Missing You(15)
But what choice did she have?
“Detective?”
“Go ahead,” Kat said.
The smile widened. “If Monte hears your voice, it will put his defenses up. If you let me handle it, we may get some useful information for you.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to need some information about the shooting.”
It took about twenty minutes. Nurse Steiner added scopolamine into the mix, checked vitals, made adjustments. She was doing this with all too much a practiced hand, so that, for a moment, Kat wondered whether this was the first time Nurse Steiner had done it for reasons that were not purely medical. Kat couldn’t help but wonder about the implications of twilight sleep, the potential for abuse. Nurse Steiner’s seemingly cheery justification—if you don’t remember it immediately after it happened, did it happen?—sounded too easy.
The woman was off, no doubt about it. Right now, Kat didn’t much care.
Kat sat low in the corner, out of sight. Monte Leburne was awake now, his head lolling back on the pillow. He started calling Nurse Steiner Cassie—the name of his sister who died when she was eighteen. He started talking about how he wanted to see her when he died. Kat marveled at how Nurse Steiner seemed to lead him further and further down the path she wanted him to travel.
“Oh, you will see me, Monte,” Nurse Steiner said. “I will be waiting on the other side. Except, well, there could be issues with the people you killed.”
“Men,” he said.
“What?”
“I only killed men. I wouldn’t kill no woman. Not ever. No women, no children, Cassie. I killed men. Bad men.”
Nurse Steiner shot a glance toward Kat. “But you killed a police officer.”
“Worst of them all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cops. They ain’t no better. Don’t matter, though.”
“I don’t understand, Monte. Explain it to me.”
“I never killed no cop, Cassie. You know that.”
Kat froze. That can’t be right.
Nurse Steiner cleared her throat. “But, Monte—”
“Cassie? I’m sorry I never defended you.” Monte Leburne started to cry. “I let him hurt you, and I didn’t do nothing to help.”
“That’s okay, Monte.”
“No, it’s not. I protected everyone else, right? But not you.”
“It’s over. I’m in a better place now. I want you to be here with me.”
“I protect my family now. I learned. Dad was no good.”
“I know that. But, Monte, you said you never killed a cop.”
“You know that.”
“But what about Detective Henry Donovan?”
“Shh.”
“What?”
“Shh,” he said. “They’ll hear. It was easy. I was toast anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“They already had me for killing Lazlow and Greene. Dead to rights. I was going to get life anyway. What’s one more, if it provides, you know what I mean?”
A cold hand wrapped itself around Kat’s heart and squeezed.
Even Nurse Steiner was having trouble keeping her tone even. “Explain it to me, Monte. Why did you shoot Detective Donovan?”
“Is that what you think? I just took the fall. I was already toast. Don’t you see?”
“You didn’t shoot him?”
No answer.
“Monte?”
She was starting to lose him.
“Monte, if it wasn’t you, who killed him?”
His voice was far away. “Who?”
“Who killed Henry Donovan?”
“How should I know? They visited me. Day after I got arrested. They told me to take the money and the fall.”
“Who?”
Monte’s eyes closed. “I’m so sleepy.”
“Monte, who told you to take the fall?”
“I should have never let Dad get away with it, Cassie. What he did to you. I knew. Mom knew. And we didn’t do nothing. I’m sorry.”
“Monte?”
“So tired . . .”
“Who told you to take the fall?”
But Monte Leburne was asleep.
Chapter 7
On the drive back, Kat kept both hands on the wheel. She focused hard on the road, too hard, but it was the only way to keep her head from spinning. Her world had keeled off its axis. Nurse Steiner had again warned her that Monte Leburne had been disoriented under the medication and that his claims should be viewed with a strong dose of skepticism. Kat nodded as the nurse spoke. She understood all that—about disorientation and unreliability and even imagination—but she’d learned one thing as a cop: Truth has its own funky smell.
Right now, Monte Leburne reeked of truth.
She flipped on the radio and tried to listen to angry talk radio. The hosts always had such easy answers to the world’s problems. Kat found their simplicity irritating and thus their shows, in an odd way, wonderfully distracting. Those who had easy answers, be they on the right or the left, were always wrong. The world is complex. It is never one-size-fits-all.
When she arrived back at the 19th Precinct, she headed straight to Captain Stagger’s office. He wasn’t there. She could ask when he’d be back, but she didn’t feel like drawing attention to herself quite yet. She settled on sending him a quick text: Need to talk.