All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright Mary Faderan and Colin Firth 2017
The police department that night was full of people,
most of them unrelated in their cases to Mike Oates. The two
detectives were reviewing their notes as they drank coffee,
talking in desultory tones. Neither one was in a selfcongratulatory
mood. Something in the atmosphere had a
dampening effect on the fact that they finally got Mike Oates,
that he was sitting in a cell, that Missy Wright was also in
custody for attempted murder, and that the case of Levy was
about to get closed.
Tom Ripley looked up with a squint at his supervisor.
“I’m still not sure we have all the facts.”
“Neither am I.”
“Good, then I have my hunch right.”
Gaddis got up and stretched, glanced at his watch, and
groaned, “I can’t do these late nights anymore, Tom. I don’t
have the energy.”
“Gotta keep working out, Bill.”
“Ok, what do we have here?”
Ripley flipped back through his notes. “We have . . .
OK, here’s what I have. Mike Oates was kidnapped by this
mob guy, Ross Henderson. Oates was pressured to sell his
bank’s shares to Henderson in exchange for Henderson
keeping quiet about Oates’s killing of Levy.”
“Well, not really killing Levy, did he? He said . . . well,
his lawyer, Jonathan Moore, said . . . that Oates didn’t fatally
stab the guy. That Henderson confessed to having a hit man
do it.”
“That is what he said once Missy Wright admitted to
asking Henderson to kill Levy for butchering her mother’s
surgery.”
“So Henderson, then,” Ripley said, raising a hand
holding a pen, “did this to Levy but made Oates think he
killed Levy so Oates would give him the shares to Oates’s
father’s bank!”
“Right.”
“And Missy Wright was to be the prize in the bargain.
She was Oates’s ex-lover, and she was to become Oates’s
fiancée.”
“And she was so damned jealous of Oates and Lauren
Moore getting involved in a hot affair that she came to
Moore’s hotel with a gun.”
“Which we know was flubbed because Moore
defended herself by tackling Missy Wright, and Missy
suffered a bad head injury.”
“Well, she bled a bit, not a lot to get her into the
hospital,” Gaddis interposed.
“OK, OK. So that is where we are, correct?”
“Henderson is in lockup too, right?”
“He’s been apprehended, and he confessed at his home
before they brought him in.”
“OK, fine.” Gaddis walked to the coffee machine and
poured himself another cup. “I’m hoping Ingraham will sign
off on this.”
“What’s the next thing for Oates?”
“Not sure, Tom. I’m guessing he’s going to have to
serve some kind of time.”
“Damn.”
“You don’t like it, eh?” Gaddis smirked.
“Well, he looks pretty damn pitiful. I feel for the guy.
He just had way too much ambition, too much of a career
mind, and went for the wrong girl.”
“Lauren Moore’s not a wrong girl.”
“No.” Ripley smiled. “She’s pretty cute, don’t you
think?”
“Let’s not wax poetic about the woman, shall we?”
“Come on, Bill! She’s a very good-looking woman!” he
expostulated.
“And she’s what could have been the prize, but Oates
went for the other chick.”
“He said he was doing it to protect Lauren. He didn’t
know what they would do to her if he turned Henderson
down.”
Gaddis’s face sobered at the thought. “OK, yeah.
Damn. I’m real sorry this was how it’s turned out for Oates.”
At this, the door to Ingraham’s office opened. Both men
looked up in surprise. “Inspector, we didn’t know you were
still here,” said Gaddis.
Ingraham’s face was solemn. “I’ve been in a phone
discussion. Need to meet with you both later . . . maybe
tomorrow. We have to get the Oates/Levy case in some order.”
“Oh, we’re on it, sir!” Ripley said with a smile.
“Let’s not be presumptuous. There’s a problem I am
needing to address.”
“What’s that, sir?” Gaddis asked, his eyes watchful.
“I can’t discuss it yet.”
“OK.”
Ingraham shrugged his coat on and walked toward the
door. “I’m going out for a few minutes. Maybe an hour. Don’t
wait for me. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good job, by the way.”
The two detectives watched him leave in silence. Then
Ripley looked at Gaddis with a sly face. “Ingraham’s trying
something, isn’t he?”
Gaddis pursed his mouth. “I’d leave it, Tom. Let’s
finish up here and go home. I need my bed.”
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