He looked through other areas of the lab, but didn’t see Haycroft. He noticed Larson’s door was open and peered in. There was a neat stack of papers in the center of the desk. The photograph was gone.
“Frank! What brings you here this morning?”
He turned to see Al Larson walking toward him. Smiling, although it faltered slightly at the sight of his black eye.
Frank forced a smile of his own and said, “What a surprise, right?”
Larson looked at him uncertainly. “What can I do for you?”
He was tempted to say, “You haven’t seen that note you left for me yesterday, by any chance, have you?” But he could see he had already made Larson wary — which wouldn’t help him build a solid case against the man. Or stay alive. “Actually,” he said, “I wanted to talk to Paul Haycroft.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Paul’s taking some time off. He won’t be in for a week.”
“Really? He didn’t mention anything about that when I saw him yesterday.”
“No, probably not. A death in the family. He called me at home late last night — he so seldom misses work, I couldn’t think of denying his request. Will this cause difficulties with any of your cases in progress? I’d be happy to give my personal attention to anything you need.”
I’m sure you would. “Thanks, but I’ll just wait until he returns.”
“Fine, then. Let me know if you change your mind.”
He had almost reached the door of the lab when Mary Michaels, the toxicologist, saw him. She winced at the bruises on his face.
He held up his hands and said, “I’m not taking anything with me this time, I promise.”
“Hmm,” she said, eyeing him. “Maybe I ought to pat you down, just to make sure.”
He looked away, embarrassed by the comment.
“Hell, no,” another voice said. “If you’re going to make offers like that, tell him you’ll strip-search him.”
He turned to see Vince.
“Jesus, Harriman,” Vince said, laughing. “You’re blushing.”
“Well,” she said to Vince, “nobody’s going to offer to strip-search you. You’ve already let every woman in the department see that you aren’t carrying a thing.”
“That’s not true,” Vince said. “I’ve never been naked with Louise Oswald.”
She made a face and walked away.
“We used to date,” he explained to Frank.
“Ah. That accounts for the rapport.”
Vince shrugged. “Yeah, that’s me. Mr. Smooth. You got a minute?”
Frank almost said no — it would have been easy to make up an excuse. He felt awkward, and angry still, and wished that Vince would have given him a little more time to cool off. But he wasn’t proud of losing his temper, and he didn’t want the tension between them to get worse. So he said, “Sure. Let’s move out of the doorway.”
A small table and two chairs were nearby. They moved a few steps closer, but neither man sat down.
“Upstairs,” Vince began, “you said something that’s been eating at me. About Phil. You really think he didn’t trust us? I mean — the guy seldom worked with partners, but I just figured he always thought he was better than us. Shit, he was better — at the job, anyway. But that’s different from thinking that the people you’re working with are crooked. And that’s what you meant, right?”
Frank hesitated, then said, “I don’t think it was a personal thing, Vince.”
“What the hell are you talking about? How can that not be personal?”
“I’m saying he didn’t know who in the department could be trusted, who couldn’t. It wasn’t a matter of mistrusting any one individual.”
Vince was clearly unsatisfied with this answer, but seemed unwilling to start a new argument with Frank. He indicated the lab door and asked, “You coming or going?”
“Going. I was trying to see Haycroft, but he’s on funeral leave.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry to hear that. That poor guy can’t have much family left.”
“What do you mean?”
Vince looked extremely uncomfortable. “You know — you read about the robbery.” Seeing Frank’s blank look, he added in a low voice, “The fax Irene sent you from the newspaper.”
“That was Larson’s son,” Frank said, bewildered.
“The hell it was. You think I don’t know who died in that robbery?” He sighed and shook his head. “Let me tell you something, Frank. Not a day goes by I don’t think about that family — every single one of those five people who were killed — and wonder if somehow — maybe if I’d been more patient with Lisa or forced her to get help…” He swallowed hard. “But I gave up on her, and look what happened. I let her go her own way after the divorce, and she gets mixed up with one of Dane’s bunch, and that prick Sudas kills the security guard, Haycroft’s ex-wife, Haycroft’s son, the ex’s new husband — Dillon — and Dillon’s little girl from his first marriage. And Lisa — I know Lisa, and I know she didn’t know what was going to happen, not really — and God knows fucking Sudas might as well have shot her, too, because in her head, that’s the last day that ever was. I know that as sure as I’m sitting here. I haven’t been able to look Haycroft in the eye ever since. He’s never said a word to me about it or blamed me in any way, but I sure as hell know that boy was his.”
Frank sat down. “My God.”
“Hey,” Vince said, “you feeling okay? You look a little pale.”
Frank leaned his elbows on the table and cradled his forehead in his palms. “My God…”
“Frank? Maybe you should have taken the day off. You’re looking like hell.”
“No — no, it’s not that, it’s just that — Haycroft — Jesus, Kit was Haycroft’s boy?”
“How many times I gotta tell you? Yes. Kit Haycroft. That’s why I feel sorry for the guy now—”
“Don’t. Don’t feel sorry for him,” Frank said. “When I think of those photographs of Amanda Randolph… and all the others! Christ, what a bastard!”
Vince narrowed his eyes. “You aren’t making a hell of a lot of sense.”
“Listen, you were asking about Lefebvre not trusting anyone. He was trying to figure something out — a day or so before he was murdered—”
“Murdered?”
It hit him, then. Just like Lefebvre, he had been working alone, not trusting anyone. He didn’t really blame Lefebvre — things had happened too quickly for him to figure out whom he could trust. Lefebvre didn’t have much more than a day to work out what might be going on with the case.
And now, ten years later, things were happening quickly again. If Haycroft’s arson attempt had succeeded in destroying the condo and everyone in it, who would have known where to look for Frank’s own killer? Or if one of the car bombs had done its work? In either case, Dane would have doubtless been blamed.
Over the past few days, Hale had heard Frank’s theories, but Hale was an administrator. He’d never get involved in a case the way these guys would. At the end of the day, Hale was what any other chief of police was — a politician. A politician who would always be thinking about the department’s image.
Frank looked at Vince, who was waiting for him to explain. He decided he wasn’t going to play it Lefebvre’s way.
“I’m talking about the fact that Phil Lefebvre was killed by someone in this department.”
Vince looked at him in utter bewilderment, as if Frank had suddenly spoken in a foreign language. “What?”
Frank looked over his shoulder — this part of the lab was still empty, but he felt ill at ease being anywhere near Haycroft’s territory. “Let’s go upstairs. I need to talk to you and Reed and Pete about this.”
Looking at their faces, seeing the mixture of disbelief and confusion and anger there, Frank thought that if he had taken the bombs that were in his car a few hours earlier and set them off in the middle of the squad room, the effect wouldn’t have been any less devastating.