A Criminal to Remember (A Monty Haaviko Thriller) Read Online Free PDF Page A

subjects. “And we have with us next a representative of the city who is answering questions about some claims made public yesterday about the police.”
    Claire winced visibly and I apologized one more time.
    The man who came on was angry and energetic. “Thanks for having me on. The claims made last night are completely without foundation and show a profound disrespect for the hard-working men and women of the police service.”
    “So there’s no shred of truth to the statements that were made?”
    “None.”
    I looked at Claire and held my hands together as if in prayer and pointed at the phone. She sighed, plugged it in and handed it over. A minute later I was on the air.
    “Hi. My name is Monty Haaviko. I assume your guest is talking about me?”
    The host managed to say, “Good morning, Mr. Haaviko …” and then the other man cut in with, “You have a lot of nerve!”
    “Not really.” Claire came around and rubbed my neck. “Actually I called to correct something your guest said. It’s Mr. Harrow, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    “You said I have profound disrespect for the police. That is not true. I simply do not have blinders on. But I do respect them.”
    “What do you mean?
    “Should I respect them for that time when a cop shot an unarmed man and the investigation was questionable, to say the least? Or the recent enquiry when a cop killed a woman and the investigation was botched? Or what about the occasion when a hundred cops faked illnesses after another cop beat up a handcuffed man on camera and was temporarily suspended?”
    “This is preposterous …”
    The host cut him off. “Mr. Haaviko, what are you trying to say?”
    “I’m clearing up a point. Words that I never used are being put in my mouth. Attitudes are being attributed to me that I do not have. I did not say I dislike cops, I said they make mistakes sometimes. Even when I was stealing I didn’t hate cops. They were simply part of the business expense. But, they do make mistakes.”
    Mr. Harrow came back on, “Well, of course they do, they’re only human.”
    “Exactly. All I’m saying is that cops have made mistakes. That’s it. Am I wrong? Not in specifics, but in general?”
    There was dead silence and then Mr. Harrow said, “Well, sometimes mistakes are made.”
    “Okay then, let’s leave it at that.”
    I thanked the host and the guest and hung up and unplugged the phone and turned the radio off. Ten minutes later Claire was gone out the door and Rachel, the Kilpatricks’ granddaughter, and Elena’s Jake were in my home, trying to tear the place apart.
    The life of a professional babysitter. There’s no life like it. As I cleaned up spilled apple juice I thought, somewhat longingly, of going back to thieving.
    At the park that afternoon Fred, Rachel and Jake played on the swings while I warmed a bench. One of the nicest things about the North End is its vast number of parks. The whole area was laid out in a time with a different civic attitude and the parks survived most types of improvement and development. Another nice thing is that most of the parks have areas where children can still play on swings and teeter-totters and the occasional jungle gym.
    After about twenty minutes a young man with badly pitted skin and protruding eyes sat down on the other end of the bench and pulled out a radio/flashlight combo he had to crank to get working. The man was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, jeans and runners, and the radio, when he got it working, was set to the same right wing talk station that had tried to ambush me that morning.
    It must have been a slow news day because they were still talking about me.
    “Next caller …”
    “Hi, I just wanted to say that I agree with everything the other guy said. This Mr. Haaviko doesn’t understand anything about the situations our city’s finest find themselves in day after day down on the front lines …”
    Uh-huh. It was an interesting statement but it didn’t really