by D. A. Keeley
“She’s got a handgun,” Hewitt said. “Matt didn’t know what kind. It sounded small from his description.”
“I’m sure it’s big enough,” Peyton said. “Is the back door covered?”
“Copy that,” Bullier said.
Peyton crouched down and pressed herself against the wall to the right of the door. As if beyond her control, her mind did the last thing she wanted it to do: it ran to Tommy. She’d had one near-death experience already this week. Now here she was, asked by Hewitt to lead the extraction of an armed woman with very little to lose.
Holding the semi-automatic pistol with her right hand, she reached across her body with her left and knocked gently on the center of the door—several feet from where she crouched in case Sherry fired at the sound. Then she leaned back and exhaled, awaiting Sherry’s reaction.
“Go away!” Sherry rasped from inside. Her voice sounded hoarse and thick.
“Sherry, it’s Peyton. Leave your gun where you are and come out.”
“It’s not that simple, Peyton!”
“It’s over, Sherry. You need to come out.”
“I’ve really done it this time. I’ve really—” She burst into sobs.
“Sherry, it’s going to be okay. It’s time to come out.”
“Are there police out there?”
“There are officers, yes. They want to help you. Please come out now, Sherry.”
“No. I need to talk to you. Only you, Peyton.”
“I’m listening, Sherry.”
“No. Come inside.”
“Out of the question!” It was Hewitt’s voice in the earpiece. “Not going to happen, Peyton. Keep her on the hook until you get her outside.”
“Peyton, I need to talk. I’m not thinking straight. My mother is my hero. She did the right thing.”
“What did she do?” Peyton had to keep her talking.
“You know about it. About her and Simon. She was going to make a break. She did the right thing. She wanted to live in Prague.”
“And your father found out?”
“I guess. I think I’ve really done it this time. Maybe my father did the right thing, too, in the end. Maybe that’s the only choice some-
times.”
“No. Sherry, you have two beautiful children. They love you. And they need you. Think about them. Nothing else right now. Put the gun down and come on out.”
“He’s not Chip’s son.”
“I know that. It doesn’t matter. It never will.”
“You don’t understand. It will matter. He’ll take Sam from me.”
“Sherry, it’s time for you to come out.”
“Come inside. Please. I need help.”
“Out of the question,” Hewitt said over her earpiece again.
“Do you have a gun, Peyton? I know you do. Leave it there on the steps and come in. I really think my father made the right choice.”
Peyton looked at Hewitt.
He shook his head vehemently.
“I can’t let her kill herself, Mike.” She set her gun down on the steps and reached for the doorknob.
“Close the door behind you,” Sherry said.
There were no lights on in the cabin’s interior, but the sun was rising now, and gray light shone in the windows. Peyton could see Sherry, garbed in a light-blue blouse, standing across the main room. The knees of her designer jeans were covered in dirt.
Sherry held what looked like a semi-automatic handgun, pointing at Peyton. Her hand trembled, and the weapon waved. Peyton wished Sherry’s index finger wasn’t on the trigger.
“Please sit down, Peyton,” Sherry said.
Then it was Hewitt’s voice: “I can’t hear her. Can anyone hear them?”
There was a short burst of static, and then nothing. She’d lost radio contact.
“Sit down on the chair,” Sherry said again.
Peyton walked very slowly to a wooden chair, the only piece of furniture in the room. The walls were bare. There was a single light-bulb hanging from the ceiling.
“He ran. I fell asleep. Can you fucking believe that? I can’t even keep a teenager. I don’t know how he got the duct tape off his wrists. But he was gone when I opened my eyes. I almost shot myself right then because, it’s like, I mean, even that … I can’t even keep him here without screwing that up. Now everything he wanted is gone. He came back to me. Part of me always thought he would. But the other part thought he never would, you know?”
“Are you talking about Kvido?”
“I tried to move on.” Sherry’s voice quivered. “I really did.”
Sherry was pacing slowly now. Her hair was unkempt and clearly hadn’t been washed in days. Her eyes were red and puffy, and the faint traces of mascara streaked the corners of her eyes.
“I mean, I even married Chip. But then he came back to me. Said he needed me, needed my help. And there was Sam. There had always been Sam.” She looked at Peyton. “Didn’t having Sam mean it was meant to be?”
“Sherry. Set the gun down. Let’s just talk.”
Sherry looked at her, head tilted.
“Just talk. I’m not leaving. I want to hear it all. I want to help.”
“You mean it. I can hear it in your voice.”
Peyton’s mind ran to Fontaine’s words again. This was still a case she was working, but was it also something more personal?
Sherry sat down on the floor across from Peyton. She hadn’t let go of the pistol, which did not look small—it looked like a Glock 9mm in the new light. If Hewitt had been looking for a window shot, Sherry had just taken it away from him. She was out of view from any windows. In fact, it was Peyton who was now in line with the cabin’s rear window. She hoped the day’s breaking light was enough for the men outside to be able to tell the difference between the women.
“Why did you take Matt?”
Sherry wasn’t looking at her. One knee was up and bent in front of her. Her other leg lay flat on the floor. She draped the 9mm over her knee.
Peyton wondered if she’d fired the 9mm before. How accurate was she? She also thought about Simon Pink, about a hypothesis she had developed.
“I had to take the boy. I had to protect us all, Peyton.”
“Who?”
“Kvido, Freddy, and me, too.”
“Because Matt knows who was in the cabin the night Simon Pink was shot, doesn’t he?”
Sherry looked up at her then. “That’s enough, Peyton.”
Peyton saw something in Sherry’s eyes that made her theory even more believable. And it made her want to circle away from the subject of the shooting and come back to it.
“Was your father abusive when you were a girl, Sherry?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Physically?”
“If you’re asking me if I was surprised to hear he hit my mother, the answer is no, I was not surprised.”
“He hit you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, I never knew,” Peyton said. “Maybe I could—”
“What? Have helped me? Be real, Peyton. We were kids. I got over it.”
“Was there more?”
Sherry’s eyes narrowed then. “What exactly are you asking me? My father was a lot of things”—she looked away, as if gathering herself, and in a move Peyton knew was unconscious, Sherry’s head bobbed once up and down as she spoke—“but he wasn’t a pedophile, Peyton.”
Peyton had learned it long ago; it was a staple of any interrogation: the unconscious head movement—whether a nod or a shake—that contradicts a suspect’s statement always offers the truth. And Sherry had nodded before she’d spoken.
Peyton knew the reaction had been involuntary. She also knew what the contradiction meant: the bastard Fred St. Pierre Sr. had molested Sherry.
“I me
an, really, Peyton. My father is dead.”
“Your mother was preparing to leave him?”
“She came to see me in Prague, fell in love with the city. Then she met Simon. It’s a small world—Simon knew Kvido.”
There was a crackle in her earpiece.
“Peyton, what the hell is going on? Can you hear me, Peyton? We lost sight of her, and we can’t hear anything.”
“What is that?” Sherry said. “I heard something.” She was on her feet, coming toward Peyton. She stopped six feet away, standing now in the center of the room.
“Everything is fine,” Peyton said to both Mike Hewitt and Sherry. “Everything is fine.”
“Take out the ear bud and unclip the wire on your shirt collar,” Sherry said.
Peyton did so.
“Toss them over to me.”
Again, she did as she was told.
Sherry stepped on both devices, crushing them.
“No one needs to know what we’re talking about, Peyton.”
“What your father did, Sherry, that’s not your fault.”
It was a mistake, and Peyton knew it the moment Sherry’s face went from pale to red. Sherry’s eyes grew wide. Her shiny forehead creased.
“How dare you even suggest that I would blame myself for that! How dare you! He grounded me for trying to be normal. Remember? I kissed Jimmy Fry, and he found out and … You remember?”
“Yes. I remember. How could I forget? It was the beginning of the end for our friendship.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Sherry, we really need to go. They’re going to come in here and get you if we don’t. And if you don’t put the gun down, they’ll shoot you.”
“I can’t.”
She was still standing six feet away.
“Sherry, you need to put the gun down.”
“I can’t. I won’t.”
Peyton knew she wasn’t going to turn her weapon over. “You took Matt Kingston to protect yourself,” Peyton said, “didn’t you?”
“I did it for all of us.”
“But only one person shot Simon Pink, Sherry.”
“What are you saying? Why would I do that? He loved my mother. He was going to make her happy.”
“Sherry, what does Kvido have on you?”
As she asked the question, she looked out the windows. Would the men outside be preparing for a shot? Was it light enough to take one? She hoped the assurance she tried to give Hewitt bought her some time with Sherry. If a shot was fired, it would come from Hewitt. No way he’d let anyone else take it, not with one of his agents inside. And she was glad for that; Hewitt would be careful.
“Sam,” Sherry said. “Sam is Kvido’s son. Chip knows Sam is from a prior relationship, but he doesn’t know I was ever with Kvido before now. Sometimes Kvido says I’m not raising him right, that Sam’s life is too easy. I think he wants to take Sam with him.”
“Take him where? Does Kvido threaten you with that?”
“But I took care of all that. I left Chip. Now I don’t have to worry about it. We can all be together.”
“What about your daughter, Marie?”
“She’ll be with us, too.”
“Chip will agree to this?”
Sherry took a step back, away from Peyton, as if the force of Peyton’s question had driven her back.
“You don’t understand, Peyton. Whatever I’ve been through pales in comparison to his life. It’s one of the reasons why he’s so good for me.” A faint smile crossed her lips. “I can’t feel bad for myself around him.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He was homeless as a boy. His mother raised him alone. He saw what she went through, what she had to do …” She shook her head.
Peyton knew that Sherry had more information about Kvido to share, much more than Washington had on him. And nothing in the conversation had made her think Kvido wasn’t the one pulling the strings.
She had to keep her talking and hope like hell they wouldn’t take a shot.
“I doubt his mother endured anything worse than you, Sherry.”
“She had to prostitute herself after her husband was killed. It’s why he turned to Andela. It’s because of the CIA.”
“The CIA?”
“They killed his father.”
“Sherry, the CIA? In the Czech Republic? When?”
“It was Czechoslovakia then. Look it up. His father had the same name. He was organizing a union, and it would’ve cost the US export revenue.”
“So the CIA killed him?”
“I looked it up.” Sherry offered a patronizing smile then. “We’ve had this talk before, Peyton. You think the criminal-justice system in this country isn’t flawed. Are you telling me you don’t think the CIA ever assassinated someone?”
The more animated Sherry got, the more the 9mm waved back and forth. And Sherry hadn’t been trained to keep her index finger over the trigger guard. It rested firmly on the trigger.
“After his father was killed, they lived in alleys and shelters. His mother became a whore, Peyton. He blames the United States for that.”
Peyton was looking at Sherry when she heard the window on the front door shatter. But she wouldn’t remember that until later. What she would remember, what would replace the memory of Pete McPherson’s bloody boot when she closed her eyes, was the image of Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall’s skull caving in and tearing apart. And the look on Sherry’s face—eyes bursting wide, not in pain, but shock—for a split-second before her body fell to the cabin floor in a lifeless heap.
Forty-Five
Hewitt had sent her home for a few hours of rest while he and Hammond and Stone Gibson debriefed Matt Kingston.
Now it was 10:30 Saturday morning, and it was her turn. There were chairs set in a semi-circle at the perimeter of Hewitt’s desk.
Peyton told them everything she could remember from the conversation inside the cabin.
“Nothing’s on tape?” Hammond said.
Peyton shook her head.
“And we heard absolutely nothing,” Hewitt said, “because we lost radio contact. So, in effect, you disobeyed a direct order and risked your life and forced me to kill someone for no good reason.”
“I realize you’re right,” she said, “but no one in this room would have sat by while someone killed herself.”
No one denied it.
“So, yes, I was wrong to disobey an order. But I thought you were just worrying about my safety, Mike.”
“This isn’t a woman thing, Peyton. I put you in harm’s way by having you lead.”
“I know that. And I really thought I could talk her out of the cabin.”
“It was taking too long, and we lost contact with you. I had to take the shot.”
“I know. And I understand why you took the shot. But while I was in there I learned a lot of information no one had on Kvido Bezdek, information that can go in his file.”
“You’re a gutsy broad,” Hammond said.
Peyton looked at him. “You mean I’m a gutsy agent?”
Hammond was pushing sixty, and if he understood her meaning, he gave no indication. “The piece about Bezdek’s father is important, Mike,” Hammond said.
Hewitt was still glaring at her. “I killed a woman this morning. That situation might have been avoidable.”
“She wasn’t putting the gun down,” Hammond said. “I’d go easy on her, not that it’s my business. But we now have a motive for the IEDs.”
When Hewitt looked out the window, she smiled at Hammond. He nodded.
“And I think I know who shot Simon Pink,” she said. “It makes sense, and it explains why Freddy isn’t talking.”
Stone Gibson had been following the conversation. “I’m all ears. I’m trying to see if this impacts my case, the Si
mon Pink murder. I don’t think it does.”
“Sherry shot Simon Pink,” Peyton said. “Matt said there were three people at the cabin. One sounded like Drago from Rocky IV; that would be Simon. And one was quiet; that was Sherry.”
“Can you prove that, Peyton?” Hewitt said.
“I think so.”
“How?” Hammond was writing on a legal pad. “Even if she confessed, you have no recording, do you?”
“No. I’ve got something better. I think her brother was the third person. He said he was at the scene, but insists he was there hours later. I don’t think so. I think he was the third person that night. Matt even ID’d his voice.”
Hewitt held up his index finger, asking her to pause. “What are you saying, Peyton?”
“It explains why Freddy hasn’t turned on the third person. He’s just denied shooting anyone. Even when Stephanie DuBois offered a deal, he wouldn’t talk.”
“Because the shooter was his sister?” Hewitt asked.
“Yes,” Peyton said.
Hammond shook his head. “You can’t prove that.”
“No, but Freddy has no reason to sit in the cell now, not if she did it. Why should he face a murder charge and life in prison when he can downgrade to Conspiracy to Commit? She’s dead. He doesn’t have to take the life sentence for her.”
“Wait a minute.” It was Stone Gibson. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The murder investigation is mine. And Freddy only needs half a brain to know that he can walk if he throws his sister under the bus. I’m not sure I want Peyton planting that idea in his dull head. I’ve been working this day and night for two weeks.”
“You’re saying you want someone to go down for the murder?” Hammond said.
“Not any someone. I want the right person to go down. And I have a suspect in custody who admits he was at the crime scene. And ballistics proves the suspect’s gun was used to commit the crime. That’s a pretty good case. And nothing anyone has said in here makes me think Freddy isn’t just as likely as his sister to have shot Simon Pink.”
“You do understand my reasoning, right?” Peyton said. “That’s why he didn’t give anyone up. It absolutely makes sense.”
“Yes, Peyton. It makes sense, but you can’t prove it.”