Massacre Page 11

  “I know,” she said. “Help me finish it for you.”

  “Why? What do I get from you?”

  “You? Nothing.” Erin smiled at him, trying to remember the cold, icy way Evan O’Malley smiled, all teeth, no soul. “Except revenge.”

  “You are an unusual mujer policía,” he said. “First you shoot at me, then you save my life, now you want to help me?”

  She shrugged. “You’ve got a job to do. So do I.”

  Rojas lay back, staring at the ceiling. “The policía at home, they belong to the cartels,” he said. “They always want money. You want money? A percentage?”

  “Bribing a New York cop is a felony,” she said.

  “So you will do this, without money? The Colombian policía are smarter than you, I think.” Rojas chuckled weakly.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But it’s easier on your bottom line.”

  “He comes to me,” Rojas said. “He knows the hotel I am at. He calls me, tells me to meet him, that he can give good price for an import of… coffee.”

  “Right,” Erin said, understanding.

  “I know he is the one who stopped the first meeting.”

  “How’d you know?”

  Rojas gave her a look. “How do you think? He knows where I am. He knows what I have. He knows I have no more buyer.”

  Erin nodded.

  “I would never go to a meeting like he said,” Rojas said. “They would kill me and take what they wanted. I say okay, I will meet with him. I go to the place, very careful, watching. I see him, and four of his people. I creep out of my car, get close, see their faces. They wait for me, fifteen, thirty minutes past the meeting time. Then they go. I go to follow them, but you know what happens?”

  “What?”

  Rojas’s smile was bitterly amused. “They steal my car.”

  “What?” Erin repeated.

  “My car,” he said patiently. “It is not where I put it. He has another man, I think. Stupid of me. I have the same car as before, they know what it looks like, they take it while I wait. The buyer, he takes a call on his phone and then leaves the meeting. The call is from the puta who stole my car.”

  “And the product was in the car,” Erin said.

  “Si,” Rojas sighed. Then he winced in pain.

  “So what did you do?” she pressed.

  “I call a taxi,” he said. “I tell him to drive the way the buyer went. I see my car, outside his apartment. I get out and watch the place, very careful. But he goes again, while I watch. I follow him. He goes to a restaurant and goes inside. I think he will be there a little while. But he comes out very fast, only a few minutes, and sees me.”

  “So you shot him.”

  Rojas wasn’t going to confess straight-up to murder, no matter what Erin said to him. “He sees me, that is the end of it,” he said. “So I go to his apartment, to get my product back.”

  “There wasn’t anything in the apartment,” she said. Vic and the two Homicide detectives would’ve certainly noticed bags full of heroin, and the CSU team was going over the place with a fine-toothed comb.

  “There is a picture,” Rojas said. He was breathing more rapidly now. Sweat beaded his forehead.

  “A picture?” she repeated, not sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “In the bedroom,” he said. “A photograph. The men, the other ones, the ones who kill my people, they are in this photograph.”

  “Is the picture still there?” Erin asked, excitement surging up in her.

  “Si,” he said.

  He’d had to drop the photo in order to shoot at her and Vic, Erin thought sourly. But that meant the picture was still in Liam’s bedroom, probably lying on the floor. That might be enough to ID the shooters.

  “You’re sure they were the same guys?”

  He nodded. “I am sure.” Then he sagged into his pillow with a groan. His face was pale and sweat was running down his cheeks.

  “Erin,” Sean said, coming forward from the doorway. “You’re going to have to stop. He needs to rest now.”

  “Okay,” she said reluctantly, standing up. It wasn’t much, but it was more than she’d had. Before she left, she refastened the handcuff to the bed rail. Rojas didn’t seem to care, or even to notice.

  “Thanks, Sean,” she said, going on tiptoes to plant a kiss on her brother’s cheek on the way out. “I’ve got to run.”

  “Of course you do,” he said. “Be safe. Y’know, you’re better at this police stuff than I thought. I didn’t think a guy like that would say anything. Dad would be proud.”

  Erin called Vic from her car. “What’re you doing?” she asked.

  “Sitting in my skivvies, drinking vodka straight from the bottle and cleaning my guns.”

  “I asked what you’re doing, not what you want to be doing.”

  “Oh. Cataloguing evidence.”

  “That’s what I hoped. You back at the Eightball?”

  “Yeah. How’s our shooter?”

  “He’ll pull through. I’ve got a question.”

  “I got all kinds of answers. Want to see if one of them’s the right one?”

  “Did CSU find a photograph in the bedroom? It’d be lying loose, maybe on the floor.”

  “Just a sec.” Erin heard Vic rummaging in the evidence bags. “Yeah, here it is. CSU dusted it for prints, we got a good thumbprint on the front and a couple partials on the back. Probably a match with our suspect. Not that we’re really in any doubt he’s our guy, but every little bit helps, right?”

  “Who’s in the picture?” she asked.

  “Looks like a snap of some guys at a bar. Hang on, I’ll take a shot on my phone and send it to you.” There was a brief pause. “Can’t figure out how to do it while we’re still on the line. You want to tell me what you’re looking for before I hang up?”

  “Trying to ID the guys in the picture,” she explained. “Rojas says they’re our shooters from the restaurant hit.”

  “Really?” Vic sounded more interested. Erin could picture him turning the photo over in his hands and looking at it.

  There was a pause.

  “Erin…”

  She knew from his voice something was wrong. She hated playing guessing games over the phone. “What?” she demanded.

  “You sure this is the one he meant?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know that? He said he found a picture in McIntyre’s bedroom that had McIntyre’s guys in it, and he thinks they’re the ones who helped him hit the restaurant.”

  “Okay,” Vic said, uncharacteristically subdued. “I’ll send it right away. You coming back to the precinct?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Okay,” he said again and hung up.

  “What was that all about?” she asked Rolf.

  He wagged his tail hesitantly. He didn’t know.

  Erin’s phone buzzed with Vic’s incoming text. She opened it and saw the photo he’d attached. She poked it with a finger to expand the image.

  The bottom dropped out of her stomach. She knew the bar in the photograph. And she knew some of the men in the picture.

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered.

  The bar was as familiar to her as her own living room. It was the Barley Corner. The picture was of one of the big tables in the middle of the room. Liam McIntyre was sitting with five other men. She didn’t know three of them, but the other two had faces she was never likely to forget.

  James Corcoran grinned at the camera, eyes sparkling with his customary roguish good humor. He had an arm around the shoulder of his best mate and childhood friend. Morton Carlyle wasn’t smiling. He seemed to be looking straight into Erin’s eyes, an unreadable expression on his face.

  “Son of a bitch,” Erin repeated. She sank back into the Charger’s upholstery and closed her eyes. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

  At least Vic didn’t know about her relationship with Carlyle. He just thought the Irishman was Erin’s CI. But he did know they had a history. H
ow much more was he guessing? She tried to remember exactly how he’d sounded. How sure was she that Vic didn’t know? And he wasn’t the only one she had to worry about. Kira Jones, one of Erin’s best friends at Precinct 8, knew at least a little. And Kira was working for Internal Affairs now.

  She had a choice to make, and no option felt right. The photograph was a genuine lead. If she didn’t follow up on it, they might not crack the case. And the very fact that she was thinking that way was worrisome.

  “What would you do, boy?” she asked Rolf.

  He stared at her. His answer was obvious.

  “You’d go after the bad guys,” she said. “Of course.”

  She put the Charger in gear. It was time to move. But she wasn’t going back to the Precinct; not yet. She had to see someone first. It wasn’t protocol, it might not even be smart, but she had to do it.

  Chapter 10

  “Good afternoon.” Carlyle’s voice on the phone was wary. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Erin hadn’t wanted to make this call. She didn’t even know where the two of them stood after their previous confrontation. But what choice was there?

  “I need to see you,” she said. “Alone.”

  “When?”

  “Right away.”

  “Where?”

  “My place, if you can make sure you’re not followed.”

  “Who’s to be following me? Your people, or mine?”

  “Both. Plus maybe some Italians and Colombians. Be careful; they may be hunting you.”

  “I see. Give me a few minutes to get things in order. I can be there in half an hour.”

  “Thanks.” She wanted to say something else, but didn’t know what. She lamely ended with, “See you.”

  Erin didn’t call Webb yet. She should have told him where she was and what she was doing, but she honestly wasn’t sure what to tell him. Instead, she drove to her apartment, parked in the garage, and went upstairs with Rolf to wait for her boyfriend.

  Carlyle was nothing if not punctual. Precisely half an hour after their phone call, he buzzed the building’s front door. Erin knew he could bypass the external security, but he was respecting the boundary. She wondered what that meant. Every word, every gesture he made had some specific, deliberate meaning. She let him in. A few moments later, he rang her doorbell.

  There he was in the hallway, neatly dressed as ever, tie perfectly knotted. He seemed calm on the outside, but she knew him well enough to recognize the hidden tension in his posture. His hands were empty, one clasping the other at his belt buckle.

  She opened the door. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  “Always.”

  “C’mon in.”

  He stepped inside. Rolf, standing in the kitchen doorway, bristled slightly. He hadn’t forgotten his partner’s last encounter with the Irishman. The Shepherd’s baleful stare followed Carlyle into the living room.

  “Have a seat,” she said.

  He hesitated. “Is this official?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Carlyle cocked his head. “That’s the one answer I wasn’t expecting.” He slowly sat on Erin’s couch, resting his hands on his knees. “I’m assuming you’re still angry with me.”

  Erin nodded, tight-lipped. “Yeah. But this isn’t about that.”

  “How may I help you, then?”

  “Liam wasn’t your friend.”

  Carlyle shook his head.

  “We got the guy who killed him,” she said.

  “Grand. My congratulations.”

  Erin watched him carefully. Carlyle gave nothing away. He was watching her in return, searching her face for some clue. All interrogations were two-way, she thought for the second time that day.

  “The Colombians and Lucarellis were killed by Irish,” she said flatly.

  Carlyle didn’t flinch. “You’re certain of this?” he asked quietly.

  “Doesn’t really matter how certain I am,” she shot back. “What matters is the Colombians are sure.”

  “There were survivors?”

  “Did Liam have a line on a big shipment of heroin?” she asked, ignoring his question.

  “I’ve nothing to do with narcotics, Erin. You know that.”

  “What do your pals say?”

  “I’ve no friends in the narcotics business, either.”

  “Your business associates, then.”

  “Erin, don’t ask me about O’Malley business.”

  “Because you won’t rat out your comrades?”

  “Because I’ve no interest in being murdered.”

  “These bastards don’t deserve your loyalty.”

  “It’s not about deserving it,” he said. “It’s about my own integrity.”

  Erin wanted to smack him. Instead, she took out her phone, turned on the screen, and shoved it across the coffee table. “Who’s in the picture?” she demanded.

  Carlyle looked at it. “Corky, Liam, and myself,” he said.

  “Who else?” she growled. Both of them knew perfectly well he was only identifying guys she already knew.

  “I really can’t say.”

  “We’ll get these guys through facial recognition,” she said.

  “Then you’ve no need of my testimony.” He pushed the phone back toward her.

  Erin came around the table and sat on the other end of the couch, angled toward him. “Look, Carlyle, this isn’t what I want to be doing. This thing, you and me, it’s not supposed to be about crap like this. But this case is big. We’ve got eleven bodies and counting. Eleven. And you’re sitting over there doing your cool cucumber act, like it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Thing is, Diego Rojas is sure Liam and his guys did the shooting. And I can’t walk away just because it’s O’Malley muscle in the spotlight. Do you know what sort of spot this puts me in?”

  He nodded and his face and posture softened a little. “About the same spot I’m in on account of making time with a fair copper. You knew this might happen when you threw in with me.”

  “You don’t even like these guys!” she burst out.

  “As I recall, you had some difficulties with a couple of shamuses back in Queens, aye?”

  Erin thought of Lyons and Spinelli, the two Homicide jerks who’d gotten her suspended from duty. “Yeah?” she said suspiciously.

  “If the pair of them got in trouble through doing something thick and called for help, would you be sitting it out? Or would you be running to the rescue?”

  “I’d back them up,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what we do.”

  “Precisely.”

  Erin sighed. “I just wanted… to work together on this. We work well as partners.”

  “Aye, we do.”

  “This photo’s evidence,” she went on, indicating her phone. “It’s already logged. I have to report what Rojas told me. That’ll make you at least a person of interest, maybe a suspect. Corky, too.”

  “Erin,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d nothing to do with the hit. I knew nothing about it. Neither did Corky.”

  She believed him. Part of it was the trust they’d built up so slowly and carefully over the past months. Part of it was knowing Carlyle wasn’t on the muscle side of the O’Malleys. And part of it was knowing he was a pretty lousy shot and didn’t like guns. That was why he kept guys like Ian around.

  Guys like Ian…

  She felt suddenly cold. They were looking for four shooters. Three had blasted the front of the restaurant, the fourth had waited out back and gunned down the Italians as they’d fled. The last one had been an expert marksman, dealing out perfect head shots. Exactly the sort of shots a Marine Scout Sniper knew how to make.

  “Erin?” Carlyle asked, leaning toward her. “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve just taken a shot to the belly.”

  “I’m fine,” she said mechanically.

  “Erin,” he said again. “I didn’t do this.”


  “I know.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Siobhan.”

  She nodded, but she was thinking about other things. “Carlyle,” she said slowly, “is there any chance any of your people might be working… for someone else? Do you, I don’t know, rent them out or something? As a favor, ever?”

  “You mean, do I think any of my folk were moonlighting for Liam? It’s possible. But if so, they’ve not told me. People in the Life are always looking for a way to get ahead, as you well know. It’s not like we sign exclusive contracts.”

  That startled a smile out of her. “But these guys in the picture,” she said, tapping her phone. “They’re not yours? They don’t answer to you?”

  “They don’t,” he confirmed.

  “But you won’t tell me anything else about them.”

  “I’d like to help you.” His face became even more intent. “How important is it to you?”

  “I’m going to find out,” she promised. “One way or another, with your help or without it.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  “A guy I know taught me how not to answer questions.”

  It was his turn to smile. “I love you, darling,” he said. “There’s not much I’d not do for you. But if we start down this road, it could well lead to a funeral, or more than one. Is it worth it?”

  “I need to trust you,” she said, without thinking. And just like that, there it was. The heart of the matter.

  He sat back. “Ah,” he said quietly.

  “If I can’t, this is never going to work,” she said.

  “We’ve fought side by side,” he reminded her.

  “But we’re not on the same side.”

  “I’m no copper,” he said. “But I’m not like the rest of them, either.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Erin, if you take O’Malley lads down for this, I’m not sure I can square it with Evan.”

  “I’m not scared of him,” she said, almost truthfully.

  “Oh, he’ll not likely move directly against you,” Carlyle said. “That’s not my concern. But if this tells him you’re outside my control, he’ll see no use in you. Then, if I keep seeing you, he’ll know you’re a liability, which means I am, too.”