Breslau looked at him and nodded for him to continue.
“One of Kolodnik’s old partners. Lowell Gantcher.”
“You got reports, hard linkage, substantiation?” Breslau asked greedily.
“I’m working on it,” Behr said. “I got a woman who was the nexus between Saunders and Teague. Not Gantcher, specifically, but there must be some connection there, too.”
“What ‘woman’?”
“One who knows,” Behr said, seeing a cruiser pull up with Susan in it, “but not a very presentable witness.”
“Junkie?”
“Close. Escort.”
Breslau winced. “Not being a jerk off here,” he said, “but I can’t go bunge up some solid citizen with
“What the hell
“Exploring all the known business associates, digging into other shit. We’ve got to be exhaustive now,” Breslau said. “You know how it is.” Behr did. If it wasn’t a lack of resources these days, it was fear of being sued. It had law enforcement pretty well shackled.
Susan was out of the cruiser now, taking in the scene with confusion.
“I’m telling you, give Saunders a look,” Behr said. “
Behr broke off and went to Susan.
“Frank …?” she said.
It was a disaster. He told her and stopped her from going inside. But she screamed and cried as he talked to her and tried to hold her. He gave her water, which she batted away, and tried to sit her in his car, which she refused. She hyperventilated and nearly collapsed, though he managed to catch her; and the paramedics on-site, who could do nothing for Gina, swooped in and gave her oxygen and checked the baby’s heart rate, which was elevated, but not dangerously so.
She finally calmed, but then said, “Gina made a run to Target for baby stuff for us, and was dropping off mine-” which set off another paroxysm of grief. Behr tried to ride the waves and noted when various arms of the police finished their work and departed. The homicide unit was done with the scene, having photographed it and tried for prints. He saw the coroners carry out the bagged body, the plastic higher in the middle from the baby bump, and he physically held Susan’s face, keeping her eyes on his so she wouldn’t see it. Not long after that they were done inside, and an officer gave him a wave.
“Babe, I need three minutes before I bring you in,” he said, because he knew that while the authorities do cart the bodies away, they don’t clean up.
Somewhere close to catatonia, she nodded, and he hurried away.
Passing by a departing deputy coroner, Behr paused to ask, “What did this?”
“Initial guess, based on the tissue damage, some kind of hand ax,” the deputy said, continuing on. Behr gathered himself and moved inside.
He had worked three months in a slaughterhouse one summer many years back, right before college, and beside the sights of shit-stained animal flanks and offal running in cement trenches, the sounds of electric saws and bolt guns, and the lifers who thought nothing was funnier than flicking blobs of fat and meat off the end of their boning knives into the necks of the newbies like stinging projectiles, the fecund smell of blood and fear was one he’d never forget. It was in his nose now, as he crawled about and went through three rolls of paper towels, soaking his knees while trying to blot up the coagulating fluid and make the entranceway passable. He splashed pine-scented cleaning solution onto the tiles, the grout in between them turning pink, in hopes of knocking down the odor. Sweat ran into his eyes and burned them until they teared.
When he had done what he could, he went and tried his best to clean his hands and then saw Susan in. Being inside where it had happened, seeing the broken walls and furniture, which had actually been damaged by Decker, and stepping over the still damp and not properly clean floor, set her off again. By now, though, her grief had lost some of its force to exhaustion and Behr got her into the bedroom, and sat her down on the bed where he stroked her hair for half an hour, hoping she would pass out.
The situation outside had calmed. The neighbors and other onlookers, including the news crews, had called it a day. There were only a few police cars left. One belonged to the last pair of officers at the location; the other was Decker’s. He had been carted away in an ambulance filled with his brother cops at some point. Behr had lost track of Breslau too and he, as well as his Crown Vic, was now gone. But there was another Crown Vic outside. This one was silver. It was his old boss’s car. Major Pomeroy. Behr walked outside and saw him behind the wheel on his cell phone. When Pomeroy saw Behr, he hung up and got out.
“Major,” Behr said, greeting the tall, silver-haired man. He hadn’t tended to the thin side, but now he was cadaverously so, as if the worries of higher command had counteracted all the big lunches and desk work of his captaincy and eaten away all nonessential flesh. His eyes were like dark agate marbles sunk in pale dough.
“I recognized the address when the call came through,” Pomeroy said. “How’s Officer Decker in this?”
It was no social drop-in. “The women were friends,” Behr said.
“I see …” Pomeroy said. “I’ve been made aware that he put himself in this thing, that he might’ve shared department information with you.”
“He didn’t put himself in it,” Behr said. “Some asshole showed up looking to kill me, or me and my girlfriend, and his wife happened to be here.”
“And the information?” Pomeroy pressed.
Behr said nothing.
“Right …” Pomeroy said. “Well, I’ve gotta have someone on this.” Behr could only admire the unbelievable, self-cleaning organ that was the police department. “Seems like Decker’s paid enough.”
Behr could only nod.
“Due to the … political nature … of it, it’s raining big juice on this one, and you can’t stand under our umbrella. Lay off it, Frank.”
“Unbelievable.” Behr nodded once more. He knew what it meant: he was done with the department. Whatever anemic courtesy he might have ever gotten was now history. He’d been on this side before, for a long time. He’d only recently been in good standing. It was a shame to have to go back so soon, but he’d survived it in the past and he would again.
“You have no idea how the upper ranks of the department work-it’s like the Vatican,” Pomeroy said by way of absolving himself.
“Decker will be untouched?”
“He’ll be untouched.”
“Just so you know, I didn’t go looking for any of it-someone shot at me,” Behr said, walking back toward his house.
“Hey, this is the business we’ve chosen,” Pomeroy said, his arms outstretched and palms turned up.
When Behr came back in, he took care to be quiet in order not to disturb Susan, but soon found that she hadn’t been resting. She’d been packing.
“What’s going on?” he asked when he saw her in the kitchen filling a water bottle, a shoulder duffel and her pillow in a garbage bag at her feet.
“I’ve gotta go, Frank. I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I just can’t be here now.”
“That’s understandable, Suze,” he said. “How about if we go to a hotel? Where you can relax …”
“I don’t think so,” she said in a tone that sent a chill through him.
“You’re leaving? For good?” Behr said, a near-desperate feeling taking hold of his insides. “You can’t. It’s not safe, if someone’s looking for you I need to be able to-”
“They’re looking for
“Where are you going?”
