Выбрать главу

Charlie Broughan's squad at the 101st caught the squeal Broughan himself was on duty, and he went out at four in the morning, and talked to the r.m.p. men, and then walked into the empty lot where the body of the boy lay huddled against the fence. It was a bitter-cold night. Clothes stiff with frost hung on clotheslines stretched from a pole at one corner of the lot to various windows on the rear wall of the tenement behind the fence. The boy was wearing only trousers, socks, and a shirt. Two bullet holes were in the back of his head. He had either been shoeless when someone murdered him, or else his shoes had been stolen after he'd been killed. Broughan had been a cop for a long time, and he knew that killing someone for his shoes was not an impossibility in this part of the city. On the ground near the body he found two brass buttons with thread still clinging to them, and he assumed they had been torn loose from an article of clothing, probably some sort of jacket worn over the shirt. He bagged and tagged the buttons for transmittal to the lab.

A pack of wild dogs came into the lot while Broughan was working there. He did not fool around with them. He drew his pistol and killed first a German shepherd and then a huge brown-and-white-spotted mongrel. The four other dogs in the pack ran out of the lot, and Broughan got back to work looking for footprints, weapons, dropped personal articles, anything that would provide a start. When the medical examiner got through with the body, he went through the boy's pockets. He was not carrying any identification - another one, Broughan thought. He had a hunch at that point, and he asked the photographer to take a Polaroid of the boy's face, and he carried that back with him to the squadroom.

There were 2,117 photographs in Broughan's files on the street gangs of Riverhead. He had looked through 428 of them when he came across the one that matched the Polaroid shot of the murder victim. The back of the picture gave the boy's name as Jonathan Quince, and his address as 782 Waverly. The boy had been an affiliate of a gang known as the Yankee Rebels.

Broughan looked at the wall clock.

It was 5:20 A.M.

He called the squadroom of the 87th, and Detective Bob O'Brien answered the phone. Broughan identified himself, and then said, 'I got something that might interest Carella. Is he on?'

'Be in at about eight,' O'Brien said.

'Would you ask him to call me the minute he gets in?'

'Right.'

'Thanks.'

Broughan hung up, debated calling Carella at home, and decided he'd let him sleep. This would wait a few hours.

He hoped.

Jonathan Quince's mother was a woman in her forties - squat, amply bosomed, blue-eyed, graying. At eight-thirty that Monday morning, January 14, when Carella and Kling arrived, she was dressed and ready to leave for work downtown in the garment center. They identified themselves and were let into the apartment Mrs. Quince told them she hoped they'd make this fast, because it took twenty minutes to get to work by subway and she still hadn't had breakfast. She also hoped they wouldn't mind if she drank her coffee while they told her what the trouble was. She did not ask them if they'd care for a cup. Her son had been a member of a street gang, and they knew she'd had policemen up here before; her cordiality was somewhat forced, to say the least.

'Mrs. Quince,' Carella said, 'I'm sorry to have to be the one to bring you bad news, but…'

'Johnny,' she said immediately and flatly, the name catching somewhere at the back of her throat.

'Yes.'

'How bad is he hurt?'

'He's dead,' Carella said.

'No.'

Neither of the cops said anything,

'No,' Mrs. Quince said again.

'I'm sorry,' Carella said.

'How?'

'Someone shot him.'

'Who?'

'We don't know.'

'Those gangs,' she said, and shook her head. A glazed look had come over her eyes, her entire face looked suddenly numbed. 'I told him.'

'Mrs. Quince, do you know a girl named Margaret McNally?'

'Midge? Yes. Why? Did she have something to do with this? Was it a fight over her?'

'No, ma'am. She was killed on Thursday night, and we under—'

'Oh my God,' Mrs. Quince said. 'Oh my God, what's happening?'

'We understand she was your son's girl friend.'

Mrs. Quince did not answer. She was staring into her coffee cup as though hoping to find denial there.

'Mrs. Quince?'

'Yes,' she said blankly. 'She was his girl friend. Yes.'

'The possibility exists, Mrs. Quince, that their deaths are related. We're not quite sure what's going on yet, but…'

'Where is he?' she asked suddenly.

'Your son? At the morgue. Washington Hospital.'

'Are you sure it's him?'

'Yes, we're relatively certain. Detective Broughan whose case this is—'

'What do you mean? Isn't this your case?'

'Not officially. The detective who answers the complaint is normally assigned to the case.'

'Then how do you know it's Johnny?'

'Because Detective Broughan had a picture taken, and it matches a—'

'Pictures can lie.'

'—a picture in his files,' Carella concluded. 'We don't think there's been a mistake, Mrs. Quince. I'm sorry.'

'I want to go to the morgue,' she said. 'I want to make sure. I want to see for myself.'

'Of course.'

'I knew this would happen,' she said. 'Sooner or later, I knew it would happen.'

'What makes you say that?'

'From the time of the abortion, I knew this would happen.'

'What abortion? Can you tell us what you mean?'

'When Midge wanted to have the abortion, and they said no.'

'Who said no?'

'Johnny's gang. The boys in his gang. They said no, she couldn't have one. The kids came to me, they said they wanted to get married because the gang said Midge couldn't have the abortion. I refused. Midge was only fifteen, Johnny was seventeen at the time. How can you let two kids get married when they're so young? I told them I agreed with… whatever his name is… the one with the fake smile, the one's who's president. Put the baby up for adoption. I made a mistake. The kids never got over it. Both of them. And Johnny began having trouble with the gang from the minute Midge had the baby and put it up for adoption. I thought I was doing the right thing. They were such kids. How can you let two children get married. They didn't know, it's not easy, my own marriage… they didn't know. I was trying to help them. I made a mistake. I should have given them my blessings and told them to go ahead. Then maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe he'd have broken with the gang once and for all, and this wouldn't have happened.' She seemed to remember something terribly significant, and said with an air of surprise, 'Johnny's birthday was two weeks ago. He was just eighteen. I want to go to the hospital. I want to make sure it's him. I have to make sure. Do you see? Do you understand?'

'Yes, Mrs. Quince.'

'Because I have to make sure.'

'Mrs. Quince, I know you'd like us to catch whoever killed your son, and maybe you can help us do that.'

'Yes,' she said. Her voice was toneless. She seemed not to be listening.

'I'm going to tell you what we already know, and also what we believe. We know that Midge McNally was found dead in the woods off Highway 14 in Turman, across the river, early Friday morning. An eyewitness at the scene saw two boys wearing Yankee Rebel gang jackets, as well as a truck bearing the Yankee Rebel insignia on its door panels. We've since found the truck, abandoned, and we've also found the house in which we believe Midge was being held captive. It belongs to a woman named Martha Walsh, who's the aunt of a Yankee Rebel named Big Anthony.'