Cold Springs(125)

“When?”

“A few days ago. Bits and pieces have been falling into place for a month—talking to you, talking to Mallory, seeing you from two different angles.”

“If you knew, why did you agree to be my partner again?”

She turned her face toward the upper windows of the school, where the long winter sun was streaking the glass the color of coins.

“You remind me of my stepdad,” she said. “I think I'm supposed to make it work with you. I'm supposed to be your partner, because to do that, I have to drop some serious emotional ballast. I have to be honest with myself about my past, forgive myself. Maybe it's time you did the same.”

The tire swing spun—right where John Zedman had stood wearing his kindergarten quilt, laughing and drinking champagne like there was every reason to celebrate, like guilt was not a predator that could follow a scent.

“You want the truth to come out,” Olsen said. “You tried to tell me, through that story about Thailand. There was no boy in Thailand. Hunter and you never killed anyone on guard duty. You wouldn't have let yourself get set up and framed, you wouldn't have pursued the blackmailer in the first place, if you didn't know in your heart you wanted to be discovered.”

For years, Chadwick had known the hook was embedded in his mouth—waiting for him to betray the slightest tremor, the least resistance on the line. But now that the truth was tugging at him, he was surprised to feel no fear. He was being reeled out of the pressure of the river bottom, back toward the surface, out of the darkness.

“Katherine thought she loved Samuel Montrose,” he said. “He was mean-spirited—evil. He used my daughter, got her hooked on heroin. He was taking her apart, just for the fun of doing it.”

“And you found this out before she died, not after.”

Chadwick closed his eyes. He remembered the car ride from Oakland, Katherine telling him so much to hurt him, so much he didn't want to hear.

“A week before,” he replied. “I didn't know what to do. I could feel her just slipping away.”

“You didn't do nothing, like your wife thought. You talked to John Zedman.”

“John said we could take care of it. John's style was to confront people, make them back off. He and I went to Oakland. We tracked down Samuel, found him in the building where he dealt drugs, the same place his grandmother still lives. He was more than we'd bargained for. We argued with him. I just wanted him to leave Katherine alone. I wanted him out of her life. He pulled a gun.”

“And so did you.”

“I did, but I didn't have time to use it. John . . . he took out a .22. I didn't even know he'd brought it. He shot Samuel in the gut. Samuel kept coming. But he didn't fire. John fired twice more, hit the kid in the chest. I remember Samuel turning from the force, turning toward me, like he wanted me to see what had happened to him. And after he fell, I watched while John pointed the gun at Samuel's head. Only afterward, we realized the gun Samuel pulled wasn't even loaded. He'd been bluffing.”

Chadwick couldn't read Olsen's face. Like a good counselor, she kept her expression nonjudgmental, calm in the face of atrocity. “You covered for Zedman. You became an accomplice to murder.”

“John was terrified. He panicked when I suggested calling the police. He kept talking about his reputation, his family. He kept reminding me that he'd done it for me. We both knew the police would never buy self-defense. It would look like we'd hunted Samuel down and executed him. So we wrapped the body—we got it into the car. We dumped it in the Bay.”

“But Katherine knew.”

“She suspected. I couldn't hide the guilt in my face. I didn't admit to anything. Katherine didn't exactly confront me, but . . . she knew. I went to Texas to try to decide what to do. I was planning on telling Norma when I got back, taking prison time if I had to. I half expected Katherine to call the police herself. But when I got home, before I could send her to Cold Springs, she killed herself. Nine years, people have been telling me her death wasn't my fault. But it was.”

The fog drifted through the eucalyptus branches across the street. Beyond the green expanse of the Presidio, the orange spires of the Golden Gate Bridge marched off toward Marin.

Olsen broke off another piece of her sugar cookie, took a bite. “That night Katherine visited the Montrose house, to tell Kindra her suspicions. Katherine wouldn't have OD'ed if Kindra hadn't supplied her pure heroin.”

“It's still my fault.”

“Kindra didn't trust her chances at justice against Zedman and you. She opted for her own kind of revenge. She became Samuel—she began torturing John Zedman. And you.”

“Call Sergeant Damarodas. Or the press. Your decision.”

Olsen sighed. “No. Not mine.”

She pointed toward the little yard. Race Montrose was climbing over the ribbon, slipping into the shadows while his peers kept up their joking and jostling, cutting glances at Race only now that he had given up trying to be among them.

In a trance, Chadwick followed him.

The yard was canopied by a huge oak tree, wedged between a high wooden fence and the building, so it was always the darkest, coolest spot at school. The air smelled of wet sand and mulch and mud from class projects and butterfly gardens. Along the wall of the second-grade classroom, where a gravel path used to be, the newly poured sidewalk glistened gray as catfish skin, its wet surface already scarred with a hundred tiny handprints and childish signatures.