“Really?” he sneered. “I wasn’t aware of that.” Then, “It’s my fault what happened to my brother. I wasn’t there for him when he needed me. That’s something I have to live with. Make sure you don’t know what it feels like to be responsible for your brother’s death.”
He started towards the door, and then stopped and turned. “Your brother’s got seven days, so don’t waste any time.”
I called and made an appointment to see Julie at 10 AM.
I wanted to break the news to her in her office, where things would seem less personal. I was aware that either way things were going to be intensely personal, but I needed Julie’s professional help if we were going to succeed.
Julie is an assistant prosecutor for the state of New Jersey. We worked together on a couple of cases a long time ago, but not since we had our sexual indiscretion. I assume she has structured things deliberately to not work on my cases; I’m just not sure why she’s done that, and I haven’t been about to ask.
I had met Julie while working on a case, and I was the one to introduce her to Bryan. I was in that phase of my life whereby a long relationship lasted three weeks, and in fact I’m still in that phase. Julie wasn’t the three- week type, that was immediately clear, and Bryan was looking for someone to settle down with. So I introduced them, and if there has been a twenty-four-hour period since in which I haven’t regretted doing it, I can’t recall one.
There was and is something special about Julie. She has the ability to see through me, but in a way that I never seem to mind. I’ve always thought she felt something for me as well, though I can’t pinpoint why I thought that. Our way of dealing with all of this was never, ever to deal with it.
When I called I spoke to Julie’s assistant, who had no reason to think it was strange that I was setting the meeting. Julie meets with cops all the time. But I knew that when Julie heard that I was coming in, she’d realize it was about Bryan.
I couldn’t sleep after Chris Gallagher left my house, so I tried to be productive, filling the time by analyzing the options that I had. I was positive that everything he said was true, and that he was fully capable of killing Bryan.
Goal number one had to be keeping Bryan alive until I could achieve goal number two, which was to free him. I had no idea yet how to get him out, but keeping him alive seemed achievable, as long as I followed Gallagher’s instructions.
So I would conduct the investigation into Brennan’s death that Gallagher was demanding. There was no doubt about that. The only questions to be resolved would be how I would go about it, specifically who I would recruit and confide in.
I couldn’t do it alone, and I certainly couldn’t do it in secret. I needed the access to information that my job provided, but people would inevitably become aware of my actions. I just had to make sure that they were people I could trust to exercise discretion. If the particulars of this situation got out, then I would have lost control, and Bryan would have lost a lot more.
I was going to conduct a serious investigation, though I had no expectation of proving Steven Gallagher innocent. My hope was to find information that proved his guilt so conclusively that even his brother would accept it as the truth. Chris Gallagher seemed capable of anything, and that included rational thought.
My first stop was to my office to speak to Emmit Jenkins. I needed him to be my right hand, if he was willing, and I was sure he would be.
I told him the story, and watched him get furious as I told it. I’m not sure what it says about me, but Emmit was far angrier at the situation than I was. Gallagher thought I killed his brother with no justification. If I were in his situation, and I recognized the irony that soon I might be, there would be no place the killer could hide.
“Give me ten minutes with him,” Emmit said. “He’ll be begging to tell me where your brother is.”
I have great respect for Emmit’s physical prowess, but I didn’t think there was anyone, anywhere, who could get Chris Gallagher to do much begging.
Then Emmit asked the key question, or at least the key question of the moment. “Who else are you going to tell?”
I had my thoughts on the matter, but wanted his view. “What do you think?”
“We gotta be careful,” he said, already using the pronoun that made us a team. “This gets out, somebody is going to want to arrest this guy for kidnapping.”
I nodded. “I know. But I need to tell Barone.”
He frowned his disagreement. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea; the Captain will want to cover his ass.”
“No doubt. But I need the resources of the department.”
Emmit left and I went in to see Barone. There were two officers in with him, so I said, “I need to see the Captain alone.”
They agreeably got up and left, and once they did, Barone said, “‘I need to see the Captain alone’ is not a phrase I like. The next thing I hear after that is usually a problem.”
“This one’s a beauty,” I said, and proceeded to lay it out for him.
“Damn,” he said when I was finished. “What are you going to do?” he asked, demonstrating that he and Emmit had little in common when it comes to pronoun usage.
“I’m going to do what he says, while at the same time trying to find my brother. I don’t see any other way.”
He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“I can’t do it alone, or just with Emmit,” I said. “I need the resources of the department.”
“I’m listening,” he said. “I’m cringing, but I’m listening.”
“No one except Emmit, you, and I will know about my brother. Everyone else involved will just think we’re covering our bases on the Brennan murder.”
He still wasn’t answering, so I said, “It’s just seven days, Captain.”
Finally he said, “You know the part you said about the three of us knowing the situation with your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Make it the two of you,” he said.
“Did I say three? I meant two.”
Barone nodded his approval. “So listen carefully. I am authorizing that you investigate the Brennan murder; I feel it’s important that we dot every ‘i.’ I am unaware of any secondary motives that you and Emmit might have.”
“You’re a profile in courage,” I said.
He nodded. “It comes naturally.”
He was still doing me a big favor, and he and I both knew it. “Thanks, Captain.”
“Keep me posted,” he said. “Unofficially.”
Were Richard Carlton to describe the citizens of Brayton in one word, it would be “ungrateful.”
The Carlton family, through their auto parts manufacturing plant, had been employing almost a third of the town for close to sixty years. Without it, it was fair to say that Brayton would have ceased to exist, at least in its present form, a long time ago.
Yes, there had been some layoffs in recent years; that’s what struggling businesses do. But for the most part Carlton took care of its employees, and did as much as it could for them.
Richard Carlton, in his five years since inheriting the leadership role from his father, had continued the tradition. His was an open door, though one had to get through quite a few other doors to reach it. But he was going to do what was best for his company, and that in turn would benefit Brayton.
A win-win all around.
But now there was the opportunity for a huge win, a game changer. Carlton had purchased enormous tracts of land from the town of Brayton, for the purpose of someday building housing units. Since the town had not been thriving in recent years, there would have been no one to live in new housing, so it hadn’t yet been built.
