Buried (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (28 page)

“You know, I think so too. It could be why I am asking it.”

Ellie considered it. “I am none of those things, especially the wife part … I don’t have one, though I understand it is now possible in a few states were I so inclined. Can you be more specific?” She closed her screen and put her chin in the cradle of her hands.

He didn’t look exactly smug, but it was close. “I have absolutely no proof at this point, but I am going to bet every dollar I have—which is not a lot, by the way, but let’s focus on the all-I-have-part—that Garrison Henley is not the father of Joanne Fielding’s kid.”

“Oh good.” Ellie gave him an admittedly contemptuous look. “Thank you for restating what she’d already told us. I talked to her a few hours ago. She said the same thing then.”

Santiago leaned forward intently, his good arm planted on her desk. “Ellie … I have a kind of crazy idea. Care to hear it?”

She wasn’t sure. His expression gave her pause and he almost never called her by her first name. It must have just slipped out. “What?”

His blue eyes were electric. “Did you know that the Republican Party has been tossing around the idea of Henley Sr. for governor?” Santiago looked almost diabolically elated. “He has money, clout, and charisma, the works.”

Pretty much what Joanne had told her. “I know all that.”

“Though the drug rumors have surfaced, even Lieman says the business is so tightly run he hasn’t been able to get warrants yet and he has been working the case for almost two years. At the moment there is nothing in the way of Ely Henley getting a nomination. Except maybe Joanne.”

“Joanne? You mean in case she claims Garrison is the father of her child? She doesn’t. Her husband may have thought so, but—”

“Not Garrison. Ely.”

She sat there, letting it sink in.
Ely Henley? Really?

Santiago shook his head and went on emphatically. “Hey, no one gives a shit if his son fathered a child with someone he wasn’t married to. It happens every single damn day. But if you are
already
married and screwing your son’s girlfriend and want to be governor, it makes you look pretty bad. Allegations like that have screwed more than one career.”

She didn’t disagree. “You think Garrison’s
father
was having an affair with Joanne?”

“You do remember she worked there for a few years.”

“Yes.”

“Good-looking older man who is your boss? Yeah, that’s never happened. Oh, she was having it on with Garrison too, or he wouldn’t have first said yes to the test. You know, I can’t say that I blame Fielding for flipping when he figured it all out, and for maybe bowing out of that picture. And it explains why Garrison was open enough to a paternity test, but his father said hell no, don’t do it, son. Those things are pretty fine-tuned as I understand it. What might come up is that our good friend Garrison is as innocent as the day he was born, but that a close male relative is the papa. The American people would hate that. Bye-bye Mr. Governor.”

Joanne’s reticence came to mind. “I suppose that is possible.”

“Henley would want to keep it quiet. He has motive, and he has the money and unsavory connections to pull it off.”

“We have no proof of this.”

“No. But one blood test will do it. Then the whole game changes. Besides, I’m going to guess the two assholes the deer caught for us will talk when they realize we’ve figured it out.”

It was possible, but Ellie doubted they could be traced back to Henley. They were most probably part of the business running money through his stores. If she had to call it, neither one was in the country legally. “They are just hired thugs. They won’t know if we’ve figured it out or not.”

But this theory was plausible … she just wasn’t sure it was going to be easy to prove. “Even if he is the father, it is one big step from trying to squelch a scandal to three dead police officers.”

“It occurs to me that whoever he is in bed with financially might benefit greatly by having a governor in their pocket. Whether he asked for help or not to tidy up this little mess, maybe they took the initiative. Lieman has indicated this is one big case.”

“Henley must have threatened Joanne.”

“Ya think? Of course he did. But you see, now we have two men in custody, we have Joanne, and we have Lieman. Or will eventually when he can talk. Henley is in some deep shit.”

She murmured, “I hope so.”

As irreverent as ever, Santiago said, “My arm completely agrees with you. Hell, I’m having trouble lifting my beer. I wonder if I can sue him for that. Let’s go.”

Chapter 25

The house was on fire.

He’d tried to stop it, but the old boards were like tinder and went up quickly. Finally he jumped out a second-story bedroom window, hit the porch roof, the wood scraping his flesh, his breath leaving his lungs, before he rolled and fell the rest of the way onto the pine needles and dirt.

Acrid air scorched his throat once he could draw a breath. He could hear the crackle of the flames, the hiss of the hungry inferno, and feel the blistering heat of it.

Then he saw her. Standing in the swirl of smoke, her expression hard and unapologetic, demonically lit by the blaze, her hair wild, and when she turned and walked into the darkness he wondered for a moment if it was all some sort of macabre dream.

No, it wasn’t. He knew that as he struggled to his feet.

This was a hell of his own making.

God help him.

*   *   *

They probably were
a mismatched set, Jason decided when the door of the Henleys’ ostentatious house opened and a middle-aged woman who managed to ooze elegance in a pair of tan slacks and a silk scarlet blouse looked at them as if she’d rather have had a dead cow wash up on her neatly paved walkway in a sewer flood.

Grasso was as tailored as ever in a neat white shirt even without his tie, pants unwrinkled, and Ellie was pretty even with the hint of fatigue in her face, her smooth hair shining. Jason figured he might be the one who raised that perfectly plucked eyebrow. True, he hadn’t done much more than put on a clean pair of jeans, and because he still had on the sling he despised, he’d just pulled on a white T-shirt and slung a denim shirt over the whole ensemble. Shaving also hadn’t been much of an option considering he could barely move his arm, so he’d decided to forget it.

Scruffy cop, pretty cop, rich cop. Okay, he fit his part well enough.

“Mrs. Henley.”

“Lieutenant.” She inclined her head at Grasso but it was stiffly, her gaze slightly hostile.

“This is Detective Santiago and Detective MacIntosh. Can we please speak with your husband?” Grasso was polite but his voice held an inflexible edge.

“He isn’t here.” Mrs. Henley wanted to close the door. They could all feel it.

Ellie held out her badge even after the introduction. “When do you expect him?”

“He and Garrison went down to the marina on Lake Michigan. We have a boat there. The weather is going to be too cold to take it out soon and we’re going to close it up.” She narrowed her eyes. “May I ask why you are here again?”

“The slip number would be helpful.”

Mrs. Henley obviously knew something was up. “It’s that urgent?”

Grasso said smoothly, “It could be. I assume you want to help us.”

“Don’t assume anything.”

Now there was the cold voice of a woman who could make a great governor’s wife, Jason thought. It got under his skin. He said bluntly, “We need to ask him about three murders and see if there is probable cause to arrest him. Two suspects are already in custody who might testify, and my painkillers are wearing off from where they shot me last night.” He added without any finesse at all, “Give us the information we want right now, please. If he’s innocent, it won’t hurt anything. If you think he is possibly not quite so angelic, then that makes you an accessory after the fact if you don’t speak up. Got it?”

Indignation tightened her features. He could swear she almost said
how dare you
?

With impressive politeness, she asked, “What is it you think he might know?”

To Jason’s surprise, it was Ellie who said, “Is it possible he might be able to give us information on Joanne Fielding’s connection to your family.”

Nicely done. No accusation. Just a blunt statement.

“My husband?”

Holy shit. The woman knew. Jason saw it in her face. He was right, but then again, it was all a little wrong, so it was impossible to feel justified, so he just asked as quietly as possible, “Ma’am, if you could just give us the slip number, we’ll just get out of your hair. Seems fair enough, right?”

She gazed at him, her eyes disillusioned. “You know, it does seem fair enough, Detective. I am sick of his shit. Let me tell you exactly where to find Ely.”

*   *   *

“Lake Michigan is
the largest single lake contained in one country in surface area, though Lake Baikal in Russia has more volume. It is the fifth-largest lake in the world. Michigan has an average depth of 286 feet, and is 307 miles long.” Ellie had read up on it before her move to Milwaukee. She was a lot more used to small lakes surrounded by woods with clear water and the typical game fish.

“I guess they left the part about the science lesson off the brochure when they were advertising this tour.” Santiago gave her one of his usual sardonic stares as they walked along the pier. The breeze ruffled his already unruly curls. “I might have skipped it if I had known. Is there a test at the end? I think I left my notebook behind.”

Coolly, she rejoined, “You weren’t officially invited on the tour. Metzger said specifically for you to go home and stay out of it. That you want to be here is your own decision, and for your information, my official stand on it is that you should maybe still be in the hospital.”

He ignored the comment, which did not surprise her. “I grew up here and I could have saved you some research time on LM. Here it is in a nutshell. The lake is big. Use your eyes. Big.”

“The simplistic approach.” Grasso’s gun looked stark against the pristine material of his shirt in his shoulder holster. “You are good at that one, Detective.”

“I try.”

The water smelled faintly briny, like the ocean, but there was a distinct freshness that was different, Ellie thought. And he was right,
big water
. With rows of expensive boats all bobbing gently in the light wind coming in from the northeast, which might have been why she wished now she’d worn a jacket. The city lights gleamed over the rippling black waves, making diamond-bright moving reflections. The marina was surprisingly busy considering the sun was going down, reddish against the horizon, sending out fingers of brilliant crimson.

Pretty picture that was postcard worthy. She could see the allure. If she had the money, she’d like a nice yacht and to relax with a glass of wine on deck on a sunny day in a place like this.

“I should have gone into a life of crime.” Santiago was gazing at a beauty of a boat with clean lines and a massive hull and what looked like a mahogany deck. “Holy Christ, some of these boats are worth more than my apartment complex.”

There were times in every police officer’s life that that thought surfaced. Not usually with any seriousness, but it did seem to be a disparate lifestyle. Ellie had to agree, at least a little. “I was kind of thinking the same thing, but being able to look in the mirror and like what you see isn’t a bad feeling either. Do either one of you have the slightest idea exactly where we are in terms of the boat owned by the Henleys?”

“Just ahead.” Grasso pointed.

“That one?”

The unmistakable sound of gunfire was her answer.

“Oh fuck.” Santiago muttered the two words and Ellie saw the glint of his weapon as he jerked it out. Grasso was already on the move, heading down the docks, and she sprinted after them both, cursing whatever gene made men faster than women. It didn’t help that the world was a flash of masts and moving boats and the sun was going down quickly enough to wash the scene like a fine sheen of blood.

Man down
. She saw the figure before she heard Grasso utter the words, and by then she’d gained on Santiago, no doubt because the idiot should be at home in bed. Water churned and she saw a boat—large and low—with a running engine, start to move, as if it was leaving the dock.

Grasso stopped at the fallen figure, but she caught a glimpse of the spreading pool of blood and she went past at a dead run, letting him deal with it.

“Police.” She shouted it but the motor wasn’t exactly quiet and apparently the boat was still moored, because the entire dock shuddered enough she felt the impact as whoever was at the helm tried to leave without untying it.

Was that even possible?

Maybe. The surface under her feet moved again. Not much, but there was a screech from the metal pieces that held the moorings, and she fought to keep her balance.

There was no conscious decision. Ellie jumped for it, going sprawling onto the back deck, hearing the groan as the anchors for the ropes began to tear free. Behind her someone shouted. As she was just getting to her knees another jerk sent her back down and a cleat flew by her head in a lethal hiss and broke the actual back window of the yacht itself.

The vessel rocked, the engine gunning into a high pitch, and she was suddenly sliding as yet another lurch seemed to free them from the dock. Almost immediately the boat felt lighter and whoever was steering throttled it successfully out of the marina before turning the boat to face open water. Buoys rocked on either side as they passed.

Black water, the roar, and then she was skidding to the edge as whoever was in charge hit full throttle, slamming her into the railing, which she gripped with one flailing hand. Spray splashed her face.

She was suddenly being hauled off across the lake on a speeding boat in the dark.

Big water.

With a murderer.

This roller-coaster ride surely had to end soon, she thought as she tried to slither to a more advantageous position, but whoever was at the helm really, really wanted to put some distance between himself and that body on the dock.