The Wolves of Fairmount Park Read Free Page A

want to be it was the cop with the bad kid. He’d seen it, they all had, but that wasn’t how it was, and if he tried to tell them, grab one of the detectives and put him straight, he’d just get pissed off and forget himself and want to put a fist in someone’s eye.
    He paced, getting to know a little route from the ER to the front desk to the vending machines. He had just turned to walk back down the quiet hallway from staring at the candy bars he didn’t want when he saw the Captain moving up the hallway, nodding at him and talking out of the side of his mouth to a young Spanish kid in a rumpled suit who was carrying a notebook, and Brendan had to think about that, about his kid’s name and his name and Kathleen’s in the chicken scrawl of ahomicide cop’s notes stuffed in a file somewhere, and their life reduced to a shorthand narrative passed from the cops to some bored ADA and then the newspapers and TV to circle back to him through family and friends.
    â€œBrendan.” The Captain put his hand on his arm, and Brendan nodded but couldn’t say anything. “I’m so sorry. How is Kathleen?”
    He cleared his throat and pointed down the hall toward where he’d last seen her, in the chapel with Francine Parkman. “She’s hanging in.”
    â€œI can’t imagine.” The Captain was tall, big across the shoulders, going bald now. He was a tough fucker, and the guys all liked him. A Jew among Irish and Italian Catholics, a guy who almost never raised his voice, almost never sounded like brass usually sounded, like they were trying to shut you down before you got a chance to say anything.
    Now the kid was putting his hand out. Brendan wondered if he was Dominican—he reminded Brendan of guys he knew from the neighborhood. Wide but not fat, muscled in his arms, with skin the color of milky coffee and the close-shaved head all the young guys had now.
    â€œDanny Martinez.”
    â€œBrendan Donovan.”
    The Captain put his hand on Martinez’s sleeve. “Danny is Violent Crimes. He’s the guy who put that Derrick Leon and his friends away.” Brendan remembered Derrick Leon, one of those scarred, wild-eyed gunmen who came out of the drug trade once in a while, moving up fast by killing everyone he knew, and Brendan remembered he’d been locked up but didn’t knowwho’d done it. This Martinez kid looked about twenty-two, and something about him was more bookworm than street cop. Little wire-rim glasses and a way of taking the room in from the corner of his eyes, though you never knew. The Captain turned back to Brendan.
    â€œWhat are the doctors saying?”
    â€œThey’re waiting on X-rays. He’s in, he’s unconscious, but they’re saying he’s got eye movement and that’s a good sign. He’s got a . . .” Brendan had to clear his throat again. He tapped his right temple. “He got hit in the temple, but it looks like the bullet didn’t penetrate the skull.”
    Martinez cocked his head. “Small caliber, like a .22 or something?”
    Brendan shook his head. “Haven’t seen the slug, but maybe. Maybe it was a misfire or ricochet or something.”
    â€œYeah, the stuff we recovered at the scene looked to be all nine mil.” He flipped through the little book, checking. “ ’Course it could have been two guns, and we haven’t found all the slugs.”
    The Captain grabbed Brendan’s hand. “Michael’s a strong kid. And whatever he needs, you know he’s got it.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll be back later. You need anything, you call me direct.” He let go of Brendan and touched Martinez on the sleeve. “We’re getting these guys. There’s no question about that. None. Danny is the best guy in Violent Crimes, and this is our first priority.”
    For today,
Brendan thought. Today and maybe tomorrow and