Lieberman's Choice (8 page)

“Later,” he said.

She nodded as if he had said something of great importance and then fell silent.

“He couldn't help it,” she said finally, her eyes moist.

Hanrahan wasn't sure whether she was talking about Shepard or her husband.

“Yes,” he said, now wanting that water.

“I knew he … I knew about the women,” she said. “Andy stayed in shape. He went to college. Bachelor's degree in political science. I've got the degree on the wall in our room.”

She started to rise.

“I believe you.”

Connie Beeton sank back on the chair and looked at him.

“I think I'd like that water you offered,” he said.

“I'm so sorry.”

She leaped up and moved to the open door to the kitchen. He watched the Navahos and wondered what they were looking at as he heard the refrigerator door open and then the clunk of ice cubes.

“Mineral water,” she said, hurrying back into the room.

“Thanks.”

He took the glass and sipped; she went back to her chair and watched him as if his opinion of her water were of great importance.

The water was carbonated. Hanrahan hated carbonated water.

“Very good,” he said with a smile.

“I loved him,” she said. “Does it embarrass you for me to say that?”

“No,” he said.

“He wasn't a bad man,” she said.

“He was a fine police officer,” said Hanrahan, forcing himself to take another drink.

A key scratched in the front door and Hanrahan stood up and faced it. The door opened and a woman about the same size and build as Connie entered the house. She looked at Hanrahan and then at Connie Beeton, who rushed to her arms.

Hanrahan looked into the eyes of the dark mother as she hugged her sobbing daughter, and he recognized her face. He turned back to the painting of the Navahos on the desert and knew that he was right.

“I'll be going,” he said.

The dark mother nodded and closed her eyes, and without knowing why he felt better than he had in a long time.

It was now officially labeled Operation Seven. The name had been chosen by Chief of Police Hartz after much thought and concentration. He had first considered giving the operation a color, Operation Red. No, red suggested blood. Blue, yellow? Certainly not yellow. Every color had a connotation. Names were no better. Operation Tower? Gave it too much importance. Operation Rogue? Shepard? Use the name of the street? Hartz settled on a number which, he hoped, had no meaning. Operation Seven.

The apartment of Jason Belding, DDS, which was now the operational command post of Operation Seven, had been transformed into an efficient, if somewhat messy, headquarters. “Somewhat messy” was a relative description. The furniture had been moved out of the way, used as convenient places to dump and pile. The kitchen was a place to stack half-finished cartons of coffee, Big Gulps of Coke, and Burger King bags.

At the moment, in what had a few hours ago been a living room, two men were checking their pampered portable television camera and sound equipment on the white living room carpet while Janice Giles memorized a list of questions in her notebook. Kevorkian had told her to get up there, get her questions asked, and get back downstairs on the remote. They had considered a live news break-in but decided against it. It would look too much like they were risking Janice's life. After the fact, when she was safe, that was a different story.

She could push it a little but not much. There just wasn't enough time if they were going to make the noon news. Kevorkian had also held out the possibility that the network might want to take the feed if it turned out to be good. Janice Giles intended to make it good.

When Alan Kearney came through the door, she moved toward him quickly.

“Captain Kearney,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Miss Giles,” Kearney said, taking it.

“Can we interview you on the street rather than in here before we go talk to Shepard?” she said.

Kearney released her hand and shook his head.

“You're giving me a choice,” he said, walking past the cameraman and the sound man, who were up and ready. “I like that. You don't give me the option of saying no. Good bargaining technique. We use it a lot.”

“Okay,” Janice Giles said with her most winning you-caught-me smile, “will you talk to me on camera?”

“No,” said Kearney, walking to the window and looking up at the tower.

“Chief Hartz …” she began.

“… isn't here,” said Kearney, still looking out of the window. “The man you're planning to talk to up there blew away his wife and a fellow officer a few hours ago. He has the gun he used and, we think, some weapons that can reduce you and your crew to a small rag and a spot of blood. You're here because Shepard wants to talk to you and we want to know what's on his mind.”

Janice Giles, dressed in a green suit with a white silk blouse and costume pearl necklace, folded her arms and looked at Craddock, her cameraman, and Nowitz, the sound man. She indicated by her silent sigh that they all knew what was coming next. Craddock, a compact man in a blue short-sleeve pullover, was a year away from his thirtieth birthday. He thought he had seen it all. He closed his eyes to indicate to Janice that he too knew what was coming. Nowitz, however, had been at this for thirty years and didn't give a damn either way.

“And,” said Janice Giles, “you want to look at the interview before we broadcast it. You want to censor the press.”

Kearney started to speak, but she stopped him with a long-fingered hand.

“No, I take that back. You want to see the tape and then decide if you need to censor it.”

“Through?” asked Kearney, trying to find a lopsided smile.

“For the moment,” said Giles.

There was much about her that reminded Kearney of Carla Duvier. The thin model's figure with the perfect breasts, the pride. The way she looked at him, unblinking, determined, expecting to get her way, a blond daytime version of his dark fiancée.

Craddock and Nowitz had been through this before. Nowitz left his equipment on the rug and moved to the kitchen. Craddock plopped into a white chair, looking bored.

“You're not gonna get an issue here, Miss Giles,” Kearney said. “No one is going to stop you or try to stop you from broadcasting whatever you damn please. If I tried, if Hartz tried, the mayor would rip our hearts out and make us clean up the blood.”

“Colorful and graphic, but not original,” said Giles, allowing just the touch of annoyance to curl her rather full lips into a near pout.

“You go up on that roof and you might come down in a bag,” said Kearney. “That's not original either. You can point that out when they zip up your cameraman's body bag.”

“I don't think Shepard wants to hurt me. I think he wants to use me,” she said as Kearney took a step toward her.

“And you want to use him,” said Kearney.

“Yes,” she said. “That's my job.”

“The people's right to know. They'll all be better-informed, responsible citizens if they have a little gore with their microwave dinners, right?”

Giles wanted to look at her watch but held back. She settled for a near whisper. “Wrong. I'm in the entertainment business. That man up there is worth ratings and a few minutes of entertainment. I didn't make it this way, but I can't say I don't enjoy my work. There are stories where I think I can do some good. Not many but a few. And not this one. Now I've got a question for you, Captain. Off the record. Are you a cop because you want to save the world?”

“You've got a point,” said Kearney.

“Thanks.”

“Okay,” said Kearney. “You go up on the roof and you get your story, but we have one condition. Your sound man will be replaced by one of our men who Shepard doesn't know.”

Nowitz, a sandwich of something in his hand, wandered back in from the kitchen and shouted, “No way. No fucking way.”

“Forget it, Kearney,” said Janice Giles.

The door to the apartment opened while Giles and Kearney looked at each other, Nowitz looked from one to the other, and Craddock looked as if he were falling asleep. Hanrahan stepped through the front door, read the scene, and stopped, waiting. Kearney shrugged.

“Then,” he said, “we forget it.”

“Chief Hartz …,” Janice Giles began.

“Miss Giles, it's his idea.”

“It's bullshit,” shouted Nowitz, putting the sandwich down on one of the embroidered white dining room chairs of Jason Belding, DDS.

“Let me get this straight,” said Giles. “And for the record, Captain. You plan to have some cop go up on that roof pretending he's a sound man and then pull out a gun and shoot Officer Shepard.”

“If the opportunity presents itself,” said Kearney;

Giles looked at Craddock, whose eyes were completely closed, and then at Hanrahan, who seemed to be preoccupied with finding something in his teeth with his tongue. Nowitz, however, was properly incensed.

“Isn't that putting me and my cameraman in danger?” Janice Giles said. “Shepard could …”

“He could anyway,” said Kearney. “Our man doesn't shoot unless he has to. And if he does, you've got it all on tape for the news at noon. Take it or …”

“Your man won't know how to use our equipment,” Giles said.

“He's a former movie technician,” said Kearney. “Worked on a Chuck Norris and an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.”

“Wait a minute,” Nowitz bleated, looking at Craddock for support. Craddock didn't even bother to shrug.

“He'll wait till I get my interview before he starts anything?” she asked, ignoring Nowitz.

Kearney nodded in agreement.

“Hold it. Hold it. Hold it,” said Nowitz. “Giles, you dumb bitch. He's hanging you out. Who's gonna trust you after this? Your word won't be worth shit.”

“Is this settled?” asked Craddock, opening his eyes and looking from Janice Giles to Alan Kearney.

“Ask the lady,” said Kearney.

“It's settled,” she said. And then she turned to Nowitz.

“Norman, let's go in the other room and talk.”

Nowitz moved to the kitchen door and kicked it open. Janice Giles followed him and Craddock went after them leaving Hanrahan and Kearney alone.

“You talked to Beeton's wife?”

“Yeah.”

Kearney opened his mouth to say more, but the look on Hanrahan's face stopped him.

“Lieberman back?” Kearney asked.

“Querez wanted him at the North,” said Hanrahan. “Some kind of gang business. Emergency.”

“I'd call this an emergency, wouldn't you, Sergeant?” asked Kearney.

“Sergeant Lieberman'll get here as fast as he can,” said Hanrahan.

Kearney looked back at the window.

“Hartz may just get that lady killed,” said Hanrahan.

Kearney looked back at Hanrahan.

“Sergeant, between you and me, Chief Hartz … Forget it. Is Ballentine out there?”

“He's out there.”

“You're sure Bernie never met him?”

“Ballentine says no. Just got on the force three weeks ago. Came from Houston,” said Hanrahan looking at the kitchen door. There was a sizable footprint where Nowitz had kicked it. “He knows nothing about sound equipment. Doesn't even do home movies.”

“It won't get that far,” said Kearney.

“You're hoping, Captain.”

“I'm praying, Sergeant.”

“You think Ballentine has a shot in hell?”

“You got a way with words, Sergeant,” said Kearney, knowing both he and Hanrahan thought Chief of Police Hartz was a major league asshole.

On the roof of the Shoreham Towers, Bernie Shepard took a drink from his canteen and poured some water into a cup for the dog. The dog drank carefully but noisily. When the knock came at the steel door, the cup was almost empty. The dog knocked it over with his nose and came up ready.

Shepard stood, cradled his shotgun, glanced around to be sure no helicopter was on the horizon, and moved to the door, the dog at his heels.

When the second knock came, Shepard called out, “Talk.”

“Channel Four's here, Bernie,” Abe Lieberman said. “Janice Giles, a cameraman, and a sound man.”

Lieberman had made it back to the Shoreham just as Kearney was leading the crew into the lobby. He had pulled Kearney off to the side to tell him of a way they might want to consider for getting Bernie Shepard off the roof. Kearney said he would pass it on to Hartz. Then Lieberman had added, “I'm looking forward to a peaceful, happy retirement, spring in Scottsdale with the Cubs, winter in Georgia.”

“I'm glad to hear that, Sergeant,” Kearney had said impatiently.

“I'll risk it by giving some advice, Captain,” said Lieberman. “I hear we've got a man going up there in place of one of the Channel Four crew.”

“You hear right, Sergeant,” said Kearney. “Let's hear your advice.”

“Don't do it. Someone will get hurt. Maybe Shepard. Maybe a lot of people.”

“I think you're right, Sergeant,” whispered Kearney, “but there isn't a goddamn chance in hell I'd admit it. This is the way Hartz wants it. It's probably the way the mayor wants it.”

Kearney moved past Lieberman and strode to the elevator.

“Worth it?” asked Hanrahan as Lieberman joined him, the last two on the elevator.

“Father Murphy, it was eating me. I had to get it out.”

“Like confession, Rabbi,” Hanrahan whispered, standing alongside Janice Giles. “Good for the soul. Haven't seen it do much for the body.”

“You are in a grotesquely jovial mood, Sergeant.”

“What do you know about Navahos?” Hanrahan had answered.

Now on the narrow stairway beyond the door, their bodies huddled in the near darkness, Lieberman, Hanrahan, Giles, Craddock, and Ballentine stood ready. At the foot of the stairs stood the brooding Nowitz and an armed and uniformed SWAT sniper, his rifle held ready but not pointed up the stairwell where the five people stood waiting for Shepard.