We All Fall Down, Chapter 20

TWENTY

They drove back to Bridgeborough without speaking, letting Megan’s Raffi tapes placate Tiny Girl. Karen waited in the car as Megan dropped Tiny Girl off at Tillie’s house, then Megan waited in the borough hall and parking lot as Karen headed for the records department. Shift change was still a few hours off, so the shop was largely deserted, except for the dispatcher and a few support people. Crowell’s office was dark behind the frosted glass of the door.
Megan had started her second cigarette when Karen returned to the car.

“I thought you were busting somebody,” Megan said.

“Sorry, I had to look up the car-theft report and get the addresses,” Karen said. “Now I need you to sit in the back.”

“Huh?”

“It’s an idea I just got. Maybe it won’t work but I’m gonna try it. You have to sit in the back.”

“The fuck?”

“C’mon Megan. Real live cops. This is a Hail Mary shot before I watch my career get buried. You do this for me, McGruff will come visit you.”

Megan didn’t laugh. “This is fuckin’ historic, Karen. The way you’re jerkin’ me around, I’m actually startin’ to look forward to work.”

“I’m not jerking you around, Megan.” Karen opened her door. “C’mon, it’ll all make sense when I explain it.”

“Oh boy.” Megan wrestled the seat up and slipped in back. But she listened as Karen talked and they headed back out to Dawson.
Dawson had been built up from the center, with subdivisions spreading outward like mold spores growing toward the edge of a Petri dish. Once Karen and Megan passed Deer Run Centre and the expansive McMansion developments built for the upper-middle class, networks of split-levels, ranches and town houses closed in around them.

The Sailesh house was a light blue split-level on a relatively large corner lot, with tall holly bushes screening the back yard on each side and a split-rail fence holding the world at bay. A slate path curved up to the front door. An Avalon and an SUV – two extremes of car safety, Karen thought – took up the driveway.

Karen circled the block twice without seeing any signs of activity.  ”Hey Megan,” she said on the third pass. “When I pull over, I want you to sit leaning forward with your arms behind you.”

“Like I’m handcuffed?”

“Exactly.”

Megan considered. Despite her bad mood, she was intrigued by the whole setup. “What if somebody sees me that I know?”

“Come on.”

“This is for the benefit of whoever you talk to?”

“You got it.”

Megan grinned. “What if I act guilty? Say something and you tell me to shut up?”

Karen grinned back. “OK. That’s good. I like that. Just do it once, though. We’ll do the Ricky Roma thing. When I run my hand through my hair, you yell.”

“Ricky Roma?”

“Glengarry Glen Ross, remember?”

“Oh shit, right! And I’m Shelley Levene?”

“Quick study, girlfriend.”

With only a few cars parked along the curb, Karen was free to park slightly up from the house, so that someone standing at the front door could see Megan in the Hyundai’s back window. Karen stepped up the slate path and rang the bell a few times. No answer. She stepped around to the back yard, saw the patio door was closed. There were a couple of dog bowls on the patio, but nothing had barked when Karen rang the bell.

Karen was coming back around when she met the girl coming up the driveway. Karen guessed her to be about high school age, maybe a junior, and apparently enjoying it. She had dusky skin and coarse black hair that she wore past her shoulders – loose ends stirred in the breeze as she stopped, startled by Karen’s appearance. The black tights flattered her legs, the blue plaid skirt accentuated her hips and the bulky male athletic jacket – some boyfriend’s gift, no doubt – had the effect of emphasizing her femininity. She stood about five-two. She was accompanied by a Pekinese with a black, squashed-in face and well-combed fur that trailed along the ground. When it saw Karen, the panting dog let out a series of squeaky barks as it danced and peed on the driveway. It fell silent when the girl said, “Shush up.”

“Can I help you with something?” she asked. The round face was very Indian, but the voice was that of a generic high-school suburban girl. Resentment coiled like a snake in the back of Karen’s head. It was unfair to make this girl bear the weight of old grudges, but Karen also knew beyond any doubt that if they’d been the same age this teen queen wouldn’t have given her the time of day.

She wasn’t going to have that option now.

“I’m looking for Noorie.” Karen made no attempt to soften her voice. If anything, she tried to make it rougher.

“She’s not here,” the girl said.

“And you are?”

“Who’s asking?”

Karen swept out her badge and held it up to the girl’s face, deliberately bringing it a little too close. The girl stepped back. The dog resumed squeaking.

“Bridgeborough police, that’s who I am. Now, let’s try it again. You are.”

“Patty Sailesh.” She was tense now – tense and scared.

“Patty?”

“It’s you know, a long Indian name. People call me Patty – it’s easier.”

“Where’s Noorie?”

“Look, can I put him inside? He won’t stop barking now.”

Karen eyed her. “You’re not gonna stay inside, you know. You are not gonna try that with me.”

“No no no,” Patty said quickly. She scooped up the Pekinese and ran up the slate path. The door slammed and the dog’s barking continued, muffled.

“Hey officer!” Megan yelled. “It’s hot in here!”

Karen stared hard. “We had one talk already, miss. You want another?”

Megan answered with silence.

Patty’s eyes were very wide now. Her imagination, fueled by television cop shows, was no doubt filling in all the details Karen couldn’t provide. Undercover work, that would explain the shabby car, the jeans and the denim jacket. No gun in sight, but maybe it was holstered under the jacket. Even so …

“You’re a cop?” Patty asked. “Look, that detective Morgan already talked to Noorie. I don’t know why you’re bugging us again.”

“You keep avoiding the question, Patty,” Karen said. “I asked you where Noorie is.”

“She’s … she’s not here. She’s, uh. Dad threw her out. She hasn’t lived here in, like, months.”

“Well,” Karen chuckled, “her, like, car registration says she lives here.”

“Yuh yeah, but she doesn’t.”

“Then where is she?”

“I don’t know. I don’t talk to her.”

“Is that how you know she talked to detective Morgan?”

Patty wracked her brains for some kind of answer.

“Do you want to come to the police station?” Karen asked.

Patty’s breath stopped. “I’m not …” she began.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Karen said. “You want to hear the rest of it? If you do, it means I’m taking you in.”

“Why, you, why!” Patty’s voice rose to a babyish wail. Then, lower: “Why are you doing me like this? Some guy stole her car and now you wanna arrest me?”

Karen stepped into her personal zone, close enough to send breath into her face. “We are looking for a man who killed our police chief and his wife.”

“I know about that.” The pressure was straining Patty’s voice. She was about to cry – it was a little amazing, in fact, that she hadn’t started already.

“You probably also know what cops do when one of their own gets killed. You know that nothing is gonna stand in the way of us catching this guy. And you’re about to find out what happens when some asshole tries to trip us up.”
Patty was angry now. It was the only means available to stand off the tears, as Karen knew from experience.

“What the fuck are you calling me!” she hissed. “I don’t care if you are a cop, you don’t talk like that to me! The guy stole my sister’s car! That’s all she knows about him.”

Karen stood without saying anything. It was best to let the imagination reassert itself, let her adrenaline start pumping again as her mind conjured up possibilities.

Patty started losing steam. “She doesn’t,” she said, sounding tired.

“Not what Sarita says.”

Patty’s eyes closed tight. “Sarita …”

“Sarita,” Karen sang. “With the brother wants to date Noorie. I also have it from Murphy’s druggie friend over there.” Karen nodded toward the car.
Patty sat down. Karen had just cut her strings.

“Our scumbag didn’t steal Noorie’s car,” Karen ground out. “He borrowed it. And wherever he is now, she’s with him. And you know where that is.”

Patty covered her ears. Karen crouched in front of her.

“We’re not interested in your sister,” Karen said, not caring if the line sounded too Hollywood – maybe it was better that way. “We only want her if she’s helping to hide him. Then we take her to the mat. If you’re helping her hide him, then you’re an accessory. Do you really want some of the pain that gets handed out for cop killers?”

Patty started crying, hard. No build-up, no preliminary sobs – she simply began shaking and gasping.

“Have you heard of asset forfeiture, Patty?”

Patty managed to shake her head.

“Assets are houses, cars, anything like that. We find out a crime’s been committed, we go after the assets used to help commit that crime. Like if you’re been calling Noorie from this house, or letting her and Murphy use it every now and then, we go after it. We throw you and your folks out on the street. That’s after I handcuff you and walk you past your friends and neighbors and into my car. That’s after we make your parents go into hock to bail you out. Do you understand how much trouble you’re in?”

Patty was beyond tears. Just catching her breath had become her goal.

Karen put a hand on her knee. “Patty?”

Patty put her hands over her face.

“Patty. Just this one last time before I arrest you … where is Noorie?”

Patty told her. The words were so distorted by crying that Karen asked her to stop and repeat them a few times. And then Karen was heading for the Nova, feeling her sneakers swipe across the blades of grass, feeling a little sick about what she’d just seen. About what she’d just done. But the feeling passed as she began to understand what she was about to do.

Suddenly impatient, Karen cursed at the other drivers: the ones in front of her, who were too slow, and the ones in the passing lane, who were driving too fast to risk cutting off. She had to get Megan to work fast and exploit this opening. This opportunity! She had to go to this address before …

Jesus Christ! What if Patty warned them? Why was she treating this like a lark? Karen cut a hard right, into a convenience store parking lot. The Hyundai jounced into the spot nearest the pay phone.

“What’s goin’ on, Karen?”

“I gotta call you a cab. I’ll pay for it, but I gotta move on this right now. The cab’ll get you to work!”

“Don’t fucking yell at me!” Megan kicked the back of her seat.

“I’m not yelling at you!” Karen laughed. “I’m yelling … Jesus Christ! I can’t believe this!”

“I can’t get over the way she cried,” Megan said. “You walked it right to her. I’ve never seen you do anything like that.”

Karen bounded out of the car and grabbed the phone. With the cab on the way, she leaped from the curb and ran around the Hyundai, pumping her fists at invisible opponents.

Megan smiled. “Is this about that Murphy guy?”

“Yes.” Karen rubbed her hands.

“So, Jesus …” Megan looked startled. “You’re gonna catch him?”

“Look, I dunno.” Karen tried to rein herself in. “Maybe it’ll turn out not to be such a big deal, this person I’m gonna drop in on. It’s like fifty-fifty now.”

“Fifty-fifty,” Megan said. “Better than what you had before.” The cab appeared on the other side of the lot.

“I’m excited, you know, but I’m suspicious, too. Like, this isn’t gonna play out as big as I would like to think. But I know I did just one really important thing today, making this connection.”

“That’s good,” Megan said. “They teach you that, that kind of questioning? Breaking people down like that?”

“Some of it.” Karen walked her to the cab. Despite her excitement, she could see something was bothering Megan. “So what’s up?”

“When I first got my license,” Megan said, “I got pulled over for speeding and this cop decided I knew something about drug sales. Or maybe he didn’t but he said it just to mess with my head? Whatever it was, he just squashed me like a bug. I think it took me something like a month to get over it.”

“So he was a jerk,” Karen said. “This chick is helping protect a murderer. I’m supposed to be sorry I hurt her feelings? Get real, Megan.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry.” Megan got into the cab and spoke through the window.

“Just don’t be too much like that cop, you know?”

Karen didn’t say anything. She just stared after the cab, wondering if she had been wrong about keeping in touch with Megan. Did she think the police ran an asshole academy? Just don’t be too much like that cop. Nobody got fucked with unless they deserved it, Karen decided. The old guys were right: civilians just didn’t understand.

The question at hand: Who to tell? Who to share the glory with? Karen called Warren Peterson, got his answering machine. Got it another three times. Creighton’s line was busy. Karen slammed the receiver down on the pay phone and stewed.

An idea that had been humming in the background, all while she was calling Peterson and Creighton, now buzzed louder. It made her heart pound to think of it. She could call Scott. With that in mind, she was suddenly overwhelmed by fantasies of getting to touch him, kiss him again. He would be flattered. He would be grateful. A rookie and a patrolman bringing in the year’s most wanted suspect – he would realize there was a lot more to Karen McCarthy that he’d thought.

No, no that was ridiculous. Scott was married. Scott was loyal to his wife.
Even so, it would be the most gallant gesture imaginable to bring him in on this.

If Peterson and Creighton weren’t available, Karen would just have to go with her instincts. So she punched in Scott’s number, and tried not to laugh when he answered the phone.

We All Fall Down, Chapter 19

NINETEEN

The drive was delayed when Tiny Girl, seeing she was about to be strapped into yet another vehicle, went into full Three Mile Island mode and would not be consoled until she’d had a bottle of milk, a Barney video, a fresh diaper and her rainbow snake. Then they were off in Karen’s Hyundai, leaving Bridgeborough for the land of the giants: shopping malls like mountain ranges linked by ribbons of highway.

SportLand was a whitewashed concrete bunker on a long side road off the highway. There were checkered flags snapping in the breeze. Out past the parking lot, scaled-down racers buzzed and popped along loops of asphalt. The young drivers, encased in bubble helmets, looked out at the muddy fields and saw the big track in Indianapolis, or the mountain roads of Monaco.

“Isn’t this a school day?” Karen asked as they unfolded the stroller for Tiny Girl.

“You gonna bust anybody?” Megan asked.

“Naw,” Karen said. “Outside my jurisdiction.”

The game room was a bath of sound: explosions, shots, racing engines and karate-cries from the video games. Tiny Girl stared around, enchanted by the colors and lights as they stepped around the lurching flight-simulators, pausing to check out the cluster of pinball machines in the far corner.

Half the kids here seemed to be high-school age, mostly male. They looked down in barely contained disgust at the presence of a rugrat in their arcade, then looked up at Megan in her jeans and jacket and fell into an erotic trance. Karen’s obvious age drew their attention, but once they’d decided she wasn’t a truant officer she became invisible. Without the magic blue uniform to scare them, their disdain was obvious. One college-age guy was wearing a shirt that said NO UGLY CHICKS, and when she walked past he could hear him say, “Guess she doesn’t know how to read.”

Megan started to go back, but Karen caught her elbow.

“Did you hear that asshole?” Megan hissed.

“Chill out,” Karen told her. She spoke as quietly as she could, given the noise.
The female population was restricted to the cashier and a doughy girl with frizzy black hair and a FOXEY LADY tee-shirt. She looked the age Karen had been when it became obvious her body was not going to change the way other girls’ bodies were changing; that she would not bask in the same light of interest and speculation other girls enjoyed as a matter of course.

All the geeky adolescent lust in the room was focused on the cashier, a dusky-skinned Indian woman in her early twenties clearly bored senseless by the attention. She appeared to be about Murphy’s age.

Karen led Megan to the far corner of the arcade. “I’m gonna try something. Just stay here while I’m talking. If you get into a scrap with that guy you’re gonna fuck me up here, OK? Keep cool, OK? I don’t care what Beavis and Butt-head say.”

“OK,” Megan said, clearly unhappy with her orders.

Karen went up to the counter, grinned like a harmless fool and asked if Charlie was around.

The woman shrugged and contemplated the universe somewhere beyond Karen.

“Charlie Murphy?” Karen waited for some spark in the woman’s eyes, but they gave nothing back. Karen nodded. “So it’s like that?”

“Like what?” The woman had a nice contralto voice. Her lipstick was a dark shade, almost a brick red that complemented her skin. For no particular reason, Karen thought of the stolen-car report – the car Murphy had been driving. The owner’s name: Nurit Sailesh.

“Didn’t really want to see Charlie anyway,” Karen said. “I was really looking for Nurit.”

That got a reaction. “You know Noorie?”

“Well enough to ask for my boom-box back.” The lies came so smoothly it was almost frightening. “She was keeping it in the Maverick until she got a new radio.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Then kiss it goodbye, if Morph was driving the car.”

Karen laughed, trying to control her excitement. “Guess I’ll try her at home.”

The woman scowled. “Home? Isn’t she still kicked out?”

“Well, yeah,” Karen said. “Maybe I don’t know her as well as I thought. I need to get in touch with her, though.”

“Ask her sister,” the woman said. “She keeps in touch. Noorie’s bouncing around from house to house, you know what I’m saying? If it’s got a green sign, sooner or later she’ll be there.”

Karen mulled that over, wondering what it meant, forcing herself not to ask. “She ain’t been around much,” the woman said. “Tell her I said hi.”

“And you are …”

“Sarita, just tell her that. Sarita with the brother who’s praying for the day she’ll get tired of white boys.”

Did the detectives get this juiced up every day? It was addictive: this feeling that you could turn the world upside down and shake it until what you wanted landed at your feet. God, she had to get off patrol detail as quickly as possible. The whole thing was so easy, it would be a crime not to do it more often.

Megan was at a full boil. “I’m gonna kick his ass!”

“What?”

“Mr. No Ugly Chicks over there with the big smirk and the tiny dick. He called us a couple of bull dykes. He asked me how often I suck your pussy.”

“He what?”

“I told him not as often as his boyfriend sucked his,” Megan said. Karen laughed. She found herself staring across the room at the guy, who stared right back at her. He pointed at the message at his shirt, pointed at Karen, then jerked his thumb toward the exit door.

“You should go put his nuts on the ceiling,” Megan snarled.

“Come on, Megan.”

“I want you to take out your badge and kick his ass!”

“Come on.” Karen grasped Megan’s left arm, near the elbow. Her fingers automatically found the pressure points, the nerve clusters that, when properly squeezed, would turn a strutting loudmouth into a squeaking submissive. She didn’t squeeze, but it was a little startling to realize how automatic the gesture had become.

Megan didn’t stop resisting until they reached the parking lot. “You look happy,” she said sourly. Tiny Girl fussed and made noises. She wanted more of the arcade.

“I’m freakin’ ecstatic. I haven’t felt this good since, you know, never.”

“You found out something?”

“I found out somebody’s been lying to us,” Karen said as she opened the car. “Now I’m gonna go rub her nose in it.” Karen threw the car into reverse as Megan watched. Megan was staring at her face. For some reason, she looked almost frightened.

Friday finds

“Sister Jean”Webster, a former sou chef for one of the Atlantic City casinos, started feeding the homeless from her home and now serves hundreds daily at the First Presbyterian Chuch, across from the Trump Taj Mahal. This marvelous photo essay at Corbis will give you the picture(s). (Thanks Rix.) 

Writers! Get ready for a pep talk from . . . Emily Dickinson.

John L. said life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans. Nick D. agrees.

Oscar-winning screenwriter may be Twittering from behind bars.

A different kind of giving thanks.

Resolution: Bring poetry into the 21st century.

You can find the strangest things while hiking through the desert.

After a dry spell, Bat Segundo is posting again.

Now that the initial wave of ridicule has passed, some listeners are having second thoughts about Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart. I’m not one of them, but a lot of people whose opinions I respect are coming around to liking the thing.

We All Fall Down, Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

“So it sounds . . . like this Scott guy . . . basically thinks of . . . you like a kid sister,” Megan said, breathing hard as she speed-walked behind Tiny Girl’s stroller.

“Except you can’t screw your kid sister,” Karen said, quick-stepping alongside Megan, not breathing very hard at all.

“Not even . . . in this town?”

“Things here have come a long way since I was a kid,” Karen said. They were halfway up Apple Avenue, puffing twin clouds of steam in the cold morning air, before Karen realized she was unconsciously retracing her pursuit of Charlie Murphy.

“Ahhh daaaah!” Tiny Girl yelled. That was her command voice. Megan put her hands on her knees and caught her breath as Megan shadowed Tiny Girl along the sidewalk. After they gathered some acorns from the curb, Tiny Girl consented to return to her stroller and the morning exercise resumed.

“So the chief sounds like he doesn’t want to fire you,” Megan said.

“Probably not,” Karen said. They’d fallen asleep on the couch midway through the second disc of season two, but not before McNulty’s career troubles inspired Karen to hint at some of her own. “But I think it would be worse than that.”

“Meaning what?” Megan was starting to breathe hard again. Karen, on the other hand, felt loose and limber, all stretched out and ready for a flat-out run. They reached the T-intersection with Hansen Avenue and turned left. The street that had been so dark and threatening now looked innocuous – dumpy, like the rest of Bridgeborough, but not the domain of hidden monsters anymore. What a difference a little daylight could make.

They stopped at the Loop and watched the high school kids playing football. St. Anne’s was two blocks away. Growing up, Karen thought of the big statue in front of the church as the Iron Angel. She’d seen the old Dyson plant looming by the railroad tracks with its black, busted-out windows and spiked smokestacks, like an immense skull built out of red bricks and razor wire, and in her mind the Iron Angel was the bulwark against whatever horrors might creep from the Dyson plant’s cobwebbed halls on a cloudy night.

They took turns holding Tiny Girl as Karen talked.

“I know exactly why I got hired in the first place,” Karen said. “I’m supposed to be the friendly face of the department. I’m supposed to be the proof that Bridgeborough is keeping step with the times. Nobody expected anything much from me.”

Tiny Girl was giving her a big-eyed, uncertain stare. Must have been something in Karen’s tone of voice. Karen managed to explain exactly how much had gone wrong with Charlie Murphy. She nearly cried a couple of times doing it, but she managed to get through the whole thing. Nothing about the Broadmer guy getting killed. Karen was already too much of a cop to let any of that slip out.

“So now if I go back, I can look forward to sitting at a desk and filing reports for twenty years,” Karen said. “And doing the DARE program and going to the school to talk to the kids once in a while. If I’m really lucky, they’ll let me tag along with McGruff. I might even get to dress up.”

“I’m only saying this to bring it up,” Megan said, “but what if you are in a little over your head? This kind of job – you know, not everybody can do it. There’s no shame in that.”

Yes there is. Karen looked away.

“Don’t get pissed at me, OK?”

“I’m not,” Karen said.

Stick with this kid. He’s a loser. Paul Newman. Fast Eddie Felson. He was a loser because he didn’t know when to stop playing. Maybe it was time for Karen to stop playing.

“I fucked up,” Karen finally said, “but that doesn’t make me a fuckup.”

The cold breeze carried the smell of burning leaves or firewood. Half of Karen’s brain enjoyed the smell; the other half listed summonses. That was cop thinking for you.

Karen bounced on her heels, suddenly eager to move. She was in jeans and her new denim jacket – she’d actually wanted a leather one, but the woman looking back at her in the store mirror had been too close to the dyke Karen was always accused of being.

Over that way, five streets down, were the railroad tracks where most of the burnout kids still did their drinking and screwing. Karen had never been allowed to go near the tracks, but it was mostly a moot point: Karen hadn’t been the kind of girl a boy would try to cajole into going for a walk there. Every overheard story about who did what to whom seemed to start with, You heard what happened at the tracks last night? Right up until her sophomore year in high school, Karen had imagined the tracks to be a carnival of youth and excitement and adventure. One summer night she’d gone walking there, hoping to stumble across one of those delicious rumors in the making. Instead she found Gary Sedwick, who’d set fire to her textbooks in the cafeteria, and Kenny Hanover, Mark’s oldest brother. And they’d …

“Christ. This shit is scary.” Megan said. “I feel like I’m in over my head just listening to it.”

“Just you, too, right? Nobody else hears about this.” Talking about Murphy had raised a sweat on Karen’s face. It just felt wrong. Civilians couldn’t understand cops and cop problems. But Karen didn’t want to leave Megan behind, not unless Megan herself made it necessary. This mess was now the black hole at the center of Karen’s life. It was either talk about this or talk about the weather.

A train was going by, out of sight but dominating the background sounds: a faint rumble overlaid by metronomic clicks.

“I never told you this before,” Karen said. “What happened when I went down to the tracks one night.”

“You scored some drugs?” Megan sprang at the new subject, hoping it would lighten the mood.

“Uh, no. Two guys tried to jump me. Did jump me. They said they were gonna kill me if I didn’t give them blowjobs.”

Megan watched her without saying anything. Her face was difficult to read.

“You knew them?” she finally said. “You remember them?”

“Like it was yesterday. Gary Sedwick. Kenny Hanover.”

Gary she’d held off with a big stick: he’d always been yellow as babyshit. Kenny actually punched her in the jaw before she butted his face and brought him to his knees, howling as she shifted the bones of his arm within their sockets. She’d worked it well enough to keep him out of that week’s football game, which the Bridgeborough Bulls lost to the Mill Brook Eagles. It had been Karen’s first realization that one person could really make a difference.

“Jesus Christ,” Megan said. “No wonder you became a cop.”

Karen studied her. “You think that’s why?”

“So, it’s not?”

The question – Why do you want to be a cop? – had cropped up a lot throughout the application and training. She’d given the acceptable, well-worn answers: Somebody has to be responsible. I want to make a difference. I like helping people. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that the people she rescued in her fantasies all had her face.

“Yeah, it’s … it’s not the only thing. There’s a lot of reasons and maybe that’s one of them but it’s not the only one, you know?”

“Be enough for me. Throw all those shits in jail. Deal out some payback.”

“Too many cops here think that way already.” And I don’t want to end up being another asshole, she thought.

“Yeah, but you kick your share of ass. I hear about it from you, remember? There’s at least one guy walking funny because of you.”

Karen shrugged. “I get into a situation, I have to react. I have to take control. Sometimes the scumbags don’t want to listen to reason.”

“So maybe you’ll get to do it to Kenny Hanover one of these days.”
“Up to him. We’re in a situation and he plays it smart, he doesn’t have a thing to worry about. I’m not out gunning for certain people.”

“So why be a cop here, then? It’s not like Bridgeborough’s your favorite place in the world.”

Karen laughed. It was a hard, flat, humorless sound combined of equal parts amusement, despair, defiance, anger and resignation. It was bleak sound that announced the worst had arrived, as expected, and would be dealt with. When things are just nasty, I give a little chuckle. When they’re bad I giggle, and when they’re really bad I laugh out loud. If the world ever comes to an end, I’ll probably bust a gut.

“You’re really backing me into a corner here,” Karen said. “If I’m gonna be a cop, why not be one in the place I know best? I move to another town, I just gotta start from scratch.”

“Huh” Megan stared off into the distance. Maybe she was seeing the same things Karen saw when she was in a particularly black mood. When she found herself falling into the old litany, the lessons she’d repeated to herself during her teenaged years, when each day was a boot heel grinding her down with the knowledge that she would never get the things she needed from the people around her. She had used the litany to toughen herself up. I am alone. I will always be alone. I am ugly and nobody wants me. I have to get used to that.

“This job changes you,” Karen said. “It’s changing me. You’re gonna laugh at this maybe, but it’s making me better in a lot of ways. There’s loyalty, there’s discipline – believe it or not, I can be really good at this shit when I get half a chance.”

“So what can you do?” Megan hefted Tiny Girl, who was looking sleepy.
“There’s one thing I can do today.” Karen said. “Let’s go back down the street.”

Tiny Girl was fast asleep in her stroller, cheeks drooping to one side, by the time they reached the end of Hansen Street, at the alley where Karen had fought with Charles Murphy. In the daylight, with the late-morning sun coloring the bricks, there was nothing menacing about the spot – nothing to suggest that if things had gone differently, her blood might now be one of the odd stains on the concrete.

“Man,” Megan said. “Like I should draw a chalk guy on the ground.”

“It might’ve been,” Karen said.

“Get out.”

“True. I got sloppy. That’s how it happens.” Bottles clinked and cardboard rustled as Karen stepped into the alley. “I was standing where you are now when I heard him.” She moved deeper into the alley, closer to the brick wall. “This was where we started wrestling. I got the drop on him over there.”

Grabbing the front of his shirt and dropping, rolling onto her back and kicking up, sending him up and over. That had been the one perfectly executed move in the whole encounter. The way he squealed and cursed, the change spilling out of his pockets before he slammed into the concrete.

The change spilling out of his pockets. She remembered that quite clearly.

“You want to look for something?” Megan sounded doubtful.

“Something here, yeah.”

“Like what?”

“Like anything,” Karen said. “Anything out of the way. I don’t know if there’ll be anything worth looking at, but I remember stuff fell out his pockets when I flipped him.”

“Wouldn’t the detectives have checked this out?” Megan asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe not. They know his name now. Maybe they’re concentrating on working their snitches.”

“You told me that once,” Megan said. “That’s how most of the crooks get caught – somebody rats them out.”

Karen nodded, keeping her attention on the ground.

“It’s not like the cops are so brilliant,” Megan said, “it’s that the crooks are usually so stupid.”

Karen looked up.

“Peace,” Megan said. “Nothin’ personal.”

Karen chuckled and went back to studying the alley. Tiny Girl, thank God, was still asleep.

“You wanna wait a minute?” Megan said. “I’ll be right back.”

Megan trotted off with the stroller. Karen moved down the alley very slowly, scuffing clumps of grass with her shoes. There was a layer of old junk: paper turned into twists of pulp by rain and exposure, scratched cans and constellations of broken glass. She moved all the way to the end, turned and took another slow trip. Too much crap to sort.

Just about the time she was wondering if Megan had cut out, her friend reappeared, moving slowly with two cups of coffee balanced on the stroller handle.

“Oh my God,” Karen said. “If you were a guy I’d marry you.”

“I wouldn’t do this for anybody else.” Megan parked Tiny Girl and set the coffee cups on the staircase and tossed a rake over to Karen. “You wanna do the whole alley, or what?”

After about a half-hour, Megan announced that she had to get ready for work.

“Whadda we got?” she asked.

“Junk,” Karen said. Her eyes kept returning to small circles in the dirt. They might have been coins but the brassy color was all wrong. They looked pretty bright, so they probably hadn’t been in the alley very long.

Karen picked one up and angled it against the light, trying to make out the lettering  stamped into the metal. She checked again and found two more tokens. She buffed them against her jeans and read off the name. “You know what SportLand is?”

“Yeah, it’s a game place, arcade, like that. Out on Thirty-four? Like video games and shit, racetrack with toy cars kids can ride in.”

“You know how to get there?”

“Yeah, but like I gotta drop the critter with Tillie and catch my bus.”

“If I drive you to work, that gives you time?”

“Yeah, like…” Megan thought it over and brightened. “Like a couple hours.”
Karen thought about showing the tokens to one of the force’s two detectives. Bailey handled a lot of juvenile work, and would probably hand it off to Morgan. She could easily imagine Morgan’s expression, the one he always used on her: the look of a grade-school teacher with a student trying to get an extension on a term paper.

The academy teachers whipped recruits through tests of observational skills: they’d show you a picture of a street scene, then whisk it away and ask you to describe everything you remembered, that kind of thing. She had performed well, but there was obviously a lot more involved.

“This is probably not going to lead to anything,” Karen said, “but you wanna stay with me on this?” Karen asked. “A little longer?”

Megan glanced up at the mid-afternoon sky. She laughed.

“This is so Nancy Drew,” she said. “Like maybe we can join the Goonies or something.” She laughed again. “Let’s go, Sherlock.”

The Thanksgiving Show (with Bob Dylan, The Band, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig)

Since it’s Thanksgiving, let us give thanks for the indispensible Wolfgang’s Vault, which has posted the most complete available recording of The Last Waltz, the all-star farewell concert by The Band on Thanksgiving 1976. Whatever qualms you might have about the film — I refer you to Levon Helm’s autobiography This Wheel’s On Fire for a savagely hilarious demolition of former bandmate Robbie Robertson’s self-mythologizing ways — there are moments of supreme beauty and artistry, as when Dylan takes the stage near the end of the proceedings.

Aside from the fact that this is a superb performance of one of Dylan’s greatest songs, what I particularly like about this clip is the way you can see drummer Levon Helm and guitarist Robbie Robertson watching Dylan as the song ends — wondering what he’s going to spring on them next. Helm’s evident enjoyment of Dylan’s unpredictability is there to be seen in the film, in between the closeups of Robertson and his designer scarves.

And, of course, no Thanksgiving is complete without a viewing of this Warner Brothers classic:

We All Fall Down, Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

“Don’t get me wrong,” Crowell said, his voice as calm and contained as ever. “Those were good collars. The guy you got on the open-container charge, especially, he had a couple of bench warrants for non-payment of child support and speeding. Not a master criminal or anything, but it’s good he’s finally back in the bag.”

Hierarchy in action: Crowell, the acting chief, was seated behind his desk; Peter Hull, the sergeant on duty, was standing by, not quite behind the desk but close enough to be part of the authority being projected by Crowell; and Karen, standing at attention, getting the full force of their restrained but obvious displeasure.

“But Sergeant Hull and I have reviewed the on-board video of the arrest and frankly, we have some concerns,” Crowell said. “There are three instances, from what we could see, in which you were clearly not in control of the situation. In at least that many instances, you failed to follow proper procedure.”

Only three? By Karen’s estimation, there’d been five.

A hint of the old sneer had returned to Hull’s mouth.

Goddammit, I am not a fuckup.

“While I think you can still be of value to this department, Officer McCarthy, I’m inclined to think a refresher course at the county academy may be in order. That is Sergeant Hull’s recommendation, and I’m probably going to go with it. I’m interested in what you have to say about all this.”

Karen had to swallow a few times, then clear her throat. “Sir, I am still fully committed to this department. I am aware that I made mistakes and I accept full responsibility for them.” Charlie Murphy. Stacey Kovach’s bulging eyes. Thumper’s slablike face on the kitchen floor. “I am fully committed to being a fine police officer and I would like another chance to prove that to you and Sergeant Hull.”

The sneer again, just barely held in check. Crowell couldn’t see it, but Hull made sure Karen saw it.

“I appreciate those sentiments, officer,” Crowell said. The daylight caught his owlish spectacles, turning them into blank white discs. “I’m giving you the day off tomorrow so you can think things over. Then we’ll have another meeting.” The leather chair puffed and creaked as Crowell eased back. “There’s some paperwork left over from yesterday, so you can finish out your shift doing that.”

I am not a fuckup. The file drawer ground open and Karen looked at the long dull row of Pendaflex files, each one like another year of her future. The completed paperwork from that catastrophic night, when the chief and his wife were murdered in their own home and Karen let the suspect get away, had finally appeared in the record room. There was a baker’s dozen worth of arrest reports from Reilly’s. Karen found the arrest report for the creep who’d slugged her. His mouth was a mess and there were scrapes across his forehead and left cheek, but it was the look of utter defeat in his eyes that gave Karen a dirty thrill. She’d done that to him. He’d come at her full force and she’d tamed him down good and hard, made him into a sobbing, piss-stained bowl of pudding.

She recalled Gunther Mickelsson’s cigarette-smoked voice, like Robert Mitchum, saying He bled like a bitch and cried like a cooze as the asshole was paraded through Reilly’s bar. She should have been offended by words like bitch and cooze – they’d certainly been thrown at her often enough – but instead she was pleased by the memory.

The computer system had a special quirk: when a patrol car ran somebody’s plates, the backup copy came through with all the information except the date, which was only partly visible at the top of each page. Using a different printer was not an option the system was not all that adaptable. This meant the date had to be cross-checked and written in by hand across the top of each page before it could vanish into one of the Pendaflex folders. What was supposed to be a labor-saving device instead generated more drudge work. The wonders of technology.

As luck would have it, Karen got to write in dates for the backup reports on the license plates she’d checked out just that morning. And then, because the shift change was approaching and she didn’t want to have to look at the other guys, she lingered in the records room, checking the other backup copies to make sure they had all been properly filled out. That’s when she noticed something odd.

As she’d riffled through the pages, certain names kept cropping up. After another fifteen minutes, Karen had bird-dogged twenty or so pages with sticky tabs. She compared them, double-checked her work. Lou Gossett’s sneering voice from An Officer and a Gentleman – Well looky here, just as he got up to duke it out with Richard Gere – looped through her mind as she set the pages side by side. The pages were photocopies. Somebody had gone back a few months, plucked out certain pages, whited-out the dates and copied them again to be refilled with new dates. There were at least four copied pages on file for the night the Kovach house had been invaded. A couple of them had faint smudges down along the bottom – sure signs they’d been photocopied.

Fuck me, Karen thought.

There were a lot of ways a trick like this could be used. A patrolman giving himself an alibi while he dropped in on his girlfriend was one possibility Karen could imagine. Was this how Scott did it?

Let’s just put this aside for further study, Karen decided. If she was going to end up parked at a desk for the rest of her police career, she might as well start thinking like a bureaucratic warrior.

Leaving the parking lot, Karen turned right instead of left and drove the three blocks to Boulevard Liquor, where she bought herself two big square bottles of bourbon. This is a big mistake, she thought as she set them in the back seat and started home. You can’t do this to yourself, she thought as she pulled into the driveway. You know where this is going to leave you, she thought as she clumped across the porch. Stop this shit right now, she thought as she opened the front door.

Karen paused and looked at the carpeted steps leading up to her apartment. The bottles were heavy in each hand. This was what it had all been leading up to – two big bottles instead of a single small one, a chance to get drunk in her own place, instead of a culvert near the river. To sit on a cushion instead of gravel and tree roots, to look down at a church steeple and the roofs of two-family houses instead of peering through a screen of bulrushes and phragmites as the dark drink carried her through anger, then rage, then loneliness and back around again. She could even sit on the couch and remember Scott’s mouth and the taste of his neck and the muscles hard under his soft skin as he pumped inside her – what a bonus. If she played her cards right, maybe she could get so shitfaced that she’d sleep through the whole day and into the next, miss her appointment with Crowell, wake up to a whole new blank slate of a life

Then the door to her right popped open and there was Megan in her gym shorts and her black Wildwood tee-shirt, keeping her voice low as she said: “Tiny Girl’s asleep, I’m awake and you’re home. What’s it gonna be – McNulty’s dimples or Clooney’s ass?”

Karen laughed. “Your call.”

Megan looked at the bottles. “You going to a party?”

“Naw. This is the party. Your call.”

“Let’s see how Ziggy’s doing,” Megan said.

Karen took the steps two at a time. It was her apartment again, not a black hole sucking her back into the past. She stowed the bottles, still in their brown bags, far under the sink, grabbed a DVD box and headed back down the stairs.

The Wednesday Westie(s)

Call it The Magnificent Seven Minus Four.

We All Fall Down, Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

“Hey, Karen, how are you?”

Karen looked around, startled by the voice, and was startled again by the speaker. Mark Hanover, the youngest of Thump’s Chumps, giving her an unsteady smile and holding out his white-gloved hand. She took it without thinking, resisting the impulse to pull away when he put his other hand on hers.

They stood in the lobby of Borough Hall, the other blue figures flowing around them. The big front doors, with their elaborate brass fixtures from the Roaring Twenties, had been unchained for the occasion. Thumper and Stacey were going to be seen off in true blue police style.

They were getting in everybody’s way, so Karen gently guided Mark toward the wall. Doing so, she found herself looking right into Scott Laughton’s face. He winked as he strode past, and Karen felt her ears get hot.

Hanover swayed a little and shook his head.

“Bad day for everybody,” Hanover said. “Are you doing OK?”

“Yeah, I’m OK,” Karen said. He swayed again, and Karen realized what was going on. At nine in the morning, Hanover was drunk. “I appreciate you asking,” she said, noting the way his eyes flickered away from hers.

“Yeah.” His voice was indistinct in the crowded lobby. “I just want you to know, anything I might’ve said in the past that might’ve been out of line or mean or anything … I’m sorry about that. I want to get right with you on that.”

If he had said or done anything else – something crude or insulting or threatening – Karen would have been ready for it. This left her groping for words.

“That’s all right, Mark.” She glanced around, expecting to see Hull smirking, wondering if this was the setup for a practical joke. “It’s a tough day for everybody.”

“Ummmmm.” Hanover smiled. “We’re all cops. That’s what we should always remember. We’re all cops and we all do what our chief wants. Wanted. No matter what, we listen to our commander. You understand that.” Karen nodded, feeling the little tingle of interest and anxiety that came when she sized up a civilian and decided that here was a bad guy. Hanover was putting a lot of emphasis on No matter what.

Andy Crowell, all gold braid and dark cloth, barked out the orders and the cops snapped into formation. The doors opened and a deep bass drone made the air shake around them. A bagpiper from the Seitonville force had come down to lead the procession. They moved out two abreast into the cool morning air, civilians lining the streets and looking down from the apartments atop the Boulevard stores. With the bagpipe music echoing off the stones and bricks, eddying beneath the angels watching the funeral, you could almost imagine the Twenties had returned, bringing with them the factory jobs, the hopping downtown, the under-the-table money from rumrunners coming in off the ocean and dispersing along the riverfront – all the things Bridgeborough no longer had.

Karen, Warren Peterson and another recent recruit formed one wing of the honor guard bracketing the front steps of the Borlingen Home for Funerals. During their training at the county academy, Karen and Warren had acquired the ability to speak without noticeably moving their lips. Warren was keeping track of the bigwigs coming to the funeral. Karen was grateful for the distraction – the sense of her own uselessness and ineptitude had returned, full force, blackening her thoughts.

“Thump had some suction,” Warren murmured. “I’m impressed.”

“What’s the tally?”

“I count two state senators, five assemblymen, a couple of Congressmen and three county freeloaders,” Warren said. “I know it’s an election coming up, but that’s still pretty impressive. And the mayor and the borough council, of course.”

A councilman whose son Peterson had busted for selling marijuana from the back of the family pizza parlor – Thumper had squashed the bust – stepped past without looking to either side.

“I’ll get him someday,” Peterson said. “I’m sanctified. I’ve got a mission in life.”

Photographers from The Three Rivers Tribune and the Star-Ledger took pictures as the two hearses moved down the Boulevard at walking speed, with the force’s two Crown Vics riding ahead and behind with their lights on and their sirens off. Some of the old-time store owners came out to watch the procession. Most of the morning people stopped in doorways or peered through windows. A woman coming out of Jasswell’s Deli stopped and put her bag on the head of the gold-painted dragon in front of the China Star restaurant. Even in the middle of the week there wasn’t a lot of daytime foot traffic on the Boulevard. Some of the stores – too many of them – had patterned wallpaper behind their windows, or the glass was covered with paintings by the local schoolkids. Anything to keep downtown from looking like a boxer’s smile. Bridgeborough only really picked up at night, when the bars got crowded. Karen’s usual working hours.

Once the funeral service ended at the First Episcopal Church of Bridgeborough, the procession resumed along Midheel Street, ending at Oak Ridge Cemetery and a pair of rectangular holes. This was the northwest corner of town, isolated by the cemetery from the railroad tracks and the old factories, on a ridge where enough maples and oaks mingled with the pine trees to keep the yards littered with autumn-colored leaves. The streets had just as many potholes as the rest of Bee-Bee, but here some of the houses had back porches looking out across the Waneitch River. The cops were especially protective of this neighborhood. If you were a cop in Bridgeborough, which required local residency to be on the borough payroll, this was the section you wanted to live in.

The two long holes, the grass along the edges chopped off as neatly as the edge of a carpet, were there to contemplate. Karen stared at them, imagining what it must have been like for Thumper, coming down the stairs to get a drink, or go to the toilet, only to walk into the middle of catastrophe? Your wife in the hands of a predator – who could walk around prepared to face that kind of thing? You were at least entitled to feel safe in your own house, for God’s sake.

Karen stood at attention and saluted as the coffins were lowered, looking past the mourners to the section where her grandparents and her father were buried.

She saluted as the rifle cracked, and found herself looking at Sergeant Hull, on the other side of the graves. He wasn’t looking at Karen. He was staring at Thumper’s coffin. Karen had faced Hull often enough to recognize the expression: annihilating, all-out rage.

Then Crowell barked an order and Karen’s line right-faced, turning her gaze away from Hull and straight into the profile of Scott Laughton, who did nothing to acknowledge her as she stepped past. The veeps and the civilians, about two dozen in all, parted to let them through, and Karen watched Barbara Laughton straining forward, trying to make out her husband. She looked directly at Karen for a moment and then continued scanning, her face giving no indication that she recognized Bridgeborough’s one and only female police officer.

That was OK. That was fine. Karen was a grownup. A married man had treated her to a charity fuck, and that was the end of it. Karen became a cop because she wanted more life. Well, here it was. All the life you can handle, Karen.
A curve in the path brought them into the sunlight, giving Karen an excuse to squint and blink, so nobody would see how she was holding back tears. The world blurred and jostled a little as she almost stumbled. It was going to be a long time, she knew, before this would stop hurting.

And just to make it worse, just to make the day even more surrealistic, she had a full day of cop work ahead of her now that the funeral was coming to a close.

A call came in – breaking and entering, motor vehicle, see the woman at one-two-zero Cunningham Street. Since the Bridgeborough force could afford only one cruiser with all the newest latest computer gear, Karen knew she would be expected to run as many plates as possible on her way to the call. Every time she found herself behind a car, she punched the license tag into the onboard computer and waited to see if anything came up – unpaid tickets, outstanding bench warrants, anything that might possibly turn somebody’s junk-food run to the convenience store into a lengthy side trip to the Bridgeborough holding cells and an amiable chat with the municipal court judge.

Every time she punched in a plate, a printer at headquarters spat out a sheet of paper with the same information that had just appeared on Karen’s computer screen. Cross-checking the copies and filing them away had been one of her tasks during periods of desk duty. In the past, some cops had been caught using the computer to look up the addresses of women they’d spotted on the street. The backup copy allowed the department to keep them honest, and check up on whether a driver had been where he was supposed to be on a given day.

To Karen’s disappointment, none of the plates she ran turned up anything good. If Osama bin Laden was driving through Bridgeborough, he had the good luck to be driving on some other street.

Cunningham Street was part of what Karen thought of as the Kleenex Box District – shoulder-to-shoulder ranks of aluminum- and vinyl-sided rectangles set on tall concrete foundations, each with a red brick ziggurat rising to the front door and an aluminum-canopied carport on the side. The front yards reflected varying degrees of care. Karen felt entitled to make jokes because she had grown up in a Kleenex house herself. Yellow, with a chain link fence and entry gate capped by a grayish wood arch. It was still there only three blocks to the north, though back then the streets hadn’t been lined with hulking SUVs nearly as tall as the houses.

A faint, grim smile touched Karen’s mouth as she pulled up to the address. Instead of a Kleenex box, this was a red brick music box with a high peaked roof that had always reminded Karen of a gnome’s hat. A brontosaurus-sized Ford Explorer was parked at the curb; crumbs of glass still glittered along the bottom of the broken passenger-side window. Karen peered inside, noted the glass on the leather seats, the gap in the dashboard where wires spilled out like multicolored entrails.

The property was walled in by a neatly squared-off hedge, and the front yard was dominated by an immense blue spruce twice as tall as the house. Instead of grass, the front yard was covered with white gravel. In years past, the gravel areas would become elaborate Christmas displays with plastic candy canes, colored spotlights and the biggest, most elaborate Nativity display this side of the Crystal Cathedral. During those months between Thanksgiving and the Epiphany, neighborhood kids had been welcome to visit and stand next to the grinning plastic Santa Claus, go home with candies and palm-sized Jack Chick religious comic books.

Most of them of them had been welcome, anyway.

Karen caught the spark of recognition as Mrs. Newton answered the door. Oh yes, Mrs. Newton remembered her. Recognition became tension as Mrs. Newton took in the blue uniform, the hat and the polished badge, the creaking leather belt with the Glock and the pepper spray. Karen, meanwhile, took in Mrs. Newton’s tiny chin and snapping turtle mouth topped by a ski-jump nose and outsized, lemur-like eyes the color of a melting chocolate bar.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Karen said. “Did someone here call in a report of a car break-in?”

Instead of yelling Get off my property you big goddamned Irish elephant, Mrs. Newton said, “Come on this way” and then “officer” as she led Karen through the dark living room full of dark furniture, into the dark dining room with a dark table and chairs, walls covered with mounted collector plates. Little onion-headed ceramic kids with baby blues eyes. She bawled out “Glen!” and an answering smear of sound came from upstairs.

Glen Newton sounded like an avalanche coming down the stairs, but the sight of Karen stopped him like an invisible wall. He had continued growing since high school – still trim around the waist, but biceps and neck even wider. He had outgrown everything – shirt, room, house – but here he was, back with his mom. Tough times these days.

She watched the gears grinding inside his dome, expecting to see smoke curl out of his ears, then he said, “Did you go to school here?” His eyes were full of recognition but his mouth was all innocence. Considering that most of his past interactions with Karen had involved him following her home from school and pegging rocks at her back, or staring at her in class and miming oral sex whenever the teacher’s back had been turned – once he’d even flashed his dick, during tenth-grade homeroom – it was understandable he’d pretend not to remember her. Lame, but understandable.

“How’s it going, Glen?”

“Yeah right, Karen.” He held out a paw and she shook it.

“So you know each other!” Mrs. Newton said, as though she’d just gotten the happiest surprise of her life, face grim and watchful the whole time. “Would you like to sit down?”

“You feel free, Mrs. Newton. I take better notes when I’m standing.” Glen slumped into a chair beneath a plate showing a pair of Dutch girls chasing a puppy past a windmill.

“I didn’t know you were still around,” Glen said.

“Likewise,” Karen said. “Is that the vehicle out front?” Glen nodded and she continued: “The registration is in your mother’s name.”

“I’m using it to get around.”

“Your mother usually drives an SUV?” Karen had an image of a diminutive troll driving a Sherman tank.

Glen was offended by the question. “She likes to feel safe.”

“Is this your place of residence?”

“Right now it is. My license says Dawson but I’m here until I get back on my feet.”

“How so?”

“Separation,” Glen said. “Marriage trouble, you know.” His tone and the subtle sneer that flickered across his face indicated that he didn’t think a dog like Karen would know anything about such matters.

Karen pictured smashing her elbow into Glen’s front teeth. “Can you tell me if anything was stolen?”

“The stereo, my leather jacket, some personal stuff . . . items . . . stuff.” His hand rose, waved, then dropped in exhaustion.

“Can you be more specific about the personal items?”

The hand came back to life. “Stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

The hand dropped again. “DVDs. Movies.”

“How many?”

“How many DVDs? Uh, fourteen.”

Karen had been ready to write down “14 DVDs” without bothering to note each title, but something in Glen’s voice changed her mind. “I really do need the titles,” she said, looking straight at him. “For the insurance.”

He glanced in his mother’s direction. “You want every one of the titles?”

Did his voice crack, just ever so slightly? “Yes sir,” Karen said, “each and every one.”

Glen tugged on his ear and said, “Butt Bondage.”

“Excuse me?”

“Butt Bondage. That’s the first one,” Glen said. The dryer door slammed shut, somewhere out of sight.

“Hold on a moment,” Karen said. “Mrs. Newton!”

“What is it?”

“I’m going to need you here to corroborate this.” Somehow, Karen was able to keep her face and her voice completely straight. She would not laugh. She might give herself an aneurysm in the process, but she would not laugh.

“It’s Glen’s problem, not mine,” Mrs. Newton grated.

“Well, the car’s registered in your name, ma’am, so I’m afraid it is your problem. I’m going to need you to sign the form and the statement.”

Mrs. Newton huffed back into the dining room, eyes now tight with annoyance. She scraped her chair across the floor and sat down hard. “So I’m here now, all right?”

“Thank you ma’am,” Karen said mildly. “Now Glen, let’s take it from the top.”

“You know the first one.”

“And what was that title again?”

“For chrissake . . . fuck it.” He looked straight ahead as his mother’s eyes widened. “Butt Bondage.”

“Is that ‘Butt’ with two Ts?”

“Sonofabitch!” Glen muttered.

“Is that another title?” Karen asked.

“No,” he said, almost laughing.

“What’s the next DVD title?”

Glen looked down at the table and muttered two words.

Karen did her best to sound puzzled. “Uh, ‘Bee-yook’?” she asked.

“Bukkake Babes.”

“Bukkake?” Mrs. Newton said. “Is that Japanese?”

“Glen,” Karen said mildly, “would you like to tell your mother what ‘bukkake’ means?”

“You goddamn well know I don’t,” Glen said.

“Your son’s too shy to say, Mrs. Newton,” Karen said, “but you can look it up on Wikipedia. They even have some names of videos you can ask Glen to rent for you.” She took a yellow Post-It pad out of her top pocket, wrote out BUKKAKE and stuck the note on the table in front of Mrs. Newton.

“What’s the next DVD?”

Glen didn’t hesitate. “Airtight Blonde,” he said.

“Is that . . . ‘airtight,’ what does that mean?”

Glen looked straight at Karen. “It’s a sex act.”

“A sex act?”

“Yeah, a sex act.” His mouth curled a little. “Something you wouldn’t know about.”

Wouldn’t it be sweet right now if one of those cabinet doors popped open and a kilo of heroin tumbled out? Wouldn’t it be the perfect pick-me-up if Karen spotted a baggie full of weed under on of the seat cushions? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Karen could slap cuffs on both of them and feed them into the legal system an inch at a time? Wasn’t there something she could do to make that happen? He’d been a shit in school and it was clear that he was still a shit. He had to be guilty of something – Karen just knew it.

These thoughts blazed through Karen’s mind, then she gave him her widest, friendliest smile. “I’ll bet I’m not the only one.”

After about a half hour, Karen stood up and told the Newtons they could come to the station and get copies of the crime incident report in two days. Glen stared at Karen. Mrs. Newton stared at Glen. Karen gave them both her back.

My work here is done, Karen thought as Mrs. Newton shut the door behind her, slamming it hard enough to make the houses next door shake. And to think I was in a bad mood just an hour ago.

And then: I wonder if Barney Miller knew about bukkake. Maybe it still hadn’t been invented when he was around.

One o’clock was time for traffic monitoring. People had been complaining about asshole speeders on Cleary Avenue. Unfortunately for the assholes, Cleary Avenue was a big S-looping road with poor sight lines – perfectly designed for a speed trap.

Karen backed the cruiser into a spot where the street flared out, from a narrow avenue to a wide road with room for passing cars. A privet hedge blocked the view of oncoming drivers, hid the cruiser from view until it was too late for them to slow down.

This had always been one of Bee-Bee’s nicer neighborhoods. Now three houses within a two-block stretch had FOR SALE – FORECLOSURE signs on their lawns.

Karen took the radar gun out of its felt-lined case, whacked the tuning fork against the dashboard and pointed the gun at the tines. Then she set the radar gun into the crook of her arm and waited for the cars to come.

For the next half hour, Karen was treated to dozens of variations in the ways people could look astonished and guilty. Even the ones who weren’t speeding slowed down hard when they spotted the cruiser. The exception was a Hummer that barreled around the bend and blew past without a flicker of reaction from the driver or his passenger. Karen hit the flashers and turned after them. If that giant fucking thing jumped the curb, it would plow through four or five houses just on momentum.

After about a block, the Hummer pulled over and Karen rolled up behind it, stopping the regulation distance and angling the front end outward, to ward off close-passing vehicles. It was like coming up behind an aircraft carrier with a motorboat. She started the video monitor and stepped out.

During traffic stops you were supposed to keep the driver in the vehicle, but Karen was a little shorter than average, and the side of the Hummer loomed like an armored wall. The driver peered down at her from the battlement, his pale face a carefully composed blank.

“Please step out of the vehicle, sir.” She had to backpedal to keep from getting brained by the swinging metal gate.

Already she was starting to feel ridiculous. The clown show in the alley, decking Charlie Murphy and then nearly splitting her head open on the wooden stairs, rose unbidden from her memory.

Now the driver was standing in front of her, round-faced and a little tubby, but way too close. “License, registration and insurance card, please.” Karen stepped back slightly and behind her a car’s tires screeched, shockingly loud and close, sending an icy spike of terror through her guts. “Step over to the curb, sir,” she demanded, and he went around the front of the Hummer, out of her sight. She hot-footed around the back, making sure the video camera could see her, and there he was, waiting with his wallet out.

“Please take out your license and give it to me.” He fumbled open the wallet and a flurry of receipts and credit cards cascaded onto the grass. “My, uh, registration’s in the glove box,” he said. Karen flanked him, keeping wide of the Hummer, as he opened the other door and fished around. She took the paperwork back to the cruiser and punched in the numbers. She also studied the back of the Hummer, and the doughy driver trying to find something to look at besides the woman cop. He pretended to find great interest in the scrawny tree planted at the curbside, still held in place by guy-lines tied to stakes in the lawn. The computer disgorged its information, and Karen stepped back to the guy.

“What about your passenger, sir?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” The guy’s round face was a carnival of telltale tics.

“There was another man in the car when I clocked you,” Karen said. “I know he’s been ducking around this Hummer while I talked to you. I’ve already got you on a traffic violation and I see your registration is suspended over some parking tickets. Unless you want to get into even more trouble . . .”

“Sorry, officer.” Another voice, close behind her. Another stab of fear. Karen turned, saw a taller, thinner man with something shiny in his hand. She stepped back, felt her heel catch on one of the stakes, staggered and slapped at her holster as the taller man stepped forward.

Both men yelped. “No!” The tall man squeaked: “I didn’t mean nothing! I thought you were gonna fall. I just wanted to help.”

Karen’s mouth was dry. Her heart was slamming inside her chest.

“Get over to the curb and sit down!” she shouted. The adrenaline surge was making her nauseous.

“Sorry, sorry!” the tall man said. He was holding a gray-and-white soda can. “I was holding this and I thought maybe you thought it was a can of beer in the car and I didn’t want to get into trouble . . .” The flow of bullshit ebbed. “I mean . . .”

She tapped the can with the toe of her shoe. It made a dry, discarded sound, like something a slob would let sit in the back of his overpriced, oversized, undermaintained Hummer. Sure enough, when Karen rooted behind the passenger seat, she found a can of Yuengling, open and still cold within its brown paper cocoon.

The driver, sitting cross-legged and flabby on the grass next to his buddy, started crying as soon as he saw the bag. “You fucking idiot,” he snarled at the other man. “You motherfucking useless fucking idiot . . .”

“That just about says it all,” Karen said, still trembling with unreleased tension. In short order she had them cuffed and in the back seat as she drove back to the station, then cuffed to separate benches as she readied them for fingerprinting, then cuffed and standing one behind the other as Warren Peterson led them off to the holding cell and their arraignment, which would take place as soon as the municipal prosecutor came back from his late lunch.

And then she stood in the women’s room, hunched over the sink, trembling as she thought of the things she’d done wrong and the things she’d done right, thinking of brother Patrick lying with a tube in his nose and a respirator working his chest, because he’d let himself relax during a routine traffic stop and gotten part of his head caved in by a tire iron, all his jokes and smiles and guitar-playing and tickle-games with kid sister Karen turned to mush within what was left of his skull.

I am not a fuckup, she told her cop father and her cop brother and long-gone Patrick. I am not a fuckup. But she wasn’t surprised when she was summoned to Andy Crowell’s office – still less when she heard what he’d decided.

Nice guy finishes first

Way back in the mists of time, when I pulled an oar in a galley that was part of the Forbes Newspapers flotilla, I interviewed a Metuchen resident named Robert Kaplow who had written a young adult novel. One of the nicest, smartest guys you could ever hope to meet, and midway through the talk he let it drop that he was with The Punsters, a Jersey-spawned band with a line in humorous pop and its own self-produced album, Boardwalk Santa, a copy of which resided in a milk crate in my apartment. They’d even been on Uncle Floyd’s show! (I believe that’s Kaplow slinging the accordion in the clip above.) They actually became semi-regulars on the Floyd show, as the clip below will prove:

Our paths diverged after that: Kaplow went on teaching, I kept on newspapering, and we both kept on writing, though Kaplow’s got a lot more books on the shelf to show for his efforts. And now, a couple of decades later, Kaplow has been tapped by Hollywood: a film version of Kaplow’s novel Me and Orson Welles is going to hit the cineplexes after too long a delay, and I hope to see it sometime soon. Anybody who can work references to Eric Rohmer movies into a novel for teenagers is clearly destined for even bigger things.

We All Fall Down, Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

It was just about dinnertime, and the white surfaces of the big shopping center across the way blazed orange against the deepening blue sky. A warm breeze billowed across the parking lot and along Peter Hull’s face, neck, and bare arms. He tilted his head back, savoring the sensation. As awful as the day had been, and for all the rage and tension and worry on Hull’s mind, he could still enjoy a late fall evening – like a goodbye kiss from summer.

“You remember when they found that body down there?” Weiss said. He pointed his chin over at the line of bushes and low trees separating them from the main parking lot. They grew along a deep drainage ditch. A wooden catwalk, wide enough for two people to pass each other with shopping carts, bridged the ditch.

“It was more like a skeleton,” Hull said. Weiss, also in his street clothes, was leaning against his car, arms folded across his chest. The setting sun turned his buzz cut pale orange. “White female, late teens. The Dawson cops never figured out who did it.”

“She was killed?”

“Strangled. That much they could tell,” Hull said. “That used to be a stream deep enough for fishing, can you believe?”

“Fish for what?”

“Rusty shopping carts, mostly. It was longer than that ago.” Hull glanced over, impatient for the others to arrive. “My dad said it was a stream, this was a field and the mall was called Deer Run Plaza.” Now it was a roofed-over mass called Deer Run Centre that had swelled and metastasized all over the hill. “In a couple of years they’ll repave this and cap over that ditch.” From stream, to ditch, to sewer. The march of progress.

“Won’t find any more skeletons, then,” Weiss said.

“That’s a cheery thought.”

“Except the ones we know about. Like they say, cops know where all the bodies are buried.”

“Most of the time they’re not even buried,” Hull said.

A Camry turned into the parking lot and headed for their end. “At long last,” Hull said. His face hardened when only Gunther Mickelsson got out.

“Where’s Mark?”

“That’s what we need to talk about,” Mickelsson said. He stopped talking as a brown Taurus turned into the lot. Mickelsson looked at Hull: “What’s this?”

“I invited him,” Hull said. “Stay cool.”

So now they were four: Weiss and Hull, inscrutable behind their shades, Mickelsson and Laughton, squinting in the sun.

“How bad was it,” Hull asked Mickelsson.

“Donnelly and Crowell double-teamed us pretty good,” Mickelsson said. The lines around his mouth and eyes were like furrows on a steep hillside. “They had us in different boxes and sweated us for about an hour each. Maybe I’m wrong, but I didn’t get any feeling they had something else on us.”

Hull shook his head. “Donnelly’s with the program. He has a couple of cousins who trained up under Thump before they transferred out. Crowell doesn’t know that. I bet the county prosecutor doesn’t, neither. Donnelly is our secret weapon.”

“But sergeant,” Laughton said, “the guy died. A civilian. He died. It all went wrong.”

“Wrong,” Weiss said, “but for the right reasons.”

Hull, not moving his head, glanced over at Mickelsson. He expected the older man to get mad. Instead, he looked a little sick.

“A civilian, how?” Hull said. “He was playing games with a career con, switching those wrist bands. Trying to be cute. He was a deadbeat on his child support and alimony. His ex is probably thrilled that he died.”

Grim smiles, nods all around.

“And the stupid mooks in the county sheriff’s department let the scumbag get away and mug a taxpayer, and the election’s a month off,” Hull continued. “The county’s not exactly eager for this to get out. The ex will get a settlement and a confidentiality agreement, probably a lot more money that she’d a gotten from the deadbeat alive, and the whole thing will work its way through the system.”

“What if the Tribune gets it?” Weiss asked. “What if it’s on the news?”

“Then we wait for it to blow over,” Hull said. “Newspapers’ve got the attention span of gnats. If there’s a story, go to the Web site and read the comments. Most of the readers will probably think the guy deserved what he got. Especially if we put ’em there.”

Mickelsson now: “You’re right, the story’ll hold up, but Mark’s a worry.”

Hull shook his head.

“He’s a worry,” Mickelsson emphasized.

“Mark Hanover’ll stand up,” Hull said. “He’s true blue.”

Mickelsson put his hands on his hips. “I know he’ll stand up,” he snarled. “I’m talkin’ about him eating his gun.”

Hull crossed his arms and looked down. A crack running through the asphalt. Big tufts of grass coming through. “It’s that bad?” he asked.

“It’s that bad,” Mickelsson said. “Maybe you don’t understand how much weight that kid is pulling through life. Not just his own – he’s gotta haul his whole useless family behind him. Now this is on his head.”

“All our heads,” Weiss said.

“He’s new to it,” Hull sighed. “You’re right, Gun. It’s a worry.”

“We’re all together on this,” Mickelsson said. “So I just wanna be sure all the cards are on the table.”

“Gee, sergeant,” Hull said. “Try to be a little more direct, why don’t you?”

“I will see this through to the end,” Mickelsson said. “I will help you all find this asshole and if he has the bad luck to be wearing my handcuffs, I’ll get a little Abu Ghraib on him, just for good measure. He killed a police and that means he dies screaming.” The other three were nodding as he spoke.

“All I ask in return,” Mickelsson said, “is that there are no surprises.”

“What surprises?” Weiss asked.

“What he means,” Hull said, “is that Stacey was fucking around on Thumper, and he wants to know if that has something to do with what happened.”

Hull’s eyes, hidden behind the shades, took in their reactions. Mickelsson’s face stayed tight and angry. Laughton was blank. Only Weiss looked startled.

“Look who just fell off the hay wagon,” Hull said.

Weiss clearly didn’t know what to say.

“Thumper was a mutt, we all know that,” Hull said. “He used to rake off the hookers in Clay Point when he riding a radio car. He stepped out on Stacey all the time. It’s a wonder he didn’t give her a dose.”

Weiss didn’t know where to look.

“And Stacey made it even for herself by fucking his cops behind his back,” Hull continued. “It got so we used to say that anybody who hadn’t bounced her by the end of his first year was probably too dumb for duty.”

Weiss was looking unhappier by the minute.

“Scott, of course,” Hull said, “is a smart fella.” He was pleased to see Laughton jump a bit. Give Mr. J. Crew catalogue a little goose, see how he reacted.

“So the shithead, the burglar, he didn’t beat Stacey up,” Mickelsson said.

“No, Gun, it was probably Thumper did that,” Hull said. “He did it to the hookers and he did it to suspects and my guess is he did it to Stacey, too. Maybe he found out she’d been banging his patrolmen for years. Probably never occurred to him she might do that.”

“So the burglar walked in on a domestic?” Mickelsson said. “Great timing.”

“Not so hot for Stacey and Thumper,” Hull said. “But I don’t see anything makes me think differently.”

“So it was the burglar that did them,” Mickelsson said. “Just so there’s no doubt.”

Weiss and Laughton both stared at him. Hull could see Weiss was genuinely outraged. Laughton was a bit theatrical about it.

“If it wasn’t the burglar,” Hull said, “then just about everybody in Bee-Bee wearing a blue uniform is a suspect. Except maybe Heffalump, and I wouldn’t bet too much on that. She always seemed kind of dykey to me.”

Was that a little wince on Laughton’s face? “Heffalump” was what some of the guys called Karen McCarthy, their first and by God’s will only female recruit.

“We wash our own dirty laundry, we bury our own dead and we take care of our own business,” Hull said. “I don’t have to remind anybody here that it’s in all our best interests not to have prosecutors digging around in our backyard. This department is not going to get pulled down by what was going on with Thumper and Stacey. We are gonna settle accounts with this breaking-and-entering scumbag, we’re going to present the prosecutor’s office with a nice closed case and we’re going to get on with the business of being cops.”

Hull looked around at them. “We’re all on the same page here?”

Three nods. No hesitations, Hull was happy to see.

“Then gentlemen, let’s drive back home before the traffic gets any worse.” Weiss and Mickelsson headed for their cars. “Hey Laughton,” Hull said, “a minute of my precious time, pretty please.”

Hull pondered. Laughton waited.

When Mickelsson and Weiss were gone, Hull said: “You seem like an alert young man, eager to please.”

Laughton was mad now, but controlling it. For the moment, anyway.

“I have some other guys to talk to about this situation,” Hull said. “But I hear you’re interested in being more of a part of things. A little more on the inside, if I’m hearing it right.”

Laughton nodded. “You are. And I hear you, sergeant, get the final say on that now that Thumper’s gone.”

Hull smiled and loosened up his shoulders. “I trained up under the master. Thump U. He was a cop’s cop, none of this PC shit.”

“But he hired McCarthy, didn’t he? How PC was that?”

“His PC insurance policy. She came from a blue family, so why not park her in the office where everybody can see her? Harmless. That was part of Thumper’s genius – he didn’t bend with the times, but he could make it look that way.”

“So why’d you fuck his wife, sergeant?”

Hull chuckled. “That got you mad, didn’t it? Getting your chain yanked like that. Maybe you thought you were something special? At least I did it when she still had most of her looks.”

Laughton stared at him.

“Stacey’s one thing,” Hull said, “but you been poaching on some of your brother officers, too. That’s gonna get you in trouble, my son. You get into a bad situation, somebody might decide to take his time helping you out. You even nailed Heffalump, didn’t you?”

“Who told you that?”

“Somebody saw you leaving her place a couple of hours after you both went home,” Hull said. “I was gonna give you the benefit of the doubt on that one, but now that you’ve confirmed it . . . I dunno, your judgment is a little open to question, my son.”

Laughton chewed it over. “You giving me a bump?”

Hull was all innocence. “A bump?”

“A little scare? See what comes out if you shake me?”

“It works, too. Doesn’t it? Especially when I’m not sure about somebody’s judgment.”

“My judgment is fine,” Laughton said. “And I’m not messing around anymore.”

“Whatever,” Hull said. “Tell you what. Here’s my cell number. . . “

Laughton got out his own cell. Hall’s hand, quick as a striking snake, closed around his fingers and snapped the phone shut.

Laughton spoke quickly, knowing he’d screwed up. “It was automatic, sergeant. Didn’t get the wrong idea.”

“If you got enough brains to be trusted, then you got enough brains to remember my number,” Hull said.

“You’re right, you’re right . . . I’m sorry. The hand was quicker than the brain.”

“That ain’t the only part of you doing that,” Hull said. “You be my eyes and ears for a while. You’re not the only one doing it, but I like to compare facts and see what different guys are telling me. So be a help. Then we’ll see what we see.”

“Thank you, sergeant.” Laughton stood by while Hull got into his car.

Hull powered down his window. “If you really want to show me how smart you are,” he told Laughton, “you’ll do your trolling outside the shop. You wanna mess with other cop’s wives, mess with the ones here in Dawson. They’re all pussies, anyway.”

“Point taken, sergeant.”

Hull chuckled as he drove away. Point taken? Did Laughton think this was a debate class? What a douchebag.

Hull decided that Laughton might make it to the entry level, but he would be lucky if he ever made it to the second level, where Weiss and Mickelsson dwelled. Laughton was a half-smart – the worst kind of stupid.

Once he was out of Laughton’s sight, Hull took a shortcut to a different route, away from the slow line of traffic lurching back into Bridgeborough. He was on his way to Donnelley’s house, where he and Detective Morgan – another alumnus of Thump U. – would cross-check their information on exactly where each Bridgeborough cop had been during the hour when Thumper and Stacey died.

Hull already knew, of course, but that wasn’t the point. The main reason he’d lasted so long and gotten away with so much was that he was always careful to find out what everyone else knew.