Airtight

I worked my way through the line and went up to the register. She brightened when she saw me, and said, “What brings you back here?”

“My job,” I said. “Got a minute?”

She looked around at the madhouse that was the diner, and I thought she was going to ask me to wait. But she called over one of the waitresses and asked her to watch the register.

Alex smiled. “Our regular table seems to be taken. Want to take a walk?”

“Sure.”

We went out the back and walked towards a small park, with a children’s playground, a couple of tennis courts, and not much else. But it was a nice day, and I liked being around Alex. I figured things could work out between us, if she weren’t married, with two kids, and living in Brayton. Oh, well.

“You’re pretty famous,” I said.

“As are you.”

“So are you going to be Mayor, or continue fighting Hanson over the land, or both?”

She seemed surprised. “You didn’t hear?”

“Hear what?”

“They’re saying that most of the explosives were planted underground, down some of the holes that had already been drilled. It caused like a small earthquake.”

“So?”

“So I’m not an expert, but it changed the whole picture. It might have made it too expensive to get to the natural gas in the shale. Either way, it will set them back at least a couple of years before they know for sure.”

I hadn’t heard that, and I said so. “So you’ve won, with some help.”

She nodded. “Not the way I wanted to win, but I’ll take it. That poor guy that was killed that night was right.”

She was talking about Chris Gallagher. “What do you mean?”

“He told me that nobody was going to drill on that land, and that we should leave when the police told us to. You think he could have planted the explosives?”

“No, Alex, I don’t. I knew him pretty well.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

We walked some more, and I said, “Alex, I want to ask you a question. But first let’s reduce it to simple terms. Your side wanted the drilling stopped, and the other side wanted to drill. OK?”

“OK.”

“So it would make sense that someone on your side would have planted the explosives, to stop the drilling.”

She shook her head. “Nobody on-”

I interrupted. “Don’t get defensive; I’m not making accusations, I’m just thinking logically. Your side benefited from the explosion; there’s really no doubt about that.”

“OK…,” she said, warily.

“So why would they have been set to go off when there were all those people on the land? It could have been a catastrophe for your side, and the other side certainly gained nothing from people dying.”

She thought about it for a while. “On the news they said it was set with timers. So maybe when it was set, they didn’t know the people would be there. Maybe they didn’t want the people there when it went off.”

I didn’t say anything, because she had just made me see something I hadn’t seen before.

“Does that make sense?” she asked.

“Probably more than you realize. One more question … why did you listen to me and ask the people to leave? The Mayor had just said the same thing, yet you didn’t listen to him.”

“I trust you.”

The next stop on my Brayton reunion tour was Edward Holland.

I called him in his office, but he had left early, having done a round of TV interviews that apparently left him too tired to do any Mayor stuff.

I said that I was there on important police business, and they contacted him and I was told I could come to his home.

He lived on a large estate on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t ostentatious, but was very comfortable, and certainly nicer than any other homes I had seen in the area.

He greeted me himself, and invited me into the den. If there were any feminine touches in the house, I hadn’t seen them, and I asked if he was married.

He shook his head. “Who has the time?” he asked, smiling. Then, “So what is this official police business you’re here about?”

“The Daniel Brennan murder.”

He smiled. “Haven’t we had this meeting already?”

I nodded. “Right. But that’s before I knew you were responsible for it.”

He almost did a double take. Here we were, talking like buddies, and all of a sudden I was accusing him of murder. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Here’s how I see it. You arranged the sale of town land to Carlton and Tarrant Industries, the secret foreign company that you set up and own, using the tricks you learned in your law practice. Then you paid off Michael Oliver to report that there was a fortune to be made from the shale under the ground, when in reality that wasn’t the case.”

Holland was smiling, not afraid at all, but nor was he showing any of the outrage an innocent man would be showing.

I continued. “You handled the legal case yourself, going to Federal Court, even though that wasn’t the smart way to do it. But you needed Carlton to win, so you paid Brennan off when it seemed he might be on the court. I don’t know how you got to him, but you did. And then he probably changed his mind, so you had him killed.

“Then you killed Oliver, and Carlton, and Rhodes, so that no one would be left who could implicate you. Actually, I should say that you had William kill Carlton and Rhodes. And all the time you were committing acts which would logically be blamed on the townspeople.”

Holland was not saying anything, just pretending to be amused by it all. He may have been worried that I was wearing a wire, and I wish I were. Because I was one hundred percent certain that I was right.

“Then you arranged for the massive explosion on the land, which would cover up for Oliver’s fake report. But you didn’t just want money out of this; you also wanted fame and power. So by acting to save the townspeople, you’d become a hero, and shoot up the political ladder. Which is exactly what happened.”

“This is all fascinating, but I’ve had a long day. Is there any chance you can prove any of this?

“Not yet. But I will. All I have to do is find William.”

“Let me tell you something, Lieutenant. This is a fantasy which you will never, ever come close to proving.” And then he smiled a cold, confident smile. “And you will never find William.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said, but it may have been the most empty words ever spoken. He had obviously disposed of William and he was right; I would never be able to pin any of this on him.

“Be careful, Lieutenant. You’ve got such a great career ahead of you.”

I left; I had no more empty threats to make. Holland was a multiple murderer, and I wasn’t even including Steven Gallagher. He was also now wealthy beyond belief, and was very likely to be elected United States Senator.

Not exactly a triumph for justice.

When I got back to town, I went straight to Barone’s office.

He had a right to know two things: the identity of the man who had Judge Brennan killed and the fact that we were never going to be able to arrest him.

He believed me on the first part but not on the second. “We can nail the son of a bitch,” he said.

I shook my head. “No chance. Everybody with knowledge of it is gone; there is nothing to connect him to it.”

“We’ll find something.”

“No we won’t.”

“Then let’s turn it over to the Feds,” he said, surprising the hell out of me. “We’ll tell them Steven Gallagher wasn’t the perpetrator, and that Holland was behind it.”

“Go ahead and do it, but they won’t buy it, and won’t be able to make the connection. The guy is about to become a major player in national politics; they won’t go near it unless the case is clear. And it couldn’t be further from clear. Holland played it brilliantly.”

“But you’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I was sure before I talked to him, and more sure afterwards. He as much as confessed to me.”

“I’m bringing in the Feds.”

And he did. I wound up doing two more intensive interviews with two different sets of agents. This time I told them everything, and found that all four agents had two things in common: their taste in suits and their obvious skepticism about what I was telling them.

Three weeks later Barone used his contacts to find out where matters stood, and was told that the investigation had been closed for lack of evidence.

Holland was off the hook.

Julie and Bryan seemed to be doing pretty well.

I couldn’t be sure of that; it’s hard to know what is going on in someone else’s marriage. They had me over for dinner one night, and everything seemed comfortable and normal, and I even think I was glad about that.

Physically, Bryan was really coming along, and by all accounts was impressing the hell out of his doctors. His speech was still slightly off, though I think only those who knew him well could tell. And he complained of vision issues in his left eye, though nothing that affected his day-to-day living.

He hadn’t gotten back to work yet, but hoped to do that within a month to six weeks. He was already keeping track of goings-on in his office from home, which meant he was getting back to normal.

Julie had taken a couple of weeks off, but was now back full-time, since Bryan didn’t need care during the day. We had lunch once, which was also comfortable, at least until they served the coffee.

“We never talked things out,” she said.

“No sense starting now.”

She laughed. “I knew that’s how you’d react, Luke. So I won’t make it too painful. I’ve loved you for six years, I love you now, and I’ll always love you. But I also love Bryan, and he’s my husband. That counts for a lot.”

“I think you did the right thing,” I said. “I hope you guys are happy.”

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you.”

That was sort of a “moment” for me, and it turned out it triggered other moments. But the immediate effect was to put an end to the mind dance that I had been doing with Julie for years, whether or not she was dancing as well.

It was over, finally and officially. She was my sister-in-law, my brother’s wife, and that was going to be OK. I was never again going to let it be anything other than OK.

So I went home and had my other “moments,” possibly even large enough to be called epiphanies. It was time for me to get on with my life outside of work, maybe even settle down. Up to that point, settling down had meant a relationship that lasted longer than the NBA play-offs, but I was going after more than that. Maybe even kids. Why not?

I would even give serious thought to moving out of the area. Despite the fact that it seemed like there was a murder every twenty minutes, I liked the feel of a town the size of Brayton. There must be similar towns all over the country, maybe even nicer and more friendly, that could use a Chief of Police.

But the moments were not all upbeat. I couldn’t get the Gallagher brothers out of my mind. I thought about Steven for obvious reasons; I was responsible for his death. I couldn’t mentally erase the look on his face just before I shot him; the pain he was in was palpable. I believe I was defending myself; I just wish there had been somebody there to defend him.

My feelings towards Chris were more complicated. What he did to Bryan was horrible and inexcusable, but from the first time we talked it irritated me that I understood him. I should have been more angry; I should have wanted to rip him apart.

But I didn’t, and on some level I even identified with him. I respected his sense of justice, bizarre as some might find it. And I have to say I envied his connection to his brother. I wish he could have accomplished his goal and gotten real justice for Steven.

I still had the things that Chris had left me, that he found in Rhodes’s room. I had forgotten about them, and hadn’t turned them over to the FBI. I figured it didn’t matter, since they had dropped the ball anyway.

I came to a decision, gradually I guess, and didn’t really crystallize it in my mind until close to eight in the morning. I called Julie, and Bryan answered the phone. He sounded better than I had heard him since the rescue.

We talked briefly, and then I told him that I wasn’t going to be coming over that night, as we had discussed. I had been planning to bring in dinner, but I said that we’d have to postpone.

“Julie will be disappointed,” he said.

“She’ll get over it.”

“Last time you canceled dinner on us, all hell broke loose.”

“I remember.”

“You working tonight?” he asked.

“Sort of.”

“OK … take care of yourself, Brother. Maybe we can spend some time alone one of these days. Maybe fishing, or whatever the hell you real men do.”

I laughed. “I’ll check my real-men magazines and come up with some ideas.”

We got off the phone, and I got dressed.

The Associated Press was the first to report it.

These were the initial words across the wire:

Edward Holland, the Mayor of Brayton, New York, was killed in an explosion in his car in front of his home.

It was the latest in a series of murders that has rocked the small community, and it puts a violent end to a promising political career.

The police have not taken anyone into custody and are asking people with information to call and report it. The explosive used is believed to be the same as in the previous bombings, a very powerful munition called C-245.

Steven Gallagher had gotten his justice.

And I had crossed the line.