After the murder book came a diary of sorts. It was hard to read. He’d scanned in pages from a notebook— painstaking work. The handwriting was hard to read, and faint, but Tess got the gist.
George Hanley had been wooed by the DeKoven family—by Jaimie in particular. She wanted him to join SABEL. She’d somehow run into him at the Safeway in Continental, and his well-honed homicide cop instincts had told him she had targeted him. She’d struck up a conversation. Flirted. Jaimie was a beautiful woman and he was flattered, but he also could tell that she desperately wanted to know
He had wondered why.
And so he’d researched
Tess didn’t know how Hanley had made the link. He didn’t elaborate. Maybe it was the Phoenix connection. He’d lived in Phoenix. He might have known the homicide cop who had investigated Sosa’s death, or he might have looked him up and asked.
She kept reading. The day stretched. And the more she read, the more it dawned on her that there was much more to this story. She could feel it. There was a hint of desperation as he went along, as if he was racing time. How would he know that? Sure, he knew he was targeted, but…
It was palpable. His race against time, his race to get it all down. And on the next to last page—his last entry—Tess found the answer.
His words:
“What the hell was I thinking? I never should have told him about it because now he wants in. I wish I’d never gone out there, I don’t know what got into me. He was always good at getting things out of people, I saw him do it often enough. We called him the snake charmer. He of all people knows I’m not a drinker; one drink and I let out all the state secrets. Now he wants to take over.
“Great homicide det. I was—I shouldn’t have let my emotions color my thinking. He played me and deep down, I knew he was playing me. He played everybody all the time.
“I should have done something if I’d known what to do. I’ll regret that, should have stood up to him, but I had blinders on because he was my best friend, we worked together all those years, we were almost like an old married couple even though he was so much younger, and when he and Karen fell in love it felt natural, he was already like family. Anyone would think it was a homo thing, but it’s not a homo thing, it’s a cop thing. I was closer to him than I was to Amy and closer than I was to God, but I should have seen what that son of a bitch was doing, I should have been the one person she could rely on. I wonder if I could have stopped it if I just used my gray cells, but it went right past me. Amy was right, it was a boys’ club.”
“I was stupid. A stupid fool, not just once, but twice! He charmed me just like I saw him do with people so many interviews over the years. One stupid moment, and it was like the old days, and you know the saying that there’s no fool like an old fool. It was always that way with us, he was my partner and had my back and I had his, and so I just put any doubts I had aside.
“
That was the last line.
George Hanley had written down his suspicions, but he had been cryptic. He had been reluctant to tell all. For self-protection?
It was clear he suspected Michael DeKoven and Jaimie Wolfe of the killings. He knew that Jaimie Wolfe had gone out of her way to meet him. To woo him.
George Hanley knew it was a game. And he knew that sooner or later they would be coming for him.
He was going to try to beat them at their game.
But he hadn’t figured on one thing.
He hadn’t figured on Wade Poole—until it was too late.
Tess reached Jimmy Tune and took notes over the phone. He sent her a summary of the case and suggested she come up. Tess wasn’t sure if this case had any relation to the others, but Hanley’d thought so, so she hit the road and hours later parked in the lot of the Payson Police Department. Jimmy Tune met her in the lobby and led her to the detective room. He introduced her to Manuel Alvarado, the detective who’d worked Sosa.
Thin with a receding hairline, Alvarado had hypnotic eyes. When he talked, you listened. He was in his midforties, a natty dresser. He flipped through his filing cabinet and placed a file on his desk. “We’re converting to electronic,” he said, “but it’s taking a while. And this is an older case.” He pushed it across the desk, those dark eyes like shiny beetles. “I can’t let you photocopy it.”
“That’s okay,” Tess said. She could look at each page and it would be as good as any photocopy.
He remained standing, watching her, as if he didn’t trust her not to take off with it. His eyes never left her.
Tess compared what she had here with what Hanley had put together on his own. He’d done a pretty good job. Once a homicide cop always a homicide cop.
“So the case remains unsolved?”
“That’s the status. It’s headed to our cold case division.”
“But you worked it.”
“Yes, I did.”
“One thing I don’t see here,” Tess said. “The autopsy report says he had a previous wound. Did you look into that?”
He straightened a little. “He was in the service. He was shot in the chest in the opening days of the Iraq War. Fortunately, he survived, although it was touch and go for a while. He recovered, but had PTSD and some related mental health problems.”
“What kind?”
“He took drugs, was arrested twice for domestic situations with his wife and once for being under the influence. That led to a divorce, and he was out of work—threatened his boss, got into bar fights.
“He was on a family camping trip with his family when he was shot. They went to the same place every year.”
“What do you think happened?”
“We were never able to clear the case—there just was no evidence. The trail went cold—all we he had was the bullet.”
He showed her on Google Earth where the campground was. He couldn’t go with her. He gave her distinct instructions as to where the table was, and of course she saw not only the autopsy photos but photos of the picnic area, the blood spatter, and diagrams. Tess didn’t think she needed to drive out there, but she did, anyway. There had been a rain up here recently, and the small creek near the picnic table had plenty of runoff. It was churning. Tess had the place to herself—it was a weekday—and she looked at the spot where she believed he had been shot.
Just out with his family, celebrating his life. A man who had survived a sniper attack once.
That someone could do this for fun.
That they could do this to this soldier. Who, by all accounts, was troubled and suffered deeply from what he’d experienced in Iraq.
Tess thought about Michael DeKoven.
She wondered if he had a sniper rifle. She wondered where he practiced. She wondered who she could talk to who would tell her.
Finally she got back into her Tahoe and drove south.
Next stop: Phoenix.
By the time Michael got back home, he had gone through several stages: fear, despair, and now anger. He parked the 4Runner in the garage and walked to the house. He went to the bathroom off the kitchen, not wanting to
