Deviations (25 page)

He smiled at me. “Well, you were a little beat-up
there, anyway,” he said, referring to my scrapes from out at Lake Hollow.

“Just so I can keep track of why different people
are trying to kill me, what’d I do to piss off Andrew Howell?”

“He thought you killed Willson Fredericks.”

“I told him it was a heart attack.”

Ryan was shaking his head. “Howell thought it was
a heart attack caused by stress from the investigation. But it was a suicide.”

I was feeling a little disoriented, still shaking
a little. “Allan Friedman gave me this,” Ryan said, pulling a sheet of paper
out of his jacket pocket and handing it to me.

My dearest
Andrew-

The
police have decided to blame me for the murder of Senator Weston. They have
concocted a narrative in which I have conspired with members of the patriot
movement to carry out illegal operations, and in which I am responsible for
that murder—or I know who was.

It is not true. I had
nothing to do with the murder. However, they are intent on pressing their case.
Someone must be held responsible, and it appears to be me. They will prosecute
me and perhaps convict me. Regardless of whether I am convicted or exonerated, whether
I am incarcerated or not, I will be killed by the patriots.

I do not care about
myself. My work here is done. But I will not let them persecute you or harm you
in any way. They will find you and destroy you. Therefore, I have resolved to
take this action. My death will appear to be a heart attack.

But I could not
depart without telling you that our love has been my greatest achievement. My
final thoughts are of you. I ask only that you hold me in your heart as long as
you can.

Always,

Willson

I had a fuzzy memory of Allan Friedman telling me
something about how the Willson Fredericks death was a matter for local law
enforcement. “You say the FBI guy gave you this?”

“That’s right.”

“So he was on the scene of Fredericks’ suicide and
got the note there?”

“Either that or he got it from one of the unis who
responded when Fredericks didn’t show up at class.”

“Andrew Howell never saw this note, then.”

“Correct.”

“And Howell thought we killed Fredericks.”

“That’s right,” Ryan said.

“How’d Fredericks kill himself?”

“Not sure. Probably just bought some epinephrine
tablets over the counter. You know, Primatene? Enough of them will give you
fatal ventricular arrhythmias. You get a heart attack or stroke out.”

“And nobody knows it was a suicide.”

“All they know is you’re dead,” Ryan said.

“So Andrew Howell thought we were framing Willson
Fredericks for Dolores Weston?” Ryan just looked at me, not saying anything.
“What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Ryan said.

“You believe that?”

He shook his head. “I … I don’t really know what I
believe.”

“Why would Allan Friedman want to frame
Fredericks? Friedman doesn’t care about closing a case here in Rawlings. All he
cares about is getting Weston’s killer and signaling to the patriots that
they’ve gotta control their own guys.”

“That’s what I want to think,” Ryan said.

“What’s the problem? We leaned on Fredericks a
little because he had crossed over from being a professor to being an operative.
You know, those emails to BC. He got scared, wanted to spare his boyfriend from
the embarrassment or whatever of getting outed or being in with the patriots,
so he killed himself. It’s too bad and all, but we didn’t kill him.”

Ryan was looked down at his hands, which were
tracing the bottom of the steering wheel.

“What’s going on, Ryan? What is it?”

“Fredericks’ death was reported as natural causes,
but Friedman pulled me aside and gave me the suicide note.”

“Yeah, I got that. What are you saying?”

“I think he was saying we ought to keep an eye on
Andrew Howell.”

“To see if he was BC?”

Ryan shook his head. “No, Friedman knew Howell
wasn’t BC.”

“Did he say that?”

“No, but there was no BC.”

“How do you know?”

“Remember we told Friedman there was this guy
named Benjamin Connors who kept showing up in Willson Fredericks’ articles but
we couldn’t figure out who he was? And Friedman asked us how we spelled
Connors?”

“You’re saying we fed him the name and he just
used the initials? So Friedman had us chasing our own tails?”

“That’s what I think happened.”

“So Howell was telling the truth?” I said.

“About that, yes.”

“How do you know that?”

“When Friedman gave me the suicide note, I tracked
down Andrew.”

“How’d you do that? There was nothing on the
note.”

“I went back to the university. I took Jorge, and
we went into his email.”

“You went to the chief to get permission again?”

“No, I just went to the university attorney, and
since she okayed the search on Allan Friedman’s request she interpreted my
search as part of the same thing.”

“Okay, you got back to his email at the
university. And?”

“He had a bunch of emails to Andrew. I went to
Andrew’s service provider and got his information.”

“All right, so how does that say Howell was
telling the truth about how there wasn’t a BC?”

“When Jorge and I were in Willson Fredericks’ account,
I had my copies of the BC emails in my hand.”

“Yeah?”

“The BC emails were phony. They didn’t exist.”

“What?”

“I’m saying Allan Friedman made them up.”

Which explained why Jorge had told me he hadn’t
gone out to the university with Allan Friedman—when he was Nick Corelli—to look
at the emails. Allan Friedman custom ordered the incriminating emails from
Washington. “Okay, and why do you think he did that?”

“I think he did that so he could hang the Weston
murder on Willson Fredericks.”

I thought about that a second. “I don’t know. That
could buy him some strokes in Washington—at least for a while. But if it gets
back to his bosses that he framed a professor who was innocent? That can’t help
your career.”

“How would the FBI know Fredericks was innocent? Look
at what we’ve got now. Friedman can report that he’s got Weston’s killer.”

“Ryan, do you know what happened out at Lake
Hollow?”

“Just that you got roughed up.”

I was feeling too wrung out to go into the whole
story now, and Ryan was looking upset enough as it was. “Allan Friedman did get
Weston’s killer. He was a lone wolf named Leonard Woolsey.”

“I didn’t see anything about that.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You didn’t. It wasn’t
reported. I got roughed up by Woolsey. The FBI team came in and took him out.”

“What you’re saying is that Friedman framed
Willson Fredericks for the Weston murder, then got the real killer: Leonard
Woolsey.”

“I don’t think that’s it, Ryan. I think Friedman
made up the emails just so we could put some pressure on Willson Fredericks to
see if he would lead us to Weston’s killer. Fredericks just reacted wrong.”

“So the suicide was collateral damage?” Ryan said.

“That’s how I’d like to think of it.”

We sat there for a while. Ryan was looking miserable.

I said, “What is it?”

“I should have told the chief about Andrew Howell.
Maybe I could have prevented tonight.”

“Why didn’t you tell the chief?”

“The way Friedman gave me the suicide note—rather
than giving it to the chief—I just had a hunch he was telling me to look into
this on my own time, quietly.”

“Why?”

“Maybe Friedman and the chief had an arrangement:
the chief would be silent about the phony emails. In exchange, Friedman would
help the chief out by alerting him to a threat to one of his detectives. I
really have no idea what happened.”

I didn’t, either. “I don’t see how anyone could’ve
prevented Howell coming at me tonight.”

“If we’d had him on a round-the-clock surveillance,
we could have.”

“Ryan, you know we don’t have the resources for
that. There’d have to be solid intel this guy is coming after me before any chief
would authorize that.”

We sat there, lights coming on in the houses up
and down the street.

“Another way to look at what’s happened,” Ryan
said. “Two civilians knew the emails were phony, right?”

“Willson Fredericks and Andrew Howell.”

“Fredericks took himself out,” Ryan said. “And you
just took out Howell.”

“Friedman told you to check out Howell. You do it.
If Howell goes into a fetal position because his boyfriend is dead, or leaves
town, end of story. You stop looking at him. No harm done. If Howell goes
batshit, like he did, busts into my house, he’s holding a gun, starts coming at
me, what am I supposed to do?”

“You’re supposed to incapacitate him.”

“Which I did.”

“I understand that,” Ryan said. “I just don’t like
the thought that we’re mopping up for Friedman after he manufactured evidence
against Willson Fredericks.”

We were silent for a little while. It was a nice
night, people coming out to walk around after dinner. About twenty people were
gathered outside my house. A gunshot, six squad cars with sirens, an ambulance,
some yellow tape: people get curious.

Ryan said, “I noticed Howell’s trigger finger was
broken.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You remembered the Krav Maga training.”

“Apparently,” I said. “Don’t really remember what
happened.”

“That’s good,” Ryan said. “If it’s not instinct,
you’ll go too slow. Get yourself killed.”

“I don’t mind dying.” I turned to him. “But I do
know one thing: I’m not gonna let myself get attacked again. Not by anyone.
Ever.” I looked down at my beat-up hands.

“Karen,” Ryan said, gently. I turned to him. “What
happened at Lake Hollow?”

“I told you. Friedman and the other FBI guys took
out Weston’s killer, and Christopher Barry’s simpleton son.”

“What happened to you at Lake Hollow?”

I shook my head. “Some stuff,” I said, dabbing at
a tear. “Nothing, really.” I turned my head to look out the side window of
Ryan’s blue Mitsubishi.

“I’m so sorry, Karen,” he said, his hand touching
my fingers. “Come here,” he said, putting his arms around me. Then I lost it.
Completely.

“I should have been there with you.”

It was a minute before I was able to talk. “No,
Ryan. It was my bright idea. All my idea.”

Chapter 24

“Police Detective Second
Grade Karen Seagate arrived home last night at around 8:45
pm
, when she was attacked, in her own
house, by a man later identified as Andrew Howell. Mr. Howell was armed with
both a knife and a pistol. When Mr. Howell advanced on Detective Seagate in a
threatening manner with the pistol, she used appropriate means of self-defense,
breaking his nose. In addition, she wrested control of his pistol. When he
continued to approach her in a threatening manner, Detective Seagate discharged
the pistol, the single bullet lodging in his chest. He expired at the scene.

“All officer-involved shootings are automatically
subject to a thorough investigation, but I can say that the preliminary
evidence indicates that Detective Seagate acted in an exemplary manner, first
by attempting to stop the attacker using non-lethal force and disarming him, and
then by using appropriate force to defend herself in what was clearly a
life-threatening situation. If there are any questions, I’ll take them now.”

A young reporter from Channel 5 spoke up. “Chief,
do you have any motive in the Howell attack?”

“Unfortunately, not at this time,” the chief said.
“We suspect it was a burglary gone wrong. Detective Seagate had just returned
home from grocery shopping, and we believe she caught Mr. Howell in the act.”

“Chief,” said a reporter from the paper, “you’re
saying this Mr. Howell decided to burgle the home of a detective? He did not
know Detective Seagate?”

“We believe that Mr. Howell did not know Detective
Seagate. Mr. Howell had some misdemeanors a number of years ago, as well as several
traffic violations, but he had had no official contact with Detective Seagate.
He is not a suspect in any current investigation, nor has he been questioned by
the Rawlings Police Department in relation to any current or past investigations.”

“Chief Murtaugh,” another TV report said, “can you
give us an update on the Senator Weston investigation?”

“That investigation is open and remains the
highest priority for the Rawlings Police Department. We are pursuing all leads
aggressively, and I will issue a statement if we have any news to announce.”

“But you have nothing to report now?” the TV
reporter said.

“Unfortunately, no,” the chief said.

I turned off the TV. The chief was pretty cool.
Everything he said about my relationship with Andrew Howell—my lack of a
relationship—was technically true, but really a big-assed lie. There was
nothing to connect Howell to anyone in the department, including the chief.
Special Agent Allan Friedman had never even officially set foot in Montana, of
course, and I wasn’t counting on him to suffer an attack of conscience and show
up all blubbering on TV about how he pushed this professor too far so he killed
himself and his boyfriend flipped out and attacked a cop and got killed.

I’ll never know exactly what Andrew Howell was
planning to do that night in my house. “Planning to do” was maybe the wrong
phrase. I think he was just real busted up about losing his boyfriend—and
thinking we killed him. Maybe he was going to kill me, then kill himself. His
knife was sharp, his pistol loaded. He might have done it. Too bad he never got
a chance to think about what Willson Fredericks did to protect him. Whether
that would have made any difference, you never know. But you don’t often see
that kind of selfless love. I don’t, anyway.

I’d discharged my weapon only once before, in a
Domestic Disturbance, when I had to stop a guy who was going to kill Ryan. I
think I’ll be okay with the investigation of the Howell shooting. Like the chief
said, I used appropriate force. A guy comes at you with deadly intent, you fire
at him. And if you fire, you aim to incapacitate him. That means you go for the
torso. Maybe I could have aimed for a limb, but I didn’t know how many rounds
were in his pistol, and if you go for a limb and you miss, or he keeps coming
at you, and you’re out of rounds—well, you’re shit out of luck. Maybe I could
have aimed a little lower, at his guts, so he maybe could have survived. And
strapping on a new colostomy bag couple times a day might have helped him remember
why he shouldn’t have come after me. But I didn’t see that as a chance I needed
to take.

I’ve got nothing against the guy personally. But
he was in my damn kitchen, holding a knife to my throat, threatening to kill
me, waving a pistol around. Like I told Ryan, I’m not going to let anyone
attack me. Next person who tries, I kill him—or die trying.

I know that’s not the right way to think about
things. Every situation is different. Not every attack is going to kill me, and
so I should be concentrating on making an appropriate response. I know I
should. But at this point, I’m going to keep it simple: I kill him. Does that
make sense?

Maybe my thinking will change when I get farther
away from this. But my hunch is you never really get past some things. The
things that people did to you, the things you did to yourself. They get into
you and become part of you. If you’re lucky, scar tissue grows around them and
you can keep going, the way some veterans carry around slugs or shrapnel. They
limp a little or can’t do some things they used to do. But they keep going.
That’s the important thing.

The bad things change you, but they don’t become
you. At least, I hope they don’t. You should try not to let them become you.
You should work real hard at it. What I’ve learned, you have to work real hard
at almost everything.

Leonard Woolsey was gone, and so was Ricky
Sidoway. Willson Fredericks and Andrew Howell were gone. Dolores Weston was
gone, and her three kids were never going to know why she was killed. I hoped
the three of them had their own people who could help them get through it.
Maybe the three of them were their own people.

The other stuff, though—the unanswered questions
about what Friedman and the chief did or didn’t do, what they knew or didn’t
know—all of that would take me and Ryan a little while to work through. The line
between right and wrong can get a little blurry on this job, and sometimes
innocent people die because of it. And that’s even if everyone is trying to do
the right thing—which you can never be certain they are.

Not knowing Ryan all that well, I wasn’t sure if
he knew how complicated things can get. I knew, of course, because I’m older
and I’ve seen some things. I didn’t want him thinking he could have prevented
what happened to me. I was the one decided to go out to Lake Hollow on my own.

I’ll be on the lookout for any signs he blames
himself. I’ll be there to help him, any way I can, over the next weeks and
months. However long he needs. I want to. He’s my partner.

* * * *

“Karen? Robin.”

“Hey, Robin, what’s up?” Her call surprised me.

“Just wanted to let you know that I put the blood
panels for Dolores Weston in her file. We got the results when you were on
leave. She was clean.”

It was my first day back from the fourteen-day
medical leave. “Yeah, good, thanks. I sorta figured she’d be.” With the blood
panels in, we had completed the forensics. The Weston case would now stay open
forever, since the murderer officially died in a DUI and would never be
connected to the case.

“There’s something else I wanted to mention,
Karen.”

“Yeah?” I was curious about how she was talking, because
Robin never tiptoed around. When she had something to say, she just said it.

“I got this friend over at the hospital—she’s a
lab tech? She told me something weird happened over there couple weeks ago,
maybe you should know about it.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, she didn’t want to go into all the details,
but something about how one day the head of her department tells her to delete
some shit from the system.”

“What kind of shit, Robin?”

“I don’t know. Just that she’d spent a few hours
doing some procedure, then her boss tells her to destroy the data.”

“Your friend, is she the kind of person who does
what she’d told?”

“Please, Karen. You know I don’t have any friends
like that.”

“She say she might want to get together with me for
a cup of coffee?”

“As a matter of fact, she did. Says she has an
envelope for you.” Robin paused. “You have any idea what she’s talking about?”

“I think I might.”

“You want her number?”

“Yeah, give me her number.”

###