Page 96 of Nowhere to Hide
FIFTY-ONE
3:35 PM
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’sSergeantLevine,” 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’till, 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.”
