your husband, the years collect all sorts of things, including enemies.”
“He put away a lot of bad types,” Pearl said. “Unfortunately, not for life.”
“Those people,” June said, sniffling, “the ones he helped put away…Joe said they talk big sometimes, but they usually cool off during their time in prison.”
“That’s usually true,” Quinn said. “And usually ex-cons don’t shoot and kill ex-cops.”
“Usually not,” Fedderman said. “But sometimes.”
“It could happen,” Quinn said with a trace of reluctance, as if he really wished he could agree with June but had to acknowledge Fedderman’s point.
June shrugged one bony shoulder and dabbed at her moist right eye with the back of a knuckle. “Joe didn’t seem afraid. But then, he was never afraid of much.”
“Isn’t that the truth, dear,” Quinn said. He made a fist with his right hand and ground it into his left. “A fine man like your husband. A good and true cop. And then some worthless piece of—” He caught himself and forced a smile. “I’m sorry. It’s just that all of us here, we bleed for a lost brother as you do for your lost husband. Your love.” He crossed his arms and stood there like a compassionate figure climbed down from Mount Rushmore. “It’s a fact there are all kinds of love. It’s not too strong a word to use for the way many of us felt and still feel about Joe Galin. Your husband will be missed by a lot of people. Missed in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons. The world is the worse for his leaving it.”
June lowered her chin to her chest and began to sob.
Quinn went to her and gently patted her shoulder. “There, there, dear, I shouldn’t have made you cry. But we so much want to find out what happened. If there’s anything you could tell us…”
“Everything seemed normal,” June insisted. “Joe was happy enough, even planning an elk-hunting trip with his buddies. They were going to drive up to Canada when the weather changed and elk were in season.”
“Sounds great,” Fedderman said. “You ever go with them?”
“Oh, no. It’s a men’s thing. I don’t want to shoot any animal. Shoot any living being.”
“Great to get out in the woods, though,” Fedderman said. “Nature can be beautiful.”
A slight smile glowed through the tears. “That’s certainly true.”
“I suppose you and your husband enjoyed nature together,” Pearl said.
June seemed not to have heard her.
“If you can remember anything at all,” Quinn urged, dragging June from the sylvan setting of her imagination and back to her agony.
Her body shook in another spasm of sobbing. Her nose began to drip uncontrollably.
Fedderman went to where a Kleenex box sat near a cream-colored phone on a table and pulled several of the blossoming tissues from their slot. He presented the bulky and stemless white bouquet to the widow. June accepted it and began dabbing at her eyes and nose.
“Thanks so much,” the widow told him, glancing up with reddened and grateful cat’s eyes.
“Something like what happened to your husband,” Fedderman said, “reminds us that we’re all in this together.” There was a catch in his voice.
Pearl observed all this and felt a stab of pride. These guys are good. And I’m part of the team. Just then, the idea of standing around in her gray uniform, hour after hour, in a walnut and marbled quiet bank lobby wasn’t so appealing.
“He didn’t seem exactly afraid,” June muttered into the Kleenex between sniffles.
“Pardon me, dear?” Quinn sounded casual, even distracted, as if he might have misheard a remark about the weather.
“Not what I’d describe as afraid,” June said, more clearly.
Quinn nodded his understanding. “But he must have felt something at least somewhat out of the ordinary. At least sometimes, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But—”
“What, then?” he asked gently.
“I don’t know…” She sobbed some more, dabbed at her nose and eyes some more.
“Did he seem uneasy?” Quinn asked.
“No, not exactly.”
“Anxious?” Fedderman suggested. “Did your husband seem anxious?”
The widow looked at him. “Well, yes…I suppose you could describe it that way. But ‘uneasy’ is more like it. Sometimes on a case he used to get like that.”
There was something here. They could all sense it. Sitting there in Joe Galin’s Barcalounger, Pearl was wondering how a guy like Galin would act if he were involved with another woman, having a hot affair. He might act suspiciously around his wife, even a guy his age, with his experience and the elbows and who knew what else he’d rubbed over the years. Retired narc in love. And secretly loving the danger. Missing the danger.
“Anxious how?” Fedderman asked.
“I didn’t say—“
“Elated?” Pearl asked.
The widow’s head snapped around. She’d known what Pearl was thinking, and had to admit she might be right.
“Elated,” she said in a hoarse whisper. She’d almost strangled on the word. Then she made a face as if she didn’t like its taste and was considering spitting it out. Instead, she swallowed.
Quinn moved closer and gently patted her shoulder. “It’s all right, dear. You’re with friends.”
She gazed up at him with moist, surgically widened eyes. “If Joe was elated, it was about something he didn’t share with me.”
Pearl stared at her, feeling a strange pang of pity.
It isn’t okay yet to hate your husband. Not with him so recently passed from this world of the living and still a resident of the morgue. It isn’t allowed.
“Nervous,” June said. She’d found a word, a concept, she could handle. “Yes, I suppose that’s the best way to put it. The last week or so before his…his death, Joe seemed nervous. Not afraid, but nervous.”
“Anxious,” Fedderman said again.
She looked at him, defeated. “Anxious,” she conceded.
Feds had worn her down.
Pearl showed a thin smile when the widow wasn’t looking.
Elated.
Interesting.
12
Jerry Dunn remembered a time in London when he’d sat in his hotel room awaiting the arrival of a prostitute. It had felt something like this.
It wasn’t morning then, as it was now. And he’d been sitting on the bed then, not in a chair as now. The chair was armless and uncomfortable, before a low wooden desk on which was a phone and a gold-embossed leather folder stuffed with flyers explaining the amenities at the Mayerling Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
The Mayerling was almost plush enough to be called luxurious, with a vast blue-carpeted lobby and marbled steps leading to a long registration desk. Arranged about the lobby were half a dozen conversation groupings of high-quality cracked leather chairs and heavily grained wooden tables. The main elevators were almost invisible in a decorative wall of polished oak and veined marble. Beyond an array of potted plants was a discreet entrance to a lounge. Jerry had noted that the lounge also had a street door, so that you could enter or leave it without passing through the lobby. That was an important fact