The Gift of the Darkness (22 page)

“What if I hadn't?”

“I'd have put in a request for a new partner.”

A look passed between them.

“I need you to think straight now,” Brown said.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay,” he replied.

They sat down.

Out of all the implications and consequences of what Madison had just discovered, the first and most important was the one she was almost reluctant to articulate. After all the hours spent on the hows and whys. She had to say it out loud.

“If Cameron was punishing Riley for his insult to the dignity of his friends, the logical conclusion is that he is not responsible for their deaths.” The words felt strange in her mouth. “If he were, he would have welcomed the exposure: that would have fit nicely with arranging
the crime scene and positioning the bodies. He would have wanted the world to see it.”

“I don't think he did it.”

“When did you start to doubt?”

“When Payne called us about the glass.”

“Last Tuesday morning during the briefing?”

“Yes.”

“
Last Tuesday?
”

“I know.”

“You haven't mentioned this to anybody else?”

“I talked about it with Fred Kamen.”

“The glass was the last straw?”

“Something like that. At that point we had the torn check with the forged signature and the hairs in the ligature knot. It was too much good fortune for us. If you look at what we think was Cameron's previous work, the Sinclair crime scene shows a completely different pathology.”

“We still have all that evidence that needs to be accounted for.” Madison liked evidence; she relied on it. It stung her pride that someone had taken advantage of her beliefs and she would never have known if not for chance and a cup of coffee.

In her mind things were clicking and finding their place.

“If Cameron didn't kill the Sinclairs, somebody else did. The LA dealer and Sanders were involved, and Cameron found out.”

“Do you really think that's
their
style?”

“Let's go back a second here. You started to think about this on Tuesday. Since then we've had an arrest warrant out on Cameron, we tried to get Quinn to talk, we've been wading through rivers of paperwork, all with one single objective—to find Cameron. And the kicker is, he's the
wrong
guy. How, in the name of everything holy, did you not tell anybody?”

“I have
zero
proof; this is a hunch. A guess I happen to believe I'm dead right about. The only possible way to do this is to work both ends at the same time: we follow the trail the killer has left us to get to Cameron, and we back up on it to get to the killer himself.

“This thing wasn't thrown together at the last minute: the killer knew what we would be looking for, and he gave it to us. How he has chosen to lay the trap and build the setup tells us about him and how he thinks and what he wants out of this. Something else: Cameron might not have killed the Sinclairs, but three men in LA and one in Seattle are dead probably because he decided they should be. If the killer is close enough to Cameron, he can give him to us on a silver platter. And I'm not saying no.”

Madison chewed on that for a moment.

“Let's look at the Sinclairs again,” Brown said. “We can start with manner of death.”

“The wife and the children were shot; the husband was tied up and died of a heart attack brought on by inhalation of chloroform. We had concluded that the difference meant that the killer wanted James Sinclair to know his family was being slaughtered. It was his punishment for stealing from him.”

“What happens if we take Cameron out of the crime scene?”

“The killer still wanted Sinclair to die after everybody else. For Sinclair's death to be slow and painful while he saw what was happening to his family.” Somehow it was even worse than their first conclusion.

“Yes. And that doesn't look like something our LA friends would do.”

Madison sat back on her chair. “
Thirteen Days
is a warning to
Cameron
? And the guy is still out there.”

Brown nodded once. She knew he was right, and something cold snaked down her back. Retribution was swift in the circles Erroll Sanders moved in; they were low on detail work and high on ammo. This was something else.

Brown picked up the Crime Scene Unit report and flipped it open.

“From the moment Payne said we had Cameron's fingerprint on the glass, it was all about evidence.
Evidence
is how the killer is revealing himself to us. He used DNA and fingerprints to tie his target to the scene and constructed a motive using forgery and embezzlement.”

“Saltzman has finished with the tax records?”

“Yes. He found nothing that indicated Sinclair ever acted inappropriately.”

“We have the check and the money going in and out of his account.”

“How easy do you think it would be for me to open an account tomorrow in a different name? You spent some time at Sinclair's house. What was your gut feeling? Did the guy need extra cash?”

“No.”

“What about any other gut feelings?”

Madison shook her head. All that time spent watching their home videos: she had had a gut feeling and pretty much ignored it. Something came to her out of the blue.

“The ligature. You said that the amount of blood and cells on the ligature was not consistent with Sinclair's injuries, that there should have been a lot more, given the fight he put up. So we had the question of why did the killer retie his hands.”

“Now we know.”

“He did it to place the hairs in the knot. He couldn't have done it when Sinclair was alive and struggling.”

Madison was beginning to get a sense of the madman they sought. To find him, she needed to understand him. To fight him, something else would be called upon: something she was not altogether sure they taught at the Academy.

Her cell phone rang, and she jumped. She checked the time on the small screen: it was 10:45 p.m. The number was unknown.

“Hello.”

“Hello, is this Detective Madison?”

Adult male, over twenty and under fifty years old, local.

“Yes, who is this?”

“My name is Greg Phillips. You spoke with my father, Clyde, a few days ago in Laurelhurst. His house is opposite John Cameron's.”

The old guy with the shopping bags.

“Yes, of course. Is he all right?”

“He's fine, thanks. You left him your card, and, well, we just called 911. Someone was trying to break into Cameron's house. My dad said to call you, that you might be interested.”

“Yes, absolutely, thank you. We're on our way.”

Madison shut her phone and stood up, reaching for her jacket. “Somebody's breaking into Cameron's house.”

Brown grabbed his coat.

Chapter 26

They shot through the station, all the other detectives gone out or off shift. The traffic was light, and they made good time toward Laurelhurst. The temperature had dropped, and anybody with any sense had stayed home.

“What did Kamen say?” Madison asked once they were on Twenty-third Avenue.

“He picked up on the use of DNA and fingerprints; he said we should look into someone with an affinity for police work. Possibly someone who applied to the Academy and got turned down, who frequents cop bars and strikes up conversations. That kind of thing.”

“What if he applied to the Academy and didn't get turned down?”

“What he did to that family, I'm hoping something might have come up in the psych eval. That was not his first piece of work; he's had time to practice his swing.”

“Can we get the records from the Academy?”

“We should have them by tomorrow. I asked Payne to go over the glass again, check if it had been treated chemically in any way. Sorensen is looking at the hairs. It might tell us how he got them and stored them.”

Madison was still getting her bearings. First there was one, now there was
another
. Brown knew exactly what she was feeling. “Right this minute, Lieutenant Fynn is asking you the question, what do you say?”

She puffed her cheeks and blew out some air. “You know those pictures that are actually a composite of two images, like a trick of your eyesight? The thing is, you can't have both at the same time. You can see one, but you lose the other, and vice versa. I just know it was Cameron who beat up Riley, but if I see that, then I lose the bigger picture.”

He nodded.

“We still don't know why,” she continued.

“We've been dealing with why all week, and see where it got us. Today I'm just going to be happy with how and who.”

Madison shifted her holster a little and relaxed in the seat. “We had surveillance on the house.”

“Not enough hot bodies. They put the numbers into canvassing, and a patrol car would look in on the house every hour or so.”

“The chances of this being a casual B&E are pretty slim. Someone wants to have an eBay Christmas.”

“It could be a reporter getting a little too close; breaking and entering ain't what it used to be.”

“You know we're going to have to tell Fynn soon, right?” she said.

“Tomorrow. We'll catch him nice and early.”

“
After
his first cup of coffee.”

“You'd better believe it.”

They found Laurelhurst quiet and still, the residential streets already turned in for the night and a light mist softly rising. Brown hung a right into Cameron's street and slowed down. Left and right, cars were parked in their driveways.

One Seattle PD uniformed officer stood in the middle of the street, opposite Cameron's house. He saw them approaching, a flashlight in his left hand. Brown parked and identified himself and Madison as they exited the car. The beam of the flashlight swept over their feet. The air had a bite to it.

Cameron's house stood deserted, just as they had last seen it. Madison noticed a couple of windows still lit in the Phillips home across the road.

“My partner and I responded to the 911 call; the owners are not on the premises.” Officer Mason was tall and wiry, a plain face under his cap.

“We expected as much,” Brown said.

“Front door and windows are secure, but my partner has driven around to the other side, in case anybody came out that way.” Cameron's yard backed onto the end of another property on a parallel street.

Crackle came and went from the officer's radio. The sound of glass shattering hit them, and they were running, weapons out, up the drive toward the garage.

Behind her, Madison heard Officer Mason calling into his radio.

The sound had come from the back of the yard. The only way there was following the side of the house, with trees and bushes in your face and getting darker as you went deeper. She had been there before, her heart was racing, but it was only a chemical reaction, and it didn't worry her.

“I'll go in first,” Madison said. “I've walked it in daylight—it's pretty tight.”

“No, I'm on point,” Brown said. “You watch my back.” He went before she could say a word. She followed him quickly, the uniform a few steps behind her. In seconds, they had left the half-light from the street.

Madison held her left arm bent in front of her face to protect her eyes from the branches whipping back after Brown's passage. Under her feet the ground was hard and dry. In a minute they would get to the fence, and there would be a little more room for movement—just another few steps. Madison heard Brown ahead of her, twigs snapping, and a rustle of clothes. Suddenly, behind her, loud radio crackle. Madison waited for Mason to appear.

“Turn your radio down,” she said, quietly but firmly.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Madison turned to continue. Left arm up and right hand down, weapon pointed at the ground. She smelled the dead cat again—they were almost through. She had been listening carefully but had heard nothing out of place after the glass breaking. They'd see it soon enough—the door probably; there were glass panels there. She could get over the fence and to it in seconds.

She smelled the cat close by now and something faint under it. Chloroform. Madison started to turn, but it was too late. Her right hand, holding her Glock, was gripped tightly behind her. Someone was trying to get the gun off her. Chloroform, close to her face now. She felt him almost lifting her off the ground, knocking her head back against the wall, trying to get the cloth over her face.

No, this is not how it's going to happen. Breathe, try to get some air. Yell. You gotta warn Brown, gotta warn him
.

It was seconds, and the space between them was the longest of Madison's life.

She kicked back hard. The cloth finding her face smashed against the wall, something warm spilling over her cheek. Her left elbow thrust sharply and high behind her, all her strength in it. He yelped. Her right arm hurt. He had the strength, but she had the anger. Chloroform meant one thing: four dead bodies on a bed.

If she got a shot off, Brown would know to take cover. She'd probably just get it into the wall. It would cost her an arm fracture.
Fuck it
. She pulled as far as she could and fired, and something snapped, the pain white hot and the cloth over her face. The man swore.

She fired again. The gun dropped to the ground.
Don't breathe, don't breathe it in.

From far away she heard Brown coming toward them, thrashing through the bushes. His voice calling to her. Madison, blind in one eye, her eyebrow cut and blood all over her face, half drugged, on her knees, feeling the ground with her hands, looking for her weapon. “Get down!” Her voice burned in her lungs.

Three shots in rapid succession cut into the night. She saw the muzzle flashes six feet into the darkness ahead of her.

Brown, find Brown.
Madison tried to stand up, but her legs gave way. She couldn't hear well, ears still ringing from her own shots, but she sensed no movement around her. The man was gone.

She called out to Brown and heard nothing but silence. She put one hand on the wall, half standing, and kept calling. She found him lying by the fence, and even in the dim light she saw the blood, glossy on his chest.

No
. She did what she was trained to do. She dropped to Brown's side, saying his name, calling him back. She found his pulse with two fingers, faint as it was, her hand slick with her own blood. She bent to listen and heard him breathe, a thin sound that scared her more than anything else that night. And she kept talking, talking to him all the time, while she put pressure on the wound, and the sirens were already screaming in the distance, and she hoped to God there was an ambulance there and the paramedics would find them in the bushes.

Two patrolmen and a paramedic got to them in minutes. From a window a neighbor had seen a uniformed officer meeting the detectives. When she heard the shots, the woman called 911 and said she thought a police officer was under fire. She might have had the sequence wrong, but that got a rather snappy response.

“Are you shot?” someone asked Madison.

“No, I don't think so.”

“Can you walk?”

“He needs oxygen.”

“We know.”

The paramedic snapped a mask on Brown and tried to get Madison out and into the street, but she wouldn't leave until they had strapped Brown to a stretcher, and then she followed as they carried him to the ambulance.

By the time they came out, there were two more patrol cars, lights blazing, and a crowd was gathering around them. Under the streetlights Madison looked at Brown, and he looked dead.

“Is he going to be all right?”

“Get in the car. You'll see your partner in the hospital.”

“Is he breathing?”

“He's breathing. Now get in the car.” The paramedics were fast, and she knew they wouldn't stop for red lights. Her head was thumping, and judging from the faces of the cops around her, she knew she looked pretty bad herself. She turned to one of the two who had arrived first—she couldn't remember his name, could hardly remember her own.

“Secure the scene and call for Sorensen from CSU, you understand? Amy Sorensen.”

At that point she leaned on the car, because standing up was getting difficult, and when she steadied herself with her right hand, the pain was so stunning, she almost passed out.

Somehow she sat in the backseat of the patrol car, and they took off after the ambulance.

“You okay back there?” the uniformed officer asked her, turning fast and leaving rubber on concrete.

“Yeah,” she said, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from throwing up, wrapped in a blanket and sinking into shock. “Can you do something for me?”

“What do you need?” His eyes were in the rearview mirror.

“Get dispatch to call my boss, Lieutenant Fynn, Homicide. He ought to hear what happened.”

“No problem.” For a short while he spoke into the radio. “You guys got ambushed?” he then asked her.

Madison smelled the chloroform on her clothes.

“Something like that.”

Madison felt her holster, and miraculously the Glock was there, automatically retrieved, the safety on. She closed her eyes for a second, and the next thing she was aware of were the bright lights of Northwest Hospital's ER and someone calling out.

“What's your name?”

“Alice Madison. Where's my partner? He was brought in minutes before me.”

She was sitting sideways on a gurney. A doctor in green scrubs was pointing a tiny flashlight into her eyes while a nurse was cleaning a cut on her left eyebrow. It was deep and stung like hell.

“Look up now. They're looking after him—don't worry.”

“All due respect, but you don't tell me how he is, and I'm gonna go find out myself.”

Big words for someone too dizzy to put her feet on the ground, but she meant them, and he knew it.

“Adam, please,” the doctor said.

The nurse left to go check. On the table next to them, Madison's X-rays. She had been given clean scrubs. Her clothes, her belt, and weapon had been put in a plastic bag. It had been collected a few minutes earlier by a CSU officer who had dropped by to scrape under her nails for trace evidence. Things were moving fast.

The doctor stuck the X-rays on a viewer: Madison's head from both sides and her right arm.

“Your head's okay. It's going to feel bad for a while, but that's just the chloroform and the knock you got. No permanent damage there.” He gave her a little smile and pointed. “You have sprained your wrist and damaged the muscle that extends your elbow joint. Are you right-handed?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Keep the splint on, and no lifting of anything heavier than a cup of coffee. Your shoulder will be sore for a few days. Driving will be difficult and seriously painful, and I don't recommend you try it. A couple of stitches in your eyebrow will do it. The scar will go with time.” The doctor said that because patients aways asked. Then again, Madison didn't look like the kind who'd ask.

“Bag of frozen peas,” he added. “It'll help with the swelling.”

She nodded. The nurse came back. Madison turned her head too fast, and a jab of pain reminded her to be more careful. “They got him stabilized, and they're taking him to the OR. Dr. Taylor is taking care of him.”

“Dr. Taylor is our top neurosurgeon; your partner is in good hands.”

“What do you mean,
neurosurgeon
? Brown was hit in the chest.”

“There was a second GSW,” the doctor said, and he gave her a moment to absorb the news. “One shot went clean through, somehow missed his lungs and heart, and the other, Dr. Taylor is going to deal with now.”

Madison was glad she was sitting down. She nodded.

“I'm going to give you a breather. A resident is going to be back for the stitches.”

They left her alone. Madison sipped water from a cup. She had been given a painkiller, and Fynn was on his way. But all that mattered was that Brown was in the OR.

The cubicle she was in was by the side of the triage area; it was small but private. Voices rose and fell somewhere nearby, and muted footsteps hurried past. Madison was grateful for those few moments alone and the soft glow from the X-ray viewer.

In that drab and functional room, where people had received news that would change their lives, Madison gathered herself and looked for the strength and the clarity to do what she knew she must. She didn't have much time, and she only had one chance of getting it right. Lieutenant Fynn would be there soon, and he would want to see her.

This was not how it was meant to happen. It should have been tomorrow, catching him early and alone in his office, Brown leading the way and her backing him up. Instead, Brown was fighting for his life in a chilly room with neon lights, and she had to convince a sensible man, a good and steady cop, that black was white.