by Con Lehane
“It’s not so bad,” I said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s just a lousy set of circumstances. I’m not sure you saying you were with me, even if the cops believe you, helps. Dennis was at my apartment turning out my lights at what time? Then what time did you find his body? Where were you in between?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She began crying.
Remembering Peter Finch’s advice in similar circumstances, I told Betsy not to answer any more questions. “I’ll have a lawyer call you. He’s a friend of mine. His name is Peter Finch.”
“I can’t afford a lawyer.”
“We’ll work it out. The poor bastard’s used to not getting paid.”
I hung up and headed for the picket line with way too much on my mind. The door to the Greeks’ had barely closed behind me and the chilly late afternoon air had scarcely worked its way through my pea coat when a muscle-bound blue and white police cruiser pulled to the curb in front of me. Detective Sergeant Sheehan climbed out of the passenger side.
chapter thirteen
Since I’d mentally prepared myself for Sheehan, this wasn’t a great shock. Nor was it the high point of my day.
“Let’s go back inside and talk,” said a grim-faced Sheehan. No “hello.” No “long time no see,” or “how are you?” Sheehan never was much on small talk, but this was rude, even for him. Public servant, my ass.
“I don’t have time. I need to be on the picket line,” I said, trying to match his gruffness. Since he was wearing only his sport coat, let him freeze if he wanted to question me.
“Whatever you say.” He grimaced as he followed me across the street. The kitchen crew watched this new development warily. Sheehan ignored them. “Let’s go through this once, McNulty. A cop was killed and you know something about it. This time, I’m not buying any of your hoity-toity ‘citizen protecting the rights of the bad guy’ bullshit.”
“It’s not always clear who the bad guy is, Sergeant.”
Sheehan stopped dead still. “There you go. That’s the crap I mean. You try that shit with someone besides me, you’re gonna get slapped, McNulty.”
“I’ve already been slapped—twice—by the deceased. The guy should have been on a leash.”
Sheehan began walking again and caught up with me. “I’m not interested in your psychoanalyzing, McNulty.” He moved closer, bellying up to me when I stopped. “Just tell me what you know. Like his wife. Were you fucking her?”
Sheehan was no fool. He said this the way he did on purpose, to piss me off and provoke me into saying something I didn’t mean to. The problem was that knowing this didn’t help. He did piss me off. Thickheaded people do that. Everything’s simple to them. This fucker Dennis Tierney abused and terrorized his wife. The simpleminded cops didn’t care about that. They wanted to prove there’s a slut behind every man’s problem. Glaring at Sheehan, I kept my mouth shut until I’d swallowed back most of the bile. “It wasn’t God who made honky-tonk women,” I told him.
“Be an asshole if you want, McNulty. You’re gonna be sorry. I happened to hear your name, so I said I’d take a crack at you. You wanna wait, I’ll let the guys from Sheepshead Bay—Tierney’s buddies—loose on you.”
This presented a dilemma. Sheehan wasn’t going to do me any favors. Our cynicisms were of a different order, his to see the worst in those society left behind, mine to see the worst in those society enabled to live high on the hog. Then again, neither was he out to get me, so I considered taking a chance. If I told Sheehan what happened, even if he didn’t entirely believe me, he’d have to think something might have happened that was different than what the cops now thought happened, which was that Betsy, possibly in cahoots with an illicit lover, killed her husband. Well, here goes, said I, who should have known better.
“Tell you what, Sergeant. I’ll make you a deal.”
Sheehan raised his gaze to the heavens and took a deep breath. “You’re a real piece of work, McNulty.” His eyes met mine, the expression in them as unyielding as ever. “Shoot. It better be good.”
“I’ll tell you everything I know. You’ll tell me you’ll look through Tierney’s records—arrests, shakedowns, personal feuds, internal affairs records—and check out everyone you come across who might have had it in for him.”
Sheehan’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “That’s great, McNulty. Such a grasp of the finer points of police work. If I didn’t have an eye for the job myself, I’d put you up for chief of the homicide division.” I tried to get a word in edgewise here, but he was having none of it, just thundered right over me. “Who the fuck are you to tell us how to conduct a murder investigation? You’ve been breathing too many liquor fumes.”
I told Sheehan to stop with the wounded-pride crap and agree to investigate some other possibilities, no matter what the precinct detectives thought happened. He finally said okay, so I told him pretty much what had happened, as it happened, including the attack on Barney and Barney’s suspicions about MacAlister and the crooked business agent being borne out by Pop’s investigation. I told him pretty much straight up about Betsy being afraid of her husband and my letting her stay at my apartment, her husband arriving the next morning, later finding the baby on my doorstep, and Betsy coming back, emphasizing the purity of her overnight stays.
Sheehan rolled his eyes. “That’s a lot to swallow, McNulty. So this Tierney babe stayed at your apartment the night the hotel manager was murdered? And the next night you found her baby on your doorstep, just sitting there none the worse for wear, and so the Tierney woman comes back and spends the night again. But nothing’s going on between you, right?”
“Right. It wasn’t that kind of thing. Her husband was just killed, for Christ’s sake.”
He took out his notebook. “The night the hotel manager was killed, she was at your apartment, right?”
“Right. She told the cops that.”
“Funny, McNulty. I’ve always known you to be a truthful guy—” Here he guffawed loudly for the benefit of an invisible audience. “Why do I have written here that you spent the night in question playing cards at a poker club in Harlem with a Sam Jones and Barney Saunders? In front of a half-dozen or more witnesses, no less?”
Involuntarily, I let out a groan and smacked myself on the forehead with the heel of my hand. Sam’s goddamn alibi story! I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Sheehan’s triumphantly beaming face and wanted to smack him. There was no way out. No matter which story I chose, he wouldn’t believe it.
Sheehan put his pad back in his chest pocket. “Your girlfriend’s in trouble, McNulty. I’ll tell you that. We’ll look at other possibilities. We would’ve done it without your advice. If I were you, though, I wouldn’t go too far out on a limb for her.”
I was going to tell Sheehan that the card game story was a fake, but I thought better of it. I knew Betsy was with me that night, so the cops weren’t going to prove she was somewhere else. Sam and Barney were a different story. Maybe one of them—or both of them, for that matter—did need an alibi.
Sheehan didn’t seem surprised by my decision. “Remind me not to look you up if I need an alibi. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever come across.”
“For what it’s worth, Sergeant, when everything comes out in the wash, you’ll find that Betsy didn’t kill her husband.”
Sheehan waved his hand dismissively. “Thanks for the tip.”
I got exasperated. I knew what the goddamn truth was. Betsy didn’t kill her husband. Where was this fantasy coming from? “C’mon, Sergeant. Did you ever talk to her? She’s the last of the innocents. Like Snow White and the fucking dwarfs. Ask anyone at the hotel. Her husband was the jerk, not her.”
Sheehan shook his head. “I’ve known sweet little fifteen-year-olds pulled in on murder charges and later admit to cutting the dicks off of grown men.”
This gave me pause. I tried to bounce back. “Do you think Betsy went on a killing spree and knocked off MacAl
ister also?”
Sheehan looked suspiciously around him, as if someone might overhear, then spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this—especially after you just tried to get over on me. Anybody can get turned around by a piece of tail, so I got some sympathy for you. I understand she’s a bombshell.”
My dander was rising again until I noticed Sheehan’s expression, which, strange on him, suggested sympathy.
“You may not be so far off on this Tierney guy. One possibility is he found out the hotel manager was banging his wife, so he took him out. Later, this came up between them, so your sweetie grabbed one of his prized collection and blew him away. We don’t have the gun, but the bullets in both cases were from a .38.”
Sheehan looked the picket line over as he made ready to leave. “This doesn’t mean you and your labor warriors are off the hook. You think your lady friend should walk, you might tell us more about the card game in Harlem, about this guy Barney, who no one seems to be able to find, and this black guy who thinks he’s a Philadelphia lawyer.”
Reading between the lines, I realized Sheehan wasn’t as confident about his suspicions as he sounded. “So what you’re saying is that you don’t really have any evidence connecting Betsy to the murders.”
Sheehan deliberated before he spoke. “Yes and no. I’m not going to tell you about evidence. I will tell you we don’t go thinking something for no reason.”
“Why do you want to know about the other guys, then?”
“We’re told she was screwing one of the bartenders. She might have had help.”
This one got me. “Jesus Christ, Sheehan. Stop talking like Betsy’s fucked every guy in the hotel. The fact is she didn’t. As far as I could see, she was faithful to her asshole husband. Partly because she thought that’s what she’s supposed to do—partly because she was scared of him, which as far as I could tell she had every reason to be.”
Sheehan assumed a thoughtful pose, which in his case meant pursing his lips and fiddling with his ear, checking me out, as if he wanted to believe me but wasn’t going to. “This is what contradicts you, McNulty,” he said after an appropriate lull. “Why did Tierney come down to the picket line to pick a fight with a couple of bartenders the other day—if I’m not mistaken, one of them being you? Second, why did he go to see the hotel manager a day or two before the murder, which we’re told he may have done?”
Sheehan opened his eyes wider in mock surprise to let me know he clocked my own surprise and confusion. “You think you know everything’s goin’ on, McNulty. But someone was talking to Tierney about his wife—and someone’s talking to us, too.” He gave me one of those cop-to-pathetic-criminal looks they like to use. “Let’s put it this way, McNulty. You’re all on the list. Someone killed a cop—and that doesn’t go down easy with us. So we’ll get whoever it is. You want to protect the wife, fine. Being with you, if she was, don’t say much for her. You lying about it makes it worse. I know from the past you ain’t too swift about knowin’ what’s goin’ on with your friends. And you don’t like cops. You think you know better who’s good and bad. One of these days you’re gonna make one wrong choice too many and get your ass blown off.”
When Sheehan left, I went back into the Greeks’. Barney had come up again. Now that the cops were looking for him for sure, he’d have to stay in hiding. We’d arranged that I could leave a message with Mary Donohue if I needed to get in touch with him. At the moment, it was just as well that I didn’t know where he was. He and Betsy both had explaining to do that I couldn’t help them with. I called my lawyer pal Peter Finch, a red-diaper baby like myself and, more important in situations such as this, a criminal lawyer. He also did labor and civil rights law and was helping out—pro bono—with our rank-and-file caucus and now the strike.
“Hey, Peter,” said I cheerfully, a tone of voice coming from me that was bound to put him on alert. “I’ve got another bono to throw you.”
“Ha. Ha,” said Peter. He was a humorless bastard anyway, doing this for-the good-of-the-people work only to salve his conscience—given how much he bilked his clients for his criminal cases—and to keep his father, an old Commie crony of Pop’s, off his back.
I told him quickly about the murders and Betsy, leaving Barney out of the equation, at least for the time being.
“You’re talking about a criminal case here, McNulty. I charge for those. That’s how I make my living. It’s bad enough I don’t get paid for the other work I do for you guys.”
“Your reward will come,” I told him solemnly, “when the international working class has become the human race.”
“Fuck you, McNulty.”
“I’ll tell Pop, and he’ll tell your old man you’ve turned your back on the working class.” I paused but went on before he could complain. “Look, she’s on strike at the hotel—one of the leaders, a rock. The murders might have something to do with the strike … I don’t know how, but it’s possible.”
“All right. All right. Jesus, Brian. I’ll call her, but this isn’t just sending a letter or quoting the law to someone. If they charge her, and if it goes to trial, we’re talking about a lot of money. Not just my time but out of my pocket.” He paused. “You’ve got time on your hands. If there’s any legwork to do, I’ll be calling on you to do it, old buddy. You can consider it your own pro bono work.”
“Bartenders don’t do pro bono. Cash on the barrelhead, preferably under the table.”
“We’ll see.”
What a fucking day, I said to myself, as I left the Greeks’ once more. Brooding on my own troubles, I didn’t pay much attention to a Cadillac limousine parked in front of the hotel. The joint still functioned, the strike and the murder notwithstanding, even if it was running on three cylinders. Some picketers had left; others from the night shift had arrived. I didn’t expect Betsy, Barney, or Mary but was heartened to see Mary did show up,
She spent the first ten minutes gushing over Betsy’s baby being found, thanking God and talking about miracles. I didn’t have any better explanation for Katie’s good fortune, so I let her go on. After that, as we picketed and talked, Mary seemed to grow more dispirited, no longer the tower of strength I’d pegged her for. I didn’t know if the general malaise that had settled over everyone on strike after the murders had gotten to her, or if she really did feel the whole mess was her fault.
Even though I was uncomfortable doing it, I told her what Francois said about her visit to MacAlister. When I saw her reaction, I wished I hadn’t. Visibly embarrassed, flustered, she stammered and stumbled.
“I imagine what you must think of me,” she said, “sneaking into the hotel in the dead of night to meet with the devil himself.” She didn’t look at me when she paused, so I didn’t know if she was waiting for me to say something. Anyway, I didn’t, so she went on. “I thought I might put things to rights, Brian. I went to apologize, to crawl on my knees and ask forgiveness, and if that wasn’t enough, to say I’d leave and let the rest of you get back to work. I knew if I talked to you first, you’d tell me not to go, that it was everyone’s fight, not just mine … but I’d made up my mind, and you know we Irish are a stubborn lot.”
“Why would you think he’d listen?”
“I’m a foolish woman, Brian. I thought he’d be satisfied with the opportunity to humiliate me.”
“Did the police ask you about being in his office?”
“Why would they?” She stopped walking and faced me. “Sure, why would they care?” Her eyes widened. “My God, Brian. What are you saying?”
“They might want to know if you saw anything that would help with the investigation.”
“But that was days before the man was killed. What would I see or know?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Was anything different? What did he seem like?”
“The same as he always was, no better and no worse. He didn’t have the time of day for me.”
We talked for a while longer, and I had just finish
ed telling her about the cops questioning Betsy and Sheehan wanting to know where Barney was, when I noticed a coterie of broad shoulders in suits coming out the front door of the hotel. Recognizing my fearless leader Pete Kelly, with Slick Willie Eliot trotting behind, froze me where I stood.
Seeing me had the same effect on Kelly. He stopped in his tracks, stared for a moment, then sent one of his hangers-on over to get me. This offensive-lineman-sized oaf was not to be trifled with, so I went willingly. One of the thugs—the group comprised Kelly, Eliot, and two of Kelly’s associates, whom I refer to as thugs, perhaps unfairly because I’d never seen them do anything thuglike, though I’d never seen them do anything else, either, only follow Kelly around looking like thugs—one of the thugs, then, opened the back door of the Caddy, letting me know, by a slight movement of his eyebrow, that I should get in, which I did, despite a thousand misgivings and a quick inventory of my life to that point. Kelly got in beside me. The gracious thug got behind the wheel and we drove off, leaving Eliot and Thug Number Two standing on the sidewalk next to the pint-sized Christmas trees with blue lights.
“You made a fucking mess,” Kelly said, not to put too fine a point on it.
Scrunched into the seat, I rolled my eyes in his direction because I didn’t want to face him directly.
He didn’t notice because he was looking straight ahead, too, not at me. “I put in a word for you and what do you do to me?”
Believing the question to be rhetorical, I didn’t answer.
“You think whacking the guy is going to settle the strike? You’re nuts.”
Under normal circumstances, I might have interjected here that I didn’t “whack” MacAlister, but I knew Kelly was taking me for a ride in this limousine because he wanted to tell me something, not because he wanted me to tell him anything.
