Fair Chance

by Josh Lanyon

  “You don’t know,” she said. “You can’t know what that’s like. To be afraid of a child. And then to have people blame us. Believe that we did something to him. He killed Odell’s tortoise. It was sixty years old. He killed the hamsters. He killed our cat.”

  He believed her. There was something genuine about her horror as she recalled that period.

  “Did you try to get him into therapy?”

  She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “We did! The therapist was afraid of him.”

  “Weren’t you concerned for the other kids?” Elliot asked.

  “Yes! Of course!” She bit her lip.

  Again, he let it pass. “Did he ever try to get in contact with you after he left home?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Did he stay in contact with the other foster parents?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m sure he wouldn’t have tried. They didn’t want him.”

  “What about the other kids? What about your other kids? Did he try to make contact with them?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Elliot nodded at the framed photos on the top of the TV cabinet. “May I?”

  He didn’t wait for her permission, going over and studying the framed portraits. Several early photographs of Odell and Ellen in their flower-child days. Several school pics of little boys with bad hair and braces and glasses—at that age kids all looked pretty much the same.

  “He’s not there,” Ellen said behind him.

  No, he wasn’t. Corian had been chopped right out of a couple of family groupings, and cut-outs of stars and flowers and religious symbols had been pasted into his place. That was a little...peculiar. Though maybe less peculiar than leaving a serial killer—or even his jagged outline—in the family portraits. Hard to say.

  The two remaining children—both boys—were close in age, but did not look much alike beyond those shining eyes and gummy grins. One child had clearly been of Haysbert ancestry. The other...that dimple and those green eyes looked vaguely familiar.

  “Who’s this?” Elliot asked.

  “K-Krayle.”

  “No. The other boy.”

  Elliot glanced at Ellen. Behind the glasses, her eyes were frightened.

  “It won’t be hard to find out,” Elliot warned her. Granted, it had been hard so far. Harder than it should have been. She wouldn’t know that though.

  He continued his slow, careful scanning of the photo gallery. The Krayle kid dropped out of the family photos midway through high school. With him went a lot of the sparkle in Ellen and Odell’s eyes. The other boy, the one with the green eyes and the dimple, continued on. The chin firmed, the jaw hardened, the smile grew more assured.

  She said stubbornly, “He’s not part of it. He doesn’t deserve to be dragged in.”

  He was sorry for her. Truly sorry. But there just wasn’t time for sympathy now. He gave her his most forbidding look. “Ellen, I’m not looking to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve hurting. But I’m going to get that name one way or the other.”

  Her face quivered, but then hardened into martyr-like resolve.

  Well, there were really only two possibilities left, and given the difference in their ages...

  “That’s Caleb, isn’t it?” Elliot said.

  Ellen’s eyes went wide. Her throat jumped as she swallowed. She didn’t say a word.

  She didn’t have to. He’d found the photo he was looking for. Graduation Day at the police academy.

  No wonder no one had noticed what Corian had been up to all those years. The Sculptor’s foster brother had been Black Diamond Police Chief Caleb Woll.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Elliot was walking back to his car when his cell rang. Detective Pine.

  “What’s up?” Elliot asked. He was still trying to process what he’d learned from Ellen Haysbert. Or rather, despite Ellen Haysbert.

  Before he shared that information about Woll with anyone else, he felt he needed to talk to Tucker. Or maybe Yamiguchi, if Tucker needed more time to recuperate. Accusing another member of law enforcement of any crime—let alone aiding and abetting a serial killer—was one hell of a sensitive matter.

  “How’s Lance?”

  “Getting back to normal fast. Thank Christ.”

  “Yeah. That was... I don’t even know what that was. Kind of a miracle, frankly.”

  “Yes.”

  Walking down this quiet, residential street, he was suddenly poignantly conscious of how fragile, how temporary it all was. Lamps shining behind curtains, the shouts of kids playing in a backyard, and the smell of cooking pot roast.

  Pine said, “So it turns out you might actually have a future in law enforcement.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Yeah, but in all seriousness, you called it right on the MacAuley homicide.”

  Elliot stopped walking. “How’s that?”

  “The Perigee girl. She confessed.”

  “She...”

  “Yup. I didn’t have a chance to tell you earlier. We questioned her yesterday and she was definitely giving off that bears-further-investigation vibe. So we started asking around and it turns out she tried to sell an antique .22 Ruger to a classmate. We brought her in again this morning. Upson interrogated her. She copped to the whole thing while we were over at the hospital.”

  “You’ve got a full confession?” Elliot asked in disbelief.

  “We do. Get this. She was still inside the residence when you entered. She escaped out a bathroom window when you went after Barro.”

  Elliot absorbed that silently. He asked—although he already had an inkling—”Why’d she do it?”

  “That’s a little vague, but at a guess, it has something to do with the accidental death of her stepfather two years ago. He took a nosedive down a staircase very late one night and broke his neck. She’s lawyered up now, so I don’t know if we’re going to get the rest of the story. I’m guessing we’re going to hear a woeful tale of sexual abuse. We’ll see.”

  Pine sounded about as jovial as Elliot had ever heard him.

  “It could be true.”

  “It could and it might even excuse knocking off her stepfather. It’s not going to excuse her knocking off MacAuley though.”

  “You think she panicked when she figured out he had a fetish for befriending killers?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Yeah, he did. He thought MacAuley had been overconfident to the point of suicidal about his ability to control and manipulate some very dangerous people.

  “Probably. Anyway, thanks for letting me know,” Elliot said.

  “Sure. Give my best to Lance.”

  “Will do.”

  Pine said obliquely, “She seemed like a nice enough kid when we talked to her Friday, but unfortunately, murder is habit-forming.”

  * * *

  “...related to a case, yes.”

  Elliot had expected to find Tucker sleeping when he got back to the hospital, but Tucker was on the phone sounding oddly self-conscious.

  He gave Elliot an uncharacteristically helpless look as Elliot took the chair by the window overlooking the parking lot.

  The television was on, offering an aerial view of the pit cave location and images of swarming law enforcement teams. A seriously out-of-date black-and-white photo of Tucker flashed onto the screen.

  “No, I should be out of here tomorrow. I’m fine. A little dehydrated. I could have gone home today. They’re just covering their a¬—butts.”

  Elliot snorted. Tucker threw him another of those water-closing-over-his-head looks and mouthed Tova.

  Elliot nodded. He was glad Tova had phoned. He’d called her earlier with news of Tucker’s rescue and his hospital room number.

  Tucke
r chatted with his mother for another minute or two and then disconnected with what sounded like a sigh of relief. He was smiling though as he met Elliot’s gaze.

  “She was worried,” he said offhandedly.

  “Of course she was,” Elliot said.

  “She wants to reschedule.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Why are you sitting all the way over there?”

  “Just giving you your privacy.” Elliot scooted the chair next to the bed and took Tucker’s hand, which inevitably ended in Tucker trying to pull him onto the bed again.

  “I’ve had all the privacy I can take this week,” Tucker said.

  “Me too.” Elliot shifted, trying not to sound any alarms. The arms of the bed were studded with an impressive array of buttons. “Two of us can’t fit in this thing, Lance.”

  “Which is why we should go home. So we can rest. And other things.” Tucker’s eyes gleamed with reassuring wickedness despite the bruises on his drawn face.

  “Yeah, we’ll see what the doctor says tomorrow.”

  But, watching Tucker sleeping peacefully later that evening, Elliot was confident that the doctor would be kicking Tucker loose the next day—and he was right. When he reached the hospital at ten o’clock the next morning, Tucker was unhooked from all the IVs and monitors and waiting impatiently for clean clothes.

  Elliot handed over the carryall.

  Yamiguchi was also in attendance, which maybe explained why Tucker was not looking as cheery as he had the evening before.

  “I had to bring him up to date,” she told Elliot while Tucker stepped into the tiny bathroom to dress.

  “It could have waited,” Elliot said.

  “It really couldn’t.” Yamiguchi’s expression was regretful but firm. “He’s identified Torin Barro as the Foster woman’s accomplice.”

  “How the hell would Barro and Foster have hooked up?”

  He didn’t actually expect Yamiguchi to have an answer, but she said, “We believe she found him through the classifieds.”

  “The classifieds? Do people still read the classifieds?”

  “Of course. According to Barro’s sister, he answered an ad from someone looking for an equalizer.”

  “An...”

  “It’s code for a hit man in some gaming communities. It seems Barro had dreams of becoming a paid assassin.”

  “Wait a minute. Connie Foster was active in the gaming community?”

  Yamiguchi actually laughed at this. “No. She just happened to use a term in her ad that’s popular in that community. She was looking for a hit man and Barro was looking for a job opportunity.”

  “She advertised for a hit man in the classified section of a local newspaper?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he thought he’d begin his hit man career by murdering an FBI agent? Ambitious.”

  “He may not have known Lance was FBI. He was told that you were sexually harassing students.”

  “What?”

  “He thought he was taking out a bad guy. In fact, we suspect he may have believed you killed MacAuley.”

  “Where the hell does that information come from?”

  “Barro’s sister.”

  “I thought she said he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Now she says he’s a hit man?”

  Yamiguchi said patiently, “She doesn’t fully understand the implications of the information she’s given us.”

  He was still thinking that over while debating the pros and cons of whether to fill her in on the discovery that Woll was Corian’s foster brother. If he told her, he would not be the one conducting the interview and he wanted that interview with Woll.

  Across from the bed, the silent TV screen showed search and recovery teams thronging the pit cave site as excavation began. Yamiguchi followed his gaze.

  “At least that’s one question answered,” she said. “You were able to give that to the families of Corian’s victims.”

  She seemed sincere and Elliot nodded. He hadn’t considered it from that angle, but yes. His initial goal was accomplished—though if he’d known at the outset how high the price was liable to be, he wasn’t sure he’d have ever started.

  When Tucker stepped out of the bathroom, Yamiguchi beat a hasty, if courteous, retreat, and the question of whether to fill her in on Woll’s role seemed moot.

  Tucker was looking very much like his normal self—right down to that somber expression.

  “So why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to this past week?” he asked as the elevator carried them down to the lobby.

  Elliot sighed. “I’m pretty sure Yamiguchi gave you the highlights.”

  “Yes. She did. You want to tell me why I had to hear from the FBI and not you that you were involved in a fatal shooting?”

  “It’s not something that could be kept secret. Obviously I planned on telling you.”

  “When?”

  “When you stopped looking like a ghost,” Elliot said tightly.

  That, unexpectedly, seemed to disarm Tucker. He hooked his arm around Elliot’s shoulders, pulling him close and kissing his temple. “This really shook you up, didn’t it?”

  Elliot began to splutter, but Tucker stopped him with another kiss. “It’s okay. Stop worrying. I’m fine.”

  At Elliot’s look, he amended, “I’m going to be fine. All right? I admit I’m not crazy about the dark, and the idea of being in a confined space makes me break out in a cold sweat, but I’ll work through it. Also, I’ve got a whole new respect for anyone who can fast for more than forty-eight hours.” He gave a short laugh. “I don’t like what happened to me, but it’s over and I’m moving on. More than anything I want to get back to normal. I need to get back to normal. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Elliot knew only too well how that felt.

  He added, “You don’t like me keeping things from you, right?”

  “All right. All right. I know,” Elliot said wearily. “Agreed.”

  He proceeded to bring Tucker up to date.

  “Woll?” Tucker said at the end of Elliot’s recital. “No way. That was not Woll with Foster. I know Woll. That guy was your guy. Barro.”

  “Okay. But maybe we don’t know Woll as well as we think. We don’t know how many accomplices Corian may or may not have had.”

  “For God’s sake. He wasn’t running a gang.”

  “I’m not saying that. But MacAuley believed Woll was involved. MacAuley had Woll pegged for Corian’s accomplice.”

  “That just goes to prove you can’t believe everything you hear.”

  They had another small—but loud—difference of opinion when Elliot suggested dropping Tucker off at his apartment.

  “While you go interview Woll on your own? The hell!”

  “What do you think’s going to happen to me right there in the police station?” Elliot tried to reassure him.

  “I don’t know—and I’m not taking a chance.” Tucker was dead serious, eyes bleak and expression stony, and Elliot gave up that battle as a lost cause. He understood Tucker’s paranoia because he was feeling some of it himself. In fact, he was a little afraid to let Tucker out of his sight, as though this miracle was liable to be snatched out of his hands.

  * * *

  Strategically positioned between an Italian pizza place and a church, the Black Diamond police station was a small brick building on a wide semirural highway.

  The parking areas on either side of the patchy lawn were packed with vehicles including local TV station vans, but happily the story the reporters were chasing was not the safe return of a missing FBI agent, and no one recognized Tucker as they entered the building.

  Woll had just returned from the cave grave site and was winding up his impromptu mini press conference. When he found Ell
iot and Tucker waiting in his office, his expression changed from surprise to wariness.

  “Mills. This is a surprise. Lance.” He nodded in greeting. “You don’t look too bad, considering.”

  “How’s the recovery effort going?” Elliot asked.

  “Isn’t the Bureau keeping you posted?”

  “Sure,” Elliot said. “I’m just making polite conversation before we get down to it.”

  Woll seemed to be in no doubt what that meant. He said heatedly, “Look, I thought I was searching for a lost hiker. That’s what you told me. We found Rice’s Jeep down a ravine near Lake Sawyer, so that’s the area we focused on. But we talked to Corian’s neighbors, we showed Rice’s photo around. At no time did you tell me you thought Rice was the victim of Corian’s accomplice.”

  Woll’s reaction was guilty, but it seemed to Elliot it was the guilt of someone who felt they could, should, have done a better job—not the guilt of a psychopath confronted with proof of his misdeeds.

  “Did I really need to spell it out?”

  “Hell, yeah, you needed to spell that out! Why the hell would I jump to that conclusion?”

  “I don’t know,” Elliot said. “Maybe the fact that you had a serial killer living on your back doorstep for a decade?”

  Woll’s green eyes went flat. He straightened up like a soldier snapping to attention.

  “So much for the niceties,” Tucker remarked. “Woll, why the hell didn’t you disclose the fact that you’re Andrew Corian’s foster brother?”

  Woll changed color. It took him a moment to answer. “I’m not. We grew up in the same foster home, but he’s no more my brother than you are.”

  “Missing the point,” Tucker replied. “Why would you keep that relationship secret? Because I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been trying to come up with some plausible, non-incriminating explanation, and I’m damned if I can.”

  Woll looked at Elliot. “This is you, right? Ellen phoned me last night.”

  “This is me,” Elliot agreed. “But if you think I’m enjoying it, think again.”

  “Mills thinks there might be some kind of extenuating circumstance,” Tucker said. “I’m not that imaginative.”

  “Why would I keep my prior relationship with Corian to myself? This is why,” Woll said. “Because what’s the first conclusion everyone jumps to? That I must have been in on it with him. At the very least, I must have known what he was up to. I’ve worked my tail off to get where I am. You think I want to risk that? You think I want my family, my wife and kids, to go through the kind of thing Ellen and Odell went through? No thanks!”