Saturday, January 19th
Oak Hill Cemetery
The priest held out his hands while the funeral attendants stared at the flag-covered casket, a light mist from the gray clouds overhead shrouding an already bleak affair that made everything feel surreal. For Morrigan, Bukowski, Edmunds, and other members of the 1-8 standing around in uniform on this dreary New York morning, it did.
“Detective Steve Hackett was more than just a man who defended the law of the city. He was a husband, a son, a brother, a friend. A colleague. A man of faith…” the priest intoned.
Morrigan’s thoughts were on his brother, Klein, Petrovic, and anyone else who was involved in the intricate conspiracy that had killed Steve Hackett and now had him snared as well.
Sons of bitches, he huffed in his head.
“Steven Hackett,” the priest continued, “was a sterling example of what a life well lived looked like…”
Morrigan’s eyes wandered to the left and spotted Hackett’s widow quietly sobbing, brutally wounded by his death.
The priest brought his hands together to signal his conclusion. “We are here today,” he said, “to not mourn a man, but to honor a life. We may not know why Steven took his own life, but today we are reminded of the good parts of Steven’s life, not the tragic, that have brought us all here today.”
The post-mortem concluded that Hackett’s death was a suicide, as Klein had planned. Petrovic was clearly experienced at covering his tracks.
Morrigan wanted to expose the truth. But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t. Klein and his cohorts still had him under the heel.
And there was nothing Morrigan could do to stop it.
Not a damn thing.
But it was a long game and Morrigan knew that time and patience was the key. He knew that lying down long enough and continuing with his job would eventually provide him the breathing room to go about figuring out exactly what was going on and why.
Morrigan focused his sights on Hackett’s casket as the police officers with rifles stood in a straight line, raised their weapons, and prepared to fire into the gray sky.
I’m going to fix you, Tommy, blood or no blood, Morrigan thought as the rifles fired.
22
Dangerous Territory
Monday, January 21st
9am
“I’m going to tell you this one more time,” Edmunds said to Morrigan, finger pointed in his direction as he sat across from him at his desk. “One more time, and that’s it…”
Edmunds leaned in.
Morrigan waited for the rest.
“Hackett is dead,” Edmunds said. “It’s been ruled a suicide. Quite frankly, I’m not that surprised.”
Morrigan shook his head. It was still hard to believe that Hackett was being set up like this and that he had a muzzle on his mouth. But, like Edmunds had stated, the kilo of heroin they found at Hackett’s place was more than incriminating—the files, the photos, the testimony. It said everything it needed to. There was no doubt, no reason to suspect, even if Hackett was alive to defend himself, that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to. It raised all sorts of questions, questions that would forever remain unanswered.
But maybe, Morrigan thought, maybe I can try to steer this in the right direction…
“Sir,” Morrigan began, speaking in a warm tone and hoping that formalities would grease the wheels, “something is off. I’m not denying that Hackett wasn’t the man we thought he was, but internal affairs is only writing this thing off as a suicide because it makes them look good.”
“He had that heroin and he was being blackmailed. He was dealing.”
“I know…” Morrigan replied.
“And there’s zero way of getting around that, even if Hackett was here to explain himself.”
“I don’t think that’s necessarily true.”
Edmunds tapped his finger on the desk. “It is time to move on, Morrigan, and Steve Hackett’s suicide will remain just that.”
Morrigan shifted in his seat, well past perturbed.
“The Zimmerman, Ruiz and Dalton cases are no longer your concern. I want you working that Jimenez file I just gave you. That is your only priority now.”
Morrigan sat chewing on the tip of his thumbnail as he thought of his next play.
Edmunds interlaced his fingers, rested his hands on the desk, and leaned in with an almost paternal demeanor. “Morrigan,” he said, “I know you’re hurting right now. I know that Steve was a buddy of yours. We all are hurting, shocked and somewhat confused. Everything that has happened in the past few weeks will be enough to digest for a lifetime. Believe me… But we have to move on. We need to see this for what it is and go about our jobs.” He leaned back, tossing up his hands. “Hell, maybe Steve being gone is some fucked-up consolation. At least he isn’t around to face the consequences of his actions.”
Morrigan said nothing, Edmunds’ words completely lost on him.
“Lieutenant,” Edmunds said, saying it like he was reminding Morrigan of his position within the department. “Are you taking this in?”
Morrigan milked the time as he stared at his captain with a forced dutiful expression which masked a defiant urge to toss his badge across the desk. “Yeah,” he said, somewhat sardonically. “I’m receiving you loud and clear.”
Morrigan clenched the sides of the chair, his anger and confusion that had been backlogged for the past week now coming to the surface. He was mad—mad at Edmunds, mad at internal affairs, mad at his brother, mad with Klein and mad with himself for getting caught up in the entire situation, which was now was a giant shitstorm.
No, he thought. This isn’t over.
Not by a damn stretch.
The defiance inside him curving into a smile, Morrigan looked at his captain, shrugged, and said, “Hackett is dead… and the Jimenez case will be my only priority.”
Edmunds took a moment to analyze every square inch of his face before leaning back in his chair and nodding his approval. “That’ll be all,” he said in a professorial tone as Morrigan stood, turned, and left his office, Edmunds watching him leave with a suspicious eye.
“Coffee?” Bukowski asked, a cup outstretched to Morrigan as he walked inside the small police kitchen.
He crossed his arms. Shook his head.
“Something on your mind?” Bukowski inquired.
Morrigan nodded over his shoulder. “Wanna take a walk?”
Bukowski squinted. “What for?”
“Fresh air.”
“This is New York—no such thing.”
Morrigan was losing patience. “Would you take a walk with me?” he insisted. “Please… There are too many ears in here.”
Bukowski pondered for a moment before dumping her coffee in the sink behind him. “Okay… let’s go.”
Five minutes later they were street level, walking with their hands in their pockets as they felt the lick of the New York chill on their skin.
“Start chatting,” Bukowski said. “It’s colder than the Arctic out here.”
“How would you know?”
A shrug. “Went there once. It sucked.”
Morrigan drew a breath. “Did Edmunds talk to you about Hackett?”
A nod. “For a minute. He just wanted to see if I had any, I don’t know, conflicts about what went down with Steve.”
“Do you?”
“One or two.”
Morrigan grabbed Bukowski by the arm and stopped her in the middle of the sidewalk. “You don’t really think that Hackett shot himself, do you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what the guys upstairs think.”
“Okay… Well, what if I said ‘fuck them?’”
A laugh. “Then I’d reply with ‘fuck you.’ You want to go against the bigwigs? Good luck to you.” She started walking, not waiting for Morrigan to catch up.
He followed after her. “Okay,” he said. “What if I told you I plan on figuring out what happened to Steve?”
“I
’d say call your PBA rep and let them know you might get benched before the week is out for going rogue.”
“Well,” Morrigan huffed, “I guess that means I can’t count on you to help me. Because it’s happening.”
Bukowski stopped in her tracks, fuming; she was just as conflicted as Morrigan with the whole Hackett issue but not as eager to stir up shit for fear of staining her career. “What are you trying to do, Morrigan?” she said. “What good can come from this? This isn’t going to reverse the fact that Steve is dead.”
“I know,” he cut in, “that nothing will change that…” He chose his words carefully, desperate to right Hackett’s death and expose the truth without endangering those around him. He cared about Bukowski, truly, but he couldn’t show her all his cards. He didn’t want her to get caught in the crossfire—but he sure as hell needed her help. “Those are the facts,” he continued. “I don’t believe that he killed himself because of the stash of heroin. I believe that Steve ended up stumbling across something that got him killed and someone knows what the truth behind all of this is.”
“You got any idea who that might be? A lead?”
“I do.”
“Ah, Christ…”
Bukowski turned away, hands on her hips and wanting the whole situation to evaporate into the New York skyline.
“You know this stinks like crap,” Morrigan said. “You’ve worked this job long enough to know where there’s smoke there’s fire. I mean, the logistics of his suicide are preposterous. His apartment felt more staged than a bad goddamn TV soap opera when we came rolling in.”
Bukowski turned around. “Even if I did believe you,” she said, “you’ve got a whole lot of elements at play with this case that could land you in the same hot water Steve ended up in, if that is, in fact, what happened to him. The only people who could cover from something like this are people with the means to fuck your life up permanently if you get in the way.”
Morrigan’s eyes glossed over with a pleading glint. “Please, Bukowski,” he said. “I can’t do this alone. I need to know what happened to him. Something went down. I just know it.”
Bukowski took a moment and thought through the repercussions of what would happen to her and her career if she got caught going against the grain of the department’s official stance on the deceased Steve Hackett.
She sighed. “Where would you start?”
“I need to find a guy. He goes by the name of Alex Petrovic. I think he might be responsible for Steve’s death. I’m not asking for you to come along. I’m just asking for you to give me a heads-up if you hear anything vital or if you feel like the heat is starting to creep up on me. That’s all.”
Bukowski took her time.
She nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”
Morrigan breathed easy. “Thank you.”
“You’re walking into dangerous territory, John. Be careful.”
He squeezed her arm, thanking her. “I will.”
Morrigan turned away and headed out on his crusade.
Bukowski watching him leave and bidding him good luck in her mind before worrying about how long it would take before whoever was pulling the strings, the same person or people who did in Hackett, would do the same to him.
23
Turnpike
Wednesday, January 23rd
Bukowski’s persistence paid off: she had located the hotel where Alex Petrovic was residing. It was a shoddy little hellish establishment near the turnpike. She passed on the information to Morrigan, who now had to confront the Serbian.
Morrigan knocked three times on the door of the hotel room before the occupant answered. He stood with his shirt off, sporting that disheveled demeanor that only comes after a night—or day—of hard drinking.
It was Petrovic, a perplexed expression on his face as he laid eyes on Morrigan. He held up a hand, squinting, blocking the light from the sun outside as he cursed in Serbian for several moments, wondering how the hell Morrigan had managed to find him.
Morrigan wasted no time. “How’s it going, Alex?” He leaned in to get a better looked and smirked.
“What the fuck you want?” Petrovic replied in guttural, hard-syllabled English.
Morrigan gestured to the inside of his room. “You got a minute?”
“Is it urgent?” Petrovic asked, blocking the doorway with his body.
“Afraid it is.”
Petrovic clenched his jaw but stood aside and let Morrigan in.
The Serbian closed the door.
Morrigan took a look around, his hands stuffed in his pockets, defensive. Petrovic could sense it and tension choked the air.
But he gave a mocking laugh anyway in an attempt to belittle Morrigan
“Something funny?” Morrigan inquired.
“Why the hell you here… you asshole?”
A shrug. “I want to know who you are working for, who’s running the show.”
Petrovic laughed again, a hand on his stomach and doubling over for the sake of showmanship.
Morrigan smirked. “You think you have me on a leash, huh?”
Petrovic puffed his chest and drew a breath. “Because we do,” he said, sternly. “You’re like our dog. Our bitch.” He stood, gesturing toward the door. “Get the hell out of here.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you, you dumb Irish flatfoot.”
“I’d watch my mouth, you Serbian shithead.”
Petrovic couldn’t contain his rage any longer. Letting his primal instincts get the better of himself, Petrovic raised a fist, pulled it back, and took a swing at Morrigan. Morrigan ducked under the punch and shoved the Serb back with his shoulder, hoping that the force would drive him to the floor and give him enough time to pull his piece and bust him for assault—but it didn’t happen.
On his way to the floor, Petrovic grabbed a handful of Morrigan’s hair and pulled him down with him. Morrigan’s hands struggled to get a grip on the butt of the pistol attached on his right side as Petrovic and he became entwined.
“Fucking dog!” Petrovic spat as he palmed his hand over Morrigan’s face, pressed back, planted his foot in his chest, and kicked him off. Morrigan landed hard on his back, a sickly gasp emitting from his lungs.
The Serbian crawled across his bed, reached under the pillow on the left, and produced the .38 special he had stored underneath it for just this kind of occasion.
Morrigan, on his back and still trying to draw a breath, saw the glint of the metal of the .38 under the light and quickly began tugging at the pistol holstered at his side.
Petrovic cocked back the hammer and took aim as Morrigan took out his Sig. Two gunshots rang out.
The smoke settled. The noise dissipated.
Petrovic missed.
But Morrigan didn’t, planting a nickel-sized wound in the center of his adversary’s chest where a ribbon of red now flowed. He stood, his gun still trained and adrenaline making his hands quake. His eardrums were shocked to the point that he could only hear a faint but overwhelming buzz.
Morrigan approached Petrovic’s body, got down on one knee and pressed a finger to his neck to check his pulse. He was gone.
“Fuck,” he spat. “Goddamn it…”
He realized that he’d had no choice—the prick was going to shoot him, plain and simple.
Morrigan sat in a corner of the room for fifteen minutes, waiting to see if anyone would come knocking on the door about the gunshots—but no one did. The Serbian had picked a scummy and cheap hotel on purpose, at the turnpike where cars were constantly backfiring and most of the televisions in the four-story cesspool were blasting at loud volumes to mask the sex and drug use going on in damn near every other room.
He stared at Petrovic’s body, debating his next move, knowing full well that the moment he called it in he would be placed on suspension or worse. This was exactly the kind of situation Edmunds and Bukowski had warned him about.
Everything about Petrovic, Hackett’s death, Jake Dalton’s murder, and
the whole botched pawnshop robbery felt somehow linked to Tommy’s surprise drop-in to visit a brother he had all but written off just a few years before.
The pawnshop, Morrigan pondered. Mrs. Ruiz. Jake Dalton. The passports. Klein. Tommy. All of it. What the hell does it all mean?
As Petrovic’s body began to take on a pale shade, Morrigan realized that he was well over the line of procedure. He was well past doing things by the book. There was no going back now, and if he was going to find out what was happening and the reasons for it, he was going to have to go rogue all the way.
“Fuck it,” he said with a grunt and got up out of the chair.
He slipped on a pair of gloves and searched all the drawers, cupboards, and even under the mattress. He ended up finding a number of items: a Metro pass, a wallet containing an ID, a social security card and $200 in cash, and a prepaid cell phone.
Morrigan looked at the phone and clicked the button on the side. It looked new, fresh out of the package save for a couple of light scratches on the face. Scrolling through the texts he found nothing of use. However, in the call history he discovered three received calls, all from the same number.
Morrigan hovered his finger over the first button, debated, and dialed. The other end answered on the second ring, “Connolly Campaign Headquarters. How can I help you?”
The voice sounded familiar.
“Hello?” the man asked again.
Morrigan played a hunch. “FedEx. We have a package foul-up and need your address.”
The voice forked it over, and twenty minutes later Morrigan was in his car driving by a plain beige building draped with the star-spangled banner. He observed as young interns walked in and out. Morrigan camped out across the street for an hour, hoping he’d spot a familiar face. When one finally showed up it was in the form of Anthony Klein, trotting toward his BMW on the curb double-parked and giving all of two fucks.
The Dark Path Page 12
