The Fallen
- Автор: Паркер Т. Джефферсон
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-06-056238-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Fallen». Краткое содержание книги:
Fellowes unlocked his hands and leaned forward in his chair. He rubbed a hairy forearm and sighed. “Really, what’s any of this got to do with Garrett?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “How did Samantha get back to the pool without anyone noticing?”
“Garrett put the chronology together later,” Fellowes said. “He told me that when the fireworks started going off, Samantha didn’t like the noise. She had told her mother to let her down so she could go get Dad. Garrett was in the house rinsing some of the dishes, shooting some video of the fireworks through the window, drinking a beer. He didn’t see Samantha get down and come looking for him — she was hidden by the adults. And she didn’t look for him in the house. Instead she scooted over to the side gate, pulled the string, and let herself into the backyard. Garrett told me that side gate was usually locked, too, but they’d taken off the lock so the party guests could circulate. Anyway, Samantha climbed the pool fence to get in. It was five feet high, made out of that rubberized chain link, so climbing it wouldn’t have been hard for a determined three-year-old. Later we found her doll floating and the pool skimmer sunk to the bottom. You know, the long-handled ones you use to whisk off the leaves and stuff. She must have dropped the doll in earlier, then remembered where it was and tried to fish it out with the skimmer before going to get her father. If there wasn’t so much noise from the fireworks, somebody might have heard something. Stella thought Samantha was with Dad. Dad thought she was with Mom. A brave three-year-old climbs a fence, tries to get her doll out of the pool, and it’s over.”
I imagined the tragedy unfolding as Fellowes described it. A hundred ingredients, a hundred things that had to go exactly wrong for it to happen. I tried to imagine how Stella felt, having had last custody of her daughter. And how Garrett must have felt, having missed her escape from the fireworks noise by so little — not by yards and minutes but by inches and seconds.
“It changed everything,” said Fellowes. “Garrett and Stella fell apart. Garrett became very intense and humorless and driven to catch bad guys. Blamed himself for everything. I didn’t blame him. I don’t blame him for anything that happened then or after. But I couldn’t be around him. I guess the end of our friendship was the least of Garrett’s problems. Stella? I see her around. She always smiles, puts on the face. But she looks empty if you ask me.”
“How did it affect you, Captain?” asked McKenzie.
He sat back, looked at McKenzie and me with his quick little eyes. “You learn to turn it off, like a lot of other stuff in this business. I don’t have to explain that to you two. Me and Phyllis split up a week later.”
McKenzie and I took the elevator down. We were alone.
“Fellowes didn’t know that Garrett had him on video,” I said.
“Now he suspects. Be careful of him, Robbie. I don’t like the look in his little eyes.”
“Why didn’t Garrett show Fellowes his evidence?” I asked. “Why collect if you don’t use?”
“I don’t know,” said McKenzie. “There’s enough on his hard drive to cause ten city scandals and ruin a dozen people. But he doesn’t seem to have done anything with it.”
“Maybe he thought there was more to know.”
“Maybe he was just about to do something with it,” she said. “The meeting Wednesday — he was going to lay it all on the state attorney general.”
“Then his killing was proactive.”
“Yeah,” said McKenzie. “No matter what Van Flyke said about that meeting being routine. They knew Garrett was going to meet with the attorney general, and they couldn’t let him do that.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“I’m working on it, Robbie.”
Ron Mincher worked the patrol shift that day, which ended at 6:00 P.M.
I waited for him near the walkway that leads from the locker room and showers to the officers’ parking lot. I told McKenzie I’d talk to Mincher alone. One reason was that a Homicide team is unmistakably a Homicide team, whereas one detective can mean anything from a Police Union solicitation to an invite to join the bowling league. The other reason is, I knew she was eager to get to Hollis Harris and his fast red car.
Mincher came down the walk about quarter to seven, freshly showered and in his street clothes. He had his sidearm, ammo, belt, badge, and probably handcuffs in a small cloth duffel.
Seeing Mincher made me remember my own days on patrol. It was nice to leave the job behind when you got off work. When you make detective, you start taking it home with you. I thought of hustling down this same walkway, showered up just like Ron and in a hurry to get home to Gina. I could usually make Normal Heights by six forty-five or seven. Stepping through our front door was like stepping into heaven itself. No criminals, no BS, no lies. Just you and the beautiful woman you loved and six or seven hours with nothing to do but enjoy each other until you conked out, slept hard, and woke up to do it all over. I’d love to be young like that again.
Mincher held my eye as he approached. He was twenty-six, six feet and well built. His hair was brown, matched by a neat cop-style mustache.
“Ron, I’m Robbie Brownlaw from Homicide.”
“I know who you are, sir.”
“Don’t need the ‘sir’ stuff. Talk a minute?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let’s take a walk.”
He locked his duffel in a snappy yellow Ford pickup and we left headquarters on the Fourteenth Street side, then headed east on Broadway.
“I’ve got two things bothering me,” I said. “One of them I have to do something about. The other one I’m going to let slide for now.”
“What’s on your mind?” he said with a very small smile. “Doesn’t sound good.”
Mincher had that same casual southern tone of voice that Dale Payne had.
“How are you liking San Diego?”
“Oh, it’s fine. New Orleans was too humid.”
“I’m working the Asplundh murder.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“He got it with a nine-millimeter Smith that went missing from the New Orleans Property Annex a couple of months before you left that city and came here.”
Mincher looked at me. “Interesting coincidence,” he said.
“But it ties into the other thing that’s bothering me,” I said. “And that is, Garrett didn’t get killed for his money or his credit cards or his car or his weapons. He got killed for something he knew.”
We walked along Broadway. I could smell the ocean and see the red trolley making its way south to the border. The city lights twinkled, and the new baseball stadium stood out beautifully against the black sky.
“And Garrett knew a lot of things,” I said. “For instance, he knew you were buying Squeaky Clean girls.”
Even in the streetlights I could see his face go red.
“One of them had a hidden camera. Garrett was working with her. It’s all on DVDs, good quality. You weren’t alone, if it’s any consolation. I printed a still image that’s right here in my pocket if you don’t believe me. Want to see it?”
“Guess I better.”
It was a full page, folded three times. He opened it, glanced at it, then folded it and put it in his pocket.