Exit Strategy (10 page)

A small smile. “If you don’t mind.”

TEN

Doyle walked me to my car in the parking lot, where we talked for another ten minutes before he left.

I unlocked the rental-car door.

“’Bout time,” said a voice to my left. “You shaking down a witness? Or making a new friend?”

“With cops, I’m better at making friends,” I said, turning as Jack slid from a pickup truck’s shadow. “What happened to picking you up at the coffee shop when I was done?”

“Drank enough coffee.”

He started heading toward the passenger door, but I pulled him to a stop and handed him the keys.

“And I drank enough beer.”

I told him what I’d learned.

“I’m betting the rumors aren’t just rumors,” I said. “Maybe not the Russian mob, but Kozlov’s record does scream organized crime. Sporadic arrests, never convicted, then after one conviction, a downhill slide.”

“Washed their hands of him,” Jack said.

“But he may have earned enough clout for them to hire a lawyer for that murder charge. Either way, I shouldn’t be seen poking around Norfolk asking more questions, so maybe you—”

“Put Evelyn on it. We have an appointment.”

“Who—?”

“Called Quinn, too. He’s not talking.”

Jack’s voice and expression were passive, but his hands tightened on the steering wheel as he turned the corner.

“Not talking…? Oh, you mean about the Manson connection.”

“Yeah. Confirmed it. Won’t explain it. Protecting his sources.”

I stared out at the passing streetlights. “This Quinn. He was a cop, too, wasn’t he? Had to be, if he’s your go-to guy for police intel.”

“Not was. Is.”

Cold blasted down my spine as I swiveled to face Jack. “Jack, don’t tell me I’m working with—”

“You aren’t. That’s why.” He paused. “One reason.”

“For not meeting the others, you mean.”

“Yeah. Quinn’s legit. Not working undercover. But you two meeting?” He shrugged. “That cop at the bar? Fine. More police contact? Not if we can help it.”

“In case he recognizes me?”

Jack nodded. It took me a moment to unclog my throat and answer.

“It made national news at home.” My voice sounded odd. Like a newscaster reciting a story that had long since lost emotional impact. “And, yes, it was picked up in the States. But what makes headlines in Canada isn’t a big deal down here. No American cop would have recognized me a month later, and it’s been over six years.”

“That’s what I figured.”

I turned back to staring out the window, into the night. The distant wail of a police siren rose above the rumble of the car. I tracked the sound, wondering if it was coming or going. Unlike everyone else on the highway, I wasn’t glancing in the side mirror or checking the speedometer. For me, the wail of a siren evoked memories of home and childhood, the best and most comforting of both.

I sounded my first siren when I was three. Riding in our town’s Santa Claus parade, tucked into the front seat between my grandfather and my father. Granddad was chief of police. Dad had just made detective. An uncle and an older cousin walked behind the cruiser, stiff in their dress uniforms, struggling not to smile.

I don’t remember ever deciding I wanted to become a cop, no more than my friends consciously decided they would grow up to marry and have children. We simply assumed that was what we would do, what we needed to complete our lives.

I enrolled in police college right out of high school. My brother had already headed off to New York to pursue acting, having never shown any interest in the “family business.” When I graduated, Dad was so proud, he didn’t stop grinning for a month. My mother says it’s a good thing he died three years later, or “what happened next” would have killed him. Maybe she’s right, but I’ll never forgive her for saying it.

“What happened next” began when my partner and I were first to a crime scene. Dawn Collins, fifteen years old, brutally raped and murdered. I’d seen murder victims before. I’d seen far worse cases than this. And yet, when I walked into that room and saw Dawn, naked and curled up in the corner, her dark hair falling over her face, the cord around her neck the only sign she hadn’t just fallen asleep, something in me snapped. Not a loud snap. Not even a hard one. Just a tiny little snip, like someone had flipped off my power switch and I just…shut down. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t process. Couldn’t react.

My partner, a seasoned constable nearing retirement, had taken it in stride, presuming I was in shock and just letting me follow him as he processed the scene, calmly explaining each step, and letting me play student bystander. By the time the others arrived, I’d snapped out of it enough to do my job.

That night, the nightmares came. I’d lived with them for over a decade by then and, usually, they were the same images played and replayed—running through the forest, running for help, help for Amy, help that would never come in time. But that night after seeing Dawn Collins, I wasn’t running. I was back in the cabin, a man’s face over mine, features contorted in laughter as I screamed. Screamed in terror, in pain—screamed for Amy, screamed for my father, for anyone.

I woke up screaming. Bathed in sweat. Shaking so badly I had to gasp for breath. Twenty minutes later, two officers from my own precinct showed up at my door, responding to a call from my neighbor. By then, I was calm enough to convince them it hadn’t been me—maybe someone down the hall or a too-loud television. They bought it—even joked about it later, at the station, teasing me about who I’d been having sex with to make me scream so loud. And I laughed with them, because that’s what they expected, and because I knew no one would ever guess the truth. Nadia Stafford was not the kind of girl to wake up screaming from anything.

That night, I gagged myself before I went to bed. I knew the nightmares would come again, and they did. That crime scene had reminded me too much of Amy’s death. Once I fell asleep, I felt her panic, her terror, her agony. Knew what it was like to be a victim.

And when they caught the guy a few days later, I knew what I needed to do to make the nightmares end. I had to see Dawn get the justice that had been denied Amy. So I asked for and received permission to be in on the arrest. I wanted to see his face at that moment when he knew it was over, that justice had prevailed and he was going down.

Only it didn’t happen that way. When we picked up Wayne Franco, he was downright gleeful in anticipation of the glory and recognition to come. There was no justice forthcoming. I’d been a fool to think so. Being arrested didn’t mean you would pay the price for your crimes. Amy had taught me that.

As I stood there, watching Franco grinning, I knew I hadn’t come here to see Wayne Franco arrested. I’d come here to see Dawn Collins get justice. So I waited. And when he made the mistake of reaching into his pocket, I put a bullet between his eyes.

By waiting for my mark to make that fatal move, I’d given the department the excuse they needed, and they fell on it like shipwreck survivors spotting a lifeboat. They claimed I was acting in self-defense; who knew what the killer was pulling from his pocket? No one ever asked whether I thought my life was in danger. I’m sure they suspected the answer. In the end, they were able to take my history, couple it with a psychiatric evaluation and claim post-traumatic stress disorder, allowing me to “retire” from the force.

The media hadn’t been nearly so magnanimous.

After six months of hell, I’d cashed in my meager retirement savings, taken ten grand in “get out of our lives” money from my mother’s new husband and put a down payment on the Red Oak Lodge.

By the time we reached a motel, my reflective mood had blown over, leaving only wisps of cloud. I’m no good at brooding. After “the Incident” I think I disappointed some people by not falling into a fit of depression like some Victorian heroine, retiring to my bed and wasting away until nothing remained but a melancholy epigraph for my grave. Then there were those who wanted to see me rage into battle, fight the establishment, middle finger extended to the world. When I’d simply shrugged and started over, I robbed both groups of the chance for some classic “wronged woman” drama. But I hadn’t been wronged. I’d made a choice. I’d paid the price.

Given the chance to do it over, would I—could I—do any differently today?

Probably not.

Jack and I shared a motel room. I’ll admit when he broached the “one room or two” question, my instinctive response had been to say “two…of course.” And that wasn’t because I suspected Jack wanted more out of this partnership. In two years he’d never looked at me in a way that suggested he’d even
noticed
I was of the opposite sex.

Yet sharing a room required a whole new level of trust. If we were partners, though, this wasn’t the time to say, “Sorry, I don’t trust you enough to sleep in the same room.”

So I’d taken a deep breath, told myself “In for a penny, in for a pound” and asked him what he thought we should do. One room was safer, he said. In the future, he’d try to find suites with separate bedrooms and pullout sofas, to give me privacy, but it was too late for that tonight. So one room—two beds—it was.

The next morning after breakfast I called Emma at the lodge to check in. Then we headed out to our first stop of the day—a meeting with a contact of Jack’s in a business district that looked as if it hadn’t done much business in a while. The For Lease signs just barely outnumbered the pawnshops. After a half-block of silence, I cleared my throat.

“This guy we’re meeting, am I allowed details? Like who he is and why we’re talking to him?”

Jack skirted a trio of slow-walking seniors and didn’t speak until we’d outpaced the three by at least twenty feet.

“Saul’s retired,” Jack said. “Like Evelyn. Old pro. But more…” He paused. “Involved. Keeps his ear to the ground. Listens to gossip, rumors. These days? Nothing else to do.”

“So you trust him.”

“Don’t distrust him.”

Jack stopped in front of a dilapidated coffee shop, checked the address—or the portion of it that hadn’t peeled off the window—then opened the door.

To my surprise, the coffee shop was running at over half capacity. For a moment, I thought,
Must be good coffee
. Then I looked around at the customers, most of whom looked as if their current seat was the closest thing they had to a permanent residence. Not so much good coffee, then, as free refills, an unusually cold day and a management policy that didn’t discourage loitering.

The shop looked better inside than out. Still shabby, but clean. A pregnant server made the rounds with a coffeepot in one hand and a dishrag in the other, relentlessly hunting for half-filled cups and dirty tables. Someone was baking in the back, the sweet smell of banana muffins overpowering the faint stink of unwashed bodies.

Jack nudged me toward a late-middle-aged man sitting alone near the rear of the shop. Presumably Saul. He had the newspaper spread across his table, doing the daily crossword as he nursed a black coffee.

Balding with a fringe of white hair, Saul wore a frayed button-down shirt that had been through the laundry cycle a few too many times. Maybe he was dressing down to fit in with the other clientele, but something about his ensemble—right down to the cheap watch and worn loafers—looked more lived-in than put-on. His sallow complexion didn’t speak to many sun-drenched retirement getaways, nor did the frown lines etched into the corners of his mouth.

When Jack said Saul had retired, I don’t know what I expected, but it sure wasn’t this. The man had spent his life working a job that paid more than a surgeon’s salary.

As we approached the table, Saul looked up from his paper. His gaze went to Jack first and his frown lines rearranged themselves into a smile. He rose, hand extended. Then he saw me. He looked between Jack and me, as if measuring the distance between us. Then he leaned slightly to the side, to look past me. Jack walked over and clasped Saul’s hand, which he still held out in forgotten welcome.

“Saul. This is Dee.”

Saul snuck another peek behind me, as if double-checking to make sure I was really the person Jack was introducing. The frown lines reappeared. Deepened to fissures.

“Have you lost your mind?” Saul hissed. “What the hell are you doing, bringing a…? Goddamn it, Jack. I don’t believe this.”

“I told you I was bringing someone,” Jack said.

“A partner,” Saul said. “A work partner, not a play partner.”

“Play?” Jack looked at me, then back at Saul. “Fuck. I wouldn’t bring—Dee’s—We’re working together.”

Saul looked from me to Jack, then shook his head.

“You’re getting old, Jack,” he said. “Of all people. Jesus.”

He slapped a five on the table and walked out.

“Wait here,” Jack said to me. “I’ll bring him back.”

I shook my head. “That’s not going to help. Give me the keys, and I’ll wait for you at the car.”

Jack craned his neck to watch Saul through the windows. He dropped the keys into my hand. As he stepped away, I surveyed the table, made sure Saul, in his anger, hadn’t left anything behind. Then I wiped the coffee ring off the table, straightened the sugar and napkin containers and picked up the mug to take it to the counter.