“This isn’t like the other night, Jesse. You can’t save someone who doesn’t want saving. But thanks. Maybe I’ll see you at a meeting.”
She turned and went into the building. Jesse stood there for a moment, fighting the urge to go in there after her. The thing is, she was right and he knew it. If she wanted out, she would have to do it on her own. There was something else he realized: He probably wasn’t ever going to see her at another meeting.
77
Jesse texted Molly that he was fine and that she could stand down. Almost as soon as he had finished texting, the phone vibrated in his palm.
“Jesse, what was that about?” Molly asked, her voice strained with worry. “What were you doing?”
“Filling in another piece of the puzzle.”
“You’re getting cryptic on me again.”
“The incident with Alisha and the bikers was no accident. Like I thought, it was a setup.”
“But who set it—”
“Soldier boy, Lee Harvey Vandercamp. No doubt on behalf of his father.”
“So are we going to go wide with his photo and flush him out?” Molly asked.
“I don’t think so. A guy like him, he’ll go to ground. For now, the best thing for us is to let him be overconfident and think we don’t know who he is or what he’s been up to. What’s up with Garrison?”
“Not much. Same routine as last night. Late hours at the office, then home.”
Jesse looked at his watch. “Go home and get some rest. I think we’re all going to have to meet again tomorrow night.”
“You sure, Jesse? I can put in a few more hours.”
“Go home, Crane.”
She clicked off.
* * *
—
ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Jesse’s Bluetooth kicked on and cut off the music he was listening to. His dashboard screen told him it was Dylan Taylor on the line. He picked up.
“What’s going on? You’re on the Swan Harbor cop, right?”
“Drake Daniels,” Dylan said. “Yeah.”
“This about him?”
“Maybe more than just him. What was the name of the guy with the landscaping service?”
“Garrison.”
“Well, two minutes ago Daniels pulled his cruiser into the driveway of a house with an Escalade EXT in the driveway. The driver’s-side door has a tree logo painted on it and—”
“Garrison written over the top of the tree.”
“That’s it.”
“Molly was sitting on the house until a little while ago. I told her to go home. Good thing you were on Daniels.”
“What do you think it means, the two of them getting together?”
Jesse considered the question for a moment. “I think they’re probably nervous.”
“About what?”
“About being loose ends,” Jesse said. “Garrison’s head landscaper, a guy named Roberto, has vanished. The Cummingses were murdered. If Garrison and Daniels are involved in this somehow, they’ve got to be wondering if they’re going to be next.”
“Or maybe that’s wishful thinking.”
“Only one way to find out. I think it’s time I had a talk with Lundquist and Chief Forster.”
“Talk? Talk about what?”
“Relax, Dylan. I don’t have enough to go to Weld with, but cop to cop, I think I can raise some questions and get cooperation.”
“What should I do?”
“Head home. Daniels and Garrison aren’t going anywhere at this hour.”
“Okay, Jesse, but I wish you’d let me know what’s going on. Alisha’s crawling out of her own skin. She feels so powerless in all this. I’m afraid she might do something stupid if this drags on much longer.”
“Go be with Alisha. We really can’t afford for her to act out.”
“Give me something to tell Alisha, Jesse.”
“Tell her I believe her.”
“That’ll mean a lot to her,” Dylan said. “I think the thing that’s weighed on her most was thinking you thought she killed an unarmed man. She knows what you risked for her, and the thought she’s let you down has been eating at her.”
“Dylan, you’re ex-military, right?” Jesse said, changing subjects.
“Army. Why?”
“Can you still rappel without breaking your neck?”
“Sure, but—”
“Can you take tomorrow morning off?”
“Until noon, not a problem. But, Jesse, I don’t understand.”
“You will. Meet me at the station at eight and don’t say anything about it to Alisha, please.”
“If it helps, of course.”
“It will help. Tomorrow at eight.”
Jesse pressed the disconnect tab on his steering wheel before Dylan Taylor could ask another question.
* * *
—
BY THE TIME HE GOT back to his condo, Cole was once again long asleep, and Jesse was in no mood to wake the kid up and question him about the photo. He figured that would keep until the opportunity presented itself. In the meantime, he had some calls to make and a bed to crawl into.
78
Lee Harvey stood at ease, hands clasped behind him as the Colonel paced back and forth. The only other time he had witnessed his father acting this way was on the day he told the Colonel he’d enlisted. That was a day he wasn’t ever likely to forget. Although there were many people involved in the movement given to histrionics, the Colonel had always been the rock who let everyone else carry the emotion. He was the puppet master. But on that day the Colonel had changed from the eye of the storm to the storm itself. He’d been pacing just as he was now and then exploded, charging at his son, raging, calling him a traitor.
“This is betrayal from which there is no return, son,” the Colonel had shouted at him, face red, spit flying.
If it hadn’t been for James Earl holding his father back, there would have been blood spilled. Of that Lee Harvey had no doubt. The Colonel liked to say that was the only time in James Earl’s life he had been of any value.
“You’re dead to me, boy. Dead!” the Colonel had screamed, clawing at the air as James Earl held on to him. “Do you hear me? Dead. Dead. Dead.”
Lee Harvey had heard it then, and watching his father pacing in front of him, he heard it now.
“If what you say is true, we may have to pick the pace up on things,” the Colonel said at last.
“It’s true, sir. I can feel it sure as I used to know when the enemy was near my unit in the mountains. Chief Stone is putting things together, and killing the Cummingses both helped and hurt.”
“You second-guessing me, son?”
“No, sir. The Cummingses had to be dealt with. They would have been easy to break and it all would have collapsed. At the same time, their murders are causing a lot of attention to be paid by the police.”
“What would you suggest, Lee Harvey?”
His father had rarely called him by his given name since they had reconciled, so when he did, Lee Harvey knew it was a serious question.
“As I see it, you’ve got three options, sir. One, you ramp up the schedule so much that outside interference can’t possibly react quickly enough to prevent you from achieving your ultimate goal. Two, a delaying action to distract the enemy long enough to achieve your goal without having to accelerate the schedule too drastically.” Lee Harvey hesitated long enough to get his father’s attention.
“The third option, son. What’s the third option?”
“Kill the head and the body dies.”
“Indeed it does,” the Colonel said, but he wasn’t smiling. “Killing Stone might make us pay too heavy a price, though he does seem to be the only one of these cops who can see the bigger picture. It’d be nice to have someone like that on our side.”
Lee Harvey’s face twisted in confusion.
“Don’t worry, son. I’m not thinking of approaching him, though he does seem to get along with that worthless brother of yours.” The Colonel rubbed his cheeks as he thought. “If I was to choose the third option, how would you go about it?”
“I think it would be best if I kept that to myself, sir. It insulates you and the movement.”
“At least I’ve got one son with a brain in his head. Okay, keep eyes on Stone, but don’t expose yourself. Keep your distance. I’ll inform you of my decision as soon as I formulate it.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the soldier was leaving, the Colonel called after him. “I wished you hadn’t betrayed me that way, Lee Harvey. You don’t know what it did to me.”
“But if I hadn’t enlisted and received the training and experience I did, think of how much less value I would be to you. With all due respect, sir, where would you be now without someone like me?”
“I had in mind for you to lead, son, not to scurry about in the shadows and to bloody your hands.”
“I like the shadows, sir. They’re where I’m comfortable and where I belong.”
The Colonel watched his son leave. He knew Lee Harvey was right and that he was a very valuable asset to him in this situation. It was just as clear to him that the war had turned him into someone else, something else. In a way, all three sons were lost to him forever. But like all men of his ilk, Leon Vandercamp saw it only in terms of what the cost was to him. He didn’t much dwell on the price his sons had paid.
79
Lundquist was standing on Newton Alley a foot to the right of the spot where John Vandercamp had died, exactly where Jesse had asked him to wait in the message he’d left on his phone. The statie was a few minutes early for his meeting but kept checking his watch. At precisely nine, Jesse stepped out of the door of the Pembroke Gallery and stood to Lundquist’s left.
“What’s this about, Jesse?”
Jesse looked at his watch and said, “You’re about to find out. Pay close attention.”
With that, Jesse removed a firecracker from his pocket, lit it, and tossed it a few feet in front of him. In the second or two it took for the fuse to burn down and for the firecracker to explode, two things happened: Jesse unholstered his nine-millimeter and Molly appeared at the opposite end of Newton Alley.
She lit a string of firecrackers, tossing them. That’s when the narrow, dead-end street exploded with noise. Jesse’s firecracker blew. Bang! Molly’s blew. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Jesse fell to the pavement, the tiny bits of clam and oyster shell locked in the asphalt glistening in the morning sun. He dropped his nine-millimeter at his side. As Lundquist wheeled to his left to see if Jesse was all right, he was shocked to see another man wearing a combat hood kneeling over Jesse. The hooded man picked up Jesse’s sidearm, tucked it into his waistband, and grabbed a knotted rope that extended from the roof of the old carriage house/warehouse down to the pavement. Before Lundquist could even react, the hooded man had climbed halfway up to the roof. And before Lundquist could pull his weapon, the hooded man had disappeared over the roof ledge, the knotting rope vanishing soon after. When Lundquist turned back around, Molly was racing down the street toward him and Jesse was standing up, brushing off his clothing.
“That’s how it happened,” Jesse said to Lundquist. “Vandercamp had a weapon. He did fire on Alisha first.” Jesse turned and looked up at the warehouse roof and pointed. “That’s why no one found a gun when they checked the crime scene. And that’s why the setup had Vandercamp at a range shooting before this went down. With the gun disappeared, the only explanation for GSR on the body would be that he’d been at the range. Pretty solid plan. It almost worked.”
“It still might, Jesse,” Lundquist said. “This was a very fancy demo, but it proves only that it could have happened this way, not that it did.”
Molly, slightly out of breath, said, “C’mon, Brian. This is how it happened and in your gut you know it.”
“My gut isn’t proof, Molly. None of this is.”
“If I had a more solid case,” Jesse said, “I would have played this out in front of Weld and the DA. The thing I may need is help from you.”
“You’re kidding me, right, Jesse? You have to be. I’ve got three murders to deal with in the towns surrounding Paradise and you’re asking me to help you possibly step on the toes of the DA and interfere with the investigation of—”
“Four,” Jesse said.
“Four what?”
“I believe there have been four murders and they’re all related.” Jesse turned to Molly. “Go to the station, cue up the video footage, and make another copy of the soldier’s service jacket. We’ll be there soon, but first there’s something I need to show Brian.”
* * *
—
LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES LATER, Jesse and Lundquist were standing on the roof of the warehouse and Jesse was pointing out the deep pits in the tar.
“See these,” Jesse said. “These were here when I came up yesterday. They were caused by the prongs of a grappling hook. I checked.” Jesse moved two feet to his right and pointed at two fresh marks in the tar. “These are almost a match, but these were made only a few minutes ago by my accomplice.” He moved to the rear ledge and showed Lundquist the two sets of prong marks there. “I wanted to show you that not all of what we played out for you was conjecture. Those first set of marks didn’t get there by magic.”
“Jesse, even if my gut and instinct tells me you’re right, it’s not proof. None of this changes anything.”
“Not yet. Let’s get to the station. I think you’ll be a little more convinced after that.”
Lundquist was partway down the staircase when Jesse dropped off the ladder from the roof. When he hit the landing, the door to the artist’s loft opened up and Maryglenn stepped out.
“Hello, Jesse.” She smiled. “Were you shooting off fireworks in the street before?”
Jesse raised his arms. “Guilty as charged.”
“Next time, let me know. I love fireworks.”
“It’s a deal,” he said.
Maryglenn smiled at him again and went back into the loft.
When they got down to the street, Lundquist asked who that was on the landing.
“A woman who loves fireworks” is what Jesse said. “A local artist.”
As they got into their separate cars, neither of them spotted the man with the binoculars on a rooftop two blocks away.
80
Lundquist looked at the footage of the camo-painted Jeep on Molly’s computer.
“My bet, that’s the Jeep your witness spotted pulling away from the Cummingses’ murder scene and it was driven by this man,” Jesse said, placing Lee Harvey Vandercamp’s photo in front of the statie.
“Maybe . . . maybe not. My witness says the Jeep was green.”
“Your witness was driving fifty in the opposite direction in the dark. C’mon, Brian, read Lee Harvey’s service record. Those walls would have been nothing for him to scale and rappel from. It all fits.”
“All except the part where you actually produce a weapon and have a man setting up his own brother to be killed.”
“Half-brother.”
“Still . . .”
Jesse changed course. “Any luck with the lipstick?”
Lundquist made a face, and not a happy one. “You’re all over the map. Are we talking about Wileford, the Cummingses, John Vandercamp, what?”
“The bikers coming into Paradise, the murders, the leaflets, the cross-burning, they’re all pieces of one thing. And I don’t think it’s over.”
“This I’ve gotta hear.”
Jesse said, “First, the lipstick.”
“Someone fitting John Vandercamp’s description bought it just prior to closing at
the old pharmacy and lunch counter on Main Street in Swan Harbor on the night of the attack.”
“There’s no surveillance footage, right?”
“No, these days it’s a pharmacy in name only. Most of their business is small convenience items and the ice-cream counter.”
“Convenience items like lipstick or sunblock, a bottle of aspirin?”
“What’s the point, Jesse?”
“The point is that someone from out of town wouldn’t have known to buy that lipstick at a place with no CCTV. He’s the same person who would have known about Tammy Portugal’s murder and how to throw the cops off by making what happened to Felicity Wileford look like a copycat crime.”
“Daniels.”
Jesse nodded.
“Let’s say I buy that Daniels and Vandercamp were the perps on Wileford. I can see how it went too far and then Daniels came up with a way to throw us off, but what’s this got to do with some big conspiracy?”
Jesse didn’t answer directly. Instead, he put a small digital voice recorder on the desk. He said, “I made this recording last night. It’s not the greatest sound quality because I had to keep it out of sight, but you’ll be able to make out what I need you to hear.” Jesse hit the play button.
What Lundquist heard was the discussion among Hank, Anya, and Jesse.
“That was the start of it,” Jesse said. “The Saviors of Society were setting Alisha up. You heard the recording. Lee Harvey Vandercamp gave them specifics. They wanted Alisha.”
“Let’s say I accept your premise—and I’m not saying I do—that this was all part of a setup to get a black female cop to kill a young unarmed white man. I still don’t see where all the other stuff fits in. They wanted Alisha. They got Alisha. Why all the rest of it?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure myself. All the couples involved were interracial couples. I think they wanted to create an atmosphere where Alisha would feel threatened.”
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