Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

by Gary Earl Ross

  “The threat was implied. The flag, the swastika, the Klan cross and—”

  “Did he say he wanted to harm her?”

  “No.”

  Another sigh, longer. “Send the file anyway. He does something, it’ll give us a head start. That’s the best I can do.”

  I thanked him and broke the connection.

  As I attached the pdf John C to an email, Pete came into the living room. Like me, he wore no tie and was in a jacket and vest that promised more perspiration than protection. “Great minds always check the weather app,” he said, pointing to my open collar.

  In another summer dress that covered her armor, Drea walked in next. “We gotta remember to put water bottles in the van cooler,” she said. “Maybe Gatorade. Even in here, the AC is working overtime.”

  “Copy that.” Pete moved to answer the knock at the door. “But I hate Gatorade.”

  Cissy and Yvonne entered the suite, both wearing sandals, shorts, and loose-fitting tops. In each hand, Yvonne held an office-sized box of Tim Horton’s coffee with a cup caddy attached. Cissy carried two boxes of donuts. They put everything on the side table beneath the flat screen and sat at the computer table. Yvonne turned away from her sister and began her morning equipment check.

  Ramos and Bishop came two minutes later. A green and gold dashiki dress covered Bishop’s armor. The sag of the small black purse she wore with a cross-body strap said her Colt was inside. A glance at Ramos told me at least one of us would be cool in the expected heat of the day. He wore a beige guayabera large enough to cover his Taser and unbuttoned enough to catch Cissy’s eye. She grinned. If they hadn’t yet slept with each other, they soon would. As if I needed another worry.

  As everyone got coffee and found a seat for the morning briefing, I called Ramos and Cissy into Pete’s room and closed the door behind them.

  “I see the glances and smiles,” I said. “If I check your phones, I wonder if I’ll find sweet texts and emojis. So I’ll be direct. I need to know if you two are screwing.”

  Cissy’s mouth fell open, and Ramos reddened. “Chief!” he said. “We just met!”

  “I’m not mad at you and you’re not in trouble.” I shook my head. “I was your age once. I know what it’s like to start something fast, something new and so hot you can’t think of anything else. Don’t say it’s none of my business. Keeping Drea alive is my only concern. Her life depends on you doing your jobs without distraction. So, I’m going to ask again—”

  “Yes,” Cissy said, looking directly at me. “Once, late last night.” She swallowed and stood up straighter. “It won’t happen again.”

  “I said I needed to know in case it was a distraction. I didn’t say you had to stop.”

  They exchanged a look of confusion before Ramos narrowed his eyes at me.

  “You firing us?” He looked again at Cissy, maybe now seeing a techie more valuable than an inexperienced museum guard. “Or just me?”

  “If I sack you, I’ll have to start from scratch to get your replacement up to par,” I said. “Cissy might follow you out in indignation and take Yvonne with her, leaving us in worse shape.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to Drea,” Cissy said. “Neither would my sister.”

  “Glad to hear that.” Sighing, I wrestled with my uncertainty. “Truth is, I like you both and I want to keep you. But I need to know you can work without getting so wrapped up in each other you compromise what we’re doing.”

  “I think we can,” Ramos said.

  “Think isn’t good enough.” I drew in a long breath. “Then everything depends on the answer to my next question. Cissy, what happened last night at PAUSA Art House?” I held up a finger that told Ramos to remain silent.

  Cissy shrugged as if the obvious answer made the question stupid. “Nazi clowns tried to ruin things. Why?”

  “How do you know?”

  She jerked a thumb at Ramos. “He couldn’t stop talking about it when he came over. He was pissed, said you looked like you wanted to punch the leader.”

  “I wanted to Tase him myself, chief,” Ramos said. “I mean—”

  He was cut off by a tap on the door.

  Pete stuck his head in and gazed at each of us in turn. “Damn. Wonder what you all would look like if I hadn’t made the bed.” When no answer came, he said, “Mark and Matt Donatello are here.”

  “Be right out,” I said. When Pete withdrew and closed the door again, I turned back to Ramos. “So you told her.”

  “Racist fucker called me a spic,” he said. “And Pete a chink.”

  “He wanted us to do something to him,” I said. “Maybe so he could file an assault charge or so somebody else could hurt Drea in the chaos.” I studied Ramos for a moment. “Whatever it was, you knew the whole thing was serious so you talked about it with Cissy.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Not exactly date talk,” Cissy said. “But I needed to know, and so did Vonnie.”

  “Right. He valued you as part of a team that demands your full attention. Your trust in each other is important too.” I paused as if still considering the decision I’d already made. “Okay, I know you still want to see each other, but nothing cutesy on the clock. I can tell you it’s best not to go near each other till Drea’s on a plane back home, but you’re no good to me if you’re walking around miserable either. So I’ll depend on you both to be the responsible consenting adults the law says you are. What you do on your own time is your business, unless I see it affecting your work. Trust me, though. You do not want to piss me off by putting this client’s life in danger.”

  “No,” Cissy said, after studying me a moment. “You’re not a guy to piss off.”

  “No more lies.”

  “Chief?” Ramos said.

  “Nobody your age does it once the first time out.” I smiled at them, hoping to relieve the tension. “In my day it was two or three, maybe even four. Right?”

  “Yes,” they said softly, together. Cissy’s eyes were downcast in embarrassment and Ramos’s nervous half-smile was caught between his teeth.

  They followed me back to the living room, where I shook hands with the Donatellos. Cissy sat beside her sister at the computer station. Yvonne frowned at her before handing me the printout and the business envelope I had left on the table. That she did so without looking at it suggested she’d read enough of LJ’s attachment to know I would cover it in the briefing.

  “Let’s start by talking about how last night raises our stakes.” I took the papers and moved to the center of the room. “My godfather thought one of the clowns was in the gang that put him in the hospital. Drea believes C.J. Lansing, the man who did all the talking, helped Wally Ray Tucker kill her husband.” I paused, pleased at the gravity in everyone’s expression. I said nothing about my suspicion that Clown Four was Wally Ray himself.

  “What do you need us to do?” Ramos asked.

  “First, understand the danger to Drea, to all of us, is no longer theoretical,” I said. “There’s no mentally ill lone wolf with a hard-on. That media cliché lets too many people off the hook after a mass shooting. These people are organized and not as stupid as stereotypes suggest. Underestimating them could be your last mistake. But thanks to a friend in the FBI, I have names and some backstory on these guys, especially the one who calls himself Dr. Lansing.” I held up the printout. “He did time twice for misdemeanor convictions but one was a plea to avoid felony assault. Lansing has numerous social media postings on right-wing sites. He advocates flash squad attacks on gays, immigrants, persons of color.”

  “Flash squad?” Ramos asked.

  “Like a flash mob, except these guys don’t organize a song and dance routine for the internet. They get together to put a beat down on a stranger who meets their criteria. So, yes, I think this man is violent enough to kill with his bare hands, as long as he has help.”

  “How can one heart hold so much hate?” Bishop’s bewilderment looked genuine.

  “It can’t. Releas
ing the hate, spreading it, is a kind of safety valve.” I looked at Cissy and Yvonne. “Which brings me to a change in your job descriptions. While we’re out this morning, I need you two to set up alerts for certain phrases associated with white supremacy. We can brainstorm suggestions after I cover everything else.”

  “Like Google alerts,” Yvonne said.

  “Yes. A lot of these guys post manifestos before an event and investigators find their statements afterward. Getting a heads-up can’t hurt and might even give us a clue to what and when. But let’s get back to Lansing.” I passed around the business envelope, which held printed photos of a sullen man with cold eyes. “Everybody take one. His real name is Carter John. Notice his hair was shorter last night and he wore black glasses.” As everyone studied the photo, I looked again at the cover page of LJ’s report, which had John, C. centered near the top.

  “Son of a bitch!” I said.

  “What is it?” Mark Donatello asked.

  “Drea, I think we’ve found Mars.”

  27

  The uniformed cop who met us at the library and shook Pete’s hand before mine was Ty Moss, the older of the two officers who’d responded to Phoenix’s call when Joey Snell and his friends confronted us outside the Chophouse.

  “Word came down a PI named Rimes was looking for some peace-keeping backup at the public library so I raised my hand,” Moss said, grinning. “I figured if you had anything to do with it, it’d be way more interesting than driving around the district all day. Didn’t expect to find old Pete here padding his pension.”

  “The nursing home gives me green beans and Salisbury steak every day,” Pete said. “This mashed potato volcano with gravy in the crater.” He shuddered and gagged as if about to vomit. “Only way to eat a decent lunch is to get a day pass and hang out with my buddy here.”

  Moss laughed. “Why you think I’m still working?”

  After summarizing her reasons for being in Buffalo, I introduced Moss to Drea. Then I gave him a picture of Carter John. “He may have committed murder in another state,” I said. “But there’s no evidence yet to justify arrest and extradition. If he shows up with his Nazi clowns and starts trouble, can you lock him down long enough for me to ask him a few questions?”

  Moss shrugged. “He does something that warrants removal, I can stick him in the back of my cruiser to calm him down. His crew gets out of line, I can call it in and get four or five cars here in a couple minutes. If he doesn’t make a fuss, though, there’s not much I can do.” He shrugged again. “Maybe seeing a cop is all he needs to make him behave.”

  “Hope so,” I said. But part of me wanted an excuse for two minutes alone with him.

  My earbud crackled.

  “Bishop here, position one. Three men are checking out the police car out front. All white, all early thirties. I’m not close enough to be sure but the one wearing glasses looks like our target, Mars. My cell is recording everything.”

  “Good,” I said. “Hold your position. Keep filming but hold your phone like you’re playing a game. Ramos, report.”

  Bishop was where I’d stationed her, on a bench facing Washington Street in the Buffalo Reading Park on the stretch of lawn beside the library’s entry plaza. Ramos was supposed to be at a small orange patio table farther up the ramp to the front door. I had left both holding open books and wearing sunglasses we had picked up at the hotel gift shop.

  “Ramos, still position two. Lotta people out here but I see them. They haven’t started my way yet.”

  “Ramos, remember to shift your back to them and turn your collar up. I don’t know about Bishop, but they got a good enough look at you last night to call you out. Shades might not be enough.” I took a breath. “Bishop?”

  “They’re looking at me, Mr. Rimes,” she said in a hushed voice.

  “Shit!” I said. “Try looking away.”

  “I did. They’re still looking at me, talking and pointing.”

  “Mars made her,” Pete said. “We gotta get out there!”

  Moss stared at us. “Shades. Earpieces? Video surveillance?” He let out a breath. “You got some real James Bond shit going on here.”

  “They’re crossing the plaza,” Bishop said. “Coming closer.”

  “We’re coming, Lucy,” Pete said.

  “They’re two guys short from last night,” I said to him, moving toward the door. “You get Drea to the office behind the check-out desk and stay with her. I’ll handle Mars.”

  “Mars?” Moss said, following me. “Like the God of War?”

  “The picture you’re holding.” I pushed open the front door and stepped into the sunlight. “It’s his white supremacist codename.” I started down the pedestrian ramp with Moss behind me. Ramos was standing. I gave him a hand signal to get down to Bishop. He began to walk down the ramp, weaving through the foot traffic.

  “You got me confused with somebody else,” Bishop said, apparently to the three men in jeans and T-shirts I could see fanning out in front of her bench. “I’m sitting here minding my business. I’ve never seen you guys before.” After a pause, she added, “It’s called a dashiki.” Another pause. “What? No way, man! That’s my phone. I was taking selfies.” A few seconds more passed. “I ain’t gotta prove shit to you!”

  All three men leaned in, the classic male move of intimidating a woman by getting in her face. The one in the middle jabbed a finger at Bishop as the men flanking him laughed. Then he seemed to take hold of her by the chin or throat.

  Ramos reached the top step. “Hey!” His scream reverberated in my ear—half a second before the explosion.

  The man in the middle jerked upright, the center of his white tee blossoming red, and toppled backward onto the lawn. In the instant of silence that fell over the entire area, Ramos froze on the top step, Pete’s “Was that a shot!” pierced my eardrum, and the two men still standing sidestepped to give Bishop a wide berth. Then, as silence gave way to screams and gasps, people ducked under patio tables or hurried inside. The men took off, darting through traffic on Broadway and running north on Washington.

  “I’m on it, Pete,” I said. “Bishop is okay.”

  Moss and I reached the Reading Park a couple of seconds after Ramos, who ignored the man on the grass and crouched beside his trembling colleague. Her still smoking purse had a large hole in the side. Moss knelt by the body and put two fingers against the carotid artery. Then he stood and shook his head as he unhooked the handy-talkie from his shoulder and moved toward his white and blue cruiser. For a moment I studied Carter John. His eyes were closed, his black glasses askew, and both arms beside him, palms up. His hair was as neatly combed as it had been last night. Well-groomed in death. I sat on the bench beside Bishop, whose hand was still inside the purse on her right thigh. Her cell phone lay on her left.

  “It’ll be okay,” Ramos said, now seated on the other side of her and holding one of her hands.

  “Lucy,” I said as gently as I could. “I need to take your purse. We don’t want any mistakes when other cops get here. Is your phone still recording video?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll let it keep recording until police brass arrive or Officer Moss tells us to shut it off. All right?”

  “Okay.” She withdrew her hand to let me take her purse, which I put on the other side of my body. She continued to stare at the man she had shot, a few feet away. “Is he dead?”

  “Yes.” I repositioned her phone to make sure her face, shot from below, was in frame. “You don’t have to keep looking at him. Close your eyes and put your head on my shoulder.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, voice quavering. “All the time I spent in the Sandbox. All the time me and my husband spend at the range.” She swallowed audibly. “Never had to shoot anybody before. Never thought I would.” She turned to me, cheeks glistening. “He grabbed me by the throat, Mr. Rimes. He started to squeeze.”

  I took her free hand. “It’s all right, Lucy. I know. I saw it. Ramos did too.”
>
  “I did too, ma’am.” Ty Moss had come to the bench. “But please stay right where you are till I finish this and take pictures. Both you gentlemen, too.” Unspooling yellow crime scene tape already stretched between a light pole near the corner and a traffic sign near the curb, Moss passed the bench, circled a sapling, and continued closing off a large swath of the Reading Park from public access. Eventually, he went back down toward the street, looped the tape around an umbrella in a patio table, and returned to his starting point. Next, he began to place numbered yellow evidence tents at various points inside the crime scene, including around the body and at Bishop’s feet. Taking out a small camera, he began a slow pan of the entire scene, which suggested the camera was in video mode. Then he began to snap pictures of the surroundings and the body from various angles.

  As a crowd began to gather outside the tape, a cruiser marked SUPERVISOR arrived, followed by an unmarked car. I didn’t know the heavy balding man who heaved himself out of the cruiser, but I was glad to see Rafael Piñero and his new partner Maxine Travis climb out of the other car. All three huddled outside the tape with Moss, who did most of the talking. He showed them the picture I had given him and pointed at the dead man. Then he gestured at the ramp, the plaza, the Reading Park, various evidence markers, and us.

  “They gonna cover him up?” Bishop asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “They have to process the scene.”

  “There’s still kids out there.”

  “More cops will come. They’ll make the gawkers and kids move along.”

  “Am I gonna need a lawyer?”

  “Even if you don’t, it’s a good idea to have one when they question you,” I said. “My better half is a lawyer. I’ll call her when things settle down a bit. I’ve never met the supervisor in that ugly-ass sports jacket but he’s strapped under his left arm and he’s looking at us right now. If I reach into my pocket for my phone, he might overreact.”

  “I can do it,” Pete said in my ear. “People are crowding into the vestibule to see what’s going on but we’re secure in this office and it’s quiet. What’s her number?”