Rite of Wrongs (30 page)

S
IXTY
-S
EVEN

Monday, 6:00 a.m.

The abandoned Lacey place looked like a movie set. The property deep in the Bend had been cordoned off. No one was allowed to walk anywhere on the lot unless the area had been cleared by the crime-scene techs.

There were a half dozen of them inside and out. Cadaver dogs were on the way, though as old as the bodies of Van Lacey and Orin Hollis would be, the canines finding remains was highly unlikely.

Huge searchlights lit up the place from corner to corner. The sun was just rising, as was the day’s heat, but the shadows cast by years’ worth of unchecked vegetation left the grounds too dim to navigate without giving Mother Nature a boost.

Miriam would just as soon have been left in the dark. She didn’t want to imagine the clothesline where Gina had been lashed during thunderstorms. Or the chain-link dog run hidden behind the house where Darius had been fed out of a dog bowl.

Getting close to the remnants of the corrugated shed where Autumn had been locked overnight made Miriam’s palms clammy, the skin between her shoulder blades, too. Sweat trickled down her spine, pooling at the base and soaking into the fabric of her panties.

Yet her discomfort was nothing.

Not when she thought about the children who’d lived here, suffering.

If possible, the house appeared even worse than she remembered, having seen it when responding to the domestic-violence call across the street. Maybe that’s because now she knew the truth of what had happened here, of what the house held. The memories. The horrors.

The prayers.

The dead.

There would be no true justice for Van Lacey or Orin Hollis, but the cold cases could be filed away for good, and closure given to any of their family members who still remained. And that was something.

She just wished it was enough.

She spent most of the morning and afternoon sitting in the SUV with the door open. Augie had wandered the scene with Melvin, Ballard, and Branch, but Miriam couldn’t deal. Oh, she’d thought differently when she’d arrived, but then she’d gone into the house. Big mistake.

Outside of what had once been the master bedroom, the phrase
LIARS LIARS LIARS
had been scrawled across the hallway wall. The lettering wasn’t as neat as at the crime scenes, and there was no Scripture, but seeing the small dog carcass rotting on the floor . . .

Bringing up her notebook to cover her nose, she’d closed her eyes. And when she turned to blindly retrace her steps, she ran into Augie, and for just a moment, a very short moment, allowed herself to lean against him.

To give up on finding her own strength and pulling on his.

To stop fighting the tears.

She sobbed once. Just once. She was so very, very tired.

The wall in the downstairs bedroom and that in the attached bathroom had been used as message boards, too. Miriam didn’t go into the rooms. She waited on the front porch for Melvin to come out and show her the photos on his phone.

The bedroom wall said:
I HATE.

The bathroom wall said:
MY MOTHER
.

“More dogs?” she asked, and he nodded. “I thought we’d get to wrap this all up without any more deaths. You know, in a nice, neat package.”

“Nothing neat about dead dogs,” he said, turning to go back inside but stopping to squeeze her shoulder first.

She reached up and patted his hand. “Thank you.”

He shrugged. “What are partners for?”

“I owe you.”

“I know,” he said, and left her there, shuddering, breathing in the air that was wet and ripe with the scent of the thick greenery and had her longing for a shower and a haircut. She didn’t think she’d ever get rid of the stench.

She’d left the porch for the Yukon and hadn’t moved in the two hours since. Ten minutes ago, Augie had joined her, but he’d yet to speak. She supposed one of them should. Time was ticking. Soon he’d be gone. Soon she wouldn’t need him anymore.

She hated that he still looked as if he belonged behind the wheel of the department’s SUV. He shouldn’t have driven her here. He shouldn’t be here at all. His consulting services were no longer needed. And he’d made it clear the work was all he was here for.

Not for her.

Not because of her.

She leaned her forehead into the passenger’s-side window and stared across the street at the Dickeys’ trailer. Diana and John sat on the steps leading up to their front door, Diana in a pink robe and slippers with Peaches on her lap. Both husband and wife blew smoke into the air.

Miriam wondered if their kids were inside sleeping, or playing. Or if they’d been lucky enough to stay last night with friends, or grandparents. If they had either.

“You should go,” she said to Augie, breaking the silence that was as uncomfortable as the scene.

“Yeah. Judah’s about to head to the station, so I’m going to catch a ride with him. Melvin will need to ride with you,” he said, and she nodded because this was it. The end of the case. Not the paperwork. Not the fallout. Not the legal aftermath and the hell the families would be dealing with, but the end of the investigation.

The end of her and Augie working as a team.

She’d thought the second time would be easier. She’d thought wrong. Though it was probably the dogs that were getting to her. The thought had her climbing out and slamming the door. She walked around the front of the SUV, and once Augie was on his feet, she hopped into the driver’s seat.

“You’ll wait for Melvin?” he asked.

She nodded again, staring at the porch where her partner was in conversation with their deputy chief.

“Maybe you should let him drive.”

“And maybe you should get back to being a priest and leave me to being police. I’ve been doing it a long time without you around to tell me how.”

“I wasn’t telling you—”

She was so close to losing it. So very close. “Just go, Augie. Just go.”

“Miriam—”

She held up a hand to stop him, felt it shaking, and looked away from the scene to meet his gaze. He stood in her open door’s lingering shadows, his expression lost in a beam of light reflected off the windshield.

It hit him right in the collar.

And she hadn’t even asked for a sign.

He reached out, brought her fingers to his lips, held them there longer than was good for her breaking heart. “Good-bye, Miriam.”

Then he let her go. She watched him walk to the idling SUV where Chris Judah waited to take him back to Saint Mark’s.

And to God.

S
IXTY
-E
IGHT

Saturday, 4:00 p.m.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Miriam said, her hands in her shorts pockets as she and Nikki stepped from the parking lot onto the sidewalk fronting Union Park’s Never Forget animal shelter. “And you look fabulous, by the way. You always look fabulous. Even on a Saturday with no one to see you but dogs. I don’t get it.”

“It’s all in the genes, and knowing I’m worth it. And I wouldn’t miss today for the world,” Nikki said, hooking her arm through Miriam’s as they walked. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t pay to see a little pup make you her bitch.”

Miriam was pretty sure that was exactly what was going to happen, and she didn’t even bother fighting a grin. “He’s not a pup; he’s a senior. He’s twelve. His name is Pinto Bean.”

“Pinto Bean?”

“He’s part shepherd and part golden retriever.”

Nikki huffed. “This some sort of trial run? Giving up two years of your life rather than twelve?”

She hadn’t thought of it that way. She’d been thinking about the Gardners’ dog, Bongo, wondering who was taking him to the park with Gina gone. About Diana Dickey’s Peaches. About the blood from the pug on the first blue tarp. About the dead dogs at the Lacey house in the Bend.

Fucking Edward Lacey. Fucking Dorothy.

The next thing she knew, she’d been at
PetFinder.com
. She’d seen Pinto Bean’s face and fallen in love and couldn’t bear the idea of him living what time he had left inside four walls built of cinder block. Even if they were painted blue and green and decorated with a big yellow sun.

He hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t deserve to be in prison.

“You clear this with Thierry?”

That was the other thing . . . “He’s moving out at the end of the month.”

The announcement had Nikki pulling them both to a stop. Miriam lifted a hand to shade her eyes and take in her bestie’s gogglelike expression. “I don’t even know what to say.”

Miriam shrugged. “I thought you might start with ‘I told you so.’”

Nikki motioned her forward, then wrapped her in a great big hug, tugging on her ponytail before setting her away. “Let’s go see your future boyfriend.”

Nodding and ridiculously verklempt, Miriam glanced toward the outside kennels where the shelter volunteers were supervising their charges on their afternoon run. She veered off the sidewalk and into the yard, dragging Nikki with her. “I want to show you something.”

“Good grief, Miriam. I don’t have on the right shoes for going all nature girl here. Uh, hello.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Once near the enclosure, Miriam waved to Robert Vince. He lifted a finger in greeting while he checked on a beagle doing its best to hump a dachshund. That disaster averted, he met them where they waited, hooking his fingers through the fencing’s chain links.

“Afternoon, Detective,” he said, his eyes all for Nikki.

“I’m a civilian today, Robert. And for the next few days.” Depending on how long it took Internal Affairs to look at the shooting. A part of her hoped it took forever.

He smiled, relaxed, as if the case had been doing a number on him, too. “You here to check out the finest in home accessories?”

She laughed at that. “And to introduce you to my best friend, Nikki Logan. She teaches fourth grade at Henry Cross Elementary. Nikki, this is Sergeant Robert Vince, the man who saved my bacon more than a few times the last several weeks.”

“I’m happy to meet you, Sergeant.”

“Just Robert, ma’am. It’s my day to play civilian, too.”

And my job here is done, Miriam mused, looking from man to woman, woman to man, and remembering that there actually was good in the world. “I’m going to be inside getting my heart broken. I’ll catch up with you in a bit, Nik.”

Nikki was too busy falling in love to respond.

S
IXTY
-N
INE

Saturday, 4:20 p.m.

After the shelter staff introduced them, Miriam sat cross-legged on the floor of Pinto Bean’s kennel. She kept her distance, not wanting to frighten him, or box him in, or make him anxious. She was nervous enough for the both of them.

This turning the page to a new chapter of her life wasn’t easy.

And though she was ready, she knew she couldn’t do it alone; she’d leaned on Thierry too long. She was still leaning on Augie, though at least she could now put words to that truth. These last few weeks echoed both the best and worst times of their relationship: working together, needing each other. Never being enough, or the solution, or even healthy. As if any of her relationships had been.

Maybe this one finally would be, she mused, smiling at the big brown eyes staring into her own. The dog lay with his muzzle on his paws, and when she smiled, his tail swept the floor behind him. It was a small movement at first, a quick back and forth, and the wider her smile, the faster he wagged.

Still, Miriam waited, letting him make the first move. She didn’t want to make a wrong one. She’d made so very many in her life, and as the thought came to her, tears filled her eyes. Crying over victims . . . it didn’t do anyone any good, but this case had affected so many lives.

The Gardners. The friends and employees of Franklin Weeks. The child who would never have Autumn Carver for her mother. Gordon Hollis, who had done nothing wrong but love his mother. Edward Lacey’s sons, his wife. They didn’t deserve to suffer for his sins, or the loss that had driven him mad.

And Dorothy Lacey, no matter her mental capacity at the time she’d decided her husbands’ lives were worthless, had set this cataclysm in motion. In one way or another, she’d known exactly what she’d done, and the fact that she didn’t even care . . .

“What is wrong with people?” Miriam muttered the words under her breath, using the inside neckband of her T-shirt to wipe her eyes.

Feeling a very wet nose on her wrist, she blinked and focused. While she’d been lost in thought, the dog had crawled close and was nudging her hand as if asking what he could do to make things better. As far as the images she would never be able to shake, he couldn’t. But as far as today and tomorrow . . .

She leaned near, rubbing a hand over his head. He rubbed back, nuzzling her face, and reached out a paw, placing it on her bare ankle. She lifted it and they shook, and he gave a short bark. She laughed.

That had him barking one more time and getting to his feet, only to climb into her lap and curl up as if he actually fit when half of him was still on the floor.

He didn’t care. So she didn’t care, and when he looked up at her, his eyes told her that the good stuff happening in this room right now was all that mattered.

Come Monday, everything would be all right.

“Let’s go home, Bean. Let’s go home.”

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank-yous go out to my editor, JoVon Sotak, for her faith in Augie and Miriam and me. To my early eyes, Vibeke Courtney, Margaret McGrath, Diana Coleman, and Charlotte Herscher for helping turn that version into this much better one. To my partner in crime-whine, Loreth Anne White, for the daily e-mails that need to be burned ASAP. To my husband, Walt Stone, for being my best friend. And my go-to plot guy. And everything else. (Did I mention I love you madly?)

To my law-enforcement research source, my sister, Leah Apple, for not laughing at my texts about warrants and booties and suspect-vs.-perp and SWAT. Of course, since we weren’t in the same room at the time, maybe she
was
laughing. I will never know. (Any law-enforcement mistakes are mine, as are any liberties I’ve taken in the name of dramatic license.)

In October 2004, Leah became the first Frisco, Texas, police officer to be shot in the line of duty. She was shot in her right hip with a high-powered rifle during the apprehension of a homicide suspect and required extensive surgery. She remains on the job today. She is the real deal. A true-blue hero. Larger than life. Kicking ass and taking names. And I remain in awe.

As far as fictional police, thank you to Kyra Sedgwick for Brenda Leigh Johnson, Holly Hunter for Grace Hanadarko, Rachel McAdams for Ani Bezzerides, Sonja Sohn for Kima Greggs, Helen Mirren for Jane Tennison, and Mireille Enos for Sarah Linden. Miriam wouldn’t be Miriam without those characters. Or without the female law-enforcement officers written by Tess Gerritsen, Lisa Gardner, Tami Hoag, Karin Slaughter, and too many other brilliant suspense authors to name.

Thank you all for paving the way.

Thank you all.