I shared the thought with everyone.
“I like it. Those old movies are part of why I wanted to be a cop when I was a little boy,” Newman said.
“Except in the movies we’d be walking up for the final showdown now,” Edward said.
“And in real police work, we don’t even know who the bad guys are yet,” Newman said, and he wasn’t smiling now.
“If we find the murder weapon here today, we’ll have our murderers,” Edward said.
“But there’s no triumphant march to justice if it’s Todd and Muriel,” Newman said.
“It’s not about triumph, Newman. It’s about saving the innocent and punishing the wicked,” Edward said.
“That sounds biblical,” Newman said.
“Well, you do have three out of the Four Horsemen,” I said.
“Are you saying that your vengeance comes in biblical proportions?” Newman asked, and he almost laughed.
“It can be,” Olaf said.
Edward and I just nodded. Newman stopped laughing and glanced at the three of us as if trying to decide if we were teasing him.
68
AN HOUR LATER I was standing in the middle of what had started the day as a master bedroom, but now looked like a fabric-and-homes-good store after a big sale. The pillows, comforter, sheets, et cetera were piled knee-deep, as if I had to wade through white-and-tan-flowered snow. I could glimpse the walk-in closet past the bedclothes. It looked like everything had been dumped on the floor. I wondered if the officers who had searched the closet understood that the clothes were probably the most expensive things in the house. Muriel was one of those people who wore or drove her money so people could see it. The house and the furnishings were nice in that modern way, but not as nice as the clothes she wore, the Porsche SUV, and the Jaguar parked in the three-car garage. I hadn’t even known that Porsche made an SUV. The Jaguar was a beautiful, sleek machine, but the SUV looked like all the other SUVs on the road, so paying Porsche prices seemed silly to me, but then I wasn’t a label whore. I wouldn’t automatically pay more because a designer or a high-end name was attached to a car or a piece of clothing. Some designers made great wearable art, but my day-to-day living didn’t really lend itself to wearing art. Jean-Claude despaired of my never truly appreciating the finer things in life. I’d told him that I appreciated him, and he was one of the finer things in life. He’d smiled and conceded the point to me.
“Where is the damn thing?” Newman said from behind me.
Edward had said the four of us should split up into pairs and he’d taken Olaf with him. Fine with me. I’d had enough of the big guy for a while.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t, but if we can’t find it, then . . .” He let his voice trail off.
I finished for him. “Then we can’t get more time on the warrant.”
“Yeah, I thought signing the warrant over to you would make me feel better, but it didn’t. I don’t want anyone to kill Bobby if he’s innocent, and I know that you don’t want to kill him either. I just feel guilty that I’ve put it on your shoulders instead of mine.”
“You’re a good man, Newman.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m really not, or not as good as I want to be.”
“I think that’s true of all of us,” I said.
He shook his head again. “You know as well as I do that not everyone wants to be good.”
“Most people want to feel like the good guy or at least feel justified. I’m sure you’ve seen it: the thugs that blame the victim for fighting back, for wearing a short skirt, for having such nice stuff to steal. You know the drill.”
He made a small sound that might have been a laugh but was way too bitter for the description. “I had a carjacker that shot a banker and his wife so he could steal their Rolls-Royce. They were on their way to a charity event when they got lost. The perp’s defense was ‘What was he doing driving such a nice car in a neighborhood like this? He shoulda known someone would jack his ass.’”
I said, “Like it never occurred to him that maybe he shouldn’t be stealing people’s cars at gunpoint.”
“He said he wouldn’t have shot them, but the man wouldn’t open the door when he pointed the gun at the window. He seemed so offended that the rich dude had tried to drive off instead of just giving him the car. Said he wouldn’t have shot either of them if they’d just given up the car.”
“Like I said, even the bad guys want to be able to feel like they aren’t the bad guys.”
“You’re right about criminals, but I like to think that the rest of us try to be better than that,” he said, staring down at the mess on the floor.