Shoot

by Kieran Crowley

  “Was that well known?” Izzy asked.

  “No, not to the public, just to… oh, I see what you mean. Any Capitol insiders would know.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “But did the others also have their smoke alarms here disconnected last night?”

  “I… I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”

  “Where are they right now?” I asked her. “Have you spoken to them today? Where are their rooms?”

  “Uh… somewhere on the fifteenth floor, I think. Let me look them up.”

  “Shepherd, are you saying we may have a problem?” Izzy demanded, catching my drift.

  “I’m not saying anything yet. I just think we have to locate Congressmen Blanchette and Hatfield. Like, right now.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Karl Bundt, the Executive Protection Service boss, joining us.

  “Oh my God,” Tiffany said. “Yes, rooms 1509 and 1511.”

  Izzy turned to Karl. “Come with us. Let’s keep it low key, okay?”

  “Izzy, you know I’m very discreet,” I said, as we left the room.

  “Bullshit,” Izzy said. “Every time you say that, some shit blows up on the front page.”

  32

  In the elevator I got an email and I sneaked a look. It was from Mel—a link to the front page of the Daily Press website:

  CHESTERFIELD ASSASSINATED

  Presidential Hopeful Slain

  in NY Convention Mystery

  EXCLUSIVE By F.X. Shepherd

  Next to my byline was a small box with my face in it. We’re in it now, I realized. Every one of the thousands of reporters and photographers here for the convention would be breathing down our necks, with more to come. A media clusterfuck of epic proportions. I groaned, as I spotted another headline:

  ONCE IN THE CHESTERFIELD

  “Shepherd,” Izzy asked me softly. “What the hell do you think the weapon is?”

  “Not sure. It kinda looked like a fifty but it didn’t go through. That makes no sense, unless you took half the powder out of the shell.”

  “So the muzzle flash did all that stippling?” Izzy asked.

  “I guess. But if somebody pointed a motherfucking fifty-caliber monster at you, wouldn’t you at least try to pull your piece?”

  “I would. But maybe it was really fast—a sawn-off shotgun, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  When we got out on the fifteenth floor, we found two of Karl’s agents—who he had summoned by radio—waiting for us with their guns drawn.

  “How are we going to get in?” I asked.

  “The hotel people are on their way up,” Karl answered. “In case.”

  There was a concierge waiting by the rooms, which were next to each other. A dozen more security suits arrived, also ready to rumble. Bundt rang the bells to both suites several times. Couldn’t just kick them in. These were congressmen, after all. Then he nodded at the concierge, who handed him two keycards.

  “Ready?” Bundt asked his troops. “Go!”

  The agents stacked up in two single files, nuts to butts. He flung both doors open. In three seconds, the conga lines of suits stopped short and concertinaed. Bundt was already giving orders to back out. I could smell the gunpowder.

  “Okay,” Izzy announced. “We got two more. Secure these rooms. No entry. Set up a sign-in sheet now for anyone who went in. Phil, get Crime Scene up here. Call the boss, the commissioner’s office. He needs to call the friggin’ mayor.”

  “It’s the same damn mess as downstairs,” Bundt groaned, holstering his weapon. “Three of them!”

  He began to shake with rage, his fists clenched. That made me think.

  “The same as downstairs, Izzy?” I asked.

  “Yeah, carbon copies,” Izzy agreed.

  “A hell of a lot of carbon,” Phil observed. “I agree with the pet detective—it’s strange. Smells funny.”

  “And no weapon found?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Izzy said. “Oh, moth-er-fuck-er!”

  Bundt looked confused. I turned to one of the hotel security people.

  “Tell us about the smoke detectors.”

  “Oh. Well… um… officially, that didn’t happen,” she said.

  “We don’t give a shit. We’re not fire marshals,” I told her. “What I mean is, was it only three rooms?”

  “Oh. I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “Find out now!” Izzy ordered.

  “Oh, no…” Bundt said softly, as if he didn’t mean to say it out loud. “No. No. No.”

  The woman got on her radio. “Maintenance say that—for, uh, security reasons—they shut off twelve smoke detectors last night—two each in six different rooms.”

  “Oh, Christ!” wailed Bundt, grabbing the radio from her. “Three more? Where? What are the fucking room numbers?”

  Once he had them he told Izzy that he and his men would do entries on the remaining rooms immediately. He left one of his guys with us to safeguard the scenes and they rushed off.

  “Poor bastard,” Izzy said.

  “Yeah,” Phil agreed.

  “He’s a good man,” the EPS security guy said. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Deserve’s got nothin’ ta do with it,” said Phil, who liked to quote movie lines.

  “I’m no different from Karl,” I told Izzy. “I was getting paid to keep someone safe and I fucked up.”

  “You weren’t guarding the Speaker or the others,” Tiffany said. “And you’ve only been on this for one day. The other agencies have been on it for months.”

  “She’s right, Shepherd,” Izzy said.

  “No way,” I said.

  Nobody said anything for a while. Izzy and I stood at the entrance to one of the rooms and looked in. A bald man in a white terrycloth bathrobe was on his back, his hairy pink legs sticking out. His wound was more on his left side than Chesterfield’s; his ribs seemed bent inwards around the bloody hole. The bathrobe had burned more than the polyester shirt and silk tie of the Speaker—the flames had also damaged this man’s face. The spray pattern of carbon, the powder burns and charcoal embedded in the skin, could still be seen where there was less blood. This also seemed hours old.

  “Which one is this?” Izzy asked Tiffany, who was sniffling quietly.

  I resisted the urge to hold her.

  “Congressman Abner Hatfield,” Tiffany said, in a shaky voice.

  We moved to the adjacent open door. A younger man, with a full head of black hair, dressed in a silver three-piece suit and tie. The wound was very similar to Chesterfield’s. A glass lay on the carpet, where it had fallen from his hand.

  “Senator Robert Blanchette,” Tiffany informed us.

  “They knew or trusted whoever did this,” I said.

  “Looks like it,” Izzy agreed. “The doors all have peepholes. They all let the killer in.”

  The EPS security man touched a finger to one ear and then spoke into his sleeve. He shook his head in disgust.

  “Two more homicides,” he said. “Virtually the same as these three. The sixth room is empty, no signs of violence. No weapon recovered, no suspect. They are confirming the identities of the other deceased and looking for the missing person now. Lockdown continues. Evacuation and search of adjacent structures. Securing hotel security video. Notifications are FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, White House, FAA, TSA, Pentagon. Secret Service is barring all civilian weapons from the premises. All protectees are being secured.”

  “Oh my God,” Tiffany gasped in realization. “Five?”

  In deference to the lady, Izzy cursed in Spanish very softly. Phil and I echoed him in English. I suggested to the EPS agent that they do a head count of politicos, VIPs, and delegates as soon as possible—to see who was still alive. He got on his radio.

  This was bad, even for America. Everyone carrying automatic weapons and five members of Congress, including one of the next two presidential candidates, assassinated at a political convention.

  Talk about smoke-fi
lled rooms.

  33

  I updated Mel at the paper. He had trouble believing me.

  “Are you flicking sure about this, Shepherd? Nobody else has this.”

  “Mel, I’m looking at two of the five bodies as we speak, Congressman Abner Hatfield and Senator Bob Blanchette. Same method as Chesterfield—apparently shot at point-blank range.”

  I took more phone shots and sent them to Mel but ordered him not to publish them.

  “Christ on a crutch,” Mel said when he saw them. “With Chesterfield dead, who will the coke-sucking Republicans put up for pumping president?”

  “No clue, Mel. I’ll let you know. Don’t you have a reporter at the Knickerbocker?”

  “Yeah, right, of course. Lane Barnett. Rich, filching trust-fund brat who can’t find his wiener with a bun. All he’s good for is reading mucking media releases and going to puking press conferences, especially if they’re catered.”

  Mel said literally the whole office was working on my story, cranking out sidebar stories on Chesterfield’s career and the presidential race—who might go for the gold now. I told Mel that the Knickerbocker was locked down and I would have to stay in the building. He told me he had Sparky Clarke sneaking in and Sparky would contact me. I said I would get back to him when I had the names of the other victims.

  I FaceTimed Mary Catherine. My former commander, now a federal prosecutor, appeared to be seated at a Starbucks downtown, near Federal Circle where she worked. Sipping one of those highly enriched uranium-caffeine blends that fueled her, Mary Catherine was in her dark power suit and power ponytail.

  “Hey, Shepherd,” Mary Catherine said. “Okay, your new boss, Speaker Chesterfield, threw his weight around with a call to Washington, and the FBI agents got orders to bust the Aryan Purity Nation cell pretty damn quick—and they came up empty.”

  “Why didn’t they wait until they had some people before springing the trap?” I asked.

  “Political orders. Results now. Screw the case, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

  “How many bad guys in the breeze?”

  “Three in the cell, other than the informant. Several more at either end of the guns and explosives pipeline but we know less about them. If we got all their weapons and fireworks, then it was a good bust.”

  “There are always more guns.”

  “Time will tell.”

  “Terrific. I need the address of the bust.”

  Mary Catherine said it was in a Hasidic neighborhood, Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, and she gave me the street address.

  “So, Shepherd, how’s Jane?” she asked.

  When I didn’t respond immediately, she asked what was wrong. Just what I needed. Another mom.

  “It’s okay, Mary Catherine. I think I just scared her a little bit. She thinks I’m a twisted adrenaline junkie.”

  “Oh, crud,” she said. “She found out already?”

  She asked why Jane would get that impression and I told her of my run-in with Jay-Jay and his minions.

  “You idiot,” Mary Catherine said. “You really do have a death wish. And a mobster’s kid? Nice choice. Do you want me to talk to Jane?”

  Maybe a very sexy, slightly older woman would be the absolute wrong person to talk to Jane about me at this point.

  “I’ll let you know, thanks.”

  “Okay. So, how’s the new private eye job so far? Lots of danger, secret intrigue and kinky casual sex?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “What?”

  “You haven’t heard the news?”

  “No.”

  I told her.

  “Oh my God. You’re in it now, Shepherd.”

  “Yeah, so are you. C’mon in, the adrenaline’s fine.”

  “Watch your tight ass, Shepherd.”

  I called Amy and brought her up to date.

  “Well, I guess we’re dead in the water,” Amy said. “The feds will find out who did this. The party doesn’t need us anymore. Come back and walk your dog. Our contract died with Chesterfield.”

  “I don’t give a damn. I’m on this ’til we get the bastards,” I told her. “And right now NYPD is on it.”

  “Hey, that’s the spirit, Shepherd. Okay, I’ll have somebody walk Skippy. Put Tiffany on.”

  I went and found Tiffany. The women spoke for a few minutes, then Tiffany ended the call and handed me my phone back.

  “You’re still on the case until the election is over or until you get the killer,” Tiffany said.

  “Can you do that?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “Unless the party committee overrules me later. I may have to work for them soon. Shoot, Percy is…” She began to tear up again.

  “Okay. It doesn’t matter. Money or not, I’m on this.”

  “Old-fashioned work ethic?” Tiffany smiled. “Talk about family values.”

  “Nope. Business. Who would hire a pathetic private detective who not only lost his first client but then couldn’t even get the bastard who did it?”

  “Right,” she agreed. “So you’ll find out who it was and lock them up.”

  “I’m not really trained in law enforcement,” I shrugged. “I prefer to settle out of court.”

  34

  My phone vibrated. An incoming email, marked urgent.

  NEW MINUTEMEN COMMUNIQUE

  Hello. I clicked on the message and showed it to Tiffany.

  The new minutemen have fired the shots heard round the world. We, the people, here in occupied jew york territory, have fired the first volley in the war of re-independence. Don’t tread on us. Collaborator percy chesterfield and five henchmen and women have been felled by the second amendment measures of our forefathers. More will follow until we have taken back our country from foreigners for we, the people.

  Jew York? Morons.

  “Oh, my God,” Tiffany gasped. “The bastards. This is unreal.”

  “Yeah, especially about the women and five henchmen. They shot Percy and four others. Not six. And no women.”

  “Perhaps they mean they will shoot more, including women,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I found Izzy and showed him the message, which was from newminutemen1@freedomhack.com.

  “Oh, man,” Izzy groaned. “How do we know these guys are real? Anybody could put this crap out.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Let’s see what they know.”

  I replied to the email, asking for “non-public details” of the attacks. They bumped right back. Izzy and I read the response together.

  All twelve smoke alarms in six rooms were shut off by the targets. Chesterfield had a cigarette in his right hand and blanchette was drinking when we the people administered the sentences of death. In all future communication we will use code phrase: oldnorthchurch4181775.

  Old North Church. Minutemen. 4181775. The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and the date—April eighteenth, seventeen seventy-five. Cute.

  “Jesus, these guys act like pros,” Izzy said. “That’s not good. None of that stuff is public.”

  “Yeah but they already made mistakes,” I pointed out. “They said six victims and included women. There are only five victims and they’re all male.”

  “That’s true, amigo. I wonder why? Don’t correct them yet, until we find out.”

  “What about the sixth room—the one that was empty? Who was supposed to be there? Do we have a dead congresswoman somewhere?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  In a few minutes, Izzy had the sixth room number and we went there. It was blocked off and a shaken Karl Bundt was on his cellphone.

  “No, escort her back up,” Bundt was saying. “Heavy security. Now.”

  Bundt glared at me with hatred and didn’t answer when I asked him whose room this was. Izzy asked the same question.

  “Senator Katharine Carroll of Minnesota. She’s on the way up under guard,” Karl said.

  “Was she in her room last night?” Izzy pressed.

  “We
’ll find out in a minute,” Karl snipped.

  We all waited until we heard an elevator opening and an attractive middle-aged blonde in a red power suit strode around the corner, surrounded by nervous security suits. She had a hunting rifle in a camouflage pattern that complemented her outfit, slung over her shoulder. I noticed there was no magazine in the weapon. Next to the senator was a thin, pretty young girl with the same hair and face, about fourteen years old—obviously her daughter.

  Karl moved forward but Izzy and Phil stepped in front of him. He looked furious.

  “Senator Carroll? I’m Detective Lieutenant Izzy Negron of NYPD’s Major Case Squad. We have a few questions for you, please.”

  “Of course, Lieutenant,” she said, entering her suite. “You’re investigating these terrible murders?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Were you in this room last night?”

  “Yes, I was here with my daughter Allyson. She arrived late yesterday evening, a bit of a surprise. She’s writing a report for school.”

  “So, your daughter was unexpected?” I asked.

  “Yes,” the senator said.

  “Senator, did you have the smoke alarm shut off in your rooms last night?”

  “The smoke alarm?” she asked, nervously. “No. Why would I do that? I don’t smoke. Isn’t that illegal?”

  I took a deep breath through my nose. There was no smell of gunpowder. Other faint odors lingered in the air— cigarette smoke. On the ceiling, there was no flashing green light on the smoke detector. It was still off.

  “Did anyone knock on your door last night?” asked Izzy. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen?”

  “No. No one. Nothing. It was very quiet, wasn’t it, Allyson?”

  “Yup,” Allyson agreed.

  The senator expressed her sadness over the slayings and said she had no idea why anyone would want to harm her. She had not received any recent threats.

  “Of course, we all get threats in our line of country but I don’t recall anything unusual. Is there anything else? I have more meetings and I have to change. I have to rethink my speech, in light of this tragedy. These are difficult times,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Izzy said.