Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

by Gary Earl Ross

  “The audio track on her phone carries an unmistakable threat,” Rafael said. “This is what the dead guy said just before he grabbed her throat.” He pressed a play button on the touch screen: “Where I come from, you know what we do to bitches like you?”

  Terry spread his hands. “The ADA says self-defense.”

  “She’ll probably lose her job with Weisskopf,” I said. “Her supervisor strikes me as someone who’d rather avoid publicity about what happened, not to mention a lawsuit, which is too bad because Lucy takes her security work seriously. She’s a veteran too.”

  “Nothing I can do about her job,” Terry said, as Rafael returned the iPad. “But there’s no family to file a suit, if that matters. Bishop will testify at the inquest. Her gun’ll be processed. Unless it turns up linked to a crime or another investigation, our interest in her ends there.”

  Mark looked at his twin and then at me. “You told me she impressed you. If you recommend her, and her weapon comes back clean, we’d be happy to invite her in for an interview.”

  “Consider her recommended,” I said.

  Terry cleared his throat to get us back on track. “Mr. Rimes told me he thought there would be a play but he didn’t know what it was. This morning has convinced Mayor Green, Commissioner Cochrane, and Deputy Commissioner Shallowhorn the department needs a more visible presence at your conference than stepped-up patrols outside.” Making an adjustment on the iPad, he touched the screen and slid the volume indicator up.

  The voice belonged to Ophelia Green: “This city has undergone a renaissance in recent years. Canalside, upscale housing downtown, new hotels and attractions, investments. The last thing it needs is a mass shooting at a high profile event like a national diversity conference. We can’t afford to be the next battlefield in the gun-control war. Commissioner, do whatever you must to make sure that doesn’t happen here.” Terry tapped the stop icon.

  “You’re aware the conference begins tonight, with a reception?” Matt said.

  “I am, Mr. Donatello,” Terry said. “We don’t have the time to follow task force protocols and have a sit-down with the FBI. The seven of us in this room are now an ad hoc advisory committee with a mandate to put as many officers as we can spare, uniformed and plainclothes, in and around your conference. Outside, inside, handling metal detectors—wherever you need us.”

  “We’ve got the metal detectors covered,” Matt said.

  Pete’s eyebrows went up. “I hope your procedure is faster than the one at City Hall.”

  Matt smiled. “Considerably.”

  “You’re all professionals,” Terry said. “My associates and I are here to listen to both of you and to Mr. Rimes, whose client seems to be the target of these domestic terrorists. How can we help?”

  “Street cam footage of the guys who ran,” I said, hoping to study the faces of the men who had been with Carter John.

  “Already ahead of you, but cameras lost them after they cut down Mohawk,” Terry said. “The images are grainy but maybe we can sharpen them enough to recognize them if they try to get into the conference.”

  “I’ve got some names you might want to check,” I said. “They were all with John at the art house last night. Andrew Carey, Owen Robbins, and Stanley Maxwell. Drea’s book mentions a lot of Liberty Storm codenames. Carey has a snake tat. Robbins has a bird name. Maxwell washed out at Duke. If Carter John was Mars, I think these guys are Copperhead, Bird, and Duke. They’ve all got records.”

  Rafael took in a breath and opened his mouth as if to ask how I had come by that information. But he let out the breath and said nothing.

  “Use the dead guy,” Mark said.

  Terry opened the file folder before him. “We’re doing deep background on him too, which is how we know he has no family. He was a loner sharing a cause with other loners.”

  Mark shook his head. “We don’t have time for traditional legwork. Where he’s been is useful only if it tells us where he was planning to go.” He paused to look at his brother, who nodded, and then at me. “Anything useful on the body? Keys, ticket stubs, hotel key cards—anything to lead us to his friends?”

  “A phone and a few bucks,” Terry said.

  “Then start with the phone,” Mark said. “If it’s more than a basic flip model, even if it’s a burner, getting inside might give us something useful, like his social media, his call logs, the guys Rimes named, whatever they’re planning.”

  Terry sighed. “But we have to follow proper procedure, and the phone is locked.”

  “I agree with my brother,” Matt said. “I was on the job for ten years with the NYPD. Privacy ends with death, especially with exigent circumstances like an imminent terrorist attack. Nothing you find in his smartphone can be used against him, but it might save lives. So jailbreak his mobile and give us and Rimes everything you find.”

  “The longer you wait, the likelier it is you’ll need the FBI’s tools to do that,” I said. “If the phone hasn’t been logged in yet, take it out of the mix. Give it to one of us and take us to the body. It’s already too late for fingerprint entry. We can’t simply put his finger on the screen. Conductivity stops after death. But if it’s facial recognition, we have a good shot at getting in. The software doesn’t work, though, if the eyes are closed. I know it sounds kind of ghoulish, but if we open his eyes and maybe put his glasses on...”

  For a moment everyone stared at me without speaking.

  “Kind of ghoulish?” Terry said.

  “If we’re gonna go ghoul, it better be soon, before the face starts to change and rigor sets in,” Travis said. “Good thing it wasn’t a head shot.”

  29

  Having seen Lucy Bishop on Court Street and exchanged farewells and promises to call, we all retreated into silence for the brief ride from police headquarters to the Torrance Towers underground parking ramp. Pete drove and Ramos rode shotgun while Drea and I sat in the middle bucket seats. Our eyes met briefly. I couldn’t interpret the faraway look in hers. The silence was underscored by the soft jazz satellite station Pete had chosen.

  With less than an hour until the reception, Pete backed into our designated space. Then Ramos and he got out to survey the area from our parking spot to the elevator. At the sound of an approaching engine, Pete closed the van door to keep Drea and me in our seats. Through the windshield, I watched a candy apple red Mustang whip into a slot several spaces closer to the elevator in the row across from ours. After a moment of revving, the engine shut off. Then Chelsea Carpenter, Randall Torrance’s old law school classmate and current partner, got out. Adjusting her sunflower-print cocktail dress and running a hand through her red hair, she started toward the elevator without looking back in our direction.

  “Sweet wheels,” Pete said when he opened the door. “Beautiful engineering.”

  “Dumping your dream van so soon?” I said. “If you’re talking about the car.”

  He watched Carpenter walk for a moment. Then he grinned.

  I climbed out and offered a hand to Drea. Forming a triangle around her, we moved toward the elevator, which we reached as the stainless steel doors slid open. We stepped in behind Carpenter, who turned and greeted us. I nodded in silent reply.

  “An hour ago Randall called and told me there was a shooting at the library.” She bit her lip a moment. “He said you were there. I’m glad to see you’re all right.”

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” I said.

  “Of course.” Her luminous eyes focused on each of us for a second or two. “You all look so tired. I’m joining Randall for a drink with his father and Marlo before we go to the reception. If you decide to skip it, I can let them know.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “We’ll be a little late, but everything is up to Drea.” I turned to my client, who said nothing and whose eyes were still unfocused. I looked at Carpenter again as the elevator bell dinged. She smiled at us and waved as she stepped out.

  We continued to the seventeenth floor. While I wa
s being questioned by a young detective named Baxter, Pete had called Yvonne and Cissy to clarify whatever they had heard on the news. Now, seeing us on the monitor, they opened the door and hugged Drea when we stepped inside. Cissy also embraced Ramos and held him for several seconds as Pete locked the door. Yvonne led Drea straight to her room.

  When Yvonne returned to the living room, the sisters took turns asking us about the details of the shooting, whether Bishop would be okay, when they could call her, what else we knew about Carter John or the men who had been with him. As we had agreed back on Court Street, Pete did most of the talking, his always calming voice reassuring Yvonne and Cissy, preparing them for a request they might not like. When they seemed relieved, they turned to me.

  “What now?” Yvonne asked.

  “We go on out without Bishop,” I said. “Nothing has changed in our mission.”

  “Except we’re down a man,” Ramos said. “I mean, a person.”

  I nodded and looked at the sisters. “I said before that tonight would be late because of the reception. I figured you’d have to stay till nine-thirty, maybe ten. Now I’m asking you to stay later, maybe even all night.”

  Yvonne and Cissy exchanged a look I thought hovered between surprise and annoyance.

  “Won’t the recording system do the all-night monitoring?” Yvonne asked.

  “It’s not that,” I said. “The Donatellos will be sending us a lot of information soon from the cell phone Carter John had in his pocket. Mark changed the settings so the phone is always on and will still get messages and alerts. We’re checking everything. Contacts, text messages, calendar, records of where he’s been. We need to go over who said what, dig up backgrounds, find out who has what number, and cross-reference the hell out of everything. That phone may hold the key to saving Drea’s life.”

  “So we’re hacking?” Cissy said.

  I shook my head. “Everything is above board. I have an Intellichexx account. We’ll call it up on two machines, Yvonne’s tower and my laptop. Pete has his own tablet and will run checks using his still active police ID. Matt and Mark use two other public records search companies and will be doing the same thing. We find something, we call them. If they find something, they call us.”

  “What about sleep?” Cissy said.

  “I’ll put fresh linen on my bed,” Pete said. “You ladies can take turns sleeping there, four or five hours at a time. G and I will do the same thing out here.”

  “What about me?” Ramos asked.

  “Manuel, you’re free to go,” I said. “You went above and beyond today. You helped Lucy keep it together better than I could have.”

  He shook his head. “No, chief. That matón tried to hurt my friend. I want to help.”

  I looked at Ramos for a long moment. He was different. His once pristine guayabera was wrinkled and stained with sweat, with Bishop’s makeup and tears. For the first time since I’d met him, his hair was unkempt. But the true change was in his eyes, now narrowed into slits, hardened and angry. “All right,” I said. “The kitchenette floor is the only space left. Got a sleeping bag?”

  “I can get one from my cousin,” he said.

  I nodded. “You’ll all need fresh clothes, toothbrushes and toiletries. Did you drive today, Yvonne?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you all go do what you need to do while Drea rests. Pete and I can watch the monitors. We won’t go to the reception till you get back. We’ll stay maybe fifteen minutes. Then we can all get down to some serious work.”

  “God’s work,” Cissy said.

  If there is a God, I thought but did not say. And if that God is good.

  “Okay,” Yvonne said. “We can be back in an hour.” She looked at Ramos. “Maybe an hour and a half. But you might want to check on Drea. She seems kind of out of it.”

  After they left, Pete manned the monitors and I tapped on Drea’s door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  I opened the door and found her sitting on the bed, shoes off but still dressed in her day outfit, her back against the headboard, staring at the screen of a television she had not bothered to turn on. The emptiness in her eyes was disconcerting.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “You haven’t said much of anything since we left the police station.”

  She looked up at me and bit her lip. “I’m wondering what kind of person I am.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, though I thought I did. I sat on the side of the bed.

  “You’ve all had the decency not to ask me how I feel,” she said. “Maybe you think I’m reliving the night my husband died and I’m feeling so much pain I can’t talk. Maybe you suspect the truth and don’t want me to say it because you don’t want to think less of me.” She looked off for a moment. “You see, I’m glad the slimy motherfucker is dead.”

  For a moment, neither of us said anything. She turned back to me and her eyes held mine.

  “I wish I had pulled the trigger instead of Lucy,” she said. “What I’m struggling to hold inside is a scream of joy that will last too long for my friends to accept.” She blinked, eyes glistening as she looked away again. “What kind of person takes such ungodly pleasure in someone else’s death?”

  I handed her one of the pillows. “Use this,” I said. “Scream into it as much as you want. I’ll be right here.”

  30

  “My fellow patriots, it is truly a sad day when one of our number can be gunned down in broad daylight and the mud woman who pulled the trigger gets to stagger away free. Carter John was a devoted member of our movement to reclaim America for Americans. He was in the lakeside city of Buffalo for one reason and one reason alone, to challenge the arrogance of a national gathering taking place there that promotes the lie diversity is our strength. If that were true, cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit would not be called post-industrial. They would be called thriving. But as companies added more and more inferior workers to assembly lines and blast furnaces, the factories and mills of such cities failed, leaving in their wakes wastelands of blight, crime, urban carnage, and an influx of immigrants from the least desirable corners of this planet. These are the products of so-called diversity.”

  Cissy paused the playback and shuddered, tightening her lightweight kente cloth robe. “I need a minute. That damn robo-racist was creepy as fuck the first time. But now…”

  It was about five-thirty in the morning. We were all in the living room of our suite, gathered around a coffee service cart Yvonne had wheeled in moments earlier. A short time ago, most of us had been asleep—Ramos in the kitchen, Yvonne in Pete’s bed, Drea in her own, Pete and me back-to-back on the pullout. But it showed in our faces that none of us had slept well. Now we were awake to assess the latest move in whatever ham-handed game we were playing with Liberty Storm. Like me, Pete and Ramos still wore the T-shirts they’d slept in. A loose blue caftan covered Drea. Yvonne wore a robe similar to her sister’s. Everybody had coffee. Mine was black.

  “How long has this been online?” I asked.

  “It dropped twenty minutes ago,” Cissy said. “It hit my phone and Matt and Mark bounced it over just as a Google alert with mud people came up. I listened with headphones ‘cause you and Pete both looked so tired. Then I woke Vonnie up. She said you needed to know now and we all needed to hear it.” She shrugged. “So she got coffee.”

  “Much appreciated,” Pete said, hoisting his cup toward her. “I didn’t get much sleep.”

  “Sorry I was so restless,” I said. “Even with AC, it’s too hot in here for a crowd.”

  “No problem, man,” Pete said. “Betty’s a fidgeter too.”

  “I’ll order two rollaways for the kitchen. Get Manuel off the floor.” I turned back to Cissy. “I assume there’s more.”

  Cissy sucked her teeth. “It gets worse.”

  We both looked at Drea. She had yet to say anything but her face showed the strain of having smiled and small-talked her way through the reception last ni
ght. Then, when asked about the shooting, she had deflected by saying she could see nothing from inside the library and invited the questioners to talk about themselves. Now, her eyes shifting from mine to Cissy’s, she nodded we should continue listening.

  Cissy clicked her mouse button.

  “Carter John was prepared to use his oratorical skills in the service of our cause one more time. But before he could enter a public building to challenge the lies of an ultra-leftist writer, he was shot to death on the sidewalk. In cold blood. Freed after a bogus claim of self-defense, his killer, Lucille Bishop of 127 Hamlin Road in Buffalo, now sits safe and unrepentant in her home. What, I wonder, is she doing while her victim lies in a refrigerated morgue drawer? Is she sipping coffee like this is a normal morning? Is she staring out the window and hoping for a surprise breakfast from her shiftless husband and unruly children? Or is she reliving the thrill of her kill? Clipping articles that defame Carter John. Sliding fresh bullets into her revolver for the next target. Well, your humble Dawn Warrior thinks Lucille Bishop deserves her breakfast surprise. Don’t you?”

  Cissy clicked her mouse button again and Krieger’s electronic voice stopped. “From there he goes on to talk about other mud people—Hispanics, Africans, Middle Easterners, Indians, Asians, Eskimos, you name it—and the Jews behind them all. You know, the same folks who are always on the shit list.”

  “The usual suspects,” Pete said. “Your ranking may change but you never get off the list.”

  “Good work,” I said, pulling my phone from the front pocket of my sleep shorts.

  Pete shook his head. “Talk about irony. Mars subscribed to the Krieger podcasts. Now he can’t listen to his own phone to hear himself praised by his hero.”

  “You think Krieger is here?” Yvonne said. “In Buffalo?”