Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
Over an hour had gone by with no progress.
Finley wasn’t accepting Sandra’s calls and attempts to get an answer on Levine’s phone had failed.
It was frustrating having an edge to work and no opportunity to use it.
The plan once she got him on the phone was to chip away at his remorse, even to flip it and paint them as victims who got caught up in all of this.
If she sold it, Finley might be lulled into a sense of security.
Then she could encourage peaceful surrender.
“So this guy, Levine,” Donny started.
“That’s Sergeant Levine,” Kreiger cut in with the correction.
How is he still defending him?
“Kind of hard to show him any respect considering what he did,” Donny volleyed back.
Kreiger clenched his jaw and surprisingly remained silent.
Donny continued. “So, Levine wrote this confessional letter, came here to cleanse his conscience with Finley, but he must have known it wouldn’t go over well.”
“What are you saying?” Kreiger asked impatiently. “Spit it out.”
“People usually only come forward with their regrets and wrongdoings when they’re about to die.
Assuming Levine isn’t ill, did he come here with a death wish?
To put it bluntly, maybe Levine doesn’t care if he comes out of this alive.
He probably has about as much desire to go to prison and lose all he’s worked for as Finley. ”
Monica paled. “Dear God, are you suggesting he’s suicidal and came here to coax Finley into killing him?”
“Finley was his superior. He could blame Finley for getting him into this mess in the first place,” Sandra weighed in. “It would be final retribution.”
“Uh-huh, and there’s that part in the letter.
Where is it?” Donny looked around, and Gibson handed it to him.
Donny scanned the page and looked up, eyes wide.
“Here it is, right near the beginning. ‘I can no longer live with this on my conscience.’ What if he was being literal? That he wants to die?”
“My God, if we’re right about any of this, what can we do to fix it?” Neal asked.
Until I can get Finley on the phone, not much… Resorting to using a bullhorn might become necessary if Finley didn’t take her call soon.
Neal’s phone rang, delaying her from trying to reach Finley again. “It’s Birch,” he told everyone. “I’ve got you on speaker.”
“We’ve got Dale Kramer. He confessed to running Susan Crawford off the road and to killing Roger Simms.”
“That’s great news. There will be justice.” Not that Sandra was surprised. She had confidence Eric would see it all the way through. Now, it was her turn to make sure two more men lived to pay for their roles in the murders. “How did you get him to confess? He wasn’t that chatty with me.”
“I used his daughter to poke at his conscience and played him up as a victim.” Eric shared the details of the interrogation.
Sandra smiled. Smart cards to play… And they came from the same deck she intended on using here if Finley ever gave her the chance.
“I’m on my way over there with arrest warrants for Levine and Finley,” Eric said. “How are things going?”
“I’m going to call Finley again right now.” She wasn’t going to tell him that Finley had been unresponsive to her efforts.
“Fingers crossed. I’ll see you all soon.” Eric clicked off.
Sandra put on her headset, made sure Donny, Monica, and Gibson were ready, and called Finley. The second ring was cut short.
“Stop calling me.”
“You know I can’t. Why don’t you just let Todd go and surrender? We know what happened to Susan Crawford all those years ago, and we aren’t going anywhere. This is over.” No more playing nice…
“What do you mean it’s over? I’m the one in here with a gun, Special Agent Vos.”
“And we have far more out here,” she pushed back, using a strategy she wouldn’t normally.
“But it’s not about who has the gunpower, it’s about truth and justice.
It has to be weighing on your conscience after all these years, what was done back then to that woman and her son.
That you accepted a bribe to look the other way while she was killed.
But that really wasn’t on you, was it? Not really.
” She paused, and Finley remained silent on the other end.
“You didn’t feel you had a choice. We’ve been speaking with Timothy Hanson’s security guy.
He told us how it went down. That Timothy used his money and power to make people do things.
Even things they didn’t want to do. You’re a cop, Finley, true blue.
Unless you felt pressed against the wall, you wouldn’t do this.
Maybe he even blackmailed you to gain your cooperation.
” By playing the balance—bolstering Finley’s image while painting him as a victim—she stood a chance of penetrating Finley’s tough demeanor.
A few beats, then, “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Exactly, so why should you let Timothy Hanson haunt you any longer? Kramer’s already talking, but it’s not too late to add your voice.”
“Don’t listen to her! She’s lying to you!” Levine yelled in the background, clearly now free of his gag.
“I’m telling you the truth, Dean. You can trust me.
Todd’s clearly unstable, coming over here to your house and resurrecting the past, going on about his conscience haunting him.
But he wants you to shoot him. He doesn’t care what happens to you after you do.
What he did thirty-three years ago really messed him up. Can’t you see that?”
A few seconds, then, “Yeah, I do.”
“Dean!”
“So, please, don’t let someone else bully you. This can all end right now. Will you surrender peacefully?”
“Yeah, I’ll come out.”
“No!” Todd cried out in the background. “Don’t listen to her lies!”
“I’m finished with you,” he said, clearly speaking to Todd. “I’m coming out, hands in the air.”
“Surrender your gun on the front step, lock your hands on your head, and back up three feet,” she told him.
The call was dropped, the front door opened, and Dean Finley stepped out just as he said he would. He surrendered his gun and did as she said.
There was no sign of Todd Levine.
She watched through the monitor as ERT officers breached the home. Soon after, they were walking back out with Levine.
She also saw that Eric had pulled up just in time to witness the surrender. He walked over to the cruiser where Levine was being loaded into the backseat and spoke to him through the opened door. While Sandra couldn’t hear what was being said, she read defeat and disappointment from Eric’s stance.
A few minutes later, Eric shut the door on Levine and headed toward her. She’d stepped out of the vehicle to greet him.
“Thank you, Sandra, for getting them out alive,” he told her.
“It was always the plan. You all right?”
“I will be, but I want to follow them back to the station and start on the interrogation.” Eric turned to go back to his car but pivoted around. “What do you say we meet up for drinks tonight at La Gioia?”
There was no way she’d turn down her favorite Italian restaurant. “Let’s make it dinner too. A late one. Say, seven thirty or eight?”
“It’s a date, at eight.” He smiled and walked away.
Sandra was smiling as his form retreated. Another day when no one died, and the bad guys would pay. They didn’t get much better.