Shattered (Michael Bennett #14)(3)

“Just a sore back. I might be able to attribute it to the small bed.”

“Or you might attribute it to a new wife.”

“That’s more likely, but I was trying to be polite.” It was all I could do not to groan. I needed to hang from a chin-up bar for about three hours to decompress my spine.

It was late in the evening and I figured it to be about four o’clock on the East Coast of the US. We called the kids for a quick chat and to tell them we’d be home at midnight. The time change confused everyone. I’d learned, after eighteen years of being a father, it was much better to warn them exactly when we were coming than it was to surprise them.

Each of the kids home at this hour filed past the phone for a quick hello. Trent was the outlier. He was bursting with some big news and couldn’t wait to tell us. He wouldn’t even give us a hint now. The call eased my back pain and put me in a good mood.

I had made a call that morning to Emily Parker. It had gone straight to voicemail. I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t mind calling Emily during my vacation. Even if it was related to a case. She was my friend first. We worked well together. Never mind that the New York FBI assistant special agent in charge, Robert Lincoln, was still pissed off they’d been frozen out of a serial killer case just before I got married.

Mary Catherine had said earlier, “Maybe she’s sleeping in.”

I knew Emily Parker better than that. The FBI agent rarely sat still, let alone slept in. I tried her once more before our flight took off, but I assumed she would’ve already reached out again if it was urgent.

Aside from having to put a pillow and a blanket on my seat to ease the aching in my back, the flight was remarkably uneventful. Even the ride from JFK to the Upper West Side was smooth. My excitement was building at seeing the kids. This was by far the longest I had ever been away from them. Even though we had spoken every day, I missed each kid in a different way. I needed a hug from Chrissy, and insight into basketball from Brian, and a decent meal from Ricky.

We were lucky to have my grandfather, Seamus, gladly take time out from his work at the parish and supervise in our absence. The three oldest kids, Juliana, Jane, and Brian, were expected to do their part as well, though Juliana was always excused if she had an audition for an acting role. We’d been gone so long I didn’t know exactly what to expect: the city a nuclear wasteland, our building a shell, or a regime change in which my twins, Fiona and Bridget, were now in charge.

As we pulled up to the building on West End Avenue at close to midnight, everything seemed fine. I let out a breath I’d inadvertently been holding. Maybe I was more concerned about Seamus supervising the kids than I should have been. All was normal.

Until I opened the front door of the building and saw a body lying on the floor of the lobby.





Chapter 4



My police training and instincts told me to jump into action. I fell to the lobby floor next to the body and slid on the waxed faux terrazzo.

It took only a moment for my brain to click into the first-aid course I took as a yearly refresher. CPR had so many acronyms and mnemonic devices that the learning aids seemed to cancel each other out. I started with the most obvious: I checked his pulse at the carotid artery in his neck. He had one. A strong pulse.

He was breathing. And he stank. Of alcohol. So that was why he was passed out on the floor. His gray hair was cut into a flattop. His ruddy face told me he’d spent a lot of time outdoors and drank a little too much.

Where the hell was the doorman, Darnell?

Mary Catherine already had her phone out, about to dial 911, when the elevator door opened. All we could do was stare at the image in front of us. My grandfather, Seamus, and the doorman, Darnell, were supporting another man on either side. The man was semiconscious and trying to sing an old Irish ballad, but I couldn’t figure out which one. A blue cap covered his silver, nicely styled hair.

As soon as he noticed us in the lobby, my grandfather blurted out, “Oh, shit.”

I stood up from the man on the floor and said, “The only excuse that will keep me from being pissed off is that these are some kind of half-assed elderly home invaders and you fought them off.”

My grandfather’s frozen expression would have been almost comical if I wasn’t worried about the children and what the hell had happened. Seamus and Darnell helped the man out of the elevator and deposited him on one of the decorative, uncomfortable Louis XVI chairs along the wall.

Then my grandfather turned and gave Mary Catherine a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He did the same to me with very little reciprocity. Then he stood right in front of me. I realized, to his credit, he was sober.

Seamus said, “Don’t worry about the kids.”

Mary Catherine let out an “Oh, thank God.”

Seamus smiled and said, “Ricky won a bundle. But you’re going to need to buy more of that Villa Wolf Pinot Noir.”

“What are we going to do with your two buddies?”

“I’ve already called a cab for them. I resent that you think I don’t know how to deal with people who’ve had too much to drink. I did own a bar for many years.”

“But my children didn’t have to deal with your clients from the bar.”

“Your children will benefit from meeting a wider cross section of people in the city. I’m just trying to do my part for the family.” Somehow he had managed to keep a straight face during that ridiculous statement.