Accused (24 page)

“Karl Drake? Are you sure? Carly, Karl is a good cop. Why on earth would he kill Jeff?”

“I can’t explain everything right now, Joe, but trust me and don’t trust Guest or Drake. I called to let you know I was okay, hoping you’d quietly let my mom know. The press release is totally false, and I hope to be able to prove that shortly. And tell Andi I’m sorry about her car, but I needed it.”

“I’d feel better if you’d tell me where you are.”

“I can take care of myself . . . or maybe I should say I know someone is taking care of me. Check up on Nick and watch your back. Tell him I understand what he meant that night at my mom’s.”

“I’ll tell him. If I don’t hear from you again soon, Carly, you know I’ll come looking. That’s what partners are for.”

“I know, Joe, and thanks. Things will work out. I refuse to believe anything else.”

39

Trejo’s house seemed deathly quiet to Carly after she said good-bye to Joe. If anything, she felt more alone now than she had before she called him. Moving to her feet, she fidgeted and rubbed her hands together, trying to rub away the anxiety she felt.
I wish I weren’t sitting on the bench.
She looked around for a radio and found one on a bookshelf, but what was on top of the radio caught her eye. It was a Bible, dusty but new-looking.
Trejo probably never read it,
she thought. Grabbing it, Carly sat on the couch to flip through the pages.

She’d read the book of John while up in the mountains. No one had told her where to go from there, so she paged around, stopping here and there. Some of the things she read were encouraging. Doubt lingered, and Carly wondered if she’d ever really understand all of what her mother and Nick had been trying to tell her.

She closed the Bible and set it on the coffee table, tapping it with her knuckle. “Believing without seeing is rough.”

Just then the door opened and Trejo burst into the house.

“Edwards, this stuff is great! You may have handed me the story of the century!” He strode to his bedroom and came back without his jacket, cap, and flashlight but carrying a manila folder, a folder he hadn’t left with.

“I’m glad you’re back. I was beginning to think they got you. You found the pictures and the drive?”

“You bet. I took the pen camera—what a cool gadget—to the office, and an editor there and I reviewed it, that and the flip cam. I didn’t have time to go through everything on the thumb drive, but pictures are worth a million words. This stuff is dynamite! Even you’re not going to believe the story it tells.”

“Wanna bet? I’m the one they wanted to make fish bait, remember?”

“I printed out some screen caps. They are a little dark, but you can still make out what’s important.” He sat next to Carly on the couch, opened the folder, and started to lay pictures out on the coffee table. Carly had thought they were good when she took them but was surprised by the quality of the hard copies. She was more amazed at how much Trejo knew about the operation at the harbor. She and Jeff had only penetrated the tip of the iceberg.

“What you don’t understand,” Trejo said, “is that I was on to this already. I just didn’t have proof. Burke lived too high on the hog for his wife’s salary, and no one asked any hard questions. His business was worthless. And this guy—” he pointed to Mario Correa, the harbor superintendent—“I’ve known for a while he was involved in the drug trade, but I could never prove it.”

He stood and began to pace, talking while he walked and using big hand gestures. “Correa did a lot of building around the harbor, and he worked hard to cultivate the image of an upstanding citizen, but I’ve always thought it was a shell game. He’s done a lot of shady importing and exporting.”

Trejo rubbed his hands together. “People watched the new development going on, happy the down-and-out harbor got a face-lift, but didn’t pay attention to anything else.” He pointed at Carly. “Your friend Jeff put a serious crimp in Correa’s operation when he made that bust a few months ago. It probably hit Burke in the wallet too. After what you told me about Jeff and Teresa, I bet she was going to blow hubby’s sweet cover.”

“Wait. Are you saying you knew Burke killed his wife?”

“I didn’t
know
, but I could’ve guessed. Their marriage had been on the rocks for a long time. Galen wasn’t faithful at all, and he barely kept that a secret.”

“Wow” was all Carly could say.
And I call myself a trained observer.
“I thought they were happy.”

Trejo made a face and continued. “He was getting away with murder in all areas, if you pardon the expression. You know Craven’s?”

Carly nodded. Joe and Nick had told her all about Craven’s. “I’ve heard about it.” She sat back on the couch and put her feet on the coffee table.

Trejo was fired up. “Burke was a regular there, supposedly for some high-stakes illegal gambling, not to mention many, many girlfriends. Rumor was he even had quality cocaine available for beauties he wanted to conquer—you know, to put them in the right frame of mind.”

“You knew all this and it was never
news
?” Anger flared.

“My boss happens to be the biggest Teresa Burke supporter around. If you were observant, you would have noticed that the
Messenger
never printed anything that would embarrass the late mayor. Digging up dirt on Galen could have cost me my job.” He shrugged. “Besides, everything was rumor. I busted my butt looking for something solid, something that couldn’t be ignored or swept away. I never would have gotten the okay to check out Craven’s without more than innuendo. And don’t get your panties in a bunch. I hoped if I could get the goods on Correa, he would fall and take Burke with him. It sure looks like these pictures, the computer evidence, and your story will kill two dirty birds with one stone.”

“Don’t forget the other two.” Carly leaned forward. “What really chafes me is Drake and Guest. I don’t understand cops who cross the line. And I won’t forgive them. I’m afraid someone else higher up has to be involved as well. Do you have any ideas about who that would be?”

“No, but I do have a source at the PD. I paged him. Hopefully he’ll call shortly.”

“You didn’t tell anyone I was here, did you?” Carly’s voice rose an octave and she pulled her feet off the table.

“No, settle down! I can be discreet. I just left a cryptic message for him. He’ll call. I’m good at my job, Edwards. I check things out.”

His expression was so smug Carly couldn’t resist a jab. “Like you checked out my shooting?”

He stopped pacing. “Low blow and totally unnecessary. I’m sorry. No one at the PD would speak to me about the incident. Being shut out forced me to believe there was a cover-up. I got some bad information from the victim’s family members. Sorry, but it was never personal.”

“You mean to tell me—” Carly rose to face him, all no-nonsense cop—“you knew I’d done nothing wrong and you never printed that?” Her face flushed with indignation.

“I just know that the family lied to me; that’s all. They swore it was some kind of vendetta. What was I supposed to think when everyone at the PD stonewalled? And then you were reassigned.”

“I was reassigned because you stopped just short of calling me a murderer! And now you tell me you knew all the time I wasn’t, and you never retracted any of those nasty stories?”

“That’s just how the business is, Edwards! People have short memories. If I’d written something after the fact, they wouldn’t have remembered why, and we would have dredged everything up all over again. It’s over; you still have your job; all I can say is I’m sorry.”

“If that were really true, I’d see it in print, and that’s where it better be when we are through with all this. I mean it.” She glared at the reporter, for a minute forgetting the reason she was there.

A knock on the door brought her back to her senses.

Both of them turned and looked at the door as if the inanimate object had spoken.

“You expecting someone?” Carly whispered.

Trejo shook his head. The knock repeated.

“Who is it?” Trejo said loudly.

“It’s me.” The voice from the other side of the door sounded familiar. “You paged me. What’s up?” It was Sergeant Tucker.

“I can’t believe you told him to come here!” Carly hissed through clenched teeth.

“Look, I trust him. Just like you trusted me, I had to trust somebody. He’s been helping me investigate all that’s going on at the harbor.”

“Alex, are you going to let me in or what?” the sergeant yelled impatiently.

“Just a second, B. K.,” Trejo said. He turned back to Carly and whispered, “Why would he help me if he was involved? He’s not in any of your pictures, is he? He bags killers; he’s not one.”

Carly looked from the door to Trejo and back again. “I just don’t know. I wish you would have asked before you called him.”

“I didn’t tell him you were here. Go hide in my bedroom. I’ll show him a couple of pictures and pick his brain; that’s all, okay?”

Carly regretted there was no other choice and retreated to Trejo’s bedroom and closed the door. She looked around for escape routes. There was only a window, and she doubted she could get out of it in a hurry.
Maybe I’m overreacting.
Shrugging, she pressed her ear against the door to listen. She heard the front door open and knew immediately something was wrong.

“What are you doing here?” Trejo exclaimed in surprise.

“Where is she?” Tucker countered, and Carly jerked away from the door. She’d started for the window when she heard the sound of a punch and Trejo grunting.

“Don’t cover for her!”
Drake.
“We know she’s here!”

The sound of another solid hit rent the air, and Carly knew she couldn’t leave Trejo to get beaten to death. She looked around the room frantically. He must have some kind of weapon. A soft thud and another grunt sounded from the other room. Drake demanded answers, and Trejo feigned ignorance.

Carly fought rising panic. The flashlight—where was it? She tossed his black jacket off the bed and there it was. She stuck it in her back pocket.

Carly burst through the door. “Leave him alone!”

Trejo was on his knees, blood pouring from his nose. Both Tucker and Drake looked at her. Drake smiled.

“I can’t believe you weren’t fish bait. I’m so impressed, I almost wish I didn’t have to kill you.”

“Just leave him alone. He can’t hurt you. He doesn’t know anything.” Carly raised both hands in a sign of surrender. She wanted to put the two cops at ease. If they didn’t think she was a threat, they would let their guard down. All she wanted was time to get into the best position possible to do the most damage.

“Nice try, Edwards,” Tucker said. “This idiot knows a lot, and he’s ready to spill his guts. Too bad you picked on him. As long as he believed the stuff I was feeding him, he was harmless. But now he can thank you for signing his death warrant.” Tucker kicked Trejo to the floor. The reporter moaned.

“I guess Drake going to the dark side wasn’t such a shock,” Carly said. “He always had a big head, too good to work for a living, but you?” She directed her statement to the sergeant. “You’ve been a cop for thirty years. How can you stab your brother officers in the back?”

“It all comes down to lifestyle. I got used to the lifestyle Correa could give me. Like you say, I put thirty years in. I worked hard all my life putting pukes in jail and risking my life for other pukes. I deserve special compensation, and Correa can give me that.” He stepped away from Trejo toward Carly. “Stop wasting time. We need to get this over with—the right way this time.”

“How do you expect to explain this?” Carly slid away from the man. Trejo didn’t look good. He needed to be able to move if they were going to make a quick escape. She wanted both Tucker’s and Drake’s attention on her. “You’re just going to shoot us in cold blood?”

“You made it easy, Carly.” Drake smiled wider, and as Carly hoped, he started around the other side of the sofa to cut her off. “You’re the one who’s distraught and suicidal,” he continued, pulling a handgun out of his pocket that Carly recognized as the gun they’d taken from her on the dock.

She backed toward the front window as he kept talking.

“You told everyone at the station how you hated Trejo’s guts because of the stories he wrote about you. Now, out of your mind, you broke out of the hospital, came here, killed Trejo, then yourself. It’s easy, neat, and no loose ends.” He smiled and twirled the gun in his hand. Both cops were on Carly’s side of the sofa.

“Now come here,” the sergeant ordered.

When she didn’t comply, Tucker did just what Carly hoped: he lunged for her. Hours of weaponless defense practice paid off. She stepped out of his way and pulled the flashlight from her back pocket, smashing down with all her might on the side of his head. Momentum carried him forward and down, toward Drake, who lost his balance as he tried to avoid being hit by the big man.

“Run, Trejo! Run!” Carly yelled as she flung the flashlight end over end at Drake. It didn’t carry much power but it was heavy, and it struck him square in the solar plexus. He fell backward over some books and landed hard on his back.

Trejo was on his feet, staggering toward the door. Carly ran to help and pushed him forward. Drake cursed and stood quickly, but he’d dropped the gun and had to dig through the books to find it.

Trejo jerked the front door open, and he and Carly stumbled through it, right into another cop.

40

“Joe, thank God.” Carly yanked on Trejo’s arm with her right hand, pulling him behind her. With her left, she pointed. “It’s Tucker and Drake—they killed Jeff.”

Drake rushed to the door, face crimson. “King, don’t listen to her. She’s 5150. Look what she did to the reporter!”

Carly gaped. “Me?” She turned to Joe. It was then she realized that he was not alone. Two men Carly didn’t recognize, both wearing suits, flanked her partner.

Drake continued with his lies. “Look what she did to Sergeant Tucker.”

The sergeant moaned and managed to rise to his knees, one side of his head covered in blood.

“They tried to kill me!” Carly insisted. “They’re involved with the people who killed Mayor Burke.” She let go of Trejo, who now stood on his own two feet. He held a hand up to his bloody face, and Carly feared his jaw had been broken. She looked from Drake to Joe. Her partner’s face was unreadable. “Joe?”

He looked at her and shook his head. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her to the side of the entryway. “It’s out of our hands,” he said as he nodded toward the suits. “It’s an FBI matter now.”

Drake huffed in triumph. “Great, you two agents got here just in time.” He smirked at Carly. “It’s over for you, Edwards.”

Carly’s voice fled. Was everyone corrupt? One of the agents looked at her and then at Drake. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his ID.

“Agent John Bucholtz.” He held up his ID with one hand and had his gun in the other. “Detective Drake, Sergeant Tucker, you’re both under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder.” He brought the gun up and pointed it at Drake. “I need you to surrender your firearms to my partner.”

Relief flooded through Carly and she sagged against Joe. As she watched the FBI agent relieve a protesting Drake of his gun and then click handcuffs on both him and Sergeant Tucker, she wished she had a camera to record the expressions on the crooked cops’ faces. They were priceless.

A week later Carly found herself suiting up for another funeral. For this one, Carly didn’t mind the dog and pony show. Jeff deserved it. He was a true hero. She closed her locker and headed outside to meet another hero in her eyes, Joe. He’d found her by entering Trejo’s number into an online reverse phone directory. What she didn’t know until Joe arrived with the FBI was that they had been investigating Tucker and Drake on the down low for months. Nick’s call to his friend had pulled the trigger, and they’d come to see him at the hospital with arrest warrants. Joe brought them to the right place at the right time.

“Hey, badge looks great back where it belongs,” Joe said. He stood waiting for her outside the locker room, grinning.

“Thanks.” She glanced down at the shiny badge Garrison had grudgingly given back to her when she’d been reinstated to full duty. “I still don’t agree with your methods, Edwards,” he’d said, looking down his nose at her. “I will never agree with an officer who disobeys direct orders. But I won’t be bringing any charges. You’re scheduled to return to duty tonight, 4 p.m.—juvenile.”

Just like that, he’d handed back her badge and gun and dismissed her. Carly considered pressing him for a return to patrol but thought better of it.

What a difference a week makes. Five days ago I would have jumped in the captain’s mug. Now I’m a cop again, and the rest doesn’t matter.
She chuckled softly to herself and remembered the conversation she’d had with her mother when Kay came down from the mountain.

“I have a better understanding of your faith now, Mom,” she said after Kay’s nearly smothering hug.

Wiping her eyes, Kay smiled. “Oh? What do you mean by
understanding
?”

“I understand about sacrifice, about someone willing to lay down his life for a friend. Jeff did that for me. Then, when I was swimming for my life, I prayed and God heard me. I can’t say I’m just like you or just like Nick, but I’m anxious to learn more. And to believe that there is a God. And maybe go to church with you.”

Kay laughed. “I’m so glad to hear it. God always honors the searcher with an open heart.”

“You ready to go, or what?” Joe broke into her reverie.

“Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking.” She fell into step next to him as they headed for the parking lot. Officers were everywhere. The turnout wouldn’t be as big as it had been for Teresa Burke, which was fine with Carly. The officers present were attending out of respect for a fellow officer, not because they’d been ordered.

“A penny.” Joe handed Carly a copper coin.

“For what?”

“Your thoughts.” Joe grinned and Carly laughed.

“I was just thinking about heroes. Jeff sacrificed his life for me. That’s sobering. And it’s something I’ll never forget. And you, showing up at Trejo’s door with the FBI—that was awesome.”

“Thank Nick for that. He put the call in that jump-started them. Their investigation into Tucker and Drake had focused on money laundering and the illegal use of federal grant money. Nick’s call clued them in to more. Glad they got involved when they did.”

“I’m thankful they arrived in time for me, but sad they weren’t there to save Jeff.” A fishing boat had found Jeff’s body four days ago. Even in death, Jeff had helped out. The slugs in his body tied his murder to Karl Drake.

“I’m sorry I believed the gossip about him,” Joe said. “And sorry scum like Drake is still breathing while Jeff’s being buried.”

“He’ll get his. So will Tucker and Burke.”

Carly didn’t miss Joe’s sideways glance. “What? Is something out of place?” She stopped and looked down at her uniform.

“No, you look fine. It’s just . . . well, you’re different.”

“Me, different? How?”

“A couple of weeks ago you’d have been screaming for blood, and now . . .” Arms folded, Joe looked bemused.

Carly grinned. “I just have a different perspective. And faith that things will work out the right way.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s good for you.”

They kept walking to the car, where they were met by Joe’s wife, Christy.

“Where’s the baby?” Carly asked.

“With Grandma and Grandpa. I don’t think he’s ready for something like this. But I wanted to come and pay my respects. I’ve met Elaine once or twice. She’s a sweet lady. How’s she holding up?”

“Pretty well. I spoke to her this morning. She has a lot of family, and her church has been a huge support group.” Carly would forever remember her last conversation with Elaine. The woman was a rock, so certain she’d see Jeff again someday.

They climbed into the car as a lieutenant gave the signal that it was time to caravan to the church. Carly gave Christy the front seat, Joe drove, and she sat in the back.

The church was filling up when they arrived. This time the mourners were almost all uniformed personnel. A few newspeople milled about. Interest in Jeff wasn’t terribly high since the FBI hadn’t been very forthcoming with information. They wanted to be sure they’d arrested everyone in the PD and city government who needed to be arrested before they showed all their cards.

A press conference was scheduled for after the funeral. Carly knew all hell would break loose once details about the investigation became public knowledge. She wondered if Trejo would be there. He’d been truly shaken up by the beating and the close call with Drake and Tucker.
Thank God that’s all it was—a close call.

Carly took her place with a few hundred blue-suited brothers and sisters to pay final respects to Detective Jeff Hanks. In a couple minutes she’d be called to say a few words. It would be easy. She owed Jeff her life, and she wanted everyone to know what he’d done for her.

“How are you doing?” Carly asked Elaine as she gave her a hug. The funeral was over, and officers filed slowly away from the graveside. Pastor Rawlings had given another stirring message. This one touched Carly to the core. And it was a message she’d thanked him for.

“I’m good. I really am. Thank you for the eulogy you gave. I always knew Jeff was a hero. I never doubted him.”

Carly marveled again at Elaine’s strength. Her thoughts drifted to Nick in his hospital bed. Doctors hadn’t released him to attend the funeral. He was banged up, but Carly still had him and, she prayed, a shot at a second chance.

Elaine took Carly’s arm as they walked to the black limo waiting to take her and her children home.

“I can’t tell you how much it meant to me when you told me of Jeff’s last moments alive. I’m so proud of him.”

“You should be. Like I told everyone here today, Jeff was a real hero. His sacrifice saved a lot of lives.”

“Yes, it did. And how are you?” Elaine stopped at the curb and turned to face Carly, holding her gaze. “You went through quite a bit yourself.”

Carly squeezed her hand. “I’m more than fine. I feel reborn, and I have a great hope for what the future holds.”

“I’m glad. Please don’t be a stranger. I’m moving to Palm Springs to be close to family, but you’re welcome anytime.”

They shared a hug, and then Elaine climbed into the limo. Carly watched it drive away before she found Joe and Christy, and the three of them left for the return trip to the station.