Earl’s brain clutched. He came here to “help” me with Brendan Stone!
He recalled too late now that Danny was at crew headquarters - an abandoned gasoline station on a lonely road outside Naperville - the day the court clerk called to report Brendan’s hideout and grand jury schedule. The crew was bitching about what a commie rat fink their bookkeeper turned out to be, giving up the boss to the authorities. Earl paid no mind - Brendan’s “tell-all” was a complete and utter con job. He’d tell the grand jury about every one of Earl’s crimes as head of a Chicago Mob gambling-machine crew, ensuring Earl’s indictment. Then he’d recant at the real trial, ensuring acquittal on all charges. Double jeopardy would wipe the slate clean forever. The idea was to make Wayne Covington, the bulldog assistant prosecutor trying to make his bones by tossing Earl’s narrow butt in Stateville, look like such a sap he’d have to quit.
It all came about when Brendan was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. “You take care of my family when I’m gone,” he’d said when pitching the idea to Earl, “and I’ll take care of Covington.” Earl ran it past Chicago, who approved on the spot - drowning a prosecutor at birth was a rare treat. So here they both were on a hot August morning, playacting.
But Danny didn’t know that.
His brother was never in the “family business.” Not now, not even when Dad ran the crew. “It’s not for me,” he’d said when Earl asked why. “I have different plans for my life.” Even the cops left Danny alone, knowing the smart young man was on the square, and that he stopped at the garage only to see his brother. Visits Earl hugely enjoyed - he loved Danny to distraction - but never imagined would lead to something this insane.
“Where’s your brains, college boy?” he spat. “You got one gun? They got twelve. And a tommy gun backing them up.”
He calmed himself, trying to think.
Walk over right now, he decided. Danny sees me, he’ll hack off whatever lame-brained scheme he’s hatched.
He jumped from the Galaxie and hustled across Ogden Avenue, twirling his shiny keys to attract his brother’s attention.
* * *
Andy steered Brendan through the double doors, scanning for threats. So far, so good. The only person besides cops and witness was the janitor. And some cat crossing the street . . .
“Sarge!” he hollered, reaching for the Smith & Wesson under his coat.
“Earl Monroe!” the sergeant bellowed, drawing his own .38. “Halt right where you are!”
“Earl Monroe?” Wayne gasped, splashing himself as he jerked toward the bathroom door.
“You OK, Brendan? These coppers rough you up? I just came to make sure you’re all right!” Earl bellowed, pushing the drama to the hilt. “You don’t have to do this, you know! They can’t make you testify against me if you don’t want!” He started raising his hands so the cops wouldn’t panic and open fire-
“Yow!” he yelled as he tripped into a pothole. He threw out his arms to save his face.
The keys flew straight at the cops.
“Monroe’s attacking! He’s throwing something!” Wayne bellowed as he charged from the bathroom. “Andy, get down, get down!”
Danny tore three hand grenades off his belly. Last time he’d visited the garage, he’d overheard Earl brag that he’d “accepted a crate of Kraut-blasters” as payment from a busted-out gambler who worked at the National Guard armory. He liberated four when everyone went out for a poker machine installation. As an engineering student, he was fascinated by explosives. Maybe he’d wander down to the river and blow up fish. Knock over one of the abandoned silos that dotted the Naperville countryside. Something useful, anyway . . .
He yanked the safety rings, flung the pineapple-shaped explosives, and dove behind the concrete flower planter choked with dandelions.
“Aaagh!” the sergeant screamed as shrapnel blasted his chest apart. He fell into Brendan Stone, whose blown-off head was spinning the other way.
Glass from the burning Plymouth Fury scythed the air, ripping flesh into oozy puckers, spinning one broken cop after the next onto the bird-spattered sidewalk, rooster tails of blood spitting into the wind. The motel’s burglar alarm erupted, adding to the confusion.
Wayne grunted to his feet, woozy from concussion. He staggered into the smoke and flames, desperate to find his brother.
“Danny, Danny, what did you do?” Earl wailed, yanking his busted leg from the hole. “Brendan wasn’t ratting me out, he was saving me! It was a setup! We were home free!”
He started crawling back to the Galaxie. He needed to disappear before responding officers shot him a few hundred times. From the corner of his eye, he saw the janitor race around the back of the motel, unseen by the writhing cops.
He felt a little better.
Wayne retched hotcakes when he saw Andy’s gums. They were dangling from his mouth by a single pink sinew, teeth poking out like cob kernels. Blood wept from his flayed body. Flames threatened to burn him alive, so Wayne wrapped his arms around what was left and pulled Andy to safety. Blood whistled through a dozen holes.
The Fury was fully engulfed. The motel windows were shattered, the squeegee melted. A couple of cops scrabbled around like impaled crabs. The rest lay silent.
Car horns erupted.
Peering through the smoke, Wayne saw a filthy lump inch across Ogden Avenue.
“Oh no you don’t!” he howled.
He yanked the superheated .38 from his dead brother’s hand. Ignoring the searing brand, he stumbled half-blind toward the murdering bastard, firing as fast as he could.
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!” Earl grunted as bullets chunked his body. He flopped across the center line, forcing Ramblers and Chevys into screeching panic-halts.
“I surrender!” he yelled, pushing his arms over his head. “Don’t shoot any more! I give up!”
“Die, die, die!” Wayne snarled, pulling the trigger over and over though the blue-steel revolver was empty. He kicked Trent, screaming curses so filthy one driver slapped his hands over his son’s ears.
“This animal napalmed my brother!” Wayne shouted, wrenching from the bystanders restraining him. Others joined the free-for-all. Inhalator ambulances raced down Ogden, sirens rising. “Let go so I can wring his neck!”
“Take it easy, mister,” the biggest one ordered, locking his farm-browned arms around Wayne. “If he’s the killer you say, the electric chair’ll hit him like a ton of bricks.”
“That’s why we got Old Sparky,” another farmer said, kicking the revolver away. Everyone nodded, patted the man’s shoulders and back. “Don’t worry. Sparky’ll set things right.”
Saturday
2:30 a.m.
Emily laid her cheek on Marty’s damp chest. It smelled like strawberries - he’d run out of Irish Spring and had to use her body wash. “First mud, now this,” he’d grumbled. “Another year with you and I’ll be wearing a bra.”
She wiggled closer, enjoying the tiny shocks that erupted as his fingertips massaged the small muscles along her backbone.
“I feel like I ran a thousand miles,” she said.
“And it’s only the first day,” Marty said.
“Well, technically, the second,” she said, glancing at her bedside clock.
An hour ago, Branch told the detectives to knock off till seven. Their only good lead had evaporated - the cell phone log said Devlin Bloch had indeed ordered only hookers and pizza, and manager interviews proved it. Might as well catch a few hours’ sleep. Bloch would stay in jail till Minneapolis found the “misplaced” files of the convenience store robbery.
She and Marty headed to her house at the southwesternmost end of Jackson Avenue. They ate cold Brown’s chicken, showered, brushed their teeth, and hit the Posturepedic.
“Gets a million times harder from here,” Marty said, yawning.
“Well, aren’t we the little braggart.”
He chuckled. “I meant the case, dear. We’re back at square one. Bloch is a lug nut, but I’d bet the pe
nsion he didn’t do it.”
She didn’t disagree.
“Plus as soon as this isn’t wrapped up, we have to dance at Covington’s prom.”
“Oh. Right,” Emily said. In all the excitement, she’d forgotten about the execution coming to town Friday, and how many double shifts it would require to successfully police it. When it came to overtime at age forty-two, her spirit was willing but her body complained.
“Are you handling it all right?” he said.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m all for executing monsters like Corey Trent.”
He repeated the question.
“Oh,” she said, catching his real meaning. “I’m fine with that, too.”
“Don’t fib, Detective,” Marty said, wagging a finger. “The polarity of your spinal cord changes when you’re not telling the truth. My fingers sense it.”
“Really?”
“Nah,” he said. “It’s just I saw your face in the parking lot.”
“I saw yours first.”
Marty’s sour look said, Stop dodging the question.
“You got that wired expression when I was working out your calf spasm,” he said. “You thought you were dying like two years ago, right?”
Emily propped herself on one elbow and studied Marty’s face. It was all hard planes and angles, unsoftened by the kindly hazel eyes. His fleshy, exquisitely shaped lips held no hint of his usual smile.
“You’re right,” she replied. “So?”
“So,” he said, teasing a henna highlight from her chestnut hair. “Did you think twice about pulling the trigger? Did you aim low to hit metal instead of his head? Did you hesitate, even a fraction of a second, to jump into the fray?”
“Why?” she snapped. “You going to take away my shiny little badge if I say yes?”
Another sour look.
She blew out her breath. Marty was only trying to make sure she was all right with what happened today. To do that, he had to break through her natural stubbornness.
Which was, she had to admit, not easy sometimes.
“The only regret I have,” Emily said, touching Marty’s muscled chest, “is the dirtbag escaped to kill poor Sergeant Luerchen.”
“‘Poor Luerchen?’“ Marty said. “You hated Ray as much as I did.”
“Yeah, I know,” Emily said, sighing. “But he was one of us. He was family. He shouldn’t have died that way.” She kissed Marty’s forehead, returned his laser stare. “I would have put all eighteen rounds in the driver’s brain if I’d gotten close enough.”
“You’re certain.”
“I am.”
Marty smiled. “Then what’s with your nightie?”
Emily looked down, astonished. She’d bunched the silk so high and tight it looked like a goiter on her hip.
She slapped it to her knees. “I don’t know,” she muttered.
“Neither do I,” Marty said. “But your subconscious does. Maybe someday it’ll tell you.”
Then his eyes, concentrated so intensely on her face as they talked, drifted south.
“For what?” she said, knowing what that meant. “Dispensing your psychobabble?”
“That was free. You owe me for that remark about dirt behind my ears.”
“Annie came up with that,” Emily pointed out. “Not me.”
“I’m not interested in Zenning the good lieutenant,” Marty said.
Emily giggled, then slipped off her lavender spaghetti straps. She adored how Marty made her feel. She could crawl through ten miles of sewage, and he’d be waiting at the end, eyes twinkling, telling her she was pretty.
She groaned as his giant hands worked their magic.
“Oh, Marty,” she whispered. “I love you. I love you so much.”
“Me, too, baby,” he murmured, riding the lavender.
“I can’t explain what you mean to me,” she said, body tingling, breath shortening. “Falling in love with you was like being born again - oh! Damn! No!”
His eyes flew open. “I do something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “I did.”
She flopped backward, bouncing her head off her overstuffed down pillow. “How could I forget that?” she raged. “It’s too important! What an idiot I am!”
Marty dropped his head on his outstretched arm, watching her with faint amusement. “Is this a private beat-yourself-up party?” he asked. “Or can anyone join in?”
“I forgot to put those burnt matches on NCIC.”
The National Crime Information Center held millions of law-enforcement records, from fingerprints to mugshots to aliases to VINs to crime scene descriptions to the inmate locator that nailed Devlin Bloch. Any cop in America could query NCIC to see if something in one of their cases had popped up anywhere else.
She’d assured Branch she’d log the burnt matches before heading home. An extreme long shot, she knew - they’d almost certainly been dropped by a client. But Branch’s mantra was thoroughness, and she hated not having crossed that particular item off her list. Especially since, without Bloch, they had less than zero.
“It’s been a long day, Em,” Marty said. “It’ll keep a few more hours.”
She shook her head.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
He rolled off the bed and reached for his jeans.
“Oh, hon, stay here. Get some sleep. You’re exhausted,” Emily said, clipping on her gun and badge. “I’ll drive to the station and send out the request. I’ll be right back.”
Marty looked at her, then the rumpled sheets.
“Think I’ll tag along to ensure you don’t linger, Detective,” he said. “We’re not due till seven, and I don’t intend to spend all of it sleeping.” Pause. “By the way, do we have any whipped cream in the fridge?”
“Why?” she said, heading for the stairs. “You hungry?”
“That, too,” he said.
In the garage, he glanced at his watch.
“Shit. I forgot.”
“What?”
“About a phone call I gotta make.”
“At three in the morning?”
“It’s that damn snitch,” he said, not looking at her. “He keeps nutty hours.”
Her eyes narrowed as she rubbed her still-sore ear. “What’s really going on, Marty?”
“Nothing,” he said. “This guy’s causing trouble I don’t want to deal with right now.”
“Really? That’s all? You’re not in trouble or anything?”
He waited too long to reply.
Her lungs started burning from not breathing.
“I have to go do this,” Marty said, heading back to the door. “Soon as I’m done I’ll come to the station. Shouldn’t be long. You go on ahead.”
She shrugged, not knowing what else to say. She got in her car and started the engine. He went inside the house.
She waited a minute, then crept to the door. Opened it silently. Padded on tiptoes till she heard him talking in the kitchen.
“You know I’ll do it, Alice,” he was saying. “I’ll find a way. And yes, it’ll be soon. But Emily deserves to know. I just haven’t found a way to tell her yet . . .”
She couldn’t listen any longer.
Tears falling, she retreated the way she came and headed for the station.
10:10 a.m.
“Hiya, Rev!” the passing driver shouted, squinting at the glare off the church bus. “Need any help washing that road hog of yours? I can swing by home and grab the kids.”
“Nah, Chet, I’m good,” the minister said, waving his Windex and rags. “Soon as I finish the mirrors, I’m done.”
Chet gave him a thumbs-up. “Real good luck on your trip. I mean it, Rev. Don’t agree one bit with your position on that electric chair - I say kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out. But I do admire your spirit.”
“Thank you, my friend. Be a nice drive if the weather holds.”
“How far is it again to Naperville?”
“Seventeen hundred miles, give or take.”
“Ouch,” Chet said, hamming up a wince. “My fanny hurts just thinking about it.”
The minister smiled. “No sacrifice too great to stop an execution.”
3:07 p.m.
“Last time I tell you to get out of your bunk,” the correctional officer warned, banging the bars with his steel toe, “and read that material the warden sent you.”
“What the hell’s the point?” Corey Trent grunted, running his grime-caked fingers through his butt-length hair. He stunk so bad from not bathing, brushing, or wiping he could hardly stand himself. But it annoyed the screws no end. Reason enough.
“So you’ll know how to be a good, honest citizen when you’re released.”
Trent spat, popped both middle fingers.
The CO laughed. “Fly ‘em while you can. In six days, they’ll be as shriveled as your dick.”
4:17 p.m.
“Thinking about that baby?” Branch said as they studied lab reports. The rest of the task force was in the field, searching for clues.
Marty nodded.
“You’re all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what I said,” Branch said. “You’re all right.”
Marty worked awhile longer.
Then looked up.
“She called me,” he said. “While we were at Marko’s house.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Was Emily . . .”
“Right next to me. I told her it was a snitch.”
“She buy it?”
“What do you think?”
Branch winced.
8:55 p.m.
“Off the ears, please,” the Executioner said. “Taper the back. Leave as much as you can on top.” He patted his thick-locked scalp, winked. “The ladies like it that way.”
“They sure do,” the barber said, jawing his Juicy Fruit. He swiveled the worn Koken barber chair toward the TV, got busy with scissors and comb. A ball game glared from the screen. Rap music blared from the speakers. The air conditioner over the door rattled and coughed, but iced the room well. “You’re not from Holbrook, are you?”
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