A Killing Night

by Jonathon King

  She drained her coffee like she meant it.

  “You’re a cop. You’re talking about somebody with the balls to steal somebody’s life, to kill them for some sick reason. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, finding it hard to hold her look.

  “I don’t want to speak badly about Colin, but he is what he is. I lived with him, I know. A man like Colin just doesn’t have what you’re talking about in him.”

  “Did you tell that to the investigators on the Hamlin case?” I said.

  “Who? IAD? Sure I told them, while they were interviewing me about any hideaways in the Poconos where Colin might be hiding or some shit. You think that made it into their report, Mr. Freeman?”

  The horn sounded again and vibrated through the building. End of the period.

  “I gotta get Michael,” she said, hooking her thumb.

  “I thank you for your time, Mrs. Mott.”

  “Not a problem,” she said, shrugging her shoulders like the South Philly girl she’d always be.

  “One thing, though,” she said, pulling on her mittens and raising her voice over the growing din of ice time switching. “If you see Colin again, Mr. Freeman, tell him I wish him the best, you know? He’s got a lot to answer for. But this isn’t one of them.”

  When I crossed back over the bridge into the city, lights were flickering on in the dusk. After dinner I walked from Gaskill a few blocks to the First Methodist Church and stood on the cold sidewalk outside looking at the weathered stone and mortar and the dull stained glass. Despite its old heavy architecture its spire still rose into the night with the majesty intended by its builders. It was in the basement of this church that Billy’s and my mothers had met and formed an unlikely friendship and insidious plan. On pre-dawn Sunday mornings they prepared the early coffee and breakfast reception and shared their similar secrets. Then they conspired to kill my abusive father and my mother carried it out. After decades of shame and pain she gained her freedom. Then within a few years she herself was dead. Following her wishes she was cremated and her sisters-in- law still only whispered her name. She refused to lie next to the body of my father and carry the lie into eternity. But she had suppressed her own basic human need to have control over her life and took it in death, a measure of justice to keep her warm.

  CHAPTER 12

  I slept until noon. The gray light of day barely made it through the windows of the blue room. Judging by the outside, it could have been six in the morning or six at night. For several minutes I lay staring at the ornate molding of the ceiling wondering when it had been that I’d lost the sense that Philadelphia was my home. Without an answer I rolled out of the big bed and started searching through my bag for running shoes.

  I coughed all the way down to Front Street. My mouth was still warm from Guy’s coffee and each time I drew in a breath of chilled air it raked down my throat. I turned south and it took me till Alter Street and the Mummers Museum before my lungs and legs felt loose. I tried to get into a rhythm by staying on the macadam and off the curbs but any cadence I caught was quickly interrupted by double-parked cars, some delivery guy backing up a truck, somebody nosing out from an intersection. I was trying to grind off a sharp stone in my head. Two good cops, Sherry Richards and Meagan Turner (I couldn’t bring myself to use her newly married name) were convinced that O’Shea was a predator. Somehow they could filter through what his life had been, his upbringing, his career, his wife’s inside view of the man and still come up with a demon. And somehow, I couldn’t.

  I made it to Wolf Street before I finally gave up the run. The space under my oversized sweatshirt was warm and puffs of heat were rising up under my chin. My knees ached from the concrete pounding and the muscles in my thighs felt heavy and strained. An exercise in futility, I thought, and smiled at my own dull wit. I grabbed the ends of my sweatshirt cuffs in my palms, gathering the material around my cold hands, and started walking. The sun was still blotted out and I had to search to find it, a spot in the sky that barely glowed like a dull bulb behind a dirty sheet. I walked west without thinking and ended up turning back north. By the time I passed Mount Sinai Medical Center, a chill had set up in my sweat- soaked T-shirt and when I looked up to find a place to get some coffee I realized I had worked my way to the corner market where Faith Hamlin had worked her last night.

  At the entrance two wide concrete steps led up to a wooden-framed screen door with a wide metal banner across its middle that said TASTYCAKES in lettering that was fading and chipped. The spring on the door yawned when I opened it and a trip bell jingled somewhere inside.

  There was a blower the size of a stuffed suitcase mounted above and to the right that poured warm air down onto the threshold and kept the cold from infiltrating the place. I stepped in and stood in the airflow for a few seconds, rubbing my hands and resisting the urge to raise them up into the heater’s hot face. To my right there was a thigh-high freezer chest with sliding, frosted-up glass doors that ran the length of one wall. The Daily News, the Inquirer and three different racing forms were stacked on its back edge. To the right were three rows of shelves with groceries and snacks and the kinds of cleaning products and paper goods you might run out of on an irregular basis at home. It was the kind of place your mom would send you for a gallon of milk or bag of sugar. I took a few steps in and spotted the stacked glassed coffeepots in the far left corner, warming on a stainless hot plate, and walked that way. There was no one behind the counter at the far end of the single room. No radio drone. No television hissing on a shelf under the rack of cigarettes.

  I poured a twenty-ounce cup and the aroma of the steam was fresh. The top pot had been full. There was no decaf. I had no use for the open pint of half-and-half and packages of sugar. I took a careful sip and checked the rack of packaged treats beside me. Tastycakes, as advertised. I grinned and picked up a butterscotch package, my favorite as a kid, and tore the cellophane open and took a bite. I might have even closed my eyes because when I took another sip of coffee to wash down the flavor, a young man was standing behind the counter, staring at me.

  I finished my swallow, tipped the cup and said: “How you doin’?”

  He simply nodded and turned away. I guessed his age at somewhere in his early twenties. His shoulders were thin and his face angular and drawn under a mop of straight black hair that covered his eyes when he bent his head forward. He was shuffling something under the counter and did not look up so I shifted my weight from side to side while I finished my snack. Behind the clerk was a hanging roll of lottery tickets next to a Philadelphia Flyers calendar next to an eight-by-ten portrait of a dark-haired girl whose crooked smile and too wide eyes said that she had to be Faith Hamlin. She had been given a place of honor where everyone could see her, where everyone who bought a pack of cigarettes or loaf of bread could remember.

  I tossed the rest of the cake and its wrapper into a small trash can and stepped over to the counter. The kid didn’t look up.

  “How, uh, much do I owe you?”

  He finally met my eyes through a strand of hair. I raised the cup and gestured back toward the rack of snacks. “This and a Tastycake,” I said.

  “Two-oh-four,” he said without moving to the register, just waiting while I dug into the pocket of my sweatpants.

  “Who’s the girl?” I said, nodding at the framed photo and trying to be nonchalant while I sorted some bills. “She’s pretty.”

  The kid’s brow wrinkled at the question and he actually started to turn around to see what I was talking about but stopped himself halfway. He turned back and I put three ones into his outstretched hand. His wrists were skinny and knotted. He stepped back and rang up the sale and was snaking out change with long, pale fingers.

  “You a cop?” he suddenly said, and I may have mistaken the flat tone as an accusation. Maybe he was being a smart-ass because I was asking questions. Maybe it was something else. But I had an odd, sudden urge to reach over and snap his bony wrists.


  “No,” I said, trying to match his bluntness. “Why?”

  “I dunno,” he said pouring ninety-six cents into my palm. “You just look like a cop.”

  “No,” I said again. “I’m not from around here.”

  “Yeah,” he said, pulling a strand of black hair away from his eyes. “Have a nice day.”

  My coffee was cold by the time I hit Jefferson Square and I tossed the cup into a trash can. I jogged the rest of the way back to Gaskill with the thought of a hot shower motivating me and the same thought keeping at bay the proposition of having dinner with my ex-wife.

  I got to Moriarity’s by seven thirty and sat at the end of the bar by the door so I wouldn’t miss her coming in. Billy had left a message for me to call him. When I reached him at his office he told me he’d gotten a call from Rodrigo Colon. One of the cruise workers had been roughed up outside the medical clinic by some muscle who had approached the group in an alley where they were smoking. It had been a warning and the only translation the workers came away with were shut up and go home to Manila or their injuries from the explosion would be minor in comparison.

  “So he wasn’t from the recruiters in the Philippines?” I’d asked.

  “No, Rodrigo said he was American. White and bigger than you. Someone with an ugly or vulgar mouth,” Billy said. “That was the best description he could give. He said he and the rest had decided to stay inside for a few days. Keep to themselves and lay low, but it definitely put a damper on his recruiting efforts.”

  I figured I already knew who Ugly Mouth was. Bat Man’s jaw would still be wired from my head-butt. I told Billy I would wrap up here as soon as I could.

  “So how’s it going up there?” he’d asked.

  “Thirty-six degrees and drizzle,” I said. “And I’m having dinner with Meagan in about an hour.” I had never heard Billy whistle before and he hung up before I had a chance to ask his meaning.

  I was into my second beer and was eyeing the Schnapps when she finally arrived, fashionably fifteen minutes late. She was in a long cashmere coat and scarf and wasn’t wearing a hat despite the drizzle. I had never seen her wear anything over her blonde hair unless a uniform demanded it. She opened the coat and put her shoulders back to shrug the coat off into the hands of a mildly surprised hostess. She had on a sweater and a dark skirt underneath. At least two guys at the bar subtly turned to admire the sweater.

  She came over and as I started to slide off the stool she said: “Sit, Max. Let’s have a drink at the bar first.”

  She positioned herself on the stool next to me and crossed her legs with that sound of nylon and surveyed the long room—bar running the length of one wall until a step up into a dining space at the very back. Small tables along the other wall. A few booths just to the left of the entrance. Dark wood, ferns and neon liquor signs throughout.

  “My God, Max. The place hasn’t changed in ten years.” She smiled. “I feel like a college girl.”

  Just two blocks from Jefferson Hospital, Moriarity’s was a favorite of the nursing and medical students and was mostly filled with a younger crowd.

  “You never went to college, Meagan,” I said.

  She smiled and her eyes stayed bright.

  “I feel like a college girl,” she repeated and then ignored me for a few beats. “Get me a Merlot will you, Max?”

  She waited until she’d had a taste and then asked: “So, how often do you get back, Max? Keep in touch with any guys from the old days?”

  “This is actually the first time I’ve been back to the city since I left, Meg. With my mom gone, there wasn’t much reason.”

  She gave me a look of sympathy and then realized it was misspent on me.

  “So this inquiry about Colin O’Shea is strong enough motivation to get you here?”

  I have never been one to answer questions without thinking about my response first. I was even more careful with Meagan, who had always been a verbal chess player.

  “It’s a favor for a friend,” I finally said.

  To her credit, she saw the answer as a blocking move and let it pass.

  “And what have you come up with so far?” she said, moving right to the business at hand.

  “Since both your case and the one in Florida have to do with women, I’m kind of surprised by the opinions women have of O’Shea,” I said.

  “Ah, you talked to the ex?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Same old Max,” she said with that smarter-than-you smile. “You have to see their eyes, right? Tell if the truth is there?” I looked straight into hers.

  “She doesn’t think the guy that she was married to for what, six years, was capable,” I said.

  “Right. But she didn’t mind filing a domestic abuse charge against the guy to justify divorcing him so she could run off to Cherry Hill with her boyfriend the pharmaceutical salesman.”

  “According to her, the abuse wasn’t physical,” I said and caught the flavor of defense in my own voice.

  “No shit,” Meagan said, flatly.

  “What? You don’t believe it?”

  “Oh, I believe it,” she said and then turned to face me again. The look felt like an assessment. I must have passed.

  “I dated him a few times, years ago, when he was trying to make SWAT.”

  Maybe she thought it was a confession that was going to shock me. But even if O’Shea hadn’t already told me, I’m not sure I would have reacted. I took a drink, like it had nothing to do with me.

  “He never made the team?” I said.

  “Too aggressive. Not enough patience. Thought it was all gung ho shit. He was one of those who could never find the balance.”

  “He ever get aggressive with you?” I said. “I mean in a personal way?”

  She gave me one of those “Who, me?” looks.

  “You of all people, Max,” she said. “He got pissed off once and raised a hand.”

  “And?”

  “I slapped him first when he hesitated.”

  “And his reaction?”

  “He apologized. Said he would never have actually hit me,” she said. “Like I would have let him.”

  “Christ, Meg,” I said. “And now you think he’s capable of whacking some poor grocery store clerk to cover up a sex scandal out on the beat?”

  One of the sweater guys nearby looked over. Meagan smiled at him and raised her eyebrows. I signaled the hostess that we were ready to sit down for dinner and paid the bar bill.

  Meagan was true to her word on answering any questions I had about the departments’ and internal affairs’ investigation into the Faith Hamlin case. While we ate she described how IA isolated the officers on the differing shifts and found discrepancies in the night crews’ stories of how often they stopped at the market and who had actually been the last to see Hamlin. Although good cops usually have well tuned bullshit detectors when they’re talking to mopes on the street, it doesn’t mean they’re good liars themselves. Despite the polygraphs that three of the cops had passed, Meagan’s investigators had done searches of all the officers’ homes and cars, looking for any sign of Hamlin or DNA that could have indicated she’d been transported, dead or alive, by any of them. Nothing. They also crunched the time lines down on each man, making them give details on their whereabouts during every minute that they weren’t on duty from the time Hamlin was last seen. Two of the guys were married and took the biggest hit. The media was all over the story. No one escaped being flayed in public. But O’Shea took the brunt. He was the only one who refused to cooperate. He stonewalled. He’d told them to charge him or leave him the fuck alone. He demanded a search warrant be served on his home and vehicles. He knew enough about the law to argue to a judge that the department had no evidence of a crime, that Faith Hamlin could have done anything from simply walking away from the embarrassment of the situation to throwing herself off the Ben Franklin Bridge. There were no indications of a crime and no body. Though she might have had the mind of a thirteen-year-old, Ha
mlin was legally an adult.

  “So what does your gut tell you, Meagan?” I said when I ran out of questions. “Colin killed her and dumped her over in the Jersey Pine Barrens?”

  “I don’t have the kind of instinct you always seem to think you have, Max. Hell, he could have chopped her up and stuck her in a barrel. It’s been done before. And by guys a lot smarter than him. He might have had nothing to do with her. None of the other three ratted on each other. They just came clean,” she said, not letting the conversation spoil her appetite for the veggie wrap she worked her way through.

  “But you know the old saying: If you got nothing to hide, why not talk?”

  “Shit,” I said, shaking my head because she knew better and every cop worth a damn knew better. A lot of people went to jail for crimes they didn’t commit because they talked when they should have shut up. The only thing that let some cops and prosecutors live with that was the belief that it made up for the crimes the guy did do.

  “So, Max. Speaking of talking,” Meagan said, folding her napkin and resting her chin on the backs of her hands. “What have you got for me?”

  I didn’t hold out on her. I gave her the details of my meeting with O’Shea, including his admission that he’d dated a couple of the bartenders that had gone missing. I told her he’d been working private security and even detailed his participation in the alley fight.

  She smiled at a thought, but didn’t comment.

  “Do you have an address for him?” she said.

  “I’m sure detective Richards has an address, but I wasn’t exactly tailing the guy, Meg.”

  “They have a trace on his phone or surveillance of some kind?”

  “Not that I know of. As far as I know they’re in the same bind you were in. No crime, no warrants, no taps or manpower.”

  “I don’t know, Max,” she said, folding her napkin on the table. “If that’s all you have I’m not sure this was much of a trade.”

  I took my wallet out of my pocket without looking up at her, guessed at the bill total and put a few twenties on the table and slid my chair back.