by George Wier
“I do. It’s comfortable enough. I won’t be able to go home until I found out who killed Moore.”
“Yeah. Any luck so far?”
“I haven’t really begun the investigation yet, but it sounds like that was already underway. I wonder why Sheppard didn’t tell me he was talking to the Feds.”
“Sometimes your best friends don’t tell you things because they want to protect you.”
“From what?” Shelby asked. “From the truth? No one needs to be protected from the truth.”
Rachel brushed her hair away from her eyes and back over her ear. “Yes, they do.”
“You’re talking about you and me.”
“I could be.”
She looked at Shelby and he nodded. “Okay, until that Strongbow character gets back with the air mattress, or if he doesn’t get back tonight, you can have my cot. It’s comfortable, but it’s not a feather bed. I’ll bet you still insist on a feather bed.”
“Not really. I’ll sleep where I can. I can sleep on the floor mats if I have to, Shel.”
Shelby laughed. “Will you please shut up? What kind of knight would I be, allowing a maiden to sleep on the floor?”
“I’m not a maiden,” Rachel said.
“But I am a knight.”
“I believe you. All right. If it will make you feel better.”
“It will,” Shelby said.
Rachel sat down on the cot. Squire jumped up beside her and climbed on her lap.
“So what truth were you hiding from me?” Shelby looked down at her. Before she could speak, he began removing his chainmail armor.
While Shelby’s face was hidden, Rachel decided it was the best time to say it.
“How we got together was a lie.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t really dating Rick Moore all those years ago. I was helping Quinn and Terry by going out with Rick, getting close to his operation. They needed more evidence, not about the insurance fraud, but about the drug running. The DEA was even in on it.”
“Detective Terry Roberts?” Shelby asked.
“Yeah. Your nemesis, back in those days. He came to see me at the dress shop, by the way. He said it was just minutes after you bonked Quinn over the head and made your escape.”
“I didn’t bonk him over the head. I got him in a choke hold and made him pass out.”
“How did you escape?”
“Through a combination of blind good luck and taking stupid chances. You don’t want to know the details.”
Rachel chuckled. “You’re probably right. I don’t like the thought of you taking chances with your life.”
Shelby digested this. “So, you were part of the operation to take down Rick.” Shelby said.
Rachel nodded.
“Why did you do it?”
“I was protecting my mother. Terry acted as though he had hard evidence that would tie Sully, and therefore my mom, to a murder that happened a long time ago.”
“Do I want to know?”
“No. Because I think he may have done it. He’d do anything for her.”
“And for you. You think the old man is still in love with you?”
Rachel nodded.
“Who wouldn’t be?” Shelby asked.
Rachel didn’t respond. Her face did, however, begin to flush.
The mail shirt was off and Shelby hung it from a hook on the wall near the bed.
“So, as to why you wanted to save Rick from prison when it came right down to it—was it because you were in love with him?”
“I wasn’t in...I wasn’t.”
“The truth,” Shelby said quietly.
“You knew about my thing for cops when you married me,” Rachel said.
“I did. I thought of it as a bonus.”
Rachel didn’t respond.
“Oh. The flip-side of the cops thing is the other thing. Criminals.”
Rachel nodded, however reluctantly.
“It got to be a game, didn’t it? A little excitement.”
Rachel nodded.
“Then you met me,” Shelby said.
“Right. I broke it off with Rick the day I met you, long before we ever started dating. I knew I wanted you. Terry was livid.”
“I’ll bet. You were running a risk he would go after Sully and your mom.”
“I was.”
“You did it...because you wanted...me?”
“I did.”
Shelby slowly digested this. “Then Holloway came along, and I was a basket case. But Moore was already in jail by that time.”
“Right.”
“Well, we may no longer be married, but I’m your protector now. I will defend you with my life. I’m the White Knight.”
Rachel shook her head and tears began to bead into her eyes. First one slipped down her cheek, then the other.
“I still love you, Shel,” she said.
“I know. And I still love you. None of that matters.”
“Why? Why doesn’t it matter?”
“Because. There are things bigger than one person. Or two. Even two who love each other.”
“What’s bigger than that?”
Shelby came and sat down beside her.
He removed her hand from Squire and held it. With his other hand he reached up and wiped the tears from her face.
“What’s bigger?” she asked again.
“What’s bigger is the whole world, and doing what is right in that world. I’m only just beginning to learn, so you will have to bear with me. All I’m doing is building a foundation right now, because I lost my foundation. First, when I killed Aiden Holloway, I lost myself. After that, I lost you. I made you leave. I became a ghost. But now I’m back. I know who I am now.”
“Danel Artola?” Rachel said, and then laughed.
“For now, yes,” Shelby smiled. “Danel Artola.”
“The White Knight?”
“Yes. The White Knight.”
“Can you and I ever...be? I mean, again?”
“I don’t know. I hope so. First, I have to protect you. Then I will have to help Agent Strongbow find out who framed me, and why.”
“I think it was Quinn,” Rachel said.
“I’m not so sure about that. You say Terry is still a detective?”
“Yes. Shelby, will you do one thing for me? It’s something I can’t really ask of you. Only do it if you really want to.”
“Name it.”
“Will you...please...kiss me?”
Shelby took her in his arms and pulled her to him. At that moment the cot gave away beneath them and collapsed to the floor. Squire jumped and barked.
“Are you okay?” Shelby asked.
Rachel began laughing, and the sound bounced around in the hollow room. Shelby soon joined her. They laughed until they were almost crying, and then Shelby very softly brought his face to hers and kissed her.
Billy Strongbow knocked on the door of the storage facility office and Shelby came to the door, sword in hand. He wore a t-shirt and boxer shorts.
“Am I interrupting anything?” Billy asked when Shelby opened the door for him?
“Uh. No. Why do you ask?”
Billy handed over a box that contained an air mattress, fresh off the shelf, and a small suitcase and bag that Shelby took to be Rachel’s things.
“Because, if there’s really nothing going on, then you, my friend, are a complete idiot.”
“Well, maybe there’s something. Are you interested in her?”
“Not during an investigation, I’m not.”
“Come on in for a sec. I’ve got some questions for you.”
Billy nodded and followed Shelby into the office. Shelby took the load of stuff from Billy and walked toward the rear of the place and through a door. Billy heard a distant, muffled exchanged between Shelby and Rachel, including a bit of laughter. Within a few seconds, Shelby was back.
Shelby sat in Sheppard’s chair and Billy took a chair opposite. The other chairs had already been mo
ved away, likely on the mistaken hope they wouldn’t be needed in the near future.
“First,” Shelby said, “I’ve been thinking about the gun.”
“It’s been the biggest thing on my mind,” Billy admitted.
“I’m trying to think of a time during the few weeks before I came in to show my new dog to Quinn and he tried to arrest me. What I mean is, I don’t recall ever leaving the house. Up to and including the day that Moore was shot. My gun never left the cabinet.”
“You’re sure about that.”
“I’m positive. Remember, please, that I was a ghost haunting my own house. I don’t know if I was protecting myself from the world, or protecting the world from me. I’m sure there’s a word for that, but I haven’t thought of it.”
“Hmph. The closest one I can think of is ‘individuation.’”
“I’ll have to look that one up,” Shelby said.
“It essentially means that you’re a loner. You don’t want the company of others, for whatever reason.”
“Ah. So you’ve got all the files on the Holloway shooting as well as copies of the files on the Moore shooting.”
“That’s right.”
“And you’ve got my personnel file and everything.”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Good. So do the ballistics really match?” Shelby asked.
“They do. Too close for comfort.”
“Hmm. Any points where they don’t match?”
“Just minor ones.”
“So it was my gun, then. My gun killed Richard Moore.”
“Maybe so. And maybe not,” Billy said. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head.
“You look tired,” Shelby said.
“That’s only because I’m tired.”
“Oh. Okay. What do you mean, maybe not?”
Billy sighed. “Take it from the other end of things. Let’s say you were planning on shooting and killing someone and framing it on somebody else. But let’s say that you were planning it for some time in advance. Maybe next month. Maybe next year. Who knows, maybe you were never going to do it, but you wanted to have the option to do it, just in case it was needed.”
“Like an insurance policy,” Shelby said. “You hope you never have to cash it in, but if it’s needed, it’s there. Okay. Go on.”
“All right,” Billy continued. “So you won’t have access to the gun of the guy you are planning to frame at some later date, but you know you will need that gun. What do you do?”
Shelby shook his head slowly. “I have no idea.”
“That’s the problem. Most people don’t plan like that. They don’t plan for next month or five or ten years from now. But this guy we’re talking about here, this guy is one of those planner-types. He thinks in what they call long-term concepts. He knows a potential use for the oddest things when he sees them, and he snatches them up.”
“I’m out of my depth here,” Shelby said. “Maybe I really am dense.”
“No you’re not. I wouldn’t have survived the last several weeks as well as you have, had I been in your shoes. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to muscle up, change my hair color, change my skin color, take on a whole new persona. I would have tried something, mind you, but I wouldn’t have made it.”
“All right. Thanks. So I’m not so dense.”
“You’re not. And really, you already know the answer.”
“I do?”
Billy nodded. “You certainly do. Tell you what. I’ll give you one more hint.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“It’s ten years back. A police officer is suspended from the force and sent home while the shooting is being fully investigated. Down at the police station they’ve got what?”
“The gun,” Shelby said suddenly.
“Right. They’ve got the gun. What do they do with the gun?”
“They test the ballistics of the gun and compare it to the bullet they dug out of Aiden Holloway’s body.”
“How do they do that?” Billy asked.
“They take the gun and fire a round into a barrel of water. Then they take the bullet and scan it and compare it to the bullet they removed from Holloway. If there’s a match, then they know the gun they fired into the water was the same gun fired at Holloway.”
“Right. Now what else? Think it through, carefully.”
Shelby leaned forward and planted his elbows on Sheppard’s desk. He spoke slowly. “Okay. This guy—our guy. Our long-term planner guy—he’s got the gun sitting right there...”
“Go on.”
“Just thinking out loud. It takes me awhile.”
“Take your time.” Billy fought to stifle the smile he felt coming on.
“Okay. So the gun. You can’t make a copy of a gun. I mean, you can’t make a copy of the inside of a gun, can you? I mean, it’s the inside of the barrel that’s rifled to give the bullet its spin. That’s a machined part. Can you duplicate that?”
“How would you do it?” Billy asked. “I mean, if you were our guy?”
“Hmm. I suppose I would take a cast of the inside of the barrel somehow.”
“Would you?” Billy asked.
“It’s the only way to get the unique inner markings from that barrel. You take a cast of it by filling the barrel with something. Say, gutta percha or something, like they use to make golf balls and fill teeth.”
“Then what?” Billy asked.
Shelby slapped the desk. “Then you use it to cast another gun barrel.”
Billy nodded slowly. “Okay. I guesss you could do that. Seems like a lot of trouble for something you may never need to use. But there’s one other possible scenario here. And this second one is far simpler, and doesn’t require any engineering.”
“What is it?” Shelby asked.
“When you were at home after the Holloway investigation was over, and it was found to be an unfortunate accident, how did you receive the gun back?”
“Quinn brought it to me personally.”
“What did you do with it after that?”
“I cleaned it, and kept it in my drawer for awhile. Eventually I put it in the china hutch.”
“Did you examine the serial number on it? I’ll bet you never memorized the number.”
“Do you memorize the serial numbers on your firearms?” Shelby asked.
“Hell no. Nobody would.”
Shelby paused. It was a long pause.
“Quinn didn’t give me back my gun. That’s the simplest explanation.”
Billy nodded slowly.
“Son of a bitch. I was set up to be framed ten years ago.”
“All this time,” Billy said, “while you were a ghost haunting your own house, you were an insurance policy that someone was probably hoping they wouldn’t need to cash.”
“Let’s talk about Quinn for a minute,” Billy said.
“All right.”
“He came to see you a few days before he tried to arrest you. What did he say?”
“It was more like a week before. He talked about the Moore case, but didn’t mention it was the Moore case, and said there was something familiar about it, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.”
“I’ve been going over the case file for the Moore killing. It might interest you to know that during that week between, Lieutenant Quinn and two of his detectives interviewed nineteen people. That doesn’t exactly sound like the actions of a cop who has already got somebody framed, does it?”
Shelby nodded. “You’re right. It doesn’t. So maybe Quinn really thinks I did it, and he doesn’t know I was framed.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Billy said. “But whoever handed him the gun to bring to you, or whoever handed off the gun to someone to hand to him to bring to you, definitely knew. As I see it, those are the possibilities. All of them. Well, that is, leaving off the possibility that you killed Richard Moore.”
Shelby shook his head. “I’m not sure I could kill someone. Ever again.”
“I know. I’m not done soul-searching. Bear with me, please.”
Billy sighed. “I think you’ll do whatever has to be done when—and if—the time comes.”
“I hope you’re right. Okay, then the next question is, why. Why frame me to begin with?”
Billy nodded. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. I suspect that the killing of Richard Moore and the framing of Shelby Knight has some relation to the accidental killing of Aiden Holloway.”
“You mean...”
“It’s possible that you were at the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.”
“I think,” Shelby began, but couldn’t bring himself to finish.
“What?”
“I think that tomorrow, I’m taking you there. Where it went down all those years ago.”
“Okay,” Billy said. “Wear your stuff. The armor, everything.”
Shelby nodded. “I damned sure will. I think I know who is behind everything now.”
“Who?”
“The one man I really screwed over by putting Moore away for two years instead of life.”
“Who is that?”
“Terry Roberts.”
“I’ll need to pull the file on him. See where all this ties in.”
“Try and get some sleep,” Shelby said. “You look worse than I do.”
“Thanks.” Billy got up and went to the door. He paused, reached beneath his jacket and brought out a nine millimeter pistol and offered it butt-end to Shelby.
“What’s this?”
“If you’re going to protect her tonight, you might need more than sword and shield.”
Shelby took the gun. “I hate these things, you know.”
“I know.” Billy fumbled at his belt and produced a full clip. “Here’s a spare.”
“Thanks!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Quinn Thompson was rattled. He had done everything he was supposed to do. He had been a good cop. Sure, there were a few times he had stepped over the line, but even those few times, at each given moment, he had deemed it necessary.
He normally parked his car in his driveway because it was simpler than parking it in the garage. His North Austin home was fairly secure, and none of his neighbors had been burglarized or broken into. He’d rarely given it a second thought. Not this night, however. When he pulled into his driveway and stopped his car, he reached up and tapped the button on his visor. The green LED light came on and the garage door rolled slowly upward on its tracks.
