Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(90)

“It’s all just too pat. Nobody saw nothing. Nobody saw this guy come into the building, nobody saw him force his way into the apartment. The woman claims she opened the door thinking it’s a neighbor and Scooter Cobb is standing there. Now, she just happens to have a shotgun lying on the hall table, so when he attacks her, she bangs off two shots, one of which nails him square in the middle of the chest. She does all of this while she’s struggling to get loose from a guy who’s three times her size. Pretty skillful for somebody who’s supposedly never before used a shotgun—no?”

Mahoney, with a grin playing at the corner of his mouth, shrugged. “What about ballistics?” he asked, “You got anything there?”

“Not likely. I’m sure her prints are all over the shotgun, but the way that buckshot splattered, the lab guys are just gonna be guessing at the trajectory.”

“I think she just might be telling the truth,” Mahoney said. “Scooter Cobb’s a mean old bastard; I wouldn’t doubt he came here to kill her and the boy. There’s an arrest warrant out for Cobb, and enough evidence to prove he was the one who murdered the boy’s daddy. That, let me tell you, was a brutal affair—one of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

“You think maybe the kid shot Cobb for revenge?”

Mahoney shrugged. “Anything’s possible, I suppose.”

“Hmmm…” Gomez raised an eyebrow, “You figure if I push harder on the woman or the boy, I might get at the truth?”

“I doubt it,” Mahoney said, “I truly doubt it.”



Of course, Gomez didn’t give up quite that easily. For weeks on end he’d come knocking on Olivia’s door with some other question he’d forgotten to ask. Two months after the shooting he gathered together a flimsy packet of evidence and presented it to the District Attorney. “The kid did the shooting, I’m certain of it,” he said; hoping to get the go ahead on an indictment.

“Are you kidding?” the District Attorney asked. “In an election year you want me to indict some little kid on this kind of crappy evidence?” He accused Gomez of wasting the tax-payers money and told him it was time to move on.

Afterwards, the question of whether or not Olivia was telling the truth slid into oblivion and that was the end of that.





Jack Mahoney

I’ve worked many a case during my twenty years on the force, but never one quite as loose-ended as the Doyle murders. My gut tells me the kid’s story is true, but now that Scooter Cobb is dead, we’ll never know the absolute truth of what came about. One thing I can say for sure, there’s a sizeable amount of grief attached to the Cobbs.

Sam left the force; he’s running his daddy’s diner now, but with that bad leg of his he’s gotta sit more than stand. Emma, poor woman, sold the house and moved off to Connecticut, to live with her sister. The Doyle place went for taxes. Benjamin was up to his ears in debt so there wasn’t really anything left to hold onto. I doubt the kid much cared; neither he nor his grandma had any interest in coming back here and I can’t say that I blame them.

Olivia Doyle swore up and down she was the one who shot Scooter Cobb and did so because he was trying to break into her house. Gomez had his suspicions about the truth of her story, but couldn’t get anyone to say otherwise. He finally gave up trying. Me? I don’t doubt she’s covering for the boy; but listen, the kid’s already gone through enough and besides Scooter Cobb probably got what he deserved.

Christine always says the Almighty doles out his own kind of justice, and you know what—I’m beginning to think she’s right.





Thirty-two years later

Ethan Allen Doyle, who for the past three years has presided over Richmond County Family Court, is said to be the fairest Judge in all of Virginia. He is also the youngest ever appointed to the bench. Some claim it was the influence of his Grandmother that gave him a uniquely strong character; others believe he was simply born with a clarity of purpose. One thing is for certain, the youngsters who appear before him seldom walk away without a better understanding of life.

Once a year Judge Doyle’s courtroom is closed—no cases are heard, no young boys admonished to watch their language, no children reset upon a pathway that’s more straight and narrow. That day is always the eleventh of April, the anniversary of when his grandmother passed away. On that day, Judge Doyle, his wife, Laura, and their two boys visit the cemetery and place a large bouquet of flowers beside the headstone that reads: Olivia Ann Doyle, Wife of Charles and Beloved Grandmother of Ethan Allen. On this, the fifth anniversary of her death, they do as they have always done.

Spring is late this year, some of the streams are still frozen and there are no crocuses poking their heads from beneath the soil. On this particular morning there is a bitter chill in the air and a wind that tears through overcoats like the pointy tip of an icicle. But Laura bundles the boys in warm parkas and off they go.

Their first stop is the florist; where despite the fact that cut flowers are astronomically expensive this year, Judge Doyle buys a bouquet of twenty seven long stemmed red roses—one for each year that he and his grandmother shared.

The younger boy, Charles, was but a baby when she died so he has no memory of his great grandmother. Oliver, the elder of the two, barely remembers her. Their father, Ethan Allen, remembers her with more love than it seems possible for a heart to hold. “I surely do miss you, Grandma,” he sighs, as he bows his head before the grey headstone with an angel carved into the face of it.