Brian Freeman - Marathon

“That’s not what I was doing.”

“No? Whatever you think you were doing, you created a dangerous situation. A police officer died because of it.”

Malville jabbed a finger at her. “Don’t you dare put that on me.”

“Why did you put that information out there, Mr. Malville? You’re smarter than that.”

He stripped off his sunglasses. “Why didn’t I trust the police? Gosh, I don’t know. It’s almost as if there were something in my past that might make me believe they wouldn’t listen to me when I told them the truth.”

“I get it. You’re still bitter about the Spitting Devil case.”

“Damn right, I am,” he snapped. “My faith in the government, and my faith in you , are right around zero. So don’t lecture me, Sergeant. I got results. Things happened fast. If I’d called in a tip, how many days would it have been before anyone took it seriously or the information made its way through the FBI bureaucracy? In the meantime, this guy could have been on his way to another city with another bomb.”

Maggie waited as the small plane she’d spotted earlier drifted down for another practice landing and takeoff. The noise made it impossible to talk. She didn’t blame Malville for his anger at the police, even if there was nothing she or Stride would have done differently two years earlier. You asked questions and made choices based on the best information you had. Back then, the evidence had made Malville look like a serial killer.

“Tell me again what you saw,” Maggie said once the plane was back in the air.

“I already told you on Saturday. A Muslim man with a backpack bumped into me when Evan and I were standing outside the Electric Fetus. He was heading toward Canal Park. That was a few minutes before the bombing. Ever since, I’ve been combing through the photos that people have posted online, to see if I could identify the guy. And I did. I found him steps away from the blast site, just seconds before it happened, with no backpack. Maybe that’s not enough for you or the FBI, but it was enough for me.”

“If you had come to us with that information, we would have taken immediate action,” Maggie told him.

“Well, that’s easy to say now. Look, I’m sorry about what happened to that police officer. I really am. If Rashid shot him, it just shows that I was right. Rashid is the guy. And he’s dangerous as hell.”

“Are you absolutely certain that Khan Rashid is the man who bumped into you on Superior Street?” Maggie asked.

“Yes.”

“Because we’ve been going over photos, too, and we can’t place him on Superior with a backpack.”

“He was there,” Malville insisted.

“How long were you studying online photos from the marathon before you found the one you tweeted?” she asked.

Malville hesitated. “Since I got home on Saturday.”

“Did you sleep on Saturday night?”

“Not much,” he admitted.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Malville, but the fact is, you were sleep-deprived, angry, and emotional, and you’d spent hours looking at thousands of faces, trying to find someone you admit you saw for no more than a split second a day earlier. Is it possible you made a mistake?”

“I know what I saw.”

Maggie had seen that certainty in eyewitnesses many times before. They were absolutely convinced about what they remembered. They could picture a face in their mind. They could pick a suspect out of a lineup, and they could point him out in court.

And all too often, they’d been dead wrong.

“I’m not laying blame on you, Mr. Malville, but this is important.”

“Why? Why do you think I’m wrong? Because you were hoping the bomber was a white Christian, like me? I’m sorry to disappoint you. Too bad it was yet another Islamic radical.”

“I just want to know if you’re really sure,” Maggie said.

Malville slipped on his Ray-Ban’s and went back to his plane. “I’m one hundred percent sure, Sergeant. Khan Rashid was the man I saw. Now how about you go find him before he kills anyone else.”

Wade Ralston took tentative steps up and down the St. Luke’s corridor. The surgical incision in his stomach made him grimace with pain, but the nurses all said he was doing better. He was wearing street clothes again. By tomorrow, he’d be home. He could go back to work and get on with his life.

In the hospital lounge, he saw Travis. The kid looked like death. Wade hobbled over to him and eased down onto the sofa. He took heavy breaths, waiting while the pain subsided. The room was warm, and he felt himself sweating. His jaw clenched, because seeing Travis made him angry. Angry about Joni. Angry about how things had worked out.

“Listen, man,” Travis mumbled, as if he could read the bitterness on Wade’s face. “I feel really bad.”

“About what?”

“I should have saved her somehow. It doesn’t seem fair. Me being here. Joni being gone.”

“I’m not sure who told you life was fair,” Wade said. “It’s not.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“How’s Shelly?” Wade asked.

“She’s alive, for whatever that’s worth.”

“You tell her about Joni?”

Travis nodded without saying anything. His eyes welled with tears.

“How about her legs and all? She know?”

“Yeah. She was giving me the God crap. Jesus will take care of her. I don’t know how she can say that. Me, I just want ten minutes with the guy who did this. Ten minutes to saw off his legs, you know? I want to do something.”

Wade stared at Travis. Big, dumb Travis, strong as an ox, handsome as one of the Hemsworth brothers. The kid was right. He should be dead. Instead, here they both were, sitting side by side on a hospital sofa.

“You believe in God, Travis?” Wade asked.

“Nah.”

“Maybe you should. Maybe Shelly’s right.”

Travis’s face screwed up in confusion. “What are you talking about, Wade?”

“I’m saying, what are the odds that you survived the explosion? One in a million? That can’t be an accident. Gotta be a reason you walked away.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“I don’t know, but the way I see it, God saved you. You were in the path, man, and God saved you. Seems like He must have some kind of mission for you. Otherwise, you’d be on a slab, just like Joni.”

Travis laced his big hands on top of his head. “Man, if that’s true, He picked the wrong guy. I’ve never done anything that’s worth shit in my life.”

“Well, maybe now you’ve got another chance.”

“A chance for what?” Travis asked.

Wade looked around at the hospital lounge to make sure they were alone. He lowered his voice. “Just what you said, man. A chance to do something.”

Khan awoke in an empty house.

He lay on his back on a wood floor. When he pushed himself up on his elbows, his muscles ached. So did his face, where the man at the market had struck him. He had no idea how long he’d slept. All he remembered from his dreams was the police officer’s face in the cemetery, haunting him like a dark angel.

The hole in his head.

The look in his dead eyes.

He was in an unfurnished living room, and he didn’t immediately remember how he’d gotten there. Everything was unfamiliar. Hooks dangled from the walls where paintings had once been hung. Dust coated the floor, except for a slurry of dirty footprints. The thick curtains, which were closed, gave no hint of whether it was morning or night. He knew he’d missed prayers, but he didn’t know how many.

Khan got up off the floor. Dried blood was streaked on his skin. He could feel the sting of cuts on his arms and legs. He walked to the curtains, but as he reached out to sweep them aside, he felt someone behind him. He spun, and Malik was there. His friend grabbed his wrist in a steel grip.