Dee Henderson - The Witness

“Well, maybe it’s time you let one of those nice guys get close enough to be the one pacing the halls when you’re in here.”

“He’s not a cop; it doesn’t work unless it’s another cop,” Caroline whispered, appreciating the thought though.

“Maybe true.” Amy smiled. “You can tell Luke that he can call me. He’ll understand.”

Caroline frowned at her, confused by the message. “Where, what number?”

“He’ll figure it out,” Amy replied. She leaned over and offered a gentle hug. “I’ll see you later, friend. That’s a promise.”

Because there were certain days in his life being the chief of police was simply too hard a burden to bear, Luke watched Amy walk across the hospital parking lot and turn back toward downtown, and he let her go without stopping her. The car dashboard clock showed minutes after 3 a.m. He had figured she would come to see Caroline, that she would eventually make arrangements to see Marie, and so far he was two for two.

He finished his coffee and wearily wondered if Amy was staying somewhere reasonably safe and if she’d ever decide it was simply time to trust him and call him. The shooter would get picked up sooner or later, and if Henry’s son out there had done the two murders-it was only a matter of time before they figured out his name. This wasn’t settled by any means, but the pieces were moving around on the board. All that remained was the learning to live with the reality that had come. But it looked like he had lost Amy, nearly as permanently as Marsh had lost Tracey. He just hoped Connor and Marie managed to survive this together.

He started the car and let it idle again to warm. Another couple hours and he’d visit Caroline too, then head over to see Daniel.

“55-14.”

He reached for his radio. “10-2.”

“DMV records for that plate shows a Hampton Road address, 754, Apartment A, registered name Ivan Graves.”

“754 Hampton Road, Apartment A.” He thought about it a moment and put the car in drive. “Mark me 10-8, same address.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was a long night of playing hunches, but there were only so many ways the reporter dogging his investigators could get inside information to run in screaming headlines above the fold on page one. Sykes had made news with too many stories to make it simply good reporting. And since Luke couldn’t put an inside source on the most serious of the leaks, that meant the reporter had another source. He wasn’t above admitting a reporter had better contacts than the cops when it became obvious he did. Luke would start with what he had. Ten minutes ago Sykes had walked out of the hospital, over to a car owned by Ivan Graves, and slipped into the passenger seat. Who had been driving was a mystery, but the deadline for a story in tomorrow’s paper was thirty minutes from now and Sykes was still working-that was enough to get a chief’s interest.

In the middle of the night there was time for a chief to follow a very slim hunch.

“COME SIT DOWN, MARIE,” Daniel encouraged. “Amy won’t be late. She just said she was walking over, and it’s a cold morning out there. Give her a few minutes.”

“I know.” Marie walked back over to the couch in the living room. She smiled. “I changed my mind; your apartment does kind of grow on a person over time.”

He offered the pillow she’d taken to sliding behind her back to ease the ache. “You can help with more of the artwork if you like. It still needs a lighter touch, I think.”

“Maybe the seascape,” she offered, having thought that before. Her smile faded into the weight of waiting for Mandy. Days had passed, and she still didn’t know what to say. She’d stayed behind at the restaurant to ask Connor about Christmas plans with Mandy being able to join them, and moments later glass had rained down and she had ceased to be thinking.

“Don’t cry. Not before she comes,” Daniel said softly, offering his handkerchief.

“Some guest I turn out to be, walking around in slippers and carrying a box of Kleenex and sleeping the majority of the days.”

“The rest of those pills from the doctor are going to get used too and without protest. Another five or six days and you may be standing upright without weaving on me, but until then you’re sleeping some more.”

She rested her head back against the couch and thought again that she was glad she liked him, this cousin she had never known she had. “Tracey would have never wanted all this, the manhunt, the hiding, the fact her photo is headlining newspapers.”

“She’s safe in heaven; the rest of us will shift and cope with that,” Daniel replied. “Are you okay with what you want to tell Amy?”

“Yes. She’s not coming to the funeral. I can absorb that. The rest of it-” She didn’t let herself think about the rest of it. “Will Luke be here, to see her too?”

“He knows she’s coming, but I think he’s giving her room instead. Room to decide what she wants to do most.”

“Yes, Luke would want to be fair that way. Mandy doesn’t trust him yet, not really, completely. Kind of like you, how you don’t trust God. All the pieces are there, but it just never nudges across the line to take the risk.”

“She’s afraid of getting hurt.”

“We all are.”

Marie listened for a soft knock on the door and wished Connor had been able to come and see her this morning. Not that she would do anything more than cry on his shoulder like she had done last night, but it would be nice to have him here to lean against. He’d just wrapped her in a hug and said he was sorry over and over again, and she hadn’t been able to think of anything to reply but to hug him and be glad he was there. It wasn’t Connor’s fault, and it wasn’t Amy’s, but both carried the hurt as if it were their tragedy to prevent and they had failed.

The knock came on the door, and Daniel got to his feet.

“Stay with us, Daniel, please.”

He squeezed her shoulder as he passed behind the couch and went to answer the door.

Traffic had picked up while Luke was visiting Caroline in the hospital. He turned east out of the parking lot and headed toward Daniel’s place. A night following the tracks of a reporter had been a bad trade-off for the amount of sleep he hadn’t gotten-watching who the reporter was meeting was a sound idea; assigning himself to do it not so sound. Maybe a quiet word to the traffic detail and they could start sourcing addresses where they spotted Sykes’ car over the next week-that might give him a lead. The guy was getting his information somewhere.

Luke covered a yawn and checked the time again. He didn’t want to arrive at Daniel’s so early that Marie and Amy were in the early stages of grieving with each other, nor arrive so late that he missed seeing Amy.

“Have him call me , ” Amy had said. The message Amy had left for him with Caroline circled around and around in his thoughts and didn’t make sense. He wondered if Caroline had remembered it properly, or if he was simply too tired to understand the message.

Then he knew.

He reached for his pocket phone and opened it; he called directory assistance. “Park Heights, the Radisson Hotel, please.”

He listened as the operator dialed and then the front desk answered.

“Ann Walsh, please.”

“One moment, I’ll connect you to her room.”

Luke listened to the phone ring, knowing Amy was at Daniel’s right now, and heard the room answering service pick up. He closed the phone without leaving a message.