by Chris Culver
And, sometimes, like today, Sherlock gave him special projects. Gibson took his hand from the steering wheel and reached to the rifle on the passenger seat. He had stolen the vehicle that evening from a used-car lot owned by one of his boss’s clients. The client wouldn’t call it in. He wouldn’t want the attention, not for a twenty-five-year-old Buick he’d be lucky to get five hundred bucks for. Hell, somebody probably stole it to begin with.
When Gibson finished with the car, he’d leave it outside a bar on a busy street with the windows open and the engine running. Somebody would take it out for a joy ride, saving him the trouble of disposing of it himself. Until then, though, he watched and waited.
The rifle was a Colt AR-15 he had purchased four years ago from a guy in the parking lot of a gun show in Mississippi. When this job was over, he’d have to destroy it. He hated to lose the weapon, but it was the safe thing to do considering the work he had ahead of him.
He was the insurance man on this job. While Alonzo killed Christopher Hughes and Warren Nichols, Gibson would shoot anybody who ran out of the building or neighboring houses. They couldn’t afford potential witnesses on a job like this. Christopher was far too high profile.
So Gibson waited in the dark, watching the building through a pair of infrared binoculars from about half a block away. It didn’t take him long to realize he wasn’t the only person watching that night. Someone—a woman, by her shape—was skulking about across the street, trying to get close to the shop while still staying hidden.
Christopher Hughes must have pissed her off. He had a gift for pissing off women. She gave him one more thing to worry about. Gibson opened his door and then slipped out into the night, where he knelt beside his vehicle, using his engine block as both cover and support. His rifle didn’t have an infrared scope, but he didn’t need one to mark the girl. She was just visible in the shadows.
He focused his scope’s reticle in the center of her chest and took a deep breath, slowing his heart rate and timing the shot so he could pull the trigger between beats. She was maybe three hundred yards away.
“Sorry, honey,” he whispered. “You’re about to have a bad day.”
He brought his finger to the trigger and squeezed.
31
Even in the dark, I felt somebody’s eyes on me. I didn’t like this one bit, but I didn’t have many other options. If I called for backup, the city would send officers out, but they’d come in marked patrol vehicles, and they’d tell the entire world we had eyes on the garage. We needed to find out what Christopher Hughes had planned, and we needed to do it now before he hurt someone.
I drew in a deep breath. There were half a dozen cars parked beneath the canopy in front of the garage. They’d give me concealment, but an awful lot of space separated us. I couldn’t stay in place, though, because I was too far from the building to see or hear anything.
My heart thudded in my chest. Police work in St. Augustine didn’t afford me much chance to practice my surveillance skills, so I felt like a high school kid sneaking home after hours. I hesitated in the dark and then drew in a breath.
“Now or never, Joe,” I whispered to myself before digging my feet into the ground and sprinting forward. Nobody shot at me as I ran, and once I reached the other side of the street, I pressed my back against the nearest car. After that, I leapfrogged from one car to another, bringing myself closer to the building until I heard voices inside. The garage was maybe thirty feet away, separated from me only by a Mazda station wagon. The voices inside were clear but low. I held my breath and listened.
“I’m sorry, too, Christopher. This ain’t personal.”
The voice came from inside. Then a gun fired, and pain exploded down my side.
Christopher lifted his arms as a weapon pressed against his spine. This never should have happened. Prison had made him hard and strong. In prison, a man was either predator or prey. After twenty-four hours outside, he had grown soft.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said, his voice low as he turned his head to the side, hoping to glimpse the gunman. “I can make you money. I’m rich, and I’ll be even richer.”
“You can’t afford me,” said the gunman, pressing his weapon harder into Christopher’s back. Christopher searched his memory, but he couldn’t recognize the voice. “If you want to survive through the night, tell me where you keep your money.”
Christopher looked to Warren, hoping for some kind of tell. The aging mechanic wouldn’t meet his gaze. Fucking coward. Christopher wasn’t young anymore, but he was tough. He had gotten into fights in prison and held his own. He wouldn’t die here.
Christopher swallowed and stepped forward, more to see what the gunman would do than to give himself room. The shooter matched him step for step. Twenty years ago, he would have whipped around and knocked the gun out of the shooter’s hand. Now, that move would get him killed.
Christopher’s breath was shallow as he considered his options. He was dead if he made the wrong move. His gut was tight, and his skin felt hot. No matter what else happened tonight, people would die. Nobody betrayed him like this. First, though, he had to get himself out of this mess. He needed help.
“Hey, Warren,” he said, hoping to catch his old friend’s attention. “I’ll take care of your daughter like she was my own if you shoot this motherfucker.”
Warren didn’t hesitate. He had a gun in his hand almost before the words left Christopher’s mouth. Christopher dove to the ground, bracing himself for the shots. He hoped Warren survived, but even if he didn’t, Christopher would fulfill his end of the bargain.
Then a woman’s scream outside changed everything.
I gasped and dove over the car, putting its engine block between me and the direction the shot had come from. The round had grazed my left arm before slamming into the vehicle. Adrenaline poured through my system, crowding out the pain and any thoughts of my mortality. I took slow, deep breaths as warm blood trickled down my arm and to my wrist.
I blinked and popped my head up, hoping to catch movement on the street. The gunman fired again. This shot buzzed by my ear. I lifted my weapon and returned fire in a three-shot burst. The shooter crouched behind an old Buick and used its hood to stabilize his rifle. I couldn’t hit him at this distance, but I needed to keep him back.
Pain radiated from my side with every breath as I pulled out my phone to dial 911. A half dozen shots rang out from the garage and slammed into the car. I dove and scrambled to the rear of the vehicle, dropping my phone. My phone skittered away. I must have kicked it by accident. I swore to myself and sucked in great lungfuls of air.
Whoever these people were, they had surrounded me. That didn’t leave me with any options. I needed to fight my way to safety, but first I had to even the odds.
I fired toward the building to drive the shooters back. Then I sprinted to the open garage door. My feet barely seemed to touch the ground. Once I got inside, I vaulted toward the nearest cinder block wall and watched outside, hoping the shooter near the Buick was stupid enough to emerge. He didn’t, but he didn’t shoot at me, either—probably because he feared hitting his friends.
This spot gave me better cover than the car outside, but the bad guys outnumbered and outgunned me. Worse, my phone was gone, which meant the cavalry wouldn’t come unless a neighbor called in the gunshots, something they may or may not do in this neighborhood. I was on my own.
I slid to my left. Blood trickled down my arm from where the first gunshot had grazed me, making the grip on my weapon slick. I was losing a fair bit of blood. It wouldn’t be long before I got lightheaded. With at least two active shooters after me, that was bad.
My lungs sucked in deep breaths as I tried to think my way through this. Between the Glock 26 in a holster on my ankle and the Glock 19 in my hand, I had twenty-five rounds remaining. I wouldn’t overwhelm anybody with that kind of firepower, which meant I needed to change the game.
I looked around me and found a fire extinguisher on the flo
or. The idea formed in an instant. It was either the best idea I’d ever had or the worst. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and crept to the left, toward an open door.
The garage’s reception area and front room were across the hall. Nobody lurked in the hallway.
God, please let this be a good idea.
I heaved the heavy fire extinguisher across the hall and into the room.
“Whoa,” came a voice. I didn’t know whose it was, nor did I care. My Glock 19 barked as I ducked and fired. The first round pinged off the extinguisher’s side, but my second hit it dead center. Carbon dioxide spewed everywhere, filling the room.
I ran, but so did a guy from the office. He hit me in the hallway, almost knocking me down. As I staggered back, he sprinted down the hallway toward a back exit. He was out of the fight, which meant I had one fewer asshole to worry about.
Then glass shattered as another figure threw my fire extinguisher through the shop’s front window. The fog inside the room lifted, and I raised my firearm to take aim as a man dove through the broken glass of the front window.
A man in mechanic’s overalls coughed from the ground. A pair of gunshot wounds pockmarked his chest, but he didn’t have a gun in his hand. Blood pooled around him and dribbled down his chin.
“Shit,” I said, between breaths. He looked like a civilian caught in the crossfire. My heart pounded, and I wanted to give chase to the men who had escaped, but the mechanic would die unless I did something. I couldn’t let that happen without trying to save him.
“You’ll be okay, buddy,” I said, holding a hand to his wound and pressing hard. Blood kept pouring out. I shot my eyes around the room. Even a roll of duct tape would help. It fixed everything. Surely they’d have it in a big garage.
Tires screeched outside. I looked through the shattered remains of the front window. A rifle inside the car lit up the night. Rounds slammed into the shop. I dropped to my belly and crawled on the ground toward the receptionist’s desk for cover. The mechanic’s blood coated my shirt, arms, and pants like I was in some macabre horror movie.
Every muscle in my body tightened, and my fingers trembled as I searched the desk and ground around it.
“Where’s the goddamn phone?” I shouted. “Where’s the phone? There’s got to be a phone.”
Rounds thwacked into the desk as I popped up. A rolling office chair spun into the wall as a round struck it on the back. I grabbed the landline from the desktop and dove to the ground again as a fresh volley rang out. I pounded 911, but it didn’t make a call. Then I hit buttons at random, hoping something would work.
“How do I get an outside line?”
The mechanic said nothing. He was dead. Unless I moved, I’d die, too. I squinted in the light until I found a button with a shield on it. I pounded that, and the damn thing dialed. In some faraway dispatch center, a 911 operator answered.
“Officer needs assistance. I’m under fire, and I lost my phone. There’s at least one casualty. Trace this call and send all available units to this address.”
The dispatcher said nothing for a moment. Then gunfire shattered the momentary quiet, getting the dispatcher’s attention. She routed every officer in the area to the garage. I thanked her and popped my head up as tires screeched. A sedan peeled away in a cloud of gun smoke and burned rubber.
Three young men walked toward me. One of them held a pistol cocked to the side. I raised my weapon, crossed the waiting room, and then stepped through the front window. My arms were black with blood in the moonlight.
“Police officer!” I shouted. “Drop your weapon now.”
The men hesitated. Then each ran in a different direction. I stayed there, holding my pistol in front of me as if I were trying to subdue a suspect.
Then my shoulder trembled, and pain lanced through my arm as my adrenaline waned. I dropped my arm to my side. Gradually, I realized that my hands hurt, but only when I looked down did I realize that I had shards of glass in my palms.
I wondered how I’d gotten that. Somewhere in the distance, a siren shattered the sudden quiet around me. Blue and white lights sped toward me from up the street. I dropped my firearm and then fell onto my ass. In six years on the job, I had never fired my weapon on duty. Now I had, and not only had I fired it, I had also tried to kill somebody.
Eventually, the importance of this evening would catch up to me. My world would change. I’d change. But for now, all I could do was hurt.
32
The next few hours passed as a blur. The first officers on the scene checked out the mechanic, but he was already dead. His blood covered my arms and chest, but I never even learned his name. That seemed wrong.
Paramedics cut the arm off my jacket, saw the gash from a bullet, and drove me to the emergency room at Barnes Jewish Hospital, where a nurse helped me change into a clean robe. After that, she cleaned the glass from my arm and hands and gave me an IV for antibiotics and pain medication. The paramedics thought a piece of shrapnel might have lodged in my arm, but the bullet had just grazed me. A physician gave me a dozen stitches before leaving the room.
Forensic technicians with the city’s crime lab came in next. They took my blood-soaked clothes as evidence and swabbed my hands for gunshot residue. Once they left, Julia and two city detectives came in.
Julia gave me a quick hug and held my hand as the detectives interviewed me. I was honest about everything. The detectives took my statement and asked a few questions, but I didn’t know who’d shot me, whom I’d shot, who’d run off, who had driven the Buick, or who had come to my rescue.
The detectives left about an hour after they arrived, but Julia stayed. She squeezed my good shoulder and sighed.
“I called Travis on the way over here,” she said. “You weren’t on duty tonight. Why were you following Christopher Hughes?”
I closed my eyes and allowed my head to sink deeper on the pillow.
“Somebody needed to.”
“Maybe. According to Travis, he put a uniformed officer on Hughes’s room. You sent her away.”
I counted to sixty in my head before opening my eyes. Julia crossed her arms and stood at the foot of my hospital bed.
“I needed to do something. If I stuck around my house, I thought I’d drink. I didn’t want to get drunk.”
For a moment, Julia’s gaze was hard, but then her expression softened, and she closed her eyes.
“You told your father your drinking was under control,” she said.
“It is,” I said.
Julia sat down near my legs and put a hand on my knee.
“How many days a week do you drink alone?”
“We’re not going there,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m fine. I never drink alone.”
“Roger doesn’t count,” she said.
I crossed my arms—which didn’t feel great considering someone had shot me—and looked away.
“Every night?” she asked. “Every other?”
I cocked my head to the side. “That’s none of your business.”
She nodded. The look she gave me was so pitiful that I almost snapped at her.
“Your father and I would have stayed the night.”
“I only have one bed, and it only has room for me and Roger.”
She looked at me and smiled, but there wasn’t a lot of warmth in it.
“We would have slept on the couches,” she said. “We’re here for you. The harder you try to push us away, the harder I’ll push back. You know that.”
“I’ve learned that,” I said. “But I don’t need a lecture.”
“What do you need?”
I looked up at the ceiling. “I need to be alone.”
Julia drew in a breath and sighed. “All right. If that’s what you want, I’ll go home, but I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I nodded. She held my gaze for a moment. The look she gave me was soft and loving and kind. I didn’t know how to return it, so I looked down and swallowed. Before she left my room, I coughed.
“Hey,” I said. She paused and looked at me. I wanted to tell her I loved her, and that I needed her, and that I had no one else in my life like her. I didn’t know how to express everything she deserved to hear. So I didn’t try. I hoped she understood. “Thanks for coming down.”
She smiled. I couldn’t tell from her expression whether she was disappointed or whether she had just expected me to say something different.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She left, and I stared at the ceiling. A doctor came in a while later. He wanted me to stay overnight in the hospital where they could administer IV antibiotics, but I told him I’d rather have someone shoot me again than stay overnight. By his nonplussed expression, he had expected that answer. He warned me that, due to the blood all over my clothes and my open wound, that I’d need HIV tests at four weeks and then at three months. He also warned me to refrain from unprotected sex until both tests came back clean. At least the latter I could manage.
I left the hospital at four in the morning and took a cab back to my truck. Uniformed and plain-clothes police officers swarmed around the body shop. I thought about staying and watching them work, but I needed to go home. Besides, they already had my contact information and statement. If they needed me, they knew where to find me.
The horizon was a clouded dark gray as I turned into my driveway. It was a quarter to six. The spring sun would burn off the morning gloom in a few hours, but for now, the gloom fit my mood. The moment my door squealed open, Roger came bounding toward me from his house in the backyard. He had long trails of saliva down his muzzle, and the hair on his back stood at attention. He looked mangy and angry, and he immediately put himself between me and the road. Something had him spooked.
I stroked his back, locked my truck, and looked out across the property. With everything going on, it wouldn’t have surprised me if a reporter had parked across the street hoping he or she could get an interview when I came home. It had happened before when I picked up a big case. If I had to guess, Roger had scared him off.