Briarpatch (18 page)
After the hymn was over, Dill assumed the services were too, but they weren't. The young minister had already descended from the pulpit and now someone else mounted it. The someone else
was Gene Colder, Baptist deacon and homicide captain, looking neat and melancholy in a dress uniform that seemed as finely tailored as the chief of detectives'. Colder gripped the lectern, not out of nervousness, but with the air of an experienced orator who has something important to say. His eyes examined his audience, beginning with those in the back and ending with Dill in the front row, to whom he nodded slightly. Colder then picked out the mourner he intended to talk toâwho seemed to be about halfway backâand began.
was Gene Colder, Baptist deacon and homicide captain, looking neat and melancholy in a dress uniform that seemed as finely tailored as the chief of detectives'. Colder gripped the lectern, not out of nervousness, but with the air of an experienced orator who has something important to say. His eyes examined his audience, beginning with those in the back and ending with Dill in the front row, to whom he nodded slightly. Colder then picked out the mourner he intended to talk toâwho seemed to be about halfway backâand began.
“I have been asked to say a few words about Detective Second Grade Felicity Fredricka Dill (God, how she hated Fredricka, Dill thought), not only because she was in my division, homicide, but also because we were friends.” Colder paused and added. “Very good friends.” Now everybody knows they were sleeping together, if they didn't know before, Dill thought.
“Detective Dill was what I would call a cop's cop,” Colder continued. “She won her promotions, and they were indeed rapid promotions, because of her hard, often brilliant work. I do not hesitate to predict that had she lived and pursued her career with this same determination and brilliance, she could've become this city's first female chief of detectives and, it is not at all inconceivable, its first female chief of police.” Captain Colder smiled slightly. “It goes without saying that she would have made captain.”
After that, Colder talked about what a wonderful person Detective Dill had been. He praised both her mind and her bravery. He had nice things to say about her sound common sense and her uncommon compassion. He described her loss as tragic and her legacy as everlasting, although Dill didn't know what he meant by that. Colder failed to mention the dead detective's two hundred and fifty thousand dollar life insurance policy and the yellow brick duplex, which were also part of her legacy, but not an especially everlasting part, in Dill's opinion.
Finally, Colder said, “I can only repeat the highest compliment we can pay her: she was a cop's cop, and we shall miss her. All of us.”
The deacon now gazed out over his congregation, for that was how Dill had come to think of it, and asked them to join him in the Lord's Prayer. Dill watched as the honor guard's heads snapped down and they prayed together at parade rest.
When the prayer was over, the police choir burst into song again. Dill, no churchgoer, thought this one was “Abide with Me.” He glanced at Anna Maude Singe, who reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Think of it this way,” she said in a low voice. “Somewhere she's laughing.”
“Sure,” said Dill, who didn't at all believe it. He turned to meet the approaching Captain Colder, who shook hands first with Singe and then with Dill. “I appreciate what you said, Captain,” Dill said.
“I meant every word of it.”
“It was very moving,” Singe said.
“Thank you.” He looked at Dill. “Everything work out all rightâthe limousine and all?”
“It's been perfect. I want to thank you very much.”
“Well, I'll escort you back out to your car. It'll be right behind Felicity.” Not behind the hearse, Dill noticed, but behind the still uninterred Felicity. Colder smiled reassuringly. “The graveside services are very brief, very formal. Shall we go?”
As they walked up the aisle, Dill looked for someone he knewâfor some old family friend he could nod to or smile atâbut there was none. She has friends here, he thought, but you don't know them because that ten-year gap between your ages was almost unbridgeable. He did notice the section of out-of-town policemen who sat together, spruce and correct in their varied uniforms, and eyed him curiously and with sympathy as he walked past.
And that's who came to bury Felicity, Dill realized. Cops and the wives of cops. The cops themselves were young and middle-aged. I guess there aren't any old cops anymore, except for the chief of police. I guess they put in their twenty or thirty years, take their pension, and get out. Detective Dill. Sergeant Dill. Captain Dill. Chief of Detectives Dill. Chief of Police F. F. Dill. Well, who knows. It might have happened.
On the aisle seat in the next to the last row sat Fred Y. Laffter, the ancient police reporter. He rose and sidled up to Dill and in a hoarse whisper said, “We're gonna go with the stuff on your sister's insurance policy and the money she paid down on her duplex and all that crap. Any comment you wanta make?”
Dill stopped. “What d'you mean âwe'?”
Laffter pointed a finger skyward and shrugged. “They tell me upstairs they wanta go with it, so we go with it. I can still work you in a graph, if you want, although that's my idea, not theirs.”
“No quote,” Dill said. “Nothing.”
“For God's sake, Laffter, not now,” Colder said and inserted himself between Dill and the old man.
“I'm doing him a favor,” Laffter said.
“Not now, damnit,” Colder said.
Laffter stared at him coldly. “It's my job, sonny,” he snapped, stepped nimbly around Colder, and again confronted Dill. “No hard feelings, kid.”
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Dill said.
Led by the two dozen Harley-Davidsons, which were themselves led by a green-and-white squad car with its bar flasher on, the mile-long funeral procession rolled at a stately fifteen miles per hour toward the Green Glade of Rest cemetery that once had been a hardscrabble farm on the eastern outskirts of the city.
The centerpiece of Green Glade was a none-too-complicated maze about one-quarter the size of a football field. The maze was composed of swamp privet hedge eight feet tall and a couple of feet thick. There were also gravel paths for strolling and stone benches in convenient nooks where mourners could sit and rest and think long thoughts about life and death and what it all meant. However, the gravel was hard to walk on, the stone benches uncomfortable, and the maze was usually shunned by those who visited the cemetery.
In the past five years the police department had buried seventeen of its slain officers at Green Glade of Rest. Detective Felicity Dill would make it eighteen. Before the department had bought its own cemetery plot, KOD policemen were buried all over town. KOD stood for Killed on Duty.
Virtually all of those who had been at the church service also attended the graveside ceremony. As promised, the ceremony was brief. A police chaplain read the Twenty-Third Psalm. A squad of sharpshooters fired a rifle volley. A bugler played “Taps” on a cornet. The stalwart honor guard, doubling as pallbearers, folded the American flag covering the casket into a neat triangle and presented it to Dill, who had not the slightest idea of what to do with it. And then it was over, the dead sister buried, and the time was not yet noon.
The police department's KOD plot was up on a slight knoll. With the services over, the mostly uniformed mourners began to walk slowly back down to their cars, skirting the maze. A few lingered on to shake Dill's hand and murmur their sorrow. As Dill and Anna Maude Singe slowly made their way to the waiting limousine, he shook the offered hands and politely thanked the murmurers.
Dill and Singe found themselves almost alone not far from the maze when someone tapped Dill on the shoulder. He turned, as did Singe. They found themselves bathed in the angelic glow of the smile that belonged to Clay Corcoran, who had loved the dead sister.
“I just couldn't keep away, Mr. Dill,” Corcoran said.
“Ben,” Dill said.
“Ben,” Corcoran agreed and turned his warm smile on Singe. “How you, Smokey?”
Singe said she was fine. The big man's dazzling smile went away and he turned serious. “I thought it was a swell funeral,” he said. “I think Felicity might've giggled a little here and there, but everything went off real nice.”
Corcoran seemed to be soliciting Dill's confirmation, so Dill said that he, too, thought it had all gone very well. Corcoran glanced over the heads of Dill and Anna Maude Singe. Behind
them the police in their summer uniforms were moving past the maze toward their cars, although at least a fourth of them, mostly those who had brought wives, were now gathered in small gossipy groups.
them the police in their summer uniforms were moving past the maze toward their cars, although at least a fourth of them, mostly those who had brought wives, were now gathered in small gossipy groups.
Corcoran dropped his deep voice down into what he must have hoped was a confidential mutter. “I told you I was going to snoop around a little?” He had made it a question, so Dill nodded in reply.
“Well,” Corcoran went on in the same tone, “I think I might've come up with something.” Again, he glanced over their heads as if afraid of being overheard. Apparently satisfied, he added, “But I've got to ask you a couple of questions first.”
“Okay,” Dill said.
“There's this guy called Jake Spivey whoâ” Corcoran never finished his sentence, and later Dill thought the big man's reflexes had been incredible. Corcoran threw a hip into Dill that sent him sailing. He landed four feet away. It was Dill's first brush with contact sports and he found it strangely exhilarating.
Before Dill had even landed, Corcoran used his left arm to clothesline Anna Maude Singe and send her sprawling. The pleasant look had fled and Corcoran's frightener's scowl was back as he dropped to one knee and clawed at something beneath his right pants leg.
Dill looked where Corcoran was looking. He saw the large fist and the small gun poking through the thick swamp privet hedge thirty-some feet away. Or perhaps, Dill later thought, the smallness of the gun made the fist look large. He saw the gun fire. He heard the sharp nasty crack of a single shot. Dill turned and saw that it had caught the kneeling Corcoran low in the throat. The big man dropped the small flat .25-caliber automatic he had just snatched from the ankle holster on his right leg. He pressed both hands
against the wound in his throat. A moment later, he removed his bloody hands and stared at them in amazement.
against the wound in his throat. A moment later, he removed his bloody hands and stared at them in amazement.
Corcoran knelt there on one knee for two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, then sighed, and slowly lay down on the grass. Blood pumped from his throat. Dill, rising, looked around. The only persons still standing were the wives of the policemen. The policemen themselves had dropped to the grass. Some had dropped flat. A dozen others knelt, their right or left pants legs up, revealing white hairy calves and the small leather holsters that were strapped to them.
A dozen pistols, mostly flat little automatics much like Corcoran's, had suddenly blossomed in big fists. The cops with the pistols were swiveling their heads, searching for someone to shoot, someone to arrest. But all they found was other copsâand a lot of them strangersâwho were also waving pistols around.
Dill later thought the silence after the single shot had lasted no more than three or four seconds and not the hour it seemed at the time. One of the policemen's wives finally screamed at the sight of Corcoran lying on the grass, his knees drawn up almost to his chest, the blood still pumping from his throat. After the scream, the shouting and confusion began.
Dill was the first to reach Corcoran. The big man's green eyes were still open, but not quite focused, although he seemed to recognize Dill. He tried to speak, but instead blew a large pink bubble which burst with a tiny plop. Corcoran's lips moved again and Dill bent to listen. Those watching later said they thought Corcoran managed only three or four words before the blood finally stopped pumping from the wound. Out of Corcoran's mouth came one last sigh. It formed another pink bubble that popped almost immediately. Then the heart ran out of blood, stopped, and Corcoran was dead.
Dill slowly rose to his feet. A policeman who seemed to have had medical training knelt quickly by Corcoran and used deft fingers to search for any signs of life. He found none and sat back on his heels, shaking his head.
Dill helped the trembling Anna Maude Singe to her feet. When he asked if she was hurt, she slowly shook her head no, her eyes fixed on the huge curled-up body of Clay Corcoran. Dill put an arm around Singe to lead her away. He found their path blocked by Captain Gene Colder. A moment later, Chief of Detectives John Strucker rushed up. Colder glanced at Strucker, as if for permission. Strucker granted it with a nod.
“Tell us quick, Dill,” Colder said in a crisp hard voice. “They say he said something. Could you understand what he said?”
Dill nodded. “Sure. He said, âIt hurts. It hurts.' He said it twice.”
“That's all?” Strucker said, the disbelief in his tone, if not on his face.
“That's it.”
Strucker turned to Colder. “You know what to do, Captain. You'd better get at it.”
“Yes, sir,” Colder said, turned, and hurried away, pointing first at this policeman and then beckoning to that one. It was the only time Dill could remember having heard Colder say sir to Strucker.
The chief of detectives took a cigar from his breast pocket and slowly stripped away the cellophanelike plastic, not taking his eyes from the body of the dead Corcoran. He wadded the cellophane up into a small ball and flipped it away. Still staring down at Corcoran, he bit off one end of the cigar, spat it out, and lit it with a disposable lighter.
“You knew him, huhâCorcoran?” Strucker said, still staring at the dead man.
“He said he used to go with my sister.”
“That's right,” Strucker said, finally shifting his gaze to Dill. “He did.”
“He said he used to be a cop.”
“He was. Not bad either, although he was a hell of a lot better linebacker. He say what he was doing now?”
“He claimed he was a private detective,” Dill said. “A frightener, he called it.”
Strucker smiled, but it was a small grim one that vanished almost immediately. “He wasn't bad at that either, although he was better at football than anything else. He just came down and introduced himself to you whereâat the hotel?”
“Right.”
“What'd you talk about?”
“My sister, what else?”
“He tell you how she'd dropped him sudden-like?”
“Yes.”
“He still steamed about it?”
“He seemed more resigned than anything elseâresigned and sad, of course.”
Strucker turned to Anna Maude Singe. “You knew him, too, didn't you, Miss Singe?”
“Yes. Quite well.”
“What happened hereâa few moments ago?”
“I'm not absolutely sure.”
Strucker puffed on his cigar, blew smoke up into the air and away from Singe. He nodded at her encouragingly. “Just tell me what you saw and what you remember.”
She frowned. “Well, Clay came up to us and said he thought it was a nice funeral and everything seemed to have gone off quite well. Mr. Dill agreed and then Clay said he'd been looking around, or poking around, maybe, and that he needed to ask Mr. Dill something. But then, well, then I guess he saw something behind
usâbehind Mr. Dill and meâbecause after that everything happened awfully fast. He bumped Mr. Dillâ”
usâbehind Mr. Dill and meâbecause after that everything happened awfully fast. He bumped Mr. Dillâ”
Dill interrupted. “He gave me a hip shot.”
Strucker nodded and again smiled encouragingly at Singe.
“Then his arm snapped out like this,” she said, demonstrating how Corcoran's arm had moved. “And the next thing I knew I was flat on my back.”
“Clotheslined her?” Strucker asked Dill.
“Apparently.”
“Then I heard the shot,” Anna Maude Singe went on, “and I looked up and saw Clay, except he was down on one knee by then, kneeling, and he had his pants leg up and a little gun in his hand. But he dropped the gun and his hands went up to his throat and came away bloody. After that, he just decided to lie down. It looked like that anyway. He lay down and his knees came up to his chest and he justâhe just curled up and died.”
She looked away then. “You all right?” Strucker asked.
She nodded. “Yes. I'm all right.”
Strucker turned to Dill. “What'd you see?”
“The same thingâexcept I also saw a hand poking a gun through the hedge right about there.” Dill pointed to where a knot of policemen were down on their hands and knees in their dress uniforms making a careful search of the cemetery grass near the spot in the privet hedge Dill had indicated. He assumed they were looking for a spent cartridge.
Strucker watched them for a moment and dolefully shook his head. “Look at 'em,” he said. “All in uniform and alike as peas in a pod. He could've got himself an out-of-town uniform somewhere, gone to the funeral, come out here, shot Corcoran, and ducked out the other side of the maze. Could've happened like that.”
“Maybe,” Dill said.
Strucker looked at him with renewed interest. “What d'you mean, maybe?”
“The one time I talked to Corcoran, he told me he did a lot of bodyguard work. Maybe that's what he did hereâalmost by reflex. He got Anna Maude and me out of the way and then went for the shooterâexcept it didn't work out too well.”
Strucker puffed thoughtfully on his cigar, coughed twice, and then noddedâa bit grudgingly, Dill thought. “And the shooter was after who?” Strucker said. “You?”
Dill looked at Singe. “Or her.”
Singe's eyes went wide for a second and her mouth dropped open, but snapped shut so she could form the M in her startled “me?”
“Maybe,” Dill said.
“Why the hell me?”
“For that matter,” Dill said, “why the hell anyone?”
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