“Oh, hell,” Hadley said.
A police chief always took a mayors phone call. That was just good small-town protocol.
“Tell him just a minute,” Hadley said.
He looked up at Sam, who was now standing.
“You’ve got to keep your feelings for Amy out of this, Sam.”
“I’d feel this way even if Amy wasn’t involved. We’re just arresting him way too soon.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Hadley said. “I have a gut feeling the son of a bitch’ll run away if I give him half a chance. That’s what convinced me, Sam. I don’t want to have to chase the bastard all over nine or ten states — when we just could’ve arrested him in the first place.”
He nodded to the phone.
“I better not keep the Mayor waiting any longer, Sam.”
Sam was walking back to his office when he saw Steve Arnette leaning against the red Coca-Cola machine.
“Looks like Amy’s little brother’s going to spend the night upstairs, huh?” he said.
So Hadley had told somebody else in the station and that somebody else had told somebody else and—
“We’ll just have to see what happens,” Sam said, not wanting the confrontation that the other two cops sitting at a lunch table wanted to see.
“The asshole’s guilty, Sam,” one of the other cops said. “Who the hell else would’ve done it?”
“He’s been in our face too damned long,” his partner said. “Always something with that bastard. Somebody always getting him out of trouble.” He shook his head. “This one, nobody’s going to get him out of.”
Arnette smiled. “I just wish the Chief would let me go arrest the sumbitch. I’d have myself a real good time, I’ll tell you that.”
“Boy, that sun is bright as hell in here, isn’t it?” Sam said.
“What the hell you talking about, Sam?” one of the cops at the table said. “There aren’t any windows in this room.”
“Gosh,” Sam said, “then why would Arnette be wearing his sunglasses in here? Must be that black eye Richie gave him this morning.”
And with that, Arnette’s considerable ego deflated right in front of his cronies, and Sam walked to his office.
He had been seated less than thirty seconds when his intercom buzzed and he was told it was Amy on line two.
He felt the usual thrill over picking up the phone and hearing her voice. This had to be true love, he reasoned. He’d gone with his share of women and none of them had ever affected him this way. He even found himself scribbling her name over and over again as he sat at his desk sometimes. Like a lovestruck sixth grader.
He thought all these things before he actually heard her voice.
When she spoke, all romance was banished. She sounded grim.
“I assume you know that Chief Hadley’s going to arrest Richie.”
“I just left Hadley’s office. I’m sorry, Amy.”
“Richie has a thing about jail.”
“I know. He told me about it on the way into town.”
“I know I’m meddling here, Sam. And I know I promised not to, but — do you think the Chief would let you arrest Richie?”
“Boy, I don’t know.”
“He’d feel safer if you were the one with the warrant and everything, Sam.”
“The Chief’s still doing all the paperwork, I guess. I suppose he might consider letting me do it.”
“Just convince him that Richie’ll be much more inclined just to surrender himself if you do the arresting.”
“I don’t see why he’d object to that.”
“I’m meddling, I know.”
He sighed. “This is a terrible thing for everybody, Amy.”
“I just talked to Dick Fuller. They’re devastated, of course. Unfortunately, he’s already got Richie tried and convicted. And so does most of the town.”
“I’ll go in and ask him.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
“Why don’t I pick up a pizza and swing by your place for dinner. You probably won’t feel much like cooking.”
“That sounds good, Sam. That’s nice of you.”
Nice of me? he wanted to say. Nice of me? I get to spend some unexpected time with the woman I love and it’s nice of me?
Then he felt a terrible guilt. He was definitely taking advantage of a horrible situation. A girl was dead; a man might well find himself in the worst kind of trouble with the law.
And Sam was taking advantage of it.
“I’ll let you know how I come out with the Chief,” he said.
“Thanks, Sam. I really appreciate it.”
The Chief was finishing up the warrant paperwork when Sam knocked on his door.
“I’ve been thinking,” Sam said.
Hadley smiled. “Whenever you say that, I know you’re going to try and con me.”
“Why don’t I arrest Richie McGuire?”
“You? Why you?”
Sam shrugged. “As you say yourself, I know his sister very well. And I know Richie pretty good, too.”
“I was figuring on doing it myself.”
“He’d probably be a lot more peaceful if I was there.”
“All right,” the Chief said. “Then why don’t we both do it.”
That was the best he was going to get out of this, Sam knew.
As he’d expected, the Chief didn’t want to give up such a high-visibility arrest.
The Chief wanted them to know that he was ever vigilant.
Arresting Richie would be great public relations.
“All right,” Sam said. “We’ll both do it.”
“There’s just one thing.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not taking any shit from him. You know how Richie can be. He acts up at all, I’m going to use my club on him.”
“He’ll be all right.”
“You have any idea where he is right now?”
“I dropped him off at the lawyer’s. I can check. I’ll bet he’s still there.”
“You check, Sam. Then we’ll go get him.”
Sam called the Medlow-O’Brien law offices and asked if Richie McGuire was still in with Tom O’Brien. The receptionist said yes, he still was.
Sam told the receptionist that he and the Chief were on their way over.
4
What Richie McGuire really wanted to do was sit there and cry like a little kid. At this point, he was so overwrought that he noticed his right hand twitching every once in a while. Twitching.
Being a charter member of the Cosmic Macho Football Club, however, he had to sit there and pretend that he had everything under control.
“So you left Riley’s at about—”
“About nine.”
“And went straight home?”
“Straight home.”
Just don’t ask how I got there, he thought.
Tom O’Brien was the kind of guy Richie usually disliked on sight. He was one of those yuppies with the six pounds of mousse on his red hair and deep reserves of arrogance swelling his chest. He’d have a BMW and once a month or so he’d watch XXX videos with his wife and he’d speak up every once in a while at school board meetings just to let people know that he was, after all, a Concerned Parent. He’d say all the right things, do all the right things, and he’d kill his mother for a dollar if he needed to. Richie saw his type six days a week at the country club. There was a certain amount of amusement in their eyes whenever somebody told them about Richie’s football achievements. Who gives a rat’s ass about some college football star? their gaze always said.
Tom O’Brien sat here now in his three-piece suit and said, “You kill her, Richie?”
“What?”
“Did you kill her?”