Fatal Reckoning (Fatal #14)(74)
“You have no idea how much I wish I was kidding.”
“Why would he withhold that information for all this time? Skip was his friend.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He paused, considered and decided to tell her what’d happened recently with Wallack. It went against everything he believed in to tell tales out of work, even to her, but this one needed to be shared if only to help him wrap his head around it. “This isn’t the first time he’s kept something to himself that he should’ve shared.”
“What else?”
“He knew Kenny Wallack was missing for two weeks before we found out. Sam went to his house looking for him in the middle of the night. His wife freaked out thinking he had to be dead if she was there at that hour. That’s when we found out he’d been missing for two weeks. She’d reported it to Kenny’s close friend Conklin, who kept it to himself.”
“Why didn’t he tell you?”
“He said he was afraid Wallack had fallen off the wagon again and he was trying to protect him.”
“And you believed that?”
“I didn’t know what to believe, but I suspended him for a week for not following proper procedures in reporting a missing person. Ever since then, he’s been keeping his distance.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He’s always been one of your closest friends and advisers.”
“I know, and because of that, his downfall could spell mine too.”
“How so?”
“It’s well-known that we’re close friends, and if my deputy chief and longtime friend is crooked in some way, that’s going to rain down on me.”
“That’s not fair! You knew nothing about any of this.”
“The argument will be made that I should’ve known. The buck stops with me, honey. You know how that works.”
“It’s all so unbelievable.”
“I know. For me too. Our academy class was known for being super tight—me, Jake, Skip, Conklin, Wallack, Steve Coyne. I was closer to Jake and Skip than the others, but I always thought any of them would have my back.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Steven since I saw Alice at the funeral. The poor thing was so broken up over Skip’s passing.”
“She would be. Skip was so good to her after Steven was killed, even at the expense of his own marriage when he was with Brenda.”
“It’s strange that both Steven’s shooting and Skip’s are unsolved.”
Her innocuous comment hit him like a fist to the gut. Was it possible the two shootings were somehow related, even coming several decades apart? The question had him reaching for the phone again.
Marti sat up in bed. “Joe? What is it?”
He put through the call to Jake, who picked up on the first ring. “What’s up?”
“Marti said something.” It would be no surprise to Jake that he’d shared the latest developments with his wife.
“What’d she say?”
“About Steve Coyne and Skip both being part of unsolved shootings. It made me wonder.”
“If they’re related somehow?”
“Exactly.”
“Jesus, Joe. I can’t even let my mind go there.”
“I think our minds have to go there in light of recent events.”
“You can’t possibly think…”
“I don’t what to think!”
Jake took a deep breath and blew it out. “Something like this… It could bring us all down if it somehow comes back to Conklin.”
“Believe me, I know.”
After a long pause, Jake said, “Let me think about this. I need time to process it. We’ll talk in the morning?”
“See you then. Call me if anything breaks overnight.”
“I will.”
Joe ended the call and plugged the phone back into the charger. He reached for Marti, and she snuggled up to him, putting her arm around his waist and resting her head on his chest.
“No matter what happens, everything will be all right. We have each other, and that’s all we need.”
He tightened his hold on her. “I know.” She was all he needed, but he wished he believed her when she said everything was going to be all right. He had a bad feeling about where this investigation was leading.
* * *
SAM’S FIRST ORDER of business in the morning was a text to her mother. Give me a call when you’re up and about.
Her phone rang ten minutes later as Sam was getting dressed. “Hey.”
“Morning.”
“Do you have time to grab coffee this morning?”
“Absolutely. Do you want to come by my place? I’ve got coffee and corn muffins.”
“That sounds good. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Looking forward to it.”
They ended the call, and Sam finished dressing in jeans, a sweater and running shoes in anticipation of pounding some pavement as she followed up on leads from the tip line. It wasn’t what she wanted to be doing, but it was what she was allowed to do. Keeping busy was critical, especially when all she really wanted was to take to her bed and pull the covers up over her head to keep everyone away.