Russell Andrews - Hades

Justin started to shake his head. Then he remembered. Maybe a month ago, he and Abby had had lunch at Sylvester's, a kind of general store that served good sandwiches. They'd sat at the small counter and, while they were eating, Kelley had come in. He saw Abby, sauntered over, and said hello. Justin picked up a strange vibe. He'd met Kelley before, seen him around town, nodded to him at Duffy's, but didn't really know him. Abby had said that Kelley was a contractor, was doing some work on her house. Justin remembered now because she'd said "my house," not "our house." He always noticed when she went out of her way to avoid any mention of her husband. Kelley had looked on edge when he'd come over, seemed uncomfortable in his presence. At the time Justin wasn't sure why. Now he was.

"Yeah. I was with Abigail having lunch and Kelley came over and sat with us for a few minutes."

"A few minutes? That's all."

"That's all."

"What'd you talk about?" This was Silverbush again, not Holden.

"Nothing very interesting. Something about the work he was doing for the Harmons."

"Anything about the security system?"

"What?"

"It's more interesting than you think. Or at least than you're pretending to think. That's one of the things Kelley was doing, overseeing the security system that was being installed in the Harmon house."

"That didn't come up."

"Did Mrs. Harmon ever talk to you about it separately?" This was Holden. His tone was less hostile than the district attorney's. In fact, it showed no emotion whatsoever. Justin decided that Holden could go one of two ways: Either he was probably a very good cop, capable of digging up the truth, or he could be in Silverbush's pocket, in which case he was a very good cop capable of doing a lot of damage.

"No. Never."

Silverbush sneered. "So, you being a supercop and all, she never even asked your advice about it?"

"No."

"Hard to believe."

"I can't help that. It's true."

"When you were with Kelley," the Mid-Island police captain said, his tone still calm and smooth, "having lunch-"

"We weren't having lunch together. He sat down for two minutes, that's all."

"Uh-huh. In those two minutes, did you talk about Evan Harmon?"

"No."

"Never came up?"

"No."

"It never came up, let's say, how to set up various ways to establish alibis for all three of you while Harmon was being murdered?"

"Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"No," Larry Silverbush said, jumping forward to stick his finger in Justin's chest, "he's not out of his fucking mind. And you want to know why?"

"Okay. Why?"

"Because you know those burns that were all over Evan Harmon's body? Well, they came from a stun gun. And when we searched David Kelley's house, you want to know what we found?"

"Can I take a wild guess?"

"You got it, cowboy. A stun gun."

"How'd you know to search Kelley's house?" Justin wanted to know. "How'd you know about his relationship with Abby?"

That threw Silverbush for a moment. His eyes shifted from side to side, and he wasn't sure exactly how to respond. Holden saved him the trouble, stepping in, quietly saying, "We had a tip."

"From who?"

"Doesn't matter who it was from. We're not ready to reveal that. It proved accurate. Kelley even used the stun gun in front of both Evan and Abigail Harmon. There's a witness. The son of a bitch liked to use it on animals. I guess your part-time girlfriend figured out if it worked on them, it'd work like a fucking charm on her husband."

Justin started to say something, realized he didn't have all that much to say at this point. He decided he was better off being quiet and listening.

"You want to know what else is gonna prove accurate?" Silverbush asked. And without waiting for Justin to answer, he said, "Kelley's fingerprints all over the crime scene. And phone logs that show Kelley talking to your girlfriend the morning of the murder. And another witness who heard Kelley say that that same girlfriend of yours had talked to him repeatedly about killing her husband."

"And what has Kelley said about all this?"

"So far nothing. But we're confident he'll roll. And when he does, he'll give us the lovely Mrs. Harmon as the one who planned the whole thing."

"You thinking of giving him a deal?"

Holden spoke up now. "We're thinking of doing whatever it takes to put two murderers in prison. Maybe three."

"Three?"

Silverbush's eyes flashed angrily. "That's right. 'Cause you want to know what else we're thinking, cowboy? We're thinkin' she couldn't have gone through with this unless you were involved. We think you helped her plan it."

"Do you have even the remotest shred of evidence to back that up?"

"Not yet. But we will."

"Where's Abby now?" Justin wanted to know.

"Over at your police station. Behind bars, waiting for her lawyer."

"And where's Kelley?"

"Mid-Island," Holden said. "In one of our jail cells."

"You have anything else to say to me before I go talk to Abby?"

"Yeah," Holden said. "If you have a weapon, surrender it now."

Justin looked at the police captain curiously, but Silverbush was the one who answered the silent question.

"You're suspended from your job as of this moment."

"You're making a mistake. You don't even know what I learned-"

"I'm not interested. We'll need your firearm."

"I'm not carrying one," Justin said.

"What the hell kind of cop are you?"

"In my experience, especially in a town like this, carrying a gun doesn't solve too many problems, it just causes them."

"Well, you do have a gun, don't you?"

Justin's eyes didn't waver as he took Silverbush's sneer head-on. "Yes, I have one."

"Where is it?"

"In my office. In the desk. Upper right-hand drawer. It's locked, but Officer Haversham'll have a key."

"I'll take your badge, as well," Silverbush said. "Or you keep that under lock and key, too?"

Justin looked at Leona Krill, said, "Leona? You have anything to say? I work for you."

She sighed. "I don't have much of a choice here, Jay. DA Silverbush is in charge of this investigation."

Justin didn't look over at the district attorney, just said to Leona, "I'm telling you he doesn't know what he's doing."

Silverbush snorted. "I'd say the evidence proves I know a helluva lot more than you do. Now, you gonna hand over that badge?"

Justin reached into his left pant pocket, withdrew his EEHPD badge, handed it to Silverbush, who said, "Captain Holden will accompany you over to the police station. As a courtesy we'll let you talk to your lady friend for a little bit. But after that, I'm telling you to stay away from her or we'll have you locked up for obstruction of justice faster'n you can scratch your rapidly diminishing balls. You got anything to say to that?"

"Yeah," Justin said and turned to the police captain. "Is your name really William Holden?"

When the officer didn't answer, and Silverbush just snorted in disgust and anger, Justin decided it was better if he didn't say another word, so he just turned to the door and headed out. Holden had to hustle a bit to catch up to him. Neither spoke during the two-block walk to the police station. Even if they'd wanted to, they couldn't have-the swarm of journalists was upon them, peppering them with questions and taking photos. Justin looked straight ahead and kept walking. There was usually a reasonable amount of traffic on Main Street-typical summer resort town traffic: cars driving slowly while their drivers desperately searched for a place to park-and what traffic there was now stopped cold as mass rubbernecking took hold. Pedestrians stared and people started coming out of shops to check out the commotion. Justin thought the whole scene looked like something out of a bad comedy: two stiff-as-boards cops, striding as fast as they could; a jabbering group of reporters surrounding them like a cloud of dust; the whole town watching in astonishment. Farce or slapstick, he thought. Hard to tell which.