Robert Crais - The Forgotten Man

"Your footprints are all over this, Kelly. You're wearing your mother's necklace, forchrissake."

The tough smile wavered, but strengthened with anger.

"Well, so fucking what? I made my choice, and I'm good with it. This bastard murdered my family. I am officially mentally ill. I snapped under the strain of being confronted by the man who murdered my family. I feared for my life, and reacted accordingly. I then proceeded with an investigation in preparation to come forward. We'll see what the jury does with it."

She must have told herself those things a thousand times, convincing herself it would work.

"There were better ways, Diaz. You could have made the case. You could have arrested him."

Her gun came up.

"Oh, fuck that, Cole- please. You don't know. You weren't there. Man, it was intense."

"Look, I understand-"

"You can't-"

"You don't know me well enough to know what I can know- all you know is what you read in the papers."

I was shouting, too, and maybe that's what made her smile, the two of us in that house, shouting.

"The papers got a lot right, buddy. You stayed with it. You found him. Here we are in his house."

"You led me. You planted the clippings and the key card. You baited me to the Medical Examiner's so I would see him again and you could set the hook even deeper. You didn't need me for any of this, Diaz-you could have found him without me."

Her eyes glistened like black buttons, and she lowered her gun. She tipped back her head against the wall, and spoke without seeing me.

"But then everyone would have known I was in on the kill. I wanted them to think it was just you, you see?"

She laid it out and confirmed my guesses. She had me trace Reinnike to find David. She needed me to do the legwork to set me up for the murders, both George's and David's.

I said, "But it didn't work out that way."

She tipped forward again, and the sad smile returned.

"It was so intense, Cole; everything happened so fast, and I was making it up as it happened."

"Did you find George or did he find you?"

Now she drew herself up, and straightened.

"When I finished the Academy and came on the job, the Daily News ran a little piece about what happened to my family. He saw it, and kept it. Man, that was years ago- years. I guess it took him all these years to work up his nut. He called last week. Out of the blue, he just called. He said he had information about the death of my family."

She touched the necklace, and I knew my guess about it was right, too-he had brought it as proof. She was still in that awful moment when he called. I have information about the death of your family.

"What did he tell you?"

Her fingers caressed the silver, and her eyes were lost. I moved slowly, and took her gun. She did not resist.

"Did he tell you what happened, Kelly? Was it just David or was George part of it?"

Her fingers fell away from the necklace as if their weight was too great. Her eyes filled, and she clenched them shut. Her chin quivered. She fought hard to stop it.

She said, "Shit."

I put my arms around her. She shuddered, and cried for a while, and I cried along with her, for everything she had lost and for all the things I never had. And when we wore ourselves out with it, she told me how her family had come to die: Her father and brother were driving, and saw David Reinnike hitchhiking. David Reinnike would have been three or four years older than her brother, but the two kids got along, so her father probably brought the hitchhiker home to play or have a little dinner or whatever. Diaz only knew what she had been told by George Reinnike, and George only knew what he had been told by David. David hadn't been at their home for more than fifteen or twenty minutes when something set him off. Her brother showed his baseball bat to David. David probably tested it out with a few warm-up swings, but her brother probably wanted it back. Then David started swinging for real. He hadn't been in their home long enough to know a little girl was playing in her closet. Between what George provided and the information available in the murder book, David Reinnike beat them to death, and then he just walked away and hitchhiked home, and not one goddamned person saw him. Not one person in a neighborhood filled with people saw or heard the murders, or David leave the scene. When he reached home, covered in blood-he had to be covered in blood, wouldn't you think?-George cleaned him up, took him away, and never told a soul. His son had problems, he said. His son needed care.

I said, "He contacted you because he had to get it off his chest, but he wouldn't tell anything about David."

"The sonofabitch wouldn't tell me where David was or even if he was alive, but I know he's up here. George would have to keep him close to control him. That sonofabitch cried like a baby, saying it was eating him alive. Well, fuck him."

I nodded.

"So you killed him."

Diaz cleared her throat, then pulled herself together and stepped away from me. She seemed angry again, and ready for hell.

"That's right, Cole. So what are you going to do? You going to slap the cuffs on me and wait here for Pardy and my lawyer, and let this bastard get away? Look at this place-he knows we're coming. Daddy's been keeping him out of jail all these years, and now Daddy's gone. You think he's going to wait?"

"I'm not going to let you kill him. If you kill him, you're just killing yourself."

"Then what?"

"We're going to identify David, and you're going to take him into custody. You're going to arrest him, and bring him in to show you did the right thing. You're going to show them you didn't let what happened destroy you."

Diaz sighed deep, pushing out air like she was trying to get rid of something that was trapped inside her. She tipped back her head again and stared at the ceiling.

"What a goddamned mess."

"Pardy's coming. We don't have all day."

She squared herself, and nodded.

"My gun."

I gave her the gun. She put it into her holster.

"Do you know who it is?"

"Probably the other guy who worked at the station. That's what it sounds like from talking with Lewis. I can't be sure, but that's what it sounds like. Lewis told me how to get to his house."

Diaz stepped past me and went to the door.

Starkey

Starkey picked up Pike where the 405 crossed Mulholland. If Pike wondered why she was frantic, he didn't ask, and he didn't quibble over which car they would take. Her car had the lights and a radio. They would make better time. Starkey flipped on her grille lights, and blasted out of the parking lot. When they were rolling north on the freeway, she keyed her radio, surprised that the damn thing worked. "Six-whiskey-twelve." "Six-whiskey-twelve, go."

The "three" identified her as being from Hollywood. "Whiskey" told them she was a detective. The "twelve" was her car number.

"Ah, I need a patch to the Sheriffs Department Substation in Canyon Camino."

"Stand by, six-whiskey-twelve."

While Starkey was busy with the radio, Pike called Cole's cell number. Pike phoned it three times, but never once got through. By the time Starkey had the patch, they were passing Van Nuys Airport, twenty-six minutes away from George Reinnike's home.

Frederick

The sheriff changed everything. He could have radioed that Frederick 's truck was at Payne's, or told Biggins he was stopping at the house, or called in more police. Frederick 's mind raced with the changing plans. He felt certain that Cole wouldn't approach with a patrol car out front, and Frederick wanted to get quickly away. Also, if the police found Rossi's vehicle, they might roadblock the area and stop Frederick 's escape. He fought the urge to run. He loaded Rossi's body into the back seat, then drove the patrol car behind Payne's cabin and into the trees. He drove as far as he could, then huffed back to the house. He piled into his truck.