I, Michael Bennett (Michael Bennett 5)

“I’m sure he is, ma’am,” Detective Moss said. “We’d like to go and search his room now if that’s okay.”

“By all means,” Jay D’s uncle said. “This good boy’s room is just to the right at the top of the stairs. Try not to trip over all the Bibles and choir robes, now.”

“I didn’t do nothin’,” Jay D said after Bill read him his rights and got him into the back of the cruiser. Ed sat in the back with him, wisely leaving me in the front passenger seat, where I couldn’t get my hands around his neck.

“This is total bullshit, man,” the punk cried as he rocked back and forth violently against the seat. “You only doin’ this because those kids shot over on Lander were white kids.”

“Now, James, we’re not out of the driveway yet, and already you’re dropping the race card,” Ed Boyanoski said with a tsk. “Didn’t we investigate your shooting last year, James? I’m sorry, I mean shootings?”

“Bullshit, man,” Jay D repeated. He stomped on the floor of the cruiser. “You don’t think I know that the only reason you bugging everybody like this is because those white boys were the kids of a cop?”

Bill Moss and I exchanged a surprised glance before I turned around and stared the punk in his eye.

“You’re actually right about that,” I said, showing him my shield. “We cops do tend to get a little upset when you shoot up our children. See, I’m in a gang, too. It’s called the NYPD. They don’t issue us those ratty dishrags you guys like to sport, but we do have some pretty cool hats.”

The kid smirked and looked at me sideways. “You him, ain’t you?” he said.

He nodded with a sudden smile.

“Bennett, right? Knew it. This ain’t just racist-ass bullshit. This is some racist-ass cop bullshit.”

“Quick question, James,” Ed said. “How do you know who the kids were? I mean that stuff about them being the kids of a cop was deliberately left out of the paper.”

“How much did the Latin Kings pay you?” I yelled. “I hope it was worth it, punk, because if you think I’m pulling strings now, this is nothing compared to the favors I’m going to call in to make sure you earn every single goddamn penny of it.”

Jay D looked at us one by one. He started biting his lower lip like it was a chew toy. The punk suddenly squeezed himself into the rear seat’s corner as if it contained an escape hatch.

“That’s it. I want my lawyer,” he mumbled. “I ain’t talkin’ no more.”

“You’re shutting up?” Detective Bill Moss said as he finally put the unmarked into drive. “Is that a promise, James? Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!”

CHAPTER 65

WE HAD A cookout to end all cookouts that night. The three-burner grill out on the dock was completely covered with burgers, dogs, corn on the cob, peppers, lamb shish kebabs. I even had an Italian sausage wheel that I’d found in a terrific deli not too far from the lake house, where I also scored some real New York–style Italian bread to wrap around the sausage and peppers. Tony Soprano would have been impressed.

“Hey, Father. How do you say ‘fuhgeddaboudit’ in Gaelic?” I asked Seamus over the smoke.

Of course we were having a feast. That’s what your friendly neighborhood heroes did when they bagged the beast: got the grill going and broke out the mead, like Beowulf and his men after offing Grendel.

But Beowulf actually had to go and fight Grendel’s mother next, didn’t he? I thought, remembering how Perrine still needed to be deep-sixed. He certainly was a mother, wasn’t he?

Whatever, I thought, pulling on the frosty beer at my elbow and wiping sweat off my brow with my grill mitt. Line ’em up, and I’ll put ’em down one at a time. No, wait. That was Hughie’s policy on shots. Poor Hughie. Man, I missed him.

Half the Newburgh PD showed up. Ed Boyanoski was there with his wife, Celia, and three kids as well as Bill Moss and his wife, Cordelia, and their two daughters. Even the gang-unit cops, Walrond and Groover, showed up with their respective clans.

Walrond’s clan included his new wife and beautiful four-month-old baby girl, Iris. My girls—including Mary Catherine, for some strange reason—surrounded Iris’s car seat and could not be peeled away during the entire party.

All’s well that was ending well, at least for the cur

rent moment.

Even the kids’ surgeon, Dr. Mary Ann Walker, showed up for a quick ale. It turned out that she and Ed were already friends because they both served on the board of the Newburgh Historical Society. I learned that Ed, a former marine, was also a deacon at downtown Newburgh’s Saint Patrick’s Church and spent much of his free time coaching basketball at the Boys and Girls Club.

“So many people have written off this town to the gangs, Mike, but I know we can turn it around,” Ed said. “This place is my home. I’m never leaving.”

Ed was a top-notch guy. They all were. Good people who truly cared about their community and were trying to do their best in a bad situation.

“Man, you know how to toss a soiree here, Mike,” a swim-trunk-clad Groover called from a floating inner tube off the dock. He had a sausage-and-peppers hero in one hand and a beer in the other.