by John Hart
She didn’t know. That was the problem. They didn’t have time of death on the new victim, but based on the body’s appearance, she most likely died after Adrian’s release from state prison. Elizabeth chewed on that for an hour and disliked the taste of such strong coincidence. She wanted to know if anything tied the new victim to Adrian—witness statements, physical evidence, anything beyond his being a convicted killer fresh off a thirteen-year stretch. Normally she could call a dozen people, but she was suspended, out of the loop; and Francis Dyer would fire her for real if she dug too deeply. She told herself to let it go. Her life was coming apart, and Channing’s was, too. Gideon was in the hospital. State cops wanted her for double homicide.
But, it was Adrian Wall.
Her father’s church.
She returned to it without conscious thought, parking on the verge to watch movement high above. The medical examiner was there. So were Beckett, Randolph, and a dozen others—techs and uniforms and somewhere, she thought, Francis Dyer. How could he not be there? Adrian had been his partner. His testimony helped bring him down.
Elizabeth lit a cigarette, then tilted the mirror to study her face. She looked drawn and bloodshot and unsure.
What if she was wrong about him?
What if she’d been been wrong all these years?
Twisting the mirror away, she smoked half the cigarette and stubbed it out. Something was not right, and it was not the church or the body or anything obvious. Was it the victim? Something about the scene? She watched the church for another five minutes and understood, suddenly, what felt so wrong.
Where was Dyer’s car?
He was the captain of detectives; this was a huge case. Dialing Beckett’s cell, she waited three rings for him to answer.
“Liz. Hi.” His voice fell, and she imagined him stepping away from the body. “I’m so glad you called. About earlier—”
“Where’s Francis?”
“What?”
“I don’t see Dyer’s car. He should be there.”
Beckett paused, his breath heavy on the line. “Where are you, Liz? Are you here at the scene? I warned you—”
But Elizabeth wasn’t listening. Dyer wasn’t at the church. She should have seen it coming. “Son of a bitch.”
“Liz, wait—”
But that wasn’t going to happen. Turning across the road, Elizabeth put the church in her blind spot and broke every speed limit heading back to town. From a hilltop two miles out, she saw steeples and rooftops and houses that showed white through the trees. Off the hill and in heavy traffic, she went right, then crossed a cobbled street and blew through the other side of town, thinking, He wouldn’t; not yet. But on the last stretch before Adrian’s burned-out farm, she saw flashing lights a mile away. The body was still in the church, and Dyer had already come to arrest his old partner. Resentment. Laziness. Hatred. Whatever the reasons, she saw it like ink on a page. They were going to lock him in a cell and find some reason to keep him there.
“It’s not what you think.”
Dyer met her when she spilled from the car. He had both hands up, backpedaling as she pushed hard between the cars, the burned-out house ten yards ahead.
“The body’s barely cold. You can’t possibly have a reason to arrest him.”
“Slow down, Liz. I mean it.”
She shouldered past uniformed officers, rounded into the same charred room, and saw Adrian, facedown in the soot. Whatever the takedown looked like, it had been violent. His shirt was torn. Smears of blood slicked his hands and face. They’d zipped his ankles and wrists, dropped him in the dirt like an animal.
Three steps in, and Dyer was already pulling her back, his hands like steel on her arm. “I want to talk to him.”
“Not a chance.”
“Francis—”
“I said that’s enough!”
He dragged her outside, cops watching, spots of red in Dyer’s cheeks. He pushed her against an oak tree, and she jerked her arm free. “This is bullshit.”
“Calm down, Detective.” Dyer used the force of his voice, the authority in his eyes. “It’s not what you think, and you’re not going to talk to him. That means I need you to step away from this arrest.” She moved right, and he moved with her. “I mean it, Liz. I’ll take you in for obstruction. I swear it.”
She pushed forward.
He placed a palm squarely on her chest. The touch was entirely inappropriate, but she saw no discomfort on his face. “I’ll cuff you,” he said. “Right in front of God and everybody. Do you want that?”
Elizabeth looked at him with new eyes. Such forcefulness was not his normal style. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
She stepped back and lifted her hands. Through the crowd, she saw Adrian in the dirt. His eyes found hers, and she felt a jolt of electricity. “Why is he in full restraints?”
“Because he’s a dangerous man.”
“Who’s under arrest for what?”
“If I tell you, will you behave?”
Resentment gathered in Elizabeth’s chest. It was an indulgent word: behave. “When have I not?”
“Just stay here. We’ll talk when this is over.”
“One question.”
He turned and held up a single finger.
“What charges?”
Dyer pointed at a red-and-white sign nailed to a blackened timber. In her lifetime, Elizabeth had seen a thousand of them just like it. It was a metal square: two words, simple.
“You’re kidding me,” she said.
“He doesn’t own the property anymore.”
Dyer walked back into the house and left Elizabeth on the periphery to watch them haul Adrian to his feet, drag him from the ruins, and stuff him in a car. She watched him go and couldn’t hide the emotion she felt. Whatever Adrian was now, he’d been a cop once, and one of the finest, not just capable but decorated, lauded. He’d suffered thirteen years behind bars for a crime she didn’t think he committed, and now, here he was, assaulted on ground he used to own.
Cuffed and stuffed.
Arrested for trespass.
* * *
Elizabeth left before Dyer could find her for a further discussion. She waited on the road, then followed a line of patrol cars to the station and watched from a distance as Adrian was manhandled from the cruiser and goose-stepped toward the secure entrance. He fought the rough treatment. The treatment got rougher. By the time he disappeared inside, he was fully off the ground: two cops holding his feet, two more at his shoulders as he struggled. Elizabeth sat in silence and stared at the door. She waited for Dyer to make an appearance, but he did not.
At the church, she decided. Because that’s how it was supposed to work. Investigate first. Then arrest.
She put the car in gear and eased away from the curb, but not before she saw the dark blue sedan parked at the edge of the secure lot. It had blackwall tires and state tags. Hamilton and Marsh, she decided.
Still in town.
Still looking for the rope to hang her.
* * *
There was a knoll that looked down on the church, and a gravel road if you knew how to find it. It bent through the trees and ended in a high glade with uninterrupted views of rolling hills and far mountains. In better times he’d gone there to be alone and think of all the good in the city. Things made sense then, the sky above and everything in its place.
But that was a long time ago.
He left the car under the canopy and moved through the grass until he could see down onto the fallen steeple and scattered cars. He knew people came to the church—the horsewoman, vagrants—so he knew someone would find the body. But it made him sick to see the police there. After so many years, the church was his special place. No one else could understand the reasons or its purpose, the void in his heart it filled so perfectly.
And the girl on the altar?
She was his, too, but not as much as the others he’d chosen, not with cops looking at her and touching her
and speculating. She should be in the stillness and the dark, and he hated what was happening behind the shards of stained glass: the bright lights and jaded cops, the medical examiner going about his dull, grim business. They would never grasp the reasons she’d died or why he’d chosen her or the incentive to let her be found. She was so much more than they could ever understand, not a woman or a body or a piece of some puzzle.
In death, she was a child.
At the end, they all were.
* * *
Elizabeth went to the hospital and found that Gideon had been moved out of recovery and into a private room on the same floor. “How is that possible?”
“The cost, you mean?” The nurse was the same from earlier, a pretty redhead with brown eyes and a spray of freckles across her nose. “Your father asked for it as a charitable gesture. It’s a slow week. The hospital administrator agreed.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Have you ever argued with your father?”
Elizabeth struggled with the unexpected kindness, reminding herself that her father loved Gideon, too. “Is he here now?”
“Your father? He comes and goes.”
“How is Gideon?”
“He woke, once, but isn’t speaking. Everyone here is pretty much heartbroken for him. He’s such a tiny thing, and torn up over his mother. Everyone knows what he was planning to do with that gun, but it doesn’t matter. Half the nurses want to take him home.”
Elizabeth thanked her and tapped on Gideon’s door. There was no answer, so she went in quietly and found him asleep with tubes in his arm and under his nose. A monitor beeped with the rhythm of his heart, and he was so small beneath the sheet, the movement of his chest so barely perceived. In his whole life, the poor boy had never caught a break. Poverty. Borderline neglect. Now he was branded with this other sin. Would he forgive himself? she wondered. And if so, for what? That he’d tried to kill a man or that he’d failed?
Elizabeth stood for a long time, thinking how she might appear from beyond the open door. A stranger could misconstrue her love for the child.
Why? one might ask. He’s not even yours.
There would never be an easy answer, but were Elizabeth forced to offer reasons, they might sound like this: Because he needs me, because I’m the one who found his mother dead.
Yet, even that was not the whole truth.
Leaning closer, Elizabeth studied the narrow face and bruised eyes. He appeared eight more than fourteen, closer to dead than to living.
His eyes opened and filled with shadow. “Did I kill him?”
Elizabeth smoothed his hair and smiled. “No, sweetheart. You’re not a killer.”
She leaned closer, thinking he’d be relieved by the news. Behind the boy’s head, though, the monitor started beeping faster.
“Are you sure?”
“He’s alive. You did nothing wrong.” The monitor spiked. His eyes rolled white. “Gideon? Breathe, honey.”
The monitor began to scream. “Nurse!” Elizabeth yelled, but it was unnecessary. The door was already open, one nurse spilling in, a doctor on her heels.
The doctor asked, “What happened?”
“We were just talking.…”
“What did you say to him?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. We just—”
“Get out.”
She stepped away from the bed.
“Now!”
The doctor bent over the boy. “Gideon. Look at me. I need you to calm down. Can you breathe? Squeeze my hand. Good boy. Look at my eyes. Watch me. Slow and easy.” The doctor breathed in, breathed out. Gideon’s fingers were twisted white, his eyes fastened on the doctor’s. Already, the monitor was slowing. “Good boy…”
“You need to go,” the nurse said.
“Can’t I just…?”
“You can’t help anyone,” the nurse said; but Elizabeth knew that was not entirely true.
Maybe she could help Adrian.
* * *
It was late afternoon when cops started rolling in from the crime scene at the church. Elizabeth was in the old Mustang when it happened, parked on a side street north of the station. It was hot outside, shadows stretching out from buildings and trees and people walking to their cars. It was a normal day for normal people. Sunset coming. Time for dinner and family, time for rest. For the cops heading to the station, it was still early. Evidence needed to be processed, reports written, plans made. Even with Adrian in custody, Dyer would want uniforms on the street and detectives flogging every thin angle. Whatever his plan, he’d want it rock solid by the earliest news cycle. That meant all hands on deck, and Elizabeth planned to use the chaos to get what she wanted.
She stayed low as the tech van rolled past and turned for secure parking behind the station. Three patrol cars followed, and then Beckett and Dyer and two different attorneys from the DA’s office. James Randolph was last: a lump in the window, a glimpse of smooth scalp and unshaven face. That’s whom she wanted, a defiant, tough old bastard who thought rules should no more than graze an otherwise honest cop. He’d actually approached her after the basement and suggested she should have ditched the bodies and never said a word about it. She’d thought he was joking at first, but his crooked face seemed serious.
A lot of woods out there, pretty lady.
A lot of deep, quiet, dark-as-hell woods.
She gave him ten minutes inside the station, then called his cell. “James, hey. It’s me.” She stared at the window near his desk, thought she saw a shadow move. “Have you had dinner yet?”
“I was about to order takeout.”
“Wong’s?”
“Am I that predictable?”
“Let me buy it for you.”
She heard his chair creak and pictured his feet going up on the desk. “It’s been a long day, Liz, and a long night, coming. How about you tell me what you want?”
“You heard about Adrian?”
“’Course.”
“I want to talk to him.”
Seven seconds ticked past. Cars moved on the street. “Crispy beef,” he said. “Don’t forget the sticks.”
* * *
They met twenty minutes later at a below-grade door set flush with the concrete wall.
“Here’s how we do this.”
He let her into the building. The hall was painted green, the floor was buffed vinyl.
“We go quick and quiet, and you keep your mouth shut. If we pass anyone in the hall, try to look humble, and remember what I said about your mouth. Any talking needs doing, I’m the one that does it.”
“I understand.”
“I’m doing this because you’re a good cop and you’re pretty, and because you’ve never cared that I’m as ugly as an old tire. None of that means I’m willing to lose my job getting you in to see this son of a bitch. Are we clear on that?”
She nodded, mouth tight.
“Good girl,” he said, and offered the only smile she was liable to see. “Tight on my six; humble fucking pie.”
* * *
She did as he asked and wasn’t surprised that they made it unseen. They’d come in low and from the side. The action would be at the sergeant’s desk near the front of the building and in the detective squad upstairs. The holding area would be a dead zone this late, and they were counting on that. Rounding a final corner, they saw a single guard at a desk near the heavy, steel door. He looked up, and James waved an easy hand. “Matthew Matheny. How’s it hanging?”
Matheny crossed his arms, looked at Elizabeth. “What’s going on, James?”
“Why don’t you catch a smoke?”
“Are you asking or telling?”
“I don’t tell you what to do. Come on.”
Matheny looked at Elizabeth, his skin washed out in the fluorescent light. Like James, he was in his fifties and bald. Unlike James, he was thin and stooped, a mean-eyed man who, every day, seemed to hate his life a little bit more. “You know who’s in there, right? Public enemy number
one.” Matheny pointed. “She may as well be public enemy number two. That makes this a big goddamn favor.”
“The lady just wants a word. That’s all.”
“Why?”
“What does it matter? It’s a word, an exchange of syllables. It’s not like we’re walking him out of here. Don’t be such a girl.”
“Why do you always do that? I don’t like it, James. I never have.”
“Do what? I’m not doing anything.”
Matheny stared at Liz, doing the math. “If I say yes, we’re even. I don’t want to hear about the day ever again. It’s done. Even if Dyer himself walks in here and finds her. We’re even forever.”
“Done. Fine.”
“I can give you two minutes.”
“She wants five.”
“I’ll give you three.” Matheny stood. “He’s in the lockdown cell. All the way down on the right.”
“Why is he in lockdown?” Elizabeth asked.
“Why?” Matheny dropped keys on the desk. “Because fuck him, that’s why.”
When he was gone, she raised an eyebrow at James Randolph, who shrugged. “It’s a pretty common sentiment around here.”
“So, why is he helping us?”
“Matthew shot me on a quail hunt when we were kids. I tend to remind him about it from time to time. It irks him.”
“But, a lockdown cell…”
“I bought you an extra minute.” James unlocked the big door. “Don’t make me come in there after you.”
* * *
Elizabeth stepped into the hall, saw big cages on the right and left, the blank door of the lockdown cell at the far end. She moved deeper, and the hall darkened as old fluorescents flickered and snapped and made her uncomfortable. The place felt too much like prison, and prison, for her, was becoming a little too real. Low ceilings. Sweaty metal. She kept her eyes on the lockdown cell, which butted against the end wall. A grim affair, it had a solid-steel door, and an eight-inch cutout at face height. It was reserved for junkies, biters, the mentally disturbed. The walls and floors were padded with ancient canvas, stained with fecal matter and blood and every other possible fluid. Beyond anger, spite, and small-mindedness, no legitimate reason existed for Adrian’s confinement there.
