Cop Job (22 page)

“Even a junkie can have a heart,” she said. “Girl like Lilly, scraping along at the bottom of the heap, probably thought she could do some good for somebody even lower down. I’ve seen it a lot in my line of work.”

Knowing Alfie the way I did, I wondered which of the two was the more generous and compassionate, the more eager to rescue a soul so thoroughly damaged by forces of evil incomprehensible even to the dark side.

I
STOPPED
off at Mad Martha’s hoping to catch up with Jimmy Watruss again, but he wasn’t there. I went back in the kitchen to ask Jaybo if he might be coming around, and he told me Jimmy was at a vets’ meeting up in Riverhead. The guy who was in the truck with Jaybo the day he ran into me was at a chopping block dicing up onions. He kept his head down, as if expecting I’d take a poke at him just for being there. Instead I went back to the bar and ordered a stack of fried flounder, so the visit wasn’t a complete waste.

After a slow meal, it was getting late by the time I was on Noyac Road heading back to my cottage on the Little Peconic. I was about to turn into my neighborhood when I heard a siren and saw a Southampton Town patrol car bearing down on me, lights ablaze. I pulled out of the way and the car swooshed by and made the hard left onto Oak Point. I stuck the gearbox in low and roared after him.

Against faint hope, I followed the cop to the end of the peninsula where he turned into the driveway I shared with Amanda. I stopped breathing.

Eddie was in the yard barking his head off, something he rarely did. The patrol car raced down the drive to Amanda’s, and I saw Danny Izard leap out of the car, drawing his side-arm in a single, fluid motion.

In the time-compressed moments an experience like this creates, I sent prayers to a god I didn’t believe in to spare every life inside that house, noting that those were the lives I loved more than any others in this world.

When I reached the door I almost collided with Danny as he ran back out, now with a flashlight in his other hand.

“In the living room,” he yelled as I shoved by.

Amanda was sitting on the floor with her back braced against one of her white, over-stuffed couches. Paul Hodges had his head in her lap, his legs stretched out and feet at cockeyed angles. She had her hands pressed against his temples, as if she were squeezing a cantaloupe. Nathan stood over them, blood running from a gash in his own head, which he ignored. His hands shook like frightened birds. In one of those hands was the old Colt automatic I’d given him.

Amanda looked up, her handsome Italian face a symphony of shock and worry.

“I didn’t see them,” she said. “Nathan carried him in here.”

“I shot over their heads,” said Nathan. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Hodges opened his eyes and said, “Next time, shoot ’em
in
the head.”

“What happened?” I asked him.

He took a while to answer, and I almost felt bad making him talk. His words were closer to a whisper than full speech.

“Eddie was barking like I’d never heard before. I went out the front door and these two jamokes were coming up the path. One of them whacked me with a hammer before I had a chance to ask what the hell they were doing here.”

“What’d they look like?”

“Hoodies and scarves. That’s all I saw.”

Nathan looked over at me.

“They whacked me, too, before I could get the gun out,” he said. “I had to shoot while I was flat on my back. I didn’t want to hit Hodges.”

There was a tremor in his voice, but his words were firm. No apologies.

“Where’s that fucking ambulance?” said Amanda.

I looked around at all the big open windows, the bay breeze blasting in around Amanda’s pretty tied-back curtains.

“You’re too big a target standing there,” I said to Nathan. “Sit next to Amanda and keep both hands on the gun.”

I snapped off all but one lamp and went outside. I could see Danny’s flashlight whipping across the trees that lined the backside of our properties. Eddie was in the driveway, still barking like a mad dog. I whistled and he shut up and ran over to me. I scrunched around his neck and told him everything was okay, even though I knew it wasn’t.

I got my own flashlight out of the Grand Prix’s glove compartment and walked with Eddie out toward the bay. It was a heavy Maglite, which I carried more for its double-duty as an effective club than to light my way. I saw no sense in giving anyone a nice bright target to shoot at.

When I got to the edge of the breakwater, the only thing moving was the restless Little Peconic Bay. The moon was highlighting the tips of the miniature bay waves with white paint, and off in the distance a motorboat slid silently across the water. I went back to the house.

Danny met me at the door.

“Long gone,” he said. “Can they ID?”

“No,” I said, repeating their story.

“What the hell,” he said.

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

“I can run through here every day on patrol, but I can’t park in your driveway.”

“I know. Do what you can.”

The ambulance, also lit up like a roman candle, finally wallowed down the driveway. We watched them pack up Hodges and haul him out of there. I got a chance to squeeze his shoulder and do a lousy job telling him how grateful I was.

“Just do me a favor,” he said, as the paramedics hoisted him into the ambulance. “When you find those guys? Truly fuck them up.”

Danny Izard sat in his car and called in the report, and I went back in the house. Amanda was in the kitchen working on Nathan’s wound.

“He refused to go with Hodges,” she said.

“I’m fine. No way I’m going anywhere anyhow.”

“So nothing at all that could identify them,” I said.

He shook his head, causing Amanda to pull back her hands.

“Two men. One tall, one short. Jeans and hoodies, with no logos, or any of that stuff. They both had big, square hammers.”

“More like a mallet,” I said.

“Yeah. Better to pound on people’s heads.”

“Did they say anything?”

“No. Not that I could have heard over Hodges’s cursing and screaming.”

“You’d think that would’ve scared them away,” I said.

I left him with Amanda so she could finish fussing around with the wound and went upstairs. Allison was sitting up in bed, her eyes red and swollen and the bandage on her right cheek soaked with tears.

“Daddy?”

I sat on the bed and let her hug me. Her body shook as she took deep, hoarse breaths. I hugged her back and stroked her long hair where it fell down her back until she wanted to let go.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” I said.

“No it’s not and you know it.”

“Yes it is. It’s one thing to beat up my daughter, but go after my bartenders, that’s taking things too far.”

“I don’t think you’re funny,” she said.

“Yes you do. You’re actually laughing on the inside.”

“How’s Nathan?”

“He’s downstairs. Refused to leave you.”

“I don’t deserve him. I treat him like shit and he’s being, like, Mr. Impossibly Wonderful.”

“He’s wonderful because you do, in fact, deserve him.”

She looked over my shoulder and made a frightened little yelp. I turned my head toward the door, even though all the muscles in my neck had turned to steel rods. It was Danny Izard, filling the room with his dark blue uniform and the panoply of weapons and electronic devices hanging from his belt.

“How’re we doing?” he asked, looking at Allison.

“Peachy, Danny,” she said. “Are you coming to stay with me?”

“No, but Joe Sullivan is,” he said, now looking at me.

“Really,” I said.

“I’m hanging around till he gets here. I’m supposed to tell you he’s taking another leave of absence to move in with Amanda and the gang. Say, Sam, that gun the kid fired. I’m sure it’s registered, right?”

“If I told you it was, you’d believe me?”

He frowned. Not unlike Sullivan, Danny thought strictly adhering to every dopey law and regulation was something law enforcement officers were put on earth to do.

“I might,” he said.

“Well, then there’s your answer,” I said.

“It’s not an answer, but I’ll take it for now.”

When he left, Allison confessed that she’d had a bit of a thing for Danny ever since they were teenagers hanging out at the surfers’ beach off Flying Point. I asked her what a tall, square-jawed, narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered, steely-eyed boy scout like Danny Izard could possibly have on a scrawny nebbish like Nathan Hepner.

“I have a secret lust for boy scouts, though that’s not the kind of thing a daughter should discuss with her father.”

“Agreed. I have a better subject.”

She looked defensive.

“I’m working rehab like a good little girl. They’ll tell you.”

“It’s not that,” I said, then took a deep breath and said, “Honey, do you have any idea, whatsoever, of what you might have done to attract this kind of attention? Did you see anything, do anything, say anything to the wrong person, anything at all?”

Her face immediately turned overcast.

“I knew you were going to blame me.”

“I knew you were going to say that. I’m not. Do you know how many innocent bystanders are killed every year just because some sick shit wants to eliminate witnesses?”

“No, do you? Do you study crime statistics?”

“Just answer me,” I said, as gently as I could.

She looked down at her hands folded in her lap.

“No,” she said, softly. “I think about it all the time. I have no idea.”

“What about the copywriter, Brandon Weeks? People tell us you and him had a bad falling out.”

She cracked a surprisingly broad smile.

“That dickless jerk? More likely I’d kick his ass from here to Cleveland.”

“Tough break for Cleveland.”

“Brandon is harmless,” she said. “Unless you count the damage his lousy copy has done to the consumer psyche.”

“Another reason not to watch TV.”

“You probably don’t remember teaching me how to fight,” she said. “All the dirty tricks.”

“Not dirty enough, apparently.”

“Let’s decide that when we see the other guy.”

I gripped her knee through the sheet and gave it a little shake.

“We’re working on that, Allison. This stuff can take longer than anyone wants it to.”

“What about forever? How long does that sound? Joe Sullivan has to go back to his job. I’ve got to go back to my job. Nathan has to actually get one.”

It was times like these that I understood why Abby called my daughter The Apple.

“My faith in you is limitless, my appreciation of your drive and relentless work ethic unsurpassed,” I said.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“You’re not the type to give up.”

“I‘m persistent,” she said, “if that’s what you mean.”

“You’re pig-headed.”

“Like you.”

She let it go at that, and I stood up to leave, which I did after asking one more question.

“How do you know that guy doesn’t have a dick?”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

J
oe Sullivan arrived shortly after with a camo backpack and a grim expression on his face. Danny had briefed him, so we didn’t have much more to talk about. He put his stuff in Hodges’s bedroom after poking his head in to chat with Allison, then he joined me, Nathan, and Amanda out on the patio. He told us he would be on guard for all but eight hours from early afternoon through the night—two hours for beer, six for sleep. Nathan would take over during his time off, with backup from me. When I asked if that was enough relief, he told us it was better for him to be on all the way, all the time.

Eddie and I spent that night with Amanda in the first-floor bedroom suite, though only Eddie got much sleep, evidenced by the low, but persistent snoring coming from the foot of the bed.

So I was up early enough to make coffee for Nathan when he took over active duty, and sit with Sullivan while he downed a six-pack before lumbering up the stairs to bed. I would have hung with Nathan, but after the night before, the kid deserved to know he had my full confidence. So I went back to my cottage and spent the morning in distracted and inefficient woodcraft.

This was the pattern we settled into over the following few days. The first real interruption came when Jackie called my cell phone and told me she’d finally put together a memorial service for Alfie Aldergreen. It was to be held at the Polish Catholic church in Southampton.

“Aldergreen doesn’t sound very Polish,” I said.

“It isn’t. But it’s Father Dent’s church and he’s the only priest I know. You better show up.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

S
O IT
was the next day I was standing outside the front doors of the Polish church with Jackie, Amanda, Joe Sullivan (while Danny Izard spotted him at Amanda’s house), Esther Ferguson, Jimmy Watruss, Jaybo Flynn, and Lionel Veckstrom, who had the good sense to come without his campaign flacks. Father Dent asked us to wait outside while he and some laypeople spruced up the altar. It was another lustrous Hamptons summer day, so no one complained.

It wasn’t the ideal conversational configuration. Sullivan stood like a statue with his hands in the pockets of a lightweight jacket underneath which was enough firepower to storm a hostile nation. Veckstrom wore an off-white linen suit, which wasn’t as well made as the one I was wearing, a long-ago gift from Abby whose sartorial sensibilities I’d pit against all but the most supercilious toff. Jackie was speaking sotto voce to Amanda, holding the tips of her fingers up to her mouth to catch errant syllables. Jimmy and Jaybo were likewise a separate sphere, though I could hear them talking about a fishmonger’s impending arrival at the wholesale shed behind the restaurant.

Jimmy wore his staff sergeant dress uniform, with a beret and a chestful of ribbons. I didn’t know what any of it meant, but there were too many colorful stripes to be routine commendations. As if to complete the effect, he’d shaved and cut his hair back to regulation length. Jaybo, not a military man, had cleaned up as well, presumably out of respect for Jimmy. It struck me he was actually a decent-looking kid.