Jamaica Plain (9780738736396) (5 page)

seven

The desk sergeant
didn't
need to ignore Grant for effect this time. O'Rourke had his hands full with the throng of bodies milling around the reception counter. He was talking to a miniature Chinese man who could barely see over the desktop. A second officer was talking to an agitated woman. Everyone else was waiting their turn and didn't seem happy about it. The place was a madhouse.

The smell of smoke was even stronger in here than outside, obviously brought in on the clothes of Jamaica Plain's citizens. Grant didn't think that would carry much weight with O'Rourke. He'd seen at least three marked units parked along the street with smashed windscreens or replacement wheels, the originals presumably slashed during the disturbance. If BPD policy was anything like West Yorkshire Police, they wouldn't classify it as a riot until it was no longer newsworthy.

Grant's orange windcheater caught O'Rourke's eye.

Surprisingly, the grizzled desk sergeant jerked a thumb towards the side door, then pressed the button under the counter. The door lock buzzed open and the foreigner from across the pond took a step towards acceptance. He went through with a nod of thanks, then climbed the stairs in the clock tower. When he pushed the door marked Detectives open, the activity was no less frenetic but slightly more controlled. Telephones rang. People talked. Detectives took reports from disgruntled members of the public who had been filtered through from downstairs.

Miller was taking a report from a Hispanic with singed eyebrows.

Kincaid was talking on the phone.

This was not a good day to be interviewing a no-mark prisoner held as a courtesy for a foreign force. Grant already felt the futility of this entire visit. It was an exercise in cover-your-ass. Normally they would have simply asked the detaining force, the BPD, to perform a brief interview and fax a copy to Ecclesfield. Then the crime could be written off as undetected and Sullivan released. Cheap and easy. The only reason for this expensive variation was to protect the service by hiding the key figure in the Snake Pass debacle.

Police Constable Jim Grant.

Grant didn't like running and hiding. He preferred to face things head-on. He hadn't done anything wrong. It had been other
people's
mistake for underestimating him. The good guys won. The bad guys lost, big-time. That was a good scenario in Grant's book. Now this. It felt less like a holiday assignment and more like a slap on the wrist.

Well, if cover-your-ass was all they wanted, that's all they were going to get. He wanted this interview over and done with so he could go home and face the music. He wasn't the one who would come out of it looking bad.

Kincaid stopped talking and hung up the phone. The orange windcheater caught his attention, and he nodded towards the corridor. Grant got the message. There would be more privacy in the hallway than in the office today. He dropped the empty soda can he'd bought across the road in the bin and went outside. Kincaid burst through the door and kept on walking along the corridor and round the corner.

Grant felt his hackles rise but controlled his temper.

He found Kincaid drinking from a paper cup at the water cooler just beyond the stairwell door. The second corridor was longer, with more offices along the left and more windows along the right. The windows overlooked the front of the station. The damaged patrol cars were parked directly below. That put things in perspective, but Grant was still annoyed at being blanked by the senior detective. “What's up? Somebody burn the barbecue?”

Kincaid stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth. “Don't push your luck.”

Grant indicated the damaged cars through the window. “Anybody hurt?”

Meaning officers, not citizens. Kincaid understood. It was the first thing any cop asked after the shit hit the fan. Check on your colleagues first. There was no less concern for the victims, but if the cops got injured, they couldn't prevent it happening to anyone else. Grant's first sergeant had told him, after graduating from driving school, that driving fast with blue lights and sirens was okay, but you still had to drive safely because you couldn't help who you were speeding to help if you ploughed your car into a tree. Same principle here. Kincaid's demeanor softened. “Two. Minor injuries. Band-aid, then back on duty.”

“Good.”

“The only fucking thing that is.”

“That's the job. Shit rolls downhill. Cops live in the valley.”

“Is that some quaint English folk saying? 'Cause if it is, I'm not surprised every fucker left to discover America.”

“That'd be Columbus. He wasn't English.”

“Whatever. Probably had a bit of Irish in him. Thick Mick thought he'd discovered India. Should have sent the rest of Ireland to Delhi.”

“Yeah. But where would the Boston Mafia be without the Irish?”

“You've been watching too many movies. Every fucking cop show, there are shootouts like it's the OK Corral. Me? Never drawn my weapon in fifteen years. Boston Mafia? I've shit 'em.”

Despite having just finished a soda, Grant filled a paper cup from the cooler. “If that's the case, how come Whitey Bulger was number two on the FBI's most wanted?”

“Frank was number two? Who was number one?”

“Bin Laden. With all your OK Corrals, look how long it took you to catch either one of them.”

“Fuck you. With all your Peelers, you haven't caught Jack the Ripper yet.”

Grant laughed. “Touché.”

He held his cup up and Kincaid tapped it with his. They both took a drink of cold, clear water. Kincaid calmed down a notch. “JP's got vehicle B&Es going through the roof, here and West Roxbury. The mayor's vowed to reduce crime, so we've got to get the figures down. Best way to do that is catch the little bastards or cook the figures. Trying to put together intelligence on the two we think it is, and what happens? Half the Irish population decides to square off and ruin my fucking day.”

“Welcome to happy valley.”

“Fuckin' shit-wankin' motherfuckers.”

The corridor fell silent. Grant waited a few seconds. “Feel better?”

“Much. What can I do for you today?”

“You know what. Cells are going to be heaving. Custody sergeant might need a bit of a nudge to let me use an interview room. I think you're pretty good with the nudge.”

Kincaid finished his water and screwed the paper cup into a ball. With the expression on his face, he looked just like Robert Shaw in
Jaws
. Grant was no Richard Dreyfuss, but not to be outdone he crushed his cup too. “We're not going to be showing off war wounds now, are we?”

“Thought you were a typist.”

“Even war zones need typists. Got a nasty paper cut once.”

“Don't show me. I might faint.”

They threw their paper cups into the waste bin together. A dead heat. Pissing contest for today was a draw. Honors even. Kincaid headed back along the corridor to the stairs. “I'd better come down with you. O'Rourke's a pussy compared to Rooney.”

Grant followed. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

If the front office
was busy
, then the custody area was bedlam. This wasn't helped by the fact that JP's prisoner facility was only intended for overnight detainees and minor infringements. Public disturbance was only a minor infringement until you multiplied it by ten. Throw in damage, arson, and assault, and it got busy real quick.

Grant felt right at home. Apart from the village cop shop, all police stations were basically the same. The differences were merely cosmetic. They all had a public front counter. They all had a report- writing room for uniform patrol. Most had a CID/detectives office, and all had admin offices that trumped all of the above. When it came to the cell area, the differences were even more similar. British police, military police, American police—it was only the color scheme and the accents that changed. Everything else remained the same.

Cells for the miscreants, the number depending on the size of the station. Livescan machine for fingerprinting the miscreants; ink and paper in the less affluent forces. Charge desk and booking-in counter, the same counter in most cell areas. And one man in charge of it all. The custody sergeant, or whatever they called him here in the Boston Police Department.

What they called him here was Sergeant Rooney. “Get dem feckers out da way. Move along, people. This ain't a Saint Patrick's Day parade.”

There wasn't a hint of American in the accent. Grant could feel another Bunker Hill moment coming. He might as well be trying to interview a prisoner in Northern Ireland—or southern Ireland at a pinch. The feckers Rooney was referring to were two prisoners being given back their property in a plastic bag. They'd just signed the custody record and were trying to tear open the seal. A single uniform cop countersigned the receipt. It was tough luck if the prisoners wanted to check their property first. Grant didn't think Rooney was the patient type.

“Feck off, the lot of yer. Out the door before I decide to keep yer for court.”

The prisoners gave up on the bags and were hustled towards a heavy door to the backyard. It slammed shut behind them, and two more were free. The conveyer belt wheeled out another one who had just been fingerprinted and photographed.

Kincaid handed his firearm to a detention officer behind the counter, who secured it in a network of small, square lockers and gave Kincaid a numbered tag. The big detective waved a hand at Grant in a give-it-to-me gesture. Grant shook his head and held his hands out, palms upwards. Kincaid looked surprised. “No sidearm?”

“I hate guns. Back home we use kind words and CS spray.”

“CS spray?”

“Like aerosol mace.”

“English cops are unarmed?”

“I've got a side-handled baton and a stab vest back home.”

“But no guns?”

Grant shook his head. “Frontline bobbies don't carry firearms. If we turn up at something where there's guns, we call for backup and they deploy an armed response vehicle. They carry the guns.”

“But you're firearms trained, right? Being in the army and all.”

“I was a typist. Had no use for guns.”

Sergeant Rooney overheard the exchange and came over. “Feckin' Jesus. No wonder we tanned the English at Bunker Hill.”

Grant ignored the jibe.

Rooney did not. “You must be our English guest. Hard to miss you in that gay cavalier orange.”

“That's the idea. Not the gay part.”

“Not sure about that. A man that don't like guns in a country that loves 'em.”

“Crooks shoot at cops because they know you're going to shoot at them. Best way to avoid getting shot is hold your arms out and wear an orange jacket.”

Rooney glanced at Kincaid like he'd got shit on his shoe. “Must be the training page that got torn out—by the last man tried to tackle an armed robber with a kind word and his dick in his hand.”

“Dick in his hand would make him a wanker. Maybe that's why he got shot.”

“A philosophizing Yorkshireman. I've seen everything now.”

Kincaid leaned against the counter and jerked a thumb at Grant. Rooney leaned on the opposite side like two conspirators plotting an explosives night. Guy Fawkes in the modern age.

“This Yorkshireman's ready to clear you some space.”

“Sullivan? That foaming little shit.”

“Exactly. Quick interview and kick him out. You can charge him with soap theft if you want.”

Rooney waved a hand around the room with a frown that bordered on comical. “You seen it around here? Not a chance of an interview room until tonight at the earliest. Maybe even tomorrow.”

Grant was losing patience. He knew it was busy. He'd done busy in the past and knew what it was like. The difference was that he'd always look for ways to help get it less busy, not put obstacles in the way. This whole Anglo-Irish debate was wearing pretty thin. They were all cops together in his book. Not as if he was a firefighter—he could understand the rivalry there. “What about the one out in reception?”

Kincaid and Rooney turned to him as if an unwanted child had spoken. Grant felt as welcome as a fart in the bath. The bubbles settled. Rooney found his voice first. “That interview room is for witnesses and visitors only.”

“I am a visitor.”

“Sullivan is a prisoner. Prisoners can't go out to an insecure interview room.”

“He's getting released as soon as I've finished.”

“But not before. Until then he's a prisoner and cannot be interviewed in an insecure room.”

Grant noticed that the Oirish had left Rooney's delivery. He reckoned it had been laid on thick for the Englishman. For a veteran sergeant he was beginning to sound like a jobsworth to Grant. “Look. You want him gone. I want him interviewed. Win-win situation.”

“Not if he absconds during the interview and I'm stuck with his bag of shit.”

“Give him his shit back first.”

“Can't do that while he's still a prisoner.”

“Release him first then.”

“You can't interview him unless he is in custody.”

“Fuck me. No wonder the Irish left Ireland. Who could live with a philosophy like that?”

“Be careful now, lad.”

“Go fuck yourself with a sporran.”

Kincaid stepped back, out of the firing line. Rooney beetled his brows. “How about tossing your caber—right out the feckin' door.”

“Do Irish toss the caber? Thought that was Scottish.”

“Sporrans or cabers. You're gone or dead meat.”

This pissing contest was getting out of hand. Kincaid poured oil on troubled water. He stepped back in and lightened the tone. “Come on, girls. We don't want this to end up as handbags at dawn. Maybe some creative bookkeeping is called for here. What do you say?”

What Rooney said was, “Okay.” Leading to him to nearly being right. In forty-five minutes Grant was almost dead meat.