False Witness (15 page)

Sam thought on that for a few moments. The information was useful as long as it actually happened – until then, it was moot. “Look, I appreciate the heads-up, but it doesn’t do me any good. No one’s going to talk, you said so yourself.”

“Granted, but it puts you miles ahead of your competition when the story breaks that Hodge is dead. Pretty sure that’ll make national news. At least you’ll know the right questions to ask.”

Sam checked his watch again. This back and forth had suddenly started to grate on him. Hard.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m just impatient.”

“You?” said Flowers, feigning shock.

“Kindly bite me, mountain troll.”

“Look, I know you want more on Palliser and Duff, but there’s nothing to give you right now. At least you know you won’t get scooped on that one. None of your competition has anything new, either. That doesn’t stop them from chewing the same ball of shit day after day, which always makes us look bad, but you’re better than that. It’s one of the reasons I like you.”

Sam gave the cop a wry smile. “Yeah, you’re my biggest fan. Literally. And I do appreciate it. Thanks for coming out.”

“Hey, I’m just a man trying to do some good in the world.” Flowers stood and stretched his long arms.
Getting hugged by those things would be like getting hugged by a pair of legs,
Sam mused. He wondered what would happen if those arms decided to squeeze.

“Hey, one last thing before you go.”

Flowers was engrossed in fumbling his keys out of the side pocket of his cargo shorts. “Shoot.”

Sam frowned. “Are you really just going to sit back and let somebody slice up Hodge?”

The big man found his keys and straightened up. When he looked at Sam, his face was unreadable. Sam wondered if he was about to have a private audience with Thunder and Lightning.

“What are you trying to say?”

“I think you know what I’m saying.”

“The man killed a cop,” Flowers said evenly.

“He was behind bars at the time.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. Does that make it right?”

Flowers fixed Sam with a hard stare. It was the first time Sam had ever seen the man look any less than fully composed – he normally had the easy confidence of a big man with authority. Sam wasn’t afraid of Jason Crowe, and he wasn’t afraid of Darcy Flowers, but he was seriously beginning to wonder if today was the day his cockiness landed him in the emergency room.

Finally, Flowers smiled. There was no humor in it. “You going to try to warn him somehow?”

“Me? Hell, no. I hope the devil welcomes him with a red-hot poker right up his cornhole.”

“Then why should I do something about it if you won’t?”

“Because I’m not a cop.”

Sam withdrew his own keys from his pocket and headed for his ride, a dilapidated ‘80s Suburban with a lift kit, cast iron bumpers and a homemade blue paint job, without looking back. The gang of children bunched around him, their game of tag forgotten as they curled their fingers into pistols and let loose with a volley of “Pow! Pow!” at each other. Sam could already make out the flimsy yellow parking ticket flapping under his broken windshield wiper.

Fucking cops
, he thought glumly as he snatched the ticket. He climbed into the truck, fired the engine and nosed his way into afternoon traffic.

#

By the time Sam got back to the
Chronicle
thirty minutes later, the labyrinth of cubicles that made up the newsroom was all but deserted. Not surprising – it was a postcard-perfect Friday afternoon, and there was nothing worth hanging around for. Tomorrow’s front page would be about the oil billionaire who had decided to run for mayor in the fall, and the stories were already written; front page was probably laid out already, just waiting for deadline and the slim possibility of breaking news before it got sent to the press. He wouldn’t be telling Craig Doyle, the night editor, to hold a spot for shocking revelations about the death of Chuck Palliser or Richie Duff. In hindsight, he wondered why he had bothered to meet with Flowers in the first place. Desperation? He should have known there wasn’t going to be some magic piece of evidence drop in his lap and give him an exclusive. Real life didn’t work like that.

He’d spent the drive back to the office kicking himself for burning Flowers, a guy who had done more to further Sam’s career than anyone outside of himself. And why did Sam even care? He was being honest when he said he didn’t give two shits about Hodge’s life. The man had cold-bloodedly murdered Tom Ferbey and ordered the brutal executions of two other men, including a guy who had dedicated his life to keeping the public safe from people like Hodge. Why did Sam care?

Because that’s not how cops are supposed to act, dammit. They’re supposed to be better than that.

He sighed as he emptied the oily dregs of the coffee pot into a paper cup and dropped in three crumbling sugar cubes to battle the bitter, burnt taste. The real cream had been gone since before lunch, so he tapped a package of off-white powder in and stirred.

“So
you’re
the asshole who always leaves the pot empty,” said a voice behind him. Sam turned to see Tess Gallagher, still looking morning fresh even at the end of a long, hot workday – not a wrinkle in her silk blouse or a single strand of auburn hair out of place. She had a hip cocked against the pony wall that separated the mess of the coffee area from the controlled chaos of the newsroom. Tess worked the provincial political beat, which meant she had probably spent most of her day following the five people currently vying for the mayor’s chair against the newly announced billionaire.

“Always?”
he asked as he took a wincing sip of sludge. “Careful, smarty pants. That’s what’s known in intellectual circles as a logical fallacy. You know what happens when you make assumptions.”

“Yeah, you make an ass out of ‘u’ and ‘mptions.’”

Sam snorted a laugh, sending a mist of coffee into the air in front of him. Tess quickly sidestepped the mess and favored him with her patented go-to-hell smile. That and her jade eyes always had an uncanny knack for keeping him off balance.

He wiped the coffee from his lips with a napkin. “Good one,” he said. “I’m surprised to see a dayshift diva like you here this late. Figured you’d be down at Cowboy’s with everyone else, getting margaritas bought for you by horny old politicians.”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m heading down there as soon as I do something.” She remained motionless, arms still crossed, staring at him with that maddening smile.

Sam waited several moments. Finally he raised his eyebrows and cocked his head. “Is that something busting my balls? Use your words, Tess.”

“It has something to do with you.”

“Is that right?”

Her smile widened, if that was possible, and her eyes gleamed. “Uh-huh,” she whispered. “Now close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

Sam did as he was told. He tried to keep a straight face and sound cool, despite the fluttering thrill in the pit of his stomach. “All right. What have you got for me?”

Tess leaned close. Her breath smelled like sunshine and tickled his ear. “This,” she purred as she grabbed his hand. Sam could feel a slim trickle of sweat run down his spine and pool in the cleft of his buttocks. Then he felt paper curl against his palm, and he opened his eyes. He looked down and blinked stupidly at the post-it note in his hand. He looked up at Tess again, disappointment fighting with bafflement for control of his face.

Tess tried to look serious and failed miserably. Sam blushed for a moment when she first started laughing, then joined in himself, though not quite as heartily as Tess.
Real life doesn’t work like that
, he reminded himself.

Tess finally got control of herself. Sam thought he could even see a tiny bit of remorse in her grin.

“Sorry,” she said. “But I had to do that. I’m fucking mad at you.”

Sam’s eyes widened. “
You’re
mad at
me
? How do you figure that?”

Tess pointed a carefully manicured finger at the post-it in his hand. “I’m mad about that.”

Sam finally looked at the note. It was a Calgary phone number. “You’re mad about a phone number?”

“I picked up your line while you were out doing whatever you were doing this afternoon. I don’t know why Shippy puts up with you just taking off for hours at a time, I really don’t. Anyway, a woman called asking specifically for you; she wouldn’t talk to anyone else. Not even yours truly. That’s her number.”

Sam gave her an exasperated look. This was getting annoying. “
Whose
number?”

Tess’s go-to-hell smile was back, this time with a tinge of triumph behind it. She had made him squirm. Mission accomplished.

“That, my friend, is Kathy Ferbey’s phone number.”

Sam’s jaw dropped slightly. “Tom Ferbey’s wife?” he finally managed. “
That
Kathy Ferbey?”

“The one and only,” said Tess. “Though technically she’s his widow now. And you’re the one and only reporter she’ll talk to, you lucky bastard.”

Sam stared at the note in his palm, the number already etching itself in his memory.
Maybe real life does work like that sometimes
.

Eddie Spanbauer was just this side of drunk as he talked money with the kid in the corner booth. Eddie had brought cash – always cash, always, always – but the cab ride had eaten up forty dollars of his wad, and he had to keep another forty for the ride home. At least the drinks were cheap.

Eddie always made sure to take a taxi on the one night a month he went to the Golden Cage. His wife believed it was because he was spending the night drinking with his karate buddies until the wee small hours. Wouldn’t want to be driving after one of their epic piss-ups; that wasn’t something a decent, law-abiding prison guard would do. And it was a great way for him to blow off some of the steam that built up in his high-pressure job. His wife always said she noticed how much better his mood was the next day.

In truth, he always left his mint-condition, right-hand drive Toyota Soarer in the garage of their house in the northwest, and cabbed it to the ugly side of downtown, for two reasons: first, he didn’t want the car left unattended in the neighborhood surrounding the Golden Cage, and second, it was too recognizable. He’d grown up in Calgary and never seen another one around town in metallic hunter green like his. It was one of the reasons he’d bought it in the first place. And even if there was another the same color, his vanity plate was unmistakable: GUARDIAN.

His wife knew none of this, of course. As far as she knew, he and his friends – she didn’t know any of them personally, and when she offered to have them over for dinner, Eddie always had an excuse ready – were at one of those southwest strip mall sports bars that popped up like weeds on the fringes of the new neighborhoods that barged their way into the surrounding ranchland. The kind with names like Blue 32 or The Front Row
,
where sixty-inch televisions lined the walls, and waitresses in push-up bras hoisted team pitchers and potato skins to tables full of drunk men in hockey jerseys for outrageous tips.

Such patrons rarely engaged in the kind of behavior that the Golden Cage was famous for. There were no televisions in here, not even an old analog job above the bar tuned to the local news. The room was dark to the point of being dank; all light from the setting summer sun was blocked out by heavy brocade curtains on the windows, and the walls were painted a deep burgundy. The kid in the corner booth with him looked to be about twenty, thin, with cheap tattoos on his arms, and the twitchy demeanor of someone acquainted with crystal meth. He was Eddie’s favorite type, and Eddie was willing to agree to whatever the kid wanted. It was unlikely that Eddie would be paying for it anyway, so why not? All was right with the world tonight, and he was in the mood for a good old-fashioned party. Money was no object on a night like this.

A sulky underage girl in goth make-up and a mesh tee-shirt dropped a couple of Kokanees on the table and walked away wordlessly with Eddie’s ten-spot.
That’s fine, keep the change, bitch
, he thought absently. The kid took a long pull on his beer. He was nervous. Good. Eddie liked them nervous. It was no fun if they were into it.

“So when do I get the money?” the kid asked, glancing around the room. Men of all sizes, shapes and ages milled about. Balding middle-aged businessmen in suits mingled with young men in brilliant pink ball gowns and feather boas. Bette Midler’s
Divine Madness
blared out of unseen speakers as a group of rotund, leather-clad gentlemen sang along and gyrated on the checkerboard dance floor.

“After,” Eddie said quietly. He knew no one in the place cared about the two of them, but he liked to keep his voice down just the same. “That’s tradition.”

The kid looked around the room again. His twitchiness was beginning to piss Eddie off. “Three hundred, right?” the kid asked. “That’s the deal?”

“That’s the deal.”

“All right, so where are we gonna do this?”

Eddie finished his beer (the kid had drained his own in two pulls) and slid out of the booth. “Leave that to me.” He stood up, the kid close behind, still looking around as if trying to find something.

“Somebody after you?” Eddie said testily.

The kid jumped a bit at that. “No,” he said, eyes wide. “No, man. Just, you know, getting the lay of the land. You know?”

Eddie shook his head.
Tweakers. Jesus, what a life
.

Heat wrapped around them as they walked out the heavy wooden doors into the night. The sun had finally gone below the buildings, leaving a red glow that turned to indigo as it stretched its way toward the rising moon. This part of town was not the kind of place where decent folks wanted to find themselves after dark, but Eddie wasn’t an ordinary guy. He was a hard man. He was a wolf among the sheep, and this neighborhood held no terrors for him, no matter what time of day.

Sirens wailed in the distance as Eddie and the kid walked around to the alley behind the Golden Cage. The kid glanced sideways at him. “Hey man, anybody ever tell you you look like that singer guy? The old guy, sang American Woman? With the moustache.”