Steven Gore - Act of Deceit

He reached around her shoulders. “Sorry. I didn’t think Sherwyn had it in him to try something like this.”

“It pisses me off.”

He pulled his arm away. “I said I’m sorry. What else can I-”

“Not you. Sherwyn. When I think of the lives he’s destroyed. And what he’s willing to do now to protect himself.”

Janie shuddered and looked up at Donnally. “Are you sure he won’t try again?”

“I’m sure he will. I think it might be better if you stayed at a hotel for a couple of days.”

Her face flushed. “I’m not going to let that man force me out of my house.” She glanced at the Mexican cop’s possessions, then turned and walked toward the stairway. “Do what you have to do.”

A fter she returned upstairs, Donnally searched the called and received logs in Cruz’s cell phone. All the calls were placed from within Mexico or from the U.S. back to Mexico. He made a list of the numbers and the dates and times, then used Janie’s computer to run them through Internet telephone databases. All were unlisted.

He then checked for text messages and found only one. It showed his addresses in San Francisco and Mount Shasta, and Brother Melvin’s in Vancouver. It, too, originated from a Mexican telephone.

How did Cruz communicate with Sherwyn? Donnally asked himself as he bagged up everything again except the car key. It had to be through an intermediary.

But who?

Donnally went out to his truck and cruised the midnight streets until he located the shooter’s rented brown Taurus parked in the dark driveway of an empty house for sale a few blocks from Janie’s. He searched it hoping to find a hotel room card key, but found nothing.

His cell phone vibrated as he locked up the car. It was Brother Melvin.

M elvin smiled up at Donnally from where he sat in a chair next to the hospital bed, then pointed at his bandage-ringed head.

“I know you were hoping I’d have it examined,” Melvin said, “and it looks like I just did.”

“That’s not what I had in mind.”

“I hope not.” Melvin’s smile faded. He gazed out of the third floor window toward the city lights, then looked back at Donnally. “I didn’t like lying to police about what happened.”

“What makes you think you lied?”

“I told them he was robbing us.”

“How do you know he wasn’t?”

“He said-”

“No. I’m the one who said he wasn’t there to rob us.” Donnally smiled. “He never actually addressed the issue.” He handed Melvin his duffel bag he’d brought with him from Vancouver. “You want me out of here while you change?”

“It’s okay, I’m used to the communal life.”

Donnally sat down on the edge of the bed as Melvin slipped off the hospital gown.

“What was the idea with the praying?” Donnally asked.

Melvin shrugged, then grinned. “I thought I was supposed to. I’m not sure whether I read it somewhere or saw it in the movies.”

“It sure ticked him off. Makes you wonder if maybe he had a problem with a priest when he was young.”

Melvin slid into a pair of pants, then rose and buttoned them. He then pulled out a long-sleeve dress shirt from the duffel bag.

“I thought you guys had to wear the… uh…”

“It’s called a clergy shirt, but not when we do detective work.”

“Detective work? I figured you’d want to put this behind you and you’d be asking me to take you to the airport.”

“I’ve spent a lot of years thinking about suicide,” Melvin said, “but homicide I’m not so thrilled with, especially my own.”

A nurse’s aide entered, pushing a wheelchair. She waited for Melvin to tie his shoes and collect the plastic bag containing his bloody clothes, then walked along with them as Donnally rolled him down the silent hallway toward the exit.

A t five in the morning, Donnally parked the Mexican cop’s Taurus in front of William Sherwyn’s house. He left the rear extending two feet into the driveway. The back half of the car was illuminated by a streetlight. The front was shadowed. He then climbed out and snatched Sherwyn’s San Francisco Chronicle and brought it back to the car. He paged through it until he found the article about the shooting:

Sherwyn emerged from his front door an hour later. He surveyed the landing, the front steps, and the grass for his newspaper, then looked up and spotted the Taurus. He glared at it as if annoyed by a negligent neighbor. The gesture satisfied Donnally that Sherwyn had never seen the car before.

Sherwyn reentered his house.

Donnally walked up the stairs thirty seconds later and tossed the newspaper against the front door. He then concealed himself in the shadow outside the range of the porch light.

Sherwyn stepped outside, picked up the Chronicle, then skimmed through the pages until he found the story. His brow furrowed in puzzlement as he read. Donnally guessed that Sherwyn already knew that the killing hadn’t turned out as planned, perhaps because Cruz hadn’t called to confirm that he’d done it or come to collect his fee, but Sherwyn wouldn’t have been able to figure out why Cruz hadn’t been identified by the police.

Donnally stepped forward. Sherwyn lurched away from the shadow falling across his newspaper, then spun around. His eyes widened and his hand clenched the paper. Donnally pulled back his jacket to show his semiautomatic, then reached into the house and turned off the light.

They both glanced toward the street as a Berkeley Police patrol car cruised by.

“Don’t even think it,” Donnally said.

The officer turned left at the corner and drove down the hill toward the flatlands.

Donnally tilted his head toward the Taurus.

“What are you going to do?” Sherwyn asked. “Kidnap me and leave my dead body in the woods?”

“Seems only fair. You tried to do me in just the same way.”

Donnally drew his gun and pointed it at Sherwyn.

Sherwyn hesitated, but then walked down the steps and across the grass. He looked up and down the sidewalk as he approached the car, as though hoping to spot a neighbor.

Donnally chambered a round.

“I’m just as happy to drop you right here,” Donnally said. “I can have your body in the trunk before it even crosses anyone’s mind that it was a gunshot and not a backfire.”

Donnally stepped around Sherwyn and opened the passenger door. Sherwyn slid in, then Donnally climbed into the driver’s seat and pointed the gun at Sherwyn.

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

Sherwyn raised them.

“No,” Donnally said, “against the dashboard.”

Sherwyn complied.

“The problem is that we’re sort of at a stalemate,” Donnally said. “Even if the police identify the guy you sent to murder me, there’ll be no way to connect him to you. You’ve spent enough years studying homicide files to figure out how to get away with one.”

Sherwyn didn’t respond.

“Don’t worry,” Donnally said. “I’m not taping this. I don’t want to leave any evidence behind of what’s going to happen next.” He held up a gloved hand. “Not even any fingerprints.”

Donnally started the engine.

“The guy looked to me like an LA gang type,” Donnally lied. “I can’t figure out how someone like you could get hooked up with somebody like that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, just like you didn’t know who Melvin was.”

Donnally drove to the stop sign at the end of the block, then accelerated around the corner. Sherwyn pulled his hands away from the dashboard and braced himself against the console and the door.

“Put your hands back where they were,” Donnally said, raising the gun.