Ricochet (40 page)

“I’ve always relied on your willingness to help, as well as your seemingly endless supply of resources.”

Savich chuckled. “Happy to oblige.” He saw Laird glance uneasily toward Chief Taylor, who discreetly tapped his wristwatch.

The judge said, “I so appreciate your call, but they’re ready to get under way here. I really must run.”

“Do not hang up on me, Cato.” Savich saw the judge’s shoulders tense at his imperious tone.

“I wouldn’t think of it, except that I’m pressed for time,” he said tightly.

“Napoli had only seconds to call me from the backseat of Elise’s car when she returned to it. But everything went according to plan. I was to pick him up on the Talmadge Bridge. Until I arrived, he would pretend to be a stranded motorist with a broken-down car.” He chuckled. “When I arrived, he looked a sight. He told me your dearly departed put up an admirable struggle before he sent her over the wall.”

“I didn’t realize that you’d spoken with him.”

“Briefly.
Very
briefly. Before I killed him, I wanted assurance that the problem of your wife had been taken care of once and for all.”

“Thank you again for that attention to detail. I’ll be certain to return the favor.”

“
I’ll
be certain that you do. However, I didn’t kill Napoli strictly as a favor to you, Cato.” He paused, subtly alerting the judge that the tenor of the conversation was about to shift. Finally he said, “Your hired gun Napoli mailed me a set of those interesting photographs.”

There followed a telling silence broken only by Laird’s rapid breathing. “I can explain those.”

“No explanation necessary, Cato. It’s clear that those pictures of Elise and me were to be used if ever you felt like double-crossing me.”

“Not at all, not at all,” he said hastily and in an undertone. “Please have no worry about that.”

“I’m not worried,” Savich said smoothly. “Our partnership remains as solid as ever. You and I don’t have a problem. As long as Napoli was telling the truth, that is.”

“The truth about—?”

“Elise’s death. It wouldn’t have been out of character for Meyer Napoli to go to his maker with a lie on his lips. She may not be dead at all.”

“Not possible.”

“Don’t be a fool, Cato. Anything’s possible.”

D
UNCAN CREPT OUT OF THE HOUSE, LEAVING HER ASLEEP.
H
E
was taking a chance that she would skip out while he was gone, but he didn’t believe she would, and if she did, she couldn’t get far.

When he returned, she was sitting on the sofa, her legs tucked under her, wrapped in a quilt he remembered from his childhood, watching the small TV that had belonged to his grandmother.

Arms loaded with sacks of groceries, he pushed his way through the door and nudged it closed with his elbow. Elise glanced up at him and nodded toward the TV. “Cato.”

He delivered the groceries to the kitchen then joined her to watch the televised press conference. He wondered how Judge Laird had pulled off the gaunt, ravaged visage of a mourner. Had he been fasting for several days so his neck would look scrawny poking out of his collar? The dark circles around his eyes could either be cosmetics, or he simply hadn’t allowed himself to sleep much since her disappearance.

Whatever he’d done to prepare for the part, he’d done it well. If you went strictly on appearance, you’d say this guy was shattered over his wife’s death, that his bereavement was so extreme, it was unlikely he would ever recover.

The script was spot-on, too. No doubt well rehearsed. As Laird completed one thought and segued into another, he raised his head and squinted into the television lights — a first. Always before he’d been very comfortable in their glare.

“Despite my personal tragedy…” He paused to cover his mouth with his fist and clear his throat. “Despite my personal tragedy, I’ve been overwhelmed by the support of friends, colleagues, and, indeed, strangers. I wish to acknowledge the tireless efforts of the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department, the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, the many men and—”

With an angry motion, Elise turned off the TV and tossed the remote aside, then bounded off the sofa and began to pace. “You missed the best part,” she said. “About how my life was cut tragically short. Often misunderstood, I was another candle in the wind.”

“He said
that
?”

“Quoted the lyrics.” She retrieved the quilt from the floor where it had fallen when she stood up and pulled it around her. “He’ll play the sorrowful widower to the hilt, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from him. He’s—”

“Are you hungry?”

She broke off the tirade, looked at Duncan, and nodded.

“Because I’m starved. All that,” he said, motioning toward the TV, “can wait till after we’re fed.”

He was anxious to hear everything she had to tell him. On the other hand, he dreaded it, because it would mean dredging up everything they’d left behind in Savannah last night. “Can you cook?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Because I can’t. I’ll make the coffee, but don’t expect it to pass any taste tests.” He went into the kitchen and began removing the grocery items from the bags.

“I’ll be right back.”

She scurried into the bedroom and closed the door, presumably to dress. Duncan would just as soon have her stay in his boxers and T-shirt. From the glimpse he’d had, she looked good in them. Great, in fact. And he fancied the thought of cloth that had been worn against his skin now rubbing against hers.

He was scooping coffee into the paper filter when she returned wearing the shapeless jeans and shirt she’d had on last night. “How much water did you use?” she asked.

“Eight cups’ worth.”

“Then that’s enough coffee.” She surveyed the staples he’d bought and nodded with approval. “This will work. Mixing bowls? Pots and pans?”

In fifteen minutes they were seated across from each other at his grandmother’s table, eating scrambled eggs that he declared were the best he’d ever had.

She laughed. “You’re just hungry.” When she realized that he was holding his fork poised above his plate and staring at her, she said, “What? Have I got food on my face?”

“No. It’s just… that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh.”

Her smile relaxed. “I haven’t had much to laugh about.”

He nodded, but let the subject drop there, and dug back into his breakfast. “No kidding, this is good. My grits always look and taste like wet cement.”

“You can’t cook at all?”

“Nope.”

“Who normally cooks your breakfast?”

She was casually spreading butter on a slice of toast, but he recognized a loaded question. “I usually grab something on the way to work.”

“Always? I thought there may be a…” Her eyebrows lifted eloquently.

“No. Not even a…” He matched her strategic pause. “No one who stays for breakfast.”

Her chest lifted on a quick breath before she resumed buttering her toast. A few minutes later when she pushed aside her empty plate, he remarked, “You were hungry, too.”

“Very.”

“I think you’ve dropped a few pounds.”

“It’s the clothes. I bought them too large.”

So not to draw attention to that body while playing dead, he thought.

She picked up her coffee mug and studied the gay daisy pattern on it. “Tell me about the grandmother who lived here.”

“Well, she actually lived in Savannah. This was a weekend getaway until my grandfather died, then she moved out here permanently. She thought the town house was too big for her to live in alone. Three stories were two too many, so—”

“
Your
town house.”

He admitted it with a nod. “She deeded it over to me. Which was more generous than any of us realized at the time.”

“Those old town houses are prize real estate now.”

“If I were trying to buy it, I couldn’t come close to affording it. Not on a cop’s salary. I thank Grandmother every day for her generosity.”

“She must have loved you very much.”

“Yes,” he said with a slow and pronounced nod. “She did. I can’t blame any of my shortcomings on a love-deprived childhood.”

“Good parents?”

“The best.”

He received the expected reaction when he told her that his dad was a minister and that he’d grown up in a parsonage, never missing a Sunday of worship unless he was sick. “Go ahead, ask,” he said.

“Ask what?”

“What happened to you? Why didn’t you turn out better than you did? Why didn’t the religious training take?”

“It took.”

Her voice was soft, but direct, and it made his heart thump against his ribs.

“You’re a decent man, Duncan. Even when you’re being tough, your basic goodness comes across. You feel things deeply. You try and do what’s right.”

“Not lately.” He looked at her meaningfully.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Don’t be. They were my choices to make.”

She went back to studying the daisies on the coffee mug. “Did you always want to be a policeman?”

“No, I decided that my junior year of high school.” She looked at him inquisitively, an invitation to explain. “A good friend I’d grown up with was brutally raped and murdered.”

“How awful,” she murmured.

“Yeah. Even worse, it was generally believed — although nobody said it out loud — that the culprit was probably her stepfather. But he owned a car dealership and two radio stations. He was president of the Rotary Club. No one dared touch him, not even the police, who conducted a sloppy investigation. They eventually assigned blame to a retarded kid. He was sent to a state institution and locked up for reasons I’m sure he never understood.”

“You’ve been railing against the injustice of it ever since. So you became a policeman to right wrongs.”

“Naw,” he said flippantly. “I just like pushing people around and playing with guns.”

He expected a smile, but her expression remained solemn. “If you hadn’t been
you
, Duncan, I wouldn’t have trusted you enough to ask for your help.”

He let that lie for a moment, then said, “I figured it was because of what I said to you the night of the awards dinner.”

Carefully, she set the coffee mug on the table and stared into it. “That, too. I used what I… what I thought might work to get to you. I did what I had to do.” She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “Not for the first time.”

They were getting to the heart of the subject now. Again, he wanted to postpone it. He stood up and began clearing the table. She washed, he dried. They worked side by side, but silently.

When the chore was done, she said, “Can we go outside? I’d like to look at the water.”

In the early hours of the morning, the rain had stopped. The sun was out and everything had that washed-clean brilliance about it. The air was clear. Colors seemed more vivid. The sky was boasting a deep blue that hadn’t been seen for days.

He walked her out onto a fishing pier where he, his dad, and his granddad had often fished. When he told her that, she smiled. “You were lucky.”

“Not at fishing,” he said with a laugh. “The men of my family are lousy fishermen. We just enjoyed being in each other’s company.”

“That’s why you were lucky.”

They sat down on the edge of the rough wood pier, dangling their feet over the side, and watched the boats moving in and out of Beaufort’s marina. He waited a time, then said, “You weren’t so lucky?”

“In terms of family? No. It’s a classic case of total dysfunction. My father left before I was born. I never knew him. My mother married a man, had a baby boy by him, and then he left, too. More accurately, she ran him off.

“Although she was never diagnosed, my guess is that she was bipolar. To my half brother and me she just seemed… mean. Unpredictably she would fly into rages. I won’t bore you with the ugly details.”

After a short pause, she said, “My half brother and I survived by sticking together. Our fear of her forged a bond between us. I loved him. He loved me. We were all each other had.

“When I graduated high school, I began working at various jobs, with the short-term goal of getting my brother through high school and then setting us up in our own home.

“But, lacking supervision, he got in with a bad gang at school. Started doing drugs. Committed petty crimes. He was in and out of juvenile detention.” She turned toward Duncan. “Familiar story?”

“All too familiar. Typically it doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“This one doesn’t. One day my brother ran away. He left a note under the windshield of my car while I was at work.”

“What work?” he asked curiously.

“Video rental store. The owner practically turned it over to me to manage. I did all the ordering, inventory, classifying, bookkeeping, even cleaned the restrooms. I couldn’t wait to go to work every day.”

“To clean the restrooms?”

She smiled. “Small price to pay. Because basically I got paid to watch movies.”

“You like movies?”

“Love them. So that job was heaven for me.” Her smiled dissolved as the bad memories crowded out the good ones. “In the note my brother left, he said he had his own plans for his life, and those plans didn’t coincide with mine. It broke my heart. But that’s the way it was. He was gone and I didn’t know where to start looking for him.”

She threw back her head to look up at the sky and laughed at herself as she touched the nape of her neck. “It still feels funny. I keep forgetting my hair isn’t there.”

“I’m beginning to like it.”

“Liar.”

“No, really.” They shared grins, but then he prompted her to continue. She told him that her half brother had been gone for about a year, without a word from him, when her mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Elise assumed responsibility for her health care.

“Even though I was working and looking after her, I was also enrolled in art and film classes at the junior college. Things were tough, but going fairly well.” Gazing out across the water, she sighed. “Then I finally heard from my brother. It wasn’t good news. He was on his way to prison for drug dealing. Hard stuff.”