The Closer He Gets

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Driving away after dropping Lupe off at the dry cleaner, Tess found herself angrier than ever about Antonio’s death. Despite knowing he didn’t dare attract the attention of authorities, he had still been courageous enough to try to defend a woman.

  Andrew Hayes needed to pay.

  * * *

  ZACH WAS ON the car lot when his phone rang. Crap. His mother. He’d been dodging her calls for ages. He’d told her Bran wasn’t ready to see her, but obviously she wasn’t about to accept no for an answer.

  Tough shit, he thought. He had a little trouble accepting her persistence. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d even mentioned Bran. She hadn’t tried very hard at all to hold on to him, yet now, suddenly, she wanted to envelop him in her arms?

  But he couldn’t forget his regret that he hadn’t reconnected with Dad before he died. So he waved off an approaching salesman and took the call.

  “And here I thought you were ignoring me.” Forget hello.

  Reluctantly smiling, he said, “I was.”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t buy an airline ticket and show up on your doorstep.”

  “How would you find my doorstep?” he pointed out, the smile still tugging at his mouth.

  “You told me where you’re working.”

  He cringed at the idea of his mommy walking into the sheriff’s department asking for her son. No, worse: asking for her sons, plural. And Bran would be likelier than Zach to actually be there.

  “Mom, don’t do that. Don’t put him on the spot.”

  “What could he do but talk to me?”

  “He could stare right through you then turn and walk away.” And Zach could see him doing it, no problem. “He’s not a boy anymore, Mom. He’s—God—heading toward forty.”

  “Thirty-seven.” Her sharpness betrayed hurt that surprised Zach. “Do you think I don’t remember?”

  He stared blindly at the sticker showing features and price in the window of a Ford F-150.

  “No,” he said. “I know you do.” That, he had to admit, was a surprise.

  “Then what am I supposed to do?” she asked. No, begged.

  “Wait,” he told her. “One reconciliation at a time is enough.”

  All he heard was silence. It extended long enough he thought the call might have been dropped.

  “Mom?”

  “You’ve made your point,” she snapped.

  He’d swear she sounded...different.

  Had she been crying? he wondered, stunned. For all her breaks with lovers and husbands, he hadn’t seen her cry since those long-ago weeks after Sheila’s death.

  “Mom?”

  “Please call me if there’s any chance.”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’ll do that, Mom.”

  She didn’t even say goodbye, she was just gone, leaving him wondering if he knew her as well as he had always believed he did.

  He suddenly saw himself introducing Tess and his mother. What would they think of each other? He’d have to give Tess some advance warnings and...

  Good God, was he serious? He hadn’t even introduced his girlfriends to his mother when he was in high school and still lived at home. He’d gone out of his way not to let any of them cross paths with her.

  Nothing could have made him more uncomfortably aware that Tess was different.

  He should have set up the damn receiver and gone home last night.

  But then he’d have missed the best night of his life. They’d made love three times. But for some reason today what he found himself thinking about was how satisfying it had felt to hold her. He didn’t like having a woman cling to him. So why was it that when Tess snuggled, it felt instead like both trust and comfort, given and received?

  He made a muffled sound and went to meet the salesman politely hovering a few vehicles away.

  He’d intended to buy another Silverado, which would have been his third, but surprised himself by buying the F-150. Black, of course, he liked black. Something he and Bran apparently had in common.

  As an option he took one with a truck bed liner already installed and drove straight off the lot to Lowe’s to pick up the shower, toilet and sink he’d chosen. He found the vanity he had custom ordered was in, as well, and just got everything in.

  Tomorrow, he had a new garage door being delivered, a lot sturdier than the original. Automatic, which would be nice, too, but it was the security he especially wanted.

  What worried Zach was the likelihood Hayes and company wouldn’t repeat themselves. He had already done enough work on the house that he would be seriously pissed if they burned it down even if his homeowner’s policy did cover it.

  But he was more worried about Tess, less able to defend herself or her home. He didn’t like believing a fellow cop would go beyond threats, but Zach had begun to believe Hayes had lost any sense of honor he’d once possessed. What if, at some point, he and his buddies decided a dead witness who’d already given a damaging statement was still better than a live witness who wouldn’t back down and would be damned persuasive if she ever got in front of a jury?

  It continued to chafe that he didn’t know what MacLachlan and Clayton were doing and whether they’d learned anything new. If they were doing their jobs at all, they had to be making Hayes nervous.

  Pulling into his garage, Zach wondered what Tess would say if he invited himself to spend the night again.

  * * *

  IN THE NEXT few days Zach tried to keep his head down and to only be with Tess when it was unlikely anyone would notice. He was fine when he was out on the roads doing his job.

  He did his best to follow his usual morning routine: get his head together on his way in to work, think about anything that had gone wrong the day before, any oddity he’d seen that made him want to go back and take another look.

  He’d walk himself through possible scenarios, transitioning from being the man who spent his evenings sawing and swinging a hammer, and his nights making love to Tess, into a cop.

  He continued his habit of stopping by the records unit and flipping through recent reports of break-ins, auto thefts, whatever, so he had an idea of what to watch for that day.

  The preshift briefings should have been equally routine.

  Zach tried to step into the room at the last minute so he could stand at the back. Otherwise he’d sit there with his skin crawling, knowing on some deep, primitive level that he was being watched.

  Walking in and then leaving, he had to nod at his fellow deputies, including Todd Vance, who had kept his mouth shut to protect a cop who didn’t deserve it. Most of the time, Zach kept his expression bland. Only once did he meet his eyes and let Vance see his contempt.

  Maybe Antonio had said the wrong thing when Hayes showed up on his doorstep, but Zach didn’t think so. He believed Hayes had gone there with every intention of beating the crap out of him, at the very least. Showing him who had the power.

  Bobby Ketchum, thank God, didn’t work Zach’s shift. Bobby, everyone knew, was a friend of Hayes’s. He’d have been leaving his current graveyard shift at the right time to have deposited the rabbit in Zach’s locker.

  Bobby had never been in the locker room at the same time as Zach, which meant there was at least one confederate in the department who’d watched and memorized the combo for Zach’s lock. Not knowing who that was could drive him crazy, if he let it.

  Half the guys on his shift and a few on other shifts who didn’t know him at all had taken a moment to slap his back and say something like, “You hang in there” or “Don’t let the bastards get to you.” That support—and Tess—was all that kept him going.

  Yeah, okay. Bran, too.

  He’d just parked Saturday morning and was walking in when he almost bumped into someone coming out the door. Wouldn’t y
ou know? Bobby Ketchum, whose face darkened at the sight of him.

  “Feel good about destroying a man’s career?” he snarled.

  “You think a guy who killed an unarmed man because he’d had the nerve to talk to his girlfriend deserves to be a cop?” Zach got right in Ketchum’s face. “If he’s kept on in this department, it will shame everyone else who wears this uniform.”

  “He’s a good cop. Who are you to talk? You’re a newbie who doesn’t know jack shit!”

  “I’m a twelve-year veteran of a major police department. I’ve seen more violence than you’ve ever imagined. I spent two years working Homicide—”

  “And couldn’t cut it.” Ketchum’s lip curled.

  Zach leaned in, his lips pulling back from his teeth. “So, being Andy’s good friend the way you are, do you get a charge out of terrifying a woman who lives alone? Imagining her shaking in her bed as you threaten her? Or was it you who rapped on her bedroom window? And, hey, did you have a really good time hammering on my truck? Guess you’ve got to get your fun where you can, ’cuz the prison term you’re facing won’t be much fun at all.”

  Ketchum’s jaw slackened and he took a step back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?” Zach let his gaze rake the other man head to boots. “I saw the three of you, you know. Couldn’t make out faces, but your height, your build...oh, yeah. You were there.”

  “I was where?” This guy was seriously freaked.

  Zach had to wonder if Bobby had taken part in the destruction, after all. “Well, here’s a tip,” he said, “if you weren’t there, you might want to find out what Hayes and your other buddies have been up to. Decide if you really think any of them should be carrying a badge and a gun.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ketchum repeated. His back was pressed to the brick facade of the public safety building.

  Zach put his hand on the doorknob. “Guess you’ll find out. I’m sure Detective Easley from CCPD will be in touch. Since your name is on his list of Hayes’s good buddies.” He shook his head, dismissing Ketchum, and opened the door.

  A hand caught it before it could start swinging closed. Zach spun to find a detective he’d barely met had come up behind him. He groped for a name.

  Something Warner. No, Warring. Chuck Warring? Charlie, he corrected himself.

  Warring was the other young detective in the department. Bran hadn’t commented on him one way or the other, but Zach had seen the two coming and going together, as if they had been assigned to work together.

  The guy was thin, no more than average height, brown hair cut to regulation length. His badge was hooked to his belt and he was wearing a polo shirt with khaki chinos. He had the kind of face you forgot quickly. But his eyes told Zach he was smart, cynical. He had a cop’s eyes.

  And right now a smile warmed his face. “Well, you scared me,” Warring commented.

  Zach clasped the back of his neck and squeezed hard, willing the red haze in his vision to subside. “Did you hear the whole conversation?”

  “Enough.” The smile died. “Bran has told me some of what’s been going on. I know Ketchum—I was his field training officer a few years back, before I was promoted. I could be wrong, but I don’t see him pulling the kind of crap you’ve been dealing with.”

  “Do you see him keeping his mouth shut, even though he knows that the evening before Andy Hayes killed Alvarez they had a mix-up? That logic should tell him Hayes went after Alvarez the next day?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so.” Warring looked tired suddenly. “But we can all fool ourselves.”

  Zach couldn’t argue with that. He’d damn sure fooled himself when he was a kid that his mom was as pure as the driven snow.

  “I don’t know him at all,” Zach admitted. “I wouldn’t have said anything if the first words he’s ever spoken to me hadn’t been ‘Feel good about destroying a man’s career?’ That kind of rubbed me the wrong way.”

  “I can see why it would.” Warring’s head turned, as if he was making sure they were, however briefly, completely alone. “The sheriff is so damn worried that this might screw up his chance of being re-elected, he’s stuck his head up his ass. Most of the rest of us are behind you.” He nodded as he turned toward the detective bullpen. “I’d better get to my desk.”

  More surprised than he ought to be, Zach watched him walk away. It seemed he had more allies than he’d known.

  Yet somehow they were overshadowed by the faceless men who might not stop at anything to silence two inconvenient witnesses.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  LEFT ALONE BRIEFLY, Bran looked around his brother’s kitchen. Zach hadn’t done a speck of work in here yet. Shifting in his seat at the table, Bran kept catching the tread of his athletic shoe on a separating seam of the ancient linoleum. But there was a table, unlike the last time he’d been in the house; a round, oak one that needed refinishing but had potential. A new refrigerator, too, he saw, big and white and out of place.

  When Zach returned, Bran nodded at the new appliance even though he wanted to lunge out of his chair and snatch the manila envelope Zach carried in his hand. “I thought you were getting a dishwasher first.”

  “The refrigerator that came with the house died.” Zach glowered. “Do you know how much new ones cost?”

  “I’ve never bought one. They come with the apartment.”

  “Take my word for it.” Zach’s expression lightened and he ran his fingers over the tabletop. “But this? It’ll be a beauty when I have a chance to work on it. Got it and the chairs at a garage sale on Sunday. It hadn’t sold. Can you believe it? I paid peanuts and it’s an antique.” He shook his head and then tossed the envelope to Bran.

  Man, it was actually here in his hands, everything the police department had on Sheila’s murder. He could hardly believe it. When Zach had called to tell him it had arrived in the mail, Bran had come straight over. But now, as he shook out the thin sheaf of papers, he said incredulously, “This is it? There has to be more.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Across from him, Zach shook his head in matching disbelief. “Look at Nolte’s note on top. ‘Here you go.’ If he thought there should be more, you’d think he would have said something like, ‘What the hell? I’ll follow up.’”

  “Yeah. Damn.” Of course there had to be a hitch.

  Zach grabbed them each a beer while Bran started reading. It didn’t take him long. Ten or fifteen minutes in and he’d at least skimmed every page, which included the first responder’s report and the coroner’s report. Neither had told him anything he hadn’t already known, although his stomach had clenched when he’d read some of it.

  Younger son Zach—nine years old—woke early and decided to go outside. Yelled to rouse parents, who ran outside. Boy had to be sedated.

  Bran hadn’t forgotten his first sight of Zach’s face that morning, but he didn’t like to think about it. Zach’s shock had been so absolute, he had stared right through Bran, seemingly unaware that tears ran down his cheeks, snot over his upper lip. Bran hadn’t been scared until he’d seen his brother and known something unimaginably terrible had happened.

  “Nothing about her nightgown,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Surely to God they kept it.”

  Zach’s eyes were unfocused right now, too. Seeing another time, another place. “She was naked. The nightgown was underneath her. Like...he spread it on the grass because it was damp.”

  Considerate of him, Bran thought but didn’t say. “There was no semen. The nightgown might not tell us anything.”

  “He’d have touched it.” Zach sounded as if he was strangling.

  Bran, too, was having an unusually difficult time separating what they were saying from his memories of Sheila. It was true she’d been pretty. She would have
grown into true beauty if she’d had the chance.

  But that was the adult looking back. Then, all he’d known was that she was the sweetest kid. Even stuck with more responsibility than he’d wanted for watching over her, Bran had never resented the little girl with the sunny nature. When he remembered her, she was always smiling or giggling. He thanked God he wasn’t burdened with the memory of her corpse.

  For all that he’d dealt with in the years since, working as a cop, Bran’s mind still boggled at the idea of a man seeing a child that age as sexual...and then putting his hands around her neck and killing her because he couldn’t afford to let her talk.

  “I’ll try asking,” Zach said.

  Bran stared at him without comprehension for a moment. Try asking for what? Then he remembered. He cleared his throat. “Yeah. That would be good. Worse comes to worst... I don’t know. Maybe we’ll have to hire a lawyer to put them on the spot.”

  “Or find a journalist who’s willing to ask hard questions, maybe wants to follow the working of a cold case.”

  Bran grunted. He wasn’t much of a fan of reporters, having seen too much insensitive and intrusive behavior in the past. But the right one...yeah.

  “Worse comes to worst...” Zach agreed.

  The two men sat in silence for a minute. Finally, Zach pushed himself up and went to the refrigerator. “Want another?”

  “Sure.”

  Bran accepted the can, pulled the tab and took a long swallow before deciding to change the subject. “It’s been a good stretch—what, a week?—since anything has happened. You think Hayes’s group has given up?”

  “No.” Anger tightened Zach’s face, making the bony angles sharper. “God, I hope not.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. Even if Hayes is charged, it might not be for months. It could take another year for a trial to happen. Tess won’t be safe until that son of a bitch has been convicted and the prison doors have slammed shut. Unless—” his hands flattened on the table and he leaned forward, his gaze boring into Bran’s “—we catch him and his friends in action, intimidating a witness. If we do that, we can end this.”