Redemption Road

10

Elizabeth drove and tried to get her head around what had just happened in the church. Forget the body, the fact of another death. That was too big and too sudden. She’d need time to process what it meant, so she thought about Beckett instead. He wanted to help-she understood that-but she despised the church in a way he could never understand. It was old, that hatred, twined so deeply into Elizabeth’s soul that it was hard to stand before the altar of her youth and be objective about anything. She felt small there, and angry and betrayed. That was a tough combination; so, in the quiet of her car, she focused on the one thing that mattered now.

Was she right to believe in Adrian?

They’d never been close in any of the normal ways. He was the man who’d saved her life, a glow in the night of her bitter despair. Because of that, her feelings for him had never been rational. When she thought of him, she saw his face at the quarry, the steadiness and goodwill. Her faith in him only grew when she became a cop. He was bold and smart, cared about victims and their families. Yet, even when she was a cop herself, he’d maintained an aloofness. A smile here. A word there. The gestures were small and in passing, but she could not deny the feelings they’d stirred or the dangerous question such feelings raised.

Was she obsessed?

It was a difficult question, but only because she’d never asked it of herself. She was a cop because of Adrian; driven because he, too, had been driven. When his skin turned up under Julia Strange’s nails, Elizabeth had been the only one to doubt his guilt. Not his friends or peers or the jury. Even his wife seemed to fade at the end, sitting with her head down, unwilling to meet his eyes or show up for the sentencing. That thought bothered Elizabeth more now than it ever had. Why should she believe in Adrian when his own wife had not? Elizabeth disliked that kind of self-doubt, but her faith in Adrian had been blind. She’d been young, desperate to believe; and looking back, that all made sense. But was she blinded, now? Thirteen years had passed, but the murders looked the same. She could blink and lay Gideon’s mother on the same altar. What was different from one murder to the next?

She didn’t know. That was the problem. They didn’t have time of death on the new victim, but based on the body’s appearance, she most likely died after Adrian’s release from state prison. Elizabeth chewed on that for an hour and disliked the taste of such strong coincidence. She wanted to know if anything tied the new victim to Adrian-witness statements, physical evidence, anything beyond his being a convicted killer fresh off a thirteen-year stretch. Normally she could call a dozen people, but she was suspended, out of the loop; and Francis Dyer would fire her for real if she dug too deeply. She told herself to let it go. Her life was coming apart, and Channing’s was, too. Gideon was in the hospital. State cops wanted her for double homicide.

But, it was Adrian Wall.

Her father’s church.

She returned to it without conscious thought, parking on the verge to watch movement high above. The medical examiner was there. So were Beckett, Randolph, and a dozen others-techs and uniforms and somewhere, she thought, Francis Dyer. How could he not be there? Adrian had been his partner. His testimony helped bring him down.

Elizabeth lit a cigarette, then tilted the mirror to study her face. She looked drawn and bloodshot and unsure.

What if she was wrong about him?

What if she’d been been wrong all these years?

Twisting the mirror away, she smoked half the cigarette and stubbed it out. Something was not right, and it was not the church or the body or anything obvious. Was it the victim? Something about the scene? She watched the church for another five minutes and understood, suddenly, what felt so wrong.

Where was Dyer’s car?

He was the captain of detectives; this was a huge case. Dialing Beckett’s cell, she waited three rings for him to answer.

“Liz. Hi.” His voice fell, and she imagined him stepping away from the body. “I’m so glad you called. About earlier-”

“Where’s Francis?”

“What?”

“I don’t see Dyer’s car. He should be there.”

Beckett paused, his breath heavy on the line. “Where are you, Liz? Are you here at the scene? I warned you-”

But Elizabeth wasn’t listening. Dyer wasn’t at the church. She should have seen it coming. “Son of a bitch.”

“Liz, wait-”

But that wasn’t going to happen. Turning across the road, Elizabeth put the church in her blind spot and broke every speed limit heading back to town. From a hilltop two miles out, she saw steeples and rooftops and houses that showed white through the trees. Off the hill and in heavy traffic, she went right, then crossed a cobbled street and blew through the other side of town, thinking, He wouldn’t; not yet. But on the last stretch before Adrian’s burned-out farm, she saw flashing lights a mile away. The body was still in the church, and Dyer had already come to arrest his old partner. Resentment. Laziness. Hatred. Whatever the reasons, she saw it like ink on a page. They were going to lock him in a cell and find some reason to keep him there.

“It’s not what you think.”

Dyer met her when she spilled from the car. He had both hands up, backpedaling as she pushed hard between the cars, the burned-out house ten yards ahead.

“The body’s barely cold. You can’t possibly have a reason to arrest him.”

“Slow down, Liz. I mean it.”

She shouldered past uniformed officers, rounded into the same charred room, and saw Adrian, facedown in the soot. Whatever the takedown looked like, it had been violent. His shirt was torn. Smears of blood slicked his hands and face. They’d zipped his ankles and wrists, dropped him in the dirt like an animal.

Three steps in, and Dyer was already pulling her back, his hands like steel on her arm. “I want to talk to him.”

“Not a chance.”

“Francis-”

“I said that’s enough!”

He dragged her outside, cops watching, spots of red in Dyer’s cheeks. He pushed her against an oak tree, and she jerked her arm free. “This is bullshit.”

“Calm down, Detective.” Dyer used the force of his voice, the authority in his eyes. “It’s not what you think, and you’re not going to talk to him. That means I need you to step away from this arrest.” She moved right, and he moved with her. “I mean it, Liz. I’ll take you in for obstruction. I swear it.”

She pushed forward.

He placed a palm squarely on her chest. The touch was entirely inappropriate, but she saw no discomfort on his face. “I’ll cuff you,” he said. “Right in front of God and everybody. Do you want that?”

Elizabeth looked at him with new eyes. Such forcefulness was not his normal style. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

She stepped back and lifted her hands. Through the crowd, she saw Adrian in the dirt. His eyes found hers, and she felt a jolt of electricity. “Why is he in full restraints?”

“Because he’s a dangerous man.”

“Who’s under arrest for what?”

“If I tell you, will you behave?”

Resentment gathered in Elizabeth’s chest. It was an indulgent word: behave. “When have I not?”

“Just stay here. We’ll talk when this is over.”

“One question.”

He turned and held up a single finger.

“What charges?”

Dyer pointed at a red-and-white sign nailed to a blackened timber. In her lifetime, Elizabeth had seen a thousand of them just like it. It was a metal square: two words, simple.

“You’re kidding me,” she said.

“He doesn’t own the property anymore.”

Dyer walked back into the house and left Elizabeth on the periphery to watch them haul Adrian to his feet, drag him from the ruins, and stuff him in a car. She watched him go and couldn’t hide the emotion she felt. Whatever Adrian was now, he’d been a cop once, and one of the finest, not just capable but decorated, lauded. He’d suffered thirteen years behind bars for a crime she didn’t think he committed, and now, here he was, assaulted on ground he used to own.

Cuffed and stuffed.

Arrested for trespass.

Elizabeth left before Dyer could find her for a further discussion. She waited on the road, then followed a line of patrol cars to the station and watched from a distance as Adrian was manhandled from the cruiser and goose-stepped toward the secure entrance. He fought the rough treatment. The treatment got rougher. By the time he disappeared inside, he was fully off the ground: two cops holding his feet, two more at his shoulders as he struggled. Elizabeth sat in silence and stared at the door. She waited for Dyer to make an appearance, but he did not.

At the church, she decided. Because that’s how it was supposed to work. Investigate first. Then arrest.

She put the car in gear and eased away from the curb, but not before she saw the dark blue sedan parked at the edge of the secure lot. It had blackwall tires and state tags. Hamilton and Marsh, she decided.

Still in town.

Still looking for the rope to hang her.

There was a knoll that looked down on the church, and a gravel road if you knew how to find it. It bent through the trees and ended in a high glade with uninterrupted views of rolling hills and far mountains. In better times he’d gone there to be alone and think of all the good in the city. Things made sense then, the sky above and everything in its place.

But that was a long time ago.

He left the car under the canopy and moved through the grass until he could see down onto the fallen steeple and scattered cars. He knew people came to the church-the horsewoman, vagrants-so he knew someone would find the body. But it made him sick to see the police there. After so many years, the church was his special place. No one else could understand the reasons or its purpose, the void in his heart it filled so perfectly.

And the girl on the altar?

She was his, too, but not as much as the others he’d chosen, not with cops looking at her and touching her and speculating. She should be in the stillness and the dark, and he hated what was happening behind the shards of stained glass: the bright lights and jaded cops, the medical examiner going about his dull, grim business. They would never grasp the reasons she’d died or why he’d chosen her or the incentive to let her be found. She was so much more than they could ever understand, not a woman or a body or a piece of some puzzle.

In death, she was a child.

At the end, they all were.

Elizabeth went to the hospital and found that Gideon had been moved out of recovery and into a private room on the same floor. “How is that possible?”

“The cost, you mean?” The nurse was the same from earlier, a pretty redhead with brown eyes and a spray of freckles across her nose. “Your father asked for it as a charitable gesture. It’s a slow week. The hospital administrator agreed.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Have you ever argued with your father?”

Elizabeth struggled with the unexpected kindness, reminding herself that her father loved Gideon, too. “Is he here now?”

“Your father? He comes and goes.”

“How is Gideon?”

“He woke, once, but isn’t speaking. Everyone here is pretty much heartbroken for him. He’s such a tiny thing, and torn up over his mother. Everyone knows what he was planning to do with that gun, but it doesn’t matter. Half the nurses want to take him home.”

Elizabeth thanked her and tapped on Gideon’s door. There was no answer, so she went in quietly and found him asleep with tubes in his arm and under his nose. A monitor beeped with the rhythm of his heart, and he was so small beneath the sheet, the movement of his chest so barely perceived. In his whole life, the poor boy had never caught a break. Poverty. Borderline neglect. Now he was branded with this other sin. Would he forgive himself? she wondered. And if so, for what? That he’d tried to kill a man or that he’d failed?

Elizabeth stood for a long time, thinking how she might appear from beyond the open door. A stranger could misconstrue her love for the child.

Why? one might ask. He’s not even yours.

There would never be an easy answer, but were Elizabeth forced to offer reasons, they might sound like this: Because he needs me, because I’m the one who found his mother dead.

Yet, even that was not the whole truth.

Leaning closer, Elizabeth studied the narrow face and bruised eyes. He appeared eight more than fourteen, closer to dead than to living.

His eyes opened and filled with shadow. “Did I kill him?”

Elizabeth smoothed his hair and smiled. “No, sweetheart. You’re not a killer.”

She leaned closer, thinking he’d be relieved by the news. Behind the boy’s head, though, the monitor started beeping faster.

“Are you sure?”

“He’s alive. You did nothing wrong.” The monitor spiked. His eyes rolled white. “Gideon? Breathe, honey.”

The monitor began to scream. “Nurse!” Elizabeth yelled, but it was unnecessary. The door was already open, one nurse spilling in, a doctor on her heels.

The doctor asked, “What happened?”

“We were just talking…”

“What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. We just-”

“Get out.”

She stepped away from the bed.

“Now!”

The doctor bent over the boy. “Gideon. Look at me. I need you to calm down. Can you breathe? Squeeze my hand. Good boy. Look at my eyes. Watch me. Slow and easy.” The doctor breathed in, breathed out. Gideon’s fingers were twisted white, his eyes fastened on the doctor’s. Already, the monitor was slowing. “Good boy…”

“You need to go,” the nurse said.

“Can’t I just…?”

“You can’t help anyone,” the nurse said; but Elizabeth knew that was not entirely true.

Maybe she could help Adrian.

It was late afternoon when cops started rolling in from the crime scene at the church. Elizabeth was in the old Mustang when it happened, parked on a side street north of the station. It was hot outside, shadows stretching out from buildings and trees and people walking to their cars. It was a normal day for normal people. Sunset coming. Time for dinner and family, time for rest. For the cops heading to the station, it was still early. Evidence needed to be processed, reports written, plans made. Even with Adrian in custody, Dyer would want uniforms on the street and detectives flogging every thin angle. Whatever his plan, he’d want it rock solid by the earliest news cycle. That meant all hands on deck, and Elizabeth planned to use the chaos to get what she wanted.

She stayed low as the tech van rolled past and turned for secure parking behind the station. Three patrol cars followed, and then Beckett and Dyer and two different attorneys from the DA’s office. James Randolph was last: a lump in the window, a glimpse of smooth scalp and unshaven face. That’s whom she wanted, a defiant, tough old bastard who thought rules should no more than graze an otherwise honest cop. He’d actually approached her after the basement and suggested she should have ditched the bodies and never said a word about it. She’d thought he was joking at first, but his crooked face seemed serious.

A lot of woods out there, pretty lady.

A lot of deep, quiet, dark-as-hell woods.

She gave him ten minutes inside the station, then called his cell. “James, hey. It’s me.” She stared at the window near his desk, thought she saw a shadow move. “Have you had dinner yet?”

“I was about to order takeout.”

“Wong’s?”

“Am I that predictable?”

“Let me buy it for you.”

She heard his chair creak and pictured his feet going up on the desk. “It’s been a long day, Liz, and a long night, coming. How about you tell me what you want?”

“You heard about Adrian?”

“’Course.”

“I want to talk to him.”

Seven seconds ticked past. Cars moved on the street. “Crispy beef,” he said. “Don’t forget the sticks.”

They met twenty minutes later at a below-grade door set flush with the concrete wall.

“Here’s how we do this.”

He let her into the building. The hall was painted green, the floor was buffed vinyl.

“We go quick and quiet, and you keep your mouth shut. If we pass anyone in the hall, try to look humble, and remember what I said about your mouth. Any talking needs doing, I’m the one that does it.”

“I understand.”

“I’m doing this because you’re a good cop and you’re pretty, and because you’ve never cared that I’m as ugly as an old tire. None of that means I’m willing to lose my job getting you in to see this son of a bitch. Are we clear on that?”

She nodded, mouth tight.

“Good girl,” he said, and offered the only smile she was liable to see. “Tight on my six; humble fucking pie.”

She did as he asked and wasn’t surprised that they made it unseen. They’d come in low and from the side. The action would be at the sergeant’s desk near the front of the building and in the detective squad upstairs. The holding area would be a dead zone this late, and they were counting on that. Rounding a final corner, they saw a single guard at a desk near the heavy, steel door. He looked up, and James waved an easy hand. “Matthew Matheny. How’s it hanging?”

Matheny crossed his arms, looked at Elizabeth. “What’s going on, James?”

“Why don’t you catch a smoke?”

“Are you asking or telling?”

“I don’t tell you what to do. Come on.”

Matheny looked at Elizabeth, his skin washed out in the fluorescent light. Like James, he was in his fifties and bald. Unlike James, he was thin and stooped, a mean-eyed man who, every day, seemed to hate his life a little bit more. “You know who’s in there, right? Public enemy number one.” Matheny pointed. “She may as well be public enemy number two. That makes this a big goddamn favor.”

“The lady just wants a word. That’s all.”

“Why?”

“What does it matter? It’s a word, an exchange of syllables. It’s not like we’re walking him out of here. Don’t be such a girl.”

“Why do you always do that? I don’t like it, James. I never have.”

“Do what? I’m not doing anything.”

Matheny stared at Liz, doing the math. “If I say yes, we’re even. I don’t want to hear about the day ever again. It’s done. Even if Dyer himself walks in here and finds her. We’re even forever.”

“Done. Fine.”

“I can give you two minutes.”

“She wants five.”

“I’ll give you three.” Matheny stood. “He’s in the lockdown cell. All the way down on the right.”

“Why is he in lockdown?” Elizabeth asked.

“Why?” Matheny dropped keys on the desk. “Because fuck him, that’s why.”

When he was gone, she raised an eyebrow at James Randolph, who shrugged. “It’s a pretty common sentiment around here.”

“So, why is he helping us?”

“Matthew shot me on a quail hunt when we were kids. I tend to remind him about it from time to time. It irks him.”

“But, a lockdown cell…”

“I bought you an extra minute.” James unlocked the big door. “Don’t make me come in there after you.”

Elizabeth stepped into the hall, saw big cages on the right and left, the blank door of the lockdown cell at the far end. She moved deeper, and the hall darkened as old fluorescents flickered and snapped and made her uncomfortable. The place felt too much like prison, and prison, for her, was becoming a little too real. Low ceilings. Sweaty metal. She kept her eyes on the lockdown cell, which butted against the end wall. A grim affair, it had a solid-steel door, and an eight-inch cutout at face height. It was reserved for junkies, biters, the mentally disturbed. The walls and floors were padded with ancient canvas, stained with fecal matter and blood and every other possible fluid. Beyond anger, spite, and small-mindedness, no legitimate reason existed for Adrian’s confinement there.

Slipping a bolt, she opened a hinged plate and peered into the cell. For some reason she held her breath, and the silence seemed to radiate outward. No movement in the cell. No sound beyond a whisper.

It was Adrian, in the corner, on the floor. He had bare feet. No shirt. His face was tucked into knees.

“Adrian?”

The cell was dark, dim light fingering its way past Elizabeth’s head. She said his name again, and he looked up, blinking. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Liz.”

He pushed himself up. “Who’s there with you?”

“It’s just me.”

“I heard voices.”

“No.” Liz glanced down the hall. “No one else.” He shuffled closer. “Where’s your shirt? Your shoes?”

He made a vague gesture. “It’s hot in here.”

It looked it. Sweat glinted on his skin, beaded under his eyes. Parts of him seemed to be missing. The intellect. Much of his awareness. He tilted his head and sweat rolled on his face.

“Why are you here, Liz?”

“Are you okay, Adrian? Look at me.” She gave him time, and he took it. She noticed small twitches in the muscles of his shoulders, the single shudder that led to a cough. “Did something happen after they brought you in? I know it was rough, but were you mistreated? Threatened? You seem…” She trailed off because she didn’t want to finish the thought, that he seemed less.

“Darkness. Walls.” He offered a difficult smile. “I don’t do well in small spaces.”

“Claustrophobia?”

“Something like that.”

He tried to smile, but it turned into another round of coughing, another twenty seconds of the shakes. Her eyes moved down his chest, and across his stomach.

“Jesus, Adrian.”

He saw her looking at the scars and turned away. His back, though, was as bad as his chest. How many pale, white lines were there? Twenty-five? Forty?

“Adrian…”

“It’s nothing.”

“What did they do to you?”

He picked up the shirt and shrugged it on. “I said it’s nothing.”

She looked more closely at his face and saw for the first time how bones did not line up as she remembered. Shadows filled the hollow place beside his left eye. The nose was not quite the same. She threw a glance down the hall. She had minutes. No more. “Have they questioned you about the church?”

Adrian put his palms flat against the door and kept his head down. “I thought you were suspended.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Francis told me.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“To stay away from you. To keep my mouth shut and not drag you into my problems.” Adrian looked up, and for an instant the years faded. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t kill her.”

He was talking about the church, the new victim.

“Did you kill Julia Strange?”

It was the first time Elizabeth had ever questioned his innocence, and the moment stretched as muscles tightened in his jaw and old wounds pulled apart. “I did the time, didn’t I?”

His gaze, then, was clear and angry. Same Adrian. None of the weakness.

“You should have taken the stand,” she said. “You should have answered the question.”

“The question.”

“Yes.”

“Shall I answer it, now?”

The words were flat, but the stare was so intent a throb began at the base of Elizabeth’s skull. He knew what she wanted. Of course, he knew. She’d waited every day of his trial for the question to be answered. There would be an explanation, she’d thought. Everything would make sense.

But he never took the stand.

The question was never answered.

“It’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?” He watched her. “The scratches on my neck. The skin under her nails.”

“An innocent man would have explained it.”

“Things were complicated, then.”

“So, explain it now.”

“Will you help me if I do?”

There it was, she thought. The convict Beckett had warned her about. The user. The player.

“Why your skin was under Julia Strange’s nails?” He looked away, jawline clenched. “Tell me or I walk.”

“Is that a threat?”

“A requirement.”

Adrian sighed and shook his head. When he spoke, he knew how it would sound. “I was sleeping with her.”

A pause. A slow blink. “You were having an affair with Julia Strange?”

“Catherine and I were in a bad place…”

“Catherine was pregnant.”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant. That came after.”

“Jesus…”

“I’m not trying to justify it, Liz. I just want you to understand. The marriage wasn’t working. I didn’t love Catherine, and she didn’t much love me, either. The baby was a last, desperate try, I think. I didn’t even know she was pregnant until she lost it.”

Elizabeth took a step away; came back. The pieces were ugly. She didn’t want them to fit. “Why didn’t you testify about the affair? The DNA evidence convicted you. If there was an explanation, you should have given it.”

“I couldn’t do it to Catherine.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hurt her. Humiliate her.” He shook his head again. “Not after what I’d done to her.”

“You should have testified.”

“It’s easy to say that now, but to what purpose? Think about it.” He looked every inch a broken man, the face scarred, the eyes a dark stain. “No one knew the truth but Julia, and she was dead. Who would believe me if I claimed adultery as my defense? You’ve seen the trials same as me, the desperate men willing to lie and squirm and barter their souls for the barest chance of a decent verdict. My testimony would look like a string of self-serving, calculated lies. And what could I possibly get from it? Not sympathy or dignity or reasonable doubt. I’d open myself to cross-examination and look even guiltier by the end of it. No, I stared down that road more than once, thinking about it. I’d humiliate Catherine and get nothing for it. Julia was dead. Bringing up the relationship could only hurt me.”

“No one saw you together?”

“Not in that way. No.”

“No letters? Voice mails?”

“We were very careful. I couldn’t prove the affair if I wanted to.”

Elizabeth plucked at the edges. “It’s all very convenient.”

“There’s more,” he said. “You won’t like it.”

“Tell me.”

“Someone planted evidence.”

“For God’s sake, Adrian…”

“My prints in her house, the DNA-that all makes sense. I get it. I was there all the time. We were intimate. But the can at the church doesn’t fit. I was never near the church. I never drank a beer there.”

“And who do you think planted it?”

“Whoever wanted me in prison.”

“I’m sorry, Adrian…”

“Don’t say that.”

“Say what? That you sound like every convict I’ve ever met. ‘I didn’t do it. Someone set me up.’”

Elizabeth stepped back, and it was hard to hide the disbelief. Adrian saw it; hated it. “I can’t go back to prison, Liz. You don’t understand what it’s like for me, there. You can’t. Please. I’m asking for your help.”

She studied the grimy skin and dark eyes, unsure if she would help. She’d changed her life because of him, yet he was just a man, and seriously, perhaps fatally, flawed. What did that mean for her? Her choices?

“I’ll think about it,” she said and left without another word.

It took two minutes to exit the building. Randolph stayed at her side, moving her quickly down one hall and then another. At the same low door on the same side street, he walked her onto the sidewalk and let the door clank shut behind him. The sky burned red in the west. A hot wind licked the concrete as Randolph shook out two cigarettes and offered one to Elizabeth.

“Thanks.”

She took it. He lit them both, and they smoked in silence for half a minute.

“So, what is it?” She flicked ash. “The real reason?”

“For what?”

“Helping me.”

He shrugged, a misshapen grin on his face. “Maybe I dislike authority.”

“I know you dislike authority.”

“You also know why I helped you. Same reason I’d have helped you bury the Monroe brothers in the darkest woods in the deepest part of the county.”

“Because you have daughters.”

“Because fuck them for doing what they did to that girl. I’d have shot them, too, and I don’t think you should go down for it. You’ve been a cop for what? Thirteen years? Fifteen? Shit.” He sucked hard; blew smoke. “Defense lawyers would have put that girl through hell all over again, and some knee-jerk judge might let them go on a goddamn technicality. We both know it happens.” He cracked his neck, unapologetic. “Sometimes justice matters more than the law.”

“That’s a dangerous way for a cop to look at things.”

“System’s broken, Liz. You know it same as me.”

Elizabeth leaned against the wall and watched the man beside her, how light touched his face, the cigarette, the knotted fingers. “How old are they now? Your daughters?”

“Susan’s twenty-three. Charlotte’s twenty-seven.”

“They’re both in town?”

“By the grace of God.”

They smoked in silence for a moment, the lean woman, the hump-shouldered man. She thought of justice and the law and the sound his neck made when he cracked it. “Did Adrian have enemies?”

“All cops have enemies.”

“I mean inside the system. Other cops? Lawyers? Maybe someone from the DA’s office?”

“Back in the day? Maybe. For a while you couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing Adrian’s face on the screen beside one pretty reporter or another. A lot of cops resented that. You should really ask Dyer.”

“About Adrian?”

“Adrian, yeah.” James stubbed out the cigarette. “Francis always hated that guy.”

When Randolph went back inside, Elizabeth finished her cigarette, thinking. Thirteen years ago, did Adrian have enemies? Who knew? Elizabeth had been so young at the time. After the quarry, she’d managed her final year of high school and two years at the University of North Carolina before dropping out to become a cop. That made her twenty on her first day out of training, twenty and fired up and scared half to death. She wouldn’t have known the hatreds or politics; she couldn’t have.

But, she was thinking about it, now.

Following the sidewalk to the corner, she skirted a clump of pedestrians, then turned left and stepped into the street. Her car was parked a half block up on the other side. She thought about enemies; thought she was out clean.

That lasted another dozen steps.

Beckett was sitting on the hood of her car.

“What are you doing, Charlie?” She slowed in the street.

His tie hung loosely, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. “I could ask you the same thing.” He watched her cross the last bit of dark pavement. She gauged his face; it was inscrutable.

“I just stopped by,” she said. “You know. Checking on the case.”

“Uh-huh.”

Elizabeth stopped at the car. “Have you identified the victim?”

“Ramona Morgan. Twenty-seven years old. Local. We think she disappeared yesterday.”

“What else?”

“Pretty but shy. No serious boyfriend. A waitress she worked with thinks she might have had plans on Sunday evening. We’re trying to pin that down.”

“Time of death?”

“After Adrian got out.”

He dropped that on her like a rock; watched to see if she could handle it. “I want to talk to the medical examiner.”

“That’s not going to happen, and you know it.”

“Because of Dyer?”

“He wants you isolated from anything to do with Adrian Wall.”

“He thinks I’ll jeopardize the case?”

“Or yourself. Hamilton and Marsh are still in town.”

Elizabeth studied Beckett’s face, most of it lost in shadow. Even then, she could see the emotion below the surface. Aversion? Disappointment? She wasn’t sure. “Does Dyer hate him?”

He understood the question. She saw it. “I don’t think Francis hates anybody.”

“What about thirteen years ago? Did he hate anyone then?”

A bitter smile cut Beckett’s face. “Did James Randolph tell you that?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you should consider the source.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning James Randolph was everything Adrian was not. Plodding. Narrow-minded. He’s been divorced three times, for God’s sake. If anyone hated Adrian, it was Randolph.”

Elizabeth tried to work that piece into the puzzle.

Beckett slid off the car and thumped the fender, changing the subject. “I didn’t know you were still driving this rust bucket.”

“Sometimes.”

“What year is it again?”

She watched his face, trying to catch the angles. Something was happening, and it wasn’t about the car. “’Sixty-seven,” she said. “I paid for it working summer jobs. It was pretty much the first real thing I ever bought by myself.”

“You were eighteen, right?”

“Seventeen.”

“That’s right. Seventeen. Preacher’s daughter.” He whistled. “Lightning in a bottle.”

“Something like that.” She didn’t mention the rest: that she’d bought the car two weeks after Adrian Wall stopped her from jumping to her death in the cold, black waters of the quarry; that she would drive it for hours on end; that for more years than she cared to count, it was the only good thing in her life. “What’s with all the questions, Charlie?”

“There was this rookie, once.” The transition was seamless, as if they’d been speaking of rookies all along. “This would be twenty-five years ago, before your time. He was a nice enough guy, but all elbows and apologies. Follow? Not cop. Not street. Anyway, this poor bastard went through the wrong door on the wrong side of town and ended up with a couple junkies on his chest and the business end of a broken bottle against his neck. They were going to cut his throat, kill him right there.”

“Then you came through the door and saved his life. It was your first shoot. I’ve heard the story.”

“Give the lady a gold star. Do you remember the name of the rookie I saved?”

“Yeah. It was Matthew…” She looked down. “Shit.”

“Finish it.”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“Come on, Liz. I gave you the gold star. Matthew what?”

“Matthew Matheny.”

“The moral of the story is that a man like Matheny feels more loyalty to the man who saved his life than to the fifty-year-old version of some dumb-ass kid who got peppered in the leg with bird shot. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”

“Does Dyer know?”

“Hell, no. He’d burn this place to the ground and take you with it. The only thing between here and there is me.”

“Then why are you beating me up about this?”

“Because bright and early tomorrow this street will be elbow deep in news crews from as far away as DC and Atlanta. By sunset, it’s headline news from coast to coast. We’ve got dead women draped in linen, a murderer ex-cop, a shot-up kid, and a tumbledown church straight out of some goddamn gothic masterpiece. The visuals alone will take it national. You want to get sucked into that story? Now, when the AG already wants you for double homicide?”

“Who put Adrian in lockdown?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“He’s claustrophobic. Was it Dyer?”

“Goddamn, Liz. What is it with you and stray dogs?”

“He’s not a dog.”

“Dog. Convict. Lonely ass kid. You can’t save every little thing.”

It was an old argument that felt deeper than usual. “What if someone set him up?”

“Is that what this is? Seriously? I told you, Liz. He’s a convict. Convicts are players.”

“I know. It’s just-”

“It’s just that he’s wounded and alone, right? You don’t think he knows that’s your weakness?” Beckett looked suddenly resigned, the frustration draining away. “Give me your hand.” He took it without waiting, then used his teeth to pull the cap off a pen. “I want you to call this number.” He wrote a number on the back of her hand. “I’ll call him first. Tell him to expect you.”

“Who?”

“The warden. Call him in the morning, first thing.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re lost in the wasteland, Liz. Because you need a way out, and because you won’t believe the things he’ll tell you.”