Hal raised a brow. “You mean like Martin Abbott?” He shook his head. “No such luck. And according to Neill, none of ’em have ever had representation. Ballistics is running the gun found on Robbins—the kid with the bullet in his head—to see if it’s a match to the weapon used to kill Carson.” He nodded toward the department. “You need anything in there, or should we head over to General?”
Hailey wanted to touch base with Jim on the press conference and to assure him that she wasn’t going to share their conversation from the night before. But there was no privacy inside the department. “Let’s go.”
“You can tell me about the letter on the ride over.”
Before she could respond, Cameron Cruz appeared around the corner, almost running. “They told me you guys were here.”
“And here we are,” Hal said.
“What’s going on?” Hailey asked.
“I heard you guys were heading over to talk to Robbins, the guy who confessed.”
Hal nodded. “That’s right.”
“Mind if I come along?” she asked, wringing her hands. “By the way, that was fun last night.”
“Last night?” Hal repeated.
“A bunch of us went out,” Cameron said.
“It was just some of the women from the department,” Hailey added awkwardly.
Hal glanced at her, but she avoided his gaze. She had bailed on him and gone out with the women instead. Because they were easier. They didn’t probe. They didn’t look at her… like that.
Hal stared at Cameron. “Why do you want to come to interrogate Robbins?”
“It was the closest I’ve ever been to a shooting.”
“Kind of strange since you’re a Specialist,” Hal said. It might have been a joke, but his voice held an edge.
Cameron didn’t seem to notice. “Right, but I’m usually up on a roof somewhere.”
“So, why do you want to come?” Hal asked again.
“That shooter was a professional,” Cameron said. “He wasn’t anything like the kids we took down trying to sell those guns.”
“What do you mean, professional?” Hal asked.
“His stance, his aim. He had a lot of practice. Probably a decade of it,” she said. “From what I hear, Robbins, the suspect you have, doesn’t fit.”
“Robbins confessed,” Hailey said. “Why would he do that if he wasn’t guilty?”
Cameron shrugged. “I wouldn’t know that. I just know that I watched the guy who killed Dwayne Carson. I don’t want him on the street. I’d like to offer some help if I can.”
“Sure. I’d love an honest opinion,” Hal said and his gaze pinned Hailey. His anger seemed to burn her skin as he added, “For a change.”
Chapter 12
Hailey got into the backseat. Hal drove. He knew it was an asshole thing to say. He was pissed. He had a right to be pissed.
While Cameron talked through her version of last night’s shooting, Hal strained to listen to the phone conversation Hailey was having with Jim in the backseat. “Hal and I are on our way to see a suspect,” was the one thing he’d heard clearly. The answers from the backseat shrank to one word. Yes. No. No. Yes.
“I know,” she whispered and Hal felt a chill ripple across his scalp.
The gentle tone of her voice, the reassurances—as though John were on the other end of the phone. What hold did Jim have on her? Why did she trust him? She could barely stand her father-in-law when John was alive, but now they were thick as thieves.
And at the same time, she had stopped confiding in Hal.
Her partner.
When he caught her eye in the rearview mirror, she turned away as though she hadn’t seen him.
There was something in her refusal to meet his gaze.
Sheila had done same thing—like a refusal to let him in.
As they walked into the hospital, Hailey pushed the thick curls from her forehead and held her chin up as though preparing for the fight.
The old Hailey again.
When they arrived, Mike Neill, an inspector in Triggerlock, sat just outside the arches of the metal detector at the entrance to the hospital’s jail ward.
When they were through security, Mike pulled a stack of folded pages from his back pocket. “Here are some images of the scene. Also, they matched the gun found on James Robbins to the bullets that killed Dwayne Carson and Griffin Sigler, the driver of the car.”
Hailey stepped forward. “Hal said Robbins was shot in the head?”
Mike nodded. “You’re skeptical too?”
“A little.”
“Join the club. I’ve been with the medical examiner all morning. The shooting scenario at the apartment doesn’t work the way Robbins is telling it.”
“He’s lying about him and Fiston shooting each other?” Cameron asked.
“Absolutely,” Mike said. “The way he tells it, he gets home from shooting Dwayne Carson, and Fiston comes to his place. According to Robbins, the two kids are seated on couches. But according to the ME and the surgeon at General Hospital, each gunshot wound was delivered at a downward angle. That means both of them were shot by someone standing above them. That’s not possible if they shot each other.”
“Is it possible that one or maybe both were shot while standing and then sat down?” Hailey asked.
Mike shook his head. “Blood spatter shows both boys were shot while sitting on the couch.”
“Opposite couches,” Hal confirmed.
“Right.”
“How far apart are these couches?”
Mike studied the pages until he found what he was looking for. “Five feet, seven inches between the two boys, but the couches don’t sit face-to-face. They’re set up like an L, at ninety degrees, more or less.”
“The angle sounds wrong,” Cameron said, speaking for the first time since they’d left the car. She pointed to a photograph of Kenny Fiston. “If they shot each other, the entry wounds should have been more or less parallel.”
“You’re right.” He turned back to Mike. “Did CSU test the trajectories to confirm if the shots were fired from those positions?”
Mike shook his head. “They took photographs and did the measurements, but they’re four weeks out to run those kinds of scenarios. Too much other stuff to work on and trajectory work is time-consuming.”
“They test for gunshot residue?” Hal asked.
“Yep. GSR positive on both of them.”
“What about other bullets?”
“They found two others,” Mike said, flipping through the report. “One slug in the wall and one in a baseboard.”
“One from each gun?” Hal ventured.
“Good guess.”
“Sounds like a setup,” Hailey said.
“What do we know about this kid Robbins?” Cameron asked.
“No record. No truancy issues. Parents are both gone, but he works at a dry cleaner on Cesar Chavez and helps raise his kid sister.”
“And he confessed to shooting both Dwayne Carson and Kenny Fiston—who was his friend—inside his own apartment?” Cameron asked.
“That sums it up,” Mike said.
“Doesn’t sound right,” Hailey said.
“He’s in room 6110,” Mike said. “I’ve got to get back to the station for a briefing. I’m meeting Kong and O’Shea here to interview him in a couple of hours, but call if you learn something.”
“Will do,” Hal agreed. Kong and O’Shea had been assigned Carson’s murder case. Hal was here because this thing related to the earlier murders. He felt it in his gut.
He had a bad feeling, that tightness in his chest, the light-headedness that reminded him of the back of that patrol car after his father’s death. Even with effort, he couldn’t quite shake it as they made their way to room 6110.
Two officers guarded the door. Inside the room, the overhead lights were shut off. The outside light created striped shadows between the thin slats of vinyl shades.
A low, intermittent beep was the only noi
se in the room as the patient turned his head slowly from the far wall.
James Robbins wore a hospital gown in prison orange.
Though he had dark skin, the kid’s angular nose suggested mixed ancestry.
Maybe the shooting was a gang thing. Maybe it had nothing at all to do with their case. Maybe the timing of Carson’s murder—just after he’d been released on charges related to the guns stolen from the Dennigs—was coincidence. For all they knew, this kid Robbins might have been tracking Carson for weeks.
But if Carson’s death was gang-related, why did the victim look so scared coming out of the station? At the Triggerlock sting, he didn’t look scared. If he knew he was a wanted man, he should have been afraid then too.
No. Something had changed after Carson pulled Martin Abbott’s business card from his pocket.
Lying in the hospital bed, Robbins watched them with narrowed eyes, a little dull. He tried to lift an arm, but the white Velcro restraints on his wrists held him to the bed. Instead, he turned his head to wipe his face on the shoulder of his gown. Thick white gauze circled his head like a sweatband. Above and below the bandage, he wore his hair in an Afro. It was a little long but clean and evenly cut.
Bruises had formed under both eyes. They were deep violet half-moons above angular cheekbones. The whites of his eyes were yellow, his pupils tiny.
Without speaking, Hal set the recorder on the rolling table by his bed. That close, Hal smelled the kid’s sweat, pungent and acidic. He smelled scared. “You want, I can loosen those.” Hal pointed to the restraints.
The kid licked his lips, nodded. “Yeah.” Cleared his throat and added, “Please.”
Hal ripped them open, and immediately, the kid rubbed his wrists.
Hal glanced at the thin, delicate arms, not much bigger than Sheila’s, as he stretched his arms straight and bent them again, as though his elbows ached. The inside curve of his arm was free of track marks, his face clean of scars. Not even a nick from shaving.
“Better?”
The kid nodded. “Thanks.” He turned to the cup of water on the table. “You mind?”
“Go ahead.” Hal waited while he drank the water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then the kid refilled his glass from a small pink plastic pitcher and drank that down too. When he was done, he placed his cup back on the table, crossed his hands, and stared at the white beds of his fingernails.
Hal looked too. Clipped, cut. No dirt. A well-groomed kid.
There were well-groomed killers, he told himself.
Sure.
The kid nodded that he was ready, and Hal made a show of pressing the red record button before stepping to the end of the bed. Hailey moved in beside him, while Cameron remained at the door.
Hailey caught Hal’s eye, but Hal ignored her. He was in charge of this one.
“You know why we’re here?”
The kid seemed to have some trouble swallowing but nodded. He glanced at the recorder. “Yes,” he said, his voice raspy.
“Please state your full name.”
“James Charles Robbins.”
“Date of birth?”
“December 10, 2000.”
“Age?”
“Sixteen.”
“Mr. Robbins, do you understand that this conversation is being recorded?”
He rubbed the bandage on his head gingerly. “I do.”
“You also agree that you are not being forced to talk to us.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“And you understand that it is your choice to not have an attorney present?”
“I don’t want an attorney.” He paused. “Thank you.”
Robbins was an easy interview, helpful and polite, made eye contact, spoke with proper grammar—the kind of kid a dad would be proud of. Not the kind of kid Hal usually interviewed for murder. He came across more like an awkward high school debate student than a killer. But he was scared. Just like Carson had been.
Who had scared these guys? And why?
Hal walked him through the details of the day before, beginning with when he woke. Only when the interview reached the point when Dwayne Carson and Griffin Sigler were killed did his demeanor change. His posture stiffened, his voice cracked, and he stopped making eye contact. “We went down there—me and Fish.”
“Fish?” Hal asked. “That’s Kenny Fiston?” Robbins nodded.
“So you and Kenny went down to the police station?”
“Yeah,” Robbins said. “Fish drove and I shot them. Then, I shot Fish.”
James Robbins was a bad liar. Bad liars didn’t make it in the world of crooks and gangs. Lying was more essential than being able to shoot or fight.
In that world, lying was on par with breathing.
Hailey stepped away.
Cameron shook her head.
Hal studied Robbins, waiting for something to give. But the kid kept his mouth closed.
“You said you shot them. Did you know who they were, these guys?” Hal asked.
Robbins shrugged. “Some guys.” When Hal pressed, he added, “They owed Fish some money.”
“And who shot Fish?” Hal asked him.
His Adam’s apple bobbed like a buoy he was trying to hold under water. “I did.”
“So you shot two men in the alley beside the police station then you went home and shot Fish?”
Robbins blinked and nodded.
“Out loud, please,” Hal said, losing patience.
Something in the kid looked dead then, his eyes heavy, almost closed, as he turned his mouth down to face the recorder. “I shot Fish.”
Hal had been handed confessions before—once when a guy split his wife’s head open with a tire iron, once when a babysitter had accidentally smothered a child, but almost always there were strong emotions at work—bottled up aggression or boiling anger or profound sorrow, regret—hell, something. This kid showed nothing. “You want to tell us why you shot your friend?”
His shoulders dropped and his chin fell. “He stole something from me,” he said flatly.
“What did he steal?” Hailey asked.
“It don’t matter.”
Hal noticed it was the first time his grammar had slipped. “A woman? Money?”
The kid nodded like he was being offered free samples. “Yeah.”
Hal pressed his palms into the bar at the foot of the bed, leaned in. “Well, which was it, James?”
“Maybe it was both.” Before Hal could ask another question, Robbins said, “I’m done talking now.”
Hal waited another minute, one last holdout, but Robbins remained silent. Hailey tucked the digital recorder into her purse and left the room. Hal stayed back until all the women were gone. “You sure you done talking?”
The kid looked away.
Hal left. Outside the door, the guard stopped him. “He cuffed?”
Hal shook his head. “That kid don’t need to be cuffed.”
Guard shrugged. “Policy, man. You know how it is.”
Halfway down the hall, he met up with Hailey and Cameron, who stood talking. Cameron turned to him. “Did you watch his hands?”
Hal tried to picture the kid’s hands. Clean hands.
“No,” Hailey said. “Why?”
“He’s left-handed.”
The kid had scratched his head with his left hand, but he’d been scratching that side.
“Which hand had gunshot residue?” Hailey asked.
Hal flipped open the ballistics report Mike had left and skimmed through several pages while Hailey paced the linoleum. Finally, he found it. “Shit.”
“Right hand?” Cameron guessed.
Hal nodded, his gaze on Hailey, who had halted. “Right hand.”
“That’s not all,” Cameron said. “The shooter I watched was left-eye dominant.”
Hal was impressed. He hadn’t noticed either of those things. He’d been distracted with Hailey and her secrets. If he couldn’t trust his partner, how the hell could he stay on tas
k?
Focus. “How do you know someone is left-eye dominant?” Hal asked.
She tilted her head to demonstrate. “You can tell from the way he pitched his head when he fired.” She looked back at Robbins’s room. “This guy’s not the shooter. I’d testify to it in court.”
“Now remember,” Hal said. “You only saw him for a few minutes on the street. It was a stressful situation. You said it yourself—you’ve never been that close to a shooting before.”
“It’s true,” Hailey said. “Are you sure you’re right?”
“It’s my job to watch people with guns,” Cameron said, “although I’m usually farther away. That shooter last night—he used an Israeli shooting stance. That’s something taught in training schools.” She squatted down, held her hands up, left cupping the right. “It makes the shooter a smaller target, provides good balance for better aim.” She rose to her feet and hitched her thumb toward the door, the frenetic energy she’d had at the department back again. “That kid in there didn’t learn to shoot at any school, if he’s ever fired a gun. If he knows how, he learned it on the street, and I’d bet my next paycheck that he wouldn’t use an Israeli shooting stance.”
“Okay,” Hal said. “Now, we just have to prove it.”
“Ask him to show you how he shot the gun,” Hailey said, shrugging. “Have him demonstrate.”
Hal didn’t want the wrong guy, and if Cameron was right about any of it—gunshot residue, eye dominance, shooting stance—then Robbins was the wrong guy. He’d known Robbins wasn’t their shooter as soon as he laid eyes on the kid. Cameron’s observations only made him all that more certain.
“I’m telling you,” Cameron said again. “That guy didn’t do it.”
Hal nodded. “I remember the shooter squatting.” Fear was motivating this kid, which meant there was someone out on the street Hal needed to find. “Let’s do it.”
When they walked back into the hospital room, Robbins glanced at Hailey before focusing on Hal. He edged himself up in the bed. Hal undid the binds and stepped back. Robbins rubbed his wrists again, wincing a little this time.
“They do those up too tight?”
The Rookie Club Thriller series Box Set Page 41