He put the printouts down and worked up something like a smile, one of the few he’d given me over the years. He’d been a good-looking man in his younger days, a freckled, broad-shouldered blond. After his automobile accident twenty years ago, he began to get heavier and his face took on the reddish cast and slightly exploded features of the heavy drinker. Still, his record as a police inspector was commendable, as all the citations attested.
“I hear you pulled one of your fancy self-defense plays last night,” he said, his growl more good-natured than usual.
“I did. I’m surprised you didn’t come around with Pat to look for loopholes.”
He shook his head. “For once I’m on your side, Hammer. Captain Chambers says those two over-the-hill wiseguys were seen at the Chief’s nursing home and at the hospital. He feels they were responsible for our friend’s murder.”
“No question one of them used a knife on the Chief. We’ll never know which.”
A small smile flashed. “Actually, when you talk to Captain Chambers next, he’ll tell you — Rossi had a switchblade in his pocket, and forensics ties it to the Chief’s wound. So I guess I owe you a debt of thanks.”
“For what?”
“For wrapping this thing up.”
“There’s still a bow that needs tying on.”
“Oh?”
I leaned in. “You see, Inspector... the Chief gave me something. Entrusted me with it, you might say. And now I have to make a decision.”
His frown was curious, not hostile. “A decision?”
“Yeah. About what to do with it. I’ll probably give it twenty-four hours.”
The frown deepened into confusion. “Give what twenty-four hours?”
“Before deciding what to do. Better to give it to the current chief, or hand it over to the media? I wonder.”
“Hand what over?”
I glanced around, smiled pleasantly. “Nice office, Inspector. You just moved in, right? And now you’re retiring soon, lot of trouble and bother for such a short stay. Still, I guess you gotta enjoy it while you’ve got it.”
“What the hell are you getting at, Hammer?”
I sat back, folded my arms, put an ankle on a knee and got comfy. “I have a little story to share with you, Inspector.”
“Hammer, I’m not retiring today. I’m still a busy man.”
“Just... humor me, OK? Our friend the Chief, back before the war, took on the mob like nobody who sat in his chair ever dared before. And at the same time, he cleaned out a whole passel of bent cops.”
“Not a new story, Hammer. It’s well-known.”
“The broad outlines are. But how did he manage it? One thing he would’ve needed was somebody on the inside — a crooked cop, particularly one close to the mob, who could feed him names and information. He had something on this cop, or else he wouldn’t have been able to put the squeeze on. And the Chief filed that away, as a kind of life insurance policy. If anything happened to him, that evidence would come out.”
Thick fingers drummed on the desk. “Interesting theory. But also ancient history.”
“Some history never gets ancient. Like I was saying to Pat, there’s no statute of limitations on murder, for example.”
His eyes, a bloodshot sky blue, flared.
I went on: “The Chief, of course, never fully trusted that cop. He couldn’t fire him without giving away both of their secrets. They had each made their respective deals with their respective devils. So the Chief kept this cop on staff, kept him close — you know the old saying, ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’”
Very softly he said, “You don’t have anything on me, Hammer.”
I looked toward the little desk altar of framed family photos. “The ironic thing is, that crooked cop kept his act clean after that. Never was his reputation sullied thereafter. Won himself a wall full of awards, medals, commendations. Even after the Chief retired, that cop stayed on the straight and narrow. But I bet he never proved himself to the old boy. Never good enough for the Chief to feel he could either turn that evidence over to the now reformed cop, or just destroy it. So that evidence, that sword of Damocles, it just hung over that poor bastard’s head — an old sin that all the new good deeds in the world just couldn’t make go away. And as the Chief neared the natural death at a ripe old age that his life insurance policy had bought him, the cop was worried it would all come out. Disgrace. Maybe even jail time. A hero who was suddenly a villain. A proud man with two sons would find that hard to take. Don’t blame the guy.”
His jaw was set but trembling. “What did he give you, Hammer?”
“So the cop reaches out to some old mob cronies and convinces them that what the Chief is holding back is going to ruin what little is left of their own sad sorry lives. I’m going to guess that the cop didn’t tell them to kill the Chief. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that they ad-libbed that one. But, hell, it should have occurred to him what they would do — that they’d have to shut the old guy up before making their search.”
He was getting flushed. “What did he give you, Hammer? Where is it?”
I got the old.38 Police Positive out of my suit coat pocket and I set in on the desk, right on top of that pile of printouts he’d been reading.
“That’s one of the things he gave me,” I said. “I think he probably wanted you to have it.”
Milroy stared down at the old revolver.
“I saw the Chief shoot Gino Madoni with that piece,” I said, “when I was a kid. First bad guy that I ever saw shot. And it was up close and personal, let me tell you.”
I went over and got my hat and placed a hand on the doorknob. “You have several choices, Inspector, including coming after me. Hell, I’ve even provided the gun. If you want to find me, I’ll be at my office this afternoon, the Blue Ribbon restaurant for supper with Captain Chambers, and at my apartment after that. I’m in the book.”
His hand was on the gun — not gripping it, just resting on it, like a fire-and-brimstone preacher laying on a healing hand. His face was red now and the lightning bolt scar stood out starkly.
“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “I’ll turn over what I have to the current chief. That gives you another option — take your chances and take your medicine.”
Very quietly he said, “But there’s another option.”
“There is. A lot of good cops have taken it, for all kinds of reasons. Depression. Family problems. A fatal illness. Men who live by the gun... you know the rest. You make the right decision, Inspector, and I won’t have to come forward. And I’ll get rid of the evidence once and for all.”
He glanced up at me. “You’d do that for me?”
“You have my word. But you know something? I believe the Chief wouldn’t have hung you out to dry, not after all these years... unless you reverted to form and came after him. That gun there? He had it in his hand, under the sheet, in that hospital room. Ready to do what he had to.”
Milroy sighed. “Yeah. He was a hell of a guy. I came to respect him. I don’t think... I don’t think I was ever able to gain his.”
I shrugged. “Never too late to try.”
And I left him there with his thoughts and the gun and all the rest of it.
The gunmetal sky was grumbling. Cloud cover was low and dark with lightning bolts shorting in and out. I was in my raincoat and hat standing outside the Blue Ribbon, as if I were waiting for it to come down after me.