Dee looked at the cops she’d come to respect and knew without a doubt that if any one of them ever laid hands on the men who murdered Cassie Ali there would be another murder. “Breakfast is on me, Lieutenant—and please don’t resist me. I’m glad you chose us to serve you this morning, and it seems that you need the nourishment. I can tell that nobody in the Hate Crimes Unit got any sleep last night.”
“Do we look that bad?” Gianna asked.
“You look worse than that!” Dee said with a small smile, and she looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she turned toward the door. “And will you let us know about the funeral arrangements? Darlene especially. I read up on Muslim funerals and, like the Jews, Muslims require a pretty quick burial. None of that wait a week stuff we Black Baptists do.”
Gianna realized that she had absolutely no knowledge about Muslim ritual and said as much. Then she realized that the department would want to honor one of its own in some way, and the sorrow that she had been fighting to keep at bay overtook her. At that moment Eric handed her a cup of coffee in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other. Then he led her to her place at the head of the table where her breakfast was waiting. She looked down at her watch, then up at the wall of clocks to confirm that they had exactly thirty-seven minutes to eat and get downstairs to the press room.
The Chief’s press conference was standing room only. There were even more reporters and camera crews crowding the press room than there had been on the scene last night. The Chief was the only cop in the room who didn’t look like he’d been up all night, though he had. He also looked angrier than he had the previous night, and that was saying something.
Mimi and Joe stood at the back of the room. Everybody had already read their stories and unless something major was announced now, they both stood a good chance of being able to go home and grab a nap though they both had pens and notebooks at the ready. Mimi didn’t really care if she got to sleep, but if she didn’t eat soon she’d kill somebody. And coming toward them was the perfect candidate: Weasel Boy, with a face full of hostility and anger. He opened his mouth to speak at the same time the Chief did. It was the Chief who got listened to.
“Good morning and thank you for coming. There are a few things that I can tell you now that I couldn’t tell you last night. First: the names of the five men who came here to my city to commit hate-based murder,” and he waited until the collective intake of breath was released before he continued.
“Their names are Michael Holton, age fifty, and his two sons, Mickey, twenty-three, and Sammy, nineteen, and brothers Ronald Slater, twenty-three, and Richard Slater, seventeen. They are from Pinetree Valley, Indiana, and according to an official of the state police there they left home sometime before sunrise yesterday and arrived in our city at approximately 6 p.m. They were driving a 2014 silver Ford F-150 registered to Michael Holton. Based on information recovered from the pickup truck and from the cellular telephone belonging to Michael Holton, it is our belief that these men came here to help ‘Make America Great Again’ by, in their words, putting an end to the call to prayer that emanates from the mosque on Temple Boulevard. The mosque that was the destination of the five women who were mowed down by the five men in the pickup truck.”
The Chief stopped speaking while the Public Affairs office staff passed out press releases containing what the Chief had just said in language that was more inflammatory than Mimi had ever heard him utter. Deliberately inflammatory and everybody in the room knew it. Mimi was writing so fast her hand was starting to cramp. So was Joe and every other reporter in the room. Except for Weasel Boy. What the hell was wrong with him?
“Another thing that I can tell you now that I couldn’t tell you last night,” the Chief said, “concerns Officer Cassandra Ali. And I suppose I should be grateful that Montgomery Patterson left something for me to say.”
At that Mimi looked up, surprised at the Chief’s sarcastic criticism. So did Gianna. Mimi could see the shock and irritation that crossed her face, but left in an instant. Nobody but Mimi would have noticed it and nobody but Mimi would have known what a rarity it was for Gianna to harbor any negative feeling for the man who was more than her boss; he was a mentor and her friend. Mimi was wondering what shape Gianna was in. Now she knew. They hadn’t had significant contact with each other in more than twenty-four hours. She knew that Gianna, no stranger to long, hard hours at work, could and would hold it together under normal circumstances. The murder of one of her team—the one who, if pressed, Gianna would own as her favorite—was not normal. Gianna’s face was back to blank, expressionless.
“Many of you may not know that Officer Ali was attacked and savagely beaten on her way home from work last year. That beating left her with some memory loss and the total loss of sight in one eye. Despite intensive therapy and hard work, Officer Ali could not continue as an officer in the Metropolitan Police Department.”
The silence in the room was heavy, not least because no one had ever seen the Chief so emotional. “Officer Ali believed that she could perform her duties and her boss, Lieutenant Maglione, gave her every opportunity to prove it. But in the end, we both agreed that, her hard work notwithstanding, we’d have to let her go. In what most probably was her final conscious act, Officer Ali, who already had her service weapon in her hand, fired two rounds each into two of the murderers who had exited the pickup truck for a closer look at their handiwork. The dead men are Mickey Holton and Ronald Slater.”
Half the reporters in the room, including Mimi and Joe, were on the phone to their editors. Even Weasel Boy, Mimi noticed, was talking animatedly to his editor, or so she assumed, but she couldn’t give him any more thought. She had to focus on the follow-up to her story in the morning paper: the real reason that Cassie Ali was dead and her mother alive.
But the Chief wasn’t finished with them yet. “You know that two women died yesterday—our own Officer Ali and Mrs. Wanda Muhammad. A third woman remains in very critical condition. Her family has asked that we not release her name at this time. We will update her condition as we get information. We also will tell you when formal charges are filed against the assailants and what those charges are—”
“Are they represented by an attorney?” Weasel Boy asked.
“Not yet,” the Chief answered.
“Why not?” Weasel Boy asked.
“Mr. Holton wanted to be represented by the attorney general, and he had a hard time understanding why that wasn’t possible—”
“What do you mean he wanted to be represented by the attorney general? The attorney general of the United States?” Weasel Boy was both incredulous and amused.
“It seems that Mr. Holton thought the attorney general was the lawyer for the people of the United States. We think he now understands that’s not the case and he has asked for a lawyer from his hometown. We’re waiting to learn the outcome of that—”
“Where are these men being held? Are they still in central lockup?”
“If I may finish my statement—”
“We have questions, Chief! You can’t just talk like you’re in a lecture hall and not expect to be questioned!” Weasel Boy was on a roll.
“He’s nuts,” Joe whispered to Mimi.
“The Chief’s gonna walk out in a minute,” Mimi whispered back.
“But he’s not finished—” Joe was whispering to Mimi when the Chief stood down from the podium and stalked out.
The assembled reporters let out a howl that was ear-piercing. The Public Affairs sergeant pretended not to hear as he and his staff continued to hand out their pile of press releases.
Joe pocketed his notebook, grabbed a stack of press releases, and started to read. “Will you introduce me to Lieutenant Maglione?” he asked Mimi, and when she nodded, he followed as she worked her way through the crowd toward the front of the room where Gianna was standing next to Andy Page from ATTF. Both were now surrounded by reporters shouting questions, which Gianna was happy to let Page answer. She sp
ied Mimi, headed toward her, slowed when she saw Joe. Then Mimi smiled and Gianna almost did.
“How are you, Lieutenant?” she asked Gianna.
“I’ve been better.”
“This is my colleague, Joe Zemekis.”
Joe stuck out his hand. “I’m so very sorry about what happened to your Officer Ali, Lieutenant.”
Momentarily taken aback, Gianna shook his hand and then thanked him. “Those were good stories, Mr. Zemekis,” she said, and it was his turn to be back-footed. He was as unaccustomed to receiving compliments from cops as she was to receiving condolences from a reporter.
“Can I get some more information about the attack on Officer Ali?”
“You should talk to Detective Jim Dudley in the Gang Task Force. That was his case. Then you can talk to me.”
Joe thanked her, then asked, “Can I tell him you sent me?”
Gianna nodded, he saluted her and turned away. “Later, Patterson,” he said over his shoulder, and disappeared into the crowd.
“Nice guy. Where’d he come from? And that other ass? What’s his name? Where’d they get him?” Mimi shook her head, suddenly tired, and her stomach growled loud enough for Gianna to hear it. “You haven’t eaten?”
“Have you?”
“Dee and Darlene brought food from the diner,” Gianna began but Mimi didn’t hear the rest, didn’t want to hear the rest. She stalked off, hoping the food in the hospital cafeteria was as good as she’d heard. But first she needed to find a quiet corner to call Tyler, hoping that the executive editor wouldn’t be annoyed with her about the Chief’s comment.
“He got a kick out it!” Tyler told her. “He loves everything you and Joe are doing, which Wassily isn’t loving.”
“What’s wrong with that guy? Can’t he see that pissing off the Chief isn’t the way to go?” She meant the reporter, she told him, not the editor.
She heard Tyler sigh and he lowered his voice. She could picture him at his desk, his back turned to the newsroom as he practically whispered into the phone. “I know, and Wassily tried to get him to follow up on the Cassie Ali story but he didn’t want to do that—Joe called and asked to do it—you know what he wants to do? Find out why the family of the woman who’s standing at death’s door doesn’t want to release her name. Know what he’s trying to sell? That they’re some radicalized Muslims who were hiding out in that mosque just waiting for their chance to . . . to . . . I don’t know what!”
“He’s nuts,” Mimi said as her stomach growled again. “I gotta go eat, Tyler, before I expire.”
“Where you headed?”
“The hospital, to see if Mr. and Mrs. Ali will talk to me again. Maybe I can feed Joe some information.”
“Let’s make it two separate stories. Just tell Joe about the story we did on the B-Moggers to go with his Cassie story,” Tyler said, “and you keep with the up close and personal on the women, all of them.” He hung up. Mimi looked around for Joe, forgetting her growling stomach for a moment as she called to mind the facts of the Black Men on Guard, known as the B-Moggers, a loosely organized group of men who annointed themselves the caretakers, guardians and protectors of their communities. Most of their successes involved banishing drugs and drug dealers, to the delight of the neighborhoods they helped and to the chagrin of the police, who considered them little more than vigilantes, given that their methods weren’t always polite, to say nothing of legal. Once, at Cassie Ali’s request, the B-Moggers came to the aid of an elderly Jewish woman, a concentration camp survivor, who was being harrassed by some neo-Nazi skinheads. Mimi smiled to herself at the memory. Then her stomach rumbled again.
Thankfully the taxi ride to the hospital was brief. It wasn’t yet noon on a Saturday morning, which was considered early in D.C., relatively speaking. Rush hour lasted from about 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. during the week, but traffic didn’t get dense on the weekends until noon because most people tried not to schedule work before noon on weekends. Except reporters and cops who, for the most part, didn’t get to schedule their work. It happened when it happened and they dealt with it. Mimi would deal much better with whatever the day had in store for her when she’d eaten.
The cafeteria line was long—it was lunch time, after all—but it moved quickly thanks to the three cashiers at the end of the room. Mimi and her tray were almost at a checkout when she saw Detective Alice Long exiting the cafeteria, and she knew it was Alice only because few women on the planet were that gorgeous. But today Alice’s beauty was weighed down with grief and Mimi knew why. Alice was to be Cassie’s replacement in the Hate Crimes Unit, a job Alice wanted and welcomed but one that Mimi knew she’d take no joy in having now that Cassie’s young life had ended so horribly.
For her part, Alice Long would gladly return to undercover Vice duties, a job she hated more than any other, if it would return Cassie to life and health. She had been the temporary replacement in Hate Crimes while Gianna gave Cassie all the leeway possible, hoping and praying, along with the young cop, for a miracle, even as the Chief was warning Gianna that he no longer could—or would—carry a cop on his roster who couldn’t function as a cop. Now she had to go upstairs to the hospital room and be an official presence for the mother of the woman whose job she now held. What on earth could she say?
At that moment there was nothing Aisha Ali wanted to hear except that she could get out of the hospital bed and go to wherever it was they were holding her daughter’s body so that she could bathe her and dress her and prepare her for burial. And at that moment Lt. Gianna Maglione was in the unenviable position of having to deny Mrs. Ali permission to get out of bed as the doctor had ordered. Besides, Gianna tried explaining—again—Cassie’s body could not yet be released. Nor could Mrs. Muhammad. And furthermore, Gianna said, Mr. Ali had told her that Cassie’s aunt, Mrs. Ali’s sister, would prepare Cassie for burial.
“She’s my daughter! It must be me! I must do this!”
The woman’s wails were breaking Gianna’s heart. They also were costing her every ounce of her strength. She would weaken and collapse into sleep in a moment. The doctor had said to Gianna, “Just because she isn’t dead doesn’t mean that she’s all right. Her wounds, while not life-threatening, are serious.”
“Please let me get up.” Aisha Ali’s wail had become a weak whisper, and her eyes closed as the door opened. Gianna frowned at the doctor who entered. He wasn’t supposed to be here; he was a male. Then she looked more closely at him, past the white coat and the stethoscope draped around his neck, and fury rose within her unchecked.
“You bastard! Get out of here!” Gianna was on the reporter before he had time to backpedal. She had him on the floor and was straddling him, trying to grab his arms, when the door opened again.
Alice Long hesitated not an instant. She grabbed Weasel Boy’s wrists and yanked them behind him. He yelped, waking Mrs. Ali. Gianna cuffed him, got him on his feet, and Alice hustled him out into the hallway as Gianna turned her attention to Mrs. Ali.
“Who was that? Was that a doctor?”
“That was a reporter pretending to be a doctor,” Gianna snapped.
“Why was he here? What does he want?”
Gianna shook her head, smoothed the covers over Mrs. Ali, and urged her to go back to sleep, which she did almost immediately. Gianna rushed out into the hall where Alice was making Weasel Boy’s life a misery. Gianna got in his face. “What is your name?”
“I’m a reporter for the—”
“What. Is. Your. Name?”
“Ian Williams. I’m a reporter—”
“You’re not a doctor, which is the only thing that interests me,” she said as she headed toward the exit. Alice pulled Ian “Weasel Boy” Williams along behind. “Where’s Linda?” she asked Alice.
“Out back here, with Bobby.”
Gianna stopped in her tracks. “What’s Bobby still doing here?”
“Lots of reporters and cameras. He stayed behind to help Linda control it before it got out of control.”<
br />
“That many?” Gianna asked, dismay heavy in her voice along with the fatigue. God, how she wanted to go to sleep. Preferably beside Mimi. As she stepped on the pad and the Patient/Visitor door swooshed open, the reporters saw her and started yelling. Then they noticed a handcuffed Ian Williams—one of their own—and confusion quieted them. Though most of them harbored no love for Williams, the sight of a handcuffed reporter made them more than just a little uneasy.
“Who’s he, Boss? And what did he do?” Detective Bobby Gilliam asked.
“He’s one of them, and he was in Mrs. Ali’s room impersonating a doctor. And speaking of which, Alice—”
“On my way, Boss,” she said, turning Ian Williams over to Bobby and heading back into the hospital to Aisha Ali’s room. They were under orders that none of the women should be without a police guard.
“Uncuff him and relieve him of his disguise,” Gianna said as she took out her phone and pressed a button, noticing that she had several text messages from Mimi. She stepped away from Bobby and Linda as she heard the Chief answer. She told him about Ian Williams and listened to him yell for a minute before he hung up on her. She was grinning when she turned back to Bobby, Linda, and a no-longer-smug Ian.
Reporters were yelling at her again, this time their questions relating to their colleague instead of the issue that had consumed them all for the last sixteen or seventeen hours. “You should leave,” Gianna told Ian.
“I don’t answer to you,” he replied.
“That’s true, but I expect you’ll be hearing from your editor shortly.”
He gave her a startled look then turned and rushed back into the hospital, no longer dressed as a doctor. Gianna looked at Linda. “Make sure he doesn’t do anything else stupid, then link up with Alice.”
Linda threw her a salute and hurried to catch up with Ian. Then she turned to Bobby. “Go home and get some rest.”
He looked about to cry. “I can’t, Boss. I don’t want to. I just want—I don’t know what I want! I want Cassie back is what I want!”
Death's Echoes Page 4