The Quickie - James Patterson [12]
The icy rainwater went to about mid-shin.
I kept my questionable balance and motion forward by concentrating on the glitter of the police lights inside the rain pocks. They looked like tiny fireworks, I thought as I waded closer to the tarp. Little red and blue blossoms of light. Kind of unreal, like everything else tonight.
This was stupid, I thought with conviction as I sloshed even closer.
Because there was a drug dealer under the tarp. Or just another junkie. People like me always ended up doing a meet-and-greet with them, just like tonight.
Then I was finally beside the blue tarp under the hot, unforgiving glare of the portable light carts. No more delaying. I couldn’t have turned back now if I’d wanted to. Mike Ortiz was right behind me. “Do the honors, Lauren,” he said.
I held my breath.
And tugged the sheet away.
Chapter 18
JESUS GOD, HELP ME, I thought.
My next thought was even weirder.
When I was seven years old, I caught a men’s softball game line drive right in my chest. It was at our Bronx Irish neighborhood’s annual NYPD vs. FDNY barbecue, and it happened as I was on the Finest first-base line, cheering on my patrol sergeant dad, who was on the mound, pitching. I don’t remember the ball hitting me, don’t remember a thing about it. They said that my heart actually stopped. My father had to give me CPR until they defibrillated me. I don’t remember any light at the end of a tunnel or any sweet-faced guardian angels beckoning me heavenward. Only pain and the silently moving mouths of the adults looking down at me, seen as if through an incredibly thick piece of glass.
I felt that exact same sense of disconnection as I looked down.
And saw warm brown eyes staring up at me through a foot of bloody rainwater.
I almost hugged Scott right there and then. Almost dropped right into the water beside him in all my clothes, wrapped my arms around him.
Except I was unable to move.
I remembered the first time we met, at the 48th Precinct under the Cross Bronx Expressway. I was working overtime in the Homicide squad room upstairs, and Scott was working OT out of Narcotics downstairs, when the soda machine in the muster room wouldn’t take my dollar. He gave me one of his, and when I hit the button, two Diet Cokes dropped down.
“Don’t worry,” Scott said, smiling. You could almost hear the click as our eyes met. “I won’t tell Internal Affairs.”
I swallowed as the rain fell around me now. I eyed the tiny circles it was making over Scott’s dead eyes.
“One of the uniforms ID’d him. Name’s Scott Thayer,” Mike said. “He’s a detective from Bronx Narcotics. One of us, Lauren. This is as bad as it gets. Somebody killed a cop.”
My hands went up to my leaking eyes. I contemplated ripping them out.
“He was beaten very badly,” my partner continued, sounding to me like he was speaking from somewhere out past Pluto.
I nodded. Tell me something I don’t know, I thought.
Then Mike did.
“Beaten to a pulp,” he said, anger seeping into his voice. “And then somebody shot him.”
Chapter 19
SHOT HIM?
“See the entry wound under his left jaw?” my partner said, pointing as he continued to talk in a soft, mournful way.
I stared, nodded. I couldn’t believe that I’d missed it. It looked like a misplaced belly button. I shuddered as I suddenly remembered the feel of Scott’s stubble on my stomach.
“And the corneas.”
I nodded. Death sometimes makes the corneas look blurry after a few hours. Scott’s were clear, indicating that he’d died very recently.
“He’s got an ankle holster, but the gun is missing,” Mike said. “It’s a small holster, so I’m not sure if it was his service weapon . . . or maybe a throw-down in case he got into a questionable shoot. Who knows what he was doing here? Anyway, better to be tried by twelve than carried out by six, right? But it looks like Scott missed his day in court. God help him.”
This was one reason not to get involved in an office romance, I thought as I stepped out