Guilt

Christina was glued to the child. 'I was upset, Mark. With the hormones, I guess. I got scared. Of course I'll come back. You're the father. I'd never think of raising the boy without his father.'

It seemed to anger him further. 'You're just trying to get your hands on this baby, aren't you, Christina? You'd say anything now, wouldn't you?'

'No, that's not true. But the baby is hungry, Mark. He hasn't eaten yet.'

Christina had re-introduced Diane to Glitsky, so he knew who she was. It would complicate matters if Dooher realized it. Glitsky had his gun inside his jacket. He'd drawn it only occasionally in his career, and had never fired it at a person.

If this turned out to be the first time, he wanted to know what was behind his target. He moved to his left.

'Stay where you are!' Dooher backed up a step. A wider angle on the room. 'Whatever you're trying to do, it's a bad idea.'

'I'm not doing anything.'

'You're moving. I don't want you to move.'

'And if I do, what then? Are you threatening to hurt your baby if I do, is that it?'

It didn't faze him. 'I'm holding my child, Sergeant. That's all. What are you doing here?'

'I heard you were here. I wanted to talk about Wes Farrell.'

A turn of his mouth. 'I don't know anything about Wes Farrell.'

The baby mewled quietly. Christina: 'Mark, please. Let me hold him.'

Glitsky looked to Christina, back to Mark. 'Let her have him, Dooher.'

He shook the baby, shushed at it.

'Don't shake him,' Diane said.

'You shut up. I'm talking to the Corporal here.'

Diane saw it clearly. He was going to wind up killing the child.

'All right,' Glitsky said. Talk to me.'

'I told you I don't know anything about Farrell. We were supposed to have a meeting today. He didn't show up.'

Glitsky was impassive. 'We found him. He wasn't dead. Not yet.' Christina was staring at Dooher. 'Oh God, Mark, not Wes. Not your best friend.'

Glitsky pushed at it. 'You thought the fall finished him, didn't you?'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

The baby began to cry.

'Please, Mark, let me take him.'

He shook his head at his wife, backed up another step, looking down at the infant. 'Shh!' At Christina: 'Wes wasn't any friend of mine. He's the one who poisoned you about me, who made you leave me.'

'So you killed him,' Glitsky said.

The baby wailed. 'Shh!' More roughly. 'Shhh!'

'Don't shake him, please. Don't shake him, Mark.'

But he was back on Glitsky, holding the baby against his shoulder, both hands around the tiny body, shaking him up and down. 'I thought you said he wasn't dead.'

'When we found him. I said when we found him he wasn't dead.' Glitsky played the trump. 'We followed you to the lake.'

'From where? Who did? What are you talking about?'

'Give it up, Dooher. It's over. We know where to look. We're going to find everything, aren't we?'

'And then what? You find a bag of wet clothes, big deal. You can't connect them to me.'

'I don't need to. I can connect Farrell to you.'

Dooher shook his head. 'You can't prove anything. Just like with Trang, just like with Sheila. That old proof keeps on fucking with you, doesn't it, Private? So Wes Farrell fell off a cliff. He died. So what?'

Glitsky's scar stretched white through his lips. 'So he didn't die, that's what.'

Dooher took in a breath. He nodded, bitterly amused. 'As if Wes Farrell matters.' He pulled the child closer to him, holding it with one arm, pointing with the other. 'You think Sheila, Victor Trang, Wes Farrell – you think I feel bad for what happened?'

The baby began crying again and he pulled it roughly against him, pressing the infant's face into his body.

'Mark, please! You're hurting him!'

Diane was in slo-mo. She stood up. She lifted the purse from the floor. 'Sit down!' Dooher barked at her.

'No.' She took a step toward him.

Christina, pleading. 'Please, Diane, no. Mark, just let him breathe. Let your son breathe.'

Dooher pointed at his wife. 'I had to have you, don't you understand that? After the trial, I told Wes I was sorry for what I'd put him through. If I'd made life hard for him, I'd make it up to him.'

Christina had her hands out. The baby, the baby. Anything he said, just let her have the baby. 'Okay, Mark, fine. We can talk about that.'

He included Glitsky. 'This nigger can't prove anything. They'll never convict me. We could start again, Christina. I could make it up to you. I could.'

'Dooher!' Glitsky said. 'Let the baby go.'

Diane moved forward.

He glared across at her. 'I told you to stop right there.'

'Give me the baby,' she said.

'Back off!' Dooher slammed a palm against the wall behind him. 'What do you think you're doing?'

The baby got a breath and managed another piercing yell.

Dooher took it in both of his hands. He held it up in front of him.

He kept shaking it. 'Shut up, damn it! Shut up!'

Diane Price dropped her carry-all purse to the floor and lunged forward.

Glitsky started to react, reached inside his jacket.

There was no time.

The gun was a metallic blur in her right hand moving toward Dooher's head. The sharp, flat report.

She let the gun fall. It clattered to the floor.

Diane grabbed for the child as Dooher collapsed.

The room hung for an instant in surreal suspension.

Glitsky smelled the cordite. His hand was still on his own weapon, but there was no need. It was over.

The baby began crying again.

Diane was bringing it over to Christina when the door flew open, a nurse and two attendants rushing in after the noise from the shot. They stopped in the doorway.

Diane laid Christina's son in her arms.

'He was killing the baby,' she said. 'I had to stop him.'

That would be her story, Glitsky knew. It was a good one.

Her eyes pleaded with him. Did he understand what she was saying? 'Guy says he's sorry and thinks that's enough? I don't think so.'

Glitsky nodded at her. He was going to arrest her, but she posed no danger at the moment.

He held out a hand to stop the influx of other staff crowding to the door. He crossed the room and went down to one knee next to the still and crumpled body. Almost as an afterthought, he picked up the small gun.

He felt for a pulse. The throat at the carotid artery twitched once under his fingers. Then he felt nothing. He leaned over, closer.

'It's Lieutenant,' he whispered.

CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

After his fight with Sam, in his heart Farrell had still wanted to believe that Dooher was turning himself in, that the guilt had gotten to him. But the more he considered it, the wiser it seemed to cover his bases, so he'd called Glitsky and the Lieutenant had given him his marching orders.

In the event that Dooher did not confess, if the meeting began to look like an ambush, Farrell was to extricate himself as quickly as he could, remembering to drop the bait – 'Glitsky knows where you hid the stuff.' Thieu would be tailing them, so the threat to Farrell would be minimal.

Minimal. Farrell had liked that.

It was a gamble, but their only chance. If Dooher took the bait, if he went to make sure his hiding place was still secure, Thieu would follow. Dooher would lead them to the evidence. Thieu would call Glitsky when he'd found something.

And that's what had happened.

But not soon enough for Farrell.

They hadn't planned on the fog and they'd underestimated Dooher's dispatch. Always stronger, faster, more determined than Farrell, Dooher had walked up close, concealing his intention, then come at him like an enraged bull. A blow to the solar plexus, then another to the face had driven Farrell backward, and Dooher had kept coming, forcing him off the pavement, on to the steep angle under the trees, all the way to where the land fell off and the air began.