Step On A Crack

Chapter 17

I SHOOK MY HEAD again as I finally unfolded my phone and brought it up to my ear.

Calls at home from my boss, on my day off, meant one sure thing, I knew.

An express delivery of ill tidings was about to land in my lap.

“Bennett,” I said.

“Thank God,” my boss, Harry Grissom, said. Harry is the lieutenant detective in charge of my unit, the Manhattan North Homicide Squad. Being able to say you’re the go-to guy on the elite Manhattan North Homicide will get you a lot of respectful nods at most cop parties. Right then, though, I was more than willing to trade in every last one of them for a couple of fried eggs. And a nice fat blueberry muffin.

“You heard what just happened?” my boss said.

“Where? What?” I said, already thinking the worst. There must have been a distinct note of urgency in my voice because Mary Catherine turned from the sink. Post 9/11, for a lot of New Yorkers- New York cops, firemen, and EMTs especially-the next terror hit wasn’t a question of if but when.

“What the hell’s happened? What’s going on?” I asked.

“Slow down, Mike,” Harry said. “No explosions. Not yet at least. All I was told was, about ten minutes ago, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, shots were fired. First Lady Caroline’s funeral was going on at the time, so it doesn’t sound too good.”

What felt like a door breach hit me full in the stomach. Shots fired at a state funeral? Inside St. Patrick’s? A short while ago? This morning?

“Terrorists?” I said. “From where?”

“I don’t think we know yet,” my boss said. “I do know that Manhattan South borough commander Will Matthews is on the scene, and he wants you down there ASAP.”

In what capacity? I wondered. I had been on the NYPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team before making the switch to Homicide.

And wasn’t I too fried already with my family crisis to take on a much larger one?

When it rains cats, it pours kittens too, I thought. Story of my life. I hoped this was just a run-of-the-mill barricade incident. Or better yet, maybe the borough commander needed me for a simple single murder. I could do barricades and murders. It was the “weapons of mass destruction” thing that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Does he need me for negotiating?” I asked my boss. “Or was there a homicide at the cathedral? Help me out here, Harry.”

“I was too busy getting screamed at to get a chance to ask,” my boss said. “I don’t think it’s because they ran out of altar boys, though. Just get your ass down there and find out everything you can. Then let me know what the hell is going on.”

“On my way,” I said, and hung up.

I went into my bedroom and threw on jeans, a sweatshirt, and my NYPD Windbreaker. The Homicide one.

I splashed cold water on my face and retrieved my service Glock from the closet safe.

Mary Catherine was waiting in the front hall with my travel coffee mug and a brown bag of muffins. Even with my mind and adrenaline racing, I noticed that Socky, who hates everyone except Maeve, Chrissy, and Shawna, was rubbing his whiskers on her ankles. Talk about hitting the ground running.

I was struggling to come up with appropriate words of thanks and pertinent household-running instructions, when she just opened the front door and said, “Go, Mike.”