Fatal Chaos

by Marie Force

  Her instincts rarely failed her. “About?”

  “Stahl.”

  That one word could conjure up a million different thoughts for Sam—none of them good. “What about him?”

  “We’ve heard from Forrester’s office,” he said of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, “that Stahl is willing to enter an Alford plea in your case.”

  Sam sat because that was better than her legs going out from under her. “So, he’s willing to concede they have enough to convict him, but he’s not willing to admit his guilt? That son of a bitch.”

  “We thought you might say that.” Malone leaned in, elbows on his knees. “Here’s the thing, Sam. If you agree to the plea, he’ll still go away for decades. You won’t be put through the ordeal of the trial and having to relive what happened that day in Marissa Springer’s basement.”

  The words “Marissa Springer’s basement” brought it all back. The torture. The razor wire. The gasoline. The absolute certainty she was going to die at the hands of a man who’d once been her commanding officer and had come to despise her. “After what he put me through, I want to hear him say he did it. I want him to admit his guilt in a court of law, or there’s no deal.”

  “I hear you, and I understand where you’re coming from. But before we pass that on to Forrester’s team, I want you to take twenty-four hours and think about it from all sides. Talk to Nick and your dad. See what they think. Just take a day, Sam.”

  “I don’t need a day. I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “Still, take the day. Do it because I’m asking you to. I don’t want you to have regrets later when there’s no choice but to testify.”

  Affecting her best mulish expression, Sam stared at him, but he stared right back, the bastard. “Fine. If it means so much to you, I’ll sit on it for a day, but I won’t change my mind.”

  “Fair enough. What’s next in the shootings investigation?”

  “I’m gathering my team in the conference room to figure out our plan of attack.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  They walked together into the conference room, and once again Sam found herself trying to keep her mind on the case where it belonged. Goddamned Stahl. Like she didn’t have enough going on. He had to rear his ugly head too.

  “Let’s walk through it from the top.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SAM APPROACHED THE murder board and pointed to photos of each victim as she spoke of them. “Jamal Jackson, age fifteen, picked off in the Penn Branch neighborhood. He has a mother and two older sisters who adored him. Melody Kramer, age thirty-one, taken down in Eckington while walking on Quincy on her way home. She was married to Joe and had recently learned that she was expecting their first child after trying to get pregnant for a long time.

  “Sridhar Kapoor, age thirty-five, a doctoral student in chemistry at Georgetown, hit on P Street Northwest while walking home with his wife, Rayna, after a night out with friends. She was too despondent to speak to us. We’ll need to get her statement today. And Caroline Brinkley, age twenty-six, shot in the back on Woodley Road Northwest sometime after three o’clock this morning while walking home from her job at a K Street lounge. Dr. McNamara believes it took close to thirty minutes for her to bleed out. According to Caroline’s father in Minnesota, she was a hard worker who was back to school and trying to better herself.”

  Sam made eye contact with everyone in the room—Freddie, Gonzo, Jeannie, Archie, Malone and the captain from the Gang unit. What was his name again? “Every one of these four people was alive this time yesterday. Jamal was at an IMAX movie at the Air & Space Museum because he was fascinated with space. Melody was walking on air because she and her husband finally had a child on the way. She joked about going to happy hour for a friend’s birthday and how it wouldn’t be quite so happy now that she couldn’t have a drink. Sridhar was brilliant. A chemistry doctoral student at Georgetown. Think about what that probably entailed. And Caroline… Doing what thousands of other people do in this city every day—walking home from work. She had a can of pepper spray rolled into her hand so she could fend off any would-be assailants.”

  Sam took a moment to let that poignant detail register with the others.

  Jeannie looked down at the table while Freddie stared at the back wall where Malone stood next to Chief Farnsworth.

  “Witness accounts indicate we’re looking for a black sedan,” Sam said.

  “I took the liberty of printing up a list of all the cars that meet that description in the DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia area,” Jeannie said, holding a half-inch thick report.

  “We’ll start in the city and work our way out.” To Malone and Farnsworth, she said, “We’re going to need help from Patrol and overtime approved for our people.”

  “Done,” Farnsworth said. “Whatever you need to catch these bastards before they can hurt anyone else.”

  “I don’t think this is over yet, whatever it is,” Sam said.

  “I’d tend to agree with you,” the Gang captain said.

  His name sat on the tip of her tongue. “What’s your theory, Cap?” she asked.

  “This feels like some sort of initiation ritual,” he said. “We’ve seen it before. I’ve got my team talking to their contacts and seeing what they can find out.”

  “While I agree that’s a theory, to me this feels more professional. I’d like to look into a possible military or law enforcement angle.”

  “What’re you thinking, Lieutenant?” Jeannie asked.

  “Whoever is doing this is one hell of a good shot if they can take someone out from a speeding car and hit with deadly accuracy each time. There were no stray shots. In each case, there was only one, and it did the trick. Something tells me we’re looking at more than your average gangbangers here.”

  “I’d tend to agree,” the Gang captain said. “But we’re going to put our ears to the ground anyway and see if we hear anything.”

  Sam nodded in agreement with his plan. “Please keep us in the loop.”

  “Will do.”

  “Archie, what’ve you got from the Georgetown and Woodley shootings?” she asked.

  “We’re still sifting through our footage as well as the security footage we’ve pulled from multiple other sources in all four neighborhoods. It’s a big job, and we’re moving as fast as we can.”

  “I’ll let you get back to it,” Sam said.

  Nodding, he said, “I’ll let you know the second we find anything useful.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  He left the room, and Sam returned her attention to her own team. “We need someone to sift through the social media accounts of all our victims,” Sam said.

  “I did it overnight,” Gonzo said, producing a written report that he handed to her.

  Sam raised an eyebrow in his direction.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he said with a shrug that had her wondering if he was okay. “I didn’t see anything that stood out on any of their accounts. All routine mundane stuff. Nothing that would get them murdered.”

  “Thanks for closing that loop,” Sam said.

  “No problem.”

  “Let’s divide up the black sedans in the District and start there.” To Malone, she said, “I’d like to borrow Beckett and O’Brien from Patrol to help us today. Detective Green starts tomorrow,” she said of Cameron Green, the detective she’d hired from Fairfax County after working with him on a case earlier in the summer. He would replace Detective A.J. Arnold, who had been killed in the line of duty last winter.

  Sam fully expected the arrival of Arnold’s replacement to reopen the wound they had carried with them since the night he was killed right in front of Gonzo, his partner. That could be why Gonzo suddenly wasn’t sleeping well again. She’d have to keep an eye on her sergeant and close friend.

  “Sure,” Malone
said. “We can make that happen.”

  “Before we head out,” she said to her team, “I want to make sure you’re paying extra-close attention to your surroundings. If these guys are looking to make a big score, a cop would be one hell of a prize. Watch your backs.”

  They replied with “Yes, ma’am,” and “We will.”

  Jeannie handed sheets of paper to Freddie, took a stack for herself and Gonzo and made another pile for the two Patrol officers Sam had requested.

  “I’ll give the rest to Captain Hernandez,” Jeannie said of the Patrol commander.

  “Ask him to make this their top priority and to keep us informed.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Will do.” Jeannie left the conference room.

  “Someone needs to brief the media,” Malone said. “They’re foaming at the mouth for info about the shootings.”

  “They’re always foaming for something,” Sam replied. “Can you handle it today? I’m too much of a distraction these days.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Cruz, let’s get to it.”

  “I’m with you, Lieutenant.”

  * * *

  THEIR FIRST STOP was the George Washington University Hospital where they found Rayna Kapoor in a fifth-floor room guarded by a Patrol officer Sam didn’t recognize. She produced her badge, and Freddie did the same. The officer took a close look at them, as he was required to do. She took advantage of the opportunity to glance at his name tag, which said Keeney.

  “How is she?”

  “Not great. They gave her something to help her sleep, but she’s awake now and hysterical from what I can hear.”

  “Is anyone with her?”

  He shook his head. “I asked if she wanted me to call someone for her, and the nurses did too. She said she wants Sri. No one else.”

  Sam steeled herself to contend with Rayna’s heartbreak before knocking on the door and entering the room where the blinds were drawn. Other than a small light over the bed, the room was dark. Rayna lay on her side, her arms wrapped around a pillow as she sobbed helplessly.

  “Rayna,” Sam said, speaking softly. “I’m Lieutenant Holland, Metro PD, and this is my partner, Detective Cruz.”

  “I know you. I’ve seen you.” She spoke with a distinctive British accent. “You catch all the killers. You’ll catch my Sri’s killer.”

  “I’ll do my very best.”

  She wiped her face with the sheet. “He can’t be dead. It’s not right. He was fine.”

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  Rayna pressed a button to raise her bed slightly. “We… We were out at a club with some friends. People we know from school. It was our first time going out with them or going to a club. Sri, he said we needed to learn how to have fun, that no one should study as much as we do. I didn’t want to go, but I went because he asked me to. Why didn’t he listen to me? I knew we shouldn’t have gone.”

  “Why did you feel that way?”

  “I don’t know.” She stared at the far wall where the nurses had recorded her information on a dry-erase board. “I had a feeling we shouldn’t go.”

  “Had something happened to make you feel that way?”

  “Nothing in particular. I get these feelings.” Rayna rubbed her abdomen. “Here. Often they turn out to be sound. I wish this wasn’t one of those times.” She broke down again, her sobs echoing through the small room.

  Sam felt awful for pushing her to recount the most traumatic moment of her life, but she needed to know. “So, you were walking home…”

  Rayna nodded and wiped her face again. “We were walking on P Street. I wanted to take a cab, but Sri said the fresh air would be good for us after being in the club. He talked me into walking. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s a beautiful night.’ He’s very convincing when he sets his heart on something.” Her face crumpled when she seemed to realize she had spoken of him in the present tense. “He… He was talking about a big presentation he had to make this week at school. There was a loud noise and everything happened at once. He staggered and fell onto me, and I went down with him. I couldn’t tell what was happening until I felt the blood. There was so much blood.” She shuddered and hiccupped as another sob erupted from her chest.

  “When did you realize he’d been shot?” Sam asked.

  “I didn’t know that until the police came. They told me that’s what happened.”

  “Were you injured in the fall?”

  “I sprained my wrist,” she said, raising her arm to show Sam the brace she wore.

  “Did you see the car or anything that might help us catch the people who did this?”

  She shook her head. “The police said they came from behind us. I never saw a thing.” Glancing up at Sam, she said, “Will you find them? Will you make them pay for taking my sweet husband from me?”

  “I’ll do everything I can. I promise you. Is there someone we could call to be with you? A friend or your family or anyone?”

  “No. My family and Sri’s are in India. The only close friend either of us has here is each other. That was all we needed.”

  Sam couldn’t imagine being so alone in the world. “Surely the people you were with last night would come if you asked them to.”

  “I don’t know them well enough to ask for that.”

  “If you write down the name and phone number of a friend, I’d be happy to make the call for you.”

  Rayna thought about that for a minute, and then reached for the pad. “Sri made me memorize the phone number of his lab partner in case I couldn’t get in touch with him. He got so absorbed in his work that sometimes I had to call her to reach him.” She wrote down the woman’s name and number.

  Sam handed the notebook to Freddie, who left the room to make the call, and then she gave her card to Rayna. “I have to ask… You say your family is in India, but you speak with a British accent.”

  “Sri and I were educated in the United Kingdom. That’s where we met. Our families sacrificed a lot to give us the best of everything, and we were looking forward to doing the same for them after we finished school. Now…” She sighed deeply. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “If you think of anything that might be helpful to the investigation, please call me anytime. And if I can do anything at all for you, feel free to call.”

  “You’re very kind. Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry this happened to you and your husband in our city.”

  “So am I. We really loved it here. We were happy.”

  Sam wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, that she would survive this, but how could she be sure of either of those things? “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you. Everyone has been so kind.”

  “I’ll leave you to get some rest.” Sam stepped out of the room and encountered Keeney, noting his eager expression and handsome young face. The job hadn’t broken him yet, but it would. It always did.

  “Are you all right, Lieutenant?”

  “Yeah. Tough one.”

  “I don’t know how you guys in Homicide can handle what you see every day. I wouldn’t be able to do it.”

  “You’d be surprised what you can do when you have to.”

  “I guess.” He shrugged. “I give you credit, and I admire how good you are at it.”

  “Thank you.” Drained after her conversation with Rayna, Sam leaned against the wall and put her head back, taking a minute to regroup. In the distance, she heard whispering at the nurse’s station, probably directed at her. A lot of whispering had been directed her way in recent weeks, and she ignored it the way she always did.

  “I don’t know how you can deal with that either,” Keeney said in a low tone intended only for her.

  “I deal with it by ignoring it.” She thought about how she wished she could pop into a cubicle while she
was here and ask for a pregnancy test. Hell, she could stop by their doctor friend Harry’s office and ask him to do it for her. But doing either of those things would require her to share her suspicions with someone, and it had been hard enough to bring Shelby in on it.

  She probably ought to tell Nick, but the thought of disappointing him—again—had her deciding to wait until she knew for sure. Harry could put her out of her misery, but they had a case to work and no time to waste with a shooter on the loose and a city on edge.

  They had to operate under the assumption that the shooter wasn’t finished with them yet, so there really was no time to tend to her personal business. Not today anyway.

  Freddie rejoined her a few minutes later. “The lab partner is on her way. She was glad we called. She said she’s been frantic wondering where Rayna was and if she was all right.”

  “I’m oddly relieved to know that someone cares about her.”

  “Me too. Where to from here?”

  “I want to talk to Danita Jackson again.”

  “Let’s go.”

  To Keeney she said, “Let us know if anything changes here or when they release her.”

  “Will do, LT. Hope you catch the bastards fast.”

  “Me too.”

  They left the hospital and headed for the Jackson home, located a few blocks from where Jamal had been shot.

  On the way, Sam said, “Stahl is offering to take an Alford plea.”

  “That’s a bunch of crap,” Freddie said bluntly. “Crap” counted as a swear word to him. “What’re you going to do?”

  “They told me to take twenty-four hours, talk it over with Nick and my dad, but I want to hear him say he did it.”

  “Can’t say I blame you after what he put you through.”

  “A trial would be ugly—for me, Nick, the department.”

  “Who cares? You’re the one who was in that room with Stahl, and you’re the only one who matters when it comes to making this kind of decision.”

  His fierce support made her smile. “Thanks.”

  “Whatever you decide, we’ll have your back.”