by Davis Bunn
“Terrible,” Matt murmured to the floor at his feet.
“There’s a chance here, though. A chance to learn a secret about yourself. I had two taught to me then. What terrified me most was losing June. I didn’t deserve her. But she loved me and we were happy. So long as I didn’t face up to my fear, I was pushing her away. My denial actually made the fear a reality; you see what I’m saying?”
Matt wished he had the strength to lift his head and meet the man’s gaze. It was not much to ask for, but impossible just the same.
Eventually Lucas went on, “I learned to take it one day at a time, love her the most and the best I could. Then, when she really did have to go, I could at least feel like I’d done the most I could with the days we had.”
Matt tried to remember if he had ever talked like this with anyone before. He wondered why it felt so normal. Which gave the moment a bittersweet edge. He clenched himself up hard, lifted his head, found the strength to ask, “And the second lesson?”
Lucas D’Amico had eyes that burned with a fire that threatened as much as it sparked. “That I couldn’t do it alone.”
Judy Leigh’s Sunday morning call caught Connie as she was running Katy a bath. “What did you have planned for today?”
“I was thinking of going home, washing my hair, trying out my new hammock. Yesterday I played housekeeper for D’Amico’s kid. Matt’s due any minute to take her to church.”
“Is that her I hear singing?”
“Yeah, that’s our Katy.” Connie lowered her voice. “And if I hear another round of the butterfly song, I’m going for the Mace.”
“Bad?”
“No, Katy’s a sweetheart. But I miss playing with adults, you know?”
“Not yet. But I will soon.” Judy sighed. “My husband’s making noises like he wants me to go freelance after the baby’s born. I hate how appealing that sounds.”
“You looking for Matt?”
“No. You. I just spoke with Lucas. He said you might be available.”
The reporter hesitated, then said, “I’ve got something. About the family.”
“His father?”
“Partly.”
“His mom?”
“You could say so.”
“Bad?”
“I have no idea.”
She checked her watch. “Matt’s due here in twenty minutes. Tell me where we can meet.”
Sunday morning’s nightmare was as subdued as the gray dawn, a faint smudge against the window of his brain. Matt dressed, ate, and left the house. Rain threatened but did not fall. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath, gathering for a push hard enough to shove an entire world from one season to the next.
Matt drove to the cemetery and walked out to stand by his mother’s grave. It was the first time he had been there since the funeral. The simple black headstone was so perfect for Megan Kelly he could have wept. But there was a bitter weakness to weeping over a rock yet not for his mother. So he put it down deep with all the other emotions he did not know how to express.
Matt knew that the reason he hunted the killer was in order to give some concrete expression to his grief. He also knew his mother would not have cared about vengeance.
The headstone had one segment that was polished and inscribed. It flowed naturally from the rest, which had been left rough-hewn and jagged. Natural and flawed and polished and elegant. So much perfection in being left imperfect. It was a lovely stone. He leaned forward and traced his hand over the rough and the smooth. If only he could give his mother what he knew she wanted from her son.
A hesitant wind pushed leaves across the path as he headed back. Dusty pale sheaves of time past, whispering fragments of all that was lost.
The Sunday morning newsroom was a vacuum that smelled vaguely of yesterday’s stress. Connie said, “It sure is quiet.”
Judy Leigh wore a dark smock that billowed like a pirate sail as she led Connie back to her desk. “Yeah, but come the hour before deadline on a big day, you could drive a pack of mastodons down the center aisle and nobody’d notice unless they were short a headline.”
She pointed Connie into a seat. “I’ve been thinking. The paper and the force, we’re not supposed to be the best of pals, right?”
“Nobody knows I’m here, Judy.”
“And I’m not telling a soul you’re working for the dark side.”
They shared a grin. Connie said, “Tell me what you need.”
“I’ve got two possible leads. Both may be nothing. But I also have a problem. I assume Ugly told you about my being ordered off any story to do with his family?”
“Ugly?”
“My in-house name for young Kelly. It helps keep things in perspective for an old married woman like myself.” She picked up a pencil and began tapping her desk. “What about you, you tied down?”
“No.”
“Girl, what’s your problem? I’d be after that hunk in a heartbeat. He didn’t like it, tough. That’s why the city gave you cuffs and a gun.”
Connie felt her face flame. “We were talking about your problem. Not mine.”
“Sure we were.” But Judy was grinning. “Here’s the deal. I give you what I know. You go ask questions I’ve been ordered not to ask.”
“So if it proves to be nothing, then your paper isn’t involved.”
“Right. And if it is, we share.”
Connie reached for her bag. “Let’s roll.”
Lucas was late shaving because he’d been on the phone with his partner for almost an hour. Clarence had been ordered to stay away from the hospital, for fear his lung infection was contagious. So they talked by phone each morning. It was the sort of roundabout discussion two guys would be expected to have, kids and doctors and work and football. Anything but what was really on their minds. Even so, it was a bright spot to his day.
Lucas was almost done shaving when Hannah Bernstein knocked on his door. She pushed it open, not waiting for a response. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Hannah, no, don’t go.” Hastily he wiped his face with the bath towel.
“I can come back later.”
“What for? I’m done.” Lucas couldn’t believe how glad he was to see her. “You look great.”
She wore a smooth rich blue turtleneck so soft looking it had to be cashmere and slacks one shade darker. She wore another turquoise-and-silver pin, her only jewelry. “Do me a favor and push this table out of the way, will you?”
“Of course.” She rolled the table over beside the window. When she started to rinse the bowl and razor in the sink, he said, “That’s what nurses are for.”
“I don’t mind.”
He liked watching her move, liked the way she filled the room’s empty spaces. So much so it was not until she came over and sat down in the chair by his bed that he noticed. “Something the matter?”
She waved it away. “How are you feeling?”
Now that she was close and his surprise had faded, he could see the tension. It tightened her lips and crinkled the skin around her eyes and pulled the skin of her face back until she looked pale beneath her blusher. But it was not his nature to press. “They say I can go home Tuesday. Wednesday at the latest.”
“That’s good news, Lucas.” She tried to put some feeling into it. But missed.
“Matt was in here last night. Left me with a tapeworm of an idea. You know the kind. They twist and weave and get in everywhere.”
He waited for her to ask what it was. But she started toying with her watch dial. Giving him the impression he was observing a lady do her best to turn back the clock.
So he went on, “I’ve spent a lot of time laying here thinking about Katy.”
She looked up then, connecting with him at last. “There’s a problem with your daughter? Why didn’t you say something? I could have—”
“Not with Katy. She’s fine. We talk two, three times a day. She’s staying nights with my partner and his wife. Connie has been over there in the day. Using her fr
ee time to look after my little girl. Can you believe it?”
A note of sorrow crept in. A fragment of whatever she had brought with her but wasn’t ready to release. “Yes, Lucas. I absolutely believe Connie Morales is delighted to help you out.”
Lucas told her about the talk with his pastor. And what Sharla had to say. And Katy’s words that morning after the failed pancakes. Then about the church-run home. “It was set up a dozen years or so ago. A wealthy parishioner had a severely disabled son. She was getting on in years and she had all these problems, diabetes, weak heart, you name it. She wanted her boy to have a nice place to live after she left. So she turned her home into a managed-care facility. When the place next door came on the market, she bought that one and made it a hospice. She lived out her last days there, with her son next door. The facility has fourteen single rooms. Communal living and dining. Nurse on duty 24/7. Doctor always on call.”
“It sounds lovely.”
“Katy likes it there a lot. She has friends. She gardens.”
Hannah was watching intently. “You’ll miss her.”
“It’s not like she’s moving to Mars. The place is two blocks from our church.”
“But it’s not the same, is it. She won’t be living at home.”
If there was a strangeness, confessing his deepest worry to his boss, Lucas could not find it. “Since June died, the hours I keep, it hasn’t been much of one. A home.”
She studied him with those intelligent gray eyes of hers. “There might be something else at work here. She might be growing up in her own way. Did you ever think of that?”
He had to look away. Swallow hard against the lump. “No, Hannah. I hadn’t. But you’re right.”
He looked back. Ready to thank her. But Hannah’s features were stained once again by whatever it was she had carried in with her. “Can’t you tell me what’s the matter?”
It was her turn to swallow audibly, then speak in a voice that sounded choked. “I’ve been sacked.”
“What?”
“It was messengered to my house this morning. Terminated. Effective immediately. The letter was written like I’d been convicted of a felony. My personal effects will be collected and shipped over. There is no need for me to reenter police headquarters, and if I insist on doing so, I must have a police escort at all times. Like that.”
“They can’t do that.”
“I’m a mini-major, remember. Political appointee. I serve at the mayor’s pleasure.”
“Hannah, you’re the best chief I’ve ever known.”
She patted his arm, said nothing.
“Who do they plan to replace you with?”
She continued to pat his arm. Not speaking with anything except her gaze.
Matt’s progress out of church was slowed to a crawl by all the people who wanted to speak with Katy. He stood back a fraction and watched. They hugged her with such warmth he assumed they knew about Lucas. But no one said anything, not to her, nor to him.
Even so, Katy knew enough to ask the pastor, “Is my daddy all right?”
Ian Reeves stood by the rear doors, glad-handing with a genuineness all his own. “Of course he is. Don’t you talk with him on the phone?”
“Every morning and every night.”
“Then why would you ask such a question?”
Katy had a bland sort of voice that did not inflect. “Because you tell me the truth.”
Ian blinked slowly. “Katherine D’Amico, your father is coming home.”
Katy turned and walked down the stairs without another word.
Ian waited until she had moved well away and been enveloped by yet another group to ask Matt, “How is he really?”
“Good. Getting better.”
“Give Lucas my best and tell him not to make a liar of me. Will you do that?”
Matt was halfway to the Bledsoes’ before he thought to turn on his phone. Katy watched him pull up to a stop sign and slip it from his pocket. “Daddy does the same thing.”
“Does he?”
“After church.” She nodded. “Every time.”
He was surprised to find he had nine messages. On a Sunday. In two hours. But Katy was watching him in that somber way that left him feeling like he was doing something wrong. So he started to put it away, when it rang.
“Daddy’s does that too,” Katy said, talking now to her window.
“This is Matt.”
“Lucas here. Where are you?”
“Pulling up to the Bledsoes’.”
“You gotten my messages?”
“No.”
“Drop Katy off and head straight for headquarters.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Call me back when you drop her off,” Lucas said. “Hurry.”
Matt bounded through the elevator doors and entered an entirely different homicide division. Detectives stood around wearing expressions of the shocked and bereaved. Matt asked, “Anybody seen Connie?”
Lieutenant Crowder and the reporter, Judy Leigh, were talking by the case board. “In the chief’s office.”
Matt pushed through the outer door. A heavyset officer Matt did not recognize was seated at one of the desks. “Help you?”
Matt broke stride only to smack open the chief’s door.
“Hey! You can’t—”
A narrow man with slicked-back hair stood behind the chief’s desk. He had eyes the color of congealed mud and a slit of a smile. “It’s all right, Sergeant. We were just talking about Agent Kelly. Weren’t we, Morales.”
Connie turned to him. She said calmly, “They’ve fired the chief.”
“Hannah Bernstein is ancient history,” Lieutenant Calfo corrected.
“We were talking about your own career, Officer Morales.”
“There’s nothing to discuss, Hands. The minute you set foot in this office, I was already gone.”
Matt said, “Don’t do it, Connie.”
She didn’t even bother with heat. “You think I’d work a minute for him?”
A fraction of teeth glinted in Calfo’s smile. “The girl’s right, Kelly.
She’d be up on charges if she stays. We’re talking disciplinary hearing, IA, who knows, maybe even the courts.” Back to Connie. “Save us the trouble, Morales. Quit.”
“Don’t give him what he wants,” Matt said.
But Connie was turning for the door. “I’m already having trouble finding air, the stench is so bad.”
“Connie, listen to me. Since when did you ever do what Hands ordered?”
Calfo said, “She’s smarter than you, Kelly. She knows what’s good for her.”
“Lucas told me to tell you, Connie. Hang on.”
She seemed to crawl out of a hole she had dug for herself somewhere deep inside. “Lucas said that?”
“Oh, right.” Calfo was sneering now. “Like D’Amico’s got any business offering advice.”
“He said if you quit, they can say what they want to the press. If you stay, you force them to level charges. Which means proof. Which they don’t have.”
“Morales—”
Connie chopped a hand toward Calfo. “I couldn’t spend five minutes working for him. Not after seeing what it’s like to work with real cops.”
Calfo flushed. “You’re out of order, Morales.”
“You don’t have to,” Matt said. “I’ve spoken with Washington. You’re hereby seconded to the Homeland Security office as senior liaison. Assigned to work with me on an ongoing federal investigation.”
She let her hand drop. “For real?”
“What investigation, Kelly?” Calfo gradually shifted from sneer to genuine rage. “We’ve already made the collar for you.”
“You found Pecard?”
The laugh was coppery and too loud for the room. “We’re not interested in whatever grudge match you feds are carrying on. No, Kelly. We’ve gone after the real culprit. The original one.”
Connie gripped his arm. “This is futile. Worthless. Let’s go.”
“I had a word with the deputy commissioner, Kelly. He’s lodging a formal complaint with Washington. How you undermined a police investigation to protect one of your assets.” Hands stayed behind his desk, chasing them with his voice. “Talk about twisted! Just like a fed, Kelly. Covering your tracks even when it means shielding the murderer of your own mother!”
“Matt. Focus. Down here. Look at me.”
They stood in the free-fire zone between the bull pen, the chief’s offices, and the elevators. He released the steel band around his chest. Took a breath.
Connie obviously saw a difference. She relaxed a trifle and demanded, “What are you doing here?”
“Lucas sent me to make sure you didn’t do anything rash.”
“He sent you to make me behave?” Connie developed a tic in the right edge of her mouth. She rubbed her nose. “That’s a good one.”
“What’s so funny about that?”
“Man, when you zoned out there at the end, I was about ready to call for backup.”
Matt glanced at the closed outer door. “One little bullet, Connie. That’s not so much to ask.”
Lieutenant Crowder stepped into his line of vision. Judy Leigh trailed a few paces back, close enough to catch it all, far enough away to dive for cover if required. Crowder said, “I believe the rule book’s got something about shooting a police chief inside headquarters.”
“Hands is not a chief.”
“Mayor’s office says different. I called, just to make sure.”
Connie asked, “Who’d they arrest for the Kelly murder?”