Smoke and Mirrors

129

It was three o’clock sunday afternoon when Alexa finally showed up in Winter’s room. “Hey, kiddo,” Winter said.

He turned off the TV. After the initial smile she’d been wearing evaporated, his antennae came out. She put the two manila envelopes she was holding on the table beside his bed.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Not really. I turned in your rental, and your gun’s in one of these envelopes.”

“They released my gun?”

“Nobody’s interested in keeping it since the shooting isn’t going to generate any inquest. The FBI and Homeland are handling the incidents. You know the ‘official’ statement drill. Massey, when you think about this, just remember that you did good. Real good.”

“You all right?” Winter asked her again, trying to get at what was weighing her down.

“Well, there’s something you need to know. When I was at Brad’s earlier, a deputy came in with Jacob’s coat from the wreck. There was a recorder in the pocket that was damaged and didn’t work. I put the tape into another mini and it worked. You need to listen to it. I put another cassette into the damaged machine so they won’t know I took it.”

“What’s on it?”

“Troubling shit. No one else has heard it. I’m headed to the airport, since I’ve been ordered to join an investigation in progress. I’m going to turn this over to you. You decide how you want to handle it and let me know. I know you’ll do the right thing.”

She gave him a gentle hug and kissed him on the cheek. He saw that her eyes were filling with tears. She moved to the door and smiled weakly.

“Massey, if it weren’t for a few people like you, I’d have written the world off a long time ago. Sometimes I just want to turn in my badge and go live on the side of a mountain.”

When she left the room, Winter turned his attention to the envelopes. He reached over to the table and lifted the manila envelope that had Gardner written on it.

He took the end of the red string and unwound it from the plastic disk, then poured out a pocket mini-recorder.

Winter pressed the PLAY button. The tape began with Jacob’s voice telling the date of the day he was murdered. That was followed by a confession, a surreptitiously recorded conversation with Leigh, and the unmistakable sounds of his flight from the house, which had ended with his death and the recorder’s destruction. As Winter listened, he felt like a trapdoor had swung open beneath him.

Before he closed his eyes, he had listened to the tape three times, and still had no idea how he was going to use the information.