Chapter 101
S AMPSON AND I WERE BACK inside his car waiting for the Butcher to return to the house in Montauk. We were down to counting the minutes. Sooner or later he had to come back; only it hadn’t happened yet, and Sampson and I were tired, cold, and, frankly, disappointed.
A pizza delivery guy from Papa John’s showed up at around seven thirty. But no Sullivan, no Butcher, no relief in sight, and no pizza for us, either.
“Let’s talk about something,” said Sampson. “Keep our minds off food. And the cold.”
“Been thinking about Maria again while I’m sitting here freezing my ass off,” I said as we watched the long-haired pizza guy come and go. The thought had crossed my mind that Sullivan might use a delivery like this to get his wife a message. Had that just happened? Nothing we could do about it. But had it just happened?
“Not surprising, sugar,” said Sampson.
“What happened the last couple months dredged up a lot of the past for me. I figured I’d grieved enough. Maybe not though. Therapist seems to think not.”
“You had two babies to take care of back then. Maybe you were a little too busy to mourn as much as you needed. I remember I used to come over the house some nights. You never seemed to sleep. Working homicide cases. Trying to be a daddy. Remember the Bell’s palsy?”
“Now that you mention it.”
I’d had a disconcerting facial twitch for a while after Maria died. A neurologist at Johns Hopkins told me that it might go away or go on for years. It lasted a little more than two weeks, and it was kind of an effective tool on the job. Scared the hell out of perps I had to question in the cage.
“At the time, you wanted to catch Maria’s killer so bad, Alex. Then you started obsessing over other murder cases. That’s when you became a really good detective. In my opinion anyway. It’s when you became focused. How you got to be the Dragon Slayer.”
I felt like I was in the confessional. John Sampson was my priest. So what was new?
“I didn’t want to think about her all the time, so I guess I had to throw myself into something else. There were the kids, and there was work.”
“So did you grieve enough, Alex? This time? Is it over? Close to being over?”
“Honestly? I don’t know, John. I’m trying to figure that out now.”
“What if we don’t catch Sullivan this time? What if he gets away on us? What if he already has?”
“I think I’ll be better about Maria. She’s been gone a long time.” I stopped, took a breath. “I don’t think it was my fault. I couldn’t have done anything differently when she was shot.”
“Ahh,” said Sampson.
“Ahh,” I said.
“But you’re not completely sure, are you? You’re still not convinced.”
“Not a hundred percent.” Then I laughed. “Maybe if we do catch him tonight. Maybe if I blow his brains out. Then we’ll definitely be even.”
“That’s why we’re out here, sugar? To blow his brains out?”
There was a knock against the car’s side window, and I went for my gun.