High Noon (35 page)

“Sweating now, aren't you, bitch? Oh yeah, you're sweating now. And you'll shed buckets before I'm done.”

Trying to figure it out, he thought. She'd be racking her brains on this one. Who would kill poor Roy? Who'd do such a cruel thing? Boo hoo!

Hearing her voice in his head, he laughed so hard he had to sit down.

Too bad she hadn't started fucking the rich bastard a couple months sooner. With more time, more research, more legwork, he might've been able to target the new playmate instead of the ex-husband.

Still, might be able to work something out. Just needed to think, to plan, to consider. Maybe take an opportunity, or make one.

“See what we see when we see it there,” he muttered. “Got us a timetable, Phoebe.” He lifted the beer again. “Counting down now. Tick, tick, tick. The last tick, and it all goes up in blood and smoke.”

Like she had, he thought, as another face swam into his mind. And with that image burning behind his eyes, he wept.

 

After dinner, after her daughter was safely tucked into bed, after the last call from her captain, Phoebe sat staring at the files.

There was a hollow place in the center of her now, as if something vital had just been carelessly scooped out.

She needed to work through it, or around it. If she could get her focus back, she could concentrate on the names, on the cases, on the reason. But that hollow place sat there, and threatened to pull the rest of her inside it.

She picked up the phone and called Duncan's number without asking herself why she reached for him. Or why when he answered the rim around that hollow place began to shake.

“I…Duncan.”

“Phoebe. I was just talking to myself about you. Whether I should call you, or leave you alone for a while. Are you home?”

“Yes.” The hand holding her cell phone wanted to shake, too. “I'm home. Are you?”

“Yeah. Checking up on me?”

“I didn't mean to…” To what? “To hover.”

“Let's back up. I'd ask what's wrong, but answer's obvious. Is there something else?”

“I just talked to Dave. Everyone here's as settled as they can be, considering. I didn't want to say anything, to tell them now when…Jesus. So, I call you and babble. Sorry. I should…something else.”

“What did Dave tell you that you don't want to tell them?”

“Quick trigger on the brain. I like that about you. I'll probably find it annoying eventually. If it comes to eventually. He called to tell me—I needed to know—that they found…one minute.” She lowered the phone, got her breathing back in order. “There was a timer on the explosives. Roy. There was a timer set. The remote, that was backup, I guess. Or in case he wanted to go early. There was a timer, Duncan, set for one thirty-five. He was never going to let Roy live. No matter what I did or said, no matter what was done, it was always going to end the way it ended.”

There was a pause, and she could hear Duncan let out a long breath. “He gave it enough time to make sure you'd get there. Built in some time so he could play with you. He wanted you to see it. He wanted you on the spot. You know that, Phoebe.”

“He wanted me to bargain and wheedle and beg. And he wanted me to know, after it was done, that none of it mattered. Nothing I do will matter, because everything's already set. Clock's ticking down.”

“He's got the last part wrong, because what you do will matter.”

“He's got me scared to death. Just where he wants me.”

“You called the wrong guy if you expect me to tell you not to be scared. What are you going to do about it?”

“What am I going to do about being scared?”

“No, what are you going to do about finding him so you don't have to be scared anymore.”

“I'm reading files and looking for any…You're not going to tell me to be strong and brave?”

“I've seen you in action, I know you're both. But there are limits. Why don't I come over? I can read files.”

She swiveled from her desk so she could look at the dark pressing on the windows. “You're offering to come over so I don't have to feel strong and brave.” The empty spot inside her began to close. “That's done the job.”

“Give me half an hour and—”

“No, no, I don't need you to come. I guess I just needed you to say you would. I just needed to hear that…that I had an option,” she realized. “Let me ask you one question, and remember, I'm an active listener, so I'll know if you're lying. Considering the situation, are you sorry you asked me out for that drink?”

“Considering any situation, I figure it was the best move I ever made.”

She could smile. “Maybe second best, after deciding to buy a six-pack and a lottery ticket.”

“Might be running neck and neck. Phoebe, why don't you pack it in for the night? Get some sleep.”

“Yeah, maybe I'll do that.”

“I don't know if I'm an active listener, but I know a lie when I hear one.”

“Maybe I'll do that in a couple hours. Thanks for saying what I needed to hear.”

“I'll be around if you need to hear something else.”

“Good night, Duncan.”

 

After a short, restless night, Phoebe considered working from home. Which would mean, she knew, little work at all, as she'd decided to keep Carly out of school for at least a few days.

Even if she could convince Carly to occupy herself elsewhere, Phoebe knew she'd be distracted—and she'd feel guilty being at home and barricading herself from her daughter. And her mother.

Better to go in, stay busy, be productive. There were cops on the house, no need to worry. Unless he got past the cops, she thought as she tried to work a miracle with makeup. Which he wouldn't, but if he did, there was the security alarm.

And someone who could rig a bomb with remote and timer could probably bypass an alarm.

But he wouldn't, she told herself.

He wouldn't.

She gave up on any attempt to style her hair and simply yanked it back in a tail.

All her efforts were going to focus on identifying Roy's killer, finding him and arresting him. Until then paperwork would wait, the scheduled training sessions would be postponed.

Lack of sleep meant she had a solid list of names. She'd start knocking on doors that morning, asking questions, gauging ground. It could be over by end of shift, she told herself as she gathered her files. And if it wasn't, she'd keep right on until it was over.

As she started out of her room, she calculated it was early enough for her to slip downstairs, make coffee, leave a note and be out before anyone stirred.

She stopped by Carly's door, peeked in.

Her daughter was sprawled across the bed, covers kicked off. The worn-eared bear Carly chose most often for a sleeping companion dozed at the tips of her fingers.

Satisfied, Phoebe backed away. If she caved and crept in to cover Carly, give her a quick kiss, that would be that. The kid was a light morning sleeper. Blue eyes would pop right open, and the questions would begin.

Instead, Phoebe continued downstairs. Coffee, she thought again, and maybe a quick carton of the low-fat yogurt she constantly tried to convince herself she actually liked. Leave a note on the fridge, check with the cop on duty, and she'd be gone.

As she stepped into the kitchen, Essie turned from the stove. Both women gasped and stumbled back.

“I thought you were upstairs asleep,” Phoebe said.

“I thought you were.” Essie gave her heart two quick pats. “Though you might as well shoot me as scare me to death, I'd as soon you didn't. Shoot me,” she said with a nod toward the hand Phoebe had on the butt of her weapon.

“Sorry.” Phoebe let her hand slide away. “It's barely six in the morning, Mama. Why aren't you upstairs sleeping?” And at her mother's quiet stare, Phoebe shook her head, then moved over. “Mama.” With her arms around Essie, she rocked. “What a goddamn mess.”

“You're dressed for work.”

Phoebe kept holding, kept rocking, but the eyes she'd closed opened again. “I need to go in.”

“I wish you didn't. I wish you wouldn't. I wish…No, don't pull back to pat and placate me.” Essie's voice sharpened as she tightened her hold on Phoebe. “You're still my little girl, and I wish I could keep you safe in this house. My whole family's under this roof now, and I wish—I know it's sick and it's selfish but, my God, I wish I could keep all of you here.”

It was Essie who stepped back. “And I know I can't. I'll get your coffee.”

Phoebe started to say she'd get it herself, then stopped. Busy hands, she knew, helped her mother's worried mind. “I know you're scared, Mama.”

“'Course I'm scared. I'd be stupid not to be. Roy's worthless ass is blown to hell.” She glanced back as she got out a mug. “I keep thinking I should feel bad saying that kind of thing, but I don't. You never blamed him nearly enough, to my way of thinking. Didn't matter, because I blamed him plenty for both of us. But I'm scared for you, baby. For all of us.”

She poured coffee, added the cream and sugar exactly as Phoebe preferred. “I know you're worried I've gotten worse.”

“I worry,” Phoebe agreed. “I'm still your little girl, right? Well, you'll always be my mama.”

“Sit down, baby. I'm going to fix you some breakfast.”

“I don't have time. I'm just going to grab a carton of yogurt.”

“You hate that stuff.”

“I know. But I'm trying to acquire a taste.” Determined, Phoebe opened the fridge, grabbed a carton at random. Once she'd opened it, gotten a spoon, she leaned back against the counter. “I know that with what happened, with being smart enough to be scared, you'd be cautious about going out in the courtyard, or onto the front veranda, but—”

“I've been having trouble with that for a while now.” Idly, Essie picked up a dishcloth to wipe the already spotless counter. “The veranda, the bedroom terrace especially. Palpitations,” she said. “Knowing it's in my head doesn't make my heart beat any easier. But what you've never really understood is, I'm content inside this house. I don't need what's out there.”

Phoebe ate some yogurt. It tasted sour, just like her thoughts. “The world?”

“I've got a nice world inside this house most days, and if I need to know anything more about the outside one, I've got my computer. Honey, let me fix you some eggs.”

“This is fine.” She picked up her coffee to wash the taste away. “Have you been having panic attacks when I'm not here?”

“Not full-blown ones. Tickles now and then. Phoebe, there's only one reason I wish I could walk out that door. That's so you could, if that's what you wanted. So you could walk away from this house. If I could, is that what you'd do?”

“Mama, I don't have time to talk about this now.”

“It's not yet six-thirty in the morning, and if you're in a hurry, then you can answer quick and be done with it.”

Phoebe opened a cabinet, tossed the half-eaten yogurt in the trash. “I don't know. Some days, I'd say yes. I'd walk away from this house just to spite Cousin Bess. She had no right, no
right
to work you like a dog and give you nothing.”

“She gave me a place to take my children when I was desperate.”

“And made you pay and pay and pay, every single day.”

“Do you think that mattered?” The little white scar stood out sharply when Essie's cheeks flushed with emotion. “Do you think that ever mattered to me?”

“It should have.”

“That's you, Phoebe. You've got a tough mind in there, and you tend to draw hard lines with it.”

“Mama—”

“Maybe you've had to have one, and maybe you need those lines. And still, my darling girl, what wouldn't you do to be sure your Carly is safe and well? Did you leave Roy, when God knows you hate to give up on anything, hate to lose? Did you walk away from the FBI for yourself, or because you believed it was better for her if you took the position with the local police? For her, and for me—and don't think I haven't always known that. Did you count the cost?”

“It's not the same, Mama. She treated you like dirt, and Carter little better.”

“And I've always felt there was a special place in hell with her name on it for the times she pinched and poked at that poor little boy. But he had a home, and food, and he had you and me. He had Ava, God love her, for good measure.”

“The house should've been yours, free and clear.”

“It's mine close enough, not free and clear, but mine all the same. Do you hate it so, Phoebe?”

“No.” She sighed. “No. Some days I hate the idea of it, I hate the strings she pulls even from that reserved table in hell. She knew I would, and it burns my ass, Mama, to prove her right. But the fact is, Carly loves this house. She loves the courtyard and her room, she loves the neighborhood and the park. So, no, I don't count the cost. Or only when I'm feeling pissy. So I don't know, Mama, if you could walk out the door, if I would, too.”

She drained her coffee. “I have to get to work.”

“I know you do.”

Essie stayed where she was, listening to Phoebe walk down the hall, across the foyer. She heard the door open, close. And she moved to the window, to look out at the courtyard with its lovely flowers and shrubs, its elegant fountain and pretty pockets of shade.

And she saw a bottomless black pit.

She got in early enough
to push through more files, to add to her list. The feds could've made her jump through hoops, but Phoebe knew enough people in the local bureau to slip through several tangles of red tape.

More than ten years, she thought, between her time with the Bureau and with the SCPD. Almost a third of her life. More than a third of her life if she counted the time in college, in the academy.

But a decade at the work, on the job.

She'd lost fourteen people.

Her mother was right, Phoebe admitted. She hated to lose, and she'd lost fourteen in a bit under eleven years.

It didn't matter that three of those had died of injuries sustained before she'd been called on scene. And if it didn't matter to her, she was damn sure it didn't matter to Roy's killer.

So, all those losses would have to be reexamined.

She pushed back from her desk, prepared to go into the field, and Sykes tapped on her doorjamb. “Lieutenant?”

“Come on in. Ah, Arnie Meeks. His alibi hold?”

“Yeah. Story matches.” Sykes's face twisted into a sour expression, as if he'd swallowed something that didn't sit quite right. “More, the woman he's cheating with has one of those nosy neighbors. She saw Arnie go in the alibi's house just before ten Sunday night. Knows his car, too, as she's seen him there before. He'd parked up the block, but she spotted it when she took her dog Lulu out for a walk around midnight.”

“Right.”

“Had to take the pooch out again right before sunrise. You ever wonder why people have a dog if they're going to have to drag their butt out of bed before dawn so it can water the petunias?”

“Yes, actually. I've been giving that specific arrangement a good deal of thought lately.”

Amusement glimmered. “Kid wants a puppy?”

“You're an ace detective, Bull. Yes, she does.”

“Well. This particular dog's doing what she needs to do, and that's when Lulu's mommy reports she saw Arnie…” Sykes flipped open his book, thumbed pages. “‘Strutting out of Mayleen Hathaway's front door like the top rooster on the dunghill.'”

“Well, that clears him on this.”

“Too damn bad. But I could tell you he's going to deserve this Mayleen, who has the breasts of a goddess, the brains of a peanut and the wrath of a wounded pitbull.” His smile was hard and brief. “I do believe she's going to make his life a living hell for some time. Add his wife making it the same at home, and he's not in a cozy spot right at the moment.”

“I'm feeling small enough, between you and me, to tell you that's nice to hear.”

“I'm going to check with CS, see if they've got anything more on the victim's car. Bastard shed a hair, they're going to find it, Lieutenant.”

“Maybe you can do that on the way. I've got some avenues I'd like to explore. I could use you. Legwork first, then we'll deal with the rest of the interviews and follow-ups by phone from here. I'll explain on the way to the first.”

She picked up her bag, then set it back down when she spotted Sergeant Meeks striding into the squad room. “Give me a few minutes here first, will you, Detective?”

He glanced around, and his face hardened. “I'm happy to stand right here, wait till you're ready to go.”

“No need. Just give me a minute.”

The look on his face said he'd do that, and he'd be watching the office while he did. Sykes and Meeks faced each other in the doorway like, Phoebe thought, a couple of tough mongrel dogs. Not so different in build, she noted, or in sensibility, she supposed, when it came to protecting their territories.

But so much different in approach.

Sykes spoke without taking his eyes off Meeks. “I'll be right out at my desk, Lieutenant, when you're ready.”

“Thank you, Detective. Sergeant?”

“Lieutenant.”

She kept the neutral expression on her face as Sergeant Meeks firmly shut her office door.

“Something I can do for you this morning?”

“You got hurt,” he began, “and my son lost his badge over it. His wife and his own son are upset and embarrassed.”

“I regret your daughter-in-law and grandson are troubled by the fact that your son put me in the hospital, Sergeant Meeks.” Her voice was Southern cream over cold steel. “My own family was, and is, considerably troubled by that event, too. Particularly my seven-year-old daughter.”

“The circumstances of your injuries aside, when you take on the badge, you take on the risks. A woman with a young child should consider that before going into law enforcement.”

“I see. And I see where your son picked up his opinion of women on the job. Was there something else, Sergeant, because regardless of your opinion of my choice of career, I have work to do.”

Nothing, not a flicker of the rage she knew had to be burning inside him, crossed his face. And there, Phoebe thought, was the control his son sadly lacked.

“You're going to want to watch how you play this.”

“Is that another opinion, or is that a threat?”

“I don't make threats,” Meeks said evenly. “You got some bruises, and they look healed up to me. But my son doesn't have his badge or his reputation.”

“He's not in jail either.”

“Is that what you want? Is that why you sent a man to his workplace to question him? You sent men to take him out of his house and haul him in for questioning in front of his family, his neighbors. You questioned his wife.”

“What I want is not relevant. His prior actions earned him the questioning, and he wouldn't have been hauled out of his home in front of his family and his neighbors if he hadn't taken a swing at Detective Sykes. Or didn't you receive that portion of the report?” She angled her head. “Should I have a copy sent to you?”

“If he was provoked—”

“You make excuses for him all you like, as his father. But when you come into this office in uniform, you also represent this department. That's something
you
better remember. I notice you're not complaining that I also sent a man to question your son's married lover in order to verify his alibi for the time in question. Or wasn't she on your list?”

She saw it hit, that one instant of surprise and disappointment. Then his eyes went flat. “The deal was struck, Lieutenant Mac Namara. If you keep harassing my son, I'll take my complaints to the DA, to the chief of police and to the mayor.”

“You're free to take your complaints to whomever you like, Sergeant.” The edge of her anger was a hot blade carving up her spine. “Before you do, I'm going to point out that rather than answer questions in his own home, or requesting that said questioning be done elsewhere, your son verbally harassed and threatened two of my officers, and assaulted one of them. I could see that his probation is rescinded and he do the time at Georgia State.”

She let that hang, let it steep. Then, placing the palms of her hands on her desk, leaned forward.

“And, oh yes, Sergeant Meeks, we'll be honest. I can't think of many things I'd like more. But for now? I'm going to suggest that instead of you coming in here and throwing your weight around my office, or trying to make me shiver with tossing around your fishing and golf buddies, you consider getting your son some professional help. Because you know what? That anger management? It doesn't seem to be doing him much good.”

“If you think you're going to lay this murder charge on him—”

“I do not think any such thing. He's cleared of that. And by clearing him—a person known, without question, to have an unhealthy dislike of me—we can now focus on other leads and avenues in the matter of the murder of Roy Squire. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm on my way to do just that.”

“You didn't have to drag him out of his own home in cuffs.”

He sounded tired now, she noted. She felt the same damn way. Anger was energizing, but when it started to drip away with fatigue, it could easily form into bitterness.

“No, and he wouldn't have been if he hadn't called Detective Alberta a fucking cunt among other pleasantries, and taken a swing at Detective Sykes while threatening to beat him bloody. He swung at Alberta, too, and those officers were forced to subdue him.

“I believe your son is twenty-seven years old? I hope to God in twenty years' time my daughter's woman enough to stand up for herself, and doesn't need her mama to do it for her.”

Phoebe wrenched open the door. “Don't you come around here anymore to rattle your saber at me. You go right on to IAB, or the chief, the mayor or the damn governor of Georgia. But don't you come here again to push your face into mine over your pathetic offspring.”

She swung out into the squad room. “Detective Sykes? Would you come with me now?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Sykes pushed back from his desk, didn't bother to disguise the snarky grin as he looked over at Sergeant Meeks. Then he strolled out in Phoebe's wake.

 

She started with the oldest case first. She'd been Special Agent Mac Namara then. Still fresh from Quantico. She wouldn't meet Roy for another few weeks, she remembered.

A pretty day, late fall, a breeze stirring the air.

Her hair had been longer then, hadn't it? Yes, past her shoulders in those days, and she'd habitually pulled it back into a twist or knot because she'd thought it looked more official. More professional.

And because it made her feel sexy at the end of the day to pull out the pins and let it fall free.

Ava was still in the suburbs. Carter in high school and gangly with a growth spurt. And Mama's world shrunk down to a square of about six blocks, but no one talked about it then.

“Botched kidnapping. Woman walked out of a hospital nursery down in Biloxi with a newborn baby girl. Posed as a nurse. She brought the baby here, to Savannah, to pass it off as her own. This was a surprise to her husband, who believed she'd gone south to visit her sister for a few days. She told him that she'd found the baby, abandoned, that it was a sign from God, as she hadn't been able to conceive in their eight years of marriage, despite spending several thousand dollars on fertility treatments.”

“He buy that?”

“He did not. But he loved her.”

She sat at a light. Over the hum of the car's AC, she heard the clip-clop as a mounted cop turned into the park.

“He'd also seen the news reports on this stolen baby girl, and put it together. He tried to talk to his wife—Brenda Anne Falk, age thirty-four. She wouldn't listen. Couldn't he see how that baby had her eyes? He called her sister, whom she had never seen on that trip south, and her parents, who were frightened and concerned. Then, not knowing what else to do, he tried to take the baby away from her.”

Phoebe stopped in front of a tidy office building. And continued when Sykes joined her on the sidewalk. “She got her husband's thirty-two revolver, pointed it at his head and told him to put her baby down, that it was time for her nap.”

“Off the tracks.”

“Well off.” Inside the building, Phoebe pushed the button on the elevator. “He was afraid the baby could be hurt, so he put her down, tried to reason with his wife, who proceeded to shoot him.”

“Off the tracks and over the cliff.”

“Yes. Fortunately, she hit the meat of his bicep for a through-and-through. She locked herself in with the baby, shoved the dresser in front of the door. He called the hotline number he'd seen on the TV bulletins. And shortly thereafter, I came on as negotiator.”

“The baby make it through?”

“Yes, the baby came out fine. Screaming—hungry by that time—but right as rain.” She could hear it, Phoebe realized, she could hear that baby crying in her head. “Brenda Anne Falk, however, did not make it through. After over two hours of negotiations, of believing I was getting through to her, she told me that she thought it was time she gave up after all. And by giving up, she meant putting that thirty-two to her temple and pulling the trigger.”

She stepped off the elevator, checked the names on the doors along the corridor, then opened the one marked
compass travel
.

It was a small operation with two desks on opposite sides of the room and a long counter at the back. Stands held a bounty of brochures, while the walls were decorated with large posters of exotic locales.

She recognized Falk immediately, though his hair had thinned some, and there were glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He tapped keys on a computer, but Phoebe shook her head at the woman at the counter and stepped over to Falk's desk.

“Excuse me, Mr. Falk?”

“That's right. I'm happy to help you if you don't mind waiting. Or Charlotte can help you now.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Falk, but I need to speak with you.” Phoebe palmed her badge so he could see it.

“Oh. Well, what…”

She saw it come, carving slowly through the puzzlement, that recognition, and the shock. And the shadow of old grief.

“I know you,” he said. “You were…you were talking to Brenda when she—”

“Yes, I was. I was with the FBI at that time. I'm Phoebe Mac Namara, Mr. Falk. I'm with the Savannah-Chatham Police Department. This is Detective Sykes.”

“What do you want?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Falk, is there somewhere private we can talk?”

He took his glasses off, set them on the desk. “Charlotte? Would you put the ‘Closed' sign up and lock the door? Charlotte and I are engaged. I don't need to be private from her. She knows everything about what happened with Brenda.”

Charlotte locked up, came immediately to Falk's side. She was a pretty, sturdy-looking woman, and Phoebe judged her to be in her early forties. Her hand, with its simple, round-cut diamond ring, lay supportively on Falk's shoulder.

“What's this about?” she demanded.