“Moretti—”
“What do you have to lose by having a foolproof statement? We’ll forget about the rest of it until later. Let’s just worry about your story.” Nova rubbed at the back of his neck again. “You were on the way to your sister’s house. She was in labor. You picked up Clay on the way. You took Harkin road rather than—”
“That’s
way
out of the way,” Wyatt argued.
“It doesn’t matter. So you went outta the way. You took the time to drive by the bar to make sure there were no drunk assholes out on the road. It was three o’clock. Last call. You were just double-checking to make sure your town was safe.”
“While my sister was bleeding out?” Wyatt arched an eyebrow at him. “No one’s gonna buy that.”
“She wasn’t in distress yet. She just had some pains, and you wanted to be there in case they needed to get to the hospital.”
Wyatt picked the DOJ card up off the table and tapped it against the wood as if considering it. “I guess that would make sense. I’ve been after drunk drivers for a few years now. Everyone knows it.”
“Perfect.” Nova looked pleased with that development. “You saw him swerving. You made the traffic stop. He pulled a gun. You shot him. That’s it. That’s what happened, Conner.”
“But that’s not what happened. He wasn’t swerving.”
“Yes, he was.” Nova raised his eyebrows. “He was all over the road. You had an obligation to pull him over. I saw his numbers while I was in the ICU. He was above the legal limit.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“Just hanging out at the nurses’ station.”
Wyatt grunted in shock. “You hit on the nurses to get his blood alcohol limits?”
“You highly underestimate me.” Nova pulled back at the insult. “He’s in ICU. Jules is too. So I spent a few hours talking to a couple of the nurses until I saw the numbers on the screen. I didn’t have to ask. That’s a loose end. We don’t like loose ends. Now tell me your story again.”
Tabitha looked to Wyatt, who seemed to be debating with himself before he shrugged as if he had nothing to lose. “I was on the way to my sister’s. I picked up my friend Clay.”
“Why’d you pick him up at three in the morning?” Nova barked, sounding like an investigator.
“He’s lived with us since me and Jules’s were teenagers. He’s like another brother to her. She wanted him there.”
“Okay, then why did you go by the bar?”
Wyatt flipped the card over in his hand, staring at it before he said, “I dunno; habit, I guess. It was on the way.”
“Not really,” Nova argued, his words still sharp as if he was looking for a lie. “It’s way outta the way.”
“Ever since I found that Johnson kid dead, I always drive by the bar if I can. I had time. She was just feeling a few pains.”
“Then why make the trip at all?”
“My brother-in-law’s been so stressed out. My sister’s been on bed rest. Clay and me figured we could give him a break if she had him up at three in the morning. Keep her company for a little while if it was just that false labor she’d been having for the past month.”
“And what happened then?”
“I stopped and took a few minutes to wait for the last of the patrons to leave the bar.”
“You weren’t on duty, Sheriff Conner. Why would you do that with your friend in your vehicle?”
Wyatt threw up his hands. “I probably shouldn’t have, but the truth is, I’m always on duty. This is
my
town. I never stop being sheriff.”
“Good.” Nova nodded, clearly pleased with that. “And when you saw Mr. Davis swerving and pulled him over, why didn’t you call in the stop?”
“I dunno.” Wyatt shook his head at that, clearly stumped on the question. “It should’ve been called in.”
“Your radio’s on the fritz. You tried, but it cut out, and you made the decision to make the stop anyway.”
“But my radio
isn’t
on the fritz,” Wyatt countered.
“It is when I get done with it. Now how long’s your radio been on the fritz?”
Wyatt seemed to think about the answer before he looked to Nova and offered, “I just noticed it Monday. I planned on getting it replaced when I went back to work on Thursday.”
“But you made the call to dispatch on the way to meet your sister at the hospital. How is that?”
“I don’t know.” Wyatt threw up his hands again. “I have no idea how I did that if it’s supposedly on the fritz.”
“It goes in and out.”
“It does?”
“Yes, it does.”
Nova gave him another annoyed look before he started in again, “Why didn’t you take your police-issue weapon on the stop, Sheriff?”
Wyatt frowned again. “I dunno that either.”
“You’re a paranoid redneck, Conner. You have a concealed-weapons license, and you always pack heat when you’re off duty. You already had the .45 on you, and you were in a hurry. You left the 9 mm in the glove compartment. Clay didn’t know it was there, and he’s your best friend. You didn’t think about it too much.”
“I was packing a .45 on the way to see my laboring sister?” Wyatt laughed. “Have you seen a .45, Moretti? It ain’t exactly a casual weapon.”
“You love guns. Romeo told me you have a whole friggin’ gun safe full of them. They are one of the rare joys in your life, and your .45 is your favorite weapon. Keeping it on your person gets you off.”
“It was my favorite weapon.” Wyatt winced. “It was painful handing it over to Adam.”
“Why didn’t you take your police-issue weapon on the stop?” Nova asked again.
“I was in a hurry. I already had the .45 in the back of my jeans.”
“That’s a pretty big weapon to conceal in the back of your jeans.”
“I ain’t exactly a lightweight. I can hide a .45, and it’s my favorite weapon. I didn’t think anything ’bout it. I wasn’t expecting to shoot Mr. Davis. That was the last thing in the world I wanted. I was just trying to get a drunk off the road and get to my sister.”
“You’re getting good at this.” Nova smiled proudly. “I almost believed you. The key to this is to stay as close to the truth as possible. Don’t add anything. Just answer their questions in a calm, rational manner, because you have nothing to hide. You didn’t do anything wrong. He shot at you. You pulled your weapon and fired before you even realized you’d done it.”
“That ain’t a lie.” Wyatt sounded surprised. “How’d you know that?”
“’Cause if you’d planned on killing him, you
could have
, and no one would’ve questioned you about it. Not doing it has made your life a hell of a lot more difficult, but you have a strong moral code. You’d rather deal with the extra paperwork when that drunk starts screaming about you having a personal vendetta against him. All the drunks in your town think that because you’re a good sheriff and you do your job well.”
Tabitha smiled after his speech. Having spent most of the conversation just observing the exchange, she couldn’t help but say, “That’s all true.”
“I know.” Nova rolled his eyes in disgust. “Let’s start over from the top again. We’re gonna do this until you got it without hesitating.”
* * * *
Tabitha sat at the table after Wyatt and Nova went outside to do whatever they were going to do to his police radio. She picked up the Department of Justice card Wyatt had left behind.
She stared at it, looking at the name and knowing this man held her whole world in his hands. He had seemed friendly enough at the hospital, when he thought he was just going to question a sheriff about a routine shooting, but what happened when Vaughn opened his mouth and started making claims that would force those nice investigators to dig into things that would ruin Wyatt?
How could someone be a dedicated public servant and a villain at the same time? It was strange. Though her family had always hated the law, Tabitha had unfailing faith in it. She believed in it as much as Wyatt did.
Now he was going to have to lie to save himself, something that went against everything that made Wyatt who he was. The black and white of good and evil continued to get more complicated the older they got. Tabitha had always believed that, and this was about as complex as it could get.
Somehow, the good guys were the bad guys now, and the bad guys—
Tabitha looked out the kitchen window, hearing Nova’s voice drift in from outside. His New York accent was extra thick before he cursed in Italian over whatever he was doing to the radio. She hoped the neighbors didn’t see, but she knew the back part of the driveway where Wyatt parked his SUV was hidden from prying eyes.
Nova wasn’t one to let something like that go. He was amazingly smart. It was a shame he had to be involved with the mafia. It made Tabitha sad, even if those skills he’d honed protecting his own were now benefiting her and Wyatt.
She closed her eyes, trying to imagine him at twelve.
Smart, sarcastic, with a strange loyalty that allowed him to break the rules to protect his family. He seemed so much older than twenty-five, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. She imagined he’d been the same at twelve as well.
Wyatt was pure hero, all light, with a sliver of darkness for the one person who’d been born to be his kryptonite, but Nova was the opposite, all darkness with a sliver of light. She tried to imagine the birth of the original antihero. Life made everyone who they were. Tabitha had seen it time and again. So what could have happened to turn someone so smart, with so much potential, into a person who could so flippantly talk about killing a man he didn’t know just because of a remote connection to his family?
Just like that the image popped in her head.
She saw a boy sitting on a stool in a bar waiting to play poker when he should have been out playing football instead. Feeling like Nova’s memory had rubbed off on her secondhand, she heard the bartender’s voice from the past.
“Lady, you don’t even know. Trouble is Nova Moretti’s middle name.”
She looked out the window as the tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her face. For a moment, she wished she didn’t remember. She wanted that boy to stay young in her mind. To stay hopeful. To keep on believing the solution was as easy as the next poker game. Even with a photographic memory, he’d obviously had the same innocence all children had before the cruel realities of life stole it from him.
Now it was gone.
How tragic.
Tabitha looked up when Nova came walking in through the back door with his hands dirty. She stared at his broad back as he went to the kitchen sink and started washing up.
“She died,” Tabitha whispered.
Nova turned around, frowning at her. “What?”
“Your mother.” Her voice cracked with emotion as she looked at him and saw that young boy for the first time. “She didn’t make it.”
Nova paused, giving her a long look as the water still ran in the sink. Then he turned around and shut it off. He stood with his back to her for a long time before he said, “No, she didn’t.”
“I’m so sorry.” She looked at the card in her hand again, hating that she and Wyatt were going to benefit from Nova’s pain. “Life is very unfair, Nova. I wish I could change it for you.”
“I wish you could too.” Nova turned around and folded his arms over his chest as he looked at her. “My ma had a kind heart. She loved everyone, even the people she shouldn’t.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked him softly. “Wyatt thinks it’s for Jules, but—”
Nova shrugged. “I have so many things shoved inside my head. Most of it’s useless. It just makes me tired, but every once in a while something happens that makes me glad I can remember it. You were a good memory. That’s it.”
“All this for a good memory? For something that happened so long ago?” She couldn’t help but laugh past her tears. “That’s a lot to risk.”
“I don’t have that many good memories, Tabitha,” Nova whispered with a shake of his head. “So I protect the good ones, even if I gotta make a fuckload of bad ones in the process. Most people don’t get it.”
“I get it.” Tabitha looked out the window, thinking of Wyatt again. “I get it perfectly.”
“Yeah, I thought you might.” Nova sighed, looking at her sadly. “That’s too bad. Getting it means you haven’t had that many good ones either, and I’m genuinely sorry about that. You’re one of the few people in this world who deserves good memories.”
“I’ve had a few.” She smiled, her thoughts still on Wyatt.
Nova shook his head as he laughed. “I like you, Tabitha. You’re cool.”
“I like you too,” she said as she turned back to him. “I know Wyatt won’t say it, but thank you for helping us.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Nova looked away, as though he was uncomfortable with the gratitude. “I’m killing two birds with this stone. I owed Conner a favor too.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“We should have you off administrative leave in another three or four days.”
Wyatt nodded as he looked at the two investigators sitting on the other side of his desk in the sheriff’s office. “That works.”
“We’re rushing the paperwork. We already got a statement from Mr. Davis. It all looks good. Thanksgiving’s holding it up a little, but you’ll be back to work a day or two after.”
“Nice of you to rush the paperwork. I appreciate it.” Wyatt reached over and moved some files to the corner of his desk that he hadn’t sat behind for almost a week.
“Well, we understand it’s a difficult situation with you being sheriff and all. It was a justified shooting. We need to get ya back to work. I mean, who the hell’s running the place, right?”
Wyatt looked out his office window, seeing that Adam was doing a very poor job of pretending to work as he cast furtive glances in their direction. “I think Deputy Hayes has being doing a good job. Maybe he’ll be sheriff one day.”
“Planning on stepping down?”
Wyatt laughed and raised his eyebrows when he considered how close he came to doing just that. “Nah, I think I got a few more good years in me.”
“Hayes said you’re a sixth-generation sheriff. That’s something.”
“Yeah.” Wyatt nodded as he looked back, seeing the pictures of his father and grandfather on the bookshelf, along with three other men he’d never known, but shared the same name and title with. “It’s something, all right.”
“Maybe one day soon you’ll make a seventh generation.”