God of the Dead (Seasons of Blood #1): A dark paranormal crime thriller novel (9 page)

“Well, son,” the giant of a cop said. “We need to find out who else knows you’re a Munroe.”

“There isn’t anybody else, except my parents,” AJ said.

“We still haven’t been able to get a hold of them, even though I’ve had a guy calling every half hour since this situation developed,” Harris continued. “Do you know if they were planning on going out of town for a while, perhaps even here to the city?”

“No, they should be there. My dad teaches college over there and classes just

started last month.”

Harris nodded. He decided to call the boys upstate, where the Lancasters lived,

and have them check in. There was a knock on the door and the desk sergeant popped

his head in.

“Guy out here, boss. Claims he owns the gas station—”

Vito squirmed around the sergeant and into the room.

“Can I help you?” Harris asked, not knowing who Vito was and being unaccustomed to people barging in on him.

“Very doubtful, Gigantor, but I think I can help you.” Vito seated himself and began to speak, recounting the story of his visit from a Detective Quidman. John had looked into it. There wasn’t a cop named Quidman in the entire
state
, let alone in their house.

“…and so I says to the guy, I says,
why should I,
you know? And this prick fuck tries layin’ obstruction on me!”

“Did you give him the DVD?” John asked.

“Yeah I gave ’em to him! He said he was a cop for chrissakes! He had a
badge!
”

“And you’re positive he mentioned the name Munroe?” Terrance asked.

Vito gave him a look he reserved solely for people he found dangerously close to mentally retarded. “No, it’s a ruse, my dear Watson. Yes I’m fucking sure! It’s what I said, ain’t it?”

“Mr. Vincelli, can you give us a description of this man?” Don Harris asked.

“Why don’t I show you?” Vito slid a jewel case down the table to Steve Nielsen,

who popped it into the DVD player.

The six of them watched in silence, rewound it, and watched

again.

John sat back and crossed his arms on his chest. “Whoever

this jack-off is, I’m willing to bet he’s a major part in this. You ever seen him before, kid?”

At first, it was as though AJ hadn’t heard.

“Kid?”

AJ snapped out of it, giving his head a quick shake and

blinking his eyes. “Huh?”

“You ever seen that guy before?”

“No,” AJ said quietly. “No, I’ve never seen him before.”

AJ felt like he was coming down from a really bad acid

trip. Before, he hadn’t given much thought about who was

responsible for all of this, but someone had to be, right?

And this happy fuck was sitting right at the top of the list.

AJ leaned back and sighed heavily, and checked his watch. It was

now 4:20 P.M.

“Hey, can I go home? Unless there’s something else you need from me?” AJ looked around the table hopefully, his tired eyes setting upon each of the separate but equally tired faces in the room. He knew John had gotten maybe five hours of sleep in the last twenty-four hours, and he didn’t think Don Harris had gotten any. Not from the look of him, anyway.

“We’re going to have to send someone with you. We need a

full guard on you until we get this sorted out,” Don told him.

“I’ll get someone to cover your shifts,” Vito said.

AJ could live with that. Fifteen minutes later, he was in

a patrol car,
again
, and on his way back home.

John Lubbock was about to start going over the statements that Steve had collected when one of Don’s impossibly huge hands rested upon his shoulder. He looked up at his chief.

“John, you need to get home. You look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks, Don. You should have been a motivational

speaker. You missed your calling.”

“I’m serious, John. You can’t help this kid by running

yourself into the ground.”

The detective sighed, the sigh turning into a deep yawn.

Don gave him his
see what I mean?
look. Lubbock nodded and stood, taking a cigar out of his pocket and biting off the end.

“I’ll be back by midnight.”

“If I find out you were here before six tomorrow

morning, I’ll suspend your ass. And that’s a promise, old friend.” Don looked as though he was serious so John didn’t press the issue. Instead he nodded, put on his coat, and left.

A short while later John walked into the only place he ever really went to drink, unless it was back at home. The thought of his small, empty apartment was a little more than he could bear tonight, and after everything he’d seen, he wanted nothing more than to just have a small slice of something normal and sane in his life. This is why he went to McNulty’s when he went anywhere. It was a third generation cop bar run by the same family of hotheaded, fuckin’ asshole Irish since about 1910. It was the only bar that had stayed open throughout all of Prohibition, as John had heard the owner or his son or grandson tell it. It had been a cop bar then, too, and had flourished.

The evidence of the prosperity in decades past was still there; it was in the fine leather of the booths, though most of it was faded and cracked. It was there in the brass fixtures, though they were tarnished, dusty, forgotten. That prosperity was in the top of the very bar itself, thirty-five feet of single-piece mahogany. It was topped in glass and the glass was coated in grease from the food they served and the hands that touched it, with crumbs and ashes and spilt drinks, spilt stories, spilt time. If you cared to look through that skin of grime, or if you were around for last call the night before St. Paddy’s Day, when they always polished that glass until it gleamed, you would see the old-world craftsmanship and grandeur that was in that bar top. Not many people cared to look anymore, John found, and had noticed that even he had, lately, stopped looking.

In here, though, nothing really changed. You would always find the same men, even when they were different. There would be a couple unis, patrolmen for the most part, every now and then a motorcycle cop or a Statie. There would be a few of the younger detectives, out to listen to the old timers, and there would be the old timers themselves. Not all of them would be swapping stories with the new kids, many of them would be tucked into corners in pairs or threes, drinking heavy and speaking of heavy things. A lot of them came in to drink alone, too.

John didn’t want to drink alone, not tonight, and his spirits lifted a little when he saw who was at the bar.

The three men were old-school, the very definition of it. They had close to fifty years on the job between the three of them: Kurtz, Sully, and Rick Polaski. Kurtz still carried a set a brass knuckles and was always looking for a reason to use them, Sully was about as crooked a cop as you could find, and Polaski was a full-blown alcoholic. There had been plenty of times John had carried Polaski out of the bar and stuffed him into a cab, and plenty more where Polaski wouldn’t let him. On his off days he would be found on that same stool, open to close, just pounding them back. On the days he was on, he spent his lunches here, usually, and was in just about every night after he clocked out.

“Jesus Christ it’s like a bad joke in here,” John said, winking at Jimmy the 3
rd
, who was behind the bar, then turning back to the three on his side of the mahogany. “A German, an Irishman, and a fuckin Polack go into a bar…”

“Johnny, how you doin’?” Jimmy the 3
rd
asked, already tipping John’s drink into the glass: three-quarters full of Wild Turkey and a single ice cube.

“Good, kid, how’s the old man?”

“Fuckin’ miserable,” the 3
rd
said back, laughing.

“He’ll settle this,” Polaski was saying, reaching out to John’s arm.

“Settle what?” John asked.

“We’re talking about guys that were just solid
police
, through and through,” Polaski said.

Any night you walked in and Kurtz, Sully, and Polaski were holding down their stools, there was better than even odds they were having this same conversation, talking about cops they had known that had been real cops, good cops, had been solid
police
, likely hoping that someone would apply that label to them.

Sully slid down to make room for John, who eased himself onto the bar stool and felt the weight leave his heart as it left his feet.

“This Jew-fuck has the balls to tell me Sammy was better’n
Parkins
,” Sully said.

“For the last time, I’m
Catholic
, you stupid Irish fuck,” Polaski said, signaling to the 3
rd
for another round.

“Sammy?” John asked. “You mean Molina?”

“Yeah, Molina,” Kurtz said. “Lost his shit and did himself, you remember that, aintcha John? You worked that with him a little, didn’t you?”

“Sammy’s last case, the writer’s wife,” John said. “I didn’t really
work
it. I worked with
him
, though, at the time.”

“Whatta you think?” Polaski asked. “I said Sammy lost the plot.”

John nodded, dropping a tenner on the bar for Jimmy the 3
rd
and then taking his glass. He held it up to the light a little, as he always did, turning it in his hand as he thought, allowing the heat from his hand to slowly melt the single ice-cube. Only when it was gone would he tilt the glass to his lips, and then would down the glass in three long swallows. Every time he drank, no matter how many drinks he had, that was how he drank it.

Just one tonight, though, John told himself.

“Sam…Sam was solid police,” John said. “The fact he killed himself don’t take that from him. I expect you three to know that.”

“That’s what I said!” Sully said, slapping John on the back.

“Parkins was solid, though,” Polaski said, nursing everything except his drink.

“Sure, he was solid,” John said, nodding. “Park was solid, absolutely. He wasn’t fit to sit in the same squadroom with the likes a’ Sammy, though.”

“Here’s to Sammy,” Polaski said, raising his glass. The others raised their glasses. John raised his glass but didn’t drink, not yet, though he had rather liked Sammy and had taken his suicide hard. Given that Sam had descended into a cloud of alcohol fumes that he carried into the office with him at ten in the morning the month before he took his own life, John wasn’t sure drinking to him was a great way to remember the guy.

“Speaking a’ fuckin’ crazy,” Sully said. “That old partner a’ yours, down Bridgetown?”

“Who?” John asked, snapping his head around.

“The fuckin’, whatsit, the fella with that thing makes you count shit over and over? Your fucking
partner
.”

“OCD,” Polaski said.

“You mean William Coe?” John asked.

“Yeah, Coe, that’s it. Jesus, I heard stories a’ that guy. Fuckin’ freak, yeah?”

“Whatever else he is, that man is the single finest detective I ever worked with,
bar none
,” John said. “He has the highest homicide close rate in the
country
right now, if you care to look it up.”

“Yeah, no, I know,” Sully said. “I just mean, you gotta have some stories about the guy, right?”

John just looked at Sully for a long moment, then back at his drink. The ice cube was about half gone. Polaski called for another, as did Sully and Kurtz. John thought about his old friend, all the time they’d been partnered together, the cases they’d solved, the guys they’d put away, the night Coe had saved his life. Yes, Bill Coe had been nothing
but
solid police, side to side and straight through the middle. More cop than these three would ever be, old-school or not, fifty years on the job or not. John felt a stab of shame, thinking of what Bill would say if he knew John was in here, having to force himself to only have one drink. No, he wouldn’t talk about his old friend and his condition. Condi
tions
. Not here. Not with them.

“You know who was fucking
solid
police?” John asked. “Another fella I used to work with, down in BPD. Harry Fucking Mitchell.”

“Yeah?” Kurtz asked. “The guy with the kid got took, yeah?”

“Yes,” John said, staring at the ice cube, willing it to melt. He didn’t say how after four years, little Alice Mitchell’s body had finally been found. Bill had called and told him this just last week, and John had arranged for flowers to be sent. The thought of Harry having to put his little girl in the ground was almost enough to get John to raise the glass to his lips, but he stayed his hand.

“Jesus Christ, the poor bastard,” Sully said.

Polaski shook his head and took another drink. “This fuckin’ world.”