"How…?"
"Reconstruction from the evidence," said Mac. "That's about when you came through the door, right?"
"Right," he said.
"Wrong," said Mac. "What were you doing there at the exact time of a triple murder in the middle of the night?"
"I was going to be with Becky," he said. "She was expecting me. She left the front door open."
Mac shook his head "no."
"There was a call from Becky's cell phone to yours after two-fifteen."
"She called to ask if I was on the way," he said.
"She was dead, Kyle. Jacob called you and you came to the house and moved the bodies. It took you about half an hour to get there. The trail of blood from the floor to the bed would have shown more blood if Becky and her mother were moved shortly after they were killed."
"Jacob called me," admitted Shelton. "When I got there, he was covered with blood. So was the knife in his hand. He was just standing there looking down at his dead mother. He wasn't concerned with being accused of murdering his family. He was afraid of the world finding out the horror in that house. Better an intruder than the truth. I knew the intruder story wouldn't work. Too much evidence. I sent Jacob to his room and put the bodies on the bed."
"Why?" asked Mac, though he thought he knew the answer.
"It was the right thing to do," Shelton finally said. "Lay out the respected and loved dead and leave a dead dog at their feet."
"Then?" Mac prompted.
"Then I helped Jacob hide, put his bike and clothes in my car, found that wooded area and scattered it all in the clearing."
"You knew we'd find them," said Mac.
"I wanted them found. They were. Without Becky I was going back to a life of grief and despair, a life I had brought home inside me from Iraq. I could live in grief, growing old in low-pay jobs, or I could do it in prison for life and possibly save Jacob. It was worth a try."
"Did you know the leaf was on your shoe?"
Kyle didn't answer.
"You wanted us to find him in the house," said Mac. "But you didn't want to tell us directly and have Jacob think you'd betrayed him. So, you called me, left clues that got more and more simple. The quote you attributed to Anne Frank was obviously not by Anne Frank. You were telling me to look for a child hiding in the house.
"You're guilty of helping to conceal a crime," said Mac. "Considering the crime and why you did it and the fact that you have no record, my guess would be suspended sentence. That's what we'll ask the court for."
"You think they'd let me take care of Jacob?" Kyle asked.
"Stranger things have happened," said Mac, but he didn't believe Kyle getting custody of Jacob would be one of them.
" 'Nobody should pin their hopes on a miracle,' " said Kyle.
"Who said that? Voltaire?" asked Mac.
"Vladimir Putin," answered Kyle.
13
"WE'RE ALMOST BECOMING FAMILY," said Bloom, opening the door to his shop with a look of resignation. "You have a warrant, I assume?"
Stella, Flack and a backup uniformed officer, who looked as if he could be a National Football League lineman, stood in the doorway.
"We're not here to search," said Flack.
Bloom said nothing and waited for them to make their move. Bloom was wearing a pair of neatly pressed navy trousers and a white shirt, also neatly pressed. The clothes did nothing to hide his paunch. He continued to look at them over the rimless lenses of his glasses. Stella thought he looked like anyone's second-favorite uncle.
There was a smell of fresh coffee mingling with the pleasant smell of wood.
"We'd like to talk," said Flack. "Will you please come with us?"
"Can we talk here?" asked Bloom. "I've got coffee brewing."
"We'd like you to come with us," Flack said.
The big uniformed cop shifted his weight, ready to move.
"My attorney has said I should cooperate with you no more," said Bloom. "You'll have to arrest me."
"Sure," said Stella. "You're under arrest for the murders of Asher Glick and Joel Besser."
Bloom shrugged and started forward toward the door.
"Stop," said Stella.
Bloom stopped. Flack's gun was out now. He motioned for the big cop to move forward and pat down Bloom as Flack began to issue the Miranda warning. The cop, whose name was Rossi, was taller than Bloom, easily six foot four. He had been a college wrestler at Rutgers and had tried out for the Steelers, who decided Rossi was just too slow.
"Clean," said Rossi, standing up and taking out his cuffs.
Slump-shouldered Bloom put his hands behind his back. He heard the metal jangle of the handcuffs and made his move. He turned and leveled a sudden sharp chop to Rossi's throat. The big cop went down on his knees, gasping for air, still grasping the handcuffs in his right hand.
Flack stood ready to shoot if the suspect attacked him. The problem was that Bloom had no weapon and Bloom, when he wanted to, could look like a harmless middle-aged man with a paunch and poor eyesight. Shooting unarmed suspects or perpetrators was forbidden except under unusual circumstances. This certainly appeared to be an unusual circumstance.
Flack's hesitation of less than a second would have meant nothing with most people he arrested. Bloom moved with surprising speed, throwing his full weight into Flack, who staggered backward and dropped his gun.
The only one between Bloom and escape was Stella, who stood in the doorway with no expression. She was unarmed.
Bloom had packed a single medium-sized duffle bag, which lay on his bed upstairs. He had taken little time to pack. The delay had been caused by the bureaucracy of the bank. He had called to tell them that he wished to withdraw all of his money, that he would be there within an hour. When he arrived at the bank, the clerk directed him to an assistant bank manager who looked more like a well-dressed young movie star. The assistant manager had assured Bloom that they were almost finished putting together the cash. Over an hour later, Bloom had left the bank with a thickly packed zippered tote bag. The bag was in the trunk of an Al-tima he had stolen no more than twenty minutes before Stella, Flack and Rossi had appeared at his door. The car was parked in a three-story lot within sight of Bloom's shop.
Now he had to improvise. He had been taught to improvise and over the years had added many improvements on what he had been taught decades ago.
Bloom moved quickly toward Stella. Behind him Rossi's gasps for air sounded like the wheezing of a person in the final throes of emphysema. Flack got to his knees, looked around for his gun and saw it in the left hand of Arvin Bloom.
Kills with his left, writes and eats with his right, thought Stella.
Flack started to stand on shaking legs. Bloom heard the detective over the gasps of the officer on the floor. Bloom turned the gun toward Flack, who started to reach for the backup gun taped to his ankle. Bloom knew just what Flack was doing.
Before the detective could reach his gun, Bloom would shoot him and the woman in the doorway. It would make noise. The shots would probably be called in to 911. He would have to move slowly when he got outside. He couldn't run.
Pain. A terrible pain that sent him into spasms and made him drop to the floor and drop Flack's gun. Bloom, eyes twitching rapidly, looked at Stella and the small black stun gun in her hand. How many volts had she used? He began to writhe on the floor. Flack picked up his gun from the floor where Bloom had dropped it, holstered the gun and cuffed Bloom.
Both Stella and Flack moved to Rossi, whose face was white and bloated. Rossi's mouth was open wide, trying to suck in air. His pleading eyes moved from Flack to Stella.