All Day and a Night (39 page)

Carrie was trembling so hard that Bill was having a hard time keeping the knife steady against her throat.

“Your duty belt. You’ve got cuffs, and don’t try to tell me you don’t, or I’ll kill her. Put them on.”

Ellie had no choice but to comply. She had to hope that she’d thrown her gun without enough force to bury it in the branches.

As Ellie clicked the second manacle around her own wrist, Carrie began to whimper. “Why are you doing this? Bill? Please. Stop. Please.”

No, no, no
. The only way they walked out alive was to remain calm. “Carrie, take a breath,” she said.

“Why, Bill, why?”

“Please, Carrie, I need you not to hate me.”

“Bill,” Ellie said firmly. “How can you tell her not to hate you when you’re treating her like this. You’re scaring her. I’m cuffed, like you wanted. Just let her go, and you can walk outside. Take the car and leave.”

This wasn’t working. Carrie started to cry, and Bill tightened his hold on her. She was going to get them both killed if Ellie didn’t find a way to shut her up.

“He’s doing this because of Donna,” Ellie said suddenly. “You were right about Donna having a plan about your college fund. She made sure your friends didn’t apply for that scholarship.”

Carrie looked confused and then let out a cry. Ellie had hoped that the shock of realizing her best friend was a murderer might scare her into submission. Instead, she began to cry uncontrollably, the weight of her sobbing body pulling against Bill’s embrace.

Now it was Bill trying to calm her. “Carrie, stop. It’s—I don’t want to hurt you. Please. Donna—that was an accident. She—she knew I had a problem. We’d used together a couple of times. She was going to tell everyone. I was just trying to keep her from leaving. We fought, and we were both high out of our minds, and then I grabbed one of dad’s guns, just to scare her. She reached for it. It went off. Dad came home from graveyard and found me curled in a ball on the closet floor. She’d been dead for hours. What was I supposed to do?”

The more he talked—the more he tried to get Carrie to understand—the more inconsolable she became.

“Don’t you see—I’ve tried to do the right thing from that moment on. I didn’t go for the scholarship. I never used a single drug again. I went away to Cedar Ridge. And I had to learn how to forgive myself. But then I made the mistake of telling Joseph Flaherty, just to hear myself say it out loud. I figured he was too insane to understand.”

Carrie was wailing now, but Bill kept talking. He didn’t seem to notice the sound of feet stomping up the stairs of the porch.
No, Rogan
, she begged,
not now
.

But it wasn’t Rogan who appeared in the open front door. It was Will Sullivan, pointing a Sig Sauer pistol at his son. “Don’t do this, Bill. It’s like you said. You’ve tried to make up for what you did. That’s all anyone can do.”

“I got that doctor killed, Dad. Don’t you see? Flaherty trusted Helen Brunswick. He told her what he knew about me, and she didn’t believe him. He came to one of my town halls, the one in Utica the week before her murder. He said Brunswick had labeled him, that she’d gotten him in trouble with the police and made his illness worse. He was fixated on both of us. He said he’d find a way to make sure the truth came out. She’s dead because of me. And I nearly got Carrie killed. Plus, Anthony Amaro is free because of me. It’s all my fault.”

Carrie was catching her breath. Her eyes were locked only on Will Sullivan as she spoke to his son. “You’re a good person, Bill. Everyone in this room knows this. What happened with Donna was a long time ago,” Carrie said. “You were a different person then.”

“No, I’m not. I’m the same. I have to make it right.” He grabbed Carrie tighter and adjusted his grip on the knife.

Rogan suddenly appeared at the rear of the living room, his Glock trained at Bill’s forehead.

“Drop it!” he yelled. Two guns versus Bill’s one knife.

“They have my DNA.” Bill’s eyes pleaded toward his father. “You said so yourself. I was eighteen, and I was a crackhead. And I’ve been hiding my crime ever since. I’ll spend the rest of my life behind bars. I was a cop. And the son of a cop. You know what prison will be like for me?”

“Son,” Will said, “you’re making things worse. You’re terrifying Carrie, of all people.”

Ellie saw something change in Carrie’s stance. She had been trying to melt away from Bill’s body, but now she stood erect. Her face, no longer contorted with fear, appeared confident. “Everyone, stop! He won’t hurt me. He won’t. He
wants
you to shoot. But he won’t hurt me.”

I have to make it right. I was a crackhead. I was a cop
. Bill was right: he would spend the rest of his life in prison, and his imprisonment would be a living hell. He’d be better off dead.

“Dad, come on,” he pleaded. “You need to be the one. You know it.”

Ellie saw the father’s finger stiffen against his trigger.

“No!” Carrie yelled, pressing her body against Bill’s. “He won’t do it. Don’t shoot him.”

“Dad, please,” Bill begged. “I can’t spend my life that way. Do it. Please.”

Will’s face was red. His arms were beginning to shake. She could see father and son silently exchange a lifetime of memories and confidences. She could almost hear their plan: Bill would push Carrie to safety, and Will would take the fatal shot.

“Amaro will go free,” Ellie said.

Bill jerked his head in her direction.

“Your DNA is beneath Donna’s nails. He’ll say you were the one who killed all of those girls found in Conkling Park. You’ll be his reasonable doubt. He’ll put your father on the stand and call him an accomplice. He’ll accuse your father of murdering Flaherty to cover up your crimes.”

Confusion flashed across Bill’s face.

Ellie began to rise slowly from the sofa. Even in handcuffs, she could take a running charge at Will Sullivan if she had to.

“No! No, that’s not true. Dad meant to take Flaherty in. He was going to try to get him to see that Amaro really was guilty, that I wasn’t the devil, or whatever. Dad would never have taken that shot if Flaherty hadn’t had a gun.”

Ellie knew right then they’d never be certain what had been in Will Sullivan’s heart when he walked into Flaherty’s bedroom, but she remembered his rocking on his porch swing, cradling his bucket of licorice sticks the morning after the shooting. His regret had seemed sincere. He had even mentioned his belief that he would have been able to connect with Flaherty had there been any opportunity to speak.

She had to convince Bill he owed it to Carrie and his father to stay alive. “That’s why you can’t take the easy way out. You have to make this right, but that can’t happen here in this living room. You’re the only one who can tell the truth. You’re the only one who can keep Anthony Amaro behind bars.”

Will Sullivan lowered his weapon, but Rogan still had his gun fixed on Bill.

“I forgive you,” Carrie said. “I forgive you.”

He dropped the knife, and Carrie turned to embrace him. Will Sullivan placed his weapon on the end table next to Ellie and then headed for his son. Rogan lowered his gun to his side while he unlocked Ellie’s cuffs with his other hand.

They had to pull Will and Carrie away to make the arrest. As they walked Bill out the front door, Ellie heard Carrie consoling his father.

Rogan escorted Bill to the backseat of the BMW, then clicked the locks shut while Ellie called 911 for a proper transport vehicle. Ellie heard sirens in the distance, growing louder. Bill was staring out the window, knowing this was the last time he’d see his father’s house.

“Did you see that?” Ellie asked. “The way she was reaching for him?”

Rogan nodded. “For the man who killed her sister. Pretty remarkable.”

“She meant it when she said she forgave him. She forgave him instantaneously.” That, Ellie thought, was unconditional love.

“I had a shot,” Rogan said. “When he turned toward his father, I had him. But then you said Amaro would go free. He jerked, and the window closed. You saved his life, Hatcher.”

As she watched two Utica detectives move a boy they had known since childhood into the backseat of a marked car, she was certain that Bill Sullivan would disagree.

I
t was another two days before Ellie and Rogan returned to New York City. Ellie came home to find Max already asleep, the nightstand lamp left on at her side of the bed.

“You’re back.” He blinked at her sleepily. They had spoken multiple times a day while she was in Utica but she had missed seeing his face. She climbed into bed, and he wrapped his arms around her. She took a deep breath. He always smelled so good, like truffles and damp wood. This smell always made her feel safe.

“I’ve missed you,” she said, crawling into the nook between his chest and shoulder, her favorite place to sleep.

She was surprised when he adjusted his body to face her.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I wanted to wait until you were home. You were right.”

“Well, of course I was. But about what?”

“The fresh-look team. The case. From the very beginning, you said I was putting you in a bad position.”

“We already talked about this. It’s all good.” In her very first call to him after leaving Will Sullivan’s house, she had apologized for the arguments they’d been having about the case. They both promised not to let work come between them.

“But from the outset, it was my decision to put you and Rogan on the case that caused the problem. I may have picked you for all the right reasons, but I should have realized there would be issues.”

“Everything worked out, though. Truth, justice, etcetera.”

“But we fought more in one week than we have the entire time we’ve known each other. You think I liked having you sleep at your old apartment?”

“I’m sorry. I should have come home that night.”

“I know you, Ellie. Sometimes you overthink and undertalk.” He smiled and kissed her gently on the lips. “And I accept that. But we can’t keep going through this. I can’t keep
putting you
through this. You could have gotten killed up there, and it’s because I sent you off on some mission outside the department.”

She shushed him. “None of that was your fault. It’s fine, Max. Let’s just go to sleep.”

“I spoke with Martin today. I won’t be handling homicides anymore.”

“What? That’s ridiculous. He’s totally overreacting.”

“No, it was my decision. And it was the right thing to do. I should have done something about this when we first moved in together, but since we were saying it was just an experiment . . .” The thought trailed off. “Anyway, I’ve solved the problem. I’m just sorry I didn’t see it earlier.”

“There has to be an alternative. You could still handle murder cases. We could agree not to work on the same ones.”

“Not good enough. With the NYPD’s murder cases split up by county, our office really doesn’t handle that many, which means for me it’s only a few a year. And if it’s not one of yours, it’s still going to involve a coworker or a friend or one of Rogan’s former partners. It’s cleaner to draw a clear line.”

“But your career—”

“You’re more important. Besides, this is Manhattan. The real bad guys are on Wall Street. Martin agreed I can start handling more financial crimes. If anything, it’s a promotion, as far as stature’s concerned. It could even lead to something at the U.S. Attorney’s office. I think he was impressed that I took the initiative.”

“But I don’t want you to resent me.”

“I did this, Ellie, because to me you’re not an experiment. I’m not waiting every day, like you’re convinced I am, hoping you’re going to change. I know you’ve spent your whole life taking care of your mother and Jess, and, frankly, taking care of yourself. I just needed to know that you were also willing to take care of me. The last few months convinced me you are. So this is what I want to do.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. And please don’t overthink it. I’m not dumb. I saw how relieved you were when Jess said he could swing the rent on your apartment. And I know why you insisted that one of us pay individually for every purchase we made when we moved in. And, for the record, if you leave, the nightstands are yours.”

“No, it was because—”

“Stop, Ellie. It’s who you are. Part of you will always be thinking about the day you might need to be on your own again. What I’m trying to say is, I accept it.”

She wiped a tear away from her cheek. “And what happens when I don’t change my mind about kids? I know I said I’d keep an open mind, but I don’t see it happening.”

“Look, I happen to think any kid would be lucky to have you as a mother. I’ve seen how you take care of Jess. Hell, you help random strangers with their luggage on the subway. Whether you know it or not, you are naturally caretaking. And don’t stick your tongue out like it’s gross. But I’m not as dead set on kids as you’ve made me out to be. I just don’t want you to write off the option for the wrong reasons.”

“Someday you’re going to regret sacrificing for me. Kids. Your job.”

He furrowed his brow and then gave her a squeeze. “I will never, ever regret a single day I’ve spent with you, or a single thing I do to make those days with you better. That’s what I mean when I say I love you, Ellie.”

He was saying that he loved her unconditionally. As she returned his embrace, she truly believed that she felt the same way about him, at least to the extent that she knew how.

One Month Later

C
arrie scanned the three-judge panel for any follow-up questions. For better or worse, they looked like they’d heard enough.

“And for those reasons, Your Honor, the appellant respectfully requests that you reverse the district court’s decision certifying the class action and remand for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in
American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant
.”

The amber light on the lectern switched to red. Perfect timing.