Jailhouse Glock

by Lizbeth Lipperman

  “She’s with Colt’s mom tonight. They’re braving the Black Friday crowd in the morning.”

  “I didn’t kill him, Lainey. I swear.”

  Lainey patted her hand. “Why would I think that? You couldn’t hurt a flea. Everyone knows that.”

  I knew you were in trouble, Maddy. I just didn’t know how much.

  Maddy glanced up to see Tessa sitting on the edge of the desk. “Please tell me you know who did it, Tessa,” Maddy said, hoping and praying her ghostly sister had seen everything and could identify the man who had killed Bernardi.

  “Tessa? Don’t tell me you’re seeing her now,” Lainey said, jumping from her chair.

  “You can’t see her?”

  Of course she can’t. You’re the one in big trouble. Tell Lainey I said she could have at least combed her hair. She’s got that just been … well, you know the look. And personally, to flaunt it in front of me—and you, for that matter—seems a tad insensitive, don’t ya think?

  “Tessa said you can’t see her because I’m the one in trouble.” Maddy deliberately left out the other part, not wanting to dwell on the lack of romance in her life at the moment.

  A slight grin wrinkled the corners of Lainey’s lips. “Knowing my dead sister the way I do, my guess is that’s not all she said.”

  Oh, give it a rest, Lainey. You had your fun with me when you were the only one who could see and hear me. Tessa leaned across the desk, almost in Maddy’s face now. Now start talking, sis. The only way we can help you is if you tell us what happened.

  Maddy felt the hope drain from her body. If Tessa was looking for details, that meant she hadn’t seen anything and wouldn’t be able to help. She lowered her eyes and recited the story to both her sisters.

  “Oh my God! Is Jessie all right?” Lainey cried out.

  “She’s fine. She slept right through it. Rogers is staying with her until I get home.”

  Thank God for that, Tessa interjected. What asshole uses a child like that?

  “Apparently, a very clever one,” Maddy answered. “There’s only one scenario that would have persuaded me to follow his instructions like I did. He knew Jessie was key to getting my full cooperation.”

  “Why didn’t you call Colt?” Lainey asked.

  “I tried to, but somehow, the man on the phone saw me and threatened to kill Jessie.”

  “How did he see you?” Lainey asked. “Was he hiding in one of the back rooms?”

  Maddy popped out of the chair, nearly tipping it over. “Crap! I forgot to tell Colt about that. There has to be a hidden camera somewhere in this room.” She started toward the door to the cell block just as it flew open and Colt walked through.

  “Get the forensics guy to check this room for a hidden camera,” she shouted, unable to hide the excitement in her voice. “Maybe we’ll find fingerprints on it.”

  “What makes you think there’s a hidden camera, Maddy? It’s a little far fetched to think someone could plant one without any of us knowing about it.”

  She told him how the man on the phone knew she’d been searching in her purse for her cell phone and how he warned that he could see her every move.

  “Like I said, it’s very improbable that someone could get eyes on us in here.” When he saw her look of despair, he added “I said improbable, not impossible. But it makes more sense that he made a calculated guess, knowing you’d be looking for help.”

  Damn! The man looks good even with bedhead. Tessa walked around him, spending a few extra seconds giving his derriere the once-over. I should have jumped his bones when I had the chance.

  “Tessa’s back,” Maddy said abruptly. When Colt narrowed his eyes, she added, “She appeared before this all began and disappeared right after I got the call.”

  “So she didn’t see or hear the guy?”

  Maddy shook her head. “No, but she knew I was in some kind of trouble.” She grinned. “Said St. Peter’s wife sent her here to get her as far away from her husband as she could.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Colt deadpanned, before his expression turned serious again. “Tell her not to even think about getting involved in this investigation. The last time you Garcia girls tried to help out, Lainey almost died.”

  Remind my ex that I’m the one who led Lainey out of the burning vines to safety. She clucked her tongue. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be nearly as much fun now that Colt knows I’m hanging around. I liked it better when he couldn’t figure out how you guys knew everything.

  “What’s going to happen now?” Lainey asked, grabbing her sister’s hand and squeezing it. “Surely you don’t blame Maddy for doing what she did?”

  He stared at his wife for a moment before focusing back on her older sister. “I would’ve done the exact same thing if someone had threatened Gracie. But because it was your gun that killed Bernardi, I have to put you on leave for now.” When he noticed the look of dismay that crossed her face, he added “Paid leave, Maddy. Just until we get to the bottom of this.”

  She nodded, grateful she wouldn’t have to dig any deeper into her savings to make it through the next few weeks. She hoped it wouldn’t take any longer, but that meant they’d have to find clues quickly before the case went cold.

  “There’s really nothing more for you to do here. Why don’t you go with Lainey back to our house and try to get some sleep. I’ll wait here until the CSI guys are through and the body’s on the way to the morgue.”

  “No!” she said a little louder than she meant to. “I need to be with Jessie.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ve already instructed Rogers to stay over at your motherin-law’s house until morning just in case whoever did this decides to return.”

  “This time I’ll be ready,” Maddy said defiantly before she remembered her gun was now state’s evidence.

  I’m going with you, Tessa said. Nobody screws with my family and gets away with it.

  If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Maddy would have laughed as her younger sister slammed her hand on the desk and no one else noticed.

  Before she could explain why she was grinning, the phone rang, and Colt stretched across Landers’s desk to reach for it. “Vineyard Police Department.” After a few seconds of listening, he blew out a breath. “We’ll be right there.”

  Both Maddy and Lainey inched closer to him, waiting for him to explain.

  Before he did, he glanced down at his watch. “That was the hospital. Alan Foxworthy has regained consciousness. They’re getting him ready for surgery, and I have a short window to talk to him before they sedate him. Hopefully, we can get to the bottom of this quickly.”

  “What about the station? Should I stay until morning?” Maddy asked.

  “No, you go and stay close to Jessie. Landers is on his way in.” He bent to kiss her forehead. “Try not to worry too much. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

  Even as she agreed, she knew there was no way she would stay calm. Her mind raced with the possible scenarios Colt could get from questioning the guy in the other cell. What if he hadn’t seen anything and wasn’t able to help her? He’d been snoring loud enough to nearly shake the building the last time she’d checked on him.

  Hope that little bastard has a good memory, Tessa said, falling in step with Maddy as she retrieved her purse and walked to the door.

  Exiting the station with Tessa on her heels, Maddy felt a ray of hope for the first time since this all began. Unless the killer shot the other guy before Bernardi, there was no way anyone could have slept through the loud gunshots. Colt would take his statement, and Maddy would be back on the job in a few days.

  Climbing into her car, she glanced back at the station. She could only hope that would happen and she could resume her life in short order. She’d left college to marry Robbie before he was deployed to Afghanistan, and when he was killed several months later, she’d found herself pregnant with only the small government compensation to support her and her newborn daughter. She’
d worked at the station in some capacity or another ever since Colt had taken over as sheriff of Vineyard.

  But her gut screamed back that walking into the station in her uniform wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  four

  Even as Colt walked through the Emergency Room door at Vineyard Regional Medical Center, the churning in his stomach didn’t ease. If everything went well, in the next few minutes he’d get confirmation from Alan Foxworthy that Maddy had not pulled the trigger. With a little luck, the wounded man might even be able to describe the real killer. Then they could concentrate on getting the police artist’s sketch out and nail the bastard who’d held the gun to his favorite niece’s head.

  Without Foxworthy’s statement, all they had to go on was Maddy’s word that she didn’t kill Bernardi. Her version of how it all went down wasn’t the easiest to believe, particularly the part about the anonymous cell phone in her desk drawer—the one that had magically appeared and then just as conveniently disappeared.

  But knowing his sister-in-law the way he did, he knew there was no way she could actually kill a man, even one as obnoxious and slimy as Gino Bernardi.

  At the thought of the dead man, Colt wracked his brain for something—anything—that might give him a clue as to who might have had the balls to pull this off. To walk into his police station and commit premeditated murder with his rookie officer’s own gun took a serious set, not to mention the right connections.

  But no matter how hard he tried, he came up empty.

  All he knew about Bernardi was that he’d moved to Vineyard several months before and hadn’t gone out of his way to make friends in the community. Personally, he thought the man to be an arrogant SOB, stupid enough to end up on the cell block at least once or twice a month for some brush with the law, usually a bar fight. The last time he’d occupied one of the cells, Gino had gotten all liquored up and ran his car into a brand-new Porsche owned by Vineyard’s only celebrity, a Dallas Cowboys’ linebacker who’d apparently cut him off in traffic. Lucky for Gino the cops had gotten to him before the three-hundred-plus athlete had.

  Clearly, Gino Bernardi couldn’t hold his liquor and had made more than a few enemies since he’d arrived. But did any of those people he’d managed to piss off hold a big enough grudge or have the clout to methodically plan and execute the perfect hit?

  Colt would get his deputies to take a long hard look into Gino’s life as soon as he got back to the station. In the meantime, he had a potential witness to interrogate. Hopefully what the man had to say would make this investigation a whole lot less personal.

  He walked up to the front desk where a tired looking, middle-aged woman was on the phone and never even bothered to glance up.

  When she finally did, she asked, “You looking for the gunshot victim, Sheriff?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman chugged the last of her coffee before pointing down the hall. “Third room on the right, but you’d better hurry. The OR tech is on his way down from the fifth floor to take him to surgery, and the anesthesiologist will want to give him a little something to take the edge off before they transport him upstairs.”

  Colt nodded before heading down the hall. The fire in his belly upped a notch with each step in that direction.

  Why am I so apprehensive about talking to this guy?

  He made eye contact with Jeff Flanagan who’d been called in to guard the prisoner and now sat outside the room with an opened newspaper on his lap.

  “Has he said anything yet?”

  Flanagan shook his head. “We were waiting on you, boss. You don’t have much time, though. The doctors think a bullet may have nicked his intestines, and they’re anxious to get him into surgery.”

  Colt took a deep breath and pushed through the doorway. The first thing he noticed was how noisy it was with all the monitors. He’d hated that sound long before becoming a cop. He connected it with a time many years before when his dad lay dying from a hit-and-run accident. As much as he’d hated the constant beeping, he remembered how much worse he’d felt the moment those sounds had stopped.

  He forced himself to walk closer to the bed and waited while the nurse piggybacked a smaller IV bag to the bigger one. When she was gone, he got his first look at the man who could possibly identify the gunman and save Maddy a lot of grief.

  Alan Foxworthy wasn’t a big man, appearing to be about five-ten or eleven with a nose that could only be described as oversized. Why a man who was a good four inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter than Gino would pick a fight with him was beyond good sense. It was a wonder the drunken Bernardi hadn’t killed him during their altercation.

  Foxworthy’s eyes were closed when Colt approached the bed, but they fluttered open just as he touched the side rail where the man’s wrist was cuffed to the metal.

  “Mr. Foxworthy, I’m Sheriff Winslow. Can you tell me anything about the man who shot you?”

  Foxworthy, whose face was still swollen and now a deep shade of purple and red from the beating he’d taken at the bar the night before, looked confused. “Man? Who told you it was a man?” He stopped and winced, grabbing his abdomen as if a sudden pain had shot through him.

  “Wasn’t it?” Colt took a deep breath. This was not going down the way he’d hoped.

  “Hell no. It was that lady cop,” the injured man said, his voice almost a whisper now.

  A cold sweat began to form on the edge of Colt’s forehead. He leaned in closer to hear. “You’re sure it was a female cop? Could it be that you just remember the cop being the last person you’d seen before shots were fired?”

  Foxworthy winced again, wiggling in pain. “I’ll never forget the look on her face when she pointed that gun at me.” He closed his eyes and nodded. “It was the lady cop, all right.”

  Just then two men in scrubs wheeled in a gurney. The older of the two pushed past Colt. “Sorry. We have to get this man into surgery now.” He pulled a syringe from the chest pocket of his scrubs and reached for the IV tubing. “Mr. Foxworthy, this is going to make you sleepy. When you wake up, you’ll be in the Recovery Room.”

  A few seconds later Foxworthy closed his eyes, and the two men moved quickly to slide him from the bed to the stretcher. All Colt could do was watch them transport his only witness out of the room toward the elevator.

  Foxworthy’s last words replayed in his mind. The man had basically sealed the case for the DA against his sister-in-law, and he’d have to be the one to break the news to her.

  In his heart he knew it couldn’t have been Maddy. Was it possible someone disguised as her had done the deed? Looking down the barrel of a Glock had to have captured all of Foxworthy’s attention, and any woman in a police uniform could have impersonated his only female officer. And hadn’t Maddy said the voice on the phone was computer enhanced? It wasn’t a huge stretch to entertain the possibility that the killer was a woman, especially after Foxworthy’s testimony.

  “Well, did you get anything from him?” Flanagan asked when Colt walked out of the room.

  “He said it was Maddy.”

  “What? No way. The scumbag’s lying.”

  “But why?” Colt asked, talking more to himself than to Flanagan. He patted his officer’s shoulder. “Stay here until he gets out of surgery. I’ll have Landers relieve you then so you can get back to your kids.”

  Turning, he walked down the hall toward the exit, the fire in his gut reaching volcanic levels. The good people of Vineyard had elected him to bring law and order to their small city. At times it was harder than usual to do just that. But it sickened him that right now he had to live up to the responsibility they’d placed on him.

  With a heavy heart, he drove his squad car out of the hospital parking lot and down the road, knowing he was about to arrest a good friend—and a member of his own family—for the murder of Gino Bernardi.

  _____

  Maddy hurried up the steps of her motherin-law’s house, scanning the area at least three times before reach
ing the porch, just in case whoever had been there earlier was still hanging around. Satisfied the intruder was probably long gone, she used the key Sandra had given her and opened the door. Before she even made it inside, Jessie ran up and wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck.

  “Mom, what’s wrong? Why did you send Officer Rogers here tonight?” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “You sounded so scared on the phone.”

  “Shh, sweetheart, I’m fine,” Maddy whispered, brushing her daughter’s hair back soothingly. “I was worried about you and your grandmother, that’s all.” She made eye contact with Tom Rogers whose face showed his utter confusion about why he’d been asked to stand guard over his coworker’s family.

  She pushed the ten year old an arm’s length away and kissed her forehead. “It’s late, and we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.” When Jessie’s eyebrows arched, she added “We’re putting up the Christmas tree, remember?”

  That brought a smile to her daughter’s face. “Oh, yeah.” She turned and bounded up the steps to the bedroom.

  Maddy moved closer to Rogers. “You’re absolutely sure no one’s up there, right?”

  He shook his head. “I checked every available inch just like you asked me to. If someone is there, he’s invisible.” He turned and watched while Jessie closed her bedroom door before focusing his attention back on Maddy. “You want to tell me what this is all about?”

  Maddy blew out a long breath, half in relief and half in frustration. “You’re not going to believe it.” She pointed to the kitchen. “Let’s go in there and talk. Jessie’s not above sneaking out of her room and listening from the top of the stairs. I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

  He followed her into Sandra’s kitchen and sat down on a barstool at the counter. Silently, Maddy got the pot of coffee brewing before she followed suit. Biting her lower lip, something she always did when she was nervous, she let her eyes wander around the brightly colored kitchen with its lemon-yellow walls that she’d helped her motherin-law paint not that long ago.

  She loved this room, had spent many hours in here with Robbie and his parents while they’d prepared dinner or snacks, or sometimes just talked over coffee like she was doing now. God, she wished Robbie was here with her. He’d know how to rub her shoulders and make her feel like things would get better.