make that mistake.”
“We been over all this a hundred times.”
“Maybe we missed something, Dan.”
“Okay. Maybe the white shooter had an emotional attachment to the one you shot, and in the heat of things he made a mistake. So you shot his best friend, or lover, or his brother, maybe.”
“Or his son. The white shooter was all gray.”
“The point is, knowing his name hasn’t gotten us anywhere so far. His name might not even have been Richard. You know that.” Boyle leaned forward. “Here’s what I think, Bill. The leads we got on this case aren’t gonna break it. It’s like most of the investigations we’ve handled. Somebody’s gotta come forward. An old employee, someone who has something to deal by ratting out the shooters… like that.”
“You guys have hit all the ex-employees pretty hard, haven’t you?”
“Goddamn right we did. We went back two years into the May’s files, talked to all of them, then brought them back in and talked to them again. Carl Lewin’s partner, the skinny man, he’s serving time right now on racketeering. He could have avoided a Leavenworth jolt if he knew anything, but in the end all he knew is that he got took for a lot of money that day.”
“I just can’t believe it. In broad daylight, these bastards do what they did. We have nothing, and they just get away.”
“Listen, the reality is that there probably aren’t going to be any new leads. Even the pizza parlor is gone. Nothing’s left of the old place but that plaque you dedicated last year.”
Jonas handed his envelope to Boyle. “Which brings me to this.”
Boyle opened the envelope and examined its contents. It was a photograph that had run in the Washington Post over a story about the “healing process” begun the day the Sub Place opened at the old May’s site. There had been a ceremony arranged by the chain’s public-relations people, and William Jonas had been tapped to dedicate a bronze plaque that served to memorialize the victims. In the original photograph, Jonas was in his wheelchair and flanked by his son Christopher. In the photograph Boyle held in his hand, Christopher’s face had been punched through and torn out. A strip of paper had been glued across Christopher’s body. It was cut from a typical bill received in the mail. It read, “Your account is past due.”
“When did you get this?” asked Boyle.
“Couple of days ago. It was sent to the station house and forwarded here.”
“And you think -”
“Yeah. I think it might have come from the shooters.”
Boyle forced a reassuring smile. “Could have come from anybody, Bill. What we do for a living, we’re gonna accumulate a lot of enemies.”
“I know it. But the man I killed that day was the only man I’ve ever killed. I’ve been threatened plenty in my career, mostly by the families of men I put away. But the majority of that was talk. This here has a different kind of tone to it, wouldn’t you say?”
“It is pretty direct.”
“And it comes straight out of the local paper, which means the one who sent it could be right here in town. It worries me, man.”
“You can get the Post anywhere in the country.”
“It worries me just the same.”
Boyle looked down at the blank envelope Jonas had handed him. “This the way it came?”
“No, it was mailed. I have the original right here.” Jonas wheeled himself to an end table, opened a drawer, wheeled himself back, and dropped the envelope in Boyle’s lap.
“Can I touch it?”
“My prints are already all over it. Go ahead.”
Boyle studied the envelope. “Typed address… mailed from Los Angeles. I’m gonna take this with me, Bill. And the photograph, all right?”
“That’s why I asked you to come by.”
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing, most likely.”
“That’s my boy whose face is cut out there.”
“I know.”
They sat without speaking for a minute or so. Boyle closed his eyes and drank beer while Jonas stared down at the afternoon sunlight spreading across the floor.
“The families of those people,” said Jonas, his eyes still on the floor.
Boyle nodded. “I met one of them, just before I came over here. Dimitri Karras, the father of the boy got hit by the car. Karras is working in the kitchen of a bar I drink in from time to time.”
“The department still sponsoring that support group for those people?”
“Yeah. What I heard is that the group asked the shrink we put in there to leave. But they still meet on Tuesday nights, and we still pay for the space. As much as they were in the news, it’s hard to forget them: Karras and the bartender’s wife. The waiter’s father. The pizza chef’s best friend. Bet that’s one happy group, right?”
“I ought to stop by one night and sit in with them. For a long time I thought I’d be intruding. And there was that other thing, too – I dreaded seeing those folks. I had the idea that they’d think maybe I could have done more that day -”
“You did plenty.”
“I know, but that’s what was goin’ through my mind. How did Karras seem to you?”
“Quiet,” said Boyle.
“Those people won’t be right until we find the shooters.” Jonas rubbed his cheek. “Maybe they’ll never be right.”
Boyle stood up and got into his raincoat. He slipped the envelope and photograph into the inside pocket. “You want me to get a watch put on your house for a while?”
“No, that’s okay.”
“Bill, you’re still listed in the phone book, for Christ’s sake. Better let me do that, just for grins.”
“It’s okay. Like you said, it’s probably nothing. Didn’t mean to overreact. But someone threatens your kid -”
“No problem. How’s Christopher doin’, by the way?”
“Real good. Studying to be a biologist.”
“That’s great. He’s one tall kid, too. Bet he can jam a basketball without even thinking about it.”
Jonas chuckled and shook his head.
“What’s so funny?” asked Boyle.
“Nothin’. You just cost me ten bucks, is all.”
“How’s that?”
“Never mind. Listen, Dan… keep on it, hear?”
“Bet it,” said Boyle.
The two of them shook hands. Boyle killed his beer, crushed the can, and set it on the living-room table.
Jonas got himself over to the window and watched Boyle amble down the sidewalk toward his car. Two teenage boys approached him, and Boyle opened his raincoat enough so that the butt of his Python showed. The boys stepped off the sidewalk and let Boyle pass.
Stupid bastard, thought Jonas. Stupid, crazy bastard.
He needed a cop like Boyle now.
SIXTEEN
Dimitri Karras opened his eyes. He stared up at the bedroom ceiling and unballed his fists. He’d been trying to nap, but he’d flashed on Jimmy and knew then that he’d never get to sleep. Other people were startled into insomnia by thoughts of their own mortality. With Karras it was always the image of his little boy.
He got out of bed and went to get something to drink.
