Airtight

Alex Hutchinson, the de facto leader of the protesting townspeople, also condemned the action, and claimed that neither she nor anyone in her group had anything to do with it.

Edward Holland, trying to remain above the fray, added his strong disapproval of any violence, and pleaded for calmer heads to prevail. He talked of his own anger at what was happening to his town, and the need to protect the children, but added that this was not the way to go about it.

Holland went on to remind everyone that he had asked for preemptive state and Federal intervention to cool things off, but that his requests went unfulfilled. He once again renewed those requests publicly, and media reports were very favorable to him.

“How does all this help Bryan?” were Julie’s first words when she saw me.

I had been thinking about it, and wasn’t pleased with my own point of view. “I don’t think it does,” I said. “At least not much.”

She seemed surprised. “Why?”

“Well, first of all, keep in mind that the entire jury here is composed of Chris Gallagher. And the fact that there has been some violence is not a surprise to him; he already knew that Emmit and I were targeted to be killed.”

“So, if he’s a jury, treat him like one, Luke. Make a persuasive argument; make him understand. Put the facts out there in a clear, concise manner; that’s what is done for juries. Let me do it; I’ll convince him.”

“I’ve been trying, Julie. And I’d be happy for you to try. But there’s a logical flaw in our argument.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Our focus, Gallagher’s focus, is on the Brennan murder. Brennan was considered pro-Brayton, or at least more pro-Brayton than Judge Dembeck. So the side that might have had any interest in killing him would have been the company side, not the town.”

She had to know where I was going with this, but I spelled it out. “This new violence is being committed against the company, most logically by people who would have wanted Brennan to take the seat. The people that killed Michael Oliver would have placed Brennan in a protective cocoon if they could have.”

“And Gallagher is smart enough to see that?” she asked.

“Without a doubt.”

She seemed lost in thought for a few minutes. I had no idea what she was thinking. I had known Julie for almost seven years, and this made the seventh consecutive year that I had no idea what she was thinking.

“I did something you’re not going to like.” She said it in a challenging way, as if she was comfortable with what she did, and not worried about my reaction.

“I already don’t like that sentence.”

“I hired Lou Rodriguez to find Gallagher.”

“Shit, Julie … what do you mean ‘find’?”

“He’s not going to do anything, just keep track of where he is.”

“Keep track of where he is? He’s been following me. He’s probably at the bar in the next room right now.”

“Then Lou’s on the stool next to him,” she said, obviously annoyed by my attitude.

“Great. So the bad guys are following me, Gallagher’s following them, and Rodriguez is following Gallagher. I’m leading a procession. I’m like the goddamn Grand Marshal of the Rose Bowl Parade.”

“Maybe he’ll lead Rodriguez to Bryan. Probably not. But he’s not going to walk away from this, Luke. No matter how it turns out. I wouldn’t be doing my job if he did. Nor would you. He’s a kidnapper, at a minimum.”

She didn’t say what the maximum was, but she didn’t have to. She was right, of course, but on some level it didn’t sit well with me, and she could see it.

“What’s your problem with this, Luke? That he’ll make Rodriguez, and take it out on Bryan?”

“No, he couldn’t care less who’s following him, or why.”

“Then what?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure how to answer that, but my mouth seemed to make the decision for my brain, and started talking without permission. “I killed his brother, Julie. I guess on some deep level I understand what he’s feeling. I don’t know what I’d do in his shoes, but it wouldn’t be pretty.”

She spoke in a much softer voice, trying to keep herself from crying. “You might find yourself in his shoes.”

I nodded. “And then I’d feel completely different. Then I’d find him and kill him. And on some level he’d understand that completely, and he’d be fine with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think he’s decided that his life is over, one way or the other.”

“If he hurts Bryan,” she said, “it will be.”

Got your e-mail too late … you’ve already had your dinner. Not much for me to say to Julie, anyway. Just tell her not to feel guilty about this; she had nothing to do with it.

Remember the time you were going to have a fight with Randy Singer after school? Nobody could believe I wasn’t going to watch, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to see you lose, and I thought you might.

I never remembered you losing at anything, and I wanted to keep it that way.

I still do.

This was not going the way Chris Gallagher expected.

It was actually going far better, which was causing him to reassess. Nothing wrong with that, not in his mind. A battle plan only lasts until you first meet the enemy. Then you make the necessary adjustments in the field.

Luke Somers was better than he thought, far better. He had dug deeply into the investigation, and was on his way to creating reasonable doubt as to Steven’s guilt. Which might have been enough, had Steven been allowed to go before a jury.

Somers had recognized the inherent difficulty in proving Steven innocent without finding the real guilty party. Because whoever killed Brennan had also set Steven up to take the fall; they had planted the bloody clothes, and called in the anonymous tip.

The violence interested him in that it was counterintuitive. It was targeted at those intent on mining the land, yet if Somers was right, Brennan was likely to be opposed to the miners’ position. Why would the same killers be going after players on both sides?

He discounted the possibility that there were two separate sets of killers; the world didn’t work that way. And the fact that Brennan was killed in a knife attack, rather than the type of explosions that did the subsequent damage, did not surprise him. On the Brennan hit, they wanted someone to blame, and Steven was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had Brennan’s garage been blown up, Steven could not have been set up as easily.

The fate of Bryan Somers, in Chris’s mind, still very much hung in the balance. Someone was going to die for Steven. If it had to be Bryan, that was fine with Chris. Justice would be served, since no matter who killed Brennan, it didn’t change the fact that Luke Somers had gunned down Steven.

But if the real killer was found in time, then he would have been the one to set Steven up. And then Chris would see to it that he would die, and Bryan would be spared.

One way or another, Steven would get his justice.

So the goal was still to find out who killed Daniel Brennan, and to do so fast. Somers would do what he would do, but Chris could operate in a way that Somers could not. And he was about to do exactly that.

Chris believed that the one person most likely to have all the answers was Richard Carlton. The money was always the key, and Carlton was the one who had walked away with a fortune.

So Richard Carlton was the person who was about to receive a visit from Chris Gallagher.

Why was Michael Oliver chosen to die?

That was the question I was interested in, partly because I had run out of other things to be interested in. But on any level it was strange, which made it something I needed to understand.

I had Julie run a search on Oliver on something called LexisNexis. She had once assured me that if anyone was mentioned anywhere at any time for any reason, it would show up there. Ten minutes later she called to tell