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As I rebundled the file, perfunctorily leafing through the last few items, something hit my eye. My jaw stiffened.
It was a newspaper clipping from the first press conference after the Tasha Catchings murder. The photo showed Chief Mercer standing behind several microphones.
Jill noticed my changed expression. She took the clipping out of my hand. “Oh God, Lindsay…”
In the photo’s background, behind Mercer, were several people connected to the investigation. The mayor, Chief of Detectives Ryan, Gabe Carr.
Coombs had drawn a bold red circle around one face.
My face.
Chapter 93
BY THE END OF THE DAY, Frank Coombs’s description was in the hands of every cop in the city. This was personal. We all wanted to bring him down.
Coombs had no belongings, no real money, no network that we knew of. By all reckoning, we should have him soon.
I asked the girls to get together in Jill’s office after everyone else had left. When I arrived, they were cheerful and smiling, probably thinking about congratulating me. The newspapers had Coombs’s picture on the front page. He looked like a killer.
I sank down on the leather couch next to Claire.
“Something’s wrong,” she said. “I don’t think we want to hear this.”
I nodded. “I need to talk about something.”
As they listened, I described my experience of the night before. The real version. How tailing Coombs had been risky and impulsive, though I hadn’t had any real choice. How I had gotten trapped. How, when I was sure there was no hope, my father had rescued me.
“Jesus, Lindsay.” Jill’s jaw hung incredulously. “Will you please try to be more careful…?”
“I know,” I said.
Claire shook her head. “You said to me the other day, I don’t know what I would do without you, and you go off taking a risk like that. Don’t you think it works the same for us? You’re like a sister. Please stop trying to be a hero.”
“A cowboy,” Jill said.
“Cowgirl,” Cindy chimed.
“A couple of seconds either way”—I smiled—“and you guys would be out on a membership drive about now.”
They sat staring at me, somber and serious. Then a ripple of laughter snaked its way around the room. The thought of losing my girls, or them losing me, made what I had done seem all the more insane. Now it was funny.
“Thank God for Marty,” Jill exclaimed.
“Yeah, good old Marty.” I sighed. “My dad.”
Sensing my ambivalence, Jill leaned forward. “He didn’t hit anyone, did he?”
I took a breath. “Coombs. Maybe someone else.”
“Was there blood at the scene?” asked Claire.
“We’ve been over the house. It was rented to this small-time punk who’s disappeared. There was evidence of blood in the driveway.”
They stared back in silence. Then Jill said, “So how’d you leave it, Lindsay? With the department?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t. I kept my father out of it.”
“Jesus, Lindsay,” Jill shot back, “your dad may have shot someone. He stuck his nose into a police situation and fired his gun.”
