Bad Intent

Chapter 31

“I picked the lock.” The only good part about what had happened was where it happened: within the jurisdiction of Hollywood Division. When the police took me in for questioning, I told them I needed Detective Hector Melendez, now. He sat on the near end of the table in the interrogation room during my grilling.

“The.38 was in a locked case in the closet,” I said. “Because there had already been two deaths related to this mess, I was afraid to go out, alone, unarmed. I picked the lock on Mike’s gun case and took his gun. He wasn’t home and he knew nothing about it.”

The hardnose, Detective Valenti, had one leg up on a chair, rested his arm across his knee showing a lot of starched shirt cuff. I thought he was posturing for my benefit. So did Hector. When no one could see him, Hec would roll his eyes or wink at me, as if we were co-conspirators. I could have kissed him.

“Do you realize,” Valenti said, “that the weapon was not to code?”

I had answered the same question three times. I looked Valenti in the eye and said, “All I know is, it fit in my belt and it kept me from getting my face blown off.”

Hector stood up then, took a step to put himself between me and Valenti. “It’s a straight case of self-defense. Let the lady go home, get some rest. If you think of any more stupid questions, you can call her tomorrow.”

Valenti started to get his back up, but when Hector faced him down, he shrugged it off. “Go on home,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

Mike was waiting for us in the detective room. He had his feet on Hector’s desk, snoring into his chest. I knocked his leg, caught it in mid-air as he startled awake.

“Take me home, sailor,” I said, letting his leg drop.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” was all he said.

“And get you into more trouble? Put your pension at risk? No, big guy. I thought it better to sacrifice myself.”

He got rid of a lot of saved-up air.

“Take me home,” I said, feeling so weary I was weepy.

I walked down the hall of movie posters between Mike and Hector, fighting the urge to give in to the shakes that had threatened to seize me ever since the shooting. Maybe I would have let go if Baron Marovich hadn’t come in the back door just then, walking between his own pair of police escorts. He blanched when he saw me and his reaction brought me up straight, made me angry.

“Look, Baron,” I said, doing one of Casey’s pirouettes for his benefit. “Two arms, two legs, all her faculties intact-you big dumb fuck.”

The D.A.‘s escorts both took an arm, held him back when he seemed ready to charge at me. He said, “Never know when to stop, do you, MacGowen?”

“It’s all over now.” I gripped Mike’s arm. Holding him was the only way I felt strong enough to face Marovich. Later, I knew there would have to be tears, when realization replaced adrenaline. When it happened, I didn’t want Marovich to see it. I made myself smile at him. “Be interesting to see your polls after this news gets out.”

The district attorney’s handlers began moving him forward again. I didn’t want to get within striking range-either his or mine-so I broke from my handlers and ducked out of the hallway, headed up a flight of stairs that opened on the left. At the top of the stairs I saw the door to the female officers’ locker room. I went in.

The floor of the locker room was cluttered with big, blue equipment duffels overflowing with body armor, batons, helmets, riot-size sacks of plastic wrist restraints marked with the owner’s badge number; ready for the riot that wasn’t going to come, this time. I grabbed a handful of rough paper towels, went over to the rank of sinks, pushed aside the baskets of hair dryers, curling irons, gels, mousses, sprays, and wet the towels.

My only plan had been to spend some time alone while I calmed down. I scraped off the remains of the paraffin that had been used to lift gunshot residue from my left hand for evidence. Then I pressed the damp towels to my face.

Something happened to me after I saw what I had washed from my face, saw the front of my blue shirt in the stark fluorescent light; pale pink stain, spots of dark brown.

The detectives kept asking about peripheral details, who, where, how. No one had given me time to think about the actual shooting, to talk about what I saw. It was all over so fast. From memory, I played it back more slowly.

The bullet exploded Roddy’s throat, destroyed it, shot flesh and blood and bits of bone spraying into the night like many-colored confetti. I had felt his debris, cold, sharp needles on my face, and the sting of gunpowder tattooing my hand, was deafened by the sound, dazzled by the streak of blue-green light.

I was on the wooden bench between the lockers, sobbing into the crook of my elbow, when I felt arms around me. My head was gently pressed against a firm, uniformed bosom that smelled of perfume.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked, patting my back. “No,” I gasped.

“First kill?”

I nodded, snagging my hair in her badge.

“It’s rough. I shot a man during my rookie year, left him a paraplegic. It was his fault-brandishing a loaded firearm-I had to stop him. Still…” She kept patting. “Heard you took him clean. Left-handed.”

I snuffled, used my arm in lieu of handkerchief.

“You a lefty?”

I said, “No.” I admit a tinge of something verging on pride had crept in.

“I brought in your woman passenger,” she said. I straightened up so I could read her badge, D. Rukowski. “Know what we found in her bag?”

I said, “Besides chewing gum?”

“Chloroform. She had a Baggie with a saturated wad of cotton. Best guess is, she was supposed to sing you a lullaby so there wouldn’t be a struggle when O’Leary took you out. Wouldn’t work, though, if the bag was in the backseat.”

“I threw it in back.” I managed to get to my feet, got some new towels to wipe my face. “The way she was fussing with her purse, I thought she had a tape recorder in there. Or a hypodermic. They used drugs once before.”

Officer Rukowski squared my shoulders, brushed my damp hair from my forehead. “You played it smart, honey. Old Flint’s out there wearing a groove in the floor, pissing and moaning, saying how lucky you were. You tell him luck had nothing to do with it.”

Mike was going to say a lot more than how lucky I was. A lot more. Just thinking about the barrage to come wore me out. I sagged back down. “I can’t face him.”

“Sure you can.” She stood and reached for my arm. “Go fix your face.”

I pulled myself together the best I could, borrowing a comb and some blush from the collection on the counter. Then I unbuttoned a couple of buttons to show a little cleavage-emergency ammo-and walked out.

“All set?” Mike took my hand, the one that had killed Roddy O’Leary, and folded it in his. He didn’t say another word about it all the way home.

It was after three when we got home. Michael and Guido were playing chess at the dining room table.

Guido said, “Maggie?” in a tentative way, rising from his chair.

“Everything’s under control,” I said, leaning against Mike. Michael came over and kissed my cheek, squeezed my free hand, and made the tears start all over again.

“I know you feel awful,” Mike said. “You’re going to feel awful for a while. Go ahead and cry.”

“I never imagined it would feel so bad.”

Mike took over where Officer Rukowski left off, patted my back. “If it makes you feel any better, you probably saved Jennifer’s life. O’Leary wasn’t about to leave a witness, even if she was in on it.”

“I know. He was aiming at her when I shot him.”

Mike said, “Oh?”

“If I hadn’t been armed, he would have hit us both, her first, then me.” That’s just about the point where anger began to dispel shock. “For what? To protect the election scenario? To add a plum to Roddy’s resume?”

“To save his butt,” Mike said. “He’d already killed two people and you were closing in on him. Hector ran his DMV and his credit cards.”

“So?”

“Last Tuesday he rented a dark-blue four-wheel drive that looked a whole lot like mine. Turned it in early Wednesday.”

“Ah,” Guido chirped, connection made. “Tuesday night, that flower of the evening said the guy who shot Hanna was driving a car like Mike’s.”

I looked up at Mike, started to laugh. “Roddy blew it on deep background all over the map. But, damn, the idiot should have known who he was messing with when he tried to set you up, cupcake.”

“Yeah.” Mike winked at me. “Don’t mess with the big boys.”

“I wasn’t talking about you.”

He nudged me, started to laugh, too.

Michael had the family furrow between his brows. “Dad, you know, this is the first time I ever heard you talk about what you do at work.”

Mike flushed a furious red. “I’m sorry, son.”

“Sorry for what? It’s more interesting than I thought. I sort of imagined you drove around giving people tickets. You’re a strange guy. I like it.”

“Oh, Jeez.”

“I was thinking of going into teaching, but…”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Mike said.

“Teaching, police work,” I said, “they’re pretty much the same thing. People shooting at you all the time.”

Michael asked, “How do you get into the academy?”