Lies Still Told, page 16
“Did Platt know that’s where the cameras were?”
She nodded. “He asked me once. I thought he was just making chitchat.”
What that meant was that Platt and Colby would have conducted their business away from the cameras. The best he was going to get was confirmation that both men had been there on Wednesday night. Tawny Lane had already verified that. He, quite frankly, was more interested in who else had been in the bar. Had the killer been there, watching both Platt and Colby? Had the two men been seen together?
“I’m going to want to see the security video.”
Tawny reached for a pad of paper. “Here’s the manager’s name and number. If you can keep me out of it, I’d appreciate it. I need the job.”
“I’ll try. And thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” A.L. stood up. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”
“It’s fine. I want you to find the person who killed Platt. I want them to pay for that. Maybe they can share a cell with my father.”
A.L. paused for just a second, debating whether to tell her that he’d seen Badger Crawford. In the end, he decided to. She’d been honest and forthcoming with him. He could do the same. “I spoke with your father earlier this week. I went to see him.”
She sighed. “I usually call him around Christmas. I haven’t done that yet this year. I did send a card and put some money in his commissary account.”
“It’s a tough situation,” A.L. said. “I don’t think I surprised him when I told him that Platt had been providing you with some support.”
“Then Platt told him. I didn’t. I’m not interested in discussing with my dad what I have or don’t have. I suspect he doesn’t care.”
Yet, she still felt the need to call him at Christmas. Family. Hard to define. Harder yet to understand. “How much longer does your father have on his sentence?”
“To the best of my knowledge, he’s eligible for parole in about a year.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t know. I try not to think about it, truthfully.”
Tawny Lane had a lot on her plate. “Again, thank you for your time. Merry Christmas,” he added.
“And to you and yours,” she said.
He left, walking out into the cold dark night. It was maybe fifteen degrees. The wind had picked up, and it seemed to cut into the exposed skin of his face. Time to call it a night. He drove to his apartment. When he opened the door, his cat woke up, stretching his length across the blanket on the couch. By default, the blanket was his. Anybody who used it after him would wind up with cat hair all over them. “Hello, Felix,” A.L. said.
The cat seemed to look past him, as if waiting for Tess to trudge in behind him. Or, if not Tess, then Traci. “None of the girls tonight, old fella,” A.L. said. He really didn’t know how old Felix was. He’d been a stray when A.L. had found him a couple years earlier. He’d fed him and tried to find a home for him somewhere else, but there had been no takers. The vet thought he was somewhere between five and eight, based on his teeth. “And I’ve told you before, she has a dog. Tabitha. It’s possible, although I know hard to believe, that you might not be her favorite animal.”
In response to A.L.’s announcement, Felix got up, went to the litter box, dug around for a bit, then took a shit. Many times words were simply not necessary.
A.L. was okay with the quiet, especially on a night like this when he felt cold and old down to his bones. On the supposed day of rest, he’d been humping all day, and he could feel it in his back, his shoulders. Fatigue. Stress. Chief Faster had said that he wanted the murders solved by the time his kids were opening Christmas presents. Right now, A.L. just couldn’t see that happening. But he wasn’t giving up.
He turned on the stove and opened a can of soup. While it heated, he pulled out his phone and made a to-do list, things that needed immediate attention. First and foremost was to follow up on the information gleaned from Mickey Roe. Platt and Colby had been seen together on the northwest corner of Cedar and Wilmont. They had the date and a defined window of time. He needed Blithe and Ferguson to start looking at street video right away. He left a voice mail for Blithe on his office phone. The guy was an early riser. He would get the message and might have something by the time A.L. got in. He hoped so, anyway. Given that tomorrow was Christmas Eve, the department would be in party mode by noon. Lunch would be shared, Faster might offer some holiday wishes, and most everybody would be out of the office by two.
He also needed the video from the Wild End Tavern. He left that message for Ferguson.
Finally, he put his phone aside and closed his eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
Rena jerked awake when she heard the noise. She reached for her phone to get some light. She and Gabe had fallen asleep in bed, watching an old movie with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close. The bowl of popcorn they’d been sharing was still between them.
She heard more noise coming from outside. Voices. Glass breaking. Christ, was someone trying to break in? She pushed hard on Gabe’s shoulder. “Wake up. Wake up, Gabe.”
“What?” he asked, only half with it.
“There’s somebody outside,” she said. She was already sliding out of bed, at the closet and entering the combination for the gun safe. She’d surrendered her service weapon, but she had her personal weapon.
Maybe it was what she said, or maybe it was the next crash, louder this time, that got him out of bed fast. He started for the door. She grabbed for him. “Stay here.”
“No,” he said immediately.
“Fine. Then stay behind me. I’m the one with a gun who knows how to use it.” The gun, a smaller caliber than what she carried for work, should have felt light in her hand. Instead, it felt heavy. Deadly.
She realized she was shaking.
Because of an intruder? Because Gabe was at risk? Or because she wasn’t confident she’d have the guts to shoot if it came to that?
She didn’t have time to analyze it. They moved down the hall. She heard more voices outside. Male. Two, maybe three. Car doors slamming. The roar of a motor.
She ran to the living room window, pulled the drapery back just in time to see taillights disappear around the corner. She carefully opened the front door and eased outside.
But her street was quiet. Well, almost. A dog, inside a house three or four to the left, was barking.
“Rena,” Gabe hissed from just inside the door.
“They’re gone,” she said. She swallowed hard. She would not cry. No one had been hurt. That’s what mattered.
He stepped out next to her. “Be careful,” she said. Neither of them had shoes on.
“Holy shit,” Gabe said.
“Yeah.” Their reindeer family and three lighted snowmen had been smashed. Probably with a bat or a big stick. Remains were scattered about.
She glanced up and down the street to see if any of the neighbors had suffered similar damage. She saw no sign of it. It was on her return look at her own yard that she saw a piece of paper on the ground. The pink was a stark contrast to the white snow. Whoever had left it had stabbed it into the snow with a stick, which was keeping it in place.
“I need my boots,” she said. She went back into the house and grabbed her flat-heeled boots from the coat closet. She put them on and reached for a flashlight from the shelf. She went back outside and made her way across the snow. She didn’t have to pick the note up to see what it said.
Killer Cop.
She felt dizzy and sick and thought for a moment that she wasn’t going to stay standing. But she did. She sucked in her breath and went back to stand next to Gabe.
“What does it say?” he asked.
She told him. And he let out a breath of air that lingered as white smoke in the cold night air.
“I’m going to call it in,” she said.
Gabe stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Maybe we just clean it up.”
She understood. The police would come. The neighbors would see. Maybe some intrepid reporter from the paper or local radio was listening to the police scanner in the middle of the night and would come to investigate. More exposure. More publicity.
More fucking people looking at them. Judging.
“I have to,” she said. “We need it on record. I’m not turning the other cheek, Gabe. Don’t ask me to.”
A.L. was on his way to work when his cell phone rang. It was his dad. Who rarely called him. He answered on the second ring. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hank Waymann is having a little get-together at Platt’s house this morning. He’s headed back to Iowa later today, and I guess they’ve made a decision to forgo a funeral once Platt’s body is released. We’re going to get together and toast his life.”
The Waymann version of a wake. “Sounds nice,” he said.
“I told Hank that I’d let you know. Starts at nine. Ends at eleven.”
There it was. His dad expected A.L. to be there. “I don’t know,” A.L. hedged.
“You called him Uncle Platt.”
A.L. recalled that that was pretty much the first thing he’d said to Rena when they’d discovered the body. For some reason, at seven in the morning before coffee, he was irritated to be reminded of it. “I know what I called him.”
“Do the right thing, A.L. Do what your mom would have expected.”
Wow. His dad was landing the blows right and left. “I’ll talk to you later, Dad.” A.L. hung up.
He rolled into the big room he shared with the other five detectives on the Baywood police force at twenty minutes after seven. As he’d expected, Blithe was already at his desk in the far corner. He got a wave, a finger point in the direction of the man’s telephone and, finally, an A-okay motion. Message received. Blithe was on it.
He got some coffee, sat down and checked to see if he had any voice mails. There was only one. And it surprised the hell out of him. Chief Faster. The message had been left at 2:12 a.m. Roughly six hours earlier. It was succinct. “Come see me this morning.”
What had gotten Faster’s panties in a twist at 2:12 in the morning? A.L. carried his coffee cup with him and headed for the chief’s office. Rose, his administrative assistant, had not yet arrived, so he simply knocked on the door, half expecting that Faster also hadn’t yet made an appearance. But he heard, “Come in,” and opened the door. Faster was at his desk.
“I got your message,” A.L. said.
“Have you talked to Rena?”
The question took him by surprise. Had Faster learned that A.L. had given Rena the prison tapes to review? Maybe. But Faster didn’t look pissed. “Not recently,” A.L. said.
“She had some trouble at her house last night. Patrol reported it to their supervisor, who thought I’d want to know. He was right.”
“What happened?” A.L. asked. “Is she okay? Her husband?”
Faster held up a hand. “Everyone is fine. Her outside Christmas decorations were trashed. Appears that a couple people took a baseball bat to them. They left a note. ‘Killer Cop.’”
Fuck. “They got away?”
“Yeah. She evidently caught a glimpse of the taillights. Older-model Chevrolet sedan. It’s not much, but we’re checking street cameras. Not a lot of activity that time of night. We might get lucky.”
“Did you talk to Rena?”
“No. So far, we don’t think the press has picked up on this. I haven’t gotten any questions yet.”
That was good. A.L. took a sip of coffee. What had tasted good before now tasted…sour. Rena loved her Christmas decorations. This would have hurt her.
“I’ll reach out to her,” A.L. said.
“See if she’s coming in for lunch today?”
“I’ll ask,” A.L. said. “Is there anything else?”
Faster shook his head. A.L. returned to his desk, thinking about Rena. He picked up his phone, then put it down. He took a breath. He was never indecisive about contacting his partner. But she’d been kicked at, and he didn’t want to exacerbate the pain.
He dialed. It rang four times before it went to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message. A minute later, he got a text from Rena. Is it important?
Rena knew him better than that. If he was calling before eight in the morning, it was something he either needed or wanted her to know. And she’d normally take that call, just as eager to kick around the latest development.
It can wait, he texted back. Then added, How’re you doing?
There was no immediate response. He waited, debating. By nature, he wasn’t a pusher. Didn’t exert his opinion or his will in areas that weren’t his business.
Now, his daughter might disagree, but that’s because she didn’t always buy into the concept that she was his business. As of now, so was Tess. And his job. His business in the broadest terms.
So, not a pusher, per se. Because, quite frankly, he didn’t really care enough to do so.
Rena was in the gray zone.
She was a grown, competent woman more than capable of making her own decisions, of handling her affairs as she saw fit. And she had Gabe, a solid support system.
He got up from his desk, walked to the coffeepot, poured a fresh cup and drank it. Giving himself a minute to make a good decision.
Finally, he went back to his desk and picked up his phone. I’ll pick you up at 11:30 for the holiday lunch. He sent the text.
Let her stew on that.
His phone rang less than thirty seconds later.
“No way. Not going to happen,” Rena said.
“Mostaccioli from Tavalli’s. Garlic bread. Special salad. Ferguson’s wife made Christmas cookies. I saw them in the break room.”
“You’re killing me,” she said.
“You didn’t answer my question. How are you?”
“Peachy. Did you hear?”
He wasn’t going to pretend to not know. That wasn’t the kind of relationship they had. “Faster mentioned some petty vandalism. Forget it. Turn it in to your insurance company.”
She said nothing.
“Rena?”
“This is harder than I thought,” she said, her voice cracking at the end.
“But you’re tougher than everybody thinks,” he said. “Don’t let some punks get in your head.” He stopped. It was time to switch gears. “Listen, I have some updates on the relationship between Platt and Colby that I want to kick around with you.”
She sighed. “You could just tell me on the phone.”
“I could. I’ll see you at eleven thirty.”
“I’ll drive myself,” she said.
“Fine. Don’t be late. Otherwise, no cookies for you.”
Rena put her phone down and went to find Gabe. There was no lesson planning today. Instead, he was in the kitchen, cleaning vegetables for a relish tray. That and a cheese dip, which was already prepared, were their contributions to the feast that would occur at the Morgans’ that night. The party always began at five, with dinner at seven, and then they would open presents prior to shuffling out the door at ten thirty in order to find an empty pew at the eleven p.m. Mass.
“Looks good,” she said. She popped a black olive into her mouth.
“Is that breakfast?” he asked.
She held up her coffee cup. “This was breakfast. I’m going to go shower. I just talked to A.L. I guess I’m going to the holiday lunch.”
He studied her.
“Are you surprised?” she asked, uncomfortable with the inspection.
“No. But I think if anyone but A.L. had asked, you’d have said no.”
“Faster told him about last night.” She had not been surprised that Faster was in the loop. It was pretty common practice that an incident at a police officer’s home got some attention within the department. Patrol would have told their supervisor, and it had evidently gone all the way to the top.
An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. That’s what her first sergeant, now retired, had told her just weeks into the job. She guessed the words on administrative leave didn’t alter that situation.
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she admitted.
She’d not gotten much sleep the night before. Once she’d called the incident in, officers had responded. Pictures were taken. Statements gathered. Fortunately, they’d come without lights or sirens, as she’d requested, and her neighbors had probably slept through it. The dog across the street hadn’t even barked. Of course, keeping the whole thing under wraps wasn’t going to happen. Crime tape was stretched around her front yard right now. The broken decorations were still there. As much as she’d wanted to clean it all up, to sweep it away, her better instincts had reasoned that it would be helpful to see the scene in the light of day. That way, they wouldn’t miss any possible evidence. So, when everyone had left, she’d crawled back into bed.
But she’d been wired. A.L. had said that she shouldn’t let the vandals get into her head. She wasn’t too worried about that. What had kept her awake was how she’d felt with a weapon in her hands.
If she couldn’t pick up a weapon with confidence, with the sure knowledge that she’d be able to use it when the situation warranted, she couldn’t be a cop anymore. It was over.
That wasn’t just in her head. It was in her heart.
By eight thirty, Blithe had not only found Platt and Colby on the video footage of the corner across from the church parking lot, but he’d also tracked both men’s whereabouts after their seven-minute conversation. Platt’s was noneventful. Street cameras picked up his vehicle within a block of his house, so the assumption was that he’d returned home.
Colby was more difficult. They had yet to identify where he was living, so there were no logical locations to check first. But Blithe had persevered and managed to find him at an intersection at least two miles in the opposite direction. He’d even managed to get a view of him parking his car on the street in front of a big old house in one of the original parts of town, on a street aptly named Center Lane Street. He’d gotten out of his car and walked up the driveway. Halfway up, he disappeared from view of the street cameras.
