True Blue (29 page)

It was just Mace and the coffin in a small room next to where the memorial service would be held. She remembered every smell, every sound, and every breath she’d drawn in the few minutes she stood there, staring at the big wooden box with the metal handles on the sides containing her dad. To this day she wasn’t sure why she’d done it, but she’d gathered her courage, walked up to the casket, held her breath, and pushed the top open.

As soon as she saw him, she wished someone had stopped her. She stared at the body lying there for a few terrible seconds.

That face.

Or what was left of it.

Then she’d turned and run from the room, leaving the top still up. That wasn’t her father. Her father didn’t look like that
.

Mace rushed to the bathroom, and ran cold water over her head and splashed some on her face. She looked at herself in the darkened reflection of the mirror. She could never shake the feeling that she had let him down somehow. If she had just reacted in a different way, seen or heard something, she believed that her father would still be alive. If she only had done something! Anything!

My fault. Age twelve. My fault.

Beth had found her hiding in a closet at the church after closing the casket. She too had seen her father dead. And neither sister had ever talked about it since. Beth had held Mace for what seemed like forever that day, letting her cry, letting her shake, but telling her that everything was going to be okay. That the body in the coffin was just a body, their dad had already gone on to a much better place. And he would watch over them forever. She’d promised. And Mace had believed her. Her sister would never lie to her.

Beth being next to her was the only reason she had made it through the service. It certainly hadn’t been her mother, who’d blubbered through the whole event, including when the soldier had handed her the U.S. flag in recognition of her father’s service in Vietnam. When the honor guard had started shooting their rifle salute everyone covered their ears. Everyone except the two Perry sisters. Mace remembered quite vividly what she had been thinking when those rifles fired a total of twenty-one rounds.

I wanted a gun. I wanted a gun to kill whoever had killed my dad.

And though she’d never asked, Mace felt certain that Beth had been thinking the very same thing.

Her mother had refused the shell casings offered by the honor guard. Beth had taken them and given eleven to Mace and kept ten for herself. Mace knew that Beth kept her bag of casings in her desk drawer at her office. Once when she’d been with the force and met with her sister to go over some work, she’d seen a pensive Beth open the drawer, take out the casings, and hold them tightly in her hand, as though channeling her father’s wisdom.

Mace drank some water from her cupped hand, walked back into her bedroom, opened her knapsack, and pulled out her bag of eleven shell casings. Beth had of course kept them for her when she went to prison. She held them against her chest, the tears staining her cheeks as she desperately tried to absorb some wisdom of her own from the best man she’d ever known. But nothing came.

The aftermath of her father’s murder and her mother’s withdrawal from the lives of her daughters had made Mace increasingly vulnerable. It was a feeling she hated. She’d become a cop, in part, to allow the weight of the badge and the threat of her gun to override that vulnerability. She desperately wanted to belong to something. And the MPD served that desire.

Did she also want to follow her sister? Even show she might be better than her in certain respects? Mace couldn’t, in all honesty, deny that.

A half hour later she changed into her workout clothes and did some stretching and push-ups. The blood rush to her muscles was very welcome, after the weary night and the early morning soul searching.

The sun was well up now and the air outside was warm, which was good because Mace couldn’t seem to get rid of the chills. She stepped outside and started her run. The estate was big, with a well-marked trail that wound in and out of trees and head-high bushes. She’d been running for half an hour when she stopped, turned, and her hand flashed to her waist. To pull the gun that wasn’t there.

“You
are
good,” said the voice. “Lucky for me you’re not packing.”

The man stepped clear of the tree line. He was a shade below six feet and wore an Army green muscle shirt that showed off his ripped physique and jeans that were very tight around his bulging thighs. Lace-up combat boots were on his feet. A pistol rode in a clip holster on his belt; an extra mag for the weapon sat in a compartment next to the gun. His hair was shaved military short, his face tanned and weathered.

“I’ve been standing there for ten minutes waiting for you to come by. I didn’t move a muscle. Heartbeat’s at fifty-two and mellow, so you didn’t hear that. Never made a sound. What gave me away?”

Mace walked over to him and lightly smacked him on the face. “Either cut down on the Old Spice or stay upwind of me.”

He laughed and put out his hand. “Rick Cassidy.”

“You’re the former SEAL?”

He cocked his head and gave her a lopsided smile. “Okay, how do you figure? I’m wearing Army green.”

“Most SEALS I know like to wear the Army green because they know they look better in it than the trench boys do. Your face has seen a lot of sun, salt, and ocean wind. You’ve also got on standard-issue Navy-class stomp boots. And a SEAL I dated said you guys swore by the H&K P9S that’s riding in your belt holster.” As he stared down at his gun she added, “Its silhouette and grip are pretty distinctive.”

“You live up to your rep, Ms. Perry, I’ll give you that.”

“Already got a dossier on me? And the name’s Mace.”

“Everyone who comes here gets the same intel treatment. Mace.”

“I’ve got no problem with that. How did you end up here?’ “Mr. Altman is a great guy. He made me a great offer.” Cassidy paused. “And he helped take care of my little sister. Leukemia. My parents had no health insurance.”

“Did she make it?”

“Graduating from college this year.”

“That’s very cool, Rick.”

“Mr. Altman wants to see you up at the main house when you get a chance. I smelled croissants baking in the kitchen. Herbert’s on a roll. And the coffee is always fresh. I understand there’s a seat waiting for you. No rush. Whenever.”

“Thanks, Rick. Any idea what he wants me for?”

“Something about a mom and her kid and a dude named Psycho. Ring any bells?”

“More than one, actually.”

“Keep running hard, Mace.”

“One more thing, Rick.”

“Yeah?”

“This stuff I’m doing for Abe, it might lead to some unsavory characters taking a special interest in me. They might follow me back here. Just a heads-up.”

“Forewarned is always a good thing, Mace. Thanks.”

She turned to start up her run again. When she looked back, Cassidy had disappeared back into the trees. For a number of reasons, that gave her a great sense of comfort. She ran back to the guest-house, sat in the hot tub for a while, showered, changed, and killed some more time as images of her dead father finally faded away. Then she trudged over to the main house. To talk about moms, babies, and bandits named Psycho.

“Got a letter here for you,” said her aide.

“Who from, Donna?”

“Mona Danforth.”

“Bring it in.”

Donna Pierce punched in the numbers on Beth’s secure office door, brought the letter in, handed it to her, and then turned to leave.

“Who delivered it?” Beth asked.

“It wasn’t Ms. Danforth, of course,” Pierce said, barely hiding a smile. “Hard for her to walk all this way in those four-inch heels. Some wimpy guy in a suit who nearly ran out of here when I asked him if he wanted to speak to you directly.”

“Thanks.”

After Pierce left, Beth slit open the envelope and unfolded the heavy bond paper. The contents of the letter were short and the rise in Beth’s blood pressure was swift. She clicked some keys on her computer and read down several screen pages. After that she called the courthouse to check on something. Then she hit her speakerphone. “Pierce, get the wicked witch on the line for me. Now!”

Beth heard her aide struggle to suppress a laugh. “Yes, Chief, right away.”

Pierce came back on a minute later. “Her assistant says she’s not available for your call.”

“Put it through.”

Beth picked up the phone. “Chief Perry.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Chief, but Ms. Danforth is—”

“Standing right over your shoulder.”

“No, she has court—”

“I just checked with the docket clerk. She’s not in court.” Beth shouted into the phone, “Mona, if you won’t talk to me, then I’ll just take this letter you sent me up to Capitol Hill and see what the folks on the Judiciary Committee will make of you abdicating your role as protector of the people. The ensuing sound you’ll be hearing is your fading chances of being the AG, much less getting a seat on the Supreme Court.”

Beth waited, envisioning Mona walking to her office, slamming the door, and—

Mona’s voice barked out, “Listen, Perry, I don’t appreciate you talking like that in front of my people!”

“You can either address me as Beth or Chief. You use surnames for underlings. I am
not
your underling.”

“What do you want?”

“I read your letter.”

“Well? I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.”

“Yeah, you caved. In record time. And I want to know why.”

“I don’t have to explain my actions to you.”

“You wrote me a CYA letter that basically says you’ve washed your hands of Jamie Meldon’s murder investigation. What, did somebody threaten that you wouldn’t get the USA nod if you didn’t go quietly into the night? So much for him being one of
your
people.”

“If you were smart you’d back off too,
Chief.
”

“It has nothing to do with self-preservation, Mona. It has to do with right and wrong. And something called integrity.”

“Oh please. I don’t need you to read me an ethics lesson.”

“So what are you going to tell Meldon’s wife and kids? ‘Sorry, my career’s too important. Just get over Jamie’s murder and move on’?”

“I’m running the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office in the country. I don’t have time to run down every little—”

“This isn’t little, Mona. Homicide is as big as it gets. Someone is out there who took Jamie’s life.”

“Then you tackle it if you care so much.”

“A little tough to do when I was barred from the crime scene.”

“Can’t help you there.”

“So that’s your last word on it?”

“You bet it is!”

“Okay, here’s mine. I
will
tackle this. And if I find the least bit of evidence that you or anyone in your office impeded our investigation, I will personally see to it that your Armani-covered
ass
lands right in prison.”

Beth slammed down the phone, sat back, and took a deep breath. Her BlackBerry had been buzzing nonstop during her entire conversation. She checked it. Ninety-three e-mails all marked urgent. She had six meetings stacked back-to-back, the first of which was scheduled to begin in twenty minutes. Then she had two hours patrolling in Cruiser One and a roll call in the Second District, followed by her headlining two community events that evening. She also had to oversee the posting of nearly two hundred intersection cops because the president wanted to go to lunch at his favorite dive in Arlington, the Secret Service had informed her at six-thirty this morning.

A murder in Ward Nine last night had interrupted what little sleep she usually got. She’d finally made it to her couch at four a.m., catnapped for two hours, and was in the office at seven. Typical day in the neighborhood. And then there was the information she’d just received thirty minutes ago that had to do with Roy Kingman and her sister. Her phone buzzed again.

“Chief.”

It was Pierce. “Guys in Social Services want to know what you want to do with Alisha Rogers and her son. They don’t have room for them past this morning. Records show she has her own place so they say their hands are tied unless you really insist.”

And if I do insist, someone will leak it to the press and tomorrow’s breaking story will be about the police chief abusing her authority to get personal favors unavailable to other needy citizens
—

“Donna, reschedule my first three meetings until this afternoon. Just cram them in somehow. I’ve got somewhere I have to go. Tell Social they can release Alisha and her son into my personal custody.”

Beth pulled out her cell phone and punched in a number. “It’s Beth. We need to deal with this. Now.”

“I know,” answered Abe Altman. “I know.”