“That they did.”
She’d sat at a table with Leon Gage, she thought. Had a conversation with him. She’d been a sitting duck. She hated to admit it, but he probably could’ve killed her pretty easily. So why hadn’t he? Was killing her dirty work left to the guys in that van? Had the white van really come to kill her? Where was it now? Outside her house? In the confusion, Detillier had never called in the plate number. Someone needed to find Leon Gage and ask him these questions. And do it in a way and in an environment more conducive to answers than lectures.
“Jesus, Coughlin,” Sansone said, “what the fuck did you do to these guys?”
Madison Leary had killed two of their foot soldiers, Maureen thought. But me, I did something worse. I drove their financier out of the country, the source of the cash they used to buy their weapons, the source of their stash houses and hideouts in New Orleans. I cost them Caleb Heath. And he wasn’t coming back, Maureen realized, while she and Preacher remained a threat. “I canceled their meal ticket,” she said. “And they took offense.”
Sansone’s radio squawked and he turned his head to listen.
Maureen looked back into the Walmart for Detillier but couldn’t see him. In Sporting Goods, giving directions, she figured. And he’d probably be a while; he had enough of a mess to clean up.
“We’re standing down,” Sansone said. “Headed back to the district.”
“To do what?”
“Man, I don’t know. Whatever’s next on the to-do list, I guess. This is gonna be bigger than us, Cogs. The Staties will come in. The FBI is already on it. I’m here to take orders. I’m sure there’s some weed dealer who missed his court date who needs his door kicked in. You?”
“I’m working tonight,” Maureen said.
“Hey, listen,” Sansone said. “A bunch of us, we’re gonna grab something to eat before we go back to the Sixth. You wanna come with?”
Maureen thought about it. She wanted to go, but she wouldn’t. She was afraid. The others had been on the force so much longer than she had. She was afraid they’d start telling back-in-the-day, remember-when stories about the two officers who’d been killed, or about Preacher’s lieutenant friend who’d been shot in the back, people the other officers knew but who were strangers to Maureen. Or worse, they’d tell stories about Preacher. Eulogizing him. Memorializing him. Already talking about him as if he were dead while he lay opened up on the operating table. She couldn’t deal with any of it.
“I gotta take a pass,” Maureen said. “My car is in the Tremé. I gotta go pick it up, then somehow get my shit together for work tonight. It’s not like they can give us the night off for bereavement or whatever.”
“Well, stay frosty, Cogs. You’re a true soldier.” He raised his sunglasses up onto his head, squinted into the distance. “Where are your people again? Jersey, right?”
“New York,” Maureen said. “Staten Island.”
Sansone pointed toward the wall of law-enforcement vehicles forming a perimeter around the Walmart parking lot. Along the outside of that perimeter, the TV news crews had gathered, the vans side by side, their satellite dishes pointed at the sky. Maureen could see the reporters lined up, standing with their backs to her as they talked into the cameras.
“If this isn’t a national story yet,” Sansone said, “it will be any minute. You should call your people and let them know you’re okay. I mean, who fucking knows what those media people are saying.”
Maureen checked her phone. She’d gotten no calls, which was a good sign. Her mother and Waters hadn’t heard the news of the shootings yet. “I’ll do that. When I get a minute, I’ll send a text.”
Sansone shook his head. “No, no, no. Not a text. Let them hear your voice. You like acting like you’re a lone ranger, but you’re not. Show respect for your people.”
“Okay, okay,” Maureen said. “I’ll call.”
“Ten-four.” Sansone moved to turn away, then came back to her, standing closer than he had before. “Whatever it is that happened at the river, whatever went on before that with Quinn and Ruiz, consider that over and done with. Maybe it gets revisited down the road, maybe it doesn’t. That depends on you, mostly. But right now we’re under the gun, and you’re one of us. We gotta stick together. You need something, you call, you reach out. Ya hear?”
He waited for an answer.
“I hear you,” Maureen said.