by Dana Mentink
“Is Reggie involved?”
“He was Bruce’s parole officer, but he’s been faking the supervision, or so he says.”
“You don’t trust him anymore?”
Mick didn’t answer for a long moment. “I’m not going to trust anyone until this is all wrapped up. We’re going to find Meeker, and if that doesn’t pan out, I will spend every waking moment tracking Bruce and Charlie with or without the police, or Reggie, or anybody else, and not out of guilt, either.” He flicked her a glance. “Been praying about it.”
Her heart lifted, a warm golden glow filling her. “You’re on speaking terms again?”
“Oh, He’s never stopped speaking, I just wasn’t listening. I—I think I found my soul again.”
She took his hand, and he pulled her carefully into the circle of his arm. He didn’t elaborate, but she knew there was something profoundly changed about him; the heavy stain of guilt was lifted from his brown eyes. They were now filled with a clean, clear determination.
“I’m going to finish this,” he said. “Before I go.”
Before I go. She swallowed hard. The fire burning in his eyes was not for her, and she wasn’t sure why she had expected anything else.
He had a mission to complete, a case to close.
No other reason to stay.
She’d just finished up her call with the police when her phone rang.
“Hey, honey. I’m going to bring Cornelius home from his wing-and-nail grooming and then I’m craving a walk to the park. Would Junie like to come along?”
Keeley explained calmly what had happened and where they were headed. “Junie’s at Roberta’s until five. If I’m not back by then, can you get Junie?”
“Yes, but, Keeley, this sounds dangerous. I wish I could ask Derek what he thinks we should do, but…” She sighed. “He’s not taking my calls. I don’t know where he is.”
Keeley understood. Ginny was dead, and he was suspended from duty. She made a mental note to pray for Chief Uttley. “I’m sorry about all of it, Aunt Viv.”
“Me, too,” she said. “My heart’s a little bit broken right now.” She disconnected.
A little bit broken. Ginny dead, Tucker clinging to life, and then there was Mick. She resisted the urge to look at him—the strong chin and dark hair, the lines that had been carved into his face by love and loss.
Before I go.
Remember, Keeley, she told herself. You’re going to be alone again in a matter of days. You’re going to be all right. She sneaked one quick look at his mouth, full lips clamped into a determined line.
She pulled her gaze away and fixed her eyes out the front windshield, just as determined as Mick to see their mission completed.
*
Meeker’s place was an old one-story cabin set at the top of a gravel road. The tires threw rocks against the undercarriage, which Mick heard clearly, since the passenger-side window glass was gone. If he’d had his choice he would have driven Keeley back to her aunt Viv’s. Bruce had come close, too close, to hurting her. He wished he could count on Reggie or even Uttley to provide backup, but he was beyond asking for help from anyone. A sense of urgency hammered away at his insides. The longer the situation continued, the more at risk Keeley became.
He parked the truck and they knocked on the front door. No one answered, so he pounded louder.
“Mr. Meeker?” Keeley called. “We need to talk to you about one of your parrots.”
Silence.
“Please, Mr. Meeker. It’s urgent,” she added.
Feet shuffled to the door and it opened a few inches. A man in his fifties with a shaggy puff of hair regarded them warily.
“What do you want?”
Keeley smiled and Mick stepped back a pace, figuring his presence was probably spooking the guy.
“My sister took a picture of one of your birds almost two years ago. It looked as if the bird had a camera strapped to its body and we figure it’s yours. Did you recover the camera, Mr. Meeker? Do you remember?”
“Maybe.”
“My sister was killed. We think your camera might have captured the image of her killer.” Keeley held up her hands. “Please, Mr. Meeker. My sister was a bird lover and she went to a rooftop to help one of your parrots. Do you know anything that would shed light on her murder?”
He answered by flinging the door open and retreating into the house. Mick followed him, Keeley right behind. They made their way through a hallway cluttered with books and into a tiny living room crammed with computers, more bird books and piles of papers.
“My fault,” Meeker said. “Bird got herself caught on a fence because of the camera. I check on them every few days, but I didn’t know that particular female was injured until I trapped her to remove the camera. Had to wait until the cops let me into the parking lot. By then the poor thing was nearly dead.”
“So you did retrieve the camera?” Keeley’s face burned with hope.
“Course I did. I’m working on a documentary about the Quaker colony.” His face softened. “Got hours of footage. Even got a tiny camera in one of their nesting holes. That mama bird hatched eight eggs after I fixed her up, and all of them survived.”
“Please can we see the footage you got from that camera, Mr. Meeker? It’s vitally important,” Keeley said.
Meeker’s eyes narrowed. “It’s my property.”
“We don’t want to take your property. We’d just like to see it.”
This was taking too long. Mick straightened, staring down at the much shorter man. “You can show us, or we can get the police here and you can show them.”
Meeker sat down on a rolling office chair and tapped his computer to life. “All right. You can look. Here’s the footage.”
Meeker did not offer them a chair, so he and Keeley stood behind and watched over his shoulder. The video was jerky, capturing the little bird’s journey as she took off from the communal nest to forage in the forest. She encountered several other members of her colony eating seeds on the forest floor. When she landed on a barbed wire fence, Meeker grimaced. Mick did, too, as she became caught, struggling to free herself with a frantic flapping of her wings. Finally loose, her flight became less controlled.
“Got a terrible cut on her wing, you see,” Meeker said. “And she was exhausted from her escape. She couldn’t make it back to the nest right away, so she stopped to rest on the newspaper building.”
Keeley hugged herself as the footage showed the familiar rooftop.
There was no sound, only the drab cement roof. The camera lens was fixed on the side of a ventilation shaft. Two minutes passed, then three. The bird suddenly rustled to life and took off over the side of the roof, capturing a few seconds of the parking lot below, and then it went black.
“Batteries quit.” Meeker sat back. “Got what you wanted?”
“No.”
Mick heard the desperate disappointment in her voice.
“The camera didn’t show anyone on the rooftop. Not even Tucker.” Her voice broke.
“Can we rewind about fifteen seconds?” Mick asked.
Meeker took the video back and played it again.
“There,” Mick said. “Stop it there.”
He froze the picture.
“It’s Tucker’s car,” Keeley said. “But that doesn’t help. We already knew he was there.”
Mick’s heart turned to stone.
“In front of it,” he said, forcing out the words.
She leaned closer. “It’s the trunk of another car. The first three letters of the license plate are L, V, N…”
“It says LVNADIE.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s short for ‘love Nadine’, Reggie’s pet name for his wife.”
“Reggie Donaldson? Your colleague? That’s his car.”
The pieces fell into place. “He was doing some kind of business with Tucker on the rooftop. He didn’t want Tucker caught, he wanted him dead.”
“Yes and no,” Reggi
e said, stepping into the room and locking the door behind him.
NINETEEN
Mick was sickened, staring at the man he’d once respected.
“Lucky thing that Charlie and Bruce were able to tell me in which direction you were headed. I’m a little rusty at tailing people.”
“I thought you were one of the good guys.”
“That’s your problem—always black-and-white. I am a good guy, but I needed money, Mick, pure and simple. Tucker had connections, so I pressured him to steal cars for me and deliver them to a chop shop. Told him if he didn’t, I’d cook up some evidence to have him arrested on some charge or another.”
“The Quick Stop Garage,” Keeley said. “Charlie and Bruce. They’re your partners.”
“Yeah, and it went fine until Tucker wanted out. He was gonna go to the cops regardless of my threats. We met on the rooftop and I lost my temper. Your sister appeared just as I knocked Tucker out.” He grinned. “Might have even loosened a tooth on that pretty face of his.”
“That’s why LeeAnn called. She wasn’t afraid of Tucker, she was afraid for him. You killed my sister,” Keeley hissed.
“That’s where the ‘no’ part comes in. She scurried back down the fire escape. I lugged Tucker down the inside stairs and when I got to the parking lot, there was no sign of her. I was gonna put Tucker in my trunk, but he came to and broke away. Took off in his car and I took off after him. Crashed into the pond, and believe me there was no one more surprised than I was when they popped that trunk and LeeAnn was inside.”
Mick grunted. “That’s not even close to a credible story. I would have thought you’d come up with something more convincing.”
“Yeah, I know. Who killed LeeAnn while I was busy lugging Tucker down the stairs? I’ve wondered that for a good long time now.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I was happy to let everyone think Tucker did it. He went on the run and I encouraged Ginny to make contact. She’d been friends with Tucker back in the day and she was working at Bruce and Charlie’s garage, so it seemed like the perfect idea.”
“How exactly did you encourage her?” Mick said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
“She was into drugs. It was an easy choice for her. Do what I ask or I turn you in.”
“So she contacted Tucker on your behalf, without him knowing you were pulling the strings,” Keeley said.
“It was easy. She was already his friend, so she strung him along until he trusted her completely. I had her tell him that he was Junie’s father when I found out a few months back, knowing he’d come to see her.”
“So you could kill him.”
“It was gonna be great,” he said with a sigh. “I sent Keeley a text to get her on that rooftop, and I was going to be the big hero and kill Tucker right there with you as a witness, Mick. Tucker isn’t worth a plug nickel. Would have been so much better if my plan worked out.”
Acid burned inside Mick. “And was Ginny’s life worthless, too?”
“I sure didn’t tell Bruce and Charlie to kill that girl. I asked them to scare her a little, since she was going to tell Tucker that I was planning an ambush for him. Had the dumb idea she could enlist the help of the stalwart Hudson family. I couldn’t let that go. Bruce and Charlie went overboard with the convincing, and they left for a while.”
“Until you sent them to make sure I didn’t find anything on the rooftop.”
“When you told me about Tucker’s diagram, I knew there was something on that roof. I figured she must have dropped a phone or a camera or something and he was after it to prove I was on that rooftop. Should have been over when Uttley took Tucker out, but you just couldn’t let it go, could you?”
“No, I guess not.”
“You’d take the word of a dirty car thief over mine.”
Mick almost laughed. “Over a lying blackmailer? Any day.”
Reggie’s eyebrows knitted into an angry line. “You marine types. All spit and polish and honor. Well, you know what? That’s not the real world. The real world is bills and vermin who get off parole and continue to be vermin and wives who fall out of love with you.”
“Maybe,” Mick said quietly, “she fell out of love with you because you turned into a person she didn’t respect anymore.”
He nodded, shoulders slouched as if the anger had drained out of him. “You’re probably right, but I’m in too deep now. I wouldn’t do well in prison.” He pulled a gun from his pocket.
Meeker whimpered.
“You should have listened to me about carrying a weapon, Mick. Now all three of you are going to have to pay the price. I feel bad about that. I really do.”
*
Keeley felt her whole body go ice-cold. Meeker stood.
“Are going to kill us?” Meeker whispered.
Meeker looked so terrified that Keeley wanted to soothe him, but she could think of nothing to say. Reggie was going to murder them. That much was clear. She reached slowly for the cell phone in her pocket.
“No,” Reggie said. “No calls.”
Mick stood tall, huge in the cluttered room. He edged over a few inches to shield her and Meeker.
“Reggie, listen. This is between you and me. Those two are just bystanders. They’re going to leave here, and you’re going to let them go because you’re not a cold-blooded killer.”
He smiled. “And they’re never going to contact the police or play that bird video for the cops, right? Not buying that one.” He looked at Keeley. “You know, for what it’s worth, I really was torn up about seeing your sister dead there in that trunk. I didn’t kill her and I don’t know who did, but now I’ve got to kill you. Blood on my hands after all.”
Keeley could not look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the round barrel of the gun, which seemed enormous.
“It’s not gonna be like that, Reg,” Mick said, taking another sideways step. “You’re not going to kill those two.”
Meeker groaned. “This isn’t happening.”
Keeley knew the only thing she could do was make a break for the door to unlock it. At least Meeker might be able to escape. He could go the police and tell them everything. She eyed the bolt, a simple twist and turn. It would take her only three seconds, but three seconds was less time than it would take for Reggie to shoot her in the back. And Mick…
Her eyes soaked in his strong profile, the courage that made him stand straight, chin up, shoulders lifted.
I think I found my soul again.
He’d never really lost it, she thought. It had just been buried under layers of guilt. Now he was free to live the life God intended for him, or give it up trying to save her.
No. It could not happen, and what’s more she wasn’t about to let Junie lose the only mother she had left. She scanned the room, looking for something with which to distract Reggie. There was nothing, only piles of yellowed paper.
“Meeker has the videos saved on a hard drive. It’s in his safety deposit box,” she blurted out.
Reggie raised an eyebrow. “Nice try, but I’m thinking Meeker here isn’t the type to arrange for that sort of thing. I’m thinking he’s the kind of guy who keeps his money stuffed in a mattress. In any case, I’m willing to take that risk.”
She heard it, then, the sound that just might save them. “Someone is coming.”
He sighed. “I gotta give you credit for persistence. That’s enough…” He broke off suddenly as the sound of an engine rumbled to life.
They both seized the moment. Mick lunged for Reggie’s gun arm and Keeley threw herself at the door, flinging it open.
“Run,” she shouted to Meeker.
He sprinted out.
She turned her attention back to Mick who was wrestling Reggie. The gun fired and she dived to the floor as the bullet shattered the window. Terror for Mick made her raise her head again to see Mick smashing Reggie’s gun hand against the floor.
Reggie’s face was red with exertion, one hand wrapped around Mick’s throat. Mick was stronger, his muscles bunched
with effort, sweat beading his forehead as he forced Reggie to release his grip on the gun.
Keeley scrambled over and grabbed it.
Mick was panting hard, eyes locked on Reggie, who went limp in defeat.
The front door banged and Derek Uttley burst in, gun drawn, eyes taking in every detail. “Seems as though you have it handled, Mr. Hudson.”
Mick heaved himself to his feet and took the gun from Keeley, putting it on a table in the corner.
Uttley continued to keep the gun trained on Reggie. “Since I’m suspended, I got lots of time. Found a journal at Ginny’s place and it told all about you. Viv said you two were headed up here and I figured I’d tag along. Glad I did.” He knelt closer, hatred blazing across his face. “It’d save the justice system a lot of time if I just kill you here.”
Keeley’s stomach lurched and Mick moved closer.
“No, Chief,” Mick said.
“Not a chief anymore. I have no job and Ginny…” His voice broke. “I felt a little bit like her dad, so now I have no kid, either, thanks to this piece of trash.”
“You’ll get your job back,” Keeley said, watching his finger tighten on the trigger. “Please don’t do this.”
Uttley grimaced. “She was just a kid.”
Mick put a hand on Uttley’s shoulder. “Listen to me. Reggie is a parole officer. There’s nothing worse you can do to him than send him to jail with the people he despises most.”
Uttley’s mouth twitched, and after an endless moment, he lowered his weapon.
Keeley let out a breath.
Reggie looked up at Mick, face puzzled. “I don’t belong with those criminals and you know it.”
Mick shrugged. “Sometimes there is justice in this world,” he said.
*
Keeley refused with all the strength left in her to go to the police station. “I’m going to get my daughter,” she told Uttley and Mick, “and if anyone wants to talk to me before tomorrow morning, they can show up at my house.”
Mick didn’t argue, but she caught a glimmer of a smile on his face as he drove her to Aunt Viv’s at a maddeningly slow pace. She wanted to give voice to all the feelings tumbling around inside her, but she didn’t dare. She needed time to sort it out. The memory of Mick putting his body between her and a gun for the second time would not leave her mind. She did not want to talk about Reggie’s strange confession or their harrowing escape. Most of all, she did not want to hear Mick say goodbye.
