Read Online Winter at Death's Hotel by Kenneth Cameron - Free Book Online Page B

public.”
    Cleary sighed again. “That’s why I don’t let you do the thinking. No!” He passed big fingers through his hair. “I’ll let you know when I work it out. Don’t you do anything! It’s gotta be done right.”
    â€œWhat about Roosevelt?”
    â€œOh, fuck him. Let him go be governor; he’ll be outta our hair. He owes me one now too for doing this, but it don’t give me enough on him to squeeze, you know?” He stood. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
    He put Grady at the squad room door to keep strangers out and the detectives in, and he walked the length of the room and got up on an old ammunition box that gave him even more height than Nature had. He looked around at them. “Everybody here?” He wasn’t really asking; he knew that everybody was there. Good Cripes, he knew all their faces. He knew all their clothes. He even knew them by their smell, for God’s sake!
    â€œAll right. Now.” He looked around at them again. His look was menacing, and the menace was real. Every man there owed his job to him. Half the men there owed their extra income to him. He wasn’t standing up there to be kind.
    â€œGood. Now, you’ve heard of a case we got, a murdered whore that the papers are full of shit about. The ‘Bowery Butcher.’ I want you all to understand that there’s interest in this case from upstairs—got it? That means I don’t want it all balled up . Get me?
    â€œWhat has happened, I can say flat out right now, this case is dead. The fucking precinct cops and their tecs put their big feet all over it, and you can forget so-called clues, and you can forget what they call your ‘investigative techniques.’
    â€œI took over the case late yesterday. I reviewed all the revelant notes and reports. I and Grady interviewed the one so-called witness, which is the cop that found the whore. There’s nothing.
    â€œTherefore, we’re going to clean this case up and do the paperwork and pigeonhole it under ‘Unsolved.’ Are you all clear on that?” He looked around again. Every sphincter in the room tightened.
    â€œWhat I want to make sure is, nobody from this squad talks to the papers about it. You got that? Not one word. Not to your wife, either, not to your girl, not to your priest, not to yourself. You hear me? I hear that one of you’s talked about this case, you’ll be back in a uniform picking drunks out of the gutter. If you’re lucky , that’s what you’ll be doing!”
    Some of them glanced at each other; a few raised an eyebrow or gave the smallest smile that lips could manage. They all meant the same thing: The fix is in, and we’re not part of it.
    â€œDunne!”
    Cleary’s voice was a harsh bark. Everybody knew that Cleary had no use for Harry Dunne, who was a detective-sergeant but who would never get any higher so long as Cleary was in charge. Dunne had the reputation of being a plodder: his nickname from the distant past was “Never,” because he was so slow: Never Dunne. He was so careful that he never finished. And, to the other cops’ disgust, he was honest. Dunne was in his forties, gray, hefty, offering a round face in which women found warmth and reliability but no excitement.
    â€œDunne, you’re gonna take charge of closing this Bowery Butcher case. Take Cassidy to help out. Clear?” He looked around the room once more. More smiles and raised eyebrows: it was okay to show that they were amused by Cleary’s dumping this crap case on Never Dunne, and it was okay to be relieved that they weren’t involved. “Okay, then, that’s that. Dunne—my office. Cassidy—you too. Now.”
    Cleary got down. Finn, the squad arse-kisser, whisked away the ammunition box. Men impatient to do their jobs left in a hurry; others, more in love with leisure, sat at desks and put their feet up