Читать книгу Keeper of the Bride / Whistleblower: Keeper of the Bride / Whistleblower - Тесс Герритсен, Tess Gerritsen - Страница 10

SAM DROVE HER TO THE MORGUE. Neither one of them said much. He was being guarded about what information he told her, and she was too chilled to ask for the details. All the way there, she kept thinking, Who was Jimmy Brogan and why did he want to kill me?

In the morgue, Sam maintained a firm grip on her arm as they walked the corridor to the cold room. He was right beside her when the attendant led them to the bank of body drawers. As the drawer was pulled out she involuntarily flinched. Sam’s arm came around her waist, a steady support against the terrible sight she was about to face.

“It ain’t pretty,” said the attendant. “Are you ready?”

Nina nodded.

He pulled aside the shroud and stepped back.

As an ER nurse, Nina had seen more than her share of grisly sights. This was by far the worst. She took one look at the man’s face—what was left of it—and quickly turned away. “I don’t know him,” she whispered.

“Are you sure?” Sam asked.

She nodded and suddenly felt herself swaying. At once he was supporting her, his arm guiding her away from the drawers. Away from the cold room.

In the coroner’s office she sat nursing a cup of hot tea while Sam talked on the phone to his partner. Only vaguely did she register his conversation. His tone was as matter-of-fact as always, betraying no hint of the horror he’d just witnessed.

“…doesn’t recognize him. Or the name either. Are you sure we don’t have an alias?” Sam was saying.

Nina cupped the tea in both hands but didn’t sip. Her stomach was still too queasy. On the desk beside her was the file for Jimmy Brogan, open to the ID information sheet. Most of what she saw there didn’t stir any memories. Not his address nor the name of his wife. Only the name of the employer was familiar: the Good Shepherd Church. She wondered if Father Sullivan had been told, wondered how he was faring in the hospital. It would be a double shock to the elderly man. First, the bombing of his church, and then the death of the janitor. She should visit him today and make sure he was doing all right…

“Thanks, Gillis. I’ll be back at three. Yeah, set it up, will you?” Sam hung up and turned to her. Seeing her face, he frowned in concern. “You all right?”

“I’m fine.” She shuddered and clutched the mug more tightly.

“You don’t look fine. I think you need some recovery time. Come on.” He offered his hand. “It’s lunchtime. There’s a café up the street.”

“You can think about lunch?”

“I make it a point never to skip a chance at a meal. Or would you rather I take you home?”

“Anything,” she said, rising from the chair. “Just get me out of this place.”

NINA PICKED LISTLESSLY at a salad while Sam wolfed

down a hamburger.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said. “How you

go straight from the morgue to a big lunch.”

“Necessity.” He shrugged. “In this job, a guy can

get skinny real fast.”

“You must see so many awful things as a cop.” “You’re an ER nurse. I would think you’ve seen

your share.”

“Yes. But they usually come to us still alive.” He wiped his hands on a napkin and slid his empty plate aside. “True. If it’s a bomb, by the time I get to the scene, we’re lucky to find anyone alive. If we find much of them at all.”

“How do you live with it? How do you stand a job like yours?”

“The challenge.”

“Really, Navarro. How do you deal with the horror?”

“My name’s Sam, okay? And as for how I deal with it, it’s more a question of why I do it. The truth is, the challenge is a lot of it. People who make bombs are a unique breed of criminal. They’re not like the guy who holds up your neighborhood liquor store. Bombers are craftier. A few of them are truly geniuses. But they’re also cowards. Killers at a distance. It’s that combination that makes those guys especially dangerous. And it makes my job all the more satisfying when I can nail them.”

“So you actually enjoy it.”

“Enjoy isn’t the right word. It’s more that I can’t set the puzzle aside. I keep looking at the pieces and turning them around. Trying to understand the sort of mind that could do such a thing.” He shook his head. “Maybe that makes me just as much a monster. That I find it so satisfying to match wits with these guys.”

“Or maybe it means you’re an outstanding cop.”

He laughed. “Either that or I’m as screwy as the bombers are.”

She gazed across the table at his smiling face and suddenly wondered why she’d ever considered those eyes of his so forbidding. One laugh and Sam Navarro transformed from a cop into an actual human being. And a very attractive man.

I’m not going to let this happen, she thought with sudden determination. It would be such a mistake to rebound from Robert, straight into some crazy infatuation with a cop.

She forced herself to look away, at anything but his face, and ended up focusing on his hands. At the long, tanned fingers. She said, “If Brogan was the bomber, then I guess I have nothing to worry about now.”

“If he was the bomber.”

“The evidence seems pretty strong. Why don’t you sound convinced?”

“I can’t explain it. It’s just…a feeling. Instinct, I guess. That’s why I still want you to be careful.”

She lifted her gaze to meet his and found his smile was gone. The cop was back.

“You don’t think it’s over yet,” she said.

“No. I don’t.”

SAM DROVE NINA BACK to Ocean View Drive, helped her load up the Mercedes with a few armloads of books and clothes, and made sure she was safely on her way back to her father’s house.

Then he returned to the station.

At three o’clock, they held a catch-up meeting. Sam, Gillis, Tanaka from the crime lab, and a third detective on the Bomb Task Force, Francis Cooley, were in attendance. Everyone laid their puzzle pieces on the table.

Cooley spoke first. “I’ve checked and rechecked the records on Jimmy Brogan. There’s no alias for the guy. That’s his real name. Forty-five years old, born and raised in South Portland, minor criminal record. Married ten years, no kids. He was hired by Reverend Sullivan eight years ago. Worked as a janitor and handyman around the church. Never any problems, except for a few times when he showed up late and hung over after falling off the wagon. No military service, no education beyond the eleventh grade. Wife says he was dyslexic. I just can’t see this guy putting together a bomb.”

“Did Mrs. Brogan have any idea why Nina Cormier’s address was in his car?” Sam asked.

“Nope. She’d never heard the name before. And she said the handwriting wasn’t her husband’s.”

“Were they having any marital troubles?”

“Happy as clams, from what she told me. She’s pretty devastated.”

“So we’ve got a happily married, uneducated, dyslexic janitor as our prime suspect?”

“Afraid so, Navarro.”

Sam shook his head. “This gets worse every minute.” He looked at Tanaka. “Eddie, give us some answers. Please.”

Tanaka, nervous as usual, cleared his throat. “You’re not going to like what I have.”

“Hit me anyway.”

“Okay. First, the gun in the car was reported stolen a year ago from its registered owner in Miami. We don’t know how Brogan got the gun. His wife says he didn’t know the first thing about firearms. Second, Brogan’s car was the black Ford that forced Miss Cormier’s Honda off the road. Paint chips match, both ways. Third, the items in the trunk are the same elements used in the church bombing. Two-inchwide green electrical tape. Identical detonator cord.”

“That’s Vincent Spectre’s signature,” said Gillis. “Green electrical tape.”

“Which means we’re probably dealing with an apprentice of Spectre’s. Now here’s something else you’re not going to like. We just got back the preliminary report from the coroner. The corpse had no traces of gunpowder on his hand. Now, that’s not necessarily conclusive, since powder can rub off, but it does argue against a self-inflicted wound. What clinches it, though, is the skull fracture.”

“What?” Sam and Gillis said it simultaneously.

“A depressed skull fracture, right parietal bone. Because of all the tissue damage from the bullet wound, it wasn’t immediately obvious. But it did show up on X ray. Jimmy Brogan was hit on the head. Before he was shot.”

The silence in the room stretched for a good ten seconds. Then Gillis said, “And I almost bought it. Lock, stock and barrel.”

“He’s good,” said Sam. “But not good enough.” He looked at Cooley. “I want more on Brogan. I want you and your team to get the names of every friend, every acquaintance Brogan had. Talk to them all. It looks like our janitor got mixed up with the wrong guy. Maybe someone knows something, saw something.”

“Won’t the boys in Homicide be beating those bushes?”

“We’ll beat ’em as well. They may miss something. And don’t get into any turf battles, okay? We’re not trying to steal their glory. We just want the bomber.”

Cooley sighed and rose to his feet. “Guess it’s back to the ol’ widow Brogan.”

“Gillis,” said Sam, “I need you to talk to the best man and the matron of honor again. See if they have any links to Brogan. Or recognize his photo. I’ll go back to the hospital and talk to Reverend Sullivan. And I’ll talk to Dr. Bledsoe as well.”

“What about the bride?” asked Gillis.

“I’ve pressed the questions a couple times already. She denies knowing anything about him.”

“She seems to be the center of it all.”

“I know. And she hasn’t the foggiest idea why. But maybe her ex-bridegroom does.”

The meeting broke up and everyone headed off to their respective tasks. It would take teamwork to find this bomber, and although he had good people working with him, Sam knew they were stretched thin. Since that rookie cop’s death in the warehouse blast a week ago, Homicide had stepped into the investigation, and they were sucking up men and resources like crazy. As far as Homicide was concerned, the Bomb Task Force was little more than a squad of “techies”—the guys you called in when you didn’t want your own head blown off.

The boys in Homicide were smart enough.

But the boys in Bombs were smarter.

That’s why Sam himself drove out to Maine Medical Center to reinterview Reverend Sullivan. This latest information on Jimmy Brogan’s death had opened up a whole new range of possibilities. Perhaps Brogan had been a completely innocent patsy. Perhaps he’d witnessed something—and had mentioned it to the minister.

At the hospital, Sam learned that Reverend Sullivan had been transferred out of Intensive Care that morning. A heart attack had been ruled out, and Sullivan was now on a regular ward.

When Sam walked in the man’s room, he found the minister sitting up in bed, looking glum. There was a visitor there already—Dick Yeats of Homicide. Not one of Sam’s favorite people.

“Hey, Navarro,” said Yeats in that cocky tone of his. “No need to spin your wheels here. We’re on the Brogan case.”

“I’d like to talk to Reverend Sullivan myself.”

“He doesn’t know anything helpful.”

“Nevertheless,” said Sam, “I’d like to ask my own questions.”

“Suit yourself,” Yeats said as he headed out the door. “Seems to me, though, that you boys in Bombs could make better use of your time if you’d let Homicide do its job.”

Sam turned to the elderly minister, who was looking very unhappy about talking to yet another cop.

“I’m sorry, Reverend,” said Sam. “But I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you some more questions.”

Reverend Sullivan sighed, the weariness evident in his lined face. “I can’t tell you more than I already have.”

“You’ve been told about Brogan’s death?”

“Yes. That policeman—that Homicide person—”

“Detective Yeats.”

“He was far more graphic than necessary. I didn’t need all the…details.”

Sam sat down in a chair. The minister’s color was better today, but he still looked frail. The events of the last twenty-four hours must be devastating for him. First the destruction of his church building, and then the violent death of his handyman. Sam hated to flog the old man with yet more questions, but he had no choice.

Unfortunately, he could elicit no new answers. Reverend Sullivan knew nothing about Jimmy Brogan’s private life. Nor could he think of a single reason why Brogan, or anyone else for that matter, would attack the Good Shepherd Church. There had been minor incidents, of course. A few acts of vandalism and petty theft. That’s why he had started locking the church doors at night, a move that grieved him deeply as he felt churches should be open to those in need, day or night. But the insurance company had insisted, and so Reverend Sullivan had instructed his staff to lock up every evening at 6:00 p.m., and reopen every morning at 7:00 a.m.

“And there’ve been no acts of vandalism since?” asked Sam.

“None whatsoever,” affirmed the minister. “That is, until the bomb.”

This was a dead end, thought Sam. Yeats was right. He was just spinning his wheels.

As he rose to leave, there was a knock on the door. A heavyset woman poked her head in the room.

“Reverend Sullivan?” she said. “Is this a good time to visit?”

The gloom on the minister’s face instantly transformed to a look of relief. Thankfulness. “Helen! I’m so glad you’re back! Did you hear what happened?”

“On the television, this morning. As soon as I saw it, I packed my things and started straight back for home.” The woman, carrying a bundle of carnations, crossed to the bed and gave Reverend Sullivan a tearful hug. “I just saw the church. I drove right past it. Oh, what a mess.”

“You don’t know the worst of it,” said Reverend Sullivan. He swallowed. “Jimmy’s dead.”

“Dear God.” Helen pulled back in horror. “Was it…in the explosion?”

“No. They’re saying he shot himself. I didn’t even know he had a gun.”

Helen took an unsteady step backward. At once Sam grasped her ample arm and guided her into the chair from which he’d just risen. She sat quivering, her face white with shock.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Sam gently. “I’m Detective Navarro, Portland Police. May I ask your full name?”

She swallowed. “Helen Whipple.”

“You’re the church secretary?”

She looked up at him with dazed eyes. “Yes. Yes.”

“We’ve been trying to contact you, Miss Whipple.”

“I was—I was at my sister’s house. In Amherst.” She sat twisting her hands together, shaking her head. “I can’t believe this. I saw Jimmy only yesterday. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“You saw Brogan? What time?”

“It was in the morning. Just before I left town.” She began digging in her purse, desperately fishing for tissues. “I stopped in to pay a few bills before I left.”

“Did you two speak?”

“Naturally. Jimmy’s such…” She gave a soft sob. “ Was such…a friendly man. He was always coming up to the office to chat. Since I was leaving on vacation, and Reverend Sullivan wasn’t in yet. I asked Jimmy to do a few things for me.”

“What things?”

“Oh, there was so much confusion. The wedding, you know. The florist kept popping in to use the phone. The men’s bathroom sink was leaking and we needed some plumbing done quick. I had to give Jimmy some last minute instructions. Everything from where to put the wedding gifts to which plumber to call. I was so relieved when Reverend Sullivan arrived, and I could leave.”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Sam cut in. “You said something about wedding gifts.”

“Yes. It’s a nuisance, how some people have gifts delivered to the church instead of the bride’s home.”

“How many gifts arrived at the church?”

“There was only one. Jimmy—oh, poor Jimmy. It’s so unfair. A wife and all…”

Sam fought to maintain his patience. “What about the gift?”

“Oh. That. Jimmy said a man brought it by. He showed it to me. Very nicely wrapped, with all these pretty silver bells and foil ribbons.”

“Mrs. Whipple,” Sam interrupted again. “What happened to that gift?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I told Jimmy to give it to the bride’s mother. I assume that’s what he did.”

“But the bride’s mother hadn’t arrived yet, right? So what would Jimmy do with it?”

Helplessly Helen Whipple shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose he’d leave it where she’d be sure to find it. In the front pew.”

The front pew. The center of the blast.

Sam said, sharply, “Who was the gift addressed to?”

“The bride and groom, of course.”

“Dr. Bledsoe and his fiancée?”

“Yes. That was on the card. Dr. and Mrs. Robert Bledsoe.”

IT WAS STARTING to come together now, Sam thought as he got back in his car. The method of delivery. The time of planting. But the target wasn’t quite clear yet. Was Nina Cormier or Robert Bledsoe supposed to die? Or was it both of them?

Nina, he knew, had no answers, no knowledge of any enemies. She couldn’t help him.

So Sam drove to Ocean View Drive, to Robert Bledsoe’s house. This time Bledsoe was damn well going to answer some questions, the first two being: Who was the other woman he’d been seeing, and was she jealous enough to sabotage her lover’s wedding—and kill off a dozen people in the process?

Two blocks before he got there, he knew something was wrong. There were police lights flashing ahead and spectators gathered on the sidewalks.

Sam parked the car and quickly pushed his way through the crowd. At the edge of Bledsoe’s driveway, a yellow police tape had been strung between wooden stakes. He flashed his badge to the patrolman standing guard and stepped across the line.

Homicide Detective Dick Yeats greeted him in the driveway with his usual I’m-in-charge tone of superiority.

“Hello again, Navarro. We have it all under control.”

“You have what under control? What happened?”

Yeats nodded toward the BMW in the driveway.

Slowly Sam circled around the rear bumper. Only then did he see the blood. It was all over the steering wheel and the front seat. A small pool of it had congealed on the driveway pavement.

“Robert Bledsoe,” said Yeats. “Shot once in the temple. The ambulance just left. He’s still alive, but I don’t expect he’ll make it. He’d just pulled into his driveway and was getting out of his car. There’s a sack of groceries in the trunk. Ice cream barely melted. The neighbor saw a green Jeep take off, just before she noticed Bledsoe’s body. She thinks it was a man behind the wheel, but she didn’t see his face.”

“A man?” Sam’s head snapped up. “Dark hair?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, God.” Sam turned and started toward his car. Nina, he thought, and suddenly he was running. A dark-haired man had forced Nina off the road. Now Bledsoe was dead. Was Nina next?

Sam heard Yeats yell, “Navarro!” By then, he was already scrambling into his car. He made a screeching U-turn and headed away from Ocean View Drive.

He drove with his emergency lights flashing all the way to George Cormier’s house.

It seemed he was ringing the bell forever before anyone answered the door. Finally it swung open and Daniella appeared, her flawless face arranged in a smile. “Why, hello, Detective.”

“Where’s Nina?” he demanded, pushing past her into the house.

“She’s upstairs. Why?”

“I need to talk to her. Now.” He started for the stairway, then halted when he heard footsteps creak on the landing above. Glancing up, he saw Nina standing on the steps, her hair a tumble of black silk.

She’s okay, he thought with relief. She’s still okay.

She was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, and she had a purse slung over her shoulder, as if she were just about to leave the house.

As she came down the stairs, she brought with her the elusive fragrance of soap and shampoo. Nina’s scent, he thought with a pleasurable thrill of recognition. Since when had he committed her fragrance to memory?

By the time she reached the bottom step, she was frowning at him. “Has something happened?” she asked.

“Then no one’s called you?”

“About what?”

“Robert.”

She went very still, her dark eyes focused with sudden intensity on his face. He could see the questions in her eyes, and knew she was too afraid to ask them.

He reached for her hand. It was cold. “You’d better come with me.”

“Where?”

“The hospital. That’s where they took him.” Gently he led her to the door.

“Wait!” called Daniella.

Sam glanced back. Daniella stood frozen, staring after them in panic. “What about Robert? What happened?”

“He’s been shot. It happened a short while ago, just outside his house. I’m afraid it doesn’t look good.”

Daniella took a step backward, as though slapped. It was her reaction, that expression of horror in her eyes, that told Sam what he needed to know. So she was the other woman, he thought. This blonde with her sculpted body and her perfect face.

He could feel Nina’s arm trembling in his grasp. He turned her toward the door. “We’d better go,” he said. “There may not be much time.”