Ricochet

Chapter 24

DUNCAN CREPT OUT OF THE HOUSE, LEAVING HER ASLEEP. HE was taking a chance that she would skip out while he was gone, but he didn’t believe she would, and if she did, she couldn’t get far.

When he returned, she was sitting on the sofa, her legs tucked under her, wrapped in a quilt he remembered from his childhood, watching the small TV that had belonged to his grandmother.

Arms loaded with sacks of groceries, he pushed his way through the door and nudged it closed with his elbow. Elise glanced up at him and nodded toward the TV. “Cato.”

He delivered the groceries to the kitchen then joined her to watch the televised press conference. He wondered how Judge Laird had pulled off the gaunt, ravaged visage of a mourner. Had he been fasting for several days so his neck would look scrawny poking out of his collar? The dark circles around his eyes could either be cosmetics, or he simply hadn’t allowed himself to sleep much since her disappearance.

Whatever he’d done to prepare for the part, he’d done it well. If you went strictly on appearance, you’d say this guy was shattered over his wife’s death, that his bereavement was so extreme, it was unlikely he would ever recover.

The script was spot-on, too. No doubt well rehearsed. As Laird completed one thought and segued into another, he raised his head and squinted into the television lights-a first. Always before he’d been very comfortable in their glare.

“Despite my personal tragedy…” He paused to cover his mouth with his fist and clear his throat. “Despite my personal tragedy, I’ve been overwhelmed by the support of friends, colleagues, and, indeed, strangers. I wish to acknowledge the tireless efforts of the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department, the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, the many men and-”

With an angry motion, Elise turned off the TV and tossed the remote aside, then bounded off the sofa and began to pace. “You missed the best part,” she said. “About how my life was cut tragically short. Often misunderstood, I was another candle in the wind.”

“He said that?”

“Quoted the lyrics.” She retrieved the quilt from the floor where it had fallen when she stood up and pulled it around her. “He’ll play the sorrowful widower to the hilt, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from him. He’s-”

“Are you hungry?”

She broke off the tirade, looked at Duncan, and nodded.

“Because I’m starved. All that,” he said, motioning toward the TV, “can wait till after we’re fed.”

He was anxious to hear everything she had to tell him. On the other hand, he dreaded it, because it would mean dredging up everything they’d left behind in Savannah last night. “Can you cook?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Because I can’t. I’ll make the coffee, but don’t expect it to pass any taste tests.” He went into the kitchen and began removing the grocery items from the bags.

“I’ll be right back.”

She scurried into the bedroom and closed the door, presumably to dress. Duncan would just as soon have her stay in his boxers and T-shirt. From the glimpse he’d had, she looked good in them. Great, in fact. And he fancied the thought of cloth that had been worn against his skin now rubbing against hers.

He was scooping coffee into the paper filter when she returned wearing the shapeless jeans and shirt she’d had on last night. “How much water did you use?” she asked.

“Eight cups’ worth.”

“Then that’s enough coffee.” She surveyed the staples he’d bought and nodded with approval. “This will work. Mixing bowls? Pots and pans?”

In fifteen minutes they were seated across from each other at his grandmother’s table, eating scrambled eggs that he declared were the best he’d ever had.

She laughed. “You’re just hungry.” When she realized that he was holding his fork poised above his plate and staring at her, she said, “What? Have I got food on my face?”

“No. It’s just…that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh.”

Her smile relaxed. “I haven’t had much to laugh about.”

He nodded, but let the subject drop there, and dug back into his breakfast. “No kidding, this is good. My grits always look and taste like wet cement.”

“You can’t cook at all?”

“Nope.”

“Who normally cooks your breakfast?”

She was casually spreading butter on a slice of toast, but he recognized a loaded question. “I usually grab something on the way to work.”

“Always? I thought there may be a…” Her eyebrows lifted eloquently.

“No. Not even a…” He matched her strategic pause. “No one who stays for breakfast.”

Her chest lifted on a quick breath before she resumed buttering her toast. A few minutes later when she pushed aside her empty plate, he remarked, “You were hungry, too.”

“Very.”

“I think you’ve dropped a few pounds.”

“It’s the clothes. I bought them too large.”

So not to draw attention to that body while playing dead, he thought.

She picked up her coffee mug and studied the gay daisy pattern on it. “Tell me about the grandmother who lived here.”

“Well, she actually lived in Savannah. This was a weekend getaway until my grandfather died, then she moved out here permanently. She thought the town house was too big for her to live in alone. Three stories were two too many, so-”

“Your town house.”

He admitted it with a nod. “She deeded it over to me. Which was more generous than any of us realized at the time.”

“Those old town houses are prize real estate now.”

“If I were trying to buy it, I couldn’t come close to affording it. Not on a cop’s salary. I thank Grandmother every day for her generosity.”

“She must have loved you very much.”

“Yes,” he said with a slow and pronounced nod. “She did. I can’t blame any of my shortcomings on a love-deprived childhood.”

“Good parents?”

“The best.”

He received the expected reaction when he told her that his dad was a minister and that he’d grown up in a parsonage, never missing a Sunday of worship unless he was sick. “Go ahead, ask,” he said.

“Ask what?”

“What happened to you? Why didn’t you turn out better than you did? Why didn’t the religious training take?”

“It took.”

Her voice was soft, but direct, and it made his heart thump against his ribs.

“You’re a decent man, Duncan. Even when you’re being tough, your basic goodness comes across. You feel things deeply. You try and do what’s right.”

“Not lately.” He looked at her meaningfully.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Don’t be. They were my choices to make.”

She went back to studying the daisies on the coffee mug. “Did you always want to be a policeman?”

“No, I decided that my junior year of high school.” She looked at him inquisitively, an invitation to explain. “A good friend I’d grown up with was brutally raped and murdered.”

“How awful,” she murmured.

“Yeah. Even worse, it was generally believed-although nobody said it out loud-that the culprit was probably her stepfather. But he owned a car dealership and two radio stations. He was president of the Rotary Club. No one dared touch him, not even the police, who conducted a sloppy investigation. They eventually assigned blame to a retarded kid. He was sent to a state institution and locked up for reasons I’m sure he never understood.”

“You’ve been railing against the injustice of it ever since. So you became a policeman to right wrongs.”

“Naw,” he said flippantly. “I just like pushing people around and playing with guns.”

He expected a smile, but her expression remained solemn. “If you hadn’t been you, Duncan, I wouldn’t have trusted you enough to ask for your help.”

He let that lie for a moment, then said, “I figured it was because of what I said to you the night of the awards dinner.”

Carefully, she set the coffee mug on the table and stared into it. “That, too. I used what I…what I thought might work to get to you. I did what I had to do.” She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “Not for the first time.”

They were getting to the heart of the subject now. Again, he wanted to postpone it. He stood up and began clearing the table. She washed, he dried. They worked side by side, but silently.

When the chore was done, she said, “Can we go outside? I’d like to look at the water.”

In the early hours of the morning, the rain had stopped. The sun was out and everything had that washed-clean brilliance about it. The air was clear. Colors seemed more vivid. The sky was boasting a deep blue that hadn’t been seen for days.

He walked her out onto a fishing pier where he, his dad, and his granddad had often fished. When he told her that, she smiled. “You were lucky.”

“Not at fishing,” he said with a laugh. “The men of my family are lousy fishermen. We just enjoyed being in each other’s company.”

“That’s why you were lucky.”

They sat down on the edge of the rough wood pier, dangling their feet over the side, and watched the boats moving in and out of Beaufort’s marina. He waited a time, then said, “You weren’t so lucky?”

“In terms of family? No. It’s a classic case of total dysfunction. My father left before I was born. I never knew him. My mother married a man, had a baby boy by him, and then he left, too. More accurately, she ran him off.

“Although she was never diagnosed, my guess is that she was bipolar. To my half brother and me she just seemed…mean. Unpredictably she would fly into rages. I won’t bore you with the ugly details.”

After a short pause, she said, “My half brother and I survived by sticking together. Our fear of her forged a bond between us. I loved him. He loved me. We were all each other had.

“When I graduated high school, I began working at various jobs, with the short-term goal of getting my brother through high school and then setting us up in our own home.

“But, lacking supervision, he got in with a bad gang at school. Started doing drugs. Committed petty crimes. He was in and out of juvenile detention.” She turned toward Duncan. “Familiar story?”

“All too familiar. Typically it doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“This one doesn’t. One day my brother ran away. He left a note under the windshield of my car while I was at work.”

“What work?” he asked curiously.

“Video rental store. The owner practically turned it over to me to manage. I did all the ordering, inventory, classifying, bookkeeping, even cleaned the restrooms. I couldn’t wait to go to work every day.”

“To clean the restrooms?”

She smiled. “Small price to pay. Because basically I got paid to watch movies.”

“You like movies?”

“Love them. So that job was heaven for me.” Her smiled dissolved as the bad memories crowded out the good ones. “In the note my brother left, he said he had his own plans for his life, and those plans didn’t coincide with mine. It broke my heart. But that’s the way it was. He was gone and I didn’t know where to start looking for him.”

She threw back her head to look up at the sky and laughed at herself as she touched the nape of her neck. “It still feels funny. I keep forgetting my hair isn’t there.”

“I’m beginning to like it.”

“Liar.”

“No, really.” They shared grins, but then he prompted her to continue. She told him that her half brother had been gone for about a year, without a word from him, when her mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Elise assumed responsibility for her health care.

“Even though I was working and looking after her, I was also enrolled in art and film classes at the junior college. Things were tough, but going fairly well.” Gazing out across the water, she sighed. “Then I finally heard from my brother. It wasn’t good news. He was on his way to prison for drug dealing. Hard stuff.”

Duncan tensed. “Savich?”

“Savich. He had taken my impressionable brother under his wing. He caught on fast and showed an aptitude for the trade. Savich paid him well. Well enough for him to buy a house, the one where we…where we met that night.”

“Do they know that house exists? Savich? Your husband?”

“I don’t know. I don’t believe so.”

He doubted it, too. Had Napoli known where she was that night, he wouldn’t have had to ambush her in her car. He had tracked her only as far as her automobile. “Your brother was convicted of dealing,” he said, prompting her again.

“Well, not exactly. That was the charge, but the case never went to trial. Savich advised him to plead guilty at his arraignment. His court-appointed lawyer disagreed, but Savich held sway. He said if my brother showed remorse, he would get a light sentence and possibly even probation without incarceration. So he pleaded guilty.”

“And?”

She took a deep breath. “And he got sentenced to fifteen years at Jackson.”

“Shit.” The state prison in Jackson was a maximum security prison and housed death row. Only the most hardened criminals were sent there. “His priors must have been-”

“This was his first felony, Duncan.”

“Then why such a stiff sentence?”

She looked at him levelly. “Because occasionally one of Savich’s dealers has to be sacrificed. Otherwise, Judge Cato Laird’s leniency would arouse suspicion.”

“Cato Laird’s leniency?” Duncan ’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, are you saying-”

“Savich and Cato are partners. They’ve been working together for years.”

It hit him like a thunderbolt. “Laird goes light on Savich’s mules.”

“And gets well paid for it.”

“Son of a bitch!”

“Savich has dozens of dealers. They can’t escape arrest one hundred percent of the time. So when one of them gets arrested and winds up in Cato’s court, he usually finagles a way to have the charges dropped. Or he favors the defense attorney during the trial. If he can’t maneuver an acquittal, he gives the dealer a light sentence, sometimes probation. Soon, the dealer is back on the streets, making Savich money. Savich pays off Cato, and considers it a cost of doing business. Everybody’s happy.”

“Son of a bitch,” he repeated, loud enough to draw frowns from two older ladies walking their dogs along the pier. “It’s been there right in front of us all this time and we missed it!”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself or the narcotics officers,” Elise said. “There’s never any direct contact between them. Cato never mentions Savich. Never. He did to me only once, and that was when he explained to me your outburst over Savich’s mistrial.”

“Which makes a hell of a lot of sense now. They were going through the motions, knowing the goddamn outcome the whole time.”

“Probably,” she agreed. “Make no mistake, it’s a very slick operation. No one would suspect the setup because Cato is smart enough to sacrifice a scapegoat now and then.”

“Like your half brother.”

“Who realized he’d been sacrificed and decided to expose their game. But before he could, he was killed. It was only his second day in prison. He died in the shower-”

“With a bar of soap stuck in his throat. Your half brother was Chet Rollins.”

She looked at him with surprise. “You knew him?”

“Oh yeah,” he said tightly. “I never met him, but I know who he was.”

“We had different fathers, different last names,” she explained. “But in every other regard, he was my brother. Savich and Cato killed him.”

Quietly he said, “And yet you’re friends with Savich and you’re married to Cato.”

“Not because I want to be!” she exclaimed. “They don’t know of my connection to Chet.”

He searched her eyes, her expression, but could find no deceit there. “Okay. Tell me the rest of it.”

She took a moment to collect her thoughts. “Before being whisked off to prison, Chet wrote a letter and gave it to his attorney to mail to our mother.”

“Your mother? Not you?”

“That was for my protection. He knew I would be the one who actually read the letter. But if anyone came looking to see whom he had contacted, they would find a terminally ill old woman who posed no threat.”

“It was a tell-all letter.”

“Yes. He explained how Cato and Savich were in cahoots and how they had set him up, and others before him. He asked for my help to expose them, but stressed absolute secrecy. He had talked to some people, hinted-”

“What people?”

“The Savannah PD narcotics officers who’d busted him. But he hadn’t struck his deal yet. He hadn’t been guaranteed any protection. He was scared because he knew of others who had tried to turn snitch and died for it.”

“How well I know.”

Pensively she stared at a sailboat as it glided past. “I was ready to drop everything and rush to Chet’s rescue, talk to the police myself. But before I could even leave for Jackson, Mom was notified of his death. She was practically comatose by then. I doubt she ever understood that he was gone.

“Chet was buried without ceremony by the state. I hated that, but I knew that if I made myself known and claimed his body, I’d have no chance to avenge his murder. And I was determined to get vengeance on the two men who were responsible.”

“Why didn’t you take Chet’s letter to the state attorney, the FBI, the officers he’d initially talked to?”

“They hadn’t responded immediately. Obviously they were mistrustful of a con who’d pleaded guilty, then after being sentenced claimed that he’d been set up. Would a letter to his sister have been believed? Would you have believed it?

“And who was I to trust? Cato and Savich were miles from the prison shower room that day. They had facilitators within the system, but I didn’t know who they were. If I raised a hue and cry but failed to bring them to justice, how long do you think I would have lived?”

He knew she was right on all points and told her so.

When she turned her head toward him he saw tears in her eyes. “Not that I was afraid of dying. I just didn’t want to die then. Chet had loved me and had depended on me to look after him from the day he was born. I swore that if it was the last thing I did, I would make Cato and Savich account for his death.”

She brushed the tears from her eyes, then shielded them by raising her hand against the sun. “It’s getting hot.”

“You need some different clothes.” He stood up and extended his hand down to help her up. “Let’s go shopping.”

He knew if he drove around awhile, he would find a Wal-Mart sooner or later. He drove slowly through the shaded, picturesque streets of Beaufort, in no particular hurry.

“This is a lovely town,” she said. “They make a lot of movies here.” She expanded on that for five minutes, practically without taking a breath.

When she finally wound down, Duncan said, “You’re pretty smart on the topic. How’d you learn all that stuff?”

She blushed at the compliment, but shrugged off her encyclopedic knowledge. “Movie trivia.”

She returned to her story by telling him about her mother’s death. “Her mind actually gave out before her body did. Anyway, as soon as I had settled all that, I quit my job, vacated my apartment, and moved to Savannah.

“I felt I would have a better chance of breaking into Savich’s underworld than I would into Cato’s social circle. Chet had mentioned in his letter that Savich hung out at a club called the White Tie and Tails. I got a job there.”

Duncan had the air conditioner on, but she lowered the passenger window and let the warm wind blow on her face. “I never danced onstage. I didn’t do lap dances. I never left with a customer. I served drinks. That’s all.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“But you wondered. Everyone does.” After a reflective pause, she said, “Some of the clientele, you’d be surprised, were very nice. Sweet. Almost…I don’t know, embarrassed or apologetic. Of course others were loud and drunken, obnoxious and vulgar. I hated them. But I stayed on and eventually came to Savich’s attention.” She looked across at Duncan. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“He liked you for your mind?” he said sarcastically.

She laughed softly. “Actually, yes. The club operates almost entirely on a cash basis. The manager was pocketing several hundred dollars a night, and it went unnoticed. I gave him the choice of turning the bookkeeping over to me, or my exposing his embezzlement to Savich, who’s a silent partner. The club manager was stupid, but smart enough to know that he wouldn’t live long if Savich learned of his stealing. The first option had much more appeal. So he went to Savich with a request for an assistant and told him I seemed to have a head for money management. Once in the position, I devised ways to cut expenses and increase profits.”

Duncan stopped for a traffic light and noticed her staring wistfully at a group of children on a playground. She waited until the light changed before continuing. “Eventually I earned Savich’s respect and trust. As much as Savich trusts anyone. I certainly didn’t trust him, and I despised him for what he’d done to Chet. I could barely stand to be near him, but at least he doesn’t disguise himself. With Savich you know what you’re getting.

“By contrast, Cato sits in that courtroom every day and judges other people. He wears the robe. He bangs the gavel. He looks stern, and wise, and righteous, an advocate for the laws of the land, the commandments of God. His hypocrisy is sickening. To me, he’s by far the guiltier of the two.”

Duncan had found the Wal-Mart and had pulled into a parking space, but neither of them made a move to leave the car.

“Getting Savich will be easy for you now,” she said.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“But this time you have an eyewitness,” she argued. “I saw him commit cold-blooded murder.”

“ Napoli,” he said. “Tell me again what happened on the bridge.”

“I forgot where we left off.”

“Pick up where you managed to get Napoli ’s pistol away from him.”

“I yanked it out of his hand and threw it over the wall into the river.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I was just wondering…”

“What?”

“Why you didn’t just shoot him with it?”