Don't Look Twice (16 page)

H
auck took the long route back to Stamford on the Post Road. It wasn't part of the plan to upset Wendy Sanger. He was thinking about what she had said.
I'll never forgive you, Lieutenant…
And what Fitz had warned him about. Not to mention Raines, the photos, and the sense that he was holding something back.

He made the right on Elm, past Annie's café. It reminded him he ought to get something to eat. The Stop & Shop on Cove was still open.

That's when he first noticed the glare of the headlights pulling up behind him.

A dark SUV. Looked like a Range Rover maybe. Bright halogen lights. He didn't know what it was that first made him suspicious. Instinct maybe.

It pulled in behind him and slowed, remaining a few car lengths behind.

He admonished himself.
A little jumpy, aren't you there, Ty…

Hauck pulled into the Stop & Shop and ended up with a roasted chicken and a prepared Greek salad. At the register, he chatted a little with Melanie, the checkout girl. Her boy had been
a point guard at Stamford West high and now he was over in Iraq. Usually he stopped in at nine, just before closing. Tonight he was early. Melanie laughed. “Half a day today, Lieutenant…?”

Back in the car, he headed toward the sound. He stopped at the light. A Toyota pulled up next to him and made a turn. Two teenage girls. The driver was on her cell phone.

Hauck glanced in his rearview and noticed the same Range Rover pull away from the curb, falling in behind.

Okay, Ty, time to start paying attention…

As the light changed, he made a right onto Cove, keeping his eye on the mirror. A couple of other cars passed by; then Hauck was sure he saw the Range Rover make the same right, about fifty yards behind.

His blood tensed.

Something reared up in his mind, accompanied by a chill. About how Fitz had warned him about who he was dealing with.
You be careful, Ty…
That was when his heart began to accelerate. He was pushing his way into something no one wanted him to pursue. Three had already died. All were part of a cover-up.
That badge won't protect you, Ty…

He glanced one more time in the mirror. The SUV seemed to slow. Connecticut plates. If he held a moment he could get a read. Call it in. He was almost near his street.

Take it slowly, Ty…

Finally, he turned onto Euclid. His house was just a hundred yards down on the right. He didn't see the lights of anyone following. He made the turn at his driveway and waited a moment with the motor on, his gaze fixed back down the street.

Then he saw the bright halogen lights. The Range Rover slowly turned down his street.

His heart started to go crazy.

He reached forward and opened his glove compartment.
With an eye on the mirror, he took his Sig out of the holster. He flipped the safety off.

Hauck begged his heart to quiet down.

The street was dark. It was after eight. Everyone was probably in their family room, doing homework, listening to their iPods, watching TV. He waited a few moments, considering what to do. He caught a glimpse of the SUV as it drove by.

But it didn't keep going.

It came to a stop further up the block.

Who the hell was in it? Someone sent by Raines or Vega? Or the FBI?

Hauck knew what he should do next. Go inside. Call the Stamford police. Tell them a suspicious car was lurking outside his residence. They would send someone. Let them come and intercede.

But he wanted to know who it was, and he didn't want the sight of cops to scare them away.

So Hauck crept out of the Explorer. He went up his stairs as if he was heading in, flicked on a light, spotting the brights from the Range Rover as it crawled past his house and down the block.

He shut his door and headed down the back stairway to the narrow walkway that led behind the fenced-in lots of the neighboring houses. His heart pounded. His nervous breaths were visible against the chill. It took Hauck maybe twenty seconds to wrap around the adjacent houses and come back out on the street. The Range Rover had driven past his house and pulled into a vacant spot about thirty yards away.

The driver dimmed his lights.

What worried Hauck was that Range Rovers weren't exactly standard FBI issue these days. But it was the sort of vehicle that might belong to a gang.

The driver's door opened and a man stepped out of the darkened car.

Only one. Which made everything easier. He was wearing a dark parka, a cap pulled over his face. Hauck couldn't make him out.

He saw the man check something in his palm and place it into his jacket pocket.

You have no idea the kind of people you're dealing with here, Ty…

Hauck crept his way behind a row of cars on the other side of the street.

The man crossed over. He stopped for a second on the curb. He took a glance up at Hauck's house. He looked about six feet, solid, cast in shadow. He reached into his pocket, grabbing something.

Hauck came up behind him. He eased off the safety from his gun.

The man caught a sense of it just a second late. He spun.

Hauck wrapped a hand around his neck and jerked him backward, at the same time kicked out the guy's legs. The guy rolled onto the pavement with a grunt. Hauck dug a knee sharply into his back.

“You wanted me, you got me, mister!” Hauck wrestled the man's arms behind him.

The guy let out a groan.

Hauck eased off his knee and spun him around. He pressed the barrel of his Sig into the man's face and a cell phone the guy had been carrying fell out of his hand.

“Now what do you want, asshole?”

He was staring into the face of his brother.

J
esus, Warren, what the hell are you doing here?”

Hauck rose off his brother and helped him to a sitting position. Warren was fuzzy at first. He massaged the back of his neck. He had a cut on his lip where he had hit the pavement.

“Jesus, dude, a little jumpy or
what
?”

“Yeah, I'm jumpy. I always get jumpy when someone tails me, skulking around my place at night. You ever think of maybe
calling
or just letting me know? Or what any normal person might do—ring the goddamn bell!”

“I wasn't skulking.” Warren brushed a knuckle against his lip and winced at the trace of blood. “I just didn't know I was stepping into a fucking Jet Li movie. Who the hell did you think I was?”

“It doesn't matter who I thought you were. Here…” Hauck offered his hand and helped him up.

In the filmy light he noticed his brother had aged since he'd seen him last. He looked heavier. Warren had always been trim and fit, and into his forties he could still toss a football fifty yards and take his nephews in a game of one-on-one.

Hauck hadn't seen him in over a year.

“You want to come up?”

Warren rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, well, that was the plan.”

“Then c'mon…After that, it would be pretty damn rude to say no.”

Upstairs, Hauck tossed Warren a damp cloth wrapped around a couple of ice cubes. Warren dabbed his lip and the scrape on the side of his face.

Hauck took out a couple of beers from the fridge and put one on the counter in front of Warren. “You're not going to sue or anything, are you?”

“Keeping my options open. You may, however, owe me a new pair of cords.”

“Just feel lucky I didn't use deadly force.”

Hauck sat on the stool next to him. Warren was three years older. He'd always been handsome. Always had an easy charm about him. The girls used to say he looked like Dennis Quaid. They hadn't talked much over the years. Actually, it had been like that as long as Hauck could remember. Since his brother had left for BC. Everything always seemed to come easy for Warren. Sports. Girls. Hauck had to bust his ass for everything he got. In college, Warren wasn't quite up to the level of a Division One team, so he morphed into Mr. Frat Boy. Took the LSATS. Didn't do so well. Somehow he talked his way into UConn law school, graduated middle of his class. But after a stint at an upstate firm in Hartford, he managed to get cozy with a bunch of the movers and shakers up there and went out on his own.

To Hauck, it always seemed like Warren lived a charmed life.

“So enough with all the yuks…” Hauck looked at him. “I know you just didn't find yourself in the neighborhood. What brought you by?”

“
Whatsamatter
?” Warren objected. “Can't a brother just check in on his younger sibling?”

“Cut the crap, Warren. You pass through Greenwich every other day and you've never dropped in before.”

“Okay, okay…” He lit up a cigarette. His face took on a different cast. “Ginny call you?”

Hauck shook his head. “What's going on?”

Warren took a swig of beer, then drew a long drag on the cigarette and blew it out. “I don't know. I think I've gotten a little over my head on a few things lately…”

“What kind of things? Business?”

“Maybe.” Warren shrugged, contrite. “Also at home…I partnered up on this housing deal near Waterbury. Low-income units, no money down, right in town. Need I say more? I helped secure the developer his permits with the state, so I figured, what the hell, why not buy in? I'd helped line enough pockets over the years…” Warren put the beer can against his swollen lip. “Picked a helluva time to go long in the housing market, huh?”

“C'mon, Warren,” Hauck said, “you fall out of a roller coaster, you land on your feet.” Their whole lives, Warren had never come to him for anything. He was never anything but 100 percent. “You need some cash?”

Warren chuckled. “How much you sitting on, bro?”

Hauck shrugged, feeling slightly foolish for asking. “I got a little saved up. Not your kind of money, Warren, but…”

His brother tapped him on the thigh with the closest thing to a look of affection Hauck could recall in years. “I didn't come here for a loan, Ty. But thanks…”

“Ginny know about this?” The two of them had been through a few rough patches before.

Warren nodded guiltily. “Which is not unrelated to the problem at hand, little bro.”

Hauck regarded him suspiciously. “And that is…?”

Warren drained the bottom of the can of beer. “Got another?” Hauck stepped over to the fridge and slid one across the counter. Warren popped the tab and took a swig. “I took some of the funds for this deal out of Sarah and Kyle's tuition fund.”

Hauck stared. “Nice move, champ.”

“Not so surprisingly, the wife and I haven't exactly been on the best of cuddling terms lately.”

“Jesus, Warren, do you have a chronic aversion to sleeping through the night?”

“Coming completely clean,” he exhaled, “there's been a few other things too. Truth is, I've been seeing the kids mostly weekends. The past couple of months, I haven't been living there much.”

“What's the definition of
much,
Warren?”

“Not at all
. Afraid that puts a little dent in our plans for Thanksgiving.”

Hauck shook his head in disbelief. His brother had always lived on the edge. Now it seemed he'd completely gone over. “You need somewhere to stay?”

“Nice of you, bro, but…” He sucked in a breath. “I took an apartment up in town. That's sort of where I've been living out of lately…”

“That's good, Warren…” Hauck smiled philosophically and tapped his brother's thigh. “For a moment there, I thought you were about to ask me for a kidney.”

T
hey cracked another beer and stepped out on the deck. It was cold. Warren huddled in his fleece pullover and looked out at the sound, lights flickering miles away on the Long Island shore. He lit another cigarette. A few flurries stuck in his hair.

“This is nice, Ty. It really is…Million-dollar view.”

“Not exactly like yours.” Hauck shrugged. “But I make do.”

“Never knew precisely how, on what they pay you.” Warren grinned at him.

“This may come as a shock, guy, but some of us actually
like
what we do. You know, there's a certain niche out there who enjoy sleeping soundly at night.”

“Heard about those people,” Warren said. “Gotta learn more about that. How's Jess?”

“I actually haven't seen her much lately, since the shooting. I've been wrapped up in this case. Beth just thought it was better that way for a while.”

Warren nodded and stared out at the sound. “She's probably right. And what about your gal you swept off her feet? Karen?”

“She's in Atlanta. Her father took ill. Parkinson's. She's down
there taking care of him—sort of indefinitely. I'm not exactly sure where that stands right now.”

“Too bad.” Warren tilted his beer. “Nice gal. Not sure what she ever saw in you in the first place.”

Hauck bent his leg on the wooden table. “Yeah, too bad. So…” He shifted gears. “Still flying?”

His brother nodded. “Still flying. That's what's keeping me together. Over a thousand hours now. I actually bought a new plane before all this happened. A Cessna 310 turbo. It can get me as far out as Colorado or down to Florida without stopping to refuel. You ought to come out on it some time…”

“
With you?
Up there?” Hauck chortled. “I'd rather give up that kidney.”

“We could go visit Pop.” Since their mom died, their father had been living in an assisted-living center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the past three years.

“That would be something. The two of us just showing up. Like old times. If his heart's not bad enough, that would certainly kill it.”

“You know, it's a beautiful thing,” Warren said, eyes twinkling, “being up there. I wish I could describe it. It's somewhere between a feeling of power and of being completely at peace. You see the world down there and it's just this perfect grid and everything makes sense. And you've got the throttle. Would that it was all so easy…”

“You'll figure a way to get it back. You always do. Ginny also.”

“We'll see.” Warren reached inside a pocket in his pullover and pulled out something.

A hand-rolled joint.

Hauck's eyes went wide.

“You mind?”

“Why should I mind, Warren? I'm only the head of detectives in town.”

“That's in Greenwich, dude. Here you've got no jurisdiction. I thought all you cops did this sort of thing anyway. To unwind.” He took out a lighter and lit the tip. The smell of marijuana came alive. “Where I come from they all do.”

“Is that how you grease the wheels of the local law enforcement up there? Make all those speeding tickets go away…”

“No, bro.” Warren laughed. “That's
you
!” He drew in a drag off the joint, Hauck envisioning the strong smell wafting all over Euclid Avenue, praying no one was out walking the dog. Warren offered it to Hauck.

Hauck declined.

“Always the white knight, huh, Ty? Always living up to your obligations.” Warren let out a plume of smoke. “Anyway, it works for me…”

They sat for a while in silence, Hauck studying the new lines on his brother's face. The youthful cockiness gone. Warren gazing out at the Long Island lights in the darkness.

“So what's the deal on that case? That gang killing?”

Hauck shrugged. “I'm not sure it was such a gang killing after all.” He thought a second about how much he should say but gave in, going over the trail of evidence that led to the Pequot Woods, his meeting up there with Raines and his inference that Sanger and Kramer were ripping off the casino, leaving out Josie.

“Lawyers…can't trust them for shit.” Warren grinned. He inhaled another hit. “You better watch yourself up there. I know those sharks. When they want to protect something, they don't stop. You say the dude who pulled the trigger is dead…? Maybe you ought to take that as your lucky break. Call it a day.
You got a motive, a complicit dead guy…Everybody goes home happy. It's a win-win…”

“Maybe in my book we have different definitions of what's a win-win,” Hauck said.

“Maybe.” Warren took a swig of beer and shrugged. “Still, whatever this dude Sanger was doing—and let's assume you're right, that it's far, far deeper than some gambling scam—you really think you're ever going to get to the bottom of it? You don't know who you're dealing with up there. You think the waters are just gonna part, or the wigwam just open, or whatever the fuck it is up there…”

“I don't know…”

“What you
are
going to do is get yourself knee-deep in a bucketful of shit, señor. Maybe cost yourself a well-earned opportunity in life. Listen, this is my office up there. I know what you're facing. Every bloodsucker in the capitol's got a trail of pork that leads through them. This guy Raines was actually giving you good advice. Not that you would ever see that, stubborn bastard that we know you to be.”

“Who's creeping around whose house here, Warren?” Hauck looked at him, irritated.

Warren took another hit and shrugged, blowing smoke over the rail. “You think I'm such a big honcho, don't you? You think I've done a pretty good job of fucking things up for myself.”

“I think you've got a house that's worth about three times what I have to my name. I think you've got two terrific kids. Ginny and you have fifteen years…I think you have no idea what it is to give that up.”

“The stuff I do, smooth over a little conflict with the state planning boards, reach out to some local commissioner who wants his golf pants lined, you have no idea the crap I've done.”

“You don't have to go through this, Warren.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I do have to go through it, Ty.” He stared a while and shook his head. “You remember when we went to the Poconos that summer? On that lake?”

“The Nightmare on Kelm Street?”
Hauck said, relaxing. That was the place where their folks had rented a cottage. “Yeah.”

It must have been twenty-five years ago. Pop's two-week vacation from the water department every August. They rented this cabin at a lodge with a bunch of their government-union friends. Warren must have been a junior then, which made Hauck fourteen. “I don't think Mom ever served fish again.”

Warren laughed with a glaze of remembrance, drew in a drag. “I snuck along this bag of pot. In my sneaks. That's why I always was sneaking out at night. I'd go down to the lake. There was this girl from Jersey there, Camille or something…”

“You always bagged out at night and left me playing board games with Mom and Pop and listening to the Brothers Four and Joan Baez…”

Warren sang, “
‘Farewell, Angelina…The sky is falling…'
Heard that till we were numb. Sorry, champ, you were goddamn fourteen. I was always afraid you'd rat me out.”

“I wouldn't have ratted you out, Warren.”

“Are you kidding? Look at you.” Warren laughed. “You became a goddamn cop! Maybe
I'm
responsible! Hey, you remember those Jet Skis we would ride around on on the lake?”

“Coldest goddamn water I ever felt. Like taking a dip in Prudhoe Bay.” Hauck shivered. “Still get a chill thinking about it.”

“I remember you took that spill,” Warren said. He blew out a ring. “All of us were watching you from the deck. Trying to prove you were the big shot trick artist, like you always did. One leg. Grabbing some air…”

“That's because you always made it so easy on me to feel good about myself,” Hauck said with a humorless smile.

“Sorry, guy…I remember your ass hit the water like a stone. The Jet Ski went one way, up in the air—you the other…” Warren turned. “You probably don't even know this, but there was a minute there when you didn't come up and everyone was pretty goddamn afraid. Just this eerie quiet. The Jet Ski circled around and had come to a stop.
No Ty
…”

“I was under the water holding my breath,” Hauck said. “Milking the moment.”

“Trust me, your little moment was pretty much lost on everyone there. I remember how Mom got all freaked out and grabbed Dad. ‘Frank, get the lifeguard, quick!' You remember who it was who dove in off the deck and went out to get you? Who swam out there like a fucking maniac, in his clothes, to make sure you were okay?”

Hauck looked back at him and nodded. He wondered where this was leading. “Yeah, it was you, Warren.”

“Yeah”—Warren sucked in a drag—“it was me. You fought me off like I went out there to drown you or something. Like I was trying to embarrass you, not to save your pussy ass.”

“I was fourteen, Warren…”

“Yeah, well, you came damn close to not making it to fifteen…”

The conversation had led somewhere Hauck wasn't completely sure of. Warren sat there with his feet up on the rail in some sort of shifting state—half brooding, half reminiscing.

“You know I'm sorry,” he suddenly said.

Hauck turned. “Sorry for what?”

Warren shrugged. “I think you know what I'm talking about.” He went quiet for a while, his voice softer. “I'm sorry for pushing you away, Ty. For what happened after that…You
know, Peter Morrison.” He looked at Hauck. “You may have put it away, but I haven't. It stays with me. I just wanted to remind you there was a time when I was there for you…”

There was something both fixed and very far-off in his brother's gaze.

“What the hell are we talking about here, Warren?”

“It's nothing. Nothing I should've brought up. Not anymore…”

Hauck went over and sat against the railing next to him. Warren seemed to be holding something back. Hauck wrapped his hand around his brother's neck and pulled him close.

“It's okay, Warren, whatever it is, it's okay.” For a second, he thought Warren might be crying. Hauck leaned his brother's head against him.

What was going on?

After a few moments he pulled back. Warren's eyes were shiny. “Must be the weed talking…Not exactly how I thought I'd say hello.”

“Don't worry about it,” Hauck said. “Anyway,
you win
. You got the kidney, bro!”

His brother laughed, wiping his eyes, blowing out a breath as if relieved. “‘
The sky is falling
,'” he sang, “
‘and I must be gone…'
Course, we did have a few memorable times, like when the brothers Hauck almost single-handedly took down Stamford West in the states…”

“Yeah.” Hauck grinned. “Two hundred and forty-one yards, three TDs. I remember I carved it into the trunk of that elm in back of the old house. Course you had to add your own personal touch to it…”

“
Two fumbles
. Just for historical accuracy.” Warren winked back with an impish smile.

“Probably still there.” Hauck grinned.

“Probably still is.” Warren held out the joint to Hauck.

Hauck smiled, fixing on his brother's eyes. “Just this once. You tell anyone, and what I did down there will seem like a love tap next time.”

“Just to remind you, bro—you did have the slight advantage of having snuck up on me from behind.”

Hauck took the joint. “Just so you know.”

“Not to worry, little brother.” Warren put his feet up on the railing. “Your secret will be safe with me.”