but it's not. Wheeler's always been at the top of my list. We didn't nail him when we had the chance and it kills me. I blame you, I blame the system, I blame myself. I guess it's a lot easier to unload on you than it is to face the fact that we all screwed up."
I took a breath and willed my muscles to relax. "Amanda needs our help now, Jim."
He scowled some more, then nodded. He was a dedicated, hard-headed, angry cop and this was the closest thing to an apology I was going to get from him. I was still seething myself, but at least I could understand his anger. It was the same as mine, a fury that should've been directed at Michael Wheeler. But since Wheeler wasn't around, I'd been a good substitute.
I said, "Truce?"
He nodded. "Truce."
"Then let's get a beer. I'm freezing my ass off."
. . .
We pulled into the first place we could find, some Pan-Asian restaurant that played bad Japanese samurai movies on the walls and served drinks with names like Bloody Mao and For Goodness Sake. We took a booth by a window and ordered beers. The Shogun-styled dining room smelled of charred vegetables, soy sauce, fried food, all of which made my gorge rise. I clamped down on the feeling and concentrated on the task ahead.
Kransky took a pull from his beer, then set it down carefully on a red paper napkin. "First steps?"
I turned my pint glass in small circles. "Find him. Make him stop. Maybe even build a case that sticks this time. It won't be murder one, but maybe something we can slap him with."
"Harassment, stalking, intent to injure?"
"Something like that," I said.
"Weak."
I shrugged, admitting it. "It's not much, but whatever jail time we can squeeze him into would make me disproportionately happy."
"How about shot while resisting arrest?"
"One can only hope. But that's going to have be your call, if the time comes."
"You carrying?'
"Naturally."
"Registered?"
"Of course."
Kransky went silent for a moment, tracing the grain on the wood table. "You got a drop?"
I stopped spinning my glass. "Let's not go there."
Kransky shrugged. "So what happens when you find him?"
"I don't know," I said. "I know what we both want to do, but I'm not ready to serve twenty to life for a minute's satisfaction. That'd be too much irony for me. He doesn't serve a day in jail and I die in prison? No, I have to know where he is, what his situation is first. Then we can talk about how to move on it."
"How's that going to happen?"
"You. I don't have access now. To anything. If I dig something up, I can't chase it down, can't follow it until I get something out of it."
"You want me to dig up anyone from that posse he always had around him?"
"Who?" I asked. "Lawrence Ferrin? Delaney?"
He nodded. "Those assholes always stuck together. Ferrin especially, thinking he was the cat's ass because his old man would get him out of a bin
d if he needed it."
I shrugged. "If you don't turn something up on Wheeler, sure. It would tickle me to no end to find out that we could nail Ferrin or Delaney on something related to Wheeler. ‘Til then, though, make Wheeler number one."
We were quiet for a minute. My beer sat, untouched. Kransky took another sip of his, staring outside. All around us, the place clattered and banged with the delivery of sushi boards and rice dishes.
"You know," he said slowly, "After the trial, I made it a hobby to keep track of him."
I didn't say anything.
"I was ready to bust him on anything. Littering, jaywalking, whatever it took to reel him in. I was…a little out of my head. I wanted to make his life hell. If I'd found him, I was ready to plant something on him. Drugs, a gun, anything to put him away. I've never done that in my life."
"And?"
"A month or two after the trial, he was gone. I checked his plates, ran his record, but he just floated away."
"When's the last time you checked?"
"Years," he admitted.
"So, nothing recent? Autotrack? LexisNexis?"
He shook his head. "Nothing in the modern age."
"So, it's been a while, but Wheeler didn't just cease to exist. Maybe something's been digitized since the last time you checked. Run the records again. If you dig something up, I can chase down the leads. And keep Amanda safe."
"I can do that. What are you going to do while I look around?"
"Something I don't want to do," I said with a sour look.
His eyebrows shot upward. "Atwater?"
"She might know something. Hell, maybe they've stayed in touch this whole time. Crooks have been known to fall in love with their defense attorneys for getting them off. Maybe all I have to do is peek in her bedroom window."
He watched the kooky samurai movie for a second. I could sense a wave of discomfort coming from him. "I heard about the…"
A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) Page 5
