Hardscrabble Road(31)

“Right,” Benedetti said. “Now, you got to understand something. The cops that pulled Harrigan over didn’t know it was Harrigan when they pulled him over. It was just some guy in an expensive car, driving like he’d had about twenty martinis. But within maybe a minute, they did know, because Harrigan wouldn’t shut up about it. I’m going to send you down to talk to them later, and they’ll tell you about it. The pills were there. They had to take the guy in. Harrigan acted like, because it was him, they could just let him ride.”

“Is that possible?” Gregor asked. “Are there police in this city who would have let him ride?”

“I don’t know,” Benedetti said. “There are police who are big fans. Harrigan is very pro-cop, at least superficially. He’s in favor of the death penalty. He’s in favor of stiffer sentences. He doesn’t like Miranda much—”

“I thought the cops had gotten used to Miranda.”

“They have,” Benedetti said. “What they don’t like is how easily a conviction can be overturned because of Miranda violations, or alleged Miranda violations. I don’t like that either. Anyway, Harrigan is good with that stuff, so there are fans on the force. I don’t know if any of them would have, or has, let him loose after finding him driving around in that state of mind with pills in the vehicle. But he went ballistic, and that gives me a feeling I don’t like.”

“Meaning you think that a cop did let him off in similar circumstances at least one other time,” Gregor said.

“Meaning I think it’s possible,” Benedetti said. “I don’t want to go labeling the beat officers before I know for sure. But if you talk to the two men who arrested him that night, Dane Marbury and Mike Giametti, they’ll tell you what they told me, and that’s that Harrigan went completely berserk when they insisted on arresting him. He got physically violent.”

“He doesn’t look like somebody who could do much damage getting physically violent.”

“Nah, he didn’t. He’s out of shape as hell. He’s practically as bad as Carson. Rush Limbaugh went on a diet. Drew Harrigan never bothered. But anybody can get physically violent. Harrigan pushed the officers, kicked them, bit one of them on the hand—”

“—Bit him?”

“He was flying,” Benedetti said. “God only knows what he had in him at the time, because once his lawyer got into it he wasn’t about to take a drug test, but the likelihood is OxyContin at least.”

“OxyContin doesn’t make you violent, though, does it?” Gregor said. “It’s a tranquilizer, or something like that.”

“It’s a pain reliever. It’s most similar in effect to narcotics.”

“Just as I said, not the sort of thing to make you violent.”

“No,” Benedetti said, “but you’ve got to remember a few things. First, it wasn’t the only thing he was taking. There were a lot of different pills on the seat, including three different kinds of prescription diet pills, which are amphetamines. Second, he didn’t get violent until Marbury and Giametti tried to arrest him. And third, people react differently to the same kinds of pills. That he was flying was a pretty good bet. You can see the police reports and the stuff from the station house, where he apparently behaved like a loon. Including singing.”

“He was singing in the station house?”

“He was singing ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy,’ or whatever it’s called.”

Gregor looked down at the picture on the back of Heart in the Right Place. “That must have been something to see. But you know, you still haven’t told me why I have a Drew Harrigan problem. I was brought into this to help find Sherman Markey. Granted, nobody would be looking for Markey if it weren’t for Harrigan, I still don’t see why I need to deal with Harrigan to find Markey. In fact, I’m not even sure I’m supposed to find Markey. All I was asked to do was to get you people to—”

“—Do another morgue check, I know. It’s been done. John Jackman called it in an hour ago. But you’ve got to understand what the thing is with Drew Harrigan.”

“What is it?”

“Harrigan named Markey as his contact for the drugs,” Benedetti said, “something that everybody knew as soon as they saw him couldn’t be true. John said you hadn’t met Markey yet?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s an old alkie, a really old alkie. He’s been pickled for decades. Like a lot of these guys, he’s spaced. He’s almost like an Alzheimer’s patient, except that he can focus on one thing, and that’s getting another drink if there isn’t one sitting in front of him. Harrigan didn’t just say Markey got him the drugs, which I wouldn’t have believed anyway. Harrigan said he sent Markey to pharmacies, doctors’ offices—”