A Quiet Vendetta

shoes Hartmann could see his reflection in. He possessed the bold brass of naive self-importance, the brightness of eye that told Hartmann this kid had yet to see what was out there. Stand over the bloodied and battered corpse of some eight-year-old kid, walk through the aftermath of a fast food restaurant drive-by shooting, smell the rank odor that emanated from a drowned cadaver, hear the sound of gases erupting from a swollen stomach as the ME sliced it open like an overripe watermelon… Walk a mile or two in Ray Hartmann’s shoes and that bold brass and bright eye would grow tarnished and blunted and cynical and dark.

‘Mr Hartmann, they’re ready,’ the kid said.

Hartmann nodded, and rose from where he’d been sitting on the edge of the mattress.

He followed the kid out to the front of the hotel where a dark gray sedan sat like a well-behaved animal.

‘You want me to drive?’ Hartmann asked, and truth be told he asked merely to see the flash of anxiety and uncertainty in the kid’s eyes.

‘I’m here to drive you, Mr Hartmann,’ the kid said, and Hartmann smiled and shook his head, and said, ‘My name is Ray… you can just call me Ray.’

The kid smiled, seemed to relax a little. ‘I’m Sheldon,’ he said. ‘Sheldon Ross.’

‘Well Sheldon, let’s get the fuck outta here and find the bad guy, eh?’

Hartmann got in the passenger side.

‘Belt,’ Sheldon said as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

Hartmann didn’t argue. He reached behind his shoulder for the belt and buckled in. Sure as shit the kid wouldn’t drive more than forty miles an hour; the law was the law, and as far as Sheldon Ross was concerned the law was all there was. For now.

Schaeffer and Woodroffe were present and correct when Hartmann arrived. They were seated in an office off the furthermost corner of the main room. Agent Ross walked Hartmann down, left him standing there at the door and seemed to disappear without a sound. Schaeffer looked up, smiled as best he could, and waved Hartmann in.

‘So we wait,’ Schaeffer said. ‘We wait for your caller to show his face, it seems.’

Hartmann pulled a chair from against the wall and sat down. ‘Just a thought,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think it would do any harm for me to speak to the people that dealt with this from the beginning. A new viewpoint perhaps.’

Woodroffe shook his head. ‘I don’t see that such a thing would really serve any purpose,’ he said, and in his tone was the defensive territoriality that came with agencies crossing each other’s paths. He would in no way be pleased for Hartmann to find something they might have missed.

Hartmann shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Just figured it would be better than sitting around with nothing to do,’ he said. He turned and looked absent-mindedly out of the small window to his right. He assumed the manner of one who could not have cared less. The rain had stopped some while back but there were dark thunderheads along the horizon. He couldn’t tell if they were coming or going.

Schaeffer leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. ‘I don’t see that it would do any harm. Was there anyone in particular you felt you should speak to?’

Hartmann shrugged again. ‘I don’t know, the ME perhaps, what was his name?’

‘Emerson,’ Woodroffe said. ‘Jim Emerson, the assistant medical examiner.’

‘Right, right,’ Hartmann replied. ‘And then there’s the coroner and the Homicide guy as well.’

‘Cipliano, Michael Cipliano, and the detective was John Verlaine.’

Hartmann nodded. ‘Yes, those three. Figured I should at least go over their reports with them and see if there’s anything else they remember.’

Schaeffer rose from the table and walked to the open doorway. ‘Agent Ross!’

Sheldon Ross came hurrying down the room and stopped just short of the door.

‘Get hold of the assistant ME Jim Emerson, County Coroner Cipliano and John Verlaine from Homicide. Pull whatever strings you have to and get them down here.’

Ross nodded. ‘Sir,’ he said, and turned to hurry away.

Schaeffer came back and sat facing Hartmann. ‘So – you have any thoughts about our caller, Mr Hartmann?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘Nothing comes to mind, no. Can’t say I place his voice, and there’s nothing about what he said that makes me feel I know him.’

‘But he knows you,’ Woodroffe interjected.

‘And you guys as well,’ Hartmann replied. ‘Seems he knows an awful lot more about us than we do about him.’

For a moment there was an awkward silence.

Hartmann could sense the reaction to what he’d implied: that information was making its way out of their office. Such a thing was unlikely, very unlikely indeed, but if these assholes wanted to play hardball then he would give them a run for their money.

‘The names of agents in most branches of law enforcement are not withheld from the public,’ Woodroffe said matter-of-factly. Again there was that element of defense in his tone. Here was a man who’d perhaps violated protocol a few too many times and taken a rap from someone upstairs. Here was a man destined to be careful for the rest of his life.

‘True,’ Hartmann said, ‘but there must have been a specific reason for him to request my presence.’

‘No question about that,’ Schaeffer said. ‘And if he comes in, or should I say when he comes in, perhaps he will tell us.’

Hartmann looked up. Ross stood in the doorway.

‘Here within half an hour, all three of them,’ he told Schaeffer and Woodroffe.

Schaeffer nodded. ‘Good work, Ross.’

Ross did not smile, merely nodded and left the room once more. Hartmann watched him go and felt a sense of sympathy, even empathy, with the kid. One day Sheldon Ross would wake up and realize he was like the rest of them, and within them Hartmann included himself. One day he would wake up, and find that no matter how hard he rubbed his eyes, no matter how many times he sluiced his face with cold water in the bathroom, it would seem as if he was looking at the world through a gray film. Colors were duller, less bright and vivid; sounds always gave off an element of alarm; meeting people became a game of guessing what their motive or intent might be, and whether you were prepared to risk your own life, the well-being of your family, by getting to know them; all these darker aspects and shadows crept up on you insidiously, and then they were there; they were as much a part of you as the sound of your own voice, the color of your eyes, your own darkest secrets.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

‘Tired, Mr Hartmann?’ Woodroffe asked.

Hartmann opened his eyes and looked back at the man. ‘Of life? Yes I am, Agent Woodroffe. Aren’t you?’

Emerson and Cipliano were straightforward enough, as were the vast majority of those in Forensics and Criminalistics. They were scientists, doctors, morticians with three degrees from Harvard and an insatiable appetite for facts. The physical evidence was what it was. The condition of the body, the map of lines on the back, the knife wounds and adhesive tape, the rope burns and hammer blows. All these things had been investigated as thoroughly as could be, and the documents were typed and copied and filed and numbered.

Verlaine, however, was a different story, and in John Verlaine Hartmann recognized a little of himself.

‘Sit down, Detective,’ Hartmann said, and Verlaine shed his coat and hung it over the back of the chair before he complied.

‘Any coffee around here?’ Verlaine asked. ‘Can we smoke?’

‘I can get you some coffee,’ Hartmann replied, ‘and yes, you can smoke.’ He retrieved the ashtray from the floor beneath his own chair and set it on the table in front of Verlaine.

Hartmann left, returned within moments with a fresh cup of coffee. Woodroffe had been sufficiently co- operative to send out for a cafetiere and some half-decent grounds.

‘Intriguing, eh?’ Verlaine asked.

‘It is.’

‘What’s your position on this then?’

Always the detective, Hartmann thought. This guy probably questions all