“He’s pulled that one before, too. ‘Oh, my cell phone has bad reception,’ ” Noah mimicked. He brought up his cell outgoing call log. “I called his cell and his home line.”
Abbott scanned his phone’s screen. “Your fingers did a lot of walking tonight, Noah.”
Noah snapped his phone shut, annoyed. “It’s been an eventful day,” he said tightly.
“That it has. I want you to brief me, then go home and sleep. It’s going to take CSU the better part of the night to process the scene. Tell me what happened.”
So Noah did, starting with Eve’s discovery that her red-zone, Rachel Ward, was not where she was supposed to be, finishing with his and Olivia’s grisly discovery. At this point he was reciting facts, his voice flat and expressionless from fatigue.
“We found his setup in the basement. He’d covered the windows so no one would see the flames. Smoke detectors, disabled. He let the fire lick up the stool he’d tied her to. She’s got third-degree burns, feet and legs. Micki called the fire investigators.”
“Okay,” Abbott said. “I’m up to speed. Go home, Noah. You look like hell.”
“Okay.” It was testament to his exhaustion that he obeyed without argument. He started for his car, then stopped as Jack’s car coasted to a stop in front of his.
Noah waited with Abbott as Jack approached, his cover-boy face haggard. And hung over. Noah recognized the look. He’d seen it in his own mirror enough times.
“Abbott said you called me,” Jack said with no trace of humor. “I never got the call.”
“I called you six fucking times.” Ignoring the guilt in his partner’s eyes, Noah went on. “The first call went out at 2:25. Rachel Ward may have still been alive then.”
Jack shook his head in denial. “I swear to God I never got your call. I fell asleep.”
Noah stepped closer, dropped his voice to a whisper. “After you drank how much?”
The guilt in his eyes gave way to anger. “One. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“No, not my business. But Rachel might think it was hers. She was busy dying while you were sleeping off your one drink.”
Jack’s cheeks grew dark. “You sonofabitch.”
Behind them Abbott cleared his throat harshly and Noah stowed his temper. “Olivia spotted a car leaving this neighborhood at 3:15,” Noah said. “The license plates were registered to Axel Girard’s wife.”
Jack’s eyes flashed. “I told you he was the one. But you said it didn’t make sense.”
Noah had to take a step back, appalled that his hand had actually closed into a fist. He swallowed back the fury and managed to say nothing at all.
Jack flicked a glance down at Noah’s clenched fist “Where is Girard now?”
“In lockup,” Noah said. “I called the car we had parked in front of his house. They said the Girards appeared to have been in bed. But on the off chance that somehow Axel sneaked out to another car, killed Rachel Ward, then teleported himself home in half the time it should have taken him to drive, I had him picked up.” He turned to look at Abbott. “Eight a.m. meeting?”
“Make it nine. Jack, I expect you to have a new cell phone, forthwith.”
The ME techs came out of Rachel’s house, pushing the gurney that held the body bag. Jack swallowed hard before turning, getting into his car, and driving away.
“I should feel bad about what I said,” Noah murmured, “but I don’t.”
“Jack’s on a bad track,” Abbott said. “You can’t save him from himself. Only he can.”
“First step,” Noah said quietly, then realized he’d said it aloud. He’d never revealed his alcoholism to anyone on the force, never even spoken of it to anyone besides Brock and Trina, until he’d blurted it to Eve. And she hadn’t flinched. Now he turned to his boss, whose expression was not judgmental. Noah sighed. “You know.”
“I’ve always known,” Abbott chided. “I told you, it’s my job to know my staff.”
“Which is why you get paid the medium-sized bucks.”
Abbott’s mouth curved, but his eyes didn’t smile. “Go home and sleep. That’s an order. See you at oh-nine. And tell Eve I said thank you. She almost saved the day.”
From under the carport in an empty For Sale house half a block away, Harvey put down his binoculars. “Webster nearly hit Phelps.” He turned to Dell, who’d just arrived, his car parked down the street from Harvey’s Subaru.
Still observing through his zoom lens, Dell smiled. “A crack in the blue wall.”
Dell’s tone had him frowning. “What do you know, son? What have you done?”
Dell shrugged. “Just gave an already shaky relationship a little push, that’s all.”
Harvey was quiet for a long moment. “Phelps was really late getting here tonight,” he finally said. “You told me the boys were on the move an hour ago.”
“It appears Phelps slept in,” Dell said cheerfully.
Harvey considered the circuitous route Webster had taken, the look of weary panic on the man’s face when he’d stopped at the mailbox store. He’d been racing against a clock for the past hour and here they sat, less than a mile from Phelps’s home.
A shiver ran down his spine. “A woman died here. Tell me that matters to you.”
“What matters to me is that V is dead,” Dell said bitterly. “That matters to me.”
“I know that,” Harvey said softly. “I know that every minute of every day.”
“The men who killed him walk free. Do you know that every minute of every day?”
Harvey leaned against the headrest and closed his eyes. “What. Did. You. Do?”
“I’m not going to tell you.” Then Dell gasped when Harvey’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the collar of his parka and twisted, cutting off his air.
Harvey leaned across the gearshift, furious. “You will tell me. Make no mistake. I am your father. I brought you into this world. I can-”
“Take me out,” Dell sneered, his eyes flashing hate. “You know what? I’m not five years old and peeing my pants in fear of you anymore. V’s not here to take my licks, so I’ll take them myself. So hit me, old man. If you think you can.”
Harvey hesitated, feeling a grudging respect for his younger son, who might have finally grown up. He released him with a shove of disgust. “Just tell me what you did.”
“I’ll get as old as you waiting for these cops to fuck up on camera. So, I decided to take control of the situation. I got us a… Trojan Horse.”
“Make some sense, boy,” Harvey snapped.
“I got someone on the inside, a woman. She’s cuddled up to Phelps, made him think she’s got the hots for him. But she watches him, for us.”
“And tonight? You said Phelps overslept.”
Dell shrugged. “She doctored his whiskey bottle a little bit. Just to make him sleep. Obviously not too much, because he actually showed up this time.”
“He hasn’t shown up other times?”
“He’s missed a few days. His partner’s pretty pissed with him. I figure another few episodes like tonight and they’ll turn on each other like the dogs they are.”
What were you thinking, boy? If Phelps had been awake an hour ago, that woman might have lived. “So how have you known when they were on the move?”
“She keeps Phelps’s phone on vibrate,” Dell said, “and waits for a call.”
“That’s how you knew they were going to the Brisbane woman’s on Sunday. You told me the GPS beeps when they move their cars.”
“It does, but she’s a little extra insurance. Sometimes I sleep through the beep.”
“So instead of telling Phelps, she calls you.”
“Yeah. Then she erases all of Webster’s messages and calls from the incoming log. I guess somebody must have called him again after she left, woke him up.”
“You dumb fuck,” Harvey gritted. “If they check with the phone company, they’ll prove Webster called. Then they’ll be on the alert that somebody is fucking with them.”