by Blair Howard
“C’mon,” I said, touching her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
“How is he?”
“Perky as a Pekingese,” I lied.
“You should call Kate. She’ll want to know.”
As it happened, I didn’t need to, because just as I was pulling my phone out, she walked into the waiting area.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Amanda, can you give me a minute? Maybe bring the car around?” She nodded, so I told her where it was and handed her the keys.
I waited until she was out of earshot, then looked at Kate and shook my head. “Not good. He has a broken rib and a collapsed lung. I was just about to call you. How did you know?”
“Jacque. Amanda called her. What the hell happened?”
I filled her in as best I could. She listened without interrupting until I’d finished.
“Can I see him?”
“Best not. I just looked in on him. He’s out cold. The doctor said he needs rest. Tomorrow, maybe.”
She nodded. “Better get her home.” She twitched her head back toward the hospital entrance. Amanda had just walked back in. “She looks like shit.”
Kate was right. Amanda did, in fact, look like shit. I don’t think I’d ever seen her look so distressed.
“I guess we couldn’t have timed it better,” a voice said behind me. “Got all three of ’em together in one big bunch. We was just about to come after you, Ms. Cole. Y’all saved me the bother.”
I didn’t even have to turn around. I’d have recognized that whiny voice anywhere.
“What do you want, Hart?” I asked. He and his partner, McLeish, sauntered down the corridor, hands in their pockets, shit-eating grins on both of their faces.
He sniggered. “I need to talk to—I want to say the lovely Ms. Cole—but she ain’t looking too hot right now.”
“For a dumbass, you’ve got a smart mouth, Hart. Keep a civil tongue in your mouth or I’ll rip it out of your head.”
“Tsk, tsk, Harry. A little sensitive tonight, ain’tcha?”
“Now, Ms. Cole. Let’s go find somewhere quiet where can talk.” He put his hand to her elbow. She jerked it away as if she’d been scalded.
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” Kate asked. “She had a rough day.”
“She’s had a rough day? What about that boy down the hall who’ll probably lose his arm? She’s witness to a double shooting.”
“You didn’t mention Bob Ryan,” Kate said. Her eyes were like two chips of flint. “He could die, and if he does, that boy down the hall will be facing a murder charge. And if he doesn’t die, your boy will be facing an attempted murder charge.”
“Oh, now, now, LT. We don’t know any such thing. Way I heered it, Ryan’s the one that fired the first shot.”
“You piece of shit!” Amanda just about exploded. “I was there, with a cameraman. We got it all. Your boy fired the first shot. Bob was already down when he fired back. Your boy is going to jail, with or without his arm. And you can get the hell out of here, because I’m not talking to you, ever.”
Hart looked at her, his face grim. He’d not been expecting that news. He’s been talking Rösche. Rösche doesn’t know it was recorded, and there’s no way he can access that Sony memory card without the proper equipment.
“Tough luck, Hart.” I said. “You on the air tonight, Amanda?”
“No, but Jerry is. ‘Channel 7 reporter witnesses double shooting.’ That’s news. The whole damn county will have seen it by eleven thirty.”
“You can’t do that,” Hart said.
Now, why would you say that?
“The hell I can’t,” Amanda snapped. “I’m a journalist.”
He stepped forward. “I think you’d better come with me.”
“One more step, Hart,” I said, “and I’ll break your damned arm.”
“You wouldn’t. That would be an assault on a police officer.”
“Try me.”
I thought for a second that he would, but he didn’t. He took a step back, turned, and together the two of them walked away.
“This ain’t over, Starke,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Whew,” I said. “That was close.”
“Harry,” Kate said. “You’re going to have to quit that shit. You cannot threaten or assault law enforcement officers and expect to get away with it. Good job he didn’t want to get hurt. You pull that stunt on me and I’ll take you up on it.”
I grinned at her. “So you say.”
“Get her out of here, before they change their minds and come back for her. I’ll be at your office at eight in the morning. That good?”
“Yes. But listen, can you spare a few minutes to watch our backs right now? I’ll take Amanda to the station and wait while she gets done what she needs to get done. I have a feeling we blindsided them and Rösche with the news we have the shooting on camera, and who knows how important that is to them.”
She agreed, and we went out into early evening traffic. I headed toward Channel 7; Kate followed at a discreet distance. The trip was, thankfully, uneventful.
Jerry Robinson, Channel 7’s evening news anchor, was waiting in the newsroom when we arrived. He took the memory card, made several copies of it, and returned the original, along with one of the copies, to Amanda. She locked it in the company’s safe.
We were too late to get the memory card to the newsroom in time for six o’clock, but they and every other news outlet in Chattanooga already had the outline of what had happened. All of them but Channel 7 had it wrong.
We were shown a recording of Rösche being interviewed by one of the other stations, and he went to great lengths to lay the blame on Bob. Channel 7, however, had interviewed Charlie, Amanda’s cameraman. They ran this story as a teaser:
Channel 7 anchor Amanda Cole was involved in a double shooting earlier today at the Belle Edmondson College for Women on Signal Mountain. Amanda is unhurt, but is still at the hospital with the two victims. Tune in to Channel 7 at eleven for the full story and Amanda’s coverage.
-----
I took Amanda to her apartment in Hixson, where she grabbed a few things, and then we went on to my place. I don’t think she said two words the rest of the evening. She was dead on her feet, and I wondered if she might be going into shock—a bit late, but it happens—but there was no going to bed. We both wanted to see Channel 7’s coverage of the shooting.
Jerry Robinson had edited the footage down to less than sixty seconds, and the result was graphic. Jerry warned his viewers that it was.
It was all there, just as Amanda had related it to me, from the grab at her clothing to Bob’s retaliatory punch, to the two gunshots. Jerry played the gunfight sequence first in real time and then again in slow motion. I watched, spellbound, as the guard pulled his weapon and aimed at what appeared to me to be Amanda’s back. I watched as Bob flung her sideways with his left hand and pulled his Sig with his right. He barely had it out of the holster when the bullet slammed into him. The impact threw him backward and sideways and, as he went down, he fired. The guard’s right arm, just below the shoulder, exploded in a mist of blood and pulverized flesh and bone.
“Oh my God,” Amanda whispered. “Poor Bob. I didn’t realize—I didn’t see this. It’s horrible.”
We were on the sofa watching it. I put my arm around her. I didn’t know what to say. I was shaken to the bone.
“Well, I guess that settles the question of whether it was self-defense or not.” I turned off the TV, stood up, took her hand, and gently pulled her to her feet.
“C’mon. Let’s get some sleep. By the way, I think it would be a good idea if you came to the office with me in the morning. What do you say? Can you fix it?”
She said that she could, and she did.
Later, once we were lying together in bed, she suddenly rolled onto her side to face me, her hands together under her cheek like a little girl. “Harry, you’ve been shot before, haven’t you?”
; “Uh-huh. You know I was. Last year, when we investigated the Tom Sattler thing.”
“I know that, but that wasn’t much, was it? Just a flesh wound.”
“Flesh wound? It went right through my upper arm.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t that bad.”
“Bad enough when you’re on the receiving end.”
“I’m not belittling it, but I mean… shot, like Bob was. Harry, his lung is collapsed. He has a tube in his chest. He might—he might die.”
“Bob, die? Not a chance. He’s too damn ornery, and too tough. He’ll be fine, up on his feet in a couple days. You wait and see.” I said it, but I wasn’t as confident as I tried to sound. Gunshot wounds to the chest are bad at best; at worst, the bullet can bounce around in there, do all kinds of crazy things. But I wasn’t kidding about Bob. He’s one of the toughest men I know. If anyone could handle it, he could.
“He’ll be fine,” I said. “He’ll be fine.”
Chapter 20
The first thing I did when I awoke the next morning was call the hospital. I wasn’t worried about them not giving me information. Bob had no family that I knew of, and he had me listed as his next of kin.
I learned that he’d had a comfortable night, but wasn’t yet out of danger; he would be in the ICU for at least another forty-eight hours. I asked to speak to him, but was told that he was resting, and that I could go in to see him later.
Then I turned on the TV. It was chaos. Every station in town was running Jerry Robinson’s edited version of the shooting. I don’t think there had ever been anything quite like before. Even the nationals had it. I flipped over to Fox and Friends and watched Heather Nauert run it. Bob was being lauded everywhere as a hero that had saved Amanda’s life.
Jeez, this ain’t gonna go down well, and it ain’t going away anytime soon either.
When she came out of the bathroom, dressed and ready to leave, she was still pale but looked a whole lot better than she had the night before. She was dressed conservatively in black pants, a white blouse, and a lightweight burgundy blazer.
“How’s Bob?” she asked.
“He had a good night. He’s resting. We’ll go and see him later. Right now, though, we need to go.”
Charlie, Amanda’s camera guy, had taken her car back to the station, so we went by to pick it up. I waited while Amanda went inside to talk to her boss, and then she followed me to my offices. We parked in my lot and I closed the electronic gates, something I hadn’t bothered to do for several months.
It was a little after eight when we walked into the outer office that morning. Jacque had not told anyone there about what had happened to Bob. The news hit everyone hard.
Heather, my second lead, was devastated. Tim? I thought he was going to throw up. His face lost all its color, and he hurried away. A second or two later, I heard the restroom door lock, and it stayed locked for a long time.
Me? In the cold light of day? There aren’t words to explain how I felt. The man had saved my life twice in the past three years. I thought of him as a brother, and I leaned on him, probably more than I should have. He had always been there for me, and now he wasn’t, and I felt hollow, like someone had torn my guts out.
The worst thing about it was that people around me were getting hurt again. Mike, my intern a couple years ago, had gotten beaten up. Jacque had been the victim of an attempted murder. And now Bob.
Who the hell will be next?
It wasn’t something I wanted to dwell on, and I had better and more urgent things to attend to anyway. It was time to get a handle on exactly what we were up against.
We were now a man short, which meant that, with the regular daily workload, I was in trouble. Heather would have to take on Bob’s role as Amanda’s protection, at least when—and if—visits to the college were planned. I could pull in Ronnie Hall from my white-collar division. He wasn’t a field investigator, but he’d been with me for almost ten years and had learned a lot. Besides, he was all I had. Leslie and Margo, the only other members of my staff, were secretaries.
I went to the Keurig and made myself a cup of Dark Italian roast, and then had Jacque gather the principals in our small conference room.
We’d just gotten seated when Kate arrived. She was a few minutes late, but as always she looked stunning. Today, however, something was missing. Her face was pale and serious, and her voice when she told everyone hello had lost its crispness. She was almost as close to Bob as me, and it showed.
“Right,” I said quietly. “Now that everyone’s here… let’s try to figure out where we are. Heather, did Tim bring you up-to-date on what we know so far, and what Bob was doing?”
Heather Stillwell is a deceptively, and purposely, nondescript-looking woman. She’s almost forty-one, and dresses well, but her clothes are often unremarkable and chosen to hide a very remarkable body. She’s a little over five foot eight, with short brown hair, an oval-shaped face, and brown eyes. She has a black belt in Krav Maga, works out for an hour every morning, teaches self-defense in her spare time, and is an expert shot with just about every weapon known to man, from a revolver to a bow and arrow. Having once been a special agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, she is also something of a mystery. To this day, I have no idea why she left that somewhat exalted position to work for me, but I’m glad she did.
“He did,” she replied. That was another thing; she was always very conservative with her conversation, never using three words when two would do.
“How about you, Ronnie?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Before we get started,” Kate interrupted, “would you mind telling me how Bob is? I called, but no one would talk to me.”
“He had a good night. He’s comfortable, but they expect him to be in the ICU for at least a couple of days more. We’re going to see him at noon. You want to come with us?”
She nodded.
Then there was a knock on the door.
Jeez, what now?
The door opened, and Lonnie Guest stuck his head in. “Is it okay?” he asked.
“I asked Lonnie to join us,” Kate said. “I thought with Bob…. Well, I thought we could use an extra hand… and maybe muscle, too. I fixed it with the chief. It wasn’t a problem. He’s my partner, and we’re investigating Erika Padgett’s murder, so it was a no-brainer.”
I looked up at Lonnie. The usual shit-eating grin was absent. For the first time since I’d known him back at the academy, his face was serious.
I nodded. “Come on in and sit down, Lonnie. Glad to have you. You’ll have to catch up as you go, I’m afraid.”
“No probs. How’s Bob?” he asked as he sat down beside Amanda.
I took a moment to fill him in and was just about to begin when my cell phone rang.
Chief Johnston? What the hell?
“Hey, Chief. What’s up?”
“What’s up?” he growled. “What the hell is going on, Harry? I just caught the news on Channel 7, and I just got done talking with Israel Hands. If Bob could walk, he’d arrest him.”
“That would be a waste of time. It was self-defense cut-and-dried, as you well know if you’ve watched the news. He’s just posturing. Doesn’t like the interference. Listen, Wes. I hate to cut you off, but I have a lot going on here right now.”
“Yeah, well. How’s the investigation into Emily going? You still on it?”
“You know I am, now—”
“Okay, okay. I’ll let you go, but first… how’s Bob? Is he going to make it?”
“Yeah, Wes. He’s going to make it.” I listened for a moment longer, then hung up, slumped back in my chair, and looked at each one of them in turn.
“Everyone ready?”
They all nodded.
“Okay,” I sighed. “Look, I know you’re all in a state of shock; I am too, but we have to get over it. We have a job to do, a crime—several crimes—to solve. Bob’s tough. Very tough. He’ll be fine.” Hell, I hope so, I thought. “So, with that said, we ne
ed to get done here quickly. I need to be at the hospital by noon, and I want to go to Belle Edmondson afterward.”
I looked at Amanda. She looked at me and slowly shook her head. This wasn’t going to go well.
“Heather,” I said. “As you know, Bob was working with Amanda on her project when….” Amanda opened her mouth, presumably to protest. I gave her a look that would have killed a cat stone dead, and she closed it again, her lips clamped tightly together.
“His job,” I continued, “was not only to help with her investigation, but also to protect her. I want you to take over that duty.”
“Damn it, Harry,” Amanda said.
“It’s okay, Amanda,” Heather said. “I know you don’t know me as well as you do Bob, but we’ll get along. I’m not bad at what I do.”
“I know that, Heather. I just do not want anyone else getting hurt because of me.”
“Bob didn’t get hurt because of you,” I said, quietly. “He got hurt doing the job he loves; the job he was being paid to do. Heather will do the same.” She didn’t answer, so I moved on.
“Ronnie,” I said, handing him the copies of the two files we’d obtained from the sheriff’s department. “I had Bob down to follow up with the parents of the two girls who went missing earlier. Those are the files that Hart and McLeish put together, for what they’re worth, which is not a whole hell of a lot. I’d like you to take that on. There’s no need to get heavily involved. They’re not going to remember much after all this time, but you never know. The Groves are local, Lookout Mountain, so you can visit them in person. The Youngs live in Atlanta. You can do that by phone, initially. If you think they’re worth a visit, do it. Unfortunately, those files are all we have, but maybe you’ll find something useful in them.”
He flipped through them and nodded.
“Moving right along,” I said. “Tim. Did we find anything in Erika Padgett’s datebook?”
“Er, no…. Well, not a whole lot. It is what it is. Most of the entries were for visits to farms, whatever. She was a busy vet. There are one or two personal entries, and Emily’s name comes up a half-dozen times, usually on weekends. But Emily’s is the only name listed like that. They must have seen quite a lot of each other,” he mused.