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  “Don’t do it, Son!” Miller shouted as Jason McNamee with two ees blew himself straight to hell.

  22

  There was a bright side to this mess. At least the body didn’t have to go far. McNamee shot himself inside the morgue after all, which made things quite convenient for both the police and CSI. Hell, Miller might have requested CSI to stand down if their talents weren’t required SOP in the case of both murder and suicide.

  After SWAT had left the building, Miller threw on some latex gloves and went through the deceased’s pockets. He found a smartphone that was outfitted with apps for everything from elevator control, including a cable release option for maintenance purposes, as well as a cease alarm function. There was a security app that unlocked all the doors in the medical facility or just one single specific door at a time—including the facility pharmacy where the oxy was stored. Where the drugs that paralyzed Missy and that led to her strangling death were also stored.

  Miller stared down at the phone set in the palm of his hand. He scratched his forehead with the fingers of his free hand, and he shook his head.

  “Jeeze,” he said to himself. “The world is going too fast for me now. Think I wanna get off.”

  “I’m right behind you, Chief,” I said.

  The doors opened, and a crew entered. They were wearing windbreakers bearing the letters, APD CSI, just like the TV show. Or sort of like the TV show, anyway. One of them mumbled something to Miller, and he said, “He’s all your’s.” He peeled off his rubber gloves and tossed them into the medical waste bin beside the table.

  The CSI crew went to work, snapping photos, taking measurements, poking at McNamee’s body with tweezers and extended index fingers. It was a hell of a scene. Missy, laid out on the table, her once white, almost pristine flesh now bearing the blood, brain, and bone spatter from her ex-husband’s suicide. What was left of him now lie on the floor directly beside the table. Theirs’ was a tragic life which train-wrecked into a tragic ending. All I could think about now was little Teddy.

  “Poor kid,” I whispered to myself.

  Something distracted me then. A smell. A rich, organic smell that immediately transported me back to high school, hanging out in the basement of a friend’s house, drinking beers, burning bongs, and soaking up “Smoke on the Water.” The odor seemed to be coming from Georgie’s office, which was attached to the pathology operating room.

  I made my way to the office door, tried the opener. It was locked. I knocked on it.

  “Georgie Phillips,” I said, my voice raised as high as I could possibly manage, “this is your mother. You open up this door at once.”

  I made out a commotion, like more than one person scrambling to conceal something. Then, footsteps, the deadbolt being unbolted, and the door opening.

  “You almost had me there for a sec, Keeper,” Georgie said, his eyes glazed over. “If only my mother weren’t dead these past twenty-five years.”

  I gazed inside the room. Blood was seated in the corner, his legs crossed comfortably, his right hand holding a drinking glass partially filled with whiskey. The whiskey looked real good right about now. The room reeked of pot smoke. But like I said, Georgie was allowed to smoke all he wanted. It was his prerogative as a man with skin cancer. Judging by Blood’s rather bloodshot eyes, I knew he’d been sampling some of Georgie’s medicinal stash, and that was fine by me. It had been a stressful, overly sad day and night. To be honest, we were lucky to walk away from it alive.

  I let myself in, found an empty glass, poured myself a shot, drank it down. Georgie closed the door behind me, went back around his desk, opened the drawer, produced the long joint he’d been smoking before I rudely interrupted.

  “You wish to toke, Keeper?” he offered.

  “Do I look like a pot smoker, Georgie? How many times you gonna ask?”

  “Just being neighborly.”

  “I will take one more drink though.”

  He waved his hand over the desk like, Help yourself.

  I drank my second drink, set the glass down on the desk, and locked eyes with Blood.

  “Our work is done here,” I said.

  I thanked Georgie for his help. He got up, gave me hug. He was getting more sentimental as the years went on. Maybe it was his age. Or maybe it was the cancer. One of the two would get him sooner or later. Something would get us all, eventually.

  Blood got up, downed what was left of his drink.

  “You want me to wash out my glass, Doc?”

  “I got it,” Georgie said. “I got nothing else to do. Those CSI guys will be here a while.”

  I turned for the door, knowing Blood was right behind me. We made our way back out of Pathology, past the destroyed elevator and through the doors of the morgue into the cool, if not cold, early spring night. There were several cop cruisers parked outside and more than one reporter and live action local news vans.

  Some of the reporters approached us, but we quickly made our way to the cruiser and let ourselves into the back seat where the criminals are supposed to go.

  “Where can I take you boys?” the uniform behind the wheel said.

  “Home, Jeeves,” I said. “And through the park.”

  “Funny,” Blood said. “But we ain’t going home quite yet, officer.”

  “We’re not?” I said.

  “We’re not,” Blood repeated. Then, eyeing the cop via the rearview mirror. “Take us to Youth Protective Services at the bottom of Clinton Avenue. We gotta see a little boy about a new home.”

  23

  We had to pound on the buzzer to get someone to come to the front entry and open up for us. She was a young woman still dressed in her day clothes but who had clearly been asleep when we rudely interrupted her.

  “Can I help you, gentlemen?” she said, her eyes shifting from the APD cruiser pulled up to the curb, to Blood, and back to me again. Sometimes Blood scared people because of his height and build. Mostly, when it came to women, he frightened them with his uber good looks. Frightened them in a good way, I should say, if that made any sense. But considering the late hour, the cop car, and the massive chunk of ebony rock that stood in the doorway, I was sure the young lady was more than a little anxious.

  “I understand you have a little boy here who needs a home,” Blood said.

  I showed her my license and told her why we were here, in as abbreviated a form as possible. She asked us in.

  “I saw something about the murder and suicide on the news,” she said, hand combing her thick, curly sandy blonde hair. “What a tragedy.”

  “Can you release Teddy?” I asked.

  The vestibule was brightly lit, and there were security cameras mounted to two of the four upper corners. She shook her head.

  “It’s not really up to me to say,” she said. “It’s really up to Teddy’s state appointed lawyer and child protective services.”

  “Can you get them on the phone?” Blood said.

  Her eyes went wide. “At this hour?”

  “There a little boy lost his parents today,” Blood said. “Both of them. He needs a home. We’ll wait.”

  She nodded, slowly.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do. Normally, this kind of thing can take weeks, months. But seeing as you’re somehow connected to the police, maybe I can make something happen. At least, temporarily. Just wait here.”

  She disappeared through a solid wood door that led into the depths of the facility. We did what she told us to do.

  We waited.

  An hour and a half later, the interior door opened. Out came the young lady and someone else too. Teddy. She was holding his hand while the little boy sleepily walked with her. He was wearing flannel feet pajamas that had Batmans on them. He was also holding a blanket, or what did you call it back when you were that young? A bibby?

  He was round-faced and had a head full of wavy black hair, and he bore the striking blue eyes of his mother.

  “My guess is you gentlemen have som
e pull in the court system?” Young Lady said.

  Blood cocked his head to the side.

  “We been around,” he said. “The people who run this city trust us.”

  Young Lady handed Blood a duffel bag, which the big man strapped to his shoulder.

  “There’s some clothes and toys in there,” she said. “And an Epi-Pen, just in case. Far as I know, he doesn’t require anything special.” Then, bending at the knees, she looked into the little boy’s eyes. “These nice men are going to see after you for a while. Is that okay, Teddy?”

  He looked up at us, and damn if he didn’t smile.

  “I remember you,” he said, speaking to both Blood and me. “You are friends of my mommy’s.”

  “That’s right, little man,” I said, crouching, taking his hand in mine, shaking it.

  Blood took a knee. Held out his hand.

  “I’m Blood,” he said. “This here is my best friend, Keeper. We’re gonna take good care of you, Teddy boy.”

  Teddy didn’t shake Blood’s massive paw, he slapped it five instead.

  “Hey, right on, little man,” Blood said. “You one special little dude.”

  Blood took his hand and together we made our way for the door. Like one big happy family.

  The cop had waited for us. Whoever said cops don’t have a heart haven’t seen the same cops that I have. He dropped us off outside Blood’s residence on upper Sherman Street. Teddy had fallen back to sleep in the cruiser, so Blood got out, and lifted him up onto his shoulder. Teddy stuck his thumb in his mouth and Blood made sure to wrap the bibby around his shoulders and back. He then grabbed the duffel and started making his way to his townhouse.

  “I call you in the mornin’, Keep,” he said. “But not too early. We gonna sleep in a little.”

  “I’ll help you with the grocery shopping tomorrow, Blood,” I said.

  They entered the townhouse, closing the door behind them, no doubt, engaging two or three deadbolts.

  “Not the nicest of neighborhoods,” the cop said to me, after a time, his eyes peering at me through the rearview mirror. “House looks a little run down.”

  “Don’t be quick to judge a book by its façade,” I said. “The outside might not look like much, but the inside looks like the Four Seasons. It’s also about as impenetrable as Fort Knox. The boy will be happy and safe there. Safest place on earth.”

  The cop put the cruiser back in drive, pulled away from the curb.

  “That’s saying a lot for downtown Albany, New York,” he said.

  Coming from out of the deep night, the faintest sound of a gunshot. Tires burning rubber. A cop cruiser siren wailing.

  “Forget about it, pal,” I said. “It’s Arbor Hill.”

  THE END

  If you enjoyed this Jack Maroni PI thriller, please escape with The Corruptions and THE GUILTY. We also invite you to join the Vincent Zandri “For Your Eyes Only” occasional newsletter for inside info on freebies, promos, and cool swag. Go to WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM for more.

  About the Author

  Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and AMAZON NO. 1 Overall bestselling author of more than 20 novels including THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT WEEPS, EVERYTHING BURNS, and ORCHARD GROVE. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated into the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Recently, Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the Best Thrillers of 2014. In December of 2016, Suspense Magazine selected When Shadows Come as one of the Best Thrillers of 2016. A freelance photojournalist and the author of the popular "lit blog," The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, and many more. He lives in New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

  Vincent Zandri © copyright 2017

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Bear Media 2016

  4 Orchard Grove, Albany, NY 12204

  http://www.vincentzandri.com

  Cover design by Elder Lemon Art

  Author Photo by Jessica Painter

  Editing and eBook Conversion by Bridgette O’Hare of www.Plot2Published.com

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published in the United States of America

  The author is represented by Chip MacGregor of the MacGregor Literary Agency

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  About the Author