Her eyelids flipped up and down like window shades.
"Mrs. O'Day said you were there for hours. How did it feel, Cassy, watching Jane on the couch? While you carefully searched her place for any hard evidence Coyne might have stashed. Her body would have been closing down as the powder seeped into her bloodstream. Could you hear her breathing falter? Did she make any noises—subconscious, vulnerable ones? Did you maybe, even just once, notice the photo on the dresser of you and her together?"
"You finished?"
"I am. But I'm afraid Captain Hogueira will be keeping you awhile."
"Hogueira?"
"Uh—huh. I spoke to him earlier about coming by, since what I had was a little thin for the state police. His car's parked in the garage next to yours."
A voice from the dining room level said, "That's my car, Cuddy."
I looked up at Hagan.
Rendall said, "He knows, Neil."
Hagan pointed a snub-nosed revolver at my chest from fifteen feet away. "All of it?"
Liz sounded resigned. "Enough."
My best hope was to move as Hagan came down the stairs to the living room level, but cops lead their targets and count their bullets. At that distance, it wasn't enough of a hope, so I stayed where I was as he joined us.
"Another body'll be tough to explain, Hagan, even for a police captain."
Rendall said, "Neil won't have to explain it, Cuddy. He shoots you, we take you out in the runabout a few miles, and the ocean does the rest."
"And Hogueira?"
"You told him you were coming here? I never saw you arrive.
Something danced behind Hagan's eyes. I thought about him in his office, describing the Meller incident.
I took a chance. "Neil doesn't seem to like your idea, Cassy."
She glanced up at him and saw it, too. "So I shoot you, John. Up close and personal, after you tried to assault me. Powder burns on your shirt, my blouse ripped, scrapings of your skin under my nails."
I forced a laugh. "They'll never buy it. "
"I look like your dead wife, right? Enough to stop you in your tracks that first day at the Beacon. People who knew her see me, they'll buy it."
"The woman I'm seeing now. She's an assistant DA in Suffolk."
Hagan said, "Jesus."
I said, "She won't buy it."
"We'll take that chance. Give me the gun, Neil"
Hagan didn't move. I waited till Liz got impatient and turned toward him. I pushed backward off the floor hard with both feet, toppling over and tumbling against a table before I got oriented and lunged for the rear stairs.
Rendall screamed, "Shoot him! Shoot him, you idiot!"
I heard a scuffle as I climbed the stairs on all fours, then two shots. The first splintered wood over my head. The second smacked me in the right heel, sending me sprawling at the top step. A third bullet snuffed out a light fixture at the doorway as I heaved myself through it and onto her screened porch deckside. Hearing someone rushing up the steps behind me, I tried to use the right foot. Numb, it wouldn't support my weight, and in the near dark, I couldn't tell if I was badly hurt. I tried it anyway, crashing through a screened panel. Grabbing to break my fall, I gripped and pulled free the spear gun assembly from the gangway next to the porch.
Rolling onto my back, I nocked both slings into the notches on the metal shaft, extending just as Liz came onto the porch. She raised a hand as a shield against the setting sun and fired, the crack of the shot jolting me into pulling the trigger on the spear gun. I felt her slug thump into the bulwark behind me, but I could see where the shaft went.
Gurgling and bellowing, Liz fell to the deck and flailed wildly, the bolt through her throat, the blood cascading between her splayed fingers and onto her blouse. Hagan filled the hatchway, then dropped to his knees, helpless beside her. She was wrenching at the bolt now, the pain keeping her from pulling it free. Liz scrabbled to him, clenching the material of his pants and jacket as she tried, once and unsuccessfully, to climb up off the deck. Then she shuddered twice, and the only sound wast Hagan sobbing and a car approaching, brakes squeaking on the dock below.
I edged up so I could look down on Hogueira's round face. Manos and two other officers I'd never seen before elevated their weapons to cover me.
I said, "You're a little late."
Hogueira said, "Traffic was terrible."
The two new officers clambered up the gangplank and around the gates while Manos kept his gun on me.
I said, "It couldn't be that having me dead made your case against Hagan stronger, could it?"
Hogueira pursed his lips and shrugged.
23
The bullet that hit my foot put me more in need of a cobbler than a surgeon. Hogueira kept me at the station only a couple of hours. He said he thought Cardwell and the DA could wait until morning so long as I gave him my word I wouldn't leave the city. He even let me use his office telephone to make two calls: Nancy to assure her I was okay and Emil Jones to confirm a room at the Crestview
It was about 10:45 P.M. when a cruiser took me back to my Prelude on The Quay.
* * *
He seemed surprised to see me. Not the "My God, you're alive!" look. No, more the "Gee, I didn't know you were still in town" look. We went into the living room, where he used the remote to turn off the television.
I said, "Mark doing paperwork tonight?"
"I believe so."
"And partner Cronan home sick again?"
A broad grin. "Relapse, poor guy. "
"I'd tell you what happened tonight, but I'm sure you already know more about it than I do."
Schonstein resettled himself in the wheelchair, neither hand holding the Browning. "Son, I don't know what you're jabbering about."
"How about we just cut the shit and talk it out, okay? I'm not wearing a wire, and my guess is Hogueira is happy to have half a loaf in Hagan without chasing after you. So why not tell the truth, huh?"
"The truth. Why the truth?"
"Change of pace for you. I spent a lot of time this afternoon putting the pieces together and coming up with Liz Rendall, or Cassy Griffin, take your pick, and your protégé Neil Hagan. And it all worked out, except for one thing."
"Oh, and what was that?"
"Well, Hagan couldn't have gotten close enough to Jane Rust to poison her, because she didn't trust him. She practically accused him of murder in my office the afternoon of the day she died. So that made Liz the one who killed Jane."
"Never would have thought it. "
"Liz might have had the strength to outwrestle a drunken Coyne and stab him, but there's no way she could have fooled a derelict who witnessed it into thinking she was a 'biggish dude. On the other hand, the killer crawled over to Coyne, then after the tussle, got up with a knife sticking out of his leg and limped away."
"And you think that was Neil."
"No. I thought that was Neil. The problem is that in his office last week, I brought up the Meller boy's death. Hagan was genuinely upset about it, even after all these years. What happened on the boat tonight convinced me. Hagan's paralyzed about killing. After accidentally ending Meller's life, Hagan can't intentionally take another, even somebody like me who really threatens him."
He rocked his head back and forth once. "That's very good, son. I told you once I'd have to keep my eye on you. And you're proving me right. Co ahead, finish it. "
I felt an unsavory sensation of pleasure, as though I really were presenting all this to get Schonstein's professional approval. My stomach turned over. "If Hagan couldn't kill me even though I threatened him, I can't see him killing Coyne. Or searching Gail Fearey's house that night. Or trying to run me down on a bridge. Or drowning a derelict in a rain puddle."
"That last one, the bum, now that could have been an accident, you know. " He rubbed his palms down his thighs, hips to knees. "Anyway, you sure can't be thinking I did those things?"
"Because of your legs?"
"That's right."
&n
bsp; "Which is the higher retirement, regular or disability?"
Schonsy grinned.
"You took a brick in the face for your partner a long time ago. Why not a fall down some stairs for a higher pension?"
"Don't matter why I took the fall. Because of the fall, I couldn't very well do the things you mentioned."
"Oh, I'm sure you were injured. Just not as badly as some medico certified to the retirement board. You have something on the doctor? Even on the board members?"
"It's your story. You tell it."
"Disability's not a bad way of life. Just have to restrict yourself here and there around town. Take a vacation once in a while, kick up your heels at a safe distance. Plus it gives you opportunity without suspicion."
"Disability's a hard thing to live with, son. But a harder thing to take away. Especially without proof. And you haven't got any. "
"I know. "
"Then what do you think you're doing here? Scaring me into confessing to something I didn't do?"
"No. Just letting you know that I know. The guy who killed Coyne supposedly got up with a knife in his leg. People don't do that, the pain of the blade grating and tearing would be unbearable. But a man who wanted to cover an already existing limp could rig something. Especially a man who used to do magic tricks for kids."
"They got trick knives like that in the catalogs. Anybody could order one through the mails."
"The man who tried to run me down was an experienced driver, a professional at handling a high-speed car. Like a former cop.
"The staties get to do most of those car chases. Not us poor townies."
"The man who drowned Vip could have gotten a call from Liz, telling him I was going to meet Vip behind Bun's. That man also might know that the authorities rarely think deaths from different causes are related. Knifing, poisoning, driving, drowning, all different."
"You thinking about trying one of those 'causes' on me?"
Schonstein had managed to slip his hand under the blanket. I said, "No. No, I'd like to, but I'd never get away with it."
Schonsy sighed amiably. "Alright. What's your angle?"
"No angle. You've got a lot of juice in this town. Some of it got drained off tonight, but not so much that Hogueira's going to try to buck you, especially if Hagan just clams up."
"Neil won't say a word."
"Assume he doesn't. That means you just might have enough juice left to think about coming after me. Formally, because I killed Liz Rendall tonight, and a DA might try to make it look like more than self-defense. Or informally, like an apparently overeager mugger a month or two from now. I'm just letting you know that anything like that happens, and you and I go toe to toe. Even if you beat me, you won't come away with enough to keep Hogueira and the other wolves off you afterward."
He watched me for a solid thirty seconds. "Done."
"I wasn't offering a deal."
"Sure you were, son. And one that makes sense for both of us. Drink?"
Standing, I said no, and moved to the door.
Behind me, Schonstein said, "You know the trouble with Neil? You're right about him. He didn't have the balls to kill anybody after the Meller thing."
My hand on the knob, I said, "And you consider that a weakness, don't you?"
"Yeah, son, I do. What's eating you, though, is that you think the same thing. A flaw you know you don't share. Yes, I could have taken you a long way, Cuddy. All the way to the top."
I left before he told me more things I didn't want to hear.
* * *
The light was on in the office. I parked the car in the space for Unit 18 and walked back.
I opened and closed the door, but nobody was behind the desk. "Emil?"
His head snaked around the corner. "Sorry. Didn't hear you come in. Got the Sox on the tube. They're in Oakland, and it just started. Wanna watch?"
"I'm pretty beat. Can I just have a key?"
Iones said, "You look like hell."
He was probably right there.
"John Cuddy, you eaten anything tonight?"
I hadn't. "Don't go to any trouble."
"No trouble at all. Got some frosties in the fridge, and a couple of Sal's Depth Charge subs in the oven. Picked 'em up just after you called for the room."
I went in and sat down on and into an easy chair. It felt as though I was never getting up again.
Emil uncapped two Killian's and handed one to me. "I owe you for introducing me to these."
He adjusted the TV so that it was equally viewable from both chairs. Sinking into his, Jones said, "So, how was your day?"
Yesterday's News - Jeremiah Healy Page 19
