by Mark Pryor
“Oh, God yes, absolutely,” he said. “I can’t see this going any other way.”
“So who the hell was that guy, anyway?”
“His name was Travis White. Mean anything to you?”
I allowed a suitably thoughtful pause. “Travis White, no. Means nothing.”
“Figured, but that’s why I’m calling. Turns out your theory about Tristan Bell still trying to implicate you, get back at you, was right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Travis Lee White is a former cellmate of Bell.”
I let that sink in. “Are you serious? They were prison cellies?”
“Not prison, no. They bunked together when Bell was being held at Del Valle, pretrial.”
“That’s unbelievable. But why come after me now?”
“We’re not entirely sure. We assume they’ve been in touch but haven’t had time to confirm that.”
“Bell put out a hit on me?”
“That seems likely. I mean, I don’t think White tried to kill you just because he and Bell were friends.”
“I guess not, but how would Bell pay this guy? He’s locked up.”
“Again,” Brannon said, “it’s early days. Well, hours. So we’re not sure yet of the details. But I’ll be honest, I’ve seen hits for a thousand bucks, couple hundred even. People like White don’t have high regard for human life, especially law enforcement, whereas they do have a great deal of respect for the dollar.”
“My life’s worth a couple hundred bucks?”
“To someone like White, I expect it is. We should know more in a day or two, though.”
“Well, I appreciate the update,” I said. “Oh, and if you call back and I don’t answer, please don’t worry about me. I’ve taken a sleeping pill and plan to be out until morning.”
“Good idea,” Brannon said. “Just don’t drink too much whiskey along with that pill.”
I laughed. “Thanks, I won’t.”
We rang off, and I went back into my apartment and dropped my cell phone in the drawer beside my bed, then returned to the car.
I drove slowly and carefully up to Oltorf, then into East Austin, past the strip malls and laundromats, the liquor stores and shack-like Mexican restaurants where the best food was to be found, if you weren’t in law enforcement. I didn’t use my GPS to guide me, unsure if those things left a record that could be mined by anyone at a later date. But I recognized the street from my last visit and drove slowly up and down, making sure it was all clear. Not for the first time, I wondered about having such a visible car. A white Land Rover here was like a red flag to a bull, except it’d be stolen or stripped down, not charged at. But it was a risk I had to take at this point.
After I’d parked, I let myself through the little gate and walked up to the rickety porch, hesitating as I looked up and down the street. All quiet, and not even eight p.m. By this time the old folks would be stuck in front of their televisions, and the empty, unwanted homes were several hours away from being usurped by junkies and the homeless.
I tried the door handle, but someone had put a new lock on it. I walked around to the right side of the house and used the heel of my shoe to break a window and clear the glass away. I stood quietly for five minutes, listening for a neighbor or the sound of sirens, before dropping my bag through the window and hoisting myself inside.
I looked around, but it all seemed familiar, the same. The same as when I’d come in here with Officer Thiago DeAraujo. The same, too, as when I’d come here a couple of days earlier with Bobby and shot him in the side of the head. I wiped the gun on his hands in case he was found quickly and someone tested for GSR, and staged his body behind that mattress in the living room. The most distasteful part, as you might imagine, was handling the mattress, even though I was wearing gloves.
I dug into my bag and brought out a box of candles; I didn’t want us all operating by flashlight. I had an electric lantern, too, which I switched to high and put on the coffee table, after propping up its broken end on a low wooden chair. I took care setting up and lighting the candles, as an unexpected fire wouldn’t help my cause at this point.
Brian was the first to arrive. I watched him park and re-park his car right outside the front of the house. I could see his fat head in the glow of his phone as, no doubt, he checked and rechecked the address that I’d texted him from a burner phone, and that he’d sent on to me. He eventually got out of his car, carrying a plastic shopping bag and a flashlight, and made his way nervously up to the front door. I walked over and unlocked it.
“Come on in,” I said. “Don’t hang about out there; it’s not the greatest neighborhood.”
“No kidding,” He said, then shot me a suspicious look. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Running politely late, I assume.”
“But they’re coming.”
“Won’t be much of a poker game if they don’t.” I gave him a reassuring grin. “But if not, maybe we can play Go Fish or something.”
He sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”
“All kinds of things—I wouldn’t know where to start,” I said lightly. “And I don’t think you really want to know.”
“You’re probably right.” He held up his sack. “Got some beers in here, those pills, where should I put them?”
“On the floor.” I looked out of the window and saw headlights coming down the street, slowing as they reached the house. “Ah, here we go.”
Brian reached into his bag and pulled out a beer. “I figured Connie wouldn’t let me drink that Guinness you got for me, so I hid it and figured I’d bring it here.”
Perfect. “Perfect.”
A door slammed outside, and Brian said, “That one of the guys?”
“More or less.” I crossed to the front door and opened it, so she wouldn’t have to wait.
Brian had perched on the edge of the sofa, but when he saw her breeze into the room, he started to rise. “Oh, I thought . . .” he looked at me, “I thought it was just—”
“Just the guys? I think we can call this a change of plan.”
He tried to recover, from his surprise and blatant rudeness. “Hi, I’m Brian.” Then he looked harder at her. “Have we met before? You look familiar.”
“This is my girlfriend,” I said, then corrected myself when she turned her elegant neck to look at me. “Former girlfriend. Whatever. You’ll know her as the sister to a young man named Bobby, the deceased juvenile found by me.” I pointed through to the bedroom. “In there, as it happens.”
“What are you doing, Dominic?” she asked, her voice detached. And she didn’t wait for an answer, but drifted over to the bedroom door. She picked up a candle on the way and stood in the doorway, looking in. Then she turned to me, her eyes wide with understanding. “Oh, Dom. You did it, didn’t you?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think I needed to, not to her anyway.
“Did what?” Brian looked back and forth between us, utterly clueless as to what we were talking about and what was to happen. “Dom, what the hell’s going on here? Are we playing poker or not?”
“Not tonight, Brian.” I walked over and locked the front door, more a symbolic gesture than a measure of security—even Brian knew how to operate a dead bolt.
My girl and I locked eyes across the room, but I couldn’t read her, as usual. She moved slowly toward me, Brian watching her like she was an ice dancer in a miniskirt.
“I want to hear you say it,” she said. “I’ve never expected much truth from you, I’ve always known what you were, but I would like the truth. And from your lips.”
“What I am,” I said, “and also what Bobby was.”
“Which made it OK?”
“Basically, yes. A year ago, one person knew what I was, and that person was me. Then you came along and somehow you knew. And then Bobby knew.” I pulled a gun from under my jacket and let it hang by my side.
“Dominic, what the fuck is—?” McNulty started to rise again
but I waved the gun, indicating he should sit down. He looked up at the composed woman standing at the other end of the sofa and seemed to draw some courage from her calmness. “If someone doesn’t tell me what the fuck is going on, I’m calling the police.”
“No,” I said. “That’d be a really bad move on your part.”
“Why? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You might think that, but the police will be reaching a different conclusion fairly soon.”
She smiled then, a sad little smile. “Ah, of course. Three of us knew about you. Three can keep a secret . . .”
“When two of them are dead,” I finished for her.
“You brought him here to kill me?” she asked, still calm. “I don’t believe that.”
“What?” Brian almost exploded out of his seat and was halfway across the room when I caught up to him. I grabbed him by the collar and stuck the gun under his chin.
“If you stand up one more fucking time, I will kill you on the spot. Do you understand me?”
He nodded, and I dragged him back to the sofa, throwing him down. A cloud of dust rose around his lumpy form, and he sneezed violently several times. I stepped back and let it settle around him.
“Since you’re so insistent on your innocence, let me tell you a few things,” I said to Brian, once he’d regained control of himself. “Sometime tomorrow, the police will find a piece of paper in the glove compartment belonging to a man who tried to kill me. A piece of paper that has my home address, signed with your initials. They’ll also find a letter bearing your fingerprints directing a would-be assassin to my place of work.”
“My prints?”
“Yep. They’ll run them through AFIS, and, since we’re both county employees, our prints are on file. Yours will show up; mine will not.”
The wheels were spinning madly in his head. “The note on the Civic?”
“Precisely.”
“What if he . . . threw it away?”
“It won’t matter. They’ll see the library footage of you putting that note on his car. If they don’t figure that out themselves, an anonymous call will point them in the right direction.”
“An anonymous call?”
“I’ve been making a lot of those lately. Burner phones are heaven-sent for that purpose.” He was shaking his head, his mouth gaping open and shut like a drowning fish. “Now then,” I went on. “Where was I? Ah yes. Once they connect you with Travis White, they’ll take a look at the shell casings they’ve no doubt found by now in his trunk.”
“Shell casings?” Brian said meekly.
“Yeah. You know, the ones I swept up when we went to the range. Amazingly a few found their way into my pocket and then into his car. I assume you don’t have your gun with you now?”
His eyes widened, again, and he shook his head. “No.”
“Don’t lie to me, Brian.”
He swallowed. “It’s in the car.”
“Bad neighborhood, this one. Give her your keys and tell her where it is, exactly.”
He fished the keys from his pocket and handed them over. “Glove compartment.”
“Good,” I said. “That makes things even better.”
We waited in silence as that blindingly serene form glided out of the house to Brian’s car, returning with his gun clasped to her chest. She gave it to me, and I put mine back in its holster.
“Like I said, this makes things even better. Not that I needed it. I’m certain that once you’re in APD’s sights, they’ll have a look at your work computer. That’ll be a gold mine, right there.”
“My computer? I never did anything with it!”
“Oh, but you did, don’t you remember? Right after Detective Ledsome was shot, you tried to download the offense report to see where the investigation was going.”
“No, I did that for you,” he insisted.
“I wasn’t even in the office; how did you do that for me?”
“You called! The phone records will show you called.”
I shook my head. “No, they won’t. They’ll show you got a call from a number that isn’t mine. A phone that was found on the body of Travis Lee White, the man who tried to murder me earlier tonight. The man you paid to murder me.”
“Me? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, and speaking of your computer they’ll find the e-mail you sent to Bobby’s probation officer asking to track his GPS. You should really have been more careful about leaving your workstation unsecure.”
“You sent that from my computer?”
“And that PO called a cell phone that can’t be traced to me, and that the police will therefore assume was yours.” I smiled broadly. “My goodness, how I love burner phones.”
“I can’t believe this.” His eyes glistened, like he was about to cry. “Why are you doing this?”
I carried on. “It’ll be tough to put the pieces together for the police, I’ll admit. And they’ll probably end up with a few gaps; I couldn’t do everything the way I wanted. But there’ll be enough connections to keep them happy, like the two grand you were going to pay White for the job. A lot of money to take out of your account at once, don’t you think? And I’m guessing when she’s asked about it, dear little Connie will have no idea.”
He glanced down at his sack, where no doubt his poker money sat, then looked back and forth between the two of us, then at the gun in my hand. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“You were a dick,” I said. “Basically, you were a dick and you wouldn’t stop being one. And because you were such a giant dick, I decided that you didn’t deserve to be a judge. In fact, I decided that not only did you not deserve to be one, but that I should have that job instead. Except I wasn’t going to get it, was I?”
He was shaking his head. “I don’t—”
“No, you and everyone else told me I wasn’t going to get it. I don’t like people telling me what I can and can’t do.” I glanced at my lady. “Sound familiar?”
“Very,” she said, her face expressionless.
“Anyway.” I turned back to McNulty. “That blackmail idea, that was genius.”
“Blackmail? I didn’t blackmail anyone . . .” His voice tailed off, confusion writ large on his stupid face, but also tinged with guilt.
“Brian, come on. I’ve never, ever accused you of being a genius. I’m talking about my blackmail idea.”
“Judge Portnoy?” he asked. Maybe he was getting there, slowly. “How could you know about that? I didn’t tell you. Or anyone.”
“I know, and I’m most disappointed in your discretion. Judge Portnoy, however, is under the impression that the envelope she received containing a policeman’s body-cam footage came from you.” I could see he wasn’t there yet, so I continued. “One of my cleverer schemes. I made sure you were close to Portnoy’s house by following your patrol car that night, then diverting off for a wee prang.”
“Prang?”
“Yes. I clipped that old lady and then scared her enough so she called you. Which put you and Officer Chipelo right where I needed you, for an anonymous call to someone breaking into Portnoy’s house.”
He was still working it all out, but to be fair it was kind of a complex deal. “But how did you know what they’d find?”
“Well, let’s start with the fact that I knew they’d be wearing body cams, that’s where I started. Next we go to the fact, one you couldn’t possibly know, that my lady here was utterly devoted to saving her brother from himself. Not only did she seduce me to that effect, but she . . . Let’s just say she got on Judge Portnoy’s good side. Very good side.”
He turned and looked up at her, the truth slowly dawning on him. “That was you in there?”
“I told you, she likes to fuck with authority. Brian, come on,” I said. “You really think I could’ve pulled this off all by myself? I’m good, but not that good.”
He stared at the floor. When he spoke, a note of triumph laced his tone. “But Versadex will show that it wa
s you who downloaded that video. If I didn’t and you did, there’ll be a record of that.”
“Well, you’d think so,” I said soothingly. “It’s kind of true that you didn’t do anything, except drink the laxative-laced coffee I brought you at Curra’s. A little childish, of course, but so funny to see you scurry to the toilet like a little boy about to shit himself. In so much of a hurry, in fact, that you didn’t log out of your computer—left it ready and waiting for me.”
More pieces fell into place. “You downloaded it from my account.”
“Mine kept glitching, remember?”
“Bullshit.” He was angry now, which pleased me. He looked up, holding my gaze for a change. “So is that true? All that stuff Bell was saying about you masterminding that heist. Those murders.”
“What do you think?”
He looked away from me, around the room, and his body suddenly sagged back into the sofa. “Are you really going to shoot me?” His voice was weak.
“No. Actually, I’m not.” My special lady gave me a look, and I walked over and handed her the gun. “Elizabeth. It’s time to choose. Me or him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BRIAN
I’d known. I swear to God I’d always known, from the moment he moved into my office and shook my hand for the first time.
And yet I still couldn’t believe it.
Well, maybe I hadn’t known he was this bad, this . . . evil. And the truth was, even in that moment, in that awful, rundown house, I still had a hard time believing my eyes. A gun? None of this made sense, Dominic pulling my own gun on me and then handing it to her?
I dragged my eyes from the boxy Glock, my boxy Glock, and looked at their faces instead, trying to understand. They were staring at each other, their eyes locked but their faces were unreadable. I shifted on the sofa, edged forward, and the smell of the place rolled over me, dust and trash, piss and damp. Dominic’s eyes swiveled and locked onto me, so I stopped moving. The girl stared at him still, the gun hanging in her hand like she didn’t even know it was there.
I did. I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.