Fair Chance

by Josh Lanyon

  The part that made the dream hard to take was that he was wrestling Kane before the shooting in the courthouse, before anyone had died. So while it was a relief to wake up, it was to the knowledge that he hadn’t been able to prevent the shooting.

  But he had stopped Kane from killing anyone else. So...you took your victories where you found them.

  Tucker made a funny sound somewhere between a growl and a groan, his arm tightening in that affectionate choke hold. Elliot hugged him back, offering comfort to the guy who really needed it. He was smiling a little. It was tough on Tucker not being able to fix this.

  “Listen, go back to sleep,” he soothed. “You’ve still got thirty minutes before the alarm goes off. I’m going to get a head start on the day.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Tucker kissed him and then pulled free. He sat up. “Why don’t we make coffee and watch the sunrise?”

  * * *

  Tucker carried out two large earthenware mugs and set one before Elliot on the wooden picnic table. “It’s the last of the Van Houtte.”

  They’d bought a couple of bags of Eclipse Extra Bold when they were in Montreal and had been savoring it ever since.

  Elliot murmured thanks and warmed his hands on the rough blue mug. The morning was cool and damp, white mist rising off the silver sound. A gray and hushed world, silent, formless but for the jagged black outline of trees puncturing the fog.

  “Maybe one of the guards,” Elliot said.

  “Maybe one of the guards what?”

  Elliot had been thinking aloud. He glanced at Tucker. “Maybe that’s how he’s communicating with the outside world.”

  He didn’t have to explain who “he” was.

  “What makes you think he’s communicating with the outside world?”

  “If there is an unsub and if Corian is still in contact with him, he’d have to be able to communicate with him without being monitored. Using a guard as a go-between is one possibility.”

  Tucker nodded and stared out over the tops of the trees.

  “Is there a female guard on his detail? Or maybe not a guard. Maybe another female staff member. Someone in the med center? Or an instructor. Is Corian taking part in any educational courses? Is he teaching art to the inmates?”

  The gaze Tucker swung his way was curious.

  “He has the kind of charisma that appeals to women,” Elliot said. “Young women anyway. He always had a flock of female students trotting after him at PSU.”

  “I’ll find out.” Tucker went back to staring out at the treetops.

  The addition of the wide natural wood deck overlooking the cove had been Tucker’s idea—and it was a great one. On sunny weekend mornings they had breakfast out here and in the summer they barbecued dinner. Occasionally they rose early enough to have coffee and watch the sun come up. A peaceful start to any day. Those were Elliot’s favorite mornings.

  They drank their coffee and watched the world change color, silver and gray deepening to vibrant blue and lush green as buttery sunlight poured through the thinning mist. A robin greeted the sun.

  Tucker put his mug down and said quietly, “Your birthday’s next month.”

  That was another unexpected thing about Tucker. How good he was about remembering the milestones. Acknowledging, even celebrating the emotional landmarks. Elliot was terrible about remembering things like cards and anniversaries.

  Elliot said, “So? What’s that look for? Are you afraid I’m expecting paper hats and helium balloons?”

  If there was one thing Elliot would not expect—or want—it would be a surprise party. Or any party. And Tucker knew it. He didn’t return Elliot’s smile.

  “No. But if you’re coming back to the Bureau, you need to make your mind up soon. Thirty-seven is the cutoff age.”

  Elliot’s peaceful mood instantly evaporated like a shooting star fizzling out into a cold empty night. For a moment he couldn’t think how to reply.

  “Where did that come from?” he said at last. “I don’t have plans to try to return to the Bureau.”

  Anyway, he would only be turning thirty-five on this next birthday, so there wasn’t quite the urgency Tucker implied, even had he been considering such a thing.

  Which he hadn’t.

  Tucker expelled a long breath. “I think Montgomery is going to talk to you about a nonagent position.”

  Elliot felt a surge of...he wasn’t sure what. Bewilderment for sure. Excitement? Even alarm maybe. “I already—I don’t—”

  Tucker said in that same calm, almost impersonal voice, “When you resigned, you were still dealing with the emotional and physical aftereffects of being shot. You were angry and depressed. But you’re past all that now. And for the last year you’ve been working off and on with the Bureau, unofficially, yes, but anyone can see you do still have a strong interest in...in...”

  Meddling? Interfering? Butting in? Clearly the words that did not spring to Tucker’s mind were criminal investigation.

  “We already had this talk nearly a year ago. I said then one superhero per family was enough.”

  “What we didn’t talk about then—and you aren’t talking about it now—is what you actually want.”

  Elliot stared at Tucker, who stared right back at him.

  “Do you want to come back?” Tucker asked.

  “I...” Elliot shook his head. “I never considered it even a possibility.”

  “It is.”

  As a nonagent. He had loved being an agent. Had been unwilling to consider any other position. But the fact was over half of FBI personnel were nonagent support employees. They were recognized as vital to the success of the organization and in some cases held ranks as high as assistant directors.

  Elliot stared out at a distant fishing boat making its way across silver-blue water. A flock of hungry gulls followed. “What do you think of the idea?”

  “I don’t know.” Elliot felt rather than saw Tucker’s grimace. “That’s the truth. I don’t know how I feel about it now. At one time, yeah. But now—”

  Elliot looked at him. “But now what?”

  “I worry about you.” Elliot opened his mouth, but Tucker was still talking, his expression somber. “It’s not that I don’t think you can handle yourself. I know you can handle yourself, and you wouldn’t be in the field anyway, so it’s not really an issue. And it would be great to have more time together, although I don’t know that would happen because we probably wouldn’t be working the same cases. We might have less time.”

  None of this was what Elliot wanted to hear—and yet he did want Tucker to be honest with him. Always.

  “You were a good agent.” Tucker sighed. “No, you were a great agent and you’re still really good at investigating and analyzing. You’ve got a knack for it.”

  Tucker had clearly given this thought, which meant he’d had some time to mull it over. How long had he known what Montgomery was considering?

  Tucker’s reticence about things that concerned Elliot bothered him. He didn’t want to make an issue of it, but it did bother him.

  Not least because Tucker knew it bothered him, but he still did it.

  “But?”

  Tucker sighed. “I don’t know. To be honest, I kind of like the fact that your job isn’t so closely aligned to mine now. It’s a relief to be able to get away from the Bureau when I’m at home. Your work is interesting and I like talking about something that doesn’t have to do with law enforcement once in a while. Not that I think you should stay in academia because I like hearing you talk about it, but you’re good at teaching. And I think you enjoy it, though maybe not as much. I don’t know.”

  Elliot nodded. He was grateful for Tucker’s candor, but it didn’t exactly make things easier.

  He thought he better understood now why
Tucker had seemed so troubled by his participation in his case—why even his bad dreams were affecting Tucker more than they affected him. Tucker was looking ahead, anticipating future threats to the life they were building together.

  He put his hands around his mug, but the earthenware was cool now. The morning breeze was clammy. His sweatshirt wasn’t warm enough for these September mornings.

  He shivered and Tucker glanced at him. “It’s your choice. I know that.”

  “Yeah, but...” Yes and no. This was a decision that would impact both of them.

  Tucker set his mug down and said in a dogged sort of tone, “I want to say this. If it will make you happy, if you feel like this is what you’re meant to do, I’m not going to—You should do it. I mean that. I want you to be happy.”

  Elliot thought that over.

  He said finally, “It works both ways. I want you to be happy too. And if taking this job means messing up things between us...” He sighed. Shook his head. “So far this is conjecture. I’m not going to get worked up about something that might never come to pass.”

  He stretched his hand across the table. Tucker’s fingers laced his, gripping him back with equal warmth and strength.

  But he didn’t say anything.

  Chapter Eight

  Blue-green water churned to white froth in the wake of the ferry. The wind whipping the waves into whitecaps seemed to taste of diesel and the distant snow on the Olympic Mountains. Elliot and Tucker stood sheltered from the wet morning breeze as Goose Island grew smaller in the distance.

  “I’d like to get inside that house,” Elliot was saying.

  Tucker said, “Corian’s house? Why?”

  Elliot shook his head. “Because we’ve missed something. Obviously.”

  Naturally that did not please Tucker, who opened his mouth to object to the idea that he had overlooked anything. Elliot headed him off. “Yeah, I know. That’s not what I mean. Anyway, the place has been cleared out and cleaned up so it can be put on the market. None of Corian’s belongings are there. I’d still like to go through it.”

  It was hard to hear Tucker’s answer over the rumble of the ship engines.

  “I don’t see what good it’s going to do. It’s not like you’re a profiler on TV and wandering through an empty house is going to let you see into Corian’s fucked-up brain.”

  “Not arguing that.” Elliot stared out over the choppy waves. He could feel Tucker’s gaze on his profile.

  Tucker didn’t sigh but there was a certain note in his voice as he added, “But it’s not like I can stop you. We released the house as a crime scene. If you can get a key from the real estate agent, you can spend as much time hanging out there as you like.”

  True. Tucker would neither help nor hinder. That had been his attitude from the moment Elliot had joined the task force.

  “What are you thinking?” Tucker’s tone was sardonic. “That somewhere in Corian’s house of horrors there’s a secret room or a hidden chamber we missed? Maybe a trunk sitting full of skulls in a secret passage?”

  Yeah, yeah, very funny. The irritating thing was those thoughts had been running through his mind the day before, although Elliot knew full well it was impossible. Tucker had been over blueprints of the house with a magnifying glass. He’d talked to the architect and the contractor and the landscaper.

  And Elliot had talked to the local historical society in case the original house might have had some kind of secret passage or tunnel. He wasn’t going to admit that though.

  Elliot said, “There’s no way a room or a chamber could have been missed in that search.”

  “No. There isn’t.”

  “I’m curious why he wanted to unload the place so fast though.”

  “Legal expenses would be the obvious answer.”

  “Maybe.”

  Tucker gave it some thought. “He’s going to be convicted. There’s no question of it. He had a mass grave in his basement.”

  “He’s a megalomaniac. And he hasn’t been convicted yet. He hasn’t even gone to trial. Even if he believes he’ll be found guilty, he has no idea what his sentence will be.”

  “Not long enough,” Tucker said bleakly.

  Elliot agreed with that. Somehow even life didn’t feel long enough when he thought of the pain Corian had inflicted on so many. “I can make an argument for either case. That he might want to hang on to the house and property because there’s something more damning buried there. Or he’d want to get rid of the property for that very reason.”

  “He needs the money,” Tucker said. “He’s not independently wealthy. He’s lost his teaching salary and a number of those high-priced sculptures can’t be sold and never will be.”

  “Yeah, but the works that aren’t compromised are selling like crazy. Nothing like murder to boost an artist’s net worth.”

  “Sad but true.”

  “Does he own any other property? There’s an ex-wife out there somewhere, isn’t there? How do they get along?”

  Tucker grimaced. The wind brought ruddy color to his freckled face. His eyes were as blue as the water surrounding them. “Honoria Sallis. Believe it or not, they’re still close. And yes, she still owns the house they lived in when they were married.”

  Elliot hmmed and Tucker said, “The family mansion is on Capitol Hill. We’ve been over it with a fine-tooth comb. There’s nothing there.”

  “It would be a stretch, I guess. No matter how well they get along.”

  “Capitol Hill is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Seattle. It wouldn’t be as easy to hide that kind of industrial-scale slaughter from the folks next door.”

  Maybe yes. Maybe no. City dwellers did manage to get away with murder on a regular basis. Well, maybe not a regular basis, and this was a lot of physical evidence to dispose of.

  “Twenty-some heads are going to take up room. Did you know the average adult human head weighs about eleven pounds?”

  Tucker’s expression conveyed volumes.

  “Multiply that by twenty...”

  After a moment, Tucker said, “Corian’s lawyer is Arvon Jamieson. You know how much that guy costs?”

  “A rough idea.”

  “A lot. I think the ex is helping with his legal expenses, but even so it makes sense he’d need to unload the house.”

  Elliot nodded. He watched a cormorant dive into the rough blue water and come up empty.

  Tucker said suddenly, “You dislike him too much.”

  Elliot looked his inquiry.

  “Corian.” Tucker’s tone was flat. “You dislike him and that makes it hard for you to say and do the things necessary to get information out of him. You won’t give him anything. You’re not willing to play up to him.”

  “Maybe.” Elliot had never properly analyzed his feelings for Corian.

  “It’s understandable. It was personal between the two of you. That’s the real problem. Someone neutral would have a better chance of getting information out of him.”

  “Someone neutral would never get a shot.”

  Tucker sighed. “True.”

  Elliot glanced at Tucker’s hard profile. “You do know I’m not doing this because I enjoy the so-called game, right? Or because I want to stay in the media spotlight? Or because I want to be part of your case?”

  “Yeah.” Tucker’s mouth twisted. He glanced at Elliot. “I know all that. I know you didn’t want any of this. I know you feel like you don’t have a choice.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You do.” Tucker’s gaze still held Elliot’s. “But I understand why you feel you don’t. If our positions were reversed...” He shrugged.

  That diligent effort to see both sides of the equation was just one of the reasons Elliot planned on spending the rest of his li
fe with Tucker. He bumped his shoulder against Tucker’s in friendly acknowledgement. Tucker looked down at his immaculate shoes and his cheek creased in a wry half smile.

  * * *

  When the ferry landed, Elliot dropped Tucker at his car in the small lot that overlooked the harbor, and headed on to Puget Sound University.

  As a non-tenured professor, Elliot carried a heavy class load. This semester was the heaviest yet, probably because he was no longer viewed as convalescent. He was teaching five courses: Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War Era, Reconstructing the Nation 1865—1914, History of the West and the Pacific Northwest, The Civil War in Film, and The United States and the War in Vietnam (the latter being a course his father had previously taught at the same university). He didn’t mind working long hours—he’d been used to that at the Bureau—but now that he was fully recovered from the effects of his shooting two years earlier, he no longer received the perk of a teaching assistant, and that—as Roland would have said—was a real drag.

  Of course teaching was just one of his responsibilities. There was also the expectation that he would manage at least one conference presentation per year and publish several peer-reviewed articles. More if he wanted to be seriously considered for tenure.

  There was little time for poking around in criminal investigations—and that was without even taking into account the expectation of his performing administrative and “service work” for the university. The discouraging truth was an ungodly part of the academic life was simply spent in meetings and answering email.

  He enjoyed teaching. He did not enjoy meetings. He enjoyed researching and writing. He did not enjoy workshops and conferences. He enjoyed a lot of his job at PSU. Which didn’t change the fact that Tucker’s mention of the possibility of returning to the Bureau in any capacity at all had seemed to throw open a window and let in a gust of fresh air.

  It worried him how very refreshing the idea felt—not least because it might not be true.

  And even if it was true...what was the right decision? He had been adamant about not wanting to stay on if he was going to end up behind a desk.