The Innocent
“I do,” he said. He also saw that her logic was somewhat flawed, but now was not the time to point that out. “So now what?”
“I insisted on seeing my daughter. So he set up a meet. That’s when I’m supposed to bring the rest of the money.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow at midnight.”
“Where?”
“In Reno.”
“Nevada?”
“Yes.”
Again Nevada. “Do you know a man named Max Darrow?”
She said nothing.
“Olivia?”
“He was the man in the black wig. The one I met with. I knew him back in Vegas too. He used to hang at the club.”
Matt was not sure what to make of that. “Where in Reno?”
“The address is 488 Center Lane Drive. I have a plane ticket. Darrow said I shouldn’t tell anyone. If I’m not there . . . I don’t know, Matt. They said they would hurt her.”
“Hurt your daughter?”
Olivia nodded. The tears were back in her eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if she’s sick or if they kidnapped her or hell, if she’s somehow in on it. But she’s real and she’s alive and I have to go to her.”
Matt tried to take it in, but it wasn’t happening. His cell phone rang. Matt automatically reached to snap it off, but then he thought better of it. At this hour it was probably Cingle. She could be in trouble, need his help. He checked the caller ID. Private number. Could be the police station.
“Hello?”
“Matt?”
He frowned. It sounded like Midlife. “Ike, is that you?”
“Matt, I just got off the phone with Cingle.”
“What?”
“I’m on the way to the county prosecutor’s office now,” Midlife said. “They want to interrogate her.”
“She called you?”
“Yeah, I guess, but I think that had more to do with you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She wanted to warn you.”
“About what?”
“I wrote it down, hold on. Okay, first off, you asked her about a man named Max Darrow? He’s been murdered. They found him shot dead in Newark.”
Matt looked at Olivia. She said, “What is it?”
Midlife was still talking. “But worse, Charles Talley is dead. They found his body at the Howard Johnson’s. They also found a set of bloody brass knuckles. They’re running DNA tests on them now. And within the hour, they’ll have the photographs off your cell phone.”
Matt said nothing.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Matt?”
He did. It didn’t take long. They’d put it together like this: Matt, an ex-con who’d already served time for killing a man in a fight, gets these mocking photographs on his cell phone. His wife was clearly shacking up with Charles Talley. Matt used a private eye to find out where they were. He charged into the hotel late at night. There was a fight. There’d be at least one witness—the guy at the front desk. Probably a security video. They’d have physical evidence too. His DNA is probably all over the dead man.
There would be holes in their case. Matt could show them the gray window and explain about the drought. He also didn’t know what time Talley had been killed, but if Matt was lucky, the murder took place when he was in the ambulance or at the hospital. Or maybe he’d have an alibi in the taxi driver. Or his wife.
Like that would hold up.
“Matt?”
“What is it?”
“The police are probably searching for you now.”
He glanced out the window. A police car pulled up next to Lance’s. “I think they already found me.”
“You want me to arrange a peaceful surrender?”
A peaceful surrender. Trust the authorities to straighten it out. Do the law-abiding thing.
That worked so well before, didn’t it?
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice . . .
And suppose he did come clean. Then what? They’d have to tell everything, including Olivia’s past. Forget about the fact that Matt swore, swore, he’d never let himself go back to prison. Olivia had indeed committed a crime. She’d, at best, helped dispose of a dead body. Not to mention the fact that Max Darrow, who had also been murdered, had been blackmailing her. How would that look?
“Ike?”
“Yes.”
“If they know we communicated, you could get nailed for aiding and abetting.”
“Nah, Matt, I really can’t. I’m your attorney. I’m giving you the facts and encouraging you to surrender. But what you do . . . well, I can’t control that. I can only be shocked and outraged. You see?”
He did. He looked out the window again. Another squad car pulled up. He thought about being back in prison. In the window reflection, he saw Stephen McGrath’s ghost. Stephen winked at him. Matt felt the tightness in his chest.
“Thanks, Ike.”
“Good luck, pal.”
Midlife hung up the phone. Matt turned to Olivia. “What is it?” she asked.
“We have to get out of here.”
Chapter 42
LANCE BANNER APPROACHED Marsha Hunter’s front door.
Two tired uniforms were with him now. Both men had facial stubble nestled in that cusp between needing a shave and trendy, the end of an uneventful Livingston night shift. They were young guys, fairly new on the force. They walked in silence. He could hear them breathing hard. Both men had put on weight recently. Lance was not sure why that happened, why the new recruits always gained weight during their first year with the force, but he’d be hard-pressed to find examples where that didn’t happen.
Lance was conflicted here. He was having second thoughts about his run-in with Matt yesterday. Whatever his past crime, whatever he may have become, Hunter had not deserved being subject to Banner’s clumsy and stupid harassment. And it had been stupid, no question about it, intimidating a purported interloper like some redneck sheriff in a bad movie.
Last night Matt Hunter had scoffed at Lance’s seemingly Pollyanna-ish attempt to keep evil out of his fair town. But Matt got it wrong. Lance wasn’t naïve. He understood that there was no protective force field around the fertile suburban sprawl. That was the point. You work hard to make a life for yourself. You meet up with like-minded people and build a great community. Then you fight to keep it. You see a potential problem, you don’t let it fester. You remove it. You’re proactive. That was what he’d been doing with Matt Hunter. That was what men like Lance Banner did for their hometowns. They were the soldiers, the front line, the few who took night duty so that the others, including Lance’s own family, could sleep soundly.