Death on the New Moon

by Michael Lindley

  Ginny interrupted her thoughts, "They'll have autopsy reports tomorrow sometime, but they were able to tell me from the Medical Examiner's early assessment that Lonnie died very... very quickly." She struggled to finish and used the dish rag to wipe at her tears.

  Hanna put her arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Ginny turned into her and wrapped her arms around her. Hanna said, "I'm sure they were just trying to give you some peace about all this."

  Ginny didn't reply.

  Hanna returned to the hospital and was walking down the corridor to Alex's room when she saw the clock behind the nurse's station. It was just after 9pm. In her mind, she was thinking about how such a fine day had turned so wrong.

  The sun was beginning to set outside through the windows she was passing. The long hallway was dark and quiet. She saw a policeman sitting in a chair outside Alex's room, scrolling through something on his cell phone. He stood as she approached. They had spoken during her earlier visit and he greeted her with a tip of his cap.

  "I think he's sleeping again," the man said, quietly.

  "I'll just sit with him a while, thanks." She went into the room and Alex was lying awake, staring out the single window on the wall. The setting sun was shining its last rays through the blinds and it washed the room in a soft orange glow. He turned when she walked in and she was glad to see a thin smile come across his face.

  "Hey, I told you not to come back today," he said. She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "You have plenty to do, I'm sure," he continued.

  "I want to be here with you. The rest can wait." She sat beside him and held his hand.

  "How are Ginny and the boys?" he asked.

  "There are so many friends and family there, I guess it's a blessing to help keep her mind off things."

  "Okay, good. The doctor's not gonna like it, but I'm going over there tomorrow, one way or another."

  Hanna squeezed his hand. "I know you want to help, but let's just see how you're feeling."

  "They take me off these tubes, I'll be fine. The neck's gonna be sore for a while, but they've got some amazing painkillers."

  "Be careful with that stuff," she scolded. "Don't want you getting hooked on anything. I can't believe the stories I'm hearing about the opioid and painkiller epidemic."

  "I'll be fine," he said, though Hanna sensed some hesitation.

  She had been thinking about the Asa Dellahousaye connection to Alex's shooting. The thought of such a dangerous man and his people turning their wrath on Alex and the others was frightening. She wondered whether Dellahousaye had been involved in the trouble Alex and his father faced in Dugganville this past year, leading to the arrest of Beau and Connor Richards. She was quite certain the Dellahousaye mob family had been involved with her deceased husband's failed land deal and ultimately, his murder. On the way back to the hospital, she decided it was best to let Alex know. "I need to ask you about something."

  "Okay."

  "Ginny tells me the guy from this morning works for the Dellahousaye crime family."

  "The department shared that with her?"

  "Yes, they told her they believe he's a paid assassin for this mob group."

  "That's right," Alex answered. "Lonnie and I had been after this guy for several weeks. Two local murders linked to people Dellahousaye would prefer dead kept coming back to this hitman. His name is Caine. We got a tip this morning from an informant. Somehow, he knew we were coming in after him."

  Hanna took a deep breath, considering whether she should complicate the situation for Alex, bringing up her own fears about the gangster.

  Alex continued, "Dellahousaye is known to have tentacles everywhere, including the police department and the courts."

  "Was he involved in the mess up in Dugganville with your father last year?" she asked. “And what about Ben and Osprey Pointe?” she continued, referring to her deceased husband.

  "We don't know for sure. Nothing ever sticks to this guy," he said. He grimaced before saying, "Dellahousaye has no moral compass, Hanna. People who cross him end up dead or wishing they were."

  An hour later, Hanna decided she needed to get home to catch up on some of the work she'd left and to try to get some sleep. She gave Alex a long kiss and then held him tight. "I'm so thankful you're going to be okay."

  He didn't respond.

  "I'll stop by in the morning," she said, standing beside the bed.

  "You need to take care of business tomorrow and be with Ginny as much as you can. I'll be fine and if my doctor isn't a total asshole, I'll be out of here."

  "I don't think so."

  "We'll see. Good night." She reached for his hand. "I love you, Alex Frank."

  "I love you, too. Thank you for being here and helping with Ginny and the kids."

  She smiled and turned to leave. She looked back one more time as she was going through the door and Alex was looking out the window, a small lamp by his beside illuminating his face. She was struck by his sad expression but knew he was dealing with the loss of his best friend and partner, let alone his own near-death experience.

  The cop was still there outside the room and he wished Hanna a "good night".

  The hall ahead was dark and deserted. A few lights were bright up ahead at the nurse's station. A doctor in a full set of surgical scrubs was coming toward her, looking down at a chart. His face was obscured by the charts and he didn't even acknowledge her as he passed. She got to the elevator and the doors opened right away. As she started to get on, she looked back down the corridor and at the doctor who was approaching the officer outside Alex's room. The doors closed and she pressed the button for the first floor.

  Chapter Eleven

  Alex rubbed at the stubble of beard on his face as he looked out the hospital window at the last light of day. The pain in his neck was a dull throbbing pressure, deadened by the painkillers they were pumping into his arm. He knew he should have told the doctors of his past problems with these kinds of drugs after his wounds in Afghanistan and an earlier gunshot wound years ago. It was a battle he knew he would fight for the rest of his life but had managed to keep at bay in recent years. At one point after his return from his last tour of duty, it had gotten so bad he was getting multiple doctors to write prescriptions. He had even bought drugs on the street when his prescriptions couldn't be filled anymore.

  After a night when he almost considered heroin to take the edge off, he knew he had to do something drastic. His father helped him check-in to a rehab clinic. He came close to falling down the same worm hole again after the last time he'd been shot on duty. He knew the danger. He knew the slippery slope and yet the pain in his neck this time was nearly unbearable.

  He thought about Hanna who had just left. This was the second time she had helped him recover from a gunshot wound in their short time together. The last had been the previous year in Dugganville when a shooter hired by Beau Richards had tried to take him off the board after he got too close to their involvement in the murder of the shrimper, Horton Bayes, the man his father had been falsely accused of killing. He had always suspected Asa Dellahousaye was behind the drug ring the Richards were caught-up in but could never make the connection. During that recovery, he had been able to lay off the hard meds.

  He was grateful Hanna was still with him after all of that and the episode with his ex-wife, Adrienne, trying to lure him back. He wasn't sure how he was going to get through these coming days. His doubts about the take-down and his partner's death were eating at his gut and it was all he could do to stay tied down to this hospital bed. He needed to get back out there and find this guy. Hanna was the voice of reason he probably needed, he thought again. How long is she going to keep putting up with all this?

  He heard some discussion in the hall outside as the officer assigned to guard his room was talking to someone, probably another nurse or doctor. In the next moment, his senses went on full alert when he heard the cop say, "Wait, wait just a min...", and th
en he heard the distinctive spit of a silenced weapon firing twice in close succession. There was the sound of a man crashing back against the wall, crying out and then hitting the floor.

  Alex acted on pure instinct and reached for his own gun he had insisted he keep close during his stay. It was under the two pillows he was propped-up against. With the butt of the pistol secure in his right hand, he rolled to the far side of the bed away from the door and felt the pain in his neck searing through every nerve-ending in his body, at the same time the tubes connecting his arm to the IV bags pulled the rack crashing down across the bed.

  He saw the gun and the man's arm come around the door first. He managed to get on his knees, release the safety and slide a round into the chamber as he aimed at the door with both hands. Before he could even yell out, Caine came through the door firing three rounds into the pillows at the head of the bed. Alex ducked instinctively and then came back up ready to fire. Caine had obviously realized he had lost the element of surprise and was already falling back behind the door jam.

  Alex squeezed off two rounds that thundered into the stillness of the room and long hospital corridor. His pulse was racing, and he gulped for air to calm himself as he waited for Caine to come at him again. Instead, he heard the man running down the hall, then two nurses yelling before Caine hollered for them to "get down!"

  Alex tried painfully to stand. He ripped the two IV needles out of the back of his hand and screamed out loud at the pain. He staggered to the doorway, feeling light-headed and afraid he might pass out. He got to the doorway and glanced around the frame. The officer he knew as Stricker was down and not moving. He hadn't even had time to pull his gun. There was an ugly hole in his forehead with blood flowing in a steady stream onto the gray carpet.

  He looked quickly down the long empty hall. Caine was just reaching the end of the corridor and pushed open a door with a red "Exit" sign over it. The assassin looked back at Alex for just a moment and even in the dim light, Alex could see he was smiling, mocking him. Rage filled him as he watched the man lift the gun with the long silencer again and point it directly at him. Across the long distance, he heard Caine yell out, "Bang!" and then he disappeared through the door.

  Alex knelt beside the fallen cop and checked his pulse. He couldn't find any sign of life. He reached for the man's radio and called in the "officer down" report.

  Within minutes, Alex's room was full of uniformed and plainclothes cops. An "All-Points Bulletin" had been issued again for Caine, but in these early minutes, the man had apparently slipped away again. Alex wasn't sure if he had hit him with either of his two shots. There was no blood trail down the hall according to one of the officers first on the scene.

  He was back sitting on his bed, breathing heavily as a doctor and nurse tried to reconnect his fluids and assess his situation. He looked up when he saw Captain Guinness coming through the door with his detective colleague, Nathan Beatty, the other survivor of the morning's failed arrest. Beatty had been by earlier in the day to check on him.

  A forensics team was already trying to dig bullets out of the bed and wall and outside in the hallway where Alex had tried to take down Caine. He'd had a sudden fearful thought earlier that one of his rounds may have penetrated walls and possibly hit someone, but one of the first responding cops soon assured him no one had been injured. He was sitting at the end of the bed as the hospital staff worked to stabilize him.

  Guinness said, "Damn, Alex!"

  Beatty came up beside him, "Good thing you had your piece, man."

  Alex just nodded back, then asked, knowing full-well what the answer would be, "What about Stricker?"

  Guinness looked back, then turned and said, "They're working on him, but I think he's gone. The man rubbed his chin and grimaced, clearly upset he had lost another man to this killer.

  Beatty asked, "You sure it was Caine?"

  "No question. He stood right there in that doorway expecting me to be lying in the bed, probably sedated and asleep. Fortunately, Hanna had just been here, and I was awake and heard the attack outside the door." He thought about Hanna and said a silent prayer of thanks she had left the room moments before.

  Guinness said, "We've been piecing this together most of the day. We still need more time with you, Alex, but it seems clear this guy got word or sensed you were coming in this morning. He had time to secure the bartender in the back of the place and was laying in ambush for our two men headed into the alley."

  Alex was listening while the nurse continued to work on his IV rig.

  Beatty said, "We can't figure why Caine didn't bug out after he took down our men in the alley. He came back in and was waiting for you."

  Alex was thinking through the chaos of those few brief minutes again. He winced, not from the pain the nurse was inflicting on the top of his hand, but from the images of his partner going down and Caine turning his weapon back on him.

  He put his head down, trying to gather himself as his captain said, "It's almost like he was on a mission to take everyone out who was coming after him. If Beatty hadn't knocked through into the kitchen when he did, Alex, I'm afraid you might be down at the morgue, too."

  Alex looked over at the other detective. "Good timing, Nate."

  Captain Guinness continued, "Caine must have been monitoring the news channels this afternoon. There's a media frenzy on this damn mess, even the nationals are in town. It went public that one of the surviving officers was being treated here at the hospital.

  "Thanks for inviting the bastard," Alex said, not in jest.

  "Yeah, I raised hell with our PR guy and the commissioner," Guinness said, "but they wanted to let the city know that two of you had survived. Helluva stupid way for the department to try to save face."

  Alex said, "Can you get me out of here? I feel like a sitting duck now."

  "Obviously this guy wants no witnesses left alive," Beatty said.

  "Still can't figure why he didn't take out the bartender,” Guinness said. "One theory is Caine tied him up in the back with a gag, so he'd make enough noise to lure the cops through the door into the kitchen, then planned to shoot him too before he left."

  "Makes sense," Alex said. "Have you got Jeb under wraps?"

  "Yes, he was treated for the beating Caine gave him in the back before he tied him up. We've got him in a secure location."

  Beatty said, "Alex, have you had time to sort through how this guy got the jump on you?"

  Alex had thought of little else and he still hadn't given an official report of all that went down. On instinct, he decided to delay revealing his account as long as he could. He paused, then said, "I'm still trying to piece it all together. It came down so fast and then I'm out cold 'til the paramedics revive me in the ambulance on the way down here."

  Guinness patted Alex on the knee and said, "If you're feeling better in the morning, we'll bring down the investigating team on this and get your statement, as much as you can remember, anyway."

  "What about getting out of here?" Alex asked.

  Guinness turned to the doctor who was shaking his head, no.

  The captain said, "Let's give it until morning. We'll have every access point covered here tonight. You'll be safe."

  Alex was trying to control his temper, but spit out, "Captain, I can damn well take care of myself. I want to get back out on the street and get this guy."

  Again, the doctor was shaking his head.

  "We'll see how you're doing in the morning," Captain Guinness said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Hanna was only three blocks from the hospital when she started to hear sirens, then two police cars raced by her heading in the opposite direction. She had the car radio tuned to a country music station with the volume low, as she continued to sort through the events of the day in her mind. She looked in the rear-view mirror as the lights from the two squad cars disappeared around a far turn. She turned the radio off so she could hear if any other emergency vehicle
s might be approaching. "What's happening in this crazy city now?"

  She couldn't get thoughts of Alex out of her head and how close he had come to joining his fellow officers as a victim of this ruthless killer named Caine. She could also tell the guilt he was feeling in surviving the attack when his best friend and three others from his department had lost their lives. She couldn't imagine how difficult it would be for him to work through this and come to grips with the situation.

  And then there was Ginny Smith who had lost her husband, her children's father, the person closest to her in life. Hanna had been through this when her husband was found shot and killed on the streets of Charleston. Later, she would learn more of Ben Walsh's transgressions and the cause of his death, but the early days of shock and grief in learning of her husband's violent death still kept her awake at night.

  A few minutes later, Hanna pulled into the designated parking spot behind her office and apartment. She gathered her purse and leather bag that held her work papers on the seat beside her. The humid night air clung to her skin. Letting herself in the back door, she turned the bolt lock behind her and walked down the darkened hallway to her office. Molly had left a lamp on next to her desk and she sat down to sort through messages and files her assistant had left for her.

  Outside, she heard sirens again and on impulse reached for the remote for the small television that hung on the far wall. She pushed for a local news channel and turned up the volume to hear a woman reporter standing in front of several police cars in the background with lights flashing.

  "...we're waiting to hear from the official department spokesperson, but from what we've learned from informed sources outside the hospital..."

  Hanna felt a chill race through her. She stood quickly and walked over to the television.