One False Move

Myron followed the bloody prints as though they’d been painted there for this reason—a macabre Freedom Trail or something. The wall was lined with Little League team photographs, the early ones dating back some thirty-odd years. In each picture Wickner stood proudly with his young charges, smiling into the powerful sun on a clear day. A sign held by two boys in the front row read FRIENDLY’S ICE CREAM SENATORS or BURRELLES PRESS CLIPPING TIGERS or SEYMOUR’S LUNCHEONETTE INDIANS. Always sponsors. The children squinted and shifted and smiled toothlessly. But they all basically looked the same. Over the past thirty years the kids had changed shockingly little. But Eli had aged, of course. Year by year the photographs on the wall checked off his life. The effect was more than a little eerie.

They headed into the back room. An office of some kind. There were more photos on the wall. Wickner receiving Livingston’s Big L Award. The ribbon cutting when the backstop was named after him. Wickner in his police uniform with ex-Governor Brendan Byrne. Wickner winning the Raymond J. Clarke Policeman of the Year award. A smattering of plaques and trophies and mounted baseballs. A framed document entitled “What Coach Means to Me” given to him by one of his teams. And more blood.

Cold fear wrapped around Myron and drew tight.

In the corner, lying on his back, his arms extended as though readying himself for crucifixion, was Chief of Detectives Roy Pomeranz. His shirt looked like someone had squeezed out a bucket of syrup over it. His dead eyes were frozen open and sucked dry.

“You killed your own partner,” Myron said. Again for Win. In case he arrived too late. For posterity or to incriminate or some such nonsense.

“Not more than ten minutes ago,” Wickner said.

“Why?”

“Sit down, Myron. Right there, if you don’t mind.”

Myron sat in an oversize chair with wooden slats.

Keeping the gun at chest level, Wickner moved to the other side of a desk. He opened a drawer, dropped Myron’s gun in it, then tossed Myron a set of handcuffs. “Cuff yourself to the side arm. I don’t want to have to concentrate so hard on watching you.”

Myron looked at his surroundings. It was pretty much now or never. Once the cuffs were in place, there would not be another chance. He looked for a way. Nothing. Wickner was too far away, and a desk separated them. Myron spotted a letter opener on the desk. Oh, right, like maybe he would just reach out and throw it like some martial arts death star and hit the jugular. Bruce Lee would be so proud.

As though reading his mind, Wickner raised the gun a bit.

“Put them on now, Myron.”

No chance. He would just have to stall. And hope Win arrived in time. Myron clicked the cuff on his left wrist. Then he closed the other end around the heavy chair arm.

Wickner’s shoulders slumped, relaxing a bit. “I should have guessed they’d have a tap on the phone,” he said.

“Who?”

Wickner seemed not to hear him. “Thing is, you can’t approach this house without my knowing. Forget the gravel out there. I got motion sensors all over the place. House lights up like a Christmas tree if you approach from any direction. Use it to scare away the animals—otherwise they get in the garbage. But you see, they knew that. So they sent someone I would trust. My old partner.”

Myron was trying to keep up. “Are you saying Pomeranz came here to kill you?”

“No time for your questions, Myron. You wanted to know what happened. Now you will. And then …” He looked away, the rest of the sentence vaporizing before reaching his lips.

“The first time I encountered Anita Slaughter was at the bus stop on the corner of Northfield Avenue, where Roosevelt School used to be.” His voice had fallen into a cop monotone, almost as though he were reading back a report. “We’d gotten an anonymous call from someone using the phone booth at Sam’s across the street. They said a woman was cut up bad and bleeding. Check that. They said a black woman was bleeding. Only place you saw black women in Livingston was by the bus stop. They came in to clean houses, or they didn’t come here at all. Just that simple. If they were there for other reasons in those days, well, we politely pointed out the errors in their ways and escorted them back on the bus.

“Anyway, I was in the squad car. So I took the call. Sure enough, she was bleeding pretty good. Someone had given her a hell of a beating. But I tell you what struck me right away. The woman was gorgeous. Dark as coal, but even with all those scratches on her face, she was simply stunning. I asked her what happened, but she wouldn’t tell me. I figured it was a domestic dispute. A spat with the husband. I didn’t like it, but back in those days you didn’t do anything about it. Hell, not much different today. Anyway I insisted on taking her to St. Barnabas. They patched her up. She was pretty shook up, but she was basically okay. The scratches were pretty deep, like she’d been attacked by a cat. But hey, I did my bit and forgot all about it—until three weeks later, when I got the call about Elizabeth Bradford.”

A clock chimed and echoed. Eli lowered the shotgun and looked off. Myron checked his cuffed wrist. It was secure. The chair was heavy. Still no chance.

“Her death wasn’t an accident, was it, Eli?”

“No,” Wickner said. “Elizabeth Bradford committed suicide.” He reached out on his desk and picked up an old baseball. He stared at it like a Gypsy reading fortunes. A Little League ball, the awkward signature of twelve-year-olds scrawled over the surface.

“Nineteen seventy-three,” the old coach said with a pained smile. “The year we won the state championship. Hell of a team.” He put down the ball. “I love Livingston. I dedicated my life to that town. But every good place has a Bradford family in it. To add temptation, I guess. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. It starts small, you know? You let a parking ticket go. Then you see one of them speeding and you turn the other way. Like I said, small. They don’t openly bribe you, but they have ways of taking care of people. They start at the top. You drag a Bradford in for drunk driving, someone above you just springs them anyway, and you get unofficially sanctioned. And other cops get pissed off because the Bradfords gave all of us tickets to a Giants game. Or they paid for a weekend retreat. Stuff like that. But underneath we all know it’s wrong. We justify it away, but the truth is, we did wrong. I did wrong.” He motioned to the mass of flesh on the ground. “And Roy did wrong. I always knew it would come back and get us one day. Just didn’t know when. Then you tapped me on the shoulder at the ball field and well, I knew.”