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But when I add it all up, looking at it from all possible angles, something I’m doing on practically an hourly basis, I know it comes down to this:
Because the case against him is just too perfect.
The evidence against him, evidence that keeps coming in, is just too frickin’ perfect. I’ve looked at it from every possible angle. So has Jimmy Cunniff, who’d be skeptical about the cards in his hand even if dealt a full house in poker.
And it’s even more than that.
The question I can’t get out of my head, the question that Jimmy can’t get out of his head even though he’d like to drop a safe on Rob Jacobson, is this:
Why?
Why would he kill those three people? Why would he kill a teenage girl even if he was drunk enough and stupid enough to practically be making out with her in the middle of Main Street and might have had sex with her in the back seat of one of his cars even though he swears he didn’t?
Makes no sense.
By now I’m at the end of the trail. Time to start heading back.
I walk up to the tree with my target on it, am looking proudly at all the small holes in the bull’s-eye and around it, when the first bullet hits the tree above me.
Definitely not a BB.
Twenty-One
Jimmy
IT’S A SCENE JIMMY CUNNIFFknows well from his cop days, one that TV productions and the movies never get quite right. Police cars, flashing lights, roped-off lookie-loos, one rooftop sniper.
Here, outside the Eagle Rock Apartments, Jimmy spots McCall. Next to him is a tall, thin Black cop standing ramrod straight and holding a phone.
Jimmy knows the drill. One voice. The crisis negotiator’s. And everybody else get the hell out of the way or else.
On the line is Artie Shore, who has barricaded himself in his fifth-floor apartment and is threatening to blow his brains out if anybody tries to get inside.
Not the movies or TV now.
Real life,Jimmy thinks.
And hopefully not death.
McCall introduces Captain Jonah Johnson. Nassau County Mobile Crisis Team. He’s the point man.
Johnson puts Shore on speaker.
“I’m not going back to prison. Not happening.”
“Nobody said anything about prison, Artie,” Johnson says. “Mr. McCall here just wants to ask you some questions is all. So why don’t you just toss your gun right out that window and come out here and we’ll all have a talk.”
Before Johnson can respond, Shore adds,“They didn’t think they’d ever get caught, and now they just need somebody to take the fall.”
Who’sthey?Jimmy thinks.
But it’s not his show.
The clock is already running down. The longer it takes, the better the chance everything turns to shit.
“We need to talk, you and me,” Johnson says to Shore, “but not like this.”
Then Shore ends the call.
