“Baseball bat I found in your closet. Brian said I clocked him good.” He smiled. “They were bringing him in, too, but I’m not sure where he is.”
“He’ll have police guards and isn’t going anywhere. So don’t worry about him.”
“But what if I had killed him?”
Eddie patted his hand. “You were defending yourself—and me—from an intruder. What you did was justified. He was the one who wasn’t supposed to be there, and he intended to hurt both of us. I have no doubt that he was looking for you.”
“I know, and judging by what he did to Bryce, when he found me….” Marty didn’t need to say the words. He knew that their intruder would have killed him and then he’d have returned to finish off Eddie.
“The important thing is that you defended yourself, and you did a good job of it.” Eddie squeezed his hand, and Marty found he could hold it together. He had to for Eddie, but just holding his hand gave him strength… until they came in to wheel him away.
The orderly took Eddie out in the bed, leaving Marty alone in the ER room. He followed them to the door and then returned.
“How are you doing?” Brian asked.
“I’m okay.” He sat back down and tried not to let his thoughts run amok. “Eddie is going to be fine, but what about the guy I hit?”
“He came around in the ambulance and was put under arrest. We’re still compiling charges, and we got a DNA sample from the blood on the floor at the house. We’re matching that to what we took at the other crime scene, and if we get a match, then we’ll have a good case for murder. I tried to speak with him, but he asked for a lawyer right away.”
“So we aren’t going to get answers?” Marty asked.
“Not immediately. But we were able to find out where he is living by going through his car. We searched the residence and came up with thousands in cash. We’re pretty sure that’s the money he was paid up front. It’s been confiscated. We also found the coat as well as the clothes you described him wearing at the McDonald’s and at the office. So, we’re pretty sure he’s the person behind the killing… and if nothing else, we have him for attacking a police officer.”
“But how did he know where I was?” Marty asked.
Brian turned around and leaned forward. “Judging by the state of his car, he’s been spending a lot of time in it lately. I suspect that he’s been looking for you and somehow figured out you were staying at Eddie’s. Then, the other night, he probably saw the neighbor kid come home and trip the motion sensors. He did the same and used it to lure Eddie out into the garage. Then he knocked him unconscious on the garage floor and began looking for you. We have a ton more questions, mostly about why he didn’t kill Eddie, but maybe it was something as simpleas he didn’t want to take the time or take a chance on making the noise if he shot him.”
“I had no idea all of this would happen that night when I called Eddie. Hell, I keep wondering if I should have kept my mouth shut. At least I’d have a job.”
“Hey. My dad used to say that bad things happen when good people do nothing. You did something, and you did what was right. So stop beating yourself up. Eddie is going to be fine, and Kevin will be behind bars one way or another. The department is still working to put all the pieces of the embezzlement and the murder together, but we will.”
Marty just wanted all of this to be over. He wished that Kevin would confess and lay everything out the way they did on television, but that was probably too much to hope for. “Thank you and the guys for everything.”
“You did the heavy lifting and made sure we had our suspect. It’s we who should be thanking you.” Brian stood and patted him on the shoulder as Eddie returned to the room.
“Does he still have a brain?” Marty quipped.
“Har, har,” Eddie said as the orderly slid the bed back into place.
“Did everything go okay?” He took Eddie’s hand once again, sitting next to the bed.
“I’m fine. It didn’t take long, and they put me through the MRI machine. I just closed my eyes and let it do its thing.”
“I suppose we have to wait for the doctor now,” Marty said.
“I’m going to head out and get a handle on all the paperwork. Marty, I’ll need you to come in soon to make a statement for our case files.”
“Okay. I’ll come in tomorrow,” Marty said, and said goodbye, not wanting to release Eddie’s hand. He sat back and closed his eyes, finally feeling more like himself than he had in a while.
“It’s over. I know it is. You got the guy who was following you, and I’m sure we got the man who shot your boss.” Eddie’s phone dinged, and he unlocked it and handed it to Marty. “My eyes are still a little blurry. They said that will pass.”
“It’s a message from Davis. They’re still running the DNA. They got a partial print. It was definitely Kevin in Bryce’s office.” Marty lowered the phone. “Where did you get the print?”
“Off the baseball on your boss’s desk. Apparently it was too much of a temptation not to touch.”
“My only question is how can you be sure it’s from when he killed him as opposed to the time I saw him leaving the office? You know a defense attorney is going to attack that in a huge way.”
Eddie leaned forward. “When did your boss get that particular baseball? We went through everything about him, and your boss has a real weakness for that sort of thing. And it seems that particular ball was delivered to him at home the day before he died. He took it into the office that morning and replaced the one he had on that stand. So, we know that if Kevin’s DNA was on it, then he handled it the very day Bryce was killed. We found the old baseball in a plastic box in his lower desk drawer. We were also able to validate the ball and timing from the company he bought it from.”
