Page 65 of Lies He Told Me
“I know what a hit is, thank you. And no, it wasn’t a hit. He was talking to David. David made a move for the man’s gun, and it went off.”
Camille shakes her head with a hum. “That sounds like David.”
Those words slice through me. Another woman, a complete stranger, talking about my husband in such intimate terms.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” she says. “They had him tonight. The guy had a gun pointed at David. Why not just pull the trigger? If they’ve finally figured out that David is who they think he is, if their suspicions are finally confirmed — just pull the trigger. That’s how the mob usually works. No conversation. No last words. No explanation. Just wham-bam and get the hell out of there. But that didn’t happen. Why would the shooter possibly want to speak to David?”
I shrug my shoulders, like I have no idea. But of course I do. And now I’ve learned something important.
Apparently, David kept secrets from both the women in his life.
Camille doesn’t know about the money.
SIXTY-FIVE
TOMMY MALONE TRUDGES DOWN the side of the hill, almost losing his balance as he skids along the paved running path, currently slick with ice. The wind whips through his hair as he moves forward gingerly — there is no light this time of night. Ahead of him, looming like a great monster rising from the river, is Anna’s Bridge, still under construction after the accident.
This spot, he assumes, is almost exactly where David Bowers was standing on the night the car went off the bridge and into the Cotton River. A night when David Bowers almost lost his life. A night that would expose him, ultimately, as being someone other than David Bowers.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. The ibuprofen he took is finally starting to kick in. He should’ve known how strong David would be. And how desperate, too. Now he has a splitting headache and a fat lip to show for it. Jesus, if Tommy hadn’t stepped back and avoided the brunt of that headbutt, if David’s head had landed just an inch higherand connected with Tommy’s nose — who knows how that would’ve turned out?
From his jacket pocket, he unscrews the suppressor from the HK45 and tosses it overhand into the center of the river. The noise of the turbulent water and whipping wind drowns out all other sound. He doesn’t hear or see the long piece of metal hit the water. It just disappears into a murky mist.
He continues walking as he takes apart the firearm itself, removing the slide off the frame, the secondary and mainspring, the disconnector and control lever, the trigger bar and ejector — Frisbeeing them into the river one by one as he walks.
When he’s done, when the firearm’s in a dozen different pieces, some sinking down to the bed of the river, some light enough to be whisked away by the choppy flow, he stops. Lights a cigarette. Breathes out. Rolls his neck. First job is done — the weapon’s gone.
He squats down, trying to control his anger. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Shooting David was thelastthing he wanted to do. Now what? How is he supposed to get the money now, with David in the hospital clinging to life, with all eyes on him and the rest of the Bowers family? All his work trying to be covert, trying to operate under the radar, and now the whole damn town knows that David Bowers has been shot.
There’s only one answer, of course, and it won’t be easy: Marcie.
He has to find a way to get Marcie alone.
SIXTY-SIX
SERGEANT KYLE JANOWSKI HOLDS out his hand. Special Agent Francis Blair hands him back the phone after watching the footage from the security camera. “Just like you said, Sergeant. No way to identify the shooter. No facial features, and he was wearing gloves, so no prints.”
“We’re looking for the weapon,” Kyle says.
Blair grimaces. “If that guy works for Cagnina, he wouldn’t leave the weapon behind. He wouldn’t be that sloppy. He’s already dumped it.”
“What’s your gut tell you?” Kyle asks him. “Is everything that’s been happening in Hemingway Grove — is this Cagnina’s work?”
“Gotta be.” Blair parks himself in a chair and rubs his temples. He looks exhausted, Kyle thinks. He recalls everything he read about the Cagnina case, everything he learned from Ollie Grafton, too — the attack on the detention center where Silas Renfrow and the other two witnesses werekept. And then the fallout. Fingers pointing in every direction, blame assigned, careers destroyed.
Including Blair’s, Kyle imagines. True, they salvaged the case with the tax-evasion convictions, but the FBI suffered a real black eye with that attack.
“I lost friends in that attack on the detention facility,” says Blair. “And after that, do you know how hard it was to get witnesses to cooperate in any mob case? We’d promise them safety, security, and they’d throw Michael Cagnina in our face.”
It takes Kyle back to when he was a rookie on the job, and his field training officer took a bullet during a domestic-disturbance call. He remembers sitting in the hospital, holding the hand of his partner’s wife, wondering if he should’ve done something different during that call, if he could have prevented it. The guilt, the worry, was as heavy as anything he’d ever felt in his life.
Andhispartner survived. Blair, he lost friends that day. Kyle can’t even imagine.
“So what now?” Kyle asks.
Blair blinks out of his trance, gestures to the evidence sitting next to him, the sealed paper sack containing David Bowers’s clothes. “One step at a time,” he says. “We know David is Silas, but we need proof before we can act. So I’ll run the DNA and confirm it.” Blair clears his throat. Sounds like he’s got a cold. “In the meantime, I think it’s best we downplay the federal involvement. Downplay, as in, I’m not here at all.”