Westermann didn’t expect the move on Dr. Berdych to be complicated. A plainclothes guy, a Negro, was hanging around the shanties, and another was a block down where he could relay hand signals from the first. When the signal was given, the prowl cars would move in from a couple of blocks away. No problems.
Westermann sat in a prowl car with Souza, doors open, and listened to the police radio as Grip reported back on Maddox’s arrest. Grip and Morphy would deposit Maddox at Headquarters, where the Chief would keep Truffant at bay, for a few hours, at least.
The waiting was eating at Westermann. “You a religious guy, Lou?”
Souza laughed. “The old lady drags me to church every Sunday, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Yeah, but do you go just because your wife drags you? What are you, Catholic? Are you a believer?”
Souza made a face. “Jeez, Lieut, I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it that way. It’s just something I do.”
Westermann let it go. He had other things on his mind.
Maddox.
Vesterhue.
Morphy.
It concerned him that Grip and Morphy hadn’t turned up Koss, or for that matter, Symmes. He didn’t like the idea of Koss finding out that Maddox was in custody again, or that they’d arrested Berdych. They needed to find Koss quickly. APB, maybe. Approach with caution. Or he could put Grip and Morphy on it. That had the added attraction of keeping Morphy the hell away from him. Then again, he couldn’t duck Morphy forever.
“Hey, Lieut, I hear the heat’s supposed to break tomorrow,” Souza said, blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth.
“That right?”
Westermann climbed out of the car and walked down the block. He was worried that they still hadn’t figured everything out, how it all fit together; yet they were still moving forward with arrests. His head swam from fatigue, his chest tightened.
He would have to face Morphy.
Souza’s call—his voice echoing in the empty street—came as a relief. Westermann jogged back to the patrol cars. He slid into the shotgun seat and Souza leaned on the horn, signaling the cars to move out.
Four prowl cars moved in, sirens off. The panel truck wasn’t running. Two clean-cut guys in collared shirts were talking to a round Negro woman wearing a bright orange scarf wrapped around her hair. Behind them, in the distance, young Negro men were rolling oil drums, carrying wood planks.
Westermann, glad to be doing something, took the lead. Souza and the uniforms trailed, hands on their holstered guns.
Westermann approached the clean-cut men. “Dr. Berdych?”
The one on the right, short blond hair and a mustache hiding a harelip, said, “No. The doctor’s in the truck,” nodding toward the back of the panel truck where stairs led to an open door.
The uniforms took charge of the two men. Souza followed Westermann to the truck.
Westermann put a foot on the bottom step. “Dr. Berdych?”
He waited, heard nothing. He walked to the top of the steps and leaned through the door. “Dr. Berd—” Westermann felt a pinch in his arm, a flood of warmth, and he pulled away, falling backward off the truck, grabbing at the syringe that was stuck through his jacket and into his arm. The needle broke in his arm as he hit the ground hard. Berdych stepped into the doorway, tall and stooped, his eyes wide. Westermann heard three pops in succession and watched as Berdych took two bullets to the chest and one above the eye, falling back into the truck.
Westermann lay on his back, looking up at the panel truck, thinking, This is balled up.
Things happened fast, kids from the shanties watching from the perimeter. Crime-scene cops showed up, took photos, samples, and, finally, Berdych’s corpse, zipped up in a body bag. Internal Affairs cops in expensive suits separated the uniforms and questioned them individually about what they’d seen.
Westermann sat in the shade, sweat pouring off him, something from that syringe in his body. A crime scene guy had bagged up the syringe barrel and rushed it to Pulyatkin to compare what was left with Lenore’s disease. Westermann felt empty, not just because of his fear about the substance in the needle, but because without Berdych, how could they connect Maddox with the dead girls?
Grip and Morphy arrived, standing in the street before Westermann.
Grip said, “Souza really kill that doctor?”
Westermann nodded. “He had to. No choice, but it’s not easy. He’s spooked.”
The three of them took in Souza sitting on the bumper of a prowl car, Plouffe talking to him with a hand on his shoulder. Two uniforms, older guys that Souza must have known, stood with him, too. Souza’s tie was undone. He was waiting to sign something for IA, then Plouffe would drive him home.
Grip said, “And Berdych got you with a needle?”
Westermann nodded. Morphy gazed into the distance, mind elsewhere.
“You know what was in it?”
“No. Too many bottles in the truck. Pulyatkin’s looking at it.”
“Jesus.” Grip changed the subject. “Lieut, you know what’s going on with those oil drums?”
“One of the uniforms checked it out. Sounds like they think there’s going to be trouble.”
“Yeah, but I mean that thing they painted on each of them. The skull. It was painted on my door and scratched into Ed Wayne’s badge. What the hell is it?”
Westermann shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve been in the shanties. They’ve got all kinds of paintings like that. Symbols.”
Grip nodded; thinking. “You know, about the trouble they’re worried about?”
“Yeah?”
“They might be right.”
Crows perched on the roof of the panel truck shrieked at the uniforms. Bigger birds, vultures, circled over the field between the shanties and the warehouses downriver.
Westermann saw someone new on the scene, skinny guy with his fedora pulled low, walking around the taped-off panel truck. Grip turned to where Westermann was looking.
“Damn it.”
Art Deyna.