Harper Allen - Sullivan's Last Stand

“Seems strange that someone would go to so much trouble to empty filing cabinets when all they contained were historical research for a book,” he mused, propping one polyester-clad thigh on the conference table and fishing in the pocket of his disreputable sport coat for something. His hand withdrew, and in it was a paper-wrapped toothpick. With the same fascination that a mouse would give a snake, Bailey watched him as he slowly peeled the paper away, wadding it up into a tiny ball and looking around the room as if there was nothing more important on his mind right now than to find a wastebasket in which to throw his minuscule piece of trash. Not seeing one, he sighed and dropped the wadded-up ball into his pocket. Then he inserted the toothpick between his lips and gave it a thoughtful chew.

Straub looked as if he was about to burst into impatient speech again, but the man that Sully had called Fitzgerald gave him a glance and, with obvious difficulty, Straub bit back whatever he’d been about to say.

Fitzgerald was the bulldog to Straub’s high-strung fox terrier, she thought suddenly. With his big build running slightly to fat and his slow, deliberate movements, he gave the impression of being the stereotypical plodding cop.

But he was the one she had to worry about. His next comment, although it was phrased as an afterthought, made that abundantly clear.

“I know I don’t have to ask if you left the scene exactly as you found it, Sullivan. You’ve been in this business long enough not to be removing evidence, haven’t you?”

There was the faintest of brogues in his inquiry, and when Sullivan spoke his voice held an echo of it.

“Sure, Fitz, and you were right the first time. You don’t have to ask.” His attitude was as lazily unconcerned as the other man’s, but Bailey had the unsettling feeling that the real conversation between the two was as antagonistic as it was unspoken.

“I’ve changed, Fitz,” Sullivan went on, pulling out a chair from the table and straddling it backward. He folded his arms along its back and shook his head ruefully. “You still see me as that crazy lad I used to be, but those days are behind me. I’ve learned to play by the rules, now.”

“Is that so?” There was a harder note in Fitzgerald’s voice, but his expression was one of mild interest, no more. “The way I heard it, it took you entirely too long to learn that lesson, and it was an expensive one. But you seem to have come through unscathed.”

“The same way you came through that unpleasantness at that godforsaken little desert town unscathed,” Sullivan said softly. “Who the hell were we fighting that time, anyway, Fitz? I forget.”

His arms were still folded casually along the back of his chair, and his posture was easy and relaxed, but glancing sharply at his face, Bailey saw a muscle at the side of his jaw tense. Puzzled, she flicked her gaze back to Fitzgerald. There was a rigid stillness on his expression, and she saw that Sullivan’s words had meant something to him.

“The enemy,” the detective said shortly. “That’s all we ever had to know, Sully. But maybe we were always really fighting ourselves. You saved my life that night—except we never should have been so far away from backup in the first place, Terry, and you know it.”

Their eyes locked, and for a moment Bailey had the uncomfortable feeling that if she dared to step between the burly police detective and the big man lounging in the chair, it would be like intercepting twin laser beams. She’d known from Sullivan’s greeting of Fitzgerald that there was some level of familiarity between them, but now she realized that that familiarity ran much deeper than she had first suspected.

Fitzgerald had obviously served with Sullivan as a soldier of fortune. Unlike the graying Englishman she’d spoken with that day on the Common, it seemed he hadn’t approved of his methods.

“What the hell has this trip down memory lane got to do with anything, Donny?” Straub burst out, his limited supply of patience obviously depleted. “Whatever wars you two fought together in are long over, so why don’t we get back to the matter at hand here?” He turned to Sullivan. “I think we should go over your story one more time, mister. Maybe you’ll remember a few more details down at the station.”

He’d done what she had known instinctively would be foolish, Bailey thought. He’d interfered in whatever private battle was going on between Sullivan and Fitz, and suddenly the two ex-comrades were once again on the same side, united against him.

“Wars are never over, Petey boy,” his partner said in a deceptively silky tone. “Not that you’d know about that, since you never fought in one. If you had, you might have learned something about reading men. Sully here is lying about something, I’m sure of it—but I’d bet my next paycheck that he’s telling the truth when he says he doesn’t know what happened to his man Jackson.”

“Yeah? Well, any lie is grounds to take him in as far as I’m concerned,” Straub said tightly, his fair skin coloring. “Once we get him into an interrogation room, I’m willing to bet my paycheck that I can hold out longer than he can. I want some answers from your foxhole buddy, and I’m going to get them.”

Sullivan finally spoke. The edge of amusement in his voice was deliberate, Bailey knew. “I don’t think so, boyo. Wearing you down would be so easy it wouldn’t even be fun. You might be hell on grilling petty thieves and hookers, but you’re way out of your league with me. Your partner here will back me up on that one.” He glanced over at Fitzgerald, and the burly detective allowed a ghost of a grin to cross his features. He shifted the toothpick in his mouth and nodded.

“Thirty-seven hours of questioning by the leader of that insane rebel faction in the mountains, wasn’t it, Sully?”

“Thirty-eight,” Sullivan said, frowning slightly. “Or maybe thirty-nine. That last hour was pretty much a blur. I was beginning to think you and the boys had taken a vote and decided to wash your hands of me.”

“When we finally showed up, I seem to recollect you were going through Al-Hamid’s family tree for him. It was hard to make out exactly what you were saying through a broken jaw and with the side of your face the approximate size of a football, but it appeared as though he was getting the gist. Something about a sheep, or was it a goat?”

Sullivan grinned wryly. “Hell, all I was trying to do by then was make him mad enough to get careless. It would have worked, too, if you and McGuire hadn’t barged in just when I was getting to the good part.” He glanced over at Fitzgerald. “Anyway, it all worked out in the end. I got the troop strength and materiel figures we needed, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did.” The faint amusement left the other man’s face, and his tone was quiet. “And you nearly got what you really wanted. Of course, that didn’t stop you from trying again.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fitz.” Watching him, Bailey saw the blue eyes become instantly opaque, although there was no change in the easy good humor of his expression. “I got out alive—that time with Al-Hamid, and every other time.”

The detective’s gaze was steady and unwavering, and under it Sullivan looked suddenly away. “Don’t lie to yourself, Sully.” There was an odd intensity in his tone. “Lie to everyone else if you have to, but not to yourself. You did get what you wanted in the end, didn’t you? You’re a dead man walking,” he said softly, his voice pitched so low that Bailey had to strain to hear him.

The conference room was well lit and spacious, but all of a sudden she felt as if the walls were closing in on her and the lights had flickered and powered down. Dead man walking. What did Fitzgerald mean by that? Even as the question came into her mind, she knew it was unnecessary to voice it. The heavyset ex-soldier, with his deceptively stolid demeanor and his prosaically unimaginative manner, had simply put into words the impression that she had always told herself was too fanciful and melodramatic to consider. Fitz saw the same thing in Terrence Patrick Sullivan that she’d subconsciously seen the first time she’d laid eyes on him.

He was good-looking, charming and seemingly invulnerable, Bailey thought. But something had a claim on his soul, and eventually that something would call in its claim.

“Your Irish imagination is running away with you, boyo.”

Sullivan’s wry grin looked so natural that Bailey felt a momentary doubt. Maybe both she and Fitzgerald were wrong. Maybe Sully was exactly what he appeared to be on the surface, and what he insisted he was—a risktaker, yes, but with no more ulterior motivation behind his actions than an innate tendency to push situations to their limits, simply for the thrill of it.

“Next you’ll be taking a leaf from Quinn McGuire’s book of fairy tales and telling me that the wild geese have laid their mark on me. Is that what you think, Fitz—that they’re waiting to take me with them from some battlefield that still lies ahead? Because if you do, then you’re forgetting one thing.” His brogue thickened. “I’ve got no intention entirely of joining them in eternity. That’s why I walked away from the profession, isn’t it now? They can’t take me if I never go back, Fitz.”

His words were gently mocking, but, glancing surreptitiously at the man he was directing them at, Bailey didn’t see an answering smile on Fitzgerald’s face. Instead his eyes closed for an instant, as if in pain. Then he opened them again and fixed Sullivan with an unwavering gaze.

“They don’t have to. You’re already up there with them, Sully.”

“I thought we were here on an investigation, Donny.” Straub’s interjection was harsh. “What’s all this crap about freakin’ geese and battlefields and fairy tales got to do with anything?”

“Nothing at all, Detective.” Sullivan’s answer was just as harsh, but although he was apparently answering Straub, he didn’t take his eyes off Fitzgerald. “It’s a legend, that’s all. Your partner here likes to trot out his Irish fatalism once in a while. It’s all part of it, like the wearing of the green on St. Paddy’s Day, getting into drunken arguments with strangers over the Troubles and insisting that one day you’re going back to the old country for good. Like you so eloquently phrase it, it’s crap.”

His grin was tight. “And to be sure, I’d love to get together and lift a pint to Erin go Bragh sometime with you, Fitz, but right now I’ve got a business to run. If your baby pit bull intends to take me in for questioning, let’s go. I’ll call my lawyer and tell him to meet us down at the station. If not, then let me get back to work. Jackson was supposed to be looking into a case of industrial espionage this week, and I’m going to have to get another operative to take over the file.”

“All right, that’s it.” Straub’s fair skin was mottled with anger. He took a step toward the chair that Sullivan was lounging in. “Call your lawyer now, mister, because you’re under arrest—”

“For God’s sake, Pete, put the cuffs away,” his partner cut in tiredly. “Until we know what he lied about, it’s hands off.” The big man looked at the toothpick he was holding with sudden distaste, and then he sighed. “You know, Straub, I’m just counting the days until Tarranova comes back from maternity leave and you get assigned as temporary partner to some other hapless soul.”

“When she does, Fitz, come back and pay me another visit.” Rising easily from the chair he’d been straddling, Sullivan shoved it in under the table, the innocuous gesture clearly signifying that the meeting was over. “She’s a sweetheart, besides being a damn good cop, and I wouldn’t mind seeing Jennifer again. But from now on keep this rookie away from me and my people, understand?”