I shrugged. ‘Guess I’ll be leaving now.’
‘Wise decision,’ Bromfield said.
Henry slapped bat against palm again. He needed a new writer. Bad.
I was plum out of smart lines to accompany my retreat. All I did was shrug, turn around and head for the front door.
And hope that Bromfield — who’d been damned convincing, come to think of it — would join me down the block where I’d parked.
The chill rain was little more than a drizzle now.
The ancient ruins of the deserted buildings on both sides of the street lent the night a feeling of despair. Their lives were over and soon enough they would be utterly gone, like the people who had filled them with the day-to-day joys and sorrows of life.
I leaned against my car waiting for Bromfield to show up. I might be waiting forever if he’d decided helping me out would lead to trouble for him. Maybe serious trouble.
I watched the way the raindrops sparkled off the metal hoods of the old streetlamps. They were having a much better time than I was.
He pulled up behind me with his headlights off. Now he wore a black-hooded rain jacket. The hood was pulled so far up I couldn’t see much of his face.
‘Henry’s going to use that ball bat on you next time you go in there.’
‘No “next time” for me. I know when my luck’s tapped out.’
‘This could be real deep shit for me, Conrad. You got a question, you better ask it, and fast.’
‘You notice anything different about Showalter’s behavior the last day or so?’
He’d managed to cup his hand around a cigarette and light it. Two cars splashed by but the puddles were thin and they weren’t going fast.
‘How’d you know about that?’
‘I may be onto something. My guess is he’s acting pretty strange. Preoccupied.’
‘He’s yelling at us a lot, something he doesn’t do very often. Oh, and this afternoon I guess he caught Karen Foster in his office. He was supposed to be testifying in court most of the afternoon and came back early. I hear you know Karen.’
Heartburn and a queasy feeling in my lower stomach. ‘Yeah. I know Karen.’
‘Showalter sure didn’t like that. You and her, I mean.’
She had pushed it too far. It hadn’t been bright, sneaking into his office that way.
‘The secretary had this dental appointment. I guess she must have thought it was safe.’
‘How did it end up?’
‘The secretary got back just in time to hear her scream at him that she was resigning. Then she walked straight out of the station.’
‘You happen to see or hear from her?’
‘Nah. We’re not big buds or anything. But I’ll tell you one thing. She’s the smartest person in the whole place.’
We both heard it down the block. The front door of Batter Up opening and a small flood of people laughing boozily, coming out into the night.
‘I gotta get out of here.’
‘You got a cell phone I could call you on if I needed to?’
‘For what?’
‘Could you use two hundred dollars?’
‘Are you kidding? You know the kind of shit salary a cop in this town makes?’
He got two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and I got a cell number.
Part Four
Thirty-Four
Except for when my father died, I’d never been in a hospital this late at night. The front part, not the ER.
So quiet. And no medicinal smells whatsoever. Enormous photographs of medical giants down the centuries hung from the lobby walls, which had been refurbished. The expensive, comfortable furnishings were new, as was the large glassed-in office with ADMISSIONS on the door where a lone woman was busy working on her computer. She heard me approach and looked up with a smile. ‘Good evening.’
‘Hi. I’m just here checking up on a friend of mine.’
‘Oh?’
‘Karen Foster.’
‘Oh. Miss Foster.’ The smile remained but the voice bore a hint of concern. ‘She’s been in surgery for the past three hours. I’m afraid she still is.’
‘The radio said she was in critical condition.’
‘I’m afraid she is.’ She was an attractive woman, probably in her early fifties. The gray-streaked hair in a tight bun, the inexpensive gray suit still well chosen and well suited to her upper body.
‘I know she doesn’t have any relatives in town. Has anybody asked about her?’
‘Well, there’s an annoying reporter who calls every twenty minutes.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘Not “inquiring” about her as such. But the night supervisor told me that two police officers are standing outside the surgery room and were outside her room on the fourth floor.’
With absolutely no proof but well-grounded suspicion, I played out a quick scenario. A Showalter cop follows her up into the hills after she leaves the office. The dark. The rain. Slams into her hard enough to push her off the road. The descent was supposed to be violent enough to kill her. But she didn’t have the decency to die. Showalter had to be afraid now. If she could survive she could talk. And even if nobody believed her, she would be able — and willing now — to tell the story about Showalter and his bank-robbing patriotic cops.
Showalter was not going to let that happen.
‘Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Did I see you on TV the other night talking about Congresswoman Bradshaw?’
‘Yes, you did. My name’s Dev Conrad. I’m her campaign manager.’
‘Both my daughter and I are volunteers. I do what I can with the hours I have but my daughter goes to her campaign headquarters right after school three or four days a week.’ Then, ‘I think she’s still going to win. My husband worked at a place that Dorsey owned. Terrible place. They held out for better wages and better working conditions and he pulled a lockout. Fired them all, across the board, even some of them who’d been there thirty years, long before he’d bought it.’
‘He’s a piece of work.’
‘He was behind that fake shooting attempt, wasn’t he?’
She answered my smile with her own.
‘You’re not going to say it out loud but I know you believe it, too.’
I was thinking about Karen’s car. Specifically the rear bumper. ‘Do you know where they take cars that have been pretty badly damaged after an accident like Karen’s?’
‘Well, the towing company’s name is Watson’s Garage. He gets all the police business because his uncle is a friend of Chief Showalter’s. I suppose that’s where it is. That’s three blocks east of the station.’
‘You’ve been very helpful, thanks.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘Would you mind if I called in a little while to check on Karen’s condition?’
‘I’ll be happy to help you but I’d give it another hour at least.’
‘Thanks again.’
I walked back out into the rain. I started my car but didn’t put it in gear. I just sat there continuing to go over the little information the radio story had divulged at some length.
Sometime just after dusk, Karen’s car had skidded off a narrow road up on top of one of those steep limestone cliffs in the eastern rural part of the town. A passerby had noticed a stray beam of light angling up from the creek far below the cliff. He’d gotten out of the car to see what had happened and inched his way down in the stinging downpour. He’d related all this to the reporter in excited tones. The car had been crushed in on itself from rolling over two or three times. He said he’d seen a woman trapped inside. There was no way he could extract her. He’d brought a flashlight with him. From what he could see of her bloody face, he’d assumed she was dead. He’d called 911. They’d needed the jaws of life to extract her. He’d been surprised to hear the ambulance tech say she was still alive.