The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy (33 page)

"Well?" he said, without looking up.

"What do you think Chief Kyle is going to do?"

Murphy stopped tracing but kept sipping. "Why
ask me and not him?"

"Because I think you know what he's going to do
and will tell me. I think he doesn't know what he's going to do and
wouldn't tell me even if he did."

Murphy put his coffee down between the files on his
blotter. "You take a hell of a lot for granted, Cuddy," he
said, raising his head.

I made no reply.

"Do you remember what I told you when I gave you
a ride from the Midtown?"

"I think so."

"I told you never to tell me another lie."`

"You did."

Murphy slammed his hand flat smack on the desk, like
a ref in a wrestling match. His coffee mug danced but didn't tip
over. "Then what the fuck was that ration of shit about
following the dead man into the alley and being ambushed?"

"Back there, in the hospital, you asked me to
tell you what I said happened, not what did happen."

Murphy just stared at me, no emotion in his voice.

"You realize that if you ever pull a word game
like that in one of my cases, in this jurisdiction, your license is
gone?"

"I know. I'm here to apologize and level with
you."

Murphy just stared, thinking.

I continued. "If you want me to, I mean. If you
really want to know what happened."

Murphy stared a little longer, then reached for the
coffee cup. "The gun shop you used. The owner's got a brother."

"I know him."

"Was the Button involved in this?"

“
Unknowingly."

"If all you did came out, would any of your shit
stick to him?"

I thought a moment. "Maybe. I know what I told
him. I don't know what he guessed or should have known."

Murphy took a hesitant, then longer drink of coffee.
"The Button and I grew up together," he said. "He was
older, he looked after me."

I just watched him. He grunted, put down his coffee
cup.

"Chief Kyle doesn't like your story, but his
cops so fucked things up at the scene and with you that the medical
examiner and lab can't bust your version. I don't see Kyle pressing
his county's DA for an indictment. He says self-defense and his
foul-up doesn't get attacked by your defense lawyer and spread across
six columns in the paper."

"Thanks, Lieutenant."

"Is this Crowley guy going to be missed by
anybody?"

"I don't know."

"Was Crowley the name he'd been using?"

I had thought about that question a lot. "If I
tell you that I know, and how I know, you might get deeper into this
than you want to be."

Murphy turned that over. "Was he living or
working in Bostou?"

"No," I said, "well outside the city
1imits."

"Cuddy, if you ever-—"

"I won't," I interrupted, "not ever."

He rotated the list with the mug, swirling the
coffee. I anticipated his question.

"I had to kill him, Lieutenant. Finding out I
was still alive, he would have killed me."

"Or run," said Murphy. "Man like that,
probably had an escape route planned."

I anticipated him again. "With a chunk of money
to help him along the way."

Murphy drank. "What do you suppose would happen
to that?"

"Maybe he was decent enough to leave it to Al
Sachs' widow and child."

"All of it?" asked Murphy.

"Most of it."

Murphy shook his head. "Cuddy, if you are for
real, I may actually have found something to believe in again."

I was starting to thank him when he told me to get
out of his office. I got.

It was 2:45 P.M. when I walked back down the steps of
police headquarters. I walked up Stuart Street past the bus terminal
and used a glassed-in public phone to call Eddie Shuba.

"Shuba," answered the voice.

“
Eddie. John Cuddy."

A pause at the other end.

"Eddie?"

"That Pontiac all taken care of," said
Eddie a little strangely. "On its way to glue factory."

I laughed. "Thanks, Eddie."

"I did it myself."

"I appreciate it."

"Johnnie," he said, lowering his voice, "I
ain't seen no cops, but that front seat. There was a lot of . . .like
somebody spilled paint on it, you know?"

"Yeah. Somebody had an accident."

"You O.K.?"

"I'm fine, Eddie. Just fine."

A sigh of relief. "Anybody asks me, I don't know
not'ing."

"You're a good friend, Eddie."

"I old-country man, Johnnie. You no do this
without good reason. I know."

"The best reason, Eddie. For a friend."

"Take care, you."

"Take care, Eddie."

I hung up and decided to call Martha in Pittsburgh,
to let her know everything was all right. I still remembered my
credit card number, so alternating with directory assistance, I tried
her, then Carol. No answer at either home. I obtained Dale's number
and I got a pick-up on the third ring.

"Da1e Palmer." There was a disjointed
tinkling of piano keys in the background.

"Dale, it's John Cuddy."

"Oh, John, it's good to hear from you. Are you
still in Washington?"

"No, no, I'm home now. How's Martha doing?"

"Fine, really. She's out at a job interview now,
and I'm minding Al Junior." He paused and the disjointed music
sounded briefly louder. "Can you hear him at the piano?"

"Yeah, a budding Chopin."

Dale laughed.

"Da1e, how are you doing?"

"Pretty well, considering. Larry is—has moved
out."

"I'm sorry."

"That's all right. I've just got to practice
saying it. Better now, though, than after a year of unhappiness. I've
been that route before. The lame excuses, the dark suspicions, the
emotional scenes. Better a clean break."

"I wish I were there to drink to it with you."

"Actually, I've . . . I'm going to make a clean
break there, too, if I can. I was beginning to get a little worried
about . . . it. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah, after Beth—my wife—died, I came close
to . . . it."

He paused, I thought, to move off a subject I hadn't
handled well with him in the past. "John, Carol told me—I know
you told her not to, but I'm the one who's really home, around here,
that is, to keep an eye out—she told me about your, ah, qualms. Is
everything really all right? For Martha I mean?"

"Everyt'hing's fine. No danger. And with luck, a
payment is coming through soon that will, well, that she can use to .
. ."

"Square things?"

“
Yes.”

"Bless you, John. She should be home tonight. Do
you still have her number so you can tell her personally?"

I said yes. We exchanged closings and rang off. I put
in another dime and tried Nancy at the DA's office. Her secretary
recognized my name and told me Nancy had gone home early. I thanked
her and hung up.

I walked two more blocks to the rent-a-car place. The
kid who had "helped" me was there and took a lot of
soothing before believing that I really was going to square things
for him on the car damage. I told him I'd call him as soon as I had a
new place.

I walked back outside and hailed a cab.

"Where to, pal?"

"East Fourth Street, South Boston."
 
 

TWENTY-SIX
-•-

I RANG HER BUZZER ONCE, WAITED THEN RANG AGAIN. The
cabbie had been tipped enough not to honk. I heard her steps on the
stairs. The door swung open. She was still in her work suit, carrying
the towel at her side.

"I'm unarmed," I said, glancing down at my
sling. She frowned. "Not funny. Come on up anyway."

She turned. I gestured to the taxi and followed her
up the stairs.

To make conversation, I said, "How come you're
still in your lawyer clothes?"

"In this case, they're funeral clothes. We
buried the Coopers this afternoon."

Shit. Where was my mind? I'd never even asked her
about them.

"Why didn't you tell me it was today?" I
said, an unwarranted whine creeping into my voice.

She turned, looked at me with a poker face. "I
figured you had other things on your mind."

She turned away and opened the door for us. "Drink?"
she asked as we entered the kitchen.

"Thanks. Screwdriver, light on the vodka."

I went into the living room. The arm was starting to
throb, the last painkiller from the hospital wearing off. I dug out a
vial of pills the nurse had given me. I thumbed it open with my left
hand and rolled one out into my right palm. Nancy appeared with our
drinks.

"Controlled substance?" she asked, but she
wasn't in a mood to joke, and it didn't sound quite right.

I took the pill from my right palm, tossed it into my
mouth, and choked a little on the booze with which I chased it.

"Are you all right?"

I nodded as I coughed. "Just awk . . . ward with
the . . . left hand. I usually . . ."

She kneeled down and put her hand on my knee. She
waited out my coughing.

"Awkward is about how I feel right now, too."

I started to talk but she wagged her head and drove
on quietly.

"You did something yesterday. I'm sure the Globe
screwed up the details, but I have a pretty good idea what happened.
I thought about going to the hospital, but I had one dealing with
Chief Kyle in the past, and . . . So anyway, I called the hospital
instead, and a nurse assured me you were doing fine. I stayed away
from Murphy because I was afraid he'd figure it out."

"He did, but . . . well, it's not O.K. with him,
but he understands."

Her eyes welled up with tears but she kept them from
her voice. "He 'understands'! I wish I could, but I . . . I
can't. Not really. I see the vendetta stuff all the time, John, from
cafeteria brawls in schools that end up in knifings to the big boys,
the no-hands and no-teeth level. What scares me is that it changes
the people in ways they can't change back. It hardens them, John. It
also never ends. There's always—"

I put my fingers on her lips. "This one's over,
Nancy. Finished. The guy was basically a loner. A psycho. No family,
probably not even a friend."

She shook her head and my fingers away. "You
can't ever be sure and even then . . . oh shit! I pictured this like
a jury opening and it's coming out all wrong, all tangled up."
She sniffled and resumed.

"Even if you're right, there's still the . . .
the . . .”

"The fact that I set someone up to be killed."

"Yes."

"And then killed him?"

She lowered her face to my knee and cried
noiselessly, dipping her head haltingly.

I stroked her hair very lightly with my fingernails
and spoke very softly. "Nancy, I don't like having to say this,
but please listen. The man I killed was scum. He murdered a string of
people before Al, and he tortured and mutilated him first. He left an
unemployed woman in Pittsburgh with a three-year-old and a hopeless
mortgage situation. And he was smart enough and quick enough to kill
me or blow the country before our revered legal system could have
begun to make him pay, in dollars or anything else, for what he did."

Nancy looked up at me. "But you're not . . ."

"God, or a judge, or authorized by anybody to
square accounts. Absolutely right. But Al was my friend, and the man
I killed had wronged him. Do you see?"

She gnawed her lip. "I know what your words
mean, but . . ."

"But what?"

"But I don't see how this is different from
Marco killing the Coopers. They helped you get his brother, so he
gets them. The man you shot, what was his name?"

"Crowley."

". . . Crowley gets your friend, so you get
him."

I thought back a lot of years. "Sounds like a
good law school point, Nancy."

"So?”

"So law school is law school, and the real world
is different."

"I'm not in law school anymore. I'm in the real
world, every day."

"That's a start," I said, feeling the
painkiller lift and blur me a little.

Nancy rubbed at her eyes like a seven-year-old in
need of a nap. She dropped the debate and put on a smile. A real
smile, full of warmth and hope and . . . I said, "If you're not
too beat, I'd like you to take a walk with me."