“You waited longer than I would ever have expected.”
She seemed to perceive something in my remark that bothered her. “Just to be clear, I didn’t save myself for you or anything.”
“I get that.”
“But I can’t deny that I waited. Ask yourself why I did that.”
I knew why.
“You don’t need to say anything. But the way I see it, Mike, you’ve got all the information you need to make a decision. I should try to take a nap. I won’t be any good tonight if I go on patrol after no sleep.”
I tried to rise. “You should eat something. I’ll make sandwiches.”
She pushed me against the mattress. “Better let me.”
“You don’t even trust me to make a sandwich!”
Her response was to swing her legs off the bed and pad naked out to the kitchen. I lay there feeling my heart flop around my chest like a caught fish.
While Dani slept, I took a shower, put on some jeans, and closed the bedroom door.
She hadn’t exactly given me an ultimatum, but she’d made it clear that the status quo could not and would not continue.
When we’d first met, just after she’d graduated from the academy, I had dismissed her as a girl with a chip on her shoulder.
Then, over the years, I’d noticed Danielle Tate becoming more self-assured, less impulsive, harder to read. I’d watched her grow into herself as a person. She was a woman who knew what she wanted, and she had wasted no time making her move after my relationship with Stacey had ended.
I made a pot of coffee and sat at the table with a steaming cup. A feeling of serenity passed through me, as it always did, looking at the world outside my window.
I wondered if I would see those foxes again. I needed to install game cameras around the property to capture all the nocturnal goings-on. They might also provide some small security if a villain from my past came sneaking out of the woods.
That thought brought to mind Dawn Richie again and the enormous effort she must have taken not to leave traces of herself online. Which in turn made me curious about the circus that had accompanied the governor’s visit to Pen Bay Medical Center. I understood the Penguin well enough to know he would want pictures and video of himself congratulating the brave guard. Richie’s carefully kept anonymity was finished as of today.
I opened my laptop and brought up the site of a news station out of Portland. As I’d expected, the prison attack was the big story. The video began with the reporter, a recent college grad with bleached hair and that staccato pronunciation they teach in broadcasting schools, setting the scene inside the hospital.
Then the video cut to the governor standing over a bed, deep in conversation with an injured person. Except the patient he was addressing wasn’t Dawn Richie. It was Billy Cronk. Aimee and the Cronklets stood crowded together at the edge of the frame.
“Holy shit,” I said aloud.
Next came a close-up of the Penguin speaking into the camera, his gin blossoms all aflower. “The people of Maine know I call things like I see them. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, being too honest.”
The newbie reporter tried to ask a question and the Penguin snapped, “Don’t interrupt me, please! Now everyone has heard what happened at the prison this morning. The investigation has already begun, I can assure you. When I arrived at the hospital, I asked for an update, and the first thing I learned was that a convict was nearly killed because he stepped in to save a prison guard. And I thought, ‘How can that be? The man is a criminal!’ So I asked to see this inmate’s record. And here is what I discovered. Not only is the man a decorated combat veteran, but the reason he is in prison is because he used his constitutional rights to defend himself against two drug dealers.”
Pelkey and Beam were actually dealers in illegal guns, but the Penguin wasn’t far off.
“This cannot be happening,” I said to my computer.
“What can’t be happening?” Dani murmured from the doorway. She had pulled on one of my dress shirts. Her gymnast’s legs looked good under the hem.
“The Penguin is going to pardon Billy Cronk.”
“You’re kidding!”
“He hasn’t said the words yet, but just wait.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned over my shoulder to watch the screen while the governor continued.
“But if he’s in prison, people will say it’s because he deserves it. Except here is what I have discovered, the secret no one wanted you to know. William Cronk didn’t receive a fair trial. The prosecutor on his case didn’t play fair. That’s no surprise when you hear it was my opponent, Henry Hildreth the Third, who prosecuted the case.”
“I think you may be right,” Dani said, her breath humid on my ear.
“The attorney general is a well-known enemy of the Second Amendment. So of course he is going to seek the maximum punishment toward a man who defends himself with deadly force.”
I hit the fast-forward button.
“You don’t want to hear the rest?” Dani asked.
“Just the punch line.”
The governor raised a finger in conclusion. “I will be instructing my office to draw up a pardon for William Cronk.” He then placed a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Mr. Cronk, the people of Maine thank you for your service and your heroism, and we hope you and your family will forgive the actions of this rogue prosecutor, which resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”
“You mean he’s going free?” said Dani.
“I guess so. I don’t know how pardons work.”
Dani released me from her forceful embrace. “What a day!”
I let out a groan. “Shit.”
“Why are you saying ‘shit’?”
“Because now
