Read Joey Warnecki - Eight Days Page 1



  Joey Warnecki

  Eight Days

  John E. Dahlborg

  1st Edition

  .

  Copyright 2012 John E. Dahlborg

  Cover photo by Elizabeth Kaminski

  Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 1

  November 2000, Tuesday

  The first shot shattered the home's rear window and storm glass, plowed a furrow along the man's scalp and buried itself in the opposite wall. The second, without any obstruction to slow its velocity, tore through the wall and ended up in the bathroom medicine chest, where it nested between a bottle of aspirin and a toothbrush. The tall, thin man crumpled to the floor, unconscious, cold November air pouring over him like a waterfall through the broken window. It was a few minutes into a new day, two days before Thanksgiving.

  His chair, an old oak Craftsman- style rocker with a colorfully knitted afghan draped over the back, rocked itself to a stop. After a few minutes, the furnace clicked on, trying in a losing battle to overcome the invading cold. The warm air blowing from the register on the floor, and the fall of air through the shattered window became the only movement in the house, save for the slight rise and fall of Joey's chest, the faint beating of his heart, and the slow sweep of the wall clock's second hand.

  The room he lay in had been his bedroom as a child, when his aunt and uncle had still been alive, and when he had grown, and they had passed away, it had become his sitting room. The furniture was elderly, inexpensive, 30's and 40's vintage, but well cared for. Two large bookcases were filled mostly with paperback novels. Framed photographs of his aunt and uncle and his parents sat atop one of them, the colors somewhat faded from the light. A textured print of Van Gogh's sunflowers hung on the wall between the bookcases, framed in the same dark oak as the rocker. The wall adjacent to the broken window contained another window that faced the driveway, and below it sat a sprawling Christmas cactus upon an oak plant stand, a plastic doily between pot and wood. The other chair in the room was a small armchair, upholstered in a pale pattern of flowers and leaves. It sat in the corner between the two windows and had a knitted doily across the top back edge. It was accompanied by a small footstool, covered in the same material. The floor was varnished oak, covered in large part by a circular braided rug, in black, red, and green — old neckties, socks, and other castaway clothing.

  It was upon this rug that the man yet breathed and bled. Shards of glass littered the room and his body. A news magazine was crumpled beneath his knee. Half asleep, reading this magazine, it had slid from his lap. Lurching awake to grab it, his movement, simultaneous with the first shot, had prevented the bullet from killing him outright . Now the blood coagulated with the glass and his hair and in the rug, and the furnace worked to keep him from freezing to death this cold November evening.

  The house, a single-story frame house, had a low-pitched gable roof. It sat in a densely packed neighborhood of similar houses on quarter acre lots. This house, however, had the advantage of being backed by a forested state park, so the small picket-fenced yard behind it offered an expansive, leafy background and more than minimal privacy. The grass was neatly trimmed, as were the various bushes planted tightly alongside the house foundation. A graveled driveway to the left of the house ran up to a single-car garage with swinging doors. This structure, sided in white-painted shingles like the house, had been converted to a workshop. Backed up to it was a blue ten-year-old Ford pickup truck, its bed haphazardly piled high with rotted wooden boards with protruding rusty nails. To the left of, and parallel to the driveway, on the neighbor's lot, a line of mellon-sized, white-painted stones were laid out to separate the two properties.

  In the mid-morning of the next day, a man crossed this line of stones and the driveway to mount the two concrete steps of his neighbor's back stoop. Noting the broken window, he paused, fist raised to knock, and leaned to the right to look through.

  "Joey?," he said in a moderate voice. He repeated, "Joey?," more loudly. "Hey, Joey, you all right?" He waited. still and tense for several heartbeats and then rushed through the unlocked (seldom locked) back door. Through the cold kitchen, around the corner to the right, and into the colder room where he stopped short of the pooled blood, his shoes crunching on glass, and his hands raised before him as though to hold back the scene before him.

  Fifteen minutes later an ambulance braked to a stop on the street in front of the house. And ten minutes after that, a police patrol car in black and white disgorged a uniformed officer. He entered through the back door, noting the shattered window, now having what looked like a patchwork quilt hung over it inside. He stood in the doorway to the sitting room where the two paramedics were scissoring Joey's hair to separate his head from the rug, drying blood having glued the two together. A blue blanket covered him to his shoulders and a collapsed stretcher lay on the floor next to him. A vacuum cleaner sat nearby. The officer stepped around the activity to stand in the room's center. After nodding to the next-door neighbor who now was sitting on the footstool, he looked up on the wall opposite the damaged window, seeing the two bullet holes, four inches between them. He was a tall and heavy man and he hiked up his pants with its ponderous equipment belt before squatting on his haunches to face the paramedics and the object of their activity.

  "How dead is he?" he asked, scratching under his cap. One of the paramedics, a slightly built young man with prematurely thinning blond hair, looked up from where he was supporting Joey's head so the other could get scissors between it and the carpet.

  "Dunno," he said. "It looks like more blood than it really is, but he's apparently been lying here unconscious all night. He's gotten real cold. Soon's we get him unstuck, we'll rush him in so's they can warm him up and check for internal damage to his head. He's concussed for sure."

  "You check for a wallet?" the officer asked.

  "None on him," the paramedic replied. The other paramedic looked up. "Done," she said. "Let's get him loaded and go. You two," indicating the neighbor and the officer," give a hand with his legs." She looked like a twin to her partner, except for the thinning hair. She supported Joey's head and they lifted him to the stretcher. Two minutes later the ambulance rolled away, siren on. Neighbors up and down the street looked out of windows or stood on their front porches. It was a blustery Tuesday morning.

  "You called it in?" The officer and the neighbor were standing. The neighbor was a sixty-ish, black man, stocky and strong looking, a fringe of gray hair cut close to his scalp. He wore pressed khakis, a short-sleeved white t-shirt, and brown leather loafers without socks. Hands in his pockets, jingling coins, or keys.

  "Yeah," he replied. "I came over about nine or so to complain about the dust and‐"

  "Wait a minute." The officer pulled a notebook and pencil from a chest pocket. The name tag over the pocket read 'Sims'. "Now, your name is?"

  "Louis Armstrong. I live next door, driveway side." Louis pronounced the 's'.

  "Address?" Officer Sims licked his pencil point and wrote.

  "Two-twenty two Fourth Street." Louis, having taken some shit from cops in the past, appreciated the lack of commentary on his name.

  "What dust?" The question wouldn't naturally be next in line at this point, but the officer was curious.

  "I got roses planted next to the garage and Joey had a fan in the window yesterday blowing sawdust all over my new cedar bark mulch. I came over to bitch at him about it and saw him through the broken window, lying th
ere, blood and glass all over."

  "Sawdust is just more mulch, isn't it?" Officer Sims pointed at Louis with his pencil.

  Louis crossed his arms over his chest. "I prefer things neat. Nice, clean, new red mulch with yellow dust all over it don't make it."

  Sims glanced through the side window and took in the row of white-painted stones. They were singularly uniform in size. He scratched under the side of his cap with the point of his pencil, licked it again and poised it over his pad. "You hang up that bedspread? Is that a bedspread?"

  "Yeah, I took it from the bedroom," pointing through the wall with the bullet holes. The bedroom was on the other side of the bathroom.

  "What else did you touch here this morning?"

  "Well, I checked the pulse in his neck to see if he was alive and covered him up with the blanket off the bed. Then I went in the kitchen and called 911 for the ambulance. Then, while I was waiting for them, I got the vacuum cleaner with the brush attachment out of the hall closet and vacuumed the glass specks off his eyelids, so's he wouldn't get glass in his eyes, if he woke up, you know, and opened them." Louis rubbed the back of his neck.

  "You prefer things neat." This was stated matter-of-factly. Louis listened for sarcasm but didn't hear any. Still, he didn't respond to the question or comment, whichever it was.

  "Hear anything last night, this morning?" The officer took off his cap, so he could scratch on top, and replaced it. He had about as much hair as Louis, though it was brown, and there were some strands on top.

  "No, nothing out of the ordinary. Least ways no gunshots. Anyway, I had the stereo going about all evening, and fell asleep in my chair. Woke up and went to bed about midnight. Didn't hear anything that I remember." He paused. "Can't think why anybody'd shoot Joey, unless maybe someone was poaching deer back in the woods there, and shot this way." They both turned to look at the bullet holes, six feet high on the wall. The grouping and the angle, even if Joey had been standing, seemed unlikely to have originated back in the woods, where the ground was higher.

  "Don't seem likely, though, does it?" , Louis said.

  "No, maybe not." Sims turned to look at the dark spot on the rug. It was the size of a dinner plate and appeared to him like a silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head. Mickey had a scraggly brown beard of genuine human hair. He turned back to Louis, narrowing his eyes a little, as though considering Louis for the crime. Louis met his gaze with a narrowing of his own eyes.

  "What's the victim's name?" Sims returned his attention to his notebook.

  "Joey Warnecki."

  "That's Joseph, right?"

  "Yeah, haven't heard him called that since his aunt died, though."

  "What about family, somebody to inform about the victim."

  Louis put his hands back in his pockets. "Far as I know, Joey doesn't have any family. Both his parents died when he was a little kid and his aunt and uncle raised him. They've both been gone for several years now, left him this place. Joey never mentioned anybody else."

  "No wife, ex-wife?"

  "Nobody."

  Sims stopped to consider his surroundings in light of this information. The furnishings, even the wallpaper, did not appear to be the selection of a single young man. "How old is Joseph Warnecki?"

  "Joey is thirty-one years old. He was a Woodstock baby, born right there at the music festival, in a tent. Parents were hippies. I didn't know his dad, really, but his mom was a nice girl. She grew up here, too, with the aunt. Actually, Helen, the aunt, was Joey's great aunt." Louis wondered why he was being so expansive, decided the whole situation felt just too unreal. He shook his head and looked down at his feet, to ground himself.

  "What did he, does he, do for work?"

  "Joey's a carpenter, handyman. Small stuff, mostly. Fix a rotten porch, hang a new door. Takes care of some summer places down by the shore in the off season. Stuff like that, you know."

  "He into drugs?'

  At this, Louis looked back up at the officer and cocked his head to the side.

  After a pause, "Noooo, I don't believe so. Shit, this look like a drug dealer's house to you?"" His answer sounded defensive to the officer, who stepped back a half pace, giving Louis some more personal space. It worked and Louis continued. "Joey's a regular working guy. Never got into anything bad, never hurt anybody, got along with everybody. He's even nice to that asshole on the other side."

  "Well, he may have had at least one enemy. Who on the other side?"

  "Ah, I didn't mean to pick out Old Joe as a suspect, even if he is a miserable son of a bitch. He's just a crank. I'm talking about Joe Soucup, neighbor on the other side of the house. Joey's the only one in the neighborhood that'll even talk to him, that's why I say he doesn't have any enemies. He's too nice to have any. This thing is too crazy."

  "This neighborhood. This neighborhood is full of mostly old folks who kept their houses when the cannery closed down. Quiet place, hardly any kids. Nothing this strange happens here. Sometimes someone has a heart attack and the ambulance comes. That's about it." Louis was illustrating how odd this occurrence of crime was.

  Sims knew about the neighborhood. He'd responded to several ambulance calls and very few criminal complaints here. The neighborhood consisted of mostly single-family, small homes packed together closely on property that had been owned by the Adams' family, who had also owned and operated a cannery located three-quarters of a mile away, on on the north side of this Maine coastal town's harbor. The Adams' family sold the lots and held the mortgages for cannery workers, creating a stable work force and increasing their own wealth at the same time. The housing construction was done by a company owned by the same family. The cannery closed down with the depletion of the fishing grounds, just about the time most of the thirty-year mortgages had been paid off. The jobs had gone and the people had stayed.

  Sims reviewed the jottings in his notebook and returned it to his vest pocket. "Mr. Armstrong," he said, "I'm going to call this in. Later, I or another officer will want to talk to you again. Can you plan to hang around for a while?"

  "Sure, I don't have any plans for the moment. I want to call the hospital to see how Joey is, maybe go up there later, but I'll stay around. I'd like to clean up the glass and stuff, you know, put some cardboard in the window before dark." He looked around as though he would begin cleaning right away.

  "I think you're going to have to wait on the cleaning, Mr. Armstrong. We'll want to preserve the scene for a while, not disturb anything else." Sims looked pointedly at the vacuum cleaner. "Would you please step around the mess and wait at home, sir?"

  "Yeah, okay, I understand. I'll, ah, wait at home." And with that, Louis walked around and out, crossing outside to his rear porch. There he paused, looking back to see Officer Sims looking through the side window at him. Louis opened the door and went inside.

  In the sitting room, Sims stood in the center of the room, turning in a slow circle, committing details to memory. He noted the pattern of broken glass, some of which sprinkled the rug beneath where the body had lain. The crumpled magazine, the rocking chair, the position of the body — these led him to the conclusion that Joey had been reading in the chair, and had been shot without warning.

  Leaving the room, he entered a hallway. The first door on his right led to the small bathroom, which was clean and orderly, fixtures all polished, towels hung neatly. The mirror of the medicine cabinet over the sink was cracked, craze lines radiating outward from a central point. A bedroom lay at the end of the hall, orderly except where bedspread and blanket had been hastily torn from the bed, pulling a pillow to the floor. The bureau top was overlaid with a cutwork linen doily. On it lay a hairbrush and comb, a wallet and a loose-leaf ring binder; all laid out straight and square to each other. He did not handle any of these, but left the room and turned to the right through a doorless entry into a twelve by twenty foot space divided into dining and living room areas by their furniture groupings. The furnishings here were in character with the rest of the house: older
, inexpensive pieces, somewhat worn but well cared for. Clearly, the original furnisher of the home was a devotee of the needle arts. Doilies and anti-massacars were in abundance. Cutwork and embroidery, pieces knitted, tatted, and crocheted, overlaid every table and upholstered piece of furniture in the space. And two large, circular, braided rugs covered the centers of the floor areas. Sheer curtains bordered the room's windows, two on the wall facing the street and two on the wall facing the neighboring house, separated from this one by twenty feet or so. The front door was in a small alcove on the bedroom side.

  The kitchen, behind the dining area, looked to have been renovated in the sixties, with its plastic-laminated counters, birch-veneered cabinets, and stainless steel sink. A small, round oak table with four oak chairs in the Craftsman style occupied the center of the linoleum floor. No dishes or flatware were on the counters or in the sink. All in all, the house spoke little of the individual who lived there, save that he was neater than the average male, not terribly acquisitive, and didn't own a television set.

  Sims thought about that as he exited the back door to stand on the concrete stoop outside. He had noticed a radio in the kitchen, and one in the sitting room, but had seen no stereo equipment, no CD's or cassette tapes. "Think of that," he said to himself, "a thirty-year-old man without even a boom box." He turned to face the broken window, thinking that if the gunman had shot from there, he would have had to hold on to the doorframe to lean far enough out to the right to shoot. Don't touch the doorframe, he thought. Two steps down and two to the right would have been a good position for a tall shooter. This area was paved with brick. No cartridge casings were evident. Sims returned to his car to call in his initial report.

  Using a cell phone, he called direct to the sergeant's office, by-passing the switchboard. "Sarge, this is Sims. The 911 call was correct, there was a shooting. The victim was alive but unconscious when I got here. The EMT's took him to Regional Hospital and I'm parked in front of the house right now."

  There was a pause, and the sergeant replied. "Tell me more." He sat at a gray metal desk spread with budget reports. This was the time of year when the department's financial reports were pulled together to make a case for the next year's budget. If the department waited for the end of the year to prepare, the money the town raised by taxes would go to non-essential services, like the library or the schools. So reasoned the sergeant, who fiercely desired to replace aging and outmoded equipment and increase his operating budget.

  "Apparently, two shots were fired from outside, through the window, and creased the skull of a thirty-one year old male, one Joseph Warnecki. I've talked to one of the neighbors, so far, but nothing obvious presents itself as an explanation. I'm going to need some help here."

  The sergeant, whose name was Clarkson, swiveled his chair away from his desk and its paperwork to concentrate on this non-budgetary matter. He tried to banish dollars and cents from his mind. "Okay, let's see." He took a minute to think. "How secure is the scene?"

  "Well, like I said, I'm sitting out in front. The neighborhood is quiet, nobody walking around, though some neighbors are looking out their windows. No reporters or anything."

  "The vultures will be around soon. They're probably monitoring this call." The sergeant had unsuccessfully petitioned for an encrypted cell phone system for two years and was not a great fan for the rights of a free press. "Is the place locked up?"

  "No. I didn't look for any keys. The place was open when I got here."

  "Listen. Run some tape across the front of the place and run back here to pick up Mary and the evidence kit. There aren't any cars in the yard right now. I'll get Knowles down there to keep the press out. He's north of the cannery somewhere. Should be able to get there in ten minutes or so. Use the siren and lights. Go."

  "Roger," replied Sims, who hurriedly strung fluorescent yellow crime-scene tape from the white picket fence in front of Armstrong's house to the rusty farm fence that fronted the property on the other side of Warnecki's house. In doing so, he had to string it across the neighbor's driveway. A wizened, bald, hook-nosed figure scowled at him from inside that house. He looked back at him for a moment. I'll be back in a few minutes and change it, he thought. He waved to the figure and jogged to the car, holding on to his flopping equipment belt. A few seconds later he was away, flashing lights and siren on.

  .

  U.S. Coastal Route One ran northeast through the mid-coast town of Rock Harbor, Maine, effectively dividing most of its population from the sea. Three of the town's four traffic lights allowed residents and tourists to cross it along its length, here denominated Main Street, through the commercial district. The craze for urban renewal that had swept much of downtown America in the 'fifties and 'sixties had not touched Rock Harbor. Neither had the town given way to the later trend of hiding historic (some said outmoded) detail with lath and stucco, nor of updating a crenelated brick roof line by covering it with a false sheet-metal gambrel roof. The district retained the original nineteenth-century character of its construction, not because of foresight on the part of the citizenry, but rather because of their frugality, and in part, down-east poverty. The lately-recognized charm of the downtown had recently been locked in by naming it an official historic district and zoning out the architecture of fast-food culture. Thus the area had become, in the nineties, a magnet for tourists fleeing the modernized blight of their own urban landscapes. A new prosperity turned empty storefronts and failed banks into trendy shops and upscale restaurants. Antique shops vied with art galleries for tourist dollars. And real estate values soared.

  The new prosperity, though, like the canada geese that dug up the grass in the town park, was largely migratory, flying south when summer ended. Fully half of the shops, and most of the restaurants, closed up with the summer cottages and the departure of pleasure craft from the harbor. Restaurant wait staff returned to college or competed with out-of-work shop clerks for jobs in year-round businesses. With the closing of the cannery and the export overseas of manufactory enterprise, these jobs were few. Some locally-owned shops, those that did not do well enough in the summer, would not open again in the following year. So was reinforced traditional yankee thrift. The old values of 'waste not, want not', and 'a penny saved is a penny earned' remained viable in the place of their origin.

  A few narrow streets and alleys ran southeast off Main Street to the harbor. Extending a half-mile from Rock Harbor Lighthouse and Harbor Town Park in the southwest to the defunct cannery in the northeast, it was protected from the open ocean by a narrow, conifer-studded barrier island. Deep water channels entered the harbor at each end, though by tradition, traffic entered by the northeast and exited the other. This practice originated when boats laden with their catch would enter at the northeast to reach the cannery and the commercial docks clustered at that end. Flouting this rule, non-local pleasure craft endured the sneers of local lobstermen, purse-seiners, and draggers.

  The lobstermen were a sub-set of the local economy that had not seen a diminishment of numbers in recent years. While other fish stocks had declined, the numbers of lobsters taken had increased. After the cannery shut down, Charles Adams, heir to that failed business, had driven piles and enclosed a two-acre lobster pound. Not a fisherman's cooperative, he bought the catch outright at a set price and sold or held the lobsters according to the market price. Not all the lobstermen sold to him and not all who did were happy with his policies. And those that left him to deal independently wouldn't be welcomed back. This was a continual subject of discussion at Molly's , a hangout for fishermen and other working class heroes, located on the northernmost alley running from Main Street to the docks.

  The harbormaster's shack was crowded between the two commercial docks and the marina. Boat yards jostled for space with the Rock Harbor Yacht Club and a few waterside restaurants. During the summer, the harbor teemed with activity, a noisy bouillabaisse both rank and sweet: smells of diesel fuel and fried seafood, low-tide and cocoa butter; sounds o
f engine and seagull, laughter and salty imprecation; light flashing from varnished brightwork, deep shadow where hull met water. This November, the chill, damp wind seemed to have blown most of all that busy cacophony away. It was still a nice, fishy stew, but not one to linger by in shorts and a tee shirt.

  The town's business district was a scant two blocks wide, merging into municipal buildings and then residential areas. The southern end of town melded into farmland, alluvial plain. To the north, scarcely a mile from the sea rose Frenchman's Hill State Park, donated by Charles Adams' father shortly after the second world war. Matthew Adams divested himself of this land in an attempt to ensure a fond and grateful memory of him in the hearts of the local population and, only incidentally, to reduce his property tax liability. (He had wanted it named Matthew Adams State Park, but the trustees, influenced by the not-grateful-enough locals, had named it after its first white resident, a hermit of French-Canadian extraction.) The lavish estate at its peak, and the sole right of way to it, was left to his daughter Meredith, and was to revert to the state upon her death. She was now seventy-four years old and used the place summers and holidays with her children and their families. None of them were willing to invest any capital in a house that would soon belong to the state, and as a result it was slowly subsiding into decay. Still, it was an impressive piece of brick, Federalist-style architecture, with a magnificent view of the town, its harbor, and a great expanse of Penobscot Bay. The grandchildren of Matthew Adams resented him greatly for his gift to the state. Almost as much as the townspeople resented him for his local greed and his arrogant management of his businesses. A new generation might someday come to revere his memory, but the one now residing in Rock Harbor would never do so.

  .

  Joey Warnecki awoke to unfamiliar surroundings in mid-afternoon of the day he was brought to Mid-Coast Regional Hospital. His head was throbbing and his vision was blurred. The beginnings of panic caused him to start to sit up but the increased pain put his head back down on the pillow and a low groan issued from his throat. A matronly nurse tucking in the sheets on the empty bed to his left turned to the sound. Her eyes went first to the monitors above him and then came to rest on his face. At his startled expression she consciously brought a consoling smile to her face and said, "You're in the hospital, dear. They brought you in this morning with a head wound. Don't fret now, just relax there and I'll get the resident. He'll explain what's going on. Just relax now." And she patted his hand where it lay atop the tight blanket and walked away. He tried to follow her with his eyes, not moving his head. When they travelled as far as was possible, the strain brought a new stab of pain and he closed them, too upset to articulate questions in his own mind.

  Lying there, he resembled nothing so much as a large, scraggly, puppy dog. Outsized, callused hands lay at the ends of long, thin, corded arms. Beneath the sheet he stretched the length of the bed and his size-twelve feet splayed to the sides, held that way by the taut bedding. He was tucked in as though to keep him from escaping. Indeed, the hospital staff weren't sure how to regard him, being the victim of a gunshot wound. He certainly did not appear dangerous, except for his hair, which was wild. Even without the shaved and stitched area to the right and rear of his head, his hair was savage. Three cowlicks vied for supremacy and he was at least a month overdue for a haircut. And remnants of dried blood matted swatches to his scalp. Hair aside, he wasn't an unattractive man. Though his facial features were, like hands and feet, slightly outsized, they formed a harmonious and expressive whole: eyes brown and large, but not protuberant; nose with character overhanging a generous mouth; jug handle ears that promised to listen to your problems. His face appeared engineered to disarm fear, and invoke trust.

  The nurse reappeared, hauling in tow a chubby, pink-faced resident. "Mr. Warnecki?" She patted his hand. "Mr. warnecki, I've brought the doctor." Joey opened his eyes and the doctor stepped to the fore.

  "I'm Dr. Wickman. I'm sure you're confused, but I'll try to set your mind at ease." As he spoke, he leaned forward with a small penlight to peer into Joey's eyes. "You were brought in this morning, unconscious. The police say you were shot from outside your house. Probably a hunting accident, or something. A bullet clipped the side of your head, causing a hairline fracture to the skull. We took an MRI when you were brought in and it doesn't show any apparent internal damage. Meanwhile, we've got you on some meds. You may feel thirsty." Joey's mouth felt dry. "We want to keep an eye on you here for a while, maybe a few days, just to watch, you know." He straightened up and regarded Joey.

  Joey licked his lips. "Head hurts," he allowed.

  The doctor nodded. "Is your vision blurred? Or double?"

  "Blurry, a bit."

  The doctor held out his penlight like a candle before Joey. "Can you touch this?" Joey raised his left hand and touched the penlight with an index finger. "Good. Do you know where you are?"

  "In a hospital," Joey replied.

  "Right." The doctor paused and said, "The police want to talk to you but we're keeping them away for now. You need quiet and rest. Don't get up to pee without calling the nurse." He held up the call button at Joey's side for him to see. "Okay?"

  "Okay."

  The doctor made some notations on the chart at the foot of the bed, nodded to the nurse, and left. The nurse tucked in the sheets even more firmly, patted Joey's hand for the third time and said, "You'll be fine, dear. I'll be back in a little while." She left Joey with his thoughts and his headache.

  .

  Thirty minutes after Joey was taken away in the ambulance, Officer Sims with Officer Mary Hartz arrived back at the house to find three other vehicles parked along the curb in front. Two were black and white police cars, the other was a white van emblazoned with the Channel 26 Television News logo. "Shit, they beat us. And what's the chief's car doing here?" Sims scraped the curb with the tires in his hurry to park. The crime scene tape lay on the ground, detached from one end where he had tied it to the wire fence. Officer Knowles, an Archie Bunker look-alike, stood with his arms crossed at the end of the driveway, barring entrance to a young, blond, blue-suited news reporter. Not being allowed to enter the property, she was trusting a microphone before his face and attempting to interview him. Knowles shared more with Archie Bunker than his appearance. He had nothing to say but, "I got nothing to say to you." Seeing that her winning smile was not winning any cooperation, she turned to confer with the cameraman and, catching sight of Sims, tried to intercept him. He strode past her and hustled down the driveway. She trotted to where Mary Hartz stood bent over, pulling two aluminum cases from the trunk of the car. The cases, stenciled in yellow 'RHPD', might just as well have had Mary's initials instead, as she jealously guarded them from any and all who would meddle with them. She, among other duties required in small, underfunded police departments, was the department's evidence technician.

  "Close that for me, would you?" Mary straightened, a case in either hand. Her way to the curb was blocked by the reporter. "Thanks. Tina, I've got to get by. I just got here, I don't know anything yet, and I couldn't say anything to you now, anyway."

  "Oh, come on, Mary, give me something. Anything." The reporter stamped her little foot. A slight-framed woman, Tina Bronki had a thin face and a sharp nose. She wore her jaw-length hair in a manner to make her face appear rounder. To the same end, she presented a three-quarter profile when appearing on camera.

  "Okay: All comment to the press is handled by the department press officer. That would be Sergeant Clarkson. Sorry Tina, you know how he is about speaking with reporters." Officer Mary Hartz, mid-thirties, tall and sturdy, with short brown hair, stood in contrast to the birdlike reporter. As a teenager, she had been the reporter's babysitter and they had remained friends through the several years since then.

  "He hates me! He'll never talk to me." A shooting in town was an extremely rare news-reporting opportunity. Tina Bronki sensed a possible boost to her career.

  "He hates everybody, Tina. C'mon, l
et me by."

  Tina stepped aside. "Hey, maybe I'll call you later, off the record," she said hopefully, as Mary walked by without reply. Tina returned to the van with the cameraman to escape the gusty November wind and called the police department on her cell phone.

  Sergeant Clarkson was not happy to be hearing so soon from the press. "How did you hear about this? You know, it's illegal to intercept cellular calls." He made a mental note to press harder for an encrypted system.

  Tina brushed by his remark. "Sergeant Clarkson, can you comment on the shooting? Was it a hunting accident or was Mr. Warnecki shot intentionally?" In her mind she said, "Give me a break, you son of a bitch."

  The sergeant was a stone wall. "The investigation is ongoing. The department has no comment at this time. We will make every effort to keep the press properly informed, at the proper time." Which, if he had the choice, would be never. He was drumming his fingers on the desk.

  Tina tried sweetness. "Will you comment off the record?"

  Clarkson used gruffness. "There's no such thing."

  Tina tried threat. "A good relationship with the press can be good for the department."

  Clarkson stuck with gruffness. "There's no such thing as a good relationship with the press." And he hung up.

  Tina Bronki decided to poll the neighbors for opinions until she could get another chance with one of the officers at the scene. Later she could try the hospital.

  Sims had entered the kitchen to find Chief Harry A. Sloan talking on the wall phone. Leaning back against the counter was the department brown nose, Officer Jimmy Brulick, otherwise known as 'Jimmy Bootlick'. Jimmy had grown up in town being disdained and bullied by family and schoolmates alike. He had turned to police work as a kind of revenge. The chief was a political appointee with neither the aptitude nor the experience necessary to do a competent job in that position. Sims wished they weren't here. Mary Hartz entered and rolled her eyes at Sims, out of sight of the chief and his toady.

  The chief hung up. "Nice of you to show up, Sims." Turning to Mary, "Nice contaminated scene for you, Hartz. I think the whole world's been through here before you." Sims and Hartz bit their tongues. Mary was struck by how much the uniformed pair looked alike, from the sneers on their faces to the shine on their shoes. Both were short and thin. Brulick even emulated the posture and stride of his mentor. But where the face of the chief was weathered and deeply lined, the face of his toady was pasty. And the chief barely revealed eyes like bright, blue chips of ice, in contrast to Brulick's watery, brown orbs. The Chief and Jimmy Show. She shook her head to clear the thought.

  "Have you touched anything besides the phone, sir," she asked.

  "Uh, no." Looking at it. "I was just talking to Sergeant Clarkson."

  "How about the rest of the house? Have you walked through?" She held the cases at her sides as though they were two pistols she might draw and shoot.

  "No, no, we just got here." With a glance at Jimmy. "Peeped through at the room where the victim was, that's all."

  "Did either of you handle the doorframe on your way in?" This from Sims. Double team them. Drive them out.

  "Don't believe so, no." The chief drew himself up straight. Time to re-establish his authority. "You two get to work here. Don't waste any more time. I want a comprehensive report as soon as possible." He jerked his head at Brulick and the two sidled out the door past Sims and Hartz, who watched them go.

  Sims and Mary half-smiled at each other. It was a small victory. Mary set the cases on the floor. "What's first? What do you want me to do?" Sims asked, deferring to Mary. She would lead in this part of the investigation.

  "Let's walk through. You can tell me what you found while I take some pictures." She retrieved a polaroid camera from her kit.

  Sims had told her much of it in the car and now he pointed out the position of the victim, the chair, the magazine, and the bullet holes while she snapped pictures. He suggested what he thought of as the probable scenario and she concurred.

  "What's with the vacuum cleaner?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

  "The guy that found him, the neighbor. He said there was glass on the victim's eyelids. Was afraid he might wake up, open his eyes, you know. Both him and the vic seem like neat freaks. Wanted to clean up the glass right away. Told him he'd have to wait on that."

  When they entered the bedroom he stopped short. "That wasn't there," he said, pointing to a rolled plastic baggy on the bureau top. "That was't there an hour ago."

  "You sure?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure. Pretty sure. No, I'm sure. That wasn't there. Shit." They stood in silence, the wind outside the only sound in the room.

  "Looks like dope," Mary finally said. She snapped a picture of it.

  "Do we have probable cause to examine it?" Sims did not like this thing appearing in a place that he had supposedly secured as first officer on the scene.

  "This is a crime scene and it's right out in the open," Mary said. "Even if it wasn't there before, when you first got here, it's evidence of something, now. Hey, maybe you did miss it first time around, nobody's perfect. Listen, we gotta take it. If it's dope, we'll get a warrant to go into drawers and stuff." She was pulling on a pair of thin, cotton gloves. She was anxious to dig out bullets, lift fingerprints, do all of the tasks her speciality called for, bring everything back to the closet at headquarters she called her 'lab'. She wasn't odd, she was enthusiastic.

  "Yeah. I guess so. I want to talk to Knowles, see who else has been here, talk to the neighbor, Armstrong. You need me here?"

  "No, no, I'm all set. You go ahead." She had already dismissed him from her mind.

  He stopped at the doorway for a moment. "That bag wasn't there,"he said, and left her bagging the evidence.

  .

  Knowles was sitting in his car with the engine running when Sims reached the front. Sims entered the passenger side. "How you doing, Charlie?" he said.

  "Okay, I guess, just sitting here watching that reporter going door to door and wondering what's going on here. So, what is going on here? All I know is there was a shooting. Guy die?" Knowles put one arm on the seat back. He was getting comfortable with the warm air blowing from the car's heater.

  "He wasn't dead when he left here. Don't know if he is now or not. Shot from outside, looks like. Two holes in the wall. What time did you get here?"

  "I got the call about quarter after ten and I was on the sidewalk for five minutes or so before you got here. The chief and Jimmy the Boot were already here. Don't know when they arrived. Surprised to see them, though. What does the chief do, anyway?"

  "Delegates, mostly. And then meddles." The chief of police was nominally in charge of the first shift, with the lieutenant heading up the second, and a corporal leading the third. In practice, Sergeant Clarkson bossed the first shift, as well as doing the bulk of the administrative work. If the chief was around during the day, he mainly spent his time with the marine unit. Everyone in the department was comfortable with this arrangement, with the exception of the marine unit and Sergeant LeBeau, its lead man. "Anyone else go in the house?"

  "Didn't see anyone. The tape was down. Old guy in that peeling house next door's been giving me the hairy eyeball. Like to ask him if he took it down, put my own hairy eyeball in his face." They both turned to look over their shoulders. The guy was looking back at them.

  "Looks like he might poke it out if you did," said Sims. "Be good if you hung here for a while, keep the news-lady away. I'll go talk to the old man. I want to talk to the other neighbor again, too, guy that called it in. When Mary's done, we can lock up the place and check out the rest of the neighbors."

  "Fine with me. Nice and warm in here." Knowles faced the front and Sims got out of the car. He wished he had his jacket.

  Sims closed the rusty gate after himself, walked up to the front door and knocked. Knocked again when he failed to get an answer after half a minute. Seems like the old man would know I was here, face in the window all the time, he thought. He knock
ed a third time, banging on the door so that it rattled. This time it opened.

  "Whadya try'n to do, bust the door down?" The old man had a rivulet of brown spittle oozing from the corner of his mouth. His breath reeked of tobacco and his voice, several decibels above normal conversational level, came from around the enormous chaw he held in his mouth. A slight, eastern-European accent came through in his speech, mixed up in with the tobacco juice and Maine vernacular.

  "Sorry. Mr. Soucup, is it?" Sims stepped back a foot on the porch landing. No response to his question was forthcoming. "I'm Officer Sims, Rock Harbor Police. I'd like to ask you a few questions, sir." The old man looked as though he might close the door in his face. "Please, just a few questions, sir, if you don't mind."

  "Well, hurry up then, yer lettin' in all the cold air." His voice was juicy. He closed the door so that just his head was sticking out. Sims thought he could jerk the door shut and chop it off at the guy's turkey neck. Instead he said, "May I come in for a minute, sir, then the cold will stay out." The old man retreated inside, holding the door open enough so that Sims could squeeze through. The hallway was so dark, Sims could barely make out any details of the house interior. The light coming in through the windows had to pass through a thick, dirty film. Sheer curtains that had probably once been white covered them. Any light that did pass was jaundiced and dim. The smell in the house was heavy with tobacco, eau de cat pee, old man odor, and boiled chicken.

  "Sir, there was a shooting between yesterday evening and this morning. The man next door was injured. Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary between then and now?" Sims eyes were becoming adjusted to the dim light. None of the surfaces of walls or woodwork reflected light. The finish must have been mostly smoke and dirt.

  Joe Soucup narrowed his eyes, chewed his cud, and replied, "Seen a lot a cops in blue uniforms, that's what I seen. Din't hear nothin'." He had a flesh-colored hearing aid over each ear, the earpieces hanging away from the ear canal where they might have done some good. He seemed to be reading lips as least as much as he was hearing. Sims had been speaking in a strong, clear voice.

  "So you haven't seen anyone who might have been out of place in the neighborhood. Maybe someone creeping around in the back."

  "Told you. All I seen creeping around's been cops. Must a been a cop shot him." His eyes were mere slits now. The hostility emanating from him was adding to the heavy atmosphere in the house. He was chewing with determination. Sims thought the guy might spit on the floor. He didn't really want to see that.

  Sims was becoming angry with the scrawny old bastard. "Did you remove the crime scene tape from the wire fence out front?" His hands were on his hips now and he was leaning forward into the old man's face. He was sorry he did.

  "Nobody asked me if they could hang anything from my fence." Flecks of spittle peppered Sim's face, caused him to blink. Time to go. Before he strangled the old man. "I don't have to say nothin' to you," the old man finished.

  He followed Sims out the door. Sims stopped on the bottom step and turned. "Are you familiar with Mr. Armstrong?" The question just popped out, he didn't know why he was asking it. Joe Soucup straightened and turned to look at Louis' house. Louis was sweeping the steps of his front porch.

  Joe smiled and stretched out his gray-bristled neck to spit a dark stream over the side railing. "That stupid son of a bitch. Look at him. Sweeping his porch that hasn't seen a speck of dirt since his old lady died. Heh-heh." His voice carried easily to where Louis stood. Louis stopped sweeping, scowled back, and went inside, muttering.

  "I got to get out of here," Sims said out loud. He strode down the front walk and through the gate, leaving it open as his last word. Joe stood a minute on his front porch, proud of himself, before returning inside.

  Sims was still fuming as he passed Knowles in the car, who looked back at him with raised and amused eyebrows. Sims stopped at the white picket gate before Armstrong's house. "Get a hold of yourself," he said, still talking to himself. "Be a cop. Cool down. Don't be a fool. Do the job. Okay, I'm okay." He had been twenty-seven years on the job and no one had gotten to him the way that old man had. He could control himself with his kids, who weren't easy. He could even keep a cool head with the chief, who was the biggest asshole he had ever known, at least until today. Irate businessmen; self-righteous, pompous minor politicos; drunken drivers with attitude; abusive, unaware, neglectful parents: he had handled them all with aplomb and professionalism. How did that one old man, in a few short minutes, get him so out of joint? The guy must have made a science out of aggravating people. A skill learned over a lifetime, since he was a little kid. Sims didn't want to imagine him as a little kid. "Maybe the shooter just got the wrong house," he mused, finally in control and reaching Louis' front door, which opened before he could knock.

  Louis looked at him with an what-did-I-tell-you expression. "Guy get your goat?"

  Sims shook his head, not to deny his goat was missing, but to indicate that he didn't want to talk about it. "May I come in for a few minutes, Mr. Armstrong, I'd like to ask you a few more questions."

  "Sure, come on in." Louis swept his arm to the interior of the house, indicated for Sims to take a seat. The living room Sims entered was a stark contrast to the house he had recently left. The walls and woodwork were light and bright. The sofa and chairs were upholstered in pale pastels, accompanied by brightly colored and patterned throw pillows. The room showed a woman's touch in decorating. The furnishings were inexpensive, but tasteful, and well kept. The nap of the wall-to-wall pile carpet showed evidence of having been recently vacuumed. It looked like the pattern mowed on a ball field before a big game. Louis looked at the heavy equipment belt surrounding Sim's waist and said, "Maybe we ought to sit in the kitchen. Want some coffee?"

  Sims was not offended, he'd be more comfortable in the kitchen, anyway. "Coffee would be nice, thank you." He followed Louis into the kitchen. The three houses Sims had been in were all laid out to the same pattern. "House designs are similar in the neighborhood, huh?

  "Like out of a cookie cutter. Aren't but three designs in the whole bunch. Old Adams didn't want to pay the architect more than he had to, cut into his profits." Louis poured two cups, set out milk and sugar. Sims' mother had had the same set of dish ware, collected a piece at a time from the supermarket. One week you could buy cups and saucers, the next week dinner plates. Both men took their coffee black.

  "Good coffee," Sims said. "Have you been acquainted with the victim, Mr. Warnecki, for long?" He pulled the pad from his breast pocket and looked at his notes. He hadn't taken any at Joe Soucups'. He wrote: 'Joseph Soucup, 226 Forth Street, neighbor claims to have seen and heard nothing, uncooperative.' He could not put down what he really felt about the nature of Mr. Soucup. These informal notes could be part of a trial sometime in the future. No sense writing anything down that could come back to haunt him someday. He wrote the time and date.

  "I've known him about all his life. I've gotten to know him real well, since I retired from the Navy, in '89. Joey must have been about twenty or so. His aunt and uncle were good folks. Good to Kat all the time I wasn't around. Kat, Katherine was my wife. I became sort of like an uncle-slash-friend to Joey, especially after his uncle died. Killed in an accident at the cannery, after it had been closed up. Guess I know Joey as well as anybody does." Louis felt at ease with the big policeman.

  "Did you notice anyone around his house before the police showed up, after I left?"

  "No. I went down in the basement, cut a piece of cardboard to cover up the window. Didn't come back up until the doorbell rang. News reporter." A square of brown corrugated cardboard and a roll of gray duct tape lay on the otherwise cleared counter. "Okay if I stick that up?"

  "I'll take it over, put it up before we leave. Do you have a key for the house?"

  "Yeah. Like to get it put up, keep all the heat from leaking out."

  "I'll take care of it soon as I can. May I have the key?" Louis got up and removed a brass
key from a ring of keys hanging from a hook by the back door. He dropped it in front of Sims and sat down again.

  "Do you happen to know what Mr. Warnecki did yesterday, where he was working?"

  "Let's see. I think he tore a porch down in the morning. For the Jennings, summer people, have a place on the shore, north end of town. Then I know he went over to the Lion's Club to repair a desk in the upstairs office got broken during a stag party the other night. He came over here afterward. We had a beer. His face had like a grid pattern on the skin. Said he fell asleep with his face on the floor register waiting for some epoxy to set up. Said when he came downstairs, must have been asleep for a couple hours, Charley Adams was all pissed off at him. Told him he wouldn't get anymore work through him. Called him some names. Joey was real upset."

  Sims wrote it all down. He would have two people to talk to, but did not figure that either were very promising as leads in the investigation. "Does Mr. Warnecki have a girlfriend, other friends, acquaintances that you know of, that I could talk to. I don't have a great deal here to go on. I'd appreciate any help you could give me."

  "Well, Joey has a lot of friends. Works with a lot of people. Doesn't work for anybody, you understand, but he does a lot of subcontracting, takes a lot of jobs too small for any of the larger contractors to handle. I can't say he has any particular friends, mostly people he would go out with, have a beer."

  Sims thought that Louis enjoyed talking about Joey. It could be a ploy, if he was the shooter, but the impression Sims got was of an almost paternal pride. He was close to being willing to dismiss Louis as a suspect, but because he was a cop, and was short on other suspects at the moment, he told himself to keep an open mind.

  Louis continued: "As far as girlfriends go, he doesn't seem to have many, or any. I don't mean to imply he's a homosexual or anything like that, but all his people, people who have been close to him, have died. He had a steady girl all through high school. I'm sure they would have gotten married right after high school, but she died in a car crash. Just going down to the store for a loaf of bread, or some such thing, and a truck crashed into her. Killed her. What with his mom and dad killed when he was little, uncle dying in an accident, aunt dying of cancer, I think he may be gun-shy about relationships. Shit, I didn't mean to say that. I wonder how he's doing. Have you heard anything? The hospital wouldn't tell me anything."

  Sims sat with his chin resting on steepled hands, listening to Louis' narrative. Now he put his hands in his lap. "No, I haven't had time to check on him yet. I'll do that soon."

  "Could you give me a call, let me know? I'm worried about that boy." Louis' eyes were serious, his expression intent. His hands were flat on the table before him.

  Sims paused, trying to reconcile his gut feeling of this man with the innate suspicion and distance every good cop must hold to be objective, to keep from blocking any reasonable avenue of investigation though dint of familiarity.

  The conscious decision to trust another person, by the thoughtful mind, is relative. The circumspect learn what to trust in another by degree, according to the character of the trustee. Some, one may trust with money, others with secrets. And some may be trusted with one's most precious possessions — the heart, or the well being of one's children. Sims was a thoughtful person.

  "Sure," he said. "I'll get back to you this evening sometime." He rose from his chair. "I'm going back to the house. When we finish up there, I'll put in that cardboard and lock the place up. I'd appreciate you keeping an eye out. I'm going to give you my card. If you think of anything that could help, give me a call." He wrote his home number on the back of a card from his wallet and set it on the table.

  Louis picked up the card and looked at it. He sat at the table for a long time after Sims left, holding the card in both hands, staring at and not seeing it, thinking.

  .

  "Hey, good, just in time." Mary Hartz was standing on the ground outside the broken window, holding the ends of two pieces of string. The bedspread had been taken down and Sims could see that the other ends of the string were thumbtacked to the bullet entry points on the wall inside. "Hold these," she said, "I'll go inside and direct you how to move. Then I'll take some measurements and a few more pictures. I sent Knowles to get the hole-saw. All I have left to do is core around the bullet that remained in the wall, and I'll be done for the day." She went inside.

  Sims spoke to her through the window. "One stayed in the wall?"

  "Yes. The other was sitting in the medicine cabinet, waiting for me to pick it up. Looks about a thirty-eight caliber, copper jacket. Not too badly deformed." She sighted along the string to where it passed by the rocking chair. "Move to your left a little. Stop. Now back a step. Good. Stay there." She took up the camera and flashed a picture where the string passed over the chair. Then she took one of Sims through the window, blinding him with the flash. "Sorry," she said, "Hang there another minute." She came back outside and measured from where the strings intersected to the ground, and then to two points on the outside wall. She sketched a diagram, added her measurements to it, and took the string from Sims' hands.

  Sims tried to blink away the red spot in his vision. "Okay if I tape this cardboard in the window?"

  "Sure, all done here. Here comes Knowles." Knowles came around the corner carrying the hole-saw and an extension cord. "Charlie, give me a hand inside."

  When Sims finished his taping, he returned to the sitting room, where Mary was popping out a two-inch core from the end of the heavy hole-saw. "Anything else?" he asked. Mary shook her head. "Okay, let's lock up and canvas the street. The three of us should get it done in a hour or so. Did you grid-search the yard already?"

  "Yes, I did," Mary replied, "Not even a gum wrapper."

  None of the mostly elderly neighbors up and down the street had anything to offer, though all that knew him were concerned with Joey's condition. All were sure that he couldn't have had an enemy in the world.

  .

  It was now after six in the evening and Sims was tired. He hadn't eaten since breakfast and he wanted to get home, see his wife and daughters. But his exhaustion stemmed mainly from the stress of seeing the plastic bag where none had been before. He tried to convince himself of the possibility that he had missed it the first time around, but could not accept that. He had been a scant half-hour away from the scene. In that time, someone had slipped in and planted it. His mind struggled with the implications.

  Now he was driving Mary Hartz back to the police station where she was anxious to do a preliminary work-up of all she had collected. He asked her, "Did you print the bag?"

  "No, I'll do that first thing. I did pull several prints at the scene that probably belong to Warnecki, for comparison if I get any off the bag. I can do a preliminary test on the substance before I send it off to the state lab. I want to get enough tonight to justify a warrant to search the rest of the place. First thing in the morning I'll deliver the bullets and the bag to the state, and then see about a warrant. Maybe you want to get the warrant, save time."

  "Maybe, yeah. Did you get anything from the door jamb or the window sill?"

  "Too smudged. Nothing was fresh there, anyway."

  Sims pulled the car up to the back door of the station and helped Mary unload her gear. "You coming in?" she asked.

  "No. I'm going to swing by the hospital, see if I can talk to Warnecki."

  "Going to keep the chief waiting, huh? He'll be pissed."

  "Let him wait. How long are you going to be, 'til you get something?"

  She thought for a moment. "Figure and hour or so."

  "I should be back around then. I'll call if it's going to be longer. We can go up against the chief together. Double-team him." Sims drove off and Mary carted her equipment and evidence inside.

  Brulick caught sight of her as she was going down the stairwell to her space and yelled, "Where's Sims?"

  She didn't look back and answered, "Working. Be back later."

  Brulick followe
d her down. "The chief wants a report right away."

  She stopped and turned with a sigh as he caught up with her. "Listen, Bootlick, we're putting in a full day here. I don't need you hassling me. When I've got something, the chief will be the first to hear." She towered over him, six feet tall and one hundred and sixty-five pounds to his five-five and one hundred and forty. And she wasn't going to be harassed by him.

  His face grew red and he sputtered, trying to come up with a suitable retort. He couldn't come up with anything — direct confrontation had never been his forte. He preferred the indirect approach. Mary didn't wait for a reply, anyway, and continued on her way, leaving him to fume in the hallway.

  .

  At the hospital, Sims was directed to the nurse's station on the second floor. There he was informed that visitors, official or otherwise, were restricted. He asked to see the attending physician. The nurse paged Dr. Wickman for him and offered him a seat in the waiting room. In five minutes, the doctor, white coat wrinkled and stained from a long day, entered the waiting room and approached Sims.

  "Officer Sims, I'm Dr. Wickman, I assume you're here officially." He shook the officer's hand.

  "Yes." Sims stood. "Thanks for your time. What can you tell me about Mr. Warnecki's condition? Is he conscious?"

  The doctor looked at a clipboard in his hand. "Joseph Warnecki was admitted at eleven-oh-six this morning in an unconscious state. Tests showed a hairline fracture of the cranium on the right, rear side. He regained consciousness around three-fifteen this afternoon. There does not seem to be any significant subdural hematoma, but since he did lose consciousness, we will keep him under close observation for twenty-four hours, and may release him at noon tomorrow, if his condition does not deteriorate. I would say the prognosis is good. He is significantly oriented, and motor response is good. He has a tremendous headache, though, and we feel that visitation is proscribed." The doctor clasped his hands, with the clipboard, in front of him. "You'll have to wait until tomorrow to talk to him."

  "Did Mr. Warnecki offer any information about the incident?"

  "I couldn't say." Neither invoking doctor-patient privilege, nor denying hearing anything. He was tired, but still aware of the legal protocols involved in his position.

  "Okay, I'll come back in the morning. Thanks again." They shook hands again.

  "No problem. Morning visitation is from ten until noon."

  .

  The hospital had been restricting his fluid intake and Joey was thirsty. His headache had receded to a dull throb, which increased when he tried to sit up. So, he mainly tried to lay still. He wasn't sleepy, and he wondered about being shot. His assumption was that the shot was a stray, from some hunter in the state park. He knew of no reason to conclude otherwise. He was not outraged, he accepted the fact as a piece of bad luck to be waited out, recovered from, and forgotten. Altogether a commendable attitude, given the circumstances of his life, and the losses he had sustained. Life thus far had taught him that bad things happened. There was no sense to rail against adverse fortune, and the best you could do was to keep on with life. At the same time, he was careful in his actions to not provoke the fates. Be cautious, but not overly limited. Enjoy what is available to you, but don't take unnecessary risks. This formula had worked well enough, so far, and in any event, it was all he had to go with. He wanted to reassure Louis that he was all right. He knew that Louis would be worrying about him, but the hospital staff wouldn't let him use the phone until tomorrow. This concerned him even more than his own condition. Since there wasn't anything he could do about it, he let this go, too. He let everything go and drifted off into sleep, convinced that tomorrow would be a better day.

  .

  Sims returned to the station, locating Mary Hartz in the chief's office. Jimmy Brulick sat quietly in a corner chair, the chief behind his desk, Mary in a straight-backed wooden chair before him. They were discussing the plastic bag.

  "Hey, John," she said, "we just got started, grab a seat." The chief didn't welcome him.

  "You were talking about the bag? What did you find?" Sims acted as though he and Mary were alone in the room.

  "As I was just telling the chief," nodding in the chief's direction as though to acknowledge his existence, "the substance is cocaine. About half-an-ounce, stepped on once or twice." This was a felony amount, not mere possession. "The bag was clean, no prints." She waited for his reaction, one eyebrow raised.

  Sims took off his cap, put his elbows on his knees and looked at the chief. "Chief," he said, "the stuff wasn't there when I was at the scene the first time."

  The chief was in uniform, and his cap was on. He leaned back in his chair, which creaked like a small animal in pain, and locked his hands behind his head. "You searched the place, first time?"

  "No, I took a walk-through, get a general impression of the place." He turned the cap in his hands by its brim, a steady rotation, round and around.

  "You could of missed it, first time around."

  Sims let out a long breath through pursed lips. "Nope. I've gone over it a dozen times in my head. It wasn't there."

  "You're saying someone put it there while you were gone." The room grew still, and silent. Sloan's eyes were intense.

  "I can draw no other conclusion. And I have to say that I don't have a clue as to who could have done it." Sims crossed his legs and hung his cap on his knee.

  Mary had been looking back and forth between the two men. She said, "Captain, do you want to get the lieutenant in on this?" She was thinking that the lieutenant might act as a buffer in the room, keep the situation honest. The chief was a purely political animal, prone to act in a less than straightforward manner when situations were not clearly cut.

  His gaze turned to her. "No," he said, "I'll brief the lieutenant when we're done here." He looked back to Sims. "Have you written this down yet in your notes, or a report?"

  Sims, uncomfortable at the beginning of this meeting, began to fear that he was going to be compromised. "No, sir, I haven't."

  "Well." The chief paused. "The way I see it, the circumstances are ambiguous. An officer leaves the scene of a crime unattended and someone may or may not have slipped in and planted evidence. If the suspect, as the result of a search based on this evidence, is discovered to be dirty, a defense attorney might use any such notes to get his guilty client off on a technicality. I think, for now anyway, we should keep the possibility that this evidence was planted between us, see what turns up tomorrow in the search. I certainly am not suggesting that your opinion on the state of this evidence be suppressed. No, not in any way, shape or form. Just hold off on your complete report. Are we agreed? Good." (Not waiting for anyone's assent.)

  "Now," he continued, "I have Officer Hartz' preliminary report, so we're about done here, for now. I want a search warrant obtained and a thorough search of the suspect's home begun first thing in the morning. You are dismissed." He rose to show the meeting was at an end. "Brulick, get Lieutenant Waters for me."

  Sims, feeling heat rise from his stomach to his head, did not trust himself to speak. He stood, cap in hands and went out the door, followed closely by Mary Hartz. Brulick, who had been a ghost in the corner, got up and followed them out. Sims would have proceeded directly to the lieutenant's office, had not Brulick been headed there also.

  Once they exited the rear door, Mary stopped him with a hand on his arm. "John," she said, "You've been put it a bad position."

  "You got that right. I left a scene unattended; my memory is faulty; I have not filed a timely report. Anyway you look at it, I'm screwed. I'll go along for now, maybe, until tomorrow at least, but I'll be damned if I let this go."

  "Listen John, if it comes down to it, you know I'll back you up. Let's do the search in the morning, see what else, if anything, turns up. Then we'll decide what to do. We'll keep our minds open and we'll do the right thing."

  "You're good, Mary. Thanks. And you're right. I'll work on the warrant first thing, we'll keep in touch,
meet at Warnecki's house, okay? I'm gonna get home, see my family."

  "Right, see you in the morning." She held out her hand, he shook it.

  .

  Mary Hartz, thirty-six, lived alone in a duplex on the south end of town. She had married young and was divorced before two years had passed, joining the police force shortly after that. For the last fourteen years, her life had revolved mainly about her work and, for the most part, she was satisfied with her choices. When she got home, the message light on her answering machine was blinking. There were two messages from Tina Bronki. Mary's cat twined itself around her ankles, begging to be fed. A wreath of white hair transferred from cat to cuff. "Damn, you shed year-round, or what? Just wait a minute." She was removing tinfoil from a can retrieved from the refrigerator, ready to spoon it into the cat's bowl when the phone rang. It was Tina.

  "Hey Mary, just get home?"

  "Yeah, long day, Tina. Can I call you later? Cat's driving me nuts, wants to eat."

  "That hairy thing still around? Must be fifteen years old."

  "Sixteen. Even hairier. I'm hungry too, Tina, let me call you back."

  "This will take just a second. Give me the gist of what happened at Joey Warnecki's. I can't get anything from the department."

  "You know Warnecki?" The cat stretched itself up Mary's leg, putting in its claws and purring loudly.

  "Oh yeah, we were in school together, first grade through twelfth. Nice kid, easy to get along with. Except for his grades, he was the kid every mother wanted their kid to be like."

  "No trouble in school, or with the police?"

  "Joey? Naw. He wasn't Mr. Goody Two-Shoes, or anything, did all the stuff most kids do, but he never made any trouble, not that I heard of. The nerds helped him with his homework, the criminal element never hassled him. What condition is he in? Was it an accident?" Tina didn't seem to need to take a breath between sentences.

  "I really don't know what his condition is. He was alive when they took him away. Tina, call the lieutenant. He should be up to date by now. He'll probably be able to tell you the basics, anyway. I'm in a bind here. The investigation is on-going and if anything should be seen as coming from me, my job is history."

  "Mary, I'd never put you in that position. Anything you tell me is off the record. I may be a reporter, but I've got ethics. At least where you're concerned. I wouldn't say the same about Sergeant Clarkson. That prick."

  "The sergeant's okay, he just hates reporters and politicians. I gotta go, Tina, this cat just snagged my pants. Bye-bye." Mary hung up and cursed the cat fondly, spooning food into her bowl.

  .

  Tina immediately dialed the police department, asking to speak with Lieutenant Waters. "Lieutenant, this is Tina Bronki, Twenty-Six News, what can you tell me about the shooting on Forth Street this morning?"

  Lieutenant Lawrence Waters was a twenty-year veteran of the New York City Police Department who had decided to move to a less violent clime after he was involved in an off-duty shooting on a busy city street. It had been the first time he had fired his weapon in the line of duty and he had killed a suspected bank robber, himself armed with an automatic weapon. He now headed up the second shift, and would most likely inherit the chief's position, when the chief retired. The rank and file hoped that would be soon. Even though he had been hired from the outside, over the heads of candidates within the department, he was not resented. He was a diplomat rather than a politician, presenting a first line of defense between the concerns of the men under him and the sometimes arbitrary behavior of the chief above him. The pressure of this position did not overly bother him; he had been used to worse.

  Lieutenant Waters had been briefed by the chief an hour before. "The suspect, Joseph Warnecki, was taken to Regional Hospital at around ten-thirty this morning with a gun-shot injury to the head. The —"

  "Did you say suspect, lieutenant? I thought he was a victim."

  "Uh, excuse me, I mis-spoke. The victim is listed by the hospital as being in satisfactory condition at this time. We have no suspects at this time. The shooting has not been determined to be intentional or accidental as yet, but we are proceeding on the assumption that it was not an accident, until a determination has been made otherwise."

  "Was he shot from inside the house, or outside?" Tina had ruined a pair of pantyhose climbing a neighbor's fence to get into the park, from where she had seen the broken window.

  "We believe he was shot from outside the building."

  "Could it have been a hunting accident? Hunting isn't allowed in the park, is it?"

  "We are not presuming a hunting accident, no." The lieutenant did not entirely share Sergeant Clarkson's prejudice against the press, but at the same time, he was not willing to give them more than he thought prudent, particularly the electronic media, who tended toward the sensational, in his opinion.

  "Was it a rifle round, lieutenant, or from a hand gun?" Tina had grown up in a family of hunters and she knew the difference.

  "A final determination has yet to be made, but the preliminary report suggests a hand gun." The lieutenant had to show that the department was on the job, and at the same time, not give too much away.

  "What about motive, if the shooting was not accidental?" Tina was willing to push as far as she could.

  "I'm afraid that's as far as we can go at this point, Ms Bronki." Meaning she had reached his limit.

  "Does that mean you have no leads to go on?"

  "The investigation is on-going. Good night, Ms Bronki.

  "Okay, I'll be in touch, thanks." The day had been a bust, as far as Tina was concerned. A twelve second bit on the six o'clock news. There would be no follow-up at eleven. Her professional instincts told her there was a real story here and she was determined to get it. Also, she had a personal interest in what had happened, having known Joey for most of her life. Why had the lieutenant called Joey a suspect? Had it been a misstatement, as he had said, or was something else going on?

  .

  Sims shared a modest cape-style house with his wife of twenty-five years and two teenaged daughters. Another daughter had married and moved west to California. Sims had two granddaughters through her, but seldom saw them, having to follow their growth by means of letters, pictures, and phone calls. He accepted that, but was not happy about it.

  All three of their daughters had been difficult to raise: willful, stubborn, and fond of boys, popular culture, and extreme sports. As a result, their marriage had focused on the children and his and her careers. But now they realized that children grow up and move away and start lives of their own, and careers reach their peak, so their attention was turning more toward each other, and their relationship was maturing into something different, something more relaxed. They had become more comfortable with each other, talking was easier, misunderstandings fewer. Sims came home and didn't unload his day on June, his wife, he shared the day with her. It was an uncommon marriage, because they had so much in common.

  He came home to an empty house. June must have been working late at the real estate business she owned and only God knew where the kids were. First one home was responsible for getting a meal together, so after shucking the heavy equipment belt and removing his shoes, he headed for the refrigerator. Halfway there, he stopped and went for the wall phone, instead. He punched in Louis' number from memory. At Louis' answer he spoke, "Mr. Armstrong, John Sims here. Told you I'd let you know what I heard about Mr. Warnecki's condition."

  "How's the boy doing?"

  "Spoke with a doctor there — Dr. Wickman. He said Mr. Warnecki was going to be okay, wants to keep him overnight, you know, in case of complications. But he expects to release him tomorrow, around noon. Just wanted to let you know."

  "Hey, that's great, thanks. He'll probably call me, get a ride home. Suppose you're gonna want to talk to him, first thing."

  "Yes. I'm going to try to talk to him before they release him. Maybe I'll drive him home. Be convenient. Save you some time."

  "Y
eah. Thanks again. G'night now."

  June Sims came through the door as her husband was hanging up. She was half a foot shorter than her husband, plump, pleasant faced, curly shoulder-length hair on the verge of going to gray. "Who you talking too? And what's for dinner?" She gave him a kiss, set a pile of brochures and other papers on the kitchen table.

  "Neighbor of the guy that got shot last night, and I don't have any idea."

  "Any idea about what?"

  "Any idea about dinner."

  "Call for pizza. If your day was anything like mine, making dinner is too much to ask." She let her coat fall off from shoulders to the floor, slumped her shoulders, stuck out her tongue, and rolled her eyes.

  "What happened in your day?"

  "You don't want to know. But if you did want to know, I spent the entire day with Charles Adam, Esquire, and some recalcitrant bankers."

  "What's going on?"

  "Charles, Esquire wants to turn the old cannery into luxury waterfront condominiums, only he hasn't the cash to put up front."

  "Doesn't sound like a bad idea, on the face of it."

  "On the face of it, yes, it sounds like a good idea, and if anyone other than Mr. Bad Financial Risk Adams, Esquire were presenting it, it would probably fly. As it is, the bank wants twenty percent up front, and personal financial liability, not merely the assets of Adams Real Estate and Development."

  "What do you have to do with it?"

  "Adams proposed my coming in as a limited partner, mainly as listing agent for the units. I told him I would listen, but after listening, I don't think so. He's going to have to come up with some serious money before anyone will listen to him. He claims to have a 'secret resource', some 'angel' that's going to come to his aid very soon. Do I believe him? Am I going to hold my breath? Did I waste my day? No, no, and I think so."

  Sims picked up her coat from the floor and draped it over a chair. "I guess Charles doesn't possess the financial acumen of his forebears, eh?"

  "Nope, just their greed. The business savvy didn't get passed down. Everything that man touches turns to shit. Well, actually the lobster pound does well, I think. Actually, that may be his sole income now. The realty doesn't do much. The Adams' empire seems to have been reduced to a lobster pound and a defunct cannery. I'm beat. How are you doing?" She sat in the chair and the coat fell again to the floor.

  "My day began well and ended badly. Where are the kids?" He picked up her coat again.

  "Sissy's at a meeting for ski club, Carrie's working 'till nine. Expect both within the hour. Don't want to talk about it?"

  "Yes, I do. Let's call for pizza, change out of our working clothes, and I'll tell you about it on the way down to pick up the pizza."

  Her car, a brand new Camry, was too loaded with papers to carry the both of them, so they took the wagon, a five year-old Volvo. The cold wind had ceased and the air was warming, filling with dampness.

  "Smells like rain," Sims said. "What's the forecast, have you heard?" It was a ten minute drive to the pizza place. He drove.

  "Supposed to rain tomorrow. Chance that cold air from Canada might turn the whole thing to snow. Maybe a lot. So what happened today?"

  "You hear about the shooting?"

  "There was a small bit on the news. Guy was wounded in his house, right?"

  "That's right. Shot from outside his window. Doesn't look like an accident, but nothing suggests a motive or a suspect. That's problem enough, but I have two more big ones. It seems that an bag of cocaine appeared all by itself in the victim's house after he was taken to the hospital. Either that or my memory's shot to hell."

  "You've got the memory of a mainframe computer. I haven't seen any slippage there. Getting a little thin on top of your head, but inside it's still full of good brains." She reached out and tapped with her knuckles on his balding pate. "What's the second problem?"

  "This is the one that really pisses me off. I met with Sloan this evening. He told me not to put it in my report. Said the circumstances were 'ambiguous'. Ordered me not to write anything down until after the general search tomorrow. I'm out on a limb here with this. I could have strangled him in his own office." He thumped the steering wheel with his fist.

  "That pruney old bastard. Do you have a witness to any of this?"

  "Mary Hartz was in the office with us. Brulick, too, not that I can count on him. I was alone on the first go-round at the scene, so Mary can't help me there."

  The car was silent for a few minutes. June then spoke her council: "You need to cover your ass with the lieutenant. He's loyal downwards. Call him when we get home, tell him what's going on. That way, nothing has to go on paper until tomorrow, but he's not in the dark anymore. He's in charge of this shift, anyway. I think he'd want to know about all this. He wouldn't want to get blindsided, later on."

  Sims was slow to speak "I think you're right, June. That's the only feasible way to handle this. The shit may still hit the fan, but maybe we can delay it. For a day, anyway." They had reached the parking lot of the pizzeria. He went in and returned with two boxes.

  "Haven't lost your appetite, anyway. That's a good sign. Two large pizzas?"

  "I haven't eaten since breakfast. If the kids aren't home when we get there, we'll have to save them a piece or two."

  As hungry as he claimed to be, he called the lieutenant before sitting down to eat. The lieutenant wasn't happy to hear Sim's news, but thanked him for it, anyways.

  Having passed part of his burden on to the lieutenant, Sims appetite returned. His daughters had come home while he was on the phone and had finished one pizza with June, leaving him the other for himself. He ate it all.

  Lieutenant Waters had been eating pizza, too, but he lost interest in it during Sims' call. Once again he had been placed in the middle of a conflict between officer and chief. The chief's job was essentially a political sinecure, an office appointed by the board of selectmen. It was a system that necessarily would align the office-holder with the movers and shakers of the small world that was Rock Harbor, setting him at a remove from the department. To Waters, self-interest appeared to be Chief Sloan's principle motivation for his actions and policies. Waters did what he could to keep the department independent of town politics. It was, in large part, a losing battle because of the limits in the power of his position, but he would do what he could to fight the good fight. For the last two hours of his shift, he reflected back upon his career as a professional police officer. He pondered the responsibilities of his position in this police department. And then he wrote a memorandum to himself, filing it on his computer's hard drive in a secure file.