“I called your stepmother right after you left the house. She thought you’d be here.”
“Well, I am. And I happen to be busy.”
“Yeah,” muttered Robert. “She’s really good at being busy.”
Nina spun around to confront her ex-fiancé. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not the only one to blame in all this! It takes two people to screw up a relationship.”
“I didn’t leave you at the church!”
“No, but you left me. Every night, for months on end.”
“What? What?”
“Every damn night, I was here on my own! I would have enjoyed coming home to a nice meal. But you were never here.”
“They needed me on the evening shift. I couldn’t change that!”
“You could’ve quit.”
“Quit my job? To do what? Play happy homemaker to a man who couldn’t even decide if he wanted to marry me?”
“If you loved me, you would have.”
“Oh, my God. I can’t believe you’re turning this into my fault. I didn’t love you enough.”
Sam said, “Nina, I need to talk to you.”
“Not now!” Nina and Robert both snapped at him.
Robert said to her, “I just think you should know I had my reasons for not going through with it. A guy has only so much patience. And then it’s natural to start looking elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?” She stared at him with new comprehension. Softly she said, “So there was someone else.”
“What do you think?”
“Do I know her?”
“It hardly makes a difference now.”
“It does to me. When did you meet her?”
He looked away. “A while ago.”
“How long?”
“Look, this is irrelevant—”
“For six months, we planned that wedding. Both of us. And you never bothered to tell me the minor detail that you were seeing another woman?”
“It’s clear to me you’re not rational at the moment. Until you are, I’m not discussing this.” Robert turned and left the room.
“Not rational?” she yelled. “I’m more rational now than I was six months ago!”
She was answered by the thud of the front door as it slammed shut.
Another woman, she thought. I never knew. I never even suspected.
Suddenly feeling sick to her stomach, she sank down on the bed. The pile of clothes tumbled onto the floor, but she didn’t even notice. Nor did she realize that she was crying, that the tears were dribbling down her cheeks and onto her shirt. She was both sick and numb at the same time, and oblivious to everything but her own pain.
She scarcely noticed that Sam had sat down beside her. “He’s not worth it, Nina,” he soothed quietly. “He’s not worth grieving over.”
Only when his hand closed warmly over hers did she look up. She found his gaze focused steadily on her face. “I’m not grieving,” she said.
Gently he brushed his fingers across her cheek, which was wet with tears. “I think you are.”
“I’m not. I’m not.” She gave a sob and sagged against him, burying her face in his shirt. “I’m not,” she whispered against his chest.
Only vaguely did she sense his arms folding around her back, gathering her against him. Suddenly those arms were holding her close, wrapping tightly around her. He didn’t say a thing. As always, the laconic cop. But she felt his breath warming her hair, felt his lips brush the top of her head, and she heard the quickening of his heartbeat.
Just as she felt the quickening of her own.
It means nothing, she thought. He was being kind to her. Comforting her the way he would any hurt citizen. It was what she did every day in the E.R. It was her job. It was his job.
Oh, but this felt so good.
It took a ruthless act of pure will to pull out of his arms. When she looked up, she found his expression calm, his green eyes unreadable. No passion, no desire. Just the public servant, in full control of his emotions.
Quickly she wiped away her tears. She felt stupid now, embarrassed by what he’d just witnessed between her and Robert. He knew it all, every humiliating detail, and she could scarcely bear to look him in the eye.
She stood up and began to gather the fallen clothes from the floor.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.
“No.”
“I think you need to. The man you loved leaves you for another woman. That must hurt pretty bad.”
“Okay, I do need to talk about it!” She threw a handful of clothes on the bed and looked at him. “But not with some stone-faced cop who couldn’t care less!”
There was a long silence. Though he looked at her without a flicker of emotion, she sensed that she’d just delivered a body blow. And he was too proud to show it.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Oh God, Navarro, I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Actually,” he said, “I think I did.”
“You’re just doing your job. And then I go and lash out at you.” Thoroughly disgusted with herself, she sat down beside him on the bed. “I was just taking it out on you. I’m so—so angry at myself for letting him make me feel guilty.”
“Why guilty?”
“That’s the crazy part about it! I don’t know why I should feel guilty! He makes it sound as if I neglected him. But I could never quit my job, even for him. I love my job.”
“He’s a doctor. He must’ve had long hours as well. Nights, weekends.”
“He worked a lot of weekends.”
“Did you complain?”
“Of course not. That’s his job.”
“Well?” He regarded her with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh.” She sighed. “The old double standard.”
“Exactly. I wouldn’t expect my wife to quit a job she loved, just to make dinner and wait on me every night.”
She stared down at her hands, clasped in her lap. “You wouldn’t?”
“That’s not love. That’s possession.”
“I think your wife’s a very lucky woman,” she said softly.
“I was only speaking theoretically.”
She frowned at him. “You mean…it was just a theoretical wife?”
He nodded.
So he wasn’t married. That piece of information made her flush with a strange and unexpected gladness. What on earth was the matter with her?
She looked away, afraid that he might see the confusion in her eyes. “You, uh, said you needed to talk to me.”
“It’s about the case.”
“It must be pretty important if you went to all the trouble of tracking me down.”
“I’m afraid we have a new development. Not a pleasant one.”
She went very still. “Something’s happened?”
“Tell me what you know about the church janitor.”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t know him at all. I don’t even know his name.”
“His name was Jimmy Brogan. We spent all yesterday evening trying to track Brogan down. We know he unlocked the church door yesterday. That he was in and out of the building all morning. But no one seems to know where he went after the explosion. We know he didn’t turn up at the neighborhood bar where he usually goes every afternoon.”
“You said was. That his name was Jimmy Brogan. Does that mean…”
Sam nodded. “We found his body this morning. He was in his car, parked in a field in Scarborough. He died from a gunshot wound to the head. The gun was in the car with him. It had his fingerprints on it.”
“A suicide?” she asked softly.
“That’s the way it looks.”
She was silent, too shocked to say a thing.
“We’re still waiting for the crime lab report. There are a number of details that bother me. It feels too neat, too packaged. It ties up every single loose end we’ve got.”
“Including the bombing?”
“Including
the bombing. There were several items in the car trunk that would seem to link Brogan to the bomb. Detonating cord. Green electrical tape. It’s all pretty convincing evidence.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“The problem is, Brogan had no explosives experience that we know of. Also, we can’t come up with a motive for any bombing. Or for the attack on you. Can you help us out?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about the man.”
“Are you familiar with the name Brogan?”
“No.”
“He was familiar with you. There was a slip of paper with your address in his car.”
She stared at him. His gaze was impenetrable. It frightened her, how little she could read in his eyes. How deeply the man was buried inside the cop. “Why would he have my address?” she asked.
“You must have some link to him.”
“I don’t know anyone named Brogan.”
“Why would he try to kill you? Run you off the road?”
“How do you know he did it?”
“Because of his car. The one we found his body in.”
She swallowed hard. “It was black?”
He nodded. “A black Ford.”
Five
Sam drove her to the morgue. Neither one of them said much. He was being guarded about what information he told her, and she was too chilled to ask for the details. All the way there, she kept thinking, Who was Jimmy Brogan and why did he want to kill me?
In the morgue, Sam maintained a firm grip on her arm as they walked the corridor to the cold room. He was right beside her when the attendant led them to the bank of body drawers. As the drawer was pulled out she involuntarily flinched. Sam’s arm came around her waist, a steady support against the terrible sight she was about to face.
“It ain’t pretty,” said the attendant. “Are you ready?”
Nina nodded.
He pulled aside the shroud and stepped back.
As an E.R. nurse, Nina had seen more than her share of grisly sights. This was by far the worst. She took one look at the man’s face—what was left of it—and quickly turned away. “I don’t know him,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?” Sam asked.
She nodded and suddenly felt herself swaying. At once he was supporting her, his arm guiding her away from the drawers. Away from the cold room.
In the coroner’s office she sat nursing a cup of hot tea while Sam talked on the phone to his partner. Only vaguely did she register his conversation. His tone was as matter-of-fact as always, betraying no hint of the horror he’d just witnessed.
“…doesn’t recognize him. Or the name either. Are you sure we don’t have an alias?” Sam was saying.
Nina cupped the tea in both hands but didn’t sip. Her stomach was still too queasy. On the desk beside her was the file for Jimmy Brogan, open to the ID information sheet. Most of what she saw there didn’t stir any memories. Not his address nor the name of his wife. Only the name of the employer was familiar: the Good Shepherd Church. She wondered if Father Sullivan had been told, wondered how he was faring in the hospital. It would be a double shock to the elderly man. First, the bombing of his church, and then the death of the janitor. She should visit him today and make sure he was doing all right…
“Thanks, Gillis. I’ll be back at three. Yeah, set it up, will you?” Sam hung up and turned to her. Seeing her face, he frowned in concern. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.” She shuddered and clutched the mug more tightly.
“You don’t look fine. I think you need some recovery time. Come on.” He offered his hand. “It’s lunchtime. There’s a café up the street.”
“You can think about lunch?”
“I make it a point never to skip a chance at a meal. Or would you rather I take you home?”
“Anything,” she said, rising from the chair. “Just get me out of this place.”
* * *
NINA PICKED LISTLESSLY at a salad while Sam wolfed down a hamburger.
“I don’t know how you do it,” she said. “How you go straight from the morgue to a big lunch.”
“Necessity.” He shrugged. “In this job, a guy can get skinny real fast.”
“You must see so many awful things as a cop.”
“You’re an E.R. nurse. I would think you’ve seen your share.”
“Yes. But they usually come to us still alive.”
He wiped his hands on a napkin and slid his empty plate aside. “True. If it’s a bomb, by the time I get to the scene, we’re lucky to find anyone alive. If we find much of them at all.”
“How do you live with it? How do you stand a job like yours?”
“The challenge.”
“Really, Navarro. How do you deal with the horror?”
“My name’s Sam, okay? And as for how I deal with it, it’s more a question of why I do it. The truth is, the challenge is a lot of it. People who make bombs are a unique breed of criminal. They’re not like the guy who holds up your neighborhood liquor store. Bombers are craftier. A few of them are truly geniuses. But they’re also cowards. Killers at a distance. It’s that combination that makes those guys especially dangerous. And it makes my job all the more satisfying when I can nail them.”
“So you actually enjoy it.”
“Enjoy isn’t the right word. It’s more that I can’t set the puzzle aside. I keep looking at the pieces and turning them around. Trying to understand the sort of mind that could do such a thing.” He shook his head. “Maybe that makes me just as much a monster. That I find it so satisfying to match wits with these guys.”
“Or maybe it means you’re an outstanding cop.”
He laughed. “Either that or I’m as screwy as the bombers are.”
She gazed across the table at his smiling face and suddenly wondered why she’d ever considered those eyes of his so forbidding. One laugh and Sam Navarro transformed from a cop into an actual human being. And a very attractive man.
I’m not going to let this happen, she thought with sudden determination. It would be such a mistake to rebound from Robert, straight into some crazy infatuation with a cop.
She forced herself to look away, at anything but his face, and ended up focusing on his hands. At the long, tanned fingers. She said, “If Brogan was the bomber, then I guess I have nothing to worry about now.”
“If he was the bomber.”
“The evidence seems pretty strong. Why don’t you sound convinced?”
“I can’t explain it. It’s just…a feeling. Instinct, I guess. That’s why I still want you to be careful.”
She lifted her gaze to meet his and found his smile was gone. The cop was back.
“You don’t think it’s over yet,” she said.
“No. I don’t.”
* * *
SAM DROVE NINA BACK to Ocean View Drive, helped her load up the Mercedes with a few armloads of books and clothes and made sure she was safely on her way back to her father’s house.
Then he returned to the station.
At three o’clock, they held a catch-up meeting. Sam, Gillis, Tanaka from the crime lab and a third detective on the Bomb Task Force, Francis Cooley, were in attendance. Everyone laid their puzzle pieces on the table.
Cooley spoke first. “I’ve checked and rechecked the records on Jimmy Brogan. There’s no alias for the guy. That’s his real name. Forty-five years old, born and raised in South Portland, minor criminal record. Married ten years, no kids. He was hired by Reverend Sullivan eight years ago. Worked as a janitor and handyman around the church. Never any problems, except for a few times when he showed up late and hung over after falling off the wagon. No military service, no education beyond the eleventh grade. Wife says he was dyslexic. I just can’t see this guy putting together a bomb.”
“Did Mrs. Brogan have any idea why Nina Cormier’s address was in his car?” Sam asked.
“Nope. She’d never heard the name before. And she said the handwriting wasn’t her husban
d’s.”
“Were they having any marital troubles?”
“Happy as clams, from what she told me. She’s pretty devastated.”
“So we’ve got a happily married, uneducated, dyslexic janitor as our prime suspect?”
“Afraid so, Navarro.”
Sam shook his head. “This gets worse every minute.” He looked at Tanaka. “Eddie, give us some answers. Please.”
Tanaka, nervous as usual, cleared his throat. “You’re not going to like what I have.”
“Hit me anyway.”
“Okay. First, the gun in the car was reported stolen a year ago from its registered owner in Miami. We don’t know how Brogan got the gun. His wife says he didn’t know the first thing about firearms. Second, Brogan’s car was the black Ford that forced Miss Cormier’s Honda off the road. Paint chips match, both ways. Third, the items in the trunk are the same elements used in the church bombing. Two-inch-wide green electrical tape. Identical detonator cord.”
“That’s Vincent Spectre’s signature,” said Gillis. “Green electrical tape.”
“Which means we’re probably dealing with an apprentice of Spectre’s. Now here’s something else you’re not going to like. We just got back the preliminary report from the coroner. The corpse had no traces of gunpowder on his hand. Now, that’s not necessarily conclusive, since powder can rub off, but it does argue against a self-inflicted wound. What clinches it, though, is the skull fracture.”
“What?” Sam and Gillis said it simultaneously.
“A depressed skull fracture, right parietal bone. Because of all the tissue damage from the bullet wound, it wasn’t immediately obvious. But it did show up on X-ray. Jimmy Brogan was hit on the head. Before he was shot.”
The silence in the room stretched for a good ten seconds. Then Gillis said, “And I almost bought it. Lock, stock and barrel.”
“He’s good,” said Sam. “But not good enough.” He looked at Cooley. “I want more on Brogan. I want you and your team to get the names of every friend, every acquaintance Brogan had. Talk to them all. It looks like our janitor got mixed up with the wrong guy. Maybe someone knows something, saw something.”
“Won’t the boys in Homicide be beating those bushes?”
“We’ll beat ’em as well. They may miss something. And don’t get into any turf battles, okay? We’re not trying to steal their glory. We just want the bomber.”