The Quickie - James Patterson [17]
“How’s that for somethin’?” he said.
“He’s nothing,” I whispered into my partner’s ear after I caught up. “You want to get jammed up over this mope? Open your eyes, Mike. There’s bosses everywhere.”
Mike rubbed the vein throbbing at his temple as he finally let me walk him away.
“You’re right. You’re right, partner,” he mumbled with his head down. “Sorry, I lost it.”
That’s when I remembered.
Mike was a second-generation cop whose father had been killed in the line of duty. His dad had been a transit cop, and he’d walked into a subway car where a rape was in progress and was shot in the face. It was one of the few cop murders in the history of the NYPD that had never been solved.
So there actually was one thing that could rile my even-tempered partner, I thought as I pulled him toward the witness’s house.
A dead cop.
Things just kept getting better and better.
Chapter 26
HERE WAS OUR WITNESS. And what exactly had she seen?
Amelia Phelps, tiny, elderly, and black, was a retired Bronx High School of Science English teacher.
“Would you like some tea?” she inquired with perfect diction as she brought us into her dusty, threadbare parlor. Books covered every surface and were piled chest-high like trash in a landfill.
“That’s okay, Mrs. Phelps,” Mike said, taking out his bifocals and putting them on.
“Ms. Phelps,” she corrected him.
“Sorry,” Mike said. “Ms. Phelps, as you know, a police officer was found dead in the park. We’re the detectives conducting the investigation. Can you help us?”
“The car I saw was a Toyota,” Ms. Phelps said. “A Camry, I believe, and a recent model. The man who exited it was white, five eleven maybe. He wore glasses and dark clothing.
“At first, I thought he was here for the same unfortunate reason most Caucasians visit our community; namely, the purchase of illegal drugs from our neighborhood boys. But then, oddly, I saw him open the back door of his car and emerge with a large something rolled up in a blue sheet. It could very well have been a body. He returned approximately five minutes later, empty-handed, and drove away.”
When I glanced at Mike, he looked as happily astonished as I felt dismayed.
Because this Bronx witness, this former schoolteacher, was a rare species indeed. We’d done midday gas station shootings where not one of twenty people had seen anything. Drive-bys of weddings where both sides of the family hadn’t seen or heard a thing. Now, here we had a middle-of-the-night dump job in a drug spot, ostensibly the most difficult of all homicides to solve, and we run into photographic-memory Grandma.
“Did you get the plate number?” Mike said expectantly.
No, I thought, wincing. Please, God, make her say no.
“No,” Ms. Phelps said.
I had to force myself to release my breath silently.
“It was too dark?” Mike said, disappointed.
“No,” Ms. Phelps said, looking at him like he was a student who’d forgotten to raise his hand. “There were no plates.”
“Did you call the police and tell them what you saw?” I said.
Ms. Phelps patted me on the knee.
“In this neighborhood, Detective, staying out of other people’s affairs is an acquired necessity.”
“Then, why did you tell the police officer who knocked on your door that you saw something?” Mike said, curious.
“They asked,” Ms. Phelps said with a prim nod. “I am not a liar.”
That makes one of us, I thought.
“Would you be able to pick out the man you saw from a lineup?” I asked with a tight smile.
“Undoubtedly,” Ms. Phelps said.
“Terrific,” I said as I handed Ms. Phelps my card. “We’ll be in touch.”
“You can count on it,” added Mike.
Chapter 27
MIKE HAD HIS BIFOCALS on top of his head as we left Amelia Phelps’s house and walked back into the park. He mumbled to himself excitedly as he went over his interview notes. He was pumped. He had to feel we were getting closer to the killer. It was a great feeling, I knew. Being a detective, being the good guy.
I missed it terribly.
I felt