the moment, but we have to follow up.”
“Well, I guess the first two shots were because I’d never fired a Luger before. I didn’t know it was semiautomatic, so that just kind of happened.”
The younger cop was still standing up, leaning against the wall to my left. “And the third time?” he asked.
“He twitched,” I said. “And his eyes were still open. So, you know… I guess I just wanted to make sure.”
“And then you took his gun?” asked the older guy.
“I kicked it away. Into the living room.”
“That was before you went into the kitchen?”
“I didn’t know the other guy was completely out of commission at that point. I wanted to make sure he didn’t have access to another gun.”
“But you never picked it up?” asked the young guy.
“The Glock? No. Just moved it with my foot.”
“Why didn’t you take it with you?” he asked.
“I had a gun already. And I knew by that point that it worked pretty well. I didn’t think I needed another one.”
“And then you went into the kitchen,” said the older guy.
“Yeah. I mean, it all probably happened faster than I’m telling it, but it seemed pretty slow at the time.”
They both nodded.
“And what happened next?” asked the young guy.
“Well, I stepped into the kitchen doorway, and Mrs. Underhill took the Luger from me, and then I pretty much looked at the burned guy’s face and fainted.”
I took another small sip of Coke, willing it to stay down.
“You okay?” asked the older guy, reaching his hand across the table toward mine.
“Not really,” I said.
“You did the right thing today,” he said. “Kept your head in an ugly situation.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Can we get you a ride home?” he asked. “I think we’re done here.”
“Is Skwarecki back yet? I’d like to talk with her a minute.”
“She was down at the hospital talking with the other guy,” said the younger detective. “Let me go check if she’s here.”
He left the room, and the older detective gave me an encouraging smile.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Why’d these guys even do this? I mean, run me down with a car, threaten me at work… then today, after I’d already testified? Not to mention that all I had to say in court was that I found the little boy’s remains in the first place, back at Prospect. It all seems pretty pointless.”
The guy looked me in the eye and shrugged. “Some people are just assholes.”
* * *
Skwarecki gave me a ride home half an hour later. All I could think about was sleep by that point.
It was dark out, and snowing again. I watched her windshield wipers clearing the flakes off the glass as they melted, making all the taillights ahead of us blur into scarlet stars and ribbons.
“You hanging in there?” she asked, slowing down for a stoplight.
The car fishtailed a little in the slush.
“I asked the other detective why this all happened,” I said.
“Brodsky?”
“The older guy.”
She nodded. “What’d he say?”
I told her, and his assholes comment made her laugh. “Yeah, got that right.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “What were they thinking?”
“Donald and Dougie?”
“No, Liddy and Haldeman. Of course Donald and Dougie. Was it really a gang thing?”
“Yeah,” said Skwarecki. “They were looking out for Albert
Williams.”
“Not Angela?”
“Her too,” she said. “But on Albert’s say-so.”
“I still don’t get what they thought they’d accomplish going
after me.”
The light turned green and Skwarecki hit the gas again, soldiering on through the slush.
“According to Donald,” she said, “it wasn’t about you as much as Mrs. Underhill. Albert didn’t want her to testify. You, they didn’t care a lot.”
“They were harshing out on me to scare her vicariously?”
“She practically raised the two brothers, and Angela wouldn’t have wanted her hurt.”
“Did Angela know about any of this?”
“Donald said they kept her in the dark, but the rest of them knew you were spending time with the old lady.”
“So they fucked me up just to send a message?”
“Something like that.”
“What,” I said, “you people never heard of Western Union out in Queens?”
54
Bost stood up. “The prosecution calls Elsie Underhill.”
The courtroom’s side entrance opened, and Teddy’s great-
grandmother stepped forward into the courtroom. She had a little halo of hat perched on her head, dark red, with a greenish black feather pinned to one side.
Elsie took her seat, gripping the upright purse in her lap with both hands.
I watched her glance at the jury, then at her granddaughter.
Bost approached the stand. “Mrs. Underhill, to start off, I’d like to ask you to tell us a little bit about