Ch. 7 / Pt. 2 : When They Wear the Mask
While waiting in the back of a squad car as more and more first responders arrived at a crime scene, Paul Somers had glimpsed a frazzled, exhausted-looking Virgil LeDuff milling through the crowd. Virgil had met his eyes through the rear window of the police vehicle and had puffed out his weathered cheeks with a sigh and made no further indication of recognition. As detectives arrived, the arresting officers climbed back into their cars and took Deirdre and Paul to sit in a cell.
Chief of Oceanrest Metro PD Virgil LeDuff had vanished a DUI charge for Paul several years earlier. As penitence, Paul Somers, former federal agent and consultant to the NYPD, worked as a civilian asset whenever called upon for his expertise. Originally a series of under-table transactions, their favor-trading led to something almost a friendship. If a strained one.
More than that, years of regular contact with Virgil LeDuff had taught Paul a key tenant of the man’s existence: he always meant well. Dirty as he was—dirty as the whole department was—he had a code of ethics, a sense of decency, a notion that he bent the rules for the betterment of the Oceanrest citizenry, not its detriment. He had standards. After finding three neo-Nazi enablers among the fresh recruits from Maine’s Criminal Justice Academy, Virgil had removed them immediately. Ditto the five additional neo-Nazi enablers found among the rank-and-file of the department proper.
The speed and theatricality of Virgil’s response had distracted most of Oceanrest’s populace from the more dire facts: that the system that allowed these people to serve as cops in the first place remained unchanged; that the removal of current cancer did not promise a cancer-less future.
Still, Oceanrest PD looked better than most, and it owed much of its relatively-unmarred appearance to Virgil LeDuff.
So while it slightly surprised Paul that Virgil showed up at six-thirty in the morning to release Deirdre and himself from their cell, it did not shock him.
“You two, with me,” he’d grumbled gruffly, his tone escaping his facemask more than his words. “We need to talk.”
Six minutes later, Paul and Deirdre sat in two decades-old chairs in front of Virgil’s sprawling, cluttered desk. In a worn leather office chair across from them, Virgil removed his mask and massaged his face. Dim light hazed in from mostly-shut blinds hanging from south-wall windows. Beyond the glass, Oceanrest’s Historic District slouched southwestwardly into gray docks and warehouses, the remains of a once-bustling harbor long-rotten. Sunlight danced over Atlantic waves rolling into the bay.
Virgil let out a sigh that sounded like an era’s held patience finally lost. “The good news for you, Paul, is that sate prosecution is electing not to press charges, given your history and relationship with the department. I’d like to keep you on as a civilian asset or a consultant or…something…but you won’t be allowed to carry any kind of badge or ID anymore.”
Paul drythroat swallowed and lowered his gaze to the paperwork piling Virgil’s desk.
“As for you,” Virgil addressed Deirdre. “You were arrested for the unlawful possession of a firearm. Well. I don’t know what happened, what with all the noise and shuffle of a major crime scene, but somehow nobody managed to find the alleged weapon after the arrest.”
He opened a drawer in his desk and withdrew a padded envelope bloated with its irregular and obvious contents. He set it on his side of the table and kept one hand on top of it as he leaned back into his overcushioned office chair.
Sometimes the crookedness of Oceanrest cops broke the right way.
“Now,” Virgil continued, stopping both of them from asking simultaneous questions. “Considering how much I’ve done for the two of you, this morning, and considering I only know the one of you by reputation,” he nodded to indicate Deirdre, “I’m going to need something in return.”
Deirdre’s eyes lit up. Paul watched her bite off her words.
Virgil kept his hand on top of the bulging envelope. He brought it closer to his chest. “What the hell were the two of you doing out there?”
The flare in Deirdre’s gaze guttered out. She peered at Paul and Paul peered at her.
“Two people are dead, remember,” Virgil pressed.
“And the cops were too busy arresting us to stop that,” Paul replied.
Deirdre pursed her lips.
Virgil leaned back, fingers drumming on the bulge in the envelope. “I’m not the kind of asshole to argue that what happened wasn’t uglier than hell. If it comes around that I need to make some kind of official comment, the Mayor might prefer I say something different, but in earnest? I’d have to be dumb or blind. So I’m not asking what went wrong or who fucked up, I’m asking why you were out there to begin with.”
The spiel had given Paul time to think. “I was—I was working on a profile.”
“A profile that led you straight to the house of the victim?”
“No. No. But I thought the killer would be likely to hit Denton.”
“And you didn’t come to me?” Virgil asked.
“We haven’t had the smoothest relationship, lately.”
“And you’re not doing much to smooth it over, now.”
“Deirdre had a network of people willing to help. We had a few cars patrolling, people on cellphones and walkie-talkies, and one of them saw something suspicious.”
“The car that fled the scene?”
“I wouldn’t call it—”
“The car that fled the scene?” Virgil repeated, loudly.
Paul nodded.
“I’d swear it was bullshit if you hadn’t just confessed to multiple goddamn felonies.” Virgil released the envelope, leaning both elbows on his desk, burying his face in his palms. “Jesus Christ. I should charge both of you. I should call the D.A. back and…” he blew out another sigh, put his hands back on the desk, and pushed himself up from his seat. “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. First, both of you are going to tell my detectives everything you know and everything you saw. Second—you, Deirdre, you keep whatever PI work you do limited to the boundaries of Squatter City. After the detectives finish with you, come to my office, this office, and I’ll walk you out. I’ll hand you your personal effects at the door.”
Deirdre’s brow furrowed. She blinked. “You’re—you’re giving that back to me?”
“You’re a woman living alone in Squatter City. When you leave, you take it with you. If it ends up here, again, there will be a, uh…a more thorough response.” He swept the envelope back off the desk and into its drawer. “I heard people call you the Sheriff of Squatter City. Squatter City ends at Lafayette Avenue.”
“Understood,” Deirdre replied.
“A’yeah. Now, I don’t know how long my detectives will want to question you, but considering your ace profile, Paul, I’d recommend canceling any plans you have for the evening.”
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