Fatal Chaos

by Marie Force

  “Got it,” Freddie said. “Is there going to be some form of sleep in my future?”

  “In the distant future,” Sam said, stifling a yawn.

  “Why did I know you were going to say that?”

  They arrived back at HQ a few minutes later.

  “It’s strange to see the place when it’s not overrun with media,” Sam said.

  “Even they get to sleep at night,” Freddie said. “We’re in the wrong profession.”

  “No, we’re not,” Sam said. “Enjoy the peace and quiet while we have it.” In the lobby, they went their separate ways. “I’ll catch up to you after I see the chief.”

  “Good luck with that,” Freddie said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  SAM HEADED TO the chief’s suite, walking by the desk where his admin, Helen, stood guard during the day. Knocking on his closed door, Sam waited for him to tell her to come in. She walked in on a gathering of the department’s top brass, including Conklin. Her stomach fluttered with anxiety as she tried to decide how she should play this. Captain Malone nodded to her in encouragement that she appreciated.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, wondering why they were all gentlemen. They were long overdue for some estrogen on this side of the building.

  “Lieutenant,” Farnsworth said, his face set in an unreadable expression. “I understand you have some new information in the drive-by shootings case.”

  “I’m not sure if it’s related to the drive-bys, but it is new information. I’ve just returned from seeing Leslie Wallack,” Sam said, watching Conklin to see if his expression changed at all. It didn’t.

  “I believe I had told you that angle was a nonstarter,” Farnsworth said, making Sam wonder if he too knew that Wallack had been reported missing more than two weeks ago.

  “Yes, sir, you mentioned Captain Wallack’s sterling reputation, which I respect and admire. However, we have people being gunned down in our city by someone with the sort of skills Captain Wallack was known for on this job. My thought in going to see him was that I could rule him out as a potential suspect and ask him who else might have the ability to hit a victim with deadly accuracy while riding in a fast-moving car.”

  Farnsworth stared at her without blinking.

  Sam couldn’t help but feel slightly intimidated by her uncle Joe.

  “And what did you uncover?” Farnsworth asked.

  Sam swallowed hard, took a deep breath and dived in, reciting the facts as they’d been conveyed to her by Leslie Wallack. When she was finished, all eyes turned to Conklin, including Farnsworth, who seemed genuinely surprised by what Sam had told them. Thank God for that.

  “The Lieutenant is correct that Leslie contacted me two weeks ago about Kenny going missing,” Conklin said.

  “How is it possible that this is the first we’re hearing of it?” Farnsworth asked his deputy.

  Sam tried not to squirm from the exquisite discomfort of seeing a superior officer caught in the chief’s crosshairs.

  “I’ve been investigating it on my own,” Conklin replied. “Kenny’s issues with alcohol are well-known. I wanted to make sure he hadn’t fallen off the wagon or done something that was going to hurt his reputation.”

  “Lieutenant, you said the last his wife knew, he was leading an A.A. meeting, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Farnsworth turned his formidable gaze on Conklin once again. “If he’s leading an A.A. meeting, what would make you think he’s off the wagon?”

  “Leading a meeting doesn’t mean anything. He’s a good guy who’s had a tough struggle. I was hoping to resolve it before it became a big deal.”

  “I can see doing that for a day maybe, but not two weeks,” Farnsworth said.

  “I planned to talk to you about it today,” Conklin said, his gaze shifting to Sam with barely restrained hostility, which was the first sign of emotion he’d shown.

  Fabulous.

  “Don’t look at her like this is her fault,” Farnsworth said sharply. “A former member of our department has been missing for fourteen days. How can you possibly justify keeping that a secret for so long?”

  “I was looking out for my friend,” Conklin said. “That’s my only justification.”

  A long, uncomfortable silence followed his statement.

  Sam had begun to sweat by the time Farnsworth said, “I’d like to speak to Deputy Chief Conklin alone.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sam said, beating feet out of there.

  Malone followed. “What the hell?” he muttered.

  “You read my mind, Captain. That was the single most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever been a part of on this job, which is saying something.”

  “No kidding.”

  “What do you think the chief will do?”

  “I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t suspend him.”

  “Seriously?”

  “How can he not? He kept the fact that a former member of our department has been missing for two weeks from everyone. We should’ve been looking for him, but we didn’t even know he was missing. The chief can’t just let that go.”

  Sam blew out a deep breath. “Conklin is going to blame me for this.”

  “He can try, but that’s not going to fly. This is squarely on him and him alone.”

  “What do we do about Wallack? Do we start looking for him?”

  “I’ll talk to the chief after he’s through with Conklin and see what he wants us to do.”

  “Tell me something. You think it’s a coincidence that one of the best marksmen to ever work for this department goes missing right before a series of high-speed drive-bys start happening?”

  “I really hope it’s a coincidence,” he said, but his grim expression conveyed his concern.

  “I’m going to get back to it. Let me know what you hear about all of that.” She gestured toward the chief’s office.

  “Will do.”

  Filled with anxiety over the Conklin situation, Sam walked back to the pit. “Where are we with tracking down Carlos Vega?” she asked her detectives.

  “No luck yet,” Dominguez said, “but Archie was just here with some interesting info.” She handed Sam a sheet of paper. “The dump on Offenbach’s phone shows he wasn’t in Philadelphia this weekend.”

  “Fan-fucking-tabulous.” She scanned the numbers on the page, which started to swim as if they were floating on water. Freaking dyslexia. Exhaustion only made it worse. “Where was he?”

  “Atlantic City,” Carlucci said.

  “So he checks into the hotel in Philly, and then leaves to go to Atlantic City?” Sam asked. “What the hell?”

  “We thought you’d like to be the one to bring this up with Nicholson,” Dominguez said.

  “Yeah, good call. I’ll talk to him and find out when Offenbach is due to return to work.”

  Malone came into the pit. “We’ve had another shooting.”

  * * *

  JIAN CHANG, THIRTY-FOUR years old, a nurse at GW, had been shot while walking on a sidewalk off Twenty-Third Street Northwest after his shift, which ended at three a.m. He’d been struck in the back of the head and most likely killed instantly.

  Like the other five times, a Patrol officer who’d been the first to arrive had taped off the section of the sidewalk around the body.

  “Did you touch him?” Sam asked the young patrolman, whom she hadn’t seen before.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “I don’t have that information. No one was here when I arrived.”

  To Freddie, Sam said, “Call Dispatch and find out who called it in.”

  He walked away to handle her request.

  Sam stepped under the yellow tape and went to inspect the body. The back of his head had been blown off, spattering blood and brain matter onto the sidewa
lk. He had on blue scrubs and running shoes, his ID card hanging from around his neck, which was where the patrolman had gotten his name and date of birth.

  “Detective Green.”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Contact Lieutenant Archelotta and have his team pull the video footage from this area.” She handed him her cell phone. “His number is in my contacts.”

  “Okay.” He took the phone and went to make the call.

  Freddie returned. “Dispatch said the shooting was called in by an unknown number.”

  “I wonder if our shooters have started reporting their own work. Go tell Green to ask Archie what he can do to track that number.”

  While Freddie went to confer with Green, Sam squatted next to the victim. His backpack was still attached to his shoulders, so Sam unzipped it, looking for a wallet that would contain identification. The ground under her swayed, forcing her to reach out or fall over. She shook her head, fending off the buzz of exhaustion, and dug through the dead man’s belongings until she found his wallet.

  “Do you have a flashlight?” she asked the Patrolman.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He turned it on and handed it over.

  Sam used the light to find the man’s license and write down his address. He lived nearby, which was probably why he was walking despite warnings about staying off side streets until the shooter was apprehended. Why take a cab or drive when you live only a few blocks from work? Maybe the shooter knew of the three a.m. shift change at the hospital and targeted the area because of it.

  Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Byron Tomlinson arrived a few minutes later and joined Sam inside the tapeline. “This is getting ridiculous.”

  “It was ridiculous after the first one,” Sam said.

  “Agreed.”

  “Sorry. That came out harsher than intended. This case is infuriating.”

  “For all of us.”

  Sam waited until Crime Scene detectives had taken photographs and Tomlinson and his team had loaded Mr. Chang into their truck for the ride back to the morgue. Then she turned the scene over to the CSU detectives to process. She walked to the car where Cruz and Green were working the phones and was hit with a dizzy spell about three feet from where they stood.

  Green grabbed her arm, which was the only reason she didn’t fall on her face. “Might be time to call it a night, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Sometimes being human totally sucked. However, she’d be no good to anyone if she face-planted in the street because she was so tired she could barely stand up. Taking her phone from Green, she called Gonzo.

  “Rise and shine,” she said when he answered. “We’ve had two more shootings tonight, and I’m running out of steam. I need you to come in and take over for me.”

  “I’ll be there in thirty.”

  “Thanks.” Sam placed the same call to Jeannie McBride. “Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got more vics, and I need you.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “Let’s go back to the house, get them up to speed and go home for a few hours of sleep,” Sam said to Freddie. To Green, she added, “If you can stay until noon, that’d be great.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “After that, go home and sleep. We’re going to have to power through until we catch a break.”

  Malone was waiting for Sam when she walked into HQ. He gestured for her to come with him.

  “I’ll meet you in the pit,” she said to Cruz and Green. “Get Gonzo and Jeannie up to speed when they arrive.” In Malone’s office, she closed the door. “What’s up?”

  “Conklin has been suspended.”

  “Holy shit,” Sam whispered.

  “I know.”

  “What does this mean?”

  “It means that Farnsworth is furious that Conklin didn’t handle Wallack’s disappearance by the book. He wants to meet with top command at zero seven hundred to talk about what we need to do to find him.”

  “I gotta go get some shut-eye. I’m about to collapse.” She glanced at the clock on the wall, which inched closer to five a.m. She’d been awake for twenty-three hours. “Can I catch up later this morning?”

  “Yeah, go ahead. I got some sleep earlier, so I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

  “I hate that I can’t power through for two days like I used to.”

  “Old age happens to the best of us.”

  “Who you calling old?”

  “Go home, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m going.” She was too tired to spar with him, which was truly unfortunate. Before she left, she went into the pit where Gonzo and Jeannie had recently arrived and were being briefed by the others.

  “Cruz and I are out for a few hours of shut-eye. I want everyone working the sharpshooter angle. Expand the search outside the District and find Carlos Vega. Look at every member of every local police department who might be known for these skills.”

  “What’re we doing about Offenbach?” Freddie asked of the wayward sergeant.

  “I’ll call Nicholson and ask him to find out where his sergeant has been this weekend. I’ll ask him to report to Gonzo if he finds out anything we need to know. Cruz, go home. Be back by noon.”

  “I’m going.”

  She hated having to tear herself away from the investigation to tend to her own needs, which went against everything she believed in. On the way home, she placed a call to Captain Nicholson’s personal cell phone, which was a first.

  “Nicholson.”

  “Captain, it’s Lieutenant Holland.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “We need to talk about Offenbach.” She cringed as she said the words. It did not come naturally to rat out her fellow officers, but it was hardly her fault that Offenbach hadn’t been where his superior officer thought he was. She had an obligation, as a fellow commander, to report that information to Nicholson.

  “We already talked about him.”

  “Yes, but we dug a little deeper and learned he wasn’t actually in Philadelphia this weekend.”

  “What’re you talking about? He was in Philly for a conference. The hotel confirmed he checked in.”

  Sam braced herself. “We got a ping on his phone in Atlantic City.”

  Silence followed her statement.

  “Um, Captain?”

  “I heard you.”

  “I hope you understand. We needed to rule him out in the shootings.”

  “I understand. I’ll take care of it.”

  The phone went dead before Sam could ask him to let her know if he uncovered anything that might be material to the investigation. Now she’d have to follow up with him later, and she so did not want to do that. How had her case led to two members of the MPD being caught doing the wrong thing? She’d always had a decent relationship with Conklin, one of her father’s contemporaries. Would she still after this?

  “Fucking hell,” she muttered. Talking to herself kept her awake at the red lights she encountered on the way home.

  She was about to accelerate to cross the intersection at D Street when a red SUV ran the red light and shot past her. Sam caught only a fleeting glimpse of the speeding car, but she went after it anyway, pressing the gas to catch up to it. Keeping the car in sight, she dodged other cars while calling Dispatch for backup. As they approached another intersection, Sam flipped on her emergency lights.

  Alerted to a cop behind them, the SUV moved faster. Thankfully, traffic was light at that hour, but the SUV nearly collided with several other cars.

  “Get the fuck out of the way!” she screamed at a small white car that got between her and the SUV. Swerving around the white car, she pressed the accelerator to the floor, hoping pedestrians were paying attention. “Where’s my backup, goddamn it?”

  They were on Maryland Avenue now and Sam got close enough to see a faded Towson
University sticker on the back of the car. She made a second and far more urgent call to Dispatch. “I believe I have the vehicle from the last two shootings in sight. I need backup at Maryland and Fourteenth Northeast right now.”

  Sam heard the call go out over the air and prayed that a Patrol car was close enough to intercept the car at the Fourteenth Street intersection. She also prayed that the lights would remain green so that no one else would be killed before they could catch these sons of bitches.

  She no sooner had that thought when something smashed into the driver’s side of her car and everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE SCHOOL-DAY ALARM had just gone off when Nick’s phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, he saw Captain Malone’s name and nearly had a heart attack in the two seconds it took him to accept the call. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Sam’s been in a car accident.”

  “How bad?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  The fact that she hadn’t called him herself wasn’t a good sign. His hands began to tremble, and his legs would’ve given out if he hadn’t sat on the bed. “Where should I go?”

  “They’ll take her to GW as soon as they can.”

  “What aren’t you saying?”

  “They’re extricating her from the car.”

  “Oh my God. Tell me she’s alive.”

  “The first Patrol officer on the scene was able to confirm that she’s alive but not conscious.”

  “I’ll meet the ambulance at GW. Call me if you hear anything else. Anything, Captain.”

  “I will. I’m sorry to have to call you with this, Nick.”

  “I know.” Nick ended the call and ran for the bedroom door, throwing it open and surprising Melinda, the agent on duty in the hallway. “I need to get to GW E.R. right away. My wife has been in a car accident.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Vice President. I’ll let Brant know, and we’ll get you there as fast as we can.”

  “No motorcade,” he said in a tone that allowed for zero negotiation. “Two cars. No delays.”

  “Yes, sir.”