The Dark Path

by Kevin McManus

  Bukowski tapped her finger on the desk and played out the scenario in her head. “Maybe,” she said with a wince. “But I have a hard time biting.”

  Morrigan nodded, running a hand through his hair as he stood up. “Yeah,” he said. “Me neither. I just needed to say it out loud to confirm that it wasn’t plausible…”

  Bukowski snagged the lukewarm coffee from the edge of her desk and took a swig, her eyes level on Morrigan as she went about sizing him up—the curse of someone prone to thinking like an investigator. “How long did you sleep last night?” she asked.

  Morrigan gave her a tilted-head look. “If you’re about to play shrink with me—”

  “You look tired. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “I am. It’s called holding down a job.”

  Bukowski sipped her coffee. “You sure it’s just that?”

  Morrigan grabbed a chair, turned it around, and sat down in front of Bukowski, noting how her brunette hair caught the light.

  At that moment, he realized how deprived he had been of human intimacy for quite some time. Get over it, he told himself. Friends and nothing more.

  “What are you implying?” he asked, deliberately diverting his gaze.

  Bukowski shrugged and placed down her coffee. “You’re getting divorced,” she said. “It’s not really a secret.”

  “So what?”

  “That can be draining. Couple that with the number of hours you pull in a week, I can see how you’d be more than, let’s say, slightly jaded.”

  He waved her off. “Stress can only get to be too much when you let it.”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “What is?”

  “That you won’t let it. That you won’t let yourself feel bad about what’s going on. Breakups suck. The government approved ones suck even worse…”

  “Trust me, I feel shitty enough. I know I’m in a bad situation,” Morrigan growled.

  She gave him the eye. “You’re a traditional Irish hard-ass, Morrigan, that’s for sure. You swallow your anger and let it stew. You act like it doesn’t bug you until you throw back one or twelve and end up pummeling on the first unfortunate son of a bitch who gets too close to your personal space during happy hour. That’s how you handle your pent-up aggression.”

  Morrigan pouted his bottom lip. “Not bad,” he said. “You must be a detective.”

  She proudly showcased her middle finger.

  Then she crossed her arms, her facial expression a little gentler as she leaned in and said, “You’re holding your breath, John. It’s not good. You gotta…” she churned her hand like she was trying to brew up an answer, “release. You know what I mean? You need to purge yourself. It’s okay to acknowledge that you’re, I don’t know… sad.”

  Morrigan had nothing.

  But he understood completely.

  “And how should I go about doing that?” he asked. “What does ‘purging’ look like?”

  Bukowski thought about it. Shrugged. “Get laid,” she said, and turned back to her work. “Or call your old man or best friend and have a cry. I dunno.”

  Morrigan laughed. “Okay,” he said as he made a move to leave. “I’m heading out.”

  “Where you going?”

  “I’m going to talk to Mrs. Ruiz again. I feel like I wasn’t thorough enough.”

  “Need the address?”

  “Please.”

  She shot him over a text message two seconds later. She made sure to end it with a tag:

  Lennon’s Bar

  10 tonight

  See you there.

  Mrs. Ruiz removed the kettle from the stove the moment it began to whistle. Despite Morrigan’s protestation that he didn’t drink tea, Mrs. Ruiz insisted.

  Old folks got a lot of time and a lot of talking to do, he thought.

  “I’m not sure how much more I can help you,” Mrs. Ruiz said, carefully pouring the copper-colored liquid into a pair of porcelain cups. “I know it’s quite a cliché to say this, but my memory is not what it once was.”

  She laughed as she put the kettle back and brought the cups over to the couch Morrigan was hovering near, his gaze focused on all the family portraits and pictures lining the walls of the apartment that sat two blocks from the crime scene. It smelled of dust and that depressing scent of slow and steady human aging.

  “You’ve lived here a long time,” Morrigan said, his focus on a framed photo of a young couple with seventies fashions and Mt. Rushmore in the background.

  Mrs. Ruiz caught him admiring the photo and smiled. “That’s Ramon and me,” she said. “My husband.” She shuffled over to the photo, her attention completely on the black-haired man standing next to the strikingly beautiful young woman from so many years ago. “That was 1976,” she said. “We had just gotten married.”

  Morrigan took note that they looked elated, their love for one another shining out of their enthusiastic smiles. “Handsome couple,” Morrigan said.

  Mrs. Ruiz blushed. “Thank you, detective.”

  And then her smile turned into the slightest of frowns. “Ramon passed eight years ago,” she said. “Lord. I feel like it was only yesterday…” She became lost in thought, her attention focused on the billowing window curtains that fluttered in the breeze as if she was playing out her memories on them like a film reel on the silver screen.

  “You know,” she said, “we used to walk down that sidewalk. You know, the same one where that horrible thing happened earlier today.” She waved the memory off, along with all the bittersweet ones that lingered in her mind.

  Morrigan took a step forward. “That’s actually why I stopped by here,” he said. “I wanted to speak with you some more about what you saw today.”

  Mrs. Ruiz placed down her teacup and folded her hands in her lap. “I’ll do my best, detective,” she said. “But like I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to recall everything down to the detail nowadays.”

  “That’s all right,” Morrigan said as he sat. “I’m just curious to see if anything stands out.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, you seem to be quite familiar with this neighborhood.”

  A nod. “I’ve lived here for over forty years, thirty-two with my husband.”

  “And what do you know about the pawnshop? The one where the shooting happened this morning?”

  A shrug. “Not much. Just your average pawnshop. I believe Mr. Zimmerman, the owner, built it in, let’s see…” She pondered. “1972,” she said with an “ah-ha!” finger held up in the air.

  “Mr. Zimmerman,” Morrigan said. “Was this a different Mr. Zimmerman from the one shot this morning?”

  “Yes. It was his father, Hector Sr. He passed away about ten years ago, I believe. He was such a kind man. So caring. Unlike his son…”

  Interesting, Morrigan thought, scooting forward on the couch. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well,” Mrs. Ruiz said, “most people with children know that there’s always one or two, well, bad seeds that end up in the batch. Happens to every family. I myself never had children, but I have plenty of nieces and nephews between my sisters, and believe me when I tell you that not all of them are upstanding citizens.”

  “I agree. I got a brother like that.”

  And the last time I checked he was still inside doing a stretch.

  “See? You understand. Anyway, Hector Jr., the man who was shot, was not exactly the most trustworthy man on the block.”

  “Could you elaborate?”

  Mrs. Ruiz thought for a moment. “He was rude, for one. Anytime you spoke to him, even in passing, he was quite curt. That pawnshop of his should have gone under years ago,” she said. “But somehow Hector Jr. kept it afloat. My husband, when he was alive, that is, always thought that something… illegal might have been going on there.”

  Morrigan took more mental notes. “Such as?”

  A shrug. A squint. Mrs. Ruiz wasn’t quite too sure how to put it.

  “There were a lot of very�
�” she chose her words carefully, “concerning-looking men who tended to go through that shop. I’ve walked that block three or four times a week to get groceries, and a few times I saw some individuals in there speaking to Hector Jr.”

  “Could you describe them?”

  She thought some more. “Not really. A few were black. A few were white. A few were Spanish. But you could just tell by looking at them that they were the rotten sort.”

  Morrigan continued with his line of questioning, trying his best to see what Mrs. Ruiz saw regarding the sketchy-sounding business practices of Hector Zimmerman Jr. It was difficult, though. Her memory was spotty, and all she could backup her claims with were descriptions of “despicable-looking” or “questionable-looking” individuals filtering in and out of the pawnshop.

  It wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to work with.

  But Morrigan was inclined to believe her.

  “Thank you for your time,” he said as he handed her his empty teacup. “If I have any other questions, I’d like to call you if that’s all right?”

  He didn’t need to ask.

  But he always believed in respecting his elders.

  “Of course,” she said, taking his cup. “Anytime, detective.”

  “I’ll see myself out. Thank you for your time.”

  “You’re quite welcome.”

  He turned to leave, passing through the foyer and spotting the day’s unopened pile of mail a split-second before knocking it over with a graze of his elbow. “Shit,” he hissed under his breath and crouched down, beginning to gather it all back up.

  “Is everything all right?” Mrs. Ruiz inquired as she peeked around the corner.

  Morrigan gestured to the pile on the floor. “Just my clumsiness, Mrs. Ruiz. I apologize.”

  “It’s quite fine,” she said with a laugh while Morrigan picked up a colorful oversized postcard with an American flag billowing proudly behind a tall white man with Kennedy-esque hair on the front.

  “Senator Connolly,” Morrigan said, reading the name under the big red letters that said Re-elect!

  “Oh, yes!” Mrs. Ruiz said jovially as she came over and took a look at the postcard. “I voted for him in the last election. What a good, good man. He’s from here, you know! I hope he gets re-elected. Truly I do.”

  Morrigan took note of the senator’s fake smile and air-brushed features before placing the mail back.

  “Thank you again.”

  Mrs. Ruiz nodded goodbye as he headed out the door and down to the street.

  3

  Wired

  Morrigan rambled into Lennon’s bar at 10:45pm.

  Bukowski was already two beers in by the time he showed up.

  “Morrigan!” she called out over the dull hum of the bar currently packed with patrons comprised of mostly off-duty cops doing what they did best—drowning the pressures of their work with the coldest suds available.

  Morrigan gave her a half salute as he weaved his way through the men and women in blue before he plonked down on a stool as The Pogues’ Sally Maclennane blared out from the jukebox in the corner.

  “How’d Mrs. Ruiz pan out?” Bukowski asked, flagging down the bartender.

  “Interesting,” Morrigan said.

  “Interesting how?”

  “Well, she’s inclined to think that Hector Zimmerman may not have been on the up-and-up.”

  “How so?”

  A shrug. “She was alluding to him having some unsavory acquaintances who liked to pop into the pawnshop every now and then.”

  The bartender placed down a couple of cold ones and tacked it onto Bukowski’s tab.

  “Well,” Bukowski said, taking a swig, “I’d normally say that you should scan the footage from the pawnshop cameras to see if any of that lines up, but there is no damn footage from the pawnshop cameras.”

  Morrigan squinted his eyes in confusion as he raised the bottle to his lips. “I thought Hackett said he was going to get the footage.”

  “Turns out Mr. Zimmerman wasn’t recording anything. The cameras were just for show.”

  A sigh. A sip of his beer. “Christ,” Morrigan said. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  Bukowski began to smile. She held up a finger. “Wait till you hear this… I did find something though,” she said, “about Mr. Zimmerman.”

  Morrigan folded his arms. “Hit me.”

  “He had a restraining order that he filed back in 2014. Domestic assault. The name listed of the defendant was a ‘Brian Rogers.’ Get this, two days before the court date, Zimmerman drops the RO. Official report said that the judge dissolved it upon his request.”

  “Did you run a check on this Mr. Rogers?”

  A nod. “Ready for this?” she said. “He was shot in a botched burglary in Long Island in 2016. The owner, William Thompson, shot him in the head when he entered the house. Someone else was with Rogers, but he took off as soon as Thompson started blasting…”

  Morrigan’s eyes wandered, his mind now obsessing over the developments in the case as he began to brew a plan. “You got an address?” he asked. “For William Thompson?”

  Bukowski took out her phone and sent it over through a text. “Don’t suppose you’re going to go knocking on doors in the middle of the night?” she asked, relaxing and hoping that her laid-back composure would encourage Morrigan to stick around for more than just one round.

  Morrigan could sense what she was getting at. “Too late for that,” he said. “But my brain’s too wired to call it a night.”

  She looked at her watch. “You’re technically working overtime. You do that too much.”

  Morrigan sighed. “Oh, Bukowski,” he said. “You’re starting to sound like my mother.”

  “Maybe you need one.” She gestured to his clothes. “You’ve worn that same rig three days in a row now.”

  “It’s called being economical.”

  “It’s called being scruffy, my friend. You need a washing machine. You should invest in one. They are pretty cheap these days.”

  “Mind your own business, Bukowski.”

  Bukowski held up a hand. “I was merely pointing out the department’s policy on unapproved overtime.” She brushed the air with her hand. “Just looking out for you.”

  She looked away and Morrigan sensed her pent-up energy as she swayed in her seat.

  He opened his mouth to say something—but she quickly beat him to the punch.

  “You got a smoke?” she asked.

  Morrigan nodded.

  Morrigan lit the tip of Bukowski’s cigarette as the New York chill licked at the back of their necks on the bar patio.

  “Matches?” she said with a puff. “Takes longer to light it.”

  Morrigan lit his own cigarette as the match burned out. “Preserves the flavor,” he said and tossed the smoldering match in an ashtray.

  The two of them squared off, Bukowski taking the occasional drag as they looked out at the slick and moonlit asphalt of the street.

  “What’s on your mind?” Morrigan asked.

  Bukowski took a beat and a drag. “Murder. Rape. Robbery. You know—the usual.”

  Morrigan flexed his brow. “You’ve been working this job too long.”

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  “That you’re overworked and underpaid?”

  A nod. “Most definitely.”

  A drag. “Take a vacation.”

  Bukowski snorted. “Yeah. Right. Put it on my platinum card.”

  “Well,” Morrigan said, leaning against a stool and staring out at the street, “there are plenty of ways to find a reprieve that don’t cost any money.”

  “Ah. I know what you’re getting at.”

  “Your mind is in the gutter, Bukowski.”

  Bukowski took a long drag of her cigarette and watched the rain dance along the oil-slick streets of the city. “Come on, lieutenant,” she said. “We’re human beings. Someone said that the two biggest drives that people have are their sexuality a
nd their drive for self-preservation. The former has been known to help ease the latter.”

  A shrug. “Who knows? I try not to think about it.”

  “That’s called ‘swallowing your aggression.’”

  “Spare me the psychological evaluation. I already had it two months ago.”

  “When’s the last time you were with someone?”

  “Last week.”

  Bukowski shook her head. “Bullshit.” She dropped the cigarette to the pavement, crushed it with her heel and moved toward the door. “You haven’t had someone, how should I put it, over for dinner in well over a year.”

  Morrigan tried to hide a guilty smirk. “Yeah. So what?”

  “Live a little,” Bukowski said and began to walk away. “Might add a few years to your life.”

  “Calling it a night?” Morrigan called after her.

  Bukowski slipped her hands into her pockets and jutted her chin. “Not really. I’m just going to head to the next bar to fish for someone to buy me a drink.”

  “Very unbecoming of you,” Morrigan said with a thick overtone of sarcasm.

  Bukowski gave him a look. “I’m a human being. We both know how much it helps to engage in certain practices that take the edge off living. Neither of us exactly have social lives, so attempting to find suitable candidates outside the job is somewhat limited.”

  “I think you’re being a pessimist.”

  “And I think that for one night, at least a few hours, I want to pretend like I’m not a cop. I think a guy with your history can empathize with that, Lieutenant Morrigan.”

  Morrigan said nothing.

  But Bukowski was absolutely correct.

  “Don’t think I have the capability to relax,” he said. “Maybe there’s such a thing as being too seasoned…”

  Bukowski puttered her frustrations through her lips. “You’re not broken, Morrigan. You just think too much.”

  He stared at her, pleased to have someone around on a similar wavelength to his. “Thanks, Bukowski… You know,” Morrigan said, his posture a little more relaxed—as if he were trying to warm up to Bukowski in a different way, “in another life, maybe another time… I’d have been honored to buy you a drink.”