“The cops would put it on one of us, that was for sure,” Megan said. “If I stayed, one of us—or hell, maybe both of us—would have ended up in prison. Like Ricky Mannion.”
Broome smiled now.
“What?”
“That all sounds great and dramatic, Megan, except for one thing: You thought Ray did it, didn’t you? He was protecting you, and part of you was relieved to get this creep off your back. Plus, really, when you stop and think about it, Stewart Green had it coming, right?”
She didn’t reply.
“So that night, you see Stewart Green. You think he’s dead. You’re relieved, but you also think your boyfriend, Ray Levine, killed him. You ran so he wouldn’t get caught.”
She wasn’t sure how to reply so she went with, “I’m not denying that.”
“And”—Broome held up his hand—“you ran because you really didn’t want to stay with Ray or marry him or whatever, because now, justified or not, you viewed Ray Levine as a killer. You ran away from that too, didn’t you?”
Broome stepped back. He could see that he had hit the mark. For a moment, they sat there in silence. Broome’s phone buzzed. He looked down and saw it was Goldberg paging him up to his office.
“All these years,” Broome said, “you thought Ray killed Stewart Green.”
“I thought it was possible.”
He spread his arms. “So that leads up to the big question: What made you change your mind?”
“Two things,” she said.
“I’m listening.”
“One”—she pointed to the table—“Ray sent you that picture.”
Broome waved it off. “To toy with me. Lots of serial killers do.”
“No. If he’d been killing men all these years, he’d have started toying with you years ago. You didn’t have a clue that Carlton Flynn had ever been to the park. Without that photograph, you’d know nothing. He sent it in to help you find the real killer.”
“So he was, what, being a good citizen?”
“In part, yes,” she said. “And in part because he, like me, needs to know the truth about that night. Think about it. If Ray hadn’t sent you that picture, you’d still be at square one.”
“And pray tell, how did he happen to take that picture?”
“Think about that too. Why this year? Why not last year or the year before? If Ray was the killer, he could have sent you a new one every year, right? He would have sent them on Mardi Gras. But you see, for Ray, the big day was February eighteenth. That’s the last time we were together. That’s when it all ended so horribly for us. So Ray goes there—on the anniversary, not Mardi Gras. He takes pictures. That’s what he does. That’s how he processes. So he wouldn’t have pictures of your other victims—because he wasn’t there on Mardi Gras, except when it overlapped with February eighteenth. He’d only have pictures of Carlton Flynn.”
Broome almost chuckled. “Wow, you’re really reaching.”
It was, Broome knew, outrageous and full of holes, and yet, as he had learned over the years, the truth has a more unique stench than lies. Still, he didn’t have to rely on intuition. Would Ray have pictures from every February 18? That might back her crazy claim.
But more important: If Ray snapped a photograph of the victim, maybe, just maybe, he took a photograph of the killer.
“You said two things,” Broome said.
“What?”
“You said there were two reasons you changed your mind about Ray killing Stewart Green. You just gave me one. What’s the other?”
“The simplest reason of all,” Megan said. “Stewart Green isn’t dead.”
DEPUTY CHIEF SAMUEL GOLDBERG WANTED TO CRY.
He wouldn’t, of course; couldn’t even remember the last time he had, but suddenly the desire was there. He sat alone in his office. The office was really a glass partition, and everyone could see in unless he closed the blinds and whenever he did that, every cop in the precinct, a naturally suspicious group by nature, got extra-antsy.
Goldberg closed his eyes and rubbed his face. It felt as though the world were closing in on him, preparing to crush him like in that Star Wars’ trash compactor scene or that old Batman TV episode where Catwoman’s spike-y wall nearly skewers the Dynamic Duo. His divorce cost him a fortune. The mortgage payments on his and his ex’s properties were ridiculous. His oldest daughter, Carrie, the greatest kid any guy could ever hope to have, wanted to become a tennis phenom and that was so damned expensive. Carrie was training down in Florida with some world-famous coach, and it was costing Goldberg more than 60K a year, which was nearly his take-home salary after taxes. Plus, okay, Goldberg had expensive taste in women, and that was never a good thing for the bank account.
So Goldberg had to be creative to make ends still not meet. How? He sold information. So what? For the most part, the information didn’t change a damn thing. For that matter, neither did law enforcement. You get rid of the Italians, the blacks take it over. You get rid of the blacks, you got the Mexicans and the Russians and so on. So Goldberg played both sides. Nobody got hurt except those who deserved to get hurt. Criminal-on-criminal crime, so to speak.
As for this new situation—providing information on the Carlton Flynn case—well, that seemed even more basic. The father wanted to find his kid. Who couldn’t get that? The father believed the cops could only do so much and that he could help them out. Goldberg doubted it, but sure—why not?—go for it. At worst, the father feels like he did the most he could. Who wouldn’t understand that? And at best, well, the cops did have limits. They had to follow certain rules, even the dumb-ass ones. Someone outside of law enforcement circles didn’t have those restraints. So maybe, who knows, this could be a good thing for everyone.
Plus, yep, Goldberg gets money.
Win-win-win.
During his marriage, Goldberg’s now ex-wife, one of those beautiful women who wanted you to take them seriously but the only reason you’d bother is because they’re beautiful, had thrown a lot of yoga-Zen-Buddhist crap at him, warning him about the danger of his extracurricular moneymaking activities. She talked about how bad deeds could enter the soul and the slippery slope and that it would color his chakra red and all that. She talked this way until, of course, he pointed out that if he listened to her they’d have to move into a smaller house and skip the summer vacations and forget about Carrie’s tennis lessons.