Flashpoint (25 page)

‘It's just so nice to sit and relax for a while,' Jane said. Then laughed. ‘I keep sounding older every year. More like my mom. She worked hard all her life – she raised my brother and me after my father decided he wanted to stay in the Navy and have a girl in every port – in a place that was a forerunner of Walmart. By the time I was a sophomore in high school I was an activist because I saw how big business treated people like my mother. Long hours, no health insurance, the threat of firing if the word got out that you even mentioned anything about unionizing. So several times a week after ten-to-twelve-hour days she'd sit at our little dinner table and let one of her shoes drop off so she could rub her foot and say, “It's just so nice to sit here and relax for a while.” I'd been doing ninety percent of the housework and washing and ironing all the clothes since seventh grade to help her out. And my younger brother always had jobs. Thank God I got scholarships for college.' She used her fork to point to her salad. ‘Sometimes when I eat at a good restaurant I feel guilty because my mom could never afford it. She died of heart disease. I wish there was time travel so I could take her to Chicago and buy her a nice dress and take her to a fancy restaurant and get her a good car. The old Chevy she drove was almost twenty years old.' For a few moments she was a little girl again doting on the woman who bore her and loved her and raised her. And obviously raised her well. ‘She was a wonderful woman.'

‘I'm getting the same feeling about you.'

Too much. I'd embarrassed her; I couldn't tell if she was blushing but her expression portrayed her discomfort. ‘I'm selfish and self-centered and have a bad temper. My mom was none of those things, Dev.' I'd also managed to irritate her. She'd mythologized her mother into a perfect creature. Now I knew better than to try and argue with her.

My cell phone toned. It was Sarah, but at a speed and decibel that defied comprehension. All I was able to get on the first pass were the words ‘scared' and ‘screaming.'

‘Sarah, Sarah. You have to slow down. I can't understand you.'

Jane's eyes were fixed on mine. She'd picked up on the alarm in my voice.

Sarah was sobbing now. ‘He ran out the door. I can't believe he had the strength to do it.'

‘I assume you mean Howie?'

‘Yes! And Hawkins went after him.'

‘Hawkins? How did he know where you were?'

‘That's just it. Howard said you told him. He said you sold us out so Hawkins could kill him.' Everything she said was between sobs.

‘I couldn't have told him. I don't
know
where you are.'

‘The Sleep Tight. A motel out by the airport. If you didn't tell him, I don't know who did.'

But I knew. It wasn't a person, it was a thing. A tracking device. Hawkins had slapped it on their rental just as he'd slapped one on mine. Where it had been the other night when he shot at but failed to kill Ruskin. That good ole buddy of mine, the finest bellman money could buy, Earl Leonard, had lied to me, of course. And Hawkins had paid him to lie, to provide him with an alibi so I wouldn't think an investigator for a US Attorney, a patriotic cuss and a man among men, could possibly lie under any circumstances.

‘Sarah, Sarah, listen to me. Howard is right. Hawkins may be trying to kill him. I'm on my way. You just sit tight and wait for me.'

Now she was crying so hard she couldn't even form words. I thumbed the phone off.

‘What's going on?'

‘I can explain on the way, if you want to ride along.'

That smile of hers could get her into Top Secret rooms without a pass. ‘Of
course
I want to ride along.'

I waved the waiter over. ‘I'll leave you a fifty-dollar tip if you can get us out of here in under three minutes.'

He needed fifteen seconds to compute what I'd said then he jerked the card so hard he almost took my hand off with it. And then he was running, yes, running, toward the cash register area.

We were a little more leisurely in our sojourn to the front of the restaurant. We merely jogged there.

The well-dressed middle-aged woman who would normally have processed our card had been pushed aside by the waiter. I knew this from the way her eyes and mouth were set in a Ted-Bundy-spots-his-prey look. Later she would see to it that the manager would take care of the matter for her. Castration with a butter knife would be only the beginning.

I had no idea if he'd made the three minutes or not, but I added fifty dollars to the bill and we rushed out of there.

I spotted our bellman Earl over by the elevators, but like the restaurant manager I'd have to wait until later for my vengeance. Jane and I raced to the hall that would take us to the side door and then the parking lot.

I shot out of the parking lot and into the dark, cold night. Suddenly Howie's conspiracy theory sounded a lot more believable.

T
he red and blue emergency lights bouncing off low-hanging rain clouds told a story I didn't want to hear. And we were still three blocks away from the motel.

The parking lot on the west side of the motel was set up for making a movie. All the props and people in place. You had your three police vehicles, your four uniformed coppers, your ambulance with the back door open and you had your crowd of motel guests all bundled up against the low thirties temp. It wasn't even quite eight o'clock but a few of the women had nightgowns showing under the hems of their winter coats. And screeching into place seconds before I turned into the lot a van with
CHANNEL 6 NEWS NOW!
splashed across the side in red and yellow action colors.

No problem finding a parking space. The thing was you had to park way back because that was where the police officer, a large man with a flashlight you could club a black bear to death with, directed us. Something terrible had happened in this lot not very long ago.

The official perimeter was at least fifty yards from the motel itself and another squad car pulled in to reinforce the way these officers had decided to mark off the crime scene. Jane shivered next to me. It felt twenty instead of thirty.

We walked up to a slender African-American woman in a dark blue police uniform who was reminding people about the perimeter.

‘Excuse me, Officer.'

She did not seem unduly charmed by my presence. ‘Uh-huh.'

‘Can you fill me in a little on what happened?'

‘Fill you in? Are you with the press?'

‘No.'

‘Then why would I fill you in?'

Since I couldn't give her a quick answer – I certainly didn't want to bring up Robert's name – she walked away.

Jane said, ‘I was going to talk to her but she left so quickly.'

‘You know her?'

‘Well, not
know
her know her, but I met her once or twice at police charity functions. Just wait here. It's worth a try.'

She left as fast as the cop had.

I eased closer to the crowd itself. A number of them were walking in place and rubbing their hands together or covering their ears with their hands. A prairie wind was streaking across the lot rattling signage and some of those tiny new two-seater cars.

More TV station vans arrived and reporters and camera people were deployed to the front lines where they positioned themselves like snipers.

The crowd members offered conflicting stories. There'd been a shooting or a knifing or a bludgeoning. It had been a lovers' argument or a robbery or a drug deal. There was one dead, there were two dead, there were three dead. Real, real helpful. And by this time my entire face felt as if it had been Botoxed by the cold night winds.

The crowd swelled and so did my sinuses.

And that was when I saw a familiar figure stepping out of the backseat of one of the unmarked police cars. And it was none other than my old friend Detective Farnsworth. I broke into a run.

And as I was running toward him, Sarah slid out of the backseat and joined him. I could hear her sobbing from here. Head down, her shoulders shaking so hard Farnsworth slid his arm around her protectively as he moved her past the demarcation line and toward the open motel room where light lasered across the lot.

No point in yelling. Farnsworth wasn't about to let me join them and it would just upset Sarah all the more anyway.

Several steps and I was behind the crowd and headed back toward my previous position. The number of press vehicles had doubled now. Network and cable news directors were dispatching reporters the way Hannibal had dispatched troops.

I got a glimpse of Jane and the cop. They were deep in conversation.

By now I was stamping my feet, rubbing my hands together, covering my ears. As soon as Jane got back and told me what she'd found out I planned to do the unthinkable and walk back to my Jeep and get my hat, gloves and scarf, something in my haste I'd forgotten to do.

‘Oh, God, Dev, what a terrible night.'

‘What'd you find out?'

Her shudder might have been in response to the winds but I doubted it. More likely it had to do with what she was about to relate to me. ‘Howie Ruskin was shot to death by Hawkins. His story is that he'd had Ruskin under surveillance for several hours. When Ruskin came out of his room to go somewhere, Hawkins told him to stop. Ruskin tried to run and when Hawkins came after him Ruskin pulled his gun, but before he could fire, Hawkins shot him twice. Head and chest.' She paused. Then, ‘And Sarah came out screaming and knelt beside Ruskin, who was dead. She picked up his gun and aimed it at Hawkins but he convinced her to put it down. And now you're going to ask me if there were any witnesses to Hawkins and Ruskin and from what Connie knows, no. There were witnesses to Sarah and Hawkins, though. God, I feel so bad for poor Sarah.'

‘So Hawkins could be lying about Ruskin pulling a gun?'

Her voice was a whisper. I was sure her mind was still on Sarah. ‘Could be. That's what Sarah says anyway. It's just hard to believe that somebody from the US Attorney's office could be—'

‘Easy way to kill off the one person who could link Howie to the bad guys.'

She still sounded disturbed about Hawkins. ‘What about Sarah?'

‘No. Ruskin never shared the secret stuff with her, she told me. He was afraid a beautiful woman would carry him off to Paradise, leaving Sarah behind with all this “info” as he called it that she could kill him with, so he kept it to himself.'

Then I saw my chance with Hawkins. From the backseat of the car he'd been in stepped a heavyset detective in a gray topcoat. The man wore a fedora and gaped around as if he was worried about an assassin. Then he stepped back from the car and from the open back door Hawkins emerged.

The two men shook hands and said some words, their breath pluming, the detective jamming a cigarette into his mouth, Hawkins digging his cell phone out and checking it as soon as the detective started walking away from him.

‘I need to catch Hawkins. Why don't you wait in the Jeep and run the heater.' I pitched her the keys and took off.

As I moved I realized I'd probably have to get past the police blockade; otherwise Hawkins could just walk away safe inside the zone. But he surprised me. He talked to Officer Connie briefly and then headed toward his rental. The one he'd likely used when he'd first tried to kill Ruskin.

He was unlocking the door to his rental when I caught up with him. He'd looked up when I was about twenty feet away from him. He finished with the door but didn't open it. ‘I was going to call you before I left the parking lot.'

‘Tell me what it feels like to kill a guy, you mean?'

‘You forget. I checked you out; that's an experience you've had yourself.'

‘You had to kill him.'

He was pretty good at it, not great. I'd seen much better, but he wasn't bad. Tall guy like him with that gaunt face expressing the unique sorrow of a man who'd just taken the life of another man. Hands shoved deep in the pockets of his tweed topcoat. Green eyes tired, mouth broken by a frown, timbre of voice pitched low. Not horse shit, no; a couple of levels up from horse shit, his acting skills. A deep sigh. ‘Of course I had to kill him and I resent the implication that I didn't. He pulled a gun on me; I didn't have any choice.'

‘Poor baby.'

His acting got a lot better when he covered the distance between us in four steps, got in my face and said, ‘You don't want to push me tonight, Conrad. Not in any way. I can make your life real miserable if I want to.'

‘I believe it, Hawkins. You made Ruskin's life pretty miserable, I'd say.'

‘Keep that in mind.' Then, abruptly, he was walking back to his car.

‘The people you really work for going to give you a bonus, are they?'

He stopped moving. Stood still for maybe thirty, forty seconds. ‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Sure you do.' I was winging it now. ‘The first plan was you locate Ruskin so you could see how it was going with Tracy Cabot and Senator Logan. Ruskin must have made your real bosses nervous about something in the setup. But then Cabot got herself murdered and your people got scared and panicked. A lot of law enforcement people were going to snoop around and it was problematic how long Ruskin could stand up to the pressure before he cut a deal and started talking. So your job changed. You not only had to locate him; you also had to take him out. I doubt this was the first time you'd killed somebody for them. You almost nailed him in that little park near the college; if he hadn't tripped you would've had him. When you came up to his room this morning he must have suspected what you were really up to. I was too stupid to catch on. I bought your act.'

There were just the two of us. All the clamor of the cops and the emergency team and the crowd had faded, leaving just me and Hawkins. He'd listened to my accusations without moving but now he was facing me again. And smiling.