The sarge shrugged. ‘Who knows with the Feds? The poor kid is going to have a boat load of paperwork, that I can tell you for certain.’
A nurse in sky blue scrubs with white fluffy clouds on them stuck her head out of the exam room door. ‘Detective? Miss Hudson is awake now. She’s alert and she wants to speak with you.’
Raising an eyebrow at the sergeant, Lauren followed the nurse with him at her heels. They had Brooklyn Hudson propped up on a hospital bed, sipping water from a plastic cup, the thin gray sheet pulled up to her chin. She pulled the straw from her mouth and managed a weak smile. ‘Hey.’
‘Hello, Brooklyn,’ Lauren said. Usually overdose victims whose friend you just shot weren’t so happy to see you, or so Lauren had been led to believe.
‘The doctor and nurses said you saved my life.’
Under the stark hospital lights, the dark circles beneath Brooklyn’s eyes were in sharp contrast to her ghost-white skin. The track marks were red and infected in the crook of her exposed elbow. Her dark hair, so much like her deceased brother’s, hung limply around her face. She looked older than her years and terribly broken. Lauren felt a pang of sadness at the state of ruin this young woman’s life was in. She wasn’t much older than her own daughters who were both thriving at college. ‘I had to come looking for you when you cancelled your interview.’
‘About that.’ She put the cup down and covered her exposed arm with the sheet. ‘I was ashamed and I didn’t want to lie to you. My dad wouldn’t give me any money and my bank account is way overdrawn. I took a ring that belonged to my grandma to a pawn shop, so I could get money to get high.’
‘Do you remember which pawn shop?’
She nodded her head. ‘If you look in my phone case, I put the receipt in there. I was going to get it back. If my dad knew I pawned that ring,’ she took a deep, stuttering breath, ‘he’d disown me for real this time. But I get so sick. So sick, you don’t even know.’ Tears ran down her cheeks and she tried to wipe them away with the corner of the sheet, smearing it with mascara.
Lauren turned to the nurse and pointed to the clear plastic bag sitting on a chair against the wall, ‘Is that her property?’
‘Yes,’ the nurse said, reaching over and picking it up, ‘and the phone is right on top.’
‘Do we have your permission to open your phone case and look for the pawn slip?’ the sergeant asked. He was all business. Until they established her alibi, she was still a person of interest in Gunnar’s murder.
‘Go ahead,’ she sighed. ‘I guess I don’t have anything to hide anymore.’
Lauren took the bag from the nurse and fished out the phone. It was housed in a bejeweled plastic case that easily snapped off. Under the back cover was a single dollar bill, a torn piece of paper with a phone number on it, and a pawn shop slip. Lauren unfolded the slip and read aloud, ‘December twelfth, seven fifty-five p.m., one twenty-four-karat gold ring with a ruby center stone, pawned for two hundred dollars at the Touch of Class Jewelry and Loan on Bailey Avenue.’
‘I don’t know what time Gunnar got killed but I went right to my dealer on Seneca Street. I spent all two hundred there and then went to Lenny’s. You can ask him.’
Lauren didn’t tell her that they already had. The pawn slip just confirmed the story they had both given. ‘Lenny’s been very cooperative, and we appreciate that.’
‘I heard someone say you shot Devon.’
Hospital big mouths, Lauren thought. Doctors and nurses could be worse than cops sometimes. ‘You don’t need to think about any of that. You just need to get better.’
Connolly moved forward a step. ‘We’ll need a swab of your DNA to compare to any evidence we might find.’
Brooklyn nodded her head, her hair falling over her eyes. ‘You can have it. I know my fingerprints are already in the system, so you won’t need those. I’ve been arrested a couple times.’
Lauren and Connolly both already knew that. ‘Just a cheek swab,’ he said. ‘I’ll send someone from evidence to come and do it.’ Lauren usually took her own cheek swabs, but she didn’t want to be carrying a box of evidence for a homicide around a hospital. When she took a sample she liked to get it into the evidence unit right away, either handing it off to one of the techs or putting it into the secure storage lockers at headquarters, to maintain chain of custody.
‘Is my dad here?’ Anxiety crept into her voice. She isn’t afraid he’s here, Lauren thought, she’s afraid he isn’t.
‘He’s on the way,’ Lauren assured her. ‘He might be here already. Erna had to get him up and dressed.’
She let her head fall forward and held her forehead with her hand. She was openly weeping now. ‘This will kill my dad. First Gunnar and now this? I’m literally killing him. You should just lock me up.’
The nurse moved over to her bed side and put a comforting arm around her thin shoulder. The sarge cleared his throat loudly. He didn’t do emotions very well.
‘Nobody’s arresting you. Only Devon is going to jail.’ Lauren held up the pawn slip. ‘We’re going to hold onto this, if you don’t mind. I’ll check and see if your dad is here, OK?’
‘Maybe you should have let me die,’ Brooklyn sobbed, grabbing onto the nurse, clutching the clouds on her scrubs between her boney fingers. ‘No one understands what it’s like. I wake up and I’m sick. I never have enough. No matter how much I do. I’m not a bad person. I’m not. I just can’t live like this anymore.’
The nurse shushed her, rocking her a little. The sergeant was practically out the door.
‘I’m not here to judge you, Brooklyn,’ Lauren told her, her voice softening in sympathy for the girl. ‘I just want to find out who killed your brother. You’re lucky that you have a father who takes care of you. Have they talked to you about going to rehab?’
She nodded, still weeping, into the nurse’s shirt. ‘I’ve already been there twice. I just got out. My dad thinks I’m clean.’
‘Maybe the third time’s the charm, honey. Don’t give up. Get some rest. We’ll talk more when you’re better.’
‘Thank you, Detective,’ the nurse called as Lauren walked out with the pawn shop slip. She wondered how Brooklyn fell into heroin. It was everywhere now. Kids were dropping dead of overdoses every day, hence the police cars having Narcan stored in them. Her mind wandered to her own two daughters. She was sure at some point both of them had been offered drugs. She’d be naïve if she thought otherwise. Had one, or both, of them dabbled? Could one be hooked and hiding it? She’d seen both girls at Thanksgiving and neither gave any indication they were into drugs, but she hadn’t been looking for the signs either. Seeing Brooklyn suffering in her addiction put the Hudson family dynamics in a new light for Lauren. Brooklyn was no threat to Ryan’s inheritance. Gunnar Jonsson definitely had been.
Erna was waiting right outside with Mr Hudson bundled up in his wheelchair. ‘Is she OK? The doctor told us she’s OK.’ Mr Hudson looked anxious and exhausted.
Lauren gave him a slight smile. ‘She’s all right. She wanted to know if you were here.’
‘I’m here.’ His good hand clutched the armrest of his chair. ‘I’ll always be here for my baby. Thank you for saving her life. I hope that bastard who pulled the gun on you goes to jail for the rest of his life.’
More like the rest of the month, Lauren thought, but maybe a little longer if he violated probation. ‘He’s in custody. I’m just glad I showed up when I did.’
‘So am I. I told Ryan to get his ass down to police headquarters. I told him if he doesn’t show up, he’s out of my will.’
‘That’s coercion, sir,’ the sarge piped up.
‘Is it?’ Hudson snapped. ‘He can sue us all from the cardboard box he’s living in. I want to know what happened to my son. And I have to make arrangements for Brooklyn to go right into a residential rehab as soon as she’s released. If Ryan had anything to do with Gunnar’s murder, I want to know, right now.’
Erna bent down and whispered something
in his ear. He nodded in recognition and looked back to Lauren. ‘Are you going to arrest Brooklyn or her boyfriend?’
‘It’s not illegal to overdose. And apparently, they used whatever dope they had, so there’s no possession charge.’ Lauren could see a little wave of relief pass over Mr Hudson’s face. ‘Only the fool with the gun is going to jail. I’m going back to headquarters now to talk to Ryan.’
‘And do your statement about the shooting,’ the sergeant reminded her.
‘And do my statement,’ Lauren repeated for Connolly’s benefit, then she said to Mr Hudson and Erna, ‘I’ll be over first thing in the morning to talk to both of you.’
The cloud-wearing nurse stuck her head out again. ‘Are you the father?’
‘Yes.’ He pulled himself up in his chair a little straighter. ‘I’m Brooklyn’s dad.’
She held the door wide open for him. Erna gave Lauren a grateful smile as she wheeled Mr Hudson past her.
‘I’ve got to go find Matt,’ Lauren told the sarge. ‘I need that kid. If Reese is out of commission, I’ll stick with him.’
‘What about Doug Sheehan?’ he asked, following her down the long corridor.
‘He’s ready for retirement. Matt Lawton proved today he’s got my back. I need that.’
‘Yeah, you do need that.’ Connolly’s face fell into a frown as he looked Lauren up and down. His gravelly voice lowered a notch. ‘How are you? Are you OK?’
Lauren was unconsciously flexing her right hand, opening and closing it. She realized what she was doing and snapped it closed into a fist. ‘I’m shook up. It’s playing back in my head, you know? Over and over. What I did, what I could have done. I’m pissed off he made me shoot him. I’m glad he’s alive.’
Connolly nodded as he walked the green line on the floor that led to the waiting rooms. ‘Do you want some days off? Take a break?’
That was the last thing she wanted. ‘No. I need to see this thing through for Mr Hudson.’
‘That’s what I figured,’ he said. ‘But if you need it, ask for it. You don’t always have to go through everything by yourself.’
‘I’m fine,’ she replied. And she was. Or at least she would be. She’d been through worse in the last two years. Much worse. She wanted to tell Connolly she wasn’t alone, she had Reese at home, but that might open a line of discussion she didn’t want to get into right then.
SIXTEEN
Lauren and the sarge managed to find Matt with the special agent in charge of the Buffalo branch of the FBI near one of the comfort rooms. She’d known Sam Papineau for years, since he was a field agent and she was a new detective. He’d gone away to Washington once he got promoted, and then came back to head up the local office. They’d worked together on a joint human trafficking investigation when she’d been in the Sex Offense Squad years before, where they’d made six arrests. Lauren liked to joke with him, when they ran into each other, that that case was what had clinched his promotion. He kidded back that it was why he got returned to Buffalo, and not some place with palm trees. Lauren suspected that they were both right.
Sam Papineau was an average middle-aged guy: balding brown hair, not too tall, rounding belly, and an unmemorable face. The only thing distinguishing on him was his teeth. Extremely crooked and crowded and stained, Lauren could not figure out why he didn’t get them fixed. Surely the federal government has great dental? She thought that every time she saw him. It was a struggle not to stare at his mouth when he spoke.
When he saw Lauren turn the corner, Papineau shook his head. ‘I should have assigned someone else when they said it was you who needed help. Poor Lawton here just got off of probation.’
‘I think he handled himself very well,’ Lauren told him, trying not to be distracted by his teeth, as her sergeant reached over and shook Papineau’s hand. ‘He might have saved my life, actually.’
Papineau crossed his arms in front of his chest. ‘I’m not worried about him; I’m worried about you. Did you step on a thousand cracks? Break a couple hundred mirrors? Let a whole herd of black cats cross your path?’
‘I never took you for the superstitious type,’ she countered.
‘I’m not. But I’ve never heard of anyone having the bad luck you’ve had lately.’
Sergeant Connolly had no patience for Papineau. He cut right to the chase. ‘Can she have Lawton back, or does the Bureau have to bench him for a while?’
‘If he was the one who did the shooting, yes, his time with you would come to an end while we investigated. Since he was only a witness, he has some Bureau paperwork to do, then he’s good to go.’
‘We’re going to need him to come down to our internal affairs and give a statement now,’ Connolly said.
‘I figured.’ Papineau turned to Matt. ‘Fax me copies of everything, Lawton. And don’t forget to do a FD-302 as soon as you can.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Matt said. His voice sounded unnaturally stiff and formal. Lauren surmised he was still not at ease with his new superior. Papineau was a nice guy, but his humor tended to be on the dry side, so it took a while to know when he was serious or not.
‘Are you both ready?’ Connolly asked. ‘I’m driving. I had a patrol guy bring your detective’s car back to headquarters.’
Papineau clapped Matt on the shoulder. ‘Not even twenty hours with Lauren Riley and you get involved in a shooting. That may be a new record.’
‘Meaning what?’ Lauren asked. They had a very good working relationship, but Lauren wasn’t about to let him bust her balls without hitting back. It just wasn’t in her nature.
‘He saw you shoot someone today and this poor guy still has no idea what’s about to happen to him.’
‘What’s going to happen to him?’
‘You,’ he smirked. ‘The hurricane that is Lauren Riley.’
She shot Sam Papineau a side eye. ‘My luck runs both ways. You know that as well as anybody.’
‘That I do,’ he agreed with a dismissive wave as he walked away from their little group toward the elevators. ‘That I do.’
SEVENTEEN
Back at headquarters, Connolly went to the Homicide office, while Lauren took Matt and dropped him off with Michele Sutter, the captain of the Internal Affairs Unit. Sutter was waiting for him in a very crisp black pantsuit with a starched white shirt, her dark copper hair pulled back in a severe bun. The younger woman was always very squared away, not a wrinkle to be seen, not a hair out of place. Lauren wondered if that was how she made captain so fast – the whole ‘dress for the job you want, not the job you have’ mindset.
‘Matt, I’ll see you when you’re finished.’ Lauren told herself she was trying to maintain the confident façade she had put up for Matt’s boss, Papineau, but what she was really trying to do was keep Sutter and Matt from noticing that both of her hands were shaking.
Ryan Hudson was sitting in interview room two when Lauren got back up to the Homicide office. It was almost ten o’clock at night, but his eyes were wide and alert. Lauren studied him on the monitor in the observation room, which was comprised of six little cubicles, each set up to watch one, or all, of the interview rooms. In the old police headquarters, you either had to stand in a narrow closet in the dark with the door closed, or cluster around a single monitor if there was more than one detective that wanted to observe the questioning.
Lauren watched him looking around, crossing and uncrossing his legs, trying to look comfortable and at ease, though he was clearly not. He had taken off his expensive coat and draped it over the back of his chair, showing off his red cashmere V-neck sweater and navy wool trousers. He probably saw that outfit in a catalog somewhere and thought it would look good at the country club, she thought.
There were no windows in the interview rooms, no clocks or decorations. They all contained two chairs and a desk, nothing more. There wasn’t a thing to focus on except why you were in that room. And people’s reactions were very telling. Sometimes Lauren watched a person for a half hour or more before she
went in.
Poking the computer’s touchscreen with her finger, Lauren brought up the other interview rooms. Ryan’s wife sat in interview room three, scrolling through something on her phone, oblivious to her surroundings.
Ryan was definitely the one she wanted to talk to.
The good thing about videotaped statements was that there was no need to take notes. Lauren still carried a legal pad and a pen into the room with her, as well as a copy of his file. She wanted a visual reminder for Ryan that she had been working the case hard. And would still be working it, despite what had happened at his sister’s boyfriend’s apartment that day.
Ryan looked up when she walked into the room. ‘How is Brooklyn?’
Sliding into the seat across from him, Lauren carefully arranged the items she brought in on the desk, purposely taking her time. She put the file labeled RYAN HUDSON on top of the stack. Before she’d gone in, she’d stuffed it with forty or so pieces of blank paper, making it look thick. Now his eyes fell on that folder and he stared at it, even after Lauren started talking.
‘She’s going to be fine. I left her with your father and Erna at the hospital.’
Ryan exhaled a breath of relief. ‘I heard on the news there’d been a shooting there—’
‘And you thought I shot her?’
‘I didn’t know what to think. The newscaster said it was an unidentified person, but then my father called and said I had better get my ass down here with my wife. I didn’t know what to think,’ he said again. ‘The news shows don’t always get things right.’
‘On that,’ Lauren said, ‘we can agree. Brooklyn overdosed, someone else was shot.’
‘Was it Lenny? I can’t stand that leech.’
Lauren didn’t bother to answer his question, throwing out one of her own instead. ‘Do you mind telling me why you cancelled our appointment? I would think you’d be eager to help me figure out what happened to Gunnar.’
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