Shoot

by Kieran Crowley

  51

  Izzy arrived with Phil, who was carrying a case folder. I stood and shook their hands. They looked at me and at each other.

  “You were supposed to be cuffed,” Izzy said.

  “Maybe they forgot,” I told them. “That whole show was really stupid, Izzy. You wasted a lot of time and probably blew our edge.”

  “I had no choice,” he protested. “I can’t take a chance with bomb shit. You tied my hands. I’ve got the commissioner, the mayor, the governor and the president looking over my shoulder.”

  “More reason not to drop the ball,” I told him.

  “We also have to deal with that question I have for you. Sit down and tell me again what you did the night Chesterfield and his pals were killed.”

  I asked him if he was kidding. He wasn’t. He said he had to ask.

  “Why?”

  “You want a lawyer?”

  “No. Tell me why.”

  “Why did you have a key to Chesterfield’s room?”

  “What? I didn’t.”

  “You sure?” Phil asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I didn’t have any key. I wasn’t a guest there.”

  “Exactly,” said Phil, placing the folder on the desk and extracting a plastic evidence bag with a gold keycard, smudged with black fingerprint powder.

  “Do you know what this is?” Izzy asked.

  “Looks like a keycard.”

  “Yes, it is. In fact, it is a coded key to Chesterfield’s suite. It was found inside his room, on the rug behind the door during the CSU search.”

  “And?”

  “Is this yours?”

  “No.”

  “Then can you tell us how your index finger and thumbprint got on this card found at the scene of the homicide?”

  “What? You’re serious?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  This shit was falling apart, a soup sandwich.

  “Izzy, Phil, I didn’t have any room keys. The only… wait… When Tiffany and I went out after the smoke alarm went off that night, to Chesterfield’s room… she left her copy of his room key on the counter and asked me to grab it. I did and handed it to her. That could be it!”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Izzy asked.

  “You never asked before. I didn’t know it was a thing. Tiffany took that card from me and I never touched it— or any other room key—again. That’s the truth. Take it or leave it. What does Tiffany say?”

  “She admits that she had a key to Chesterfield’s room but she doesn’t know where it went,” Phil said. “She said she used it to get into his room when she found the body and then she lost track of it.”

  “Okay, there you go. She opened the door, found her boss blown away and dropped the card. You said it was found on the rug behind the door?”

  “Yeah,” Izzy admitted, “but she doesn’t remember dropping it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “The key is the same color as the rug. If Tiffany dropped it when she found Chesterfield, it could have been swept behind the door when she let me in. You asked her if I had a key?”

  They looked at each other.

  “She said you had no key,” Phil admitted. “As far as she knew. Of course, she could be protecting you.”

  “Ha. But my prints were on the card you found. Were her prints on the card?”

  “We have some partials, nothing definitive. The problem with women is that so many use hand lotions that can smudge prints. We need her to come in for full prints of the sides of her fingers, hands and palms,” Izzy said. “Also DNA.”

  “That’s her card and I handed it to her. She dropped it. Get her in here now so we can settle this.”

  “Can’t,” Izzy said. “She’s out of town. Back in Washington.”

  “Oh, okay. Meanwhile, the APN bad guys are skating because you’re investigating me. What about prints on the drone and camera?”

  “Wiped clean, under all that pigeon mess,” Izzy said. “Identifying marks on the whirlybird have been removed. We’re trying to trace the purchase history of the drone and the camera but nothing yet. We’re waiting for TARU to set up a screening of the SIM card video from the digital camera. They said they’d be ready in about ten minutes.”

  I asked and was told that TARU was the NYPD’s Technical Assistance Response Unit.

  “Dinner and a movie sounds good, after what you did to me, Izzy. Maybe flowers and candy, too. Can I have my cellphone back now? I have to call Jane. Where are you taking us to dinner?”

  “I’m taking you to dinner?” Izzy asked, handing me back my phone.

  “Goddamn right you are,” I replied.

  “I hear Katz’s Delicatessen has a great shredded squab special,” Phil suggested.

  52

  While Izzy took a call, I asked Phil if they had turned up anything on Karl Bundt, the EPS security guy.

  “Oh, yeah. Turns out he used to be in the Secret Service until he violated regs on public speaking on the web. That’s how he ended up at the EPS.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “He did a Tea Party rant?”

  “You saw it?”

  “No, but that’s interesting.”

  “Doesn’t prove anything. He’s not a suspect,” said Phil. “Leave the poor guy alone.”

  I phoned Jane and apologized for the delay, explaining what happened. She got quiet after I got to the part about the explosive. I could hear computer keys clicking, as she accessed the Daily Press story. I quickly explained that there was no real danger but she knew I was lying.

  “I had a good excuse for not calling,” I told her, attempting humor. “I was handcuffed.”

  “A better excuse would have been if you were dead,” she replied coolly.

  I looked at my paper’s newest stories—most with my byline—about my close encounter with the drone. The part with the detonator being triggered and exploding in the sewer was all in the copy. I was credited with “averting a deadly blast by just seconds with quick thinking.”

  KILLER DRONE

  Daily Press Reporter Captures Buzz Bomb

  Killer? The story put together by a rewrite person—from my notes and Sparky’s photos—also made it clear that I was bringing down the spy drone to help police solve the political assassinations. But, looking around at Phil and Izzy, who were staring at the TV where CNN was displaying my headlines behind a red breaking news banner, I didn’t detect any gratitude. After the KILLER DRONE headline, the TV showed another headline on a sidebar story asking who was controlling the drone—the Aryan Purity Nation or someone else?

  Sparky’s photos of the drone and me in the park were included with the story. He also took a shot of the smashed car back on Seventh Avenue. I told Jane I would call her back. Even when I wasn’t trying, I couldn’t do anything without pissing everybody off. I called Mel at the paper.

  “What now?” Mel joked. “You bring down a mother-jumping satellite?”

  “Why did you call it a killer drone, Mel?” I asked. “You’re scaring my girlfriend. Nobody was killed.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting those pigeons? It was obviously set up to be a flying bomb, to fogging kill people. It was probably sent by the killers. The dork-wads tried to blow you up, didn’t they?”

  “They probably wanted to blow up the drone, not necessarily me. The problem is that it makes it look like they’re out to bomb the public.”

  “We never actually said that,” Mel was quick to point out. “It was a frikking bomb. It was flagging flying. Don’t piss on your own story, Shepherd.”

  “But you have some random woman in the fourth graf, saying she is terrified that the killers are now out to blow us up.”

  “Public reaction,” Mel said. “Completely routine. Mrs. Nussbaum is entitled to her gong-banging opinion. This is America, anthole.”

  “I gotta go, Mel. The cops want to yell at me for all my help.”

  My phone rang again.

  “Hi, Sparky. What’s up?”

  “What happene
d?” he asked. “Where are you?”

  I told him about my brief incarceration. “Did you look at the video from the drone yet?” I asked him.

  “No, not yet. Had to get the pictures and your story online first. The cops still giving you a hard time?”

  “Yup.”

  “Skippy wants to know where you are.”

  “Okay, c’mon down. I need a ride,” I said, taking a second call on hold. “Hi, Amy.”

  I had to go through everything again for her and she wasn’t happy.

  “When were you going to tell me about this drone?” she demanded.

  “Amy, they handcuffed me.”

  “Those ungrateful assholes.”

  “I agree. Listen, can I call back? These guys are giving me the stink-eye.”

  “You need to decide which side you’re on,” Izzy informed me.

  “Your bosses are embarrassed,” I guessed, putting my phone away.

  “Sure,” Izzy said. “They wanted you to keep it quiet so they could take credit for it at a press conference. But it’s more than that. Aside from the chain of evidence thing, nobody wants a glory hog running around bragging about how he’s solving the case alone.”

  “Yeah, that’s our boss’s job,” Phil said.

  “It’s not my call, Shepherd,” Izzy continued. “We are a team and you are not. You got fired from your GOP gig but you’re still working for the private eye firm and your newspaper. And you want to work with us and have us help you. You can’t work for everybody at the same time, Shepherd. Pick a side.”

  “Actually I can work for everybody. And they’re not sides—we’re all after the same thing. The drone thing just happened and I did the best I could. I bring you guys a break in the case. All your superiors care about is who gets credit in the paper. I’m not redeploying again. This is why I won’t take orders anymore.”

  “Sorry, Shepherd. I’ve still got orders,” Izzy said. “You’re a great detective but a royal pain in the ass. Either you agree to become an unofficial—and very silent—part of the chain of command or we escort you from the building now and release a statement that you have nothing to do with the investigation.”

  It looked like I was getting fired for the second time that day. “Do your bosses realize that if I decline the offer it means I won’t give them any more information?”

  “I think they are prepared to take the risk that they won’t care about anything you come up with on your own,” Izzy replied.

  “Does that mean they’re giving me back the drone and the Semtex? I’m going to keep at it until I get the people who killed Chesterfield and the others,” I told Izzy. “So, no deal.”

  Izzy and Phil walked me to the elevator and out of One Police Plaza into the warm evening air.

  “Does this mean you’re not taking me out to dinner?”

  53

  Skippy was sitting up front in the van next to Sparky, his head out the open window. He barked at me as I approached. I shot a quick glance at the sky but didn’t spot another drone.

  “Skippy and Sparky—the A-Team,” I grinned, getting into the back seat.

  “More like Scooby-Doo,” Sparky laughed. “If he’s some kind of Eskimo hound, shouldn’t he like whale blubber or something? This monster ate three double cheeseburgers in, like, ten seconds. And an apple pie and most of my fries.”

  Skippy almost never met a food he didn’t like. All this eating talk was making me hungry. I called Jane and told her I was on my way. My phone vibrated in my hand with an arriving text.

  It was my New Minutemen friends with a new message, which was preceded by the OLDNORTHCHURCH4181775 verification code:

  I did not like the sound of the last part. I forwarded the message to Mel, so he could slap it on the web. It was a non-denial denial. They didn’t claim the drone wasn’t theirs or that it didn’t have explosives attached—just that they weren’t going to commit random terrorism. Gee, thanks.

  Mel called right away.

  “What the hell does this cup-stroking crap mean?”

  “The first part means they deny they were out to bomb people. The second part is both good and bad. The good news is that they say they’re leaving New York and going home. Bad news? They’re on their way to a national Phase Two, wherever and whatever that is.”

  “Which could be bad bugging news for someone, somewhere else, right? Best guess when?” Mel asked.

  “I would say within a day or two and I would assume it will be kinetic.”

  “Kinetic?”

  “Yeah, ballistic, like in bullets. Violence.”

  “Umm… we’ll watch the wires, okay, I’ll goose it and juice it. Shepherd, you think they think you’re an enemy of the porking people?”

  “I’ve gotta go, Mel. Long day.”

  I was going to forward the message to Izzy but I hesitated. I sent it to my US Attorney friend Mary Catherine first. After I thought about it, I copied the message to Izzy, since he was just following orders. Another message hit my phone. Again, from my psycho drone masters, complete with authentication code.

  Nice to be singled out in dispatches. I wondered who else might be getting warnings. I called around quickly. No one. Just me.

  Sparky parked his NYP press plate van right in front of Jane’s place. As we walked toward the door, my third eye twitched. I instinctively looked up, ready for another kamikaze drone in the sky but saw nothing.

  “What?” Sparky asked.

  “Nothing, I guess.”

  As we walked up the steps, I turned suddenly and just caught a lithe black figure topped in red ducking behind a tree across the street.

  “Hi, Ginny,” I yelled.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Hold on a second,” I told Sparky.

  Ginny McElhone gave up her stealthy act as I crossed the street. Skippy wagged his tail. Ginny scratched his head.

  “Please stop following me, Ginny.”

  “I’m not following you. I’m staking you out,” she corrected me, with a cute smirk.

  “Where are your thugs?”

  “Look, Shepherd, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “You’re going to deny you sent them?”

  “Yes. No… Look, I’m not the one you have to… Shepherd, they really want you back. They asked me to ask you. You know, because we used to…”

  “Your gang pals want me back?” I asked, confused.

  “No, asshole. The Mail. They want to hire you back. Now. Tonight—for more money.”

  “Who does?”

  “The paper, I told you.”

  “No, I mean, who at the paper told you to ask me? Most of the guys I worked for when I was there… aren’t there anymore. They aren’t anywhere.”

  “The new editor.”

  “Who’s the new editor?”

  “We’re not supposed to use the editor’s name. You have to understand that they have had it with you beating us on this story. Will you come back for more money? We could work closely together again. I’d like that.” Ginny took my hand. “You’d like that. You did before.”

  Sex with Ginny was hot but I’d learned the hard way you couldn’t take it personally.

  “Pass,” I told her, disengaging. “See you ’round.”

  “Wait! Please, Shepherd. I’m asking you not to say no. Seriously. I like you. I don’t want to see you… C’mon, be smart. Take the money. What’s the difference? You have to trust me.”

  I laughed all the way into Jane’s house.

  “What did Queen Maleficent want?” Sparky asked.

  “She’s still hot for my bod.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  I turned for a quick look. Ginny was in the same spot. I expected her to talk smack at me but she didn’t look like her usual angry self. I had never seen this expression on her face before.

  Ginny looked scared.

  54

  Skippy and I could smell the Mongolian barbecue, which Jane had reheated in the microwave: bowls of stir-fried chicke
n, beef and vegetables, with sides of brown rice. It was a close thing but I actually ate almost half of the beef bowl before Skippy got to it. While I chewed, I told Jane about my in-custody experience.

  “So, the cops have fired you, too?” she asked.

  “Well, NYPD never hired me,” I pointed out.

  “I don’t know, Shepherd.” Jane smirked. “Sounds like you can’t keep a job.”

  “I still work for the paper and for Amy. I only lost two out of four of my jobs.”

  When Amy arrived, I brought her up to speed. Then she fired me.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I asked.

  “Think about it, Shepherd. On the record I have to terminate you—so I can continue my relationships with the GOP, NYPD, the feds and everybody else who doesn’t like you. You’re a freelancer. I can’t fire someone I never hired. I’ll stay in touch. Unofficially, of course,” she assured me.

  “Does that mean I still get paid?” I asked. “Unofficially?”

  She thought for a bit. “You’ll get paid in cash. For now.”

  Sparky got out his laptop and set it up on Jane’s kitchen table. He said the drone camera copy contained a big file and it would take a few minutes to upload.

  Jane took out a small notebook and told us what she had learned at the other autopsies earlier in the day.

  “I think I told you about our friend Congressman Hatfield’s strategic ‘HOT STUFF’ tattoo?”