24

“Take advantage of any local disturbances or distractions that may enable quicker movement than would otherwise have been possible . . .  ”

—US Marine Corps Scout/Sniper Training Manual

Bill Dysart paced around his office. In his right fist he held a crumpled copy of one of the daily papers. The headline shouted out, Gunfight in Quincy Market!! Houston couldn’t recall ever having seen his boss so incensed. Then, the circumstances under which he was meeting him were not conducive to a fatherly chat. Houston honestly couldn’t blame him. The last thing Dysart needed was a shooting in the midst of another crowded tourist attraction.

Dysart was discreet with his anger though; he might have been ready to lock Houston up for fifty years, but he didn’t make a scene in front of everyone in the building. The captain respected Anne too much and, rather than chew them out in front of the other officers, he took them into his office, where he then became unhinged. As soon as the door latch clicked behind them, Dysart said, “Bouchard, what the hell is going on?”

Before she could answer, he cut her off. There was more that he wanted to get off his chest. “You two are out of control! The body count on this case is going through the roof—and if that ain’t enough,” Dysart pushed a finger at Houston, “he shoots a guy in the middle of fucking Quincy Market—on a Saturday afternoon, for God’s sake! There must have been a couple of thousand by-standers! What if you’d hit one of them? The entire city is hysterical enough without worrying about getting caught in the middle of a shootout between the Hatfields and the McCoys.”

Dysart was venting and when the captain flopped behind his desk and glared at Anne, Houston knew things would settle down. Anne leaned back in her chair, grinned at him for a second, and then she looked at Dysart in a way that reminded Houston of his mother. When he would get mad and blow off steam she would sit and not say anything until he was finished venting. It was a look that said, “Okay, get it out and then we’ll talk.”

His need to unload his frustrations taken care of, Dysart opened the window of his office. Out of habit, he checked the door and lit a cigarette. He exhaled the smoke and blew it out the window. He tossed the cigarette out the window and stared after it. Dysart flopped into his chair. “All right you two. I’ll handle the heat. Now tell me what you got.”

Houston looked at Anne, hoping for a hint as to how much he should tell Dysart. He wasn’t sure how the captain would react to learning that the object of the sniper killings was to get Houston alone to go one-on-one with him. Anne returned his look and said, “Mike, I guess it’s time to lay it all out for him.”

That’s what they did.

Dysart listened as they told him everything. This time, however, they told him the complete version, not the toned down one they had written in their reports.

Dysart took it all in, saying nothing. Nevertheless, they knew, from the expression on his face that he was having a hard time with certain facts. He got up twice to sneak a smoke through his open window, observing his ritual of one or two drags then tossing the burning cigarette out the window onto the lawn below, which had so many cigarette butts on it that it was starting to resemble the bottom of a bird cage. Each time Dysart tossed one away, Houston listened for the indignant shout of someone hit by a burning butt falling from the sky. The captain was lucky—he did not hit anyone.

Finally, Houston finished by relating what he had learned in Gloucester, that apparently he was being enticed into a sadistic game of sniper versus sniper. Dysart finally reached overload and interrupted him. “Let me get this straight—these shootings are only preliminary bouts for some sort of championship shootout between you and this whacko?

Houston nodded. “That’s what I’ve been told.”

“Well, Houston,” Dysart’s voice elevated in anger, “for once, I’m going to ignore protocol and regulations. Please, make my life easy. Take this asshole up to Maine—hell, take him to Rat’s-ass, Kansas, and expense the trip, I don’t care—just get it out of my jurisdiction and do whatever you have to do to get the bastard!”

“Cap, you can sleep well knowing I’ll do my best.”

“I know some guys in SWAT. You want me to get you some back-up?”

“I don’t think that’s wise. People up in Maine may think we’re an invading army.”

Dysart didn’t appreciate his attempt at humor.

“It’s best if we do it his way—I have some experience with this.”

“Yeah, right, only I seem to recall that was some time back.”

“It’s like riding a bike, Cap.”

“Sure, it is.” As Houston reached the door, Dysart added, “Mike, you be careful . . . ”

“You know me, Cap.”

“That’s the problem. Now, get out of here—both of you. I’ve got to clean up the mess you’ve made.”

As Anne and Houston walked through the squad room, they passed Corso and Bullard.

“Hey guys,” Houston said, “you still sore for not getting lead on this case?”

The two detectives stared at him as if he were crazy. “With all the political bullshit going around this? No way.”

“Are you working anything interesting?”

“Naw, just some gangbanger. They found his body in the marshes near Squantum. Somebody worked him over good. Pulled all his fingernails out.”

“Yeah,” Bullard added, “then cauterized the wounds with what looks to be a blowtorch.”

Anne and Houston walked to a nearby diner for lunch. They ordered and Anne stared at him.

“Okay, out with it,” she said. “What’s eating at you?”

“Susie . . . I don’t like not knowing where she is and I sure as hell don’t like her being on her own right now.”

“I thought as much.”

“I haven’t talked with her since—”

“Mike, give her some time. Do you have any idea where she’s staying?”

“She’s back in her dorm.”

“I’ll call her and offer to let her stay with me.”

“Jimmy offered her a similar deal. She turned him down, saying her dorm was safe. Jimmy figured what the hell. She’s at that age where they want to show that they’re mature enough to take care of themselves.”

“Jimmy just accepted that?”

“On the surface he did. He knows that it’s bullshit and that she’s still a kid. He’ll keep his people on the job. What I keep remembering is the look on her face in Quincy Market. She was scared to death.”

“Well, it was the first time she’d ever seen anything like that.”

“That’s not what she was afraid of.”

“Suppose you tell me what you think she was afraid of.”

“Me.”

“Come on, Mike. You’re her father. She knows you wouldn’t hurt her.”

“Does she? I’m not so damned sure. Her mother and I went through some scary times. First there was my return from Somalia then for a while I was drinking a lot and finally the job.” Houston didn’t have to tell her what he meant by the job. She’d been a cop long enough to know.

Anne sipped on her diet cola. “Suppose you lay it out on the table.”

“Pam could never accept the fact that I had been a sniper. That the boy she’d dated in high school and the man she married could stalk and kill another human being in cold blood. I didn’t help matters any when I returned full of anger and my head crammed to over flowing with bad dreams.”

“So, a lot of veterans are in the same boat. Post-traumatic stress disorder is more prevalent than anyone knows. The mess going on in the Middle East is only going to make things worse.”

“You ever wake up with someone choking you?”

“Can’t say that’s an experience of which I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Well, it happened to Pam. Luckily, I woke up before I hurt her. She threw me out the next day. I went to work and when I came home, she had piled all my clothes on the lawn. The next time I heard from her was when her lawyer served papers on me.”

“And you dove into a bottle.”

“Yeah, I dove into a bottle. However, it wasn’t as if I was diving off a cliff in Acapulco. I was already drinking heavy so it was just a short leap into the deep end of the pool.”

Anne swirled her straw around and ice clinked against glass. “Do you think it would do any good for me to talk to Susie?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem; she was thirteen years old when her mother took her away. Hell, she doesn’t know me, only what Pam told her, and I’m sure that wasn’t a stellar endorsement. If I’m correct, after the shooting at Quincy Market, she probably has me as being somewhere between Jack the Ripper and Charles Manson.”

“I think we were hitting it off pretty well. I’ll see if I can have a woman-to-woman talk with her.”

“I’m at the point where I’ll try anything.”

Anne stood up and grabbed her purse, “That’s good enough for me. Now, all I have to do is see Susie. You got the tab?”

Houston nodded. “Good luck. I need all the help I can get.”

She smiled and touched his arm. “You’re sure that you’re going to be all right?”

“Yeah, I got to go see Jimmy O.”

“What for?”

“I need some tools of the trade.”

“I’m not even going there,” she said. “Here . . . ” She tossed the keys to their squad car on the table. “I’ll grab a cab.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

Houston snatched the keys from the table. “Thanks, kid. You’re too good to be my partner.”

“Everyone knows that—just as long as you don’t forget it. Now pay for lunch and go get your tools.”