Lady 52: A Jack Daniels/Nicholas Colt Novel

by Jude Hardin

  He grunted, fell away, and then John was on me again.

  I came down hard on his instep with my right heel. I heard bones crack. Like stomping on a pile of brittle twigs. As Boggan yelped and grabbed for his shattered foot, I spun away from him and clubbed him in the back of the neck. The blow didn’t seem to faze him. If anything, it took his mind off the broken foot. He turned toward me and took a swing. I blocked the off-balance right hook with my arms, and at the same time kneed him in the groin with all my might. He fell to the floor and curled into a fetal position, helpless now, gasping and moaning and dry heaving.

  I was drunk as a skunk, but I was hot. I couldn’t remember ever being any angrier, or ever despising another human being more. I fell on his ribcage with my right knee, my weight coming down hard with zero resistance. Bones crunched, and a deep rattling bark whooshed from his throat as the air was forced from his lung on that side.

  Mark was up again, blocking my route to the door. I darted for the kitchen, looking for a knife block or a countertop appliance to throw at him, but he tackled my feet before I could grab anything. I fell next to the sink, and reached out for the cabinet doors beneath it. As Mark tugged on my legs, I pulled the cabinet open.

  Dish soap. Sponges. Floor wax. A plastic bucket. Nothing to use as a weapon.

  Wait. There was an aerosol can of something.

  Hornet spray.

  I wrapped my hands around it just as Mark dragged me out of the kitchen, and I managed to twist onto my butt and face him. I aimed right at his bloody nose and pressed the nozzle button on the can.

  A thick jet of insecticide hit Mark squarely in the face. He howled, immediately covering his eyes and falling to his knees.

  Free of his grasp, I tried to get to my feet—

  —and promptly fell over. The liquor was making everything wobbly and off center. I stuck my finger down my throat. I threw up again, and just as I did, someone fell onto my back and pinned me to the floor.

  Boggan.

  I tried to turn over, but he weighed too much, and I had no leverage on the slippery floor.

  “You still think this will look like an accident?” I snarled. “Don’t be an idiot, John!”

  Then I heard a gun cock. It was as familiar as it was frightening.

  My .38. Pressed against my head.

  “Enough of this, Jack. You make another move and I’ll shoot you right now.”

  I kept very still, but said, “You’ll be heard.”

  “Sound proofing, remember?”

  “How will you explain a bullet in me?”

  “I’ll dig the bullet out before I dump you over the railing. I’m a doctor, remember?”

  “You know what a .38 caliber round will do at this range? My DNA will be everywhere.”

  “Enough talking,” he said, wrapping his free hand in my hair and then slamming my head into the floor.

  “You!”

  Slam!

  “Are!”

  Slam!

  “Going!”

  Slam!

  “Over!”

  Slam!

  “That!”

  Slam!

  “Bal—!”

  I didn’t hear anything after that. I was out.

  COLT

  SUNDAY, 9:36 P.M. CST

  When Sergeant Herb Benedict said, “My partner’s in trouble,” the officer manning the motor pool desk threw him a set of keys without hesitation. Herb grabbed one of the requisition forms from the stack on top of the counter, turned it over and jotted down a street address and an apartment number.

  “Ten-one,” he said. “Call it in. Do it now!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Herb snatched the keys and pushed through the door leading to the garage. I stayed on his heels until he found the unmarked cruiser that corresponded with the number on the keychain.

  “I want to come with you,” I said.

  “No way. Get out of here, Colt. This is police business.”

  I pulled the .38 out of my pocket, held it passively in the palm of my hand.

  “Jack’s my friend,” I said, my voice cracking. “She opened her home to me. This revolver belonged to her mother. She trusted me with it. We’ve worked together before, and she knows I can handle myself. I’m well aware of what ten-one means, Herb. It means she’s in need of immediate assistance. I want to help, man.”

  He climbed in, closed the door, and started the engine.

  Put the car in gear and squealed out of the space.

  I watched him speed away, disappointed that he wasn’t taking me with him, but understanding the reasons why.

  Then the brake lights flared, and the car screeched to a stop.

  I ran as fast as I could, through the wake of exhaust fumes and the smell of hot rubber, yanked the passenger’s side door open and climbed inside. Herb exited the garage and rounded the corner and floored it through a red light as I fumbled with my seatbelt.

  “Why’d you change your mind?” I said.

  “Jack trusts you enough to loan you her mother’s gun. That’s good enough for me. Besides, if any laws need to be broken, you can do it and I won’t lose my job. We’ve got no warrant, and probable cause may not hold up.”

  “So I’m the fall guy.”

  “Try calling Jack,” Herb said, ignoring my sudden trepidation.

  I took a deep breath, pulled out my cell phone and punched in the number.

  “No answer,” I said. “Straight to voice mail.”

  “Try her apartment.”

  I dialed again. “Nothing.”

  “Goddammit.”

  “Sanchez could be lying,” I said.

  Herb swerved around a corner, tires screaming. “I know. We have a team searching the vacant store he was hiding in, and we got the lab working on that utility knife we found. There’s a good chance he’s The Defacer.”

  “So Jack might not be in any danger at all. Maybe the battery in her phone went dead or something.”

  Herb blew another red light, sirens blaring. “Maybe.”

  “How do you know she’s at this Boggan guy’s apartment?”

  “I don’t. I’m just guessing. If she’s not there, then I don’t have a clue.”

  Herb weaved in and out of traffic, fishtailing corners and third-gearing it through red lights and stop signs. It was the crazy kind of ride you see in action films, where you know a stuntman has replaced the star behind the wheel. But we weren’t wearing helmets, and we didn’t have a roll cage. Despite safety devices like seatbelts and airbags, flesh and blood doesn’t do well when a vehicle going a hundred miles an hour slams into a concrete embankment or rolls into a drainage ditch. I’ve seen the results, and they aren’t pretty. The phrase jigsaw puzzle comes to mind.

  Herb was hyper-focused on getting us there as quickly as possible, but I doubted we would be much help broken into a million pieces. I gripped the dashboard and braced myself, knowing that such a gesture was futile, really, that the bones in my arm would shoot through the back window like a spear if we hit something head-on.

  “Herb, take it easy, man. We’re not going to do Jack much good if we’re dead.”

  He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t slow down.

  I have to admit, I was relieved when we finally screeched to a stop in front of the high-rise apartment building. Murderers I can handle. Sitting in a passenger’s seat beside someone who’s violating multiple traffic laws at high speed, not so much. It’s a control thing.

  “Let’s go,” Herb said.

  He left the car double parked, the rooftop strobe flashing blue on the deserted street and sidewalk as we climbed out and rushed toward the main entrance. Herb flashed his ID, and the doorman let us in.

  “Is there a problem, officer?”

  “Did Dr. John Boggan come in earlier, with a woman?” Herb said.

  “Yes. What seems to be the—”

  “Was she okay?”

  “He was carrying her,” the doorman said. “The lady… I believe she�
��d had too much to drink.”

  “I need a pass key,” Herb said. “Give me one.”

  “Normally we require a warrant for the police to—”

  “Here’s his warrant,” I said. I pulled out the .38 and pointed it at the man’s chest, fulfilling my role as the fall guy. “Now give him what he asked for.”

  The guard pulled a single brass key from his pocket and handed it over.

  “Put the building on lockdown immediately,” Herb said, speaking to the doorman as we made a beeline toward the elevator bank. “Nobody without a badge comes or goes. Understand?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Just do it!”

  There was an elevator operator standing by the lift, and he’d apparently watched and heard the whole exchange because I didn’t need to threaten him. The doors were already open and waiting. We stepped inside and Herb punched 60 and away we went.

  2

  3

  4

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  Herb pulled his semi-automatic from its holster, held it at his side with the barrel pointed toward the floor. I put the .38 in my coat pocket, but my thumb was on the hammer and my finger on the trigger.

  19

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  The elevator stopped on the twenty-third floor. A young woman holding an infant stepped forward, intending to board.

  “You can’t get on,” Herb said. “Wait for the next one.”

  He showed her his police ID.

  “We’re going up,” I said.

  The woman looked at the arrow over the door. She seemed puzzled for a moment, and then she realized that she must have pushed the wrong button.

  “I’m sorry.” She backed away and the door closed.

  24

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  27

  The elevator seemed excruciatingly slow. I finally had to stop watching the numbers light up. It was giving me a headache. I stared at the floor and tried to imagine how this might play out. If Sanchez was lying, then Jack was probably okay. She’d gone to see this Boggan guy—met him for a follow-up interview regarding the Shipman murder case—and maybe they’d started enjoying each other’s company. Maybe they’d shared a nice dinner together, followed by a drive along the lakeshore. It was possible. I could tell Jack was lonely.

  It was going to be pretty embarrassing if we knocked on the apartment door and Jack answered wearing Boggan’s bathrobe. I could just see the expression on her face.

  What the hell are you guys doing here?

  One of those stories you tell in bars and laugh about for years to come.

  42

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  But the more I thought about it, the unlikelier it seemed. I didn’t know Jack well, but she wouldn’t go out socially with a person of interest in a murder investigation. She’d wait until the case was closed.

  The very fact that she wanted to talk to Boggan meant she wanted to ask him something, or confirm something. And her not being heard from since was a very bad sign.

  My hands were sweating, my heartbeat drumming like a record at the wrong speed. I had a sick feeling in my stomach, a burning apprehension that we were too late.

  57

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  Herb squeezed through the elevator doors before they fully opened. I followed him into the hallway and to the right. We maintained a steady pace, walking quickly and purposefully, until we reached apartment number 6005.

  “This is it,” Herb said.

  He rang the bell.

  DEL CHIVO

  SUNDAY, 9:50 P.M. CST

  After the sketch artist had finished with him, the tall thin corrections officer—along with two uniformed officers from the Chicago Police Department—had escorted Sergio back to his cell.

  The situation wasn’t good. His idiot lawyer told Sergio that no deal would let him go free. Especially if they found the faces he’d hidden in the vacant shop.

  It was unfair. The poor immigrant goes to jail, the rich gringo gets away with it.

  Sergio looked around his holding cell and felt sick. He hated being confined like this.

  Time to go.

  Sergio stood and got in a semi-squatting position, holding it until his legs shook and his breath became labored and he broke out in sweat.

  Then he began to cough, covering his mouth and nose with his cupped hands. Then he stuck his pinky up his nostril, as far as he could, and began to dig with his fingernail. He scratched hard until he cried in pain, then removed his finger and pinched his nostrils closed, letting the blood run down his throat.

  Then he began to scream until a guard came by. When one did, he coughed and sprayed blood all over the floor.

  “My chest! It hurts so bad! Help me!”

  He panted and gasped and writhed around, clutching his chest, shaking his head back and forth. Chest pain was serious, but no doubt many inmates had tried to fake heart attacks. Sergio was faking a pulmonary embolism, which was just as serious, but had a much more dramatic presentation.

  Within minutes they had arranged for Sergio to be transported to the hospital via ambulance and police escort. He continued to pant to increase his heart rate, and isometrically flex his arms and legs until they shook, to keep sweating.

  The emergency room staff seemed competent enough. Soon after the doctor spoke with Sergio, scheduling a CT and a chest x-ray, one of the nurses drew some blood and started an intravenous drip, and then she administered a dose of morphine through one of the ports in the IV tubing. She also gave Sergio a nitroglycerin patch on his chest. She asked him to rate his pain on a scale of one to ten, and he said, “Ten.”

  A technician came and performed a twelve-lead EKG, and after that the doctor returned to inform Sergio that he was being admitted for twenty-four hour observation.

  Just as Sergio had planned.

  They wheeled him to a private room and attached some wires to his chest to monitor his cardiac rhythm. The hospital bed was much more comfortable than the thin lumpy rack at the jailhouse, and Sergio knew that the food would be better as well.

  Sergio was in shackles, his wrists and ankles cuffed and connected with a long chain, and an armed guard had been assigned to the room. This was the police department’s idea of security, and for most prisoners it would have been more than enough.

  But Sergio Del Chivo was not most prisoners.

  The guard’s nametag said F. Dover. He was a white man with broad shoulders and a military haircut. He looked very strong.

  “Would you mind turning on the television?” Sergio said.

  “No TV, no visitors, no phone calls. Three meals a day. No extra juice or snacks or anything like that. The shackles stay on no matter what. If you need to take a shit, you get the nurse to help you wipe your ass. Those are the rules while you’re in the hospital. Any questions?”

  Sergio looked at the clock on the wall. He wondered what time this asshole would get off work. Maybe the next guard wouldn’t be so strict, or so muscular.

  “No questions,” he said.

  He turned over and closed his eyes and waited.

  COLT

  SUNDAY, 9:50 P.M. CST

  When nobody answered the door, Herb rang the bell again.

  And again.

  Then he knocked. Hard. “This is the police! Open the door!” When no one did, he asked me, “Did you hear a scream?”

  “Yes. A woman.”

  Neither of us had heard anything, but we now had probable cause to enter, no warrant needed.

  Herb inserted the pass key into the lock and gave it a quick turn. I drew my weapon, kept both hands wrapped tightly around the grips. The deadbolt slid past the strike plate with an audible click. In one swift motion Herb turned the knob and entered the residence and swept the front room with his pistol and shouted, “Police! Nobody move!”

/>   I stayed several feet behind Herb as he advanced into the apartment. It was a fancy place with expensive fixtures and modern paintings and furniture that looked like it belonged in a magazine. There was a draft coming from somewhere, cold air from outside.

  “The balcony,” I said.

  The blinds were drawn, but they were jittering on one side from the air blowing in. Herb walked over and pulled them open. On the other side of the doorframe, facing the steel railing at the edge of the porch, stood two men, wrestling with a woman.

  Jacqueline Daniels.

  “Freeze!” Herb ordered.

  One of the men froze, putting his hands up. His face was red and puffy, eyes almost swollen shut, and he had a bloody bandage on his belly.

  Jack was a fighter, no doubt.

  The other man—Boggan, the one who matched Sanchez’s sketch—didn’t freeze. He got behind Jack and put a .38 to her head—a Colt Detective Special that was almost identical to the one I held. Jack’s service piece.

  “It’s over, Boggan,” Herb said. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will. Bring her inside. Do it now.”

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to bargain, Detective. Mark, Jack and I are all going to leave here and drive away, or you watch her die. Mark, get their guns.”

  Mark looked as though he might comply until I pointed the .38 at his balls.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said.

  Mark remained where he was.

  “I told you to get their guns,” Boggan shouted. “They won’t shoot you. They won’t risk it.”

  “I will,” I said.

  Jack was bleeding from the head, and she looked completely out of it, but she said in a slurred voice, “You’re not the murderer, Mark. John is. You don’t have to ruin your whole life just for him.”

  John grimaced. “I’m doing this for you, Mark. This has all been for you. You’re the one who lit the match at Kevin’s place, remember?”

  Lit the match.

  At Kevin’s place.

  Couldn’t be.

  “Lit what match?” I said.