Sense of Deception (31 page)

“Dory?” came a voice from the back of the house. “Who's here?”

I leaned to the side a little to see around her, but her form was blocking the hallway. “Just some people asking about Noah,” she called back.

“Are they reporters?” he said, and I could hear a note of eagerness in his voice.

“No, Ted,” she said. “Go back to your ESPN.” Then she turned to me and said, “If you were reporters, he'd be all over you to give his opinion. That man loves to talk.” She laughed and nudged me as she said it, and I chuckled right along. Mostly at the irony.

“So,” I said, trying to get the conversation back on track, “the night of the murder, you and your husband were sound asleep and you heard, what? Screams?”

Doreen shook her head. “No,” she said. “I heard this pounding, like, bam, bam, bam, bam!” She took a moment to demonstrate on her own door how loud it had been. “Woke me out of a dead sleep,” she continued. “I jumped out of bed, heart racing, and ran to the door, thinking there was a fire or something.”

I held up a finger. “Wait,
you
ran to the door? Your husband didn't go with you?”

She laughed. “Ted couldn't run if his life depended on it.”

I didn't get the inference, but I said, “Ah,” and pretended to make a note on the small pad of paper I'd brought with me. “So you left him in the bedroom, and rushed to the door.”

She appeared thoughtful for a moment, and said, “No. No, he was asleep on the couch. I remember because when I opened the door and found Skylar standing there all bloody and hysterical, I had to yell a few times for him to come to the door and help me.”

“Does your husband often sleep on the couch?” Oscar asked.

“Sometimes,” Doreen said, and then she cast suspicious eyes at him. “Why?”

Oscar offered her a sheepish smile and a little white lie. “I snore. My wife keeps telling me to move to the couch, but it's not very comfortable.”

“So, Ted would've been at the rear of the house, I assume?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“And he didn't hear anything unusual coming from the Millers' backyard?” I asked.

“Naw,” she said. “He was fast asleep until I started yelling for him.”

“Are you sure, Doreen? Maybe he heard something and went back to sleep?” I asked the question because I wanted to see if maybe they'd had a conversation about it, which I wanted to believe had been Ted's cover story. That he'd been fast asleep on the couch when really he'd been sneaking back in from the yard.

“Well, you can ask him yourself,” Doreen said, turning to yell for her husband.

While she was calling to him, I shuffled the photo of Ted in his Astros hat to the top of my pad of paper. I wanted to push him a
little on my theory to see how he reacted. When I looked up, Doreen was stepping to the side a bit farther than I would've guessed she'd need to, and then I saw why. Ted rolled up in a wheelchair and looked at us expectantly.

“Oh,” I said when I saw him. “I'm sorry. I didn't know you . . . I mean, I didn't realize you . . .” I couldn't finish the sentence, because there was no way to be politically correct about asking him what the heck had happened to him in the last ten years.

“Wheelchair got your tongue?” he asked me. Then he laughed uproariously, and his wife joined in. I had a feeling they'd done that bit before.

“Sorry, Mr. Mulgrew. It's just in this photo”—I turned it around for him—“you're standing. So I didn't expect to see you . . . er. . . . sitting today.”

He peered at the photo and nodded. “Yeah. That was before I couldn't walk anymore.” Thumbing over his shoulder, he said, “I've got arthritis in the spine real bad. Can't walk more than a few steps without needing to sit down.”

Doreen patted him on the shoulder. “He still gets around all right,” she said proudly. He put a hand on hers, then took it and kissed it sweetly. I couldn't help feeling some serious doubt while I watched how affectionate and caring they were with each other. Could a guy with arthritis in the back have climbed through the window of Noah's room, murdered him, attacked Skylar, then shuffled back out to run around to his rear door and pretended to be sleeping? In my gut I knew there was no way.

Still, there was that baseball cap. Not giving up entirely on my hypothesis, I pointed to the hat in the photo and said, “You an Astros fan?”

He leaned forward to look at the photo. And then he looked
up a bit sadly and said, “Noah gave me that. His granddad used to play for the Astros and he got it for him, but it was too big to fit his head, and I guess he felt sorry for me shuffling over to the mailbox all bent over. He was such a sweet kid.”

And then, I swear to God, tears formed in his eyes and he ducked his chin. Doreen leaned down and hugged his shoulders. Oscar looked at me like, “Game over, Cooper.”

“Thank you for your time,” I said to the couple.

Doreen looked up in surprise. “Oh! Is that it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “Thank you both. Sorry to have interrupted your Sunday.”

She batted her hand at the air. “Bah. Don't you worry about it. We're glad to help.”

With that, we took our leave.

On the drive home neither one of us said much until Oscar finally broke the silence. “Sorry that didn't pan out, Cooper.”

I stared out the window feeling pretty low. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was failing Skylar, which was exactly what Candice had warned me about when I'd started this case. “It was a long shot,” I said.

I called Candice and filled her in on the interview. She was really sweet and said that she'd looked into the Mulgrews' background and there was nothing there that spoke of them being anything other than good people. “I'm going to try to find the missing baseball, though,” she told me. “It's a total long shot, Abs, but if it was a valuable ball, maybe somebody tried to sell it.”

I nodded even though I knew she couldn't see me. It was all just so defeating.

After I hung up with Candice, Oscar said, “Where to next, Cooper?”

I stared forlornly out the window. “I have no clue, Oscar.” I
meant it metaphorically, but Oscar seemed to get it, and he drove in silence, allowing me my little pity party until he pulled into a parking garage to an apartment building. “What's this?” I asked. “Where are we?”

Oscar drove up to a space and parked. “I think we both could use a little puppy therapy. Want to meet Amigo?”

I spent the next couple of hours playing with an adorable little pooch and it helped more than I could say.

Later, after Oscar dropped me off at home, I called Candice to see what progress she'd made. “Do you know how many balls Nolan Ryan signed?” Candice asked me by way of hello.

“No, but I'm guessing it's too many to track?”

“By about a thousand,” she said.

I blew out a breath and sank into my chair at the dining room table, where Dutch had neatly stacked all the discordant parts of Skylar's murder file. “But we know the killer took it,” I said. “And if he took it to sell it, then it's the only way to track him down definitively.”

“Abby, finding the ball won't be like finding a needle in a haystack. It'll be like finding a needle in a field of haystacks. There's no way to track the ball when a thousand of them are in play.”

I leaned back in the chair and slung an arm over my eyes. Every single lead kept ending in a dead end and I couldn't help but feel we were like firefighters in a smoke-filled room, totally blinded by the smoke as we searched around awkwardly for any signs of life. “So now what?” I asked, because I was out of ideas.

“We wait,” Candice said. “We've given Cal everything we have. There's nothing more to do except keep our fingers crossed that Gallagher's weekend in jail loosened his lips a little and he decides to forgo the advice of his counsel and help us.”

I wanted to groan. “He hasn't called out to us yet,” I said. “And tomorrow after he makes bail, he won't have any incentive besides personal guilt to help us.”

“He won't make bail,” Candice said confidently. “Not with his criminal record and the assault charges we're bringing against him. Assaulting a federal officer is a big-time offense. The judge won't let him out with anything less than a hundred-thousand-dollar bond. Trust me on that.”

I felt a nudge on my elbow and I lowered my arm to find Dutch standing next to me, offering a glass of wine and a winsome smile. “Yeah, okay,” I said to her, while gratefully taking the wine from my hubby. “Let's hope he gets shot down at the bail hearing and considers the very long wait to his trial as added incentive to cooperate with us.”

“He's really caught between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “He can help us and risk prosecution on the obstruction charge, or he can choose not help us and be certain we'll send him away for as long as we can.”

I squirmed a little because Candice didn't know the assault charge was bullshit. Across the room the swear jar seemed to mock me. I glared at it. “Let's hope you're right,” I said to Candice, turning away from the jar, “'cause we're all out of new leads and possible suspects to track down.”

“At the very least we've highlighted all of the credible weaknesses in the prosecution's case against Skylar, Sundance,” Candice pointed out. “When there's a life at stake, the court might decide that's enough to offer her a new trial, rather than take the risk of putting the wrong person to death.”

“In most states I would agree with you,” I said. “But this is
Texas
, and we're number one in executions several years running.” My voice quivered a little as I started to choke up over the
futility of trying to find a way to really help Skylar escape the needle.

“Abs,” Candice said. “We can't lose hope. Not yet. So hang in there, okay?”

I nodded and squeaked out, “I'll try.”

After hanging up with Candice, I trudged over to the couch and sat down next to Dutch, who wrapped his arm around me. “You okay?”

“No,” I said, my eyes welling and the tears dribbling down my cheeks.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Nothing, honey,” I said as more tears came. “There's nothing to be done.” Tuttle waddled over and jumped up on the couch. She always knew when I needed some puppy comfort, and as much as playing with Amigo had brought a smile to my face and taken the edge off, there was nothing quite like the loyal and unconditional love of your own pooch. I took her into my lap, where she began to lick enthusiastically at my face, and after a time, I was better. “I just feel like I've failed her,” I said. “Skylar, I mean.”

Dutch leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You did everything you could, dollface.”

I turned to him. “Did I?”

He swept his arm toward the stack of photos and witness statements on the dining room table. “You've been eating and breathing this case for over a week. What else could you do?”

I hugged Tuttle and shrugged. “I don't know,” I admitted. “But I can't shake the feeling like we came close to solving what really happened, but still managed to miss it.”

Dutch squeezed my knee and got up. “It could still come to you,” he said. “But don't try to force it. Come on, help me with
dinner and take your mind off it. Maybe something will pop for you later.”

I followed Dutch into the kitchen, passing the table and all those photos. I swear they were calling me to take another look, but I'd studied every single horrible image for hours. What more could I see? What more could I do?

Turns out, I wouldn't know the answer until the following day.

D
utch woke me as he left for work the next morning. I muttered something about wanting to sleep in and the next thing I knew, he'd put both Eggy and Tuttle on the bed to cover me in squirming, wiggling, furry cuteness, and I sat up, glaring hard at my husband, who was grinning like the Cheshire cat. “I fed them,” he said, “but I'm late for work. Can you water them?”

“Watering” the pups was code for “walk them around the block.” Which meant I'd have to get out of bed. Something my grumpy ass wasn't much enthused about. “Go, go,” I said, waving him out the bedroom door. The pups were digging tunnels in the bedcover, and I lay back on the pillow with a groan, then closed my eyes and had calm thoughts, hoping to influence the pups into settling down and sleeping a bit more with me. Eggy curled up in the crook of my arm, but Tuttle was having none of it.

She wriggled around for a bit; then she sniffed my eyelids; then she settled down to personally groom me for ten minutes, never letting up until I finally curled her into a hug and smothered
her
with kisses. This got Eggy jealous, and he barked in protest. And then I was chasing after them all around the bed, covering them
with sheets and throw pillows as they danced and darted back and forth, wagging their tails and having a good romp.

We ended up outside not long after, and even though my worries over Skylar never faded, the walk did both me and the pups a whole lotta good.

Back at home I took a long, lazy shower, then made myself a truly superlative omelet, sharing much of one corner with the pups, and was just about to sit down to eat it when my cell rang. “Dang it,” I muttered. The ring was coming from the bedroom, where I'd left my phone.

“Where've you been?” I heard Candice ask me.

“Out for a walk with the pups,” I said, realizing she must've been trying to get ahold of me.

“Matt tried to call you several times already,” she said. “I was starting to worry.”

“Why? What's going on?”

“Gallagher made bail,” she said, cutting right to the chase.

“What?” I said, sinking back down in the chair at the table. “How?”

“I have no idea. The bail hearing was this morning, and the judge heard Gallagher's case first thing. He set the bond at two hundred thousand, and Matt thought for sure we'd have Gallagher right where we wanted him back in lockup, but within an hour his bond was posted and he was out.”

I glanced at my watch. It was only ten thirty. “Who posted the bail?”

“That's what I can't figure out, Abs,” she said. “I've called every bail bondsman in town, trying to find out who put up the ten percent, and no one is owning up to it.”

“But how is that possible?”

“The only way it could be is if someone put up the entire
amount in cash. And if they did that, then I can't get the name without a court order.”

I suddenly had a very bad feeling. “Candice, we need to find Dennis Gallagher.”

“That's why I'm calling,” she told me. “I'm coming over to pick you up.”

“How far away are you?”

“Five minutes.”

“Good. I'll be ready.”

I picked up the plate holding my omelet and carried it with me, taking big unladylike bites as I hurried around the house in search of an appropriate outfit, shoes, keys, ID, etc. I'd finished the omelet and put myself together (mostly) about thirty seconds before Candice's car pulled into our drive. Kissing the now sleepy pups on the nose, I hurried out and got in her car with a breezy smile.

“You've got egg on your shirt,” she said, the corners of her mouth quirking.

I looked down. “Dammit!”

Candice held out her hand, and I rolled my eyes, digging into my purse for a quarter. She tossed it into a compartment next to the emergency brake. It clanked against a whole lot of its friends. “We are gonna have such a good time on our next girls' weekend,” she said.

Candice had made a rule that every time I swore in her car she'd donate the quarter to some future girls' getaway. So far, I was funding the entire trip.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, scrubbing at my shirt with a tissue.

Just then my cell rang. It was Matt. I held up the display so that Candice could see before I answered. “Hey,” I said. “I heard.”

“Abby, I've got Dennis Gallagher on the other line,” Matt said,
practically running over my greeting. “He says he needs to talk to you. Exclusively. He wants your cell phone number, but I wouldn't give it until I got your okay.”

I sat up straighter in the seat. This was a sudden turn of events. “Give it to him, Matt,” I said. “I'll record the call.”

“Good,” he said. “Good.” With that, he was gone.

Turning to Candice, I said, “Dennis Gallagher wants my cell number. He called Matt to get it. He wants to talk to me.”

Candice nodded with satisfaction. “Told ya,” she said.

“You did,” I replied as my cell rang. I let it ring a second time while I switched on the recording app on my phone, then answered his call. “Dennis?”

“Uh, hi,” he said. “Is this Abby Cooper?”

“It is, Dennis. I'm here. What did you need to talk to me about?”

“How do I know this is really you?” he asked.

“Because you called my cell,” I said as calmly as I could. Man, this guy was a fry short of a Happy Meal.

“How do I know this is Abby Cooper's cell phone?” he asked me.

I sighed. “You know what, Dennis? You don't. But right now you're sounding a bit too paranoid, which tells me that something's got you spooked. How about you just take my word for it and tell me what's up and we'll go from there?”

“Abby Cooper knows what happened in that trailer,” he said to me, and suddenly I understood exactly what he was angling for.

“Yes,” I said. “I do. I know
exactly
what happened, Dennis. If you help me, I'll help you.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don't,” I said bluntly. “But, buddy, what other choice do you have right now? I'm the only thing holding you away from either the frying pan or the fire. Your call.”

Dennis was silent for a long time. So long in fact that I felt he was wavering a bit too much. To help things along, I said, “Okay. Call me when you're ready to help me and yourself, Dennis.” And then I hung up.

Candice eyed me with raised eyebrows, and I bit my lip. That'd been a bold move, but I needed to jar him away from the idea of stalling for more time. We didn't have it. My cell rang about five seconds later. “Don't hang up on me again!” he said angrily.

“Let's get something straight here,” I told him in an even, flat tone. “You do not call the shots here. We both agree to a compromise, or we both walk away and let the chips fall where they will.”

“I'm trying!” he yelled back.

“Okay,” I said, easing up on him a bit. “What would you like to do, Dennis?”

“We need to talk,” he said.

“I'm available.”

“But just you. Nobody else.”

I frowned. No way did I want to meet this guy in a dark alley all alone. “See, you say stuff like that, Dennis, and it makes me doubt that you're willing to cooperate.”

“That's nonnegotiable,” he said. “Seriously. I'm freaked-out, okay? I don't know who to trust or where to go. But there's something I need to show you.”

Candice, who'd been listening as I held the phone between us, shook her head vehemently. I ignored both her and common sense and said, “Okay. I'll meet you. Where?”

“Alone,” Dennis insisted. “No cops. No other FBI people. Just you.”

Candice shook her head again, and I ignored her a second time, just as easily. “Alone,” I told him. “Where?”

“Be at the Starbucks on Fifty-first and I-Thirty-five in an hour.” With that, he hung up.

Candice glared hard at me for about ten seconds. “It's a public place,” I said. “And perhaps you didn't notice my crossed fingers when I made the pinkie swear.” I held up the crossed fingers of my left hand and she gave me a gentle punch in the arm.

“Okay,” she said. “Let's coordinate this with Oscar and Cox. Even if the Starbucks is packed, I don't want you in there alone.”

I saluted. “Game on.”

An hour and ten minutes later I sat in the chill air of the Starbucks, sipping at my caramel Frappuccino, wishing I hadn't ordered the frozen version because they had the AC on a setting that would've made a penguin ask for a sweater, when my phone rang. “Hi,” Dennis said. “It's me.”

“Where are you?” I looked warily around the café, careful not to make eye contact with Agent Cox.

“I'm in the park on the other side of the hospital,” he said.

I glanced outside. The Starbucks was in the same area as the Home Depot where Dennis had first met Noah and Skylar Miller. In the opposite direction was a large park with a running trail, a playground, and several inviting seating areas under shady trees. “Where in the park?” I asked.

“Head outside,” he said, “and I'll direct you to me.” With that, he clicked off.

I stood up stiffly. I didn't like that the plan had changed, but what choice did I have? Gathering up my drink, I walked to the trash bin next to Cox and dropped the drink in while murmuring to Cox, “He wants to meet me in the park.”

Cox gave no indication that he'd heard me. Instead he lazily turned the page of his newspaper and took a casual sip of his
coffee. I knew that Candice and Oscar were also someplace nearby, but neither of them had told me where they'd be, and I think they did that on purpose so I wouldn't be tempted to look in their direction and possibly tip off Gallagher.

More than a little nervous, because I suddenly had a very bad feeling, I walked out into the heat and bright sunshine. Donning sunglasses, I began walking toward the park. It was down at the end of a long street, which was farther away than it appeared, but I walked steadily until my phone beeped and I looked at the display. It was a text from Gallagher. He wanted me to head to the entrance at Lancaster and Philomena, which was a heck of a long haul when you're hoofing it in the summer heat.

It took me ten minutes to get there. I was dripping with sweat when I arrived, and perhaps more than a little peeved. And then I saw him.

Gallagher was standing under the shade of a large live oak tree, wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, and the same clothes we'd arrested him in. He held his hand up to let me know he saw me too, and I began to move toward him when there was a sound like a hammer hitting the concrete, and all of a sudden, Gallagher sank to his knees. He clutched his stomach and through his fingers I saw a blossom of red. It took me several seconds to put it together that he'd just been shot. Then I was sprinting toward him. Behind me I heard shouts, but I paid them no attention—I simply ran as fast as I could toward Gallagher.

I got to him and dropped down, and he sort of fell into my arms, his face a mask of agony and blood pouring out of his stomach wound faster than I thought it should have. “No, no, no, no, no!” I whispered, cradling him in my arms and trying to ease him gently the rest of the way to the ground. He cried out in pain and I stopped, holding us perfectly still for a few seconds.

Our eyes met and he tried to mouth something to me. I caught only one word. “Noah.”

“Hang on!” I begged him. “Dennis, hang on! The hospital is right over there, okay? We'll get you to it. Just stay with me!”

His face had completely drained of color, and his lower lip trembled while his eyes leaked tears that slid down his cheeks. I held him as close to me as I could without causing him further pain, and just kept repeating, “Hang on. Hang on. Hang on.”

Somewhere in the distance I heard the sad siren sound of an ambulance, and more shouts, some of which were my name. I ignored all of it and held Dennis's gaze, willing him to stay with me. But he couldn't. And, intuitively, I knew it was over even as he sucked in one last labored breath. With a feeble effort, he pushed something at me. And then his head lolled back and his chest rose no more.

Candice was the first to reach me. I wouldn't let go of Dennis. I cried over him as if he were a dear friend, because in the last moment of his life, we'd connected in a way, and I'd seen him as clearly as anyone but his maker could. He was a man who'd made more mistakes than most, and regretted them all. He'd been trying to do the right thing by meeting me. Of that I was certain.

“Hey,” Candice said, in a way that suggested she'd already said it to me a few times. “Abby, the paramedics are here, honey. You've got to let go.”

And then she was gently reaching over me to take Dennis's limp torso out of my arms and lay him on the ground. As she did that, something slipped to the ground and rolled next to me.

Through my tears I stared at it. I knew immediately what it was, but the emotion and trauma of the moment prevented me from fully processing the object tucked within a Ziploc bag. I picked up the Baggie, hugging it to me as I got to my feet, and
took a few steps with Candice to get out of the way of the paramedics. That's when I noticed that Oscar and Cox had joined us. Oscar was out of breath and soaked through with sweat. “The shot came from that building,” he said, pointing to a rather dingy-looking apartment complex with tall wire fencing around it. It looked vacant and ready to be torn down.

“Did you get a view of the shooter?” Candice asked him, wrapping her arm around me protectively.

“No. He was too far away,” Oscar said. “By the time I got to the other side of the street, he was long gone.”

Cox motioned to Oscar and the pair stepped away to talk to the police officers who'd now also arrived on the scene. Candice shuffled me away from Dennis and the paramedics. “You okay?” she asked me.