bed so he couldn't see the body and nodded toward the bathroom. Collier went into the bathroom. I took the knife out of my pocket and stabbed Alberta in the neck. Four or five seconds at most. Collier came out of the bathroom. I had stepped back so he could see the knife in her neck. I watched him head into the other room to call for backup.'
'And that's when you had a problem?' said Ward.
Taxx nodded.
'I went into the bathroom. The window was open. 'My first thought was, 'Great, Collier saw that. He thinks the perp came in through the window and went back out through the window.' That's when I realized the snow was piled up on the sill. No one could have gotten through the window without disturbing the snow.'
'And that's when you made your mistake,' said Ward.
Taxx nodded.
'I swept the snow out the window with my sleeve,' he said. 'Instead of inside into the tub. I could hear Collier on the phone in the front room. I came out of the bathroom before he could come back in, saying we had a crime scene and should wait in the other room for CSI. I didn't want him back in the bathroom seeing the snow gone.'
'And?' Ward coaxed.
'Yesterday I went to a Chinese restaurant and met with Helen Grandfield,' said Taxx. 'Collier must have been suspicious. He followed me. I spotted him across the street. He could check with my wife and find out she hadn't called me the night before. He could look at the crime-scene photographs and notice that the snow had been cleared from the bathroom window.'
'So, you told Helen Grandfield, who told you that she would take care of it,' said Ward. 'And she paid you the rest of the money.'
'I have nothing to say about that,' said Taxx.
'You knew they were going to kill Collier,' said Ward.
Taxx didn't answer for a beat and then said, 'I didn't want to think about that.'
'Where's the money they paid you?'
Again, Taxx didn't answer. In addition to the money he had put away and what he had gotten from Dario Marco, he had a million dollar life insurance policy.
'I'll tell Stella,' said Danny Messer.
Aiden opened the top drawer in Louisa Cormier's desk.
'It's not here,' she said, looking up at Mac.
'Someone must have stolen it,' said Louisa.
'You have a safe?' asked Mac.
Louisa turned to Pease, who sighed.
'Your client can open it or we can,' said Mac. 'My guess is that it's in this room, but we can…'
'Open it Louisa,' said Pease. 'Cooperate.'
Louisa Cormier went to the bright-red painting of a flower by Georgia O'Keeffe and flipped it back. On the wall was the safe.
Louisa looked at Pease who nodded at her to open the safe. She shook her head 'no' but he urged her on.
'We can deal with this,' Pease said gently. 'You acted in self defense.'
Louisa opened the safe and with a gloved hand Aiden reached in and pulled out the.22 Walther. This time she felt certain she had a match for her bullet.
'You made a mistake my Pat Fantome would never have made,' said Louisa.
'Louisa,' Pease warned, but his client couldn't resist.
'You didn't check the serial number on the gun in my desk when you first came here,' she said. 'You would have found that it wasn't my gun, that it was Mathew Drietch's, but you had no reason to check it. I came this close to succeeding.'
Louisa held up her right hand showing a quarter of an inch of space between thumb and finger.
'Charles Lutnikov's Pat Fantome might have checked that serial number,' Mac admitted. 'But Pat Fantome isn't real. We are. We make mistakes and then we take care of those mistakes.'
Mac read Louisa Cormier her Miranda rights.
The metal mesh door swung open and Anthony Marco in prison orange looked at Ward and Mac.
'No pretty woman this time?' Marco said.
'She's a little under the weather,' said Mac.
'I'll send her flowers,' said Marco with a smile.
'What's this about?' asked Marco's lawyer.
'Trials moving fast,' said Marco. 'We've got a deal.'
'No, we don't,' said Ward. 'We don't need your cooperation.'
Anthony Marco looked over his shoulder at his lawyer and then back at Mac and Ward.
'What?' asked Marco.
'You know a Steven Guista?'
'No,' said Anthony, sitting up straight.
'He knows you,' said Ward. 'He knows a lot about you and your brother and he's been added to the witness list. He'll be testifying.'
'Against me?' asked Anthony, pointing to himself.
Mac nodded.
'Word has it he murdered a cop and kicked the shit out of another one,' said Anthony.
'I thought you didn't know him,' said Ward.
'I lied.'
'Guista's testimony won't stand,' said Anthony's lawyer. 'What did you offer him to commit perjury?'
'Nothing,' said Ward. 'He didn't ask for anything. We didn't offer him anything. You go right ahead and ask him when he's on the stand.'
'I had nothing to do with having that Spanio woman killed,' Anthony insisted. 'That was Dario's idea.'
'Your brother is dead,' said Mac.
'No,' Anthony protested.
'Have your lawyer make a call,' said Mac.
'Dario's dead? The stupid son-of-a-bitch died and left me with… Can they do this? Can they do this to me?' Anthony asked his lawyer.
The attorney didn't answer.
Epilogue
THE SNOW HAD LET UP, but not the bitter cold. Mac stood, hands in his pockets, feet apart to keep the wind from pushing him away from Claire's gravesite. The tops of headstones peeked out of snow and Mac remembered that there had been some graves with simple brass markers, now buried two feet under snow.
The snowplow had come through carefully, and Mr. Greenberg, who had arranged for the clearing of the site, had shown up and supervised, pointing out where the plow should go and how a path through the snow from the parking circle should be opened.
Mac stood with the flowers in his hands, feeling the wind pulling at the bouquet of various colored roses- red, pink, white, yellow- which had been hard to get in the aftermath of the storm.
