Past Imperfect (Sigrid Harald) (33 page)

“Shut up!” he screamed. “Vaughn!”

I lay motionless in the shadows, only the edge of my black face exposed. I had him in my sights, less than thirty feet away, but I was afraid to risk it. I do okay on a firing range, but lying flat like that, he presented almost no target; just his head next to hers. And even if I hit him, reflexive spasms were bound to pull his trigger.

“You can’t kill us all, Bernie,” she gasped. “Who’s next? Eberstadt? Your wife? You think they never noticed you carry a drop gun? Will Pam lie when they come around to check on your alibi?”

Peters yanked her hair so hard that her body arched backward and she cried out with the pain.

“You say one more word, bitch, and I swear to God it’ll be your last. Bitches and niggers screwing up the job, screwing me—”

In one fluid motion, he pulled her in front of him and dropped to the rooftop. She was a good two inches taller and to maintain his grasp on her short hair, he had her head tilted back till her face was almost pointed up to the heavy sky. Lights reflected off the clouds in a brownish pink glow. He pushed her toward the door and kept his body so close there wasn’t a prayer in hell for me to miss her. My gun was almost quivering I was so damn frustrated.

Another few steps and he’d be inside the door and on his way down and there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do about it unless I could get a clear shot from the busted skylight, but the risk—

At that moment, Jerry the Canary popped up from behind the far skylight and gave that lunatic, “Oo-oo-oo-EH-oh! Oo-oo-oo-EH-oh! Eh-eh-eh-eh!”

Instinctively, Peters swung to fire in that direction, and just as instinctively I squeezed off three shots at the broad target he’d given me.

They went down together as if poleaxed.

I rushed over and kicked away the gun. “Hey, Lieutenant, you okay? Lieutenant?”

She groaned. “Oh, God, my head!”

The guy’s fingers were still wrapped in her hair. I pried them open and untangled her hair, and she twisted around to look at him. “Peters!”

He lay on his back. The front of his dark jacket was even darker with a wet stain as blood soaked through. His eyes opened. Focused on our faces over his. “Bitch,” he gasped. “Nig—”

And that was it.

The Canary crept over to us, chirping and tweeting forlornly.

Harald sat there on the cold rooftop while I went down and called for help. And she sat there till the crime scene unit made it down from the Bronx. Someone brought a blanket and she let them drape it around her, but she didn’t move away from Peters’s body till they told her she was hampering their work. Even then, she wouldn’t leave the roof until they carried him away. She didn’t make a big scene about it. No sobs, no break in her voice when she told her version of events first to McKinnon, who arrived with the precinct boys, and again to Rawson, who’d heard it on his scanner and rushed down. But she couldn’t seem to stop the tears that streamed from her eyes whenever she looked over at Peters’s still form under Forensic’s portable floods.

Three dead because a cop couldn’t resist the temptation of grabbing some of that easy drug money. A new widow out in Woodhaven with three fatherless kids now. A partner who’d suspected and had called in sick or looked the other way because he didn’t want to know for sure. And Harald and me left to spend the rest of our lives wondering if things would have turned out differently if we’d thought to look up instead of down when we first went out on the roof.

No more pop psychology. They’d send us both to real psychiatrists over this. S.O.P. these days, Rawson reminded us.

“And a good thing, too,” McKinnon growled. “Come on,” he told Harald at last. “I’ll drive you home.”

“Not home.” She looked as exhausted as I felt, but she handed someone the blanket and said to McKinnon, “To Mother’s.”

That surprised me. She hadn’t struck me as anyone with a mother to run home to. Must’ve surprised McKinnon, too, because I heard him say, “You sure, Sigrid?”

She was already moving into the stairwell, so I didn’t get her answer, but McKinnon had an odd look on his face.

Almost like he was afraid.

Which was crazy now that everything was over.

END