Beholden (5 page)

“I’ve got a call in to his managing editor. Maybe Simon was working on a story that someone didn’t want printed.”

Mac frowned. “Wasn’t he on the police beat?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen him around here quite a few times. He’d hear things, get leads, run ’em down.”

“Ever read a story he wrote that he picked up around here?”

Earl nodded. “There was that land fraud scheme a year or so ago. Remember, it involved a couple of builders who hired someone
to discredit that land developer?”

Mac knew it. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s still pending, I believe. Maybe you should check into those guys, see if they’re
still carrying a grudge over Simon’s involvement.”

Earl shrugged, then got to his feet. “I guess I will. Not much else to go on. Looks like a hit by a pro to me.”

The desk sergeant walked over as Earl left. “Mac, I just got this report in. There was an accident on I-17 tonight. A Volkswagen
went out of control and crashed. John Ryan’s daughter died, burned to death, and his niece is critical. Tom Hartley’s daughter.”

Mac’s fingers tightened on the pen as the blood drained from his face. “Terry’s dead?”

“Yeah, that’s what it says here. Patrolman on the scene called it in. John’s over at Phoenix General. Pretty tore up, I guess.
You and John and Tom go back a long way. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Okay, thanks.” Alone, Mac sat back, loosened his tie and undid his top button. He took several long breaths, then leaned
back and closed his eyes. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. What had gone wrong?

When he’d stepped out of Sam’s car a couple of blocks from the parking garage, Russo had promised to forget the girl, that
she probably hadn’t seen a thing and it would only arouse suspicions to go after her. Had Sam changed his mind and tracked
Terry? Or was it a coincidence that Terry Ryan’s car had gone out of control this same evening?

“You all right, Mac?” Earl asked from in front of his desk.

Mac straightened. “Yeah, just tired. What is it?”

“Talk about your nutsy night, listen to this. Black-and-white just called in. Officer found shot in the head in an alley on
Washington near Mickey’s Bar. Some drunk found him. No sign of a struggle and his gun still in his holster.”

“What’s his name?” Mac asked, trying to sound casual.

“Jerry Foster. Ten-year man. He was off duty. We’ve got a couple of uniforms down there questioning the bar regulars. Chances
are, no one will talk, as usual.”

Mac scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re right, Earl. It’s turning into a bitch of a night. See what you can get on that
for me.”

“Will do.”

Mac opened his desk drawer, took out a package of Rolaids, and popped two in his mouth. Damn, but he’d tried to warn Foster,
tried to tell him he was playing with fire threatening to blow the whistle on Russo. The young idealistic punk hadn’t listened
to the voice of experience. And now he was dead. Mac sighed heavily.

Checking to make sure no one was nearby, he picked up the phone. It took three rings for the party to answer. Swiveling his
chair around, he kept his voice low. “You promised you wouldn’t go after the girl.”

The voice was silky smooth and unrepentant. “Things changed, Sarge. Relax. It was rigged as an accident. Brake failure.”

Jesus! They’d taken a hell of a chance being seen messing with her car. “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to. Just do your job and I’ll do mine.” The phone landed on the cradle with a thud.

His mouth a thin line, Mac hung up. Things were getting out of control. Losing control always meant trouble. Rising, Mac grabbed
his jacket from the back of his chair.

There was no question about it. He had to go to Phoenix General, though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

Detective Andy Russell glanced at his watch as he entered his Scottsdale apartment. Midnight. He and his partner had been
on a stakeout for forty-some hours, watching the condo of the girlfriend of an escaped convict, hoping he’d show. He finally
had and they had him in custody. But the long hours had Andy feeling stiff and sore, his eyes red and grainy.

Sliding home the dead bolt, he shrugged out of his jacket and shoulder holster, stretched until his shoulders popped, then
walked into his kitchen. The blinking light on his telephone answering machine indicated two messages. He punched the Replay
button, then reached into the refrigerator for the container of orange juice.

He drank deeply as he listened to his mother’s voice, asking him to dinner on Sunday, wondering where he was, hoping he was
all right. The poor woman would never get used to his hours or his job. The second message began and, recognizing Terry Ryan’s
voice, Andy moved closer.

She sounded upset, which wasn’t like Terry. In the five years he’d known her, the only time he’d seen her rattled was when
her father had had his heart attack. Quickly, he jotted down the phone number she gave him for the Sedona cabin where she
was heading.

She’d be there by now if she left around eight as she’d said. Midnight wasn’t too late to call if someone was having a problem.
He hadn’t seen or heard from Terry in probably three months. Odd that she should call him now. He dialed the number.

Eight rings later, Andy hung up. He finished his juice, then rummaged around in the drawer for his address book. He checked
Terry’s apartment phone number and called. The answering machine clicked on, and he swore. No point in leaving a message at
this hour. He’d try to find Terry tomorrow.

He glanced out his kitchen window and saw that the rain had stopped and the sky was clear. Tomorrow should be a nice day.
Yawning, Andy moved toward his bedroom, hoping for twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Five days and her daughter was still in a coma. Julia Hartley sat alongside the hospital bed, her thin lips moving in prayer.
Dear Lord, please bring Lynn back to me
. She looked so small, so pale, whiter than the hospital sheets. Her beautiful hair all shaved off, her head bandaged. Her
face was loosely bandaged, too, with just her bruised eyes and swollen lips visible. Julia wondered how bad the scarring would
be. They’d told her about all the glass particles they’d had to remove and some that were in so deep they’d have to work their
way out in time.

Julia didn’t care, as long as Lynn lived. Plastic surgeons could work wonders, once she recovered. The machines behind the
head of the bed flashed on and off, red, yellow, and green lights, the numbers changing. The automatic blood pressure cuff
tightened at timed intervals, registering on still another monitor. Tubes were hooked up to needles inserted in both her arms,
and a catheter trailed under the sheet, the bag hanging from the side of the bed. The oxygen cannula ran beneath her nose.

Modern medicine, Julia thought. So much she didn’t
understand, yet she had to believe it all would work for Lynn. Shifting her attention, she carefully picked up one of Lynn’s
hands. It, too, was heavily bandaged, as was the other. Glass cuts and burns from the fire, they’d told her. They’d had to
cut the silver ring from her finger, the one Julia had given Lynn years ago that she always wore. She touched the cold metal
in her jacket pocket, as if the gesture might somehow bring her daughter back.

Gently, she smoothed the skin on Lynn’s left arm, one of the few sections unbandaged and unhurt. Her hand felt a small ridge,
and she leaned closer to examine it. An old scar, by the looks of the blemish. Odd, she couldn’t recall Lynn having a scar
on either arm.

No matter. She’d take her, scarred and marked. Any way she could. At least, there was a chance that her daughter would recover.
For Emily and John, the hoping had ended that dreadful night. Even family at their side, the boys and Mac who’d rushed to
the hospital to be with them, hadn’t eased their pain. Their Terry was gone, to be buried tomorrow evening. Julia grieved
for her niece, for all of them.

From her other pocket, she removed her rosary. Lowering her head, she began again to pray.

Emily entered her house through the back, her steps slow. Try as she would, she couldn’t seem to rise above the grief that
sat in her chest like a fifty-pound weight. Her sons, Michael and Sean, and their families had been over almost constantly,
trying to comfort while dealing with their own pain. Still, nothing helped.

Emily wanted to crawl into the casket where her daughter’s body lay burned beyond recognition, and be buried with her.

In the kitchen, she set down the bag of groceries on the counter. She had no interest in cooking, yet she knew they had to
eat. Life went on, Father O’Malley from St. Timothy’s had said only last night. He’d told her the same
thing twelve years ago when their oldest daughter, Kathleen, had been killed at age seventeen driving home from a party after
drinking illegally. It had taken her years to adjust to that, and she was older now. Emily wasn’t certain she’d make it through
Terry’s death.

Swiping at a quick flash of tears, she walked into the living room, then stopped at the archway. John was sprawled in his
lounge chair, the near-empty bottle of bourbon on the table beside him, the glass tipped on its side in his lap. Passed out
again. Emily felt a rush of anger, then a wave of sympathy as more tears filled her eyes.

John had never been a drinker, not like this. Oh, he liked an occasional beer and his holiday bottle of Jamison’s, as most
Irishmen did. But since the night they’d been called to the hospital, then asked to identify Terry’s body, he’d scarcely drawn
a sober breath. Just what she needed while trying to cope with her own loss, a drunken husband. And him with a heart condition.

Terry had been her father’s girl, more lately than before. John had taken Kathleen’s death very hard, working longer hours
to pay off the debt her accident had left them with, escaping from his memories that way. And, though he loved his sons, he’d
drawn closer to Terry after losing his first daughter.

And now she was gone, too.

John was making her nervous though, Emily thought. His drunken ramblings didn’t make sense. He mumbled about vague suspicions,
blaming himself, wild discourses that went on and on until he fell asleep. Later, when she’d question him about what he’d
meant, he said he couldn’t remember what he’d said or why.

Who could blame him for drowning his sorrows? Emily thought as she turned to go back to the kitchen. She’d do it herself if
she thought it would help. She’d put away the groceries and make some dinner, then wake him and get some food into him.

They had the rosary at seven tonight at the funeral home to get through.

Father Timothy O’Malley had the look of a man who should be wearing the brown robes of a monk, with his round face and balding
head with its fringe of gray hair. But instead, he was the sixty-two-year-old pastor of St. Timothy’s and a priest who was
close to many of his two thousand parishioners. The Ryans and Hartleys were two of the families he’d seen through several
weddings and far too many funerals.

Seated alongside Lynn Hartley’s bed at Phoenix General, he checked the date on his watch and calculated that it was nearly
two weeks since the accident. He’d conducted Terry’s funeral last week and visited Lynn regularly, often with Julia. Today,
he’d stopped in alone before going to the rectory for lunch, and he found himself marveling at how far the young woman had
come.

Her head was still bandaged some, but at the hairline, some new growth of blond fuzz was beginning to show. Her face had patchy
bandages, but was still quite swollen, with dark smudges around both eyes. She was wrapped heavily around the shoulders where
they’d operated on her broken clavicle. Her hands were discolored and puffy, but healing. Yes, he could see progress, and
the doctors he’d spoken with earlier sounded more hopeful.

Touching her arm, Father Tim began to pray over her, which was his habit just before leaving. As he finished the short prayer,
he felt movement under his fingers. Suddenly, her eyes blinked, as if trying to focus in the bright light.

Hope rising in him, Father gripped her arm. “Thank God. Can you hear me? It’s Father O’Malley.”

Clearing her dry throat, she strained to see him. “Yes,” she managed. Her hand moved to her face, finding bandages. Noticing
the tubes, the condition of her fingers, she frowned. “What happened?”

“You were in a terrible automobile accident.” He squeezed her arm gently. “Your mother will be overjoyed, Lynn. I should call
her right away.”

The blue eyes looked back at him, puzzled. “Father, I’m not Lynn. I’m Terry Ryan.”

At the same moment, on the second floor of the Central Precinct of the Phoenix Police Department, Captain Ed Marino hung up,
struggling with a juvenile urge to hurl the phone across the room. The mayor had chewed his ass but good.

Remember your blood pressure, his doctor was always warning him. If he were to check it right now, the reading would probably
shoot off the chart. Deliberately, Marino took in a deep, calming breath, then walked to the glass door of his office and
opened it. “Phil, come in here, will you?”

Sitting back down at his desk, Marino reached into his desk drawer and removed a cellophane-wrapped cigar. Longingly, he fingered
it, then held it to his nose and inhaled. Damn doctors always limiting a man’s pleasures. What did they know?

At sixty-four, he was ten months from retirement and looking forward to moving to Seattle to be near his son and his family.
Things hadn’t been the same since Beth had died two years ago. He’d lost his enthusiasm and most of his energy when he’d lost
his wife. All he wanted now was to ride things out until next June, retire with pride and an impressive record that spanned
thirty years.

But both daily Phoenix papers were demanding answers on the killing of one of their own, reporter Don Simon. And now, the
mayor had yielded to pressure, asking what exactly his department was doing to find the murderer.

Marino tossed aside the cigar and watched Lieutenant Phil Remington come into his office, close the door, and settle his long
frame in the chair across from him. The captain envied Phil his full head of sandy hair only slightly gray at
the temples even though the man was in his forties. And he didn’t carry an extra pound but rather was tan and fit, dressing
like someone right off the pages of
GQ
. Leaning toward comfort rather than fashion in his own attire, Ed knew he could never again look like the urbane Remington,
if he ever had. However, the man was vain to a fault and snobbish to boot. But Phil’s saving grace was that he was always
on top of things, which was why Marino relied on him more and more lately.