like he claimed; but what possible justification could there be for killing two more people in an entirely different jurisdiction?
Again, the answer was simple: Nathan Bailey was a murderer and a dangerous fugitive. And it was Warren’s job to help apprehend the kid before he harmed anyone else. The courts would then decide his fate. And however the chips fell, Warren would live at peace with the result.
After all, he wasn’t the kid’s father. And Nathan wasn’t his son.
Bertrand Murphy was beside himself with anger and grief. Never before in his four consecutive terms as sheriff—indeed, in the history of the department—had there been such a tragic day. He had fielded the phone call in the wee hours from a hysterical deputy who had discovered the bodies as he arrived for shift change. Less than ten minutes after the call, Sheriff Murphy was on the scene to personally oversee the investigation and to make sure that the bodies were treated with the proper respect.
He was not prepared for what he found. Deputy Watts was a personal friend; they and their wives had played bridge together every other Thursday night since 1985. Their kids had grown up together, attending the same schools and playing on the same playgrounds. In another year, Adam, the oldest of the Watts brood, would be off to college with dreams of someday running a sporting goods store.
Schmidtt had been a new man on the force, having just finished rookie school the previous spring, and as such, Murphy hadn’t really known him. Rumors told him that his wife was pregnant with their first baby, due in December.
“What kind of animal shoots two fine deputies?” Murphy asked Deputy Steadman, whose grief was written in deep wrinkles and pallid flesh. “Shot them in the mouth, for Christ’s sake.”
Under Murphy’s watchful glare, a team of young deputies worked quickly to mark the outlines of the bodies on the floor with white adhesive tape, the last step before placing them in body bags and driving them off to the morgue, where the final insult of an autopsy awaited them. Murphy was sickened by the thought of a giant “Y” being carved into the torso of his friend while a team of pathologists with tape recorders and cameras piled his guts onto a plate.
He checked his watch. It was going on six o’clock. Word of the killings was spreading, and they had yet to announce the names of the dead, pending notification of their next of kin. That notification was his job, and it was time to get on with it. He turned to the grim-faced deputy at his side.
“You knew these men, didn’t you, son?”
Steadman nodded, his eyes wet. “Yes, sir. Worked with them every day.”
“You want to get even with the son of a bitch who did this to them, don’t you?”
Steadman turned to face Murphy. His eyes gleamed with his thirst for retribution. “Yes, sir, I do.”
Murphy nodded. “Good. I think you’ll get your chance. But first, I have a job for you to do.”
“Tell me what it is, and I’ll do it.”
“I have to go and break the news to the wives of these brave men. I’ll return in an hour or so. In that time, I want you to oversee things here. Make sure your friends are handled gently, respectfully. And make sure that nothing except the bodies—and I mean nothing—is moved from this scene until get back.”
Steadman nodded attentively. “Okay, sir, I’ll see to it,” he said. “Do you want me to order roadblocks, too?”
“No, son, we’ve already got deputies out on the street doing that even as we speak.”
Taking a moment longer to look down on his mangled friend, Murphy said a brief, silent prayer for his soul before leaving to break the news to Judith Watts.
Denise rocketed upright in bed the instant the newscaster’s words gelled in her sleep-deadened mind. She gasped, “No!”
But the deep baritone voice from her clock radio was unequivocal.
“Police sources will not release the names of the murdered officers, but they have officially confirmed reports that America’s so-called favorite criminal escaped from custody in this quiet New York town, following the brutal, execution-style killing of his two captors. It is still not clear if there are any witnesses…”
Denise felt as though she’d been punched. How could he do such a thing? She knew he was desperate, but who would have thought? Words from her first conversation with Nathan rang in her memory.
“I’m not going back to that place…”
Could he possibly have meant that he would kill to stay out? Could it be that he was giving everyone a warning, but that they had missed it in their zeal to believe in the innocence of a child?
She remembered the vividness of his account of Ricky Harris’s death, in which Nathan was the real victim. Could that all have been a lie? Maybe he was one of those children you read about in a Stephen King book, who’s so psychotic that he doesn’t know what his other half is doing.
Denise shook her head. None of this made sense. Call it woman’s intuition, call it a feeling, call it whatever you wanted, but something about all of this didn’t add up. Nathan wasn’t a street kid, devoid of moral underpinnings. Sure, he’d had some rough times—so rough, in fact, that he refused to discuss them on the air— but could that push a boy to murder? Three times?
Execution-style.
Those were the words the newscaster had used. Execution-style. What did that mean, anyway? That wasn’t the kind of term adlibbed by a good reporter. Terms like that come from police sources, sometimes before they’ve had a chance to develop the “approved” line on their statements to the press.
Denise tried to picture Nathan—whom she featured in her mind’s eye as much smaller than any real-life twelve-year-old—ordering two burly police officers up against some wall, their hands in the air, as he calmly and methodically shot them down like dogs. The image was so absurd as to be funny.
Even if he successfully shot one, how could he control the other? Handcuffs? Okay, so how does a kid get two grown men to sit still long enough to put cuffs on their wrists? For that matter, how could he get a gun away from a cop in the first place?
Something was terribly wrong with this picture. She picked up the phone and speed-dialed Enrique, who answered on the first ring.
“I just heard,” he said.
J. Daniel Petrelli heard the news before most, delivered by a Washington Post reporter looking for a juicy quote from a sleep-dumb prosecutor. Now, as he sped north in a state police helicopter, he couldn’t remember his exact reply, but he knew from the reporter’s voice that it had been disappointing, properly sprinkled with the right words and expressions. Politician that he was, Petrelli wielded words like “tragic” and “untimely” with consummate skill.
In the air, Petrelli made no effort to conceal his joy at this recent turn of events. After making him look like an idiot for the past two days, the media would finally see the wisdom of what he had been saying all along. In one swift act of amazing violence, the boy who had single-handedly threatened to scuttle his senatorial campaign now stood to make him look like the truly sage philosopher that he was.
Whoever this hayseed Murphy was, he jumped at Petrelli’s offer to provide assistance for the investigation. “I’ll take whatever help you can give me to put that demon back in his cage,” Murphy had said. Country lawmen, with their colorful language, always amused Petrelli. They said what was on their minds in the most direct and efficient language they could muster, no matter whose feelings were trampled. It was exactly the kind of venue he needed to rebuild his senatorial image.
Chapter 30
Sammy Bell turned the knob so there’d be no noise as he closed the door to Mr. Slater’s office. He stood quietly, waiting to be recognized. In time, the old man looked up from his papers, but Sammy knew that he hadn’t been reading at all, just collecting his thoughts. They both knew what had to be said. For Mr. Slater, it would be a difficult thing, but for Sammy, it was a moment for which he’d been waiting a long time.
For nearly forty years, the old man had leaned on Sammy for everything, depended on him to enforce the rules on the street. If someone stepped out of line, Sammy would set them straight. Loyal lieutenant that he was, Sammy had even buried a few bodies along the way.
