Justice (The Galilee Falls Trilogy)

by Jennifer Harlow

  “Why would a guy work with the man who melted his boss?” Mirabelle asks.

  “A shitload of money?” I copy down the address, and put the file back. We’re going to the Ward. “You coming with me?”

  “Think this is legit?”

  “Worth a look.” I grab my coat, clip my gun back on, and rush out with Mirabelle behind me. I briefly consider filling Harry in, but don’t want to wake him if this doesn’t pan out. He’s grumpy without enough sleep.

  The streets are near empty as I drive us to my old stomping ground, Diablo’s Ward. It boasts a hooker and junkie on every street corner. Really a wonderful place to raise kids. I made pocket money turning in dirty needles I found in parks to clinics. Fifty cents a pop. Treasured childhood memories.

  Every election year some politician swears on his or her own mother that their first priority is cleaning up the Ward. The rotting, splintering, condemned buildings where junkies inject their fixes will come down, replaced with schools and parks. There must be a lot of dead mothers out there judging from the state of this place. The only people out tonight are dealers, the homeless pushing their carts, and the pros drumming up business.

  Munoz’s place is in the heart of the Ward, a small apartment complex of maybe four stories of white cinderblocks. We park alongside the building, surveying the area. Far as I can tell, there are no lookouts to cause trouble.

  “What do you think?” I ask Mirabelle.

  “Let’s rock and roll.”

  Just as we’re about to get out, three gunshots ring out above us. Instantly, we each reach for our guns and crouch down, but the shock lasts for a millisecond before we leap out of the car, guns at the ready. With his free hand, Mirabelle pulls off his walkie from his belt.

  “Dispatch, shots fired in the vicinity of 4763 McFarlane Street. Plainclothes officers in need of assistance.”

  I see nothing. No people, no weapons, nothing. I hate flying blind. For all I know there’s a fleet of crack-heads with Uzis charging around the corner. As I’m assessing, there’s a large thump on the hood of the car. Metal hitting metal. We swing our guns at the source. A Glock lies on the hood of our car in the middle of a crater. But before we can even register this fact, a man’s screams from the roof grab my attention.

  My legs start pumping of their own accord before I’m aware that I’m running toward the building, then through the unlocked front door. I glide upstairs, checking every corner for danger. Mirabelle is behind me, managing to keep up all five flights.

  The access door to the roof lies on its side against the wall, along with a piece of plywood in three pieces. The barricade obviously didn’t work. A piece of lead wouldn’t either. The man hollers again, but I can’t make out the words. Adrenaline pumps through my system as I make my way up the final flight of steps, and goddamn I do love that feeling. Anything could be out there. These could be my final moments on the planet for all I know. What a fucking rush.

  Mirabelle is a few inches behind me and I look at him. He nods. I run out the door onto the gravel roof with my gun pointed. “Police! Freeze!” I shout before I realize who I’m drawing on. Fuck.

  Justice stands by the edge of the roof, holding a crying man over the side one handed by the belt. The man, who I recognize from his mug shot as Munoz, is near hysterical and praying in Spanish.

  “Good evening, detectives,” Justice says as if greeting us at a party.

  “Put him down,” I say.

  “I haven’t finished questioning him,” Justice says with his gravelly voice.

  “Put him the fuck down!”

  Justice complies. The moment Munoz’s feet hit the roof, he falls onto his knees and kisses the gravel, murmuring in Spanish. Justice holds his hands up in surrender. “If you wouldn’t mind pointing those guns somewhere else, please. I’ve already been shot three times today. We are on the same side, you know.”

  “Debatable,” I say, but put my gun back in the holster, as does Mirabelle. “Det. Mirabelle, can you please escort Mr. Munoz to the squad car?”

  Mirabelle pulls out his cuffs, putting them on Munoz, who doesn’t even seem to mind. Mirabelle yanks the almost relieved felon up and escorts him off the roof. Justice nods respectfully at Mirabelle, who I’m fairly sure blushes and nods back. “Sir.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask when they’re gone.

  “Following up on a lead, the same as you detective.”

  “And how did you hear about Mr. Munoz?”

  “I have my sources.” Meaning he’s tapped into our phone lines or computers. Sneaky bastard. He starts walking toward me. “He was contacted two days ago by an unknown person via e-mail asking him to make a passport, birth certificate, and driver’s license. He received a wire transfer the same day, but didn’t know who he was making it for until today when the same person e-mailed a photo of Alkaline to put on the documents. I was just about to find out about the delivery details when you arrived. He’ll probably lawyer up now.”

  “Geez, sorry for doing my job, asshole,” I say as snidely as humanly possible.

  “The man shot me the moment he saw me.”

  “We’ll make sure to charge him for it.”

  “It could have been you, detective. You’re not even wearing your vest. I noticed you weren’t wearing it last night either. He could have killed you if I hadn’t gotten here first.”

  My Irish flares up. “Excuse me?” I almost yell. “Are you criticizing me after I find you dangling a perp off a fucking rooftop? His lawyer’s going to have a field day. Anything he told you is inadmissible.”

  “Good thing I don’t work for the police. Though, I’m told starting tomorrow I’m your Federal Marshall liaison. We should be seeing more of each other in the future.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  The sound of sirens, our late back-up, draws his attention. “Time for me to depart. And wear your vest, Joanna. Please.” He vanishes, leaving nothing but a gust of wind as he super-speeds past me down the stairs.

  The. Fucking. Nerve. I’m literally vibrating with anger, though it could be the adrenaline wearing off. Wear my vest. Not a bad idea, but if he tells me I have to eat all my vegetables I just might shoot him myself. Prick.

  ***

  One sleepless night later, to my credit, I have fifty pieces of evidence logged, thirteen interview requests from the press, an eight-page incident report, two angry phone calls from the motor pool for the dented car, and one lawyered-up suspect. Not to mention a stern talking to by Harry for not keeping him in the loop or waiting for back-up. All this sudden interest in my safety is getting old and stifling. I feel like a pissed-off China doll.

  At least the whole debacle wasn’t for nothing. The computer guys are working on tracing the e-mail and wire transfers. We know one of Ryder’s aliases. A scumbag is off the street. But according to city hall, the best news is that we actually have a lead. We don’t look incompetent for a change. The press conference I just gave went as smooth as Don Juan. Too bad I looked like a gargoyle.

  And now to cash in my superstar award. I get to go home and sleep. Maybe even eat something, take a shower, and change my clothes. I’m on call if anything comes up, but even God isn’t that cruel not to allow me eight full hours of sweet oblivion.

  Harry isn’t in his office as I walk out, but Lt. Pete DiQueeno of Special Victims is. He waves as I pass, and I do the same. I guess we’ve all been relieved for a few hours. My off-duty car is exactly where I left it over twenty-four hours ago, though there are five fliers under the wipers. I reach my bed ten minutes later. I kick off my shoes, put on my pajamas, climb in, and pass out thirty seconds later.

  A loud ringing by my ear jerks me out of Jo’s Happy Place. I look at the clock. A little past noon. Almost three hours. I’m too tired to think of something witty to say.

  “Det. Joanna Fallon,” I say when I answer the phone.

  “Jo, it’s Cam,” my partner says.

  “What?”

  “The guard,
Dodd, is finally awake. Thought you’d want to be there when I talk to him.”

  This perks me up like a verbal cup of coffee. “Yeah. Hell, yeah.”

  “I’ll swing by your place in twenty. Bye.”

  Twenty minutes to turn human again. I toss on my gray suit, purple shirt, brush my teeth and hair, scarf down a Pop Tart, and clip on my badge and gun just as Cam buzzes his arrival. Out the door I go.

  Cam sits in the idling car and barely waits until I get in before pulling away. Like me, he resembles the walking dead with bloodshot eyes and sallow skin. At least he didn’t go on the national news looking like that.

  “When did Dodd regain consciousness?” I ask.

  “About an hour ago, poor bastard. He’s still pretty fucked up. We only get a few minutes with him.”

  “Then we better make them count.”

  One of the many things I love about Cam is that silence doesn’t feel awkward with him. Neither one of us is a big talker, so we barely say three words on the ride to the hospital. Not that either of us has the energy for anything so superfluous as small talk.

  Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow Hospital, Galilee’s crowning glory, sits right at the edge of the Andalucía River which separates the city proper from the state park and The Garden. I turn my head to the left and I see The Falls in the distance. The thirty-story white building is always busy with doctors, patients, and visitors filing in and out. Two ambulances pull up to the ER as we park. As we walk to the elevator behind an orderly pushing an old woman, I spot Veronica sitting in the waiting room, jotting down notes. She doesn’t see me. Crap, I really owe her a call.

  Logan Dodd is on the fifth floor, the critical care burn unit. His private room is under guard by two uniforms. A middle-aged Indian man in blue scrubs and white lab coat approaches us. “I’m Dr. Amil Sharma, Logan Dodd’s physician,” he says. “Before you go in, you’ll need to put on protective gear to prevent infection.”

  Both the doctor and the two of us don our paper gowns, latex gloves, and face masks. We look ridiculous, but we don’t want our witness dying on us before trial just because I breathed my cooties on him. Cam looks at me and his eyes crinkle with a smile.

  “How’s he doing?” I ask.

  “As well as can be expected,” the doctor says. “We had to amputate his hand at the wrist, and he’ll need more skin grafts where the acid splattered his thigh. He’s in for a long recovery process, in all respects.”

  “At least he’s alive,” Cam says.

  “He’s on heavy pain medication,” Sharma says. “Morphine. Please avoid agitating him, if possible.”

  “We’ll be gentle,” I say.

  Lying in his hospital bed, Logan Dodd looks less like a 6”3’ prison guard and more like a pale child. IVs and other tubes in nasty places hang from his body. The sheet covers the carnage inflicted on him. He’s awake, but his eyes are barely open. Doped out of his mind.

  “Officer Dodd, I’m Det. Cameron and this is Det. Fallon,” Cam says. “We were the ones who found you at the prison. We wanted to ask you a few questions about your attack.”

  Dodd tries to prop himself up using his good hand, but doesn’t have the strength. The other hand comes out from under the sheet. It’s wrapped in white gauze with a net over it. There are a few yellow spots where the ointments have leaked through. At least I think they’re ointments. “Um, okay,” Dodd says, still groggy.

  Cam sits in the chair by his bedside, and I pull out my notepad. “We’ll try and make this as fast as possible, okay? What can you tell us about the night you were attacked?” I ask.

  “Everything was normal. Everything was fine,” he says through the drug haze. “We’d just checked on the inmates.”

  “You and Stu Moore?” Cam asks.

  “Yeah. I was in the office reading a magazine, when I heard Stu shout something, I don’t know what. I checked the monitor. Alkaline was out. He stood across from Moore, something coming from his wrist. Then Stu’s head, um…” The boy can’t finish. As part of Alkaline’s sentence, the holes where Ryder’s acid reserves spring out, through the extra hollow bones in his wrists, were surgically closed. It must have hurt like hell when the bone pushed through.

  “Where was Stu when this happened?” I ask.

  “By Alkaline’s cell. Where he died.”

  “How did Alkaline get out?” I ask in hopes of sparing the poor kid.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t watching the monitors. I should have been when Stu was walking the block, but…” Dodd tears up. “I don’t know.”

  “What happened next?” Cam asks.

  “I ran out there. But…he got me. I couldn’t think. He had Stu’s gun on me. I was so freaked, I forgot to pull mine. He told me to take off my uniform and give him my card key. I did.”

  “And then?”

  “He said ‘Thank you.’ He took the card, smiled, and then…it came out of his wrist again. That bone, and then the acid. It hurt so bad.” He’s crying now, almost sobbing. “My hand. It just fell off. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life. That’s the last thing I remember.”

  “I think that’s enough for now,” the doctor says.

  “Just a few more questions,” Cam says, “please. Is that okay, Logan?”

  “I guess,” Dodd says, trying to calm himself down. He takes a few deep breaths. “I want this over with.”

  “Were any of the guards particularly attentive to Alkaline?” Cam asks.

  “I don’t know,” he says, “I noticed he had an extra brownie for desert once.”

  “Any idea who gave it to him?”

  “Maybe Stu, I don’t know. It was like a month ago.”

  “Did he ever speak to you? Alkaline?” I ask.

  “We weren’t allowed to talk to him. He never even tried with me.”

  “Did you ever see Officer Moore talk to him?” Cam asks.

  Dodd is quiet for a second. “I don’t think so. I don’t know! I don’t know how he got out! When are you going to find him? He—he’s gonna come back and finish me off! Why haven’t you caught him yet?” The kid has gone wild, trying to kick his covers off.

  Dr. Sharma steps over to him, acting as a buffer between us and Dodd. “Okay,” the doctor says, “that is more than enough.”

  “He’s gonna kill me!” Dodd shouts, near hysterics.

  “You have protection,” I say.

  “Leave. Now,” Sharma says.

  The big, bad police walk out just as Sharma injects a drug into Dodd’s IV. I rip off the stifling protection in frustration. “You woke me up for that?” I ask with a sigh.

  “Could have gone better,” Cam says.

  “They’re not going to let us back in there,” I say, “not until he’s discharged. Not that it matters. He didn’t see shit.”

  “Or he’s lying and he’s the one who let Ryder out,” Cam says.

  “We’re not going to find out anytime soon. They won’t let us press him, and we’re running out of time. If that psycho isn’t about to do something heinous, then I’m a supermodel.”

  We start walking down the hall toward the elevators. I punch the button hard enough to break it. “You need to chill,” Cam says. “You’ll get an ulcer.”

  “You sound like Justin,” I say. The elevator doors open and we step in. “I’m being held together by coffee and adrenaline. If I chill, I’ll fall to the ground and start babbling like an idiot.”

  “Still.”

  We get off a few seconds later. Just as we pass reception, a woman calls my name. Rebecca, dressed in purple scrubs and white lab coat, runs over to us with that perpetual sweet smile on her face. Just what I need.

  “I heard you were here,” she says as she reaches us.

  “Lucky me,” I say with a fake smile.

  “It really is lucky! I just got done assisting on a five-hour surgery when one of the nurses told me she saw you.” Five hours of surgery and her make-up and hair are still flawless, where as I resemble a three-day piece of road kill
. She holds out her hand to Cam. “Hi. You must be Joanna’s partner, Cam. It is so nice to finally meet you.”

  “Cam, this is Rebecca Thornton, Justin’s fiancée,” I say.

  They shake hands. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Cam says. And he has. I try to keep my thoughts about my private life to myself, but I sometimes spend sixty hours a week with the man. Things slip. Okay, a lot of things slip.

  “Me too,” Rebecca says. “So, you two are here to interview that poor guard?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “but he’s in no shape to talk.”

  “I heard it was ghastly.”

  “It wasn’t pretty.”

  “So, are you heading back to the station now? Because I sort of had an ulterior motive for coming down here,” she says sweetly, her nose crinkling and shoulders rising.

  “You did?” I ask.

  “Everyone I normally have lunch with is busy, and I hate going to the cafeteria alone. People always come up to me with questions. I can’t finish my meal.”

  “Um—”

  “You have time,” Cam interrupts. The traitor. “You’re technically not on the clock.”

  “But you drove me here,” I say with a fake sweet smile

  “Take the Metro. You need to eat, don’t you?”

  Rebecca’s smile stretches from cheek to cheek. “Oh, please? Please?”

  Lack of sleep and yes, nourishment have made the lying part of my brain go on the fritz. I’m sure when she’s babbling on about the honeymoon or china patterns, a trillion will come to mind. But not right now. Now, I’m screwed.

  “I can’t think of a reason why not,” I say.

  If at all possible her smile grows. “Wonderful! I’m starving.” She wraps her arm around mine and pulls me away. Cam has a huge grin on his face. So much for my brother in blue.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Girlfriends

  This is the only hospital in the country that has gourmet chefs on the payroll and a ballroom. Since Rebecca’s paying I load up with scallops, pork chops, and chocolate mousse. She just orders the watercress soup and Caesar salad. “Must fit into my wedding dress,” she chirps with a broad smile. Rebecca looks so beautiful it almost hurts my eyes. Plus she saves people, whereas I arrest them. Whenever I’m around her I leave little drops of self-esteem in my wake. I really have to stop that or I’ll have none left.