It was completely dark inside, and I banged against one of the filing cabinets, stumbling. I still had the gun in my mouth but couldn’t see anything other than the silhouette of the man who held it.
“Come on in, Pritchard,” he said, and then I knew it was the same man who’d attacked me on the street and called after obliterating most of my gym. “I’m sure you don’t want me to pull this trigger any more than your partner does.”
Joe stepped slowly into the office, and the door was kicked shut behind him. Then the gun slid away, the sight cutting a furrow through the roof of my mouth.
“Doran,” I said.
“Excellent guess. Now, Pritchard, you want to walk across the room and sit down behind your desk, please? And don’t worry, I already took the gun from your drawer.”
Joe shuffled across the room and sat down. I was still standing, free for the moment, but Doran was right beside me, the gun close to my side. I had the Glock, but it was holstered at my spine. The doors to the building and to the office had been locked, but locks appeared not to be much of a problem for Doran.
My eyes were adjusting, and I could see Doran as more than just a dark shape. He was thinner than he’d been in the case file photographs, and he’d been thin in those. His face looked gaunt, and his body was wiry and tense, laden with a quality of speed. The military buzz cut had grown out into long light brown hair that hung across his forehead and over his ears. He was wearing boots and jeans and a fleece jacket.
“Here’s how we’re going to do this,” he said. “Pritchard, sit behind that desk, stay there, don’t make contact with anyone. Perry, you and I are going to take a ride. You’re going to drive, and we’re going to talk. If your partner does exactly what I told him to do, just sits here and shows some patience, then you’re coming back here alive.”
For a long moment, nobody spoke or moved.
“Sit tight, Joe,” I said. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Doran nodded. “What Perry knows is that I’ve had a couple of opportunities to kill him already, and passed. He’s thinking that he’d rather trust me than test me.”
“All right,” Joe said. “I’ll sit here, and I’ll wait. For a little while, at least. And then, if he doesn’t walk back through the door, I’ll go out and find you and kill you, Doran.”
Doran smiled at me as a passing headlight bathed his face with a white glow. “Loyal guy, your partner.” He walked back to the door and pulled it open, then tilted his head. “You first. Down the steps, then out the back door and over to your truck.”
I walked out the door, and a second later it closed behind me, Doran on my heels, Joe alone in the dark office. We went down the steps and out the back door and into the parking lot. Doran was walking close to me but a half step behind. We got into the truck, and I started the engine as he settled into the passenger seat with the gun, a big Colt Commander, resting in his lap, pointed at my stomach. His hands were covered by thin gloves.
“Go out of the parking lot and turn right and stay on that street,” he said.
I turned onto Rocky River and drove north, as he’d requested. The radio had come on with the car, and Doran didn’t turn it off. U2 was singing of a city of blinding lights. Maybe Doran was a Bono fan.
“You’ve been busy,” he said. “Nice file you’ve put together. I didn’t bother going through the whole thing, though—it’s pretty familiar to me.”
“I’d imagine.”
“How long have you been working on me?”
“A few days.”
“Got to me fast.” He nodded as if in approval. “Maybe this is good. Maybe you understand some new things, or understand them in new ways. You see my situation, don’t you? I can’t go away from this without some money, Lincoln. Got nowhere to go.”
“You’ve got nowhere to go? I’m on my way to prison thanks to you.”
“Looking to the wrong person for sympathy, Lincoln. I’ve been to prison thanks to Jefferson.”
“So now you want to pull the same trick on somebody else?”
“Take the next street,” was his answer.
I pulled off Rocky River and onto West Clifton, which continued north. We crossed Detroit and went over the old Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, and then West Clifton joined Clifton Boulevard, an east-west street running past beautiful old homes on tree-lined lots.
“Go right,” Doran said, and I turned again, headed east.
We went a few blocks before he ordered a left, giving me an idea of where we were going. Lakewood Park was down here, a busy place on a summer evening but probably plenty desolate on a cold, rainy October night. Doran had me pull into the lot and then asked me to get out of the car. He hadn’t checked me for a weapon, which seemed like a substantial oversight, but maybe he was just that confident in his ability to kill me if I went for it.
There was no one at the park. Doran ordered me to walk down toward the lake, past the picnic tables and shelters and swings. Then he moved me toward the edge of the tall fence that bordered the park, with strands of barbed wire across the top. There was a hole in the fence at this corner, probably cut open during the summer by kids who wanted to get down to the lake and drink or make out. Doran waved the gun at it.
“Go through.”
I looked back at him as I reached for the loose section of fence. Ahead of us was a steep decline leading down to the jagged boulders that made up the breakwater along the lake’s edge. Doran might have said he didn’t intend to kill me, but he was taking me to a place where doing so would be convenient. It was isolated down there, and loud, with the water beating on the big rocks. Easy chore to kick a body into the lake, too.
“Go through,” he repeated, his voice firmer, the gun raising a few inches. I pulled the loose fence back and stepped through the opening. He followed close behind, jamming the gun into my back. He put it up high, above my kidneys, so that it didn’t touch my own weapon, but I was still afraid he might have seen the Glock’s outline under my jacket.
There was a paved path down here that wound all the way to Edgewater Park. We walked along it for maybe two minutes before Doran ordered me to leave the path and walk across the large rocks that made up the breakwater. The huge blocks of stone were scattered at all angles, making for treacherous walking even during daylight hours. I went slowly and carefully, using my hands to help find balance as I worked my way down to the lake. Behind me, Doran moved nimbly, jumping from rock to rock without any hesitation.
The farther we got from the path, the closer to the lake, the worse I felt about it. I’d believed him back at the office when he’d told Joe he had no intention of killing me—why not take both Joe and me out if he wanted to kill, after all—but now I was losing that sense of security. He’d had no interaction with Joe; he’d given Joe no warnings. Maybe, in his twisted mind, that gave Joe a pass.
The rain had started again, light and cold, making the rocks slick. I was almost down to the lake’s edge now, trying to use the sounds of Doran’s footfalls on the rocks to place where he was behind me, and wondering if I had a chance of getting the Glock out before he shot me, remembering that brief struggle we’d had on the sidewalk on Chatfield, the astonishing speed he’d displayed.
“Stop,” Doran said. The command didn’t mean much, because to keep walking would have required plunging into the lake. I stood on the wide, flat rock at the water’s edge and turned to face him. He was one rock above me, the gun held against his leg.
“There a reason we couldn’t have this chat elsewhere?” I said.
He glanced down at the gun in his hand, then back at me. “I hadn’t even planned this out yet, you know? Been thinking about it, but I wanted you alone. Then you two pulled up, and everything changed. I hit the circuit breaker and waited.”
Great. All of this was a fly-by-the-seat-of-a-psycho’s-pants outing, then. Made me feel even better about standing down here at the edge of the lake, nothing around us but rocks and rain.
“You understand things a little better now than when we last talked,” he said.
“Which time? The time you shot up my gym or the time you knocked me out on the street?”
He raised the gun in a lazy arc and leaned forward, put the barrel against my forehead. The metal was cold and wet against my skin, and even in the darkness I could make out one raindrop resting on his gloved trigger finger.
“About six years ago,” Doran said, “I came to this spot with Monica Heath. It was summer, and it was hot. Humid. Just walking down here from the park had my shirt stuck to my back. We brought down a two-liter bottle of Coke and a fifth of Captain Morgan and two paper cups. Had it all in a backpack. There were a couple of boats out in the bay, and one guy was water-skiing, pretty good at it, too. We sat here on these rocks and drank rum and Coke and watched the guy on the water skis and the sun went down and the whole lake glowed orange. Someone started a barbecue up at the park—I remember we could smell the smoke and the meat and hear the people laughing. They tossed a Frisbee over the fence and lost it. Thing fell all the way down here and got caught in the top of one of the trees. By the time the Captain was gone, we thought that Frisbee in the tree was pretty damn hilarious. Then the sun went down, and the lake went from orange to black and the lights came on over at the Jake and we smoked a bowl and fell asleep on the rocks.”
The gun snapped off my forehead and dropped, and I reminded myself I could breathe again.
“That,” Andy Doran said, “is as much of a crime as I ever committed with Monica Heath.”
The rain had increased a bit, speckling the lake behind me and falling silently through the bare limbs of the trees. Doran’s hair was wet now, plastered against his forehead.
“Did Jefferson’s son kill her?” I said.
He nodded. “Then his father rigged the investigation.”
“How’d you find out?”
“Got a postcard from a friend. A friend who’d helped put me in, by lying to the cops.”
“Donny Ward. He told us what happened.”
“No shit? I haven’t looked old Donny up. Figure if I see him, I might kill him. That’s not something I want. He didn’t drive the train, you know? Alex Jefferson did.”
“How do you know?”
“I got that postcard, I decided I’d better contact my old lawyer, the guy who convinced me the plea was the way to go. Found out he was working with Alex Jefferson. I got to working it out pretty quick after that. Jefferson’s son lied to the police. I could never understand why he did that unless he was involved in what happened. Found out they paid off my lawyer like that, and the rest of the math wasn’t too hard.”
“Once you learned all that, why not make an appeal? Get someone looking at your case.”
“Because it would have given them time.”
“What?”
“Think about it, Perry—I had to sit in prison and wait for people on the outside to look into it. As soon as the first call was made, Jefferson would have been back on it, pulling more of the same shit that got me locked up in the first place. I was supposed to trust another asshole attorney to do a better job than the first one had? Trust the cops? Not happening. It was my score to settle, in my way. You get that? It wasn’t just about a prison sentence, it was about Monica.”
Doran shifted on the rock above me, taking a few steps to the right, his footwork steady even on the slippery surface. The rain was still falling, and both of us were soaked. Every so often the wind off the lake would pick up and seem to drive the cold water right into me.
“I called Jefferson the day I broke out,” Doran said. “Called him and told him I was coming for him. He denied everything, of course, pretended not to have any idea who I was, but the fear, Perry, the fear came off him and rolled right through that phone line, filled the booth I was in. Then I came for him and the son. The son got it. He understood what the end would be like. Believed me from the start. But not his father. I was ready to kill him, you know, ready to end his life, and the prick didn’t even get that. Thought he’d handled it.”
“He sent someone to kill you.”
“And offered a disappointingly low price for such a wealthy man. Convincing his, uh, employee, to change plans was not a difficult job, Perry.”
My hand was high on my hip, inches from the Glock, and Doran didn’t seem to notice. He was calm enough right now, and pointing the gun at the ground, but that didn’t mean I should trust him to stay that way.
“You’re setting me up,” I said. “And it’s working. That really what you want? To send another innocent person to jail? I’m the one telling the cops what happened to you, Doran. I’m trying to help.”
“You were warned, you were given simple instructions, and you did not listen. That’s not on me.”
“How’d you get the fingerprints on that money?”
“Wasn’t my idea.”
“Wasn’t your idea? Well, you did it, asshole. I’m supposed to think you’re some sort of innocent in this, pushed along against your will?”
“Yeah, you should think that. It’s the truth, my friend. It’s what I always was. You want to thank somebody for your troubles, thank Jefferson.”
“You got what you wanted,” I said. “Killed Jefferson and scared his son to death. Walk away, then, Doran. The score’s been settled.”
He spread his hands, the gun now pointed up at the trees. “Walk away with what? Where can I go? Right back to prison, with more years tacked onto the sentence?”
“You’ve done a good job of staying out so far.”
“I need the money. And taking it from Jefferson’s bitch? I gotta be honest—that shit appeals to me.”
“She’s not going to pay.”
He dropped his arms and looked at me with eyes that seemed almost sad. “Then people are going to die, Perry. People are going to die.”
The menace that had been in his voice the last time we’d met was back in full force. He moved again on the big rock, turning away from me slightly to look down at his footing as he stepped. I hadn’t even planned on going for my gun, but when he turned away like that, the opportunity was there, maybe the only good one I was going to get. The holster at the small of my back had a Velcro security flap instead of one that snapped, and a single, quick tug was all I needed to free the Glock. I drew it faster than I’d ever drawn a gun in my life, got it out of the holster and brought it around to bear on Doran’s chest, and right then he said, “Got ya.”
His back was still to me, his head turned so that his chin was against his left shoulder, looking back at me. The Colt Commander was pointed at my stomach, just off his right hip. It had been a staggeringly quick move; when instinct would have called for turning and facing me, he’d simply looked back over his shoulder and reversed the gun in his hand. Even standing there with his back to me, he’d beaten me.
“Feels like a tie,” I said. That awkward position, calling for him to fire almost behind his back, should have given me a clear advantage. But when the distance between a gun and the target is about four feet, that advantage disappears. If he squeezed the trigger, he couldn’t help but hit me.
“Gonna kill me, Perry?”
“Could be.”
For a moment we were frozen there, our guns not wavering. Then Doran shrugged his shoulders and lowered the Commander.
“I took a big risk coming to find you. But I’ve been watching you. Got the idea you knew who I was, that you were getting a sense of the situation. Figured I owed you a real explanation. I’ve given that. Want to take me down, now’s the time.”
I took one step forward. “Put the gun on the rock, Doran.”
He shook his head. “Nope. You want the gun, you better shoot me.”
Another step forward, but Doran countered by moving away, sliding backward. “Not ready to take the shot?”
“I’ll take it if I need to take it.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a murderer, Doran.”
“Killing a man who set me up for his son’s crime, that’s not murder—that’s justice.”
“Not in anyone’s world but yours.”
“Then take the shot!” He stuck the Commander in his waistband and held up his empty hands, spread them wide. “Take the shot, Perry. You think that Jefferson didn’t deserve to die? Here’s your chance to settle it up, then. I know you owe him a whole hell of a lot, right?”
“I don’t owe him shit.” I kept shuffling forward, closing the gap. He was higher than me, though, my head even with his chest as he stood on the rock, daring me to shoot him.
“But I did?”
“He deserved to go to jail, Doran. Not to die.”
He threw back his head and laughed, and even as he did it he took another quick step backward, onto another, higher rock.
“You actually believe that could happen? That in this system we’ve got, this justice system, a millionaire attorney is going to go to jail and a poor guy with a record is going to walk? Bullshit, man. The way I look at it? Fate cut me a break and dealt Jefferson exactly what he’d earned when I rode that trash truck out of prison. That’s justice, Perry, sweet as it gets.”
“And extorting his wife? That’s justice, too? Not enough you took her husband, you also have to take her money?”
“I did five years, man. That’s not worth a few dollars to you? The fact that I did five years for another man’s crime?”
“It wasn’t Karen’s crime.”
“Wasn’t her money, either. Not originally.”
“Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head, Doran. You’re going to jail tonight, and then you can tell the police and the jury what your vision of justice is. Because right now, I’m the best suspect they’ve got, and I am not willing to go to prison for your sorry ass.”
A laugh bubbled out of his lips, the wild sound riding the wind just a pitch above the water thudding against the rocks at our feet.
“Here’s the beautiful thing—you could run me into jail tonight, let me sit there for weeks, months, years, and it wouldn’t help you. They could run every DNA test in the book at me, bring out the best detectives in the state, the FBI, the CIA, Sherlock Holmes, whoever the hell they got. They can run ’em all at me, and still your ass wouldn’t be cleared.”
My foot slipped on the rock and splashed into a shallow pool of trapped lake water, but I hardly noticed the chill. I was holding the gun on him, but he was still chuckling, looking at me as if I were the straight man in a comedy routine and didn’t even realize it.
“What are you talking about?”
“If the cops get me, it won’t help you. Know why?”
“No.”
His smile widened. “Because I didn’t kill him, Perry. I did not kill Alex Jefferson.”
I could add a few ounces of pressure to the Glock’s trigger and end this all right now. Call Targent to come down here and collect Doran’s body and figure the rest of it out. But the longer I looked at Doran down the barrel of the gun, the more convinced I became that it wouldn’t be the end of anything. He wasn’t lying.
“You dragged me off the street and put that bag over my head and bragged about killing him,” I said, the words coming slowly. “Told me why you’d done it, told me why it was justified.”
“I know that. But it wasn’t true.”
“Why claim it, then?”
The deranged look of amusement left his face, replaced with anger.
“Because it should have been me. The son of a bitch sent me to jail, set me up, made me do five years for his son’s murder. It should have been me.”
Doran planted his feet firmly on the rock and looked down at me, the barrel of my gun pointed at his chest.
“Last chance, Perry. You want to finish this, go on and take the shot.”
I kept the gun where it was, didn’t say a word.
“All right.” He lifted two fingers to his forehead in a salute. “See you around.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“Then take the shot,” he said again, and he began to run. He was gone from one rock and onto the next almost before I saw him move, running across the slick, uneven stones as if they were part of an indoor track, designed for speed and balance.
For a moment I stayed where I was, kept my feet planted and swung the gun after him. He was bouncing from rock to rock, though, moving horizontally and vertically at the same time.
“Shit!” I said, and then I lowered the gun and began to run after him.
He moved incredibly fast, considering the darkness and the treacherous footing. I was trying to match his pace and simply couldn’t; he seemed to make decisions about which rocks to hit even before they came into view, barely touching the surface of one before leaping to the next. We’d gone maybe thirty yards when my foot came down on a smooth, wet rock that was like glass. My front leg slipped out from under me and I was falling backward and sideways. My ribs connected with the edge of a stone slab, all the air vanishing from my lungs in a burst of pain, and then I was on my back, the gun clattering to the ground somewhere behind me.
I sat up as quickly as I could, but for a few horrible seconds it seemed I wouldn’t be able to draw a breath. Then the air came back in a long, shuddering gasp, and I struggled to my feet and looked for the Glock. It was wedged between two of the rocks behind me. I took a few painful steps over and picked it up, brushed off the dirt and rain, then looked ahead.
Doran was at least fifty yards in front of me now, and he’d climbed up to the edge of the breakwater, where the trees came in. He paused for a moment and turned and looked back at me. Then he lifted his hand, waved it once, and disappeared into the trees.