Tradition of Deceit (27 page)

“One of the girls collected rainwater in a big tub up here for her dog. When I walked into this room, I saw John holding Whyte's head in the water. And God help me, I just … froze. I might have been able to stop him, but I didn't even try.”

Chloe tried to decide how she felt about that.
Nothing
condoned murder. And yet …

“When it was over, I thought the best thing we could do was hide Whyte's body. I started tugging at one of the trapdoors, but it was rusted shut. So John stuffed Whyte into the chute. But when the body got caught in the chute instead of sliding down into the bin …” Mary shuddered convulsively. “I just wanted to get out of here. So we left, and took the tub with us.”

“What about Owen?” Chloe demanded. “What about
me
?”

A tear slid down Mary's cheek. “Everything is my fault. After John killed Whyte, I talked to him. I thought he understood that he must never do
anything
like that again. But when Owen got hurt, I knew that John must have damaged the machine. I think he saw Owen as part of the project that will ultimately displace the people who live here.”

Chloe tried to find a more comfortable position for her throbbing wrist. “And I was guilty by association?”

“I guess so.”

Chloe didn't know what to say. Would Whyte be dead if Toby hadn't punched the man, causing him to fall and hit his head on the gear wheel? She couldn't figure it out. Shock, some part of her observed. Besides, her wrist really, really hurt. When the EMTs got there, she would joyfully accept whatever drugs they offered. As if on cue, she heard a siren in the distance.

“I will take full responsibility for my role in this tragedy.” Mary's voice trembled. “But I need to say something. Horrible things happen in this mill every single day. People die from exposure and hunger and venereal disease and tiny cuts that get infected. Our society doesn't have the will to stop homeless people from suffering. When you think of Camo John's actions, try to remember that he was mentally ill. Everett Whyte, the man Minneapolis is mourning, didn't have that excuse when he preyed on vulnerable young women.”

The sirens were coming closer. Chloe didn't know what to think or how to feel.

“We have a decision to make,” Officer Ashton said.

Chloe blinked. “We do?”

“Crandall believes that he shot the man who killed Everett Whyte.” She looked at Mary. “He doesn't know that you were present when Whyte died.”

“Are you saying that we shouldn't reveal my involvement?” Mary shook her head. “I can't accept that. My conscience—”

“What I'm
saying
is that your friend there is dead. You can't help him now. But there are still a whole lot of people in this mill who
do
need your help. How will your conscience feel about that when you're sitting in prison?”

Sister Mary Jude looked stricken.

“She's right,” Chloe heard herself say. So much for not knowing what to think.

“In five minutes, a whole lot of men are going to charge in here and take over,” Officer Ashton said. “Right now, it's just us three women. I don't know either of you very well, but I'm willing to gamble my career on your promise that what actually happened to Whyte is never spoken of again. I'll say John admitted his guilt right before Crandall arrived, and leave it at that. Are you in?”

The siren wailed from the street below, with a second coming close behind it. Shouts rang from the stairwell. “I'm in,” Chloe said.

“I'm in too,” Sister Mary Jude said huskily. “And I vow to rededicate my life to—”

A confusion of men burst in—Officer Crandall, several more cops, EMTs, Jay. Chloe yelped as one of the medical guys touched her left arm.

Mary crawled to Chloe and grasped her good hand. “You're going to be fine.”

Chloe had one question left, one that seemed important. “When you were fourteen and needed help, was it a nun who helped you? Is that what led you to take vows?”

“It was a priest, actually.” Mary managed a tiny smile. “A very kind old soul who devoted his life to helping others.”

That tidbit was unexpected but enormously comforting. There
are
good men in the world, Chloe reminded herself.

And she'd found one. She still didn't know if she was ready or able to make a commitment to a police officer, but she would always care about him. Clutching Mary's hand, Chloe sent up her own prayer for Roelke McKenna's safety.

Forty-Four

When the lane forked,
Roelke studied the snow near the plowed pavement. There—fresh footprints heading north. I
knew
it, he thought. Earlier, when he'd tried to envision this confrontation, he'd identified the area where he'd hide if trying to kill someone approaching the chapel. An old abandoned garden shed had initially seemed ideal, but the angle was wrong. Nearby, though, was a big oak tree with a perfect line of sight to the portico about two hundred yards away. Evidently Rick's killer had the same idea.

Roelke eased his foot in the first footprint, hoping the rustle of wind through the trees cloaked the faint
crunch
of boot on snow. He carefully made his way among mossy gravestones and marble children and sculpted ten-foot angels. Among many meandering footprints, the tracks he followed veered only when necessary to skirt a monument. The gravestones and statuary cast fantastic shadows in the blue-gray light.

He paused to check his compass, shielded by the base of a memorial. Still good. He crept on, skin prickling. If he was wrong, if he wasn't stealthy enough, a bullet could find him any second.

But he was still unscathed when he spotted the two eight-foot evergreen bushes he'd chosen for himself earlier, about ten yards south of the oak tree. Okay, he thought. Last bit. He held his breath and inched one foot forward, then the other, on and on until he'd reached the shrubbery.

Once hidden he became aware of his rapid heartbeat, his sweat-damp shirt. God, this was
it
.
Rick, old buddy,
Roelke thought,
whatever happens here—I tried
.

He squinted through a gap in the greenery at the oak. He didn't see anything but tree. Damn, had he gotten everything wrong after all? Was someone creeping up behind
him
? Was—

Something twitched. Someone
was
pressed against the oak tree—focused intently on the old vine-covered chapel in the distance. Waiting for me to show, Roelke thought. He eased the hammer back on his .38 revolver.

Rick's killer inched to the right of the tree trunk. A rifle barrel appeared, black against the deep sky. Roelke frowned. Why risk aiming now? There was no one there—

Except there
was
. A figure appeared in the portico, clearly visible beneath yellow lights. Some innocent soul had just wandered into a kill zone.

Roelke side-stepped from his cover and took aim. “Drop your weapon! Get on the ground!”

The shadow whirled.

“Drop your weapon!”
Roelke roared.
“Get on the ground!
”

No response. Roelke kept aim with his right hand and used his left to snatch the high-powered flashlight he'd positioned in his coat pocket. He thumbed the switch and aimed the beam. Lucia Bliss jerked when the light hit her eyes.

Although Roelke had known since Fritz Klinefelter matched Bliss to the prints on the handgun he'd found, seeing her face brought a new wave of rage. He walked forward, his .38 aimed at her heart. “You raise that rifle again and I'll drop you.”

“Stop!” Bliss cringed against the glare. “McKenna, I swear to God—”

“God wants nothing to do with you.” Roelke kept walking. “You shot Rick in the back of the head and left him to die in the street.”

“I didn't mean to. It—it just happened—”

“Bullshit! You stole a gun from inventory!” Roelke stopped about five yards away.

“I just wanted to scare him!”

“Why, Bliss?
Why
?”

“My husband and I were going through a bad time, and an argument just—just got a little out of hand. He called 911 and pressed charges, but it was all so silly that the DA dropped the whole thing and cleared my record.” She talked faster and faster. “But Rick found out somehow and told me I should quit the force. Quit the force! One little mistake, and I'm supposed to quit the force?”

Roelke could well imagine Rick's perspective, especially if Bliss's “little mistake” had popped up while he was trying to help Erin Litkowski dodge her maniac husband. “So you executed a friend?”

“Rick said that if I didn't resign, he'd go public with what had happened. He said I wasn't fit to respond to domestic violence calls. I waited for him by the park that night and tried to make him see reason, but he wouldn't listen—”

“Rick was a
good
cop.”

“You don't understand. My marriage is in trouble, half the guys hate me, my dad is breathing down my neck … I've got nothing
left
! I've got nothing left but my job—”

“Oh, that's over, too.”

She shook her head. “McKenna, look, you've got no proof that connects me to—to what happened to Rick at Kozy Park. I'll deny everything I just said.”

“I
do
have proof. You wouldn't know this, because you were a class ahead of us, but Rick got chewed out during academy training after an instructor jumped out of a car trunk. Rick developed this ritual way of approaching a car from behind. He checked that the trunk was latched, but he also left prints in four different places, including just under the back bumper.”

Bliss stared, evidently out of things to say.

“I figured you probably didn't use your own car the night you parked there on Lincoln Avenue, waiting for Rick. Somebody might have recognized it, identified it to the cops. But your husband has a nice red Thunderbird, right? Perfect for impressing clients? Rick wouldn't have known who was inside when he approached from behind, so he would have gone through his routine. You may have wiped his prints from the trunk and the fender, but I doubt that it occurred to you to reach beneath the bumper. One of Milwaukee's finest is dusting the Thunderbird right this minute.”

That last bit was a lie. And since Roelke hadn't been able to get inside Bliss's garage, he had no idea if she'd cleaned beneath the bumper. But her shoulders slumped, and he knew he
had
her.

“You have no idea how hard it is for female officers,” she said bitterly. “On my first day my FTO said, ‘Let me give you some advice. You can be one of the guys, or you can be a cunt.' Well, I tried to be one of the guys. I tried so hard that I turned into somebody new. Or maybe … maybe being one of the guys just brought out a part of me that I didn't even know existed until—”

“Shut—
up
.” Roelke's arms were getting tired, and he didn't give a damn about her sad story. “Drop your weapon and get on the ground.”

She didn't move.

“Do it
now
!”

She still didn't move.

Roelke's world narrowed to the beam of light focused on Bliss. He sensed her mental debate, a decision being made. Her rifle began an upward swing. His finger moved.

But before he could squeeze the trigger, before she could aim, a shot exploded. Bliss stumbled backward. The rifle hit the ground. Roelke launched and landed on Bliss as she fell. She cried out in
pain. He didn't care.
Pressing her into the snow, he snatched his
cuffs and shackled her wrists.

“Stay down,” he warned. He quickly checked her over. He could feel the protective vest beneath her coat, and he didn't see any sign of blood. He scrambled to his feet, holstered his own gun, and grabbed the flashlight he'd dropped.

Roelke quivered with the desire to kick the woman. But a voice spoke in his head—his own or Rick's, Roelke wasn't sure—no, no,
no
. You're a better cop than that. You're a better human being than that.

Roelke hauled Bliss to her feet and dragged her to the nearby shed. He shoved her inside, slammed the door, and jammed his screwdriver through the metal loop intended for a padlock. Not quite as secure as the old holding cell he'd shown Justin at the museum, but it would do. Then he leaned over, hands on knees, panting and truly a bit dizzy this time.

Suddenly he remembered that he hadn't actually shot Bliss. So … who the hell had? He swung the beam in an arc. “Who's there?”

“Me,” Fritz Klinefelter grunted. He lay on his belly, propped up on elbows, almost hidden behind a gravestone fifteen yards away. A Remington lay in the snow.

Roelke stumbled over and dropped to his knees. Jesus, Fritz must be half-frozen. “What are you
doing
here?”

“I'm not helpless.” Fritz glared toward the shed. “That woman disgraced the entire Milwaukee Police Department. No way was I going to let you face her alone.”

“But—”

“My wife dropped me off on the drive two hours ago. Believe me, I elbow-crawled a lot farther than this when I was in Korea.” Fritz hitched and rolled to a sitting position, leaning against the gravestone. “I figured backup from an unexpected angle might come in handy.”

Roelke almost said, I was about to shoot! I could have dropped her! I didn't need help!

“I know you had her,” Fritz said. “But she might not have been wearing a vest. I didn't want you to have to carry that. You need this to be
over
.”

Roelke swallowed hard. “Thank you.”