The Sacrifice (35 page)

“Listen, Manj”—Zoo Tully was as close as he'd ever come to naked panic—”start a floor-to-floor search. Almost everyone here knows what Zack looks like. I don't know what could've happened to him. I'm sure he didn't try to lose you. Harkins is after Zack. I can't think he'd be stupid enough to try to hit him in the station. He's probably figuring on a confrontation at the rectory. I'm heading there now. Get on this end of it, Manj: Now!”

If there were any speed records in the category of leaving HQ, jumping in a car, and heading for an emergency, Zoo Tully broke them all now.

En route, he called the cops at the Harkins's home. They were attempting to get additional information from Mrs. Harkins. She was trying to help. But she was too frightened to be of any real aid. However, they did have a description of Harkins, and several photographs. And Mrs. Harkins was able to tell them what her husband was wearing when he'd left the house earlier.

“Okay, from what we've got, you're looking for a male Caucasian, slender build, five feet nine, one hundred fifty pounds, wearing a herringbone fedora, trench coat, black trousers, and black shoes.”

“Right.”

Tully's radio crackled. It was Mangiapane. “We got the whole building on it, Zoo. And we're sending backup after you.”

“Good. I've got the rectory in sight now.”

“I don't know if backup'll get there in—”

“There's a guy on the front porch. It looks like he's ringing the doorbell.”

“If it's him, you're probably on your own, Zoo.” Mangiapane, normally cool and offhand, couldn't keep the worry from his voice.

“It's the guy. He fits the description.”

“No sign of your brother there?”

“No. I hope to God he isn't here. I'm going in.”

“Good luck.”

Tully was driving an unmarked car. He had not used the flasher or the siren. He might have been a parishioner with business at the rectory.

He got out of the car and began to walk nonchalantly toward the porch. “Having trouble getting in?” he called out.

Leon Harkins tilted his head sideways as if trying to recall who this familiar-looking man might be. Recognition crossed his face. “You're the brother. You're the cop.” He shrugged. “If I've got to get through you to get to him—so be it.”

Harkins's right hand was resting against the second button from the top of his trench coat. With a well-practiced motion the hand slid inside his coat. The fluid gesture continued as he drew the gun from its holster. In a split second the gun had cleared the coat and was being raised, pointing at Tully.

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Tully cursed himself for not having drawn his gun the instant he got out of the car. It was a fatal mistake—he knew that the minute he saw the barrel of Harkins's gun rising to aim at his chest.

Though it was too late, Tully went for his gun anyway.

Then a strange thing happened. Harkins didn't fire. His gun remained pointed directly at Tully's heart, as an odd combination of fear and fury suffused his face.

In that moment, that fleeting instant, Tully fired. The sharp crack ricocheted and reverberated through the downtown canyons.

Harkins toppled over the porch railing. His body lay motionless.

The scene resembled a tableau.

Then, Tully moved toward the inert body. At every step, he kept his weapon carefully aimed at the downed man. But Harkins would move no more.

Tully went down on one knee. He slipped on a pair of plastic gloves. He felt for the carotid pulse. There was none.

Damn!

In all his years on the force, Tully had fired his weapon at a human being only twice. Each time, the shooting had been justified. And each time the shot had been fatal.

From experience, he knew that it would take time to get over the shock of having taken a human life. And the fact that he'd fired in self-defense made little difference.

Sirens sounded in the distance, loudening rapidly as they converged. The skirls punctuated into silence, as the blue-and-whites carrying Tully's backup arrived and screeched to a stop. It was clear the threat was over. The officers gathered around the central scene.

A sergeant squatted alongside Tully, who was still down on one knee. Both studied the dead man.

“You okay, Zoo?” The sergeant spoke without moving his gaze from the corpse.

Nor did Zoo look up from the body of his would-be killer. “I've been better.” No point in bravado here. In any case, it wasn't Tully's style. He had been badly frightened, and was still shaky. “I thought I was done for. He had me cold. He just stood on the porch with his gun pointed straight at my chest.”

“Any idea why he didn't fire?” For the first time the sergeant looked directly at Zoo.

“Yeah, I got one now.” Tully pointed at the revolver lying harmlessly in Harkins's limp hand. “Here … just above the hammer—the lock? The poor bastard probably forgot to release the lock. He didn't fire because he
couldn't:
The trigger was locked. For a while, I thought it might have been suicide by cop …” Tully was referring to cases where somebody wants to end his life but hasn't got the guts to do it himself, so he points his weapon at a cop, forcing the cop to shoot him in self-defense. “The thought crossed my mind that he might've been doing that. But”—Tully shook his head—”he left me no choice. How could I know that trigger was locked?

“Besides,” he added, “it all happened in seconds.”

Another squad car pulled up. Mangiapane and his partner were the official occupants. In the rear sat a somewhat bewildered Father Zachary Tully. “We finally found him, Zoo,” said Mangiapane.

Zachary took in the scene. Organized bustle. The small yard in front of St. Joe's rectory was swarming with police, technicians, and bystanders. “What happened?”

“You're late,” his brother answered, with the shadow of a smile.

“I got pinned down in the stairwell by my neighboring pastor. He wanted to know everything that happened here yesterday, and I mean
everything.
I couldn't get away from him.” His half-grin was ironic. “And to think that I took the stairs because your elevator is so slow …”

“Get down on your knees,” Zoo said, “and thank God for that slow elevator and that nosy priest. If they hadn't held you up you would've gotten here on time. And if you had, you'd probably be lying here dead”—Zoo looked down at the body—”instead of this poor bastard.”

For the first time, the priest looked carefully at the victim. “Leon Harkins,” he said in slow recognition. “The poor tortured soul. He lived for his Church, and died trying to save it from me.” Zoo looked up at his brother. “Actually, he was trying to save it from itself.”

He made the sign of the cross over Harkins. “I'll just step in and get the oils, and anoint him before they take him away.” He looked up at Zoo again. “If that's all right?”

Zoo nodded. Father Tully disappeared into the rectory so abruptly that Zoo was unable to say what he was thinking:
Why are you praying for a dead man?

A morgue attendant appeared. The technicians were finished with the deceased. It was time for the autopsy. “Are you done, Lieutenant?”

Zoo was about to release the body when he remembered his brother off in search of some oil. “No. Just a little while longer. I'll let you know.”

He turned to see his brother coming down the porch steps. His lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. He was praying silently from a pocket-sized book. As Zack stood over the body of his would-be assassin, Zoo leaned over to look at the book his brother was using. It was open to a section titled, “Prayers for the Dead.” Appropriate, thought Zoo.

Once Zack had anointed Harkins's forehead and closed his prayerbook, Zoo nodded to the attendant, who, with a partner, picked up the body and headed off toward the morgue wagon.

Zachary looked fondly at his brother. “You saved me, didn't you?”

“You could say that. But it wouldn't be the whole story. Something weird is going on.”

“You got a minute to come in the rectory? We both need to wind down a bit … don't you think?”

Zoo hesitated. “Okay,” he said after a moment, “I've got some reports to fill out on this shooting. But I can spare a couple of minutes. Do you have anything to drink besides altar wine?”

It was an inside joke between them. Zachary stocked nothing but inexpensive wine, and beer.

“What's wrong with altar wine? Ours is delivered by Catholic teamsters.”

“Don't worry about me. You're the one who'll need a little internal help.”

They settled into the rectory parlor. Zachary took a bottle of red wine from a cabinet and poured a couple of fingers into a glass. Zoo waved off any wine. For the interrogations about to come, he wanted to be cold sober.

He looked at his brother somberly, then slowly shook his head. When he finally spoke, it was almost as if he was thinking out loud. “ … by overwhelming odds you should be a dead man now.”

The gravity of his tone prompted Zack to return to the bottle and add a little more wine to his glass.

“I know you didn't take this threat to your life very seriously. You should have reported those calls and letters. To me. And I don't care whether you didn't want to involve me or trouble either of us. Anne Marie is no namby-pamby shrinking violet—and I'm a professional—-a law enforcement officer—
and
your brother. You weren't doing yourself—or us—any favors …”

Zoo went on to bring Zack up to date: the intercepted telephone call wherein Harkins gloated over how he was going to kill Zack. The race to apprehend Harkins before he caught up with Zachary and made good his threat. Finally, the gun—rendered useless because Harkins had forgotten to unlock the trigger.

In the face of Zoo's unbroken narration, Zachary was forced to agree that he was one lucky man—although he preferred to term it Divine Providence.

“I don't know what it is with you guys,” Zoo said. “You seem to have somebody the rest of us can't see watching over you. That your guardian angel?”

“You could say that.”

“Yesterday you and Wheatley would have been blown away—literally. But a mysterious phone call saved both of you. Today, you would've been killed if an inquisitive neighbor hadn't kept you past your time at the jail.”

“What about the gun with the locked trigger?” Zachary protested. “He couldn't have killed me with that gun.”

Zoo smiled sardonically. “Once Harkins knew what was wrong with his gun—and he knew it the instant he tried to pull the trigger—it would've taken him no more than a few seconds to unlock it. With me, he didn't have that extra time; I got him before he got me. It's as simple as that. You were unarmed. You would've been killed.”

Zack Tully's health was sound. He was not yet old enough to take death seriously. For the first time in his life he had been brushed by mortality. He was surprised now to find himself alarmed by the inevitability of it. He tried to keep his face—and his voice—expressionless. “I'm glad he didn't get either of us.” But the offhandedness of his statement was belied by the almost imperceptible tremor in the hand that held the wineglass.

Zoo gazed at his brother with a variety of emotions: relief, compassion—and yes, he silently admitted—love. Aloud he said only, “The next time you see Father What's-His-Name from …”

“St. Mary's,” Zack supplied.

“St. Mary's … well, the next time you see him, thank him for all of us.”

“Unfortunately,” Zoo said to Mangiapane, “we did not bag two birds with one stone.”

“So I heard.”

“Harkins was not the bomber. We were looking to the guy who was harassing Zack as being the same guy who set the bomb.” Zoo looked almost disgusted. “But his wife … his widow—she claims the two of 'em were watching TV yesterday—eating, or snoozing, or watching TV.”