Lynne Heitman - Hard Landing

No one said anything and Pohan discreetly checked his watch, probably thinking there wasn't much else to say. When we didn't make any move to leave, he smiled sheepishly. "Listen, I'd offer you some coffee or something, but I've got to pick up my kid. Hockey practice."

"Of course," I said. Then I looked at Dan, slouched down in his chair, defeated. "Detective, I know you have instructions to call Mr. Caseaux, but do you think this time you'd be comfortable letting me handle things?"

His face scrunched up under the big mustache, and I knew I was asking him to do something he didn't want to do. "I said I'd call you first, but I never said I wouldn't call Caseaux. We have pretty specific instructions."

"I know you do. How about if I promise this won't happen again? I'll give you my personal guarantee."

I don't know if it was my sincere request or the fact that he was late for hockey practice, but he agreed.

"Thank you," I said. "Just one more thing. Is Ellen's house still considered a crime scene? Is that part of the problem with Dan being there?"

"No. We've finished our investigation, but Mr. Fallacaro has no authorization to be in the house, and if he doesn't stay out, he's going to get shot. The landlord lives across the street, and the old guy watches his property like a hawk. He usually takes his shotgun when he goes over to check on the place."

"All right."

When I stood up, they did, too. Dan was out the door in a flash. Pohan paused to give me a business card.

"Detective, thanks so much for your help. I-we really…"

When I turned to find Dan, he was already down the corridor getting himself buzzed out the door.

Pohan watched him go, shaking his head in a way that seemed almost mournful. "There's one thing you learn pretty quick in this line of work," he said. "Things aren't always as they seem. But then, sometimes they're exactly as they seem."

Even though it was almost nine o'clock at night, Sal's Diner was filled with the aroma of a greasy griddle, and I knew my nice wool coat was going to carry the scent of frying bacon right out the door with me and into next week.

Dan was hunched forward with his fingers woven around his cup, staring into his coffee. "Why'd you'd come?" he asked.

"Because of our close personal relationship."

He dipped his head even more, almost hiding the brief flush of embarrassment that colored his face. "I know, I know. I haven't been much help-"

"You've been a complete asshole."

He accepted the rebuke without comment. It felt so good, I threw in another one for good measure. "I understand that you lost a friend, and I can even understand why you might resent me, but you never even gave me a chance."

"What was I supposed to think? Here you are this big-time fast-track superstar hand-picked by Scanlon to come in here and handle things for the company. I figured it was your job to shut me down or report back on what I was doing."

"You thought I was brought in here by no less than the chairman of the company to keep an eye on you?" I wasn't mad at him anymore because he'd called me a superstar. "You must be pretty important. Either that, or I'm not."

"That's not… I didn't mean…" When he finally raised his eyes, I smiled to let him know I was teasing him. He sat back, exhaled deeply, and seemed to relax for the first time all evening. He draped his arm across the back of the booth and pulled one leg up next to him on the bench seat. The waitress took the move as a cue to come over, top off his coffee, and leave the check. When he reached over and pulled it to his side of the table, I figured we'd turned a corner.

"Why don't you just tell me what's going on with you, Dan?"

"I know what everyone thinks," he said. "I know what the police are saying, and I know you believe them. But there is no way Ellen Shepard killed herself. No fucking way. She was murdered."

His tone was even, he held steady eye contact, and he was completely calm for the first time since I'd met him. There was no question in my mind that he believed what he was saying. "Who do you think killed her?"

"Little Pete Dwyer."

"The missing crew chief from Sunday night?"

"Right."

"Why him?"

He shrugged vaguely and stared up at the ceiling. "I hear things."

"You're going to have to do better than that, Dan. Don't treat me like a fool."

He knocked back the rest of his coffee, and the knee started going again as he regarded me. I waited.

"Okay," he said finally. "I've got nothing hard. Just a lot of suspicious stuff, people talking, things Ellen was doing lately that I didn't get."

"Like what?"

"In the last few weeks before she died, she was doing a heavy-duty research job on Little Pete Dwyer. She was asking a bunch of questions, reading his personnel file, looking at all his performance reviews."

"She could have been looking for a way to deal with the guy. I've done that, especially with a hard case, trying to figure out why they are the way they are."

"You don't need to do research to know why this guy's a shithead. It's because of the old man, Shithead Sr. They're two of a kind. And anyway, it doesn't explain why she had me staking him out."

"Staking him out? You mean, sitting in a car in the shadows, drinking bad coffee, and waiting for him to show up so you can, what… tail him?"

"Yeah."

I looked for the ironic smile, a sign that he was kidding, exaggerating at least. He was perfectly serious. "You guys were in your own B-movie. What did you find out?"

"We found out Angelo DiBiasi's got balls bigger than his brains. Poor bastard. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sitting in the truck down by the freight house waiting for Little Pete to show up, and Angie rolls by a in a tug dragging a TV set on a dolly. I caught up with him just as he was loading it into his car."

"What happened with Little Pete?"

"Busting Angie basically blew my cover."

"And you never found out why Ellen was after him?"

He shook his head. "I assumed she got a tip from her snitch."

"Snitch?"

"She had a snitch down on the ramp, a guy who used to tip her off."

Of course she did. "Why don't you just ask the snitch what it was about?"

"I don't know who the guy is. She kept it a secret to protect him." He must have noticed a hint of skepticism in my expression. "I know this doesn't make much sense," he said, "but it will. Ellen always made sense. I just don't have all the pieces yet."

"What reason would Little Pete have to kill Ellen?"

"I think it must have been for the package."

I stared at him.

"Oh, yeah. I didn't tell you this. One night I was at the airport later than usual, and Ellen comes into her office. She picks up the phone and starts talking to someone about something that's in this package. Then my phone rings, I answer it, and that's it. She knows I'm there. She gets up and closes the door, so that's all I got."

"How could you fail to mention that little detail?"

"Because so much stuff has been happening around here that I sometimes can't keep it all straight. And you're the first person I've been able to talk to about it. I figure he killed her for the package."

"You don't know that." We were jumping to some very large conclusions here with very few facts, something that was against my religion. "What could have been in this package?"

"I don't know. Could be she found out about one of Little Pete's scams, or the old man's. She could have had enough to fire their asses."

"He would have killed her to keep his job?" I tried not to sound as alarmed as I felt, but between this discussion and the one with Kevin, I felt my management prerogatives becoming more and more limited.