She seemed to freeze a moment, then her face bunched up and she came at me, flying across the room like an enraged panther. Caught off guard, I braced myself for the worst.
But Budd Sheeney knew his people. Just as I was raising my hands to defend myself, Sheeney’s massive bulk cut across my line of vision, enveloping Corcoran’s body and whisking it away like a gust of wind might a leaf. They both landed with a tremendous crash against a side table, a tangle of arms and legs, wrestling and rolling on the floor until Sheeney was able to pin her face down and pull her arms up behind her back. Willy and J.P. appeared at separate doors, guns drawn, just as Budd was slapping on the cuffs, comfortably sitting on her muscular backside.
I squatted by her head. Her nostrils flaring, she sent up little puffs of dust from the floor with her breathing. “You assholes.”
“Talk to us, Sandy. We got you on attempted assault. Won’t be long before there’s more, including murder. I can’t believe it’s worth it.”
She closed her eyes briefly. When she reopened them, her voice was calm and measured. “If he’s finished enjoying himself, get this ape off my butt and help me up.”
Sheeney did the honors, smiling broadly, and steered Sandy Corcoran over to the couch, checking its cushions first for weapons. She sat down with a wince, her hands pinched against her back. I settled opposite her on the coffee table. “Your choice.”
She stared at me angrily. “He was here, but I had nothin’ to do with killin’ him.”
“Who did?”
She hesitated. “Walter Freund.”
I felt a small release valve open up inside my brain, and I fought the urge to smile, helped by a sudden concern. “You know where he is now?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since that night. That was the deal. I didn’t want any more to do with his bullshit.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Take the cuffs off.”
Sheeney laughed. “Not likely.”
She flared back up. “I’m cooperating, all right? My wrists’re killin’ me. I already said I know what happened.”
I glanced at Sheeney and nodded. He crossed over to her, reached behind her back, and undid the cuffs. She made herself more comfortable, rubbing her wrists. “Walter called me one night and said he needed to stash somebody for a while. We did each other favors now and then. The timing was okay, so I said fine. He shows up with this guy. His face is all red and puffed up and kind of slimy in places. His hands, too. It was disgusting. I told Walter to fuck off-that I wasn’t no hospital. I thought it might be catching-all this shit you hear about in the news.”
“Did it look like Walter was helping this man, or forcing him to be here?”
“He was helping him. The guy was hurtin’, and complaining about some son of a bitch who’d done it to him. Walter told me he’d been splashed with chemicals. They’d even raided a Salvation Army bin to replace his clothes. He looked like a bum.”
“The son of a bitch have a name?”
She smiled slightly. “That was it, far as I heard. What were those chemicals anyhow? I always wondered.”
I ignored her. “Was Resnick threatening to get even?”
“He was pissed, all right. But he was too sick to do much about it.”
“Was there any indication of where Resnick had been staying before Walter brought him to you?”
She looked at me curiously. “Before? I don’t know anything about that.”
“How did Walter get you to change your mind?”
She laughed. “He doubled the price. Plus he told me it wasn’t catching. The damage had already been done.”
“What happened then?”
“Nothing at first. He stayed here a couple of days, tried to take care of himself. I don’t know ’cause I was at work.”
“Did he use the phone?”
“That would’ve been a neat trick. I don’t have one.”
“What kind of shape was he in?” I pressed her. “Did you think he was going to die?”
Her eyes grew round. “Shit, no. He was burned, is all, like with scalding water or something. It hurt like a bitch. I did buy him some ointment I got at the store. He used a ton of that stuff, and either it helped or he just started getting used to the pain.” She shook her head. “He was fine otherwise.” She paused. “At least while I saw him. I mean, I know some of that crap’ll really do you damage-cancer and what all-but that would’ve been later, right?”
“What happened to change things? Why did they go from helping him to killing him?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I told Walter we were done afterward. They showed up the next night and popped him one with a hammer. Just like that. He went down like a dead cow. I mean, Jesus, one minute they’re talkin’, next minute they’re draggin’ his ass outta here like he was meat. I went ballistic.”
“You keep saying, ‘they.’ Who did Walter have with him?”
“Some little shit. Called him Billy. I didn’t know him.”
“That was it? There weren’t three of them?”
“Nope.” She began studying her nails.
I leaned forward slightly. “Don’t quit on me now, Sandy. Who was the other man Walter brought with him?”
She suddenly gave up, staring me in the eye. “I never saw him. He stayed in the car. I figured he was Walter’s boss, or at least someone who had something over him.”
“Why’s that?”
She looked contemptuous. “Well, for Christ’s sake. It ain’t rocket science. Walter’s already in deep shit-on parole and all. He didn’t need to be poppin’ people off. So he was pissed. When they were dragging the guy out of here, he kept bitchin’ about how he didn’t have a say in it-that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He wasn’t a happy camper.”
“Neither Walter nor Billy mentioned any names?”
“No. Billy was a moron, anyhow. Kept lookin’ at my tits like he didn’t know what they were. Probably didn’t.”
Sheeney laughed shortly. Sandy leered at him. “You do, don’t you, though, lardass? Too bad you’ll never get a piece of ’em.”
“Sandy,” I interrupted. “You were about to hold back a minute ago. Were you thinking you could still get something out of this-put the squeeze on this third man?”
She smiled ruefully. “Seemed worth a try.”
“How were you going to find him?”
She shrugged. “Shit, I don’t know. I figured find Walter, you find that guy, right? Worth a shot.”
I couldn’t argue the logic. “Right.”
27
Sandy Corcoran’ssimple recipe for using Walter to find whoever had ordered Phil Resnick killed had one obvious, glaring flaw-and with our inability to locate Walter, our investigation finally rolled to a complete stop, despite a national distribution of his picture and description.
Happily, our misfortune wasn’t contagious. Gail and McNeil finally found enough common ground to work out a deal. Owen Tharp agreed to a fifteen-years-to-life sentence for second-degree murder, making him eligible for parole in twelve years, which Jack Derby spun into a bragging point as the summer campaigning began picking up speed. In the face of a few media grumbles about Walter-as with a cartoon showing Derby à la Teddy Roosevelt with his foot on a dead rabbit, and a grizzly escaping over the horizon-the candidate merely blamed us for not getting our man. The press wasn’t all that interested, in any case.
Tempers cooled between Gail and Derby also, allowing her to graciously serve notice that she’d be moving to the StayGreen job by summer’s end, and with sad predictability the flight of Walter Freund and the fate of his two lower-class victims slipped off the front page.
Our squad was left to pursue all the deferred day-to-day business that had piled up when things were hot and to deal with the fact that, posturing aside, Derby had been right-we hadn’t gotten our man. Not a week went by when we didn’t meet to discuss Walter’s open file-and to wonder what might be in it that we simply couldn’t see.