“You scared the crap out of me.” Hailey heard the sirens. “I’m on my way. I’m almost at Cesar Chavez. Be there in ten minutes.”
“Hailey, this place is—”
“Watch for my car,” she said, cutting him off. She wasn’t interested in being told it was dangerous. “And don’t let those patrol guys go anywhere.”
Ten minutes later, when Hailey turned off Third Avenue onto Evans and passed the closed down PG&E plant, red police lights shone in the sky like beacons.
Hal stood beside a black and white, arms crossed, talking to a patrol officer who took notes. She parked diagonally on the street, scanned the faces watching them in the dark, and slammed the car door harder than necessary as she got out.
She wanted to touch his shoulder, to hug him like a kid. Instead, she fought with her welling emotion. Since John, everything felt so much more dangerous. And what if these people had been targeting Hal? What if this was happening because of Jim?
If Jim did something that got Hal hurt …
Hal smiled. “You were asleep.”
Hailey touched her head, the half-done ponytail loosed into a frizzy mane. “Maybe you could go a day this week without getting shot at.”
The patrol officer looked at her. Hailey glared until he returned to his notepad and started asking questions again.
Where was Hal standing? How many shots were fired?
She stood silent beside him until she could hear the hiss of his breathing.
He was really okay.
Now she could be too. She forced slow, even breaths.
“We lose the shooter?”
“Think so. My bet—he was gone before the black and whites got here.” Hal pointed down the hill. “Shots came from there, I’m guessing. First couple cleared my head, so he had to be shooting upward.” More sirens wailed in the distance. “Makes the most sense, anyway. It’s a straight shot to Palou down that way, then the freeway’s only a few blocks.”
“I probably passed him.” Hailey nodded to the bystanders. “Anyone see anything?”
“Nothing yet.”
“I won’t hold my breath,” she said. If the guy got away with shooting someone a block from the police station in the middle of the day, it didn’t seem likely they’d catch him in the projects at night.
“Smart move.”
Another patrol officer approached, clipping his radio back on his shoulder. “No luck.”
“Think he’s a local?” she asked. “He’d know where to hide.”
Hal frowned. “Maybe, but not too bright about it. If he’d waited another minute, I’d have cleared the stairs, and he would have had a clean shot at me.”
The thought was terrifying.
“Inspector!” an officer called from the hillside below. “You guys got to see this.”
They walked slowly down the hill, watching their path for footprints or evidence. The dirt was strewn with garbage—broken glass and bits of paper and cardboard. It was impossible to tell what might have been useful. The tracks led down the hill and back up again, which meant the shooter came up and then went back down the same way. There were a million ways around that place—and any of a dozen paths would have eliminated a need to backtrack. Safer that way. The fact that he’d taken the same path suggested the shooter didn’t know the area well. Probably not a local.
They stopped a few feet from a V-shaped impression in the mud.
“Christ,” Hal said. “You know what that is?”
Hailey studied the footprints, the strange angle of the feet. The tread was heavier on the heels, sunken a couple of inches into the mud. The mud nearby was moist, but not soft. It held firm when she pressed a finger into it.
The firmness suggested that the shooter had not merely paused in that spot—he had planted his feet there.
The tight set of Hal’s jaw told her he was thinking the same thing. “Israeli shooting stance,” she said.
“Goddamn right,” he whispered.
Chapter 16
Hailey’s phone buzzed as they left Hunters Point.
“I need a drink,” Hal said.
She wanted to go home, but after bailing out on her partner the night Carson was shot and going out with the Rookie Club instead, she owed him. “Sure. Where?”
“Hanlon’s?”
The cop bar. She would have chosen somewhere quieter, but it was Hal’s call. He would be amped up—the adrenaline fading and the fear starting to settle in. She knew how this worked. “Hanlon’s it is.”
At the bar, Hal ordered a beer on tap and Hailey asked for the same, avoiding eye contact with the familiar faces. By this hour, the sober ones had gone home.
When they were served, Hal lifted the cold pint glass, took a few long swallows, and set it down, nearly empty.
“You okay?”
He didn’t answer and lifted his hand for another. When the bartender came back with a full glass, he set two shots down next to it. Something amber-colored. Whiskey probably. A couple of officers from Sex Crimes waved from across the bar. In the process, one of them—an old-timer almost at retirement—stumbled and fell back onto his barstool.
Hal lifted the shot, took a sip, made a face, and nodded to hers. “You going to drink that?”
“I’ll pass.”
Hal held the shot between two fingers. It looked more like a thimble than a shot glass as he tipped it down his throat. He took a few more sips of his second beer, stood up, and threw a twenty on the bar. “Let’s get out of here.”
Hailey looked at her full glass. She didn’t need a drink. “I’ll drive.”
He didn’t argue. “You need to get home?”
Hailey glanced at the clock. Ten thirty. “I’ve got time. I can take you first.”
“I want to make a stop.”
She watched him. “Where?”
“I’ll show you.” In the car, Hal dialed. “I need to see if James Robbins has been released.” When he hung up, he said, “He’s at CJ-nine.” Robbins had gotten medical release from the hospital jail ward and had been transported back to the regular city jail at the Hall. “Let’s go talk to him.”
“Now?”
When Hal didn’t answer, she drove them to the station and parked on the street. They entered the jail via the steps where Dwayne Carson had emerged only minutes before he’d been shot. The new city jail building had tiled blue glass and a sleek, modern design. The architecture would have been better suited to a library or a convention center. No matter how attractive the building, it still housed criminals.
Hailey watched Hal from the corner of her eye, but she had no idea what he was thinking. The muscle in his jaw was working and the stiffness of his posture read as anger. But anger at whom? At her?
They showed their badges at the desk, checked their weapons, and took the elevator to the fourth floor where a guard led them to James Robbins’s cell. Hal asked to be let in. After the door slid open with a long mechanical hum, he stepped past the thick iron bars.
The cell emanated a dank chill. Hal stood in the darkness, his expression unreadable. When had that happened? She used to be able to read Hal.
“You want in too?” the guard asked.
The intensity of Hal’s expression made her wish she could stay outside, but she didn’t have a choice. Hal seemed on the verge of lashing out. The cell door closed behind them with a low buzz.
Robbins lay on the bottom bunk, one knee up and one leg stretched out, a hand tucked under his head. His prison orange stood out in the darkness, and when the door clicked shut, the whites of his eyes flashed at her.
He sat up slowly, onto his elbows. Hal crossed to him in a single stride.
When Robbins had both shoes on the ground, Hal smacked him in the jaw.
“Hal,” Hailey snapped, but her partner didn’t turn.
Robbins rocked back, cupping his jaw. “What the hell.”
“Get up,” Hal ordered, balling his fingers into tight fists.
Hailey stepped forward.
Hal spu
n toward her, palm out. “Don’t.” His eyes were narrow, tight. He stank of beer. “I won’t hurt him,” he whispered.
She’d never seen him like this. What was it about Robbins that made him so angry? Or was it her?
James Robbins licked his lips, pressing himself against the cell wall.
“He’s scared,” she whispered.
“Please,” Hal said.
She stepped away.
Robbins hovered tighter to the wall. “What’re you doing in here?”
Hal grabbed his orange prison jersey, yanked it. The fabric ripped. Her heart pounded.
“Get up,” Hal shouted.
The kid tried to duck out from under the bunk.
Hal grabbed his shoulder.
“Hey!” Robbins yelled. “Someone help me!”
From down the hall, another inmate shouted back, “Shut up, pussy!”
The guard didn’t appear.
Robbins backed himself to the bars.
Hal leaned in so their chests were almost touching. Anger came off him like heat.
Robbins tried to catch Hailey’s eye. Hal gripped the kid’s jaw. “Look at me. Don’t look at her. You’re talking to me.” Spit flew from his lips.
“What do you want?” Robbins asked.
“Tell me why you lied,” Hal demanded.
Hailey sank against the hard cold bars. She thought of the scrap of paper she’d found in Jim’s office. He was a liar. That made her a liar too. How would Hal react to that?
“I ain’t a liar.”
Hal dropped a fist into the top bunk. The springs yelped.
Robbins sank to the floor.
“Get up,” Hal demanded.
He covered his face.
“Get the hell off the floor.” Hal yanked him up.
“Hal,” Hailey pleaded.
He let go, raised both hands in the air.
“Tell us about the shooting,” Hailey said.
Robbins glanced between them, shook his head. “I didn’t lie.”
Hal gripped the kid’s elbow and twisted the arm behind his back.
He pressed Robbins’s face against the bars. She’d only ever seen Hal like this once before, right about the time that he and Sheila were breaking up. He’d been a mess. Edgy and mean, and for someone his size, it was scary, even for those who knew him well.
Even for her.
Then, one night they’d caught a guy who broke into his girlfriend’s apartment and killed two women. Brutally raped one before killing her, then killed the other.
When Hailey and Hal entered the scene, the perp was high on coke and Grey Goose in his yuppie apartment. Hal let loose. He had the guy off his feet and against a wall, suspended by the collar of his expensive French shirt.
Hailey had talked him down. It was his career at stake, all the good he could do would be lost over one piece of shit. Hal had stormed from the scene, and she hadn’t seen him until he showed up to work Monday morning.
He’d brought her a latte—his silent truce.
Robbins was nothing like that guy. He was a kid, and maybe an innocent one.
She put her hand on Hal’s shoulder and he let go of Robbins, moving away.
Robbins huddled against the bars, giving in to the tremors.
“I went up to Hunters Point tonight,” Hal said, his voice gravelly, hoarse. “I went to see where you live.”
The kid’s shoulders tightened toward his chin as though he could block out the sound.
“Someone shot at me.”
Robbins sank to the floor, put his temple to the bars, and closed his eyes.
“You want to tell me what that’s about?” Hal asked.
Robbins shook his head.
“Who shot Carson?”
He didn’t open his eyes. “I did.”
Hal lunged forward.
Robbins tensed for the strike as Hailey stepped between them. “We’re trying to help you, for God’s sake. Hal is trying to save you.” The kid turned his head and opened his eyes, lifting his hand to his ear where his wound had begun to bleed through the bandage.
Shit.
“You know how many innocent people were up there tonight, while some asshole was shooting at me?” Hal asked, his voice quieter, defeated.
Hal pushed a picture into Robbins’s face. A girl—about Camilla’s age—smiled at the camera. “How about her?”
Fear bleached the color from his face. Gone was any last bravado. “No.”
Hal held the picture a few inches from Robbins’s eyes. “Tell me who shot Dwayne Carson and the driver …”
“Sigler,” Hailey said.
Robbins’s eyes filled with tears. “Where is she?”
“He asked you a question,” Hailey said. “Tell us who shot them.”
Robbins shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know who shot ’em.”
“But it wasn’t you?” Hal asked.
Robbins deflated. “No.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I didn’t kill them. I never killed anybody, I swear.”
“So why confess?” Hal asked.
Robbins sobbed. “Because he threatened Tawny. He called the hospital room and told me if I didn’t confess to killing Fish, he’d come after her. Then, same guy calls back and tells me I gotta confess to those other guys too—I never even heard of those guys. What would I want them dead for?” He pulled himself to his feet, clutching the photo to his chest and blinked against the tears.
“You’re willing to risk going to jail for murder?”
“I go to jail or they kill Tawny,” Robbins barked. “Which would you choose?”
“Not all guys would have chosen to protect their sister,” Hal said, backing off.
Robbins rubbed a hand over his face. “She ain’t got nobody else.”
“Who shot you?” Hal asked.
“I don’t remember,” Robbins said, his eyes open, clear. “I swear, I didn’t see him.”
“You got any ideas who the shooter might’ve been?” Hal pressed.
“Only one I can think is the guy Fish was working for. He dealt.”
“Dealt what?” Hailey asked.
“Guns. Moved them for some guy.”
“What guy?” Hal said.
Robbins shrugged. “I just know he’s bad.”
“How?”
“Fish was scared of him, and Fish wasn’t scared of most people.” Robbins’s eyes grew wide and round. More tears spilled. He turned to Hal. “He got Tawny?”
“She’s fine. She and Mrs. Parker went with the U.S. Marshalls. They’re going to safe housing for a while.”
Robbins wiped his face. “Oh, thank God.”
Hailey stepped forward, touched his arm. “Robbins, come sit.”
He walked the three feet to the bed as though it was a marathon and slumped down. The flimsy mattress bowed, and Robbins sank into the middle. “Christ, I thought he’d killed her.” He looked up. “How long can she stay there—in the safe place?”
“As long as she needs to,” Hailey said. She had no idea how long they’d be able to keep her there. She hoped she wasn’t lying. “We’ll work it out,” she said honestly.
“You know anything else about this guy? The man who called?” Hal asked.
Robbins shook his head. After waiting a minute, Hal walked to the door and called for the guard.
Hailey squatted beside the bed. “You’re safest in here for now, okay?”
“And you’re sure Tawny’s okay?”
“I’m sure. But we’ve got to find this man. We’ll be back in the morning to ask some more questions.”
Fish must have been part of the same group of gunrunners that Carson was. He’d been eliminated just like Carson. Why? Because they’d seen something? Or someone? Sigler and Robbins—they were just collateral damage.
The guard opened the door.
“He’s bleeding,” Hailey told the guard. “If it doesn’t stop within the hour, he goes back to the h
ospital.”
The guard shrugged.
Hal stepped forward, scanned his uniform, and paused on his name tag. “It’s your responsibility, O’Malley, if something happens to him. You got it?”
The guard didn’t make eye contact. “Got it.”
Hailey passed her card through the bars to Robbins. “Call me if you need to.”
Hal was already halfway down the hall when she caught up. His eyes were red and his shoulders hunched, but the anger seemed to have dissipated—for now. Maybe it was the alcohol, but she suspected something else was going on. Behind the steel doors, the elevator lurched and moaned somewhere below them.
Hal jabbed his thumb into the button a couple of times and then punched the steel door.
“You want to talk about it?”
“You know what I do sometimes?”
Hailey said nothing. It wasn’t that sort of question.
He leaned in closer. “I go down to the file room and pull John’s file.”
She stumbled away from him. Reached for the wall for support.
“I reread it every couple of months to see if something new jumps out at me,” he went on. “The way we always did the Silverstein case. And the Delgado one. Martin. Szczygiel. Farr. Remember all of them?”
His face blurred in front of her face. The air was thick and hot. Hailey willed the elevator doors to open as the machinery groaned from somewhere deep in the bowels of the building.
Hal reared back, jabbed a thumb into his own chest. “I’ve checked that file out nine times. Harrison’s had it six. King’s checked it out. Marshall. O’Shea. Pretty much everyone in the whole damn department.” He paused. “Almost everyone—but you know who’s never once asked to see that file?”
The file. Panic clenched her lungs. She’d never thought to pull the file.
“Never once requested the file to her own husband’s unsolved murder?”
She went for the stairs. Heard Hal slam the door open behind her as she started to run down the stairs.
“You!” he thundered. “You have never pulled John’s file. Not one goddamn time.”
Hailey tripped and caught herself, ran on. He was on her heels. She could not outrun him. What did she tell him? What reason had there been to read John’s file? She was grieving, consumed with guilt for loving another man when her husband died. She had done all she could manage just caring for her daughters, keeping her job.
The Rookie Club Thriller series Box Set Page 45