I looked off at the mill building door where I’d last seen Doyle. “He’s got shit.”
Broussard shook his head. “He never bluffs. If he says he can get you for it, he can.”
I thought about it. Four years ago, Angie and I had killed a pimp and crack dealer named Marion Socia in cold blood under the southeast expressway. We’d used unregistered guns and wiped them clean of prints.
But we’d left a witness, a gangbanger-to-be named Eugene. I never knew his last name, and I’d been pretty sure at the time that if I didn’t kill Socia he’d kill Eugene. Not then, but soon. Eugene, I decided, must have taken a few pinches over the years—a career with Shearson Lehman hadn’t seemed in the kid’s future—and during one of those pinches he must have offered us up in return for a lighter sentence. Given the utter lack of evidence tying us to Socia’s death in any other regard, I’m sure the DA had decided not to follow up, but someone had tucked the information away and passed it along to Doyle.
“He’s got us by the balls, is what you’re saying.”
Broussard glanced at me, then at Angie, and smiled. “Euphemistically speaking, of course. But, yeah. He owns you.”
“Comforting thought,” Angie said.
“This week’s been full of comforting thoughts.” Broussard tossed his cigarette. “I’m going to go find a phone, call my wife, tell her the good news.”
He walked off in the direction of the cops and vans circled around Gutierrez’s Lexus, his shoulders hunched, hands dug in his pockets, his steps just a bit uncertain, as if the ground felt different underfoot than it had half an hour ago.
Angie shuddered against the chill and I shuddered with her.
The divers went back to the quarry as morning rose in gradations of bruised purple and deep pink over the hills, and yellow tape and sawhorses were used to block off Pritchett and Quarry streets as the cops prepared for morning rush hour. A contingent of troopers formed a human barrier to the hills themselves. At 5 A.M., troopers were left stationed at the access points of all major roads, but traffic was allowed to flow through checkpoints, and the highway on and off ramps were opened. Pretty soon, as if they’d been waiting just around the bend, TV news vans and print reporters camped out on the expressway, clogged the breakdown lane, and shone their lights down on us and across at the hills. Several times a reporter called down to Angie to ask why she wasn’t wearing shoes. Several times Angie answered with her head down and her middle finger rising up from where her hands lay on her lap.
At first the reporters had shown up because word had leaked that someone had unloaded a few hundred rounds from an automatic weapon in the Quincy quarries and two corpses had been found on Pritchett Street in what looked like a professional execution. Then, somehow, Amanda McCready’s name slid down off the hills with the dawn breeze, and the circus began.
One of the reporters on the expressway recognized Broussard, and then the rest of them did, and pretty soon we felt like galley slaves as they shouted down to us.
“Detective, where is Amanda McCready?”
“Is she dead?”
“Is she in the quarry?”
“Where’s your partner?”
“Is it true Amanda McCready’s kidnappers were shot last night?”
“Is there any truth to the rumor that ransom money was lost?”
“Was Amanda’s body retrieved from the quarry? Is that why you’re not wearing shoes, ma’am?”
As if on cue, a trooper crossed Pritchett Street with a paper bag and handed it to Angie. “Your stuff, ma’am. They sent it down with some pancake slugs.”
Angie kept her head down and thanked him, removed her Doc Martens from the bag, and put them on.
“The sweatshirt’s going to be a harder act to pull off,” Broussard said, with a small smile.
“Yeah?” Angie slid off the hood and turned her back to the reporters as one of them tried to vault the guardrail and a trooper pushed him back with an extended nightstick.
Angie dropped the blanket and raincoat off her shoulders, and several cameras swung our way at the news of her bare flesh and black bra straps.
She looked at me. “Should I do a slow strip, move my hips a bit?”
“It’s your show,” I said. “I think you have everybody’s attention.”
“Got mine,” Broussard said, staring openly at the press of Angie’s breasts against black lace.
“Oh, joy.” She grimaced and pulled the sweatshirt over her head, pulled it down her torso.
Someone on the expressway applauded, and someone else whistled. Angie kept her back to them as she pulled thick strands of her hair from the collar.
“My show?” she said to me, with a sad smile and small shake of her head. “It’s their show, man. All theirs.”
Poole’s status was changed from critical to guarded shortly after sunrise, and, with nothing to do but wait, we left Pritchett Street and followed Broussard’s Taurus over to Milton Hospital.
At the hospital, we argued with the admitting nurse over how many of us could go into ICU when none of us were Poole’s blood relatives. A doctor passed us and took one look at Angie and said, “Are you aware your skin is blue?”
After another small argument, Angie followed the doctor behind a curtain to be checked for hypothermia, and the admitting nurse grudgingly allowed us into ICU to see Poole.
“Myocardial infarction,” he said, as he propped himself up on the pillows. “Hell of a word, huh?”
“It’s two words,” Broussard said, and reached out awkwardly and gave Poole’s arm a small squeeze.
“Whatever. Friggin’ heart attack was what it was.” He hissed against a sudden pain as he shifted again.
“Relax,” Broussard said. “Christ’s sake.”
“The fuck happened up there?” Poole said.
We told him the little we knew.
“Two shooters in the woods and one on the ground?” he said when we finished.
“That’s the way it’s looking,” Broussard said. “Or one shooter with two rifles in the woods and one on the widow’s walk.”
Poole made a face like he bought that theory about as much as he believed JFK was killed by a lone gunman. He moved his head on the pillow, looked at me. “You definitely saw two rifles get dumped over the cliff?”
“I’m pretty sure,” I said. “It was nuts out there.” I shrugged, then nodded. “No, I’m sure. Two rifles.”