Irish Car Bomb

by Steven Henry

  “What?”

  “I think he likes me.”

  “A good cop can’t get in bed with the Mob,” Webb said dryly.

  Erin bristled. “That wasn’t what I meant, and you damn well know it. Sir.”

  “If he likes the way you look, you can use that to your advantage,” he said. “But keep your head in the game.”

  “I never said he liked how I looked,” she said in a low, tight voice. “I said he liked me.”

  “Whatever,” Webb said. “Look, it’s getting late. Touch base with Neshenko, then head home. This should keep overnight.”

  Erin wanted to be off the phone. She didn’t like the implication that she might be open to Carlyle’s manipulation. But a thought suddenly hit her. “Unless whoever was trying to kill Mrs. O’Connell makes another try.”

  “Damn,” Webb said. “If she was targeted in order to threaten her husband, that’s off the table.” He sighed. “But I suppose we can’t take the chance. I’ll have Patrol send a car to babysit her. That should keep a lid on things till morning.”

  “If you say so, sir. We’ll pick this up tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Good work, O’Reilly,” Webb said. “You’re shaping up into a decent detective.”

  She bit back a sarcastic retort and signed off. Then she walked to the car, where her two partners, old and new, were waiting for her. Rolf was excited to see her. Vic just looked bored.

  “He our guy?” Vic asked as she got in.

  “Nope,” Erin said.

  “Damn.” Vic shrugged and eased his seat back. He didn’t ask anything else and Erin, her thoughts busy replaying the conversation with Carlyle, didn’t offer.

  Chapter 10

  Erin expected to have trouble sleeping. She hardly tasted her dinner, and almost completely zoned out her TV while thinking about the case, but she was more tired than she realized. The next thing she knew after climbing into bed, her alarm was buzzing. Rolf knew the sound well. By the time she sat up he was already on his feet, tongue hanging out, tail wagging.

  She felt refreshed and ready to take on the case. Things were starting to shake loose, she could feel it. She hurried through her morning routine, still feeling strange to be working the daytime shift, and headed for the subway. She didn’t have permission yet to take the Charger home with her; some bullshit paperwork needed to be filled out, and she hadn’t had time to work through it.

  Jones was already in the office, tapping away at her computer. “Morning,” she said, pointing to the coffee machine.

  Erin shook her head. “I had a cup at home.”

  “Probably better that way,” Jones said, taking a sip from her own cup and grimacing. “You know, we keep giving this to the scumbags we interrogate, we’re gonna get sued by the ACLU.”

  “Any of the others here yet?” Erin asked, sliding into her chair. Rolf flopped down beside her desk and planted his face between his paws.

  “Nah,” Jones said. “Vic usually turns up a couple minutes late, and the Lieutenant’s a little sluggish before he gets his coffee in him.”

  “What about the Captain?”

  “He’s meeting with the Chief uptown,” Jones said. “Progress report on the bombing.”

  “Really?” Erin wasn’t happy to hear that. “Is there a lot of pressure coming down the line?”

  Jones shrugged. “Always. But that’s what the Captain’s there for. He’s a firewall to protect us from the political guys.”

  “I’d rather be working cases,” Erin said.

  “So would he,” Jones laughed. “Anyway, what’ve you got? You and Vic get anything on Carlyle?”

  “Not exactly,” Erin said. She explained her conversation with the Irishman. Jones listened carefully, jotting down notes.

  “Y’know, gang cases are a lot like working Internal Affairs,” Jones said.

  “How’s that?”

  “You can’t break them just on the physical evidence,” Jones explained. “There’s two things that bring down mob operations. There’s the money trail, and there’s the human factor. You want to find someone who’s weak and then flip him.”

  “Okay,” Erin said. “But I get the feeling O’Connell was the weakest link in the O’Malleys, and he’s our victim. Webb cracked open Fergus’s two goons yesterday, but it didn’t do us much good. I don’t think they really know anything.”

  “So we follow the money,” Jones said.

  “What money?”

  “Exactly.” Jones went to the whiteboard and circled Cynthia O’Connell’s name. “Let’s suppose your informant is right.” She wrote a question mark next to Cynthia and the word “victim” in front of it.

  “Who wants her dead?” Erin wondered.

  “Wrong question,” Jones said. “If mob guys killed everyone they wanted dead, we’d be scooping up bodies by the truckload every Monday morning. It’s not a matter of wanting. The question is, what’s the payoff?”

  “She didn’t have money,” Erin said. “Remember the apartment? They’d had to move out of their bigger place. It was packed with all sorts of random crap.”

  “Insurance,” Jones said.

  Erin nodded. “But didn’t you look at insurance already?”

  Jones scoffed. “I looked at William, since he was the one who’d gotten blown up. He had a little policy, twenty grand. Pocket change. It’d cover the funeral if the wife did it on the cheap.”

  “You think she took him out anyway?” Erin said. “It was pretty obvious she hated him.”

  “Maybe,” Jones said. “But maybe…” She trailed off.

  They looked at each other. The same thought hit both of them at once.

  “Holy shit,” Erin said.

  Jones nodded. “I’m not sure this is a murder investigation anymore,” she said.

  “Nope,” Erin said. “I think maybe we’ve got a really clumsy accidental suicide.”

  They couldn’t help smiling at the dark humor of it. When Webb came up the stairs, looking bleary, they were still smiling. “What’d I miss?” he asked, taking in their amusement.

  “I think we’ve got our bomber,” Erin said.

  “And there’s even better news,” Jones snickered. “It was a one-time thing. He’s definitely not going to set off any more bombs.”

  Webb looked back and forth between them. “You solved the case in the first…” he glanced at the clock, “…ten minutes of the shift?”

  “Not completely,” Erin said. “We can’t prove it yet, and we might be wrong.” She went to the whiteboard beside Jones, took the marker from her, and scrawled “Suspect” under “Victim” beneath William O’Connell’s picture.

  Vic arrived only a few seconds behind his commanding officer. All four of them stared at the whiteboard for thirty seconds or so.

  “It fits,” Vic said at last. “Maybe.”

  “We’ll have to ask Skip,” Erin said. “But I’ll bet the scene would look about the same if O’Connell died setting a bomb as if he died trying to disarm it.”

  “And we need to check the wife’s finances,” Jones said. “I’m on it.” She swung her chair around and went to work at her computer.

  Webb snapped his fingers. “Okay, great,” he said. “O’Reilly, you should talk to Mrs. O’Connell. You connected with her better than the rest of us when we were there. You good for that?”

  “Sure thing, sir.”

  “I’ll talk to the bomb squad,” Webb said. “I’ll get confirmation about the scene. Jesus, we should’ve seen this before. The toolbox, the mob connections… This is fantastic.”

  Only Vic didn’t seem keyed up. He was staring at the whiteboard, a scowl on his face.

  Erin shouldered up beside him. “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “It’s not enough,” he muttered.

  “What, you want to beat up some more Irish guys before we’re done?” she said.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he said absently. “Something doesn’t quite fly here.”

  “You think we’re
wrong?”

  Vic didn’t turn to look at her. He kept drilling holes in the board with his eyes. “No, I don’t,” he said. “But I think we’re missing something. Why a car bomb? There’s gotta be ways of offing his wife that wouldn’t attract so much attention. He had a gun, for God’s sake. He could’ve shot her right in the face.”

  “Neshenko,” Webb said. “If the guy was a criminal mastermind, d’you really think he would’ve blown himself apart with his own bomb? Come on. Nineteen times out of twenty, it really is this simple.”

  “Okay, I’ll go to see Mrs. O’Connell,” Erin said.

  “Call me when you’re done,” Webb said.

  “Yeah,” Jones said from behind her computer monitor. “And come straight home, young lady.”

  Vic snorted. “I’ll stay here, go over the files again.”

  “While you’re at it, draw up a search warrant,” Webb said. “We’ll need to go through the O’Connell residence again, look for bomb supplies.”

  “Don’t forget to call for backup if the lady throws down on you,” Jones added.

  “I’ve got my backup right here,” Erin said. “Rolf, komm!” The Shepherd sprang to his feet and trotted out of the office at her side.

  *

  When Erin buzzed the O’Connell apartment and identified herself, Cynthia paused so long that Erin thought she might have to head back to the precinct for that search warrant. But then the lobby door clicked open.

  Cynthia met her at the door to the apartment, but stood in the doorway, leaving Erin and Rolf in the hall. “Detective,” she said, “I really am quite busy at present, and I cannot imagine what you have to say that was not covered at our last encounter.”

  “Ma’am, I just have a few questions about the case,” Erin replied. “If I could come in for a few moments?”

  “Must you bring that horrid animal with you?”

  Rolf stared up at the woman with cool contempt.

  “Ma’am, he’s a well-trained police dog,” Erin said. “He didn’t damage anything the last time he was here. He’ll be right beside me the whole time.”

  Cynthia sighed. “Very well, if you must,” she said, stepping to one side.

  Erin was surprised to see how much the apartment had changed. At least half the clutter had been removed, and most of the rest stood in open packing boxes. “Are you in the process of moving, Mrs. O’Connell?” she asked.

  “No indeed,” Cynthia said. “I am simply divesting myself of unwanted encumbrances.”

  Erin blinked. “I see.”

  “These useless bric-a-brac belonged to William,” Cynthia explained. “They have neither sentimental nor aesthetic value. However, they have some monetary worth, and shall serve to defray the expenses brought upon me by his passing.”

  “Fair enough,” Erin said.

  “Now that we have sufficient room, I can offer you a seat,” Cynthia said. “Please.”

  “Rolf, sitz,” Erin commanded as she sat at one end of the living-room couch. Rolf took up his place beside the arm of the couch.

  “Now then,” Cynthia said, seating herself on a straight-backed hardwood chair and clasping her hands in her lap. “What were your questions?”

  “I understand there were some economic difficulties you and William were experiencing,” Erin said. “And I know there was a small life-insurance policy for William.”

  Cynthia bristled. “If you are suggesting that I had anything to do with his death—” she began indignantly.

  “No, ma’am,” Erin said. “I wanted to know whether there was a similar policy for you.”

  Cynthia stopped short. She cocked her head at Erin, very much like an inquisitive bird. “Why ever would you ask such a thing?”

  Erin thought of what Carlyle had said. “Bombs aren’t particular about who they kill,” she said. “I need to know whether anyone would benefit economically from the death of either William… or you.”

  “There is a policy in my name,” Cynthia said. “But I still don’t see—“

  “Ma’am, you had a meeting of your garden club on the morning of the bombing,” Erin said. “Did your husband need the car for anything before that meeting?”

  “No.”

  “Then why was he in the garage?”

  “You would have to ask him,” Cynthia said sharply. “He certainly did not bother to inform me of all his movements.”

  “Ma’am, who are the beneficiaries of your life insurance?”

  “My sister, and William, of course.”

  “And what is the value of the policy?”

  “Three hundred thousand dollars.”

  Erin nodded. “How does that break down between William and your sister?”

  “William would have gotten two-thirds of it, while Edna would receive the remainder.”

  “So you get twenty grand from William, but he would have gotten two hundred thousand if something had happened to you?”

  Cynthia gave Erin a long, level stare. “That would seem a reasonable approximation of our relative value, yes.”

  Ouch, Erin thought but didn’t say.

  Then it hit the other woman. Cynthia’s eyes narrowed as she made the connection. “Detective, you surely do not mean to say that my husband was seeking to kill me.”

  Erin kept quiet, letting her think it over.

  “But,” Cynthia said, and for the first time, her composure cracked. “But… he would never… I mean, really. The whole thing is too absurd.”

  “Is it?” Erin asked, staring at Cynthia’s face.

  What she saw made her feel ashamed of herself. She didn’t mind breaking crooks in interrogation. It was satisfying to reduce a street thug to a quivering blob. But this woman wasn’t a criminal. Cynthia was snooty and arrogant, but now she was figuring out that her husband, a man she’d despised as a good-for-nothing gambler, might have been trying to murder her. He’d very nearly succeeded, too.

  Cynthia slumped back in her chair, looking suddenly ten years older. “This is simply too awful,” she said.

  “Ma’am, does your husband have a workshop or something?” Erin asked. She had to ask it a second time before the other woman looked up from her private thoughts.

  “No, no, we have no room to spare here,” she said.

  Erin’s mind raced. William had probably assembled the bomb on location. If it hadn’t been done in the apartment, maybe he’d done it somewhere else in the building. “Ma’am, do you have any clothing William wore recently?”

  “I laundered all his used clothing,” she said.

  “What about a shoe?”

  Cynthia stirred herself from the chair. “Yes, I have his shoes in a box to go to Goodwill,” she said, going to the front entryway and returning with a cardboard box. “What do you need with a shoe?”

  Erin had also stood up. “I want to trace William’s movements,” she explained. “If I could borrow this for a few minutes?”

  “Keep it, for all I care,” Cynthia said. “Used footwear has no intrinsic value.” She was recovering herself a little, but still looked pale. It was clearly a shock to realize how close she’d come to being blown to bits.

  Erin took the black leather shoe and held it to Rolf’s nose. “Rolf, such,” she ordered. She went to the apartment door and opened it.

  It took the Shepherd a moment or two to orient himself. This was the scent of a man who’d lived in the apartment, who’d come and gone through the door daily. Rolf needed to sort out the freshest scent, and he was uncertain. But he trotted gamely off to the elevator.

  Erin cursed to herself. They’d have to try every level for a positive result, since there was no way to know which floor, or floors, William had exited on. At least it wasn’t a very tall building. She started with the basement.

  They were lucky. Rolf leapt enthusiastically out into the parking garage and, nose glued to the ground, tail waving, launched himself into his hunt. Erin was pleased, but not too surprised, to note that he didn’t go straight toward the explosion
site. He went instead to a door marked MAINTENANCE. Then he stopped short and sat, staring at the door.

  Erin was momentarily puzzled. If he was following his normal search drill, he was supposed to scratch at the base of the door. His sitting response was an alert to his other training.

  She froze. William’s shoe dropped from her hand unnoticed, bouncing away from her feet. Police dogs were trained to sit in response to smelling explosives.

  Erin yanked out her phone and speed-dialed Webb.

  “That was quick,” the Lieutenant said. “Did you find—”

  “Are you still talking to Skip?” Erin interrupted.

  “Well, yes,” Webb said. “But—”

  She cut him off again. “I need him down at the crime scene,” she said. “Rolf tracked O’Connell to a maintenance room, and there may be another bomb inside.”

  “We’ll be right there,” Webb said, all business. “Don’t touch anything.”

  “Copy that.”

  Chapter 11

  Erin was pretty sure the maintenance room wasn’t booby-trapped. She was impatient to see what was inside. But she also wasn’t stupid. When there were bombs in the area, it was always a good idea to wait for the professionals. She gave Rolf his ball to reward him for his tracking and alert, then spent a few minutes watching him. Her partner enjoyed his paycheck more than any other cop she knew. The big, fierce German Shepherd turned into a puppy again, gnawing energetically at the rubber chew-toy and ignoring the outside world.

  It seemed like a very long time, but the bomb squad’s van rolled into the garage just a few minutes later. Skip was driving, Webb riding shotgun with him. A couple of other bomb techs dismounted from the back, lugging bags of gear.

  “Hey, Erin,” Skip said. “What’ve we got?”

  “Rolf alerted to this door,” she said, pointing. “He tracked O’Connell here, then told me there were explosives on the other side.”