TWENTY-SEVEN
Sharon’s porch light glowed a warm, welcoming orange. When I climbed the steps, I heard the sounds of television voices from inside. She opened the door before I took my finger off the doorbell.
She blinked, then smiled. “Oh,” she said. “Brady. How nice.” She pushed the storm door wide open. “Come on in. It’s chilly out there.”
I stepped into the little flagstone foyer. Sharon gave me a quick hug.
“I need you to do me a favor,” I said.
“Of course,” she said. She frowned, then took my hand and led me into the living room and turned off the TV. She was wearing tight-fitting black leggings and a man-size red-and-black checked wool shirt. The sleeves were rolled up over her elbows and the tails flapped down nearly to her knees. One of Jake’s shirts, I guessed.
She turned to face me. “You’ve got that serious look,” she said.
“I want you to drive me over to Ed Sprague’s house,” I said, “and I don’t want you to ask why.”
“Ed’s?”
I nodded.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged. “Well, sure. Okay. Got time for a drink first? Or coffee?”
“No. I want to go right now.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
I drove her car over the dark country roads. Sharon sat silently beside me. When I stopped at the end of Sprague’s long sloping driveway, I looked at my watch. “It’s seven twenty-five,” I said. “Pick me up right here at nine-thirty.”
“What if you’re not here?”
“Go home and come back an hour later.”
“This seems awfully … clandestine,” she said.
“Oh, not really,” I said. “I just don’t think my car can get back up this driveway with all this snow, and I don’t want to leave it on the street.”
“Because you don’t want anybody to know you’re here.”
“It’s a crime scene,” I said.
She was silent. She was remembering, I guessed, that the crime had been Jake’s murder. “So you’re going to break the law,” she said after a minute.
“Technically, I guess.”
“But you’re not going to tell me why.”
“No.” I reached over and touched her cheek. “See you in two hours, okay?”
“I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “Just call me when you’re ready.” She touched my arm and put something into my hand.
I held it up to the light. It was a cell phone. It wasn’t much bigger than a thin deck of cards.
“Julie keeps telling me I should get one of these things,” I said. “So I can keep in touch, she says. The truth is, most of the time I like being out of touch.”
“They can be handy,” said Sharon.
I slipped the little phone into my pants pocket and climbed out of the car. Sharon got out the passenger side and came around, and I held the door for her. She slid in behind the wheel. “Well,” she said, “see you later.”
I nodded and closed the door, and she drove away.
The sliver of a new moon hung low in the star-filled sky. It was a clear, cold late-winter’s night, and the fresh snow seemed to gather the starlight. It lit up the countryside with a pale bluish glow, and I didn’t need my flashlight to navigate.
Sprague’s driveway hadn’t been plowed since the recent storm. The snow had melted and settled during the warm day, but the driveway was still covered with three or four inches of new snow. As I started toward the house, I found myself following the tracks of a large deer. They went about halfway down the slope before they abruptly veered off into the piney woods on the left.
When I got to Sprague’s house, I fished my flashlight from my pocket and turned it on. A strip of yellow police crime-scene tape had been strung across the front porch. I ducked under it and found the key under the rocking-chair cushion. There was an X of tape over the front door, too, along with a cardboard sign that read: POLICE CRIME SCENE. The tape was flapping loose. I guessed the storm had torn it away from the doorway.
Actually, the crime scene itself had been the barn, not the house.
I unlocked the front door and put the key back. Then I ducked around the loose tape and went inside.
I followed the narrow beam of my flashlight directly to Sprague’s office and sat down in front of his computer.
For years, Julie had kept insisting that I should learn how to use our office computer. I’d held out as long as I could. She called me “Old Man Technophobe,” which I didn’t take as any kind of insult whatsoever. I kept telling her that if I knew how to use the computer, I wouldn’t need her anymore.
Finally, just a couple of years ago, I surrendered. Our office Mac was surprisingly simple to operate. I rarely used it myself, but I liked being able to drop words like megs and RAM and download into casual conversation as if I knew what I was talking about.
I shone my light on the keyboard, pressed the key to turn it on, then shut off my flashlight and watched the icons pop up on the screen.
I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe a file labeled “dirty pictures.” But no such luck.
I clicked on the icon called “hard drive,” and a moment later a list of folders appeared on the screen. None of them was labeled “dirty pictures” or “kiddie porn” or “Brian Gold.” I scrolled through the list. There seemed to be hundreds of items, many of them coded with numbers and letters that meant nothing to me.
It would take me hours to examine all of it. I clicked randomly on several of the folders and opened the documents inside them. All I came up with was text, stuff that Sprague apparently had downloaded from the Internet—statistical crime reports, articles about juvenile delinquency, Supreme Court decisions, studies from the FBI and the DEA, descriptions of experimental crime-prevention programs, speeches on crime and enforcement. Just the sort of thing a conscientious police chief would store in his computer.
No photos. Nothing that appeared remotely related to pornographic pictures of children.
All I wanted were some faces. One face would be enough.
But if Ed Sprague had stored his photos in his computer, he’d hidden them well. It would take time—and someone geekier than I—to dig them out.
I turned off the computer, turned my little flashlight back on, and made my way upstairs.
The upstairs hallway ran across the front part of the house, and two bedrooms occupied the full dormer on the back. I looked into what I assumed was the guest room, the smaller of the two. It held a pair of twin beds, a desk and chair, a shoulder-high chest of drawers, bookshelves. I remembered the photographs. They had not been taken here.
Between the two bedrooms was a small bathroom that opened into the hallway. I shone my flashlight into it—a mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink, toilet, shower stall, linen closet, and on the rear wall a door that opened into a larger bathroom, the one that adjoined the master bedroom.
I went into Sprague’s bedroom. Those photographs, I instantly saw, had been taken here. I recognized the patchwork quilt. In a couple of the pictures, Brian and his partner had been lying on top of it. In others, the quilt had been thrown back. The bedroom window beyond it had no curtains. A framed watercolor painting of sailboats on what looked like a salt pond hung beside it. The lamp on the bedside table had a squarish shade.
I moved around the room, trying to find the angle from which those photos had been taken. I ended up with my back against the tall mirror that hung against the inside wall beside the door that opened from the bedroom into the master bathroom.
I went into the master bathroom. It had a Jacuzzi, two sinks, and a double-wide linen closet. I opened the closet door, and when I pulled a stack of towels off a shelf, I found myself looking into Sprague’s bedroom. The bed was right there, and the window and the framed watercolor painting were beyond it.
I was looking through a one-way mirror.
Sprague had entered this bathroom from the hallway through the other bathroom with
out the people in the bedroom knowing it. He braced his camera on the closet shelf and clicked away.
The photos in my safe matched up perfectly with the view through this one-way mirror.
I put the towels back on the shelf and closed the closet doors.
Now what?
One voice in my head—a strong, logical, sensible voice—told me to get the hell out of there, call Horowitz, and dump it all on him.
But another voice kept reminding me that I hadn’t snooped thoroughly enough, that I should learn everything I could, that once it was out of my hands, there was no way I could control what would happen.
What I needed was buried in Sprague’s computer. I had to figure out how to ferret it out. Horowitz couldn’t do that. He was off the case.
I stepped out of the bathroom and paused in the hallway. I heard a faint rustling sound behind me, no more of a noise than a mouse would make scurrying across a carpet. Before I could turn around to shine my light on it, something heavy slammed into the back of my legs.
My flashlight went flying, and I toppled forward. My head crashed against the wall, and I went down on my stomach.
He was on top of me instantly. Fists smashed against my head and shoulders. He was grunting, pounding away at me. Fists like pistons, bouncing off my skull, my arms, my back.
I curled into a ball, braced myself, and heaved, and he went flying.
I went after him in the dark, scrambling on all fours. I got ahold of his leg, yanked at it, pulled him down, grappled with him, got him in a bear hug.
I squeezed him as hard as I could. He wasn’t very big, but he was kicking and straining against me.
I tried to get my forearm around his throat. He had his chin tucked down.
Then he got my wrist between his teeth.
“Ow!” I said. “Shit.”
I ripped my wrist away and punched at him in the dark. I hit him in a soft place, and I heard the breath whoosh out of his mouth.
I threw myself onto him. He was lying there, limp and gasping for breath.
My flashlight was lying a few feet away. Its narrow beam was shining against the wall. I grabbed it and shone it on my assailant.
It was Brian.
His face was streaked with tears and he was wheezing and panting.
“It’s me,” I said to him. “Uncle Brady.” I shone the flashlight on my own face.
He looked wide-eyed at me. “I thought …”
“Did I knock the wind out of you?”
He nodded.
“You got me pretty good, too,” I said.
He tried to smile. “I didn’t know who you were. I’m sorry.”
I reached for him, pulled him against me, and hugged him. “I’m not going to let you get away this time,” I said.
I felt his shoulders shaking.
“You’ve been here since you left Jason’s?” I said. “Sandy brought you here?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Are you ready to go home now?”
“I guess so.”
“First, we’ve got to—”
At that moment, a car door slammed out front.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I put my finger to my lips, and Brian nodded.
I flicked the flashlight off.
Voices came from outside the house.
The Reddington police, probably, on routine patrol, keeping their eye on their dead chief’s vacant place.
I didn’t want them to find me here. I didn’t know if I could trust anybody on the Reddington police force. Sprague had been their chief. Maybe some—or all—of the Reddington officers had been involved in Sprague’s sick business. Lucas McCaffrey, the redheaded cop, was ambitious. I’d seen him with Sprague. Tory Whyte claimed to despise him. But she’d been sleeping with him. I didn’t know anything about the other Reddington cops.
I didn’t know whose faces were on those photographs.
The only person I could trust was Horowitz.
Well, they’d be gone in a minute.
Then I remembered that the crime-scene tape had been ripped away from the front door.
Shit! I’d also left footprints in the new snow. They led from the road, down the middle of the driveway, up onto the front porch and into the house. It wouldn’t take Daniel Boone to follow my tracks.
Maybe they’d chalk it up to nosy kids.
Wishful thinking, Coyne.
There was no upstairs window on the front of the house, so I couldn’t look outside. But I figured the first thing they’d do would be to walk all the way around the house, looking for footprints leading away.
Of course, they wouldn’t find any. Then they’d know I was still here, and they’d come in for me.
If I tried to hide, they’d keep looking until they found me.
Maybe I should just go downstairs and say hello to them. I could try to bluff my way out. Brian could hide upstairs. He could slip away later.
Or I could explain in a general way why I was here and insist they call Horowitz.
Except I didn’t dare trust them.
Anyway, they wouldn’t buy it. They’d arrest me.
They might not arrest me. They might shoot me. Jake and Sprague had been shot. It wouldn’t be hard for a dirty cop to make up a plausible story that would justify killing a burglar—an armed burglar at that—who’d violated a crime scene.
Our best bet was to try to sneak away. If Brian and I could get out of the house, we’d head for the woods, loop around to the road, and call Sharon to come get us.
If we got caught … well, then our only choice would be to try to talk our way out of it.
We had to move fast. They didn’t know about Brian, but once they checked for departing footprints in the snow and realized I was still inside, they’d probably call for backup.
“Come on,” I whispered to Brian. “Stay right behind me. We’ve got to make a run for it.”
I didn’t dare turn on my flashlight, and the inside of the house was totally black. Brian kept ahold of my jacket. I felt my way along the wall until I found the railing. I stopped at the top of the stairway. I heard nothing.
We started down the stairs. Brian stayed close behind me. We paused at each step. It felt like it took an hour to reach the bottom of the stairs.
Then we were in Sprague’s big open downstairs living area. The windows made it light enough down here that I could make out the shapes of furniture and walls and doorways.
“Stay right there,” I whispered to Brian. I moved to the front of the house and slid along the wall until I could peek out a window.
The vehicle was a four-wheel-drive SUV. I didn’t recognize it. It had no light bar on the roof, no logo on the door. Friend or foe?
The problem was, I didn’t know who were the friends and who were the foes. It didn’t look like anybody was inside the truck. And I saw nobody outside the house.
Push open the front door, slip out, and run for it?
If they spotted us, it would be all over. Even if they didn’t shoot us and we made it to the woods, they’d call in backup. Hell, they could call in helicopters and dogs. They’d follow our footprints in the snow wherever they went.
But if we could just get back to the road without being seen, we’d call Sharon and be in the clear. It was our best chance.
My hand found the doorknob. I turned it slowly. The click of the latch sounded like a gunshot inside the dark house.
That’s when the lights went on.
State Police Lt. Christopher Stone was standing barely ten feet from me. His left hand was on the light switch. His right hand held his square automatic weapon. It was pointed at my chest.
I glanced toward the foot of the stairs, then around the room. Brian had disappeared.
“Well, well,” said Stone. He was grinning at me. “If it isn’t the asshole attorney.”
“Hello, Chris.”
“Somehow, I’m not surprised.”
“Listen,” I said, “I’ve got—”
“Shut up,” he said. “Clasp your hands behind your fucking neck.”
I did.
He came over to me, grabbed my shoulder, spun me around, and slammed my face against the wall. The muzzle of his gun rammed into my ribs. His other hand was patting me down.
When he found the .38 in my jacket pocket, he reached in and took it out. “Oh, boy,” he said. “Let’s see. We got at least an armed Band E at a crime scene. You’ll need more than your buddy Horowitz to get you out of this one, pal.”
“Chris, for Christ’s sake—”
His fist slammed into my kidneys, and I went down on my hands and knees. I hung my head, gasping for breath, fighting the urge to puke.
“Don’t say a fucking word,” said Stone. “Spread-eagle yourself and put your hands behind your back. Open your mouth again and I’ll kick in your teeth, which is what happens when an armed criminal resists the lawful arrest of a police officer. You got that?”
I lay there on the floor with my arms behind me and my legs spread out.
He reached down and clamped handcuffs onto my wrists. Then he bent over and ran his hands up the insides of my legs and over my body. When he found Sharon’s cell phone, he slipped it from my pocket and tossed it onto the sofa.
Then he took a two-way radio off his belt. “I got him,” he said. “Just like you thought.”
A minute later the front door opened and Gus Nash stepped inside. He was wearing a three-piece suit under his camelhair topcoat. He looked down at me and shook his head. “You okay, Brady?”
“This miserable excuse for a peace officer punched me in the kidneys,” I grunted. “I am not all right.”
Stone handed Nash my gun. “I had to disarm him, Mr. Nash.”
Nash put my .38 into the pocket of his topcoat.
“He punched me after he took my gun,” I said.
Nash reached down, took my arm, helped me to my feet, and led me to the sofa. I collapsed onto it and sat there awkwardly with my hands cuffed behind my back.
I hoped Brian had managed to slip out the back door and was hightailing it through the woods.
Nash sat in an armchair across from me. He leaned forward with his forearms on his thighs and peered at me. “You going to be all right, Brady?”
Scar Tissue Page 22