Drop Shot

Chapter 40

Myron decided to ignore Jake's advice. Especially after listening to Amanda West.

Finding Officer Jimmy Blaine's current address had not been easy. The man had retired two years ago. Still Esperanza found out he lived alone on some small lake in the Poconos. Myron drove through the wilderness for two hours until he pulled into what he hoped was the right driveway. He checked his watch. He still had plenty of time to see Jimmy Blaine and get back to the office in time for his meeting with Ned Tunwell.

The house was rustic and quaint, about what you'd expect to find nestled away in the Poconos. Gravel driveway. Dozens of small wooden animals guarded a front porch. The air was heavy and still. Everything – the weather vane, the American flag, the rocking chair, all the leaves and blades of grass – stood frighteningly motionless, as if inanimate objects had the ability to hold their breaths. As Myron climbed up the porch stairs, he noticed a modern-looking wheelchair ramp that also led to the front door. The ramp looked out of place here, like a doughnut in a health food store. There was no doorbell, so he knocked.

No one answered. Curious. Myron had called ten minutes ago, had heard a man answer, and hung up. Could be out back. Myron circled around the house. As he hit the backyard, the lake stared him in the face. It was a spectacular picture. The sun shone off the still – again, frighteningly motionless – water and made Myron squint. Placid. Tranquil. Myron felt the muscles in his shoulders start to unbunch.

Sitting in a wheelchair facing the lake was a man. A Saint Bernard lay by his feet. The dog too was frighteningly motionless. As Myron approached he saw that the man was whittling wood.

"Hi," Myron called out.

The man barely raised his eyes. He wore a red T-shirt and a John Deere cap pulled down over a weathered face. His legs were covered with a blanket, even in this heat. There was a portable phone within reach. "Hi." He went back to whittling. If he was surprised or upset to have company he was certainly taking it all in stride.

"Beautiful day," Myron said. Mr. Engaging Neighbor.

"Yep."

"Are you Jimmy Blaine?"

"Yep."

Even without the wheelchair it was hard to picture this guy working the city bowels of Philadelphia for eighteen years. Then again, it was hard to picture the bowels of Philadelphia, period, when you were out here.

Silence. No birds or crickets or anything but the whittling.

After some time had passed, Myron asked, "Had much rain this year?" Myron Bolitar, Salt of the Earth. Mr. Farmer's Almanac.

"Some."

"This your dog?"

"Yep. Name is Fred."

"Hi, Fred." Myron scratched the dog behind the ears. The dog wagged its tail without moving any other part of its body. Then it farted loudly.

"Great place you have here," Myron tried. Yep, just two good ol' boys shooting the breeze. Eb and Mr. Haney on Green Acres. Myron half expected denim overalls to materialize on his body.

"Uh-huh." Whittle, whittle.

"Listen, Mr. Blaine, my name is-"

"Myron Bolitar," Blaine finished for him. "I know who you are. Been expecting you."

He shouldn't have been surprised. "Jake called you?"

Blaine nodded without looking up from his whittling. "He said you were stubborn. Said you wouldn't listen to him."

"I just want to ask you a few questions."

"Nothing I care to say to you though."

"I'm not here to hound you, Mr. Blaine."

He nodded again. "Jake told me that too. Said you were okay. Said you liked to right wrongs, is all."

"What else did he say?"

"That you don't know how to mind your own business. That you're a wiseass. And that you're a major pain in the butt."

"He left out snazzy dancer," Myron said.

For the first time since he arrived Jimmy Blaine stopped whittling. "You trying to right the wrong done to Curtis Yeller?"

"I'm trying to find out who killed him."

"Simple," Blaine said. "Me."

"No, I don't think so."

That stopped him for a brief moment. He gave Myron the once-over and then began whittling again.

"Could you tell me what happened that night?" Myron asked.

"The boy pulled a gun. I shot him. That's it."

"How far away were you when you shot him?"

He shrugged, whittled. "Thirty feet Maybe forty."

"How many shots did you fire?"

"Two."

"And he just dropped?"

"Nope. He swung around the corner with the other one – that Swade kid, I guess. They disappeared."

"You shot a man in the face and ribs and he kept running?"

"I didn't say they kept running. The two of them were by a corner. They disappeared around it. Didn't know it at the time, but the Yellers lived right there. They must have climbed in a window."

"With a bullet in his skull?"

Jimmy Blaine shrugged again. "The Swade kid probably helped him," he said.

"That's not how it happened," Myron said. "You didn't kill him."

Blaine eyed him and then went back to his whittling. "Second time you've said that," he noted. "You want to explain what you mean?"

"Two bullets hit Yeller."

"I just told you I shot twice."

"But two different caliber slugs were pulled out of him. One of the shots – the one in the head – was from close range. Less than a foot away."

Jimmy Blaine said nothing. He concentrated hard on his whittling. It looked like he was sculpting an animal of some sort, like the ones on the front porch. "Two different calibers, you say?" He aimed for nonchalance, but he wasn't making it.

"Yes."

"That kid I shot didn't have a record," Blaine continued. "You know what the odds are of that? In that part of the city?"

Myron nodded.

"I checked up on him," Blaine continued. "On my own. His name was Curtis Yeller. He was sixteen years old. He did well in school. He was a good kid. He had a chance at a good life until that night."

"You didn't kill him," Myron said.

Blaine whittled with a bit more intensity now. He blinked a lot. "How did you find out about those slugs?"

"The assistant M.E. told me," Myron said. "You never knew?"

He shook his head. "I guess it makes sense though," he said. "Blame me for it. Why not? It's easier. It's a legit shooting. No one questioned it. IAD barely broke a sweat. It didn't hurt my record. Didn't hurt anyone. No harm done, they figured."

Myron waited for him to say more, but he just kept whittling. Two long ears were now evident in the wood. Maybe he was making a rabbit. "Do you know who really killed Curtis Yeller?" Myron asked.

There was a long moment of the same whittle-filled silence. Fred farted again and wagged his tail. Myron's eyes kept going back to the lake. He stared out at the silver water. The effect was hypnotizing.

"No harm done," Jimmy Blaine said again. "That's what they all probably thought. Good ol' Jimmy. We won't let him take the rap. It'll be washed clean from his record. No one will know. Hell, some of the guys will even treat him special – making a shooting like that. They'll say he saved his partner's life. Good ol' Jimmy will come out of this looking like a hero. Except for one thing."

Myron was tempted to ask what, but he sensed the answer was coming.

"I saw that boy dead," Blaine continued. "I saw Curtis Yeller lying in his own blood. I saw his mother hold him in her arms and cry. Sixteen years old. If he was a street punk or a drug addict or…" He stopped. "But he wasn't any of those things. Not this kid. He was one of the good ones. I found out later he never even touched the senator's kid. The other one – the Swade punk – he did the stabbing."

Two ducks splashed madly for a second, then stopped. Blaine put down the whittling, then thinking better of it, picked it back up again. "I replayed that night a lot of times in my head. It was dark, you know. There was barely any light. Maybe the Yeller kid wasn't going to fire the gun. Maybe what I saw wasn't even a gun. Or maybe none of that mattered. Maybe it was a legit shooting, but the pieces still never quite added up. I kept hearing the mother's screams. I kept seeing her press her dead boy's bloody face into her bosom. And I think about it, you know, and thinking ain't always a good thing for a cop to do. And four years later, the next time a kid is pointing a gun at me, I think about seeing another crying mother. I think long and hard. Too long."

He pointed to his legs. "And this is the result." He changed tools and kept whittling. "Nope, no harm done."

Silence.

Myron now understood Jake's attitude on the phone. Jimmy Blaine had gone through enough. If he'd done wrong in the case of Curtis Yeller, he had already paid an enormous price. Problem was, Jimmy Blaine hadn't done wrong. He hadn't killed Curtis Yeller – legit shooting or not. In the end Jimmy Blaine was yet another victim of that night.

After some time had passed, Myron tried again. "Do you know who killed Curtis Yeller?"

"No, not really."

"But you have a thought."

"A thought maybe."

"You mind telling me?"

Blaine looked down at Fred, as if looking for an answer. The dog maintained his bear-rug pose. "Henry and I – he was my partner – got the call at a little past midnight," he began. "The two suspects had stolen a car from a driveway three blocks from the Old Oaks tennis club. A dark blue Cadillac Seville. We spotted a vehicle matching the description coming off the Roosevelt Expressway twenty minutes later. When we pulled up behind the stolen vehicle, the suspects sped off. We then engaged in a high-speed pursuit."

His voice had changed. He was a cop again, reading from a notepad he had read too many times in the past. "Henry and I followed the vehicle down an alley not far from Hunting Park Avenue, off Broad. The chase then proceeded on foot. At the time we had no identification on the two youths and thus no address. We only had the car. The chase proceeded for several blocks. As we turned a corner, the driver drew a firearm. My partner told him to freeze and drop his weapon. Yeller responded by aiming the firearm at Henry. I then fired two shots. The youth fell or stumbled out of sight beyond the next corner. By the time Henry and I turned the same corner, there was no sign of either youth. We figured that they were hiding in the nearby vicinity and awaited backup before proceeding. We secured the area as best we could. But the cops didn't get there first. The so-called secret service guys did."

"Senator Cross's men?"

Blaine nodded. "They called themselves 'national security,' but they were probably mob guys."

"Senator Cross told me he had no mob connections,'' Myron said.

Jimmy Blaine raised an eyebrow. "You serious?"

"Yes."

"The mob owns Bradley Cross," Blaine said. "More specifically, the Perretti family. Cross is a major gambler. I know he's also been arrested twice with prostitutes. One of his early opponents – this is back when he was just a congressman – ended up in the river during the primaries."

"And you traced it back to Cross?"

"Nothing anyone could prove. But we knew."

Myron considered this for a moment. Clearly, the beloved senator had lied to him. Big surprise. He had played Myron for a sucker. Another big surprise. Win was right. Myron always went astray when he believed the best about people. "So what happened next?"

"The senator's hoods were at the scene almost immediately. Been monitoring our radio. We'd been told over the air to cooperate with them one hundred percent. A real community effort finding these two kids. I'm surprised we spotted them first. Mob goons are usually better at this stuff than we are, you know?"

Myron knew. The mob had all the advantages over the police. They were closer to the city's underbelly. They could pay top dollar. They didn't have to worry about rules or laws or constitutional rights. They could inspire genuine fear.

"So what happened?" Myron asked.

"We started combing the area with flashlights, checking garbage Dumpsters, the whole bit. Cops and goons hand in hand. We found nothing for a while. Then we heard some gunshots. Henry and I ran to some dumpy apartment adjacent to where I'd shot Yeller. But Senator Cross's men were already there."

Blaine stopped. He leaned and gave Fred a good ear scratch. Fred still didn't move except for the thumping tail. Still scratching his dog, Blaine said, "Well, you know what we found." His voice was low and dead. "Yeller was dead. His mother was cradling him in her arms. She went through all these stages. First she just kept calling out his name over and over. Sweetly sometimes. Like she was trying to wake him up for school. Then she stroked the back of his head and rocked him and told him to go back to sleep. We all stood around and watched. Even the goons didn't bother her."

"What about the other gunshots?" Myron asked.

"What about them?"

"Didn't you wonder where they had come from?"

"I guess I did," he replied. "But I figured the security guys had shot after Swade. I didn't think they'd be dumb enough to admit it, but that's what I thought."

"It never crossed your mind they might have shot Yeller?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I told you the mother went through stages."

"Right."

"Once she realized her boy wasn't waking up again, she started pointing fingers and screaming. She wanted to know who had shot her boy. She wanted to look the killer in the eyes, the murderer who had shot her son on the street in cold blood. She said that Swade had dragged her boy in like that. Already shot up and dead."

"She said all that? That Swade dragged him in and that he was already shot?"

"Yes."

Silence. No water rippling. No birds chirping. Not even whittling. Several minutes passed before Blaine looked up and squinted. Then he said, "Cold."

"What?" Myron asked.

"That mother. If she was lying about who killed her boy. I always wondered why there were no repercussions. The mother never made a fuss. She didn't go to the newspapers. She didn't press charges. She didn't demand an explanation." He shook his head. "But what could have made her do that to her own flesh and blood? How could they have gotten to her so fast? With money? With threats? What?"

"I don't know," Myron said.

Jimmy Blaine finished whittling. It was a rabbit. Pretty good one too. A bird finally chirped, but it wasn't a pretty sound. More like a caw than a melody. Blaine spun his wheelchair around. "You want something to eat?" he asked. "I'm about to make lunch."

Myron looked at his watch. It was getting late. He had to get back to the office for his meeting with Ned Tunwell. "Thanks, but I really have to get going."

"Some other time then. When you're all done with this."

"Yes," Myron said.

Blaine blew the wood dust off the rabbit. "Still don't get it," he said.

"What?"

He stared at his finished handiwork, turning the rabbit over in his hand, studying it from every angle. "Could the mother have really been that frosty?" he asked. "How much money did they offer her? How much fright did they put into her? Hell, is there enough money or frights in the world for a mother to do that to her son?" He shook his head, dropped the wooden rabbit into his lap. "I just don't get it."

Myron didn't get it either.