They were on a concrete pier somewhere on the Cape. Maybe Hyannis Port. It was a warm day in June, and they were alone on the pier with the seagulls. Gloria sat in the sun resting against the seawall, her head back, her eyes closed. She wore a cotton T-shirt and shorts, and her sneakers had been kicked aside or lost somewhere. She wiggled her toes.
McGuire watched from a distance. He could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, and he wanted to walk to her and sit beside her. They would laugh and gossip about friends. Or maybe watch the gulls. There were seagulls everywhere. He could hear the cry of the seagulls now.
He tried to stand, but he was restrained. Something was holding him down, and now Gloria was sliding away. The pier was tilting, and she was sliding towards the water. He called for her, and she didn’t respond; she remained sitting in the sun, slipping further away.
He called again, but this time Janet Parsons appeared beside him, and he turned to her. Nothing restrained him from turning to Janet Parsons. They kissed, and he could feel her body against his. When he looked back at Gloria, she was closer again, standing and blessing the gulls. As he watched, someone rose from behind the pier wall and aimed a shotgun at Gloria’s head. He shouted her name and tried to go to her, but he was being restrained again. It was Lipson, that son of a bitch. Lipson was holding him and calling his name, keeping him from going to Gloria. Lipson was shaking him, Lipson was saying “It’s all right Joe, it’s all right. . . .”
He opened his eyes to see Bernie Lipson standing next to the cot, his hand resting on McGuire’s shoulder.
“You okay?” Lipson asked.
McGuire blinked and looked around the squad room. Two uniformed cops were watching him with curiosity. “I’m fine.” He swung his legs onto the floor and rubbed his eyes. “Bad dream,” he explained. “Haven’t had one in years.”
“Nightmares, you can get ’em sleeping on these cots,” Lipson said. “Or a bad back. How late were you working on this thing last night?”
McGuire shook his head, studying his feet. “I don’t know. Three, three-thirty.” They were going to kill Gloria, and he couldn’t stop them. “What time is it now?”
“About seven-thirty. Maybe an hour before Kavander slices somebody’s liver out with a rusty knife.”
McGuire looked up, questioning.
“Look at this,” Lipson said. He opened a folded copy of the morning’s Globe for McGuire to examine.
Priest Killer Leaves Message the headline screamed. Beneath it was a large photograph of the scribbled words found in the classroom where Sellinger had been shot. Police Probe Meaning of Death Phrase, a second headline shouted.
“Where the hell did they get it, the picture?” Lipson asked, shaking his head. “You read the story, it doesn’t say. It just says ‘The Globe has acquired,’ and ‘Globe researchers were able to obtain,’ stuff like that.”
A uniformed cop answered a telephone and called over to McGuire, “It’s for you, Lieutenant.”
McGuire walked past Lipson to the other side of the room, slumped into a chair, held his hand out to take the phone from the cop and said his name into the receiver.
The voice that replied was filled with panic and at least an octave higher than its normal speaking range.
“Have you seen this morning’s paper, Joe? The Globe? Have you seen the Globe?”
McGuire frowned. “Who the hell is this?”
“It’s me. Eddie Vance. Have you seen it?”
“Yeah. Lipson just showed it to me.” He looked over to see Lipson watching him, his hands in his pockets, his eyebrows raised.
“They’re trying to say it’s me who sent the picture. Joe, it wasn’t. I swear. I wouldn’t release something like that to the press. That was vital. Captain Kavander made it plain to everybody—”
“How do they say they got it?”
Vance’s voice dropped to its customary level. “In an information package from me.” He took two deep breaths before speaking again. “I was getting so many requests from the media on personal information, especially about the computer scans we were running, that I, uh, I had some information kits released.”
“You sent them personal information kits? Did Kavander know about this?”
“Well, no. See, it was just information on the program, nothing about any evidence. Hey, I’ve been on the force over ten years. I wouldn’t send evidence.”
“But it arrived with personal information on you.”
“Yeah. . . .”
“That you sent.”
“Well, they’re saying I sent it.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then how’d they get it?”
McGuire heard Vance release a long breath on the other end of the line. “Somebody’s setting me up.”
“You’re saying somebody’s framing you?”
“Something like that.”
“You send unauthorized material through the mail to a newspaper, and you claim it was used to frame you?”
“Looks like that to me.”
“Is that what you’re going to tell Kavander?”
Another pause. “I have to. It’s the truth.”
“Why don’t you save everybody some time, Vance?” McGuire smiled coldly. “Just have your guts surgically removed, pin your badge on them and mail it all to Kavander.” He replaced the receiver gently and looked up to see Bernie Lipson watching him carefully.
“He says somebody’s framing him.” McGuire walked to the cot and picked up his sports jacket. “He sent some information to the papers on his smart-ass computer program, and he claims somebody slipped a picture of the blackboard into the envelope.” He threw the jacket over his shoulder and headed out the door to his locker and a hot shower. “Can you believe that shit?’
Lipson chewed silently on his lower lip as he watched him go.
After his shower McGuire dressed, shaved and swallowed some hot coffee. He used the rest of the coffee to wash down a stale muffin from a dispensing machine while he scanned overnight arrest and disturbance records in the squad room.
Shortly after eight Bernie Lipson entered. “He’s ready,” Lipson said in a flat voice.
“Who?”
“Kavander. He’s seen the papers. He wants to talk to both of us.”
McGuire tossed the reports aside and followed Lipson down the hall to the captain’s office.
“You seen this?” Kavander was holding the front page of the morning paper up like a placard.
“We saw it,” McGuire answered. He sat down in front of the captain. Lipson took his usual place at the window, his hands folded in front of him.
“You know what they’re saying?” Kavander slapped the newspaper onto his desk as though killing a swarm of insects.
“They’re saying Eddie Vance sent it along with some other crap he wanted them to have.” McGuire leaned his head back and twisted it from side to side, trying to relieve a stiff neck. “At least that’s what Vance told me this morning.”
“Who authorized Vance to send anything to the press?”
“Nobody.”
Kavander looked up and scowled at the ceiling for a moment, shook his head, then glanced at McGuire and Lipson in turn. “That stupid son of a bitch,” he said finally. “I knew he wasn’t the smoothest operator in the world, but I thought he was smarter than this.” He slapped the front of the newspaper with his hand.
“You call the paper?” McGuire asked.
Kavander rested his head on his hands and looked down at his desk. “Yeah. Talked to a guy I know on the city desk, used to be on the police beat. He says it came in with a bunch of other stuff on Vance. Says he called Vance as soon as he saw it and asked him if the killer had left a message at St. Matthew’s. Vance referred him to me instead of denying it, so they knew they had something.” He looked up at McGuire. “First amendment rights. So they print it.”
“Didn’t they figure they were pissing in the dark?”
Kavander shook his head. “They knew what they had. Sent a reporter with the picture of Sellinger’s classroom to match it up. The message was gone, but he could tell it was the same room.”
“What about Vance?”
“He’s in deep shit. Right now he’s suspended with pay pending further investigation.” He slammed his fist down on the paper again. “The guy is never sloppy about anything else. I mean, he’s a hot dog and all, but . . . how could he have been so fucking stupid?”
McGuire shrugged. “He could have made a mistake, slipping all of that stuff together.”
“He made a mistake all right. Anyway, have Janet Parsons take over all the internal co-ordination. Vance is to have no access to any information at all. As a matter of fact I don’t want him setting foot on this floor. You see him anywhere, you have his ass thrown out on the street, understand?”
McGuire understood.
“What’s happening today?” Kavander demanded.
“Reworking the people around the aquarium.” McGuire stood up. “There has to be something there. The killer didn’t arrive on a train, so he had to be in the area. There’s a woman, works at the aquarium. Says some young blond guy was there, but he’s a regular. Took a cab. None of the cabbies have a record of a pick-up at the aquarium, nobody remembers seeing a young blond guy in the area. We’ll run it down.”
“You talked to Deeley lately?”
“Not yesterday. Deeley’s interested in priests, not fags.”
“Call him. Tell him about Vance so he’ll pass it on to the archdiocese. Otherwise they’ll think we’re falling on our asses down here.” He looked towards the window. “You got nothing to add, Lipson?”
Lipson shook his head slowly.
“Then let’s get on with it,” Kavander said in a resigned voice.
Lipson slid from the windowsill and headed for the door. McGuire stood up, turned to follow him, then stopped and looked back at the captain. “Jack?” he asked.
“What?” Kavander had opened his desk drawer and was selecting a toothpick.
“What if it works?”
“What if what works?”
“What if it pays off? Somebody sees the writing and starts pulling something together. What then?”
Kavander jammed the wood sliver into his mouth and swung it from corner to corner, studying McGuire. “Then I’m a jerk, and you’re a hero,” he said finally.
“And Vance?”
“Vance is still an asshole.”
McGuire followed Lipson out the door and down the hall to the squad room. He slumped at his desk and began going over the overnight reports and tip sheets again until he became aware of Lipson watching him. “What’s up?” he asked, looking over at his partner.
“You know anything about Vance?” Lipson asked.
“All I need to know about him. Why?”
“Did you know he’s got a wife and two small kids at home?”
“Am I supposed to be upset?” McGuire turned back to the reports.
“Fat Eddie, what’s he going to do if he loses his job, his pension? He’ll be lucky if he can get hired as a security guard over at Prudential Centre.”
McGuire brushed the reports aside and swung back to face Lipson again. “Hey, what the hell am I?” he demanded. “The United Appeal? If Jack Kavander and the commissioner say he screwed up, am I supposed to hold a tag day for a doorknob you couldn’t stand being around?”
“All the pictures were in our office, Joe.”
“So what’s it prove? It’s an open office. Everybody on this floor knew about the pictures.”
Lipson sat silent for a moment, then stood and turned to leave.
“Hey, Bernie,” McGuire called after him. “You know what I asked Kavander?”
Lipson looked at McGuire.
“I asked him what if it works? What if it gives us the only solid lead we get, after four people have been blown apart with shotguns? What do we think about it then, huh?”
His partner turned and walked out the door and down the hall.
At ten o’clock Janet Parsons entered the squad room with a number of small white sheets torn from a note pad. She walked directly to McGuire’s desk and sat down facing him. “Three calls,” she said softly. “Two regulars, guys who confessed earlier and said they wrote it.” She held a hastily scribbled note up for him. “One new guy. This one’s hot.”
McGuire took the paper from her and read a name, address and phone number.
“He’s a doctor out at Lynwood Institute. A psychiatrist. Lynwood’s a rest home, you know that?” McGuire shook his head, still reading the note. He could feel his pulse quickening and recognized the rush of excitement he felt when he crossed the threshold of a murder case. He was about to leave ignorance and confusion behind to enter a place where everything would be revealed, orderly and logical, waiting to be gathered up and presented to the world. “Says he had a patient,” Janet said. “A young blond guy who used to write the same words over and over again on walls, in books, everywhere.”
McGuire was up and slipping into his sports jacket, calling down the hall to Lipson.
“Says the kid had freedom to come and go,” Janet continued, raising her voice. “But that he didn’t come back last night.”
McGuire paused at the doorway to look back at her. “You’re a sweetheart,” he said. “Call the guy back and tell him we’re on our way. Now.” He handed the note to Lipson, who had emerged from their office. “This is it,” he said to his partner, “I’m betting the farm on it. This is it.”
“Joe,” Janet said quietly, standing and moving closer to him. “What about Vance? What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’ll be back,” McGuire answered as Lipson left ahead of him to get the car. “Hell, even Nixon came back, didn’t he?”