Fort Point (Maine Justice Book 2)

by Davis, Susan Page

  The black car fishtailed and came to a halt just short of the blockade, passenger side to them. Eddie parked with his tires inches from the spike mat, and he and Nate got out, shielding themselves behind the truck doors. Joe parked beside Eddie. Harvey got out and ran to Eddie’s position. The Mercedes just sat there.

  “Think he’s hurt?” Harvey asked.

  “Dunno. Better put your vest on,” Eddie said.

  Harvey had thrown it in the back seat with his jacket. “Wait,” he said.

  Three more patrol cars nosed up behind them. Nate and Eddie both had vests, and they started folding up the nearest mats. A couple of Westbrook guys on the other side started yelling at Nadeau over a speaker, “Get out of the car. Get out of the car.”

  Harvey yelled, “Joe, get on the radio and tell them this guy has a hostage, and to back off!” Joe waved in acknowledgement.

  Nate had the mat out of the way enough so Eddie could drive closer to Nadeau. They both got in the truck, and Eddie eased it to within ten yards of the Mercedes. Harvey had his vest on and the holster over it, and he instructed Joe to follow Eddie.

  “Does this car have a speaker?”

  Joe reached up and switched it on. Harvey took the mouthpiece and said, “Nadeau, give it up.”

  The passenger window went down about four inches.

  “Nadeau, let Cathy go. You can’t gain anything here.”

  A gun barrel eased out the gap at the top of the window and Harvey told Joe, “Get down!” He and Joe ducked below the dash. They heard the shot. Harvey sat up. The Mercedes window was up. His cell phone rang.

  “Harv.” It was Eddie. His vehicle was closer to Nadeau’s than Joe and Harvey’s was. “I think I’ve got a bullet in my radiator.”

  “You guys okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you see Cathy Wagner?”

  “I didn’t see anything but the gun and some movement.”

  “Stay low.”

  Eddie said, “Do we need a negotiator?”

  “I don’t know what we need,” Harvey said. “Are you praying?” Joe shot him a glance, then looked forward again.

  “Yes,” Eddie said. “You know Mike has training. Or Cranston or Wood.”

  “Okay, let’s sign off, and I’ll try to get Mike.”

  Mike answered his phone immediately.

  “I’m right behind you, Harv.”

  Harvey looked back, and behind six or seven squad cars, he saw Mike’s vehicle.

  “Can you come up here?”

  “10-4.” Mike drove up as close as he could and came the rest of the way on foot because police cars completely blocked the road now. Harvey got out and walked behind the car to meet him.

  “Nice situation here,” Harvey said.

  Mike peered ahead. “Has he got the woman?”

  “Didn’t see her, but he must. We’ve got a speaker.”

  “Got another vest?”

  “No. Take mine.”

  Harvey held Mike’s holster while he put the vest on.

  “Officer Bard gonna make it?” Harvey asked.

  “Got her in the shoulder. She was bleeding a lot.”

  “Did you call Sharon?”

  “Yep. About ten minutes ago. She was mad, all right.”

  Mike took the microphone, and Harvey stayed behind the car.

  “What do you want, Tom?” Mike called.

  No answer.

  “Tom, this is Chief Browning. What do you want?”

  The window slid down again. Four inches. Six. Eight. Cathy Wagner’s head became visible. Nadeau’s left arm was around her neck, and his right hand held a gun to her right temple.

  “Throw the gun out, Tom,” Mike said.

  “Go to hell.”

  Somebody’s going to, Harvey thought, and he started praying again.

  “All right, Tom, keep the gun. Just let Cathy go.”

  “No way.”

  “What do you want?”

  No answer.

  “Come on, Tom, you must want something.”

  “Just let me go.”

  “How far do you think you’ll get?” Mike asked.

  “I was thinking maybe Brazil.”

  “Not going to happen, Tom. You know that.”

  “I’m not giving you this witness.”

  “We’ve got other witnesses,” Mike said. “We’ve got your pal David Murphy in a cell right now. He told us everything. We’ve got another witness who saw you kill Luke Frederick. Cathy won’t do you any harm. Let her go, Tom.”

  Harvey walked up behind Mike. Mike looked at him, then back at the Mercedes. The front door of the black car opened just a crack.

  “Get down, Harv,” said Mike. Eddie and Nate crouched behind the truck doors. The car door opened slowly. When it was halfway open, Cathy Wagner’s body, in the white slacks and red and white shirt, fell out, limp, to the pavement. Harvey thought she was dead, but then she moved her arm.

  “Okay, Tom,” said Mike. “Now throw the gun out. Nice and slow.”

  The car door closed. Cathy lay on the tar. Her head moved very slowly. She raised it a tiny bit, and looked toward them. Her face was bloody. Her left arm reached out toward them, and she hitched her body an inch closer.

  Mike said, “There’s an ambulance behind my car, Harvey. Go back there and try to clear things enough so they can get up here. We can’t let her lie there long.”

  Harvey turned away and heard a muffled shot. He spun around. Mike was looking hard at the Mercedes.

  “What was it?”

  “Nadeau, I think.”

  Eddie ran crouched toward the black car, with his gun in both hands in front of him. He flattened himself low against the rear fender. Slowly, he reached forward and pulled the rear door handle. The back door swung open. He ducked quickly down to look inside, the gun in front of his face, then ducked back out again. He did it again, slower this time, then waved.

  Harvey said, “Joe, get that ambulance up here,” and ran with Mike and Nate to the Mercedes.

  Eddie was bending over Cathy Wagner on the pavement. He looked up at them. “Shot himself in the head.”

  Mike went around the car and opened the driver’s door. The Westbrook police were walking out to meet them.

  Harvey knelt beside Cathy. “Mrs. Wagner, can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” It was barely a whisper.

  “What hurts, Cathy?”

  “My neck and my back and—” she turned her head and laid her cheek on the tar.

  “We’ve got an ambulance here for you.” Harvey stood up. The EMT’s were running toward them, carrying their gear.

  “Jeff!”

  “Harvey! What happened? Is she shot?”

  “I don’t think so. She said her neck and her back hurt. He was choking her, I think. There’s blood on her face, maybe from where she hit the tar.”

  They backed off so Jeff and Mark Johnson could work.

  Harvey walked around to the other side of the Mercedes.

  Mike straightened. “Awful mess, Harv. We need the M.E.”

  Harvey sent Nate to call for the medical examiner.

  *****

  Harvey was late, and he knew it. It was almost eight o’clock when he was able to leave the scene.

  Jeff had said he thought Cathy Wagner would stabilize, and he and Mark had put her on a back board and taken her in the ambulance. The M.E. had come and gone, and the hearse had followed. The Mercedes sat on the shoulder, awaiting the tow truck they’d called. The road had been cleared of police cars. Westbrook’s contingent had loaded up their spike mats and gone home. Only two units remained, tying up the loose ends.

  They held an impromptu press conference on the side of the road, with Mike and Harvey giving the basics of the chase. Mike had shooed the reporters off to their computers, promising complete information at the police station at ten the next morning.

  Word came over the radio that Elaine Bard was at Maine Medical, serious but stable.

  “I’ll
go over there,” Mike said.

  “I should go.”

  “No, Harv, you have other places to be tonight. Stop by the hospital in the morning.”

  Harvey nodded reluctantly.

  “Come into the office at nine,” Mike said. “We’ll go over the presentation for the press.”

  Eddie offered to drive Harvey to the church. The bullet had missed his radiator, and the truck seemed none the worse except for a scar on the front bumper. Harvey sent Nate back to the police station for his car with Joe, telling him to rest well over the weekend and lose the uniform.

  “There’s blood on your jacket,” said Eddie. “Want to go change?”

  Harvey looked down. Cathy’s blood. “No, I’ll just take it off. Can I leave it in the truck?”

  “Mais oui. It’s not good to show up for a date with blood all over you.”

  By the time they arrived at the church, the pastor’s study was empty, and a party was in full swing in the fellowship hall. Harvey and Eddie walked down the hallway. Fifty women and the pastor. Mr. Rowland was eating cake and cracking jokes. Jennifer sat in the seat of honor, holding up a toaster. Now they had three.

  “The groom has arrived!” Beth shouted when she saw Harvey, and all the ladies turned to look at him and Eddie.

  Mrs. Rowland put a paper plate with a piece of cake on it in Harvey’s hand, and at least three single girls went to get one for Eddie. Harvey looked at it and decided he didn’t want to dump that much sugar into an empty stomach.

  Neither of the two detectives had been to a bridal shower before, but Harvey decided that if the pastor could, they could. Someone placed a chair beside Jennifer for him, and he sat down and smiled at her.

  “Everything all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, fine.”

  She was struggling with silver ribbon. He managed to hand off the cake to somebody behind him, then brought out his pocketknife and sliced through the ribbon for her. The package was wrapped in paper covered with umbrellas and flowers. Jennifer peeled the paper off and opened the box. Trash bags.

  “That’s got to be from Beth,” Harvey said.

  Jennifer laughed. “It is. And we now have towels in every color of the rainbow.”

  “Great. You’ll only have to do laundry once a month.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  He couldn’t believe all the stuff she got that night, and this was only the prelim. Glasses, clothespins, dishrags, a wastebasket, pillowcases, steak knives, a jam kettle, and a teapot.

  At last she had opened everything.

  “Did you eat?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

  “Thought so.” She made him go over to the food table with her. They were in the cake stage, but there were little sandwiches left, and chips and pickles and carrot sticks. Jennifer filled a plate for him and asked Mrs. Williams if they had any milk. They did, for the coffee, and she emptied the last of it into a paper cup for him. He ate a little bit and drank the milk. Eddie was stuffing the cake down and drinking red punch. Cast iron stomach on that kid.

  The guests began to leave, and Beth took charge of packing up the gifts.

  Eddie picked up a clothesbasket full of pans and said, “Did you know this church has a singles class during Sunday school?”

  “Yes,” said Harvey.

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Eddie, it’s been there all the time.”

  “I didn’t know. Three people told me about it tonight.”

  “Let me guess. Three single women.”

  “Well, yeah. You think they just want more men in there?”

  “Probably eighty percent of the class is female.”

  “This is bad?” Eddie asked.

  Harvey picked up a pile of boxes and followed him out toward Jennifer’s car. “No, you’re right. It would be a good place for you to meet Christian girls.”

  “So, how come you and Jennifer don’t go to this class?”

  “Two reasons. One, we won’t be single after next week. Two, I’m old.”

  “So it’s for young singles? Are we talking high school here?” Eddie handed him a cookbook and a throw pillow.

  “No, I think you’ll be right at home. You should try it. Go Sunday morning, and tell me what you think.”

  They loaded presents into Eddie’s truck and Jennifer’s car and Beth’s car.

  “We ought to take all of this right to the new house,” Beth said as Eddie fit the last box into her trunk. Instead, they unloaded it at the little house, and she and Jennifer piled it all up in the living room.

  Jennifer said, “Tomorrow, instead of chasing a lighthouse, we’d better do some moving, don’t you think?”

  “I have to go to the station in the morning,” Harvey said. “Mike’s orders, but after a briefing with him and a press conference, I’m free.”

  “I think we’d better move you over to Van Cleeve Lane, and take all of this stuff, too.” Jennifer surveyed the pile of boxes. “I wish I didn’t have to work next week.”

  She had signed up for the twelve-week summer job before they set the wedding date, and she was getting Week 6 off for the honeymoon, but had felt she couldn’t ask for more. Harvey was starting to wish they both had two weeks off after the wedding, but it was too late to change any of that.

  When they’d unloaded everything, Jennifer pressed him for the details of their day’s work. She had told Beth of David Murphy’s arrest, but the later happenings were news to them, and Harvey let Eddie tell it. He sat back, half listening and half watching Jennifer’s reaction.

  Beth and Jennifer were a good audience, but Harvey was getting sleepy. He’d been tense all day, and finally was able to relax. He nodded off on the couch and awoke to hear Eddie saying, “Don’t mind him, he’s old.” He roused himself, and Eddie reluctantly said good-bye to the girls and took him home.

  Chapter 20

  Saturday, July 10 and beyond

  Harvey slept dreamlessly his last night at the apartment. Jeff called him from the fire station the next morning and told him Cathy Wagner would be all right in time. Her husband had come up from Epsom, and Jeff had met him at the hospital. He was furious with the police department and would no doubt pay the captain a visit at the police station to vent his wrath.

  “How do you like the new job?” Harvey asked.

  “Great,” Jeff said. “They threw me in with my clothes on last night with that shooting, but I think I’m really going to like living down here.”

  Harvey smiled. “Your sister had a bridal shower at the church last night, and we now have enough household goods to open an emporium. If you need a toaster or towels, see Jennifer.”

  “How’s Beth?” Jeff asked.

  “What, you haven’t called her yet this morning?”

  “No.”

  Harvey held back his laugh. “She was fine last night. But she’s quit sassing me. Funny. She was always so mouthy.”

  “Beth? Mouthy?”

  “The worst. But for the past few days she’s been almost feminine.”

  “Must be the weather.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe you’ve been more polite to her, and she’s responding,” Jeff suggested.

  “No, I’m still giving her what for.”

  “She’s never mouthy when I’m around.”

  “Oh, maybe that’s it. Do you think?”

  After Mike’s briefing at the station, he prepared for the press conference. He opened it by giving the solution of the old burglary and Fairley’s murder to the reporters, along with background on the four teenagers who had committed the crime. Then he worked his way up through the revolver concealed fourteen years until Philip Whitney’s death, the reunion, Luke Frederick’s death, and the murder of Martin Blake because Murphy thought the author saw too much.

  Mike took over to elaborate on Friday’s events and gave medical updates on Elaine and Cathy. He had consulted the district attorney, and it loo
ked like Mrs. Wagner would not be charged if she continued to cooperate.

  With Thelma Blake’s permission, Harvey gave Ryan Toothaker a bonus, copies of her husband’s last photos. The Press Herald ran them on the front page the next day, with Ryan’s sidebar on an 11-year-old boy’s identification of Luke Frederick’s murderer.

  Harvey stopped at the hospital to see Elaine. She was groggy, but doing all right. Flowers and balloons vied for space around the bed.

  “How are you feeling, Elaine?” he asked.

  “Sore. I let you down, Captain.”

  “Don’t talk that way.”

  “You gave me the location on paper. I shouldn’t have said it to Lyons the way I did.”

  “It happened. Next time you’ll be more careful.”

  “I’m thinking I did a lousy job of protecting Cathy Wagner.”

  Harvey shook his head. “I made a poor decision. I should have insisted on two officers with her. I knew Nadeau was out there, and you shouldn’t have been alone.”

  “He busted in the door,” she said.

  “Yeah. That was not your fault.” He held up a paper bag. “I brought you something.”

  “Not one of Martin Blake’s books, I hope.”

  Harvey laughed. “No, it’s chocolate.”

  Elaine smiled. “Thanks, captain. That’s almost as good as what Sarah Benoit brought me.”

  “What was that?”

  “A picture of Cathy Wagner in her room down the hall. I’m so glad she survived.”

  *****

  After lunch, Harvey, Rick, and Eddie came to Jennifer’s house to help move furniture.

  “We’ve already put my bed and bookshelves in the new house,” Harvey reported. “I’m leaving the sofa at the apartment for Jeff, at least until he gets his old bed down here from Skowhegan.”

  “What about the kitchen table?” Jennifer asked, remembering the day he had bought it.

  “Well, yeah, I guess Jeff can keep that if he wants it,” Harvey said soberly. “We’ve got one at Van Cleeve Lane.”

  “No single man should live without a table,” Eddie said. “It warps you somehow.”

  “Watch it,” Harvey said.