Chapter 40
Sol had lied.
Right through her teeth.
She’d promised Reed that she would stay put, that she would wait in his Jeep for five minutes while he tried to talk some sense into his friend, the deranged killer who had murdered his wife.
But that was crazy.
She didn’t like the plan, not one bit, even though Reed assured her that he could handle the situation, and if push came to shove, he had his pistol. It wasn’t enough.
So while Reed was walking up the front steps of Jamison Kittle’s Georgian-style home to try to face his friend, to do the right thing and give the murdering son of a bitch some dignity, she texted for backup, slipped her pistol from its holster, and reached for the Jeep’s door handle.
Even so, she was too late as Reed knocked on the door, and it immediately swung open.
He stepped inside.
“Damn it.” She opened the door and slipped out of the Jeep. She’d been a fool to let him come here, she knew it. She should have called his bluff, arrested him on the spot, and cuffed him to his desk. Or maybe sent him to the psych ward. Or done anything to stop this madness.
What was it about male friendship?
The “bro” pact or whatever?
There seemed to be some testosterone-fueled pride involved.
She knew Reed thought he was giving his friend a chance to come clean and confess, to explain himself and turn himself in. In truth, he was a patsy. And she was a fool to have agreed to this screwball, dangerous plan!
She’d made a mistake.
And now she had to rectify it.
Whether Reed knew it or not, Jamison Kittle was all about Jamison Kittle.
Period.
His wife’s life hadn’t mattered.
Nor would his best friend’s.
Jamison answered the door.
Bleary-eyed, unshaven, his hair tousled, he stood in a T-shirt and sweatpants, his feet bare.
And he reeked of booze.
As if he’d drunk half a fifth of whiskey before tumbling into bed and was now sweating out the alcohol. He was a mess. Again. Pierce had thought it was due to the loss of his wife. Because of his grief. Now, though, he knew better and understood what was eating at him.
“What’re you doing here?” Jamison asked and glanced beyond Pierce to the darkness beyond his porch.
“I think you know.”
Jamison’s eyes narrowed a bit. “You caught the Slasher?” he said, but he didn’t believe it.
“Not yet.”
“Then …?”
“I think you know.”
“Naomi,” Jamison said and stepped out of the doorway to allow Pierce to pass.
“Right.”
He let out a long breath and ran stiff fingers through his unruly hair. “I assume you found her phone.”
“You mean the burner phone?” Pierce said, nodding as they walked through the main hall to the game room off the kitchen, Jamison leading the way and snapping on lights. “Yeah, it was hidden in the car. Under a panel. And it was the number that matched the calls we found on Knox Quinlan’s.”
“So they were really having an affair?”
“You know that already.”
Jamison motioned to the arched opening to the dark kitchen. “You want coffee?” he asked. “It’s early, but I can—”
“No. Look. This isn’t a social call.” Pierce took the two steps down and into the game room, where, once Jamison snapped on the lights, the Kittle collection of weapons and trophy kills was on full display.
Rifles and shotguns, long bows and automatic weapons behind glass and mounted on the walls, long-dead prey with glittering glass eyes that seemed to glower down on them, and from the front hallway, he heard the steady ticking of the grandfather clock.
Counting down the seconds.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“Not a social call?” Jamison repeated. “Well, I guess not, considering the time.”
Feeling the weight of his pistol tucked at his back in the waistband of his jeans, Pierce nodded. “Right.”
Jamison walked to the bar, where a half-full bottle of Maker’s Mark stood open. “Then why are you here, friend,” Jamison asked, “if not to join me in a very late nightcap or a really early pick-me-up?” He reached under the bar, and Pierce tensed, thought about whipping out his weapon.
But Jamison came up with two glasses. He set them down on the bar so hard, the bottle of whiskey rocked a bit.
“No thanks,” Pierce said.
“You sure?” He poured three fingers in each short glass.
“Absolutely.”
Tick. Tick.
Jamison eyed him, then shrugged, though beneath his seemingly cool exterior, he was tense, the cords in his neck visible, his jaw set and hard. “Your loss.” Never letting his gaze leave Pierce’s, Jamison tossed back the first drink in one large gulp. “What’s up?”
“We found your insurance policies and checked with the companies.”
“Yeah?” He lifted a shoulder.
“You had major policies on your wife. Total of nearly two million dollars.”
“I know. Those were taken out when the kids were born.”
“But a new one was bought recently. Just a month ago.”
“I told you we were planning on another child.” He picked up the second drink.
“A boy, right? An heir.”
“Hopefully.” Nervously, Jamison fidgeted with the second glass, the amber liquid sloshing a bit.
“About that, Jamison,” Pierce said. There was no reason to keep beating around the bush. “It doesn’t work.”
Tick, tick, tick. The clock was relentless in counting down the seconds.
“What do you mean? What doesn’t work?”
“We know Naomi had surgery, a tubal ligation.”
“The autopsy?”
“Will confirm,” Pierce said. “We noticed the scars on her abdomen.”
He didn’t argue. “There are ways of reversing the surgery. Medicine’s come a long way in the last few years.”
“If the woman is willing.”
“She is—was,” Jamison said, but Pierce noticed a vein bulging near his temples, jumping in counterpoint to the damned ticking of the clock.
Jamison gulped from the second glass.
“She was willing to have another baby.”
“Wanted,” he cut in.
“Okay, wanted another baby.”
“I told you we were trying to patch things up. Save our marriage.”
“Even though she was still seeing Knox Quinlan?”
“She was going to break it off with him.”
Pierce stared at his friend, right through the lie.
“I thought you didn’t know about the affair until I brought it up.
But you’re saying she admitted it? Was going to call things off with Quinlan?
” He saw Jamison realizing that he’d misspoken, that his lies were unraveling.
Pierce recognized the panic in his friend’s eyes, but he didn’t stop.
“We’re having a more in-depth interview with Quinlan today. ”
“Why? Do you think he’ll tell you the truth?
” Jamison asked, his cool facade slipping.
“He’s an ex-con, Pierce. An adulterer. A liar.
He probably killed Naomi. For all you know, he’s the Savannah Slasher!
There was a rock found in her hand, for the love of God.
Why the hell are you not arresting him?”
“He didn’t kill Naomi,” Pierce said. As Jamison stalked across the room, knocking into the coffee table and swearing, Pierce kept his eye on him. “You know it.”
“I know it? How?”
“Because you killed her.”
Jamison stopped dead in his tracks. “What did you say?” He turned to face Pierce. “You think I killed Naomi? My wife? The mother of my girls?” If he was trying to appear incredulous, he failed.
“Yeah, I do. As an officer of the law, I’m asking you to come of your own volition down to the station with me. As a friend, I’m suggesting you get a lawyer.”
“Oh, right, the husband is always the first suspect.”
“Especially when all of the evidence points to him.”
“Shit, man!” Jamison held his gaze, and just as he had the other day at this very house, out by the pool, Pierce felt a fight coming on.
“I came out here as a favor to you,” Pierce said with measured, practiced calm. “So you can come in quietly. With some dignity. So we can handle this without the press, without a lot of fanfare.”
“You’re married to a fucking reporter! What do you mean without the press?”
“Come on, Jamison, don’t make this any harder than it is.”
“You’re fired, Pierce,” Jamison spat. “Do you hear me? You’ve just kissed your career goodbye. Who do you think you are, coming here with half-baked theories instead of doing your damned job?”
Without waiting for an answer, he stalked to the bar and picked up his drink. “Now, get the hell out of my house.”
“It’s over, Jamison.”
“For you.” He drained the drink, and more of his steady facade slipped. “Not for me.”
“You’re gonna make this hard? You’re gonna make me arrest you?”
“I’m not going anywhere! This is crazy. I’m a fuckin’ ADA. And when the DA retires, I’m getting her job!”
“I don’t think so,” Pierce said. “But come on down to the station and explain yourself.”
“Fuck you!” He slammed his empty glass down and, swift as lightning striking, reached under the bar again. This time he pulled out a pistol. Not an antique or collectible like the weapons displayed in the cases. No, this was a semiautomatic handgun.
Deadly.
Accurate.
In the hands of a sharpshooter.
“I hate to do this, Pierce, I really do. But you’re giving me no choice here. I’m not going down for this. Get it? I’m not going down for any of it.”
Pierce shifted and reached behind him for his sidearm.
Jamison took aim.
“Drop it!” Sol commanded from somewhere in the darkened kitchen.
Jamison glanced toward the sound.
Pierce withdrew his pistol and caught a glimpse of Sol, standing full-frontal, two hands on the pistol she had aimed straight at Jamison.
Too late!
Jamison fired.
The muzzle of his gun flashed.
Blam!
Pierce snagged his weapon and took aim at his friend.
Stumbling backward, Sol pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Jamison’s body jerked once.
Sol collapsed onto the steps.
Blood showing on his T-shirt, Jamison took aim at Pierce. “I’m not going down.”
Pierce pulled the trigger.
Jamison fell backward.
Against the slider door.
Took aim again and fired.
The shot went wild, the bullet burying itself in the thick neck of an already dead buck.
Pierce’s gun was leveled, directly at his friend, his finger on the trigger.
“Give it up!” he ordered, and for a second, Jamison’s eyes flashed with defiance.
He seemed about to shoot again, but the pistol fell from his hand.
Still leaning against the slider, Jamison sank to the floor, a smear of blood streaking the glass behind him.
“You … you …” Jamison rasped, blood on his lips. “You … goddamned fuckin’ detective …”
Shaken, Pierce held on to his gun, keeping it trained on his friend as he walked closer and kicked Jamison’s gun out of his reach. The man, his once-upon-a-time best friend, was gasping for breath, splotches of red blooming on his T-shirt.
Sol, too, lay on the floor, her body stretched over the two steps into the room, head near the kitchen, feet in the trophy room.
Pierce called to her, but she didn’t respond. Her eyes open. Unblinking. “Sol!” he shouted. “Augustin! Come on. Stay with me,” he begged, on his knees, seeing the blood oozing from a wound on her shoulder He couldn’t lose another partner. Couldn’t! “Sol! Sol!”
She moaned, then.
Blinked, her eyes seeming to focus as he reached for his phone.
“They’re coming,” she said, with obvious difficulty, realizing that he was about to call for help. “Backup. I called. They’re coming. Listen.”
He heard nothing but her labored breathing and the frantic beating of his own heart. He dialed, one eye on Jamison, who still wasn’t moving, the other on his partner.
“911,” a crisp female voice answered just as he heard the first siren, faint but bleating and heading this way. Nonetheless, he told the operator what he needed, insisting she send two ambulances to the home of ADA Jamison Kittle, one-time golden boy and now just another cold-blooded murderer.
Only when he ended the connection, against the operator’s instructions, did he see the text from his wife.
We got him.
We got the Savannah Slasher.
Now you come home, Detective.
We need you.