The Witness (44 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought that would make your day. You have a plan in mind?”

“Psych him out, sir. I know more information about what has been going down the last month than he does. A reporter will never be able to stand it.”

“Thank you. For a while there I wasn’t sure you were ready for this.”

“Born ready, sir. Born a cop.”

Luke smiled at the reply. “Let Connor drive while you write your notes. You go in as soon as Sykes comes through processing.”

Luke clicked off his radio. “Glad to have you back, Marsh,” he said softly. Luke turned to locate his evidence chief and put a plan in place to process this scene. Marsh might have taken a big loss, but he was going to survive it as a cop. That mattered. There were friends on the force to help him pick up the pieces and deal with Tracey’s being gone.

“Someone have a suggestion for who gets to write this scene up?”

Several officers near enough to hear the question groaned, but one bravely raised a hand. “Fields, sir. I’ll take coordinating it.”

“Good. The officers with you just became your deputies for the day.”

Fields smiled but nodded. “Thank you, sir. They’ll make my life miserable.”

“Command always does that. Jim, where are you?”

“The roof, sir. I think I just figured out how he focused in to plan that street shooting. I can see the restaurant through the scope.”

“I’m on my way to you.” He headed for the stairs and the roof. For the first time there was true relief that they had this contained.

God, there isn’t a word to express the relief. Two killers located and contained—it’s not much justice for Tracey or an end to the troubles Amy faces, but it is progress. What next, God? I’m too tired to think right now, much less pray with eloquence. Carry me. Carry Marsh and Marie and Amy dealing with a grief so deep I can’t find words to express in sympathy. The need just gets bigger to have You guiding our lives. It hurts so much, the losses that have to be accepted. There are some days I don’t know how to keep moving with any optimism for the future. This is one of those days
.

Luke stepped onto the roof, where Jim was kneeling by the edge and studying the streets around them.

“The shooter could see the restaurant from here and watch the sisters come and go. And standing at the right spot, he could watch the Lincoln he had parked,” Jim noted. “You wonder if he really thought he could get back the money Richard Wise wanted, or if he just came to deal with the fact Amy could ID him as the one who killed Greg. Killing the sisters would bring Amy into the open—maybe that was his entire plan.”

“I doubt we’ll ever know.” Luke walked over to where Jim stood and studied the area. “At least the one man not currently in jail who has the most motive to want Amy dead is now removed from the equation.” Luke thought about the pieces still in play; he looked around the area one last time, then nodded to Jim. “The scene is yours; I’m heading back to the department to meet up with Sykes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE INTERVIEW OF KEVIN SYKES had been going on for five hours now, still without the reporter requesting a lawyer. Luke watched through the glass as his officers worked, Marsh and Connor switching around the conversation with the ease of being able to read each other’s thoughts, putting Sykes on videotape walking back over himself on details only the killer would know without ever trying to get him to directly confess. That would come, Luke knew, but not before they had the man so twisting in the wind he couldn’t remember what lie he had told to cover another. They would get him talking about the knife he had used soon. If he wasn’t the police chief and if those weren’t two of his own officers, he would be trying to hire them in an instant.

“They’re good.”

He glanced over at his deputy chief. “I was just thinking the same thing.” Luke drank more of his coffee. “Do we have room to move them up another pay grade?”

“I don’t think either one would see a promotion to head of major cases as a move up, even with the increased rank. And Marsh is going to get dragged into administration when the time comes.”

“Elliot is ready for something bigger than head of homicide—I plan to move him up to criminal investigations as a whole at his next review. Maybe move both Marsh and Connor up to share head of homicide? Goodness knows the job needs two people to cover the hours. Marsh is going to grieve Tracey by pouring himself more into the job—we might as well use that reality and give him more territory to handle. It will be harder to think about a personal loss when he’s grousing at 6 a.m. update meetings and hand-holding rookies learning homicide. We’ll let Connor make sure Marsh doesn’t end up firing the entire lot of detectives under him.”

The deputy chief smiled, thought about it, and nodded. “I’m for the move; it’s solid. Elliot’s been dealing with the narcotics murders, and it would be good to have that background in the overall criminal-investigations slot. And the detectives reporting up to Connor and Marsh will take the move to be a good one, promoting from within the group.” He nodded to the interview going on. “How long do you think it takes before the whole story comes spilling out?”

Luke watched them work. “Look at Connor. He’s begun to do his two-steps-forward, two-steps-back, lean-against-the-wall pacing. You can see Connor using Marsh’s questions like a one-two setup, five questions from Marsh, one from Connor, and always a new fact getting pushed with each group of questions. An hour tops, and they’ll have Sykes confessing to the two murders and then writing it all down—his one last great journalist coup—he’ll write his own arrest story and his unveiling as Henry Benton’s son.”

“Think Connor will spin it that way?”

Luke smiled. “I would. And they think like me.”

“There’s a compliment in there, I think.”

“I miss being down in the trenches. You?”

“I’ll always have a fondness for traffic duty. Crashes and chases and lots of drunk drivers, but it was my turf as a rookie. I was keeping the streets safe and proud of it.” The deputy chief watched the interview for a few more minutes, then nodded to the clock. “Want me to take the nine o’clock press briefing?”

Luke glanced at the time and figured he could let the press wait another two minutes. “I’ll do it. I want to do some public congratulating of the SWAT group; they did a nice job today. And this—” Luke nodded to the interview and let himself shrug—“reporters will love nothing more than tearing apart one of their own in custody, but I can do the dance around with no comment for an hour and get away with it while Marsh and Connor get everything on tape. You can call that press conference in the morning to announce the arrest and the charges against Sykes. I’m planning to sleep in.”

The deputy chief smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’ll have to do it without Marsh and Connor too, I’m afraid. I’ll give them twenty minutes after the interview concludes to scrawl together their report, and then they are going to give me the good-bye salute and take two weeks’ vacation and probably call in and request to make it three.”

“Let them have it; then promote them when they return.”

Luke laughed. “I like how you think. Page me when it looks like this is wrapping up. I’ll go fence words with the press for a while.”

“Sure thing, Chief.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“YOU LOOK PLEASED with yourself tonight.”

Luke smiled at Amy as she joined him, sliding down into the cushions at the other end of the couch in Daniel’s living room. She’d talked him into letting her stay in town one more day, with Marie, with Daniel, and he’d been in the mood to be convinced. The fire Daniel had left burning in the grate had turned to bright coals and steady heat, and Luke was enjoying watching the occasional blue flame flicker between the logs. Occasionally life needed to burn like that, quiet, hot, and comfortable after blazing flames and popping bark. The tasks of the last few weeks were wrapping up, and he was in no hurry to move into tomorrow.

“Not thinking much, just enjoying.”

He settled her feet closer to his leg and tugged the throw blanket down to keep her warm. The floors were too chilly when she persisted in walking around barefoot.

“Connor came by?”

“He arrived a few minutes ago. Marie slipped downstairs to talk with him rather than invite him up. I can wager a guess why she was interested in the privacy.”

Luke smiled, able to guess as well. A cold night for walking, but he didn’t know that he’d particularly mind if he was Connor coming calling to see his girl. They would make it as a couple, he thought, despite the awful toll of the last few days. Marsh had told him he was heading out to ski again, and Luke had been relieved to hear it. Marsh was willing to walk back into the memories he’d shared with Tracey, and there was healing in that.

“What are you thinking about?”

He turned to study Amy. “How much I like being the chief on a night like this.”

She tucked a pillow behind her to turn more on the couch to face him. “Because you’re smart enough to come upstairs to see your girl rather than huddle in coats on a cold boardwalk and steal a few minutes of late conversation?”

He tweaked her bare toe. “That too. Glad to have Connor as one of my guys. Marsh. They did more than their jobs today—they made things a bit more right in the world.”

“I worry about Marsh. He was always the quiet one when I met him before, but now … he looks out at life and you wonder how many miles of emotion are pooled behind those calm blue eyes.”

“He’ll say good-bye to Tracey in his own time and find a way to make life work again. You’ll help, I think, and Marie, just being able to share Tracey with him. You can’t undo the fact life can brutally hurt at times.”

She wiped at tears. “Maybe they weren’t all the way married, but they were, you know? Tracey chose Marsh as her other half, and he’s still her other half.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to miss her so incredibly much.” Amy bit her lip but looked at him. “Tracey left Marsh her money.”

“Daniel told me.”

“Well, Daniel hasn’t told Marsh yet; it didn’t make sense to drop it on him while the manhunt was absorbing him. Marie and I both expect a fight with Marsh trying to refuse it. We don’t plan to let him. We don’t want the money, and it was Tracey’s last decision. We’re going to honor it even when Marsh gets mad at us for insisting on it.”

“Good.”

“You think Marsh will take it?”

“You’ll have a fight on your hands bigger than you can imagine, but Daniel assures me there is no way Marsh can say no. He can give the money away if he wants, and probably will, but he can’t refuse the gift. And that fight will do him good. I’m promoting him and Connor when they get back from this break, and he’s going to fight that idea too. It’s hard to ignore living and get stuck in grief when life is piling on aggravations around you. I’d never want to take that tack with the majority of people I know, but Marsh is not most people. He’ll make it through this painful stretch better with responsibility and pressure than with the sympathy. So I’ll feel for him and care and push him as hard as I think he needs to be pushed.”

“Connor’s going to hesitate to ever propose to Marie after all that has happened. I don’t put him as superstitious, but what happened to Marsh is going to be setting heavy in his mind.”

“Marie prefers to move at a slower, more deliberate pace by her nature. Their relationship can handle it and thrive.” He smiled. “You, however, are soon to be a suburban-living, bored lady if the New York cops have any say in the matter. Word on the street has very few takers interested in working for Richard Wise now. If you do, you end up in jail or dead, and that’s a pretty good deterrent among a crowd more interested in their own future than an old score to settle.”

“It’s not closed yet, but going that way,” she agreed. “So where are we going with this relationship next? I find I don’t mind being stationary in one place, but I do get bored.”

“We’ll start with your settling in one place and giving me your phone number. I’ve been searching around to find you way too much for my liking since I met you. It makes it kind of hard to call and ask you out to dinner.”

“I’d like to meet your sister.”

He blinked at that request. “Would you?”

“I bet she’d like to meet me too.”

Luke laughed. “Honey, I think that’s a given.” He let the smile slide to something serious to ask softly, “You want to move into the gallery flat at some point?”

She shook her head. “Marie wants to move, to start over somewhere else in town. She’s too in tune to the memories there; what she paints in that studio now would be sad paintings. She needs somewhere that makes it easier to smile, and I’m inclined to agree with her.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“We’ll stay at your friend Nathan’s place long enough to be absolutely sure life is returning to quiet. Six months maybe, a year. I don’t want to get overconfident and assume this is the end of the trouble, but I’m growing hopeful for the first time in a long time. Once the books are turned in and Richard Wise is confirmed to be less of a threat—then Marie and I will find a new place to move to.” She looked at him and attempted to hide a smile. “Maybe a little place I know for sale over on Sandstorm Avenue. A place on a big corner lot with a fence around the backyard and lots of roses growing around an in-ground pool. I hear it’s got five bedrooms and original wallpaper in the attic room.”

“Original plumbing I suspect too. You don’t think it’s a little obvious moving into a place four houses away from the police chief?”

“Is it? Fancy that. You can come use our pool and Connor can turn red saying sir all day.”

“Just ask Peter to walk through it before you buy it, okay? Make sure there’s nothing in it he can’t fix.”

“He already promised that there was nothing money can’t fix when it comes to plumbing, heating, roof, and walls. The decorating—he said that was our job.”

“Why do I get the feeling I’m being told about this after you bought it?”

She just smiled.

“Come here then, neighbor. I haven’t had a hug tonight, and I find I miss it.”