Billy had called me late last night, amusement in his voice over the receipt of official notice informing him as the legal representative of Colin O'Shea that all charges had been dropped against his client. It had been weeks.
"The wheels of justice and paperwork," he'd said and left it to me to fill in whatever ending I wished.
David Hix had been arrested and charged in both the assault on Rodrigo and attorney Sarah O'Kelly. Our Filipino friend stayed in the hospital for several days but neither Billy nor I could convince him to stay. He went home to Manila with his wife, who had accepted the cruise line's money to come to America and retrieve him.
"I thank you with my life, Mr. Max," he had said when we had gone to see him in the hospital. "But your America is not a safe place. All I wanted to do was work and bring money to my family."
He was holding his wife's hand when we left and in the parking lot Billy stood at the window of my truck while I got in. I had been beating myself up over the man's injuries, one heaped on top of the other, because no one had been there to protect him.
"You are not r-responsible for the world, my friend," he said. "Even though you may think it is so."
I had stared out past him into the vision of the taped-off crime scene out at the end of a desolate road in the Glades where technicians and assistants from the medical examiner's officer were meticulously sorting out what would turn out to be the partial remains of four young women, including Amy Strausshiem and Suzy Martin.
The cause of Morrison's death had been ruled a suicide by cop. His choice. But I was not displeased with the ending. As far as the families of those young women were concerned, their daughters' killer was just as dead, and perhaps more forgettable without the drawn out process of law.
Billy's statement about responsibility and who carried it had stuck in my head for days afterward. We had all met a man in Colin O'Shea whose shoulders had been widest.
Colin had kept up his surveillance of Marci for nearly twenty hours until she had gone to work. There he recognized Morrison's squad car in the parking lot and was trying to move to another position when Morrison suddenly accelerated out toward the park. He tailed him. He was following on foot, crossing the field when he saw the line of cops open fire. From his distance and with Morrison's back to him, it had looked, he said, like a firing squad.
"Even the brotherhood of blue gotta break at some point, Freeman," he said later while we both sipped our whiskeys at Kim's and neither of us, with our histories, was smiling. O'Shea said he had never been a part of the sex games his fellow officers had played with Faith Hamlin. It had in fact disgusted him. "But I didn't have the guts to turn them in," he said.
But he knew the girl and her adoptive family. She had told him that her stepfather, an Irishman himself, had labeled her a whore when IAD began snooping around the case. "And I also knew the married redheaded son of a bitch who fathered Jessica," he said. "Her life would've been hell there. So I took her away."
He had helped support and counsel Faith Hamlin ever since and had never looked back "until you came along and partnered up with me again, Freeman."
His rescue of the girl had been an act of redemption for him. Of his own volition, he'd stepped over the line more than a few times as a cop; his decision this time was to save her and let the pieces fall where they may. There was a look of resignation in his face when I told him there was no way Richards could keep it a secret. She'd have to report the discovery of a missing person to the Philadelphia department. He'd have to go back and face it.
"Guess your ex-wife ain't gonna get those captain's bars after all," he said, smiling as he thought about it.
"She'll find a way," I answered, trying not to.
It would be a media circus when the news broke. Someone would get a photo of the little girl. Someone else's life was going to crash. We were both quiet for a few drinks.
"It's a hell of a thing to do, lad," Colin suddenly said, using his old Irish brogue. "Goin' home again." We both drank to that.
Now I was thinking about sleet and spitting snow while the sun traveled higher in front of me and a sheen of sweat began to form on my chest. Beside me I picked up a movement of bright yellow and green in the corner of my eye. The young boy with the blue eyes was standing beside me, his sand bucket and shovel in hand.
"Josh," a woman's voice called from behind me. "Go down to the water, honey, and wash your bucket."
The boy turned and skipped toward the ocean and I looked up as a pair of legs stepped into his place.
"Good morning," the woman said.
I had to shield my eyes to see her face. She was young and very tanned and her dark hair was tucked through the back of a baseball cap.
"It is," I said.
"You know," she said, dropping down to face level, her knees resting in the sand, "you have my son infatuated."
I raised my eyebrows and pointed out to the boy. While she nodded I glanced at her left hand.
"Yes," she said, but her dark eyes were smiling. "He has come to me a couple of times with questions about a man, who I assume is you, and he wants something cylindrical and green that he thinks is somehow used to dig in the sand."
I knitted my brow, thinking of my previous encounters with the kid, and put it together.
"Rolling Rock," I finally said.
"Ahhh," she answered. "One of my favorites."
We both went quiet and watched the boy.
"Do you live here?" she asked, scooping up a handful of sand and letting it sift through her fingers.
"Yes, uh, on and off," I said.
"I noticed your housekeeping skills." She tossed her head back toward the bungalow.
I smiled. She was talking to me, but watching closely every movement of the child and I realized I was, too.
"Do you have family?" she said, and I did not answer at first.
I looked south down the sand to the edge of the water where two women were approaching. The taller one had long, tightly muscled legs like a cyclist's. The younger one was carrying a new sunburn. In the bar that night Sherry and Marci had found a connection. A woman's need to mother. A young lady's need of comfort. Over the past few weeks they'd spent hours talking and running the beach together and even when I was not invited I somehow felt part of it. As they came near, Marci leaned into Richards and flipped her ponytail onto her shoulder and put her arm around her waist and said something that made them both laugh.
"Maybe I do," I said, watching them. "Maybe I do."
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A Killing Night mf-4 Page 26
