East Broadway was an obstacle course of pedestrians, delivery vans, double-parked cars, and piles and piles of snow. Tempers flared as someone had the audacity to stop her car to allow someone else time to find the least-slush-filled path cross the street. Deliverymen frowned as they climbed over salt- and sand-caked snow. I took my time, unimpressed with the frustrations. People didn’t seem bothered by a few decapitations up a few blocks. Not when something important was happening, like missing a yellow traffic light.
A sea of kitchen chairs lined the edges of K Street. I drove down the ice-slick lane until I reached the Murdock house. A thrill of victory and doubt ran through me as I pulled up. In front of the black-shuttered row house stood an empty space with no chair. The spaces in front and behind it were meticulously cleaned and chairless as well. I parallel-parked between the spaces and sat in the car, considering whether I was violating any neighborhood tradition. Three empty spaces in a row—with no chairs—in front of the police commissioner’s house could not be a coincidence. K Street apparently had its own subset of unwritten rules. I turned off the engine and lifted a box from the passenger seat.
Salt on the shoveled sidewalk crunched under my boots as I walked up the short steps and rang the bell. A large Christmas wreath with small white bows hung on the door. The cement urn to one side was filled with greens and decorated presents.
Kevin Murdock, an earnest kid in his twenties and the youngest of the family, opened the door. Unlike the rest of his police brothers, he had joined the fire department. He was dressed in his day uniform, his dark hair cut in a buzz. “Hey, Connor . . .” He paused when he saw the car. His blue eyes met mine. “Did you actually drive that trash heap here?”
I grinned. “I’ve had all my shots.”
He stepped back with the classic Murdock smirk. “Get inside before my dad yells about heating the neighborhood.”
I wiped my feet on the mat. Row houses were long, narrow buildings, the rooms stacked one behind the other. In the front parlor, a Christmas tree took up the small space near the windows. The house smelled of evergreen and roasted meat.
Kevin gestured at the box. “Can I take that for you?”
I shook my head. “It’s for Leo. Is he here?”
He pointed with his thumb at the ceiling. “He’s in his room.” He picked up a uniform overcoat. “I have to get back to work. Can you tell him to get his ass out of here and get to work like the rest of us?”
I looked up the stairs. “How’s he doing?”
Kevin’s smiled dropped. “He’s okay, I think. A little shook-up. You know him, he doesn’t say much, but I think he’s okay. He won’t tell me what happened.”
I smiled. “Then I’ll kick his ass out of here for you.”
Kevin winked. “Thanks.” He patted me hard on the shoulder. “Good to see you, Connor. Merry . . . um . . . holidays.”
I laughed. “You, too.”
Kevin was a good guy. As the baby of the family, the Murdocks doted on him. Leo was almost twenty years older, so they tended to have a more mentor/protégé relationship than simple brotherhood.
The rest of the Murdock men—Gerry, Bar, and Bernard—were local cops, and their sister Faith had gone the state police route. They all lived at home except Faith and Bernard, who had separate apartments not far away. The coming year looked interesting for them all, with the other Murdock sister, Grace, getting married, and Bernard deciding to run for city councilor. Politics and public service ran deep in the blood.
The commissioner’s wife was gone, and while the impression I had was that she was dead, there was an underlying silence about her absence that hinted at tragedy. Despite the sisters, the house didn’t have the feel of a woman’s presence. It was very much the commissioner’s.
Murdock’s bedroom was on the second floor. Shifting the box to one hand, I knocked on the slightly ajar door.
“I’ll be down in a bit, Kev. You don’t need to keep checking on me,” Murdock said.
I pushed the door open. “Not Kevin.”
From his desk chair, Murdock gave me a tired smile. “Sorry. Kevin’s been like an old-lady gnat all morning. Come on in.”
He swiveled in the chair. Other than some darkness under his eyes, he looked fine, to the point of wearing his usual work attire—neatly pressed dark pants and a white collared shirt—sans tie. Papers from an open file on the desk were stacked neatly in a row. More files in file boxes lined the wall. All copies of case files.
I placed the box on the foot of the bed and took a side chair. “What are you working on?”
He rotated the chair. “Not really working. Reviewing the nanny case.”
Several years ago, a young student from Europe summering in the United States was murdered. She was found in a dumpster, just her torso. The list of suspects was bizarre—a photographer, a panhandler, a rock musician, and a guy who walked his dog while dressed as Superman. The woman’s complete remains were never found. Neither was her murderer. That Murdock would decide to read that case was no surprise. Every cop in the city wanted to know what happened to the nanny. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather you read one of those romance novels you don’t want anybody to know you read.”
He smiled and jutted his chin at the box. “What’s that?”
I flipped open the top. “This, my friend, was in my building vestibule this morning addressed to me. It’s your coat, hat, and gun.”
Murdock was on his feet and at the box in an instant. He grabbed the gun and checked it, spun the chambers and sniffed it. Relief washed over him. “It hasn’t been fired.”
“Neither has your bug,” I said.
Murdock pulled the coat out and found the backup gun. Despite what I said, he checked it, too, then locked both guns in his nightstand. “That gives me one less hassle today. I was about to go to the station house and report them gone. What the hell is going on?”
“No one gives up a free gun in the Weird. Someone’s being helpful.”
He pursed his lips. “Do you think it was Zev’s people?”
I shook my head. “That was my initial thought, but it’s got Dead essence all over, several signatures.”
He sat back in his chair. “That doesn’t make sense. They’re the ones that grabbed me.”
“I don’t think they meant to grab you, Murdock,” I said. “Zev told me last night that only solitaries were swept up. The patrol officers who got snagged were returned almost immediately.”
He swiveled slowly in his seat, then met my eyes. “I talked to one of the guys who was there last night. He said they were ordered to stand down and get off the street.”
I frowned. “I can see pulling back if the crowd dispersed on its own, but getting off the street? Who the hell gave that order?”
Murdock glanced toward the door. “I’ll find out.”
He let the silence hang, his face troubled. Two people could have given the order: the senior officer on-site or the police commissioner. But with a couple of hundred angry solitaries out there, an officer on the street would not have made that call. Murdock removed a black shoe from the box. “They only found one shoe?”
“I guess. What’s up with the shoes?” I asked.
He gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“You were all upset about your shoes missing last night.”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember that.”
I leaned forward. “What happened, Leo?”
He went to the window. “You drove my car here?”
I tossed him the keys. “The keys were in your coat, so I picked up the car on the way over. Don’t change the subject.”
He looked down in thought. “I don’t think the Dead are really people, Connor. I’ve been thinking all morning that these Dead we’re seeing are some sort of manifestation of our, I don’t know, hopes? Fears? I don’t think they’re real.”