Faye Kellerman - Stone Kiss

“What’re you sweating it for, Peter? You know as well as I do, even if you had killed the scumbag, another one would have come along to take his place.”

Decker wiped his forehead. He was soaked with perspiration, even though he was wearing a lightweight, short-sleeved cotton shirt and jeans. It was in the low seventies with blue skies and clear air. “I don’t know, Randy…”

“Course you do. No shortage of pissbuckets, Peter. Don’t give it a second thought.”

“I should have done something. At the very least, I should have told the cops the truth.”

“And made everyone miserable-the old man Lieber, the widowed wife, the remaining children, your entire half brother’s family, you, Rina, your family, even me…” He shook his head. “Truth is a flexible concept, bro. Didn’t you tell me that Jewish-wise, truth means peace?”

“No.”

“Yeah, you did. You told me it was okay to lie to keep peace in the family.”

“Oh, that. Shalom bayit . It means fibbing, Randy, not letting murderers go free.”

“Donatti will get his, just like his old man did. In the meantime, you’re living to see another day. As they say in the Family, ‘fuhged-daboutit.’ ” Randy leaned back in his wicker chaise lounger. The brothers were resting on the outside porch, drinking lemonade. Damn near idyllic. “You’re a friggin’ hero, Peter. You risked your life to save Chaim.”

“It didn’t work-”

“So what if it worked or not? It still happened. And you got shot in the process. That makes you a hero. Furthermore, you made me a hero. You know how long we’ve been after Weiss, Harabi, and Ibn Dod? You flushed them out for us. You broke up a major ecstasy-import ring. They’re being transported down here for arraignment next week.”

“Like you said, there’ll just be more to take their places.”

“Yeah, sure, but it’s important for us to succeed once in a while. To say to the public, we care about you. We care about your kids and your neighborhoods. And we do care.” He lightly punched Decker’s shoulder. “ You made us look good here in Miami, bro. You made Novack in New York look good-all the nice things you said in the press about NYPD detectives. Everyone loves you. If you were the political type, you could parlay what you did into chief of police in one of the major cities.”

Decker didn’t answer.

Randy brought in the heavy ammunition. “Peter, you made me look especially good. I’m going to get a promotion because of you-D-three. You know how long I’ve waited for this?”

“I’m happy for you.”

“So stop sulking like a paddled schoolboy. You think Donatti used you? You used Donatti. The psycho was finally good for something other than popping wiseguys and pimping girls.”

But Decker wasn’t buying the rationalization. His expression spoke of his skepticism.

“You’re still thinking like a Homicide dick,” Randy told him. “You want Donatti, you gotta think like Vice. You need informants. You need the bad guys to get other bad guys.”

“Donatti’s a real bad guy. The bastard shot me.” Decker’s jaw became a ball of tension. “Worse than that, he humiliated me.”

“Fucking easy for him to make you dance with a gun to your head. Peter, he didn’t humiliate you; he played a crooked game. That’s being a coward. I’d like to pit the two of you together without the Beretta in his hand.”

The image made Decker smile. “I should have turned him in.”

“Pete, he ain’t worth ruining your life for.” Randy gulped down his lemonade. “Yeah, it would have been great if you could have taken him under, but the timing wasn’t right. The main thing is you’re breathing, and that gives you plenty of time to set him up. You want to get Donatti, you need to sting him. You need informants and anonymous tips and wires and videos and surveillance and someone who’ll rat him out. That kind of setup takes time… maybe years.”

Decker nodded, still consumed with thoughts of revenge. Bastard probably figured the slate was clean for what happened eight years ago. Not so, baby. Now, there was a bigger score to settle. And Randy was right. Maybe it would take years. That was okay. Decker was mature: He was a very patient man.

“Donatti will get his,” Randy repeated. “In the meantime, look around. It’s a beautiful day. Not so bad, huh?”

“No, not so bad.” Decker finished his lemonade.

Randy laughed out loud. “Just like when we were kids, Peter. I’d screw up and try to convince you why it wasn’t all that terrible.”

“You didn’t screw up this time.”

“Neither did you.”

Decker didn’t answer.

Randy switched gears. “You’re just about healed up and you still got four weeks’ disability left. What are you going to do with it?”

“Right now, I’m mellowing out. In a few days, Rina and I thought we’d take Hannah to Epcot-”

“Oh God no!”

“What’s wrong with Epcot?”

“Why don’t you leave Hannah to me and Sheryl? We’ll take her to Epcot and Disney World. She enjoys spending time with her cousins. You go with Rina to the Caribbean.”

“No thanks. Maybe another time.”

“If not now, when? Isn’t that a Jewish proverb?”

“It means the study of Torah.”

“Well, you can’t study your holy Torah unless your mind is in a spiritual place. In the meantime, the Caribbean is nice.”

“I don’t want to go to the Caribbean. I hate beach vacations. I don’t tan; I just burn. And I can’t think of anything worse than sitting in the hot sun, sweating my ass off.”

Randy exhaled in disgust.

“Rina was also talking about going to Europe for a week to ten days. Mom said she and Dad would look after Hannah. Aunt Millie would also help out. Rates are a joke right now. No one’s traveling.”

“I wonder why,” Randy quipped.

“Gotta live your life,” Decker answered.

“Exactly, Peter. Listen to your own advice,” Randy told him. “Hey. How about if Sheryl and me and the kids come down on the weekend and give Mom and Dad an extra pair of hands?”

“Randy, you’ve been a peach.”

He smiled. “I was a pain-in-the-ass little brother, but you treated me okay. Now I’m rewarding you. Where you two going? Paris?”

“Paris and possibly Munich of all places. Rina has a close childhood friend who moved with her husband to Germany to start a yeshiva there.”

“Go figure.” Randy slapped him on the back. “Do it, Peter. Have a good time with your wife, and thank whatever God you believe in that you’ve got another day with a heartbeat.”

It came in the afternoon, the day before she and Peter were to leave for Paris, a plain white envelope with a stuck-on, pretyped label made out to MRS. RINA DECKER C/O LYLE AND IDA DECKER, followed by her in-laws’ address.

She turned it over. The return address was the same as the front label. Another flip back. The postmark told her it was mailed from New York City. Immediately, she grew suspicious, but who on earth would be sending her biological warfare in the mail. Still, she took care when she opened the envelope.

No powder of any kind.

No letter, either.

Only a small single-column newspaper article that had been neatly trimmed-razor cut rather than scissors. There wasn’t any mention of the paper’s name. Nor was there a date. Rina read the headline.

MAN SLAIN, FOUND ON STEPS OF CHURCH

On a routine patrol, Officer Willard Greaves discovered a grisly corpse sprawled across the front steps of Medford Methodist Church. The victim, sustaining a single shot to the head, was identified as Steven Gilbert, a computer teacher at the local community college…