PrivateSector

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Monsignors Spinelli and Drummond walked out aunt Ethel’s front door, climbed into their beat-up Honda Civic, and departed. We drove four blocks, parked by an intersection, then backtracked two blocks.

Spinelli then led me to two unmarked cars and three Boston detectives who were loitering outside a barbershop, blending into their surroundings, though I thought they looked like sore thumbs.

We approached on foot and one of the detectives, a freckly, red-haired kid, beamed at us and said, “Good morning, Fathers.”

Spinelli smiled back. “Up yours, dickhead.”

I believe I mentioned that Spinelli has sociability issues. Anyway, he then flashed his tin, and explained, “If I were the killer, you’d be dead as shit. Where’s yer fuckin’ radio?”

The young detective led Spinelli to his car, and they climbed in together. Spinelli spent a few moments communicating to the captain in charge of this operation, tying down details and loose ends and whatever.

I leaned against a lamp post. Having already scared the Morrow girls out of their shorts, I was now in the process of jerking the Boston PD through a major knothole. If I was wrong about the killer and his intentions, or he smelled a trap and disappeared, a bad day was going to become an incredibly shitty day. But, enough with happy thoughts; I switched to ruminations about the plan. In battle, you learn to think like the other guy, then use that to get one step ahead of him, even as he’s trying to think like you. The Army euphemistically calls this getting inside an enemy’s decision cycle. The one who gets a few synapses connections ahead of the other chokes on confetti at the victory parades; the other guy ships home in a body bag.

Our edge lay in the fact that we were trying to think like him. Because he wasn’t aware we knew he was out there, he wasn’t trying to think like us.

Anyway, while Spinelli wrapped up his explanation on the radio, I realized I was unarmed. So I attempted to sweet-talk the friendly, freckle-faced detective into loaning me a pistol. He informed me, somewhat frostily, that departmental policy strictly for-bade the issuance of police ordnance to private citizens. I might’ve felt more secure having a weapon, but the truth is, I’ve never been able to hit shit with a pistol. In fact, Janet’s chances of survival just went up a peg.

A few minutes later, an unmarked van pulled to the curb and another priest stepped out. Actually, the new priest was named Detective Sergeant Jack Pilcher, and he was the officer assigned by the Boston PD to escort Chief Warrant Spinelli, who lacked both jurisdiction and authority in this city.

In fact, his opening words to Spinelli were, “Listen up, soldier boy, this is my fucking city. You’re along for the ride. Don’t even think of using your weapon or trying to apprehend this butthole. We clear on this point?”

Despite his own sociability issues, Spinelli apparently knew to leave well enough alone. He replied, “You’re the boss.”

Then Pilcher noticed me, my priest’s garb, my eager poise, and said, “Is this a fucking convention? Who the fuck are you?”

“Drummond.”

“You CID, too?”

I overlooked that insult and said, “I’m a JAG officer.”

“Great. What are you doing here?”

“I’m part of this show.”

“The hell you are.”

I glanced at Spinelli, who, I suddenly noticed, had stepped back a few paces, and with a perfectly innocuous expression was staring at something across the street. Had my partner somehow failed to inform the Boston PD that I was an inseparable member of the team here? If so, surely it was just a simple oversight, or a memory lapse.

I informed Sergeant Pilcher, “Actually, Miss Morrow specified that she wouldn’t take a step out her front door unless I’m watching her ass.” I added, more loudly, “Mr. Spinelli heard her demand. Right?”

Spinelli apparently had his mind on other matters and failed to reply. To help him focus on this issue I grabbed his arm and repeated, “Right, Spinelli?”

He replied, reluctantly, “Uh…” Well, I squeezed a bit harder, until he said, “Yeah. She said that.”

“You see?” I informed Pilcher. “Hey, I’m not even armed.”

Well, Detective Sergeant Pilcher still did not like this, and even frisked me to be sure I was both weaponless and harmless. He then spent two minutes briefing me on my role, which could be neatly summarized as stay the fuck out of his way.

We then waited five minutes, too keyed up to speak, staring off into the distance. Pilcher had a miniature mobile radio unit under his cassock, with a mike pinned to his chest and a tiny receiver in his ear. He used the wait to test his commo with his ops center. It either worked or he enjoyed talking into his own chest and nodding his head. But Spinelli’s cell phone finally rang and he answered, “Yeah… Uh-huh… okay, good…” Then, “All right, we’re moving.”

Spinelli was conversing with Janet, and he didn’t punch off, because from this moment on, he and Janet would stay connected through their cell phones. Jerry-rigged operations make me nervous, and I briefly wondered what would happen if somebody’s battery died, or we ended up passing through one of those dead-space zones. Anyway, we began moving, Spinelli and Pilcher keeping their right hands tucked inside their cassocks, no doubt gripping their pistols. Pilcher moved down one side of the street. Spinelli and I cruised down the other, until we all ducked into doorways within sight of Aunt Ethel’s house.

Pilcher must’ve informed the ops center we were in position, while Spinelli informed Janet that it was time to start the gig, because Aunt Martha’s front door flew open and Janet stepped out. She hugged Aunt Ethel, kissed her sisters, and they all somehow managed to swallow their anxieties and make it appear like a natural parting scene.

Then Janet walked in our direction, her cell phone held to her ear with one hand, the other stuffed in her coat pocket, hopefully gripping a knife. I actually caught my breath. The day was cold and breezy, her hair was blowing behind her, framing her face, and she looked extraordinarily beautiful. Was I in lust, or what?

She passed Pilcher without a sideways glance and kept going. I looked around for anybody following her. Aunt Ethel’s house was three blocks off Harvard Square, and Janet moved in that direction, then took a right and headed toward the Charles River that divides the obscenely wealthy College of Harvard from the obnoxiously wealthy Business School.

We trailed a block behind her until the streets suddenly became thick with Harvard students and pedestrians and window-shoppers. We lost sight of Janet for a few scary seconds, so we sped up and closed the gap to half a block.

This was the riskiest leg of her journey. The killer could blend in with the pedestrians and slip a knife into her ribs as they passed.

We had discussed this possibility at length but finally theorized that he wouldn’t strike here because the street was too crowded. There’d been no witnesses in any of the other killings, making it fair to assume he took great care to avoid exposure. But the problem with assumptions and theories is they’re only right until they’re wrong.

Janet walked briskly past a large red-brick building. The sign by the road declared this to be the John F. Kennedy School of Government, which is where they train eggheads to screw up the government, but to sound really smart as they do it. She then hung a left onto the walking path that borders the Charles River.

We quickly reached the path and ended up walking side by side, a trio of thoughtful clerics contemplating the serene beauty of the heavenly river God created, or something like that. To our left was the Harvard Law School. I recalled that both Janet and Lisa had graduated from that school, and now we were hunting her murderer in the shadow of its walls.

I don’t believe in fate, kismet, or cosmic coincidences, but I did pick up my pace and sharpen my senses a bit. In fact, I had this weird premonition that this guy possessed a sense of irony, or poetic symmetry, and wanted to whack Janet right here. The basic idea-the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is located some two miles downriver from Harvard in the direction Janet was walking. A bridge over the Charles River connects MIT’s campus with Boston proper, and on the Boston side of that bridge is a subway stop. Janet had flown into Boston and been picked up by Carol, who had rushed her to the hospital. It seemed perfectly natural for Janet to leave her sisters with her aunt and catch a train to return to her apartment. If she survived the trip to her apartment, a more foolproof trap was being laid there by the Boston PD. It is a rule of thumb that protecting a stationary target is easier than protecting a moving one. We were sort of hoping to make it to that point without incident.

But clearly the choice wasn’t ours. And therefore the Boston PD had sprinkled undercover cops from their narcotics unit at intervals along the route. Narcotics cops go the extra mile to look seedy and scummy, and while I was assured they were there, I hadn’t detected any, which I regarded as a good sign. As long as it didn’t mean there’d been a minor communications problem, and they were all on the other side of the river. This sometimes happens.

Anyway, it was a spectacular day for a stroll along the river; the temperature was cool, the sky clear and sunny, a nice breeze made the water ripple and sparkle. An occasional scull raced by on the water. A biker sped past us. Then a few more bikers, followed by a middle-aged, overweight male jogger. A minute later, a pair of chubby girl joggers wearing stretch pants huffed and puffed past us. The idea was, we would watch Janet’s back, and she’d watch her front. Her cell phone was still at her ear, and she was chatting intermittently with Spinelli, appearing to all the world like a modern young executive, oblivious to the beauty around her, tied to her office, too driven and ambitious to stop and smell the roses, or whatever.

Two more joggers chugged past us, a guy and a girl. The guy was about six foot four, with long, dark hair, and in terrific shape. The girl was svelte with thick blond hair, and that bouncy run and well-toned body of the former cheerleader. They were chuckling and chatting as they sped past, the modern generation’s version of foreplay. Ah, to be young, fit, and in lust.

Spinelli turned to me and asked, “See the sweet ass on that one?”

“Huh?… Oh yeah. But don’t you think he was a little tall for you?”

He chuckled. “Fuck you.”

I added, “He’s a good match for Pilcher here, though.”

Pilcher also replied, “Fuck you.”

Obviously they were both pleased to have me along.

I watched Janet again. Three male joggers ran past us as the cheerleader and her big running partner passed Janet.

I studied the three men. The one in the middle, I noticed with a nasty jolt, was fairly short and very well built, with knotty shoulders and thickly muscled arms. But what really got my attention was the long, stringy ponytail bouncing off his back. He fit the precise physical description of the L. A. Killer and it struck me that Spinelli’s copycat theory could be wrong. I mean, nothing I had discovered actually ruled out the L. A. Killer. Spinelli elbowed me in the ribs, indicating he also had noticed Mr. Ponytail and the possibility here. As the three men closed the distance to her, Spinelli said to her, via his phone, “There’s three guys coming up behind you. Look around and keep your eye on the guy in the middle, the one with the ponytail.”

Janet somehow managed to maintain her poise and glance casually back over her right shoulder. Pilcher’s right hand was nearly out of his cassock pocket, ready to drill Mr. Ponytail if he made a wrong move.

When they passed right by Janet, I still kept my eye on Mr. Ponytail. So did everybody else, which was why we all failed to notice that the big guy who’d been running with the cheerleader had departed his partner, done a U-turn, and was sprinting straight toward Janet.

It was too late when I did notice. He was within feet of her. Without thinking, I yelled, “Janet!” Her head swung around to look, but the fatal mistake had been made, and she was on her own. The guy’s approach was such that Janet was between us and him, and the odds of nailing her were greater than the odds of hitting him.

Janet was about five foot eight and he towered over her. His arm drew back and I saw a silvery glint that had to be a knife. Janet dropped the cell phone, her back to us, and she appeared to freeze in her tracks, too shocked to run or respond.

Just as his arm started to arc forward, he stepped toward her, twisted and moved sideways, and I heard a pop. Then he twisted again, and there was another pop. I was still forty yards away and sprinting, but I saw him bring his arm down, lower his shoulder, and slam into Janet like a middle linebacker sacking a wimpy quarterback. She flew about six feet through the air, landed on her butt, and somersaulted over backward from the force of the blow.

He then glanced at me and without a hint of confusion or hesitation sprinted immediately toward the four-lane highway above the pathway. He was incredibly fast, and was dodging around like a crooked Ping-Pong ball. Pilcher had dropped to a knee and was firing his pistol. Spinelli was standing upright and shooting. From the best I could tell, neither hit him.

I started sprinting after him, even as I knew it was useless. The guy had legs like pistons, and he was across the highway and dodging into the side streets of Cambridge before I could even reach Janet. Pilcher was screaming something into his microphone. A pair of seedy-looking bums who’d been loitering by the next bridge began running toward us. Presumably, these were the undercover cops we’d been promised.

Janet lay perfectly still. As I approached, I could see her pale blue eyes following me, which I took as a good sign.

I asked, “Are you hurt?”

She didn’t reply at first, and I realized she was trying desperately to suck oxygen into her deflated lungs. I knelt beside her and performed a quick visual inspection. No blood. No cuts. The killer had failed to stab her. I saw a bullet hole in her coat, but she didn’t appear to be wounded. She finally struggled into a sitting position and cursed a few times. That worked for me.

I said, “He got away.”

“How?” She added, “I shot him. Twice.”

That explained the holes in her coat. She apparently had a gun in her pocket and had fired right through her coat. But I’d seen the guy’s moves and technique, and I was fairly certain she had missed him, and I was definitely certain I knew why. Then Spinelli jogged over and said, “The Boston PD is moving on him. We know where he ran, and he won’t get out of the cordon.”

I nodded, and then looked down at Janet. “Are you all right?”

“No. I’m pissed. I heard you yell and… and I shot him.” She shook her head, and said, “From three feet away? How could I miss?”

Spinelli asked, “Where’d you get the gun?”

I reached out and helped her get to her feet. She brushed the leaves and dirt off her backside. She said, “I get death threats all the time, so I have a special permit. I even fly with it.”

I asked, “What kind of gun?”

She reached into her pocket and withdrew a. 22 caliber. She stared at the pistol and said, “Okay, it’s a peashooter, but I’m accurate with it, and there’s no kick.”

That made sense. It also explained how even if she had hit the killer-which I strongly doubted-he could still run away. I hadn’t seen his face, but I saw his size. About six foot four and perhaps 250-260 pounds of highly buffed muscle. A guy with that bulk could take a couple of. 22 slugs and, unless they penetrated a vital organ, regard them as beestings.

I asked Janet, “Did you get a good look at him?”

“Yes, I… too good. Long, dark hair, a thick mustache, a goatee, and green eyes. Give me a good profiler and I’ll give you a good picture.”

Pilcher was talking rapidly into his microphone, and listening to his earpiece, saying, “… yeah… nah, she’s okay.” He listened for a moment, then said, “She says she pumped two rounds into him.. . uh-huh… ah, shit. Okay, lemme know.”

He scowled.

Janet said, “What?”

“He just killed two of our guys five blocks from here. Came up from behind ’em, cut one guy’s throat, and butchered the other one. This is one bad motherfucker.”

I asked, “And did he get away?”

“Not yet. But he’s out of the cordon. We got an all-points on him, and cops are converging from all over the city. We’ll get this bastard.”

Spinelli was staring at the ground, and commented to no one in particular, “Not a prayer.”