The Rookie Club Thriller series Box Set

by Danielle Girard

  Robbins glanced down, shrugged. “A little.”

  “I’ll make sure they’re looser next time.”

  “Thanks.” He scanned the group. “You got more questions?”

  “A few.” Hal took his notepad from his shirt pocket and wrote, “Is there a bug in here?”

  “We just wanted to confirm a couple things,” Hal said as he passed the notebook to the kid.

  Robbins frowned at the note. “What?”

  Hal took the sheet back, wrote, “Microphone? Someone listening?”

  Robbins shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His gaze tracked around the room. No. The kid didn’t suspect a bug, so he was lying for another reason.

  Hal slid the notebook back in his pocket. “Are you okay to stand?”

  Robbins shrugged. “Sure. Why?”

  “We want you to show us something.” Hal helped him out of the bed, and when Hal handed him a cell phone, Robbins took it with his left hand. “What? You want me to call somebody? I don’t have nobody to call.”

  Hailey’s turn. Good cop. “We want you to pretend it’s a gun and show us how you shot those men.”

  Robbins tipped his head to the side. “Come on, lady. That’s crazy.”

  “No, it’s not,” Hal snapped. He fought to control his temper. A young black kid with his shit together, and he was going to confess to a crime he didn’t commit. These street kids didn’t have a chance as it was. Why the hell would Robbins make it worse for himself?

  Hal didn’t care. He wasn’t going to let Robbins go down for a murder he didn’t commit.

  If he wasn’t the shooter.

  He wasn’t, was he?

  The kid straightened. Giving in, he lifted the phone toward Hailey and then shifted his aim to the wall. “Bang, bang.”

  The “gun” was still in his left hand.

  Hal glanced at the spot on the wall where the bullets would’ve punctured the plaster. The kid had started to aim at Hailey but then turned his aim to the wall instead.

  Pretend bullets from a pretend gun.

  “Now do it for real,” Hailey instructed. “Show us exactly how you stood when you shot those guys.”

  “It’s a phone.”

  “Do it and we’ll leave you alone,” she promised.

  He hesitated and tossed the phone on the bed.

  “Man, you didn’t shoot them any more than I did,” Hal said, his voice a low whisper, thankful there would be no record of his words.

  Robbins waved them off. “That’s crazy. I’m giving you a full confession. What more do I need to do ’fore you arrest me?”

  “Sit down,” Hal commanded.

  The kid’s bravado sank as he did.

  “Tell us about the car,” Hailey said.

  Robbins licked his lips, shrugged.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Fish dealt with that.”

  “You rode in the back?”

  He looked up at Hal. Then his gaze skittered over the others. He knew they didn’t believe him. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?” Hal asked, voice booming.

  Robbins shrank smaller. “We’d been smoking.”

  “Smoking?” Hal repeated.

  “Yeah, smoking. We had some Pump, some amp, Dizzy D. You know, Crack,” he added, his own voice splitting over the word.

  “You remember how you got the guns?” Hal asked.

  “Fish got ’em.”

  Hailey handed her notebook and a pen to Robbins. “Write out your full name and address.”

  He hesitated before taking the pad and pen then began to write. With his left hand.

  From her place against the door, Cameron emitted a tiny moan.

  “You happy now, lady?” he said and slumped against the headboard.

  Hal sat on the edge of the bed. The anger he normally felt with lying punk kids had been replaced by something more like empathy. “I would be a hell of a lot happier if I knew how a left-handed guy fired two perfect shots with his right hand in front of a couple dozen witnesses.”

  Robbins’s gaze slid back to Hal and then away again. He blinked, his lids resting closed just a moment too long. When they opened again, he stared at the far wall.

  “I guess we asked all our questions.” Hal let the kid have some more water and replaced the bindings himself, leaving enough space for two of his own fingers to slip in easily.

  Then he led the procession out and told the guard that the prisoner was bound. No one spoke as they rode down the elevator, during which Hal held his breath, or in the short walk through the hospital doors and into the parking lot.

  Finally, when they’d climbed in and Hal had started the car, Cameron spoke from the backseat. “What are you going to do?”

  It was a damn good question.

  “Got to figure out a way to get him to tell us who really shot those guys,” Hal said softly, hearing the defeat in his own voice.

  How the hell would they do that?

  Chapter 13

  Hal and Hailey didn’t have a chance to talk about the letter Jim had received from Nicholas Fredricks. They’d been busy with James Robbins, but Hailey felt the tension mounting again on the ride back to the station. Cameron sat in back and provided conversation, but the closer they got to the station, the worse Hailey felt.

  When they entered the department, the letter to Jim from Nicholas Fredricks was sitting on her desk in a clear, plastic evidence bag.

  She felt sick to see it. Why did Jim confide in her? No. It was the right thing to do. It would lead them to his shooter. But talking to Hal about Jim would not be easy.

  Kong sat in the center of Hailey’s desk, between the two tall stacks of case files, his legs dangling over the edge.

  “There you are,” he said as they came in.

  “Get off my desk, Kong.” Hailey dropped her purse into her bottom drawer, and carried her mug toward the coffee machine in the tiny copy room. Someone had left the pot on all morning. What was left in the bottom was thick and burned. Hailey dumped it into the trash and started a fresh pot.

  Kong was a big jokester. He and O’Shea had large personalities. They were loud and outgoing, always hassling each other in jest. It worked for them. It didn’t work for her. It never had, but it was much worse since John’s death.

  When she turned, Kong was leaning against the doorjamb, which made the room seem even smaller than it was.

  “Any word on the officer who was shot in the sting?” she asked.

  “Still in ICU,” Kong said. “Doctors are optimistic, though.”

  Optimism. She could have used some of that right now.

  Hal stood at her desk, reading the letter. When he looked up at her, there was anger in his expression. Hailey turned her back on both of them, watching coffee fill the stained glass pot in a slow, constant dribble.

  Growing impatient, she switched her mug for the pot so the coffee brewed directly into her cup. The few drops of spilled coffee sizzled and hissed beneath it.

  On the side of the mug, Ali, Camilla and John smiled in the matching plaid robes she’d given them four or five Christmases ago. John’s hair was tossed, and tufts stuck up in back where he’d slept on it. Camilla’s curls were a nest around her round cheeks, one of them bending into John’s chin, while Ali’s straight hair formed a halo of static electricity.

  She’d found the mug when she’d packed up the house for sale. It had been a joke gift from John, the kind of gifts they used to exchange on Valentine’s Day.

  Before the campaign talk. Before John became like Jim.

  She was sure John thought she’d never use it.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have if he hadn’t changed so much … if he hadn’t died.

  Hailey blinked hard and removed the half-full mug from under the stream, replacing the glass pot.

  Taking a moment to pull herself together, Hailey turned the image from her view, added two white sugar cubes, mixed it with a stir stick, and turne
d to face Kong, “King” as some called him.

  “You hear about this letter?” Kong asked.

  “Last night. Jim told me.” She walked to her desk and looked down at it. “Where did it come from?”

  Kong sat again on her desk, but before he could get comfortable, Hailey waved him away. “Move it, Kong. I’m not in the mood.”

  “Came today. From the senator’s office, delivered directly to O’Shea.”

  “Well, the guy who wrote that letter is dead,” Hal said.

  Kong nodded. “I know.” He turned to her. “But whoever shot your dad isn’t.”

  “Father-in-law, King,” Hal corrected. “He’s not her dad.”

  The reference didn’t bother her. These days, Jim was like a dad. “I’m sure that’s why Jim sent it over. He thought it would be useful to compare against the letter he received last week. He’s trying to help.”

  Hal pressed his lips together and said nothing.

  “What do you think of Robbins?” Hailey asked.

  “Kid didn’t shoot his friend, I’ll tell you that.” Hal sat up. “I’m going up there, take a look at his house after work.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  He shook his head and stood. “You go home to the girls. I’ll call you after.”

  Hailey lifted the stack of mail into her lap, thumbed through it, and tossed out a stack of catalogues offering bulletproof vests and holsters, then another with a listing of seminars for detectives, one in Hawaii, another in Florida. Something slid through her fingers and landed on the floor.

  A number ten envelope. Hal lifted it from one corner. It was addressed “Harris and Wyatt.” No postage.

  Taking the scissors from the can on her desk, Hal cut it open and slid out the contents.

  The top read San Francisco Chronicle, June 28, 2012. The headline read: “S&P 500, Tech Stocks … now Illegal Guns.” The byline was someone named D. Blake, and the tag read “Chronicle Staff Writer.” It was a short piece, maybe two square inches on the page.

  An unnamed East Coast fund manager has been accused of diversifying client investments into the sale of illegal guns. Few details have been released by insiders, who are pushing for an investigation into the one-man hedge fund allegedly investing client funds in stolen weapons.

  According to sources, several referrals to the fund have come from heads of Fortune 500 companies and members of congress. The fund is also accused of using gang members to make street sales up and down the eastern shoreline. The SEC has made no announcement regarding their intent to investigate. Randall Lockhead, Deputy Assistant Director (East) for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was also unavailable for comment.

  At the bottom right corner, someone had scrawled, “No source, no story!”

  “How long’s that stack been there?” Hal asked.

  Hailey tried to think if she’d looked at it yesterday. “Late last week maybe.”

  Hal pulled an evidence bag from the kit at her feet and dropped the letter in a clear Ziploc bag, still holding it by a corner.

  “I’m going to make a copy, get it to the lab. You want to call the paper, see what you can find out about Mr. Blake?”

  Hailey was glad to have a moment alone with her thoughts.

  Members of Congress. Just the words made her antsy. Even if she believed Jim had nothing to do with these guns—which she did—there were just too many innuendos pushing the police in his direction.

  She took her cell phone to the women’s room. Alone, she dialed Jim’s direct office line. Dee answered and said he was in a meeting.

  “I’ll call back,” Hailey said, wishing Jim would learn how to text.

  “Is it about John’s case?” Dee asked.

  “What?” Hailey said, fighting to sound normal. “No.”

  “We saw the interview this morning. I thought you looked strong. Jim did too. You handled yourself well.”

  “Thank you, Dee. Will you tell him I called?”

  “Of course. Nothing I can help with?”

  She thought about the article. “Have you ever heard of someone named Blake? D. Blake?”

  “I don’t think so. Is he one of Jim’s colleagues?”

  “No. He’s a reporter.”

  “I can look through the press files I’ve got. I save everything related to Jim or the campaigns.”

  “That would be great,” Hailey said.

  “No problem. I’ve got something to finish up here. Then I’ll get right on it.”

  “Thanks, Dee.”

  Back at her desk, Hailey called the Chronicle to follow up on Blake. She spoke to the publisher’s assistant and faxed her a copy of the letter.

  While she waited for the publisher to call her back, Hailey called down to the DA’s office to get the status of the warrant she’d requested—the financial records for Nicholas Fredricks’s funeral.

  “We’re taking it to the judge for a signature tomorrow,” the ADA told her.

  “Good. I’m also wondering if you can get your hands on a list of everyone who would have access to the phones at Martin Abbott’s law firm—secretaries, paralegals, that kind of thing.”

  “You want us to subpoena Martin Abbott?”

  She could have done without the pushback. She was trying to solve some murders. “I guess I could get Tom Rittenberg to call and request your help in solving his daughter’s murder. I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t have to. It’s an employee list. Not a client list.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Hailey thanked him and hung up. She added D. Blake to the list of outstanding items in the case. The others read:

  Talk to Shakley.

  The officer shot in the sting. Next to it, she wrote, Still in ICU.

  Who paid for NF funeral?

  She could follow up on that one tomorrow—if the warrant came through. She made a note there too.

  Hear from NYPD about NF.

  She added a question mark. She couldn’t imagine they would call her back, but she’d keep it on the list.

  Martin Abbott link.

  That one would have to wait too.

  Jeremy Hayden.

  The dead gunrunner killed during the sting. She underlined his name.

  None of the pieces even felt connected. Abbott and Fredricks and Hayden and now this guy, Blake. These people didn’t know each other—there was no indication that their paths had ever crossed.

  Why were they all part of this case?

  She called over to the juvenile detention center and left a message requesting Jeremy Hayden’s record. Added it to her notes.

  She’d opened up a blank incident report to begin filling in the details of Fredricks’s vandalized corpse when her desk phone rang.

  “Wyatt,” Hailey answered, expecting Jim.

  “This is Carl Phillips. I’m the Deputy Publisher with the Chronicle returning your call regarding Donald Blake.”

  Hailey felt a jolt of energy. “Thanks for calling.” D for Donald. Progress.

  “I got the article submission you faxed, but I’m afraid I don’t have a whole lot to offer you. Both the publisher and I are relatively new. I’ve been here about two years, Stan about a year and a half. This was before our time. I checked the graveyard, though, and I was able to confirm this article was never printed.”

  “And Donald Blake is no longer there?”

  “No. Jeez, he’s been gone two years now.”

  Reporters obviously came and went. She was surprised the director had called her. “That’s no problem. Do you have a forwarding number for Mr. Blake?”

  The line went quiet.

  “Mr. Phillips?”

  “I’m sorry, Inspector. Mr. Blake died. He’s dead.”

  Hailey sank against her chair, the wheels screeching on the linoleum. Dead. Another death. “How did he die?”

  “God, it was a terrible tragedy.” He lowered his voice. “Really shook up the team.”

  “How did he die?” she asked again.r />
  “He killed himself after his family died in a gang shooting. They were driving and got caught in the middle of a turf war.”

  A gang shooting.

  How big would this thing get? Abby and Hank Dennig, Colby Wesson—they weren’t just murdered.

  It was like they were assassinated. But why?

  Hal walked through the department doors. He caught her eye and stopped.

  “Shot?” she repeated into the phone.

  Hal raised his brow.

  Hailey put the phone on her speaker. “Can you repeat that, Mr. Phillips? My partner Hal Harris has just joined me.”

  “Uh, sure.” He spoke louder, the way people did when they were on speaker phone. “Yeah. Donald Blake was driving. He was injured, but the steering wheel probably saved his life. The others were caught in the crossfire and killed instantly. Don survived, but he took his own life a few months later.”

  Hailey watched Hal’s reaction as the words struck him. He stood straight, arched backward. The knot of muscle in his jaw looked the size of a golf ball.

  “Yeah, it’s really tragic,” Phillips went on. “Like I said, people here are still upset.”

  “When?”

  “Would have been the summer of 2013.”

  “Do you know where he lived?” Hal asked.

  “Uh.” Phillips seemed to jump at the sound of Hal’s deep baritone. “Not exactly. Oakland, I think. But in a safe neighborhood. From what I know.”

  “You’ve never seen that article submission before?” Hailey asked.

  “No. It seems so weird that it came up after all this time. Where did you say you got it?”

  “We received it here at the station,” Hailey said.

  “Do you know where the shooting happened?” Hal asked.

  “Like I said to Inspector …”

  “Wyatt,” Hal said.

  “Right. Like I told her, I wasn’t here, but I know the deaths were ruled a gang shooting. He was with his family—taking his kids to the Oakland Zoo.”

  Hal wiped his face with a hand that could easily palm a basketball. “You have the story? About the shootings?”

  “I’m sure we do somewhere. I could fax it, if you’d like.”

  Hailey thanked him for the help and hung up. The phone on Hal’s desk rang and he crossed to answer, leaving Hailey with her thoughts. Did the list of victims begin as far back as Donald Blake’s family? Were all these deaths related? Jim and Shakley were alive, but so far, they were the only ones.