Final Breath

inadvertently--in a drug heist that resulted in the deaths of three people, including Arthur Pollard. He'd taken that blood money, and when she'd confronted him about it, he'd hit her. Then he'd ordered her and their son out of the house.

Now, here she was, trying to look pretty for him. How screwed up was that?

By the time she looked through the hotel door peephole at Joe, she was angry at him--and herself. Still, Joe looked handsome with his blond hair slicked back, that summer tan, and the white and blue pinstripe shirt she'd bought him years ago. It had always been her favorite on him, and Joe knew it. She realized Joe--in his own way-- must have made an effort for her, too.

Sydney unlocked the door and opened it. For a moment, they just stared at each other across the threshold. 'You look really good, honey,' Joe whispered finally.

'You...' Sydney didn't finish. She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. She hadn't held him in over two months. His arms enveloped her. She kissed his neck, relishing the smell of him again.

'God, I've missed you,' she heard him whisper.

He kissed her deeply. Then he pulled her away for a moment to gaze at her. She could see tears in his eyes. He started to kiss her again.

That was when Sydney forced herself to break away. She shook her head. 'This isn't why I wanted to see you, Joe,' she managed to say. She glanced back at her hotel room--and the bed. 'I need your help for something. Could we talk down in the bar?'

As they strolled through the hotel's maze of shadowy corridors together, Joe started to put his arm around her, but she gently pulled away. She told him everything that had been happening--starting with the murder of Leah and Jared nearly two weeks ago. Joe had heard about Angela Gannon's death, but not about the others. Sydney needed him to use his connections to find out more about Angela's suicide and Ned's accident. She now had the names of the Chicago-area florists who had delivered flowers in her name to Angela's sister and the Cook County Recovery Shelter. Working backward, she hoped to track down who had originally placed the orders.

'Give me those names, and I can check them out for you tomorrow,' Joe said, sipping his beer.

They'd sat down at a table in the corner of the small, dimly lit lounge. A big tropical fish tank behind the bar provided the strongest source of light and the most color. All the furniture was chrome and glass--or chrome with black leather upholstery.

Sydney had ordered a club soda. She didn't need any more alcohol tonight. She had to keep a clear head. She wrote down the florists' names on a cocktail napkin and handed it to him. 'Thank you, Joe,' she said.

'And you don't have any clue as to who's behind all these hero-killings?' he asked.

She shook her head. 'Do you?'

'What do you mean?'

'I keep wondering if the guys who were involved in that drug heist might have something to do with it.'

Hunched over his beer, Joe frowned. 'I doubt it. They wouldn't do something so--elaborate. Besides, once you stopped snooping around, you stopped being a concern to them. With you and Eli in Seattle, I don't think they'd go after you, not anymore.'

She stared at him. 'What do you mean not anymore? Were they planning to kill us?'

He shrugged. 'I'm not sure, but I couldn't take any chances. Polly was a loose end, and look what they did to him.'

Sydney studied her husband's face for a moment. 'Oh, my God, I'm so stupid,' she whispered finally. 'That's why you hit me. That's why you literally kicked me out of the house that day and sent Eli packing, too. You needed to get us out of there. You were afraid they'd come after us.'

Tears welled in Joe's eyes again, and he nodded. 'I'm sorry, honey,' he murmured. 'I didn't think it was safe for either of you to stay there. I couldn't think of any other way...'

She remembered Joe in his parked car, keeping guard outside the Holiday Inn that night he'd thrown her out. And then he'd had his sister look after her and Eli.

'I can't believe I didn't figure out what you were doing,' she said, touching his cheek. 'That letter you sent last week, you said you didn't want to see Eli or me for a while--'

'I still don't want to take any chances,' he explained. 'I'm trying to figure out who I can trust and how to resolve this. You asked me a while back why I didn't go to Len. But I think he's involved. He's the one who sent me on the raid that night with all these guys I didn't know very well.'

'What about Andy McKenna? You can trust him, can't you?'

'Yeah, but I don't want to endanger him or his family. So for a while there, I pushed him away.' He let out a long sigh. 'Sydney, you need to believe me, I had to take that money. There was no other way. They set me up.'

'But how?' she asked.

'These two cops, Jim Mankoff and Kurt Rifkin, were in one patrol car, and I was with this guy Gerry Crowley in the other.' He sipped his beer. 'When we got near the pier area, Mankoff and Rifkin went in first--on foot. Gerry and I were in the car covering the exit. After a while, I started to think something was wrong and wanted to call for backup. But Crowley kept telling me to stay put and wait just a little longer.'

Joe rubbed his forehead. 'Well, by that time Mankoff and Rifkin had already captured these two small- timers--Ahmed Turner and Somebody Laskey, I forget his first name. They'd knocked them both unconscious and dragged them into the front seat of the minivan. They'd already unloaded most of the cocaine, and stashed it on a boat. All they had to do was shoot the guys, fire off a few rounds, and crash the minivan into some drums of creosote. They knew I'd be the first one on the scene, and I'd be stupid enough to believe the whole setup.' He let out a sad laugh. 'You know me, always wanting to believe in the good in people.'

He shrugged. 'And with my reputation on the force, I would have been a pretty solid, irreproachable witness. But I got antsy, waiting there. I kept thinking my guys were in trouble. Gerry Crowley said we should wait it out, but I went down to the warehouse area.'

Joe took another hit of his beer. 'I caught them still setting it up. I saw Mankoff with a silencer, shooting Ahmed Turner in the throat. I guess they'd already broken Laskey's neck. Meanwhile, this Rifkin clown was hauling the last load of cocaine from the back of the minivan. That's when I knew I was screwed. In the minivan window, I could see Gerry Crowley standing right behind me with a gun drawn. It wasn't his police gun. I knew he was going to kill me and they'd plant the gun on one of the dead suspects. An officer down, that would have given even more credence to their story that the suspects had resisted. I was as good as dead. I didn't have any choice, so I just smiled a little and said to them, 'I don't know how you guys plan to pull this off, but I'm going to say my fellow officers acted professionally and responsibly. So what's my cut?'

'As soon as I told them that, I saw Gerry Crowley behind me, lowering his gun. And the other two guys chuckled. I knew if I hadn't said that, I would have been dead.'

Sydney remembered the Tribune article quoting Joe about the raid-gone-awry. His 'my fellow officers acted professionally and responsibly' line had been exactly what he'd said.

'I volunteered to stand guard at the other end of the pier, but they sent Crowley with me. I think they were afraid I'd radio in what they were doing. And of course, that's just what I would have done. Anyway, the other two guys rigged the minivan to crash into the drums and then set fire to it. The boat took off with the cocaine--which meant they had a fourth guy working with them. They shot off a few rounds and Crowley called in for backup during the ruckus.'

Joe swallowed down some more beer, draining his glass. 'We were writing reports the rest of the night, and there wasn't ever a minute when one of those guys left my side. I couldn't shake them. Crowley and Mankoff walked me out to the car when we finished up at eight-thirty that morning. And on the floor in the front seat was a bag with thirty-two thousand dollars in it. Don't ask me how they got it at such short notice, but they did. And it's still up there in that toolbox on the garage shelf.'

'Oh, Jesus, Joe,' she whispered, squeezing his hand. 'What are you going to do?'

'I'm still not sure yet,' he sighed. 'But I think you and Eli are better off in Seattle until this thing gets resolved.'