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Thirty-Four
Jimmy
JIMMY CUNNIFF HAS SPENTthe day in Garden City, doing the kind of essential cop work he was taught to do, which means knocking on doors, and not thinking Google can help you find out who did it.
Jimmy grinds through the day without a badge. He had a counterfeit made for himself after the NYPD made him turn in his real one, along with his gun, but no need for the fake today.
When people ask, he says that he’s working for Mr. McCall, the district attorney, and that has gotten him by with the good citizens of Garden City.
Jimmy has gone through his adult life saying “Long story short” a lot. Maybe too much. Jane is always telling him he overdoes it. But it’s only because he gets as impatient with himself as he gets with other people, wanting them to cut to the goddamn chase. So he keeps talking to friends and neighbors of the Carsons and telling them that, long story short, he’s just trying to find out what really happened to them.
And gets bubkes, as his father used to say. Hank Carson was a prince—that is the consensus, all over town. The daughter, Morgan, was a golden girl. The mother, Lily, did so much charity work they didn’t know how she found time to be a wife to Hank and a mother to Morgan.
The whole town seems blessed just to have known them.
Jimmy’s starting to feel blessed just knowingaboutthem.
And, sure, old Hank liked to have a little action on NFL games, but who didn’t? Nobody has any idea that Hank was as much as two million to the bad with Bobby Salvatore.
Jimmy calls Jane when he’s in the car. She asks him how it’s going.
“Still in Garden City. I need to get with McCall before I head back, see where he thinks we are, which, not for nothing, feels like nowhere right now.”
He tells her he’ll check back later, ends the call, shuts off the radio as a way of thinking better. Or more clearly. Or something. Mostly about Hank Carson.
Whatever he owed, why kill them all, and not just him?
Thirty-Five
Jimmy
IT’S DARK BY THEtime he gets to McCall’s house on Kensington Road, on the south side of Garden City. Jimmy has just given serious consideration to stopping at the McDonald’s he just passed on his way here, because he hasn’t eaten all day and is hungry as hell. But he told McCall he’d be there by eight thirty at the latest. He can eat when he gets back east.
Jimmy sees McCall’s Audi, or what he assumes is his Audi, parked in the driveway. Protected license plate in the back, withOFFICER OF THE COURTon it.
Jimmy gets out and walks up and rings the doorbell.
Waits.
Nothing.
Rings it again. He didn’t tell McCall exactly when he would show up. Maybe the guy is in the shower. Or out back. Or behind a closed door somewhere, talking on the telephone.
Maybe he’s dozed off. Or gone for a walk. Does he have a dog? Jimmy never asked if he has a dog. Just knows that he’s living alone and has been for a while. He’s a jock. Maybe he’s gone for a run. Jimmy remembers him saying that he still runs, but not every day anymore; it just beats the living shit out of his creaky knees.
Jimmy finally tries the doorknob.
It’s open.
“Hey, McCall,” he says as he steps into the foyer. “It’s your friend Jimmy Cunniff.”
No response.
The house, even with the lights on, is completely still.
“Hey, McCall,” Jimmy calls out again, a little louder than before. “Where you at, man?”
And even though no alarm went off when Jimmy stepped into the house, he is hearing one now anyway, the alarm inside his own brain.
