She could still see the police in her rearview mirror. Of course, they thought she was a victim, the terrified hostage of a crazed carjacker. Sal was straight ahead, waiting, a windbreaker pulled close to his body, as if the day were cool. His gaze was fixed on a tall, muscular young man in baggy jeans and a tank top, approaching from the east. The man looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place him. She threw the car into park, stripping the gears, grabbed her gun from her knapsack and fell out of the car, screaming all the while.
"He tried to kill me, he tried to kill me," she screamed, running toward the pagoda. "Please someone help me, he's trying to kill me."
As she had hoped, her screams distracted Sal and the approaching man. She ran between them, firing once into the air, just to show them she knew how to use a weapon. But wasn't that how Luther Beale had started, firing one shot up into the sky?
"Whatever you have, drop it," she said. She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. "Both of you."
Sal looked stunned, while the muscular young man smiled. She finally placed him. It was the monitor from the Nelson's school, very much out of uniform. The one who had lectured her on survival.
"What makes you think I have a weapon?" he asked, his round face innocent and guileless. "He's the killer, aren't you Sal? He was probably fixing to kill me when he asked me to come here today. After all, I'm the only one left who knows what he did. Once I'm dead, he's home free."
Sal cried, a child's wail. "That's not fair, Eldon. We promised to never tell, not ever. All for one, and one for all. Besides, you're the one who asked me here."
"All for one and one for all. Right. I didn't see you helping the rest of us get fancy scholarships. From the day they split us up, it was every man for himself."
"But I didn't know where to find you. Ask her, she'll tell you. I even broke into her office just to get your address."
So this was little chubby Eldon, all grown up. He wasn't really listening. He was reaching behind himself, Tess saw. To scratch his back, or to pull out a weapon? It was a hell of a split-minute decision to have to make.
The cops made it for her.
"Freeze," one yelled, as six police officers came running across the lawn. "And throw your weapons down, now. Everybody. That includes you, miss."
Tess threw down her.38 happily. Eldon dropped a semi-automatic, a cruel-looking gun. Sal pulled a serrated butcher knife from his jacket, and let it fall to the grass. What a flimsy little thing it was, next to Eldon's gun, how inadequate. It would be hard, of course, trying to find a weapon at Penfield on such short notice.
"Eldon said he needed me," Sal said, almost sobbing now. "He said some shit was coming down, and he needed my help. You probably told Destiny and Treasure the same thing, you son of a bitch. Why'd you kill them? What'd they ever do to you?"
"Fuck you, man," Eldon said, his hands on his head as the cops patted him down. "You started it all. If it weren't for you, none of this shit would have happened."
Tess, who was also being patted down, looked at the two of them. She might as well get her questions in now. "There was a car, wasn't there, the night Donnie died. A car, and two more shots fired, just as Luther Beale maintained."
"I don't remember a car-" Sal began.
Eldon shrugged, a small, cramped gesture given that his hands were on his head. "A car? There may have been. It doesn't matter."
"It matters to Luther Beale."
"You really don't get it, do you?" Eldon looked disgusted. "Stupid bitch, stirring everything up, and never really getting it. None of that shit matters because Sal killed Donnie Moore. Didn't you, Sal? Oh, you were such a big man, carrying your gun around, trying to protect us all. Well, you protected Donnie right into the grave."
At the police station, as the cops tried to untangle the various felonies of the day, Tess almost felt sorry for the Beacon-Light police reporter, a young man she knew only by reputation. Herman Peters, aka the Hermanator, a man who was rumored to never, ever, be without his beeper. Rosy-cheeked, with dark curly hair, he looked like the kind of smiling boy who should grace a box of instant cocoa. But he was a tenacious, tough reporter, intent on fact and nuance, not as easily satisfied with the little scraps spoon-fed to the television reporters.
"I still don't understand," she heard him saying insistently to Tull, who was handling media while his fellow homicide detectives interviewed Eldon, Sal, and Pearson. Because of the public nature of the crime, the reporters had descended on the police station within minutes of the showdown in Patterson Park. "You say Donnie Moore was killed by his friend Sal Hawkings, but you're going to charge Eldon Kane with the murder of Keisha Moore and her boyfriend, and he's also a suspect in the deaths of the Teeter twins?"
"It's our supposition that Eldon was a hit man, working for the Nelsons. He killed anyone who threatened to expose their operation in D.C. Cops down there just executed a search warrant at the Benjamin Banneker Academy, found a basement full of stolen goods and an attic full of guns. They had expanded the scope of their operation since they moved to Washington."
"Back up a minute," the Hermanator pleaded. "I'm not getting all of this."
"Okay," Tull said with a grin. "It all begins with a couple who figure they can get cheap labor through the city's foster care system. The original mom-and-pop operation, if you will."
Sal should have been reading Dickens instead of Kipling, Tess thought as she half-listened to Tull unspool the dark yarn. The Nelsons had taken in foster children as workers in their fencing operation, at first a small-time operation. The original mom-and-pop burglary ring. The children had stolen car radios and anything else that wasn't nailed down, but the real money was in weapons. Sal had even helped himself to a gun from the Nelsons' cache. So when Luther Beale had opened fire that night, Sal had shot back. Problem was, he wasn't a very good shot, and he had ended up hitting Donnie instead. Or so he thought.
The children had sworn an oath never to tell what had really happened, not to mention guns, or stolen goods. They had assumed lies would keep their little family intact, but Donnie's death had started the inexorable process by which they would be torn apart.
Two years later, Sal had tracked down Pearson and wrangled his scholarship, threatening to expose him. "I was smarter than the others," he had bragged to Tess. "They were dumb motherfuckers." Yet Eldon had done the same thing, convincing the Nelsons to hide him after he jumped bail. They had been glad to do it for a few small favors here and there. And Destiny had been smart enough to try and shake the Nelsons down for money. Or dumb enough, given the outcome.
The Nelsons had strung her along until Eldon could kill her, but they had needed Tess to find Treasure. And when Keisha Moore had started asking questions, Eldon killed her, too. In his own way, Eldon was as much an over-achiever as Sal. He just focused his energy differently.
Tyner finally arrived, Luther Beale in tow. There were some charges pending against Tess-reckless endangerment, destruction of property-although Tull was reasonably sure the criminal charges would be dropped. Eventually.
"Pearson's insurance company isn't going to let you off the hook so easily," Tyler said gloomily. "Insurance companies don't make exceptions, even when you're trying to save someone's life."
"Hey, I did, didn't I?" Tess, who had been contemplating her own role in all the deaths on Butchers Hill, felt momentarily cheered. "I wish that made up for Treasure. Or Keisha. I feel as if I led Eldon straight to them."
"He would have found them one way or another," Tull assured her. Another olive branch. Why not? She had been right, after all.