The Gift of the Darkness (27 page)

Lieutenant Fynn knew that Madison had told him first out of courtesy and respect. At that moment, though, he'd rather be dealing with an idiot without manners who did what he was told.

“Is this what you want?” he asked her with his hand on the doorknob. There was a grim note to his voice that meant
consequences
.

“Yes.”

“I cannot physically stop you from talking to him, but I can and will do whatever I can to prevent you from compromising this investigation. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He opened the door and called out. “Spencer, Dunne, get in here now.”

Spencer and Dunne had not slept for two days; they had been home for a couple of hours when they were called to the ambush crime scene, and since then they had been on their feet. They came in punchy and tired, but Fynn's bleak expression woke them up fast. Spencer was the primary, and Dunne was his partner; if one knew, they both knew.

“Madison's got something to say. You might want to sit down.” Fynn crossed his arms and leaned against the closed door.

Spencer and Dunne looked from one to the other. Madison began; she kept it simple and quick. When she was done, no one said anything.

Dunne ran his hands over his face. “What the hell,” he said after a while.

Spencer's reaction was more difficult to gauge. His eyes stayed on Madison. “You have absolutely no proof of this?”

“No, I'm working on that.”

“You're working on dismantling your own case?”

“I know the man who shot Brown was not Cameron.”

“You barely saw him. Your description said ‘a plain face,' no distinctive characteristics. You don't know for sure it wasn't him; the guy might change his appearance every day of the week—you know that?”

“I've been looking at his picture for days. I'm telling you, it was somebody else.”

Fynn didn't say a word.

“And Brown agreed with all this?” Dunne butted in.

“Absolutely.”

Fynn stepped into the middle of the room. “That's what he was ‘looking into'; we don't know what he would have said today. He might very well have decided that there wasn't enough evidence to support this angle. Actually, there isn't
any
evidence to support it at all.”

Madison opened her mouth to interrupt.

“Let me finish. We don't know he wouldn't have let this go. You don't know, Madison.”

“No way. He was about to come to you himself.”

“But he didn't.” Fynn sighed. “I have looked at the file again, I have reread every word of it ten times, and I do not see even the beginning of doubt. Madison, you've been through something awful in the last twenty-four hours. Isn't it possible that you're stuck on this out of loyalty to Brown? He's a great cop, he was checking every angle as he should, but he would have moved on by now.”

“What are you saying, exactly?”

“You were attacked, and your partner got shot, and your judgment is out of whack. You feel guilty because you think you didn't watch his back, and you're obsessing about something he said that he probably would have taken back today.”

“You think I'm doing this because I'm
stressed
?”

“It wouldn't be the first time it happened.”

“All due respect, sir, but that's a crock.”

“You are on medical leave, Detective. I suggest you go home and rest.”

“And that will make it all better?”

“You might also want to rethink the attitude.”

Spencer and Dunne stood transfixed by the exchange.

Fynn turned to them. “I want to have a few words with Detective Madison, in private.” They left.

Madison lowered her chin and got ready for the fight.

“How long?” he asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“How long do you think it will take for that conversation to filter through to the whole precinct?”

She shook her head.

“Not long,” he continued. “It means anything you do now is going to be tainted. It means that, as per my recommendation, you will not be allowed back on duty until you have undergone a psychological evaluation.”

“That's just—”

Fynn raised his hand. “It means anything you say or do now can be used by Quinn to contest the warrant.”

Madison stopped midsentence.

“It's called ‘deniability,' and it's not a gift,” Fynn continued. “It's going to be on your record.”

“I don't care.”

“I didn't think you would.”

As she was leaving, she turned to him. “Brown wouldn't have changed his mind, you know.”

“Go home,” he said, not unkindly.

Spencer was waiting for her. He motioned for her to follow, and they went into the rec room.

“What was that about?”

“You heard me. That's as much as I know.”

Spencer was a calm thinker. If Madison had any hope to get through to anybody, it would be him.

“You really believe this?” he asked.

Madison felt suddenly exhausted. “He tied the ligature twice so he could leave the hairs for us to find.”

“But you don't know why.”

“No.”

There was a moment of quiet between them. Spencer opened the fridge, took out a small carton of juice, and pressed the tiny straw through the hole. It was the kind of thing a child might drink. He was making up his mind about telling her something or holding back.

“We're following a lead from Harbor Patrol,” he said. “You were right about the boat thing.”

Madison was glad and sorry to hear that. “I need some time to work through this.”

“I don't know how long you're going to get.”

“What can you tell me about the lead?”

He shook his head. “I don't think my telling you anything is a good idea right now. You go home and do what you do. We'll see who's going to get there first.”

Outside, the sun had decided to call it quits, and the sky was white with snow. Madison grabbed a cab. Once at home on her sofa, she dialed the phone and lay back with her eyes closed.

“Rachel, I'm sorry. I wouldn't be very good company tonight. I'll come over another time. Thank you anyway.”

“I'll drop something off if you like, so Tommy can see you for just a minute.”

Rachel brought lasagna in an oven dish. They popped open a couple of beers, and while Rachel was busy with the microwave, Tommy examined her injuries. He was a bright six-year-old who knew about running around and getting his knees scraped.

He put his finger lightly on a stitch in Madison's brow. “Does this hurt?”

“Not really.” Actually, it was just beginning to hum.

Gently, he turned her arm around to see the splint. He touched her fingers to make sure they still worked. He took a step back. “You don't look too bad,” he said.

“Thank you,” she replied.

“Did you sing ‘Blackbird'?”

After every cut and graze. Rachel had sung the Beatles' “Blackbird” to him ever since he was a baby. Magical healing.

“Yes, I did,” she said.

“Did it help?”

“It did.”

He was only one year younger than the younger Sinclair boy, David. One week ago at that moment, David Sinclair was likely having dinner with his parents and brother. In a few hours, a man would walk into his bedroom and shoot him in the head as he slept.

Rachel and Tommy left. Madison hugged the boy tightly before they strapped him into the backseat and was glad she had washed the gunpowder off her hands and changed her clothes. He smelled of cookies.

Madison waited for their car to disappear up the drive and down the road. Back inside, she went into her bedroom and retrieved the holster and the .45 from the safe. She felt stronger after the food, and restless.

The Sinclair house was deserted—the patrol cars that had been posted there earlier in the week had received other assignments. When Madison remembered that she still had the keys, she knew she had to go back.

The neighborhood was quiet, and the walk there was brief. She put the key in the door and let herself in. In the hall, she stood and looked around. Nothing had been moved since the last time she had been there; only her own world had been turned upside down. The Sinclair house was a clock that had stopped a week ago.

Kamen had said that she had to see Cameron as a victim: if Madison could see how he had been chosen, it would get her one step closer
to the killer. Now, given that Cameron was not available, the Sinclairs were the next best thing.

Madison breathed in to get used to the smell more quickly; seven days after the fact it felt old and unpleasant, just bad enough to be a distraction.

She would go upstairs. She knew she had to, but not right away: the upstairs had everything to do with the Sinclairs' deaths, and Madison hoped to learn something about their life. If they had been chosen to carry the weight for Cameron, somewhere, somehow their paths and the killer's must have crossed.

Madison sat on the sofa. It was comfortable, and she sank into it, feeling the last twenty-four hours in her bones, replaying in her mind the conversation with Kamen, reminding herself that she had to try Sorensen at the Crime Lab for the third time. In a corner, a small table lamp threw a patch of light onto the wooden floors.

Madison told herself that she was going to close her eyes only for one minute. One minute and she would open them. One minute. Out of utter weariness she fell into a deep, heavy sleep without dreams or movement or sound.

A puff of cold air woke her—that's what she thought at first. Her eyes blinked open as the cool scent of the night outside brushed her cheek. Sometime while she slept she had lain down, as if she were at home on her own sofa. Then she heard the lock of the French doors click shut, and the hairs on her arms stood up.

She lay on the sofa, her body frozen in place and her breath caught in her throat. She felt more than heard the presence in the room, someone standing behind the high back of the sofa, who could neither see her nor be seen.

There was movement a few feet behind her, maybe someone taking a couple of steps. Madison tried to relax her stiff muscles, but even her stillness had a sound, a humming of blood in her ears that washed over almost everything else. She wanted to gather herself and get her brain to stop racing and just listen.

She was safe where she was. She had the advantage: she was armed and ready to tussle. Never mind that the gun was behind her, pressed
against the sofa. Just be quiet and listen. The person wasn't moving; he was standing five to six feet behind her. All her senses were telling her was that someone was standing there,
looking around
.

Only two men in the whole world had any reason to be there. That knowledge bore into her with piercing and sudden clarity: “Officer Mason” might be standing close enough for her to reach out and touch, or, if she was lucky, it was John Cameron, alleged murderer of nine.

Then, with a sound no louder than a whisper, the person started to move away. First, he was in the hall, and from there he went into the kitchen.

Madison stirred. The adrenaline made her chest ache, and she was glad to find the floor under her feet as she slid off the sofa. In one movement her hand found the .45, flicked the safety latch off, and cleared leather.

A beam of light danced on the ceiling in the hall, falling on the alarm panel by the door.

Madison, the gun pointed to the floor, leaned forward from behind the armrest, her eyes barely clearing the fabric: the man was examining the panel, his back to her, dark clothes, dark hair. He had a small flashlight in one hand, his left, and the other was on the panel. No weapons—at least none that she could see. If she got to him now, unprepared and unarmed, she could have him on the floor in seconds.

Madison narrowed her eyes; it was difficult to see in the gloom. What was the man doing? Never mind, she could ask him later, once he was cuffed in the back of a blue-and-white, thank you very much. Now—it had to be now. She had to do it before he turned around.

Madison stood straight up and spoke in a clear, unequivocal voice. “Seattle PD. Don't move.”

The man didn't so much as flinch. Madison came around from behind the sofa, left arm straight out, front sight at the center of the man's back.

“Do exactly as I say when I say it, and we'll be just fine. Do you understand?”

The man did not reply. He stood with his back to Madison, his arms slightly raised as if he had chosen to stop at that moment in time.

With her right hand, Madison found the switch for the overhead light in the hall. She flicked it on.

“Do you understand?” she repeated slowly and clearly.

The man did not reply. There was at least ten feet between them, and two thoughts occurred to Madison: the first was that the last time she had been up close and personal with Officer Mason, things hadn't gone so well for the home team. The second was that John Cameron had been close enough to slash Erroll Sanders's throat, and the guy had probably never even seen the knife before it came for him.

Whoever it was she was speaking to, the wise thing to do was to keep a polite distance.

“Okay, not a big talker. I don't care. This is what I want you to do, and it is not optional. I know you can hear me—”

He was a dark-haired man, broad shoulders. Gloves—he was wearing black leather gloves.

Madison edged to one side but still couldn't see his face.

“—and you can understand me. I want you to put your hands over your head and drop to your knees. Do it, or you will not get out of this in one piece.”

Her voice was steady, her hand dead still. The man did not move.

Madison flashed back: getting out of the car, the police officer meeting her and Brown, walking together toward the house. The sense of him, his height and body shape, before the attack.

Well, here goes nothing, Madison thought.