Keeper of the Bride / Whistleblower: Keeper of the Bride / Whistleblower

“Anything,” she said, rising from the chair. “Just get me out of this place.”

NINA PICKED LISTLESSLY at a salad while Sam wolfed

down a hamburger.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said. “How you

go straight from the morgue to a big lunch.”

“Necessity.” He shrugged. “In this job, a guy can

get skinny real fast.”

“You must see so many awful things as a cop.” “You’re an ER nurse. I would think you’ve seen

your share.”

“Yes. But they usually come to us still alive.” He wiped his hands on a napkin and slid his empty plate aside. “True. If it’s a bomb, by the time I get to the scene, we’re lucky to find anyone alive. If we find much of them at all.”

“How do you live with it? How do you stand a job like yours?”

“The challenge.”

“Really, Navarro. How do you deal with the horror?”

“My name’s Sam, okay? And as for how I deal with it, it’s more a question of why I do it. The truth is, the challenge is a lot of it. People who make bombs are a unique breed of criminal. They’re not like the guy who holds up your neighborhood liquor store. Bombers are craftier. A few of them are truly geniuses. But they’re also cowards. Killers at a distance. It’s that combination that makes those guys especially dangerous. And it makes my job all the more satisfying when I can nail them.”

“So you actually enjoy it.”

“Enjoy isn’t the right word. It’s more that I can’t set the puzzle aside. I keep looking at the pieces and turning them around. Trying to understand the sort of mind that could do such a thing.” He shook his head. “Maybe that makes me just as much a monster. That I find it so satisfying to match wits with these guys.”

“Or maybe it means you’re an outstanding cop.”

He laughed. “Either that or I’m as screwy as the bombers are.”

She gazed across the table at his smiling face and suddenly wondered why she’d ever considered those eyes of his so forbidding. One laugh and Sam Navarro transformed from a cop into an actual human being. And a very attractive man.

I’m not going to let this happen, she thought with sudden determination. It would be such a mistake to rebound from Robert, straight into some crazy infatuation with a cop.

She forced herself to look away, at anything but his face, and ended up focusing on his hands. At the long, tanned fingers. She said, “If Brogan was the bomber, then I guess I have nothing to worry about now.”

“If he was the bomber.”

“The evidence seems pretty strong. Why don’t you sound convinced?”

“I can’t explain it. It’s just…a feeling. Instinct, I guess. That’s why I still want you to be careful.”

She lifted her gaze to meet his and found his smile was gone. The cop was back.

“You don’t think it’s over yet,” she said.

“No. I don’t.”

SAM DROVE NINA BACK to Ocean View Drive, helped her load up the Mercedes with a few armloads of books and clothes, and made sure she was safely on her way back to her father’s house.

Then he returned to the station.

At three o’clock, they held a catch-up meeting. Sam, Gillis, Tanaka from the crime lab, and a third detective on the Bomb Task Force, Francis Cooley, were in attendance. Everyone laid their puzzle pieces on the table.

Cooley spoke first. “I’ve checked and rechecked the records on Jimmy Brogan. There’s no alias for the guy. That’s his real name. Forty-five years old, born and raised in South Portland, minor criminal record. Married ten years, no kids. He was hired by Reverend Sullivan eight years ago. Worked as a janitor and handyman around the church. Never any problems, except for a few times when he showed up late and hung over after falling off the wagon. No military service, no education beyond the eleventh grade. Wife says he was dyslexic. I just can’t see this guy putting together a bomb.”

“Did Mrs. Brogan have any idea why Nina Cormier’s address was in his car?” Sam asked.

“Nope. She’d never heard the name before. And she said the handwriting wasn’t her husband’s.”

“Were they having any marital troubles?”

“Happy as clams, from what she told me. She’s pretty devastated.”

“So we’ve got a happily married, uneducated, dyslexic janitor as our prime suspect?”

“Afraid so, Navarro.”

Sam shook his head. “This gets worse every minute.” He looked at Tanaka. “Eddie, give us some answers. Please.”

Tanaka, nervous as usual, cleared his throat. “You’re not going to like what I have.”

“Hit me anyway.”

“Okay. First, the gun in the car was reported stolen a year ago from its registered owner in Miami. We don’t know how Brogan got the gun. His wife says he didn’t know the first thing about firearms. Second, Brogan’s car was the black Ford that forced Miss Cormier’s Honda off the road. Paint chips match, both ways. Third, the items in the trunk are the same elements used in the church bombing. Two-inchwide green electrical tape. Identical detonator cord.”

“That’s Vincent Spectre’s signature,” said Gillis. “Green electrical tape.”

“Which means we’re probably dealing with an apprentice of Spectre’s. Now here’s something else you’re not going to like. We just got back the preliminary report from the coroner. The corpse had no traces of gunpowder on his hand. Now, that’s not necessarily conclusive, since powder can rub off, but it does argue against a self-inflicted wound. What clinches it, though, is the skull fracture.”

“What?” Sam and Gillis said it simultaneously.

“A depressed skull fracture, right parietal bone. Because of all the tissue damage from the bullet wound, it wasn’t immediately obvious. But it did show up on X ray. Jimmy Brogan was hit on the head. Before he was shot.”

The silence in the room stretched for a good ten seconds. Then Gillis said, “And I almost bought it. Lock, stock and barrel.”

“He’s good,” said Sam. “But not good enough.” He looked at Cooley. “I want more on Brogan. I want you and your team to get the names of every friend, every acquaintance Brogan had. Talk to them all. It looks like our janitor got mixed up with the wrong guy. Maybe someone knows something, saw something.”

“Won’t the boys in Homicide be beating those bushes?”

“We’ll beat ’em as well. They may miss something. And don’t get into any turf battles, okay? We’re not trying to steal their glory. We just want the bomber.”

Cooley sighed and rose to his feet. “Guess it’s back to the ol’ widow Brogan.”