Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

“Hatcher was told that was being mailed to you. By McKnight.”

“Which explains what? Why you are here in town? To intercept it from my mailbox before I got to it?”

“I only wanted to save you the pain, in case… Look. There are some holes in Becky Lynn’s story about the time she worked for your father and when she hooked up with McKnight. When Hatcher first started digging into it, he went back to McKnight, who at first said Becky Lynn was lying, that he didn’t know anything about her past or the money in her accounts when he met her. He said your father introduced them. And then Hatcher finds out McKnight was actually a partner in your father’s pizza parlor-” “I think several of his old army buddies went in on it. They were sort of doing my father a favor, after that explosion blew a couple of his fingers off and he couldn’t do his photography anymore.”

“Well, that wasn’t really the problem. Not at first. It had more to do with Becky Lynn’s ties to organized crime and her story about where her money in these offshore accounts came from, not matching up to her ex-husband’s, who happened to have records of it all, which he gave to Hatcher by mistake. That, of course, sort of puts the kibosh on his being approved for any political appointment. Becky Lynn tells Hatcher she can clear it right up, calls McKnight on the phone, telling him it was time to come clean. What happened next was-” He stared at the photo before meeting her gaze. “Hatcher talked to McKnight on the phone, Syd. Hatcher said his voice was slurred. He was upset. He kept apologizing.”

“Apologizing?”

“For what he did to your father.”

“What are you talking about? McKnight was in Texas when my father was killed, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t think McKnight was talking about the robbery, Syd.”

“Then what?”

“Becky Lynn said that someone was blackmailing McKnight about something that happened when he and your father were in the army together. Something to do with a big banking scandal way back when.”

“What do you mean someone was blackmailing him? Did Hatcher ask him about it?”

“He couldn’t. McKnight killed himself first. Hatcher thought he was drunk when he was talking to him on the phone, mumbling about sending you some letter that explained it all. Next thing he hears a gunshot. Hatcher called a field agent to drive out to McKnight’s to check on him, but he was already gone. Police were already there. Apparently a neighbor heard the shot, too, and called.”

She tried to think about her father’s friends. She had a vague remembrance of a few of them coming over to their house in North Carolina, sitting around, drinking beer… and talking about fishing. Her father’s big dream was to retire and spend every winter at some fishing villa in Baja California. In fact, that seemed to be a common dream among them, talking about beer and fishing and boats, but for the life of her, she couldn’t picture names or faces. And what preteen kid would? She was too busy worrying about more important things like pimples and boys, even after her father was injured, left his job, and they picked up and moved back to California. Her father’s military career was something he rarely spoke about. Even when Sydney asked him about his time there, what he did for the army, he always put her off with some response about taking photographs for posters, making the army look good.

But that didn’t explain any of this. “I don’t understand what this has to do with my father?”

“Hatcher thinks your father was the blackmailer.”

Syd stared mutely, then shook herself, tried to think past the hurt, the betrayal she felt at Scotty for imparting such lies about her father. “He’s wrong, Scotty.”

“I don’t think so, Syd.”

“My father was a good man.”

“Look at what your father sent to McKnight,” he said, pointing to the yellowed letter she held.

“This could mean anything. He was not blackmailing anyone.”

“There are indications that your father might have been involved in more than just that. That he might have been doing the same to-”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Sydney dumped everything back in the manila envelope, then tossed it onto the coffee table. When he tried to reply, she interrupted with “I have no idea why you felt it necessary to fly across the country to ruin my father’s name.”

“Sydney.”

It was that voice he used when he needed to impart bad news, though in her experience, it had been news such as why he couldn’t come home that night.

She hated that voice, but waited for him to finish.

“The stuff McKnight sent you,” he said, nodding at the manila envelope. “I need to take that.”

“Why?”

“Evidence of a crime.”

She picked it up, started to hand it over, but then thought better of it. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Sydney, listen to me.”

“No, Scotty. Unless you tell me exactly what that crime is, it stays with me.”

“I told you. It involves McKnight’s suicide. The blackmail.”

“And he mailed it to me before he killed himself. And the statute of limitations ran out on anything my deceased father did a long, long time ago.”

“Syd-”

“Get a warrant.”

“I’m sorry. I thought you should know. In case anything leaks out.”

She said nothing. And he stared at her a moment longer, his expression filled with apology, embarrassment, and something else she couldn’t define. Finally he leaned over, kissed her on her cheek, and she jerked back, wanting nothing to do with him.

“I’ll be in town for a few days if you need to get in touch with me.”

When she didn’t answer, he let himself out. Sydney glanced at the envelope, then ran to the door, opening it, as she called out for Scotty to wait.

Midway down the steps, he stopped, looked back at her.

“What do you mean, ‘in case anything leaks out’?”

“McKnight left a suicide note before he died. I don’t have all the details; I don’t even know if it mentions your father. The cops got the note before Hatcher did, and they booked it. But he was being investigated for a political appointment, and you know how those things make it to the press. Especially during election years.” He waited on the steps a moment, perhaps looking for some reaction from her.

She closed the door, leaned against it, not willing to believe any of what he told her. She glanced at the envelope, but couldn’t even force herself to touch it again. Scotty was wrong, and that was all there was to it. Her father was good, just. He’d been cut down in the prime of his life. If McKnight was the one who mailed this to her, he did it simply as a memory. Nothing else.

And with all that she told herself she should put off going to the prison. The thought of facing her father’s killer after Scotty’s news was not something she could deal with.

But she knew she’d go, and it made her wonder if her day could get any worse.

Apparently it could.

Calling her mother to inform her that she was on her way to visit the man who killed her father wasn’t the best of ideas.

She knew this. Clearly she was delusional when she’d punched in her mother’s phone number at precisely 2:32 that afternoon, but she wanted some reassurance she was doing the right thing. Or maybe she just wanted to speak to someone who knew her father was a good and just man, no matter what Scotty had said. The contents of that envelope could have any number of explanations. It proved nothing.

“Hi, Mom,” she’d said when her mother answered the phone.

“Sydney. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t tell me nothing. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Dad was a good man, right?”