“I don’t know, Pete,” he said, and the hand began moving again.
“Frank, I’m asking this as a personal favor.”
Frank covered the phone, but before he could say anything, she was out of bed and putting on the blue kimono.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She looked back, shrugged, and said, “Me, too,” before walking out of the room.
He heard her turn on the shower.
“Frank?” he heard Pete say.
“I can’t be there sooner than an hour,” he said into the phone.
“Aw, for God’s sake, Frank. It’s only ten minutes from your place.”
“An hour. And next time,
But she opened it before he reached it and said, “Get a towel.”
He laughed. “What a relief — if you didn’t grab a towel for me, I guess you weren’t too sure of me.”
She smiled, slipped the kimono off, and stepped into the shower.
So he had been wrong, he thought, but couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about it.
4
Sunday, July 9, 9:00 A.M.
The Galley Restaurant
They were all detectives, he realized, as he walked toward the table. A half dozen of them. They stopped talking when they saw him approach. There was a moment when, just as they looked up at him from their cups of coffee, their faces reflected how angry they were. He was surprised by the intensity of it and certain it wasn’t because he had kept them waiting. Five of them — Pete Baird, Vince Adams, Reed Collins, Ned Perry, and Jake Matsuda — worked in Homicide with him. Vince and Reed were partners, as were Ned and Jake. Although they had their disagreements here and there, Frank thought of all five of them as friends — the closest of these his own partner, Pete. During an average week, he spent more waking hours with Pete than he did with Irene.
He knew little about the sixth man — Bob Hitchcock — although he had seen his name in the case files he had read last night. Hitch was a heavyset man, with sagging jowls and small eyes. His hair was cut short, bristling gray over his round head. A few times, Frank’s team had played against Hitch’s in the amateur ice hockey league they were in, but Hitch never got much ice time. He had come over to the house once, when Frank and Irene had held a barbecue after a hockey tournament — but he hadn’t stayed long. Pete had once told Frank that Hitch used to be a good player, but he was out of shape now.
Pete broke the silence, smiling and saying, “Frank! You made it. Pull up a chair.”
Hitch smiled — a phony smile, Frank thought — and came awkwardly to his feet. He held out a hand that looked like five sausages attached to a water balloon. “You may not remember me, Frank. I’m Bob Hitchcock. Most of these guys call me Hitch.” Although his palm was damp, his grip was firm. Frank forced himself not to wipe his hand off before he sat down next to Pete.
Hitch gestured toward the table, where the remains of their breakfasts congealed unappetizingly on heavy white ceramic plates. “We waited for you like one hog waits on another,” he said, and gave a little laugh.
“You still working Narcotics?” Frank asked.
“Surprised you remember that,” Hitch said, pleased. “No, I’m in Auto Theft now. I’m close to retirement, so it’s kind of nice to just be able to spend the day taking phone calls and saying, ‘Gee, that’s too bad — yeah, here’s the police report number for your insurance.’”
A waitress came by and cleared away the dirty plates. She asked Frank if he wanted to order something. Eyeing the plates, he asked for a cup of coffee.
Another silence fell.
“You wanted to talk to me about Lefebvre?” Frank asked.
“Don’t even say that name,” Vince snarled.
Frank leaned lazily back in his chair. “Then this will take less time than I thought it would.”
Vince leaned forward, but Jake Matsuda held up a hand. “You weren’t in Las Piernas when it happened, Frank,” he said quietly.
“Which, I’m told, is exactly why I got the call. Were you in Homicide then, Jake?”
He shook his head. “I was in uniform. In fact, I spent some time guarding Seth Randolph’s room. But even if I hadn’t — we all suffered because of what Lefebvre did. The Randolph case was high profile. Seth Randolph was a young hero, as far as everyone in town was concerned. We got attached to him, too. He was a good kid—”
“And he was going to help us nail the biggest bastard in town,” Pete said.
“Yes,” Jake said, “but even if Whitey Dane hadn’t been a part of it, the public had sort of adopted Seth.”
“We all felt that way,” Ned Perry said. “The department had adopted him, too. Like Jake, I was in uniform back then. My unit was dispatched to the marina on the night Trent Randolph and his daughter were murdered. I’ll never forget that night as long as I live. When Lefebvre came off of that yacht with that kid, we thought we had three dead. No one thought Seth would make it, and when it looked as if he might — well, we were all rooting for him. The kid had guts — he had fought off Dane. And he was willing to testify against him.”
“Which is something a hell of a lot of grown men weren’t willing to do,” Pete said.
“People who were going to testify against Dane seldom made it to court,” Vince said. “If they didn’t change their minds about what they saw or suddenly lose their memories, they had a way of disappearing.”
