“No! You’re a cop!”
“Yes, yes, and such a good one. Katie, time has gone by-time has waited. For me! Don’t go thinking I’m crazy, young lady. I have been on a mission. And David Beckett will finally pay the piper for his vile family. He should have been arrested and sent to the electric chair for Tanya-now that didn’t really hurt much. She was a little tramp. I was only a patrolman at the time, but she was so tipsy. And it was so easy. She was walking on one of the side streets, pacing. I stopped to give her a ride. She got right in the car, and I said I’d take her to the museum, to see David. She looked out the window, and I was ready. I didn’t even really know what I was doing then, but it was easy. I’d been prepared for the right moment, so I slipped that clean plastic over her head, and she had so much alcohol in her system…well, she went easy. Laid her out in back of the car…used the key to the museum I’d copied at least two or three months earlier, just waiting on ol’ David to get back, Mr. Hero Serviceman! Then, after midnight, I had lots of time to set her up. Now, that Stella, she was just at the right place at the right time, and I was at the right place at the right time, and good ol’David was back in the city, thinking he could tear the case apart.”
“Why did you let him?” Katie asked.
“Because I’m so damned good. With Stella, the city was rising. I just walked right up behind her while she was peeking through the bushes-afraid of the cops! Killed her-and left her there for hours. Who knows? Maybe folks even saw her and thought she was a drunk, sleeping it off. I went back for her, and hell, yes, missy, I had a copy of the key to that place, too-that shoddy new museum where I left Stella. Of course, I took the tapes from the surveillance cameras.” He paused to chuckle. “I even called David Beckett to come see the crime scene.”
“Danny,” Katie whispered. At least he was talking, at least she was playing for time.
“Danny, well, that saddened me,” Pete said regretfully. “I thought I could bribe him to just stop playing around. He got interested in old curses and figured out that I was descended from Eli Smith. He thought that it was funny that the police lieutenant’s ancestor was hanged for murder-funny! I tried to bribe him anonymously-couldn’t work up enough anger to kill the guy and thought that a little money might satisfy him. It would have worked, too-Danny was never exactly what you’d call ambitious! But then he saw me with Stella and I knew that he would start to put the pieces together. Danny wasn’t ambitious, but he wasn’t stupid.”
“He left the money and the books-that’s why you took your time getting a search warrant for his apartment, right?”
“I knew I had to get in there first,” Pete said.
“Why me?” she asked softly.
“Oh, Katie! Such a pretty, sweet thing! But he loves you, so…this is really the revenge I wanted. With Tanya, it was perfect-he had motive, he was young, he was big, he should have been angry. There’s motive for you! And…he cared about her, but not the way he cares about you. That’s too perfect. That’s real revenge!”
“Pete, Pete, think, you’re a cop, they’ll know it was you now!”
He laughed. “I’m a cop, yes. And that’s the point. We’ve come full circle from the hanging tree, and now it can all rest. The past will really be avenged. And as to my position, it’s perfect. And I am the best! I’ve served this city. I’ve been firm, and I’ve been fair. I’ve taken down some of the biggest drug lords to darken our door. And now, my life will be purged. Now, once Beckett is dead and he’s history-a vicious killer brought down by the descendant of the man he wronged-I’ll make history myself. I’ll take the chief’s place in a few years. And, in time, I’ll run for office. I’ll be governor, you’ll see. My life is bigger than this small island. It’s my destiny to carry out the curse. That’s how powerful I really am!”
He was serious. Dead serious. That was perhaps the most terrifying aspect of it all. He believed that he had been wronged. He probably had been a good cop-other than being a psycho murderer.
“Why are you hurting my brother?” she asked.
“Katie O’Hara! You don’t know your history. Your brother’s death adds so much to all this. Don’t you know? Oh, please, you might have guessed. An O’Hara was on the jury that denounced my ancestor, did you know that? An O’Hara helped deliver a death sentence. So, well, I just hadn’t expected quite this much justice, but it’s all fallen in nicely.” He lifted her head for her, twisting it so that she could see clearly.
She winced, trying not to cry out.
Sean looked like an oversize doll. He’d been set up in a stand. He was lolled against it, still unconscious. He was wearing Tanzler’s hat. Sean was tall and broad-shouldered. It must have irritated Pete that he couldn’t possibly shove Sean into Carl Tanzler’s much smaller clothing.