by Dane Hartman
“Sure,” Harry agreed. It wasn’t merely a kiss-off, Harry thought. It was a kick-out. They were rolling up the red carpet while he was still on it.
Peter brought the two cases in. While he was hanging up the suit bag, he started talking anew. “Uh, listen, Harry. I really appreciate all you’ve done. I really do. But given the circumstances, maybe it would be better if you dropped the whole thing. You know what I mean?”
Harry had no intention of making it easy for the man. “No, not really. What circumstances do you mean?”
“Well, the murder and all,” Peter said, still busying himself in the closet. “You know, everybody’s all excited and worried and nervous. And you being a detective and all, well . . .” Peter’s hands fluttered around his waist like falling leaves. “It just sort of stirs up a lot of mud that would stay at the bottom of the river otherwise. You know what I mean?”
Peter was trying to say “lay off” in his most subtle manner. Harry suddenly wanted the conversation over with very quickly. Then he sincerely hoped that afterward he would never set eyes on Linda’s husband again. “I’m beginning to get the picture,” he said.
“Good,” Peter said, turning toward him with relief. “That’s great. I mean, you understand, right? It just would be for the best if you would just sort of, well, you know . . .” His hands continued their incomprehensible sign language near his belly.
“Yeah,” said Harry. “I know.”
Peter nodded, then looked around the room for something else to say. “Take care of yourself, Harry,” was what he finally came up with. Then he, too, was gone.
Callahan stared at an empty stretch of wall for a couple of seconds. Then he threw back the bedcovers and started to get dressed. He had pulled on his pants when Detective Christopher Collins came sweeping into the room, a package under his arm.
“Leaving so soon?” the black cop drawled. “And I just ordered flowers, too.”
Harry slipped on his shoes, giving Collins a tired look. “I don’t like the smell,” he said.
“You should wash more,” Collins commented, sitting in the one seat next to the bed. “Warm,” he commented about the seat. “Had visitors?”
“I love a parade,” Harry replied. He was going to say more when he realized that Collins ostensively didn’t know about Callahan’s relatives. “What brings you here?” he asked, aware of the absurdity of the question.
Collins responded in kind. “We’re still having some problem with your charges. Your assaulter with a deadly weapon is dead, and there’s still no deadly weapon.”
Harry glanced up. “But you picked up Christine Sherman?”
“No Christine Sherman either.”
Harry sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, his shirt still off. “What happened?” he asked, amazed.
“What do you mean?” Collins responded, still acting difficult. “How did Morrisson get out, how did Sherman get away, or how did the murder take place?”
“Start from the beginning,” Callahan spat, getting up to find another shirt in his bag.
“Morrisson went crazy in the car taking him to the hospital. He jumped out. along Storrow Drive and disappeared into Beacon Hill. We called most of the hotels in the city to find you. You weren’t available. Where the hell did you sleep last night?”
“With a friend,” Harry said simply. “You would’ve needed her name to locate me.”
“Bad show,” Collins critiqued. “The Boy Scout motto is ‘Be Prepared.’ The cop’s motto is ‘Be Available.’ ”
“I’m out of uniform, too,” Harry scowled, buttoning the light green shirt. “Want to sue me?”
“All right, all right. Anyway that’s the last we heard about Morrisson until your call.”
“You look up Sherman’s address?”
“Yeah, she wasn’t at home. An APB is out on her. No response yet.”
“What the hell happened?” Harry repeated, more for his own benefit than anyone else’s.
“You want to know the official Boston PD version of the events?” Collins inquired sweetly. Harry nodded, leaning on the baseboard of the bed. “Morrisson gets away, his hopped-up head giving him visions of another virgin sacrifice. He gets to the Sherman girl and drags her up to the highest location immediately available. In this case it is the fourth floor of the Emerson school building. Then he’s all set to stick her when you come in. He beats the hell out of you, but that gives Christine time to wake up, grab the knife, and in a frenzy kill him.”
“That doesn’t explain everything,” Harry complained.
“They rarely do,” Collins freely admitted. “We just do the best we can with the facts available.”
“All right,” said Harry. “Question one: why did the girl call me, and how did she get my number?”
“Morrisson could’ve seen you and followed you,” Collins suggested. “You were still in the Unitarian HQ area. He could’ve been staking out the place for Christine and seen you instead.”
“But why call Christine and give her the room number?”
“Maybe he wanted to kill two birds with one stone. It was just that before he could kill you, Christine woke up and got the better of him.”
“And what happened to her then?”
“Well, picture it, Inspector!” Collins theorized. “A good friend, a good-looking boy you thought you knew, goes crazy with a knife, kidnaps you, and tries to kill you. Terrified, you strike back. Now horrified, you realize you’ve murdered a person in cold blood. You’re confused, you’re frightened. So you run.”
Harry couldn’t fight the re-creation. It didn’t sit right with him, but there was nothing he could think of to suggest. “That’s it, then?” he inquired.
“As far as my superiors are concerned,” Collins revealed, stretching his legs. “They’re grooming me for another case. All we’re doing is waiting until the Sherman girl is spotted. Then we’ll wrap up this whole messy thing. Everybody is just thankful that we kept the body count on this one down to three. Not counting the cat, of course. There was the possibility of a whole string of sacrificial murders.”
“No chance now, huh?” Harry grunted, pulling on his tweed jacket.
“Now I didn’t say that,” Collins wound up slowly. “I’m still worried a little bit. Morrisson wasn’t the only shaman of the Order, you know. There was a kid higher than him. The boss of the business, in fact. He could have had something to do with the killings. He could have been the one who planned and implemented the whole thing with Morrisson as his hired dupe.”
“So why don’t you go after him?”
“I’m not on the case anymore, Inspector,” Collins reminded him. “And I can’t convince my bosses about the possible dangers.”
Harry came around the bed and stood looking down at the seated black man. “That’s tough,” he said carefully.
Collins didn’t look back at him: Instead he pulled the package out from under his arm. “Oh by the way,” he said casually, “that application you made out came through today.” He handed the package to Harry.
Inside was the .44 Magnum, complete with a duly authorized and dated license to carry it on his person in Boston.
“I wouldn’t go hunting any taxis with it,” Collins suggested, “but the city streets are so dangerous nowadays. Tourists need all the protection they can get.”
Harry silently retrieved his shoulder holster, replaced the weapon, and slipped the whole rig on under his jacket. He looked at Collins in expectation, hoping the cop wouldn’t make him ask for the name of the other Orenda head.
Instead of talking, Collins merely put a scrap of paper down on the side table, rose, neatened his tan coat, and headed for the door. “Take care of yourself, Inspector,” he said breezily, as if he were afraid someone might be listening. “Thanks for all your help.” He stopped with the door half-open. “And keep in touch,” he said meaningfully.
Once he had gone, Harry shook his head in wonder. He almost wished he had been dreaming it all. The Donova
ns wanted him to leave. Linda was reluctant, but Peter had convinced her of it. But who had convinced Peter? By the sound of it, Shanna had come down on her parents harder than Harry had any right to expect. It could have been done out of embarrassment, but it also could’ve been done out of fear. Fear that Harry would find out more about the things she was involved in than she wanted him to know.
Whatever the reason, it seemed as if Shanna had told her parents that she didn’t want or need Harry’s help, and they had come to Callahan with the message. Collins, on the other hand, wanted him to stay. The police hierarchy had handcuffed him, so he wanted Harry to be his unofficial private eye. He wanted Harry to tidy up the edges of the operation, checking things he couldn’t.
And the black detective had gone out on a limb to do it. He hadn’t pulled strings to get Harry a gun license overnight; he’d gone and pulled a full-fledged rope! That kind of influence impressed Harry. Collins knew what he was about and was willing to risk his neck to make sure justice was served.
No matter what any of them had wanted, Harry had already decided to stay his entire time in Boston. He owed it to Christine, if no one else. If Collins was right and she had killed Morrisson before he could kill Harry, the San Francisco cop had a debt to repay.
The first step in finding the Sherman girl was talking to Shanna. Then, with or without her blessing, he wanted to see this boyfriend of hers, this Jeff Browne. Harry was already pissed at Jeff Browne. He didn’t like the way the subject of his existence had come up. Linda had been pulling at straws, trying to find anything to say that would make Harry stay and look into things further. She must have known that the sudden mention of his existence would pique Harry’s interest.
Harry collected his stuff and left the room. Just before his exit, he palmed the paper Collins had left for him. After Shanna and Jeff, Callahan pondered, he’d pay a little visit to the cult head. He’d have to see just what kind of person he was, whether he was capable, as Collins suspected, of hatching as perverted a plan as brainwashing another boy to commit murder.
Callahan stopped at the check-out desk. He discovered his bill had been taken care of by the city of Boston. The cashier looked none too happy about it. She realized it would be a long time before the hospital saw their money. It was taking intercity police cooperation and hospitality a bit far, but Harry was still fairly thankful to Collins for it. He guessed the black detective figured that Harry was more apt to follow through if he were happy. And with his medical costs paid and his Magnum back in place, Harry was supposed to owe him something.
It was time to start paying Collins back. Harry walked toward the exit, folding open the scrap of paper Collins had left. When he read the name of the Orenda chief, he started running for the exit. He crumpled the paper and threw it angrily at a standing ashtray as he passed. The address was obliterated on the scrap but the name was still legible. “Jeffrey Browne,” it read.
The hospital was on the corner of Charles Street and Storrow Drive, just under the Back Bay Bridge into Cambridge. Harry passed under the bridge, looking up and down the street. He saw the Charles Street Theater complex a couple of blocks down the way, flanking the base of Beacon Hill on its west side. Farther up the road was Government Center. The marvelous thing about Boston, Harry was learning, was that every section was within a twenty-minute walk of every other one. The other nice thing was that in every section of town, there was a decent place to stay.
Harry was in no mood to appreciate matters, however. He saw the Holiday Inn sign right next to the movie marquees and trotted up. He strode into the lobby, hastily registered, threw his bags at a bellboy, tipped him in advance, took his key, and left without seeing the room.
It was a nice day in Boston. The sun was out, and the temperature was tipping the thermometers at sixty-five degrees. Harry didn’t appreciate that either. About the only thing he grimly noted was that his hotel was within reasonable distance from Shanna’s apartment and from the Unitarian Headquarters on the other side of the Hill.
Harry charged in that direction. He went weaving up one street then to the right along another. He kept cutting over that way until he reached the north base of the Hill in the middle of Charles Street.
The tail had been impossible to miss. Up on Beacon Hill—where the narrow cobblestone streets were nearly always empty—the young man nonchalantly following Harry from one twist to the next turn was ludicrously obvious, no matter how hard he tried to stay inconspicuous.
There were three possibilities, Harry deduced as he crossed Charles, heading toward Shanna’s apartment with the tail in tow. The Donovans could have asked a friend to watch Harry so that he wouldn’t bother their little girl. That was unlikely. Collins could have convinced his superiors that Harry was the real murderer, and they needed to waste another officer to keep an eye on him. Also doubtful. That left one possibility. The Order of the Orenda was getting nervous.
Harry welcomed their agitation. It would make his job that much easier. He continued unerringly toward Shanna’s place. He caught her just as she was going out. Callahan handled the situation carefully. He couldn’t just come out and ask her about Browne or accuse her of complicity. She would close down faster than a gin mill on a Sunday night.
“I’m a little late,” he said, surprising her. “Is dinner still warm?”
She whirled about at the sound of his voice, dropping her thin leather gloves in the process. But her reaction upon seeing him was not what he had expected. She laughed at his line, effortlessly. She honestly seemed to think it was funny. Then she put her hands on her hips and acted like an irate wife whose husband didn’t come home until late.
“Where were you last night? My roast was ruined!”
It was the one response Harry hadn’t been prepared for. He was expecting a nervous cover-up or an ashamed diversion. Instead, Shanna was acting as if Harry was her favorite friend. As if she were really happy to see him.
At first, all his concern and doubt left him. He saw her as she seemed to be: innocent, beautiful, and alive. Then his fears returned, doubled. If she was as she seemed to be, then she might still be in terrible danger. If she wasn’t, then Harry was subjugating his senses because he had once loved her.
Callahan pulled himself back on track. He leaned over and scooped up her gloves. “Things got a bit hectic,” he told her honestly.
She took them from him. “You should have called,” she reprimanded. “I was looking for you everywhere.”
“Didn’t Christine tell you where I was?” Harry asked in surprise.
“Christine?” Shanna echoed. “No, I didn’t see her after she left.”
Harry was getting dizzy from all the sudden changes in the situation. Somebody wasn’t telling the truth, and the way things were going, there was a distinct possibility that no one was talking straight. If Christine hadn’t gone back to the Unitarian offices that night, where did she go and why? And if she had, why didn’t Shanna see her, or why didn’t she admit having seen her?
Those questions led to even more. And more after that. Harry didn’t bother asking himself because he already knew he didn’t have the answers. And since no one else seemed inclined to fill in the blanks, Callahan decided it was about time he started finding things out for himself.
He forced himself to stop picturing Shanna as the guileless, delightful child he had been an uncle to. He stopped seeing her now as a beautiful young woman in a lot of trouble. She was a means to an end. Somewhere in her mind was the first step out of this mess. He had to use whatever means necessary to get to it. He felt the Magnum hanging heavily under his arm. His nickname was not Uncle Harry. It was Dirty Harry. If he didn’t want to leave Boston in a box, he had better live up to the name.
“That’s funny,” Callahan said to the girl cursorily. “She said she was going back to the office.” Before Shanna could pursue the matter, Harry changed the subject. “Where are you headed?”
Shanna easily forgot about the Christine question. “I’
ve got a doctor’s appointment and then some classes. You want to walk with me?”
Harry thought she’d never ask. They set off down toward Beacon Street. Shanna was wearing the same tight, faded jeans she had had on when Harry first saw her. Only today she had topped them with a black turtle-neck pullover that had shrunk slightly in the wash. Not only did it cling to her closely and set off her flaming hair, but there was a quarter of an inch between the bottom of the sweater and the top of the denims. It was an extremely subtle showing of skin, but extremely effective as well. The little girl Harry had known had grown up into a sensual female.
Shanna seemed unconcerned by her sexual effect as they walked down the street. She seemed unconcerned about most everything, even as they passed the Emerson building Harry had been attacked in. Both doors were chained shut.
“What happened there?” Harry asked innocently.
“Don’t know,” said Shanna, raising her head to the early afternoon sun for warmth. “When I got up this morning it was already locked.”
Collins must’ve been keeping the Morrisson death secret. If he thought Jeff Browne had anything to do with Halliwell’s death, he didn’t want to spook him by announcing his dupe’s murder.
Shanna took a right onto Beacon Street. Harry followed. The man following Harry also followed.
“You said a doctor’s appointment,” Harry reminded her, keeping up the banter. “You don’t look sick.”
“I’m not,” Shanna replied earnestly. “He’s just my counselor who also happens to have a doctorate.”
“Your counselor?”
“Yeah, college counselor. Everybody at Emerson has one. They’re members of the staff who get together with you once a week to help you adjust to the ‘college experience’ as they call it. But basically, it’s like a free shrink.”
Harry marveled at the progress universities had made. It wasn’t like school when he was twenty. Now every kid had their own private nursemaid.
“It’s really great,” Shanna professed, “He’s really helped me get myself together.” She could see from Harry’s expression as they turned onto Newbury Street that the cop didn’t completely buy it. The girl decided to take the bull by the horns.
