by Joel Goldman
Kate waited, not taking her eyes off the door. A shadow passed across the peephole from inside the house. She shifted Ruby under her left arm, holding her like she was a miniature battering ram, and rang the bell a second time.
Another five seconds passed before the door opened slowly, Latrell standing half in the doorway, his left side hidden. His right shoulder was level. If it dipped, odds were he was pulling a gun. He’d have to step all the way into view before he could shoot us unless he fired through the heavy oak door. That would slow the bullet, distort its trajectory, and tip the odds in our favor for a fraction of a second.
My threat assessment lasted no longer than a micro expression, a product of years of experience and too many doors that opened slowly. I took longer with his face. His cheeks were smooth, his brow relaxed, his mouth slack. Latrell didn’t appear surprised, happy, or sad to see us. He shot a quick look at me, then broke a small smile when Ruby barked at him as she squirmed under Kate’s arm.
“You must be Latrell,” Kate said, putting Ruby on the ground.
“That’s right,” he said.
His voice was soft and calm. He didn’t move. I let my right hand drift from my gun to my side.
“Jack has told me so much about you. We came to pick up the dog’s toys.”
Ruby ran into the house and jumped up on Latrell, pressing her paws against his leg, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth, her tail wagging. Latrell hung back, still keeping his left side hidden.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Kate said, following the dog into the open doorway and crouching down to rub the back of her neck. “You must have taken very good care of her. She’s so glad to see you.”
Kate and Ruby distracted me enough that I didn’t see Latrell’s left shoulder dip. I caught a glimpse of his right hand swinging over his head, clutching a gun that he slammed into the side of Kate’s head. She collapsed without making a sound.
Latrell pivoted, his back to the door, kicking it closed in the same instant I threw my shoulder into it. He hit it low and I hit it high, the dense wood absorbing both blows without moving.
I pulled my gun and crashed into the door a second time, diving over Kate. Latrell was standing in the entry hall just past the sweep of the open door. I heard a gunshot and felt a bullet graze my hip as I rolled on the ?oor, coming up to one knee, gun in hand. Latrell was holding a .45 caliber Marine pistol to his temple that matched the murder weapon.
“Put it down!” I screamed.
He pulled the trigger but didn’t die. The gun was jammed. He pulled the trigger again and the gun still refused to fire. He swung the barrel toward me, his eyes filled with tears, his face twisted with pain as if the gun had fired.
“Put it down, Latrell! Don’t make me shoot you!”
He leveled the gun at my head. We both knew it wouldn’t fire, but he wouldn’t put it down. He had tried to kill himself and me and failed at both. He wouldn’t be the first person to commit suicide by threatening a cop, but I wasn’t going to let him use me to do it. Then his shoulders caved in and his knees buckled as a high-powered bullet exploded in his chest, tore a hole in his back, and lodged in the wall behind him.
Chapter Fifty-one
I shifted my aim to the front door, lowering my gun when Troy Clark burst into the house seconds after the shot was fired.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “He missed me and then his gun jammed.”
He pointed to my right hip. “From the looks of that burn, he didn’t miss you by much.”
“Close calls and second chances. That’s what keeps it real.”
I leaned over Kate. She was lying on her side, a thin stream of blood ?owing from a gash on the side of her head, clotting with her hair. I eased her onto her back, cradling her head with my hand. Her eyes were open and she was moaning softly. She reached for my hand and squeezed it tight. All good signs.
“You’re going to be fine,” I told her.
“You?” she whispered.
“I’m good.”
“Latrell?”
He lay at angle to her, his head turned away.
“I don’t know.”
“What about Ruby?”
I scanned the room. She was hiding under the sofa, her front paws folded over her nose. I whistled and she came running, licked my face, and laid down next to Kate, who closed her eyes and squeezed my hand again.
Troy knelt next to Latrell, his fingers pressing gently on Latrell’s neck, searching for a pulse. He snapped an order in to the radio clipped to his bulletproof vest.
“I need two ambulances. Now!”
“Is he dead?” I asked Troy.
“He will be soon. I doubt he’ll make it to the hospital.”
I left Ruby in charge of Kate and cupped Latrell’s chin in my hand, tilting his head toward me. His eyes were ?uttering and his breathing was shallow. Troy was on his knees, applying pressure to the wound in Latrell’s chest, but I doubted it would be enough to save him.
“Hang in there, Latrell,” I told him. “An ambulance will be here any minute.”
“That woman you brought messed it up for me,” he said, his lips barely moving.
I leaned closer to his face. “How did she mess it up?”
“I knew you would come. That’s why I only had two bullets. One for you and one for me. Then you brought that woman and I didn’t have enough bullets. She messed things up just like Oleta done.”
Latrell wasn’t going to live long enough to explain everything. I had to choose which questions I wanted answered, which meant that I had to fill in the blanks first on my own. If, by some miracle, he lived, it would take an army of government lawyers and a deaf, dumb, and blind judge to keep anything he told me in evidence.
“Did Oleta mess things up when you killed Marcellus?”
He nodded, his voice feathery, his words coming in gasps. “She was waiting for me when I come out of the house.”
“Where’s Oleta now?”
He opened his eyes wide. “Don’t matter. You followed me. You ruined all of it.”
“I followed you? Where? How did I ruin it?”
“Took my things,” he said, his voice rattling for the last time, his eyes open and dead.
Troy studied me. “You got something else you want to tell me?”
“I wish I did. I have no idea what he meant. I haven’t followed him anywhere and I haven’t taken anything from him. Looks like he’s good for the drug house killings, but we may never find Oleta.”
I looked around. The house had filled with members of my squad. Ammara Iverson was sharing guard duty with Ruby, one of them on either side of Kate.
“Who’s she?” Troy asked.
“Kate Scranton.”
“The jury consultant?”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell is she doing here? For that matter, what the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story and you aren’t going to like any of it.”
“Well, you aren’t going anywhere until I hear all of it.”
I gave him a quick and dirty explanation of the Facial Action Coding System, told him about Latrell’s phone call to Ammara and why it seemed like a good idea at the time to bring Kate and the dog with me to talk to Latrell. When I finished, he stared at me with openmouthed aggravation.
“Is there any chance at all you will stay out of this without getting killed or arrested?”
“Once I know that Wendy is safe, I’ll take a long vacation. You have anything new on her or Colby?”
Troy shook his head. “They aren’t using their credit cards. They haven’t made any withdrawals from their bank accounts. They haven’t made or received calls on their cell phones. Either they don’t want to be found or they’re in real trouble. I’m sorry, Jack, but I don’t know any other way to say it.”
We both looked out the door to the street. It was a parking lot of police cars and ambulances. I glanced at Troy, not needing to ask the question out lou
d.
“From the far side of the BMW,” he said. “Sniper ri?e.”
“You take the shot?”
He looked at Latrell’s body, his shoulders sagging. “Yeah. It was me.”
“How did you end up there in the nick of time?”
Troy looked at Latrell again. “Wasn’t exactly in the nick of time. Latrell had two bullets. He fired one round and the other one jammed. If I’d known that, I’d be reading him his Miranda rights instead of waiting for someone to perform his last rites.”
“No way you could have known. If you hadn’t shot him, I probably would have,” I said.
“Doesn’t help much.”
“And doesn’t tell me what you were doing outside Latrell’s house.”
“We found a photograph in Javy Ordonez’s car. It was of a young boy, probably fifteen, and a woman. Both of them black. Photograph was taken outside a house. You can see the address numbers in the background. We ran the numbers to find every house in Kansas City, Kansas, that matched and then we checked the ownership records. The numbers matched Latrell’s address. He’s older now and dead, but he’s the boy in the picture.”
“The photograph doesn’t sound like enough evidence to go tactical.”
“It’s not enough but we got a few decent prints off the gun that was used in the drug house murders and that was used to kill Javy Ordonez. Latrell didn’t have a record, so we didn’t have his prints in the system, but we caught a break with his employer. Homeland Security requires that all employees at rail yard terminals be fingerprinted. The fingerprints on the murder weapon belong to Latrell. That was enough to go tactical.”
“I didn’t see you when we got here.”
“We staged out of Marcellus’s house. Figured no one was using it. Came through the backyard. Left some of the troops in back and I came around to the front. Saw you and your friend knocking at the door, so I took up position behind the BMW.”
“That was good work.”
“Always is when we get it right, except this one doesn’t feel all the way right. There’s too much missing,” Troy said.
“Like a link between Latrell and Javy Ordonez?”
“Yeah. We haven’t found one other than the photograph. Maybe the woman in the picture is the link. I wonder where she is?” Troy said.
“My guess is that she was Latrell’s mother and you’ll probably find her the same place you find Oleta. Still doesn’t explain why Latrell’s picture was in Javy’s car.”
An agent interrupted. “We found something downstairs.”
“What?”
“Two graves. One of them fresh, the other one pretty old.”
“Oleta and Latrell’s mother,” I said.
“I’ll be down there in a minute,” Troy said to the agent, dismissing him. He turned back to me. “Latrell is dead and we haven’t identified the woman in the photograph. Maybe she’s buried in the basement and maybe she is the link. Maybe she had a thing with Javy that went bad and Latrell is getting even.”
“You say Latrell looks like he’s around fifteen years old in the photograph?”
“About. Why?”
“Ammara interviewed him when she did the initial neighborhood canvass. She says he was thirty-two. That makes the photograph seventeen years old. Javy Ordonez was what, twenty-five, tops? That makes him eight years old when the photograph was taken. No way Javy’s murder has anything to do with the woman in the photograph.”
“If Javy was eight and Latrell was fifteen when the picture was taken,” Troy said, “there’s not much chance they became mortal enemies at that age.”
“Maybe whoever killed Javy put the photograph in his car so we would find it and track it back to Latrell.”
“Which is a neat way of framing Latrell for Javy’s murder,” Troy said.
“But it only works if Javy’s killer knows that Latrell has the gun used in the drug house murders and if the killer uses it to off Javy. The gun ties the two crimes together.”
Troy sighed. “Every circle takes you back to the same place. This circle keeps taking me back to Colby Hudson. He ducked out on his polygraph and his undercover work put him next to Javy Ordonez. And now he’s gone invisible.”
“Did you talk to the warden at Leavenworth about whether someone put a hit out on Thomas Rice?”
“Yeah. He’s heard the same rumors as Grisnik, but they can’t prove anything. Until they do, it stays a suicide.”
“And until I find Wendy, I’m not backing off.”
Troy swept his hand across the first ?oor of Latrell’s house. “You see all this, Jack?”
Crime scene people were everywhere. A paramedic was checking Kate’s vital signs. Another was confirming that Latrell was dead. Agents were searching the house. Troy motioned me to the open front door. KCK cops had formed a perimeter, keeping the neighbors and the news crews out of the way.
“There are fifty law-enforcement people all over this,” he continued. “There’s more where they came from. Every last one of them, including me, will do everything we can to find Wendy and make certain she’s safe. I’m begging you. Go home. Let us do our jobs.”
“It’s my job, too. More than my job.”
“You almost got yourself and your friend killed. Next time you may not be so lucky. You’re not shaking now, but what happens if you fall apart when somebody’s life is on the line? Maybe it’ll be yours or mine or even Wendy’s. Then what?”
I had held it together since Kate knocked on Latrell’s door, but I could feel the breakdown coming like animals can sense an earthquake before it hits. Two paramedics lifted Kate onto a stretcher and wheeled her out. Her eyes were closed. I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping, sedated, or unconscious.
“Like I said, it’s more than my job.”
Chapter Fifty-two
It hit me when I’d driven Kate’s car two blocks from Latrell’s house. Pressure built behind my eyes, making me blink. I could see, but I was in a fog like my brain was wrapped in a layer of cotton. I didn’t remember turning the radio on, but a DJ was rattling on about something. I heard his voice but couldn’t follow what he was saying. I pulled to the curb, shaking from the inside out.
I knew the routine by now. I didn’t fight it by grabbing the steering wheel. I didn’t tense my body as if I was waiting to be struck. Instead, I went limp, letting the tremors have me, opening my eyes when they were gone.
Ruby lay on the front seat, her head up, watching me with her dark eyes. I rubbed her head and she licked my hand.
“What am I going to do with you?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer and I didn’t blame her. One of the paramedics had told me that they were taking Kate to the KU Hospital. I didn’t know how long they would keep her, only that I wouldn’t leave until I knew she really was all right. Pete & Mac’s didn’t pick up. Besides, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be home much until this was over. That left me with only one other option. Joy answered on the fifth ring.
“Did I wake you?”
“No. It’s only ten o’clock. I just got out of the shower.” She was breathless, her voice pitched with anxiety. “Did they find Wendy?”
“Not yet.”
“Are they trying?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell her that no news wasn’t good news but it wasn’t fair to keep what I knew from her.
“They’re trying hard. Troy’s checked their credit cards, bank accounts, and cell phones. There’s been no activity.”
“What does that mean?”
“If they had eloped or just taken a last-minute vacation or were just going about their daily lives, there would be electronic and paper trails. Since there aren’t any, we have to consider the possibility that something has happened to them or that they have a good reason to be hiding.”
“Don’t tell me that, Jack. What do we do?”
“Keep looking. Keep trying. That’s why I’m calling. I know it’s late, but I need you to do me a favor.”
“
A favor?”
“I need you to pick up Ruby, maybe keep her for a few days.”
“Why? Are you going out of town?”
“No. I’m not going anywhere. It’s just that I can’t be tied down to the dog while I’m trying to find Wendy.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a breath. “You can bring her over in the morning.”
“Actually, I need you to come get her now.”
“You’re going out at ten o’clock? You must know something. Why won’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know anything, but I’m not at home and I won’t get home for a while.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to the emergency room at the KU Hospital. Can you meet me there and pick up the dog?”
“KU Hospital? What’s the matter? Are you hurt? Is it the shaking?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. I’m fine.”
“Jack Davis, tell me what in the hell is going on or I’m going to hang up this phone!”
I was trying to tell her as little as possible, not just to protect her but to avoid the additional fallout I knew was coming. I realized I couldn’t succeed at either and continuing to try would only make things worse.
“We found out who killed the people in the drug house. His name was Latrell Kelly. He lived behind the victims. Kate and I went to talk to him a little while ago. He surprised us and hit Kate in the head with a gun. She’s the one in the emergency room. He took a shot at me and mostly missed. I doubt if I’ll even need a stitch. Troy Clark shot Latrell. He died at the scene.”
I could hear her crying. The sound was muf?ed. I guessed she was covering the receiver with her hand. She gathered herself, coughing to clear her throat.
“I hate you, Jack, you know that?”
“I know.”
“But that’s not my real problem. You want to know what my real problem is? My real problem is that I don’t hate you all the time.”