by Rhys Ford
“And you’re still not really sure now,” Kel replied softly. “This thing’s got your head tangled up, Kane. A couple of weeks ago we would’ve had this conversation on the way over. Instead, we’re having it in the parking lot right before we go interview an ex-cop who may or may not be responsible for murdering your lover’s mom. I have a real problem with your timing.”
“Fair enough. I just needed to slow down and work it out in my head before I put it out in front of you.” He laid his hands flat on the roof, his fingers playing in the grit on the sedan’s paint. “We know we caught this case because I was on scene at the first shooting and Book’s gone to the mat for us—for me—so it doesn’t get taken away. Thing is, I don’t know if there’s someone in the DA’s office that is trying to protect Hall or Wong, but that package should’ve been admitted into evidence from the moment they picked it up.
“My dad said it was politics that held it up, but at this point in the game, we’ve got DEA, a Gang Task Force, and an ex-cop all on the board as players. Wong’s sister says she hasn’t spoken to him, but it seems like he sure as hell knows a lot about what’s going on for someone who’s been inside for over two decades,” Kane pointed out. “I feel like we are playing chess, but I can’t see half of the pieces and I don’t know what my next move is going to be. All I know is I can trust you, and my gut says we’re about to go see someone who could blow this case wide-open for us if we can just get him to talk.”
Kel didn’t answer, at least not right away. The setting sun turned Kel’s face into a somber, striking profile, his golden skin burnished with the dying light. Around in the parking lots, streetlamps were flaring to life, dingy yellow glows warming up the encroaching dusk. His eyes were hooded, his expression unreadable, but Kane knew he was gambling on their friendship to keep their partnership intact.
“I get that you needed time. Especially after that phone call with Miki, but when did you know?” Kel took his time, inhaling a long breath, then letting it go slowly. “Did you find out about Hall right before we left, or did you know earlier and didn’t tell me?”
“I actually read the file when we stopped at that burger place so you could get a soda,” Kane informed him. The ramifications of Hall’s presence in Miki’s life had taken some time to filter through his thoughts. “I really didn’t put things together until we got out of the car. And even now I’m not sure if I added two plus two correctly. I’m just going with what my gut tells me.”
“Your gut hasn’t steered us wrong before. One thing I can always count on a Morgan for is that their gut instincts make them better cops than some guys with years on the force.” Kel grunted. “Do you want to know what my gut tells me? It’s whispering, Sanchez, someone is going to shoot at you before the week is out, so you better get your affairs in order. Now with what you tell me about Hall, I’m not so sure he won’t be the guy shooting at us.”
Kane worked through Kel’s words. “Okay, so you think he’s going to shoot at us? Because I’ve had to spend years trying to figure out what Quinn is saying to me, and I’m going to tell you, there are times when you are just as confusing.”
“What I’m saying is, this is going to get really ugly and we need to watch our step. I’ve got your back in this, but you’ve got to tell me which way you’re veering so I can adjust the course.” Kel grinned. “Did you get the boat reference in that, because there was a boat reference. You know, because we’re at the marina?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Kane groaned. “And if your gut is as good as mine, it should be telling you I’m going to be the one to shoot you, not Hall. Let’s just do this safe, and if anything even smells wrong, act on it. He knows that we’re here to talk about Wong, but he probably also knows we could tighten the noose around his neck too. Just watch your step, and if push comes to shove, we shove first.”
Chapter Nineteen
Brigid: A ghra, he called me today.
Donal (looking up from his book): Who? We be having a lot of hes in our clan. If ye’d said she, I’d have had a 50-50 chance of it.
Brigid: Mick. Kane’s Mick. He called me just to talk.
Donal: The question is, love, did ye talk to him?
Brigid, smiling as she climbs into bed next to her husband: For a little bit. Then after that, I shut up and just listened to our sweet boy ramble. It was the best phone call a mother could ever ask for.
—Answering a Mother’s Prayers At The Oddest Times
“WHAT STATION are you from?” a gruff voice called out from the houseboat’s shadowy interior. The man it belonged to emerged slowly, a skeletal remnant of a bull-bodied powerhouse. “And don’t bother denying you’re cops. You both smell like a badge and I’m guessing the dark-haired one is related to that Irish son of a bitch over at Central.”
“There are a lot of us Irish son of bitches over at Central,” Kane shot back, his long legs eating up the dock’s length. He stopped at the fishing boat’s mooring, shoving his hands into his jeans’ pockets, the manila envelope tucked under his arm crinkling slightly against his side. Kel was a few steps behind him, a lean elegant shadow with wary eyes. “And I would be telling you not to speak of my mother that way, but knowing her, she’d take it as a point of pride. Am I speaking to Pattrias Hall?”
“Sergeant Pattrias Hall,” the old man corrected. “Earned my rank. Not going to let some puppy take it away. Now, are you the two that called me, or is SFPD so bored they’re sending cops out to investigate me dumping fish guts over the side of my boat?”
Little remained of the massive man Kane had seen in Hall’s identification photos. Folds of flesh hung from his face, flapping jowls where there were once fat cheeks. His neck skin draped down from his jawline, gray-tinged crêpe curtains pocked with red lesions, and his bulbous nose was thick with swollen tissue, a virulent crimson splotch on his sickly face. A pair of heavy white eyebrows seemed to take up most of his forehead, looming over his small, narrowed brown eyes, their snowy coarseness almost an exact match for the uneven crewcut covering most of his square skull.
His clothes were obviously purchased when he had more weight on him, because his skeletal body swam in a Hawaiian shirt dotted with palm trees and flamingos and a pair of khaki cargo shorts that looked about five sizes too big. A pair of thick formerly white socks probably helped keep his Crocs on, but they slid under his feet as he stepped farther out onto the deck.
“Is dumping fish guts illegal?” Kel drawled. “I’d think it would be something people wouldn’t mind, considering they’re living on a boat.”
“If that is supposed to make me feel like we’re buddies, you can save it. They taught those tricks even back when I was in the Academy.” Hall creaked his way across the boat’s deck, grabbing at the railing to steady himself. Stopping at the bow, he glared down at Kane. “I thought I told you I said everything I was going to on the phone.”
“And I thought maybe I would give you some time to change your mind,” Kane replied as he opened the envelope’s clasp. “Do you mind if we come aboard?”
“I mind like shit. Anything you’ve got to say to me can be said from over there,” the ex-cop growled. “Last thing I want is a couple of baby-faced assholes poking around my boat.”
“We just want to ask you a couple questions about Danny Wong and the time you spent assigned to the task force that took him down.” Kel came up behind Kane, his shoes scraping the grit on the pier. “I believe my partner informed you that we’re looking for Wong. If there’s anything you know about his whereabouts, we would appreciate if you shared with us.”
“I don’t know where the fuck Wong—” Hall stopped talking when Kane held up a photo of Achara Sangsom holding her son.
It was hard not to climb over the boat’s railing and pound of the shit out of Hall until he confessed to every crime he’d ever committed, but Kane knew he had to step carefully. He and Kel were on thin ice, chasing after ghosts and thin leads, so there was no room for error. He had to force Hall in any way possible,
even as he buried the knowledge of what happened to the smiling little boy cradled in a beautiful woman’s arms.
“We suspect you were acquainted with this woman. Her name was Achara Sangsom, and she worked for Danny Wong. She had a little boy who you allegedly found on St. John Street following her murder.” After handing the first photo to Kel, Kane pulled out another, then held it up for Hall to see. “I don’t know if anybody showed you this, but I don’t think they needed to.”
It was a part of Miki’s past Kane never wanted to share with him. The crime scene photos of Achara’s murder were brutal in the stark savagery of her remains. Horan spent half a day going through the evidence and then breaking down the events as she saw them. Miki’s mother hadn’t died cleanly, and more than a few times, Horan had to stop to give Kane and Kel a break from their briefing. If anything, her remains resembled Rodney Chin’s, slaughtered and then beaten down nearly to a pulp.
But what broke Kane’s heart was the sight of a chewed-on teddy bear, sticky from soaking up the blood from Achara’s battered body.
“They found her body two days later, and Forensics had a hard time determining time of death because her killer sealed up the apartment and turned the heater on to muddy the evidence, but I had our medical examiner look at everything, because science evolves.” Kane forced his expression to go flat. “Based on what the doctor found, it looks like you found Achara’s little boy about half an hour or so after she’d been killed. Now, I understand you might not have known she had a kid, and Forensics back then didn’t seem to think it was important to tell the investigating officer that she had given birth, but you were around Wong when you worked undercover. You were aware he liked to get his people inked with his symbol, but you didn’t say anything about the tattoo on the kid’s arm. You knew that mark, and you buried it. Why?”
“Look, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, and I want you off of my dock,” Hall spat. “Who gives a shit about what happened to a whore twenty years ago? It’s not going to change anything now.”
“We know you’re dying, but so is Wong,” Kel added, his voice soft but edged with the finality of what Hall was facing. “No, you can’t change what happened that night, but as my partner pointed out, science evolves. The little boy right now is a young man Wong wants dead for one reason or another. So as we see it, you got a choice: tell us where Wong is and we walk away, or you spend the last few months you’ve got left to you inside of a jail cell, charged with Achara Sangsom’s murder. No matter how long you’ve been off the force, you’ll still be going in as a cop, and even as sick as you are now, they’re not going to show you any mercy inside.”
Kane had never really seen the life leave a person. Not until he watched Hall fold in on himself. The old man staggered, grabbing at the rail, but it didn’t seem as if he could hold himself up any longer. Kane crossed over the dock to get to the boat, but the ex-cop barked at him, forcefully forbidding them from boarding his boat.
“You don’t understand. I tell you where Wong is, and he’ll do to me what he did to her, what he does to anyone who crosses him.” Hall shook his head, the sweat beading at his temples and running down his florid cheeks. “There’s still a guy who would fucking suck Wong off if he wanted it. That’s who you’re looking for. That’s who killed the whore. I was just there that night to be his lookout. I thought he was just going to talk to her, find out who double-crossed Wong. He wasn’t supposed to murder her. There wasn’t supposed to be a kid.”
“So what? You stood by and watched someone murder Achara Sangsom?” Kel prodded. “And did nothing?”
“I did something.” The cop sneered at them, using the back of his hand to mop away the moisture on his forehead. “I grabbed the kid and ran. She was already dead when I came through the door. I didn’t say anything about the tattoo because I figured if I did, someone would connect him with Wong and that asshole I was with would kill him, if he could be found.”
It was difficult to hear. Kane could almost see the genesis of Miki’s pain and sorrow. He’d been set on the path, seemingly destined for a life of violence and abuse he’d finally clawed his way out of. Kane would be damned if Miki stumbled back into it again.
Studying the ex-cop, Kane asked, “Why was it so important to kill Achara Sangsom just to get a name?”
“Because she’d been hooked up with the DEA guy who popped Wong. They buried him so deep nobody could find him, but Wong figured if anybody knew where he was, it would be her. Wong’s guard dog worked her over way before I got there, but he told me he got the guy’s name out of her—his real name, not the one he gave Wong.” Hall rubbed at his chest, his bony fingers making tight circles over his heart. “I hid that boy so Wong couldn’t find him. Then I walked away from all of it. I don’t give a shit about what happens to Wong or that DEA guy, Stewart. They can kill each other for all I care. I’ve got about six weeks left to me, and I sure as hell am not going to spend that in a fucking hole.”
“We can take you in for accessory, based on what you told us today,” Kane said as he walked toward the bow of the boat. Passing the envelope and the photos to Kel, he reached into his jacket pocket, closing his fingers over the zip tie loops he’d tucked there earlier. “What’s the name of the guy who killed her? Give us something to go on, and we can try to convince the DA to leave you on house arrest instead of taking you in.”
“The view from your boat is a hell of a lot better than the one you’re going to get in jail,” Kel remarked. “We just need to make sure you don’t give Wong a heads-up, and then you’ll be back here before you know it.”
“I told you already, I don’t know where the fuck Wong is, and it’s been years since I’ve seen his pet dog, Zhou.” Hall stumbled a few feet forward, resting against the V of the front railing. “You got pictures from back then? Just find any of Wong and you’ll see Zhou lurking behind him someplace. That ugly scarecrow was pissed off because Wong gave Achara to Stewart. Zhou had a thing for her, but Wong wasn’t going to waste something as sweet as her on a piece of shit like him. Kind of ironic Wong gave his best whore to his own personal Judas.”
Hall spat and his face lost all of its color. He leaned forward and something on the boat rattled loudly, like a latch being thrown open. Hall’s hands dropped out of sight and Kane’s instincts set off every warning bell he had.
“Let me see your hands,” Kane ordered, drawing his weapon. Kel’s was up and steadied a second later, his partner grabbing at a heavy barrel with one hand to pull it in front of them. “Hall, I’m only going to tell you once.”
“Go ahead. I already told you I’m not going to let you take me in.” The ex-cop coughed, spittle forming a froth over his lower lip. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about that fucking kid. I knew who he ended up with. I thought I was doing the right thing, but Vega was as much of a monster as Wong ever could be. How the fuck was I supposed to know? You see Zhou and you tell him I’ll be waiting for him in fucking hell. He didn’t need to kill that woman. And I don’t even want to know what he did with her before that, but I did my best by that kid. You tell him I’m sorry.”
The gun was an old one but still deadly. Hall’s face was blank, his eyes pinned to the horizon, and his chin lifted defiantly as he raised the weapon to his temple. Kane shouted the ex-cop’s name, but Hall didn’t so much as flinch. The boom shattered the marina’s lazy serenity, and Hall began to topple even before Kane could reach the side of the boat. He heard Kel shouting for backup and an ambulance, but as soon as he reached the deck, Kane knew it was already too late. Shaking his head, he rubbed at his face, then sighed at the hula girl pinup inked on Hall’s bare shin.
He’d seen his share of cover-ups, some good and some bad. The hula girl was a flirtatious nod to an innocent era, but the artist hadn’t been good enough to hide the tattoo he meant to obscure. Maybe it was because Kane intimately knew the shape, or the color saturation hadn’t been deep enough, but Sergeant Pattrias Hall died w
ith Wong’s symbol still on his flesh, as if nothing he did would ever erase his sins.
KANE WAS sick of coming home in the dark.
He knew it was a part of the job, but every day the badge got heavier and heavier. He was tired of cold dinners and empty living rooms, of stale coffee warmed up in a microwave and fast food hastily shoved into his mouth in between coordinating a murder scene.
It was never easy when it was a cop. And it sure as hell wasn’t a walk in the park when it was a cop who ate his own gun.
It was well into the next day by the time he pushed open the warehouse’s heavy front door, a few steps ahead of the sun, with the cold night still biting at his back. They’d shut down the marina, clearing out any bystanders and residents to make way for the coroner and brass from a variety of departments. His father showed up, accompanying their captain in a black sedan that screamed authority and disapproval.
Kane had been willing to take the hit. There should have been a hit, but the bars outweighed the badges, and politics muddied the waters before the coroner had a chance to load Hall’s body into the van. They’d been given absolution like Catholics lined up at a confessional, a wave of the hand and a demand of a full report in lieu of a rosary. Kel said a brief thanks to God and climbed back into their police issue, but Kane hadn’t been satisfied.
“I fucked this up,” he’d muttered, shoulder pressed against Donal’s. “I should’ve taken him off that boat. He was a cop. We both knew going in there was probably a gun somewhere, but I thought I had him talking. We had him talking.”