Heroes Often Fail

SIXTEEN

Thursday, March 16, 1995

Day Shift

0531 hours

Kopriva lost himself in her eyes. He felt her pulling him closer and deeper in every way she could-with her arms around his back, her heels behind his calves, her thighs against his hips. But it was her eyes that pulled him in the most.

He lowered his face to hers and kissed her. The warmth of her lips and tongue washed over him.

The light of early morning spilled through the window, filling the room with a dream-like quality.

A small moan escaped her lips and her motions became more urgent.

He matched her urgency. He felt the crescendo build slowly until it had reached its peak, first hers, then his and then they both sank into quiet stillness.

Finally, he spoke. “I can stay, if you want.”

She didn’t answer right away.

“I have plenty of vacation left,” he said.

Still, she didn’t answer. She touched the hair on his chest lightly with her fingertips.

He respected her silence and lay still with her. He wondered again if she’d heard what he said to her before she drifted off to sleep the night before.

Finally, she said, “I think I’d like to spend some time alone today. Just to work things out in my head.”

“Whatever you need,” Kopriva said. “Take as much time as you want.”

“I don’t have to go back to work until tomorrow night.”

“If you’re ready.”

Katie shrugged against his shoulder. “I’ll be ready. I just need some time alone.”

0541 hours

Neal Grady had been taking his walks along Ohio Avenue for at least fifteen years. He lived in West Central and the way the dirt road looped in a giant half-circle made it the perfect route for a walk. His wife, Betty, used to walk it with him every morning until she passed on three years ago. Now it was just he and his Labrador Buck that made the trek every morning.

When he started his walk this morning, he was in a nostalgic mood. For him, being nostalgic wasn’t a good thing. He didn’t tend to remember happy things. Or rather, when he did remember them, what usually came to mind next was how much better those times were than now. And that was depressing.

His sister, Ellen, was a diagnosed manic-depressive and sometimes he wondered if it ran in the family.

This morning he took little joy in the view of the valley below or the Looking Glass River that flowed there. Instead, he focused on how there were two new houses going up along the dirt road at about the center of his walk. There’d been at least five houses that went in the year before. Before long, Neal Grady feared, his entire route would be lined with houses.

At least the houses were clumped together, he thought to himself as he strode sullenly past.

“Buck!” he called the Labrador away from the front yard of the newest house that was being lived in. He wondered how they felt about having more neighbors.

Things were better in the old days, he thought. When the only house on Ohio was the one that the city provided for the dam worker. It was quieter then.

Buck barked and bounded ahead of him and past the final house. Neal Grady increased his pace temporarily to get past the goddamn metropolis that was springing up along his walk route. He banged his walking stick on the dusty road as he tramped past.

That’s what was next, he figured. They’d pave the road. Or worse yet, tar and oil it. Forget the fact that ninety percent of the road still ran along empty fields and was just fine as a dirt road. Those new people were bound to complain to the city and those pansies down at City Hall would give in and oil the road.

He continued around a bend, then slowed his pace. This was more like it. No houses for another mile and then the road would curve again and back into the populated area of West Central.

The dark nostalgia stuck with him even after he passed the houses on his route. He remembered Betty and how she’d always called him an old curmudgeon when he’d complained to her about the first houses that had gone in along Ohio. He’d growled at her about having to find something sunny about everything. Now when he thought of that, he felt a stab of loneliness, and a little guilt, too. He wished he had treated her better when she was still with him.

He walked along, thumping his walking stick on the dirt road, rolling in his dark thoughts, when he realized Buck was nowhere to be seen.

“Damn dog,” he muttered and called out for him. “Buck! C’mere!”

The dog answered him almost immediately with a bark. Neal spotted his head and tail about twenty yards ahead and in the field to his left.

“Git over here!” he shouted.

The dog barked back and started toward him. Then he turned around and trotted back to where he started.

“Buck! C’mere, goddamnit!”

The dog whined and barked at him, but reluctantly loped toward him. Neal kept walking onward.

When the dog reached his side, he gave him a pat and a hard rub behind the ears. Despite his gruffness, he wasn’t angry. He knew the dog couldn’t help being a dog. There was probably a dead animal out in the field or something.

Then he saw the tire tracks that left the dirt road and marked the soft earth next to the roadway. The tracks headed out into the field.

Neal paused in his stride. Buck yelped happily and bounded back out into the field, heading for the same location he’d reluctantly left only moments before.

“Probably someone dumped their garbage,” he muttered. “Damn dog is going blitz-o over old pizza boxes.”

He left the roadway and walked along the tire tracks. The further he got from the road, the thicker the weeds were. The tire tracks faded as he moved into the field, the weeds having sprung back up after being forced down by car wheels.

More likely a truck, Neal thought.

Buck barked excitedly as he drew closer. He expected to find trash bags and garbage strewn everywhere, but as he approached the barking Labrador, he could see there weren’t any large piles. He thought he could see the black plastic of a garbage bag, though.

“Buck! Shut it!” he hollered at the dog.

The Lab stopped barking, but continued to whine.

It was definitely a trash bag, Neal saw. Some jerks dumping their garbage in the middle of what little nature was left inside the city limits and-

He stopped walking and stared at the black plastic bag. A pair of feet protruded from the end of the bag, shod with a child’s dirty white tennis shoes trimmed with pink shoelaces.

“Oh, Jesus,” Neal Grady said. His stomach lurched and he leaned heavily on his walking stick.

Buck barked at him.

“Oh, Christ,” he said, running his hand through his hair. A photo from the television newscast flashed in his mind’s eye.

“Oh, Christ,” he repeated.

Buck barked again.

0603 hours

Browning rubbed the sleep from his eyes and wished he had taken up Tower’s offer to go get coffee when they first arrived on scene. The hulk of the burned out van reeked of gasoline, water and burnt plastic and some coffee would have at least helped to deaden that smell. Not to mention wake him up a bit.

“Any luck?” he asked Tower as the detective returned from his car.

“Call it what you will,” Tower said. “It ain’t great.”

“Run it for me.”

Tower looked down at his notebook. “The registered owner is a guy named Brad Dexter. Lives up in Hillyard. No telephone listing for him, but hopefully the address is current. But get this-he put in a report of sale two months ago.”

Browning frowned. That meant he’d sold the van and notified the Department of Licensing that he was no longer the owner. But the new owner hadn’t registered the van yet.

“Could be something.”

“Could be nothing,” Tower said. “But we better check it out.”

Browning nodded and waved Corporal McGee over. “Get good photos of the whole scene and then have it towed as evidence to Impound,” he told him.

McGee nodded and went to his car to get his camera.

“Could just be a coincidence,” Tower said.

“Coincidences are for the G.D., John,” Browning said, referring to the General Detective’s Division. “I don’t come across many in Major Crimes.”

“Now you sound like Crawford,” Tower told him.

Browning grunted and mimed a cigar in his hand.

“Ida-437," squawked Browning’s portable radio.

“Go ahead,” he said into it.

“Contact L-143 at 2100 West Ohio reference a crime scene. CSFU is already en route.”

Browning and Tower looked at each other. If the Crime Scene Forensics Unit was in route, that meant a body had been found.

“Copy,” Browning said.

“You think they found her?” Tower asked.

“We’ll know shortly.”

“What about this guy who used to own the van?”

“We’ll send Patrol to check it out,” Browning said. “Come on, let’s not keep Crawford waiting.”

0643 hours

Kopriva limped slowly toward the employee entrance to the police station. The glass double doors entered into a small lobby. From there, a person could go upstairs to the locker room and the patrol division briefing room. Going straight ahead led to the records division and a left-hand turn led to the investigative division.

As Kopriva opened the doors and started through, Officer Jack Stone came in the other direction. The surly veteran was in uniform and carried his patrol duty bag over his right shoulder.

Kopriva moved to his right to give Stone a little extra room to pass.

“Morning, Ja-” he started to say.

Stone stepped to the side and drove his shoulder into Kopriva’s left shoulder. The smaller officer staggered back a step. Pain blasted through his shoulder and arm, memories of the bullet wounds from the previous summer taking no time at all to spring up.

“What the hell is your problem?” Kopriva managed through gritted teeth.

“Worthless fuck-up,” Stone growled at him, not breaking stride and continuing out the door.

Kopriva watched him go, struggling to figure out what had just happened. He figured it had to do with Karl Winter’s death. Stone was still sore about that. But all he’d ever done was show his displeasure with attitude.

He knew he should be angry. He knew his gut shouldn’t burn when people cast disgusted looks his way. But whenever Kopriva thought of Karl Winter dying on the asphalt in front of him, the only emotion that he could dredge up was guilt.

The pain in his shoulder throbbed, but was already fading. He rubbed it, shaking his head. Everyone knew Stone was a jerk. Maybe he’d just been biding his time for the right opportunity to get his digs in.

Kopriva continued to rub his shoulder as he walked into the station. Some people were just impossible to figure out.

0644 hours

Browning stared at the two dirty tennis shoes with pink laces. He hated being right.

“You want to remove the bag here or back at the lab?” Diane from the Crime Scene Forensics Unit asked him.

“Your call.”

“The lab is better,” she said. “But I can cut the bag open if you want to get a look at her now.”

Browning looked over at Tower, whose face was pale. He took a drink of coffee from a Styrofoam cup and grimaced, avoiding Browning’s eyes.

Browning could hear Lieutenant Crawford barking at one of the patrol officers about the outer perimeter a short distance away. He knew that they wouldn’t be able to set up an outer perimeter far enough to keep the media vans away. They were probably already shooting footage.

He felt Diane’s eyes on him. He didn’t want her to open the bag. He didn’t want to see what was inside.

“Do it,” Browning said to her.

Next to him, Tower groaned quietly.

“Drink your coffee,” Browning told him.

“It’s going to be her, Ray,” Tower said. “We both know it.”

Browning didn’t answer.

Both men watched as Diane removed something akin to an Exact-O knife from her tool kit. She carefully cut a long slit along the side of the bag. The she replaced the knife in her tool kit and looked up at Browning and Tower.

Neither man moved.

Diane turned back to the still form and carefully lifted the bag, uncovering the small form as if it had been wrapped in a blanket and not a garbage bag. Even bloodied and still, both of them recognized Amy Dugger’s face immediately.

“Son of a bitch,” muttered Tower as he turned and walked away.

Browning said nothing. He only stared down at the little girl’s pummeled head and face. He looked at her this first time not with his investigator’s eyes, but with eyes filled with sympathy and regret.

“I’ll take good care of her,” Diane whispered.

Browning nodded. Then he turned and followed Tower. CSFU technicians would finish with the scene. He had to wait for the results and plan his next move.

“God watch over you,” he heard Diane say to the little body, and he seconded that.

0710 hours

Officer Jack Willow knocked a second time, this time much louder and with his flashlight. He saw that the door already had a number of older divots in it from getting the “graveyard knock.”

“Hold on!” came a voice from inside the small cracker box house. “Jesus! Who the hell is it?”

“River City Police,” Willow answered. “Open the door.”

There was a pause and Willow believed he could sense the homeowner’s regret at having answered up in the first place and then his resignation as he reached for the door.

The knob turned and the door opened inward. A man in his late thirties with a beard and long greasy hair stuck his face in the crack. “What’s going on?”

“I need to talk to you, sir,” Willow said. “Can I come in?”

“Here’s fine,” the man said coyly.

Willow shrugged. It didn’t matter.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“You used to own a blue van, right?” Willow asked.

“Yeah. But I sold it, so whatever the problem is-“

“Who’d you sell it to, Mr. Dexter?”

“Some guy.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t remember. He paid cash.”

“Do you have the paperwork?”

“I sent it to the DMV,” Dexter said. “So it’s all legal.”

“Was his name Fred?” Willow asked.

“I don’t think so. It was Robert, maybe. Like I said, that was a long time ago and he paid cash.”

“I thought it was two months ago.”

Dexter looked at him evenly. “Like I said, a long time ago.”

“Was there a woman with him?”

“Nah, he was alone. What’s this all about? This guy rob a bank or something?”

Willow ignored the question and held up the black and white faxed picture of Fred Henderson. “Could this be him?”

Dexter leaned in and studied the photo. Then his face lit up. “Yeah, that’s the guy. He’s the guy that bought the van.”

0712 hours

“I say we go pick both of them up right now on probable cause,” Tower said. He was sitting in the empty desk next to Browning’s, which had been empty since Billings’ transfer three years ago. “Get that pansy husband out from under the crazy lady and we’ll get a confession in no time.”

Browning considered. “It’s still all circumstantial. We have no physical evidence linking the two of them to Amy.”

“We’ll have all kinds of evidence when he confesses.”

“If he confesses after a bum arrest, some lawyer will get the confession tossed,” Browning said.

“So we Mirandize him first.”

“At which point he clams up.”

Tower sighed. “I don’t think he’ll clam up. I think he’ll sing like a fucking canary.”

Browning didn’t argue. He figured Tower was probably right, but now that Amy was definitely dead, delay was no longer as great a risk for them. He didn’t want to jeopardize the case by moving too swiftly.

“Let Forensics come back. We should get a preliminary report from Diane within an hour. Plus we haven’t heard from Willow yet.”

“I don’t think we should wait, Ray. I think we should-“

Browning’s telephone rang and he answered it.

“Browning.”

“Ray? It’s Carrie Anne from Dispatch.”

“Dispatch,” he mouthed to Tower. “Go ahead,” he said aloud.

“Officer Willow just radioed in an urgent message for you.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t exactly understand it, but he gave it over the air, so I guess he was trying to talk in code or something.”

“What’s the message?”

“He said, ‘the report of sale matches the male from yesterday’s search warrant.’ That was it. He said you’d understand.”

“I do. Thank you.” He hung up the phone and looked at Tower. “Fred Henderson bought the van.”

Tower smiled. “Still want to wait?”

“No. Let’s go get them both.”

0719 hours

Kathy Dugger collapsed into her husband’s arms, sobbing silently.

“Are you sure?” Peter Dugger asked.

“Not one hundred percent,” said Lieutenant Crawford. “But the detectives are confident that it is Amy and I didn’t want you to get this news from another source.”

Peter Dugger nodded, his jaw set.

“I’ll keep you up to date,” Crawford said.

“I want to see her,” Kathy Dugger said. Her voice, muffled by her husband’s chest, was low and determined. She turned to look up at Crawford. “I want to see her right away!”

Crawford shook his head. “That’s not possible yet. I’ll call you when it is.”

“I want to see her!” she cried out.

Peter Dugger shushed her and nodded to Crawford. His eyes were glistening and rimmed with red and his voice shook. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Call…call as soon as you can.”

Crawford nodded and left.

0724 hours

The Henderson home was quiet when Browning knocked. He feared for a moment that maybe Fred and Nancy had somehow gotten wind that they’d found Amy and lammed it. But after a second knocking, Fred Henderson opened the door.

“Yes, detective?” the gaunt man asked, pushing his stray strand of hair over his balding top.

“Is your wife here, Mr. Henderson?”

Fred blinked and shook his head. “She went grocery shopping.”

Browning looked at his watch. It was barely past eight. “This early?”

“She hates crowds.”

“Where does she shop?”

“Wherever the coupons take her,” Fred said. “Why?”

“When do you expect her back?” Browning asked, ignoring his question.

Fred shrugged. “Could be an hour. Could be all day. She gets that way when she’s shopping.”

Browning nodded that he understood. “That’s fine. Not a big deal. Fred, how would you like to come down to the station to talk with me for a little while?”

Fred swallowed and looked at Tower and the uniformed officer behind him. “Uh, is that really necessary?”

“I think so, yeah,” Browning said. “You okay with that?”

Fred hesitated, then nodded. “Let me get my keys,” he said.

“I’ll get them,” said Tower. “Where are they?”

“On a hook in the kitchen.”

“Okay. I’ll lock up for you.”

“I can do it,” Fred said.

“It’s not a problem,” said Tower, walking past him and into the house.

“Why don’t you hop in with Officer Willow,” Browning said. “He’ll be transporting you down to the station. All right?”

Fred looked from Browning to Willow, then nodded weakly. The uniformed officer walked Fred to his patrol car and patted him down for weapons before putting him in the back seat. Without waiting for the detectives, he got into the driver’s seat and pulled away from the curb, heading for the station.

A moment later, Tower emerged from the house with keys in hand. “She’s not here,” he told Browning, locking the door. “And the Taurus is gone from out back.”

Browning pressed his lips together and nodded.

“Do you think she did the shoe?” Tower asked.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Browning answered and they headed back to the station.

0742 hours

Crawford was waiting for them at Browning’s desk.

“Where’s the crazy lady?”

“Out grocery shopping,” Tower said.

“You’re kidding me.”

Both men shook their heads.

Crawford sighed and pointed to the interview room. Willow stood guard at the door. “Henderson is in there.”

“I figured,” Browning said, watching Crawford carefully. “What’s up, Lieutenant?”

“Diane from CSFU called,” Crawford said. “The Medical Examiner is working on the little girl right now. But she wanted you to know something.”

“What?”

Crawford looked from face to face, then said. “They found evidence of sexual assault. Torn tissues and fluids.”

Tower’s face whitened. “That sick son of a bitch.” His eyes flicked to the closed interview room door.

Browning clenched his jaw, but withheld any other reactions. “Thanks, Lieutenant,” he said.

Crawford nodded. He pointed to the observation room between the interview rooms. “I’ll be in there, watching.”

“Okay,” Browning said. Then he turned to Tower. “Get on your game face, John.”

0800 hours

Katie MacLeod sat in the quiet of her apartment and stared at the walls. The late morning light painted the walls a pale white. Her chest ached and her throat was raw from all the crying she’d done, but she was finished crying now.

The small radio in her kitchen played one soft song after another. Most were sugary pop tunes that she ignored and embraced at the same time while she tried to cope with the images on the bridge. She’d seen the wild eyes of the man all morning whenever she closed her own eyes. His cavalier, almost peaceful expression before he pitched the baby over the side of the bridge flashed in her mind’s eye no matter what she did.

Rather than battle her grief and pain, Katie MacLeod opened her heart and strode directly into them. As the gentle strands of a soft guitar floated from the kitchen radio, she forced herself to see it all again. She pictured the baby dangling by his clothing from his father’s fist. Watched the blue-clad infant tumble from that grip. Watched him fall a hundred feet and into the river below.

Heard the splash over the rush of water.

She saw the flash of blue in the river water, darting in the current like a trout.

Saw it disappear.

She listened again to her own screams. Felt her fists land on the motionless father.

She saw the look of horror on the face of the baby’s mother as the woman was huddled in a blanket and pulled away. Forced herself to endure the look of blame that the mother shot at Katie right as they put her into a car.

The lyrics from the song on the radio cut into her thoughts.

When you reach the part where the heartaches come

The hero would be me

But heroes often fail.

Katie slammed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. The singer’s voice and the flowing guitar washed over her.

It wasn’t her fault.

She ran the scenario through her mind again, like a video tape alternating between rewind and play. She imagined different actions she might have taken. None of them realistically changed the outcome.

She couldn’t save him, but it wasn’t her fault. It was a terrible thing, one of many she’d seen. Hell, probably one of many she would see in the future.

But it wasn’t her fault.

She wondered if she would ever believe that.

0823 hours

Fred Henderson was proving to be tougher than Tower foretold. Browning figured that it hearkened back to the prison stretch Fred had served when in Colorado. So far, he’d resisted Browning’s gentle suggestions and mild persuasions and he continued to maintain the party line. Still, his constant shifting in his seat, darting eyes and sweaty upper lip told Browning he was on the right track.

“I’ve never even met that little girl, detective,” he said. “The one time Nancy has seen her since we’ve been married, I wasn’t there. It was just Nancy, her daughter and the little girl.”

It was his fifth denial since they’d entered the room. Browning decided to get a couple more.

“Ever talk to her on the telephone?”

“No,” Fred said.

“Sneak into a school play or something?”

“Never.”

“Did Nancy?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Would you know if she did?”

“I think so, yes.”

Browning paused in his questioning then glanced imperceptibly toward Tower.

Tower leaned forward, a hard look painted on his face. “How many vehicles do you own, Fred?”

“Just the Ford Taurus. Nancy took it shopping.”

Tower slammed his palm down on the interview table, causing Fred to jump. Browning watched as the suspect eyed Tower cautiously.

“Fred,” Tower gritted, “if you‘re going to lie to us, then we are going to start to think terrible things about you.”

“I’m not lying,” Fred said, but his words were slightly shaky.

“Yes,” Tower told him. “You are. So let me tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to stop this interview until you decide you want to tell us the truth. Okay?”

“Fine,” Fred bristled. “Maybe I’ll even go get a lawyer.”

“You go right ahead,” Tower said. “In the meantime, we wait for the forensics to come back.”

Fred’s eyes widened slightly.

Tower nodded, “Yeah, we have some evidence being processed in the lab right now. And we’ll get some more, I’m sure, when we go back to your house and poke around with a platelet detector.”

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“The detector thing,” Fred asked. “What’s that? I never heard of it.”

Tower shrugged. “That doesn’t surprise me. It’s an expensive piece of equipment.”

“What’s it do?”

“It detects blood or blood traces down to the platelet level,” Tower said. “Which works really slick, because even if someone cleans up and bleaches the area, there’s still enough blood for the instrument to detect.”

Fred whitened, but said nothing. Browning pretended to write something on his notepad.

“So we’ll go back through your house with the instrument and we’ll see what we find,” Tower told him evenly. “On top of that, we’ll finish examining the evidence collected from the burned out van.”

“What van?” Fred’s voice wavered.

Tower gave him a look and said, “Come on, Fred. You think we’re stupid? The van you bought up in Hillyard from Brad Dexter. You paid cash and didn’t transfer the title.”

Fred said nothing, but trembled slightly.

“The van you burned up down by the river last night,” Tower continued.

Fred wiped sweat from his upper lip.

“The van you and Nancy used to grab up Amy Dugger.”

Fred shook his head, small little shakes that resembled shivers. “I–I didn’t-“

“Drop it, Fred,” Tower said. “It’s not a question of whether you two took Amy anymore. It’s only a matter of why.”

“You can’t prove anything,” Fred said, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself.

Tower raised his eyebrows. “Really? I can’t prove anything? Well, I can guarantee you that when we do our search of your home with the platelet detector, we will find some blood. Probably in the attic. When we find that, we’ll do a closer search for hair and skin that’s been shed. Do you know how much hair and skin we shed every day? Thousands of cells, Fred. Thousands.”

Fred began his small headshakes again. He opened his mouth to protest, but Tower raised his hand to cut him off.

“No, I’m going to answer your question, Fred. It’s important that you listen to me. See, at the same time we’ll have people collecting the blood, hair and skin cells from your house that will prove Amy was there, we’ll have another team doing the same thing at the van.”

“I thought that was burned up,” Fred said. Browning sensed a combination of worry and hope in his tone.

“Some of it was,” Tower said. “But parts of it didn’t get fully involved and blood plasma is very resistive to flame. I’m sure they’ll find something. It doesn’t matter, though. The VIN didn’t burn up. Do you know what the VIN is, Fred?”

Fred wiped his lip again and shook his head.

“It stands for Vehicle Identification Number,” Tower told him. “Every vehicle has one and they are all unique. The one on the van down by the river is the same one you bought from Brad Dexter.”

“He must be mistaken,” Fred said. “I don’t know anyone named-“

Tower held up the black and white faxed copy of Fred Henderson’s Colorado booking photo. “Funny then, isn’t it? How he was able to say this was the guy that bought the van from him?”

Fred’s whiteness deepened. He wiped away the sweat that was forming at his temples with shaking fingers.

“That was a long time ago,” he said.

“And you only did a year,” Tower said. “Was it easy time?”

Fred’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no easy time in prison.”

“Touche,” Tower conceded. “But back to answering your question about proving things. Do you know about Locard’s Law?”

Fred shook his head.

“Locard’s Law,” Tower said, “is the law of transfer. It forms the cornerstone of modern forensic investigation. It’s like Newton’s laws of physics. It’s that important.”

Fred didn’t answer, but listened intently.

“Locard’s Law simply states that whenever there is interaction at a crime scene, transfer occurs,” Tower explained. “Take a burglary, for instance. The law of transfer says that the burglar will bring something foreign with him to the scene of the burglary. During his activity, however brief, at the scene, he will leave something at the scene. And when he leaves the scene, he will take something from the scene with him. Make sense?”

Fred nodded reluctantly.

“Good,” Tower said, “because the messier the crime, the more transfer that occurs. For example, let’s say we find a body in the middle of a field in a plastic garbage bag. The body was obviously dumped there after the murder happened somewhere else. But the body left something behind where the murder occurred, and we’ll find it. And the body is going to have something from that murder scene still with it and when we find that, it’ll tie the body to the original scene of the crime. Most importantly, whoever did it will have left something on the body or the bag. We’ll find that, too.”

Tower leaned forward, bringing his face close to Fred’s.

“And then we’ll have our proof,” he whispered. “Because no one is perfect, Fred. Everyone makes mistakes. It might be a fingerprint on the garbage bag or some hair or skin that was shed and ended up on the body. But there’s always physical evidence. And that’s not even counting witnesses, all of whom saw just a little piece of the puzzle. You know, a nosy neighbor who watched the whole thing and thought someone was just dumping garbage and didn’t bother to call. A jogger heading across the T.J. Meenach Bridge who looked down to see someone running away from a burning van. Things like that.”

Fred’s lips trembled, but he said nothing. His small head shakes had slowly faded throughout Tower’s explanation and now his head only twitched slightly while he listened.

“So you see, Fred,” Tower said, “it isn’t a question of whether you took Amy any more. It isn’t a question whether or not she was killed. The only fact that we haven’t pulled from the evidence yet is whether it was you or if it was Nancy that killed her. And then the most important question-why?”

“We didn’t-”

Tower slammed his palm on the table again. “Don’t you fucking lie to me, Fred!”

“I-”

“Don’t you fucking lie! I just explained all this shit to you. Are you going to sit there and argue with science?”

Fred opened his mouth and closed it. He nodded.

Tower’s jaw fell open. “You son of a bitch.” He looked over at Browning, which was his cue. “Jesus Christ. Maybe he did do it. I thought for sure it was the grandmother.”

Browning winced, hoping that it looked convincing. “John-”

“Here’s our guy, Ray.” He pointed at Browning. “Here’s the fucking guy who-”

“Detective Tower,” Browning began.

“He’s our guy!” Tower slammed his fist on the interview table.

“Detective Tower!” Browning’s voice boomed.

Tower sat back quickly, his lips pressing together. “What?”

“I think you should leave.”

“What?!”

“I want you to leave the room. Now.”

There was a moment of tense silence. Then Tower shook his head incredulously. He pushed his chair abruptly back from the table.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered and strode out of the interview. He left the door open behind him.

Browning rose and closed the door. Then he sat back down and looked directly into Fred’s face. “I’m sorry about that. He’s very emotional.”

Fred nodded, relief obvious on his face. “I thought he was going to hit me.”

“Like I said, he’s emotional. He has three little girls and the middle one is Amy’s age. So you can see how a guy would get wrapped up.”

“I suppose.”

“The problem is, Fred, that even though he’s a little upset, he’s right.”

Fred was nodding along until Browning finished the sentence. Then he stopped in mid-nod and stared at Browning.

“He’s right,” Browning continued, “about all of the investigative science he described. And he’s right about this case. It’s no longer a matter of what happened, but a matter of why it happened. And that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“I-”

“Fred, you don’t have to talk to me. You can have a lawyer if you want. You understand that?”

“Yeah, I-”

“But if we don’t get this out on the table right now, it isn’t going to be worth anything later on. Timing is everything.”

Fred paused. He licked his lips nervously. “What do you mean, timing is everything?”

“In the eyes of a judge or a jury, timing is everything. Did a guy tell the truth when he had the chance? Or did he wait until the very last moment, when all the evidence was analyzed and catalogued and it was a slam dunk anyway?” Browning steepled his fingers. “The truth is a powerful thing, Fred. And when a person chooses to tell the truth matters. It matters a lot.”

Fred sighed, but said nothing.

Browning went on, “Let me tell you what I think, Fred. I think you’re basically a good guy. I think you made some mistakes a long time ago and you paid your dues for that and you moved to River City for a fresh start. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” Fred said quietly.

“Everyone deserves a fresh start. And you’ve made the most of yours. You work, right? You pay your taxes. You got married and you built a life for yourself. Most people don’t make that much out of their second opportunity.”

Browning leaned forward slightly, maintaining eye contact with Fred. He kept his expression sympathetic, despite the fact that he was cringing inside. “That’s why I don’t think this was your master plan, Fred. I think that it was Nancy’s idea, Nancy’s plan, Nancy’s whole show.”

“There was no plan,” Fred whispered. “We didn’t-”

Browning ignored him and continued. “And I think you probably tried to talk her out of it, too. But she is a strong-willed woman, isn’t she, Fred?”

Fred paused, then gave Browning a resigned nod. “Yeah. She is.”

“And you loved her, so you went along with her plan. Maybe you even went along with it thinking you could keep an eye on things to make sure nothing went wrong. The kind of guy you are, I could definitely see that being the case.”

“I didn’t-”

Browning raised his hand. “Hold on, Fred. This is important. You need to hear it.”

Fred stopped and waited.

Browning continued. “Like I said, I don’t think this was your plan. I don’t think you were behind the whole thing. I think that you went along with it reluctantly. And I think you’re the only one that can give us a satisfying answer as to why this happened. You’re the only one who can tell the truth in a time frame that matters.”

Fred shook his head weakly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We didn’t-”

“Fred,” Browning said, “our investigation clearly shows that you’re involved. That’s not in question. I’m only talking to you to find out why. Some people don’t think the ‘why’ matters. They only care about the facts. Who did it. How they did it. The evidence. That’s it.”

Browning could hear Fred’s labored breathing as he spoke. The balding man absently made short nods in agreement

“I care about the why in a case,” Browning said. “I care because it matters why someone did something as much as it matters what they did. Maybe even more. And it matters when a person tells the truth about the why in a situation. That’s why I’m talking with you here. To understand the why of things.”

Fred kept nodding and Browning wondered if he were aware of it. He hoped not.

“Ultimately, Fred, why something happened is the lynchpin,” Browning told him. “It shows what kind of person someone is. It has a profound effect on how things are handled later on. But only if the explanation comes early. It matters if it comes right now, while you and I are sitting here. If some explanation comes from some attorney later on in court, juries always wonder, ‘Well, why didn’t he say that before?’ And they tend to doubt it, even if it’s the truth. But if a guy tells the truth now and that’s the same truth he tells later, people believe him. Does that make sense to you, Fred?”

Fred’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”

“You didn’t plan this, did you, Fred?” Browning asked.

“No.” He dropped his eyes.

“It was Nancy’s idea, wasn’t it? It was her plan.”

Fred hesitated.

“Just tell the truth, Fred,” Browning urged.

Fred bit his lip.

“I already know everything I need to know except why this happened,” Browning said. “I need to know why. I need to know I’m right about you, Fred. You’re not a bad guy. You didn’t plan this, did you?”

“No.”

“It was Nancy’s plan?”

Fred swallowed. Then he nodded and moaned. “Yeah,” he answered in a thick voice.

Browning tried to contain the rush of adrenaline he felt with the first admission. He maintained his expression of calmness and sympathy.

“Did you try to talk her out of it?”

Fred began to cry. “For weeks. I tried for weeks.”

0839 hours

Tower stood next to Lieutenant Crawford in the observation room and watched the scene unfold through the narrow window of one-way glass.

“Classic interview,” he whispered to Crawford. He took a sip from the small white Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Beautifully played. Ray is a master.”

Crawford grunted and shifted his unlit cigar to the other corner of his mouth.

Both men stood silently and listened as Fred outlined all the details of the abduction plan and how they brought Amy Dugger back to the house on Swanson.

“Ray figured his prison stretch would’ve made him a tougher interrogation,” Tower said.

“That was twelve years ago,” Crawford answered.

“Eleven.”

“Whatever.”

Tower smiled slightly. He wished his role in the interview had not been so small. He wanted badly to be in the room with Browning, but he knew that a confession would never have come if there were two of them in the room. A confession was an intimate act. It had to happen one-on-one.

“How’d you like my bad cop role, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Shut up, Tower,” Crawford said, chewing on his cigar.

Tower smiled more widely. He sipped his coffee. They’d broken this case open. Even though he hated what had happened, he felt some satisfaction at having helped solve it.

Then Fred said something to Browning and most of that satisfaction melted away.

0841 hours

“You took care of Amy, right?” Browning asked.

“Of course.”

“She got enough to eat?”

“I fed her all the time,” Fred said. “Good food. I even made Mickey Mouse pancakes.”

“And she had a cushion to sleep on? In the attic?”

Fred nodded. “A big cushion. One of those…whaddaya call-its.”

“Futon?”

“Yeah. She had a futon.”

“Where’d that go?”

“The van,” Fred said. “I burned it in the van.”

Browning nodded. “How did she die, Fred? What happened?”

Fred let out a long, wavering breath. “Nancy did it,” he said. Before Browning could ask another question, he rambled on, “But you have to understand. She’s sick, and she wasn’t taking her pills. She loved that little girl. Deep inside, she loved her even more than her own mother could love her. She’d never hurt her.”

“Did you ever hurt her?” Browning asked quietly.

“No!” Fred said. “I…I loved that little girl. I tried to make it comfortable for her. I gave her love, even when Nancy was angry at her.”

“Why was Nancy angry?”

Fred shrugged and looked away. “She just gets that way. It’s her illness.”

“What did she do when she was angry, Fred?”

Fred swallowed and continued looking at the floor. “She hit her.”

“With what?”

Fred didn’t look up. “A hammer,” he muttered.

“Did you see her do it?”

“No!” Fred’s eyes snapped back to Browning’s. “I just heard the yelling and then a scream. Then Nancy came back downstairs.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No. She just went to the bathroom and locked the door.”

“What did you do?”

“I went upstairs.” Fred’s lips trembled and tears sprang to his eyes. “And I found her.”

“Was she dead?”

Fred wiped tears away. “She was gone, yeah. I tried to help her, but…”

“You did your best,” Browning said, feeling his stomach recoil at the sympathetic tone of his own words.

“I did,” Fred sobbed, his voice choked. “I tried so hard to save her.”

“I believe you,” Browning said. “Fred, how long before the officer came to talk to you and Nancy did this happen?”

Fred blinked. “Huh?”

“A couple of police officers came to your house. One was in uniform and one was in plainclothes. Do you remember that?”

“You mean the first time?”

“Yes. The officer’s name was Kopriva and he had a uniformed officer with him. Nancy yelled at both of them. Do you remember that?”

“Of course, but…”

“How long before that officer arrived did Nancy hurt Amy with the hammer?” Browning asked.

Fred shook his head. “You don’t understand. When that officer came to the house, she was still upstairs. She was still alive.”

0843 hours

“Son of a bitch!” Crawford said in a low voice.

Tower’s Styrofoam cup slipped from his fingers and fell to the tiled floor. Coffee splattered against the wall and across the floor.

“Shit!” Crawford said.

Tower ignored him. He stared through the one-way glass, his stomach sinking. Amy Dugger was alive in the attic when Kopriva came to the house.

She was alive. And Kopriva refused Nancy’s invitation to search the house.

“He would’ve found her,” Tower muttered, shaking his head. “She’d still be alive.”

“Son of a bitch!” Crawford repeated and stalked from the observation room.

0844 hours

Browning fought down the bile in his stomach and maintained a professional demeanor. Fred had responded well to his calmness and to his sympathy. He couldn’t abandon them now.

“When did she hurt Amy with the hammer?”

“Last night,” Fred said. “Before dinner.”

“How did she end up in the field?”

Fred lowered his chin to his chest and began to cry again. “She made me.”

“She made you do what, Fred?”

He balled up his fists and slammed both onto his own hips. “She made me do everything after. I had to take care of everything.”

“The van?”

“She made me burn it.”

“And Amy?” Browning asked. “Did Nancy make you put her in the field?”

Fred nodded his head. “She said they couldn’t be connected.”

Browning sat back and took a deep breath. Then he reached into the small drawer in the interview table. He removed a notepad and a pair of white Bic pens. Both pens were missing caps. He slid the pens and the pad across the table to crying man.

“Write it down, Fred,” he said. “Write it down so everyone will know the truth.”

Fred nodded, blinking at the notepad through tear-filled eyes. He reached for the pen and pulled the pad toward him. “What do you want me to write?”

“Everything,” Browning said.

0846 hours

Officer Jack Willow had watched as Detective Browning exited the interview room earlier. The rooms were relatively soundproof, but he’d heard Detective Tower’s voice get loud earlier and then the detective had stalked out of the room. As he passed Willow, Tower had tipped him a wink and the officer understood. They were playing the oldest gambit there was-good cop/bad cop.

Now, as Browning approached him, he wondered whether the ploy was successful or not. From the grave look on Browning’s face, he didn’t think so.

“Jack, I need you to stand guard here,” Browning said. “The guy in there is not to leave. Understand? He’s a collar.”

Willow nodded and changed his mind about the interview. If the guy was under arrest, something must have gone right. But that didn’t explain the expression on Browning’s face.

Tower slipped out of the observation room and joined them.

“Right now,” Browning continued instructing Willow, “he’s writing up a statement. If he gets thirsty, have one of the secretaries get him some water or soda or something. Don’t ask him any questions and don’t tell him anything. If he gets antsy, you tell him he needs to wait for me to come back. If he asks when that’ll be, just tell him it’ll be another ten minutes, no matter how many times he asks. Okay?”

“Okay,” Willow said.

Browning turned to Tower. “Let’s go find her.”

Crawford appeared from the other side of the room, walking purposefully toward his office with Kopriva in tow. The young officer limped slightly as he struggled to keep up with the heavy-set lieutenant.

“El-Tee,” Browning said. “We’re going out to look for Nancy Henderson.”

“Find her,” Crawford said gruffly. He paused at the door and waited for Kopriva to enter his office. Then he stepped inside and closed the door loudly behind himself.

Tower turned to Willow and tapped him lightly on the arm. “Always follow your gut, kid. You got that?”

Willow nodded.

“Let’s go,” Browning said, and they left a bewildered Willow standing near the interview room.

0912 hours

Crawford’s words hung in the air like the stench of a burned out building. Kopriva shook his head in disbelief.

“She was there? Amy was there?”

“Yes, you stupid son of a bitch,” Crawford spewed at him. “She was upstairs in the attic, where you would have found her if you had taken the time to search.”

Kopriva shook his head again. “She was still alive?”

“Are you deaf?” Crawford roared. “She was alive. She was upstairs. You should have searched the goddamn house when that crazy woman offered.”

“But she was crazy,” Kopriva muttered, his head spinning. “We were looking for a black guy and a Mexican. I just thought-”

“You didn’t think! You fucked up!” Spittle flew from Crawford’s mouth in a spray as he yelled. “Why didn’t you search? I want an answer to that, officer. I want an answer to that right now!”

“I…I…just thought it was nothing.” Kopriva gave his head a hard shake to clear it. “Oh, Jesus. She was there? Alive?”

There was a short silence. Kopriva’s head was spinning and his mouth was dry. He could hear the hum of the air system and Crawford’s labored breathing.

“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered. “I killed her.”

“You’re fucking right you did,” Crawford barked. “And you are relieved of duty. Go home and don’t come back until the Chief calls for you.”

Kopriva looked up at Crawford and met his dark eyes as they bore into him. His stomach lurched and he gagged.

Crawford looked at him in disgust. “Don’t you puke in my office, you piece of shit.”

Kopriva gagged again, but forced it down.

“Get the fuck out of my office,” Crawford said.

Kopriva turned and left. When he opened the door, he saw Officer Willow look over at him, and his stomach heaved again. He fought down the gorge once more and walked as quickly as could out of the Major Crimes office and down the hall to the bathroom.

Once inside, he knelt in front of the toilet. His knee screamed at him in protest, but was overruled by his stomach. He heaved again, and this time held nothing back. He threw up his breakfast, then his coffee and then there was nothing left except the dry, hard contractions.

Slowly, the dry heaves subsided. He spat into the toilet several times, and then flushed the mess. He stared at the water and the vomit as it turned and whirled and sank down the drain.

1121 hours

They waited for two hours, parked up the street under the shade of a huge oak tree, watching for the blue Taurus. When it appeared at the end of the block, both men sat up. Browning started the car.

“Think she’ll run for it?” Tower asked.

“Who knows?”

“I hope so,” Tower muttered.

The Taurus pulled up in front of the Henderson house and stopped. Nancy Henderson exited the driver’s seat and walked toward the trunk. Even from a distance, it was obvious that she was talking to herself as she pulled a bag of groceries from the rear of the car.

“Punch it,” Tower said.

Browning agreed and gunned the engine. The Crown Victoria roared and in less than two seconds, the detectives screeched to a halt just five feet from Nancy Henderson.

The look of surprise on her face quickly melted to anger as the two men exited the police car.

“Are you sonsabitches out of your minds? You just about hit me!”

“Nancy, you’re under arrest,” Browning said.

Nancy snorted. “No, I’m not. Fuck you.” She turned and walked toward her house.

“Enough of this shit,” Tower said. He sprinted to her side and reached for her right hand. Browning moved toward her left side.

“You can’t do that,” Nancy told him matter-of-factly.

Tower’s hand closed on her wrist.

“No!” she yelled and twisted her torso away.

“Give me your hand!” Tower told her.

“No!”

Nancy twisted again, flinging the grocery bag into Tower’s chest. The bag bounced off him and fell to the ground. Several cans rolled out.

Tower reached for her wrist again.

“I said, no!” Nancy screamed. She whipped her left arm toward Tower, throwing the other grocery bag at him. This time, the detective raised hands and brushed it aside. He heard the distinct sound of glass breaking when the bag landed on the pavement.

Browning took advantage of her distraction and snatched her left wrist into his grasp.

Nancy’s gaze snapped to him. “Let go of me, nigger!”

Tower followed suit, grabbing her by the wrist and elbow. Together, both detectives slammed her to the ground with an arm-bar takedown. Nancy grunted loudly as she landed on the sidewalk. Her cheek bounced off the concrete, splitting the skin. Blood flowed from the small injury.

“You fucking bastards! This is police brutality!”

Tower said nothing, transferring into a prone-cuffing technique. He knelt across the back of Nancy’s neck to keep her still. Browning pinned her other arm to the ground.

“Rape!” Nancy screeched. “The fucking cops are raping me!”

Tower slipped he handcuffs onto her fat wrist and lowered it to the small of her back. Browning forced her other arm to where Tower held the cuffs.

“Call the cops!” she yelled. “Police brutality! You fuckers!”

Tower finished cuffing her and they rolled her onto her side, then into a seated position.

“You need to sit up on your own,” Tower said through gritted teeth.

“Fuck you!”

Tower sighed and looked at Browning. Browning grabbed her underneath the opposite arm and they lifted her to her feet. Nancy struggled with them as they walked her over to the police car.

“Help! Somebody help!”

“Enough with the hysterics,” Tower muttered.

“I’m going to sue your asses!” Nancy screeched into Tower’s face.

“You’ll be doing it from prison,” Tower told her.

Nancy stopped cold. “Prison? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You can drop the act,” Tower told her as Browning began to search her pockets. “Fred confessed to everything.”

“Everything? What everything?”

“You don’t quit, do you?” Tower shook his head. “Everything, Nancy. The van, the abduction, the murder. Everything.”

Nancy bit the inside of her mouth. Her eyes darted wildly around.

“You’ll never prove it,” she said. “You’ll never prove any of it.”

Tower shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Nancy’s shot him a look of pure rage. “Well, did he tell you that he fucked her, the disloyal son of a bitch?”

1130 hours

“What’s going on?” Georgina asked, handing the can of Coca Cola to Officer Willow.

Willow took the soda from the secretary. He jerked his thumb toward the interview room. “He was involved in that case with the kidnapped girl.”

“Really? The one they found this morning?”

Willow nodded.

“Why was the lieutenant so mad?” Georgina asked. “He stomped into the Sex Crimes Unit and yelled at Kopriva to get into his office.”

Willow looked at the plump secretary. Everyone was going to know sooner or later, he decided. But he didn’t want everyone to know it came from him.

“You can’t tell anyone, okay?” he said.

Georgina smiled and made a cross over her heart.

“I promise,” she said.

1219 hours

Kopriva sat in his chair and stared at the wall. His eyes took in the bamboo wall hanging that his sensei had given him years before when he’d earned his black belt. The picture showed a pale moon, partially eclipsed by dust or tendrils of clouds. Beneath the moon was a tiger. Sensei Allen had called the piece “Tiger Under a Raging Moon.”

Looking at it now, Kopriva allowed his eyes to slowly blur. That day seemed like decades ago to him now. He was a different person now, no longer the tiger. The throbbing pain in his shoulder and knee seemed to agree with him.

He replayed the scene at the Henderson home over and over again in his mind. Now that he knew that little Amy Dugger was alive when he was in the house, the vision was like a macabre film. Every misstep he made rang loudly in his ears like an accusation.

“I killed her,” he whispered, his voice ragged from throwing up earlier. The taste of bile remained in his mouth and he made no effort to rinse it out. It seemed fitting that he should taste it.

There was a knock at his door. It was a tentative, soft knock and he knew immediately who it belonged to.

The knock came again and he made no move to stand or open the door. After a third knock, there was a rattle of keys and Katie MacLeod came into his apartment. She spotted him sitting in the chair and gave him a small, worried smile. “I called the office, but Georgina said you’d gone home.”

Kopriva stared at her and did not reply.

“Georgina…she told me what happened.”

He remained silent.

Katie’s worried smile faded into a frown. “Stef, are you okay? It wasn’t your fault-”

“I’d like you to leave, Katie,” Kopriva said in an even voice.

She stopped suddenly. Surprise registered in her eyes. “Leave? Why?”

“I want to be alone.”

Katie was hesitant. “Okay…but are you sure you don’t want to talk about-”

“I asked you to leave!” shouted Kopriva, suddenly enraged. “Is that so fucking hard to understand?”

Katie jumped at his words, surprised. “Stef, I don’t think you should be alone if-”

“No one asked for your goddamn opinion,” Kopriva said, his voice gruff.

“Why are you talking to me like this?” Katie asked. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Then leave. That would be a big help.”

Katie said nothing, but she made no move to leave. Instead, she took a step toward Kopriva. “I know what you’re feeling,” she said to him. “I know what-”

“You don’t know shit,” Kopriva said.

Tears sprang to her eyes. “How can you say that after yesterday?”

Kopriva shook his head. “What happened on the bridge is nothing compared to what I did.”

“What?” Her eyes widened in surprise.

“You heard me.”

Katie swallowed hard and wiped away tears. “That’s the most horrible thing you could ever say.”

Kopriva didn’t respond.

“I know it hurts,” Katie said. “But it wasn’t your fault.”

“Leave me alone,” Kopriva said.

“I know how you feel, Stef,” she said. “I do.”

Kopriva looked up at her. His voice was hard and unfeeling. “You have no idea what I’m feeling. You couldn’t stop some guy from hurting a baby. Fine. Maybe you failed. I don’t know. But you didn’t kill anyone.”

“Stef-”

“I killed her!” Kopriva yelled. “Do you understand that? Now get the fuck out of my house and out of my life!”

Katie recoiled from his words, hurt and anger apparent on her face. Kopriva didn’t care.

Without a word, she turned and left, slamming the door behind her.

When the sound of the door slamming had faded into silence, Kopriva rose from his chair. He walked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Reaching for the brown prescription bottle, he popped the top and shook three pills from inside. When he put the prescription bottle back in the cabinet, he stared into the mirror for a moment. Guilty eyes stared back at him.

In the refrigerator, he found a bottle of Corona beer. He tossed the three pills into the back of his throat and washed them down with the cold beer. Then he drained the entire bottle.

Inside the fridge, he was relieved to find five more bottles patiently waiting. He reached for the next one.