Night Work

by Steve Hamilton

  The morning came, its light filtered through the high, dirty windows of the gym. Anderson found me facedown on one of the mats. My knuckles looked like I had taken a cheese grater to them. He yelled at me for a while, until I told him what had happened. He stopped and listened to me. When it sank in, he started yelling again.

  “So this is what you do? You destroy your hands and then pass out on the goddamned floor?”

  “Lower your voice,” I said. “Please.” On top of everything else, my head hurt like hell. Not that it mattered one little bit.

  “Go get cleaned up,” he said to me. “You didn’t give up before. You’re not going to give up now.”

  “Give up on what? What am I supposed to do?”

  “You’re going to go do your job, Joe. And you’re going to help the police catch the guy who did this.”

  “How am I going to do that?”

  “The hell if I know,” he said. “That’s for you to figure out. Which you’re not going to have much chance of doing if you’re hiding in this gym.”

  He was right, of course. I knew that. No matter what had happened, there was only one thing left that made any sense. I kept moving after Laurel had been killed. I kept doing my job. If I gave up now, I’d be done for good.

  “Okay, I’m going,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “Just after eight.”

  “Damn. I’ve gotta be in court at nine.”

  “Come back in here before you leave,” he said. “We’d better tape up those hands. Of course, you should have done that before you started hitting the bag, you stupid—”

  He stopped himself. He grabbed me by the back of the neck, hard enough to hurt. It was Anderson’s version of a hug, I guess.

  “Just go,” he said. “Take a goddamned shower. You smell like a gin mill.”

  I went upstairs and did just that, but not before throwing up in my sink. I tried to make it to the toilet, but that was three feet too far. I got in the shower and let the hot water pound me awake. My hands stung like all hell.

  When I had some reasonably presentable clothes on my body, I went back downstairs and let Anderson bandage my hands. “Get through the day,” he said to me, like he was sending me out for the first round. “Keep moving.”

  So that’s what I did. I drove over to Family Court, got there a few minutes late but didn’t have to pay for it. There are two judges who preside there, the Honorable Judge Donna Majorski, who gets things started promptly at nine o’clock and one second, and the Honorable Judge Matt Kilner, who’s doing well if things are moving by nine thirty. Today was Kilner’s day, so everybody was still standing around when I came running into the place.

  As it turned out, I only had one sentencing this morning: a kid named Sean Cooley, age fifteen, Kingston resident, clean record in school until about a year ago, when for some reason he started acting like some kind of gangster. He’d been suspended twice for fighting, and now, on the third time around, the parents of the other kid had filed assault charges. It’s more and more common these days, parents with a hair trigger over anybody laying a hand on their kids. I suppose it’s a good thing, and understandable, but hell—if they had called the police every time I roughed up somebody in high school, I’d still be in jail to this day.

  Young Mr. Cooley was dressed in a new suit for his court appearance. Most of his hair was gone, along with the scruffy little goatee thing he had going when I met him and, if I remembered right, the silver ring from his left eyebrow. Both of his parents were with him, of course, along with a lawyer I hadn’t worked with before, a man who wouldn’t do much more that day than stand next to them and try to look like he was earning his fee. I had already met the parents in my initial interview, but now as I approached them they looked at me like I was a homeless man about to ask them for money. The bandages on both hands weren’t helping me today, nor the fact I had gotten about twenty minutes of sleep on the gym floor.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Trumbull?” the father asked me.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Long story.”

  “We’re prepared for Sean’s appearance,” the lawyer piped up. He had good lawyer hair, I’d give him that much.

  “That’s good to hear.” I said. Not that there was much to be prepared for. I was sure that Judge Kilner had read my PSI and would be following my recommendation of a year’s probation. With no prior arrests and no apparent drug problem to complicate matters, it would be a routine decision.

  Sean obviously didn’t know this, because he was so nervous he was almost glowing. I could see him shivering in his suit, his hands in both pockets. There was a time, when I first started this job, I would have thought a kid this scared would be a sure thing to never get in trouble again. I learned the hard way that this wasn’t true, that sometimes the hardest cases are the kids who feel like caged animals whenever they get near a courtroom or a police officer. Or even me. But this kid I wasn’t too worried about. Hell, just the fact that he had two parents to work him over was enough to swing the odds in his favor.

  “Don’t worry, folks,” I said to all of them. “We’ll be out of here soon.”

  The judge got things going at 9:35. Family Court is run a little differently than the main County Court up on Wall Street. It’s a lot less formal, for one thing, and a hell of a lot less intimidating. Not that that was any apparent help to Sean. His legs almost buckled when it was his turn to stand up. The judge asked him if he understood why he was here this morning, and why he’d be much better off if he never had to appear before a judge again. Sean said yes to both questions. The judge made note of both parents being there, asked them if they’d help Sean find better ways to deal with his anger. They said, “Yes, Your Honor.” The judge made his ruling, one year’s probation, in this case weekly visits to my office. And we were done.

  Before the judge moved on to the next case, he asked me to approach. I did.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he whispered when I was close enough to hear him. “What’s with the hands?”

  “I had a bad night,” I said, holding them up. A slight understatement.

  “Whatever you say,” the judge said, shuffling through his papers. “You didn’t have any other cases this morning, did you?”

  “No, I’m done for today.” On any other day, I’d be glad to be out of there. But today was different. I wanted to sit back down in the first row, stay there all day. I wanted to follow every case, to watch the never-ending procession of young lawbreakers, the petty thefts and the vandalism, the assaults and the drug possessions. It wouldn’t have been uplifting, or even interesting, but the familiar rhythm of the courtroom would have made the place seem like home to me. Maybe the only home I had left, and my only refuge against the thing that was waiting for me outside.

  But no. I had to go out and face it. I said good-bye to the Cooley family and their lawyer, left the courthouse, and got in my car. I drove back down to the office, parked, and went inside. The two county deputies were there, signing everybody in and running them through the metal detectors. They both seemed a little on edge this morning, a normal reaction, I supposed, for any two cops in this city the day after a brutal murder. They both said hello to me. Neither asked me about my hands.

  I went through to the juvenile side and opened up my office. A PO named Charlie had the office across the hall from mine. Charlie was an old-timer, a true product of the Woodstock generation, with gray hair tied in a ponytail down his back. He had this working theory that, even though he was twenty years older than me, he could still connect better with the kids. Something about how today’s vibe was just like the vibe back in the sixties, and how nobody who grew up in the seventies, eighties, or nineties could relate to it. And yes, he actually used the word “vibe.”

  “Hey, Joe,” he said to me, looking at my taped knuckles. “You doing some sparring today, or what?”

  I gave him a fake smile and went to my desk. He went back to work, or back to reading the paper, or whatever the hell
he was doing.

  With Family Court in the morning, you never know how long it’s going to take. You have to keep the whole damned morning free. So I didn’t have any appointments until after lunch. A bad day to be sitting around with time to think.

  I pulled out some PSIs and started paging through them. I knew they were as complete as they were going to get, but I had to do something. Finally, I picked up the phone and called the police station. I asked for Howie. They said he was out on a case. I figured he was probably talking to Marlene’s landlady, or the neighbors, or maybe even canvassing the whole street.

  “How about Chief Brenner?” I said. “Can you tell him Joe Trumbull is calling?”

  In the corner of my eye, I could sense Charlie looking at me from across the hall. I usually left my door open when I didn’t have a client, and if Charlie leaned all the way over to the far side of his desk, he could just barely see me. As soon as I looked up at him, he put his head down and started reading whatever he had in front of him like it was the most captivating thing ever written. I got up and closed my door.

  The chief came on the line. “Joe, how are you today?”

  “It was a hard night,” I said. “I imagine it wasn’t any easier for you.”

  “You got that right. Have you thought of anything else we can use?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I told you everything I know last night. I was just calling to see if anything had come up yet.”

  “No, not yet,” the chief said. “But listen, we have a BCI man on his way down here. He may want to talk to you at some point.”

  “BCI?” I said. BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, was a detachment of plainclothes detectives, part of the New York State Police. They helped out with major crimes when the local authorities didn’t have the ability to handle them. “Don’t you have enough detectives?”

  “We’ve worked with them before,” he said. “It never hurts to have the help. Especially on something like this.”

  “Okay, I guess that makes sense. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  “Good. I’ll call you.”

  As I hung up, I had little doubt that he’d be doing exactly that. I got up and opened my door. Charlie was on his way down the hall, carrying the Daily Freeman. I caught a quick glimpse of the front page.

  “Can I see that?” I said.

  When he gave me the paper, I unfolded it and read the headline. WOMAN FOUND SLAIN. That word, “slain”—it hit me right in the gut. It was the kind of word they only used in newspapers. Laurel had been “slain,” too.

  There was a picture next to the story, a middistance shot showing several of the police officers collected around that one spot on the ground, next to the railroad tracks. You couldn’t see the body in the shot. The story itself was pretty sketchy. A woman found dead near the St. Mary’s Cemetery entrance on Foxhall Avenue, by two local youths, around eight thirty last night. Identity of the woman not released at press time. Chief Robert Brenner not saying anything at all yet. No suspects, no nothing.

  I gave the paper back to Charlie.

  “You all right?” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Did they find out who this woman was?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The woman they found dead last night. I was just wondering if you had heard anything.”

  I was about to say something like How the hell would I know? But I stopped myself. I didn’t want to start lying today.

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” I said. “Right now I think I need a little air.”

  I left him standing there, walked back out to the lobby and out the front door. I stood in the parking lot, closing my eyes against the bright sunlight. My hands were hurting like hell now. They felt like they were on fire.

  I opened my eyes and watched the cars go by on Broadway, finally noticing that it was another beautiful summer day in the Hudson Valley. Just perfect. But all I could see was Marlene in her apartment, the way she put her hands on my chest. Marlene on the ground, looking up at the stars.

  I took a walk up the street to the little park in front of the old Governor Clinton Hotel. I sat on one of the stone benches there, watched over by the three statues of great New Yorkers. Peter Stuyvesant with his peg leg, George Clinton, the first governor, and Henry Hudson, who supposedly found the whole place to begin with. It was almost lunchtime when I finally went back to the office. Larry was waiting by my door.

  “There you are,” he said. Then he took a better look at me. “What happened to your hands?”

  “Let’s go in my office.”

  “Chief Brenner wants you to come down to the station as soon as you can.”

  “Is that all he said?”

  “He told me about what happened,” Larry said. “I mean, about the case. There haven’t been any developments, but apparently there’s some BCI guy from Albany…”

  “He’s there already?”

  “He is, and he’s waiting to talk to you.”

  “I’ve got appointments starting at twelve thirty.”

  “We’ll cover them,” he said. “You’d better go.”

  That look he always had on his face, like he wasn’t sure quite what to do with me—that look had just gone a level deeper. I’d probably see it for the rest of my natural life.

  “Tell everybody I’ll catch up to them when I can,” I said. “Don’t just rubber-stamp them. I’ve got a couple guys I really need to get after today. The Perry kid, for instance …”

  “We’ll take care of everything,” he said. “Just go. They’re waiting for you.”

  “All right. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  I left before he could tell me to take my time, that everything would be just fine with Charlie or somebody else trying to handle my appointments. I went back outside, got in my car, and drove down Broadway to the police station.

  I parked in the back again, went in the same door as I had the night before. It felt strange to be back there. The regular day-shift sergeant was sitting at the desk now, a big man named Avery.

  “Is Howie around?” I said.

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  That didn’t make any sense, I thought. Avery always knows where every single cop in Kingston is, at any time of the day. If he’s in the bathroom, Avery will tell you which stall he’s in.

  “Is Chief Brenner in his office?”

  “Yes. He’s waiting for you.”

  I thanked him and went up the stairs. The receptionist motioned me right through, so smoothly I didn’t even have to break stride. I went down to the end of the hall and knocked on his door.

  “Joe,” he said as he opened it. “Thanks for coming down.”

  “Where’s the BCI man?”

  “Down the hall. He’s setting up in one of the interview rooms, making himself at home.”

  “Where’s Howie?”

  “Detective Borello’s not here at the moment.”

  “Chief, I get the feeling he’s not here for a reason.”

  He took a peek down the hall, first left then right. “Look,” he said, his voice a little lower. “Howie and this guy from the BCI have a little history. There was a case a couple of years ago—you remember that kid that was missing? The one they finally found up in Syracuse?”

  “I remember.”

  “Howie was working it, but I felt like we needed some outside help. It turned out to be the right call, because we solved the case. But not before the two of those guys just about killed each other.”

  “I seem to recall him being unhappy about something.” It was ringing a faint bell, but I had just lost Laurel around then and wasn’t in any shape to listen to the details. “But you’re telling me you sent your top detective home today just to avoid another bad scene with this guy?”

  “The BCI coordinator knows the history, too, okay? It’s not a secret. He told me he wasn’t going to send this guy down here if Howie was here waiting for him.”

  “They couldn’t jus
t send somebody else?”

  “You don’t get it, Joe.”

  “What?”

  “This guy’s the best there is. I want him on this case.”

  “If you ever said that around Howie … Let’s just say I can see why he wanted to kill him.”

  “That’s not my biggest problem right now,” he said. “So what happened to your hands, anyway?”

  “Well … I don’t have to tell you how tough last night was, Chief. I tried to take it out on the heavy bag and paid for it.”

  “It was a tough night, all right. Anyway, come on. Let’s go meet Detective Shea.”

  I followed him to the interview room, the same room we had sat in the night before. If I was expecting a G-man clone in a gray suit, I was in for a surprise, because the man who stood up to greet me was something else entirely He was blond, maybe thirty years old at the most, with a haircut that belonged on someone even younger. It was almost like a hockey cut, close on the sides and longer at the back. It was so long I couldn’t believe the BCI let him get away with it.

  “Mr. Trumbull,” he said, taking my hand. He didn’t say anything about the tape. “Good morning. I’m Detective Shea.”

  He had a firm handshake, but he didn’t overdo it. As I looked at him, I couldn’t help noticing his left ear. He was wearing an earring, but it was too small to make out what it was.

  A BCI man with long hair and an earring. I couldn’t quite believe it.

  “Come on, sit down,” he said. “You want some coffee or something?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” he said. Chief Brenner gave us both a quick look and excused himself. The BCI man and I were alone in the room now. He took off his jacket and draped it on the back of his chair. The color of his shirt was probably supposed to be coral or shrimp, but to most people it would have just been pink. His tie looked like a van Gogh painting.

  He waited until I sat down. Then he did the same.

  “I understand you’re a probation officer,” he said. “So I’m sure you know what my office does.”

  “Yes. I admit, I was a little surprised. But Chief Brenner tells me you’re the best.”