St. Patrick's Day Murder (23 page)

There was giggling upstairs. The kids were playing before going to bed.

“Is that where you saw him?”

“Him and a lot of other people. It was a big party.”

“Did you and Ray end up in a bedroom together there?”

“No,” she said vehemently. “No, we didn’t. Is that what Betsy told you? She’s hallucinating.”

“Did anything happen that day with Ray?”

“We talked. We gave each other looks. We never touched each other, Chris. We were never alone together anywhere.”

Maybe Betsy
was
hallucinating. Someone was mistaken or lying and both women struck me as utterly sincere.

“Then the motel was the only time,” I said.

“I told you that already.” She looked at the stacks of notes she had written to people who had cared about her husband. “And since you’re obviously getting bits and pieces of information from unreliable sources, let me tell you the rest, so you’ll have the story. You know this much and you’re not stupid and I’d rather have you hear it from me and not guess at things that may or may not have happened. There was nothing wrong with our car that night. I asked Scotty to drive me to the Hansens’ because I said I didn’t feel secure on icy streets. I knew Ray would take me home. I wanted to be alone with him in the car for the ride home. OK?”

“Could anyone have seen you that night?”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“What about at the party? Could someone have seen you and Ray together and made something of it?”

“I don’t think so, Chris. I was just walking around, talking to people. I went inside once to look at the house. It was a
gorgeous place. I went upstairs and used the bathroom. It was all marble inside, really beautiful. I didn’t see any of the bedrooms, though, because all the doors were closed. There were people in one of them. Men. I could hear their voices. You know cops. They can’t talk about anything else besides the job, even when they’re at a party.”

“You said you saw Jerry McMahon at that party. Do you remember where or who he was with?”

“He was just sort of around. He was there with a gorgeous blonde with a lot more up here than I have.” She patted her chest. “But I saw him just walking around, talking to people. Oh, yeah.” She sounded as though she had just remembered something. “When I left the bathroom, he walked into the bedroom where I heard the voices.”

“Did you see anyone else in the room?” My heart was beating faster now.

“No one. He just went in and shut the door.”

I got up and went to a credenza against the wall. There was a group of family pictures at one end—the children, Jean and Scotty, the whole family in the backyard, and one of three grinning rookie police officers in uniform: Scotty; Jack; and Ray. I held it in my hand for a long time before going back to where Jean was sitting and watching me.

“They were so young and happy there,” she said.

“Tell me about St. Patrick’s Day,” I said, sitting down.

“Again.”

“I’m afraid so. Start with the morning.”

“We had breakfast together. Scotty put his uniform on and took the car. He was going to park it at the pier and then find his unit to march with. The kids and I left later. We went by train. We had a long block to walk in Manhattan to meet you and Petra. That’s it.”

“After Scotty marched by, you left.”

“I took my kids to my mother’s in Brooklyn. You know that.”

“And then you came back to the pier for the party.”

“I took the subway.” She flashed a smile. “I was the only sober one on the whole train.”

“I can imagine. Anything happen on that trip? Could you have been followed?”

“If I was, I didn’t know it.”

“Did you walk from the subway to the pier? The pier was all the way over on the river.”

“I took a cab. It was only a few blocks, but I knew I’d be on my feet at the party.”

“We all left the party on the pier together. Where did you go?”

“We went to Petra’s. We all went upstairs for a little while. Then Scotty and I left. My mother’s house is so close, we just left the car and walked over. He had some clothes there he changed into.”

“And you walked back later in time for dinner,” I said, knowing I shouldn’t be putting words in her mouth.

“Yes. What is it you’re looking for?”

“I wish I knew.” Someone had to have followed them when they left Manhattan, someone who saw them go into Petra’s apartment house. Had he then waited for hours for the McVeighs and us to leave and then followed us to the bar? “You only stayed in Petra’s place for a little while? After the parade, I mean.”

“Ten minutes. They were giving each other looks like they couldn’t wait to get into a bedroom. And I was really happy for them. I wanted something good to happen with them. There was nothing between Ray and me, there never had been. It had been a crazy flirtation and I was sorry for it. I really was,” she said, looking at me earnestly. “And I had just told Ray that.”

“When? At the party on the pier?” I had seen her look at him, but I hadn’t seen her talk to him alone. Besides, having a private conversation in that mayhem was an absolute impossibility.

“On the way home.”

“What?”

“Scotty gave the keys to the BMW to Ray, so he could drive it to Brooklyn. You know Scotty. He has a new toy, he wants everyone to try it out.”

“Ray Hansen drove the BMW to Brooklyn when you left the party?”

“And I went with him. It was just perfect. I would get a
chance to talk to him and Petra knew now to get to ner place, so she could show Scotty the way.”

“Jean.” I got up and went to the credenza where the pictures were. “Look at this picture.” I handed her the one of the three friends. “If you were describing Scotty, what would you say?”

“Six-one, a hundred seventy or so, lean, fair, sandy hair, blue-gray eyes.”

“What about Ray?”

“He’s about the same height, maybe a few pounds less than Scotty, dirty-blond hair … What are you telling me?”

“That in the dark, one man of that height and weight with a redheaded woman at his side could be mistaken for the other one.”

Her face paled. “They were after Ray?”

“Someone was watching Ray leave the pier on St. Patrick’s Day. He went to a BMW with a redheaded woman and drove to Brooklyn. Maybe the killer saw you and Scotty leave ten minutes later, maybe he didn’t. But when the four of us left about eleven that night, Scotty was with the redhead.”

“But we switched cars.”

“I know, but there was no mistaking Jack for Ray Hansen. Or me for you. Maybe the killer realized at that point that we’d switched cars. When we went into the bar, he pulled into the lot and waited. Sure enough, when the redhead’s companion walked up to the BMW, he knew it was the same man he’d seen leaving the pier that morning.”

“I think it’s crazy,” Jean said, but her voice was low and unsteady. She looked at the photograph and ran her finger over the faces. “You think if I’d driven to Brooklyn with Scotty, he’d still be alive.”

“Don’t think about it, Jean.” I patted her back and got up. “I saw Charles Hanrahan this afternoon. Scotty’s grandfather.”

She stared at me. “You found him? You talked to him?”

“Yes. He knows all about you and the children. Scotty used to drop by and see him.”

“Poor Scotty,” she said. “How could he have thought it would make a difference to me?”

“He’d like to meet you. We can talk about it when things have settled down.” As I put my coat on, the doorbell rang.

Jack was standing on the doorstep. “I was getting cold,” he said. “Hiya, Jean, honey. How’re you doing?” He hugged her, and she wrapped her arms around him.

“I’m kind of worn out,” she said. “But that’s nothing to the way you’re going to feel when Chris gets finished tonight. I think you’ve got some running around to do.”

It was no exaggeration.

“You want to go where?” Jack said, backing out of the driveway.

“To the Korean grocery on Scotty’s beat, the Happy Times. My map’s in my car, but I think I know how to go.”

“I know where it is. What’ve you got?”

I didn’t have to tell him much for him to see what I was driving at. It did take a minute of reflection to see that Scotty could have been mistaken for Ray.

“You’ve known them so long,” I said. “You saw them as individuals. If a killer only had an ID photo to go by, if he spotted Ray at the party and watched him get into a BMW with a redhead, then saw that redhead late at night with a man the same size and shape as Ray, it’s an easy mistake to make.”

“So what are we going grocery shopping for?”

“Because of Joo’s gun. I just don’t like the disappearance of that gun twenty-four hours after Scotty was killed.”

“Well, let’s find out.”

The lights were all on in the Happy Times Grocery. As Jack pulled into a space across the street, I wondered when those poor people slept and where they got the energy to work such long hours.

Jack stayed in the car, and I crossed the street. Two customers were looking over the fruits in the bins along the sidewalk and two more were inside. I nodded to the young woman at the cash register and went to the back where Mr. Ma had been on my previous visits. He was there, helping Joo to open some crates.

“Excuse me,” I said, and they turned around. I reminded them who I was, but I didn’t have to.

“I know you,” Ma said. “You came with Mrs. McVeigh.”

“That’s right.” I hoped he wouldn’t associate me with Joo’s arrest for not reporting the stolen gun.

“And you got a good lawyer for my cousin.”

“He’s a very good lawyer,” I said. “I hope everything is all right.”

“Not all right, but a little better. Can I help you?”

“After Officer McVeigh was killed, did the police come to ask you questions?”

“Many questions.”

“Do you remember when they came?”

Joo turned to me and said in English, “They came about lunchtime on the first day after Officer McVeigh died.”

“Monday?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you went to school on Monday.”

“I go Monday afternoon, Monday evening.”

“Did they ask you about your gun?”

“No.”

“They ask me,” his older cousin said. “I have no gun. I tell the truth.”

Jack had said that the Koreans had claimed to understand no English during the canvassing. “Did you speak in English to them?”

“We say little. We not understand. It is better with the police.”

“So nobody knew about the gun till after it was stolen?”

“No, no,” Ma said. “They come back at night.”

“Who came back? The ones who questioned you at noon?”

“Other police. Very mean. They ask for my cousin. I tell them he is in school. They go away.”

“Did they come back again after that?”

“No.”

“Thank you very much,” I said.

“You know who killed Officer McVeigh?” the older cousin asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry about your gun, Mr. Joo.”

Jack was watching as I crossed the street. Not many other businesses were open, but the Happy Times looked as if it
was ready to go all night. “Here’s what I think,” I said as I got into the car. “The detectives assigned to Scotty’s homicide came to ask the Koreans questions about noon on March eighteenth. They asked Mr. Ma if he had a gun and he said no, which was true. The Koreans volunteered nothing and they pretended to speak very little English. Joo was there. He left for his classes later. At night other cops came and asked about Joo, but he was at class. I think they were the ones who killed Scotty and they’d discovered their mistake. During the day, they probably checked everyone who works on Scotty’s beat, not just the storeowners, and found Joo had a .44.”

“OK,” Jack said. “So now they’ve got a fall guy, someone Scotty had a relationship with. They’ve made a mistake and they’re frantic. If nothing else pans out, they can point the finger at Joo. All he has to support his alibi that he was working on St. Patrick’s Day is his family and nobody’ll believe them because that’s what you expect a family to say.”

“But what they really want is to build a case against Ray, a case that will hold up under investigation, that will convince a D.A. to take it to the grand jury, one that will stick in court.”

“Right. When they found they’d killed the wrong man, they decided to nail their target as the killer. They must have scrambled all that week to build a case and leak what they had to the team investigating the homicide.”

“And the case had to be that Ray was in love with Scotty’s wife.” I could just feel things fall into place. Besides the detectives assigned to the case, the killers were also out canvassing. Who would know if they were questioned by the real team or the shadow team?

And poor Joo. If they hadn’t found the gun in his apartment while he was at class, they probably would have waited for him to come home and gotten it from him then. How could he have imagined he was being set up to stand in for a killer?

“So we’re pretty sure it’s a brother officer we’re looking for,” Jack said.

“It’s the same people who killed Donner and Moore.”

“Honey, Moore was killed—”

“I know. And I can’t really figure out what’s wrong there, but something is. That Tom Macklin who arrested the kid last Friday has to be part of it. And he was connected with Moore.”

“OK. I can guess where you want to go next.”

“I don’t look forward to it, but we have to talk to Ray.”

“Let me find out where he is.”

There was a pay phone on the corner and I waited in the car while he called. I didn’t want to do this in front of Petra—I didn’t want to do this at all, but I had to.

“He’s at Petra’s,” Jack said, getting into the car. “We’ll meet him at his place. I have a strong sense that we’ve ruined his evening, both their evenings.”

“I’m not apologizing.”

“I’m not asking you to.” He patted my thigh.

I wanted to be back at his apartment with him as much as Ray wanted to be with Petra. But there wasn’t time for anything else right now. Whoever they were, they might be only a few steps behind me. Someone had rung Jack’s bell the other night, probably to break in if he wasn’t home. If they were selling drugs that they picked up on raids, there was big money involved and a long prison sentence if they were found out. There was very little risk at this point in adding another body to their collection.