Shoot

by Kieran Crowley

  I strode to the bar and ordered an arak. A pretty bartender asked my name. She went away, spoke into a phone and returned with my favorite liquor. I wished I could afford to eat here.

  “Mr. Shepherd, Henri asked me to welcome you and tell you that everything is prepared.”

  “Thank you.”

  I took a slug of arak. Some of the other customers, especially a young lady with a flaming blue martini, looked familiar. I looked back toward the entrance. Next to that was the exit to the dining room, a grand staircase down one floor.

  Henri appeared in whites and kissed me on both cheeks.

  “So, Shepherd, everything is in place for you, my friend. What are we doing this evening?”

  “Just a little Shanghai Surprise, Henri. I really appreciate you doing this on short notice.”

  “Shanghai?”

  “Just an expression. Make sure all dinners and drinks go on my paper’s card.”

  “Okay, no problem. Please, what is a Shanghai Surprise?”

  “A joke with two people. Like when you think a bomb is a fake but it isn’t.”

  “This is a joke?”

  “For one of them.”

  73

  Bryce arrived on time, in a snug black V-neck cocktail dress and black stiletto heels. She kissed me on the cheek and slid onto the bar stool by my side. She ordered a London Fog, a frosted concoction that overflowed with what looked like dry ice. She asked what we had found at the hotel but I told her it would have to wait until dessert.

  The maître d’ appeared with two menus and Bryce slid her hand into the crook of my elbow as we followed him down the grand staircase. The lower floor of the restaurant was decked out like a movie set, with giant potted palms, huge red velvet drapes, large Ming vases, round tables covered with white cloths, and burgundy leather chairs. It was done up like a Victorian gentlemen’s supper club, set inside a giant greenhouse.

  The waiter seated us in comfortable armchairs and left us with the menus. I noticed several familiar faces. Random celebs.

  “This place is amazing,” Bryce said. “It smells great in here.”

  “That may be your menu. It’s edible.”

  I took a nibble off the corner of my menu. It tasted like French cheese, but crunchy. God knows what it really was. I sampled some of the green lettering and got a taste of basil pesto. Inside, there were sections for sous vide. It was best not to think about your shrink-wrapped duck entrée being bathed in lukewarm water for a few days before you got there. Better to just let your mouth enjoy the orgy.

  We had a caviar appetizer of translucent red globes, with tiny egg white balls in the center. The salads were crunchy green pine cones that tasted like arugula and were topped with maple ginger sauce and fruit. Maybe. I had a duck that was incredible. The fat had been removed between the skin and the muscle and replaced with bittersweet chutney potato foam. Bryce went wild for her salmon and said it was the best she had ever eaten. We had more drinks. I talked about my big stories. She talked about the famous people who came to her hotel.

  “This is totally swag but I can’t wait anymore,” Bryce said. “What did you find in the rooms today?”

  “Hold on one minute,” I told her, waving to a nearby table. “I see someone I know.”

  Izzy and Phil, already on their coffee, waved back and came over. Bryce looked confused. I quickly signaled our waiter, who nodded.

  “Bryce, you remember Lieutenant Izzy Negron and Detective Sergeant Phil D’Amico?”

  “Yes, I think so,” she said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “What’s new, guys?” I asked them.

  We were interrupted by the magical arrival of our coffee and desserts. Each chocolate dessert was a perfect replica on a white plate—an octagonal gray tube, artfully garnished by a little square of yellow silky material, a neat pile of black granules and a shiny silver ball. On the white plate rim, spelled out in blood red letters, was her name.

  Bryce jumped out of her chair, her napkin falling from her lap.

  “What is that?” she tried.

  “You tell us,” Izzy suggested. “You reacted as if it were a rattlesnake.”

  “I don’t know what it is.”

  “Sorry I frightened you, Bryce, just a little joke,” I said, reaching out across the tabletop for her hand. I took her by the wrist and turned her hand over. With my other hand, I grabbed my chocolate tube and fitted the butt end perfectly into the injured pattern on the heel of her hand. She jerked her hand back.

  “We found five weapons just like that today,” I told her. “Except they weren’t made out of chocolate.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snipped, her cool returning.

  “So you say,” Izzy said. “We’ve been questioning a guy named Norton Pyle. You may know him, Miss Draper—he’s a handyman at your hotel.”

  “Oh… yes, the name does sound familiar. Why are you questioning him?”

  “Because he had access to the toilets at the crime scenes, of course. He lied at first but he quickly admitted installing six sets of double clips inside the toilet tanks,” Izzy told her.

  “So you’re saying some kind of weapon was hidden in the bathrooms and one of our people was involved? That’s awful. I should inform management.”

  “We already have, Miss Draper,” Izzy said. “We understand you were working the overnight shift at the hotel the night Chesterfield and the others were murdered?”

  “Yes, I was,” she said, digging into her tubular treat.

  “Anything unusual happen that night, Miss Draper?”

  “You mean other than five murders?” Her cool was totally restored. “Shepherd, this is really yummy.”

  “How many breaks do you get on your shift?” Phil asked.

  “Two,” she answered, “at three and six. Why?”

  “Where did you go on your breaks?” Phil pressed. “What did you do?”

  “I don’t remember. Probably to the bathroom, the lunchroom.”

  “Have any witnesses?”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t you supposed to prove people guilty, as opposed to people proving they are innocent?”

  “So you have no witnesses,” Izzy snapped. “What are your politics, Miss Draper?”

  “I’m a registered Independent,” she said, rolling the silver ball in the red sauce. “I’m currently undecided. This crunchy gunpowder is amazing. The green square is banana and something else. Is the silver ball white chocolate and amaretto?”

  “Miss Draper, do you have any information about these killings?”

  “Me? Not guilty.” She scraped the plate clean. “Obviously, if I did, as a good citizen I would have told you immediately. Shepherd, thanks for a lovely evening but did you bring me here just to spring this elaborate prank?”

  “Guilty.”

  “I’m disappointed. Unless you gentlemen need any more of my help tonight, I’m going home. Again, Shepherd, thanks for a memorable evening.”

  She blotted her red lips with her napkin and stood up, smoothing her skirt. Bryce kissed me on the cheek and walked away. She was quite a dish.

  “She is guilty as shit,” Izzy declared. “Almost jumped out of her panties.”

  “Second the motion,” Phil agreed. “She knew exactly what that was.”

  “Yeah. Be nice to have some proof,” I ventured. “But that missing security footage is gone forever, I think.”

  “Yes, and the handyman didn’t implicate Bryce in any way,” said Izzy. “Pyle claimed the job was set up by phone, by somebody who knew about his criminal record. The man—a man not a woman—threatened to get him fired unless he cooperated. He said he met a guy on a dark street and was given an envelope with ten thousand bucks in hundreds. He swore he only installed the clips and had no clue what they were for.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “Still being questioned downtown. And we’ve got nothing concrete on Bryce. She’s never been arrested, nothing shad
y in her past, grew up in Connecticut, attended all the right schools.”

  “Terrific. So, how did you guys like your gourmet meal, courtesy of the Daily Press?” I asked.

  “Two thumbs up,” said Phil. “Are you going to eat your chocolate musket?”

  74

  Izzy and Phil gave me a ride home in the back seat of their unmarked car and we talked about how to go at Bryce. Phone taps were ordered into place, surveillance begun and further background checks arranged, plus routine shoe leather, like talking to her neighbors, family, friends, co-workers.

  “Shepherd, I gotta say that was the most ridiculous piece of police work I ever saw,” Izzy told me from the front passenger seat. “Also, maybe the best.”

  “Also delicious, expensive and fattening,” Phil added from behind the wheel. “But next time, let us in on the gag from the beginning. It might have been better to build a case slow. Like that food.”

  I told them I figured if they started grilling her co-workers and neighbors, Bryce would have found out quickly and the element of surprise would have vanished, especially since my story was hitting the website. They didn’t dispute that. I suggested we discuss Bryce in the morning and got out at Jane’s house.

  “Just so we’re clear,” Phil told me through the open window, “anytime you want to pay to question suspects at that fancy joint, I’m in.”

  I went inside to say hello to Skippy, who was wild from being cooped up inside. Jane was still not home. I checked my phone, which was stuffed with messages: Mel wanted to know what new follow-up lead I had for the morning. Jane apologized for an emergency that was keeping her late. Ginny Mac begged me to call her. There were lots of other messages from my colleagues in TV and radio, who saw my latest scoop and wanted to get more out of me. I called Jane first.

  “Sorry, Shepherd, I had an emergency surgery,” she told me. “I was worried about you. Give me another half hour to make sure the patient comes around in recovery okay, then I can come home. We had pizza here. How was your dinner?”

  “Sweet. Izzy and Phil loved it but our guest was shocked by dessert. I’ll tell you later. I’m taking Skippy out for a run now. Why were you worried about me?”

  “I don’t know, I just had a scary feeling before but you’re fine. See you soon.”

  Skippy and I took off, toward my meeting with Tiffany at ten. I called Mel and told him we could go with another exclusive—Tea Party Animal suspects being questioned by cops. I made his night.

  “You Fokker, that’s what I’m talking about! Yes!”

  I called Ginny Mac. Because I’m such a nice guy.

  “Thank God you called!” Ginny said. “I gotta see you, tonight!”

  “No thanks, Ginny. It was fun, in a masochistic sort of way, but we’re done, okay?”

  “You don’t understand, Shepherd. You have to back off. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Why would you suddenly start doing that?”

  “I can’t talk on the phone.”

  “Tell me now or forget it.”

  “Damn you, okay. Look, Faith told her son to get you and—”

  “Thanks, Ginny, but that’s old news. I took care of that. Seeya.”

  “No, asshole, let me talk. I heard her talking about you. She said she and you were even-up. She was done with you.”

  “There you go.”

  “No, there you go. Then she said that was okay because she heard somebody else out there was going to punch your ticket.”

  “Who?”

  “I have no clue. You should back off, be careful.”

  “She’s probably talking about the Tea Party Animals but how would she know?”

  “I don’t know but… you know her family business… and one thing criminals do is sell illegal guns. Maybe she heard something.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, thanks, Ginny.”

  “You’re welcome. Maybe sometime we could just hang out?”

  “Sure, I gotta run, okay?”

  She was trying to scare me.

  Skippy and I ran toward my second dinner date. The bistro had a short white picket fence around its open-air dining area, topped by strings of little white fairy lights. Tiffany was sitting at a round table outside. A red citronella candle warmed her face, a chilled pink cosmo in one hand. She was wearing white shorts, tight lavender tank top and straw-colored sandals. Wow. I waved. She and Skippy hit it off and she petted him while I ordered a beer, an assorted appetizer platter and a burger for Skippy. Tiffany and I worked on the appetizers and fed Skippy.

  “Do you always order dog burgers here?”

  “They’re Skippy’s favorite, although he hasn’t met a food he doesn’t like yet.”

  We laughed and pretended there was no tension in the warm night air.

  “So is your boss ready to confess her part in the murders?” I asked.

  “That’s bull and you know it,” Tiffany said.

  “She lied about her smoke detector and she is the only one who mysteriously survived. She’s at the top of the menu of suspects.”

  “Bull. You can pop turds in the oven—that don’t make ’em biscuits,” Tiffany smiled. “You already know Katharine was just lying to hide her nicotine addiction from her kid— she told you already.”

  “The girl showed up unexpectedly?”

  “Yes, the senator expected her the next morning but the father got rid of her early.”

  A United States senator lied to police and the FBI and misled a major investigation because she didn’t want her teenager to know her mom had lied about smoking?

  “That may explain it,” I said. “What if the Tea Party Animal knocked on her door, but decided not to blow the senator away in front of her daughter? Also, the mini-muskets are single-shot.”

  “Nice try,” Tiffany said. “But nobody knocked on the door. I asked them both repeatedly.”

  “Nobody?”

  “Right. Only hotel people.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Was one of them named Bryce, a nice-looking blonde?”

  “I have no idea. Shall I ask? That’s why I’m here. Full cooperation.”

  “Okay. Yeah, ask them that right now. Please.”

  She pulled out her phone. Skippy finished his burger and looked at my plate hungrily.

  “Okay,” Tiffany told me, still on the phone, “the senator’s daughter answered the door to a female hotel staffer. She was pretty and blonde but she doesn’t remember the woman’s name. She checked the towels or something and left.”

  “Would she recognize this person if she saw her again?”

  “Maybe,” was the answer.

  I sent Tiffany a photograph of the lovely Bryce Martha Draper and she forwarded it to the senator. The confirmation came quickly.

  “That’s the woman,” Tiffany said.

  I texted the new info and the identification of Bryce to Izzy, who, along with the feds, could make the identification official. A piece of the puzzle.

  “What’s the significance?” Tiffany asked.

  “I’ve been sworn to secrecy. It was the musket that did not go boom in the night,” I explained.

  “Come again, darlin’?”

  “I think the senator is still alive only because her daughter arrived early. I’m not sure if it was a practical issue of not enough bullets or some vestige of humanity. What was the other thing, Tiffany?”

  “Oh, my God! What? What other thing? Oh… You know what it is. You felt something, too, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah but my situation… suddenly being single… turned out to be temporary.”

  “Well, bless your heart, Shepherd, aren’t you the shy gentleman? Go back to your girlfriend. I’m just fine. I just… I was just hoping you felt the way I did, is all.”

  “I … I wish I could.”

  “Well, honey, the world will turn. Come see me in the White House. You never know.”

  “You are… something.”

  “You bet your ass
I am, sugar.”

  75

  On the way home, Skippy and I had an informal chat about the case as we walked along the west side of Fifth Avenue, the park and its 150-year-old stone wall on our left. As usual, Skippy was a good listener and made supportive noises, which consisted of mewling, yowling and burbling sounds. I asked him why I had kept the unfired zip musket. If I turned the Tea Party Animal’s weapon on him or her, would that break my no-gun vow? Skippy just huffed. Of course it would.

  “Did I do the right thing, breaking it off with Tiffany?” I asked him.

  Skippy responded with a sarcastic chortle. I was asking a male dog if I should be faithful to one female. I told him I would check out Bryce in the morning. How long had she worked at the hotel? How long had she and the New Minutemen been planning the killings? Long enough to make arrangements for the toilet tank hiding places, long enough to set up the video security system hacking, long enough to construct custom firearms designed specifically for the job, long enough to find a hotel with soundproof rooms… Weeks, months of planning…

  Maybe the New Minutemen weren’t just hired guns or political extremists, but experienced covert operatives. Like me. It was a new hotel, opened this year. What if billionaires built the hotel, with large toilets, soundproofed suites and a specific security system—just so the murders could take place there?

  Skippy scoffed at that.

  Ridiculous, absurd. A massive right-wing conspiracy. They would’ve had to know in advance where the GOP convention would be held. Impossible. Yeah, but what if? Who owned the hotel? I didn’t know. Skippy didn’t know. It couldn’t hurt to check.

  Skippy pulled the leash, a low rumble in his throat. He spun around fast. I’d been distracted, in my own little world, ignoring my surroundings. Suddenly, the back of my neck was bristling with dark eyes. I pivoted around.