Lisa Scottoline - Daddy's Girl

Suddenly Mundy swung his arm up and fired the gun. It exploded in an earsplitting pop pop pop, setting off a horrifying fusillade. The shooting happened in a sickening blur. A red hole exploded in Williams's temple. He crumpled. The attack startled Parrat, and Tanisa turned and elbowed him. He fell away and was instantly cut down by the cops in the crowd, his body spinning with the impact of the bullets.

Graf aimed for Mundy, but flew backward when he was shot himself, his gun spraying bullets. One hit Machik in the head and he went down, dropping on the spot. The crowd surged forward, almost knocking Nat over. She let them rush past, squeezing her eyes shut against what she had just seen. She couldn't believe that it had happened.

She half-stumbled and half-walked away, breathing in fresh air. She bent over and leaned on the huge, cold bumper of one of the fire trucks, praying to keep nausea at bay. In the next minute, she felt a large hand on her shoulder and turned around. It was Mundy, slipping the gun back into its holster.

"You okay, professor?" he asked.

"More or less." Nat smiled shakily. She couldn't believe it was finally over. "Okay, less."

"You did nice work. You got guts. Sorry I gave you such a hard time."

"S'okay." Nat didn't say I-told-you-so. It didn't feel like a victory after so much carnage.

"You wanna show me that tunnel?" Mundy threw a comforting arm around her shoulder.

Nat nodded, wiping away a tear that came from nowhere.

Nat sat in her chair in the dingy interview room, recorded by the black videocamera and fueled by a cup of bad coffee, and explained to Trooper Mundy, Trooper Duffy, and an assistant D.A. everything that had happened since the last time she sat there. She included her discovery of the stop on the Underground Railroad, but they seemed less excited than she about the historical angle. After she had finished, the three of them left her in the interview room, to confer. She thought of calling a lawyer, but decided against it. She felt newly competent, happily.

Nat waited and took inventory. They'd put a Band-Aid on her forehead, and her neck hurt from when that man near the prison had pulled her down. She brushed off her pants, ripped at the knee. Her clogs were soaked, and she couldn't remember the last time her toes had been dry. She thought about Angus, but hadn't called him or her parents yet. This interview had gone on longer than she thought it would. She checked her watch just as the door opened and Mundy came back alone.

"Bad news," he said, closing the door softly behind him.

"I'm going up the river?"

"No." He smiled tiredly, then pulled out a chair and plunked down so hard it skidded. "We sent somebody out to pick up Jim Graf, from that construction company."

"Phoenix."

"Right." Mundy leaned on his heavy thigh and looked at her with his frank brown eyes. "He's dead. Hanged himself in the bathroom."

Nat felt it in her gut. She wondered how Agnes, Graf's secretary, would react. She reached for the coffee and took a cold gulp.

"He was going down and he knew it."

"That's awful." Nat set down the Styrofoam cup, and Mundy ran a hand through his hair.

"So where we go from here is that we'll start our investigation, verifying what you told us. I think it'll square with your story." He shook his head. "That tunnel sure was something else."

"It was." Nat couldn't believe it herself. A football-field-long tunnel, more a crawlspace than anything, that began from the new staff room and ended in the middle of the evergreens, away from the houses. The tunnel had been reinforced with two-by-fours, like the one she'd seen on the Underground Railroad, but less well made. Graf and his pals lacked the brains, and the heart, of those people.

"We also got troopers canvassing on the street, and two neighbors reported seeing a cop car parked there tonight. They always see cop cars around the prison, so they didn't report it."

"They didn't know it was Parrat, in the fake copmobile."

"Right." Mundy arched an eyebrow. "Quite a plan. Most bad guys aren't that smart."

"Williams was a smart bad guy. The CEO of bad guys."

Mundy chuckled, checking his pad. '"Course we're not bringing charges against you for Matty, or the attempt on Barb Saunders."

"How is she?"

"No change."

Nat felt a twinge.

"We'll be talking with the warden and his deputy, but we don't think they're involved at this point. Machik is as high up as it went."

"Not everybody would be. It was an unwieldy conspiracy to start out with, between bad guys and good guys. At least formerly good guys."

"But we can't prosecute the dead. So it's all over, at least the legalities.

"Somebody should follow up with Upchurch's aunt, Mrs. Rhoden. She deserves at least to be compensated for what happened to her nephew, as if that were possible."

"I got that."

Nat thought of Machik getting shot, and of Graf. Then Graf's cute little boy, skipping to his karate lesson, and his nice wife. "Don't these men consider their families when they do stuff like this?"

"Honestly, no. Families aren't as important to them as money. Speaking of which, I'm supposed to tell you that you do have some things to account for, young lady." Mundy checked his pad and slid a yellow pencil from his breast pocket. "You vandalized public property."

"What?"

"The propane tanks and the fence."

Nat scoffed. "Gimme a break."

"My hands are tied."

"Are you serious?"

"This is a charging decision by the D.A." Mundy made another check. "Also, they're charging you with criminal mischief."

Nat snorted. "For keying the pickup?"

Mundy blinked. "What?"

Oops. "What for?"

"Setting fire to the Neon."

Nat didn't object, and Mundy looked up, surprised.

"You okay with that?"

"I like thinking of myself as mischievous. It's my new thing." Nat stood up and brushed off her pants. "Anyway, this sounds like fines."

"A lot of fines."

"Then, can I go. I've heard enough." Nat didn't even want to fuss at him. She was tired and sad, and she'd fought hard enough, for long enough. "Can I use a phone? My parents must be freaking."

"Sure." Mundy stood up, pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and handed it to her. He added, "By the way, the media's already out front. I'm supposed to tell you that the D.A. would appreciate it very much if you didn't talk to the press. He'll draft a press release." Mundy eyed her with a dark twinkle, more straight man than trooper.

"Tell the D.A. that I would appreciate it very much if he waived my fines, in view of my service to the community."

"You're learning, prof." Mundy smiled, and so did Nat. She pressed her parents' phone number into the cell, as he patted her on the back. "Come on out when you're finished. I'll give you a ride home."

"Thanks." Nat called her parents at home, but they didn't answer, so she tried her dad's cell. It rang and rang. She was about to hang up when she heard his voice. "Dad? It's me, Nat."

"Where are you?" Her father sounded stressed. "We've been calling your cell."

"I'm fine. I'm at the police station again, but it's all over now."

"Nat, listen. We're at the hospital, at Penn. Can you come?"

"What? Why?"

"Paul had a heart attack."

Nat entered the hospital room in intensive care where Paul lay still in a bed, his eyes closed and his color grayish. A transparent greenish tube ran from his nose, an IV snaked from his arm, and a white plastic clamp hooked up to a fingertip, connecting to a vital-sign monitor that showed an unmistakably erratic line of hills and valleys, in glowing blue. In a night of so many awful sights, this was the worst.

"Nat, come in," her father said, meeting her and enveloping her in a hug. His cheek scratched like sandpaper instead of being characteristically clean-shaven, and he didn't smell of his beloved Aramis. He released her, holding her off, his eyes a sad and shiny brown, until they traveled, bewildered, to her hair. "Why’d you change your hair?"