Suspects (37 page)

He pushed aside the wadded blanket so that he could sit flat on the far left side of the couch. He took the snub-nosed .38 from the clip at his belt. He moved the cylinder so that a loaded chamber would be in alignment with the falling hammer rather than the one kept empty for safety purposes. He wiped the muzzle with the clean portion of handkerchief he had established after much inspection and refolding. He scrooched down until his sacroiliac area was at the leading edge of the cushion and his crown was below the top margin of the back of the couch, so that when he squeezed the trigger his brains would be blasted into the upholstery rather than out the dirty curtainless window behind, and also in order that the projectile would not continue on and possibly harm the person or property of citizens who lived on the other side of the air shaft.

After further consideration, he rose and fetched the metropolitan telephone book, a weighty tome, and sitting down again, arranged it so that its thickness formed a barrier between his skull and the couch, further ensuring the well-being of his neighbors.

He inserted the muzzle of the weapon between his lips, biting down gently against the cold metal just behind the front sight, in an effort to assist his hand, which suddenly was not as steady as he needed it to be while arriving at the proper angle to tilt the barrel. He should have checked this in a mirror, but if he got up now, the phone book, held in place by the pressure of his head, would fall to the seat, and he was too weary to mount it in place another time.

He was still adjusting the weapon. He was at least a second or two from closing his forefinger against the trigger, and therefore, as he afterward told himself (he would never trust another confidant with an account of this incident), the call did not literally save his life, but it did prove opportune.

He could have let it ring. But given the likelihood that he was being called on police business—nobody would say he had ever been derelict in his duty, not even in the last moment of his life—he withdrew the .38 from his mouth, stood up, letting the directory thud down behind him, and went to the kitchenette phone.

“Detective Moody? This is Lloyd Howland. You spoke to me earlier today, if you recall. I got your number from the phone book.”

Moody reached over and placed the weapon on top of the refrigerator, too late feeling with his trailing fingers the dust-laden grease that glazed that surface. “Yeah.” His mouth tasted of metal. “Yeah, Lloyd. What can I do for you?”

“Is it convenient? I hope it's not too late.”

Since the subject was raised, Moody glanced at his digital drugstore watch and saw that the hour was only nine forty-five. He had been under the illusion that it was in the wee hours of the morning. The events of the night had slowed the passage of time. “It's still early.”

“Good,” said Lloyd. “Because this is something of an imposition anyway. You don't owe me anything.”

“Go ahead,” said Moody.

“I got an idea. I've never known what to do with myself. I've never held a job longer than a few months, if that long.” He cleared his throat. “I've been thinking about how you do your job. You believe in it, that's pretty obvious. I doubt it's a way to get rich, and it certainly can't be too comfortable at times. But it's something that's needed, that's for sure. You can be proud of what you do. There will always be bad people, no doubt, but through your efforts a lot fewer of them will get away with it. And that should give you a great deal of satisfaction.”

“Lloyd?” Moody asked, but more matter-of-factly than in sternness. “Have you had something to drink?”

“My friends here brought some champagne, and I had a glass or two. Do I sound drunk?”

“Not necessarily,” said Moody. “In fact, I myself had a few drinks this evening. I'm just not used to hearing praise for what I do.”

“Well, listen, you deserve it. I admit I've had my own low opinion of the police; based on nothing—well, not nothing but maybe the idea of constraint. That's annoying, especially if you're young. You want to do something that doesn't seem wrong, yet somebody wants to stop you. I know you're a detective and you don't give speeding tickets or enforce curfews.”

“I started that way, though,” Moody said, surprising himself with a chuckle. “And I busted up noisy college parties and I arrested bartenders who served beer to underage drinkers. Hell, Lloyd, I did all of that, and I don't apologize for it. I did it because the law was being broken, and the citizens were paying me to maintain respect for the law. If I waited table in a restaurant I would bring your steak when you ordered it. I wouldn't eat it myself or throw it in the garbage. If I pumped gas for a living, I wouldn't fill your tank with air or water. What I do is enforce the law. If you don't want that done, then don't hire me. But if you do hire me, that's what I'll do. If the citizens decide homicide is
not
against the law, then I won't arrest anybody for murder. Am I making any sense at all?” Instead of blowing out his brains he was running off at the mouth. Both were expressions of self-pity.

“It makes sense to me,” Lloyd said.

“I don't mean I'd do what I'm told no matter what. But that's never happened. We don't have a police state here. Anything but. Most felons go right back on the street.” Even in his current condition he would not be oblivious to Lloyd's feelings and note that Keller would probably cop a plea. He was not addressing Lloyd's half brother. It was LeBeau who had called Larry Howland to announce the arrest of the murderer of his wife and daughter. He said Larry's first reaction was to demand immediate possession of the house at 1143 Laurel.

“I wanted to ask your opinion,” Lloyd said. “Do you think I could join the police force? If the gun charges are dropped, I don't have any record, I gather. I'm of age and in good health. The one thing I'm worried about is whether I'm tall enough.”

“Mind hanging on, Lloyd? Just a minute.” Moody let the handpiece dangle and fetched the can of beer from the coffee table. He averted his face and pulled the tab but was conscious of less spray than anticipated. He took a swallow of what proved to be the most delicious liquid he had ever tasted, though the label identified it as the same old Steinbrau. “Okay,” he resumed, “where were we?” He actually remembered without help. “Oh yeah. I don't think they have a height requirement any more. Nowadays the department has to take anybody who applies, I think, or they get sued.” Only a minor exaggeration. He took another draft of exquisite cold beer, which he would have missed had he killed himself. “Problem would probably not be in getting accepted,” he told the lad, “but in sticking with it. The job makes a lot of demands on you, and usually comes before your personal life. The public never sees the worst of what you confront day after day as a police officer. Sickening stuff you never suspected was possible, at least not in this country. I puked three times the first week I was a rookie. You're not only supposed to handle it but rise above it and go on to something else that's worse, and then rise above
that
and still be human.” He took more beer, and then he laughed. “But if you're a certain kind of individual, it's what you were cut out to do. Nobody's going to like you but other cops, but
they'll
lay down their life for you. That's not the worst deal. Where else can you find it? Maybe in some elite units of the military, but you have to wait for a war to see.”

“If I get accepted,” Lloyd said, “do you think I could talk to you once in a while? I don't mean be a pest. Just ask your advice on certain things.”

“Sure,” Moody answered without hesitation. “I'll be glad to talk with you, Lloyd. If I don't know something about that subject, then I've wasted my life, because it's all I know.… Listen, you want to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Really?” Lloyd seemed to be delighted. But next his voice fell. “I'm sorry. I just remembered: I promised to do something with my girlfriend tomorrow night. She wants to introduce me to her dad. She's the Martha Sparks you asked about, who paid my bail.”

“Sounds serious,” said Moody. “She wouldn't be your fiancée, would she?”

“Maybe, in time. I've got to clean up my act first.”

“Here's an even better idea.” Moody finished his beer in one gulp. “Night after tomorrow, I'll take you both to dinner. Great place, where a lot of cops hang out. You'll both find it interesting, I guarantee. You'll meet people who are good guys to know if you enter the department.”

“That would really be nice of you. I don't know what to say.”

“Just show up seven sharp. Now, you never know in my job if you'll get tied up, so this has to be tentative. But I'll leave word if I'm delayed, and dinner's on me in any event.” He gave him Walsh's address. “I look forward to meeting the lady. Hope to see you there, son.”

The conversation and the beer had lifted Moody from the depths. He was still drunk, but now in a way that could be soporific. He burned the suicide note in a dirty coffee cup from the sink. He returned his weapon to its holster after turning the cylinder around to the empty shell. He stripped to his underwear and, having swathed himself in the old blanket, which toward the far end had a large moth hole in which he sometimes caught a toe, he lay down and assumed the fetal position on a couch that was too short for him to stretch out.

If tomorrow he must deal with his partner's domestic troubles, the destruction his surrogate daughter was wreaking on her once promising life, and whichever homicide he was next in line for—maybe it was in the process of being committed at this very moment—he needed all the sleep he could get.

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Copyright © 1996 by Thomas Berger

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