“I do and I appreciate the affection directed his way and mine.”
“We loved him, Sam. Everyone loved him. He was so nice to my sisters and me when we started at the USA’s office. We were young and green and learning the ropes, and he was endlessly patient with us, answering questions and generally helping us in any way he could.”
Sam had never heard that before but certainly wasn’t surprised. “That sounds like him.”
“I remember the last time I saw him before the shooting. I had a meeting with the chief and when I came out your dad was in the lobby talking to Helen. He was making her laugh, and I just remember thinking what a great guy he was. He had that messenger bag he used to carry...”
“We called it the man purse.”
“Yes!” Faith laughed. “Everyone teased him about it, but he wore it like part of his uniform across his chest. He cracked a joke about running late for happy hour at O’Leary’s that made us laugh. The next time I saw him, months later, he was in that chair and...” She released a deep breath. “I loved him. I just wanted you to know that.”
Sam got up, came around the desk and hugged Faith. “Thank you so much for telling me that.”
“I hope you know how much we all wish there was something we could do to make this easier for you.”
“I do know, and it’s very much appreciated. We’ve been amazed and overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support.”
“He deserves every bit of respect and admiration we can give him.”
“I agree.”
Faith took a deep breath, recovered her composure and offered a small smile. “I’ll see you in court, if not before.”
“I’ll be there.”
Faith left and Sam gave herself a minute to regroup to prepare to join her team in the conference room. Faith’s memories of Skip had touched her deeply. In the years since his injury, it had been difficult at times to remember how he’d been before the shooting. But she could picture the scene Faith had described—Skip making everyone laugh as he took off for an end-of-shift drink with whoever showed up to join him at O’Leary’s. On many a day, Sam had been one of the officers bellied up to the bar with him, constantly reminding him not to call her baby girl in front of their colleagues.
He would laugh and remind her that she’d always be his baby girl and anyone who had a problem with that could kiss his ass. If he hadn’t fully comprehended how difficult it could be for her in a department in which her father was the number two officer, well, he’d had far more positive qualities than negative. His greatest “sin” in her mind had been wanting to make things easier for her, which was one thing they had argued about. She hadn’t wanted any special treatment—ever. But he didn’t know any other way to treat her but specially. It had been their one major bone of contention in a lifetime as soul mates.
Her throat tightened as a swell of emotion blindsided her. Not here. Not in the office. Not now. Remembering him as the tall, strong, robust, muscular man he’d once been made her burn to find the person who’d taken that and so many other things from him and the rest of them. Faith’s mention of the man purse reminded her of days she hadn’t thought about in a very long time. She’d been too busy coping with the new normal that had followed his injury to think of the little things that had made up their routine before the shooting.
Determined to soldier through, to stay focused on the case and the new leads that were continuing to pour in, she gathered up her notes and the personal files she’d kept since the shooting and started for the conference room, stopping short halfway there.
The man purse.
Where was the man purse? Feeling as if her body had been plugged into an electrical outlet, she forced herself to move, to go into the conference room, where the others were reading and talking as Cruz added info to one of the big dry-erase boards they used to detail their cases. Murder boards, they called them. There was now a murder board for her father, complete with photos of Skip before and after the shooting.
They stopped what they were doing when she came in. “Where’s my father’s...”
Freddie pointed to a box on the floor.
Sam knelt next to it and took the lid off to begin going through the family photos, awards, citations and other items that were taken from his office after he was medically retired. The bag wasn’t in there, but why would it be? It had been with him at the time of the shooting. So where was it now?
She stood so quickly she experienced a head rush. “I’ll be back.”
“Where’re you going?”
“I need to go home.” She headed for the door, aware they were watching her the way they would a lunatic.
“Sam!” Freddie followed her. “What’s going on?”
“I—I’ll be back.” Had she ever seen the man purse again after that day? She couldn’t recall, and the not knowing would make her crazy until she found it. Maybe it was nothing, but until she knew for sure, she had to find it. In her office, she grabbed her keys and ran for the morgue exit, aware of Freddie giving chase.
They pushed through the double doors into the chilly autumn breeze. “What’s wrong?”
She’d forgotten her jacket but wouldn’t be going back for it. As she jumped into the driver’s side of her black BMW, Freddie got in the passenger seat, barely closing the door before she peeled out of the parking lot and pointed the car toward Capitol Hill.
“Tell me. You’re freaking me out.”
“My dad carried a messenger bag to and from work.”
“Okay...”
“Faith said something about it earlier, and I told her we used to call it the man purse.”
“That’s funny.”
“He took a lot of ribbing about that bag.”
“So what’s that got to do with where we’re going?”
“I can’t say for certain that I’ve seen that bag since the shooting.”
He gasped. “Whoa.”
“Yeah. May be nothing. May be something.” She tightened her grip on the wheel, frustrated and furious with herself for not thinking of it sooner.
“Don’t, Sam.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t be thinking that you should’ve thought of the bag before now.”
“Well, I fucking should have! He had it with him every goddamned day!”
“I’ve asked you not to use the Lord’s name in vain.”
“Has there ever been a better time for a good goddamn?”
“Sam!”
“Well, has there? What if all this time...”
“Stop. Don’t go there until you know. There’s no point in speculating.”
She drove faster than she should have, dodging in and out of traffic, refusing to let anything as ridiculous as traffic keep her from getting to Ninth Street as quickly as she could. Swerving to avoid a car, she nearly took out a woman pushing a stroller in a crosswalk.
“Sam...” Freddie grasped the handle above the passenger window. “Slow down, will you? The last thing we need is more paperwork if you kill someone.”
She eased off the accelerator. Slightly. Ten minutes later, they pulled up to the Secret Service checkpoint and were waved through. Outside her dad’s house, she jumped from the car and was halfway up the ramp before she heard Freddie’s door—and hers—close behind her.
“That’s okay. I’ll get the doors.”
Under normal circumstances, she might’ve complimented his sarcasm, having taught him everything he knew about the fine art. Today, however, she couldn’t spare the time. She burst into the house, scaring the hell out of Celia, who was on the sofa, a pile of cards and papers stacked next to her.
“Sam.” Celia rested her hand over her heart. “What is wrong?”
“The man purse.”
“The what?”
“The bag Dad carried to work with him. Where is it?”
“I’m not sure what bag you mean.”
Sam told herself to calm the fuck down, to be patient, not to snap when she wanted to scream. “The old beat-up leather messenger bag he carried to and from work.”
“I’ve never seen that. Before the shooting, I only saw him after work, not coming and going.” Her heart-shaped face lit up with a pale pink blush at the reminder of how they’d dated in secret before Skip was injured. Afterward, she’d volunteered to be his lead caregiver, and later, Sam had learned they’d been dating for quite some time.
Hearing that Celia didn’t know where the bag was left Sam feeling deflated after the punch of adrenaline that had brought her rushing home.
“There’s some stuff in the attic—”
Sam was halfway up the stairs before Celia finished saying the word attic.
Freddie followed. “I’ll just go with her.”
In the upstairs hallway, she reached for the cord hanging from the ceiling and yanked down the stairs to the attic, charging up the stairs into murky darkness. Where the fuck is the light?
Freddie used the flashlight on his phone to illuminate the light.
Sam pulled the string to turn it on and took a look around at stacks of boxes, a steamer trunk and milk crates full of crap that she and her sisters had brought home from college and never touched again. In the far right-hand corner, a stack of boxes drew her attention because they were the same boxes that were used at the MPD to house evidence and files. The sight of them made her feel light-headed.
She bent at the waist, propped her hands on her knees and stared at the two boxes as if they were filled with dynamite. “Those boxes have been sitting here, in his house, right under our noses, and I had no idea. I had no idea.” For a brief moment, she feared she was going to be sick.
“It might be nothing, Sam. More of the same.”
“Or it might be everything.”
“Let’s find out.” He stepped around her, picked up the stack and carried them down the stairs.