The judge left the room as the three men looked at each other.
“Well,” Ashley said, “that went over well. He will call Steinberg, and we should get this done.” The three of them shook hands as Cronin asked Ashley to drop him off at Lindsey’s house in Belle Terre on the way back from Riverhead.
On the way out of the building, Cronin asked Simmons, “Who’s paying you to defend Patty Saunders?”
“You are,” Simmons answered as he walked away.
Cronin looked at Ashley and said, “What the hell?”
Ashley put his arm around him and replied, “He’s doing this pro bono. He knows a good thing to put on his resume of cases. He’ll write off his expenses, which means savings on taxes, which in effect we all pay. He’s just fucking with you.”
Cronin replied, “Did you see the look on the judge’s face when he stared down Simmons for laughing at his remarks?”
“You have to admit,” Ashley started smiling, “the judge was unintentionally funny, but I think we shook him up a little by the request.” They both were laughing as they got in Ashley’s car. The assistant district attorney spoke up about Simmons’ remark about “the singing detective.”
“You were a bit defensive,” he said to the detective lieutenant.
“Yes, I was,” Cronin replied. “He’s off the wall, but quite frankly there isn’t a better person to be on a case like this. If my life depended on it, I would want him with me. He did save my life a few years ago, and we are all a little nuts; he’s just not afraid to show it. He needs protection because of what police protocol is used to, but he is a damn good cop who gives 110 percent. They both are. This case is not something they have ever experienced before.”
Ashley interrupted, “And that’s why you’ve gotten involved in the field on this one?”
Cronin replied, “If I didn’t, we would have the FBI everywhere, and O’Connor and Sherman would eventually have consultant roles in upcoming movies.”
Ashley was quick to respond, “Who cares as long as the case gets resolved?”
“It’s our problem eight people are dead, and I don’t want the FBI running my household,” The detective lieutenant replied.
“Any theories?” Ashley said.
“I know who is behind this,” Cronin answered.
Ashley slammed on the brakes and moved to the side of the road. “Excuse me!” he remarked. Cronin gave him a stare, and they both looked at each other until the assistant district attorney spoke up.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ashley asked.
Cronin stared out the window and spoke, saying, “You just get Saunders released on bail, and I’ll get my evidence.”
The Assistant District Attorney continued to look at the detective staring out the window before he asked, “Are you going to tell me anything?”
“Not now,” Cronin replied. “As I said to the chief, I don’t know who to trust when it comes to this case.”
The assistant district attorney pounded on the steering wheel of the car and said, “What about you, Detective? What about trusting you?”
Cronin turned his head back to Ashley and said, “This is my case until your office convinces the district attorney or the chief to take it away from me. You don’t have much of a choice.”
He started to turn his head back toward his window again when Ashley put his hand on the detective’s shoulder.
Ashley said, “Your whole career and your life are on the line. If you don’t get yourself killed, never mind about flushing out the killer; your career will be flushed down the toilet.”
Cronin nodded and answered, “Did you ever notice, when you flush the toilet, the water goes round and round in circles ’til it finally goes down the drain?”
Ashley looked forward with confusion on his face as he spoke. “I never thought about it, but now that you mentioned it, yeah, I guess so.”
“Well,” Cronin replied, “that’s life. Life is a circle, and we all end up being flushed away.”
Ashley stared at the detective before speaking. “You know you are starting to sound like Detective Johnson now.”
Cronin laughed and said, “Good ol’ Bud.”
“What about Detective Powers?” the assistant district attorney asked.
“Paul?” Cronin replied. “Don’t get on his bad side.”
“Is that a hint?” the assistant district attorney asked.
“No hints,” Cronin replied. “You get Saunders released on bond. If Judge Green tells you tomorrow she will be held without bond, you and the district attorney push. I don’t give a shit. This case will drag for weeks unless she’s out there.”
“OK, Ashley said, “but you told me William Lance was putting up the bond money, and then you tell the judge it’s anonymous.”
“Officially,” Cronin replied, “it will be, but just wait. It’s all going to fall into place. Even if I don’t make it through this, it will come into place for you to end it.”
“Words like that,” Ashley replied, “tell me you trust me.”
The detective shook his head and said, “I trust you will do the right thing, but you have no need to know the rest of my thoughts at this time. It’s for your own safety as well as others’ for now.”
Ashley started to put his car in drive but took his hand off the shifter. “Kevin,” he said, “are you sure you know what you’re doing? There has to be another way.”
“No” Cronin replied. “This is the way it has to be. It’s a game, and the one who’s standing or alive at the end of the game wins.”
“How much of what you’re thinking do your detectives know?” the assistant district attorney asked.
Cronin took a deep breath before answering, “They know enough to keep them in the game. I need them involved to keep the other players safe, and now we have a 12-year-old in this.”
There was silence in the car. Ashley could hear the sounds of the trucks and cars whizzing by on the Long Island Expressway.
“Well?” Cronin replied. Ashley wasn’t ready to move yet.
“The girl, how does she play in all of this? Shit,” he replied, “now you have me talking your language.”
The detective lieutenant laughed as he replied, “She’s a key right now. I know they want her eliminated.”
“Wait,” Ashley said. “You said 'they.’ Are you convinced there’s more than one person involved at this point?”
Cronin replied, “My friend, to play a good game, you need a few players.”
“What?” Ashley raised his voice. “Two maybe, maybe three, everyone else is dead.”
Cronin took his seat belt off and spoke. “Get Patty Saunders out on bail, and you may have more than three players playing.”
“And you?” Ashley asked. “You know how to play?”
“With an adjustment to the rules, yes,” Cronin replied.
“And the girl?” the assistant district attorney asked.
“She’s in good hands,” the detective lieutenant answered. “Healey is barely letting her use the girls’ room in private, and according to Bud, he’s the most serious cop on the beat. Anybody touches that girl, he’ll tear their arm off and beat them to death with it.”
“Can he stop a bullet?” Ashley asked.
“No, he can’t,” Cronin replied. “But God help them if Healey catches them, hit or miss. He’s the right man for this, and she knows it.”
Ashley put on his confused face again and asked, “How does a 12-year-old know something like that?”
“You haven’t met this girl yet,” Cronin replied. “These poor bastards had no idea they would kidnap the dog of a girl genius.”
“Maybe I should talk to her then,” Ashley said.
“Let me know when,” the detective lieutenant replied. “I’ll set it up with Healey, or you can come with me now. That’s where you were dropping me off.”
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p; “Sounds good,” the assistant district attorney answered.
“Just as well,” Cronin replied. “This way it will be easier for you with Healey around if you’re with me.”
The detective lieutenant proceeded to tell the assistant district attorney about what had happened with one of the girl’s parents on the school bus, and you could hear their laughter if you were standing outside the car.
“So,” Cronin finally said, “anything else you want to say before we get on the road? We would have been there by now if we didn’t have this chat for the past 30 minutes.”
Ashley put his hand back on the shift while looking at the detective and said, “I’ll give you the same courtesy. I’ll trust that you will do the right thing.”
The detective smiled as he spoke, saying, “Fair enough.”
Cronin put his seat belt back on as a police cruiser flashed its lights behind them.
“Oh, great,” Ashley said.
Cronin smiled and said, “What did you expect? He probably thinks we are having sex or making out, we have been parked here for so long.”
Ashley shook his head and said, “Now I really know where Bud gets his training from.”
The officer approached the vehicle asking for registration and license, and instead they showed identification and the badge of the detective. The officer verified the photos and Cronin’s badge number and suggested to them the parking area would be safer to talk rather than a breakdown lane on the Long Island Expressway.
“Noted,” the assistant district attorney said as they drove off to Belle Terre. Cronin called Healey and said that they would be arriving late and reviewed the day at school with Lindsey. The officer reported there were no problems during the day and they were now home waiting for them. The detective lieutenant told Healey they would be there in about 15 minutes.
As he disconnected the conversation, Ashley spoke. “Can’t wait to speak to your girl,” he said in a voice of sarcasm. Cronin just smiled.
Paul and Bud were finishing up at the mansion with an extensive search of the guesthouse. This time, Bud took the keys out of the car. Paul got a call from the lab that the man who had taken the vehicle was Phil Smith. Bud thought to himself as to the reasons why Smith wouldn’t care if his fingerprints were left in the car but went to great lengths not to leave prints if he was wearing the Ghost Face mask. He decided to express his thoughts to Paul and then added they must be two different people.
Paul replied, “Maybe he wants us to think they are two different people. Maybe he wants to frame someone else. We should take a look at the video on the grounds here also.”
Bud pushed a little harder, saying, “I think somebody is after the 3 million in cash that is still in the house. That’s what started all of this.”
Bud got out his BlackBerry and sent William Lance a text asking if the $3 million in cash was still in the house. As they walked around a bit more, Bud had not received an answer. He sent Deborah a message asking if her father was with her in the house in Florida.
She answered, “Yes, why?”
Bud replied, “No worries, but tell him to check his phone.”
She answered, “OK, anything else?”
“Yes,” he said. “May I call you later?”
She wrote back, “If you don’t, I’ll have another detective assigned to the case.”
He smiled as he looked at Paul, who was searching the rest of the guesthouse. His BlackBerry buzzed with a text from Cronin to meet him at Lindsey’s house.
They got in the car as Paul remarked, “Oh, looky here. Our car is still here.”
“Smartass,” Bud said as he pulled out on to Cliff Street. He drove to Bell Circle in three minutes, where the assistant district attorney and Cronin were walking up to Lindsey with Healey by her side and her parents in the background on the front lawn. Bud checked his watch; it was 4:27 pm. They walked up to everyone as Healey continued to look around as they spoke and an additional police cruiser was parked on the side of the road about 30 yards away. Cronin had already finished introducing Lindsey to Assistant District Attorney Ashley, who asked her some routine questions.
“A beautiful village you live in,” Ashley said to the 12-year-old. “How large is it?” he asked as he smiled to Cronin.
Without hesitation, she answered, “Belle Terre is 0.9 square miles, Mr. Ashley.” The smile was erased quickly.
“Is that land and water, Lindsey?”
“Yes and no,” she answered. “Belle Terre is 0.9 square miles of land and 0.0 square miles of water, therefore its total is land and water combined, but none of it is water.”
“OK,” Ashley said, as Bud was smiling.
“Well,” Detective Johnson remarked, “the numbers on Belle Terre are rather easy to remember. It’s not like we asked you the size of Long Island or anything,” he said with a funny smirk.
The young girl squinted her eyes at Bud as she replied, “Long Island is 1,401 miles long and 23 miles wide at the farthest points. Its coordinates are 40.8 °N 73.3 °W with a population of 7,568,304, according to the 2010 census. Is there anything else you would like to know?” she asked as she turned her head at an angle.
Bud pointed at her and said, “You’re just messing with me.”
“Look it up,” the young girl answered with a smile.
Cronin interrupted, “Bud, you better quit while you’re this far behind. Lindsey, may I speak to you alone for a moment?” he asked.
They walked away from the crowd of people except for Healey, who followed about five feet behind them. Close enough if there was a problem, yet far enough not to hear their conversation. Bud and Paul watched intently as Cronin took her over by the car and pulled out the envelope full of photographs. Paul turned to talk to Ashley, but Bud kept his eye on Cronin. The detective pulled out one photograph and showed it to Lindsey. It was killing him he could not hear what was going on.
“Yes,” Lindsey said to Cronin. “I have seen him before.”
“Where, Lindsey?” Cronin asked. “And when?”
“I saw him speaking with the man who took my dog in Mount Misery Point on Sunday at 2:29 pm.”
“What were you doing there, Lindsey?”
“I love going there in the summer. The view is beautiful, and if we can’t go far, we go there for a walk.”
Cronin asked, “We being you and your dad?”
“Yes,” Lindsey answered.
Cronin then asked, “Did you ever see the man who took your dog with anybody else?”
“No,” she replied.
The detective pushed on, asking, “How long did you see them talking to each other?”
“It was an uncomfortable feeling to me, so I asked my dad if we could leave. He trusts my feelings, but it was four minutes by the time we left.”
“OK,” Cronin said. “Thank you very much. You can go back with Officer Healey now.”
Cronin turned around with his back to everyone and looked at the photo. It was the one he had put an X on the back. Bud was still staring at Cronin and wondering why he had only showed Lindsey one photo from the batch.
He began to walk toward the detective lieutenant when his Black-
Berry rang. It was from LI Pulse magazine.
Oh, Bud thought, finally a chat with Nada.
“Hello, Detective Johnson?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“This is The Shannyn T, and I’m calling for Nada to tell you a list of questions will be faxed over to your precinct for the interview. Please try and get them back to me over the next 48 hours so we can get them published.”
“OK,” the detective said, “and your name again?”
“Oh, this is The Shannyn T; I am an intern here helping out Nada and the staff.”
“OK,” the detective answered. “Do I call you 'The’ or 'Shannyn’?”
“Neither,” the girl answered, “but y
ou can call me 'The Shannyn T.’” Bud held out his BlackBerry to see if it would help him interpret the girl better, but it didn’t help.
“Fine, The Shannyn T,” he answered. “We will get back to you once I get the questions from the precinct.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said as she hung up.
Bud sent an email to Nada asking who the hell The Shannyn T was, and she replied back, “She is a terrific intern who works as The Shannyn T, and remember, it’s a Y in Shannyn not an O or A or an E.” He answered her, “The world is filling up with crazy people.” She answered him immediately, texting, “You should see the way she treats her pet goldfish, Pocky, on her desk. You would think it’s a dog.” He laughed as he walked up to Cronin.
“Anything you need to tell me?”
“No,” the detective answered.
“What about the mansion, anything?”
“We didn’t see much, but it’s obvious someone was looking for the 3 million if it’s there. Cronin nodded, and Bud continued, saying, “I asked William Lance through text if the money was still in the house, and he didn’t answer me. I find that odd.”
Cronin nodded but didn’t say anything. “What are you working on tonight?” he asked Bud.
“We have the wake for Allan tonight and a funeral tomorrow,” Bud said.
“I’ll be there,” Cronin replied.
He left Bud standing there and walked over to Healey to tell him the girl was not to go near the wake or funeral the next day. Healey nodded. Bud stood by the car and looked at the envelope full of photographs as Cronin kneeled to get at Lindsey’s level of eyesight.
“Our conversation is between me and you for now, OK?”
“No problem,” Lindsey answered.
Bud thought about reaching in the front seat but thought better of it. Cronin walked back to Bud and told him to get to the precinct after the funeral the next day.
“We have the Pulse interview questions anyway, boss,” he answered.
“Another busy day,” Cronin replied. “I have things to take care of as well.”
Paul walked over to the car with Ashley as Cronin looked at him. “Get with Anderson’s wife and see if you can find out anything more about him. It’s likely she doesn’t know much, but if there were problems, she might be willing to talk. Then check the Now offices and go through everything. Maybe he left a clue unintentionally in all of this.”
The Face of Fear: A Powers and Johnson Novel Page 36