“Will you take these cuffs off me?”
“Of course.” Nash turned to Stone. “You didn’t need to do that. That’s no way to treat a friend.”
Stone frowned. “But Mr. Nash—”
“Uncuff him, Lieutenant.”
Stone glared at me, then came over and took off the cuffs.
I rubbed my wrists. “I’ve just about got this figured out,” I said to Nash.
“Want me to call it in, Mr. Nash?” said Stone.
Nash waved his hand at Stone without taking his eyes off me. “Not yet, Lieutenant,” he said. “Let’s hear what Brady has to say.”
Stone came over and stood beside Nash’s chair. He kept his gun pointed at me. “Mr. Nash,” he said, “really, the correct procedure here is—”
“Lieutenant Stone,” said Nash, “will you please shut up.”
Stone recoiled as if he’d been slapped. He blinked a couple of times, then resumed glaring at me. The muzzle of his gun never wavered from my sternum.
Nash smiled at me. “Okay, now, Brady. Let’s have it. I’ve got a feeling this is going to make heroes of all of us.”
I shook my head. “I’d rather talk to Horowitz.”
He spread his hands. “I understand,” he said. “But this isn’t Lieutenant Horowitz’s case. So let’s focus on what’s important, which is figuring out who murdered Professor Gold and Chief Sprague. Isn’t that what we’re both interested in?”
I shrugged.
“However you want to play it,” he said. “Horowitz is not involved. This—” he jerked his head at Stone “—is our case, and we’re going to solve it. So what do you say?”
“I guess I don’t really have a choice,” I said.
“No,” he said, “you really don’t.”
So I told Nash about the photographs Jake had brought to me, and how I’d figured out that Ed Sprague had taken them with his digital camera through the one-way mirror in his bathroom and stored them in his computer. I told him that Bobby Klemm had been hired by somebody to murder both Jake and Sprague, and I assumed that person’s face would appear on some of those photos.
“Dig those photos out of Sprague’s computer,” I said, “and you’ll have everything you need.”
“So who have you shared these theories with?”
I flapped my hands. “Nobody. Just you. I only got it figured out tonight.”
Nash was nodding. “Well, that’s terrific deducting, Brady,” he said. “So you figure the photos are in Sprague’s computer, huh?”
“I’d bet my life on it.”
He smiled. “Oh, you shouldn’t do that,” he said. He glanced up at Stone. “Help Brady up, Lieutenant.”
Stone glanced at Nash, then shrugged. He came over to me, took my arm, and yanked me to my feet. I gasped from the sharp pain in my kidneys where he’d punched me, and a wave of dizziness swept over me. I leaned on him for a moment, swallowed a couple of times, and took a deep breath.
“You okay?” said Nash.
I nodded.
“Okay,” he said. He pushed himself up from his chair. “Let’s go in, take a look at that computer.”
We went into Sprague’s office.
“You know how to work that thing?” said Nash.
“I can turn it on,” I said. “I already looked at it. I couldn’t find any photos. You’ll need someone who knows more about it than I do.”
“Why don’t you sit down, turn it on again for us.”
I did, and the icons started popping up on the screen. Nash bent over, studying it. “I don’t know a damn thing about computers,” he said. He turned to Stone. “How about you, Lieutenant?” He laughed quickly. “No, somehow I doubt you’re a computer wizard.”
Stone shook his head. “Not me, Mr. Nash. I write my reports on them. That’s about it.”
Stone was standing there beside me. His gun was still pointed at me.
“Aim that thing somewhere else,” I said to him.
“What I’d like to do—”
“Behave yourself, Lieutenant,” said Nash.
Stone shrugged and lowered his arm so that his gun was pointed to the floor.
Nash frowned at the computer screen for a minute, then shrugged. “Well, I guess you’re right. We’ll have to take care of this later. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
I pushed the chair away from Sprague’s computer, stood up, and started for the living room.
“Hold on a minute, Brady,” said Nash.
I stopped and turned to face him.
“Okay, Lieutenant.” Nash nodded at Stone. “Now you can shoot him.”
TWENTY-NINE
Stone’s eyes darted toward Nash. “Huh?”
Nash jerked his head at me. “I said shoot him.”
Stone nodded. His gun slowly came up until I was looking into the black hole at the end of its muzzle.
“I always hated you,” he said.
“I never liked you much, either, Chris,” I said. “But I never thought you were a bad cop.”
“Ah, it was always you and Horowitz,” he said. “You two smart guys, and me, tagging along, running out for the fucking coffee. Horowitz thought he knew everything. Always took all the credit. I worked my ass off for him, and—”
Suddenly Brian came flying out of nowhere. He plowed his head into Stone’s chest, and both of them went down in a tangle of arms and legs.
Stone’s gun spun out of his hand.
I lunged for it.
Nash’s voice stopped me. “Hold it, Brady,” he said quietly. “Freeze, or I’ll kill the kid.”
I froze.
Nash was holding my .38 in both hands. It was aimed at Brian. I could see that the hammer was cocked. He meant business.
I held up my hands, palms out. “Okay, Gus,” I said. “You’re the boss.”
“Stand up, young man,” said Nash to Brian.
“You better do it, Brian,” I said.
Brian crawled away from Stone and stood up. He was panting and glowering at Nash.
Stone got to his feet, hunched his shoulders inside his jacket, then bent and picked up his weapon. He motioned with it for Brian and me to stand beside each other. Then he arched his eyebrows at Nash. “Who the hell is this?”
“This,” said Nash, “is Brian Gold.” He smiled at Brian. “You were supposed to be dead, son.”
Brian glared at him.
“So Ed was right,” said Nash. “It bothered him, never finding your body.”
“Gus,” I said, “let the boy go. He doesn’t know anything.”
“Yes, I do,” said Brian.
Nash smiled at him, then turned to me. “Thanks, Brady,” he said. “This helps us with another loose end.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
Nash turned to Stone. “Okay, Lieutenant,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”
“The kid, too?” said Stone.
“Coyne first,” said Nash.
I turned to Nash. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, Gus. Sprague got you in some of his photos, huh?”
He shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Who are you covering for, then?”
He smiled.
I nodded. “Okay, I get it now,” I said. “You’re blackmailing your friends, right?”
He shrugged. “I don’t look at it that way, Brady.”
“There’s some other way to look at it?”
“I prefer to think of it as insurance.”
Stone’s eyes were darting back and forth from Nash to me, as if things were moving too fast for him. But his gun never wavered from my chest. “Mr. Nash,” he said, “I was thinking—”
“Don’t,” said Nash. “You shouldn’t think, Lieutenant. It’s not your strong suit. Just shoot him. Let’s get this over with.”
Stone frowned at him. “But how’re we going to explain it?”
“It’s pretty obvious,” said Nash. He looked at me and grinned. “And brilliant, too, if you appreciate improvisation. Mr.
Squeaky Clean Attorney here is a closet pedophile, as we’ll discover when we get into that safe in his office. You gotta watch out for those middle-aged bachelors who live alone, you know?” He shook his head with mock sadness.
“Yeah,” said Stone. “That’s pretty good, Mr. Nash. But how’re we gonna explain shooting him?”
“Come on,” said Nash. “Think about it. The man was armed and dangerous.” He smiled. “You and I, Lieutenant, we had our suspicions, brilliant lawmen that we are. Coyne might’ve fooled some people, pretending to discover the professor’s body in the barn that his own hired killer had left there. Didn’t fool us, though. We kept our eye on him. Followed him here, and …” He shook his head. “Imagine! The honorable Brady Coyne collected disgusting photos of his own client’s son. And he seemed like such a nice man, too.”
“Horowitz knows all about it,” I said. “First thing he’ll do is dig out all those other photographs. You’re sunk, Gus.”
“Oh,” he said, “you mean Sprague’s computer? Well, see, Brady, the reason you came here was to destroy that evidence.”
Sprague half turned, peered into Sprague’s office, lifted my gun, squinted, and fired twice. It sounded like two bombs exploding inside the house.
Sparks flew from the big CPU on Sprague’s desk, and then a wisp of smoke wafted up. It had two big holes in it.
“What about the boy?” I said.
“You killed him, Brady.” Nash grinned. “With your own gun. You’re a very bad man.”
“So you and Stone are going to be heroes, huh?”
Nash shrugged modestly. “Oh, we’re just doing our jobs. Though I’d expect the media might find our quick action rather heroic once the whole story comes out.”
I turned to Stone. “What’s in it for you, Chris?”
“I’m a cop,” he said. “I’m doing my job.” He glanced at Nash.
“That’s right, Lieutenant. And you’ll be rewarded. I’ve got big plans for you. Now do it.”
Stone leveled his gun at my chest. “Do you understand now, Mr. Coyne?”
I nodded. “I understand everything.”
“I’m not that stupid, you know.”
“I never said you were stupid, Chris. You’re just ambitious and misguided.”
“Not as much as you think.”
Then, strangely, he winked at me.
I watched the muzzle of his automatic as it moved away from my chest and pointed at Nash. “I used to admire you, Mr. Nash,” he said. “But Horowitz was right. You were playing me for a sucker.”
“Chris—”
“Drop the fucking gun,” said Stone.
“Wait a minute—”
Stone pushed his gun toward Nash’s face. “Do it!”
Nash let my revolver slip out of his hand onto the floor. “You’re making a very stupid mistake, Lieutenant.”
“I’m pretty sick of being called stupid,” said Stone. “Just shut up for a minute, and you listen to me for a change.” He smiled. “Ready? Okay. You’re under arrest, August Nash. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions and to have him with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to a lawyer. Do you understand?”
Nash laughed. “I understand that your career is over.”
“I’ll take my chances,” said Stone. He turned to me. “Mr. Coyne,” he said, “why don’t you go get that cell phone and call Lieutenant Horowitz. I think he deserves to be involved in this.”
An hour later Stone had taken his prisoner away in handcuffs, and Brian Gold and I were sitting in Ed Sprague’s living room with Roger Horowitz and Marcia Benetti.
I told Horowitz what had happened. “My guess is,” I concluded, “after Stone killed me, Nash was going to kill both him and Brian, here, with my gun. His story would be that Brian had come to me for protection, and I brought him here and killed him and plugged Sprague’s computer to destroy the evidence. Nash and Stone interrupted me, and I shot Stone, and Stone got off a shot at me before he died. Something like that.”
“Any questions would be answered when they found those photographs in your safe,” said Horowitz. “They’d explain your motive for killing Sprague and …” He glanced at Brian.
“I know what happened,” said Brian quietly.
Horowitz nodded. “You’d be dead,” he said to me, “and your good name would’ve been thoroughly trashed and Gus Nash would be a hero. If Stone hadn’t thought clearly for once in his life, it could’ve happened that way.”
“It took him a while,” I said. “But he is a good cop.”
Horowitz shrugged. “You know, Coyne,” he said, “you’re as pigheaded as Stone. What the hell did you think you were gonna accomplish, coming here?”
“I wanted to get those photos,” I said, “see whose faces were on them.”
“Yeah? Then what?”
“Then I was going to dump it on your lap.”
He was shaking his head. “This case is fucked, I hope you realize that.”
I nodded. “That’s what I’ve been thinking.”
“If I know Gus Nash,” said Horowitz, “we’ll never be able to link him to Bobby Klemm. Maybe if we had those photographs …”
“They were all on Sprague’s computer.”
“Yeah,” said Horowitz. “And now that computer is deader’n a doornail.”
Brian had been sitting beside me on the sofa while we talked. He had said nothing. He’d kept his head bowed, and I knew he was thinking about Sharon, what he would say to her, how he’d explain it.
Now he lifted his head and touched my arm. “Uncle Brady, can I say something?”
I nodded. “Of course you can.”
He looked from Horowitz to Marcia Benetti, then turned to me. “All that time I was just wishing I was dead,” he said softly. “It didn’t seem fair that Jenny died and I didn’t, and I couldn’t stand the idea of my mother ever knowing … what I’d done. Then when you came to talk to me at Jason’s, said you’d seen those photographs, I thought about killing myself, I was so ashamed. But I started thinking about my dad. Somebody killed him because of me. And I was thinking about Chief Sprague, and the more I thought about him, what he’d done to us, the more I hated him. And I knew there had to be somebody else involved. That was whoever hired the guy who killed my dad and Sprague. And when I thought about all that, I didn’t want to die anymore. I wanted to find out who it was, and I wanted to kill him. It was that Nash guy, right?”
I nodded.
“Well,” said Brian, “I remember seeing him a couple times.”
“Here?” I said. “When—?”
Brian nodded. “He was here with other people when we …”
“Did he—?
“No. He’s not on any of those pictures Sprague took.”
“How do you know?”
He reached into his hip pocket, pulled out something, and handed it to me.
It looked like a slightly oversized computer disk.
“Is that what I think it is?” I said.
“It’s a Zip disk,” said Brian. “You can store dozens of photographs on one of these things.”
“And you got them from Sprague’s computer?”
He nodded. “It’s all there,” he said. “I’m pretty good with computers. What do you think I came here for?” He handed the disk to Horowitz.
“Brian,” I said, “do you understand what you’re doing?”
“Yes,” he said. “He’s a policeman. I’ve just given him evidence.”
Horowitz slipped the disk into his jacket pocket. “Lawyers,” he said to Brian, “they can lock evidence up in their safe, refuse to let anybody see it. Us cops, we can’t do that, you know.”
“I know that
,” said Brian.
“You’re a brave kid,” said Horowitz.
“That was easy,” said Brian, “compared to what I’ve got to do now.” He looked at me. “I’ve got to call my mother.”
I handed him Sharon’s cell phone. “Do you want me to talk to her?” I said.
“You’ve done enough, Uncle Brady. I’ve got to do this myself.” He stood up. “I’m going in the other room, okay?”
I waved my hand at him, and he headed for the kitchen.
He came back about five minutes later. His cheeks were wet, but he was smiling. “I want to go home now,” he said. “Can somebody give me a ride?”
THIRTY
I was moving papers around on my desk the following Tuesday afternoon when Julie scratched on my door. I called, “Enter,” and she opened it and held it for Horowitz.
I got up from my desk and went around to shake hands with him. “You want some coffee?” I said.
He shook his head. “Only got a minute. Wanted to fill you in.”
I smiled at Julie, and she nodded and pulled the door closed behind her.
Horowitz and I went over to my sitting area. He slumped on the sofa, and I took the chair across from him.
“I’m working with Stone,” he said. “His idea.”
I nodded.
“Suddenly I’m not such a hardass,” he said. “Suddenly I’m full of good advice.”
“You?”
He smiled. “Anyways, our geeks got those pictures off that disk, did their magic, blew’em up, enhanced’em, and presto. There’s maybe half a dozen faces on’em—besides the kids, I mean.”
“Who?”
He waved his hand. “Let’s just say you’ve seen these faces more than once, pictures in the Globe, making important pronouncements on the TV news.”
“And you’ve got them having sex with children.”
He nodded. “No shots of Gus Nash, though.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“So far, we got nothing on him,” he said. “Poor Stone. He squeezed the bastard as hard as he could. But Nash is cool. He covered his tracks.”
“He’s a murderer, Roger. He’s the one.”
“Sure, I know. But we gotta link him with Klemm. Which we’re trying to do. So far, nada.”
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