Pulse

by Michael Harvey

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Come on, Cat.”

  “Come on nothing.”

  Barkley drained his drink and got a fresh one. Cat ordered half of a chicken salad sandwich and picked around the edges. Outside, the world exploded in cannon bursts of white as the sky broke into ripe, fleshy pieces and an unseasonably warm storm lashed against the windows.

  “Between you and me . . .” Barkley said.

  “Here we go . . .”

  “Between you and me, what do you really think happened?”

  “I know what happened. Anyone who looks at the file is going to know what happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a ‘gun fight’”—Cat made quotation marks with her fingers—“between your partner and a young black man, now deceased. At close range, maybe ten, fifteen feet. The black man was hit five times, once in the shoulder, four closely grouped in the chest. The decedent somehow managed to squeeze off four shots before he died, and your partner, due undoubtedly to a second act of the Almighty, wasn’t hit by any of them. Come on, Bark.”

  “Say it.”

  “Fine. Tommy Dillon executed that kid. Then he made it look like there was an exchange of gunfire. Maybe you helped him. Maybe you went along after the fact. I don’t know. More important, no one cares.”

  “Why didn’t you put any of that in your report?”

  Cat laughed and suddenly looked older than she’d ever want. And just as suddenly Barkley’s stomach turned sour with the whiskey and he hated the job more than ever for what it did to people.

  “I’m not stupid, Bark.” Cat pushed her plate of food away. “If the DA wants to put the pieces together, let him. But he won’t and we both know it. Forget about this. Once the rain lets up, we’ll go for a walk. Catch a movie or something. After, I can make us dinner at my place.”

  Barkley shook his head.

  “I don’t think any less of you, Bark. In fact, I think more of you.”

  “Great.”

  “Price was going to wind up dead one way or the other. Hung by his belt in a holding cell, shanked in the yard. I mean, was this any worse?”

  “So I did the right thing?”

  “You did the cop thing.”

  A flock of pigeons flew up in his head, blotting out their conversation, leaving behind nothing but Daniel Fitzsimmons, flanked on either side by his dogs, staring down at Barkley as he sat in a cold hole. Daniel had a shovel in his hands and began to backfill, the dirt hitting Barkley’s skin and catching in his eyes and teeth.

  “Bark?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s Dillon doing?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  Today was the first time he’d seen his partner since the night of the shooting. Tommy had been put on paid leave, the department requiring the two detectives not communicate until after the hearing. Well, they’d had their hearing. And now his partner was back.

  “Chains, Cat.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what this job is. Chains with thick iron cuffs.”

  “Bark . . .”

  “The chains don’t seem like nothing at first. Hell, they’re a badge of honor. But then they begin to weigh on you, every step you take they get heavier.” He ordered another drink even though he hadn’t finished the one in front of him. “You’re in the job long enough, you’re gonna get jammed up, slipped between the jaws of a vise, screwed in so goddamn tight you can’t move, can’t breathe. You can say it’s never gonna happen to you and you’ll believe it. Right up until it happens.”

  “Bark . . .”

  “Seven years ago last month. You can look it up.”

  “Look up what?”

  “Me and Tommy were on a case. Murder suspect we thought might be holed up in Columbia Point. Apartment’s on the fourth floor and the elevator’s out. So up the stairs we go. I’m in the lead, gun out. There’s a noise somewhere above us. I look up the open stairwell just as someone tries to drop an AC unit on my head. Tommy pushes me and the fucking thing tears at the sleeve of my coat as it pisses by. No shit, it would have killed me.”

  “That’s what partners do, B. That’s why you guys look out for each other. All the way down the line.”

  “Someone taught you good, Cat. Who was that? Never mind, lemme finish. Tommy pushes me. Like I said, if he doesn’t the fucking window unit probably takes me right over the railing and down three stories. Instead, I bounce off the wall and my gun accidentally discharges. The shot ricochets in the stairwell, catches a guy who’s peeking out from behind a door a floor below us.” Barkley pulled down the collar of his best dress shirt with two fingers. “Right under the collarbone. Goes straight through and explodes his heart. Dead before I can get to him. And it didn’t take me long. The wife is there, baby in her arms, staring at me as her husband bleeds his good-byes from the mouth and I lay him down and the woman starts to scream. And now the baby is the one looking at me. But what’s the difference, right? Then the old woman comes out.”

  “The old woman?”

  “Dead guy’s mother. Lives with them. Or they live with her. She comes out and picks up her son and cradles his head and carries him into the apartment. This guy was big, six feet plus, but she carries him like he’s nothing. Tommy and I follow. There’s all kinds of hell breaking loose. Chatter on the radio. We still have a suspect in the building. And it’s Columbia Point. Half the projects gonna strap up and come gunning for us.”

  “What happened?”

  “What always happens. We called for backup. Some cruisers rolled, some SWAT guys, and we got the fuck out of Dodge. Two weeks of shit followed, lootings, a half-dozen more shootings in the first couple days. They put my face out there as the shooter cuz I was black, but that didn’t mean nothing. Far as the projects were concerned, I was blue. That’s what mattered. Thing just boiled and raged and thrashed and killed until it died like it always does.”

  “So you owe Tommy?”

  “More ways than one. I fucked up, Cat. The story I just told you was a lie. Not all of it. Just the important part, which, by the way, is the very best way to lie. Yeah, the window unit came down and, yeah, it almost took my head off. Tommy pushed me up against the wall, but my gun didn’t accidentally discharge. I saw the fucker who dumped the unit on me peeking out at us from a doorway a couple floors up. So I took the shot. Stupid, right? Enclosed stairwell, no sign of a weapon, no imminent threat. Just some asshole playing games. But I’m shook, I’m scared, I’m pissed. Mostly the last. So I pop off the shot. Just one. It catches a railing, deflects down, and kills the guy one floor below just like I described. That’s what really happened. And you know what it would have meant if I’d told that story?”

  “I don’t know, Bark.”

  “Like hell you don’t know. Man one. Fifteen to twenty-five, minimum. But Tommy steps up. Tells me exactly what to say, exactly how to say it. You’d think I’d know, but your brain freezes when you’re in the vise like that. At least mine did. So Tommy gives me the play-by-play and then he testifies at the hearing. All lies, just like me today. I walk and everything fades to background noise. We’re back on the job the following week. I look at the guy and I love him. Cuz I owe him. And so right fucking there was the first link in the chain. The strongest link, the one that mattered. And today was the last.”

  “The last?”

  “You want a drink, or am I doing this solo?”

  “I think we should go.” Cat started to get up.

  “You know what else is bugging me?”

  “The fact that I’m offering you my virtue and you’re shrugging it off?”

  “Harry Fitzsimmons’s wounds. The two different types of wounds.”

  “They don’t make sense.”

  “Bet your ass they don’t make sense. Did you just offer me your virginity?”

  “Is this 1958? Are you Richard Zimmerman from high school chemistry? Pay the bill and let’s go.”

&n
bsp; * * *

  The storm had blown out of the city as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the Public Garden little more than a carpet of mud. Still the walk was nice, with the weight of the trees overhead and the careful paths and rain washing everything clean. Barkley found a section from the Globe in a trash can and spread it out on a bench. Cat seemed dubious but sat down anyway.

  “It’s always quiet here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go ahead, Bark.”

  “Huh?”

  “You wanted to ask about the wounds on Fitzsimmons.”

  “It’s not just that. None of it makes sense.”

  “None of what?”

  “The girl who grabbed the wallet. Where is she? Why didn’t she stop at the car and talk to them longer before going for the leather? How was it that Walter Price was just waiting for Harry in the alley?”

  “Every case has holes. I don’t need to tell you that.”

  “The wounds. Why does Price use two different weapons? Why didn’t Fitzsimmons fight back?”

  “He did fight back. Price stabbed him. Hell, you’ve got a picture of it.”

  “I do.”

  Cat pulled a folder from her bag.

  “What’s that?”

  “What you asked for.” She dropped the folder in his lap. Barkley flipped it open. Inside was a photo of Violet Fitzsimmons, taken three months before she died. It was the woman he’d bumped into as she came out of Hom’s Chinese restaurant in the South End, the woman who’d held his hand on the fire escape. Barkley drank in the liquid eyes and mobile mouth, the smooth, unlined face. Underneath the photo was a one-page inventory report from the car crash that killed her. Among Violet’s personal possessions was a ring—red enamel encrusted with a dozen diamonds in the shape of a rose.

  Barkley flipped the folder shut. Cat caught his eyes. “What is it?”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  She pursed her lips.

  “Never mind.”

  “The ‘god’ I grew up with is too small to be real. At least for me.”

  “But there is something out there?”

  She slipped a hand to his chest. “Or in here.”

  “Or both?”

  “Or both. Why are you asking?”

  “I believe in facts. Evidence. At least I always did.”

  “And now?”

  “I think I might have been wrong. And I wonder what I’m gonna have to answer for.”

  Cat picked up the folder and considered the face of Violet Fitzsimmons. “Know what I think?”

  “No idea.”

  “I think maybe you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “So you think I’m nuts.”

  “Hardly. Doing what I do, I’ve seen a few myself. And some of them can be quite wonderful.”

  Barkley grinned despite himself and felt the tension slip from his shoulders. Talking with Cat didn’t change a thing, except everything. She let him pull her in, nuzzling her head against his shoulder and fitting her body to his, breathing softly and deeply and letting her eyes close. For a moment they were a couple and the world was full of possibility. Then a small man with a crooked face rolled out of the hanging mist, ringing a bell and setting up his sausage and peppers stand just inside the Arlington Street gate. He popped open a red umbrella and started roasting hunks of meat over a grill. Barkley chuckled lightly.

  “Someone should tell that guy it’s December.”

  Cat lifted her head and frowned.

  “What?”

  “Why do I think I’m gonna regret this?”

  “What is it?”

  “Evidence.” She pointed to a row of metal rods the man had hanging on a piece of wire over the grill. “Right there.”

  “Where?”

  “The skewers he’s using for the meat. I mean, there’s a million of these guys around the city, I understand that.”

  “But . . .”

  “I’m betting any one of those would match up perfectly to Harry Fitzsimmons’s wounds.”

  Somewhere a husband drank whiskey in a living room while a wife held ice to her face and fingered a knife in the kitchen drawer. A man picked through a pile of bills, listening to the landlord’s tread a floor above and thinking about the cash she kept in a shoebox under the bed. A teenager stared at the top floor of a hotel, picturing his girl inside, hard at work on her old boyfriend. The seeds of homicide blew across the city of Boston, 24/7, finding fertile soil almost wherever they landed. For Barkley, however, there was only one. Until there wasn’t. And a piece he was hoping he’d never find had just dropped into place.

  “How certain are you?”

  “I’d need to measure the wounds and compare them against anything you brought me, but I’m pretty confident. Yeah, the more I think about it, I’m sure.”

  “Did you drive?”

  “Why?”

  “We’ll take my car.”

  * * *

  They went less than a mile, parking a block away. Cat waited in the front seat with the doors locked as Barkley jogged down Washington Street, returning with two white paper bags, bottoms already soaked through with grease. The logo on one of the bags read FIVE FACES.

  “I’m not gonna eat that,” Cat said, pointing to the order of shish kebab Barkley held in his hand.

  He used a napkin to pull off the hunks of sweaty chicken and held up the naked metal skewer. “All I need you to do is measure.”

  Cat made a face. “I don’t have a tape measure.”

  Barkley reached across to the glove compartment and took one out. From the backseat he dredged up a stack of files, rummaging until he found the one on Harry Fitzsimmons.

  “You keep it in your car?”

  “Bits and pieces. Your report’s in here with details on the wounds.”

  Cat shook her head and covered her lap with a couple of napkins. She laid the skewer across them. “This won’t be exact.”

  “Just ballpark it.”

  Cat stretched the tape measure.

  “I owe you,” Barkley said. “How about Jimmy’s?”

  Cat smirked, made a couple of measurements, and snapped the tape shut. “These would work.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m using a tape measure in the front seat of your car. No, I’m not sure. Why’s that Asian kid staring at us?”

  Barkley glanced across the street. Kenny Soo stood in the exhale of an alley. Barkley raised a hand. Soo waved him across.

  “Cat . . .”

  “I can walk back.”

  Barkley pulled out some bills. “Jump a cab.”

  “It’s a ten-minute walk.” She held up the skewer. “You want me to get a little more precise with this?”

  “Can we keep it between us?”

  She wrapped the thin piece of metal in one of the napkins and slipped it in her bag.

  “You don’t like this?” he said.

  “I don’t see the point. The guy who killed Harry Fitzsimmons is dead. Your partner shot him.”

  “The night of Fitzsimmons’s murder Tommy was out on a case. We got the call on the body and arrived at the alley in separate cars. Tommy got there first.”

  “So what?”

  “Tommy told me he ate fast food that night. The next day I was over to his place. There was takeout in the trash.” Barkley held up the bag of Five Faces. “Fucking guy loves his shish kebab.”

  Cat McShane didn’t have to lose bottom to know when the water was getting deep. “Call me, Bark. And I’ve never been to Jimmy’s so don’t think I won’t hold you to it.”

  She leaned across and kissed him, running a nail across the stubble on his cheek before climbing out. Soo waved at her. Cat shook her head and waved back. Barkley watched in the rearview mirror until she turned the corner. Then he got out. Soo was sitting on the curb, smiling like a shit-eating motherfucker who thought for sure he was about to get paid.

  38

  DANIEL FOUND her picking through Led Zeppelin albums. “Really?”

  Gra
ce turned, hair tumbling about her shoulders like a dark waterfall of silk. “I can do some Led Zep.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “I woke up around eleven, looked out the window, and there you were, sitting on the steps, watching the rain fall.”

  “You think it’s stopped for good?”

  “Hard to say.”

  Grace held a copy of Physical Graffiti. Daniel took the album from her, scanned the back, and returned it to its spot in Music City’s collection.

  “What are you doing, Grace?”

  “What are you doing? Besides sleeping all day?”

  He’d gone off the grid after Roxbury. Grace and Ben had rung his doorbell, but Daniel wasn’t in the mood.

  “You ever coming back to school?” she said.

  “I think I’m done.”

  “Smart, Daniel. Real smart.”

  “The police killed that guy.”

  “No kidding.”

  The Globe and Herald had both tried to track him down, looking for a reaction to the shooting death of Walter Price. The newspaper guys didn’t get any further than anyone else. Unlike Grace, however, they gave up a lot easier.

  “How’s your roommate?”

  “You’ve been out here most nights, you tell me.”

  Her face warmed at the edges and Daniel could smell something new on her skin.

  “He walks your apartment, Daniel. Sometimes all night.”

  “I know.”

  “While you sleep.”

  “So what?”

  “So it’s weird.” Grace picked up another album, this time Houses of the Holy, and pretended to give it a look before putting it back. She’d aged five years in a week and he thought there was something more physical, more knowing about her. The idea of Ben rose up in Daniel’s mind. Him with her. Her with him, scraping long nails across his shoulders as she whispered his name.

  “I know about Ben,” Daniel said.

  Her cheeks flushed and the air grew close. “It’s not what you think.”

  “How about we go outside and sit?”

  They left the record store, settling on the steps. It was Saturday and Kenmore Square felt sluggish, like it was still groggy from Thanksgiving and not quite ready for Christmas.

  “I pushed him,” Grace said, lifting her chin toward the blank windows of Daniel’s apartment. “At least I tried.”