Blind Spot

by Maggie Kavanagh

  Nathan nodded. “Could be. As far as I can tell, there aren’t any mob ties either. I feel like this whole thing has been a waste of time and resources. I guess you could say I’m disillusioned, and maybe I’ve been avoiding telling you. It makes what I put you through…. Well, let’s just say these haven’t been the best weeks of my life. I feel like a fool.”

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” Sam rubbed Nathan’s knee. He hated the despondent look on Nathan’s face. He was so honest. He believed in the law and he needed to know he was working for the greater good. Sam hated to think all his hard work—all this distance between them—was for nothing. “And you’re not a fool. Don’t ever say that. It’s not your fault you were misled. So, what can you do?”

  “We’re putting together an advisory report for the agency, recommending a cease of the investigation,” Nathan said tightly.

  “So it’s over?”

  “Just about.”

  A car honked at them as they switched lanes, and Sam flipped him the bird. He was getting sick and tired of being in the car, and he wanted to give Nathan a hug.

  “Nathan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not serious. Are you? About quitting?”

  “I don’t know. I… it’s more than this case, but maybe it took this case to make me see it clearly. I lost Emma because of my work, and I almost lost you. Nothing is worth that price. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” Nathan was quiet for a minute, and a slow song started on the radio. It was a song Sam’s mother had loved—a seventies ballad crooned by a woman with a beautiful voice.

  “Me too, Sid,” Sam said. Nathan gave him a grateful smile, and the knot in Sam’s gut began to unravel. Things weren’t back to normal yet, but they were close.

  “What would you do if you quit the FBI?”

  “I don’t know. And I guess that’s what scares me. But whatever happens, I want you to be there.”

  Sam squeezed Nathan’s thigh. Nathan was always so sure of himself. It was no wonder he’d kept his troubled thoughts secret. It made Sam feel horrible for his suspicions and his selfish needs.

  He would make it up to Nathan—somehow.

  “I will be,” he promised.

  IN SPITE of Sam’s former eagerness to speak with Janice, his feet were leaden as he followed Nathan to the door of the quaint blue house. Unlike many of the other homes on the street, the yard of 325 Elm was unkempt, and the weeds growing from between the flagstones of the front walk were evidence it hadn’t been tended in some time. Sam might have worried the inhabitants had moved, if not for the car in the driveway. The June sun beat down on Sam’s neck from behind. He rubbed at it and shuffled his feet while Nathan knocked. The bell didn’t seem to be in working order either.

  A few seconds later, a woman answered the door, her look of confusion plain when she encountered Nathan. When she saw Sam, however, she visibly tensed. A thin smile formed on her lips, but it didn’t meet her eyes. She was still pretty, but she’d lost the bloom of youth, and her wariness put Sam on alert. He came forward and held out his hand.

  “Hello, Janice. It’s been a long time.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. Her face paled considerably. “Sam Flynn. How many years has it been?”

  Her palm was clammy in his hand. “Too many. Can we come in?”

  With obvious reluctance Janice opened the door wider, allowing both Nathan and Sam to pass through. The interior of the house was messy, and though the furnishings were of high quality, they were dusty. On the living room mantle, there were several framed photographs of Janice with a man in a wheelchair.

  “You must excuse the state of the place,” she said, as though reading Sam’s mind. “My husband passed recently, and with work, I’ve had a hard time keeping up.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your loss,” said Nathan. “I’m Nathan Walker, by the way. Sam’s partner.” As they shook hands, her eyes widened.

  “His…. Oh. Oh. How nice.” She tried and failed to disguise her surprise.

  Sam took a seat on the couch next to Nathan, and Janice sat across the coffee table in a large, overstuffed armchair, her thin frame dwarfed by its size. It was hard to know where to start. Launching directly into “Hey. Do you by any chance know if my parents were murdered?” seemed a little insensitive, especially given the fact she’d recently lost her husband.

  “I didn’t know you’d gotten married,” he said, perhaps equally tactlessly.

  “About five years ago. Steve had ALS, and we knew we didn’t have much time. It doesn’t make it any easier, though.”

  “Of course not.” Sam nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

  “How’s your brother?” she asked, obviously eager to change the subject.

  Sam met her eyes. “He’s the same.”

  “I always hoped he’d wake up.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “I still do.” A moment of uncomfortable silence passed as they looked at each other, and Sam realized they needed to cut to the chase. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

  “I have a feeling I know why.” She sighed. “To be honest I’ve wanted to reach out to you for a while. But in the end, I thought it best to let the matter drop. I wondered if you’d ever contact me.”

  “You do know something about the accident. Don’t you?” Instinctively he reached for Nathan’s hand and laced their fingers together. “Please tell me.”

  She sat back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling, her sloping shoulders relaxed. Then she took a deep breath and steeled her face into a determined expression, more like the Janice he recognized from his childhood. “Your father and I were having an affair.”

  “What?” Sam felt the blood drain out of his face.

  “I’m sorry to blurt it out, but it’s the truth. I didn’t know how else to say it.”

  “For… you and my father?” Sam was stunned. She had to be lying.

  “I know this is difficult to hear. I’ll spare you the details, but I want you to know I loved him very much. I think he loved me too, but of course he loved your mother more. He never would have left his family for me. I knew that going into it.”

  “My mother. Did she know?”

  Janice smiled sadly. “I don’t know. And believe me, I would rather not have told you, Sam. I don’t want you to think any less of your father for this. He was a good man.”

  “Then why are you telling me?” he nearly croaked.

  “Because it explains what happened about a week before your father’s death. He seemed out of sorts. Sometimes he got a little moody, so I didn’t think much of it. But one night I forgot my house keys at the office and I went back to get them. Your father was still there. He was sitting at his desk, having a drink.”

  She trailed off, as though lost in the memory, and Sam squeezed Nathan’s hand harder. He couldn’t imagine what she would say next. “What happened?”

  “I remember it so clearly. Like it was yesterday. I asked him if everything was okay, but he just laughed. It scared me, frankly. And then… he kissed me and he told me it was over. He told me I should leave. Not only that night. But for good. He said he’d give me a good reference for a firm in Boston or New York.”

  Sam held his breath. Nathan sat equally tense at his side.

  “I was heartbroken of course. He apologized—profusely. He asked me to forgive him. I understood why he needed to break off the affair, but when he kept insisting I leave town as well, I got angry. I accused him of being heartless. I suppose I could have sued him, but I would never have told our secret to anyone.” She smiled mirthlessly. “I haven’t… until today.”

  The information sunk in slowly, and Sam nodded at her to go on. Janice wasn’t lying.

  She leaned forward. “I told him I refused to leave. I knew there was something else. He wasn’t himself. It wasn’t just the drinking. He was drinking a lot more in those days.”

  Sam’s gut lurched. His palm was sweaty against Nathan’s, but he didn
’t let go.

  “Finally a lightbulb went off in my head. You see, about a month before all of this happened, we’d started a folder on a man named Victor Voronkov. I assume you know the name?”

  Nathan cleared his throat. “Of course.” He exchanged a glance with Sam, which Sam read as “keep your mouth shut.” According to the picture in the files, Victor Voronkov had met with Mayor White that year, but it would be huge if Janice could independently confirm the connection.

  “I knew he was a mob boss, but I didn’t know why we were working on him. He wasn’t in our jurisdiction. In those days he lived in New York. So I asked your father, point-blank, if he’d been threatened. He broke down and told me yes.”

  “Shit. By Voronkov himself?” Sam couldn’t stop himself from interjecting.

  “No. No. That was the worst part. He told me an old friend was involved. The friend had approached him with a payoff, but he hadn’t accepted it.”

  “Did he tell you who the friend was?” Sam asked. It had to be Dan Sheldon. It had to be.

  Janice frowned. “No. He was very drunk by then and kept calling him ‘The Tiger.’ Later I knew it must have been Dan, but at the time, I had no idea who he was talking about. I wouldn’t have guessed Dan was involved with the mob—not in my wildest dreams. The two of them had always been such good friends, and Dan was absolutely devastated when the accident happened.”

  Sam let go of Nathan’s hand and scrubbed both of his over his face. “And you never told anyone.”

  “I was scared for my life. And I had no idea who was involved. Anyway that was it. He made me pack my things, and I left the office. I went home. A week later he was dead.”

  Sam swallowed and stared at Janice when she stopped speaking. He always wondered if his father knew anything about the corruption in Stonebridge, but he never had any proof. If what Janice said was true, it seemed probable his father had discovered the connection between his good friend the police chief and the Russian mob—just like Emma had. That discovery led to her death at the hands of Sheldon’s crooked cops and Bernhardt Hoff, their mob connection. Of course Sheldon didn’t carry out the dirty work, but he orchestrated it. He allowed a woman he supposedly cared for like a daughter to be murdered in cold blood and had nearly destroyed Nathan in the process.

  Had Sheldon coordinated the car accident that snowy night? Or had he gotten someone else to do his dirty work then too? A hot, slow-spreading rage started to burn its way through Sam’s chest. Even to the end, Sheldon had maintained his allegiance to Sam’s father’s memory and acted like he was trying to protect Sam for his father’s sake. It had been his only redeeming feature—the one aspect of his character not blackened by lying. But it had been a deception. Sam felt his gorge rise. He’d been so blindly naïve.

  “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “That no good, murdering son of a bitch.” He could have punched something—or worse. If Dan Sheldon had been present, Sam would have killed him.

  “After the accident, I convinced myself it was a coincidence.” Janice’s voice held a trace of shame. “Your mother and your brother were in the car. Why target them if it was your father they were after? But eventually, when I heard about what Dan was involved with, the conversation came back to me. And I knew… I knew your father had been speaking about him.”

  She paused, and Sam took the opportunity to launch his attack. “But you left town like my father told you to. If you really believed it was an accident, you wouldn’t have done that.” If what Janice was saying was true, she might have reopened his parents’ case as homicide, but she chose to stay quiet.

  “You’re right and you have every reason to be upset. I did have my doubts and I took precautions. Sometimes… we have to tell ourselves stories to be able to go on with our lives, even if those stories aren’t completely true. So I rewrote that night in my mind as your father being drunk and confused. I tried to forget about it. I moved, I met Stephen, and we married. I was happy.”

  Sam winced visibly, and Janice gave him a sad smile.

  “Of course you can only lie to yourself for so long,” she continued. “But by the time I realized I should have come forward, Steven was dying. And I had other things on my mind. I figured Dan was going to be put away for life anyway. I didn’t want to waste the last few days of my husband’s life by dragging us into the case. And in the end, justice was served. Wasn’t it?”

  Sam sat back like he’d been pushed. City hall was still benefitting from the drug money that had likely cost Sam’s parents their lives. Of course Janice wouldn’t know. She probably believed the corruption in Stonebridge had been eliminated. She didn’t know about Mayor White’s mob ties—yet. “But not for my family,” he said. “No justice for my brother. He was innocent.”

  Janice’s expression remained stoic and a little sad, and Sam glared at her. A more rational thought flickered through his anger. The loss of her husband, which was much more immediate than the long-ago accident—murder. She didn’t have anything left to give, and he couldn’t expect any more.

  “All I can say is I’m sorry. It’s been good to see you, Sam. You don’t know this, but I’ve been following your blog. You’re an excellent writer. I think your father would be very proud of you.”

  Sam couldn’t respond.

  “Thank you for telling us the truth,” said Nathan. “I know it wasn’t easy.” As Nathan and Janice spoke, an object on the coffee table drew Sam’s eye. The brass elephant paperweight was familiar. It took a moment to place it, but when he did, he sucked in a breath.

  “This was my father’s,” he said, turning the heavy, dusty thing in his hands. It had been a graduation gift from a favorite law school professor, and Sam remembered seeing it on many occasions on the bookshelf in his dad’s office.

  “Yes,” said Janice, with a trace more emotion. “I took it when I left, to have something to remember him by. You can keep it if you like.”

  Sam set the weight back down. “Thanks. You keep it.”

  “An elephant never forgets,” she whispered. There was a faraway look in her eyes, but it was gone in an instant. She stood. “I’m sorry you had to come all this way to hear such bad news. What will you do now?”

  Sam balled his hands into fists. He knew exactly where they were going, and he knew exactly what he’d do when he got there.

  Chapter Eleven

  SAM WALKED numbly to the Buick. Janice’s words swirled around his mind, making it hard to focus on any one thing. The late-afternoon sun burned his eyes, and he blinked back the threatening tears.

  Nathan turned to him from the driver’s seat. “Are you okay?”

  “I want to see Sheldon.” Sam tugged the seat belt over his lap with a bit more violence than necessary.

  “I told Tony we’d head over to the New York office.”

  “No. I need to see that son of a bitch, Dan Sheldon, with my own eyes and ask him if he killed my father. I want to see his face when he admits my mother’s death was his fault.”

  Nathan frowned. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  Sam clenched his jaw. “If you don’t take me, I’ll go alone.” He started to open the door. He’d walk to the damn place if he had to.

  “Sam—”

  “What are you going to do, tie me up? I have to do this. You heard what she said. My parents died for the same reason Emma did, because my father found out something he wasn’t supposed to know about Sheldon. Doesn’t that make you angry?”

  It was Nathan’s turn to raise his voice. “Of course. You know how much I hate Sheldon for what he did to Emma. But listen. I know you don’t want to hear this, but even with what Janice told us, we don’t know the whole story. It might not have been Sheldon your father was talking about. Janice simply inferred it later on. And then of course there’s the possibility it’s a coincidence, and even if he did find out about Sheldon, it was still an accident.”

  Sam shook his head vehemently. “Bullshit. You heard how upset my dad was about this ‘
friend.’ Sheldon must have approached him to keep quiet about Voronkov.” He didn’t even want to think about the affair. He resented Janice for telling him, even though he’d asked.

  Nathan exhaled loudly. “I think we should head to another hotel for now. Think about it overnight. Okay? The prison’s a few hours drive, and visiting hours would be over by the time we got there. There’s also the possibility he’ll refuse to talk to you.”

  Though Nathan’s reasoning irritated him, Sam didn’t protest as they drove away from Janice’s sad house. His mind was a swirling mess, and he wanted to make it stop. He wanted to lash out, and he wanted to hurt. He needed something to keep him from imagining his father alone at his desk, slowly drinking while he tried to think of a way to keep his family safe. Why hadn’t he left town immediately? Why hadn’t he acted sooner?

  He was drinking a lot more in those days. Sam hadn’t known. Had anyone?

  By the time they checked into another bland-but-nice hotel off the highway, he could hardly stand to be in his own skin. They passed the hotel bar on the way to the elevator, and he stared longingly at the laughing bartender, who was talking to a couple of travelers who seemed to have hit it off. It all seemed so easy. But waking up with a hangover wouldn’t do anything for his mood, and it wouldn’t bring his parents back. He was very drunk at that point.

  He looked away too late. Nathan had already seen him watching. The concern and love on his face made Sam’s gut twist with guilt. He scowled, hoisted his bag up on his shoulder, stepped inside the claustrophobic space, and felt his stomach lurch as they began the ascent. Being treated like a kicked puppy was starting to wear on his nerves.

  Like the place they’d left that morning, the room was overly lavish, but they weren’t exactly on vacation. A huge, comfortable-looking white bed served as the centerpiece, and there was a flat screen on the wall adjacent. Sam wasn’t interested in napping or watching TV. He threw his bag on the bed and unzipped it, then rustled through the front pocket for supplies. He could hear Nathan pacing behind him, scoping out the place for bugs—and not the creepy-crawly kind. Sam might have called him paranoid another day, but given the current circumstances, he almost expected Nathan to find something.