AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Is that what you were doing?”
“Well, I definitely wasn’t making sure Tommy McGrath’s killer was caught.”
“Then the most you’re guilty of is being human,” I said, rubbing her back. “You were caught between a rock and a hard place, and Howard looked good for a suicide. The chief agreed.”
“But you didn’t,” she said.
“I thought it warranted further investigation. And guess what? You further investigated. You found documents we should have looked at weeks ago, but you found them nonetheless. You made a mistake, but you corrected it. You’re back on track, Chief Stone.”
“Am I?” she said, unconvinced.
“I have faith in you,” I said.
“Thank you. It means everything.”
We kissed.
She scrunched up her nose afterward and said, “You are the love of my life, Alex, but you need a shower.”
“On it now,” I said and headed into the bathroom.
Letting the hot water beat on my neck, I thought back on the two documents Terry Howard had left behind. The first was a simple will that the disgraced detective wrote himself and had had notarized in duplicate. The will awarded all of Howard’s property, including his shotgun collection, to his nine-year-old daughter, Cecilia.
Attached to the will was a letter explaining that he’d started investing in fine shotguns after learning that they tended to appreciate fast and were a safer bet than the stock market. Beginning with a small inheritance he’d received in his early twenties, he had been buying and trading shotguns for many years. He recommended a gun buyer in Dallas who could determine the collection’s value after his death.
The second document was a brief letter to Tommy McGrath, Howard’s ex-partner. In it, Howard said he bore no ill will toward McGrath and that he knew his disgrace was the result of his own actions.
And now the cancer’s got me, Tommy, or you wouldn’t be reading this, Howard wrote. I couldn’t tell you because I did not want you to pity me. I saw you with your young lady friend—you dog—and realized things were going better for you. You deserve better. May your life be long and fantastic. Remember me fondly—T.
It didn’t sound like a man who was angry and ready to commit murder. To me and to Bree, it sounded like a man trying to make peace with himself and his old partner. If he’d killed McGrath and then committed suicide, why would he have left such a note? He’d obviously written it before McGrath’s death, so wouldn’t he have retrieved it and destroyed it before he killed himself? Or had he just forgotten it?
The most cynical slice of me played with the idea that Howard had put the letter there as a way to throw us off the scent, but that didn’t make sense in light of the suicide. Wouldn’t he have left some kind of diatribe condemning McGrath?
So maybe Howard didn’t commit suicide. In that scenario, whoever killed McGrath had also killed Howard and then framed the disgraced detective for McGrath’s murder.
It wasn’t the perfect crime. But it was close. That is, if we could prove it.
I got out of the shower and dried off. Bree came into the bathroom.
“Chief Michaels is going to need harder evidence than that letter to officially reopen the case,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “Can you help grease the wheels at the gun house?”
“Sure. How fast?”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks. By the way, how’d your day go?”
I briefed her as I pulled on clothes.
When I finished, she sighed. “So we’re no closer to finding Tommy’s k
iller or the road-rage shooter.”
“Or the vigilantes, for that matter. Whoever they are.”
