“We’ll talk later.”
Elizabeth closed the bedroom door, then took the hottest shower she could stand. Afterward, she tended the wounds on her wrists, then put on jeans and boots and a shirt with tight cuffs. She was in the living room when Beckett showed up at the front door.
“Two things,” he said. “First, I was out of line last night. Way out of line. I’m sorry.”
“Just like that?”
“What can I say? You’re my partner. You matter.”
“What’s the second thing?”
“Second thing is I still want you to see the warden. He gets in early. He’s expecting you.”
“Adrian has court.”
“First appearances aren’t until ten. You have time.”
Elizabeth leaned into the door, thinking she was tired and wanted coffee and that it was too early for her to be standing in the door and talking to Charlie Beckett. “Why do you want me to see him? The real reason.”
“Same as before. I want you to recognize Adrian Wall for what he is.”
“Which is what?”
“Broken and violent and beyond redemption.”
Beckett put a big period at the end of the sentence, and Elizabeth thought hard about what he wanted. The prison mattered in the county. It meant jobs, stability. The warden had a lot of power. “He’ll show me something I don’t already know?”
“He’ll show you the truth, and that’s all I’m asking. For you to open your eyes and understand.”
“Adrian’s not a killer.”
“Just go. Please.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll see the warden.”
Elizabeth leaned on the door, but Beckett caught it before it closed. “Did you know she’s a shooter?”
Elizabeth froze.
“I looked it up last night. Channing is a competitive marksman. Did you know that?” Elizabeth looked away, but Beckett saw the truth. “It’s not in your report.”
“Because nobody needs to know.”
“Doesn’t need to know what? That she could strip your Glock in the dark, then put it back together and shoot the dick off a gnat? I dug up her scores. She can outshoot ninety-nine cops out of a hundred.”
“So can I.”
“She burned down her yard, yesterday. Did you know that, too? The fire marshal says the house could have gone up with it. The neighbor’s house, too. People could have died.”
“Why do you push, Charlie?”
“Because you’re my friend,” Beckett said. “Because Hamilton and Marsh are coming for you, and because we need an alternate story.”
“There is no alternate.”
“There’s the girl.”
“The girl?” Liz leaned on the door until the center of a single eye was all that showed. “As far as you’re concerned, there is no girl.”
*
Beckett disagreed. The bullet placement was perfect. Knees. Elbows. Groins. Could the girl have done it? Taken the Monroe brothers out in near dark? Tortured them, first? She was eighteen, weighed all of ninety pounds. Beyond that, he didn’t know her at all, so he couldn’t say.
But, he did know Liz.
She treated Gideon like a son, the girl like a sister, and Adrian like some kind of fallen saint. She was a sucker for lost causes, and now there were these new questions.
Could Channing have pulled the trigger?
Whose blood was on the wire?
The questions followed him into the precinct and upstairs. He checked the murder board on Ramona Morgan, but they didn’t have much. Burn marks from a stun gun were obvious, but they had no fingerprints, fibers, or DNA. No sexual assault occurred. Death was by strangulation, which apparently happened on or near the altar, and took a long time. There was no sign the body had been moved, but no sign was found of her clothing. Torn fingertips suggested that she’d been held elsewhere and tried hard to escape. Bits of rust had been scraped from beneath her nails and skin. There was no roommate or boyfriend, as far as her coworkers knew. Phone records showed three calls from a burner cell, which was interesting, but at the moment, useless. The medical examiner had promised a full report minus tox screen by the end of the day. In the meantime, the girl’s mother was pushing to claim the remains.
“One thing.”
The words were quiet, the rest of the thought unspoken.
I need one thing to tie this to Adrian Wall.
He needed Adrian to be the killer and felt the need in a way few could understand. But, there was nothing. They’d canvassed neighbors, coworkers, people who liked the same bars as Ramona, the same coffee shops and restaurants and parks. No one could put Adrian and the victim together.
Could I be wrong?
The thought was unpleasant. If Adrian didn’t kill Ramona Morgan, then maybe he didn’t kill Julia Strange, either. That meant his conviction was flawed and that every cop who’d hated him for so long and with such passion was full-on, absolutely wrong.
No.
Beckett shook off the doubt.