Henry was heading back to his house. In a second he’d be back in his comfortable living room, and Lassiter would have lost his chance. But before Spencer reached his front door, he made a hard right turn and disappeared into his garage. After a moment, Lassiter saw a glow of red. Henry’s truck was backing out.
Lassiter put his Impala back into drive and eased away from the curb as Henry headed down the street, shielding his face with his hand as he passed the two cops in the squad car. But they didn’t even glance up in his direction as he cruised past. If this were my case, I’d have those two on report, he thought. There’s no excuse for that kind of sloppiness.
Henry’s street was residential and quiet; there was no traffic in either direction. Which made it easy for Lassiter to keep Henry in sight, but also for Henry to spot him. Which might be a problem. Lassiter was certain that Spencer would be cooperating with the police in every way possible, but he was also sure Henry would draw the line at being followed wherever he went. If he called Chief Vick to complain about the tail, he was cop enough to give her Lassiter’s plate number. And there was no way he could claim this was part of his therapy.
Henry wasn’t making it any easier for Lassiter to remain inconspicuous. He couldn’t have been going faster than fifteen miles an hour. Any normal driver would have passed him right away, and all but the most saintly would have flipped him off as they did. The fact that Lassiter considered to dawdle along behind him had to look suspicious.
Henry did the full grandpa down the street for two blocks. Then he reached an intersection, and instead of slowing further to check for cross traffic, he accelerated furiously, taking the right turn at thirty-five. What the hell was he doing? Lassiter hit the gas and screamed around the corner.
And then slammed on the brake to keep from hitting Henry’s truck. It was sitting at the curb, exhaust chugging from the tailpipe. Lassiter could see Henry sitting completely still behind the wheel.
Again, Lassiter wondered what he was doing. It was possible he’d pulled over to take a cell call, but both hands were on the steering wheel, and his head wasn’t moving in the way most people’s do when they’re talking. He was just sitting in his truck.
And then he wasn’t sitting anymore. He snapped off the ignition and opened his door. Lassiter assumed he’d come to see a neighbor, although it surprised him to see that Henry would drive rather than walk such a short distance. The cop in him wanted to watch Henry to see which house he went to, but the suspended-cop part of him won out, and he slid down in his seat so that Henry wouldn’t see him.
Since he couldn’t tell which direction Henry would be going in, Lassiter decided to give it a slow ten-count before rising to look out the window again. Before he could get to eight, there was a loud rapping on the passenger’s window.
Henry Spencer was standing outside, staring down at him.
Lassiter straightened in his seat, then reached over and opened the passenger’s door. Henry got in and slammed the door closed.
“You wanted to talk to me?” Henry said.
“When did you make me?” Lassiter said.
“My house has this amazing new invention called windows,” Henry said. “I saw you pull up behind the idiots in the cruiser. I almost brought you your own glass of lemonade.”
“Did they spot me?”
Henry scowled disgustedly. “No,” he said, “and don’t think that isn’t something else I’ll be bringing up with Chief Vick.”
“Something else?” Lassiter said. “Besides what?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said. “Maybe a level of incompetent police work that was directly responsible for my son becoming a fugitive from justice.”
Lassiter’s instinct was to argue. He’d take the blame for a lot, but to make him responsible for Shawn Spencer’s irresponsibility was more than even his guilty conscience could take. One look at Henry’s face, however, suggested that if he wanted any help at all, he’d let that go unchallenged.
“I screwed everything up, Henry,” Lassiter said. “I treated Langston Kitteredge as a cooperating witness, and it never even occurred to me that he was the perp we were hunting.”
“Is that all?” Henry said.
Lassiter didn’t want to answer the question. He didn’t want to think back to that moment. He never wanted to face it again. But he needed Henry’s help. And Henry would know if he was holding something in, and then he would get out and go home without a look back.
“It’s not all,” Lassiter said. “Although God knows that was bad enough. But there was a moment when I could have turned everything around. When I could have apprehended Kitteredge and kept any of this from happening.”
“Go on,” Henry said.
Lassiter let the images from the interrogation room back into his mind. As he did, he realized how much effort he’d been putting in to keeping them out. He could feel the muscles loosen in his forehead, his temple, even his jaw. The headache he’d been fighting for days began to ease.
And he realized something else. He wanted to tell Henry Spencer about that moment.
“Kitteredge was giving his statement,” Lassiter said. “I have to admit-I wasn’t paying as much attention to what he was saying as I should have.”
“Why?”
“Believe me, if you ever talked to the man, you’d understand,” Lassiter said. “Let’s just leave it at that for the moment.”
Henry nodded, then gestured for Lassiter to go on.
“Anyway, the man was talking and talking and talking,” Lassiter said. “And at one point he reached into his left jacket pocket and pulled out an old pipe, which he’d already done several times in the interview. He never actually lit the damn thing, just waved it around as if it added something to the conversation. Anyway, this time after he pulled out the pipe, he reached into his right pocket. And I didn’t pay any attention to it. I assumed he was going for a lighter or a book of matches.”
“Not unreasonable,” Henry said. “But then I’d guess that no individual step here was unreasonable on its own. You’re too good a cop for that.”
Lassiter winced. He’d never had a compliment that stung so badly. “As I said, I assumed he was going for a lighter,” he said. “So when he opened his hand and revealed the murder weapon, I was still acting on my assumption and not on what had just happened. I looked at that knife and for one second the only thing in my mind was the question of why his pipe lighter was painted red. Just for a second, Henry, I swear. But that second was all it took. Kitteredge realized he’d exposed himself, and he grabbed me and jammed that knife against my throat. I could give you a load of excuses about how late it was, about how I’d been up all night, or that I had no reason to suspect the man. But no excuses can change the fact that I screwed up.”
Henry was giving him an odd look. Lassiter didn’t bother trying to interpret it. He was deserving of nothing but contempt, so he assumed that’s what Henry was feeling.
But for the first time since the incident, Lassiter was beginning to feel a little better. Not about what he’d done, of course; that was still shameful. But about himself. He’d always carry this humiliation, true; but now he saw a possibility of carrying on with his life and career in spite of it.
It was, he thought, amazing how much better simply talking about this made him feel. If only Chief Vick had realized this was the way to deal with the problem, rather than sending him to that quack of a shrink.
“How did Shawn and Gus get involved?” Henry said.
“They already were,” Lassiter said. “They were at the museum before we discovered the body. It seemed that Kitteredge was their client, although I never had a chance to ask what it was he wanted them to do. They were-”
Henry held up a hand to stop him. “He was their client?”