Fury (19 page)

Saturday, September 22
9:40
P.M.
Day 6 of 6

Dorothy Sheridan was keeping her mouth shut. She had no doubt about it. She was there to take the fall. She wasn’t sure exactly when or how they were going to shift the blame her way, or, for that matter, what blame there was to shift. She was, however, certain it was going to happen.

Kesey tugged at his collar. “The governor is adamant. No smoking gun…no stay.”

“He’s right,” the mayor said. “Even if, god forbid, Himes turned out to be innocent, the backlash would be less than if he stopped the execution without cause.”

“I’ve gotta go,” the DA said. “I’ve got a flight at ten-fifteen.”

“You better take Sheridan here with you,” the chief said. “She’s been the survivor liaison the whole time. You handle the press, and she’ll handle the survivors for you.”

It took everything Dorothy had not to groan out loud. Prison. An execution. Where in her job description, she wondered, did it say anything about maximum-security prisons and lethal injections?

Hizhonor scowled. “What survivors?”

“The victims’ families,” the chief said. “We’ve got…” As usual, he looked to Dorothy for a number.

“Eight,” she said.

“We’ve got eight family members scheduled to witness the execution,” he finished.

“Shit,” said the mayor. “I suppose that Butler asshole is one of them.”

“You can count on it,” said Kesey.

“Himes’s mother is there too,” Dorothy said. The mayor looked horrified. “To watch?”

“No, sir,” she said. “To say good-bye…you know, last respects and all.”

10:00
P.M.
Day 6 of 6

“Ain’t neva give none of you-all a hard time. Not all the years I been here.”

“We got procedures, Walter.”

“Ain’t neva asked none of you-all for nothin’.”

“No…you haven’t,” said the new one they called Smitty.

“Wanna see my mama like a man. Not chained up like some cur dog.”

Smitty looked up at the sergeant, who pursed his thin lips and shook his bullet head. “Gotta chain you up, Walter. It’s the rules,” Smitty said.

“Ain’t right,” Himes said. “You gonna let them freak people come in here and watch me die, but you won’t let me see my mama like a man.”

Smitty reached to slide the waist chain around Himes’s middle.

“Wait,” the sergeant said.

Smitty stopped, genuflected, with the chain dangling from his hand.

“Clear,” the sergeant said suddenly.

The cell door rolled open. “Come on, Walter,” he said, stepping aside. “Let’s go down the hall and see your mama.” Himes looked down at his ankles as he shuffled out of the cell, at first short-stepping out of habit, then lengthening his stride as he left his cell without ankle chains for the first time in about three years.

Himes had nearly mastered his unencumbered gait when he stopped outside the second door on the right. Smitty pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. Pulled it open. Himes stepped inside. Smitty shut the door behind him. Snapped the lock. The sergeant gave Smitty a bored look that said, What the hell?

Loretta Himes had her face buried in a wad of tissues as Walter slipped into the worn wooden seat. He leaned close to the screen. “Mama,” he said gently.

She looked up. Her eye makeup lay in pools on her cheeks.

“Doan neva let ’em see you cry,” he said.

10:10
P.M.
Day 6 of 6

Scared, Dorothy knew. For fourteen years, she’d watched denying defendants as their facades had finally flickered. Seen them in that moment right after sentencing when the bailiff takes them by the arm. When they peer at their lawyers like furtive children begging to be held tightly and assured it was all a bad dream.

Yeah. She knew the look all right, and the pilot had it.

“A little foggier than we usually fly in. But…I understand it’s an emergency, so we’ll just take our time getting out of here. Weather’s supposed to be clear on the other side of the mountains.” He’d said it hopefully, but without conviction, before he’d disappeared inside the cockpit.

Across the aisle, she saw Marvin Hale peer out the tiny window into the gloaming. These days it didn’t actually get dark; it merely segued to deeper shades of gray. She’d called home. Left a message for Brandy. She’d stopped just short of telling her how much she loved her. Afraid something in her voice would give away her terror.

Classic no-win situation. Either she was going to be forced to watch an execution or…What should she call it? What was the proper euphemism for something like this? Should she call it…a change in plans? Technical difficulties? A glitch? What?

The pilot revved the port engine, spun the plane on its axis, and started toward the invisible runways. For the first time in a week, her head was comfortably numb.

10:21
P.M.
Day 6 of 6

The circular driveway ran slightly uphill, curving steadily left beneath arches of ancient oaks as it wound its way toward the shimmering lights a hundred yards ahead. Corso brought the Chevy to a halt in front of a three-story French Colonial mansion, whose elegant stone facade and slate-roofed turrets spoke eloquently of another age.

Dougherty whistled softly. “Aren’t we just swell,” she said.

A tall blond kid wearing a green Silver Cloud Valet Service jacket skipped down the front stairs and pulled open the driver’s door before Corso got his seat belt unfastened.

“Evening, sir,” he said.

Corso left the car running as he eased himself from behind the wheel and stepped out onto the driveway. Somewhere in the castle, a door opened and closed, allowing a slice of music and laughter to escape momentarily into the night. Along the front, the light from a dozen tall, transomed windows cast a golden glow down upon the entryway.

The sight of Dougherty stepping out onto the bricks seemed to startle the kid. His head swiveled from Corso, to Dougherty, to the house, and then back to Corso.

“Excuse me, sir. Don’t mind me asking, but are you guys sure you’ve got the right place?”

“This the Gabriel residence?” Corso asked.

“Yes, sir…it is.” His voice was tentative.

“You happen to know what Mr. Gabriel does for a living?” Corso asked.

“Some kind of security thing.”

“Then we’re in the right place.”

The kid looked embarrassed. “You-all came for the reception, then?”

“What reception?”

“The wedding. Mr. Gabriel’s daughter.”

Corso handed the kid a ten-dollar bill. “Keep it handy,” he said. “We’re not going to be long.” He turned to Dougherty. “You bring your gown?”

“As if…,” she huffed and headed for the door, where she grabbed the brass knocker and gave it three sharp raps. Inside the house, what sounded like a four-piece combo was playing Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father.”

Out in the driveway, the kid had made no move to park the car. He stood, slack-jawed, resting his forearms on the Chevy’s roof. The front door opened.

Blond Margaret Thatcher hair. Her taut face suggested thirty-five, but the guile in her green eyes said fifty. She wore an ankle-length silver sheath. Silk. Understated and elegant. Highlighted by a double string of perfectly matched pearls. The minute she blinked them into focus, she swallowed the toothy welcome smile. Took her time looking them over, as if she couldn’t decide whether she should call the cops or an exterminator.

“Yes?” she said icily.

“Very sorry to intrude,” Corso said.

“How can I help you?” Her tone suggested she would have liked to add the words “off my front steps” but was far too well-bred.

“I need to speak to Vincent Gabriel.”

She folded her arms against the chill. “I’m Mrs. Gabriel.”

Corso handed her his press credential. She scanned it and handed it back.

“Whatever it is will have to wait until Monday.” She stepped back and began to close the door.

“It could be a matter of life and death,” Corso said quickly.

She searched his eyes for irony. Took in Dougherty again. Frowned.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid I am.”

“If this is about one of his security clients, you should—”

“It’s not,” Corso interrupted.

“My daughter…,” she began. Then stopped and heaved a sigh. “Life and death,” she said again. Corso confirmed this.

She rubbed her upper arms as she stepped out onto the top step. “Go around that way…that side of the house,” she said, pointing. “The solarium door is open. Wait in there. I’ll get my husband.”

Corso and Dougherty followed a flagstone path around the north end of the house. As they reached the corner and turned right again, Lake Washington came into view. Across the lake, the high-rises of Bellevue flickered like candles in the night, their fractured reflections dancing piecemeal across the rough surface.

The solarium ran perpendicular to the house. All glass. Round on top like a Quonset hut. Corso pulled open the door, stepped aside, and allowed Dougherty to enter first. In the center of the space, a palm tree nearly brushed the twenty-foot ceiling. A forest of exotic potted plants were scattered around, giving the impression that someone had strewn lawn furniture about the jungle. Overhead, a pair of brass ceiling fans twirled languorously.

Dougherty turned in a circle, taking it all in. “Great room,” she said.

Before Corso could agree, Vincent Gabriel stepped into the room. A powerful-looking man in a tux he sure as hell hadn’t rented. What used to be called swarthy. Six-two, maybe two-ten or so, with a thick mustache and a head of wavy salt-and-pepper hair he was never going to lose. His bearing and stride gave off an air of tightly controlled aggression. He crossed the room to Corso and Dougherty with a champagne glass in his hand and a scowl on his face.

“What’s this?” he demanded.

“We’re very sorry for the intrusion,” Corso said.

Vincent Gabriel’s expression suggested they were about to get sorrier.

“And who might you be?”

Again, Corso handed over his press credential. Unlike his wife, Vincent Gabriel read every word. Front and back. “Corso, huh?” he said. “You’re the one who’s been writing the Himes story for the
Sun
.”

“Yes. I am.”

“The one used to be with the
New York Times
.”

“That’s me,” Corso said.

Gabriel waited, as if affording Corso an opportunity to defend himself.

Instead, Corso inclined his head and said, “This is my associate, Meg Dougherty.”

Vincent gave her a curt nod. “I’ve got ninety-five guests inside, Mr. Corso. So, real quick here, you better tell me what is it you find so damned important that it requires interrupting my daughter’s wedding reception.”

“The Himes story,” Corso said.

Gabriel stiffened, then reached over and set his champagne on a glass-topped table.

“And what might that awful mess have to do with me?”

“We’ve come across a piece of information that”—Corso chose his words carefully—“that suggests it might be possible the real killer is a security guard.”

“What piece of information might that be?”

Without naming the Aviator Hotel, Corso told him the kids’ story. The locked gate, the taggers. The van. The supposed guy in uniform.

“You’re here on the word of vandals?” His tone carried an understood “you idiot.”

“No, sir,” Dougherty piped up. “We’re here because we took what the kids told us and ran with it.”

“Ran with it how?”

“We divided up the murders and canvassed the neighborhoods where the bodies were found.” She gave him the blow-by-blow. Halfway through, he checked his watch and interrupted. “I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”

“Only three security companies had clients in the immediate neighborhoods of where all eleven bodies were found,” she said.

“Reliable, Metro Link, and you—Silver Shield,” Corso added.

Vincent Gabriel made a disbelieving face. “I’ll bet you could canvass any three square commercial blocks in the Pacific Northwest and get much the same result. Reliable, Metro, and Silver Shield are the three biggest players in this part of the country.”

“Then Corso called down to where this whole thing with the kids started,” Dougherty said.

“The guy who says the only key other than his belongs to his security company,” Corso prompted.

“And where the kids swear the guy had a key to the gate.”

“And he’s a Silver Shield customer?”

“Yessir,” Corso and Dougherty said in unison. For the first time, Vincent Gabriel’s tanned face showed concern.

“Interesting,” he said, picking up his champagne glass. “Tell you what. You two come down to the office on Monday morning and we’ll see if—”

Corso interrupted him. “That could be too late, Mr. Gabriel. Have you read the paper today?”

“What? No…with all the—”

“He killed another young woman yesterday afternoon,” Dougherty said.

“The killings are getting closer together,” Corso added. “It’s only three days since the last one.”

Gabriel’s complexion lost some of its glow. “You can’t expect me to—”

Before he could finish, the door connecting the solarium to the house swung open. The bride, looking internally radiant in that way in which only brides are capable.

She looked like her mother. Same height. Same hair. Same frank green eyes. Her gown trailed across the terra-cotta tile floor to Vincent’s side.

“Is everything all right?” she asked her father.

He patted her arm and assured her that everything was just peachy.

“Well, then, come on,” she pleaded. “The Lunquists want a picture with us.” She tried to tug him along by the forearm, but he stood his ground.

“Tell them I’ll be in in a minute.”

When she started to protest, he put a finger delicately on her lips. “Just a minute, Princess,” he said softly. “Tell them I’ll be right there.”

She kissed him on the cheek, leaving a silver-pink signature on his face, shot Corso and Dougherty a quizzical look, and flounced out the way she’d come. Her father watched her cross the room and close the door behind herself. He stood for a moment staring at the air in her wake, as if she’d left a vapor trail.