Jane looked at Frost. “Let’s go.”
—
“THAT WOMAN WAS THE LAST piece of the puzzle,” said Jane. “Bonnie tracked down the victims, followed them into bars. Spiked their drinks. And then he did the rest.” She glanced at Frost. “Remember that cocktail waitress who recognized Cassandra Coyle’s photo?”
“We thought she had to be wrong, because she saw Cassandra sitting with a woman.”
“And she was right. Cassandra was sitting with a woman.” Jane slapped the steering wheel in triumph. “We’ve got him. We’ve got them both.”
“Unless that wine doesn’t come back positive for ketamine.”
“It will. It has to.” Jane glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that Crowe and Tam were right behind them, their vehicle hugging close in heavy traffic.
“All thanks to that crazy Holly Devine,” said Frost.
“Yeah, she’s crazy like a fox. She knew we were watching her. She baited the trap, and look who walked in. A woman.” Monsters came in all shapes and sizes, and the most dangerous are the ones you never suspect, the ones you think you can trust. Middle-aged women like Bonnie Sandridge were too often overlooked, so invisible that they failed to show up on anyone’s radar. Everyone focused on the pretty young girls and the strapping young men. But older women were everywhere, hiding in plain view. Decades from now, would Jane be just another among the gray-haired legions of the invisible? Would anyone look closer and see the woman she really was, focused and formidable and perfectly capable of pulling a trigger?
They parked outside Bonnie Sandridge’s house, and as she and Frost stepped out of the car, Jane was already unsnapping the holster at her belt. They didn’t know if Stanek would resist when cornered, and they had to expect the worst. Across the street a dog barked, alarmed by this invasion of its neighborhood.
The lights were on inside, and a silhouette moved past the downstairs window.
“Someone’s home,” said Crowe.
“You two take the rear,” said Jane. “Frost and I will go in the front door.”
“How’re you gonna approach this?”
“We’ll try it the polite way. I’ll just ring the doorbell and see if Stanek—” She paused, startled by the unmistakable sound of gunshots.
“That came from inside the house!” said Tam.
There was no time to adjust their plans; they all sprinted for the front door. Tam was first into the house, with Jane barreling in right after him. In that first split second, she registered the blood in the living room. It was everywhere, a bright explosion of it on the wall, more splatters on the sofa. And on the floor, a pool of it was slowly spreading like a halo around the shattered skull of Martin Stanek.
“Drop it!” yelled Tam. “Drop your weapon!”
The man standing over Martin’s body did not release his gun. Passively, he regarded the four detectives who stood with their weapons aimed at him, a firing squad ready to unleash a hail of bullets.
“Mr. Devine,” said Jane. “Drop your weapon.”
“I had to kill him,” he said. “You know I did. You’re a mother, Detective, so you understand, don’t you? This was the only way to keep my Holly safe. The only way to be sure this piece of crap can’t hurt her.” He looked down in disgust at Stanek’s body. “Now it’s over and done with. I took care of the problem, and my girl doesn’t have to be afraid.”
“We can talk about it,” Jane said quietly. Reasonably. “But first put down the gun.”
“There’s nothing more to talk about.”
“There’s a lot to talk about, Mr. Devine.”
“Not for me.” His gun came up a fraction of an inch. Jane’s hand snapped taut, her finger primed to fire, but she didn’t. She kept her aim on his chest, her heart thudding so hard she could feel every beat transmitted to the grip.
“Think about Holly,” said Jane. “Think about what this will do to her.”
“I am thinking about her. And this is one last gift I can give her.” His mouth tilted up in a sad smile. “This takes care of everything.”
Even as he raised his arms and pointed his gun at Jane, even as Crowe fired three bullets into his chest, Earl Devine was still smiling.
SO THIS IS HOW IT ends, thought Maura, as she watched morgue attendants wheel the pair of stretchers out of Bonnie Sandridge’s home. Two final deaths, two last bodies. Frigid air swept through the open front door, but that rush of fresh air was not powerful enough to cleanse the stench of violence from the house. Murder leaves a scent of its own. Blood and fear and aggression release their chemical traces into the air, and Maura could smell it now, in this room where Martin Stanek and Earl Devine had died. She stood silent, inhaling the scent, reading the room. Police radios chattered and she heard the voices of CSRU personnel moving through the various rooms of the house, but it was the blood that spoke to Maura. She scanned the spatters and overlying drips on the wall, studied the two puddles on the wood floor where the bodies had fallen. The police might call this bloody conclusion to the case justice well served, but Maura felt unsettled as she regarded the twin pools of blood. The larger one came from Martin Stanek, whose heart had briefly continued to beat and pump blood from the mortal wound in his skull. Earl Devine had not lived or bled as long. All three of Detective Crowe’s bullets had hit what would be the mid-chest bull’s-eye on a firing-range target. Gold stars for Crowe’s marksmanship. But after every fatal police shooting, questions followed, and the autopsy would have to address those questions.
“Trust me, it was a good shooting. We’ll all swear to that.”
Maura turned to Jane. “Good shooting is an oxymoron, if ever I heard one.”
“You know what I mean. You also know that I’d be happy to throw Darren Crowe under the bus if I could, but this was definitely justified. Earl Devine killed Stanek. He confessed to it. Then he pointed his weapon at me.”
“But you didn’t fire at him. You hesitated.”
“Yeah, and maybe Crowe saved my life.”
“Or maybe your instincts told you Earl Devine wasn’t really going to shoot you. Maybe you were better at reading his true intent.”
“And if I was wrong? I might be dead now.” She shook her head and snorted. “God, now I owe a debt to that jerk Crowe. I’d almost prefer getting shot.”
Maura looked down again at the mingled blood, which was now congealed and drying. “Why did Earl Devine do this?”
“He said he was protecting his daughter. Said it was the last gift he could give her.”
“Why did he then point his gun at you? He knew what would happen next. This is a clear case of suicide by cop.”
“Which spares everyone the ordeal of a trial. Think about it, Maura. If he lived and this ended up in court, his defense would be that he was protecting his daughter. That would dredge up the old Apple Tree case, and the whole world would learn that Holly was molested as a child. Maybe this was Earl’s ultimate gift to his daughter. He kept her safe. And he protected her privacy.”
“There’s no privacy in murder. Those details will probably become public anyway.” Maura peeled off her exam gloves. “Who has custody of Crowe’s weapon?”
“He surrendered it.”
“Please keep him away from the morgue tomorrow. I don’t want any questions raised about my autopsy of Earl Devine. When The Boston Globe reports that a sixty-seven-year-old Navy veteran was gunned down by a cop, it’s not going to go down well with the public.”
“But that Navy veteran pointed a gun at me.”
“A detail that won’t show up until the second paragraph. Half the public doesn’t read past the first.” Maura turned to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the autopsy.”
“Do I really need to be there? I know how these two men died, so there won’t be any surprises.”
Maura paused and looked back at the room. At the blood-spattered wall. “You never know what will turn up on an autopsy. I feel like this was all wrapped up too neatly, and there are still a lot
of questions with no answers.”
“Bonnie Sandridge can fill in the gaps. We just have to get her to talk.”
“You have no proof she helped Stanek kill anyone.”
“The proof has to be here in this house, or in her car. Hairs, fibers from the victims. A stash of ketamine. We’ll find something.”
Jane sounded certain of herself, but Maura felt far less confident as she walked outside and climbed into her car. There she sat, staring at the brightly lit house. Silhouettes of crime-scene personnel moved past windows, searching for evidence to support what they already believed: that Bonnie Sandridge was the killer’s accomplice. Confirmation bias had tripped many a scientist, and no doubt many a cop as well. You find only what you’re looking for, which makes it far too easy to overlook everything else.
Her cell phone pinged with a text message and she glanced at the sender’s number. At once she dropped the phone back into her purse, but that one glimpse made her stomach churn. Not now, she thought. I’m not ready to think about you.
On the drive home, that unanswered text message felt like a ticking time bomb in her purse. She forced herself to keep both hands on the steering wheel, to fix her gaze on the road. She should not have reopened the door between them, not even a crack. Now that they were speaking again, she wanted nothing more than to welcome Daniel back into her life, into her bed. Bad move, Maura. Be strong, Maura. You must be your own woman.
At home she poured herself a much-needed glass of zinfandel and served the Beast his belated dinner. The cat ate without so much as a glance her way, and when he’d licked up the last morsel of chicken, he simply walked out of the kitchen. So much for the joys of companionship, she thought. She received more love from this bottle of wine.
She sipped her zinfandel, trying not to look at the cell phone lying on the kitchen counter. It called to her the way opium calls to a junkie, tempting her back into a spiral of heartbreak. Daniel’s text had been short: Call if you need me. There were only five words in that message, yet they had the power to paralyze her in this chair while she mulled over its true intent. What did those words—if you need me—really mean? Was he referring to the murder investigation and offering more expert advice?
Or is this about us?
She drained her glass of wine and poured a second. Pulled out the handwritten notes she’d jotted down at tonight’s death scene and opened her laptop. Now was the time to organize her thoughts, while her memories were still fresh.
Her cell phone rang. Daniel.
She hesitated only a second before picking it up, only to see an unfamiliar number on the display. It was not Daniel’s voice but a woman’s on the phone, a woman who delivered the news that she’d both expected and dreaded. She left her laptop glowing on the kitchen table and ran to the closet to get her coat.
—
“THEY FOUND MRS. LANK COLLAPSED and unconscious in her cell,” said Dr. Wang. “The prison nurse immediately began CPR and they managed to restore a pulse. But as you can see from the cardiac monitor, she’s having frequent periods of ventricular tachycardia.”
Maura stared through the ICU window at Amalthea, who was now deeply comatose. “Why?” she asked softly.
“The arrhythmia could be a complication of her chemotherapy. The drugs can be cardiotoxic.”
“No, I meant, why did they even resuscitate her? They know she’s dying of pancreatic cancer.”
“But she’s still listed as a full code.” He looked at her. “Perhaps you don’t know this, but Mrs. Lank signed a medical power of attorney document last week. She named you as her representative.”
“I had no idea.”
“You’re her only relative. You have the authority. Do you want to change her status to do not resuscitate?”
Maura watched Amalthea’s chest rise and fall with every whoosh of the ventilator. “Is she responsive to stimuli?”
He shook his head. “And she’s not breathing on her own. No one knows how long she was unconscious, so there’s a good chance she has anoxic brain damage. There may also be something else going on, neurologically. I haven’t ordered a brain scan yet, but that would be the next diagnostic step, unless you decide…” He paused, watching her. Waiting for her answer.
“Do not resuscitate,” she said quietly.
He nodded. “I think that’s the right decision.” He hesitated before giving her a pat on the arm, as if touching another human being did not come naturally to him, just as it did not come naturally to Maura. It was far easier to understand the mechanics of the human body than to know what one should say and do in times of grief.
Maura stepped into the cubicle and stood at Amalthea’s bedside, surveying all the beeping and whooshing machinery. With a clinical eye she noted the scant urine in the collection bag, the flurry of premature beats on the screen, the lack of spontaneous breathing. These were all the signs of a body shutting down, a brain no longer functioning. Whoever Amalthea Lank had once been, all her thoughts and feelings and memories were now extinguished. Only this flesh-and-bone container remained.
An alarm on the monitor sounded. Maura looked up at the cardiac rhythm and saw a succession of jagged peaks. Ventricular tachycardia. The blood-pressure line plummeted. Through the window, she saw two nurses scrambling toward the cubicle, but Dr. Wang stopped them at the doorway.
“She’s a DNR,” he told them. “I just wrote the order.”
Maura reached up and shut off the alarm.
On the monitor, she watched the rhythm deteriorate to ventricular fibrillation, the final electrical twitches of Amalthea’s dying heart. The blood pressure cratered to zero, starving the last surviving brain cells of oxygen. You gave birth to me, thought Maura. In every cell of my body I carry your DNA, but in every other way we are strangers. She thought of the mother and father who had adopted and cherished her, both of them dead now. They were her real parents, because one’s true family is defined not by DNA but by love. In that regard, this woman was no relation of Maura’s, and as she watched Amalthea’s final moments, she did not feel even the slightest twinge of grief.
The heart at last ceased its final twitches. A flat line traced across the screen.
A nurse stepped in and shut off the ventilator. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
Maura took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said, and walked out of the cubicle. She kept walking, out of the ICU, out of the hospital, into a wind so frigid that by the time she crossed the parking lot to her car, she could not feel her hands or face. A physical numbness to match what she felt inside. Amalthea is dead, my parents are dead, and I will probably never have a child, she thought. She had long felt alone in the world and had accepted it, but tonight, standing beside her car in the windswept parking lot, she realized she did not want to accept it. Did not have to accept it. She was alone only by choice.
I can change that. Tonight.
She slid into her car, pulled out the cell phone, and once again read Daniel’s text message. Call if you need me.
She called.
—
DANIEL MADE IT TO HER house before she did.
When she arrived home, she saw him sitting in his parked car in her driveway, where the whole world could see him. Last year they’d been careful to conceal his visits, but tonight he’d cast aside all caution. Even before she shut off her engine, he was out of his car and opening her door.
She stepped out, into his arms.
There was no need to explain why she’d called him, no need for words of any kind. The first touch of his lips stripped away her last shreds of resistance. I’m right back in the trap, she thought, as they kissed their way into her house and down the hallway.
To her bedroom.
There, she stopped thinking at all, because she no longer cared about the consequences. All that mattered was that she felt alive again, whole again, reunited with the missing part of her soul. Loving Daniel might be foolish and ultimately star-crossed, but not loving him had been impossible. All th
ese months she had tried to live without him, had swallowed the bitter pill of self-control and been rewarded with lonely nights and far too many glasses of wine. She’d convinced herself that walking away from him was sensible, because she could never claim him as her own, not when her rival was God Himself. But being sensible had not warmed her bed or made her happy or quelled the longing that she would always feel for this man.
In the bedroom they did not turn on the lights; they didn’t need to. Their bodies were already familiar territory to each other, and she knew every inch of his skin. She could tell that he had lost weight, just as she had, as though their hunger for each other had been a true starvation. One night would not be enough to satisfy that hunger, and she did not know when they would have another, so she took what she could now, greedy for the pleasure that his Church had forbidden them. Here is what you’ve missed, Daniel, she thought. How petty your God must be, how cruel, to deny us this joy.
But later, as they lay together with the sweat cooling on their skin, she felt the old sadness creeping in. Here is our punishment, she thought. Not hell and brimstone but the inevitable pain of goodbye. Always a goodbye.
“Tell me why,” he whispered. He didn’t need to say more; she understood what he was asking. Months after she had unequivocally broken off their affair, why had she invited him back into her bed?
“She’s dead,” said Maura. “Amalthea Lank.”
“When did this happen?”
“Tonight. I was there, at the hospital. I watched her last heartbeats on the monitor. She had cancer, so I knew she was dying, and I’ve known it for months. But still, when it happened…”
“I should have been there with you,” he murmured, and she savored the warmth of his breath in her hair. “All you ever have to do is call me and I’ll be here. You know that.”
“It’s strange. A few years ago, I didn’t know Amalthea existed. But now that she’s gone, my last living relative, I realize how alone I am.”
“Only if you choose to be.”
As if loneliness were a choice, she thought. She hadn’t chosen the road to both joy and misery. She hadn’t chosen to love a man who would always be torn between her and his promise to God. That choice had been made for them, by the killer who’d brought them together four years ago, a killer who’d turned his sights on Maura. Daniel had risked his life to save Maura’s; what greater proof could he offer that he loved her?