Why he didn’t want to bring the police into the matter. Get other people involved.

Because Hauck realized that for the last four years he’d been essentially rootless, alone. And Karen Friedman was the one thing he felt connected to right now.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

There was a knock on the door the following afternoon, and Hauck went over to answer.

Freddy Muñoz was there.

He handed Hauck one of those large, string-bound interoffice envelopes. “Hope I’m not bothering you. Thought I’d bring it up to you myself, Lieutenant, if that’s okay?”

Hauck had just come back from a run. He was sweaty. He was in a gray Colby College T-shirt and gym shorts. He had spent most of the morning working on the computer.

“You’re not bothering me.”

“Place looks nice.” The detective nodded approvingly. “Needs a bit of a woman’s touch, don’t you think? Maybe make a little sense of that kitchen over there?”

Hauck glanced at the dishes piled in the sink, a few open containers of takeout on the counter. “Care to volunteer?”

“Can’t.” Muñoz snapped his fingers, feigning disappointment. “Working tonight, Lieutenant. But I thought I’d just hang around a minute while you took a look through that, if that’s okay?”

Buoyed, Hauck opened the envelope’s flap and slid the contents on the coffee table, while Muñoz threw himself into a cushy living-room chair.

The first thing he came upon was the incident report. The report of the accident by the lead officer on the scene. From the Essex County PD. Details on the deceased. His name, Lauer. Address: 3135 Mountain View. DOB. Description: white male, approximately thirty, wearing a yellow biking uniform, severe body trauma and bleeding. Eyewitness described a red SUV, make undetermined, speeding away. New Jersey plates, number undetermined. Time: 10:07 A.M. Date. Eyewitness report attached.

It all seemed to have a familiar feel.

Hauck glanced through the photos. Photostats of them. The victim. In his biking jersey. Hit head-on. Severe blunt trauma to the face and torso. There was a shot of the bike, which had basically been mangled. A couple of views in either direction. Up, down the hill. The vehicle was clearly heading down.

Tire marks only after the point of impact.

Just like AJ Raymond.

Next Hauck leafed through the medical examiner’s report. Severe blunt-force trauma, crushed pelvis and fractured vertebrae, head trauma. Massive internal bleeding. Dead on impact, the medical examiner presumed.

Hauck paged through the detectives’ case reports. They had mapped out the same course of action Hauck had up in Connecticut. Did a canvass of the area, notified the state police, checked with the body shops, tried to trace back the tread marks for a tire brand. Interviewed the victim’s wife, his employer. “No motive found” to assume it might not have been an accident.

Still no suspects.

Muñoz had gotten up and gone over to a canvas Hauck was working on by the window. He lifted it off the easel. “This is pretty good, Lieutenant!”

“Thanks, Freddy.”

“May get to see you at the Bruce Museum yet. And I don’t mean waiting in line.”

“Feel free to help yourself to any you like,” Hauck muttered, flipping through the pages. “One day they’ll be worth millions.”

It was frustrating-just like his. The Jersey folks had never found any solid leads.

It just came down to a coincidence, a coincidence Hauck didn’t believe, one that didn’t lead anywhere.

“Strike you as reasonable, Freddy?” Hauck asked. “Two separate 509s? Two different states. Each with a connection to Charles Friedman.”

“Keep at it, Lieutenant,” Muñoz said, flopping back over the arm of the heavy chair.

All that was left was the detail of the eyewitness depositions. Deposition. There was only one.

As Hauck opened it up, he froze. He felt his jaw drop open, his eyeballs pulled like magnets to the name on the deposition’s front page.

“See what I’m seeing?” Freddy Muñoz sat up. He swung his legs off the chair.

“Yeah.” Hauck nodded and took a breath. “I sure do.”

The lone eyewitness to Jonathan Lauer’s murder had been a retired New Jersey policeman.

His name was Phil Dietz.

The same eyewitness as at AJ Raymond’s hit-and-run.

CHAPTER FIFTY

He had slipped up. Hauck read over his testimony once, twice, then again.

He had slipped up big-time!

Immediately Hauck recalled how Pappy Raymond had described the guy who’d met him outside the bar and put the pressure on him. Stocky, mustached. In the same moment, it became clear to Hauck just who had taken those pictures of AJ Raymond’s body in the street.

Dietz.

His heart slammed to a stop.

Hauck thought back to his own case. Dietz had described himself as being in the security business. He’d said he’d run down to the crash site after the accident. That he never got a good look at the car, a white SUV, out-of-state plates, as it sped away up the road.

Good look, my ass.

He’d been planted there.

That’s why they’d never been able to locate any white SUV with Massachusetts or New Hampshire plates. That’s why the New Jersey police couldn’t find a similar vehicle there.

They didn’t exist! It had all been set up.

It was a thousand-to-one shot anyone would have ever connected the two incidents, if Karen hadn’t seen her husband’s face in that documentary.

Hauck grinned. Dietz was at both sites. Two states apart, separated by over a year.

Of course, that meant Charles Friedman was connected, too.

Hauck looked back up at Muñoz, a feeling that he was finally getting somewhere buzzing in his veins. “Anyone else know about this, Freddy?”

“You said keep it between us, Lieutenant.” The detective shrugged. “So that’s what I did.”

He looked back up at Freddy. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Muñoz nodded.

“I want to go over the Raymond file again. You get me a copy up here today.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hauck stared at the image of the gregarious, mustached face-an ex-cop-now morphed into the calculating countenance of a professional killer.

The two cases hadn’t merged, they had basically crashed together. Head-on. And this time there were other people to see. His blood was racing.

You screwed up, he said to Dietz. Big-time, you son of a bitch!

THE FIRST THING Hauck did was forward a photo of Dietz’s face to Pappy, who a day later confirmed that that had been the same man who’d been in Pensacola. That alone was probably enough to arrest Dietz right now for conspiracy to murder AJ Raymond, and maybe Jonathan Lauer, too.

But it didn’t take things through to Charles Friedman.

Coincidence didn’t prove anything. With a good lawyer, it could be argued that being at both crash sites was just that. He’d given his word to Karen to find out about her husband. Charles had been in Greenwich. Lauer worked for him. They both led to Dolphin. Dietz was in it, too. Hauck wasn’t liking at all where this was leading. Tying Charles to Dietz would be a start. Right now he was afraid that if he blew the lid off everything, who knew where any of it would lead?

You should go back to Fitzpatrick, a voice in him said. Swear out a warrant. Let the feds figure this out. He had taken oaths. His whole life he’d always upheld them. Karen had uncovered a conspiracy.

But something held him back.

What if Charles was innocent? What if he couldn’t tie Charles and Dietz together? What if he hurt her, Karen, her whole family, after vowing to help her, trying to make his case, not hers? Bring him in. Put the pressure on Dietz. He would roll.

Or was it her? Was it what he felt himself falling into, these cases colliding together. Wanting to protect her just a little longer until he knew for sure. What stirred so fiercely in his blood. What he lay awake thinking of at night. Conflicted. As a cop, knowing his feelings were leading him astray.