And Come Day's End by Gabriel F.W. Koch

TM

And Come Day’s End
A Michael MacKaybees Mystery
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2018 Gabriel F.W. Koch
v1.0

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer
to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the
author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted
full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic,
electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.
http://www.outskirtspress.com

ISBN: 978-1-9772-0249-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018909562

Cover Photo © 2018 www.gettyimages.com. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

7

For my father.A man whose bravery taught me the meaning of life.

In memory of Mickey Spillane, creator of Mike Hammer.

To my wife and daughters with love always.



Prologue

1:45 a.m. Financial District, New York City

“It’ll work out if you stay calm and don’t let him know what you’ve
got. This is only a first meeting, so relax, dude,” Lenny Oliver
muttered nervously as he turned into an alley in lower Manhattan.

His lights slashed a battered green dumpster. Three cats jumped
from inside, balanced on its rim, and then waited for him to leave.

At first glance, he saw their eyes, and then their tiger stripe mark-
ings.The cats continued staring like Giza goddesses.

Oliver switched off the lights and blinked against the afterimage.
Shit, they’re bolder than rats, he thought with a nervous chuckle, and
wiped sweat from his forehead with the edge of his sleeve. He pressed
the window button, which let in odors of trash from the small seafood
restaurant in the building to his right.
“Damn stupid location for a clandestine meeting,” he muttered as
his bravado buckled when he heard the crunch of footsteps. His heart
jumped in his chest, swelled in his throat when the door latch behind
him clicked.
The rear dome light flooded the car, but Oliver didn’t turn to look
back. As a condition for the meeting, his visitor had insisted he didn’t
want a face-to-face.
He listened to the seat give under the man’s weight, smelled musk
aftershave. A scent of cognac carried the accented words “Good eve-
ning, Mister Oliver. I appreciate your promptness.”
He fought what he felt was an irrational urge to open the door and
run like hell down the alley as bile scorched the back of his tongue.
Unable to stop himself, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a
round, sallow face with black-shadowed blue eyes under dark blond

SIS

eyebrows.The man’s shoulders seemed extraordinarily wide, his face
gripped with a lack of compassion as if he never considered the need
to pause and consider the consequences of his decisions.

Rovich, the man’s boss, demanded complete anonymity before
agreeing to meet. His orders stated, “Do not request a name, and
don’t talk unless asked a question.”

Oliver nodded, placed both hands on the top of the steering wheel,
and noticed they shook. He squeezed the wheel, which whitened his
knuckles.

The cats started fighting, howling, and banging in the dumpster as
if a pit bull had suddenly joined their gathering.

“You know why we asked to meet with you.”
You asked? Oliver thought, and then wondered, Did you mean that
as a question? He decided it was a question, found his voice refused to
work, and then nodded several times.
“Good.Where are the flash drives and the papers?”
“I don’t have them with me.” Oliver cleared his throat hard.
“You were told to bring them, Mr. Oliver.”The voice was flat and
too quiet.
Oliver spoke too rapidly. “I…we…need to make a deal first.
They’re extremely well hidden where you’ll never find them if some-
thing happens to me.” He turned his head, stopped when he heard the
movement of cloth, as if his visitor had reached under his jacket, and
his voice cracked on the plea, “We can make a deal. Both of us can get
what we need.”
“Don’t be stupid, Mister Oliver.There is no deal to be made.”
The pressure on the base of his skull came quick, cold, and com-
pletely unexpected. Oliver knew, without attempting to see, that he
felt the barrel of a handgun. He knew he’d never smell the acrid stench
of burned cordite should the trigger be pulled.
Then he thought of his wife. And as if the man could read those
thoughts, Oliver heard,“Did you leave them with your wife? I certainly

S II S

hope you did. For several nights, I’ve watched her in your home. She
leaves the bedroom blinds open. I’ll very much enjoy interrogating
Mrs. Oliver after completing my task here with you, unless you want
to tell me where I can find what I came here for.”

“I can’t… Please don’t hurt her. She doesn’t know anything about
this.” His voice jammed against the back of his tongue. Oliver forced
sound out in a hissed appeal. “Please, sir.”

“I suspect you’re not being truthful, Mr. Oliver. However, I’ll learn
the truth at the appropriate time from your lovely wife.”

It’s too late, Oliver understood with sphincter-releasing clarity, felt
hot urine pool between his thighs as an icy cleat of terror ripped up
the length of his spine and twisted like a razor-sharp scythe into his
chest.

The back door closed and the overhead light extinguished.
Oliver opened his mouth to release the scream wedged in his
chest. His final plea, “You know I’d never tell anyone,” failed to temper
the cool anger pulsing from the man behind him.
He inhaled deeply, eyes filming with tears, pictured his wife, and
thought, Sorry, Jill, I love you, I’m so sorry I got you into this mess!
He heard her laughter, as if for the first time; desperately grasped
the wheel to turn and fight, heard a loud metallic clack, felt his head
slammed against the steering wheel, and died before he finished the
desperate inhalation he drew to finally tell his visitor what he wanted
to know.

The gunman stuck the small handgun in his pocket after firing two
additional shots into Oliver’s skull. He leaned into the front of the
car. His gloved hands searched the corpse, and stopped when his fin-
gers clasped an iPhone. He sat back and slowly scrolled through files
until he located the address in New Jersey he’d heard Oliver recite to
his wife when he’d said, “Stay at Michael’s apartment in Hoboken to-
night,” before Oliver left their house in Queens an hour earlier.

S III S

He shut off the phone and slipped it into his jacket, arranged a few
items in and around the car after squeezing Oliver’s dead fingers on
them to leave prints.Then he walked casually from the alley, pulled off
the surgical gloves he wore, blended with foot traffic, and stepped into
the neon promise of a tomorrow Leonard Oliver once assured himself
would be his to enjoy forever.

7

2:03 a.m. Lower Eastside of Manhattan

The grinding noise from a truck’s engine on the off-ramp from the
Williamsburg Bridge distracted undercover detective Isaac Robinson.
The sound drew his attention from the distant support column hold-
ing up the roadway to the right of where he stood, across the FDR
Drive.

For the last two weeks, Robinson had done surveillance on a stock-
broker and his wife, who, he suspected, had strong ties to a powerful
Ukrainian gang based in Brooklyn. A phone tip from a snitch alerted
him to the availability of new information regarding the stockbroker’s
activities.

He wasn’t surprised when his snitch told him to meet her alone
at 2 a.m. After all, he’d thought, what informer in her right mind wants her
identity as a snitch on the streets in this town?

He’d parked his car a block south of Delancey as she’d recom-
mended. Before leaving the unmarked, Robinson contacted his supe-
rior, Lieutenant Dokker, and told her he’d left his post in Queens to
meet an informant.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. Dokker
had sounded highly pissed off.

“Listen,Lieutenant…my snitch is a hundred percent.I’ll meet her and
then I’ll get back to my post. Nothing’s happening out this way anyhow.”

S IV S

“I don’t like the feel of this.” He could hear the frown in her voice.
“Give me the location, Sergeant. I’ll meet you there.”

He had wanted to advise her, This woman’s gonna bolt if she hears
you approach. At the last second, he relented, not because Dokker had
ordered him to, but more because of an unprecedented gut feeling
suddenly banging through his torso like a fire alarm.

Robinson leaned his back against the car door, closed it quietly,
and walked to meet his snitch. When he discovered he was alone, he
felt icy trepidation flush through his gut. He hesitated at the sight of
a short, narrow-shouldered man stepping from the fence around the
base of the nearest bridge support. The stranger stood wrapped in a
nightmare of moving shadows.

Robinson thought he saw a pair of homeless men closing in on a
trash barrel alongside the road where he’d parked.

Ignoring them, he shook off the distraction of the truck roaring
overhead and the worm of panic burrowing in his chest.

“Where’s Cassie? She’s supposed to be here.” He lifted his service
revolver from the holster clipped to his belt.

The stranger, a boy who Robinson thought could not be older than
sixteen, walked over to him. Robinson turned his head and leaned,
thinking the boy might be afraid that he’d be overheard.

A thin whisper of steel slicing across steel filled his mind as an
odd whistle shivered the air. He felt a hot liquid spray his face and run
down his neck.

Robinson’s hands flew up, fingers fumbling to pinch off the sev-
ered arteries. His eyes widened with the horror he felt as he stared at
the boy’s calm, lifeless features and thought, My God, he’s too young to
even shave yet.

The punch of a knife entered his chest below the sternum, twisted
painfully upward and into his heart. Robinson collapsed, dead before
he hit the ground.

Tires bit pavement, screeching as the car slalomed around a corner.

SVS

A shower of roof lights and headlights startled the boy. He straightened
and stepped back from Robinson’s body. Filmed with warm blood, he
screamed what sounded like Russian, snatched up Robinson’s gun, and
ran to attack the woman who jumped from the blue-and-white.

He fired one shot that hit the car’s roof, and was greeted by a burst
of flame from the weapon clutched in her right fist. He spun as the
first round punched his left shoulder and died when the fourth shat-
tered his skull.

Lieutenant Elizabeth Dokker ran to Robinson, dropped to her
knees, and pressed her hands against the sides of his neck.

“No! Goddamn it to hell! No, damn you, don’t you dare die on
me, Isaac!” She struggled against the tears burning her eyes and shook
off the hand of the cop who’d accompanied her. She knelt alongside
Robinson’s body until the EMS arrived, as if awaiting a priest to offer
Last Rites, shuddered as she watched them cover Robinson’s corpse,
and then walked slowly to the squad car.

S VI S

Chapter One

5:11 a.m. Madison, New Jersey

Asteady staccato sound, like feet pounding through an abandoned
building, jarred me awake. Drenched in sweat, I coughed into my
fist and concentrated on the noise.

Knotting a sheet around my waist, I stumbled across the room,
left the lights off, threw back the deadbolt, and yanked open the front
door.

Liz Dokker, previously my commanding officer in Kuwait, now my
police liaison and frequent adversary—once, briefly, a live-in lover—
brushed past without invitation.

“It’s too early for you to be here,” I grunted, and caught a faint
whiff of blood.

With a deliberate movement, she switched on a table lamp. She
looked me over from head to feet as she paced the living room.

“Don’t say another word, Michael.” She radiated the wrong kind of
energy, and emotions I couldn’t define.

Liz had a lithe, well-muscled body. Her dark brown hair, cut shoul-
der length, hung in complete disarray, yet framed a face I always found
attractive. Her eyes were closer to ice-blue in color than the steel-
gray they occasionally looked.The sensuous mouth that, when she was
disturbed, hooked into decipherable anger, right then expressed very
tense self-control.

Without looking outside, I closed the door quietly.
Liz pivoted sharply in the center of the room and waved a hand at
the bed pillow on the sofa.
“What the hell?You live in this room now?”
I rubbed my face. “Was sleeping here until you tried to kick in the

S1S

GABRIEL F.W. KOCH

door.” I spoke quietly and then tossed the pillow on an armchair.
She wore white jogging shoes with three red stripes on each side,

new denim jeans, and a loose-fitting white T-shirt streaked, I realized,
with the dark crimson of dried blood. Printed on the front of the shirt,
I read: Hi, I don’t care.Thanks.

She brushed the sofa’s armrest and perched on it as if she didn’t
plan on getting comfortable. A flat, humorless smile worried her face
when she looked at me.

“You remember a cop named Isaac Robinson?”
He was a friend of my business partner.They’d dated for a couple
of years while Martha wore an NYPD uniform.
“What about him?” I still smelled the lingering odor of blood.
“Got killed last night…sliced and diced as you like to say.” Sarcasm
gnawed angrily at her words.
“You haven’t heard me say that in years.” I sounded defensive.
“Seems longer to me,” she mumbled, leaned forward as if to stand,
shifted her weight, raised her right ankle, and put her calf on her left
knee. The movement exposed an S&W .32 automatic in an ankle
holster.
“When’d he die?” I studied her, struggling to read her expression.
The backs of her hands bore splotches of powder from protective
gloves. She rubbed the powder on her jeans and glanced at her watch.
“About three hours ago.”
“What’s the time?” I wanted to say something more meaningful.
“Any idea who killed him?”
“Sure. I shot the little prick bastard in the fucking head.”
“You gonna clue me in as to who the little prick bastard was while
living?”
“Got coffee?”
I noted her stressed posture and was certain she’d not driven to
Madison, New Jersey, to inform me about a solved case or to get a
mug of coffee.

S2S

AND COME DAY’S END

“In the kitchen.You can wash up in the sink while I get it ready for
you.”

She examined her hands. One thumbnail was torn ragged to the
quick where blood caked its edge. Her jaw muscles clenched and re-
laxed, and I knew she ground her back teeth silently.

The bedsheet slithered behind as I walked the oak floor.
Our brief romantic history, hers and mine, had long ago flared
into charred ruin without, I thought at the time, hope of revival.We’d
attempted to live together only to discover after two weeks that an
1,850-square-foot renovated Gothic carriage house couldn’t provide
sufficient space for two personalities too often in conflict over the way
life should be lived and every other damn thing not nailed down.
However, as I understood the problem, it centered on a brief dis-
cussion of marriage and children. She’d showed frustration and ex-
asperation as if I’d made unreasonable demands and finally said one
night, with a distinct February chill in her voice, “I’m a cop. I love
being a cop. I worked goddamn hard to get to where I am, overcame
a shitload of male bull-crap. Now, you think I should give that up for
a freakin’ white picket fence, a cluster of fucking rosebushes, and
screaming fucking babies with shit-covered diapers?”
At the time, I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or shout back. I
did neither, but left the house instead.
For me, the breakup went down as if I’d swallowed molten lead.
I’d masked my feelings with the happy-go-lucky bullshit everyone
seemed to expect from me.
Yet we remained good friends, often talked politics, religion, and
problems like her new male friend, an assistant DA with a cowlick in
a five-hundred-dollar suit.
Outside, I heard the guys on the recycle truck empty a barrel of
cans and bottles. One of them shouted, “Go!” The roar of the engine
blasted the air as they pulled to the next driveway.
I nuked two mugs of water and, when the micro beeped, dumped

S3S

GABRIEL F.W. KOCH

in mounded teaspoons of Starbucks instant. Liz drank hers black. I set
the hot mug on the table and watched her stir. She did it as noisily as
possible.

After a throat-scorching gulp, she turned to the sink. She gazed
around the kitchen as she scrubbed her hands.

“Well at least you keep this room clean. Don’t use it much now,
I guess.” She dried her hands, dragged a chair into the room, and sat
with her legs in the open, as if she suspected she might need to leave
in a hurry.

“I eat out a lot.”Then, unwilling to wait another second, I demand-
ed, “Why did you wake me? News about Robinson could’ve waited
until later.”

She didn’t answer.
“Who killed him?” We faced each other, but I couldn’t hold her
unsteady gaze.
“A gang-banger, some freaking young Russian immigrant.” She
sipped coffee and then said thoughtfully, as if a new idea had filled
her mind, “He was yelling at me and didn’t speak a word of English,
sounded like Russian.” She paused, staring into her mug, and then
nodded. “Robinson’s snitch didn’t show. The boy?” She shrugged one
shoulder. “Don’t know why Robinson met with the boy instead.”
“Drugs maybe?”
“No.This kid was a runner for the latest mutant fucking mobsters.”
“Kranies? They’re ruthless bastards. Why do you think Robinson
walked into an ambush?”
“Robinson was working surveillance out in Queens.”
“On who?”
The down-the-street neighbor’s Rottweiler barked a greeting to
the recycle crew. Someone shouted, “Shut the hell up!”The dog’s bark
grew frenzied.
“Someone should shoot that fucking dog.” Liz frowned, ignoring
my question. “He got careless and pulled his weapon.The kid carried

S4S

AND COME DAY’S END

a pair of gravity knives and moved too fast for Robinson to react.” Her
voice trailed off with a sigh of sorrow. I knew she felt something bad
she wouldn’t verbalize.

“Did Robinson draw his weapon before or after the kid showed his
knives?”

“Before, according to witnesses.”
“Why would Robinson pull a weapon unprovoked?”
“Don’t know…didn’t get to hear their conversation.”
“If there was any. Maybe Robinson recognized him and got scared.”
Liz stared grimly into her mug as if she might discover a solution
etched into the black liquid. She wrapped her hands around it and
drank slowly.
“You taking heat for his death?” I sounded sarcastic. I thought her
captain was an ass, but Liz wouldn’t listen to his crap.
“Hell no.” She put her mug down and wiped her face with both
hands as if suddenly exhausted. She rested her elbows on the table and
placed her chin on her palms.
“Robinson called me and said he got a good lead. I tried to get to
his location before shit happened.When I got there,” she hitched one
sob and spoke rapidly, “he’d bled out before I could… Goddamn fuck-
ing kid sliced both arteries in his neck. Looked like Robinson tried
to stop the bleeding.Then the little prick jammed a blade through his
heart.”
“You saw that?” I didn’t like the picture her words created.
“Only the end. I told you we found witnesses. They said the kill-
er spoke something other than English. I heard it too before I blew
the top of his head into the river. Like I said, sounded like Russian,
mustn’t’ve been unable to understand English.” Her hands shook, not
violently, more like a vibration of despair.
“We ran prints and discovered he had a string of arrests, but no
convictions, was a wannabe enforcer. Christ sake, the little bastard did
hits, ran drugs, dealt, you name the crime he’d perform it. Sixteen

S5S

GABRIEL F.W. KOCH

years old.” She rubbed her eyes with the side of her fists.
“Versatile.” I knew Robinson’s death wasn’t why she’d visited. “You

still haven’t told me why you’re here. Only ’cause you need to talk?”
She glanced up. Her eyes filled with something indefinable that

seemed to writhe in her pupils. “The little bastard had your name on a
piece of paper in his pocket. I have your attention now, Michael? And
there’s more.”

I didn’t want to hear more, and inhaled slowly, knowing she really
wasn’t finished.

“You’re kidding, right?”
She lifted the brown faux-leather purse she always carried—her
K-Mart special—and dropped it on the table. She opened the hand-
bag, rifled the contents, and fished out a Xerox copy of a note that
appeared torn from a sheet of lined paper.
From the shadowed outline created during copying, the fragment
appeared to be about the size of a quarter sheet. Neat, architectural
block lettering spelled out my name, and my father’s name.
I’m not unknown. Like it or not, I’ve made the papers a few times,
but only a handful of people I seriously trusted had a clue what my
biological father’s name was.
If the old bastard’s still alive, I thought.
I’d been told that to some cops, my father’s reputation conjured
up memories of the need for punishment; while others thought he was
the kind of guy we needed on the streets now more than ever. I didn’t
want anything to do with him. Nevertheless, that seemed to be about
to change for the worse.
“I understand how you feel.” Repulsed, I poked the paper with
a forefinger. “Are you familiar with Cyrillic?” I didn’t give her time
to answer. “If the kid, like you suggested, was English illiterate, how
could he write this? And don’t tell me this is the reason you dropped
in at…” I glanced at the clock and groaned, “five in the morning to get
me the hell out of bed. A phone call or lunch would’ve sufficed.”

S6S

AND COME DAY’S END

Morning people ought to be isolated from the rest of us until noon.
“Jesus, Michael.” She stretched. “One reason,” she tapped the copy
too, but harder, “is the other name…your goddamn father’s name?”
She spoke with the same contempt I felt for him, and jammed the copy
in her purse.
“Don’t do it, Liz. Don’t speak his goddamn name aloud.”
“I’m not here to talk about him.” She drained her mug and set it
down almost gently. “You might not be able to avoid a confrontation
with your badly tattered past much longer. But hey, however you han-
dle your lack of a relationship with your father isn’t my problem. I’ve
read his file, and the writing on the note looks like his. But otherwise,
I don’t give a damn.” She paused and flashed me a tight-lipped grin.
“More coffee?”
After I handed her the refilled mug, I sat and decided the moment
had come to cut through the crap.
“What the hell do you want from me?” I asked and decided to ig-
nore the idea my old man could’ve written the note.That sounded like
Hollaway bullshit.
“Robinson’s wasn’t the only murder last night.” She let the words
run into a pause, the way a person with bad news does to prepare the
recipient.
“What the hell, it’s NewYork.” I drank coffee and studied her over
the rim of the mug. “Who else died?” And suddenly I wasn’t certain I
wanted to know.
“Twist.”
The armored side of the M1 Abrams battle tank from my recurring
Gulf War nightmare popped from memory, Twist ducking and dodg-
ing bullets. I could smell the sand; the odor rounds leave behind after
flattening on steel, the fumes from burning oil wells; heard the wail of
the call to prayer. I longed for the feel of my ARM-15 assault weapon.
After nearly dropping the mug, I fumbled splashes of coffee on the
table and placed the mug in the spreading brown puddle.

S7S

GABRIEL F.W. KOCH

“Twist?” I hadn’t seen him in over a year. His name was Leonard
Oliver. He and I knew each other since day one. Lenny was a tall,
lanky, athletic guy with a frayed mop of red hair and blue eyes. We
called him Twist because he knew how to worm his way out of a tight
spot in a football game, or when he was with a woman who got too
serious, until Jill stepped into his arms and heart.

My mood dropped through several layers of despair. Jill.Oh,Christ,
Jill had come in and asked to talk to me…what, a week ago? And I’d been too
busy with the filing system reorganization to take the time.

Pain made it impossible for me to continue to look at Liz’s face. I
didn’t want her to read my feelings, if she hadn’t already.

“How’d he get killed?” My brow clenched enough to pressure my
eyes.

“Three shots to the head. Killer used a small caliber pistol. I doubt
he knew what hit him.We’ve classified it as a mob hit.They found him
in his car parked in an alley off Front Street.” She looked around; face
the deadpan of a mortician.

“You’re kidding? A mob hit? Lenny was clean.”
“Was he?”
“Yeah, and you know—”
“Except for his love of the slots and backroom card games?” The
corners of her mouth turned down sharply in disgust.
“Well, yeah, there’s that, but we’ve all got our weaknesses.”
“Not to the amount of three hundred twenty large in the wrong
place in Atlantic City in one night.We haven’t yet learned how much
he lost to the backroom locals.”
“Jesus Christ.” The coffee tasted like old varnish. “I didn’t know
that,” I admitted.
“You and Lenny getting along lately?There still bad blood between
you?” She stared hard, eyes reflected shards of scattered light.
The way she asked made me feel guilty.
“Haven’t talked to Lenny in over a year since the fight we had in

S8S

AND COME DAY’S END

front of Grimer’s.To tell the truth, I’d hoped he would give up gam-
bling after he married Jill.Why do you ask?”

“These got me wondering.” She reached in her purse and lifted out
a second evidence bag.The plastic sack held two red CDs.

I squinted and read the jewel cases. “New York Life investigation
07/31/06.” At first, I didn’t recognize my own handwriting and then
didn’t know what to say, but managed to stare in disbelief. I cleared
my throat.

“What the hell’s this about? Where’d you get my CDs?”
“One on the passenger seat, and one on the floor of Lenny’s car. It
looked like someone in a hurry accidentally dropped them or Lenny
spilled them. His prints are on the cases.”
“What else did you find?”
“His briefcase.”
“What was in it?”
“Nothing.” She dropped the bag in her purse and snapped it shut.
“Whoever emptied his briefcase mustn’t’ve realized he dropped the
CDs, I guess.”
My eyes followed her deliberate movements. “Prints in the car?”
“Like I said his on the CDs and yours too. Elsewhere in the car,
Jill’s and one of yours on the outside of the right rear door.”
“That’s it?”
She nodded curtly.
I felt a hollow chill slam the pit of my stomach, and attempted
to remember the New York Life case details. All I recalled was that
the perps ran a thump-and-bump car accident scam in Brooklyn that
involved Lenny’s cousin. They grossed a few hundred thousand, be-
fore my evidence put them away. I couldn’t recall when I last saw the
CDs, or why they would’ve had anything to do with Lenny’s murder.
Apparently, the cops believed they had relevance.
She pressed her hands on the table, ready to stand. “You two guys,”
she breathed artificial exasperation.

S9S

GABRIEL F.W. KOCH

“What else?”
“Nothing else. Forget I said anything.”
“Does his wife know yet?”We both knew I’d waste my time asking
anything else.
“We haven’t been able to find Jill to tell her.”
I cleared my throat and rasped a hand across my chin.
“You haven’t told me what the hell you want from me, Liz.”
“Besides explaining why these disks were in his car to begin with?”
I felt queasy. “I don’t know how or why he had them.” I sounded as
confused as I felt, maybe more. “You don’t think I killed him?”
“Where were you?”
“Here.”
“Alone?”
“Of course. My lover traded me in for an assistant DA, remember?”
She didn’t react, but stared as if to read my thoughts through the
movement of my face, and then nodded deliberately.
“Be better if you had a witness, but I know you well enough to
vouch for you.”
“Lucky me.” I didn’t feel benevolent after receiving the news I’d
become a murder suspect in an alleged mob hit involving an old friend.
“But I may need help…unofficially. You know the people Lenny
hung with.”
“Some.” I nodded and felt oddly relieved for an innocent man.
“Kind of hoped you’d ask, ’cause if you hadn’t, I’d be looking. I don’t
like the implications of this.”
“I didn’t think you would.” She flexed her fingers, finished her cof-
fee, and stood. “I’ll be around if you need me.Try to avoid Hollaway.
The captain wants your ass bad, and he doesn’t know I’m here.” She
turned away and then stopped. “Stay out of his way. Call me, and I
mean whenever you hear anything that might help. Don’t go getting
psycho over this, Michael.We don’t need another avenging angel like
your old man on the streets.”

S 10 S

AND COME DAY’S END

Before I could respond, she went swiftly to the front door and
called back, “Oh. I forgot.” However, her tone of voice told me she
hadn’t forgotten. “Found another surprise with Lenny. Crumpled up
on the ground by the passenger side door, we found a second note.”

She glanced over her shoulder, leaned sideways to see down the
hall and into the kitchen. “You guessed it…same as the one with
Robinson’s killer. I’ll drop copies at your office along with copies of
the M.E.’s and forensics reports, in case you need to review them.
Remember, Hollaway doesn’t need to know I was here or that I gave
you copies of the reports. He finds out, he’ll put my ass in a sling.” She
left off the “too,” as in yours too.

She opened the front door.A breeze blew in cool aromas from the
roses and mums. Without looking back, she spoke again. “Clean up
this landfill and stop sleeping on the sofa.”

The door shut too quietly.
“Guess she still cares.” I tried a smile, but the pain of loss twisted it.
Then I drained my mug, smashed the cup in the sink, and leaned
on the countertop.
Redirecting my thinking, I felt that the notes were designed to
cause confusion. I wondered if Liz had meant to imply that my old man
wrote them. But why would he? And how’d they get left at two distinctly dif-
ferent and seemingly unrelated crime scenes?
The old man’s been around too damn long to be stupid enough to leave
notes he’d written where someone who wanted to put him away might find them.
But hell, I thought, I hardly know anything about the old man. Maybe he
is a psycho. Maybe he went off the deep end and into his own personal cesspool.
Putting our names together on paper seems perverse enough by itself.
To burn my frustration, I did my morning five-mile run without
enough enthusiasm to feel any gains.
When I returned, I hit the shower.The water ran hot until I lath-
ered and rinsed off, and then I doused myself with what I considered
reality wakeup cold water.

S 11 S

GABRIEL F.W. KOCH

I dragged a comb through my hair, shaved, and examined my face
in the mirror. I’m told I have a long, oval face, saved by an inner, mys-
terious darkness, whatever the hell that means, light brown eyes, and
wavy brown hair many women allegedly find attractive. I’m five ten
and weigh in at a healthy one eighty-five; free of facial scars and distin-
guishing marks, excluding the leftover scar tissue on my stomach and
back from a gunshot I failed to dodge in Kuwait. It missed my liver and
other vitals, but laid me up for a couple months in a VA hospital and
earned me a Purple Heart. Not an experience I’d recommend regard-
less of medals and praise.

I couldn’t imagine what made me think all that right then. Perhaps
because I learned that I’d lost my closest friend, and NYPD Captain
Louis Hollaway thought I’d had something to do with his murder.
Always was a dumb son of a bitch.

I shook my head and rolled on Old Spice deodorant. Lenny, you
stupid ass.Why’d you go and get yourself killed?

Dressed in well-worn Eddie Bauer jeans and a blueT-shirt, I threw
on a lightweight sport coat to cover my handgun and holster, yanked
on black running shoes, and left the house.

I beeped the car alarm and the lock opened. Removed my jacket,
draped it and my shoulder holster over the back of my Z4 Roadster’s
passenger seat, climbed in, and was on my way to the city within an
hour and twenty minutes of Liz’s departure.

S 12 S