The Garden of Betrayal

28

A sharp, persistent noise summoned me back to consciousness. I opened my eyes and saw an ebony hand inches from my face.

“Come on,” a voice said, as the fingers snapped again. “Wake up.”

“I’m awake,” I mumbled. “Where am I?”

“You tell me.”

I was flat on my back and couldn’t seem to turn my head. The ceiling was acoustical tile, and my view to either side was blocked by pale green curtains. I half recalled people lifting me, and asking me questions, and a siren.

“Hospital?”

“Right. Saint Luke’s.” The speaker moved into my field of view. He was a young black man wearing a white medical coat. He flipped on a penlight and shined it into my eyes. “You remember where you were before here?”

“Four Seasons Hotel.”

“Good. Follow the light with your eyes. What’s three times four?”

“Twelve. Why can’t I move my head?”

“It’s immobilized. I’m going to manipulate your arms and legs. You tell me if anything hurts.”

He worked his way professionally from limb to limb, tapping my reflexes and bending my joints. Everything hurt, but not enough to deter him.

“You’re a lucky guy,” he said, when he was done. “You’re basically fine, except for a mild concussion and a nasty piece of shrapnel in your forehead. You had a tetanus shot recently?”

“I’m not sure. What do you mean ‘shrapnel’?”

“From the blast that knocked you out.”

“What blast?”

“At the hotel. I don’t know anything more about it.”

He unstrapped whatever had been imprisoning my head and helped me sit up. The last thing I remembered was the bodyguard handing Rashid the phone.

“Where’s my friend?”

“The big guy or the little guy?”

“The little guy.”

“Came in a few minutes before you. Hold still. I need to get the shrapnel out of your head.”

“Is he okay?”

“No clue,” he said flatly, probing near my hairline with forceps.

“You’re lying to me, aren’t you?” I asked, studying his face.

He hesitated a moment and then nodded.

“Yes.”

“Is my friend dead?”

He grabbed hold of something with the forceps and pulled. I felt blood trickling down my forehead; he mopped at it with a swab.

“Instantly. No pain. Big guy was less lucky than you, but he’ll make it. I’m putting a butterfly bandage on this wound. You don’t need a stitch.”

“I’m going to be sick.”

He held a cardboard basin for me while I threw up. When I was done, he eased me down to a prone position again and covered me with a blanket. My head was throbbing, but I knew I had to get in touch with Claire and Kate immediately.

“Do me another favor?” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Bring me a phone.”

“Can’t. No phones in the ER. And you need to rest.”

“Then call a cop named Reggie Kinnard for me and tell him where I am,” I said, not wanting anyone else to know where Claire and Kate were.

“Got a dozen cops here already.”

“Please.”

He took a pad from his pocket and wrote down Reggie’s cell number.

“Thanks,” I said. “For everything.”

“No problem. Now rest. You’re still shocky. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I must have drifted off, because when I opened my eyes again, Reggie was standing over me.

“How you doing?” he asked.

“Not so good.” I pushed myself up to a seated position and my vision swam. “Where are Claire and Kate?”

“Here. In the lobby down the hall. I was with them at the Meridien when I got the call from the doctor.”

“I want to see them.”

“Have to wait a little bit. You’re still in a restricted-access area-no visitors.”

“You have someone watching them?”

“Uniform keeping them company. Why?”

I heaved myself backward eighteen inches, so I could lean up against the headboard. Every muscle protested. I felt as if I’d been hit by a car.

“These people killed Rashid right in front of me.” I choked back an involuntary sob. “I don’t want to take any more chances.”

“What people?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure of anything anymore. The people who bugged my house, maybe.”

“We’re talking about an Arab diplomat,” Reggie said skeptically. “Could be any number of reasons for someone to hit him.”

“No. No more coincidences. Everything that’s happened recently is tied together somehow, and tied to Kyle as well. I can feel it. I just

…”

A nurse entered through the curtain and gave Reggie a hostile look. He flipped open his coat to display the badge on his belt.

“Would you like some water?” she asked, offering me a plastic cup with a straw.

“Please,” I said, suddenly realizing how thirsty I was.

I drained the cup while she checked my blood pressure and fussed with my bedclothes.

“He has to go,” the nurse said, jerking her head toward Reggie.

“Soon,” I promised. “We just have a few more things to cover.”

She left, muttering unhappily.

“You have any details from the hotel?” I asked Reggie.

“You sure you want to hear?”

“Yes. I need to know.”

He sighed.

“Had a quick word with a guy on the scene. Best our people can figure, someone rigged a phone with a shaped charge inside the earpiece. Rashid put it to the side of his head, and they detonated it by remote control.”

I closed my eyes for a second, overwhelmed by a sense of unreality.

“You like to take a few minutes?” Reggie asked.

“No. I’m okay. What’s a shaped charge?”

“Explosive designed to project force along a single axis. You were at a right angle to the axis because of the way Rashid was holding the phone, so you didn’t catch much of it. Bodyguard was at a less oblique angle, so he caught more.”

“So, Rashid was the only target?”

“Seems like. Else they would have used something with a bigger spread.”

“Anybody get a good look at the guy who handed him the phone?”

“Security camera grabbed a decent shot of him. He was dressed like a hotel employee, but he doesn’t work there. Feds will be able to check his picture against their digital photo records. Technology on that is pretty good now. They might get lucky.”

I wiped sweat from my forehead, wincing as I inadvertently tugged at my bandage.

“Rashid was a good buddy of yours, wasn’t he?” Reggie asked gently.

I shrugged, not ready to start down that path. Rashid had been a friend, a colleague, and a mentor. He was one of the few people I could talk to about almost anything, and he’d always been there for me. At the end, I’d suspected him of betraying me, and he’d died before I could ask him for help on the one thing that mattered to me most.

“I’d like to get out of here now.”

“Doctors want to keep you overnight.”

“No. Fix it for me, please.”

He tapped a thumb against the side of his leg, frowning.

“Doctors aren’t as suggestible as regular people. And we got another problem.”

“I can’t deal with any more problems.”

“I hear you. But you’re going to have to make a statement. Investigating officers will be here soon to talk to you. You have to decide how much to tell them.”

“Why not everything?”

“Might be the right thing to do. But the department likes to keep things simple. You start talking about all that stuff you have taped to your hotel-room wall and their heads are going to spin. That whole cold-case thing is only on TV. Real life, the powers that be only worry about what’s in the paper today and what’s going to be in the paper tomorrow. First priority will be to nail a guy for doing Rashid. Beyond that, it might play either way.”

“Meaning?”

“NYPD side of things is being supervised by Deputy Chief Ellison, guy you met in Walter’s office.”

“Great.”

“Chief’s not stupid, no matter how many pops he has in him, but he is political. He might assign a team of people to get to the bottom of this whole thing, or he might decide to leave well enough alone. It depends on what he thinks will work better for him with the mayor and the press.”

“What do we care if he decides to leave it alone? We can still keep working on this thing ourselves unofficially. Right?”

“Not as easily,” Reggie said, shaking his head. “It’s one thing for me to be poking around outside my territory when no one’s paying attention, but it’s another for me to keep at something when I’ve been ordered to stand down. Chief doesn’t let much slide, and I want to clear some more names off my list before I pull the pin.”

“So, you’re suggesting I keep my mouth shut about everything except the basic facts.”

“It’s a judgment call, but yeah, that’s how I’d play it right now. We might be able to lean on the Feds later for some informal help, if we need it. I have good relationships there.”

I crossed my arms and tucked my fists up into my armpits, struck by a sudden chill. There were too many powerful people in the mix for me to risk coming clean just yet-Senator Simpson, Walter, the Saudis. Any of them could bring intense political pressure to bear to orchestrate a cover-up, if necessary.

“Fine,” I said, feeling shakier by the moment. “But I got to tell you-I can’t take any more people dying. It seems like everything’s been going sideways on me for a long time, and now it’s all picking up speed.”

“I been there,” he said. “Lots of times. You just got to hang on.”

One of the green curtains jerked sideways. I expected the nurse, but it was Deputy Chief Ellison at the foot of my bed, Lieutenant Wayland directly behind him.

“Irish Reggie Kinnard,” the chief said. “As I live and breathe.”

“Chief,” Reggie replied evenly.

“He got that nickname in the four-one,” the chief confided to the lieutenant sotto voce. “First year out of the academy. You know why?”

“Boozer?”

“No more than anyone else,” the chief muttered irritably. “No, they called him Irish because he was old school, inclined to solve problems with a minimum of paperwork.”

“New department these days,” the lieutenant observed piously. “New rules.”

Reggie laughed. The lieutenant looked angry, but the chief smiled.

“I been meaning to look you up,” he said to Reggie.

“Why’s that?”

The chief pointed his chin at me.

“Because I looked him up, and I learned that he’s got a missing kid, and that you’ve been beavering away on it for the better part of the last decade. Very admirable. Makes the department proud. But I’m guessing that also makes you the guy who’s been leaking confidential information on one of our priority cases to him. And that’s not so admirable.”

“Fidelis ad Mortem,” Reggie said. “My bad.”

The chief kept smiling.

“Happens again and you’re going to have a lot more free time to fish for stripers with your old partner Joe Belko, no matter how many pals you got on the community boards. You read me?”

“Loud and clear, chief.”

“Good.”

The chief turned to look at me, the lieutenant’s head following as if it were attached.

“And what about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“Either you’re the unluckiest son of a bitch in the city of New York or you’re dirty in this up to your elbows.”

I was tempted to tell him to fuck off, but I decided to follow Reggie’s lead. I didn’t feel strong enough to get involved in a pissing match.

“Unlucky, I guess.”

“I see. And what can you tell me that might shed light on the untimely demise of the city’s esteemed Arab guest Mr. al-Shaabi?”

“Zero. Rashid and I got together periodically to talk about the energy markets. He called yesterday out of the blue and asked me to stop by. We spoke for a while, and I woke up here.”

“Spoke about what?”

“Ongoing production problems in Iraq, and how the rest of OPEC will respond.”

“So, it’s pure happenstance that I’m bumping into you on two separate murders in the same week.”

“I thought Alex was an accident,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry again.

“We have an expression in the department: Who the fuck knows? We say suicide, his rich and well-connected father says accident. We say accident, his father says maybe someone put him in the tub. I don’t mind admitting that we’re a little confused. You haven’t had any more thoughts on Mr. Coleman’s death, have you?”

“None. I wish I could help you.”

“No link between Mr. al-Shaabi and Mr. Coleman that we should be aware of? Nothing you were working on with either of them that might have made someone unhappy?”

“No.”

“Did Mr. al-Shaabi and Mr. Coleman know each other?”

“No. I’d been careful to keep my relationship with Rashid quiet, even from Alex, because Rashid hadn’t wanted his employees to know that he spoke to me.”

The chief nodded and turned to the lieutenant.

“What do you think?”

“I think he’s a lying sack of shit.”

“Mr. Wallace is a citizen,” Reggie said, giving the lieutenant a look that would have made me take a few steps back. “Courtesy, professionalism, and respect. That’s the new department, isn’t it?”

The lieutenant glared back at him.

“Detective Kinnard’s correct,” the chief said mildly. “I apologize for Lieutenant Wayland’s rudeness. But I incline toward his point of view.” The chief came a step closer to my bed and touched his forehead. “That piece of shrapnel you caught. The doctor tell you what it was?”

“No,” I said, confused by the change of subject.

“A splinter of Mr. al-Shaabi’s skull. Doctor thinks maybe it’s a tiny piece of his lachrymal.” The chief lowered his finger and touched the bridge of his nose, next to his eye. “Little bone right here. Although how the fuck he could tell with all that mess, I got no idea.”

I fought back the urge to vomit again.

“I mention it to make the point that you’re involved here, Mr. Wallace. You’re as involved as it’s possible to be. And there’s no skating away from that. The NYPD and the FBI and God only knows how many other agencies are going to be crawling all over this case and all over you. If I discover you’ve been lying to us, I’ll do my best to nail you for hindering prosecution and get you three hots and a cot courtesy of the city. The Feds are doing some interesting things with conspiracy law. They might be able to get you on that as well. You understand me?”

“Perfectly,” I managed.

“Good.” He turned to Reggie. “Walk me to the elevator, Irish. You and me got a few more things to talk about.”

I dozed restlessly for about ten minutes until Reggie came back.

“I got hold of Belko,” he said. “He’s on his way in from Queens. He’ll keep an eye on Claire and Kate until we figure out some other arrangement.”

“Thanks,” I said. “So, tell me. The chief show you the carrot or the stick?”

“Chief’s a stick guy. He read your file and wanted to know where I’d gotten with the e-mail. I gave him the abridged version and told him we had divers looking for the car in Staten Island. He’s in your camp-he doesn’t like all the coincidences. He suggested I use my relationship with you to win your confidence and find out what’s really going on. Or else.”

“You worried?”

“Not yet. Long as I can argue I’m working Kyle’s case, I’m okay.”

“Should I be worried?”

“About the hindering-prosecution thing or a conspiracy charge? No. That’s a load of bullshit. But you’re the one who has to be comfortable going down this road. Means a lot more strain on you personally. Be easier to punt the whole thing. I got a friend in the FBI you could talk to.”

“FBI less political than the NYPD?”

He laughed.

“No such thing as a nonpolitical cop over the rank of sergeant-city, state, or federal. But the FBI’s not pissed off at you yet.”

“I’ll take my chances with you.” My eyes closed involuntarily, and it was an effort to open them again. “You said you knew what I meant before, when I told you how overwhelmed I was feeling.”

“I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff over the years,” Reggie said, shrugging. “It comes with the territory.”

“So, why not just walk away? Transfer back to auto crime, or something less onerous.”

It was a question I’d been wanting to ask him for a long time.

“I wish I knew,” he said. “Seriously. I wonder about that all the time.”

“I was thinking about walking away. I talked to Claire about it the other night. Get Kate settled in college and then relocate to Europe or the West Coast and try to put everything behind us.”

“You don’t feel that way now?”

“No,” I said, feeling resolved. “I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because for the first time ever, I think we have a real shot at learning what happened to Kyle and finding the people who took him,” I said, the words tumbling out of me. “And because I think these same people are responsible for what happened to Carlos Munoz, and to Rashid. It’s all knotted together somehow. But mainly because I think these people came after me deliberately, and they might be coming after me again. I’m not going to rest until I find them and put them down.”

Reggie nodded.

“Flip side of my philosophy. You don’t hurt people who aren’t trying to hurt you, but if they are, you hit back hard. Some things demand a response.”

“Right,” I said, my eyes closing again. “That’s exactly right.”

“Rest,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do about getting you out of here.”