A Murder of Justice

THIRTY-FOUR

Having woken early, Frank took a longer run: down Thirtieth to the river, then up the river path. Four miles past Fletcher’s Boat House, he reversed course. Back home, Monty waited for breakfast. That taken care of, Frank showered, twisting and stretching under the needle spray, first hot, then cold, then hot again.

Finished shaving, he inspected his face. The eyes still clear, the gray still holding at the temples. The slightest ropiness along the jawline, the hint of puffiness beneath the eyes. Good for another day.

A stand-up breakfast at the kitchen counter: coffee made a bit stronger than usual, bran flakes with blueberries and skim milk. He opened the Post. The sad-sack Wizards had just hired Doug Collins, Michael Jordan’s former coach with the Bulls. Collins and Jordan, reunited to re-create the old Chicago magic in Washington. Frank shook his head.

Second acts in American lives.

His eyes drifted to the masthead. Somewhat surprised, he found it was already Friday.

Two weeks since Bayless Place? Two… weeks?

Searching his closet, he found a favorite suit, a J. Press spring-weight navy wool that had the feel of cashmere. The phone interrupted him as he picked through his ties.

“Frank? This’s Leon.” Janowitz had an upbeat of excitement in his voice.

“You’re up early.”

“Yeah. I was driving in, thought you might still be home. Mind if I drop by?”

“Got some coffee left.”

“I don’t know if I can handle that. Be there in five.”

Seated at the breakfast room table, Janowitz pulled out a folder, opened it, and handed Frank a booking mug shot.

“Who’s this?”

“Likely prospect for Gentry’s source.”

A good-looking African-American kid stared back at Frank. Strong mouth and jaw, but a hint of fear in the dark almond eyes.

“Martin Moses Osmond.” Frank read off the sign the kid was holding.

“Eleanor’s pulling his file out of inactive storage,” Janowitz said, “but here’s what I could get from the abstracts: born ’sixty-eight. Conviction grand theft auto, ’eighty-six. Three other guys tried for the same offense.” Janowitz paused for effect. “James ‘Skeeter’ Hodges-”

“Tobias ‘Pencil’ Crawfurd and Zelmer Austin,” Frank finished.

Janowitz nodded. Rapping the printout for emphasis, he went on. “All four together at Lorton. That’s where Skeeter made the connections that got him in tight with Juan Brooks. Skeeter, Pencil, Austin, and Osmond got out the same time, and got a franchise from Brooks. Osmond was picked up later, two charges possession intent to sell. Beat both. His P.O. noted that he warned Osmond about continued association with Skeeter and Pencil.”

“The P.O.,” Frank asked, “was…?”

“Arch Sterling.”

Frank knew Sterling. Too many parole officers got co-opted by what the PC establishment now called “clients.” Sterling still thought of them as parolees.

“What else makes Osmond a likely?” he asked Janowitz.

“Had access, had a history with Skeeter and Pencil. Didn’t quite fit one element of the profile, though.”

“How do you mean?”

“He’s dead, but it wasn’t ruled homicide. His grandmother found him in his car. M.E. ruled it a heroin overdose. Interesting timing, though.”

“Oh?”

“Died Monday night twenty-two February ’ ninety-nine… about two hours after somebody popped Kevin Gentry.” Janowitz sat quietly, watching Frank take that in.

Frank registered Janowitz’s expectant look. “You’ve got more, don’t you?”

Janowitz gave a low whistle. “I’m not going to play poker with you.”

“You’re an easy read. You wouldn’t be here if the profile was all you had. And besides, you got your hand ready to pull another rabbit out of your L. L. Bean bag.”

Grinning, Janowitz thrust his hand into the briefcase and came out with a yellow ledger sheet penciled with notations.

“I worked through the subcommittee’s administrative expenditures-a real rat’s nest. Anyway, starting in June ’ninety-eight, Rhinelander authorized Gentry to set up an account, something called ‘Hearing Research and Analysis.’ A lot of money went in, but no details of disbursements; no vouchers, no receipts. No documentation of any kind. Rhinelander closed out the account on twenty-four February ’ninety-nine-two days after Gentry bought the farm. No funds returned. Money disappeared.”

“How much?”

“Best I could estimate, hundred twenty thousand. More than I make in a week.”

“That’d be a nice payout for a source,” Frank said.

Janowitz was peering into the depths of the bag. “Ah, yes,” he muttered, pulling out a small manila envelope, which he handed to Frank.

Someone… Gentry?… had printed “Rch/Analysis” across the envelope flap. Frank shook out a key and a slip of paper.

“Receipt for a safe-deposit box at Riggs,” Janowitz explained.

“Opened June 15, 1998,” Frank said.

“Might be interesting to get a look. I checked the bank. We’re gonna need a court order.”

Frank returned the key and receipt to the envelope and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

Janowitz trailed a teaser, “Funny thing about Osmond,” he said softly.

“Funny ha-ha?”

“He lived on Bayless Place with his grandmother,” Janowitz said. “About half a block from where Skeeter bought the farm.”

From the rising inflection and the look in his eyes, Frank could tell Janowitz was holding on to yet another card.

“A small world, Frank… Arch Sterling’s background report on Martin Osmond? Martin and his grandmother were members of Jose’s dad’s congregation.”

Minutes later, Janowitz stood on the sidewalk, holding his overstuffed canvas briefcase, watching Frank lock up the house.

“Where’d you park?” Frank asked, when he had joined Janowitz.

Janowitz pointed down Olive, toward Twenty-ninth. “Just in front of you.”

The two had gotten midway down the block when Frank’s cell phone rang. He stopped to answer. It was Kate. He waved Janowitz on. Janowitz nodded and continued down the sidewalk.

“Catching the first shuttle out in the morning,” Kate said. “Dinner still on?”

Charlie Whitmire and Murphy appeared down the street, returning from Murph’s morning walk.

“I’ll pick you up at National, and dinner’s still on. You learn how Giuliani benched the squeegee men?”

“I learned that sometimes a mayor has to kick ass,” Kate said. “Take care of yours.”

Frank closed the phone and continued toward his car.

Up ahead, Janowitz had left the sidewalk and was in the street, stepping along the drivers’ side of a line of parallel-parked cars. He was just passing Frank’s.

On the sidewalk opposite, and farther down the block, Charlie Whitmire had stopped to let Murph sniff around the base of a maple.

Frank felt in his pocket for his keys, found them, pulled them out, and pressed the remote to unlock his car.

The world vanished in a blinding flash. A massive rippling sound, as if the earth had split under the impact of a cosmic jackhammer. A dirty cloud engulfed the street and shut out the sun.

For the thinnest slice of a second, Frank lost all orientation. Up, down, night, day, who he was, where he was, where he’d been going-all stripped away by the shock wave that threw him to the street.

Reflexively he struggled to his knees. A red blackness everywhere. Security alarms from nearby houses and cars screeched and warbled. Panicked by his blindness, he felt a wetness on his face. He wiped his eyes with his hands and cleared away the blood. The street blurred into focus.

Litter and leaves stripped from the trees pinwheeled lazily down through the dusty haze. An odor of ash and scorched fabric. A green and white canvas awning hung from its frame, swinging back and forth in the secondaries from the shock wave. Frank’s car leaned drunkenly nose first into the street, tires flattened, steel skin peeled back in all directions from the driver’s seat.

A dark figure lay crumpled in the middle of the street. Frank got up. Pressing his palm against the gash over his eye, he staggered toward what had to be Janowitz.

From the opposite direction, Charlie Whitmire was running toward Janowitz, Murph barking in chase. In the distance, sirens. Up and down Olive, people began opening doors and venturing out onto front steps.

When Frank reached Janowitz, Charlie Whitmire was already there, kneeling in a pool of blood, tightening Murph’s leash around what was left of Janowitz’s right arm.

The ER doors crashed open as Jose pushed through.

“Frank! You okay?”

Frank sat with his legs dangling off a gurney, head tilted back. Sheresa Arrowsmith, examining flashlight in hand, peered into his eyes.

“Okay, Hoser,” Frank whispered.

“He’s had a concussion, multiple contusions of the chest, and enough stitches to make a quilt,” Arrowsmith said, still checking out Frank’s eyes.

“Leon?” Jose asked.

Charlie struggling with the blood-slicked leash. “He’s bleeding,” Charlie was saying. “He’s bleeding,” Charlie kept saying, over and over, and Frank knew what he was saying but he couldn’t hear the words.

“Bad. Real bad.”

Irritably, Arrowsmith lowered the flashlight and turned to Jose. “Mr. Janowitz is in surgery. I’m with a patient, and you’re in the way,” she said abruptly. “Go wait outside, Jose.”

Behind her, Frank eased himself off the gurney, rocking slightly.

Arrowsmith whirled, and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “We’re admitting you, big boy.”

Frank got his feet under him and gently pried her hand loose. “Not today, Sheresa. Just get me something for this goddamn headache.”

Arrowsmith jammed the flashlight in her jacket pocket. “If there’s anything worse than treating cops, it’s treating men cops. You’re too old to think you’re bulletproof, Frank.”

“I want to see Leon when he gets out of surgery.”

Arrowsmith gave a surrendering shrug, and in a nearby cabinet found a small pill bottle and put it in Frank’s hand. “They’ll be bringing him into ICU.” She waved the back of her hand at Frank and Jose as though shooing away two troublesome little boys. “Go on, get out of my ER.”

Frank began feeling better in the corridor as they made their way toward the ICU.

“Who’s handling the scene?”

“Hawkins has the place nailed down,” Jose answered, and before Frank could ask, added, “and R.C.’s there too.”

“Leon’s wife?”

“I called her.”

“And…?”

“She’s on her way over. Didn’t waste any words. Just ‘Thank you’ and hung up.”

“Emerson?”

“Typical… First thing, he wanted a press release.”

The ICU waiting room, small, windowless, and wall-scarred, had been a storeroom before the growing ICU business necessitated a place for relatives, friends, and police. Frank and Jose took two of the four hard plastic chairs, across from a battered rack filled with medical journals, pharmaceutical sales literature, and a handful of dog-eared travel magazines. To their right, the nurses’ station was visible through a glass door.

Jose watched as Frank dropped deeper into a brooding silence. He let him go until it got too much for him. “You want some coffee? A Coke?” he asked.

It took Frank a second or two to register. “What?”

“Coffee? Coke?”

Frank shook his head.

“You need one of those pills Sheresa gave you?”

“Pill?”

“Headache?” Jose prompted.

“Oh,” Frank said it slowly, as though he had to take inventory. “Yeah. I still have it.”

Jose got up, stepped into the hall, and returned with a paper cup. Frank was back to wherever he’d been.

“Water,” Jose said louder than he had to, and thrust the cup at Frank.

Frank took it and looked at Jose.

“I did it, you know.”

Jose regarded him gravely. “You did… what?”

“I set it off. They must have had it rigged to the door lock. It was supposed to get me when I turned the key. I set it off when I did the remote.”

Jose pulled his chair around to face Frank and sat so his knees almost touched Frank’s.

“Yeah,” he said carefully, “that’s what they did. They must have wired it to the lock.”

“And I pressed the remote when Leon was walking by, and I set it off.”

Jose brought his face close to Frank’s so their eyes were inches apart. He reached out and clamped one of Frank’s knees in his hand.

“Frank,” he said, leaning forward and biting off each word, “you listen to me. They put the bomb there… They rigged it to the lock… They did whatever happened.”

“But Hoser, I-”

“Bullshit, Frank!” Jose rapped out. “No goddamn way you gonna put this on yourself! Pushin’ a goddamn remote button on your car didn’t do that to Leon. Bastards did who put the bomb there.”

Frank looked into Jose’s eyes for a long time, searching, then pulled back. As he reached into his pocket for the pills, his hand paused. Perplexed, he drew out a small manila envelope. It took him a second to remember Janowitz sitting at the breakfast room table, handing the envelope over.

Riggs Bank… court order.

He put the envelope away and fished out the container. He twisted the top off and shook out two white pills, then downed them with the cup of water. He crumpled the cup, sat back in his chair, and rested his head against the wall.

“Hoser, I feel like shit.”

Jose squeezed his partner’s shoulder. “You got a right, buddy.”

“You oughta get over to the scene.”

“Yeah.” Jose hesitated, giving Frank a close once-over. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll live.”

After Jose left, Frank shut his eyes and waited for Arrowsmith’s pills to kick in. He dozed off, his hand opened, and the crumpled paper cup fell to the floor. At the same time, machine-gun fire cut through his mental fog. He bolted upright in his chair, eyes open, and the machine-gun fire morphed into the insistent chirping of his cell phone.

He got the phone to his ear.

“Frank? What the hell?” Tom Kearney’s concern came in at high volume.

“Dad…”

“Radio’s talking about a bomb in Georgetown. Then Judith called me. Said your street was blocked off. Neighbors said you were hurt…”

“I’m okay, Dad.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Hospital Center.”

That reignited Tom Kearney’s alarm. “I thought you weren’t hurt!” he shouted.

“One of our guys is, Dad,” Frank said patiently. “I’m waiting for him to come out of surgery.”

“Any idea who did it?”

“Not yet, Dad. Not yet.”

Frank was putting away his phone when Sheresa Arrowsmith entered, her arm around a woman. Petite, in her late twenties, early thirties, black hair cut short and shaped around her face. She wore jeans, a paint-daubed Ohio State sweatshirt, and Nike running shoes.

“Detective Kearney,” Arrowsmith said softly to the woman. To Frank she said, “This’s Esther Janowitz.”

He’s been in there nine hours,” Esther Janowitz whispered to the clock on the ICU waiting room wall.

Frank watched the red second hand. All that could be said had been said. He and Esther Janowitz had been by turn withdrawn and almost maniacally chattering, only to drift off again into isolation. The clock notched another second, then another and another. And the near-silent ticking engulfed the tiny room.

He had told her all he remembered. How he and her husband had sat over coffee, how his remote had triggered the explosion. She had listened expressionlessly, and there was no way he could tell whether she blamed him for what had happened. If she was angry, the anger might come up later, but then it might never come up. She didn’t impress him as a whiner or sniveler, and if she did bring it up, she’d come at him in-your-face hard. He didn’t want it now, but he’d rather have it now than never.

He stepped outside to use his phone. He left a short message with Kate’s answering service, then called Jose. Calkins was setting up for a twenty-four-hour operation. Robin Bouchard had offered the Bureau explosives team, and Jose had gone into Frank’s to feed Monty.

Frank thought about calling Emerson, but gave it up when he realized he had nothing to say. He didn’t want to get involved in a hand-holding exercise.

Back in the waiting room, Esther Janowitz put down the copy of Conde Nast Traveler-“The Best Tapas Bars in Seville”-and gave Frank, a long, appraising look.

“Mind if I ask you something?”

“No. I don’t,” Frank said, wishing inside that she’d stayed with the magazine. What were the best tapas bars in Seville?

“Why did you choose Leon?”

It didn’t come across as a baited question. Esther Janowitz seemed genuinely curious. All the same, Frank found himself vaguely troubled that she’d asked and that he’d have to answer.

“I don’t know that I’m making the best of sense right now,” he began slowly, talking to her and to himself as well. “Simple answer… I asked for Leon because Jose and I needed help. We’d worked with him on the Keegan case, and we thought he was a good cop.”

He paused to gather his thoughts. “There’s a not-so-simple answer too. I’m proud of being a cop. There’ve been lots of days I wish I wasn’t, but on the whole, I like what I do, and I think it’s important.”

He searched for a word, a word that meant something. “It’s a worthy job. A job worth doing. Something worth devoting a life to. And it’s worth all the crap that goes along with it. And I guess when I see a young cop like Leon, it makes me feel good because I know when I hang up the badge, somebody is going to be out there wearing that badge who feels the same way I do about being a cop.”

“A legacy?”

“Call it that. Why’d you want to know… why I chose him?”

A small, nostalgic smile played around Esther Janowitz’s mouth. “I know why I chose him. And those reasons are good enough for me. I love him very much for those reasons. But it helps to know him better if I know how others see him.”

“I didn’t want him to leave the force.”

“I know. He told me. He said it made him feel warm inside.”

“Now I’m not so sure. Maybe New York…”

From the corner of his eye, he caught a flurry of motion in the narrow window set into the door to the ICU. A tall African-American man in green surgical scrubs came through a set of double doors, crossed the hallway, and entered the waiting room. He came over to Esther Janowitz.

“Mrs. Janowitz, I’m Dr. Michaels. They’re bringing your husband out of surgery now. I expect a full recovery. We had some internal injuries to take care of… There were facial lacerations, and…”

Michaels paused. Frank sensed a man about to step out on unknown ice. The doctor shot a glance at Frank. “… we… I… I had to amputate his arm.”

Esther Janowitz gave no sign she’d heard. Her eyes widened as two orderlies brought a gurney through the double doors into the ICU. Without a word, Esther Janowitz brushed by Michaels and was at her husband’s side.

That night, Frank couldn’t sleep. Outside in the rain, R.C.’s techs were still scavenging the block for evidence, working below canopies flung up over high-intensity floodlights. In his bedroom, each time Frank closed his eyes he felt the presence of meaningless death, the slow, circling beat of dark wings. He lay staring at the ceiling, listening to the rain, measuring its rhythms on the roof.

He couldn’t imagine ever having slept before or ever sleeping again. Soon he gave up. He got out of bed, slipped a pair of denim shorts on, and padded downstairs to the kitchen. Standing in the light of the open refrigerator, he drank deeply from a carton of milk. He wandered into the den, where he switched on a floor lamp and aimlessly began opening cabinets. One after another, he surveyed their contents, then closed them. Finally, in one, a thick album caught his attention.

He took it into the kitchen, retrieved the carton of milk, and sat at the table. He opened the album and it was Vietnam again.

A series of photographs: the building of the firebase near Ben Cat. GIs filling sandbags, digging bunkers, stringing razor-bladed coils of concertina wire.

In one photograph, he and Masek stood grinning into the camera, interrupted from their task of setting out Claymore mines. Masek held a curved book-size mine in his hand. They were both bare-chested and rail-thin, and their fatigue trousers were stained dark with sweat. A gold tooth glinted in Masek’s mouth, and Frank wore a low-slung pistol belt. They looked rakish and impossibly young.

The pictures tugged at him-he was looking into a time when the firebase at Ben Cat still existed, before Masek became a name on the black marble wall, and when all that had happened to Frank had yet to happen to the Frank in the pictures. It was a time before the images became distorted by shattered truth and failed ambition.

Looking at himself, Frank wanted to whisper a warning to the young man he once was.