Resolved (30 page)

“What's wrong?” said Giancarlo, after his song was done.

“Nothing.”

“Yes, there is. You said, ‘Oh, good Christ! Oh, Jesus!' under your breath when I was playing.”

“It's fine, Giancarlo, I just thought of something I had to do. Play on!”

He shrugged and did. People paused in their walking by, and a number stayed to listen, so sweet and sad was the music. Soon afterward, a weedy teenager with a tin whistle arrived, and a bearded man in his mid-twenties came and opened his violin case and began to play, and then a pretty young woman with a Gaelic drum, a
bohdran,
and the four of them started in on “The Heather Breeze,” as if they had been playing together forever. It was music squeezed from the rock of misery, designed over the centuries to make you forget the cruelties of life for the space of a song.

Hours passed in this way. They ate lunch from the cancer wagons. Lucy checked in with her father, and with her mother, getting neither, but leaving messages. When work let out, more musicians came by and they played the sun down. Someone mentioned an open mike night at a coffeehouse on Christopher and so they all trooped over there, Lucy being happy enough to stay in the safety of the crowd. Giancarlo formed a band, with four people who were all twice as old as he was, to be called Blind Boy Please Help. They made forty-eight dollars. The thought passed through Lucy's mind that it would be very pleasant to wander the world in this way, with her two brothers, playing innocent music and letting events drift by. She looked at Zak while she was thinking this, and got a bright smile, an unusual sight on that face, and she knew that he had been thinking just that, too. Her cell phone buzzed; she spoke briefly into it and switched off.

“Who was that?” Zak asked.

“I have to meet a guy in about an hour.”

“A boyfriend?”

“Uh-huh. Leo DiCaprio. He saw me in the street and fell in love. He wants to marry me, but I don't know…I don't want to be, like, spoiled.”

“He's a jerk, and he's probably about five-three. No, really, who?”

“A guy I want watching our backs,” she said and would say no more.

 

Karp could see that Roland was as rattled as he ever got, which was not much. He seemed a little hesitant with his next and final witness, the powerfully gripped other detective, Frank Nixon. Nixon was wearing glasses today, rimless ones, instead of his usual contact lenses. His dark blond hair was swept back, combed close against his skull with water like an altar boy's, and he had a shirt on that was a size too big around the collar, making him look like the guy on the beach who got sand kicked in his face. The signal here: a mild and unthreatening fellow. He had a sharp high-cheeked face built around a ski nose and a set of pale, smart blue eyes.

Roland spent a good deal of time on the first moments of the altercation, when the victim allegedly went for the detective's weapon. Karp understood that he was doing this because Karp had focused his questioning of Gerber on those moments, and that meant that Karp thought they were vulnerable, that Karp would concentrate on those moments during his summation. He would ask the jury if it were reasonable that a man shot several times could hang on with a powerful grip. Roland meant to fix in the jury's collective mind that it
was
reasonable, that it
did
happen, and that two cops were swearing that it happened in just that way.

It was a simple trap and Roland was walking, nay running, into it, singing tra-la-la. When the direct questioning of Detective Nixon was completed, therefore, all Karp's work had been done for him by the opposition, which is every litigator's highest hope. Karp now rose and paused. He looked at the witness; he looked at the judge and the jury. From the beginning of this trial, from the moment it had become known that the defense was going to place the defendants on the stand, and expose them to cross-examination, all the speculation in the press had been that this examination would make or break the trial. And when the word got out that Karp was taking the case, they went into a frenzy of anticipation, for Karp was the best cross-examiner in the recent history of the DA. He had just demonstrated this by his demolition of Hugo Selwyn, the ballistics expert, and everyone was looking forward to dramatic fireworks. It was going to be like on TV.

“I have no questions for this witness, Your Honor,” Karp said, and the courtroom gasped and burbled with noise, requiring the judge to wield his gavel and threaten to clear. When order had been restored, Roland announced that the defense's case was concluded. Higbee's eyes flicked to Karp's, who said, “Your Honor, may we approach the bench?”

The judge dismissed the jury for five minutes. When the two counsels stood beneath the presidium, Karp said, “We have a rebuttal case, Your Honor, and since it's closing on three thirty, I would suggest carrying it over until tomorrow.”

Roland said, “Your Honor, we'd like an offer of proof here. It's inconceivable to me that the state could rebut the defense case except by a repetition of previous material.”

“Your Honor, I believe I know my responsibilities under the rules,” Karp replied. “Our rebuttal case will include new material impeaching the defendants' testimony, as required.”

It was an easy call. The judge brought the jury back in, told them what was going on, and what a rebuttal was, and dismissed them for the day. Reporters mobbed both attorneys outside the courtroom. They asked Karp why he hadn't cross-examined. They asked if he was throwing the case. If he was throwing the case because the cops were white and victim was black. Or Muslim. Karp brushed by them silently, as he always did. The more perspicacious among them noted that he was smiling happily, and wondered why. The reporters had Roland Hrcany, however, who loved to talk with the press, and he supplied enough information for two. He was glad to explain that the reason that Karp had not cross-examined was that the direct had been done with such skill, and the story was so obviously true, that any cross would have been otiose and harassing, and that's why Karp, for whom he had the greatest respect, had wisely declined to pursue it.

 

The street outside of Raney's house is full of parked cars when Marlene pulls up, both private and police vehicles. She must park a block away and walk back. As she does, she passes men she recognizes from the cops. They recognize her, too, and many give her hard looks, for most of them think that she should be wearing an orange jumpsuit up at Bedford instead of walking free on the streets.

Inside the house it is crowded, hot, and noisy with voices and music and the clink of glass against glass, for they are waking Nora Raney in the grand old style. Jim Raney is a famous and popular cop and his wife was a charmer. There is an open bar, much patronized. The place smells of many colognes, whiskey, smoke, and beer. Marlene steers her way through beefy men and hard-faced women with short hair (none of whom resemble the lovely policewomen of televisionland), all with drinks in their hands. Raney is on the couch in just the place he was sitting when his wife grabbed up the keys and went out to move his car. A woman who shares his bright Irish good looks sits next to him on the couch and an older woman sits on the other side, dabbing her eyes: the sister and the mother. In an armchair nearby, a red-eyed, red-haired woman dandles little Meghan. Nora's sister over from Ireland, Marlene guesses.

She meets Raney's eyes, which are red-rimmed, too, as if he had been swimming in chlorinated water. He is very pale, the freckles stand out on his forehead. His hands are wrapped in bandages. He sees her and makes a motion of his head, of his eyes. She understands and leaves. The backyard is empty, the Weber grill sits where it sat on the night of the explosion, a burger lies mummified on the grate. Marlene lights a cigarette and wonders again why she has stopped drinking.

After a few minutes, Raney comes out. “Give me one of those,” he says.

She pulls out a Marlboro, lights it, and raises it to his mouth. It is intimate without being sexy. They are comrades of a special type.

“It's a good wake,” she observes when half the cigarette has vanished.

“Yeah, pity Nora couldn't come. She always said that. ‘Pity old O'Hara couldn't come.' At the guy's wake. Are you going to ask me how I feel?”

“No. I believe I can guess. I wanted to tell you…” No, when it came down to saying the words she couldn't, not about the dog and it being all her fault. There was no point to it. It was self-immolating self-indulgence. “…how sorry I am. I liked her.”

He just looked at her, waiting. She said, “What will you do, Raney?”

“I don't know.” He lifts his hands. “There's some deep damage, they tell me. The bosses are going to consider this a duty injury, trying to rescue a victim, so if I throw in my tin, I'll get a three-quarter pension. I might do it. I could've lost my enthusiasm for police work, all things…”

“They'll get him.”

“Yeah, and there's been a hundred forty-eight cops through here in the last couple of days and every single one of them looked me in the eye and said, ‘Don't worry, we'll get him.' I said the same thing myself to families. Like it matters.”

She helps him to a final drag and then crushes out the butt under her shoe. He says, looking up at the milky hot sky, “I mean, it
does
matter. If he came in here right now, I'd shoot him like a dog, and I wouldn't feel a thing. ‘Don't worry, we'll get him.'
Of course
they'll get him. He's fucking doomed, now that they know it's him. There's no place he can go. But I got no feeling about it, you know? It's like a fucking meteor came through the roof and killed my life. My wife. So, I might not feel anything for a while. But definitely not wanting revenge. I'm not like you, Marlene.”

“I know.”

“I thought I was, but I'm not. I just want to take Meghan and go hide now. Get out of the city. Her folks want us to come stay with them in Clare. The west coast of Clare, like in the song. You want to hear something funny? If we hadn't had you over, I'd be dead and you'd be here talking to her. And she wanted you over to get a look at you because she was worried we used to get it on, and she wanted to check you out. I got to get back in there or they're going to send a search party. They all want to help, but I'll be glad when it's just me and the girl again.”

Marlene has nothing to say to that. He looks around the yard, as if he's seeing it new. He adds, “I still see her, you know. And hear her. Opening cabinets. Walking, her step when it's quiet. My ma says it's the communion of the saints, the dead are all around us. I don't know. I can't believe all that about playing harps in the white robes, either. You ever think about that?”

“Death? A good deal. Although even if harps and white robes exist, they're probably not in store for me. Lucy's the expert on faith, though. You could talk to her.”

“I don't know. I wish I had it. I swear to Christ I do. I wish I had it like my old lady and my gran did. Or Nora. The fucking Irish! Aside from the music it was the only decent thing we ever had and we get over here and get a little money to jingle together and a warm place to shit, and we let it go like a used Kleenex.”

With that he walks back into the house. She leaves the yard and goes down the driveway, past the scorched place, her feet crunching on broken auto glass, and down the street to her car. The drive takes unusually long, for they are checking the tunnels, as they have at unscheduled intervals since it was revealed that the Manbomber's plan was to blow them up. The expressway is backed up for miles. She takes out her cell phone and has a long, interesting conversation with Detective McKenzie, the arresting officer in the Agnelli case. Then Marlene plays a CD of the Pavarotti
Rigoletto
on her stereo, and smokes in the chill of her air conditioner. She doesn't care if it takes four hours to get back to the city. She has to wait until dark before she can go to work.

 

Lucy and the boys walked down Crosby south of Broome. It is a narrow dark street, almost devoid of traffic in the night. Someone has painted the streetlight shadows of the hydrants and parking signs with black paint on the pavement, producing the ambiance of a stage set.

“Give me your knife, Zak,” Lucy said.

“You took it, remember?” he answered grumpily.

“She means the one in your sneaker,” said Giancarlo.

“Yeah, that one,” said Lucy, who had only suspected. “But I'll give it right back.”

He handed over a big Case jackknife. She knelt next to a manhole cover and tapped a syncopation on it. Again.

A minute later there was a heavy rattle and scrape and the manhole cover was raised from below, and slid to one side, and a tall, thin man jumped out, so quickly that it might have been a piece of stage magic. He was wearing a dark sweatsuit with the hood up and had a rucksack on his back and a heavy belt such as utility workers wear, from which dangled a number of tools and pouches. The sweatpants were tucked into rubber knee boots. His face was mushroom pale and he had a long pale beard. A dank smell rose from him, alien but not unpleasant.

“Hello, David,” said Lucy. The man smiled and the smile illuminated his face in a way that was not entirely pleasing. Both Zak and Lucy, who saw it, felt a chill, and Giancarlo, who did not, sensed that chill and drew closer to his twin. There was something inhuman in the look, not cruel or uncaring, but rather beyond humanity entirely, the look Lucy imagined must have appeared on the faces of one of the tormented torturers with whom God has so generously supplied the Catholic Church.