“Don’t remember you asking. I want you off my driveway. I got nothing to say to you.”
Harry fished around in the bucket, pulled out a biscuit.
“You implied the state cops had all the materials. They have bupkus. Where’d it go?”
“How the hell would I know? For all I know, it got picked up by a maintenance crew, tossed in the trash.”
Harry studied his biscuit like he was deciding something. He came up with a packet of honey, squirted it over the biscuit. He started to take a bite, paused, looked at Barlow.
“We talked to Pettigrew, Cade. In person.”
I saw Barlow freeze. But a split second later he was smirking.
“Pettigrew ain’t been around here in four years. He ran off to Montgomery to be a big shot. What’s he know about anything?”
Harry took a bite of biscuit and chewed with his eyes closed. He smiled, like the honey had been the answer.
“You saying you don’t know jack shit about the Holtkamp murder? Never went near the evidence?”
“You fuckers are big-time crazy. That’s my answer.”
“Say it again,” Harry challenged.
“Glad to: You’re crazy.”
Harry made a show of looking at me and raising an eyebrow, like he was weighing something. I looked back, nodded, like I’d come to the same conclusion. Harry turned to Barlow and applauded.
“Chill out, Cade, m’man. Have a piece of chicken. You earned it.”
Barlow looked at Harry like my partner had lapsed into Gaelic.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Like they say on TV, this has been a test. You passed.”
“Make sense, dammit.”
Harry said, “We were sent here to make sure the past stays buried.”
Barlow’s eyes narrowed at the word past.
“I got no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Which, as I said, is the right answer. And the right answer just won you a little something for your silence. A bonus for passing the test.”
Harry pulled an envelope from his pocket, flipped it to Barlow. The county cop trapped the package against his chest. His fingers danced over what was probably a familiar rectangular shape inside the envelope.
“Where’d this come from?” Barlow said, squeezing the package.
I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket, fished out my own envelope. “Is a picture worth a thousand words? Or is it a photo?”
I slid the photo from the envelope, shooting a final glance at Claypool’s computer handiwork as I passed it over: Harry and me at Bellingrath Gardens, between us a manipulated photo of Crandell. We were all grinning. Shadows weren’t exact, and Claypool had blurred everything a notch to help conceal the problems, but for a one-shot roll of the dice, it was damn good.
I passed it to Barlow. He looked down and froze, his eyes wide.
“You mean you guys know Cran-”
It was the wrong thing to say. Barlow knew it one second too late, eyes trained to spot forged registrations and licenses, finding the photographic discrepancies. He threw the photo to the ground. Kicked it away.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“You think we’re stupid?” Harry said. “You just said the name.”
Sweat beaded on Barlow’s forehead. His left eye ticked and he swallowed hard.
“You’re running a game on me.”
“Crandell who?” Harry asked. “Crandell what? Crandell where?”
“I never saw him before.”
“Am I going to have to get my chalk, Barlow?” Harry said. “Make you a free space?”
“What?”
“Why’d you mess with Pettigrew’s investigation?” Harry shot.
I said, “What are you hiding?”
“What’d you get paid?” Harry asked.
Barlow’s eyes bounced between Harry and me like a rabbit between two wolves. He rubbed his palms down his thighs to dry them.
“Who the hell are you?” he said. “State? Federal?”
Harry stepped whisper-close, narrowed his eyes. “We’re just two cops who have you figured out, Cade. And when we get to the bottom of what’s going on, your ass is mulch. Want to talk about it?”
“Get out of here.” Barlow’s voice quivered. “Now.”
Harry shot me a look. We’d done all we could. I grabbed the chicken from the hood, Harry headed back to the driver’s side. He turned, looked at Barlow.
“We heard you used to be a good cop.” Harry flipped one of his cards to the ground. “Call me when you make the right decision, Cade. When you remember what side you represent.”
We drove away. When I turned, Barlow was as still as a statue, torn envelope in his hand, white paper the size of money fluttering at his ankles.
We needed time to make sense of all we’d seen and heard in the past few hours. Then decide how to proceed. Flanagan’s was too public and distracting, my place too far, so we went to Harry’s. He poured the coal into Ellington’s “A Train.” The chair in Harry’s living room held a box of Rudolnick’s case histories, so he pulled a ladder-back chair from the dining room and set it backward, facing me on the couch. He was in lecture mode: I’d seen it at the Police Academy when he taught classes there.
“There are a fair amount of cops like Pettigrew around, Carson. Bright and talented hotshots in quiet burgs. Some get press, nail someone from the FBI’s most-wanted list, take down a major pedophile, talk a jumper off a building in the glare of TV lights, that kind of thing. Pettigrew was first-rate, but probably never made any splash that would have carried to Montgomery. Why was he selected? What even got him noticed?”
“I don’t know, but it sure seemed like he was plucked away just in time to keep him from the Holtkamp investigation, good cop or not.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence anymore,” Harry said. “Not on this case. I want to know exactly why Pettigrew flew the coop.”
“Call him and ask.”
Harry shook his head, not an option. “Pettigrew told us the outside details. I want inside details. Plus, I ain’t trusting anyone involved to tell us the truth. Not even Pettigrew.”
“That leaves us high and dry. I couldn’t get that kind of political info from the MPD, much less Montgomery’s force.”
Harry stared at me. It was uncomfortable.
“You’ve been dating an investigative reporter for a year and don’t know how it’s done?”
“I don’t know what you’re suggesting.”
“We need a top-flight investigative type from the Montgomery area. A guy with deep connects on the political side, where everything happens.”
“I don’t know anyone like that, Harry.”
“You know someone who would.”
“Dammit, Harry, I can’t call Dani and ask her to…”
Harry went to the stereo and snapped off the speakers. The room filled with silence. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
“She messed you over. She knows it. She’ll have the guilts and be vulnerable. Use it, Carson. She goddamn owes you.”
“You want me to call her? Just say…what? I’d like to come over, we need to talk?”
Harry’s voice got quiet.
“I’ve got a little experience in this area, bro. She wants to talk. She needs to talk. All you got to do is aim what she talks about.”
CHAPTER 30
I stood in the center of Dani’s living room and held her in my arms, looking over her shoulder. I had never seen so many flowers in a room where there wasn’t a corpse. Explosive bouquets in vases. Crystal tubes holding lone roses. Sprawling vats of carnations. Kincannon seemed to have some kind of flower fixation. I enjoy the scent of flowers, but her house reeked with the damn things.
I’d arrived five minutes earlier. We’d engaged in a tentative fashion, stilted Hello s and How you been s, broken sidelong glances, and finally, touching.
The full embrace with failing words.
Then, finding the words. The explanation.
She leaned back, her eyes red and wet and swollen, blond hair matted to a damp cheek.