A Welcome Grave

Gaglionci, but let us know if you see anyone who even looks close. We can deal with the rest of this after we get Amy back.”

He opened the door and went out and then it was just Thor, Reed, and me in the apartment. I walked up to the door and sat on the floor beside it with my back against the wall and my gun in my lap, feeling the way you do after everything you’ve known to be true is shattered.

An hour passed, then two, and nobody showed. Joe called three times with false alarms. I began to wonder if we’d blown it, if Gaglionci had smelled the trap and pulled out. I stayed against the wall, shifting position occasionally, but always close to the door. Reed—now dressed and with the blood washed off his face in case we needed him to show himself—was still down in the living room, where we could see him clearly. Thor was standing on the other side of the door. He didn’t sit, didn’t pace, didn’t even stretch. Just stood there.

The wait was brutal for me. Throughout the day, I’d found temporary solace in moments of confrontation, of action, the tasks at hand allowing me to stop thinking about what could happen if I failed. Amy had always been in my mind, even as I lay on the floor at Cujo’s with a chain whipping down at my head, but in the pressure of those moments she existed as a goal, a reminder of why I had to get back up off the floor. During the waiting, though, she became a fear again. The empty minutes ticked by, and I began to imagine things I did not want to consider, to see all the awful possibilities that disappeared in the immediacy of action.

It had been nearly two and a half hours when Joe called again.

“There’s another one pulling into the garage. Little sports car. A Mazda, I think.”

“All right.”

I disconnected, went back into the apartment, and repeated the information to Thor, who didn’t so much as nod in response. Several minutes passed, and just when I’d begun to think that the Mazda visitor was another false alarm, Thor said, “Elevator.”

I frowned at him and rose to a crouch, listening. I hadn’t heard anything. A few seconds went by, and then there was a chime as the elevator reached the penthouse floor. I don’t know what Thor had heard before that, but he was right.

The intercom buzzed, and I pointed at Reed. He hurried across the floor, his feet slapping off the ceramic tiles, and punched a button on the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Let me in.” The voice was garbled; maybe Gaglionci again, maybe not. Reed looked at me, and I nodded. He hit another button, and I heard the lock slide back in the door in the hall. I’d decided—at Thor’s recommendation— to leave the entryway empty and wait for them inside the apartment.

I was kneeling against the wall, Thor standing opposite me, when the knob turned and the door swung open. Thor stepped around it in a combat stance, and Andy Doran walked into the room, saw the Glock pistol pointed at his heart, and said, “Well, shit, ” just before I rose up behind him and hit him in the back of the head with the butt of my gun.

39

Nowhere to go, Doran,” I said. “Might as well relax, get comfortable.”

He’d landed on the tile floor on his face and stayed down, his body still but his feet shuffling as if they were trying to move away from the rest of him. I leaned down and found his gun in the shoulder holster under his jacket, took it out, and handed it to Thor, who stuck it in his waistband. It took Doran a few seconds, but he rolled over, his eyes tight with pain, and stared at us, groggy but sizing the situation up. He got into a sitting position with an effort, then slipped a hand up to his head and felt the spot behind his ear where I’d hit him with the gun.

“I owed you one,” I said. “More than one.”

He moved his arm against his body, and I knew he was feeling for the Colt Commander, noting its absence. Nodding to himself, he slid backward until he was supported by the wall. We didn’t stop him. There was blood on his lip, a souvenir from bouncing his face off the floor, and he tasted it with the tip of his tongue.

“Where is she?” I said.

He tasted the blood and didn’t answer. Thor was standing quietly, flicking his knife blade open and shut with his thumb. It made that soft snick noise over and over, and Doran had trouble keeping his eyes off it.

“You’re not walking out of this room unless you tell us, Doran. You really ready to make that sort of sacrifice for a guy like Tommy Gaglionci?”

Doran turned to look at me. The soft flesh under his eye was already red and starting to swell. He didn’t speak.

“Give me one honest answer,” I said. “Just one, Doran. You give me this, and I think I can explain some things that you’re going to be damn interested in. Did Gaglionci kill Jefferson?”

He rubbed the back of his skull and turned to Thor, watched that knife blade slipping open and closed, open and closed. Didn’t say a word.

“All right,” I said. “So you’re loyal to him. That’s nice, man. I’ll throw a different one at you. Did Gaglionci kill Donny Ward?”

His eyes came up fast and sharp, looked at me but he stayed silent.

“Yeah, Doran, Ward was murdered. Last night. There’s a warrant out right now for the guy who the police think killed him. That guy is me. Problem is, I didn’t kill Donny. I don’t think you did, either. I’m pretty sure your partner did. Got an idea why he did that, other than taking the opportunity to set me up?”

Doran just returned his stare to Thor’s knife and licked at the blood on his lips.

“Because the cops had already been to see Donny, and Gaglionci couldn’t let that continue,” I said. “Donny Ward could identify him as the guy who sent you to prison. Gaglionci went to see Donny, shot his dog and threatened his daughter and offered him a stack of cash, all to make sure he denied your alibi.”

That one got his eyes off Thor’s knife and back on me. He tilted his head, and the blood that dripped off his lip was forgotten for the moment.

“The summer you were arrested, Alex Jefferson came to him,” I pointed at Reed, “and asked for someone to help him handle some unpleasant tasks. Sort of tasks the police tend to be interested in. This guy hooked him up with Gaglionci, who then went to see Donny Ward and came into the Heath family’s house masquerading as a detective the day before cops found the girl’s underwear in your trailer. When you broke out and put the pressure on Jefferson, he went right back to Gaglionci. And you’re right—he hired him to kill you. But Gaglionci’s not your partner, Doran. He sent you to prison once, and he’s probably hoping to do it again.”

I pointed at Reed, “Tell him how much money you moved for Gaglionci on October twentieth.”

“Five hundred thousand.” Reed looked sick. He’d just taken the least pleasant of gambles—giving up a killer like Gaglionci to keep one like Thor happy.

“You hear that?” I said, turning back to Doran. “Half a million. That’s how much your partner is sitting on. How many dollars of that have you seen, huh? How many?”

“Not one dime.”

“That’s what I imagined. And it came in the day after Jefferson died. The day after he killed Jefferson.”

“Who paid him?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ve got an idea. If I’m right, then the guy who paid him is the one who should have done your prison sentence.”

“Jefferson’s kid.”

I shook my head.

“Who?”

“I’ll give you that when you give me Amy. But it’s obvious that somebody paid him to do it. You didn’t see the cash, you didn’t get your revenge. You just got suckered. Throughout all of this, when has he taken a risk? He’s put you out there, made you take the heat, and if he can’t make me go down for all of this, he’ll see that you do. That’s the only reason you’re still around. You gave him someone to put into the field, to deal with me and watch the cops and now to put your fingerprint on