Irish Eyes (23 page)

“What were you doing during all this?” I asked.

“Screaming!” she said. “And Faheem he was screaming, ‘cause I scared him, I guess. I got down on the floor behind the register, and that’s when I remembered about the panic button. I pushed it, and then I was laying there, and I looked up, and he was behind the counter with me! He pointed the gun at me, and Faheem screamed, and then, I don’t know. Something happened. Like he changed his mind. He was gonna kill us, I just knew it. But he shook his head, then he pushed the button on the stockroom door and buzzed it and ran out.”

“He knew where the buzzer was to unlock the door?”

“Look like it to me,” she said, wiping at a tear with her little finger. “Something come over me after that. I was scared, but I wanted to see what happened, where that man went,” Deecie said. “I put Faheem down in his carrier and I ran into the stockroom too. The alley door was open, and I went over there and looked out. And that’s when I seen it.”

“What?”

“The truck. Big old white pickup truck. Parked there in the alley. Had the lights off, but when I peeked out, it started up and went racing out of there.”

“You know whose truck it was?” I asked.

“Pete’s,” she whispered. “It was Pete’s.”

P
ete Viatkos was there when Bucky was shot? The notion didn’t seem to work. Why would Viatkos stage a robbery at his own store and shoot an employee in the head, leaving another employee alive to testify against him?

“You said it was Pete’s truck? Was he driving it?”

“It was dark. I couldn’t see who was driving,” Deecie said. “But I know it was his truck. One of those really big ones, a Ford.”

“Like an F-10,” William put in. “That’s what that old Greek drives. A white Ford F-10. He used to park out front of the liquor store.”

“Is that why you took off with the money and the videotape?” I asked. “Because of Viatkos?”

“I never took no damn money,” Deecie said. “That’s a damn lie, if he said it. All I did was take the videotape and put it in Faheem’s diaper bag. I don’t know what made me take it, guess I was thinking about what Pete would do to me if I told. Anyway, who’d believe me? It don’t make sense.”

“What about the shooter?” I asked. “Could he have been Viatkos?”

“I don’t think so,” she said reluctantly. “The voice was different. And the guy who shot Bucky, he was bigger than Pete. And he was quick. Pete’s a old dude. He ain’t moving that fast.”

“Where’s the videotape?” I asked.

Deecie looked over at William, who shook his head side to side.

“Don’t even think about it. That’s our insurance policy,” William said craftily. “Ain’t nobody getting a look at that until we start talking about reward money.”

“Why’d you even call me?” I asked. “Why not call the cops and tell them your story?”

Deecie looked down at her sleeping son, her expression softening. “I heard you’d been ‘round, asking about me. The police been ‘round too, but they calling me a thief, tellin’ my aunt they gonna arrest me. And I ain’t done nothin’.”

“You’re going to have to trust somebody,” I said. “I can’t get you the reward money. You’ll have to talk to the cops. Tell them what you saw that night.”

“They gonna believe me and not Pete Viatkos?” she asked.

William snorted. “Yeah, and pigs can fly. That old dude’s best friends with half the cops in this town. Who’s gonna believe us?”

“I believe you.”

A little gurgling sound came from the playpen. We all looked. Faheem was sitting up, rubbing his eyes with balled-up fists. He yawned, then started to wail. Deecie stood and picked him up, hugging him to her, making little shushing sounds until he quieted down.

She looked over her son’s head at me. “We can’t be staying here much longer. My baby’s sick. It’s cold in here. William, he been doing the best he can, but we got to get out of here. Somebody finds out we’re staying here, ain’t no telling what could happen.”

William put a protective arm around her shoulder. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you. I ain’t gonna let it. I got my crew, we take care of things.”

“Your crew can’t prove Deecie didn’t steal that money,” I
pointed out. “And they can’t convince the police she saw what she saw. But I think I can.”

“How?” William demanded.

“I know the head of the homicide unit. Major Mackey. He was Bucky’s boss. He wants to find out who shot him. He wants the truth.”

“What about the money?” William asked. “When do we get the reward money?”

“The reward money depends on the police arresting and convicting the person responsible for shooting Bucky,” I said. “It’s very likely Deecie will have to give the police a sworn statement and testify in court.”

Deecie’s eyes widened in alarm. “Against Pete Viatkos?”

“You don’t know he was the shooter,” I said. “You don’t even know that was him driving the truck. But if you were to hand over that videotape, the police could get a better look at the shooter.”

Deecie stood there, swaying back and forth, making small clucking sounds to Faheem. “William?”

For the first time, he looked uncertain.

“I wanna go home, William,” Deecie said. “Let my baby sleep in his own crib. Get him his medicine.” She sounded tired.

William said, “You say you know this guy, the head man? And he’d be straight with us?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound convincing.

Deecie turned to him, her eyes pleading.

“All right,” William said. “You talk to the man. I’ll call you tonight, see what the deal is.”

“Tonight? That’s not enough time,” I said. “Another cop was killed last night. Every cop in the city is working that case. I don’t know if I can get to Major Mackey tonight, William. It might take a little more time.”

“Tomorrow,” Deecie said, deciding the matter. “Tomorrow is good enough. But no longer, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said. “But I’d have more leverage if you’d let me see the videotape.”

“We’ll call you tomorrow,” William said.

He put the bandana on me and helped me into the car. Or rather, the van. I could tell from the step up that we were getting into my pink van. We drove for another ten minutes or so, me masked, with my radio blaring.

I felt the van turning once, then again. He put it in park. I heard the driver’s side door open, then close. Then he was by my side, speaking into my ear.

“I’m leaving now. Five minutes, you can take that off. Don’t try to come looking for us. And don’t be messin’ us around. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

M
ackey’s face had aged a decade in just a few days. He was unshaven, his dress shirt rumpled, the necktie askew. Stacks of files littered his desk. He opened one and flipped through it as I played the audiotape of Deecie Styles.

He cocked his head at the mention of Pete Viatkos. “What the hell?”

“Keep listening,” I said.

He closed the file, picked up a pen, and started making notes as the rest of the tape played. When it reached the end, he pushed the “rewind” button and played it again.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Mackey scratched his chin with the end of the pen, pushed his chair away from the desk. “I think you should mind your own goddamn business.”

“They called me,” I said. “Should I have hung up? Insisted Deecie turn herself in to you? That’s a lot of crap and you know it, Major. You heard what the girl said. Pete Viatkos is a cop groupie. He’s got a lot of buddies in the department.”

“Not me,” Mackey insisted.

“Viatkos is involved in that shooting,” I said. “And he’s got helpers. We know that. Now we just need to know who.”

“Hell, I know what you think, Garrity. You think it was a cop shot Deavers. Lisa Dugan had a long talk with me after your little date with her. You shook her up pretty bad, you know that?”

“That wasn’t my intention at all,” I said. “I just want to get to the bottom of this thing.”

“What’s this crap about a gang of cops involved in holdups? This isn’t Chicago or New York, you know.”

“There are rumors,” I said carefully. “A string of robberies. All of them at ATM machines in the metro area. The victims are people trying to make sizable cash deposits. The pattern’s the same every time. They approach the ATM machine, usually late at night, and a masked gunman takes the cash at gunpoint. So far, no violence and no clues. You could check it out, you know.”

“I have checked it out,” Mackey said, grabbing a folder and opening it. “Total of seven armed robberies. Not all of them in Atlanta. East Point had one, College Park, Roswell, Smyrna.”

“What about the businesses who were the victims?” I asked. “Did you check to see if they employed off-duty cops in any capacity?”

“And why would I do that?”

“Just a theory,” I said pleasantly.

“I know all about your theories, and I resent the hell out of them,” Mackey said, his face flushing crimson. “Our guys are out there every day of the year, laying their lives on the line for people like you. They get dirt for pay, dick for respect, put up with crooked lawyers and judges, get jerked around by the politicians and their own department, and get shot at and shit on by the bad guys. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna start pointing the finger at my guys for some penny-ante stickup jobs.”

I was getting pretty worked up myself now. “People like me? What’s that supposed to mean, Major? Just because I’m a civilian I can’t look askance when I see police corruption? You resent it when I ask questions about ‘your boys’? Well, tough
shit. You forget I was a cop myself. These guys aren’t all blue angels, you know. Take a look at a piece of work like John Boylan. Instead of getting pissed off at me, why don’t you look at Boylan? How come he gets such plum security gigs? How much city time is he spending putting together these shindigs for this Shamrock Society of his? Ask yourself what kind of relationship he has with Pete Viatkos, why don’t you?”

Mackey stood up stiffly. “If you talk to those people again, tell them they’ll need to come in to see Captain Dugan. She’s in charge of that case. And we want that videotape. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you haven’t seen it and don’t have it. Otherwise, you could be charged with tampering with evidence. I’ve given you as much time as you’re going to get. Now I’ve got to talk to the chief about a funeral, then give a press conference. One of our men died yesterday, you know.”

“I told you I was sorry about that,” I said.

“Everybody’s sorry,” he said. “What about that tape? Are you going to leave it with me?”

“Depends on what you plan to do with it.”

His face darkened again. He put his hand out.

I hesitated, then popped the tape out of the player and gave it to him. I turned to leave.

“Just a minute,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder.

I stopped in my tracks, raised an eyebrow.

“There’s something I want you to see,” he said, gesturing toward his desk.

He rifled through a stack of manila envelopes on his desktop, opened one, pulled out some eight-by-ten color photos, frowned, and put them back. He did the same thing with three other envelopes until he found the one he wanted. He flipped through the photos, selected three, then placed them faceup on the desk.

“You think I’m being hard on you? Take a look at that.”

I looked down. The top photo showed a black leather jacket, the kind APD street officers wear. The jacket had been slit down the left side. A badge was prominent on the right side, a nightstick was lain across the jacket. An officer’s holster
and service weapon was displayed across the bottom of the composition. Small flecks of red dotted the jacket and badge.

“What’s this?”

“Crime scene photos. That’s Officer Sean Ragan’s uniform, the one he was wearing Saturday night when he was shot in the head,” Mackey said, his gray eyes watching mine. “They had to cut it off him in the emergency room, to see if he’d been hit anywhere else.”

I swallowed hard and flipped to the next photo. Gray rainstreaked pavement, small brass casings scattered about, each one accompanied by a large numbered marker. A rain-sodden rubber-banded package of dollar bills. And a smear of red that needed no marker.

“Keep going,” Mackey said.

I swallowed hard and turned to the next photo. A close-up of a man’s head, the skull swathed in gauze, eyes swollen and bruised, face discolored, a plastic tube protruding from the nose.

He thumped the photo with his index finger. For the first time I noticed he wore a ring on the right hand. A class ring with a colored stone. FBI Academy.

“Officer Sean Ragan,” Mackey said. “This was taken in the emergency room, right after he was pronounced. We took this just before his widow was brought into the room to say goodbye. They had to clean the body up before they let her in to see him.”

If Mackey was looking to get a reaction from me, he would be disappointed. I flipped back through the photos, to the first one.

“Ragan,” I said. “Is that an Irish name?”

“Get the hell out.”

Edna set the kitchen table with her big Blue Willow soup bowls, blue-checked napkins, and the recycled jelly jars she likes to use for iced tea. She leaned down and opened the oven door, bringing out a black iron skillet full of cornbread.

I lifted the lid of the kettle and dipped a strainer in to lift out the ham bone she’d used to flavor her eight-bean soup.

“What time did you tell C.W. and Linda to get here?” she asked, looking down at the cornbread. “You think I oughta put this back in the oven so it doesn’t get cold?”

“I told them to get here at seven-thirty, and it’s just now that time,” I said. “And no, the cornbread won’t get cold. You know how C. W. is about your cooking. When I told him you’d made soup, he was practically jumping for joy.”

The doorbell rang.

“Told you,” I said.

C. W. was carrying a bottle of red wine; Linda had a box of chocolate candy, which Edna put away in the pantry for “later.”

“Where’s Wash?” I asked.

“At my mama’s,” Linda said. “The two of them have a standing Sunday night date. Besides, I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be a kid’s kind of night.”