The Closer He Gets

Zach clasped the back of his neck and squeezed hard, willing the red haze in his vision to subside. “Did you hear the whole conversation?”

“Enough.” The smile died. “Bran has told me some of what’s been going on. I know Ketchum—I was his field training officer a few years back, before I was promoted. I could be wrong, but I don’t see him pulling the kind of crap you’ve been dealing with.”

“Do you see him keeping his mouth shut, even though he knows that the evening before Andy Hayes killed Alvarez they had a mix-up? That logic should tell him Hayes went after Alvarez the next day?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so.” Warring looked tired suddenly. “But we can all fool ourselves.”

Zach couldn’t argue with that. He’d damn sure fooled himself when he was a kid that his mom was as pure as the driven snow.

“I don’t know him at all,” Zach admitted. “I wouldn’t have said anything if the first words he’s ever spoken to me hadn’t been ‘Feel good about destroying a man’s career?’ That kind of rubbed me the wrong way.”

“I can see why it would.” Warring’s head turned, as if he was making sure they were, however briefly, completely alone. “The sheriff is so damn worried that this might screw up his chance of being re-elected, he’s stuck his head up his ass. Most of the rest of us are behind you.” He nodded as he turned toward the detective bullpen. “I’d better get to my desk.”

More surprised than he ought to be, Zach watched him walk away. It seemed he had more allies than he’d known.

Yet somehow they were overshadowed by the faceless men who might not stop at anything to silence two inconvenient witnesses.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LEFT ALONE BRIEFLY, Bran looked around his brother’s kitchen. Zach hadn’t done a speck of work in here yet. Shifting in his seat at the table, Bran kept catching the tread of his athletic shoe on a separating seam of the ancient linoleum. But there was a table, unlike the last time he’d been in the house; a round, oak one that needed refinishing but had potential. A new refrigerator, too, he saw, big and white and out of place.

When Zach returned, Bran nodded at the new appliance even though he wanted to lunge out of his chair and snatch the manila envelope Zach carried in his hand. “I thought you were getting a dishwasher first.”

“The refrigerator that came with the house died.” Zach glowered. “Do you know how much new ones cost?”

“I’ve never bought one. They come with the apartment.”

“Take my word for it.” Zach’s expression lightened and he ran his fingers over the tabletop. “But this? It’ll be a beauty when I have a chance to work on it. Got it and the chairs at a garage sale on Sunday. It hadn’t sold. Can you believe it? I paid peanuts and it’s an antique.” He shook his head and then tossed the envelope to Bran.

Man, it was actually here in his hands, everything the police department had on Sheila’s murder. He could hardly believe it. When Zach had called to tell him it had arrived in the mail, Bran had come straight over. But now, as he shook out the thin sheaf of papers, he said incredulously, “This is it? There has to be more.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Across from him, Zach shook his head in matching disbelief. “Look at Nolte’s note on top. ‘Here you go.’ If he thought there should be more, you’d think he would have said something like, ‘What the hell? I’ll follow up.’”

“Yeah. Damn.” Of course there had to be a hitch.

Zach grabbed them each a beer while Bran started reading. It didn’t take him long. Ten or fifteen minutes in and he’d at least skimmed every page, which included the first responder’s report and the coroner’s report. Neither had told him anything he hadn’t already known, although his stomach had clenched when he’d read some of it.

Younger son Zach—nine years old—woke early and decided to go outside. Yelled to rouse parents, who ran outside. Boy had to be sedated.

Bran hadn’t forgotten his first sight of Zach’s face that morning, but he didn’t like to think about it. Zach’s shock had been so absolute, he had stared right through Bran, seemingly unaware that tears ran down his cheeks, snot over his upper lip. Bran hadn’t been scared until he’d seen his brother and known something unimaginably terrible had happened.