Cop Job (33 page)

“I’m guessing Oksana was the only person outside Gilliam’s squad who knew the truth. When Veckstrom approached her, she knew she held the ticket to paradise.”

Jackie absorbed all that for a moment, then asked, “How do these sociopaths manage to find each other?”

“Secret handshake?”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
IX

E
dith Madison wasn’t the only one moved to issue an apology. At least mine was more sincerely felt, consumed as I was by self-reproach. On the way back to Oak Point, I ran through the usual string of what-ifs, beginning with my full-out quest to uncover Alfie Aldergreen’s killers. The way I made myself a conspicuous target, hoping to draw fire, to force an error by the opposing team.

Instead I managed to get my beautiful daughter beaten up and nearly killed, the person whose safety and well-being was to me the most cherished in the world.

I’d piled up a pretty big mountain of regret and remorse over the years, but this time it felt like the thing had grown big enough to topple over and bury me forever.

Allison would have none of it. Neither would anyone else after I’d gathered the Oak Point crowd out on Amanda’s patio to break the latest news. I had to listen to my daughter and Amanda, well supported by Joe Sullivan, beat me nearly senseless with claims of my good intentions and admirable tenacity, until I had to concede a few points to get them to knock it off.

After that the vodka, wine, and wet, early autumn breeze off the Little Peconic worked their sorcery and all talk turned to the happily inconsequential.

This worked out well until I got a call from Jackie Swaitkowski, who’d heard from Ross Semple moments before. Apparently when Lionel Veckstrom failed to show up as scheduled at his house, the uniforms went to look for him, an easy job since he’d never left the hotel room his people had booked Up Island to plot his ongoing campaign strategy.

They found him in the bathtub with a bullet in his head, delivered by his service weapon through the soft tissue under his jaw, which an experienced cop like Veckstrom would know was the surest way to commit a successful suicide.

It turned out that Oksana used her phone call in the interrogation room to alert him that disaster was on its way, rather than contact her attorney, which in hindsight was the better choice. There was plenty of time to secure representation, but only that moment to effectively claw her partner in venality into the abyss that awaited her.

What should have been a triumph for Edith Madison turned out to be a crisis for the New York State Board of Elections, after Edith withdrew from the race stating that the grief caused by her husband’s death had, in fact, affected her more than she realized, and thus she no longer felt confident in her ability to fulfill her duties as Suffolk County district attorney.

So the governor appointed an interim DA, and the board scheduled a special election on a date agreed upon by the two parties, who had a bitch of a time scrounging up viable candidates.

None of whom I knew, which I hoped was a good thing.

I only heard this on the radio, having no interest in the proceedings, preoccupied as I was with my healing daughter, goofy dog, self-contained girlfriend, and the capricious acts of nature enacted daily over the sacred Little Peconic Bay.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
’m deeply grateful to my military counsel, who not only provided technical verisimilitude but had a material impact on the story itself, and the development of several key characters. My brother, Lieutenant Colonel Whit Knopf, US Army Reserve, Retired, helped me with various details and nomenclature, and importantly, put me in touch with Colonel Christopher Carney, also of the USAR, who saw active duty in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan; and his son, Captain Shannon Carney, a 1994 West Point graduate, who served five years in command of a platoon of Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the Republic of Korea.

Invaluable help with crime scenes and the people who inhabit them (dead and alive) was provided by Michelle Clark, Medicolegal Death Investigator with the Connecticut Medical Examiners Office, and an inspiration to crime writers across New England. Other insights into police practice and procedure came courtesy of Connie Dial, mystery novelist and former journalist, undercover narcotics investigator, and commanding officer of LAPD’s Hollywood Division, and Lieutenant Art Weisgerber, of the Norwalk Police Department Crime Scene Unit.

In the colorful English-accent department, thanks to Matt Hilton, mystery writer and Cumbrian lad in good standing with the Geordies. And for all-out translation, thanks to adman Erkan Kurt, adviser on all matters involving Turkish tough-guy expletives.

Back stateside, legal adviser (strictly fictional) Rich Orr again helped quite a bit on what you can and cannot do within the law, as well as what you can and cannot get away with in the political realm.

Psychologist Dr. Mark Braunsdorf informed the passages relating to mental illness—behaviors, attitudes, and the professional world that surrounds it all.

Food and beverage maven, and former stinkpot operator, Tim Hannon, gave some excellent insights into illicit transport behaviors among the marine trade, as well as alternative applications of certain kitchen implements.

Additional nautical support was provided by Kip Wiley and Chick Michaud, service managers at Brewer Pilots Point Marina in Westbrook, CT.

Thanks for the briefing on student life at Rhode Island School of Design by graduates Jane Cleary, graphic designer at the Chrysler Museum, and Shana Aldrich Ready, of the “Ropes of Maine” nautical bracelets.

Any errors or misrepresentations anywhere in the book are the author’s responsibility alone.

Special thanks to my esteemed presubmission readers Jill Fletcher, Sean Cronin, Randy Costello, Leigh Knopf, Mary Jack Wald, and Bob Willemin, who work hard to keep me out of editorial trouble. And of course Marty and Judy Shepard and their exemplary Permanent Press team, notably copy editor Barbara Anderson, cover designer Lon Kirschner, and production artist Susan Ahlquist.

And as always, thanks to my wife, Mary Farrell, whose brace of Lakeland Terriers does so much to focus a writer’s concentration.