Robert B. Parker (2 page)

Newman realized he’d been hearing the siren for a time without noticing. Then a blue Massachusetts State Police car pulled in beside the Smithfield cruiser. Behind it, another Smithfield cruiser.

“Inside of the right arm shows marks of probable hypodermic injections,” Tinkham said.

Two big troopers got out of the Massachusetts State Police car. They wore campaign hats and black boots. Their faces glistened with the closeness of their shaves. Their uniform shirts were pressed with military creases. Their gunbelts glowed with polish. Their hair barely showed under the hats. The sideburns were trimmed short. One was black.

The white trooper said to Diamond, “Touch anything?”

Diamond shook his head.

The black trooper looked down at the woman. “Black,” he said. “What the hell she doing out here?”

Tinkham said, “I don’t know. She don’t live around here, though.”

The black trooper looked at Tinkham for ten seconds, then he said, “No shit?”

Tinkham’s face reddened. “Maybe she was selling watermelon,” he said.

The black trooper smiled. Once. A smile that came on and went off. He looked down at the woman. “Junkie,” he said.

The white trooper said, “Tracks?”

The black trooper nodded. “All up and down her right arm.”

The white trooper said to Newman, “You see the shooting?”

“Yes,” Newman said.

“Could you identify the killer?”

“Yes,” Newman said. “I’m sure I could.”

It’s like the Army
, Newman thought.
You go in one end of the process and it starts taking you along and you get numb and after a while you come out the other end. Honorable discharge. Or whatever
. He sat at a gray metal table in the homicide squadroom at state police headquarters on Commonwealth Avenue and looked at the pictures of criminals in large albums. He was still in warm-up pants and a white T-shirt that said Adidas across the front. He wore yellow Nike training shoes with a blue swoosh. The sweat that had been so lubricant two hours earlier had stiffened and chilled. He was hungry.

At 8:47 in the evening he saw the man. Profile and full face, staring at him. Hair slicked back, deep eye sockets. Adolph Karl, male, Caucasian, dob 7/15/30, aka Addie Kaye.

“This is him,” Newman said.

A state police detective named Bobby Croft swung his feet down off the top of his desk and walked over. He looked at Karl’s picture.

“Him?” Croft said. “Adolph Karl? Son of a bitch. You sure?”

Newman said, “Yes. That’s him. I’m sure.”

Croft walked to the end of the squadroom, opened the frosted glass half-door that said Lieutenant Vincent on it, and poked his head inside.

“Hey, Murray,” he said. “Come have a look.”

Lieutenant Vincent came out, round-faced and graceful, with a bald head and blue-rimmed glasses. He walked down to the table where Newman sat and looked over Newman’s shoulder at the mug book.

“Show him,” Croft said.

Newman pointed to the picture of Adolph Karl. “Him,” he said.

Vincent raised his eyebrows and looked at Croft. He said to Newman, “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Newman said.

Vincent smiled. “Why don’t you have Adolph brought in, Bobby. We can put him in a show-up and just double check. We wouldn’t want Adolph’s civil rights compromised.”

Croft nodded and went out of the squadroom.

Newman said, “You know this Karl, Lieutenant?”

Vincent said, “Yes. He’s a bad man. Prostitution, narcotics, loan sharking, extortion. He’s important enough to have most of his assaults done for him now. I’m a little surprised. Must have been personal. Anybody with him in the car?”

“There must have been,” Newman said. “He got in the passenger’s side when the car drove off.”

“And he did it himself.” Vincent sucked on his bottom lip. “You want some coffee?”

Newman nodded.

Vincent said to a uniformed trooper, “Charlie, get us a cup of coffee, will you? Cream and sugar?”

Newman said, “Black.”

Vincent went back to his office.

The trooper brought the coffee. “You want more,” he said, “out that door and turn right.”

Newman said, “Thanks.”

He drank the coffee and three more cups. He read the morning paper. He looked at the policemen coming and going. He stared at the fluorescent lights. At a quarter to twelve Croft came into the squadroom.

“Let’s take a look, Mr. Newman.”

The show-up room was dark. Three men stood on a small lighted stage. One of them was Adolph Karl. He was wearing a dark blue polyester leisure suit with light blue piping, and a light blue polyester shirt with dark blue trim. His hair was black and combed tightly against his skull. It looked wet. His eyes were deep in the eye sockets. His ears stuck out. He swallowed once and his big Adam’s apple moved. Newman knew that Karl couldn’t see him in the dark, but he felt scared. Six hours earlier Newman had seen Karl shoot the back of a woman’s head off.

“Recognize the murderer among those men?” Croft said.

“On the end in the blue leisure suit. That’s him.”

Croft said, “You’re sure?”

Newman nodded, then realized Croft couldn’t see him in the dark. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sure.”

“No doubts? You could swear to it in court?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Croft said. He stressed the second word.

They went out of the show-up room and back to Croft’s desk. Lieutenant Vincent came out of his office. Croft nodded at him. Three times.

Vincent smiled. “Very good,” he said. “His lawyer with him?”

Croft said, “Yeah, but we got the son of a bitch, Murray. Lawyer or no lawyer.”

Vincent said, “If he sticks.” He nodded at Newman.

Newman said, “I’ll stick, I’m sure it’s him. I saw him.”

Vincent smiled. “Sure. I know you will. And it’s a damned good thing to bag Karl. We’ve wanted him for a long time.”

“What happens now?” Newman said.

“We’ll process Karl. There will be a preliminary hearing. We’ll let you know. Eventually we’ll go to court and you’ll testify.”

“Can I leave now?”

“Yeah, but first a man from the Essex County DA’s office wants a statement.”

“They bring you in in the cruiser?”

“Yes.”

“Bobby,” Vincent said. “When he’s through, whyn’t you run Mr. Newman up to wherever it is.”

“Smithfield,” Newman said.

“Yeah, Smithfield. Whyn’t you run Newman up to Smithfield. When you come back, come in and we’ll chat.”

Croft nodded.

It was nearly 2
A.M
. when they went north up Route 93. Newman said to Croft, “What did the lieutenant mean, ‘If he sticks’?”

The police radio was a soft murmur in the background, so low Newman wondered how Croft could hear it.

Croft shrugged in the dark. “People change their minds sometimes. Decide they made a mistake. An eyewitness is good at the beginning but a lot better at the end.”

“I didn’t make a mistake,” Newman said.

Croft was silent. The radio murmured. The dispatcher’s voice rhythmic and without affect. The messages indistinguishable to Newman.

Croft glanced over at Newman, then looked back at the road.

Newman was exhausted. He’d been up since six-thirty. The coffee he’d drunk made him jumpy but no less tired. It felt corrosive in his stomach. He leaned his head back against the headrest and took a deep breath.
Forty-six
, he thought.
I’m forty-six years old
.

Croft turned off at Route 128. “Mr. Newman,” he said, “I’m going to say something that Lieutenant Vincent would cut off my balls for saying.”

Newman opened his eyes and rolled his head over and looked at Croft.

“The reason we’re wondering if you’ll stick is because we’re wondering if someone might squeeze you. You got a right to know what you’re getting into, and Adolph Karl is a fucking psychopath.”

A thrill of fright flickered in Newman’s stomach.

“You mean he might try to stop me from testifying.”

“Yeah.”

“Would he kill me?”

“I think he’d threaten you first. We can give you protection. It ain’t all that bad. But it may be awkward for a while.”

“How long would I have to have protection?”

“Hard to say,” Croft answered. “We don’t have to worry about it now. Nobody knows who you are.”

“But at the hearing?”

“Then they’ll know. Then we’ll cover you. It’ll be all right, but I figure you got the right to know how it’ll
work. And the sooner you know, the longer you’ll have to get used to it.”

The car pulled off 128 at the Main St.-Smithfield exit. It was twenty minutes of three and the streets were empty.

“Where to from here?” Croft said.

“Keep going straight. I’ll tell you.” The thrill of fright vibrated steadily now in Newman’s stomach. He could feel the electric buzz of it in his fingertips and along the insides of his arms.

The house was dark when he went in the kitchen. Janet would be in bed. She was not a waiter-up. He switched on the light and looked at the kitchen clock: 2:50. He got a can of Miller beer out of the refrigerator and opened it and turned off the kitchen light and sat at the kitchen table and sipped the beer. The outside spotlights were on, and he looked at the roll of his lawn back up to the big white pines that marked the end of his lawn and the beginning of Chris Hood’s. The house was still. He looked at the paneled walls of the kitchen and the copper stove-hood and the chop-block counters. Janet had planned it all. And what she made was beautiful always. The house was two hundred years old and she was careful to keep the sense of age even in a modern kitchen. He got up and got another beer. The tingle of panic that he’d felt since Croft had spoken of reprisal had faded. He felt strong and calm in this house, looking out of the darkened room at the lighted green lawn.

He’d do what he must. A man had to do that. He laughed a little to himself.
Sound like someone doing a parody of my novels
. There was no shame in the
fear. But there was shame, he thought, if you let the fear control you.
I’ll do what I must
. And the police would protect them. He drank some of the beer. He was tired but he no longer felt jittery. The coffee seemed to have lost its sting.
Janet won’t be too thrilled with a bodyguard. Explain that one to the folks in the department, lovey
. He smiled again to himself in the dark, finished the beer.
One more can
. He imagined his wife giving her course in sexual stereotyping while a swag-bellied cop in a Sam Browne belt and black holster leaned against the door frame.
She’ll be pissed
.

But you couldn’t let some guy shoot a woman and walk away. A man couldn’t do that. “Christ, she doesn’t even know,” he said aloud. She gave a graduate seminar every Tuesday evening. She probably hadn’t gotten home till ten. His note had simply said
In Boston, back late
. He hadn’t wanted her to worry and it was too complicated to explain in a note. He drank beer. There was half a can left.

He hated to be out when she came home. He loved to see her come home from work. She dressed so well. Her makeup was so perfect. She was so in charge with her black briefcase and her tailored clothes and her hair in perfect order. She always looked so beautiful that he wanted to make love with her on the couch with her clothes still on in an explosion of affection and desire. He never did, though. She never wanted to. Always had to be when she said, and under her circumstances.
Control. She’s always gotta be in control
. Always it was at night when she didn’t have to wash her hair. Never when she had an early class. Always after a bath. Never if her good clothes would wrinkle. Always she touched him. Never he touched
her. Always she ended the foreplay.
Still, it’s regular. You can count on it
. He finished the beer.
No point running over that dead trail again. Nothing’s perfect. We’re doing fine
.

He put the three empty beer cans in the kitchen wastebasket, went to the downstairs bathroom to urinate, and headed up to bed.

The bedroom was dark when he went in. The air-conditioner was on. He closed the door behind him. Janet made a muffled noise on the bed and moved. The noise was something like a groan. She made it again. The thrill of fear surged back. His face felt hot. He turned on the overhead light.

“Oh my Jesus Christ,” he said.

His wife was lying naked on top of the bed. Her ankles were bound together with clothesline and so were her knees. Her hands were tied behind her back. Three loops of clothesline pinned her upper arms against her body. Her underpants had been wadded tightly and wedged into her mouth. One leg of her panty hose had been ripped off and used to hold the gag in place. The length of tan nylon was very thin where it held the wadded cloth in her mouth, and wider at the corners of her mouth and across her cheeks to where it had been knotted behind her neck. Her eyes were wide and tearful but she looked more angry than frightened. On her stomach, just above the line of her pubic hair, someone had scratched AK with a sharp point. The scratches were shallow. The gag forced her mouth slightly open, and Newman noticed that the wadded underpants had a floral pattern.

She groaned at him again, insistently, and her eyes were as wide as she could make them. She shrugged
her body angrily on the bed. For a moment he stood soundless and without motion. The panic that flooded over him gave way to an urge to rape her. There she was. Miss Complete Control, absolutely helpless for the first time since he’d known her. She couldn’t turn away. She couldn’t even talk. The two impulses flushed his face and paralyzed him for a moment. Then he thought of who might have done it. AK. He reached behind the bedroom door and took the double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun he always kept there. From the ledge above the door he took two shells, broke the shotgun, put in the shells, and snapped the gun closed.

She made a series of grunting sounds at him through the gag. He cocked both hammers. Holding the shotgun in his right hand he sat on the edge of the bed and, with his left hand, he fumbled the length of panty hose from her mouth, slipping it down over her chin. He took the gag from her mouth. It was soaked with saliva. He kept his eyes on the door.