by Davis Bunn
“Some Aryan dude. All I know is, Hands used his chums over in Division One for the collar. Guess he figured we’d laugh in his face.”
Connie said to Matt, “I’ve got friends over there. Let’s go ask around.”
Matt was still looking at the office door. “Hands is not a chief.”
“You said that already.” Crowder poked his chest with an iron-hard finger. “Now you get out there and catch us some bad guys.”
The jail had special interview rooms available for arrestees to meet their lawyers. The rooms were the size of cells, windowless, and empty save for two metal stools bolted to either side of a dented metal table. Calvin Hogue was in one, seated across from his court-appointed attorney, when they all trooped in. The attorney rose to his feet. Calvin did not. He couldn’t, being chained to both the table and the floor.
The attorney demanded, “What is this?”
They entered single file. First Matt, then Connie, then Vic Wright, then Judy Leigh. The chamber’s dense air seemed reluctant to make room.
Calvin was just as Matt remembered from their last encounter, at Vic’s dojo the morning before his mother perished. The same bald skull, heavy beard, muscles, tattoo, sneer. Only the chains were different.
Calvin was all attitude. “What is this, a parade?”
The lawyer protested, “We’re holding a confidential attorney-client meeting.”
“Oh, you want them to be here,” Vic said. “Believe me.”
“And you are?”
Vic pointed at the man chained to the desk. “Ask your man here.”
Then Calvin said to Matt, “I know you.”
“Hello, Calvin.”
“You’re that fed.” He tracked to Vic and back. “Sure.”
Matt said, “You had nothing to do with the murder of Megan Kelly.”
“Are you asking or telling?”
Vic replied, “I’m here to tell you this is for real, Calvin.”
The lawyer demanded. “How about you showing me some ID.”
Everyone but Vic did as he asked. The attorney demanded, “And you are?”
“Don’t mind him, man. Vic is cool.” Calvin said to Matt, “I ain’t diming on nobody.”
Matt said, “I’ll do everything I can to get you released. My help is not contingent on your helping us with anything, Calvin. Sooner or later, the charges against you will be dropped. It may take a while. But I’m going to see to it. Personally.”
The attorney took his time over the IDs. “Baltimore police, Department of State, and the Times.”
Connie said, “Boggles the mind, doesn’t it.”
The attorney handed them back. “You’re stating for the record that my client is innocent of the charges leveled against him?”
“We are not the arresting officers, and we don’t have the required evidence yet. But we know the charges against him are trumped up, and we’re going to do our best to get him cleared.” Matt looked at Calvin. “I have a question, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“So if I answer, it’s something for nothing, that it?”
“Yes.”
Calvin liked that. “So ask.”
“Ever heard the name Porter Reeves?”
Calvin thought a second. “Nope.”
“How about Richard Grimes?”
Something came and went, very fast, very deep. “That’s question two.”
“But you know him.”
“What if I don’t say?”
“I told you. We are going to work for your release regardless.”
Calvin shrugged with his beard. “The name. Yeah. I heard it.”
“Where?”
“Around. He’s bad news.”
“Dangerous?”
“Man, walking the streets in this town is dangerous. Richard Grimes, we’re talking dead and gone.”
“He’s a gun for hire?”
“I mighta heard that.”
“You know where we might find him?”
“I heard he lives around Baltimore someplace. We done?”
“Yes.” Matt was the last to leave. He stepped out the door, then backed up far enough to say, “Richard Grimes is not Aryan?”
“’Course not.” The smirk was back. “Only reason we’re talking at all.”
Lucas lay in bed counting holes in the popcorn ceiling, so bored he hummed Katy’s butterfly tune in time to the heart monitor. He missed Katy. It was the longest they had been apart since his wife’s death. Katy’s absence and the void in his life from June’s departure had somehow gotten tangled together. He knew there was no way around the situation.
He thought back to the last day with June. He had come into the hospice where they’d moved her, the one separated from Katy’s house by the garden. He had walked into his wife’s room and asked how she was. June had looked up at him and replied, “You know what they say, hon. The times, they are a’changing.”
Lucas jerked to full alert. He realized how he had just shaped that thought. Katy’s house.
Which was how Connie found him when she slipped inside the room. Wide-eyed and convicted. “Lucas, hey, how you doing?”
“It itches.” His wound and the truth both.
“You want me to find somebody?”
“No, no, come on in. I’m bored, that’s how I’m doing. I’d pay good money for some company.”
“I come cheap.” She dragged over a chair. “But I need some advice.”
“Fire away. Sorry. Cop humor.”
“I’ve found out something about Matt’s family. We have a couple more people to interview this morning, but it’s just confirmation now. I’m pretty sure we’ve got the real goods.”
Talking only drew the dark worry Connie was carrying closer to the surface. Lucas went into work mode, what Clarence called “the gentle inquirer.” Not pressing. More like inviting. “So you’ve found out something about Matt.”
“His parents.”
“His father?”
“Some. Mostly it’s about his mother.”
He caught the edge. “Do you want to tell me what it is?”
“I’d rather wait until I know for sure.”
“That’s a good idea.” He gave her a minute, then suggested, “You’re worried about telling him?”
She nodded and kept on nodding. Like it was such a relief to have it out, some kind of motion was required.
“My guess is, he already knows.”
“He can’t.”
“This is one sharp kid, Connie. He was the one who came to us, remember? He’s turned up one key factor after another faster than me, and I’ve been on the force a long time. He might not know exactly what you’re going to say. But he’s got some idea.”
“It’s bad, Lucas.”
“Yeah, I suspect it probably is. But he’s a strong kid. And the way you’re looking at me, I can tell you something else. He won’t have to confront it alone.”
She sat there awhile. Lucas liked this about her, the stillness, the way she was comfortable in her own skin. Which made what happened next all the more surprising.
Her breath caught up short and the strength in her face gave way. The hard defensive wall a good cop needs abruptly turned into a window. For a single instant Lucas could look through the window and see her soul. Then she built the wall back up through sheer determination, a lesson every cop has to learn in order to survive out there on the street. Lucas knew what it cost, being strong like that. And how much she needed to let go just then. But she had to do it.
He said, “It’s okay, Connie. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
She looked like an athlete strained to the ultimate level, every angle in her face and neck and shoulders pulled beyond taut. The strain couldn’t hold. She folded down.
Connie rested her forehead on the side of his bed. She said something to his bedspread.
“Lift up, I can’t hear you.”
She waited until she had her breath under control. She kept her face hidden, but he caugh
t it now. “I love him so much.”
He didn’t need to ask. But he did so because she needed him there with her. “We’re talking about Matt.”
“Yeah.” She pushed herself back into the chair. A tear dislodged from one eye and rolled down her cheek. She looked about ten years old. “I’m such a loser at love. Wrong guys, wrong moves. That’s me.”
This was a new one for Lucas. He wanted to fold her in his good arm, stroke her face, wipe her eyes, and call her sweetheart. But this was a cop. And his subordinate. Which made things almost funny.
Connie spotted the smile he thought he had hidden away. “You think I’m stupid, right?”
“No, Connie. I think you’re incredible. Smart, street-sharp, beautiful, and good-hearted. I think Matt Kelly is so lucky I could slug him.” She half-laughed, half-cried. “He’s also locked up inside tight as a vault.”
He nodded. Playing the detective. Loving this. A beautiful young woman seated in his little white world, spilling out her heart like he had the answer to anything. Loving it. “So we’ve got two problems, not one. First, there’s how you keep from making old mistakes all over again. Then there’s Matt. And the best way I’ve found to solve problems is to separate them out. So maybe we should take you first. Okay so far?”
She pulled a tissue from the box on his bedside table and wiped her nose. “I tried to talk myself out of coming over here. But I was right to come. I knew it then and I know it now.”
“I’m sure somebody’s told me something that nice before. But I can’t put my finger on exactly when.” He shifted. “Push that button and raise me up a notch.”
“How’s that?”
“Better. Okay. When I was just starting off, we had a system of pairing the new rookie detectives with old guys nearing retirement. My first partner was this guy, Malloy, what a piece of work.” Lucas let the smile out this time. He hadn’t thought of Malloy in years. “A real fighting Paddy, taller than your guy, strong as an ox even at sixty.”
She made a better attempt at a smile this time. “My guy. I wish.”
“Malloy was real Irish Catholic. Mass every day, always worked it into shift. Did his rounds with a rosary, wore it across his front like a watch-chain. There were a lot of guys like that back then. Tough as old iron but bighearted. All you hear about these days are the rogues, the guys who went on the take. And there were some of them as well. But not as many as the papers would like you to think. But good guys don’t make for headlines.”
She was breathing easier now and listening carefully. Which was what he’d intended all along with his trip down memory lane. “Malloy told me something early on, soon as he decided I was actually listening. If it’s not part of your core, the street will eat you up. Your goodness, your caring, your love, everything that connects you to the rest of life beyond your job. All gone. Unless you make it part of your core.”
Connie gave him time, then asked, “How do I do that?”
“That’s exactly what I asked him. I mean, we were two cops, out there facing the worst the world could throw at us. You know what he told me?”
“No.”
“He said, you accept the fact that you can’t make it happen on your own.”
Lucas waited for her to give it back. How he wasn’t making sense. How she’d come in with one question and he’d given her something she didn’t need.
Instead, she leaned back. Nodded once. Said very softly, “Okay.”
Lucas did not realize he had tensed up. He released half a breath and felt the confidence to say, “I’ll tell you one thing more, and this one is from me. Out there, most people want you to think nobody can change. You get hooked into one life and one view of people and relationships and the world at large. They’re right, but only if you let them be. Only if you buy their take on things. Only if you go it alone.”
She spoke the words softly, tasting them with the easy manner of trusting him fully. “And Matt?”
“You can only give what you’ve found for yourself, Connie. That’s the simplest way I know to tell you.”
Connie sat and argued with love. Nothing else could have brought her here. The love was real, at least from her side. And what Lucas had told her upstairs was right. All she could really deal with was herself.
As if that wasn’t enough.
Connie had the hospital chapel totally to herself. The place was not much larger than a standard hospital room. It was fitted out with rows of padded wooden benches, an empty podium, and two false windows dressed up with stained glass lit from behind. The floor was heavily carpeted. The air conditioner sighed a constant hush that drowned out most of the hospital noise. Lilies on a corner table filled the room with their fragrance. Connie stared at the cross on the front wall, filled with images of her own dire need.
A small part of her wished she could retreat from the talk with Lucas, just wave her hands and forget it ever happened. This same whispering voice kept telling her the whole thing was insane. She was a cop. She was paid to be tough. Connie wiped one cheek and wished the AC could ratchet up another notch, go loud enough to shut out this internal clamor. Because the truth was staring her in the face. She had spent a lifetime making her own choices, proudly stepping out totally on her own. And look where it had gotten her. When it came to love, Connie had a dead-solid lock on bad moves and worse men.
The hardest part was not in acknowledging she had made mistakes. What was far worse was accepting she had known they were mistakes going in. But she had made them anyway. Taken pride in all those wrong moves. Like the acts had somehow made her stronger. Tougher. Defined just how independent this one woman was.
She took both hands to clear her cheeks. A box of tissues rested upon the altar table, saying in silent eloquence that here, in this place, it was all right to cry. She gripped the pew-back in front of her, momentarily tempted by anger. It would be so easy to reduce Matt and her feelings to simply another reason for turning away.
Then she just gave in. A soft sigh was all she showed the outside world. A shake of the head. A weary lowering of her eyes. Nothing really. Just another person seated in just another empty room. Looking for the strength to take the next step.
Matt drove to Washington beneath a sky so dark and sullen it looked almost green. Van Sant had called and ordered him to report in person. The traffic was light until he hit the Beltway, where it grew as dense and surly as the weather. Matt carried his own cloudy dilemma with him. He entered the top floor of State Intel to find Van Sant with two allies from Homeland Security. Matt made his report and lodged his formal objection over the firing of Chief Hannah Bernstein. He fielded their questions the best he could. Van Sant walked him back to the elevators and said something about the job he was doing. But the buzz in Matt’s brain was too tight for him to hear it clearly.
It was long after dark when he finally drove back to Baltimore. The earthbound glow turned the clouds a sickly orange. Matt was chased home by the same illogical certainty that had followed him south. He was missing something big.
Just after ten, Matt turned off Howard onto the back alley that brought him up behind the house. He locked his car and entered the yard by way of the carport gate. He unlocked his apartment and turned on the light and dropped his keys on the kitchen table. All the normal actions of coming home.
Then he stopped. He stood beside the sink, looking out over the back lawn. All the lights in the carriage house were off except one. Some staffer had failed to cut off a desk lamp. A streetlight glowed above the carport. Otherwise the back of the house was dark. There was no sound. Matt sensed at deep gut level that something was seriously wrong.
He cut off his light. Stepped outside the door. Listened carefully. The house was utterly silent.
He unholstered his weapon and walked toward the front of the house. The police car parked by the front stairs came into view. He scanned up and down the street. There was no sign of movement.
He slipped through the front gate and stepped across the street
. He turned around and studied the house. A couple of the downstairs lights were still on, which would be normal if the cops had taken up position inside the house. But Matt lived in this house. He knew how it breathed. There was an undercurrent he could sense even from this distance.
Matt had been around people like Vic, whose natural abilities had been honed in various war zones. He knew what it was like to be around somebody with eyes in the back of their head and the ability to smell a fire before it was lit. He had never wished for such a talent until now.
A silhouette passed across the second-floor window where his parents’ bedroom opened into the central hallway. Moving fast. Far too tall and broad-shouldered to be his father.
Matt sprinted across the street and around to the back of the house. He feared the front door would be watched—or wired. He clambered up the wrought-iron balustrades supporting the kitchen porch. He searched inside the hanging flower basket for the emergency key and opened the rear door. He took the safety off his gun and stepped inside. He pulled the door to but did not relatch it. And listened.
The air smelled of cordite. Matt crouched low and checked the central hall. It was empty. He stepped to the side passage and entered the dining room. The sideboard had been overturned and the dining table shoved off the carpet, scarring grooves in the polished wood floor. The living room sofa lay on its back. One of the cops was sprawled on the carpet and moaning slightly. Matt crawled over and checked. No visible wounds.
Matt continued on. The door leading from the living room to the front foyer was drilled with two gunshots. There was glass everywhere, and the interior front doors were hollow frames, the stained-glass panels shattered. The second cop was down by the front door. Matt could see now what had happened. The first cop had answered the doorbell. He was brought down. The second cop fired. Missed. Was taken out. What by, Matt was not sure. Because neither man was bleeding. Matt put his head to the officer’s chest and heard the slow, steady thump. He shook the man. There was not even a groan in reply.
Matt threaded his way through the glass and started up the stairs.
When he hit the middle step, all the lights in the house went out.
