Only the Dead (31 page)
‘You’re a police officer?’
‘That’s right. Why don’t you just come away from the table?’
‘I can’t. I’m so scared.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen. You just need to move away from the gun.’
‘I saw the shooting.’
‘What shooting?’
‘In January. In the morning. I saw from the car. They were just meant to be getting the money back, but they killed everyone. I saw them shoot those policemen in the front yard. I didn’t want it to go that way. I didn’t.’
‘Where are they now, Douglas?’
‘Who?’
‘The men who did the shooting in January.’
‘They’re dead. I didn’t want it to go this way. They were just meant to go in the house and get the money. The money was meant to be in the house, but they didn’t find it. It was just a waste of time. They’d killed all those people, and it was worth nothing. I thought it could fix everything. But it hasn’t. It just makes it worse. I killed Leroy and that other guy this afternoon. Don’t come closer.’
‘I’m not. I’m still in the door.’ Sirens so far off they could be coming or going.
Douglas said, ‘I never believed people could get to the point
where they hate themselves. They can. I already do.’
‘Just come away from the table. It’ll be all right.’
‘I don’t want to go to jail. I’ve done time; I don’t want to go back.’ Siren noise ramping up.
‘It’s all right.’
Devereaux wouldn’t have picked it: offering comfort at the end.
The parking lot entry and exit were at separate ends, like a drive-through. Patrol cars converged from either direction. Everything swamped by siren wail.
‘Keep them back. Don’t let anyone come in here. I swear I’ll make you shoot me.’
‘Okay. They’re staying back. I don’t want to shoot you.’
Huge blue and red tint patterns across the ceiling. ‘Your gun’s shaking.’
‘Why don’t you just come outside?’
‘I’ve got the truck parked against the back door, so don’t let them think they can come in through there.’
‘I know. Just relax.’
Douglas swiped sweat off his brow. ‘I’m only thirty-eight, man. I’m young.’
Devereaux heard radio chatter:
Backup units be advised we have an officer on scene
—
‘I know. Just relax. It’ll all be okay.’ Questions forming despite the mayhem: ‘Tell me who you’re working with.’
‘What?’
‘Who are you working with, Douglas?’
‘It doesn’t matter. They’re all dead. Everyone’s dead. I shot them after we drove away.’
‘Where are they, Douglas?’
He got no answer. Doug had tuned out. He grabbed fistfuls of hair, squeezed shut his eyes. ‘I didn’t want it to go this way.
I promise this is not what I wanted.’
Armed Offenders Squad is ETA two minutes; can we have an updated situation report
?
Devereaux took two steps closer. Douglas’s lids blinked wide. ‘Don’t. Stop. Either I kill you or you kill me. That’s how it is. Get back to the door.’
‘Okay. I’m backing up.’
‘No, you’re not. You haven’t moved.’
‘No, look. I’m backing up.’ Devereaux braced his shoulder against the doorframe. He looked outside. Two police cars, two officers from each, ducked behind open doors. Coiled handset cables pulled taut.
‘How long will I go to prison for? Will I be able to get out? How long will I be locked up?’
‘I don’t know, Douglas.’
Sweat trails on an anxious face. A methodical dripping off his lower jaw. ‘I don’t want to die in prison. Please. I promise I didn’t want it to go this bad. I promise I didn’t.’
AOS be advised on-scene officers report suspect is likely outside taser range, over
.
‘I can’t even pick the point at which it all went bad. God.’
‘Douglas, just be sensible here.’
‘I’m scared of prison; I don’t want to go in. Please, we can work something out.’
‘Not here we can’t. But you can come outside and tell me everything.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t.’
He reached for the gun.
Devereaux shot him.
One round to the shoulder to immobilise the hand nearest the trigger. Douglas screamed. He reached across himself with his free arm and scrabbled for the shotgun. Devereaux
shot him again. And then again, a third time. Brief flashes in tight sequence. The room in sharp orange relief. Doug took both rounds in the torso, a neat grouping below the armpit. He collapsed against the table.
Devereaux lowered the gun, uniformed officers surging past into the room, securing the gun, checking for a pulse. Devereaux turned and walked outside. That horrid cocktail: ears ringing, the smell of gun smoke, the tense thundering in his chest. A now familiar feeling. He sat down on the bonnet of a patrol car. McCarthy’s keys tight in his pocket, McCarthy’s gun in his hand, McCarthy’s blood on his knuckles, McCarthy’s bidding on his conscience.
Someone said, ‘Sergeant, why don’t you let me take that.’
Déjà vu: it sounded like Monday’s script. He handed over the gun wordlessly. Doors were opening up and down the length of the building, gown-clad guests venturing outdoors. One guy was panning a cellphone camera: this’ll look great online. Nothing beats YouTube fame.
He went back into the room. Cops clustered around the table. This strange little motel requiem. The shotgun had been relocated to the floor. A thin sheen of blood glossed the table. One arm hung slack, curled fingers grazing the floor. A small tattoo down one forearm read
Mistaken for Strangers
. Devereaux recognised it as a song by The National. He wondered if he’d be able to listen to that track ever again.
He walked out, leaned against a car.
From inside: ‘Christ, we’ve got a pulse. Get the first-aid shit in here.’
Devereaux put his head in his hands. It was Monday evening, redux. He almost wished the guy was dead. One dosage of victim-on-life-support anxiety had been more than enough. He didn’t want a second go-round.
People were asking him if he was okay, but he made no response. The moon was still there, high and pale, but down here in this moment everything was red and blue.
O’Dwyer didn’t come back to the car for him
.
A female officer transferred him to another marked vehicle and drove him to a police station. He didn’t recognise the route. Night homogenised the view to a meaningless light show. Someone had traced the word PIGS with a finger against the glass. He sat and watched the letters appear and disappear, phased to passing streetlamps. Once or twice he saw the driver looking at him in the rear-view mirror, but she didn’t speak to him, and Sean pretended he didn’t notice her watching
.
Now he’s sitting in a room with a grey-haired woman named Lynette, who has told him she’s a lawyer and that she has a little girl Sean’s age. Lynette repeats a lot of the questions O’Dwyer has already asked, and it takes a long time because she has to write everything down. When she’s finished she lays her pen on her paper and leaves the room briefly and when she returns she sits down and doesn’t say anything. She has a smile on her face though, and everything she does is very quiet and unrushed. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable being there with her
.
The room is very plain. He and Lynette are next to each other at a circular table. The chair is too tall for him, and his feet don’t reach the floor. The carpet is hard and grey, like in a classroom. On the wall is a poster showing a mother hand-in-hand with two children. A policeman is crouched, talking to one of the children. Everyone is smiling. Sean thinks that most people who need to talk to the police wouldn’t look that happy
.
The door has a little window with wire mesh in the glass, and he gets a glimpse of O’Dwyer, outside in the corridor. The top of the window only reaches his shoulder, and he has to stoop for a peep. Lynette gets up, still smiling, and steps outside to talk to him. She leaves the door ajar. O’Dwyer’s voice is deep, and he can hear a faint murmur when he speaks, like a sleep-talker in the next bedroom
.
Then the door opens and they both walk in. Lynette sits down beside him and aims the smile at him for a short spell. O’Dwyer’s carrying a pad of paper, and also a cassette recorder. His jacket’s off and his shirtsleeves are rolled up. The sleeves are rolled neatly, but a wide tongue of shirt hem has escaped his pants, and his hair is still a mess
.
He puts everything on the table and sits down. The pad slips off the top of the recorder and lands neatly in front of him
.
‘
How we doing, bud?’ he says
.
‘
Good
.’
‘
You sure you don’t need anything to eat? We can get you something to eat if you want. Or a Coke
?’
‘
I’m not really hungry
.’
‘
OK. That’s fine. Now, I’ve got a recorder thing here, so we can tape what we talk about. All right
?’
‘
Why do you need to tape it
?’
O’Dwyer leans forward on folded arms. ‘When you get to be as old as I am, the things you put in your brain don’t tend to stay there too well.’ He winks, pats the recorder. ‘Pays to have a backup copy
.’
Sean nods but doesn’t say anything. O’Dwyer turns the thing on and says ‘Testing …’, then winds the tape back and hits play. When he hears his own voice he rewinds a second time and presses Record. It looks like something he’s done many times, and Sean thinks this whole thing isn’t very
exciting for him. He thinks it strange that someone’s idea of what’s normal could be shifted so greatly
.
O’Dwyer states everyone’s names, then the date and time. He states the time to within a minute without looking at his watch. Then he reads aloud some things he’s written down on his pad
.
O’Dwyer looks up. There’s a smile in place, but the man underneath looks tired. He looks like he’s had enough of today. He says, ‘I’m going to run through some questions with you, but before we get into that, is there anything at all you want to tell me, or ask me
?’
The recorder makes a quiet rhythmic click as the tape spools reel-to-reel. Sean watches it and says, ‘Derren killed her
.’
He knows it isn’t true. He knows the wife killed herself. But Derren needs to pay
.
O’Dwyer’s face doesn’t change, but he runs a hand through his hair. Grey strands flatten, then spring to attention. Sean thinks O’Dwyer’s holding back a bigger reaction: he looks at Lynette, but they don’t say anything. Lynette’s notes are on a pad of lined paper, and she raises the first sheet and reads something on the second. She does this very quietly so the recorder won’t register the crackle. Sean wonders if the right sort of news would make her smile go away
.
He says it again: ‘He killed her
.’
It feels good. The thought that his actions have the power to influence Derren’s future. Instead of the other way around. He doesn’t think about hindsight, or about the weight of future guilt that could be ascribed to that simple claim. He just sits there, swinging his legs gently, hands jammed under his thighs, as O’Dwyer starts to ask his questions
.
T
HURSDAY
, 16 F
EBRUARY
, 4.01
A.M
.
L
loyd Bowen was never far out of the loop: fifteen minutes post-bloodshed and Devereaux took a call from him on his cell.
Bowen said, ‘Christ, twice in one week.’
‘I’m not happy about it either.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
Devereaux didn’t answer.
Bowen said, ‘Stay there. I’m about twenty minutes away.’
Devereaux hung up on him. Instructions to stay put only made departure more compelling. He had McCarthy’s keys in his pocket. He walked across the road to the Camaro and got in. The creak of leather, some brass shells rolling loose in the passenger footwell. The spirit of the bastard alive and well. Devereaux started the car and drove away northbound, a dozen thoughts fighting for front and centre.
Empty streets: he barely had to lift his foot off the pedal all the way back to town. The city stark and regal ahead of him, neatly bejewelled by window lights. He wondered who else with blood on their hands passed unseen at that moment.
He drove the Camaro into the basement garage and left it in The Don’s slot. The night watch was still coming off shift. The lift was full of tired uniformed cops with thoughts of home.
He merited some nods, but no hellos. He walked through to CIB. More empty coffee cups than people. He sorted through McCarthy’s keys until he found one that fitted his office door, and let himself in.
He flicked the light. Still and airless, like he’d taken the place by surprise. McCarthy must have visited since Devereaux had last been by: the room was scrupulously neat. No desk mess, just the computer, and the photographs.
He swung out the chair from behind the desk and sat down. The filing cabinet key was present in the bunch. The small size made it an easy find. He freed the lock and removed the file on the January thirty shooting. Quicker than a bent paperclip.
He sat at the desk and read. Fatigue fuzzed out the print. He could smell the gun smoke on his hands. More importantly: he could smell closure.
So close
.
Endorphins kept him going. This is what he lived for: the rush of the final straight. That brief elation as he broke the tape.
McCarthy’s landline trilled at his elbow. He ignored it. At five a.m. he felt his own phone ring in his pocket. Don McCarthy’s name lit up the screen. He kept him waiting a half-dozen rings, and then he answered.
McCarthy said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.’
He didn’t sound agitated. He sounded like the gears were meshing.
‘Did you call yourself an ambulance?’
‘No. I’m tougher than that.’
A long stretch of quiet on the line. McCarthy read something in it. ‘Oh, God,’ he said. It sounded almost gleeful. ‘Don’t tell me you killed him.’
A voice in his head piped up:
we’ll see
.
Devereaux said, ‘I won’t miss you.’
McCarthy didn’t answer.
Devereaux closed the file. He dropped it back in the cabinet and rolled shut the drawer. ‘You recognise that sound?’ he said.
McCarthy hung up on him. Devereaux stood in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets, looking at the desk. After a moment he walked out and closed the door behind him.
He dozed at his desk. Far from comfortable, but he’d done it before. He was tired enough he could have slept standing. The cellphone woke him. He came awake like he’d been dropped, checked the time as he answered: six a.m.
John Hale said, ‘I’ve been arrested.’
‘What for?’
‘I beat up a client.’
‘Rowe?’
‘Yes. Him.’
Devereaux wanted to tell him about the shooting. He wanted to admit he’d almost killed another man, and that he feared he’d never forget it. He wanted to hear John Hale declare it a righteous deed, and say
Don’t worry about it
.
Hale said, ‘You still there?’
‘Yeah. Where are you?’
‘Auckland Central lock-up. You’re my phone call.’
‘I’m still in the building. I’ll come down.’
‘No, just stay on the line. I’ve got some stuff for you. You got a pen?’
‘Just talk.’
It was six-thirty when he left for McCarthy’s house. Daylight had arrived, but rush-hour traffic hadn’t. It took Devereaux less than fifteen minutes to get down there. The narrow streets;
the houses high and hard-edged. The gleaming sedans nosing cautiously into the world.
He parked the Camaro on the street outside The Don’s house. He placed a quick call on his cellphone, then got out and knocked on the door. Footsteps on the internal staircase, and then McCarthy opened the door. He’d changed to a fresh suit. A long cut marred his forehead. Tissue paper plugged one nostril. His hair was shower-fresh. He stood there calmly and didn’t move aside.
‘Bit soon for round two, isn’t it?’
‘I wanted to bring the car back.’
‘All that hoo-ha about not hurting people and you go and shoot a man. Great irony.’
Devereaux tossed him the keys. They hit him in the chest and dropped, and he caught them one-handed without looking down.
Devereaux said, ‘I know what you did.’