The Dark Room(80)

“Good,” Cain said. “Because Nagata wouldn’t be in on something like that. It makes no sense. If Castelli had stayed mayor forever, she would’ve been the chief of police. If he’d gone back to Washington, or become governor—no telling where she could’ve gone. But when he died, her star set. If Nagata picked me, it’s because I’ve got the most seniority in Homicide. That’s it.”

“Which is why we need to think,” Fischer said. “Someone wanted SFPD on the blackmail case. That means someone knew that SFPD already had the casket.”

“Maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way,” Cain said. “We’re asking: Why did they want me on the blackmail case? But what if that’s the wrong question?”

“What’s the right one?”

He chose his words carefully, articulating the question for the first time.

“Why did they send the blackmail letter right after I got the exhumation order? Keep in mind, the court’s order was a public document. The minute I got it, anyone keeping an eye out would have known.”

As Fischer drove past the guard booth, Cain leaned over to see if the man inside was awake. He was upright and alert, and his uniform was crisp. Cain tipped him a two-fingered wave, and then they were on the road that wound around the bluffs, snaking toward the west side of the island to reach the bridge on-ramp.

“That’s brilliant,” Fischer said. “That’s the question.”

“You think?”

“They blackmailed Castelli after they knew the body was coming up—because, what if they knew something about the body was going to lead back to him?”

“Then they’d only have a narrow window,” Cain said. “If they made it look like he shot himself right before all that came out—a girl in a casket, buried alive—who’d look twice?”

“We nearly didn’t,” Fischer said. “It almost had us.”

“They had to get the ball rolling before we arrested him, or else they wouldn’t be able to reach him. They weren’t blackmailing him at all. They meant to kill him, and the letter was just cover.”

“But what would be on the body?” Fischer asked. “Thirty years underground, what would connect him?”

He looked over at Fischer. He’d forgotten how much he’d kept back from her.

“She was pregnant.”

“You think it’s his.”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

She sped up and steered around the curving ramp until they merged onto the bridge. Then the city was stretched out in front of them, the steep hills and the lights glittering against a dark dawn.





29


THEY PARKED ON Bay Street and looked across at Henry Newcomb’s house. There were no lights burning in the living room, but above it, one window on the top floor was lit. It must have been a kid’s bedroom. The master suite would likely be in the back, overlooking the garden.

They got out of the car and crossed the street, then climbed the narrow steps up to Henry’s front door. Cain skipped the doorbell and used his fist. Knocking like a beat cop, like Grassley. They waited and listened, and then they heard light feet running down the stairs. The door opened four inches and stopped on its chain.

A pair of small boys’ faces looked out from the level of the doorknob. One of them was hyperalert, studying Cain with interest. The other was shy and wary.

“Who are you?” the curious one asked.

Cain took his inspector’s star and held it for the boy to see.

“Gavin Cain, SFPD,” he said. “I’m here to see your father.”

“His father, not mine,” the boy said. “This is David Newcomb. I’m his friend, Ross Carver. I don’t live here.”

Henry’s son looked out and said nothing. Then he withdrew from the cracked door and went away. He called out softly from the foot of the stairs.

“Dad?”

When he didn’t get an answer, he climbed out of sight and called again.

“Do you like being a cop?” the other boy asked Cain.

“It’s okay.”

“That’s what I’m going to do,” the boy said. “When I’m old. I think it looks better than just okay.”

“You want to catch the bad guys.”

“Or shoot them.”

“It’s a lot of paperwork, shooting them,” Cain said. “So it’s better just to catch them.”

“Did you ever have to shoot a guy?”

“Once,” Cain said.

He looked through the crack in the door, behind the boy. Henry’s son was still upstairs, and he thought he could hear Henry and his wife speaking with their child.

“Did he die?” the boy asked, and Cain turned back to him.

“He was fine,” Cain said. He was going to leave it at that, but both the boy and Fischer were watching him, waiting for him to explain. “I shot him in the leg and the arm. Twice in the arm.”

“On purpose?” the boy asked.

Cain nodded. “I wanted to arrest him.”

“What did he do?”

“Why did I shoot him? Or what did he do after I shot him?”

“Both.”

“He was a very bad guy,” Cain said. This was now the longest conversation he’d ever had on this topic outside of a courtroom. But he didn’t mind. It was good practice, talking to a kid about things like this. “He’d walked into a school, the man I shot. He went in so he could hurt a bunch of kids. And five of the teachers. And then he left before we could catch him. It took us four years to figure out who he was and track him down.”