“I suppose.”
“We’ve no time for such bland equivocation. Are you with me, boyo? Are you fully on board?”
Was he? Could he ever be? Kyle knew in his bones it was daft, this whole ridiculously convoluted plot of his father’s to expose the murderous machinations of a United States senator. To believe that it could possibly play out the way his father predicted, leaving a Truscott in jail, Kyle untouched, and his father returned anonymously to his second life in San Bernardino was strictly a fantasy. Not to mention the fact that he couldn’t shake the feeling that his father hadn’t been completely honest with him about . . . well, about anything. And yet his father had slammed Vern against the wall with the car and spirited Kyle out of there, his father had come to his rescue, and the glow of that truth illuminated his path here. The path would be trust. Despite their history, Kyle was choosing to trust his father.
“Sure, Dad,” said Kyle. “I’m on board.”
“No more doubts?”
“No more doubts.”
“That’s good. That’s grand. It touches my heart, it does.”
“But how will I get the senator to go along?”
“It’s just like any other piece of business. You need to make him see your point of view.”
“If I had a million dollars to donate, I could get him to listen, maybe. But what have I got?”
“You’ve got the file, boyo, which means you’ve got his sack in your hand. All you have to do now is squeeze.”
CHAPTER 37
DETECTIVE RAMIREZ FIGURED it wouldn’t be much of a trick to get a copy of Liam Byrne’s death certificate. She knew the year of death, and Kyle Byrne said it happened in New Jersey, so she assumed that after a quick drive to Trenton she’d be in and out. But of course she assumed wrong. She had forgotten she was dealing with a government agency. It took her forty-five minutes just to find the right desk.
“Name of deceased?” said the clerk.
“Liam Byrne. B-Y-R-N-E.”
“Year of death?”
“Nineteen ninety-four.”
“Municipality?”
“No idea. That’s what I’m here to find out.”
“At least you know the county, I hope.”
“How many counties are there?”
“Twenty-one,” said the clerk, a snappish woman with owl eyes who
seemed to have already had a tough day even though it wasn’t yet noon. “That many?” said Ramirez.
“So you don’t know the county either. I’m afraid this might take
some time.”
“I don’t have much time,” said Ramirez, flashing her badge. “I’m in the middle of a murder investigation.”
The clerk leaned forward, looked at the badge, glanced up at Ramirez before sitting back. “That’s not a New Jersey badge, is it?”
“No, ma’am. Philadelphia, actually, but I figure you guys care about homicides as much as we do.”
“Only if they occur in New Jersey.”
“Well, Liam Byrne’s might have,” said Ramirez.
The clerk looked at her flatly for a moment before saying, “Take a seat, and I’ll see what I can do.”
The call about the fire had sliced Ramirez’s sleep in half, and now, the afternoon after, she was too tired to make a scene, too tired to insist on seeing the supervisor and banging on his desk. Instead she sat in one of the blue plastic seats and waited. trenton makes, the world takes, said the sign on the bridge, but as far as Ramirez could figure it, Trenton only made you wait. And wait.
She stretched her long legs out for a moment, rested her neck on the back edge of the blue chair, closed her eyes.
“Union County.”
Ramirez snapped awake and looked up. The clerk, staring down at her, had a file in her hand. Ramirez glanced at her watch. She’d been asleep for an hour.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I must have dozed.”
“That’s okay. I suspect they keep their homicide detectives busy there in Philadelphia.” The clerk opened the file, read a bit. “Your Liam Byrne died at Overlook Hospital in Summit. I made a copy of the certificate for you. But it wasn’t a homicide.”
“No?” said Ramirez, rubbing her eyes.
“No, dear,” said the clerk, closing the file and handing it off. “It was a heart attack.”
Ramirez took the file, opened it, quickly examined the certificate. Liam Byrne, born in Philadelphia, July 15, 1941, died in Summit, New Jersey, June 4, 1994. And there it was: cause of death, myocardial infarction, a simple heart attack. All of it certified by a Dr. Manzone of Overlook Hospital. That should be the end of this road, she should get back home. She had too many real crimes to investigate, too many families still raw from the pains of their loss and looking for answers that only she could give, closure that only she could provide. She didn’t need to be investigating phantom crimes in a distant jurisdiction.
“Thank you so much for your help,” said Ramirez. “I really appreciate it.”
“Anything else I can do?”
“Just one thing,” she said. “How do you get to this Summit?”
UP,” HAD SAID THE CLERK. Ramirez took it as a smart remark, but the woman simply meant north, Route 1 to the turnpike to the Garden State Parkway. Welcome to scenic New Jersey. Not for the first time did Detective Ramirez wonder how anyone could live here. Philadelphia had snap and life, New Jersey, other than the shore, had places to drive, and places to watch TV, and places to die. Overlook Hospital was one of the places to die. It was a large, formal brick building on the edge of one of the sprawling suburbs that seemed to make up the entire state.
It took a bit of bouncing around and waving her badge until she found the records room. This new clerk was quite busy and let her know it with a dramatic sigh at her request. When she showed him her badge, he almost sneered.
“This will take some time,” he said.
“Not too much, I hope.”
“It’s off-site, dearie. I have to call it in and then have it delivered.
It could take all day.”
“I don’t have all day. Do your best to speed it up, could you?” she
said with a bat of her eyelashes that did nothing.
“It will take what it will take.”
“Of course it will. Is there a decent place to eat around here?” “What do you like, other than lipstick two shades too bright?” “Right now I feel like something raw.”
“Oooh,” he said with a sly smile.