No way out

Chapter Forty-nine

Kate and I waited outside while a paramedic tended to Peggy, Lucy staying by her side. Kate brushed dirt off my jacket.

“You’re a mess.”

“Old news.”

“Very old. You should ride with Lucy to the Farm. And call Joy. She’s probably worried about you. I know I am.”

Lucy and Adrienne Nardelli came out of Peggy’s house, Nardelli twirling one finger in the air, telling us to get the show on the road.

I settled into the front seat of Lucy’s car and called Joy, leaving a message when she didn’t pick up that I was going back to the Farm with Lucy and didn’t know when I’d be home.

“Everything okay with you and Joy?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You grimaced when she didn’t answer, and it wasn’t a happy grimace.”

“Well, she isn’t happy that Kate is working on this case.”

“Do you blame her?”

“No, but it’s not my fault.”

“Doesn’t matter. If I lost Simon, all I’d think about is how much I want him back, and, if I got him back, I’d never stop worrying that I’d lose him again.”

“Trouble is, that gate swings both ways.”

“You and Kate?”

“Yeah. We both thought we’d moved on, but neither of us has moved on as far as we’d like to believe.”

“Forget it, Jack. I like Kate, but you can’t do that to Joy, not after what she’s been through and what she’s looking at.”

“I’m not doing anything to Joy. I’m doing my job, and right now, Kate’s part of the job, but that’s all she is. The rest will work itself out.”

“That’s a half-baked commitment to doing the right thing.”

“I’m glad you’re so certain about what’s right for Joy, Kate, and me. Soon as I figure it out, I’ll be all over it.”

Lucy grasped the wheel with both hands, biting her lip.

“You’re right. I’m sorry, and I’m sorry about what I said about you knowing better than anyone what it’s like to lose a child. That was really, really stupid.”

“Except you were right about that. I do know better.”

“Even so, I shouldn’t have said it. Look what it did to you.”

I waved off her concern. “Comes with the territory. If I stopped talking to everyone who made me shake, I’d have to take a vow of silence. I can handle it if you can.”

She put the car in gear and fell in line behind Adrienne Nardelli and Kate. “So, what about Peggy? Do you think she killed her kids?”

“After that performance, no way. But if it turns out that Adam killed them, she’ll drown in a bottle before she turns forty.”

“Either way, the press will crucify her,” Lucy said. “They don’t give anybody a break because they don’t think anyone can change, turn their life around.”

“Like you did.”

She smiled. “Yeah, like I did.”

“Is that why you get your back up every time someone takes a shot at Peggy? You think she’s getting a raw deal?”

“Maybe. I guess. Probably. Look, just because she’s poor and her marriage fell apart and her husband stole so they could pay the mortgage doesn’t mean she or her kids deserve any of this.”

“It’s not about who deserves what. It’s about what happens when things go wrong and what you do about it. Besides, look at Joy and me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We had it made. We were both college graduates. I had a good job. Joy wanted to stay home with the kids. We had a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and none of that mattered. One day we let a neighbor give Kevin a ride, thinking we could trust him when all we did was deliver our son to the devil, and nothing, I mean nothing, was ever the same again. Wendy lived another twenty years, but the day we lost Kevin was the day she started to die. So zip code and tax brackets don’t have a damn thing to do with it, and if we don’t find Evan and Cara alive, Peggy Martin won’t make it either.”

“Is that why you went after Adam on your own?”

I thought of Jeannie Montgomery drifting through the crowd.

“We don’t need any more ghosts.”

Ethan Bonner was waiting for us with the jail superintendent, Annette Fibuch, when we arrived at the Farm. She had arranged for us to meet with Jimmy in the Women’s Recreation Area, just as before.

“There’s too many of us,” Kate said. “We’ll overwhelm him, and he won’t tell us his name, let alone anything else.”

“Kate can go in on her own, but I’m not letting Detective Nardelli in there without me,” Bonner said.

“I’ve got a better chance if I talk to him on my own,” Kate said.

“That’s not happening,” Nardelli said. “I don’t want you helping him get his story straight.”

“Fine,” Kate said. “Do it yourself. You’ve done a great job with him so far.”

“Detective, you can watch and listen from our security center,” the superintendent said, confirming my suspicion that our meeting with Jimmy had been monitored.

“Tell you what, Detective,” Bonner said. “Give Kate first crack at him. We’ll watch from the security center. You don’t like the way it goes, you can have the second crack.”

“You’re pretty confident,” Nardelli said.

“I like my team.”

A corrections officer took Kate to meet with Jimmy, and the superintendent took the rest of us to the security center where three officers were monitoring a dozen screens displaying every part of the Farm.

“Gene, Mike, and Cheryl,” the superintendent said to the officers. “Sorry to barge in on you. Do me a favor and pull up the Women’s Recreation Area.”

We watched the center screen on the top row, a black-and-white monitor feeding us video of Kate and Jimmy. The camera angle was distant and wide, better suited to capturing inmates dealing drugs. Facial expressions were blurred, and the audio was scratchy. Jimmy’s wrists and ankles were shackled when an officer led him into the room with Kate.

Bonner turned to the superintendent. “Annette, what’s with the restraints? Jimmy’s not dangerous.”

“He’s suspected of kidnapping and killing his children. He’s not our typical nonviolent, homeless resident. I’m not leaving him alone with a woman,” she said.

Kate said something to the officer we couldn’t make out and pointed to the restraints, the officer shaking his head, Kate pressing him, pointing to the two-way radio on his hip. The officer picked up his radio, his voice coming through a speaker on the security console.

“She wants me to take off the restraints,” the officer said.

“Absolutely not,” the superintendent said.

Kate grabbed the radio from the officer. “Keep him shackled and I’m wasting my time. Leave the officer outside. Leave the door open if that will make you feel better, but take off the restraints or I’m walking.”

The superintendent looked at Nardelli and Bonner, both of whom nodded, though I didn’t like it, remembering too well that I’d nearly gotten Kate killed a couple of years ago when I let her talk me into taking a chance that made more sense than this one did.

“Kate,” I said, “go out in the hall where Jimmy can’t hear us.”

She disappeared from the monitor, popping up on another one displaying the hallway.

“Okay. I know what you’re thinking, Jack, but this is different. I’ve had time to study Jimmy. His fight is with his wife, not me. I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be even better if he stays shackled.”

“Stop worrying. I know what I’m doing.”

“Kate, this is a bad idea.”

“Good or bad, it’s not your decision. It’s mine, and I’ve made it.”

I looked at the superintendent. “You heard her.”

“Okay,” the superintendent said, letting out a long sigh. “Let me talk to my officer.”

We watched while he removed Jimmy’s handcuffs and motioned him to sit down so he could remove his ankle shackles. Jimmy smiled at Kate, and when the officer knelt at his feet and freed his legs, he clasped his hands together, raining double-fisted, rapid-fire hammerhead blows on the officer’s neck. The officer collapsed, and Jimmy jumped to his feet, kicking him in the face. Kate started to run, but he grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her, pulling a shiv from his waistband, jamming it against her cheek, and, using her as a human shield, pushed her out into the hall.