Run for Your Life - James Patterson [32]
Wednesday was looking like a real winner, too.
Chapter 28
THE RATTLING ELEVATED number 1 train woke me up more than my second cup of coffee did as I retrieved my Chevy out in front of the Manhattan North Homicide office at 133rd and Broadway. The department mechanics had managed to get it running okay, but inexplicably had left the passenger headrest still torn up from a shotgun assault several months ago.
I decided to appreciate the fact that it started.
As I was pulling out, my cell phone went off. My mood lightened slightly when I saw that it was the commis-sioner’s office. They had already e-mailed a request for my presence at a nine thirty a.m. meeting at headquarters. It looked like he wanted a personal briefing on the spree killer beforehand. I started to feel useful again.
I expected a secretary asking me to hold, but it was the commissioner himself. Nice.
“Bennett, is that you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“Do for me?” he yelled. “For starters, how about you close your big mouth and keep it shut—especially around the Times. I don’t even talk to the press without permission from the mayor’s office. One more move like that and you’ll find yourself on foot patrol in the ass end of Staten Island. Do you understand me?”
Gee, Commish, don’t sugarcoat it, I thought bitterly. Tell me how you really feel.
I wanted to defend myself, but as fired up as Daly sounded, it probably just would have made things worse.
“Won’t happen again, sir,” I muttered.
I maneuvered the Chevy down to the street and started crawling through the morning traffic toward downtown.
Ten minutes later, as I was passing 82nd and Fifth, the phone rang again.
“Mr. Bennett?” This time it was a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. Probably more press trying to get the latest on the case. Well, who could blame them? With the way Cathy Calvin had portrayed me on this morning’s front page, I looked like the media’s new best friend and law enforcement consultant.
“What do you want?” I barked.
There was a brief, icy silence before she said, “This is Sister Sheilah, the principal of Holy Name School.”
Oh, boy.
“Sister, I’m really sorry about that,” I said. “I thought you were?—”
“Never mind, Mr. Bennett.” Her quiet voice somehow conveyed even more distaste for me than the commissioner had.
“Yesterday, you sent in two children who turned out to be ill,” she went on. “Might I refresh your memory that on page eleven of the ‘Parent/Student Handbook,’ it states, and I quote, ‘Children who are ill should be kept home,’ unquote. We here at Holy Name are doing our best to stem the effects of the citywide flu epidemic, and the flouting of our preventative measures cannot and will not be tolerated.”
Again, I reached for my excuse bag. I had a good one. My kids had looked fine when we sent them in. But the negative mojo coming from the Mother Superior stopped my words like a cinder-block wall. I felt like I was back in fifth grade myself.
“Yes, Sister. It won’t happen again,” I mumbled.
I hadn’t made it three blocks farther south in the gridlock when my cell phone rang yet again. This time, it was Chief of Detectives McGinnis.
Why do I even have one of these things? I thought, putting the phone to my ear and bracing myself for a tirade. I wasn’t disappointed.
“Listen, Bennett. I just heard from Daly,” McGinnis roared. “Are you trying to get me fired? How about instead of canoodling with Times reporters, you do us both a favor and do what you’re getting paid for? Namely, figuring out where this serial shooter is! Your la-di-da attitude toward this case is pissing me off big-time. As is the way you’re handling this catastrophe, Mr. Expert. Now I’m starting to understand why people got so upset about Hurricane Katrina.”
That was it—I’d had enough. Two capitulations was my morning’s limit. I was also fed up with having the truly self-sacrificing professionals I used to work with at