by J. D. Sloane
Nolan shook his head and grinned as he took a bite of his doughnut, spinning it around in his hand.
“Not even close. Actually, it’s a western. Well. Trying to be anyway.”
“That sounds about right. For an ex-chief of police.”
Nolan looked up at her, his expression losing a little bit of its candor and then shrugged, setting down his doughnut as he took a sip of his coffee.
“Actually, it’s the exact opposite of police work. No moral dilemmas at high noon, Miss Gale. Just a man in white hat and a man in a black hat trying to kill each other in some deserted desert town. Good versus evil. It doesn’t get any farther from real life than that.”
Alicia leaned forward in her seat and tipped her head to one side, her gold eyes following his gaze as he looked for the waitress.
“Mr. Nolan,” she said, trying to keep her voice crisp and professional. “You don’t have to talk on the record with me if you don’t want to, although I wish you would. But like I said, I need some information from you. And if speaking to you privately is the only way I can get it, then I can find a way to live with that.”
Nolan rolled his jaw to one side, his pale eyes lighting up with something like anger and then took another drink of his coffee as the expression vanished.
“I’m not going to change my mind, Miss Gale.”
“Are you sure about that? You don’t even know what I want to ask you about.”
“Oh, my guess is some case you think we screwed up on somewhere down the line,” he said, tipping her a wink. “Does that sound about right?”
“I’m here about the Ronan White case. We’re doing a story on him in less than a week. His story, told behind bars. It could be the biggest story this year, Mr. Nolan. And since you were the one who closed the case I thought you might want to comment on it.”
Nolan’s face went very still as he set down his coffee and then looked her up and down swiftly, his eyes narrowing as he shook his head.
“Nope. Sorry. Not interested.”
“You wouldn’t have anything to add? Nothing at all?”
“I said all I’m ever going to say about that lunatic when we locked him up almost a year ago. But don’t worry, Miss Gale. I’m sure you can find lots of people on the force who are looking for that kind of attention.”
Nolan raised his hand and Alicia turned her head as the waitress dropped a bill, her hand reaching for it just as Nolan snatched it out from under her fingertips.
“Try Bailey. Or maybe Perez. They were both there back then. It’s been nice meeting you Miss Gale. I wish I could be more help to you.”
Nolan started to stand, and Alicia felt a brief moment of panic, reaching for his wrist suddenly as she rolled her gold eyes up to meet him.
“I thought I was paying for this,” she said, giving him a tight smile and Nolan broke her hold without quite shaking her off, standing up to his full height in the space between the booths.
“Oh, I’ve got better manners than that, Miss Gale. My wife insists on it. Plus, it’s not often I get to talk to an actual celebrity around here. Good luck with the story though. Really. I mean that.”
Alicia bit her bottom lip as Nolan turned his back on her and then leaned over the table, raising her voice just loud enough to be heard over the quiet din of the restaurant.
“He told me about the photographer. About the man in the lobby. He said that the motel cameras picked him up that night, but the police seized the footage. And then it disappeared from evidence.”
Nolan paused in the aisle, his shoulders sagging and then turned around, the movement slow enough for Alicia to see that his leg seemed to take a quick stutter step to catch up to the other, as if he had a slight limp and had worked hard to minimize it.
That night, she thought, her face flushing with embarrassment as he looked down on her with an expression that was equal parts anger and compassion. It was that night at the apartment. He was there trying to rescue Brooke and he got hurt somehow. They found him in the parking garage right before the entire building went up in flames…
“And who told you that? White?”
“Look, Mr. Nolan, I know you don’t want to talk to me. But this is a serious accusation. If no one followed up on it, on another suspect who might’ve kidnapped his girlfriend…”
“It was followed up on.”
“I know you have to say that. But I checked on his story and if there was any other footage taken that night that collaborates his story in any way, they’re going to suspect some kind of police tampering. He could ask for another trial. He could ask for a lot of things…”
“I said it was followed up on!”
Alicia jumped as Nolan leaned over her, his jaw working unpleasantly as he tapped his finger on the table.
“There was no man, Miss Gale. No other suspect. And it doesn’t matter if he killed her not, it really doesn’t. Because he’s the reason she’s dead. He’s the reason Brooke’s gone. It doesn’t matter how you wrap it up, or what kind of fairytales you let him weave for people in your special report. You are giving him exactly what he wants- a captive audience. And he’s good at telling stories, Miss Gale. You might want to remember that. You don’t want to wake one day and find yourself in the middle of one.”
“Mr. Nolan,” Alicia said, holding his eyes as she cocked her head at him. “I know how much you’ve lost in this. I’ve heard that you and Brooke were very close, weren’t you? I know that bringing all this stuff up again must seem like a cruel joke. But that’s why you have to talk to me. If I find something on those other security tapes, I’ll have to run with that.”
Alicia sat back against her chair and watched the waitress out of the corner of her eye before snapping her gaze back to his.
“Unless you can tell me why I shouldn’t.”
Nolan looked her over carefully and then his face dropped as he stood up, shaking his head as he glanced at the ceiling.
“Christ, he’s already gotten to you, hasn’t he?”
“I’m sorry?”
Nolan glanced down at her, his eyes shifting with something like compassion as his jaw hardened and let out a deep sigh as he pulled a ten out of his wallet.
“All right,” Nolan said, setting his coffee on top of it before tucking his bill in between. “You win, Miss Gale. It’s probably better this way anyway. At least you can’t say I never warned you.”
Alicia stood up and grabbed her bag as Nolan gestured to her quickly and then followed him towards the exit, his limp more noticeable when he was moving between booths.
“Where are we going?”
“To my house. I don’t live far from here. It’s just a few blocks up the street.”
“Your house?” Alicia said, her brow furrowing as he swung open the back door of the diner and waited for her to pass. “Why your house?”
“Because I don’t like having this conversation where others can hear us, Miss Gale. And there’s something you need to see.”
Alicia walked up the porch steps to Nolan’s tidy looking brick house at the end of the block and thought that for once, someone’s home seemed to reflect its owner almost down to the studs. It was the least pretentious home on an attractive, ordinary block and she glanced up as a windchime made of dragon flies whispered a quiet chorus of notes as they entered. Nolan caught her glance as he unlocked the door and nodded once, the uncomfortable tic of a man who spent his life in the rude underbelly of the city’s undesirables and came home to a house that was almost sweetly and unapologetically feminine.
“My wife, Helen,” Nolan said, clearing his throat as he tossed his keys onto a table near the door. “She loves dragon flies. There’s a ton of them around here. Watch your step.”
“Dragon flies are great,” Alicia said, taking a careful step over the threshold as Nolan shrugged off his jacket. “I loved them as a kid. They always looked like tiny, fairy-sized dragons to me.”
Nolan cocked a bro
w in her direction, some emotion she couldn’t place flickering across his face and then flipped on the lights to the dining room, walking towards what looked like a small, disorganized writer’s studio.
“Oh my god,” Alicia said, laughing as she walked over to the table, her gold eyes dancing with amusement as Nolan swept up a stack of papers and set them on the chair beside him.
“That’s not an actual typewriter, is it?”
Alicia danced her fingers over the keys without quite touching them, her mouth opening with glee as she saw that he had several paragraphs typed and spaced, and then bit her lip as he threw a plaid dust cover over it swiftly, clearing his throat as he gave her a rueful expression.
“What’s the matter with using a typewriter?”
“Nothing at all. It was good enough for Hemingway, right?”
Alicia walked over to the old-fashioned curio cabinet, lingering on a black and white wedding photo of a handsome looking couple in a very awkward cake cutting pose. She tapped the glass with her fingernail as Nolan passed her into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of cola.
“Is this you and your wife?”
“I always hated that photo. Our photographer was a real pain in the ass. Soda?”
“No thanks,” Alicia said walking around to the other side as a sudden collage of carved and pewter dragon flies greeted her for three shelves. “You weren’t kidding about the dragon flies.”
“Tell me about it,” Nolan said twisting off the top of his pop as he leaned against the counter for a minute. “My daughter gets her a new one every birthday. It’s like living near a swamp indoors.”
“You know that hipsters would have an absolute field day in this place, right?”
“Yeah, it’s one of the untold perks of getting old. If you stick around long enough, you get to see your whole existence picked over for spare parts. Hold on a minute. I’ll be right back.”
Alicia watched Nolan swing open a door at the end of the kitchen and then reached for the light switch, stepping down into what looked like a basement stairwell. She glanced around the corner as he threw open what looked like a dark pantry and then glanced around at the house again, grinning slightly at the old-world plaster ceilings and the framed family photos running up the wall of the staircase in a crisp, uninterrupted line.
“Where’s your wife?” She asked tracing her fingers across the white lace runner that ran down the middle of the table.
“She works part time at the museum up the street,” Nolan said carrying a shoebox sized case into the kitchen. “She started there around the same time I retired.”
“Oh,” Alicia said, her brow furrowing slightly as he snapped off the basement light and then brought it into the room, brushing his hands off automatically as he set it down. “So she’s gone most of the day?”
“Just a few days a week. I was gumming up the works, you see. It’s one of the more humbling moments of a man’s life, Miss Gale. To find out how long the people closest to you have been filling up the space you were supposed to fill. And then to see how content they are to keep doing it.”
Alicia looked at him quickly as he pulled out his keys and felt a mean tug of compassion for him as he glanced back at the window and then pointed to the blind pull at the end of the track.
“Get the blinds, would you?”
Alicia lowered the blinds as she saw Nolan reach for his laptop and felt a strange thrill of worry as she realized that she was alone in the house with someone who was an absolute stranger to her, someone who knew she was looking into White’s case and planned to expose the truth at any cost. She rolled her eyes back towards the front door, watching Nolan out of the corner of her eyes and then took a step closer as he tucked a CD into the drive and tapped his finger over the mouse pad.
“What is this?” She asked, her gold eyes widening as a stuttering color image suddenly righted itself and began to scroll forward. Her eyes flew from one side of the screen to the other and then she leaned over the desk so suddenly that her blond hair almost hit the screen and swept it behind her ears without thinking.
“Is this that night?” She asked, her face flushing with excitement as Nolan held up his fingers without looking at her, adjusting his glasses with one hand. “Is this from the motel across the street?”
“Just watch,” Nolan said, his expression dropping into grim lines as he watched the time stamp fly from one hour to the next.
When the time stamp reached midnight, Nolan tapped the keyboard lightly and then rested his knuckle across his lips, watching the glass door of the Knight’s Court Motel as his blue eyes hardened. Alicia watched the doors, glancing at Nolan out of the corner of her eyes and then heard a small sound of surprise pass her lips as she saw a tall man in a crisp black suit breeze into the lobby with two other men behind him, his long, dark blond hair obscuring his face as he passed. Her eyes darted over the time stamp as he walked through the lobby quickly and then leaned closer as the camera changed to another angle and Ronan’s face suddenly came to the forefront of the scene, his dark eyes so wild they barely seemed human.
“This isn’t what they have in…This is a different angle…From the desk maybe…”
“That’s right,” Nolan interjected calmly, his eyes shifting towards the time stamp again without meeting her eyes. “Like I said, just keep watching.”
Alicia watched Ronan begin to speak rapidly to someone behind the counter and then flinched as someone else stepped up to the desk and Ronan pulled out his gun, shooting him at point blank range. Her eyes widened as she saw the older man behind the desk back away with his hands up and then covered her mouth without thinking as Ronan leapt over the desk in one smooth movement, throwing the man back into the wall as the windows of the cashier’s desk shattered around him.
Her eyes followed the action blindly for a moment as she saw one of Ronan’s men chase someone down the hallway and then leaned closer as Ronan talked to the man against the wall, holding him by the collar stiffly as another crew member paced back towards the door. She swallowed hard as she saw him pull out his knife, the snap so smooth and careless it seemed like a simple extension of one hand and then felt her stomach clench in horror as he shoved it blade first into his mouth, running it into his face over and over again as the man screamed and dropped to the floor.
Alicia shook her head as Nolan watched her, his face drawn and set and then watched Ronan lean over the body on the floor and shoot him several times, smashing his boot into his face wildly before turning towards the hall. Nolan paused the tape just as Ronan turned, his scarred, handsome face so contorted with rage he barely looked like himself and let out a long sigh as Alicia glanced towards him.
“This isn’t the footage the police have.”
“No,” Nolan said, suddenly looking every day of his sixty-two years. “No, it’s not.”
Alicia looked back at the screen and then threw him a look of sudden accusation.
“So you did doctor it.”
“Nope. We just didn’t admit all the footage into evidence, that’s all.”
“Why not?”
Nolan looked down at her, his face shifting with an odd blend of anger and compassion and then sighed and finished his cola, setting the bottle down quietly as he folded his arms across his chest.
“Because we didn’t need it to convict him. He left a swath of destruction a mile wide in this city. There were witnesses everywhere. And I saw absolutely no reason to let that man’s family suffer any more than they had to.”
“That wasn’t your call to make.”
“Maybe not. But I made it anyway. And I’d do it again. That’s another funny thing about getting old. It’s not always about making the right decisions at the wrong time or vice versa. Sometimes it’s just about making the decision you can live with.”
Alicia turned back towards the computer screen, her fingers hovering over the keyboard without quite being able to bring herself to play it again.
“And the photographer?”
Nolan shook his head.
“No. Nothing. And we did follow up on the lead. It just didn’t amount to anything.”
Alicia glanced at the table as Nolan pulled a manila folder out of the box and then hesitated before setting it down, dancing his fingers over the top of it before passing it over to her.
“What is this?” Alicia asked.
“Photos, Miss Gale. Ones you should see. Even if you never use them.”
Alicia looked down at the dusty folder, her fingers tapping the creased white tab and then cleared her throat as she dropped her hand.
“So,” Alicia said, the low tremor of fear in her voice annoying her for no reason she could easily place. “You think he really did kill her?”
Nolan looked at her, tilting his head to one side as if weighing some decision carefully and then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t. But it doesn’t matter. He’s the reason she’s dead. Nothing he says changes that fact. It’s just the sort of thing he does, Miss Gale. He talks and talks and talks until a person can’t tell right from wrong anymore. Trust me when I say that this city is a better place without him. And you really don’t have any idea who you’re dealing with.”
“So, if not him, who then?”
“No idea,” he said, tapping at the screen until the image of Ronan disappeared.
“Do you think she was taken by one of his rivals?”
“Like I said, you should ask some of the cops who were working the case back then. I’m sure they have lots of good theories for your story. But as far as I’m concerned, the right man went away for her murder. And I can live with that.”
“You mean that you wanted him to go away. For your own personal reasons.”
“How long have you been working on this story, Alicia?”
“What difference does it make?” Alicia said, grabbing her purse up off the floor.
“How long?”
“What do you care?” Alicia said, tucking the folder into her bag with a curt swipe of one hand. “As long as all the guys in the black hats get exactly what’s coming to them?”