Broome almost chuckled. “Wow, you’re really reaching.”
It was, Broome knew, outrageous and full of holes, and yet, as he had learned over the years, the truth has a more unique stench than lies. Still, he didn’t have to rely on intuition. Would Ray have pictures from every February 18? That might back her crazy claim.
But more important: If Ray snapped a photograph of the victim, maybe, just maybe, he took a photograph of the killer.
“You said two things,” Broome said.
“What?”
“You said there were two reasons you changed your mind about Ray killing Stewart Green. You just gave me one. What’s the other?”
“The simplest reason of all,” Megan said. “Stewart Green isn’t dead.”
Deputy Chief Samuel Goldberg wanted to cry.
He wouldn’t, of course; couldn’t even remember the last time he had, but suddenly the desire was there. He sat alone in his office. The office was really a glass partition, and everyone could see in unless he closed the blinds and whenever he did that, every cop in the precinct, a naturally suspicious group by nature, got extra-antsy.
Goldberg closed his eyes and rubbed his face. It felt as though the world were closing in on him, preparing to crush him like in that Star Wars ’ trash compactor scene or that old Batman TV episode where Catwoman’s spike-y wall nearly skewers the Dynamic Duo. His divorce cost him a fortune. The mortgage payments on his and his ex’s properties were ridiculous. His oldest daughter, Carrie, the greatest kid any guy could ever hope to have, wanted to become a tennis phenom and that was so damned expensive. Carrie was training down in Florida with some world-famous coach, and it was costing Goldberg more than 60K a year, which was nearly his take-home salary after taxes. Plus, okay, Goldberg had expensive taste in women, and that was never a good thing for the bank account.
So Goldberg had to be creative to make ends still not meet. How? He sold information. So what? For the most part, the information didn’t change a damn thing. For that matter, neither did law enforcement. You get rid of the Italians, the blacks take it over. You get rid of the blacks, you got the Mexicans and the Russians and so on. So Goldberg played both sides. Nobody got hurt except those who deserved to get hurt. Criminal-on-criminal crime, so to speak.
As for this new situation-providing information on the Carlton Flynn case-well, that seemed even more basic. The father wanted to find his kid. Who couldn’t get that? The father believed the cops could only do so much and that he could help them out. Goldberg doubted it, but sure-why not? — go for it. At worst, the father feels like he did the most he could. Who wouldn’t understand that? And at best, well, the cops did have limits. They had to follow certain rules, even the dumb-ass ones. Someone outside of law enforcement circles didn’t have those restraints. So maybe, who knows, this could be a good thing for everyone.
Plus, yep, Goldberg gets money.
Win-win-win.
During his marriage, Goldberg’s now ex-wife, one of those beautiful women who wanted you to take them seriously but the only reason you’d bother is because they’re beautiful, had thrown a lot of yoga-Zen-Buddhist crap at him, warning him about the danger of his extracurricular moneymaking activities. She talked about how bad deeds could enter the soul and the slippery slope and that it would color his chakra red and all that. She talked this way until, of course, he pointed out that if he listened to her they’d have to move into a smaller house and skip the summer vacations and forget about Carrie’s tennis lessons.
But maybe there was something to all that slippery-slope mumbo jumbo. A stripper gets hurt a little-big deal, right? But maybe it is. Maybe it just snowballs from there.
And where does it end up?
Megan Pierce, wife and mother of two, who could now identify Del Flynn’s two psychopaths-that’s where. She needed to be silenced. That’s the problem with crossing the line. You step over it for a second, but then that line gets blurry and you don’t know where it is anymore and next thing you know, you’re supposed to help two maniacal Talbots-catalogue models kill a woman.
Goldberg’s cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw it was the psycho chick.
“Goldberg,” he said.
“Is she still in your precinct, Deputy Chief Goldberg?”
Her upbeat voice reminded him of the hot cheerleader captain from his high school days. “Yes.”
The young woman sighed. “I can wait.”
And then Goldberg said something that surprised even him: “There’s no need.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m getting all the information on her, and then I’ll pass it on. There’s no need for you to, uh, discuss anything with her. You can just let her be.”
Silence.
“Hello?” Goldberg said.
“Don’t worry, I’m here,” she said in a singsong voice.
Where the hell had Flynn found these two? He decided to push it a bit.
“Plus there is a lot of heat,” Goldberg said.
“Heat?”
“People are watching her. Cops. You’d never have a chance to get her alone for more than a minute or two. Really, it’s best to leave this one to me.”
Silence.
Goldberg cleared his throat and tried to move her off this topic. “The blood by those ruins belongs to Carlton Flynn, just so you know. So what other angle are you two working on? Anything I can help with?”
“Deputy Chief Goldberg?”
“Yes.”
“When will Megan Pierce be leaving the precinct?”
“I don’t know, but I just told you-”
“She saw things, Deputy Chief Goldberg.”
He flashed onto Harry Sutton’s dead body-the poor guy’s pants down around his ankles, the burn marks, the incisions, the horrible things done to him. Beads of sweat popped up on Goldberg’s brow. He hadn’t signed on for this. It was one thing to sneak a little information to a worried father. But this?
“No, she didn’t.”
Again the young woman said, “Pardon?”
“I was just with her,” Goldberg said, realizing that he was talking too quickly. “She said she saw a black man at the scene, that’s all.”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“If you say so, Deputy Chief Goldberg.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
But the call had already been disconnected.
28
Walking toward Goldberg ’s office, Broome debated the pros and cons and quickly deduced that he had no choice. Goldberg was finishing a phone call. He gestured for Broome to sit.
Broome glanced at his boss’s face and then did a double take. Goldberg hadn’t been a beauty who radiated good health to begin with, but right now, sitting behind his cluttered desk, he looked like something pulled out of the bottom of the laundry hamper. Something that maybe the cat coughed up first. Something that was pale and pasty and shaky and maybe in need of an angioplasty.
Broome took a seat. He expected to be chewed out, but Goldberg seemed too exhausted. Goldberg hung up the phone. He looked at Broome through eyes with enough baggage to work a pole at La Creme and said in a gentle voice that surprised Broome, “Tell me what’s going on.”
The tone threw him. Broome tried to remember the last time Goldberg had been anything but piss-contest hostile. He couldn’t. It didn’t matter. Broome had already decided that he had to come clean and tell Goldberg his suspicions. It would be impossible to move ahead without his immediate superior’s okay. They probably had enough now to go to the feds-probably had enough yesterday but Broome didn’t want to rush it. He didn’t want to look like a fool if he was wrong, didn’t want to lose the case if he was right.
Broome started with the murder of Ross Gunther, then moved on to the missing Mardi Gras Men-Erin had so far come up with fourteen disappearances in seventeen years that fit-and then he segued into Carlton Flynn. He ended with his suspicion that last night’s murder of Harry Sutton was connected, but he had no idea how.