“He didn’t say—I got to get there. Now.”
“I’m on it,” Evanston said. As soon as they cleared the onlookers, Evanston hit the gas. The car’s big engine roared, the snow tires spun then caught on the road. They hit the main street, then the bridge. The hospital was already in view.
Below the bridge, Bernadette could see the police team searching for the suspect. She had no idea what had happened, only that Chris had been shot. She tried to keep her mind from jumping to conclusions—it was hard not to. She focused on her breathing. She would just breathe and wait until she saw him.
As they approached the hospital, two patrol cars moved back to let them through. The word that an officer had been hit rolled through the force like wildfire. The greatest concern of the force was one their own comrades in arms getting shot. It happened too frequently and when it did, they all felt it.
Evanston slid the cruiser to a stop. Bernadette bolted out the door of the car and ran into the hospital. Constable Stewart met her in the lobby “He’s in emergency.”
Bernadette set off on a run. There was nothing she could do but put every ounce of her energy into getting to Chris. Durham had said get there fast. That’s what she did.
In emergency, a nurse directed her to a curtained area.
Bernadette pulled back the curtains. Chris was lying there with his chest bare. He had an oxygen mask on his face, an IV in his arm, with two doctors standing over him. Her eyes did a quick scan of his body, no blood no bandages, but a big bruise showed on his chest.
One doctor, named Patel, turned to Bernadette. “Your guy was very lucky, both shots were in his body armor with a twenty-caliber at close range. One of his lungs collapsed from the bullet impact but he’ll be okay in a day or two.”
Bernadette stood beside Chris and squeezed his arm. He opened his eyes and tried to smile. A shooting pain went through his chest from the collapsed lung. He grimaced and took a deep breath of the oxygen.
“Hey, my big guy, you’re going to be fine. I’m right here.” She leaned forward and put her lips to his ear. “Remember, I’m your Calamity Jane, you’re my Sundance Kid, we see everything through together.”
The side of Chris’ lips turned up into the tiniest of smiles, then the drugs he’d been given took effect and he fell into a deep sleep.
“He needs to rest, then we’re going to run some more tests,” Doctor Patel said. “You can come back in a few hours if you like.”
A nurse took Chris’s pulse and tucked him in with a blanket to keep him warm. Another checked on his saline drip. Bernadette backed away from the bed after squeezing Chris’ arm. She’d seen so many people in this situation, now she knew how helpless they felt.
Bernadette walked out of the curtained room to find Evanston standing there holding a note pad.
“He’s going to be okay. A collapsed lung from the bullets’ impact to his vest, but the little bastard didn’t get him. What have you got?” Bernadette asked, looking down at Evanston’s notepad.
“I spoke with Constable Stewart. One of the hospital staff who was picking up food trays saw the suspect dressed as a janitor come around her cart. She said Chris didn’t have a chance. He shot him at point blank range. She heard a bunch more shots and she ducked for cover,” Evanston said.
“Did the shooter kill Father Dominic?”
“No, that’s the crazy thing. The father must have turned his head—he only had a bullet graze his head. That priest is one lucky son of a bitch…or whatever they call him in the Catholic Church,” Evanston said.
“I’m sure the Church will come up with a miracle to name after him.”
“They might be calling him Lazarus, because someone said he’d been killed. That’s what dispatch got from our Constable on site.”
“I think we leave him as dead—for now.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m still thinking these two had help and there’s someone else in town. If the father is declared dead, we see who heads for the hills.”
“You still think your Uncle Cahal is in on this, don’t you?”
“Sorry, you got me. You remember that thing about relatives? You can choose your friends and not your relatives,” Bernadette said.
“Don’t I know it,” Evanston said. “And as we all know it’s the people close to you that we always suspect in a victim’s death.” She looked down at her notes. “There’s something else. The officer’s found a cell phone by the river. They think it’s Dylan’s.”
“How soon until we can get some info off it?”
“An officer is rushing it back to the techs and they have the one from Emily as well. We should have a report on everyone they called inside of an hour,” Evanston said.
“Good, maybe we’ll get a break in this case, find out who sent them and who their handlers were while they were here,” Bernadette said.
27
It was hard for Bernadette to leave the hospital. Her heart felt like it was doing flips in her chest as she drove away with Evanston, but Chris was in good hands. She would only get in the way. They drove back to the detachment headquarters and found the techs who were working the cell phones they’d recovered from the suspects.
The tech had the cell phone on the desk. She was a new recruit named Miranda Nowicki with an excellent understanding of everything computer and technology, something that was somewhat foreign to both Bernadette and Evanston.
“I’ve downloaded all the numbers both of them used on their phones since they’ve been in Canada. Most of their calls were to a number back in Ireland, but there is one they kept calling that is a local area code,” Miranda said.
“Local, as in our province?” Evanston asked.
“You got it. It’s a 825-area code, that only covers the southern part of our province, which includes our city,” Miranda replied.
“Can you locate it?”
“I’ve just sent a request for a ping to the phone company. They’ll check the number and find out which cell tower it used then triangulate the location,” Miranda said.
“How soon will we know?” Bernadette asked.
“Hold on, I’m getting something now,” Miranda said. She looked at her screen. “Do either of you know this address?”
“Hell, yeah,” Bernadette replied. “That’s my address. Let’s roll, Evanston. Call for backup.”
Evanston and Bernadette put on their vests and checked their weapons as Dawson walked into the room.
“You got something?” he asked.
“Yeah, the number called from our two dead suspects’ phones is my dear Uncle Cahal. Miranda just pinged their phones to my address. Time for me to go clean house,” Bernadette said.
“Got it,” Durham said. He ran back to his office, grabbed his gun and vest, then called in a swat team to meet them at Bernadette’s house on his way out the door.
Evanston drove the cruiser while Bernadette sat there fuming. “I knew that son of a bitch was crooked. I should have trusted my gut. My god, even Sprocket didn’t like him. What the hell was I thinking?”
Evanston looked over at her. “You know this could be a false alarm, the suspects could have planted something on Cahal. We don’t want to walk in there and shoot the guy.”
“Oh, hell no, but I’d like to give him a flesh wound—just kidding,” Bernadette said.
When they arrived at Bernadette’s home, they found the place dark with no lights visible. The sidewalk on both sides hadn’t been shoveled. One set of tire tracks were evident on the driveway.
Bernadette jumped out of the car with Evanston. They crouched beside the vehicle with guns drawn. Two more police cruisers came up beside them. The officers crouched down beside their cars guns ready.
“What do you think?” Evanston asked.
“Let me try my neighbor’s number next door,” Bernadette said. She dialed his cell and it went to his voice mail. “I got no answer.”
“Maybe he’s out on errands,” Evanston said.
“So, what’s the move?” Evanston said.
Bernadette was about to reply when the tactical team arrived. The big armored vehicle lumbered to a stop, its air brakes sounded, and the officers clad in helmets and body armor piled out of the back.
Desjardins came over to Bernadette. “What have you got?”
“We traced the cell phone call of our dead perps to my address. The only one I can think of is that Cahal Callahan is the one who was involved with them.”
“Isn’t he your uncle?” Desjardin asked.
Bernadette shook her head. “I wish you wouldn’t call him that. He’s my alleged uncle.”
“Whatever,” Desjardin replied. “I’m going to send my team into your neighbor’s house then yours. Does he lock his doors?”
“Hardly ever and never during the day. Please don’t use a battering ram on them; he’ll be pissed at that.” Bernadette said.
“He will be if we find him alive,” Desjardin said. He turned and signaled to his team. They lined up in single file, assault rifles locked and loaded. With hand signals they moved forward in perfect formation and silence.
They split in two—one team went to the back the other took the front. They checked the inside with their cameras first, then with a quick push through of the door they were in. It took them three minutes to give the all-clear sign.
“Well, we know where he isn’t. Now let’s go see if he’s at my place,” Bernadette said.
The team reformed in front of Bernadette’s door. She walked to the head of the formation, nodded at Desjardin to let him know she was leading the team in.
The team did the remote camera check, signaling there was no movement inside.
Getting to the door, she turned the handle. It was locked. Cursing under her breath, she took her key out of her jacket, inserted it, and unlocked it. The door turned and she pushed her way inside to the dark interior.
The tactical team’s laser sight on their guns threw lights all over the house.
The open door cast a bright light down the hallway to the kitchen. She could see something on the floor. Was it a human? Whatever it was, it was on its side. Creeping forward with her gun sweeping left and right, she saw a form of man in a chair.
She trained her gun on it and moved toward it. A small beam of light revealed Harvey Mawer. His head was dropped to one side. A cup was on its side on a table. He looked asleep. She checked for breathing. His breath was shallow but there.
She walked into the kitchen. The form she’d seen earlier was Sprocket. The big dog lay with his tongue hanging out. There was a faint sign of breath coming from him.
“Call the EMT’s, Harvey and my dog have both been drugged with something. Put out an APB for Cahal Callahan,” Bernadette said.
Evanston stood there looking over the room. “So, your uncle was in on this all along.”
Bernadette turned on Evanston. “I thought that bastard was bad news from the moment I met him. I thought keeping him here would mean I could watch him. Well, he was using this place to watch us. Harvey had a police scanner. I’ll bet he used it this morning, then drugged Harvey and Sprocket to make his getaway.”
“Why not tie them up?” Evanston asked.
“Ever try to tie up a three your old German Shepard?” Bernadette replied.
“Oh, yeah, there’d be a blood trail to out the door if he tried that.” Evanston said. “And this way, we have to bring Harvey back to consciousness to find out when he left. Your uncle is one crafty bastard.”
“He’s a bastard all right, but I doubt if he’s my uncle.”
The ambulance took Harvey away to the hospital. The EMT thought Harvey would be okay, just heavily drugged. Sprocket was another problem. The big dog was barely breathing.
Bernadette called Dr. Annette Chow; she’d been Sprocket’s vet from the day she’d brought him home. Chow loved the big dog and promised she’d do everything she could to revive him. She was going to take a blood sample and text Bernadette with her prognosis as soon as she had one.
Watching the Veterinary van leave with Sprocket and the ambulance leave on its way to the hospital with Harvey, Bernadette had a feeling of despair and then rage. This man claiming to be her uncle had caused this.
She was going to find him. He was going to pay for this, for all of this. She turned to Evanston. “We need to get back to our office and start doing some serious searching for this son of a bitch.”
28
The RCMP Detachment was a buzz of activity. Officers were dropping off pages of reports to others as eyes were scanning remote highway cameras and on the phone to airports.
“How far do you think Cahal got after he received the information on our radios?” Evanston asked.
“The shooting happened at ten this morning. The radio report came in at ten fifteen. I’m sure he lit out soon after.”
“But wasn’t he supposed to pick up our two Irish assassins?”
“If he heard the radio chatter of officers in pursuit and that we had Emily surrounded, then he’d give them up for lost. He was into saving his own worthless hide.”
Evanston heard that last remark and tone from Bernadette and thought it best not to expand on that. She picked up her coffee and sipped in the silence.
Constable Chen, a second-year new hire came by with her laptop. She was a petite Chinese girl with the heart of a tiger in karate. Bernadette had sparred with her in karate practice and had the bruises to show for it.
“You need to take a look this,” Chen said. “I got this from one of the parking lot videos the security companies sent us.”
Chen put the laptop in front of them, hitting play on the screen. The van that Dylan and Emily had driven came into view. A man walked up and talked to them, then walked away.
“Can you freeze it and enlarge it?” Bernadette asked.
Chen enlarged the photo. It was Cahal Callahan. He spoke to Dylan for a moment, they exchanged something, and he walked away out of view.
“I’ll be damned. We got him. Now we have to find him,” Bernadette said. Her cellphone binged with a text. She looked down. “My vet confirmed it’s the same drug Emily and Dylan used on Father Frederick.”
“Is Sprocket going to be okay?” Chen asked. She had a Burmese Mountain dog at home and loved to play with Sprocket.
Bernadette smiled. “Yeah, Sprocket is coming around. The drug is passing out of his system. He wagged his tail and licked Annette’s hand.”
Chen took her laptop, folded it, and tucked it under her arm. “We need to find the MF that did that to your dog. No human does that to animals. I wouldn’t mind finding him myself.”
She walked out of the room with Evanston staring after her. “Did she just call Cahal an MF?”
“Wow, remind me to never get on the wrong side of that Asian fireball,” Bernadette said.
They spent the rest of the afternoon gazing over reports and videos until their eyes were seeing double. Every airport had a BOLO, they’d put Cahal’s face on the national and international search network. It was now a matter of time until the system pulled up something.
How far and how fast Cahal could travel was the main thing. Two major airports were only two hours from Red Deer. The Calgary Airport had the most direct international flights. With the help of a team of officers, they’d checked every flight that left either airport in the past four hours.
There was nothing.
At five, Evanston and Bernadette had a meeting with Durham; they filled him in on what they had.
Evanston pulled out her notebook. “We got some cell traffic between our dead perps and Mr. Callahan.”
“Any texts in there?” Durham asked.
Evanston squinted at the list. “Yes,
there’s one to what we assume is Callahan’s number. As this is the one that pinged at Bernadette’s house, and it’s asking for a pickup time from the perp’s number,” Evanston said.
“Can we link that phone to Callahan?” Durham asked.
“Not that we know of,” Bernadette said. “We saw him get something from Dylan in a supermarket parking lot but that’s all we have.”
“Wait.,” Evanston said. “Where did the phones of our perps come from?”
“The tech said they were prepaid cheap phones probably purchased here in Canada, so they had North American SIM Cards,” Bernadette said.
“But we never found a cell phone on Callahan when we originally arrested him,” Evanston said.
“We need to find were the perps got theirs.” Bernadette said. She jumped out of her chair and ran down the hall to meet with the tech.
When she got to the room, her chair was empty. “Damn it, just my luck, she’s gone home.”
“Who’s gone home?” Miranda asked, walking into the room.
“Oh my god, I thought you were gone. The cell phones of the perps and our suspect, Cahal Callahan—how soon can you do a search to find out who bought them?”
“I can do it right now; you have to register all phone numbers with purchase,” Miranda said. “This won’t take long.”
She sat down at her computer, pulled up a database on phone numbers, and entered in the names that Murray and Quinn had used as their aliases when they entered the country.
She whirled around. “Both phones were purchased just outside of Calgary at the Cross-Iron Mills shopping mall.”
“Did they register a third number?” Bernadette asked, then held her breath.
Miranda squinted at her screen as the names scrolled. “Yes, they did. Holy shit, I don’t believe this. The number we pinged at your place. They bought that phone.”
“Miranda, you are one amazing lady. Please print that file. And run a GPS tracker to that third phone,” Bernadette said.
Deadly Ancestors: A Bernadette Callahan Mystery (Bernadette Callahan Detective Series Book 5) Page 14
