You really fucked up this time, Samuel.
He didn’t know why Samuel wasted the Bishop, and he didn’t really care. The last time the two of them spoke was the night the virtuous jackass disappeared. He left Arthur a bloody mess in the loft for no good reason.
If I could have gotten my hands on a knife, if we would have been scrapping near the target, the outcome would have been much different.
“Hey, Artie! At least we won’t have to worry about crashing. There’s like a hundred mattresses in here!”
There was no question. That piss-stain cop, Reilly, had to die. Is it what Jeremy would have wanted?
Who cares?
Arthur had no use for the silly Jew. He was one of Samuel’s chosen.
This had nothing to do with Jeremy.
In the UJ, they did whatever the fuck they wanted, whenever the fuck they wanted. Anyone who hindered that was one of “them,” and the biggest “them” was the Potterford PD.
One of “them” had beaten up one of “us,” and he had to pay.
Arthur could feel his heart start to pound again. His body was running on rage and adrenaline. In his mind, he was setting the whole town on fire. He saw himself driving Zed Zed down Main Street at 100 miles an hour, screaming with his head out the window and brandishing the biggest, baddest gun he could get off of one of the carcasses, all the time getting his dick sucked by the Police Chief’s wife. It was beautiful. His senses writhed. Somewhere in the distance he heard Pink Floyd.
“Goddammit! How am I supposed to think with one of you prick-wipes blasting Floyd!?”
Rick answered.
“Relax, man. It’s my ringtone. I’ll take it in the other room.”
“You and your fucking ring tones!”
“You want me to change it? I’ll change it. Chill. Sit back down.”
Artie did so. His mind had returned to him, but his body was still teeming with beating hot blood. Every one of his extremities felt engorged, especially his groin. He put his feet back on the basket and resumed staring at the pipe. His thoughts shot back to Reilly. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to come up with a plan right there, so he settled for the thought of piss-stain cop’s head on Zed Zed’s hood. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Artie.”
It was Rick. Arthur didn’t budge.
“Traci just called from the hospital. Jeremy’s dead.”
Perfect.
3. The Station
It was an interview room. Lynch let the door swing open slowly. Reilly’s big red freshly clipped head came into view. Lynch had rehearsed this moment twenty times to himself since he left the Galleria. The news he just received from the Chief, however, tossed the whole spiel out the window. This wasn’t just about Reilly’s badge any more. If he did what Lynch was about to accuse him of, he was now, at the very least, an accessory to murder.
He pulled his trench coat clear before closing the door. There was something about the way Lynch entered that particular room with that particular door that sometimes caused his coat to get caught in the latch. If he was distracted or in a hurry, he wouldn’t even feel it, and, since the action left the door open a mere half-inch, wouldn’t see it either. He’d only been caught twice, but the second time nearly got him suspended. He’d conditioned himself to check it, but one in ten times he’d forget. Luckily, this was not one of those times. The latch clicked. The room reeked of mint tea.
“Hey, Reilly.”
“Hey.”
Reilly was seated at the table, staring at six sheets of paper that he’d spread out in two rows of three. Lynch correctly assumed that they were the statements taken after the barn party. Reilly was looking for inconsistencies that might help him pin the beating on a few of the other UJ members. It was his latest theory, and he wasn’t doing much to hide it.
“I heard your vic died at the hospital. Sorry.”
Reilly did not look up.
“Thank you.”
“Got any more leads without an eyewitness?”
“Workin’ on it.”
Lynch appreciated economic word use but also placed a great deal of value on common courtesy. Reilly’s grunting was only making the confrontation easier.
“Can I ask you a question while you do whatever you’re doing there?”
“Shoot.”
“I told you how I wound up at the barn. Right?”
“Yup. Was that the question?”
Reilly had index fingers on two of the sheets of paper and was moving his eyes between them as though he was watching a tiny tennis match.
“You remember we followed a kid who lackeys for the Unjudged. Right?”
“Yup.”
“And we found this kid by flashing around a picture of the symbol from Samuel’s jacket.”
“Yup.”
“And we printed the picture from the internet…”
“Well, that I didn’t know, but yup.”
“…after you left.”
“What do you mean?”
“You took lost time, walked out of the squad room, and then we found the picture. I don’t think I ever showed you the original from the security camera either.”
Reilly turned around and squared off.
“I don’t think you did either. And?”
“Do you remember what you said to me when I arrived at your crime scene?”
“Refresh my memory, Lynch.”
“I may be paraphrasing a bit, but you were taking exception to the fact that you had to ‘work for these little pricks after what they did.’ Ring a bell?”
“Sounds like something I’d say. Are you accusing me of something?”
“Call it what you want. I’m just curious how you knew about the connection between the UJ and Bishop Ryan’s murder. I sure as shit didn’t tell you.”
Reilly rolled his eyes and sat back down.
“Oh God. Really? You thought I meant Ryan’s murder when I said, ‘what they did?’ Jesus, Lynch! I was talking about the Satanist crap they spray painted all over the barn and the beer bottles and drugs and stuff. I wasn’t talking about Ryan’s murder!”
“Jeremy Sokol freaked when he saw you at the hospital, did he not?”
“He freaked
