The Guardian

by Dee Henderson

  “We’ve just started to actually process the scene. It will be another hour before we can move his body, probably five or six hours on evidence. Dave said you were the one who entered this room in the initial minutes after the shooting.”

  “Yes.”

  “I need your shoes.”

  His shoes. Of course. “My room is downstairs. Can I get another pair, then bring these back?”

  She frowned back at him. “I suppose, seeing as how you’ve been over to the hospital and back in them.”

  “There’s a hole in my sock.”

  “Is there?” She was amused at that. She looked back at the area of carpet in front of her. “Thanks for sealing the scene as early as you did. This place is a treasure trove.”

  “What have you found?”

  “Your shooter made a mistake.” She gestured with her pen, indicating an oval area to her left. “There’s a gun powder residue pattern here, and he walked through it when he crossed over to the connecting door to shoot the Hanfords. And over there—” she pointed to the right—“he put his right foot down on a blood splatter arc. Inside the door he’s left the edge of a shoe print with blood on it. We’ve got blood traces in the hall coming from the sole of his right shoe.”

  “Can you tell me anything about him?”

  “Sure. He’s not a very good shot.” She indicated the shots that had killed Judge Whitmore. “Look at the spread of these three hits.”

  Marcus had never figured out how things that made even cops queasy Lisa could work around without a qualm. Death didn’t bother her.

  “Other than that, not much. Ask me again after I get the autopsy finished and start putting together the forensic data. I’ll have to put some geometry into the entry and exit wounds, the blood splatters. Give me enough time and I’ll probably be able to give you the shooter’s height, weight, and what he ate for dinner.”

  She wasn’t being facetious. In a case last year she had figured out the killer liked clams from a toothpick found at the scene. In a town with one seafood restaurant, it had been useful information. “Shari said his shoes were highly polished,” Marcus told her.

  “Really? Useful. I may be able to get you a brand name on the shoes. Think she might be able to remember details?”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “This is a nice, tight, dense weave carpet. We should be able to get some good images with a high contrast photograph.” While she spoke, Lisa collected several samples of Carl’s blood, sealing it into vials. It was a harsh reality, but by the time the body reached the morgue to be autopsied, most shooting victims had bled almost totally out.

  She got to her feet, careful to step back on the black tape. “If you have to enter the room, stay by the tape,” she warned. “We’ve done a fiber lift from there so we can move around, but the rest of the room is still unprocessed.”

  She closed the vials in a biohazardous evidence bag, sealed it with a bar code, initialed the tag, and passed the sack to a technician to document. “We should be done with the photographs within the hour, then the real work will begin. Between the fiber evidence and the fingerprints, we’ll be here well into the day.”

  There were shell casings numbered. Holes in the plaster circled with black marker. Mistlike blood splatters typical of gunshot wounds. Marcus saw evidence marker number 74 set beside the overturned phone. “The bloody fingerprint on the phone is likely Shari’s. She was the one who called the desk.”

  “A lady that can keep her cool.”

  “Yes.”

  “Whenever you can make the unobtrusive request, I’ll need her fingerprints and those of her family.”

  “I’ll arrange it.”

  “Dave, I’ll need fingerprints of everyone who entered the room, including the paramedics.”

  “I’ll get them.”

  “What’s this?” Marcus asked. A black circle had been drawn on the carpet.

  “We’ve got one bullet that ended up in the hotel room one floor below,” Dave replied.

  “How did that happen?”

  “A fluke of bad construction. We were lucky; the room was unoccupied.”

  “Am I the only one already beginning to think this case is going to be bad luck around every corner?”

  “Quinn would agree with you. He’s growling.”

  “He hates getting shot at, not to mention not being able to track his quarry.”

  * * *

  The hotel lounge off the sixth floor atrium was abuzz with word that there had been a shooting. Connor sat at a window table, sipping his drink, ignoring the commotion.

  The judge was dead. Retribution was a beautiful word.

  “Did we negotiate a great deal or what? They folded, just like you predicted, more concerned with the size of their own golden parachutes than the final terms of the sale.” His partner in the merger talks was in festive spirits. When the formalities concluded tomorrow on the 43 million dollar merger of the two law firms, the man would personally walk away with almost 4 million. “Having the talks under the cover of this conference was a stroke of brilliance. There won’t be anyone cutting in to steal this deal away.”

  Connor turned the glass in his hand, only half listening. The merger could have gone in the trash for all he cared. The discussions had already accomplished what he hoped for—they had given him an alibi that would be very hard to penetrate. He watched the officers down below on the street look for him: a well-dressed man with thick black hair and thin mustache.

  His premature gray and receding hair, lack of mustache, dark glasses, and rumpled shirt showing the effects of working marathon sessions for the last three days had not merited him more than a passing glance by the cops moving through the hotel. Even with the sketch he envisioned they would eventually have, they were in for a rude surprise. Tomorrow he would stroll out of the hotel, just another guest. The gun was locked in his room safe. What better way to protect the evidence than to let the hotel do it for him?

  Did they realize he was still sitting in their hotel? Personally, he thought that was the most brilliant portion of his plan.

  There should not have been a witness to the actual shooting and he scowled again at that memory. Their presence had cut severely into his escape time and had nearly gotten him caught. Now the excitement was over. He had always assumed someone would see him near the judge’s room and had used that to his advantage. It was the best principle of deception. They were looking for him, without realizing they were looking for someone who looked only vaguely like him. And a lot like someone else.

  And all they needed to do was bring in one suspect, conduct one eyewitness lineup based on that misleading information and he would be able to discredit any eyewitness testimony they tried to use later. Reasonable doubt allowed for so much useful maneuvering.

  Only one person had really seen him, and he had seen her. He had tonight to figure out how to deal with that. And he would . . . he most certainly would. Daniel had warned him it took only one mistake.

  His father would be horrified. His good son had just gone irreversibly bad. Connor smiled at his drink. He’d never wanted to be the good son. By the time Titus realized what he had done, all the loose ends would be wrapped up. Even Titus would not be able to deny him his rightful place in the business then. Connor had earned his place.

  He raised his drink and silently drank a toast to his dead brother Daniel. May he now rest in peace.

  Chapter Five

  Shari leaned against the wall beside her mom’s hospital room window and watched traffic flow on the street below, red taillights breaking the darkness marking outbound traffic. Two A.M., and still the city did not sleep. She had been down in traffic like that before, rushing home only to turn around and come back to work while it was not yet dawn. In the intense last few months of campaigns, life ran at a seven day a week, twenty-four hour a day pace. She wished her life was that simple again, when being rushed for time was the biggest stress in her day.

  Someone murdered Carl.


  Who? Why?

  Her dad and brother being shot were incidental to him. He destroyed her family and it was incidental to him. She wanted this guy. Desperately. And while she knew the marshals would be all over this case because Carl had been killed, she couldn’t leave it there.

  There was no one who knew Carl better than herself and her dad. She had personally read all of Carl’s cases and writings in the last few weeks. Somewhere in her memory, or in her father’s, was the person with a motive to kill Carl.

  She drank the hot coffee the nurse had gotten for her, pushing back fatigue. Waiting for news was hard. There was no word from the doctors on Joshua or Dad. At least her mom was stable for the moment.

  Shari prayed again for her dad and Josh, feeling the heavy weight of guilt knowing they had been hurt because of her. If only she had never written that brief. Lord, give me strength. The emotion had run its course and now there was only deep weariness. She prayed for the long night to be over.

  Shari turned when the door opened slowly with a soft whoosh of air. In the dim light of the room she recognized Marcus. She didn’t envy the man the job he had to do. He paused in the doorway and looked over at her mom, then nodded to the hall.

  With a final look to confirm her mom was soundly sleeping, she crossed the room to join him in the hallway.

  Marcus weathered better under pressure than she did. His gaze was steady and calm. She knew every bit of the stress from the last hours reflected in her face, and he wasn’t missing much of that as he studied her. She hadn’t been under this kind of intense scrutiny in a while. He was judging how well she was holding up, gauging what she could handle hearing.

  “They’ve looked at your cheek?”

  His question surprised her. She touched the bandage. “Yes, it will heal. Thanks for asking.” The doctor had warned there might be a scar, but she didn’t care. It was only the outward scar of a much bigger inward wound she would carry forever. “You’ve got news?”

  “They’re bringing Joshua down from surgery to the recovery room. He’ll be there about an hour before they move him to the ICU, but the surgeon okayed a brief visit now.”

  Shari hesitated.

  His look gentled. “The unknown is always worse than the truth.”

  “Even when the truth is going to be pretty bad?”

  “Even then. Let’s go talk to the surgeon.”

  The surgeon met them outside the recovery room still wearing his scrubs. Shari listened but didn’t really hear much of what he was saying, her focus on the marked doors behind him. “Thank you, doctor.”

  “He came through surgery well, Miss Hanford. Please remember that when you see him.” He held the recovery room doors open for her.

  Shari followed a nurse, aware of Marcus immediately behind her, glad she wasn’t entering this sterile, white place alone. The faint hum of machines was as much a part of the backdrop of sound as the quiet movement of the nurses.

  “Joshua.” She swallowed hard when she saw him, for most of the right side of his chest and all of his right shoulder were swallowed in bandages. He was breathing on his own and his color was pretty good, but the amount of damage was worse than she had expected.

  A warm, firm hand curled over her shoulder and squeezed gently. “It looks worse than it is,” Marcus whispered. “Remember what the surgeon said.”

  Pins in his collarbone. Torn muscles. Ninety percent recoverable. That was all supposed to be positive news. It just didn’t change the fact Josh had been shot. She hated hospitals, was afraid of what she saw; it reminded her too much of those long weeks when they had almost lost mom.

  Push it away. That’s the past. And family needs you now—strong, together. She leaned over and gripped Josh’s hand. “Hey, Josh. There’s a pretty nurse here you haven’t even noticed yet.” He didn’t stir, wouldn’t for hours yet. “You always did like to sleep through the big adventures.” She wanted to cry rather then razz him, but she refused to let the tears fall.

  “Sit down, Shari,” Marcus offered, having retrieved a chair. “You’re the best medicine there is for him right now.”

  She took the seat, grateful, and continued talking to Josh, letting the conversation wander, just wanting him to hear her voice.

  Josh was going to have a nasty six months of recovery. There would be months of physical therapy to be able to lift his arm, rotate his shoulder, carry a briefcase. Even writing was going to be a problem in the next few weeks. He had paid that price for her. How was she ever going to repay him?

  Marcus pulled over a seat for himself, sat down, and stretched out his legs, steepling his hands. Shari appreciated his quietness. He was a man with stillness inside, not someone in perpetual motion. She wished she could borrow that trait. She burned through energy like a hot candle. At the moment she felt like she was burning down to the end of the wick. “You need to change your shirt.” There was dried blood on the white cuff.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t notice—”

  She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean it that way. You paid a price for tonight as well. I’m sorry about that.”

  “I would have preferred being able to stop him.”

  At the disgusted sound in his voice she turned toward Marcus. He really meant it. He would have preferred to be in the middle of an unavoidable shoot-out with the man than to have arrived too late to do anything about it. His job took a courage she would never understand.

  As calm and still as he was, she suspected he was actually very much on a hair trigger to react if necessary. He wasn’t sitting beside her with his jacket open and a sidearm visible because he had free time. He was beside her because there had been a realistic judgment among the marshals that she needed that kind of protection.

  He was responding like a cop. She wished she knew how to tell him thanks. “The shooter nearly destroyed my family and it was entirely incidental to him.”

  “Trust me, it’s not incidental to those of us working the case.”

  “I wish I had been able to help you more with what happened.”

  “On the contrary, you gave us a great deal. Focus on your family; we’ll find the man responsible.”

  “I want to help.”

  “Shari—”

  “I know I fell apart on you earlier, but I won’t again. You need a motive and there is no one who knows Carl better than myself and Dad.”

  He didn’t say anything for several moments. “Deal.”

  He attached no strings, but she knew they were there. To get access to the investigation, she would put up with a lot of strings. She hadn’t grown up around three lawyers without understanding how a criminal case was built. They would find the shooter, and she would insure they had a conviction. Not to do everything she could would be to let down Carl and the price he had paid.

  Jesus, You say not to hate, but the hatred is getting me through this crisis. I can feel it building toward the shooter as I look at Josh and think about Carl, about Dad. I cry like David did—destroy my enemy! Make him pay. Whoever did this, I pray with an intensity that wells from my soul that You will lead the marshals to him. Answer this prayer. Please.

  Marcus looked over at her, concerned, and she realized her emotions must have been showing on her face. She forced herself to relax. Josh stirred and she tightened her hand on his. Get better, Josh. I need you. I don’t want to be the strong one in this family.

  * * *

  After they left the recovery room, Marcus walked Shari back to the waiting room. He watched with concern as she sank down on the couch. “You need to get some sleep.” It was coming up on 3 A.M.., and her voice was beginning to drift when she spoke.

  “I close my eyes and I see it happen,” she admitted quietly. “I’ll wait a bit longer before I face the dreams.”

  Marcus took a seat in the chair near the couch and braced his elbows on his knees as he studied her. He felt for her and the reality of what she would go through in the next few weeks. The trauma would show in so ma
ny ways: being spooked by sudden sounds, hesitation before walking into a room, fear of the dark, headaches, mood swings—her system would purge the emotions of that memory trapped in a slice of time in numerous ways.

  He wasn’t a trauma counselor like his sister Rachel, but he knew where the healing had to begin. “When you close your eyes, where does it start?”

  “With my hand reaching up to knock on the door. If only I hadn’t froze—”

  He wasn’t surprised at what troubled her the most. “Because you froze in the doorway, it was your fault?”

  “It feels like it.”

  “How long did you freeze? Two seconds? Three? How long before it registered and you got voice to scream?”

  “A few seconds.”

  “If you had been able to scream and distract the gunman, would his shots have missed Carl? Would he still be alive?”

  She blinked. “When the door swung open, Carl was already beginning to fall; I heard the echo of the shots.”

  “So you couldn’t have saved Carl,” Marcus said quietly. “If you’d been able to scream sooner, would you have been able to save your father?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Shari, your screams saved your family. They flustered the shooter.” He had to make her understand the importance of that. “Don’t let your emotions believe a lie. They will never heal if you do. You did the only thing you could.”

  “I’m never going to be able to forget.”

  “No, but you’ll remember the reality, not a distortion. You’re dealing with it remarkably well.”

  “I’m shaking like a leaf.”

  “But you’re not folding. Give yourself credit for that.” He wished he could convey to her just how impressed he was with that fact. The strength inside her was showing. “Are you sure you don’t want me to get someone to wait with you? There are a number of people who have asked if they can come up. Friends of your family, of Carl.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m hiding; I know it. But at the moment it’s easier. The family will be arriving later today, there will be plenty of people then.” She looked over at him and there was some ruefulness to her look. “In the meantime, I’ll just dump it on you.”