“Her height and weight,” Shauna said. “Elizabeth was listed as five seven and under a hundred pounds.”
Another sock in the gut. My wife was five four and closer to a hundred fifteen pounds. “Not even close,” I said.
“Not even.”
“She’s alive, Shauna.”
“Maybe,” she allowed, and her gaze flicked toward the kitchen. “But there’s something more.”
Shauna turned and called out Linda’s name. Linda stepped into the doorway and stayed there. She looked suddenly small in her apron. She wrung her hands and wiped them on the apron front. I watched my sister, puzzled.
“What’s going on?” I said.
Linda started speaking. She told me about the photographs, how Elizabeth had come to her to take them, how she’d been only too happy to keep her secret about Brandon Scope. She didn’t sugarcoat or offer explanations, but then again, maybe she didn’t have to. She stood there and poured it all out and waited for the inevitable blow. I listened with my head down. I couldn’t face her, but I easily forgave. We all have our blind spots. All of us.
I wanted to hug her and tell her that I understood, but I couldn’t quite pull it off. When she’d finished, I merely nodded and said, “Thanks for telling me.”
My words were meant to be a dismissal. Linda understood. Shauna and I sat there in silence for almost a full minute.
“Beck?”
“Elizabeth’s father has been lying to me,” I said.
She nodded.
“I’ve got to talk to him.”
“He didn’t tell you anything before.”
True enough, I thought.
“Do you think it’ll be different this time?”
I absentmindedly patted the Glock in my waistband. “Maybe,” I said.
Carlson greeted me in the corridor. “Dr. Beck?” he said.
Across town at the same time, the district attorney’s office held a press conference. The reporters were naturally skeptical of Fein’s convoluted explanation (vis-à-vis me), and there was a lot of backpedaling and finger-pointing and that sort of thing. But all that seemed to do was confuse the issue. Confusion helps. Confusion leads to lengthy reconstruction and clarification and exposition and several other “tions.” The press and their public prefer a simpler narrative.
It probably would have been a rougher ride for Mr. Fein, but by coincidence, the D.A.’s office used this very same press conference to release indictments against several high-ranking members of the mayor’s administration along with a hint that the “tentacles of corruption”—their phrase—may even reach the big man’s office. The media, an entity with the collective attention span of a Twinkie-filled two-year-old, immediately focused on this shiny new toy, kicking the old one under the bed.
Carlson stepped toward me. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Not now,” I said.
“Your father owned a gun,” he said.
His words rooted me to the floor. “What?”
“Stephen Beck, your father, purchased a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight. The registration showed that he bought it several months before he died.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I assume you inherited the weapon. Am I correct?”
“I’m not talking to you.” I pressed the elevator button.
“We have it,” he said. I turned, stunned. “It was in Sarah Goodhart’s safety-deposit box. With the pictures.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Carlson gave me a crooked smile.
“Oh right, I was the bad guy back then,” I said. Then, making a point of turning away, I added, “I don’t see the relevance.”
“Sure you do.”
I pressed the elevator button again.
“You went to see Peter Flannery,” Carlson continued. “You asked him about the murder of Brandon Scope. I’d like to know why.”
I pressed the call button and held it down. “Did you do something to the elevators?”
“Yes. Why did you see Peter Flannery?”
My mind made a few quick deductions. An idea—a dangerous thing under the best of circumstances—came to me. Shauna trusted this man. Maybe I could too. A little anyway. Enough. “Because you and I have the same suspicions,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“We’re both wondering if KillRoy murdered my wife.”
Carlson folded his arms. “And what does Peter Flannery have to do with that?”
“You were tracking down my movements, right?”
“Yes.”
“I decided to do the same with Elizabeth’s. From eight years ago. Flannery’s initials and phone number were in her day planner.”
“I see,” Carlson said. “And what did you learn from Mr. Flannery?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “It was a dead end.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Carlson said.
“What makes you say that?”
“Are you familiar with how ballistic tests work?”
“I’ve seen them on TV.”
“Put simply, every gun makes a unique imprint on the bullet it fires. Scratches, grooves—unique to that weapon. Like fingerprints.”
“That much I know.”
“After your visit to Flannery’s office, I had our people run a specific ballistic match on the thirty-eight we found in Sarah Goodhart’s safety-deposit box. Know what I found?”
I shook my head, but I knew.
Carlson took his time before he said, “Your father’s gun, the one you inherited, killed Brandon Scope.”
A door opened and a mother and her teen son stepped into the hall. The teen was in mid-whine, his shoulder slumped in adolescent defiance. His mother’s lips were pursed, her head held high in the don’t-wanna-hear-it position. They came toward the elevator. Carlson said something into a walkie-talkie. We both stepped away from the elevator bank, our eyes locked in a silent challenge.
“Agent Carlson, do you think I’m a killer?”
“Truth?” he said. “I’m not sure anymore.”
I found his response curious. “You’re aware, of course, that I’m not obligated to speak to you. In fact, I can call Hester Crimstein right now and nix everything you’re trying to do here.”
He bristled, but he didn’t bother denying it. “What’s your point?”