The Guardian

by Dee Henderson

  “When Jesus went on to say ‘Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe,’ He was making a profound choice. He loved the men He was with to the point He was willing to let His friend die so that they might be convinced to believe. Then Jesus went and raised Lazarus from the dead.”

  “Your cancer is to get us to believe?”

  “No. My cancer is because sin messed up this world and my body is dying. But the delay in answering my prayer for healing—that might have a silver lining. It got Kate thinking about God. It’s thrown you back in turmoil.” She squeezed his hand. “You’ve rejected God for years because of the hurt. Do you think I mind being used to tug you back? Marcus, I want you to have to face the past and deal with it.”

  She stopped him when he would have spoken. “Just think about it, okay? Shari and I are not going to convince you. You have to convince yourself.” She pointed to the stack of magazines on the side table. “Change of subject. I need your opinion on something.”

  Because she was suddenly trying to sit up, Marcus hurriedly moved to help her. She was visibly weak and she collapsed back on the pillows he put behind her with a grateful smile. She picked up the top magazine and opened it to a turned down page. “So, what do you think about this wedding dress?”

  “Jennifer.”

  She grinned and patted his arm. “A guy’s opinion. That’s all I want. I’ve marked five that I really like.”

  * * *

  “Lisa, the lab results you were waiting on are in.”

  Lisa looked up from the arson investigation reference book she was scanning to find the burn point for latex to see Paula coming through the doorway of the lab. Her friend had been working on doing the DNA extraction from the glass fragments. It was after 9 P.M., the labs were quiet, most of the staff gone; they had both stayed late to see the tests finished.

  “What’s the verdict?” With only enough DNA recovered to do one test, they had rolled the dice on which test to do.

  Paula smiled and held out the file. “See for yourself.”

  Lisa accepted the file, feeling butterflies in her stomach. If they had guessed wrong . . .

  She scanned the printout and the transparency and felt relief deep inside. It wasn’t a full panel of markers, but what she was seeing was going to be enough. They had the major markers. “Enough to index.”

  Paula nodded. “If he’s in any of the databases, this should be sufficient to generate a match.”

  “Thanks, Paula. I owe you one.”

  “Good. Is your brother Jack seeing anyone these days?”

  Amused, Lisa shook her head. “Not since Beth moved to New Hampshire with her new job.”

  “That’s too bad about Beth.”

  Lisa laughed, knowing where Paula was heading. “I suppose he’s on the rebound.”

  “Next time he stops by, convince him to take you to lunch and then remember you already had arrangements to have lunch with me so he’ll do the polite thing and make it a threesome.” Paula grinned. “You can get paged or something.”

  “You know, I could just tell him you’re interested in going to lunch with him.”

  “Better if he thinks it was his idea.”

  Lisa thought about it for a moment, then decided it would be good for Jack. It was about time he was dating again, and the idea of it being with her friend was . . . intriguing. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Great. I knew I could count on you. I’ll catch you later.” Her friend headed back upstairs.

  It was time to find out if all the painstaking hours of work were going to pay off. Lisa flipped on lights as she walked through the lab carrying the test results. She headed to the secure terminal, where she sat down and began entering logins and passwords, working her way through the layers of security until she finally was able to log into the national crime reference database.

  Working slowly to make sure she didn’t make an error, she worked down the DNA panel, identifying and entering the marker values used by the national database. She started the search.

  The system was slow tonight, hers was one of several indexes being run, and she pushed away from the terminal rather than sit and watch the screen. She went to brew a pot of coffee. What if this didn’t pan out? What did she try next? She was tired enough she didn’t know. She always tried to have a game plan in mind, an idea of what she would try next if this led nowhere, but this case was running thin on leads to chase.

  She took her time fixing the coffee, making it strong, needing the caffeine.

  Quit stalling. If nothing matches, waiting here isn’t going to change that.

  She walked back to the desk. On the terminal an index number had appeared, was blinking red.

  She spun around the chair and took a seat, on the verge of having not only an answer for Marcus but the solution of the case. She wrote down the index number, switched databases, and pulled up the details.

  Daniel Gray. Age 31. Armed Robbery. Aggravated Assault. Murder in the First Degree.

  She scrolled down the screen.

  “What the . . . ”

  She just looked at it for several moments, stunned.

  Deceased. October 27, last year. Lethal injection by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

  What in the world did she do with this?

  She considered the probability the DNA tests were flawed and finally rejected it. She was not above a mistake, but she knew the care that had been taken with this sample, the safeguards at each step. It was solid.

  Could blood on glass fragments survive over nine months in a hotel room? No. She also rejected that. The glass shards had not been scattered over and worn into the carpet, the sharp edges dulled from friction. The glass was recent.

  The database used only a subset of the markers in its search. The DNA of the shooter was similar enough to match with a dead man? She had got a mitochondrial match. It could only happen with a close family relative.

  She went back to the original database, pulled the full index panel, printed it, and grabbed a red pen. She clicked on the light box and set down the DNA panel she had developed for the shooter next to the one from the national database.

  Forty minutes later she knew she was looking at the answer to the case. “Hello, Daniel Gray,” she whispered, easing back from the light box. “Let me guess, Judge Whitmore sentenced you to death. So who in your family decided to get revenge? Your father, your brother? Someone did. And I don’t have enough DNA markers from the partial test results to tell, so we’ve got ourselves a nice mystery here.”

  She reached for the phone . . . and hesitated. Quinn . . . if he understood the importance of her telling him before Marcus, then maybe she would start giving him the benefit of the doubt on other things too. She punched in Quinn’s pager number and marked it urgent.

  Ten minutes later when he still had not returned her page her frustration was intense. Forget it. She picked up the phone to call Marcus. As she punched in the third number, Quinn walked through the door.

  “Your page was marked urgent.” His cowboy hat and his jacket were wet. It must be raining outside.

  “Sit down.” She was still annoyed enough at the way her heart had leaped when she saw him that she wasn’t feeling particularly friendly. He raised one eyebrow at her brisk tone and pulled over a stool.

  She handed over the page. “The DNA test results on the glass shards are back.”

  He read it, then looked at her. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. There’s your motive. The shooter is someone in his family.”

  Quinn checked his watch, then reached for his phone and dialed. “Marcus, we need you in Chicago. Lisa has something you should see.” He listened. “See you then,” Quinn agreed and closed the phone. Lisa wasn’t surprised that Marcus asked no questions. On her word alone, he would come without question.

  “He’ll divert to O’Hare. Who else do we need?”

  “Dave,” she decided. “And someone who can get us detail
s of the Daniel Gray case.”

  * * *

  Marcus got Quinn’s page on the way to the airport. With luck of timing he was able to grab a seat on a United flight bound for Chicago just ready to pull away from the gate.

  He walked into Lisa’s lab very early Wednesday morning, coming straight from the airport. Her assistant pointed him down to the research library conference center. Dave was there, Quinn, and eight others from the investigative team. They squeezed in another chair for him. He set down his briefcase, accepted the coffee he was handed, and looked across the table at Lisa. “What have you found?”

  The sunlight was streaming into the room from the big windows behind her. She was tipped back in her seat with her hands cradling a cup of coffee, and she had the unfocused look of someone who had not yet been to bed. She gave a rueful smile. “The shooter is dead.”

  He didn’t even blink. “So are we looking for a body, a zombie, or a ghost?”

  “Trust you to be literal.” She leaned forward and handed him a sheet of paper, crumpled from having been passed around. “The DNA I was able to pick up from the shattered glass generated this hit.”

  “Daniel Gray.” Marcus read further down, then looked up abruptly. “Executed?”

  “The death sentence was given by Judge Whitmore. The DNA matches to the Gray family. There are subtle differences in the panels when you go beyond the tags used in the database index. The shooter is a close relative of Daniel Gray. A father, brother, cousin, son. But I didn’t have enough DNA markers to work with to get it tighter than that.”

  Marcus felt intense relief. They had the motive. Someone had gone after Judge Whitmore because of the decision he had made in this death penalty case. “Okay, you’ve been working this all night. How far have you gotten in identifying who in the Gray family is the shooter?”

  Dave sorted files in front of him and handed over two. “Daniel Gray’s father is one Titus Gray. You’ll need a week to read the full file. This is the Cliffs Notes. He’s into every racket on the East Coast from drugs to gambling. The FBI has been focusing on his family for years.

  “I would make Titus a natural for the shooter except for one thing,” Dave continued. “Titus apparently disowned Daniel after he was sent to prison and has had absolutely nothing to do with him since. A search of the prison records has yet to turn up so much as one phone call or one letter, let alone a visit during the twelve years Daniel was incarcerated.”

  Marcus read again the printout for the executed man. Sentenced to death for the murder of an undercover cop. “Why disown him? I somehow doubt Titus would consider killing a cop offensive.”

  “As best we can conclude there was a power struggle in the family. The hit wasn’t sanctioned.”

  Marcus nodded. “That I can believe. Okay. Who else?”

  “There is one brother. Connor Gray. He was fifteen when Daniel was sentenced. Shortly thereafter, Titus sent Connor to a private school in Europe. From there it was Harvard Law School. Then private law practice. If Connor is involved in the family business, no one can find a trace of it. He’s got a clean record, not even a misdemeanor. And he doesn’t get along with his father.”

  “Was he close to his brother?”

  “There are records of occasional visits to see Daniel, fourteen over the twelve years. He was not there when his brother was executed.”

  Dave picked up the last file. “We ran the alias Henry James, used to rent room 1323, through the databases again looking for some link to the Daniel Gray. The alias has been used by a man named Frank Keaton—he’s a first cousin, has worked for Titus for fifteen years. He’s suspected of two murders and about four assaults.”

  “A father, a brother, and a cousin.”

  Dave nodded. “And motive with all of them.”

  “There’s more,” Quinn added from where he leaned against the wall by the door. “Connor was at the Renaissance Hotel that weekend.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Room 1317. He was involved in merger discussions being held under cover of the conference.”

  Three people in the family could have done the shooting; all had reasonable motive. “What about the sketch?”

  Lisa silently handed him a file. Marcus opened it and groaned. It took only a glance to know they had a problem with their most powerful evidence. “So Shari saw either Frank or Connor. With the disguise that was used it could easily be either man.”

  Quinn nodded. “We’ve shown both Frank’s and Connor’s pictures at the hotel. The security guard for the fourteenth floor telecommunication center is positive on Connor. And we’ve got three who have identified Frank as being here the week before the shooting.”

  Marcus looked across the table at his sister, tapping the file in his hand. “Who’s left-handed?” he asked quietly.

  She gave a small smile. “Connor,” she answered simply. “The one without so much as a parking ticket.”

  Connor and Frank had to be involved, but the father—had it been a family conspiracy to kill the judge? “The father, Titus. Is there any way he was not involved?” Marcus asked the room at large, looking for their perspective.

  “His eldest son was sentenced to death by Judge Whitmore. Frank works for him. The church shooting sounds like Frank,” Quinn added. “He’s known to brag about his marksmanship.”

  “Missed at six feet, missed at two hundred feet by a hair. Two shooters. Connor and Frank.”

  Quinn nodded. “I think so.”

  “And Titus ordered them both to act,” Marcus concluded.

  “I don’t think Frank would act without Titus’s approval,” Dave confirmed.

  “Is there anything concrete on Titus?”

  Dave shook his head. “He was in Europe when the two shootings occurred. Wiretaps that the FBI had in place for other reasons didn’t overhear anything. We’ll have to get either Connor or Frank to supply that connection. Frank is used to a hard life and jail time. Connor is more likely to turn on Titus if the pressure hits, but he’s also his son. I think we’ll need to have both Connor and Frank to get leverage to reach Titus.”

  Marcus ran the three names over again in his mind—father, brother, cousin. “Is there any way Titus and Frank acted alone? Without Connor?”

  Lisa shook her head. “Connor probably hoped it would appear to be the case, but he made a fatal mistake. He’s the only one who is left-handed. Connor is the shooter.”

  Marcus would trust that opinion. Connor had shot the judge at the hotel, Frank had shot at Shari at the church, and Titus had set them both in motion. “Where do we find them today?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Marcus shifted in the plane seat to reach up and shut off his reading light. It was late, he was tired, and they were still over an hour from the lake house. Dave and Quinn were flying back with him.

  With the reading light off, he was able to see again the view out the small plane window. The blinking light at the end of the plane wing lit the scattered thin clouds around the plane, bathing them in whiteness. Cruising at twenty thousand feet, they were in broken cloud cover with some clouds drifting by below them. When he could see the ground there were clusters of lights marking cities and towns and then black landscape broken only by the occasional line of lights from cars.

  Marcus stretched out his legs and considered trying to get some sleep, only to discard the idea. He had never been comfortable sleeping with the low drone of engines as the background.

  The plan was in place after a long day of conference calls with Washington.

  If Shari could pick out Connor in a lineup of photos, they would move against Connor and Frank. Arresting Titus would have to wait for more evidence. No one wanted him to slip through when they had a chance to send him away on conspiracy to murder a federal judge.

  Marcus felt an ache in his heart, knowing the gamble they were taking. The evidence was all circumstantial. But the risk of flight was simply too great to wait—Connor and Frank could disappear anywhere in the worl
d at a moment’s notice.

  The warrants had to find the direct evidence. The gun used to kill Judge Whitmore, the blood-splattered suit, the gloves, the shoes, the disguise. It was hard to accept the reality that Lisa, by being so thorough with the evidence, had done the defense attorney’s job for him.

  The evidence pointed to either Frank or to Connor—the partial DNA markers obtained from the shattered glass said it could be either one of them; the sketch Shari had given suggested both; witnesses placed both men at the hotel. The defense attorney would have a credible argument for reasonable doubt regardless of which man they attempted to convict.

  They would never get a conviction on Connor if all they had unique to him was the fact he was left-handed. Frank had the criminal record; Connor didn’t. And if they tried to convict Frank, his attorney could reasonably argue the shooter had been Connor.

  They had to find direct physical evidence. Or they had to get either Connor or Frank to cut a deal and talk because the option was unacceptable. A conviction would rise or fall on Shari’s eyewitness testimony. And that would place Shari’s life in grave danger.

  Marcus pulled out the sketch he had done from her description of the shooter and turned the reading light back on. A few subtle changes and it matched Frank. A few others, and it was Connor.

  What if Shari couldn’t pick out the shooter from the photo lineup?

  For the sake of the case he hoped she could.

  For the sake of her safety, he hoped she couldn’t. He wanted her removed as a factor in this case.

  He was concerned about how she would react when she heard the news they had a suspect, learned the crushing news they might not have the evidence to convict. If the worst happened—an acquittal, a hung jury—it would destroy her. And he didn’t want to see the glimmer of fear in her eyes when she looked at the photo of the man who had tried to kill her.

  Put it aside. There is nothing you can do but deal with it as it comes.