Authors: James Patrick Hunt

The Betrayers (17 page)

BOOK: The Betrayers

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“Yeah,” Hastings said. He wished he hadn't said anything about priests now.

But Murph only shrugged. “Beats saying it to a church full of people,” he said. Murph looked out the window. Hastings hoped Murph would not start waxing philosophical about the nature of sin and redemption and congregants wondering if Connie Birdsong was game for another round.

Murph was shaking his head now. He said, “Can you believe her crying like that?”

Hastings smiled. He shrugged. He sensed the onset of a conversation he did not want to have.

Murph said, “I mean, come on. She's a police officer, for God's sake.”

Hastings said, “She's not typical.”

“Yeah, I know, but goddamn. That interview was nothing. How does she handle things when they really get hot?”

“Murph, I really don'tâ”

“You know what the problem is?”

“No.”

“Lieutenant, you know I don't have issues with women cops. I mean, I hope you know that. But if a man in uniform behaved that way, we both know they'd get rid of him.”

Hastings thought of Marvin Tate. The relief he felt when Marvin resigned.

“Maybe,” Hastings said.

“But she gets to stay. And I bet I know why. I'll bet she's got a supervisor who's afraid of disciplining her because he's afraid he'll get sued. Or, she'll file a complaint on him and fuck up his career. Or, he's one of those supervisors who
looks out
for her, treats her like the little girl he never had. Or he's hoping one day she'll give him a piece himself.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“But other officers got to work with her. They'll need her to back them up. And then what happens?”

“Murph.”

“At the end of the day, it's a failure of leadership. You know what I mean?”

“Murph.”

“Yeah?”

“Another time, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Let's talk about the investigation. Did you call Rhodes about the dispatch logs?”

“Yeah. Rhodes asked if we should get Hummel's cell phone records too. I agreed it was a good idea.”

“Good. Yeah, that is a good idea.”

“We were going to go over them this evening.”

“Okay. I'm going to run you back to the station. Then I'll drive out to interview the nurse.”

In the early days of their courtship, Hastings and Eileen had had the conversation that women and men the world over have had. The man charges that a woman can have sex anytime she wants while a man cannot. Eileen responded that men could have sex anytime they wanted as well. Eileen said George could go to a bar on any given night and bring
a woman home to his bed and that he may not like how the woman looked or talked or how much she drank, but he could find one if he wanted. Eileen could not be persuaded otherwise.

It was one of those silly arguments they had with drinks and cigarettes that neither one cared to win so long as it gave them something to laugh about and engage with each other over, back when they cared about each other enough to do it.

But Hastings thought about it when he met with Trudy West, R.N., at Southcrest Hospital.

Like Connie Birdsong and Brahma Jones, Trudy West was unattractive. There was no getting away from it. Hastings told himself that it had nothing to do with the case. He told himself that it was not his place to judge the slain police officer. Not over something like this. He wondered if the women looked like they could have appeared in
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issues, would he feel the same way? Would he feel not sadness, but perhaps envy and admiration? All right, Hummel. Go team. Shit. It was adultery either way. When Eileen had been unfaithful, he did not stop to wonder if the other fellow was handsome or ugly.

Why should it make any difference? If Hummel sought out lonely, unattractive women to seduce, what should it matter? There seemed to be no evidence that he mistreated or abused them. It should only matter if it related to his murder.

Hastings remembered seeing the video footage on national news of the spurned wife in Texas running over her husband with her Lexus. Stopping the car after the first strike and backing over him as he lay struggling to survive. Killing him with most definite premeditation. He remembered seeing a counselor, a woman, interviewed on television saying the lady should not go to prison for the murder â¦ the interviewer saying, well, what punishment then? And the woman counselor responding with complete seriousness, “Well, definitely counseling.”

Trudy West, wearing light green scrubs, spoke with him in the hallway of the hospital.

She said, “He used to work security here. Nights. That's how we met.”

Hastings said, “How long did it go on?”

“A few months. He would call me on his cell phone, sometimes come here on his breaks.”

“How come?”

“Well â¦ I had breaks too.”

Hastings could ask her if he dropped by to chat or if they would sneak off to a broom closet, but he didn't see the point.

He said, “When did it end?”

“Over three years ago.”

“How did it end?”

“You mean, was it amicable?”

“Yes.”

“Sure it was. He was a nice man. It wasn't justâsex. He would visit my house too. He helped me with my kids. My husband left me several years ago. Chris would come by sometimes and cut my lawn. Come in, have a soda, and leave. He'd do that without asking for anything in return.”

“Were you angry with him?”

“Why would I be angry with him?”

“I don't know.”

Nurse West shook her head. “He was a kind man. He had flaws, like the rest of us. Yes, he liked to fool around with women. But if you weren't interested in doing that, he was okay with it. He never pushed. And he liked helping people. It's why he became a police officer.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“No,” she said. “Look, I've been around, okay? I know that when someone makes a big point of telling you the importance of being nice, they're usually not very nice. It's the same with him. He never said he became a police officer because he wanted to help people, but you could see it in how he acted.”

“So you liked him?”

“Yeah, I liked him. But â¦ that's not the point. Listen, there was a girl that used to work here. She had a neighbor who was a real jerk. He would get drunk and make a lot of noise and say ugly things to her in front of her children. A bully. It made her cry and the police in her neighborhood said they couldn't do anything because he wasn't committing any crimes. Well, he was sure scaring the devil out of her. So I told Chris about it.”

“This woman ask you to do that?”

“No. She was just telling me. I made the decision to tell Chris.”

“And what did he do?”

“I guess he went over to the neighbor's house and just scared the you-know-what out of him. Told him if he didn't start showing respect for Sharon and her family and the rest of the neighborhood, he was going to come back and, well, I guess beat him up. And you know, I think he would have done it too.”

“Did it work?”

“Oh, heck yes. The guy got so scared he eventually moved someplace else.” Trudy West reflected for a moment. She said, “I wonder if Chris knew something else about him. Like if he was selling dope or something.”

If he didn't, Hastings thought, Hummel could have planted it on him.

Hastings said, “When was this?”

“Oh, this was years ago. When he and I were seeing each other.”

She seemed to be studying Hastings now. In a respectful tone, she said, “He was a good man. Not many people would have done what he did.”

“I hear you,” Hastings said. “Do you remember this neighbor's name?”

“No. No one ever told me that.”

“But your friend, this Sharon, she would know, right?”

“I guess she would. But she doesn't work here anymore.”

THIRTY-THREE

No one called Jimmy to tell him his brother had been killed. He found out about it by reading it in the
Chicago Sun-Times.
Sean dead, Bacon dead. Max had been killed too; shot to death in his own home. There was no one left to call Jimmy and say, sorry for muffing the job. Sean had been the only family he had left. Jimmy realized that there could well be no one back home who thought he was even alive, so that made him dead too in a way. Two years now of running and living in places he didn't want to live. Running from police and prison and now from Jack Regan.

Jack Regan had killed his brother.

How?

How had Jack pulled that off? Sean was smart, but Jack was smarter. Jimmy should have known. He should have called Sean and told him to bring more guys, to wait for Jack to walk into a parking lot, to stick a bomb under his car, to avoid going into the man's place because the man would know his place better than intruders. He should have gone up to Chicago and done it himself. Maybe taken Mike with him. Though it would have taken a lot of effort to talk Mike into it. Mike Dillon wasn't afraid of anyone, not even Jack Regan, but Mike Dillon wouldn't be dumb enough to return to Chicago. Mike hadn't stayed out of prison by being dumb.

Dillon had called him earlier and said they needed to get rid of Sharon.

Jimmy had said, “Sharon? What are you talking about?”

“It's gotta be done.”

“Mike, can you show a little fucking compassion here? I just lost my kid brother.”

“I know that, for Christ's sake. We're going to take care of that.”

“How are we going to take care of that.”

“We'll clip Jack.”

“How the fuck we going to do that?” Jimmy had known Jack Regan for a long time. Remote and dangerous, Regan was one of the few people Jimmy Rizza actually feared. “We got three dead men reminding us he's not so easy to kill.”

“Christ, Jimmy. He's not a ghost.”

“He's coming, Mike.”

“All right, all right. But we need to take care of Sharon tonight.”

“What's the hurry?”

Dillon said, “No hurry. I just want to get it done.”

Now Jimmy waited in his garage for Mike. When he got here they would prepare, then drive over to Sharon's and get it done. Jimmy resigned himself to it. You didn't say no to Mike Dillon. Jimmy remembered a couple who had scrimped and saved and borrowed to buy a tavern in Chicago. And after they did and cleaned it up, Dillon saw its appeal. He approached the couple one evening and said he'd like to take the tavern off their hands. The husband said no thanks. Dillon motioned to Jimmy, and Jimmy took the man's ten-year-old boy by the shoulders. Dillon said, “You see that kid? He's going to be dead tomorrow unless you sign that deed over to me. Understand?” The man signed it over. Dillon gave the owner five thousand for it, telling the guy, “What the hell, we're both Irish, huh?” The five thousand was only a fraction of what the man had borrowed from the bank.

Christ, Jimmy thought. Now they had to go kill some broad and bury her probably because she had put too much butter on Mike's toast or something. Hadn't done it the way Mom used to. Or she had shown interest in another dude, probably a younger one. Typical Mike.

Rhodes said, “County's system is pretty much like ours. Each of their patrol cars has a GPS system, monitors where the cars are at any given
time, transmits it back to dispatch. Keeps the patrol officers from going to whorehouses and bars. If dispatch doesn't hear from the officers for a long period of time, they'll do a 10-90. An officer welfare check. Now for the last four months, the proper response has been for the officer to give his unit number. Before that, they were to give the address they were at. If they don't give the proper response, dispatch presumes they're in trouble, maybe being held at gunpoint, and they send backup.”

They were in the squad room gathered around Hastings's desk. Murph, Rhodes, Hastings, and Cain.

Hastings said, “In the week before the shootings, were there any 10-90s?”

“There were,” Rhodes said. “Just a couple. But the officers only had to give back the unit number.”

Hastings said, “Not the address.”

“No,” Rhodes said.

There was an audible sigh in the room.

“And,” Rhodes said, “when the officers went Signal 13 for lunch, they usually said where they were at. But a couple of times they didn't. So we don't know where they were then. They could have been having lunch at Childers's house or Hummel's. Other officers do that sometimes.”

By now days had passed since the officers had been massacred. The public leaned on the politicians, the politicians leaned on the chief, the chief leaned on the assistant chief, and so on and so on. They wanted the matter solved. And the officers only had to give back unit numbers.

Hastings said, “You've got the dispatch logs?”

Rhodes said, “Yes.”

“You've reviewed them?”

“Yes.”

“Anything stand out?”

Rhodes said, “Citations, DUI arrests, a few possession busts. Just standard fare.”

“What do you mean?”

Rhodes looked at the other detectives, some uncertainty in his expression. “Well,” he said, “what I mean is, we can interview all these people they arrested or gave citations to the week before the shootings. But I'm not sure what good it would do. They've given thousands of citations over the years. Do we interview all them too?”

Hastings sighed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. But let's check them out for the previous week anyway. Maybe someone can give us something.”

There was a general feeling of depression in the air about them. They all wanted to solve it, catch the murderers of police officers. And like Hastings they had placed a certain amount of faith in the new technologies, things like GPS tracking systems and tape-recorded dispatches. But all they had learned was that Chris Hummel was a clean cop who liked to get laid. It would have been a whole lot better to have a witness who knew something and saw something.

“Bobby,” Hastings said. “I want you to check something out for me. The nurse at the hospital told me that Hummel may have roughed up a neighbor of one of her co-workers. She doesn't know the neighbor's name, but the woman's name was Sharon Dunphy. She used to be a nurse's assistant at Southcrest.”

Cain said, “Hummel roughed up this woman's neighbor?”

“Well,” Hastings said, “he
may
have. Apparently, Dunphy's neighbor was hassling her and Hummel went over to the guy's house and talked to him.”

Cain said, “How long ago was this?”

“Over three years ago.”

Bobby Cain frowned.

“Yeah, I know,” Hastings said. “Talk to the woman anyway. Find out
the ex-neighbor's name and then check him out.” He handed a piece of paper to Cain. “Here's her address.”

There was a silence in the room that didn't mean anything at first. Then Cain said, “Are you giving up on Treats?”

Hastings looked at Cain. He was aware of the other detectives watching him, waiting for the answer. The distinction between “are
you
” and “are
we
” was not lost on Hastings. He could say “Are you challenging me?” But it probably wouldn't play well. Better to tell the truth.

Hastings said, “I don't know yet.” He was not going to say anything else and he looked directly at Cain to see if the man wanted to keep going.

Cain hesitated and then shook his head slightly.

Hastings said, “It's an order, sergeant. Take Murph with you.”

Cain said, “Yes,
sir.
” And that wasn't lost on Hastings either. And for a brief moment he had to remind himself not to lose his temper. To resist the urge to tell the sergeant that Murph or even Rhodes deserved the rank more than he did and if he had something to say, say it and put aside this head-shaking chickenshit. Or just ask the little bastard to step outside and take a fucking beating. But he let it pass.

There was another silence after Murph and Cain left. Rhodes seemed to think about his words before he spoke and then he simply said, “I'll start lining up a list of interviews on those citations.”

“Okay, Howard. Thanks.”

In the hallway, Murph said, “I got to take a leak.”

Cain said. “I'll wait in the car.” He took the stairs down to the parking lot. He wondered if he should say something to Murphy. Ask him if he agreed with the lieutenant. If he did, the guy would probably side with Hastings. Dumbshit. Whatever the lieutenant says, goes. Like the guy was some sort of fucking Zen master. Stupid, unimaginative clucks, all of them.

He got to the parking lot and his cell phone rang.

“Sergeant Cain.”

“Bob?”

“Yes.”

“Frank Cahalin here. How's it going?”

“Oh, hello, sir,” Cain said. “It's going okay, I guess.”

“You guys getting anywhere?”

Cain sighed. “I don't know.”

“That doesn't sound too positive.”

Cain said, “It is what it is.”

“Did you get any more evidence against the drug dealer?”

“No. Not yet. But we're â¦ no, we haven't got anything.”