Double Indemnity (23 page)

He didn't want to think about that.

Helen's son and his wife were visiting with their baby, who'd gotten big enough to sit up on her own. She giggled and cooed and pulled on her grandmother's blanket while her parents spoke in hushed tones. They greeted Sam kindly and offered him some cookies they'd brought along for show. As if Helen could eat them. People did stupid things when they were sad. That was another thing Sam knew about.

“Heya, Timbo,” Sam said, sitting down in his chair. “How you doing today, bud?”

It didn't matter if he didn't get a response back. He ate one of the cookies in silence. A few minutes later, once Helen's family had left, Sam leaned forward and took Tim's hand.

“I need to talk to you. I could use some advice, okay?”

He hadn't been able to talk to Yuri or Rachel about what Sheldon had told him. Apparently the evidence had been enough to keep Nathan in jail without bail, pending trial. Every day that passed only confirmed Nathan's guilt. Sam couldn't imagine the FBI leaving an agent to languish in county jail if he were innocent.

Nathan had refused to see him a second time and a third. Sam didn't bother going again, after that.

“I don't know what I should do, or why I even care. If he did it, he's a sick sonofabitch,” Sam said after he'd finished the whole story. Tim stared vacantly at the ceiling. “I don't know what to think, anymore. I mean, maybe Emma
was
talking about Nathan that day. She must have been, right?”

The sound of a cart wheeling down the corridor distracted Sam for a moment. A nurse looked in and gave him a smile. “Visiting hours are almost over, dear.”

“I know. Just another minute.”

“Better get home before the storm picks up. They're saying it's going to be a bad one.”

“I will.”

After she'd gone, Sam turned back to Tim. “And who is this guy who says he killed Emma? It doesn't seem like Nathan to be so sloppy, you know? To threaten someone? He would have no guarantee the guy wouldn't talk. It doesn't make any sense.”

In Sam's mind, Tim nodded in agreement.

“Maybe someone
else
threatened him? Hmm. That's an interesting thought. Maybe he made the confession under duress. But why?”

In his mind Tim frowned thoughtfully and shrugged.

“I worry I'm trying to justify all of the evidence because I don't want him to be guilty. I really…. I like him. I liked him, or whoever I thought he was. Jesus.”

A weary numbness seeped into Sam's bones. Going over and over the details had tired him out. Now that he'd unloaded on his brother—even though he got no response—a weight had been lifted.

“Thanks for listening, Timmy.” He patted Tim's lax hand and then released it. “I love you.”

The snow had picked up by the time he got back to his truck, but he still had an hour to kill before dinner at Rachel's. He turned on the engine and started to drive without any destination in mind.

Driving in the snow always brought a certain, strange calm. Flakes swirled and danced in his headlights as they got the best of the salt and sand and swathed the road in white. Except for the occasional service vehicle, the roads were deserted. Everyone else was home preparing for the Nor'easter.

The numbness didn't dissipate, only increased the longer he drove. The rhythmic swish of the wiper blades and the splash of the tires through thickening slush interrupted the silence, creating an almost musical cadence. It had been snowing the night of the accident. Peaceful. Sam wondered if his father's death had been peaceful too. They said he was killed on impact. One minute, he was driving through the quiet falling snow, and the next the car had hit an icy patch, tumbled off the road, and exploded against a tree in a shower of glass and metal. Maybe he hadn't even felt anything, only known a moment of surprise—a twist of panic in his gut and then nothing at all.

But after the car rolled and expelled them, Sam's mother and Tim hadn't been so lucky. No quick release for them. His mom had lingered on for a few days, until her internal injuries finally claimed her. The doctors could place a vena cava filter to stop the blood clots, but they couldn't stop the swelling in her brain. She'd still looked beautiful, though. When Sam arrived at the hospital the next day, he'd almost believed for a moment that his family had played an elaborate, horrible joke on him.

The drowsiness settled on his shoulders like a warm mantle as the long road stretched before him. Only occasional headlights punctuated the dark. Sam floored the gas pedal and wondered how fast he could go. His father had been driving fast, too.

At some point he realized he was crying. That was strange. The speedometer had passed sixty, and if he needed to slam on the brakes for any reason, he was probably toast.

And then what would happen to Tim?

He started to ease up then, and his truck slowed, bringing him back to himself. His heart thumped loudly and he exhaled, then breathed deeply and took account of his surroundings. He'd driven far out without knowing it, but the road he'd turned onto was familiar. It was Nathan's. He kept driving. The last he'd heard, Nathan's agent had listed the property for sale, but Sam had no idea whether the house had been purchased yet. A partially obscured realty sign still marked the property boundary at the base of the long driveway. Murder probably made the place a hard sell for most people.

Sam turned up the driveway and parked in view of the house. The snow and darkness did little to improve the scene. The place looked desolate and abandoned with its darkened windows. Not at all like the familiar house and land he'd gotten to know over the past few years. What the hell was he doing out here?

But before he turned around to head back into town, he noticed something on the ground, illuminated by his headlights. He stared hard and thought he made out footprints in the snow. Fresh, from the look of them.

His pulse accelerated. Maybe Nathan had been released? But no. Sam would have heard something. More likely, Nathan had asked a neighbor to collect his mail or check on the house in his absence. Sam killed the engine and headlights anyway and zipped his coat.

Small bits of ice mixed with the flakes and pinged on the ground like tiny insects hitting a car windshield. Sam knelt down and noticed the footprints were larger than his own, but only slightly, and made by heavy-duty boots. He pressed his palm into one, and the cold snow bit his skin. Difficult as it was to see in the darkness, they appeared to originate from the seldom-used road that ran parallel to the house—the old orchard road that led from the barn to the groves beyond and then looped around the property to connect with the main road about a mile away. Soon the snow and ice would obliterate all traces.

A harsh gust whipped sleet against his face. Something about the scene unsettled him, and then he realized what it was. There was only one set of footprints. Whoever they belonged to had either gone back another way, or still lurked somewhere nearby.

Adrenaline spiked in Sam's veins. He approached the front door cautiously, aware whoever was inside the house would have noticed his arrival minutes before. For once, he wished he'd taken the damn gun when Nathan offered it instead of stubbornly refusing.

Sam thought he saw an arc of light flash beyond the curtains in the living room, but it disappeared as soon as he registered it. Maybe the electricity had gone out. Or maybe, as seemed increasingly likely, someone had broken into Nathan's house. The perp returning to the scene of the crime?

He found the door slightly ajar, with the key stuck in the lock. Jesus. Had Nathan escaped from jail? Sam pushed the door open and peered inside, only to be met by silence and the darkness of the front hall. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold winter wind made goose bumps break out on his skin. He had the uncanny feeling he was being watched.

His flight instinct clashed with curiosity and suspicion. He paused on the threshold of the house, unsure whether to go or stay. Ultimately, though, there was never any choice, not when he could be on the verge of a discovery that might shed light on the crazy developments of the past few months. He clenched his freezing hands into fists and stepped inside.

The feeling of unease increased, making the tiny hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He strained to hear anything beyond the wind and snow and his own hammering heart. And then Rich Petersen stepped out of the shadows.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sam demanded, the words leaving his mouth before he had time to think about what business Rich Petersen might have in Nathan's home. At night. In a snowstorm. Dressed in black clothes.

“I should be asking you the same thing. This is a crime scene.”

Petersen crossed his arms, and his stance assumed a kind of genuine formidability that Sam never suspected his old school rival possessed.

“Not anymore it's not, so why are you at Nathan's house?”

“Police business.”

“In the dark? Hmm.” Sam flipped the hall switch, and the house flooded with comforting light. “There. That's better. Now you can see what you're doing. I always find it helpful to work with the lights on.”

“You think you're so smart, don't you?”

“I'm smart enough to know you don't have a warrant.”

“Of course I have a warrant.”

“Let's see it, then.”

Petersen's fleshy mouth tightened into a line. He glanced over Sam's shoulder into the night beyond. “I don't have to show you anything. This isn't even your house.” Sam didn't doubt Petersen wanted him to think he had a legitimate reason for being here, yet everything about the circumstances seemed suspicious.

Sam grinned. “I know. And it's definitely not
your
house, unless you bought it from Nathan?”

“Shut up, Flynn.”

Maybe it would have ended like that. Sam, after all, didn't have anything besides his misgivings to go on. But in the next moment, another set of footsteps thumped up the stairs and Petersen's eyes widened with surprise.

Sam spun around to come face-to-face with a figure in the doorway, a man he'd never seen before in his life. He was older than Sam, maybe around forty, and tall, with a deep divot in his square chin. He carried a gun in one black-gloved hand.

“Richard, what are you doing with the lights on?” he asked, only then seeming to register they weren't alone. He blinked at Sam. “Who is this?”

Sam's brain whirred from third gear to fourth. The voice was familiar. The accent, the intonation. He'd heard it before, and recently, but where?

Sheldon's office. The nausea came on strong as a Pavlovian response. Oh shit, this was the guy, the hit man who'd confessed to killing Emma. Sam tried to keep his expression neutral, a difficult task since the guy apparently liked to wave his Glock for emphasis. The hit man frowned. “Who is this?” he demanded again.

“We've got some company.”

“We cannot afford company, you stupid man. Did you find it?”

“Shut up,” Petersen said through gritted teeth. The man turned toward Sam, coming close enough for Sam to notice he reeked of cigarettes. His large body suggested a brutish, blunt strength.

“Did you follow us here?” he demanded, ignoring Petersen. “Who sent you?”

“No one sent me,” Sam said. “I'm here to pick up the mail.”

If neither of them knew Sam had heard the taped confession, maybe he had a shot of getting out in one piece. He kept his expression innocent, glancing between the two of them.

“So he does not know,” the man said to Petersen.

Petersen rolled his eyes. “He obviously knows something now.”

Dread curdled in Sam's stomach as he glanced toward the open door and tried to calculate the likelihood of making a run for it without being shot. The hit man seemed to sense his thoughts. He smiled a deadly smile. “But he's not going anywhere, are you, errand boy?”

That was the last thing Sam heard before everything went black.

He came to sometime later, expecting to be in the trunk of a car, or worse, and was surprised and relieved to find they were still at Nathan's house. His head throbbed with a pulsing ache where the hit man had clocked him. He appeared to be in the dining room, or what was left of it. All the packed boxes had been torn apart, their contents scattered. He could hear the voices of the other men coming from the living room, but he couldn't move his hands or feet. Groggily, he realized he'd been hogtied to a chair.

“Where is it, you idiot?” It was the hit man. “We need to get out of here before we are trapped in this blizzard.”

“It has to be here. She said it was.”

“Well, how do you know she did not lie to you?”

Sam couldn't tell who they were talking about, but the female pronoun suggested either Emma or Patricia.

“She didn't. I know she didn't. You didn't see her face.” Petersen's voice cracked. “She said her husband had a record of everything, and she'd given it to Emma. She said we… we'd all get what was coming to us. She said it was only a matter of time.”

So, Patricia, then. Petersen must be talking about the night on the bridge. Sam stayed completely still, afraid if he breathed, he'd miss something.

“How do you know she was not, how do you say, bluffing?” The hit man scoffed. “Stupid woman tries to get under your skin, and then she kill herself. She knows you cannot hurt her at this point. And we all know the little Jew was afraid of his wife. He would not have told her anything.” The hit man cackled as if he'd told a hilarious joke.

Petersen seemed less amused. “Nothing else makes any sense. Emma was a good cop, but she had to get her information somewhere. It has to be here,” he said again, and then again, repeating the phrase like a bizarre mantra.

“No. She would have told me during interrogation. Everyone always tells me the truth in the end. Before they beg for mercy.” From the twisted cadence of pleasure in his words, the hit man was obviously experienced in methods of torture. Bile rose in Sam's throat, and he blinked back tears of hatred and remorse as he envisioned the scene, even as his mind tried to blot out the images. Emma had been strangled, and likely over an extended period of time. He could almost hear her pleas. “I searched everywhere,” said the hit man. “There was nothing.”