Steve said nothing. He had always suspected Mike's decision to step back from recent active investigations was more than just getting the fiscal year in order and thwarting any attempts by the brass to reorganize the department. But hiring a private eye to look into Linda's background, and not telling him about it? That really didn't sound like the man he had come to know over the years.
Nicole looked at him in the rearview mirror again. "What, cat got your tongue? You don't believe me?" He could see her shrug and bobble her head slightly. "Well, you're gonna find out for yourself soon enough. You know, I was a little surprised myself when I found out but then I realized it played right into my hand, so to speak. It was like he was working with me." She chuckled happily and it sent chills down his spine.
When he still didn't respond, she sighed impatiently. "All right, if you insist," she continued in a singsong, as if he had asked her to tell him more, "so it all started about, oh, six months ago, the San Fran part of my plan. I had a good idea of how I wanted it to play out, but I had to find the right patsies. That actually turned out to be easier than I thought.
"I chose Chinatown because I knew that community keeps their problems to themselves. And it didn't take long to find a couple of young punks who were shaking down some of the shop owners." She chuckled. "Nobody really pays attention to a frumpy looking, middle-aged tourist and it's surprising the conversations you can overhear when everybody looks right through you anyway. Besides, the two would-be big-time gangsters were not very subtle. And imagine my delight when I found out the weaker one had a sister?!"
Her glee was disquieting. "Well, long story short, although I'm sure your partner could fill you in on the details, I played both sides against the middle, though neither of them knew it. I… procured a firearm for the punk with the short fuse, hoping he would use it, and, lo and behold, he did. It actually didn't take him long. Now that surprised me."
She looked into the rearview mirror again, hoping to see a response, but she could no longer see his eyes. He had turned his face down; his eyes were shut but he was listening closely.
"Anyway," she started up again with a touch of petulance in her voice, "I had approached her on the Q.T. and told her I was a p.i. hired by the shop owners to catch her brother and his friend but if she was to help me, I would see to it that her brother would get a break with the cops." She laughed evilly. "God, she was naive; she believed every word I said."
She paused briefly and he felt the car turn off one paved road onto another. It was still pitch black outside and, other than the fact they were heading north, he had no idea where they were.
"Anyway, after that, it was easy to set you guys up. I told her when to make the call, and I bought a ball then I went to the pound and bought a dog that was ball-obsessed and wandered down to Chinatown before you guys got there. I knew you were showing up at noon so I just timed it. When you got to the corner, I threw the ball into the street and the dog shot after it, and that poor driver had nowhere to go. Unfortunately, your partner's response time was… impressively fast and he got you both out of the way."
She paused dramatically and sighed loudly. "And, in case you missed it, Linda was a total innocent, as I think your partner found out. Surprised he didn't mention it to you but I guess he didn't want you to find out he, ah, he had his doubts and thought that maybe you were being used as a dupe."
The car made another turn, this one to the left, and it slowed down considerably; this road wasn't paved.
He turned his head and looked into the rearview mirror. "But why are you doing this to us?" he asked finally, trying to keep his tone even and reasoned. "If you wanted to kill me, why didn't you just go ahead and kill me? Why do Mike and Linda have to suffer to satisfy your… need for revenge against me?"
There was a long pause. "Do you really think I'm taking you out here to kill you? Haven't you learned anything about me by now, Steve?" The car slowed to a stop and she threw the transmission into Park then turned and looked at him over the back of the seat. "I'm not going to kill you… I'm going to destroy you."
# # # # #
The black-and-white, lights spinning and siren wailing, slid to a stop on the street in front of the garage. Both officers bailed out quickly, drawing their revolvers and turning on their flashlights.
"This has gotta be the place," Patrolman Diaz acknowledged as they split up. They approached the cars from either side and tried the doors; both of them were locked. Other than what looked like a black coat in one car and a macrame handbag in the other, nothing looked amiss.
Continuing to scan the still dark and empty street, looking for the woman who had made the call, they approached the door. Patrolman Harris pulled the handle and it opened easily with a squeak. The strong beams from the flashlights announcing their arrival, they stepped over the threshold, guns at the ready, into the pitch black building. "San Francisco Police!" Harris shouted as he led the way.
The silence was oppressive and the smell of burning wood hung heavily in the air. They quickly found and tried the lightswitches on a panel to the left of the door but no lights came on.
With Harris's beam cutting through the darkness ahead of them, Diaz was free to play his around the cavernous space with the high ceiling. "Police!" Harris yelled again. "Is there anyone here?!"
They moved quickly but carefully deeper into the empty garage, pausing only when the beam of light played off the glass of the centre office. Turning his head slightly, Harris nodded at his partner and they split up, circling the office on either side.
Harris was just about to turn the second corner of the office when he heard Diaz's urgent shout. "Don, there's one down over here!" He hurried around the office to see his partner's flashlight illuminating a man lying on his back on the floor with Diaz kneeling beside him. "It's Lieutenant Stone," the patrolman confirmed in alarm, his fingers against the detective's neck.
"Is he alive?" Harris asked as he trotted up.
Diaz nodded quickly. "Yeah," he said shakily, reaching into his pants pocket for his handkerchief to cover the wound. "Better go call for an ambulance… and back-"
"Jesus Christ," Harris's surprised utterance interrupted him and Diaz looked up to see his partner's flashlight beam on the limp body of a young woman tied to a chair, a pool of blood on the floor beneath her.
# # # # #
Steve stared into Nicole's cold, unblinking eyes. Her words had chilled him to the bone because he was well aware she was fully capable of doing exactly what she had just told him. Finally the corners of her lips curled into a rictus smile.
"You don't believe me?" she asked rhetorically, knowing he would never give her the satisfaction of a reply. "I used another identity when I returned to San Francisco, one that even your partner couldn't see through. And though you might be able to i.d. me now, and even if they believe you, I'm not going to be hanging around long enough for that to make any kind of difference. But you… well, you're a different matter altogether." Her smile grew wider and colder.
"Because you see, no matter how much you profess your innocence, that you claim this diabolical woman came out of your past to set all this up just to frame you, all the evidence is going to point at you and you alone. And that's all that matters to the law, isn't it? The evidence?" She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head.
When he didn't respond again, she sighed heavily and pointedly. "All right, if I need to lay it all out for you, then I guess I have to. So, let's start with Linda. She's the total innocent in all this and I'm really very sorry I had to do to her what I did, but unfortunately you two hit it off and well," she shrugged, "the rest was history, as they say. But she did provide me with just the bait I needed to lure you to the garage." A shudder of joy seemed to course through her body and she chuckled.
"How did you take her?"
"Oh, that was easy. I've been tailing her for a few days, waiting for my opportunity, and then she drove over to your place yesterday afternoon while you were still at work. Happily there was nobody on that funny little street of yours so I just walked up to her, showed her my knife and forced her to drive me here. Easy-peasy," she shrugged.
"Then there's that phone call you made to your partner. All Mike will be able to say is that you asked him to come to the garage, that your tone was normal and that at no time did he get the impression you were under duress. And he would know, wouldn't he? I mean, you guys are pretty close. And that's your bullet, from your gun, they're going to be taking out of him at some point. Did you lure him down there because he'd suspected Linda of conspiracy to commit murder and gone behind your back, and that you lost it when he saw what you had done to Linda and you had to shoot him? After all, he didn't see who shot him, so it could have been you." She paused dramatically. "Do you think he could ever trust you again? Completely trust you? I mean, he'll probably insist he does but deep down, there's going to be a little doubt… there has to be."
"You're wrong," he muttered through a clenched jaw, but she could hear the tinge of doubt in his voice. "No one will believe I would shoot Mike… ever. And why would I have attacked Linda in the first place?" he shot back defiantly.
"Why?" she countered, anger slipping into her voice for the first time then she seemed to gain control of herself and took a deep, steadying breath. "Well, I have to admit, that is the one fly in the ointment, so to speak; why you would turn on your girlfriend. But the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that I'm sure the D.A. will come up with some reason. They're good at that."
"No one will believe I could hurt her… or Mike…"
"Well, you can hope. But you see, Linda is the only one other than you who can identify me. You have to realize that, right? Do you honestly think I could've let her do that, after all this planning, after all this work?"
He stared at her unblinking, his eyes slowly filling with tears at the realization. His throat tightened and his whole body started to shake.
"I know you probably don't have any sensation in your hands anymore but when you first came to, do you remember your right hand stinging a little?" She waited a beat for him to respond but when he didn't she smiled coldly. "I did a lot of research before I put all this together, you know. And one of the things I learned was that when someone uses a knife like in a rage to kill someone, sometimes the blood makes the knife slippery. And the killer can get cuts on their hand, like on the index finger or the webbing of the thumb." She raised her eyebrows. "Just like you have." She winked at him. "Try explaining that away…"
