by Blake Banner
I sighed. “Katie, I am sorry. I really am. What can I say? Life isn’t fair. It never was. The fact is that you can get it right a million times, and life goes on. You get it wrong once and you spend the rest of your life living with the consequences.”
She gave a small smile you could describe as rueful. “He contacted me because he had tracked down Jack O’Connor’s only surviving daughter. At first I told him to leave me alone, but he was nothing if not persistent. Relentless might be a better word. In the end I agreed to talk to him.”
Dehan was frowning. “Things must have happened pretty fast.”
Katie turned to her and seemed to study her face for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. They did. Dave was a pain in the ass, but he was a fascinating pain in the ass. He was intense, really intense. When he focused his mind on something it was…” She stared at the wall, shrugged, shook her head. “It was like his mind was eating that subject or that person; devouring it. Where other people are inhibited by things like good manners, social conventions, danger…” She shook her head again. “David was not fazed by anything. He didn’t even consider things like that. If X was the objective, then nothing, and I mean nothing, would stand in his way.” She paused, looking down at her hands on the table. “There is something very compelling, very attractive, about that quality in a man.”
She raised her eyes to look at Dehan again.
Dehan said, “I get that.”
“Before I knew it I was staying at his place every other night, moving my clothes and my music in… It wasn’t so much a whirlwind as a tornado.”
I repeated the question, “So why did you lie to us?”
“I told you I didn’t lie. Yes, I knew that he was investigating my father’s death. I also knew that he believed Carol Hennessy was responsible.” She stopped talking, looking at each of her fingers in turn, as though she might find the answer to life’s injustices on one of them. “At first I wanted to help him. I thought he wanted me to. I had always believed that my father was assassinated, and that the robbery, the murder of my mother and my sister, they were merely to make it look like a home invasion. I have always believed that. And when Dave came along saying that he believed it, too, and that he thought he might be able to prove it…”
She trailed off. Dehan waited a moment, then asked, “Did he tell you how he was going to prove it?”
Katie seemed not to hear her. “At first I didn’t want to get involved. I was terrified of the brutality of that man. The ruthlessness, the efficiency with which he did it. Do you know what it’s like to be a child, to witness something like that and feel completely powerless and helpless in the face of such…” Her face creased with disgust. “…Power, such strength and violence? I still have nightmares about it. But he persuaded me that if I helped him it would be a way of achieving closure. And I believed him.”
Dehan started to repeat her question. “Did he tell you…”
“No. He got me to talk. I went over the murder a hundred different ways, until I had become numb to it. But he never told me anything about his article or his investigation, or his other sources.”
I thought for a moment and asked, “What can you tell me about K?”
She frowned at me. “Who’s Kay?”
I slid the anonymous note across the table to her. “Are you going to deny that you sent this?”
She read through it carefully. When she’d finished, she raised her eyebrows and pushed it back across the table to me.
“I have no idea who wrote that, Detective Stone, but what you’re suggesting doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’m right here.” She gave a small laugh, like I was being absurd. “Why would I send you an anonymous letter when I can talk to you face to face?”
I nodded and sighed. “I was hoping you would explain that, Katie.”
“I’m sorry, detective, you are way off base. When Dave revealed to me that he was married, I saw what a stupid bitch I had been. He shared nothing with me. Do you get that? Nothing. I gave him.” She paused, watching my face to see if I understood. “He kept everything from me, his article, his investigation, his life, the truth!”
I pulled back the letter and the list and slipped them into the folder again.
“What can you tell me about his two trips to Arizona?”
She gave an exasperated half-laugh half-sigh. “Again? He was away for about a week in January and a week in February. Did he go to Arizona? If you say so. He didn’t tell me. All I knew was that he was away.”
I took a deep breath and spread my hands. “If you won’t cooperate with us, Katie, then there is no point in my talking to you any longer.”
She hesitated a moment without looking at either one of us. Then, she said quietly, “I’m sorry,” and she got up and left.
Dehan and I stared at each other for a minute, but neither of us had anything to say, so we stood and made our way downstairs. I found Sergeant Garcia and gave her the manila folder with instructions. When I’d finished telling her what I wanted, she said, “Listen, the car was identified. I didn’t want to interrupt your interrogation, but they got it on CCTV at a gas station. They got the number.” She handed me a slip of paper. “Patrolman Junkers traced it. It was reported stolen the same night of the shooting.”
I made a face that was rueful. “To be expected.”
“No, but a neighbor got it on her cell. She filmed the whole thing! The Inspector wants you up in his office to look at the video.”
I bellowed across the detectives’ room, “Dehan! Upstairs!”
Everybody looked, and as Dehan crossed the room there was much laughter, applause, and wolf-whistling.
I was knocking on Inspector Newman’s door as she came up behind me. “What the hell is it, Stone?”
Newman’s voice called, “Come!”
I pushed in as I said to Dehan, “They got footage of the car.”
“Shit!”
To Newman I said, “Is it any good?”
“You tell me.”
He had his laptop open on the desk. He pressed ‘play’ and turned it so we could all watch. I sat and Dehan crouched beside me with her hand on my shoulder.
The quality was grainy, but good enough to see the dark Audi parked on a leafy street. It was between two plane trees, under a street lamp. There was a group of three men under the tree by the trunk. The nearest was wearing blue jeans and a brown leather jacket. The two others were in dark clothes and were hard to make out.
The guy in the jeans looked up and down the street, then approached the driver’s door, fiddled with it for a moment, and pulled it open. The lights flashed and for a moment you could hear the alarm, but he climbed in and after a couple of bleeps the alarm stopped. The two other guys then stepped up to the rear doors and whoever was filming zoomed in on them. The picture became more grainy, but the nearside guy, the one who must have shot at us, turned and looked up and down the road just before he opened the door and got in.
I said, “Back up and freeze on his face… Just there!”
Dehan spoke through clenched teeth, “Got you, you motherfucker!” She glanced at Newman’s astonished face, but she didn’t apologize. Instead, she said, “Jay Guzman. He’s from the hood. Started out as muscle for the Sureños. Then did his degree at Attica and graduated with honors in various forms of murder. There were three hits attributed to him at the correctional facility, then a string more over the last few years, mostly for the Mob.”
Newman looked impressed. “Any doubt?”
She shook her head. “None.”
I said, “Let’s go get the son of a bitch.”
“Take a SWAT team.” He stood. “I’ll come down for the briefing.”
While Newman gathered the team in the briefing room, Dehan found Guzman’s number. He had a nice house out near Eastchester Bay. She called and waited while it rang. Then she suddenly cocked her hip and flopped her head on one side with an idiot grin. The accent was straight out of the deep south.
“Oh,
good morning! I represent the Exclusive New York Fine Food and Wine Company. We have been asked to extend an invitation to Mr. Guzman to be among our very select group of members. I wonder if Mr. Guzman is there? Could I speak to him possibly?” She waited, listening, with a bright smile on her face, then said, “Oh, he’s sleeping? Oh, heavens no! Don’t wake him!” She laughed out loud. “I’ll call back at a more convenient time. Five o’clock? I’ll be sure to call then. You have a super day, y’hear!”
She hung up and strode into the briefing room. Newman was talking but she interrupted him.
“Guzman is at home right now sleeping. Apparently he was up late and will sleep till about four. But we need to act now. There is too much riding on this.”
Newman glanced at me. I smiled and nodded. He turned to the SWAT team. There were six of them.
“Okay, like I said, this guy is very dangerous. We are going into his home. We don’t know what we are going to find in there but we have to assume the worst. Our latest intel is that he will be in his bed asleep, but you need to be ready for him to be awake and armed. He has a wife and two kids. So you will need to be aware of them and keep them out of harm’s way. The wife may be in bed with him. Be prepared for that.
“Jones, Smith, Patel, and Philips, you go in the back. Dehan, Gunther, and Sanchez, you go in the front. Dehan is in charge of this operation. Get him alive! Okay? We need this man alive! Go!”
He stood and put a hand on my shoulder. “You sit this one out in the car with me, Stone.” He grinned. “How does it feel to be getting old?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t know sir.”
He laughed and we made our way out to the cars.
TWENTY ONE
There is nothing in this world more frustrating that having to sit in a car and watch your partner lead a SWAT raid on a house where you know there is an armed man who has put two slugs into your body. It doesn’t get much more frustrating than that.
We sat in silence as they deployed in their body armor, four around the back and Dehan and two more entering through the front garden, flattened against the walls. The two guys with her, Gunther and Sanchez, looked big and tough. Beside them Dehan looked delicate and frail. I knew she was as tough as nails, I’d seen her in action and I knew she was fast and lethal, but to me right then, with two bullet holes in my chest, she looked like a young girl that I should be protecting.
“It should be me going in there, not her.”
Newman looked at me curiously. “In your condition you’d be a liability, John.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
“It was very brave, what you did. Well beyond the call of duty.”
I shrugged. “No it wasn’t. I didn’t think. Any one of us would have done the same for a partner.”
He grunted. There was a shout. Dehan’s voice. Then they were battering the door and the three of them were storming in, hollering. I strained my ears, listening for gunfire, then climbed out of the car where I could hear better. The only sound was the distant sigh of mundane traffic, the whisper of the breeze among the cold, naked branches, and far off, muffled, the occasional shout. I stood staring, knowing that people might be dying, that in that house was the intention to kill, and Dehan was the victim of choice.
I heard Newman shout, but I wasn’t listening. I didn’t even know that I was running. I crossed the lawn and I was up the stairs to the porch and busting in through the doors. A woman with two kids sitting on a sofa in the living room. A cop in a helmet and body armor standing over her. He glanced at me and frowned but I was already on the stairs. Voices, shouting, barking, hollering. Dehan’s voice, harsh, aggressive. I smiled and began to laugh as I ran up the stairs. Three guys in the bedroom doorway with their weapons drawn.
“Sir! You cannot come in here! Sir!”
Inside the room, Dehan’s voice bellowing, “On your face, motherfucker!”
I pushed past, muttering, “Out of my way, goddamit!”
And there was Dehan, a half-naked man on his face on the floor, with his arms behind his back, and her kneeling on him, holstering her piece with one hand, cuffing him with the other. One guy covering her and a second moving toward me with his hand stuck out, shouting, “Stay outside!”
I pushed his hand away and snarled at him, “Get out of my face!”
Dehan looked up and grinned. “Glad you could make it, Sensei. I got a late present for you. Merry Christmas.”
Behind me I heard feet lumbering up the stairs. Next thing, Newman was bursting in. He didn’t say anything, but I wasn’t looking at him. I was staring at Dehan’s grinning face as she dragged Guzman to his feet.
She stared back for what might have been a second or an hour. I heard myself saying, “Good work.” She nodded and I looked around at the SWAT guys who were watching me like I was crazy. I said, again, “Good work.”
Newman was scowling at me like he wanted to can me right there and then. He said, “Dehan, take the prisoner down to the station. Book him and take him to the interrogation room.”
I growled at him, “I interrogate this suspect with Detective Dehan, sir.”
Dehan and the SWAT team dragged Guzman from the room. One of them grabbed his clothes and a dressing gown. After a moment of commotion, Newman and I were alone in the room, with the receding sound of voices downstairs. We stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Is there anything you need to tell me, Stone?”
I said, “No.”
“You are an experienced officer. You have the best track record in the 43rd. You have almost thirty years of experience. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
I chewed my lip, but I couldn’t answer him. Finally, I said, “I don’t know.”
“Talk to me, John! Twice, in almost as many days, you have acted irrationally!” He took a couple of steps toward me. “Quite aside from the fact that Detective Dehan was probably not the target in the shooting, she was in a position to take cover. You ran around the car and put yourself in the line of fire!”
I sighed and looked away from him. “I acted without thinking to protect my partner.”
“And now? What is your explanation for this?”
“I…” Again, I had no answer. Lamely, I said, “It should have been me.”
He came up close to me. “Stone, I am going to ask you one more time. There are rumors. My policy with rumors is to ignore them. Do I need to be listening to this one? Is there anything that you need to tell me?”
I stared at him a long time. “I don’t know.”
“Figure it out. But understand this, one more display like this and I will suspend you. Do you understand that?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I understand it, sir.”
He kept looking at me. “So? What now? Can you handle this?”
“Yes. I need to interrogate Guzman, sir. I will hold it together.”
“Fine. I’ll be watching. But, John?”
“What?”
“I am not just the Inspector. I’m your friend. If you need to talk, talk to me.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
He smiled. “Or talk to her.”
I didn’t answer. I walked past him and went down the stairs, thinking about Guzman.
When I got outside, Guzman was in the back of a patrol car. It pulled away and headed north, toward the station. The SWAT cars were pulling away after it. Dehan approached me. She was still grinning and came and stood close to me. “Hey pardner. You arrived a little early there, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. And I just got hauled over the coals for it.”
She looked past me and I was aware of Newman exiting the house. He spoke to a couple of guys from the SWAT team who were climbing into their vehicle. Then he headed toward his own car without saying anything to us. She examined my face a moment and said, “Ride with me.”
“Dehan…”
She narrowed her eyes. “What is it?”
“We need to talk.”
She squin
ted. “Now?”
I drew breath, hesitated. “No. I guess not now. Let’s go interrogate this son of a bitch.”
* * *
When we got to the station, Maria told me he had been booked and was in interrogation room one, waiting for us. We went straight up. As soon as we stepped in, he started mouthing off.
“What the fuck? You come stormin’ into my house! Threatening my family with weapons! Abusin’ me and my family! My wife! My children!”
We sat opposite him and I said very quietly, “We have you on film.”
He paused. “What?”
“We have you on film. The car was caught at the gas station where you stopped after you tried to kill me. We traced the car to the owner. One of his neighbors caught you stealing the car on his cell.”
“That’s bullshit…”
“Don’t waste your time, Guzman. How the fuck do you think we found you? The sooner you start cooperating, the easier it’s going to be to cut a deal.”
He stared hard at us for a long moment, first at me, then at Dehan, then back at me again. His simple brain was struggling with the equation I had given him. I sighed. I felt real tired.
“Guzman, you’re going down for the attempted murder of two police officers. The story is over for you. At your age, you’ll be lucky to get out before you’re dead. The proof is conclusive. There isn’t a jury on Earth that would not convict you within five minutes of seeing the evidence. It’s a slam dunk. Am I getting through to you?”
“I wanna see my lawyer.”
“Don’t worry, he’s on his way. I am not interrogating you. I am just talking.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve already been told. You don’t need to say anything. But you’d be smart to listen. Because there is a way for you to be able to see your family again, and be with them.”
“There is…?”
I put my finger to my lips. “Shshshsh… Don’t talk. Just listen. I am not interested in you, Guzman. I would happily waive all charges against you. I would happily recommend a deal to the DA. Witness protection could put you far away, in Cali, in a nice house with your family. A new life.” I sighed again. “You know what I want, Guzman, don’t you?”
