by Dana Marton
Chapter Four
Man, being back was nice. Murph didn't even care that his shoulder throbbed with pain. He shrugged into the leather jacket he’d brought up from the basement and walked outside, around the house, scanning the property to make sure nothing needed his attention. He was itching to get to the station and run a background check on his mysterious tenant, but first he wanted to see his place in the daylight.
He had a half-acre lot, large considering the fact that he was in the middle of town. Most other properties like his had been long subdivided.
From time to time, he’d thought about doing the same. What he’d get for half the lot would pay for finishing the house. But he liked his privacy, too, liked it that nobody was living right in his back yard.
He had little out there but grass and a few trees, now covered in snow, and a dilapidated barn at the far corner of the property that a previous owner had used as a workshop. The old building stood empty now.
The yard looked all right, the snow hadn’t broken any major branches, the storms hadn’t pushed over any trees. Good. He already had enough on his to-do list. Not that he minded. The thought of putzing around the house with a tool belt made him happy.
He walked over to Mrs. Baker’s rancher and checked her place, too. Since everything seemed fine, he went back to his own backyard.
A young woman in jeans and a ski jacket was waving at him from the back deck on his other side.
He waved back. “Hi.”
“Hey. I’m your new neighbor.” She beamed. “Wendy White.”
“Murph Dolan.”
“I know. I heard all about you from Doug. Welcome home. Thank you for your service!”
“Uh, yeah.” He wiped his hands on his pants, trying for a smile and not quite succeeding as he walked to the back door of the garage. “I’ll see you around.”
The people who patted him on the back for being a soldier—starting right at the Philly airport—didn’t know the things he’d done, and the things that had been done to him. He was no small town hero, and he didn’t want to be one.
He tapped the snow off his boots and stepped inside.
The garage was the same as he’d left it, a spare set of tires in the corner, his tool boxes lined up against the wall.
He climbed into his pickup and clicked the garage door opener above the visor. As the door slowly creaked up, he put his key in the ignition and turned it carefully, half expecting the battery to be dead. But his extended-cab Ford F-150 pickup came to life in the next second, the engine rumbling, and he felt as if the truck was saying welcome home to him.
“Good to see you, too, buddy.” He drove forward with a smile.
The boxy white mail truck trudged by just as he reached the end of his driveway. Since Robin Combs was a friend of his, he got out to say hi.
“How’s my favorite girl?”
She slipped from the truck, spry as anything. Her gray hair in her usual bob, angel earrings dangled from her ears. “I thought you might be home. I had a feeling.”
He grinned. “I wish you’d have a feeling about the lottery numbers.”
“It’d be wrong to try,” she said in all seriousness, then her face turned even more somber. “You got hurt.”
He was probably holding his shoulders stiff. He rolled them. “Nothing serious. How have you been?”
“Moving to Upstate New York to be closer to my sister. I think she’s going to need my help with something soon so I’m retiring.”
“What, twenty years early?”
Robin gave a whooping laugh. “If only. Truth is, all that sitting in the truck for all those years, my back’s killing me.”
“They might be able to find someone to hand out the mail, but they’ll never find anyone half as pretty as you, Robin.”
She looked seven shades of pleased. “Pete Kentner’s taking over my route.”
He raised an eyebrow. He knew Pete from high school. He was a couple of years older than Murph. “He’s moving back home?”
“His mother has cancer, but I don’t have a bad feeling about her,” Robin said earnestly. “I’m pretty sure she’ll make it.”
“I hope she does.” Mrs. Kentner was a nice old lady, a professional volunteer. Any kind of fundraising and she was your gal. She’d raised money for everything from the bandstand to a new fire engine. Murph made a mental note to stop in and offer help once he’d gotten a few things squared away.
Robin glanced at her watch. “I better go. Mrs. Torrino will be waiting by her mailbox, if I slip as much as five minutes behind schedule.”
She rose to the tips of her toes and pinched his cheek like she used to when he’d been much younger. Murph enfolded her in a bear hug.
“Aw, Murph.” Her eyes glistened when he let her go.
He waved after her as she progressed down the street, then he drove to the police station, his second home.
The square brick building was nothing impressive, pretty much as plain as can be. Nothing fancy inside either: reception, the main area where all their desks stood, the Captain’s office, the interrogation room and the conference room, then the hallway that led to the holding cells and the evidence room in the back. Pretty utilitarian, but the work didn’t leave them time to worry about the aesthetics.
“Murph!” Leila, the admin assistant, rushed from behind the counter and gave him a fierce hug. She was a no-nonsense widow with three boys, cropped hair, short nails, little makeup, black pants, tan shirt, but the most colorful footwear she could find—her only nod to fashion.
A plate of his favorite chocolate chip cookies sat on the reception desk. Bing must have told her that Murph was coming in.
“Man, it's good to be back.” He might not have had a large and loving family, but somehow the town had always made up for that, even when he’d been a troublemaker of a kid.
“Welcome home.” She pulled back so she could fully look at him.
He narrowed his eyes. “You look younger than when I left. How are people around here supposed to focus on their work?”
She swatted him on the arm, but she smiled.
“How are the boys?”
“Trying their best to drive me to drinking.”
“Have they discovered girls yet?”
“Bite your tongue, Murphy Dolan.” She looked like she might say more, but the phone rang and she grabbed for the switchboard. “Broslin P.D.”
Harper Finnegan and Chase Merritt came from behind their computers to take a turn at greeting him. They were in a contest to see which one of them would make detective first. Murph had been in the running until his deployment. And he’d get back into the game, he promised himself, no matter how long it was going to take.
“Now he comes back,” Harper groused, struggling with a grin. “When all the puke is mopped up and the Deering twins have been sent upstate.”
He was Broslin’s black sheep turned cop, tall and lean, a ladies’ man and then some. His parents owned and operated Finnegan’s, the town’s only Irish pub. Harper and his six brothers weren’t officially involved in the family business, but helped out when called upon.
Harper flashed a long-suffering look at Chase. “The man treats police work as a holiday.”
“If this is vacation, where is the beer?” Murph challenged them.
“You let me know when you find it.” Chase gave him a quick, manly embrace, nothing near as demonstrative as Leila’s had been.
He was the mildest of the bunch, easy going. Had a reputation for being a big teddy bear, but he could lay down the law and finish a fight with a single right hook if the occasion called for it. Of course, with Chase, that was rarely the case. He was good at talking people down. Such an all-around nice guy, even the criminals liked him.
He checked Murph over. “What’s up?”
Murph reached for a cookie, smiling his thanks to Leila. “Can’t complain. Found a sexy redhead in my bed when I got in last night.”
“Shit like that never happens to me,”
Chase mumbled. “Can I have her?”
Murph flashed him an as-if look as he chewed. “Find your own woman.”
“It’s easier for you. You have that whole returning warrior thing going.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” Murph laughed. “I’d be happy to hook you up with my recruiting officer.” He grabbed another cookie. “Caught the Tractor Trio Gang yet?”
Harper shrugged. “The FBI is taking lead. They have some temporary office set up over in Chadds Ford.”
The Captain appeared in his office door. Stepped forward. “Murph. I’m sure I said it last night, but it’s damn nice to have you back. Come into my office.”
The change in him was even more obvious under the neon lights than it had been in the dark of night. He looked beat up and beat down, older. He looked as if he was fighting some serious illness, still chancy whether or not he’d slip back into it.
Murph followed him inside the office, dominated by a wide desk and a row of filing cabinets. “Any word from Hunter?” He’d forgotten to ask the night before. The news about Stacy had thrown him. Hunter was the Captain’s younger brother over in Afghanistan with the army.
“Talked to him on the phone last week. He’s all right. You ever run into him over there?”
Murph shook his head. “Any news on when he’s coming home?”
“Not yet. He wanted to come for the funeral, but it doesn’t work like that.” Bing sat behind his desk, his eyes haunted. “You ought to take time off and just rest. You don’t have to return to work right away.”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about.” Murph tapped his left shoulder, swallowing the bitterness in his throat. “I’m not going to pass the physical.”
Concern flicked across the Captain's face. “You didn’t say your injury was serious. How bad is it?”
“Not that bad.” Not considering that good men had died around him. “I need to gain back full range of motion in my left shoulder again. Got some shrapnel embedded in the bone.” It hurt like a sonovabitch when he moved the wrong way. He gave a brief summary, the bare basics: patrol, trap, IEDs.
Bing watched him with sympathy. “What can I do to help?”
“I’m good. I’m home. I have to get some paperwork straight with the VA, get my physical therapy. I’m hoping I can have one last surgery. Then it’s just a matter of building strength back in the arm. I want to be back as soon as possible.”
“We’ll be here, waiting.”
A moment of silence passed.
Murph shifted in his seat. “What happened to Stacy?” He wanted to help. He hated that he hadn’t been here when Bing might have needed him. “Where does the investigation stand?” Then when the Captain’s face darkened, he almost wished he hadn’t asked.
“Random crime. She was gardening, went in to wash up. Probably interrupted a burglary in progress. One bullet through the chest. She was dead instantly, the ME says.” Bing's voice broke. He cleared his throat. “Then the bastard ran. Didn’t even take anything.”
“If there’s something I can do.” Canvassing the neighborhood would have been done by now, but looking at the file with a pair of fresh eyes might pick up something.
Bing cleared his throat again. “I appreciate it. We’ve been over it all with a fine-toothed comb. I’ll let you know if something new comes up. Your only job right now is to heal. You want to take your guns home?”
The man wanted the subject changed, and respecting that was the least Murph could do. He swallowed the rest of his questions about the murder.
“Thanks for letting me leave them here.” Before he shipped out, he’d brought his personal weapons to store them in his locker at the station. He hadn’t wanted to leave guns in an empty house where any teenager might be tempted to break in to host a party. Or where Doug might sell a couple if he was tight on money.
They talked a little longer, then Murph left the Captain to his work, walked to his locker for his two handguns and two rifles, not exactly an arsenal. He brought the bag up front to his desk then took a couple of minutes to run a background check on his unexpected tenant. He had her name and the license plate number that he'd memorized before she left for work.
Her clunker was registered to a William Moser who was two years dead. Interesting. Her name didn’t come up in any of the law enforcement databases. She had no prior record.
He opened the state DMV database. The Pennsylvania Department of Motor Vehicles had close to a dozen Katherine Concords. However, the woman living in his house didn't match any of the pictures that popped up on the screen. He checked the photos twice, carefully.
Maybe she was from out of state.
Or maybe she was using a fake identity.
Before he could follow that train of thought, a man about his age strode into the station, drawing Murph’s attention from the screen. The visitor moved like a cop, but he wasn’t in uniform. He measured up the place like a cop, giving Murph a brief nod when their eyes caught. He walked up to Leila at the counter and talked to her for a minute. Then Bing came from his office and the two shook hands, the stranger talking.
Russett hair, jeans and a blue polo shirt that matched his eyes, he didn’t look familiar from town. Murph raised an eyebrow at Harper. Harper shrugged then went back to his computer.
The guy’s body language seemed guarded. He had a friendly look on his face, but at the same time his expression stayed closed. He talked to Bing for a good fifteen minutes and handed him some papers before they shook hands again.
“Who was that?” Harper called out as the door closed behind the guy, and the Captain headed back to his office.
“Jack Sullivan. Moving up here from Maryland. He wanted to know if we had any openings on the police force.”
Murph waited. The station and the people of Broslin were Bing’s responsibility and he would do what was best for the town, friendship notwithstanding.
But Bing shook his head. “I told him we don’t have anything permanent. I might be able to use him for the next month or two if everything checks out. I could use an extra pair of hands until you come back,” he told Murph. “FBI calls twice a day to send us off on some wild goose chase with the bank robbery business. I’m falling behind with the regular work.” He walked into his office.
Murph’s shoulders relaxed. It was nice knowing that his desk would be here, waiting for him.
Once again, he paged through what little information he’d found on his tenant, but the data was as unhelpful on second read as it’d been on the first try. He shot the breeze with Harper and Chase for a few minutes. They wanted to know about Afghanistan and he gave them the synopsis. Then he asked a couple of questions about Stacy that he didn’t want to ask Bing.
But as he headed out, his thoughts mostly circled around Kate. They were going to have a real talk when her shift at the diner ended.
* * *
Mordocai stared up at the ceiling as he sat in a tub of scented water and relaxed. His small rental apartment was nothing to brag about, the carpets gross, the curtains fraying, but the old-fashioned cast iron tub made up for some of that. He was an assassin on holiday. He deserved a little pampering.
He did his best thinking in the bath, always had. There was something primordial about being submerged. He would swear he was smarter in water. Even professional assassins were entitled to a few quirks.
He liked this leisure to savor life and his work. He liked that this time, he wouldn’t have to rush. Even if his plans had been messed with.
Murphy Dolan, the landlord, had returned unexpectedly and was staying with Kate. Did she know him from her life before? None of the research saved on the laptop sitting on a chair next to the tub pointed that way. This was her first time in Pennsylvania, and Dolan had never lived anyplace else.
Dolan was a cop and a soldier. He had skills, but they shouldn’t be a threat. There were skilled men, and then there were assassins. They were hardly in the same category.
Still, another person in the
house could mean complications.
He splashed in the water as he shifted to stretch his legs. He closed his eyes, letting the steam envelop him in a haze of well-being. He had time.
Kate was a job he’d chosen, personal, without deadlines, without restrictions, without a client who would change his mind half a dozen times and try to micromanage him. He could afford to take his time with Kate Bridges. Katherine Concord now.
Becoming her friend hadn’t been difficult. Yes, she was vigilant, but she was also lonely. He’d chosen the perfect disguise, the perfect persona to sneak past her defenses.
He’d see her today. He’d ask her about Dolan then. And she would talk to him because she trusted him.
He liked this new game, to have the leisure for something like this. He enjoyed being an assassin on holiday.
* * *
“Have a great day!” Kate called after a departing customer, then winced as pain shot up her elbow, her arm overloaded with the heavy tray.
Work was a blur. All those people who wrote cheerfully quaint books and movies about the slow pace of small town life never worked in a small town diner.
The Main Street Diner was a well-known fixture of Broslin, serving home-style meals and coffee since before the township had been incorporated. Since the town was famous for growing mushrooms, they put mushrooms in nearly everything, including dessert. Eileen, the owner, was known for her mushroom ice cream, which tasted a little like cream of mushroom soup, but sweeter.
Work was a mad rush, but the diner was home, more so than the house she rented, and the people here had become friends even in just a few weeks.
People called each other by their first names; the waitresses knew the regulars and their standing orders. Kate finally memorized enough so she wasn’t making too many mistakes.
“We need more Portobello quiche on the counter,” she said as she sailed back to the kitchen with her new order after dropping off lunch for seven.
Jimmy, the new cook’s assistant, tall and skinny as a pole bean, flashed her a hopeful look as he peeled potatoes in a bucket by the backdoor. “You got time later? I have a couple of tests coming up next week.”