Sam took frantic notes, her heart racing at the implications. An eyewitness. A fucking eyewitness she hadn’t known about for four fucking years? Her hands shook, and her heart raced. She could feel Freddie’s gaze on her, but she didn’t dare look up or venture a glance at him or do anything other than write down every word Davis was saying.
“I called 911 and ran over to see if I could help him. He was bleeding from his neck. I did what I could to stop the bleeding, but it was bad.” He shook his head. “Real bad.”
Sam realized she was talking to the man who’d probably saved her father’s life in those first few fateful moments. Where had this information been for four long years?
“You didn’t see the other car?” Even her voice felt shaky.
“No, it was gone by the time I ran back.”
“And you told all of this to Conklin?”
“Yep. He’s the deputy chief now, right?”
“Yeah, he is.” She looked at Freddie, who was wide-eyed and equally shocked.
Freddie got to work on his phone, produced the webpage that featured photographs of the department’s top leadership and handed the phone to her.
“Are you sure it was Conklin?” She handed Freddie’s phone to Frank.
While she and Freddie held their collective breath, Frank took a close look at the officers. The leadership team was more or less the same as it had been then, with one notable exception. Skip Holland was no longer the deputy chief. When he was medically retired, Conklin had moved up to deputy chief and Malone had taken Conklin’s place as detective captain.
“That’s him there.” Davis pointed to Conklin. “He’s the one I talked to that day. I figured I’d hear something from the detectives looking into the case, but I never did.”
Sam felt as if an earthquake had struck, tilting the ground beneath her and leaving her breathless. During the recent investigation into the drive-by shootings, they’d discovered that Conklin had kept secret the fact that a retired MPD officer and a close friend of his had been missing for more than two weeks. Sam had uncovered that detail, which had led to Conklin’s suspension. And now this... “You’ve been very helpful.”
“I wish I could tell you more. After that day, I followed the stories about Deputy Chief Holland, and I was sad to hear he’d passed away.”
Sam fought back the rage and disbelief. “I believe that what you did that day saved his life. It made it possible for him to marry the woman he loved, to meet two more of his grandchildren and to see me happily married. What you did made a huge difference to his entire family, and we owe you a long-overdue thank-you.”
He shrugged off her thanks. “I did what anyone would’ve done in that situation. It’s unbelievable to me that someone could randomly shoot a guy who’s out there protecting all of us. It’s madness.”
“Yes, it certainly is.” Sam took down his phone number and left him with their business cards in case he thought of anything else.
Outside, Sam sucked in badly needed deep breaths.
Freddie spoke first. “Oh my God. What the hell?”
Shock reverberated through every cell in her body. This couldn’t be happening. All this time...
“What do we do?”
“I’m going straight to the chief with this.”
“Sam... Let me go with you. You shouldn’t be driving right now.”
That was when she realized her hands were shaking violently. “Yeah. Okay.”
They got into her car, with Freddie at the wheel. He did a U-turn and headed for HQ while Sam put through a call to Farnsworth’s cell phone, using a number she’d had for years but had rarely used in all the years she’d worked for him.
“Sam?”
“I need to see you right now. Are you still at the office?”
“I was just getting ready to leave.”
“Meet me in the morgue parking lot. Ten minutes.”
“Sam—”
She closed the phone because she couldn’t say another word until her uncle Joe was standing in front of her, telling her what to do with this bombshell she’d been handed. Another thing her father had told her on day one—If you learn something your superior officers should know, no matter what it is, tell them immediately. Don’t sit on it for even five minutes, or you’re part of the problem.
She’d taken that advice to heart when she’d stumbled upon the fact that Conklin hadn’t told anyone that retired Captain Kenneth Wallack had gone missing two weeks before Sam talked to his wife as part of the drive-by investigation. And now this... What else did the deputy chief know about his predecessor’s shooting? Her dad had counted Conklin among his closest friends. That he could’ve had this information for all this time... She couldn’t wrap her head around it.
To his credit, Freddie didn’t say another word on the ride back to HQ, through rush-hour traffic that made the trip ten minutes longer than she’d predicted. Outside the door to the morgue, the chief waited for her, leaning against his department-issued SUV.
Freddie pulled Sam’s car into the spot next to the chief. “You want me to come?”
“Yeah.”
She got out of the car and forced herself to move on legs that felt wooden. Her stomach ached, and she feared she might vomit in front of the chief.
“What’s wrong?”
“We followed a tip-line lead to a man named Frank Davis, who lives in Adams Morgan. He was on G Street the day of the shooting, saw the cop car pull over another car, heard the gunshot, called 911, ran back and rendered aid. And even though he reported all of this to Conklin, it’s the first I’ve heard of any of it. I’ve never heard the guy’s name before today.”
“How do you know he reported it to Conklin?” Farnsworth’s shock was apparent in the set of his jaw and the rigidness of his posture.
“He said he reported it all that day to Conklin. To be certain, we showed him the top brass on the website, and he picked out Conklin.” It took everything she had not to lose her shit completely. She wanted to scream and rage and punch something. “All this time... What else does he know?”
“I’d like to consult with Malone on this before we proceed. Are you okay with that?”
“Whatever you think is best.”
“I’m sorry this happened, Sam. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“All this time... Has he known what happened to my father and didn’t tell anyone?”
“If that’s the case, I’ll see him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
“What should I do?” She vibrated with rage and energy and hope. In the midst of the shock, hope shone through. Would this be the break they’d been waiting for? Or would it be another dead end.
“Go home. I’ll call you later.”
“Chief—”
“Go home, Lieutenant. I will call you.”
Sam didn’t want to go home. She wanted to stay and find out why a superior officer she’d liked and respected, a man her father had considered a close friend, would’ve kept this information from her and other investigators for four years.
Freddie took her by the arm and gave a gentle tug. “Come on.”
She allowed him to lead her to the car and nudge her into the passenger seat.
And then he drove her home to Ninth Street, where they were waved through the checkpoint by the agents on duty. He parked in her assigned spot in front of the house, killed the engine and glanced over at her. “We have to trust the chief to handle this properly. He always does the right thing.”
“Are there, like, three or four people in the entire department who always do the right thing, or does it just seem that way lately?”
“It’s way more than three or four people. The bad ones are few compared to the good.”
“How could he have done this to us? To my dad, who was always a good friend to him? He lived with us for a short time when his first marriage ended.”
“Did he? I’ve never heard that.”
“My dad dragged him out of a bar and brought him home to our house so he wouldn’t do something stupid and lose his career.”
Freddie’s deep sigh said it all.
Desolate and grief-stricken all over again that someone she respected and trusted could’ve done something like this, she couldn’t seem to fully process this new information. “I don’t understand.”
“Maybe it’ll turn out that he had a good reason.”
“What possible good reason could he have had?”
“I don’t know.”
Sam glanced at her house, where it seemed every light was on, whereas Celia’s home was dark. “I should go in.”
“Call me if you hear anything?”
“I will. Take my car home and pick me up in the morning. We’ll get yours then.”
“Will do. You gonna be okay?”
“What choice do I have?” She got out of the car, and though she desperately wanted to see Nick, Scotty and the kids, she walked over to Celia’s, aching at the knowledge that her dad wasn’t there and never would be again. How she wished she could share what she’d learned today with him. But in a way, she was glad he would never know what his friend had done—or failed to do.
She went up the ramp and rested her hand on the doorknob, prepared to walk in the way Celia had always insisted, but uncertain of her welcome, she stopped short of opening the door. Raising her hand, she knocked and waited.
Celia opened the door. “Why are you knocking? You know the rules.”
“I...I wasn’t sure if the rules had changed.”
“They haven’t.” Celia turned and led the way into the kitchen, where a glass of wine sat on a table covered in cards and other piles of paper. “Drink?”
“I’d love one.”
Celia poured her a glass of chardonnay.
“What’re you doing?”