Sullivan's Law by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Page A

of beers, sweetie.” Boyd’s eyes swept over her body, coming to rest on her ample breasts. She was dressed in a white cotton dress, and he could see her nipples through the flimsy fabric.
    â€œI’m sorry,” the woman explained. “Chief Harrison’s doctor had me remove all alcoholic beverages from the house.”
    The two men exchanged glances. “Things change,” Boyd whispered. “If he’s sober, we’re gonna be in even more hot water.” He watched the woman’s hips sway as she walked into the other room. “Think the chief is doing her? Mighty fine body, don’t you think?”
    â€œNah,” Pete said. “That woman’s a lady, man. What would she want with a burned-out drunk like Harrison?”
    They entered a dimly lit room. A fifty-eight-year-old male was slouched in a brown leather recliner, his legs splayed out in front of him. He peered out at the men through watery hazel eyes hidden behind thick glasses. He was dressed in pajamas and a terry-cloth bathrobe, and his feet were encased in fur-lined slippers. A stack of newspapers was tossed on the floor beside him, and the end table was cluttered with prescription pill bottles.
    â€œSit,” Charles Harrison said, glancing toward the sofa. He fixed the two men with an icy stare. Finally he spoke, his words low and measured. “I trusted you to take care of things. Metroix was never supposed to see daylight.”
    Boyd cleared his throat, almost swallowing his chewing gum. Plucking it out of his mouth, he deposited it in an ashtray. “We got to most of the parole board, Chief,” he told him. “The problem was they appointed three new people this year.”
    â€œDid you talk to them?”
    â€œWe tried,” Pete interjected, finding the man in front of him more pathetic than menacing. He remembered Charles Monroe Harrison in his prime—good-looking, educated, articulate, a shining star in the world of law enforcement. Then his entire life had crumbled. His seventeen-year-old son had been murdered. His wife, Madeline, had been hospitalized for years with some type of peculiar illness. He believed they called it chronic fatigue syndrome. These days, Pete thought, people had a fancy name for everything. The wife had cracked up, plain and simple. Harrison’s career had advanced but the man had drowned his sorrows in the bottle. From the way he looked tonight, Pete was certain the booze was going to kill him.
    â€œWe did everything we could, Chief,” he said. “We wined and dined them…told them how dangerous Metroix was, that his psychological profile indicated a high probability that he’d kill again if released. We even showed them Tim’s picture in his football uniform.” He stopped speaking, seeing the deputy chief’s chest expand and contract with emotion. “Things were looking pretty good until we met with this woman, one of the new people on the board. The first thing she asked was to see our credentials. As soon as we admitted we were no longer officially employed by the police department, she slammed the door in our faces.”
    â€œYeah,” Boyd added, his right shoulder twitching with nervous energy. “I called her up later and convinced her to talk to us again. This time we leaned on her. Her husband chased us off the property with a shotgun.”
    Charles Harrison’s eyes flashed with rage. “I told you fools that those kind of tactics would only work against us. What did you do? Tell her you were going to break her legs?”
    â€œNot exactly,” Boyd told him, making a waving motion with his hand. “She’s got a son who’s a senior in high school. So I follow him one day, see, catch him smoking pot with some of his friends. I’d already checked out his school records. The little snot had won a scholarship to one of those fancy schools back east. Harvard, I