Senator.
Not exactly a triumph for justice.
When I got back to town, I went straight to Barone’s office.
He had a right to know two things: the identity of the man who had Judge Brennan killed and the fact that we were never going to be able to arrest him.
He believed me on the first part but not on the second. “We can nail the son of a bitch,” he said.
I shook my head. “No chance. Everybody with knowledge of it is gone; there is nothing to connect him to it.”
“We’ll find something.”
“No we won’t.”
“Then let’s turn it over to the Feds,” he said, surprising the hell out of me. “We’ll tell them Steven Gallagher wasn’t the perpetrator, and that Holland was behind it.”
“Go ahead and do it, but they won’t buy it, and won’t be able to make the connection. The guy is about to become a major player in national politics; they won’t go near it unless the case is clear. And it couldn’t be further from clear. Holland played it brilliantly.”
“But you’re sure?”
“I’m sure. I was sure before I talked to him, and more sure afterwards. He as much as confessed to me.”
“I’m bringing in the Feds.”
And he did. I wound up doing two more intensive interviews with two different sets of agents. This time I told them everything, and found that all four agents had two things in common: their taste in suits and their obvious skepticism about what I was telling them.
Three weeks later Barone used his contacts to find out where matters stood, and was told that the investigation had been closed for lack of evidence.
Holland was off the hook.
Julie and Bryan seemed to be doing pretty well.
I couldn’t be sure of that; it’s hard to know what is going on in someone else’s marriage. They had me over for dinner one night, and everything seemed comfortable and normal, and I even think I was glad about that.
Physically, Bryan was really coming along, and by all accounts was impressing the hell out of his doctors. His speech was still slightly off, though I think only those who knew him well could tell. And he complained of vision issues in his left eye, though nothing that affected his day-to-day living.
He hadn’t gotten back to work yet, but hoped to do that within a month to six weeks. He was already keeping track of goings-on in his office from home, which meant he was getting back to normal.
Julie had taken a couple of weeks off, but was now back full-time, since Bryan didn’t need care during the day. We had lunch once, which was also comfortable, at least until they served the coffee.
“We never talked things out,” she said.
“No sense starting now.”
She laughed. “I knew that’s how you’d react, Luke. So I won’t make it too painful. I’ve loved you for six years, I love you now, and I’ll always love you. But I also love Bryan, and he’s my husband. That counts for a lot.”
“I think you did the right thing,” I said. “I hope you guys are happy.”
She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you.”
That was sort of a “moment” for me, and it turned out it triggered other moments. But the immediate effect was to put an end to the mind dance that I had been doing with Julie for years, whether or not she was dancing as well.
It was over, finally and officially. She was my sister-in-law, my brother’s wife, and that was going to be OK. I was never again going to let it be anything other than OK.
So I went home and had my other “moments,” possibly even large enough to be called epiphanies. It was time for me to get on with my life outside of work, maybe even settle down. Up to that point, settling down had meant a relationship that lasted longer than the NBA play-offs, but I was going after more than that. Maybe even kids. Why not?
I would even give serious thought to moving out of the area. Despite the fact that it seemed like there was a murder every twenty minutes, I liked the feel of a town the size of Brayton. There must be similar towns all over the country, maybe even nicer and more friendly, that could use a Chief of Police.
But the moments were not all upbeat. I couldn’t get the Gallagher brothers out of my mind. I thought about Steven for obvious reasons; I was responsible for his death. I couldn’t mentally erase the look on his face just before I shot him; the pain he was in was palpable. I believe I was defending myself; I just wish there had been somebody there to defend him.
My feelings towards Chris were more complicated. What he did to Bryan was horrible and inexcusable, but from the first time we talked it irritated me that I understood him. I should have been more angry; I should have wanted to rip him apart.
But I didn’t, and on some level I even identified with him. I respected his sense of justice, bizarre as some might find it. And I have to say I envied his connection to his brother. I wish he could have accomplished his goal and gotten real justice for Steven.
I still had the things that Chris had left me, that he found in Rhodes’s room. I had forgotten about them, and hadn’t turned them over to the FBI. I figured it didn’t matter, since they had dropped the ball anyway.
I came to a decision, gradually I guess, and didn’t really crystallize it in my mind until close to eight in the morning. I called Julie, and Bryan answered the phone. He sounded better than I had heard him since the rescue.
We talked briefly, and then I told him that I wasn’t going to be coming over that night, as we had discussed. I had been planning to bring in dinner, but I said that we’d have to postpone.
“Julie will be disappointed,” he said.
“She’ll get over it.”
“Last time you canceled dinner on us, all hell broke loose.”
“I remember.”
“You working tonight?” he asked.
“Sort of.”
“OK … take care of yourself, Brother. Maybe we can spend some time alone one of these days. Maybe fishing, or whatever the hell you real men do.”
I laughed. “I’ll check my real-men magazines and come up with some ideas.”
We got off the phone, and I got dressed.
The Associated Press was the first to report it.
These were the initial words across the wire:
Steven Gallagher had gotten his justice.
And I had crossed the line.
