William Krueger: Mercy Falls

“And besides, you figured it was Jacoby who’d kidnapped her, right?”

“I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted Jo back safely.”

“But things got out of hand. I can understand how that might happen.”

“Look, Adam, I know you have to do this. I didn’t shoot Jacoby.”

“But you did have a gun.”

“Which I didn’t fire. Winnetka Police can easily confirm that. They swabbed my hands for residue. They decide to have it analyzed, it’ll show negative. But I’m sure they told you all this already.”

“Cork, they’re searching for gloves.”

“Gloves?” He thought about it a few seconds and understood. “They found the gun that killed him. Let me guess. A throw-down?”

“That’s right.”

“Adam, you know me. You know I’m not a dirty cop.”

“I told them that. But they don’t know you, Cork. They’re looking at a guy who believed his wife had been kidnapped, who believed Jacoby was responsible, and who charged in on his own, thinking he’d save her. On top of that, he’s a guy who’s currently suspended from his duties as sheriff pending psychological evaluation.”

Cork sat back, weary to the bone.

“It would have helped if you’d told them about that last part.”

“They ready to charge me?”

Gabriel shook his head. “Timing and motive are strong, but they don’t have any physical connection between you and the throw-down. Plus, you’ve been extremely cooperative.”

“Are they going to hold me?”

“No. But they want you to stick around for a while. You know the drill.” Gabriel breathed a deep sigh. “There’s something else, Cork. Phillip Jacoby came in a while ago with his lawyer, Lawrence Blumenthal. He’s admitted that he had sex with Jo, but says it was consensual.”

“Consensual?” Cork almost leaped from his chair.

“That’s his statement. He says his father came home, found them together. Jo had had too much to drink and had passed out. Jacoby was extremely upset and sent Phillip to stay with an old friend who just happened to be Lawrence Blumenthal, one of Chicago’s best defense attorneys. Blumenthal insists that Phillip was at his home when Ben Jacoby was murdered.”

“Money makes everything so much easier, doesn’t it?” Cork said bitterly.

“When Boomer called me yesterday, I wish I’d known what all this was about. I’d have been happy to help.”

“That was yesterday, Adam.” He reached across the table and shook Gabriel’s hand. “And you have helped.”

Dina Willner was waiting for him.

“You look like the walking dead,” she said. “Why don’t I give you a ride back to your Pathfinder. We need to talk.”

While the police were questioning Dina, one of her operatives had delivered her car to the village police station. It was a red Ferrari, and she fit into it as if she’d been born in the driver’s seat.

“I saw Phillip at the police station, but they wouldn’t let me talk to him,” she said.

Cork told her what he’d learned from Gabriel.

“Consensual? That’s ludicrous.” Her voice was pitched with anger.

“Adam says his attorney’s one of the best in Chicago.”

“Blumenthal’s good, but Phillip’s got a history of date rape. The Jacobys hired me last year to make a Rohypnol situation go away.”

“Do the police know that?”

“The police know all about the Jacobys, but money’s an enormous protective moat.”

She stopped at a light. The Ferrari purred under her like a contented lion.

“There are things I haven’t told you, but now that Ben’s dead, I think I should.”

The light changed. She shifted and accelerated with a roar of the powerful engine.

“I can understand why you thought it was Ben who was responsible for Stone trying to kill you, but you’re wrong. He didn’t know anything about it. Eddie was mostly all about Eddie, except where Ben was concerned. He looked up to Ben, desperately wanted his approval, wanted to feel like they were true brothers. The trouble was, he was the kind of guy who fucked up everything he did.

“Eddie knew about Ben and Jo. When he turned up dead and Ben went to Aurora and heard about the ambush on the reservation, he didn’t believe it was just a coincidence that Eddie was there when it happened. He was afraid Eddie might have done something stupid, like arrange the hit. I wasn’t hired just to make sure the investigation was handled correctly. I was hired to find out if what Ben feared was true.”

“And if it was?”

“My first priority was to make sure you and your family were safe. Then, if Eddie was responsible, identify the person he hired for the hit and intervene discreetly. Dissuade that person any way I could and keep the Jacoby name out of it.”

“Tall order.”

“I’m well paid.”

“So I was wrong about Ben Jacoby wanting my wife?”

“I don’t know about that. Ben always struck me as a man who never had a handle on happiness. If Jo made him happy once, maybe he would have given almost anything to get her back. He might even have been just fine if it had to be over your dead body, so long as he wasn’t responsible, but he wasn’t the kind of man who’d have had you killed for it.”

“You seem to know Jacoby pretty well.”

“In my business, people tell me their secrets.”

“You’re paid to keep those secrets. Why are you telling me this?”

“Call it a moral imperative. Anyone who’d care is dead. Ben, Eddie, Stone. And with everything that’s happened to you and your family, I think you deserve to know the truth. But if you ask me to testify in court, I’ll refuse. You understand?”

“Sure.”

“However, I can give you the name of the girl and her family in the date rape incident. I’d bet it wouldn’t take anything at all to make them turn on the Jacobys.”

They were on Sheridan, not far from Ben’s place.

“So who killed him?” Cork said.

“Until you told me about Blumenthal, I’d thought it might have been Phillip. An argument, maybe.”

“If Blumenthal’s telling the truth, Phillip’s off the hook. From what I’ve gathered, Jacoby was probably shot with a throw-down, so that would indicate a planned killing.”

“Ben was a powerful man. I’m sure he had enemies. Maybe his murder didn’t have anything to do with the rest of this business.”

Cork shook his head. “Think about it. After you called him with your report on Lizzie’s interview, he canceled his meeting with Jo and went somewhere. You said it yourself, that he put something together. What was it he figured out? That might be clear if we knew who he went to see.”

“You think his death had something to do with Eddie’s murder?”

“It’s the only connection I can see at the moment. It’s all too closely related to be just coincidence.”

Dina pulled onto the brick drive that led to Jacoby’s home. The crime scene team was still there, but the media vans were gone and the neighbors had all retreated back into their own big houses. She pulled up to the Pathfinder, still parked where he’d left it earlier that morning.

“Cork, I’m not on the Jacoby payroll anymore. Eddie, Ben, they’re not my worry now. But you are.” She reached into the glove box, pulled out a business card, and gave it to him. “If you need me for anything, call.”

“Listen,” he said. “That was a lousy thing I pulled in Aurora. I’m sorry.”

“Done in a good cause,” she replied, then smiled wistfully. “ Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, it might have been.’”

She leaned over, kissed his cheek, watched him get out, then growled away in her Ferrari, a car that cleaning up the messes made by people like the Jacobys had paid for.