Later, asked what the voice had said, she could remember, but was embarrassed to repeat it. Suffice that it got the job done.
No sooner had the young man stepped from the bushes than, from behind one of the statues of the shrine, Sergeant Phil Mangiapane shouted a warning in the universal language of the street.
As he explained later, had the youth not at least lowered me gun immediately, Mangiapane would have fired. But the young man was so startled that instead of his lowering or dropping the gun, it flew out of his hand as if it had wings and a mind of its own.
In seconds, the sergeant had the man cuffed.
After trying to calm the nun, Mangiapane removed the keys from her trembling hand, opened the door, shoved his prisoner into the convent, and phoned for assistance.
It was hours before Sister Joan was able to bring her shuddering and shaking under some sort of control. Sleep was not even a remote possibility.
But it was less than half an hour before Mangiapane had the man at headquarters, with his rights read, and in the process of being booked on charges of assault with intent to commit murder and suspicion of murder in the first degree.
7
This was different and Sergeant Phil Mangiapane decided he liked it. Frequently he was the butt of many of the jokes cracked by members of his squad if not of others in the Homicide Division. The jokesters were lucky Mangiapane had an active sense of humor and was able, to some degree, to take a joke. For the sergeant was a big man who worked out with weights as part of a general fitness regimen.
Now, the morning after his dramatic arrest of the man who almost shot Sister Joan Donovan, Mangiapane was the toast of the division. By actual count-the sergeant was keeping track-at least one officer from each of the other six Homicide squads had dropped by to congratulate him. Heady stuff.
But something was wrong. Something was missing. Mangiapane hadn’t pinpointed it but Sergeant Angie Moore had. She noted that Zoo Tully hadn’t been in yet. She knew he was in me building. At least he had been when she got in this morning, just before she’d learned that it was Mangiapane who’d become a hero. On her way to work she’d heard the news on her radio that the nun had been saved by “courageous and daring” police work. Somehow she had never connected those adjectives to the big Italian with whom she worked.
As far as the media were concerned, the apprehension of the man who tried to kill Sister Joan had effectively solved the mystery of who had killed her sister Helen. Clearly it had been a case of mistaken identity. He had meant to kill the nun but got her sister instead. The killer had returned to the scene last night, tried to correct his mistake, and was foiled by “courageous and daring” police work. To cap the climax, the police said the perpetrator had confessed to both crimes.
When she entered headquarters, she passed Tully in the corridor. They exchanged greetings, as they normally did. Then when she reached the squadroom she found that she was sharing space with a celebrity.
She was genuinely happy for Mangiapane as his fellow officers congratulated him. She too had been quietly tabulating the visitors. Her mental toteboard tallied with Phil’s: at least one from every squad in Homicide.
Indeed, it was as a result of her keeping tabs that she became aware of a significant absence: Tully.
That was strange. Zoo always took proprietary interest in his squad. Whenever there was merit to be recognized, usually Zoo Tully was the first to offer praise. But so far he was a no-show.
Evidently, it had not yet registered with Mangiapane that his boss had not joined the happy group. Moore was not going to bring it up. If the absence augured something negative, there was no point in prematurely raining on Phil’s parade.
Not long after Moore concluded that there was something ominous in Tully’s nonappearance, in he came.
He deposited some files on his desk, looked around the room, smiled, and said, “Congratulations, Phil. Can I see you a minute?” With that, he walked out of the room.
Mangiapane’s elated demeanor was tempered by doubt as he followed Tully into one of the interrogation rooms. Moore’s suspicion of she-knew-not-what deepened.
“Sit down, Manj,” Tully said.
Mangiapane sat. Tully remained standing, “Tell me about it.”
“What, Zoo?”
“When did you decide on the surveillance?”
“Hard to say, Zoo. It sort of bothered me from the start. The more we questioned the johns, and getting nothing on anybody, the more I was convinced that whoever killed Helen wasn’t trying to kill Helen: He was trying to kill Joan. It just made sense, Helen was wearing a nun’s habit. You couldn’t see it under the coat but you could see the nun’s veil on her head. Helen was entering Joan’s residence. It was dark, lots of shadows there. Plus the two women look a lot alike. I thought, what would I lose?” Mangiapane broke into a large grin. “I just froze my ass off, is all.”
“You didn’t have authorization.”
Mangiapane’s smile dissolved. “I know, Zoo. Actually, it came to me when I was driving home after work last night. It was just a hunch. And I played it.” Mangiapane’s voice took on a feisty tone. “And it worked, Zoo. It worked.”
“You didn’t get authorization.”
“You weren’t handy when I got the idea.”
“What if something had gone wrong? What if that kid had turned on you and fired? You were performing surveillance with no order. The department couldn’t have backed you. The insurance wouldn’t have covered you.”
“I know that, Zoo. There wasn’t any way anybody was going to get the drop on me.”
“It could have happened. And there’s another thing: When Inspector Koznicki hears about something like this, he doesn’t want to talk to
In a less assured voice, Mangiapane said, “It worked.”
“That’s another doing, Manj: Did it?”
“Huh?”
“I just checked with ballistics. It’s not the same gun. The lab guys said they had to get the slug from the medical examiner. That’s why it took so long this morning. Helen Donovan was shot with a.38. The kid last night had a nine millimeter.”
Some color left the sergeant’s face. He hesitated, then said, “Zoo, there’s guns everywhere out there. The guy probably ditched the gun he used on Helen ’cause he thought he got the job done. It happens all the time, Zoo.” Mangiapane’s tone became almost pleading. But it wasn’t Tully he was entreating. Fate? “Guys use a gun and then throw it. Somebody else uses it and dirows it, It happens all the time, Zoo.”
“I know. I know.”
“Besides, Zoo, the guy confessed. All by the book. I read him his rights and no sooner do I get done than he spills it about Helen. I mean, what do you want, Zoo?
Tully was meditative. “Yeah, that kind of bothers me too.”
“Huh?”
“I talked to the kid a while ago.” Tully consulted notes he’d made earlier in the morning. “David Reading, white, male, five-feet-seven, 168 pounds, high school dropout, no previous record.” He looked at Mangiapane. “Not a very intelligent young man, but able to read a newspaper. That’s one way he could have known about Helen’s murder: He read about it.”
“Zoo, he confessed!”
“Uh-uh. He didn’t know what kind of gun was used in the killing.”
“That’s not all that unusual, Zoo. Like you said, the kid’s not sharp. Just because he found a gun or bought it
