Inkslingers Ball (A Forensic Handwriting Mystery)

by Sheila Lowe

  “I can’t believe this. Annabelle.” Claudia’s tone was pitched high with anxiety. “You promised us…”

  “I only promised not to touch Joel’s gun,” the girl said with a touch of her old defiance, despite the tears running down her cheeks. Claudia reached over to the box of tissues on the nightstand and passed her a handful. She turned to Jovanic. “When did it happen?”

  “While I was taking a nap yesterday before you got home. She took your Glock, got herself over to the tattoo parlor, and shot him.”

  “Stop calling it mine. You know I never wanted it.”

  “Okay, it’s my fault she shot him. I guess I should be grateful she didn’t take my gun.” Jovanic fished the cell phone out of his pocket and held it up by its pink shell. “And did I mention she recorded the whole stinking incident?”

  Annabelle gasped. “How’d you get my phone?”

  “You dropped it outside again, sweetheart.” He didn’t use the word as a term of endearment. “Lucky for you, Marcia found it.”

  “You took Jamie’s car.” Claudia interjected. “I knew it wasn’t parked right. It was out from the curb and further down the street. Tell me what happened.”

  “I just walked in the door. He was there by himself.”

  “Nobody else? No customers?”

  “Both his bodyguards are in the slammer,” Jovanic added, the bitter, angry edge still tinging his words. “His other artists were at the expo. She picked a quiet time of day. Couldn’t have been more perfect. Clever girl,” he added sarcastically, tapping icons on the phone.

  Viper’s recorded voice filled the room. The tension, already thick in the air, ratcheted another notch higher. Annabelle curled into a tight little ball and turned toward the wall, pulling the covers all the way over her head again.

  When she heard Viper order the girl to her knees, Claudia gasped something inaudible. Seconds later, the gunshot exploded. The look of shock on her face stabbed Jovanic with remorse. He had not intended to take out his anger on her.

  Annabelle sobbed even harder. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I swear I didn’t. Don’t let them lock me up, Claudia.” Her arm snaked out from under the covers and grabbed onto Claudia’s hand. “I was just going to scare him, I swear. He grabbed the gun and it went off, and—”

  With a big sigh of surrender, Jovanic relented. “You didn’t kill him.”

  The bedcovers came down as far as her eyes. “What—he was lying there on the floor, he wasn’t moving. There was blood all on his shirt.”

  “Yeah. But after you left, he started moving and he called 911. They dug the bullet out of his belly, and he’s going to live.”

  Relief flooded Claudia’s face. Then reality hit. “Do they know she shot him?”

  “He doesn’t know my name,” Annabelle chimed in.

  Jovanic wouldn’t look at her. “He doesn’t have to. It’d be easy enough for the investigators to figure out who you are if they connect a few dots. But he won’t tell them anything. It’s a matter of honor for someone like Viper. He would never admit to being shot by a fifteen-year-old girl.”

  ***

  Claudia sat on the sofa in her office watching Jovanic pace the long room. A half-hour after the showdown with Annabelle and they were still going head-to-head. She felt as though she had stepped into an alternate universe; one where this cold, unforgiving homicide detective was a stranger to her.

  She got a flashback to their first meeting when she had seen him this way before. She had been a witness at a crime scene where Jovanic was the lead detective. They got off on the wrong foot, but the early tension between them had morphed into a flirtation that grew into something important.

  Over time, Claudia had started to believe she could let down the barriers she had erected long ago, that she could kiss her well-earned commitment phobia goodbye. She had come to believe that Jovanic would not hurt her. But now, looking at the stony set of his jaw, the rigid line of his mouth, she was no longer so certain.

  “What good would it do to lock her up?” she asked in a tight voice, frustrated by his refusal to bend.

  “The world might be a safer place,” Jovanic retorted with brutal detachment. “What do you think is going to happen when it comes out that she shot him with a gun I bought, Claudia? That she used my keys to open the safe? That the gun was loaded? Do you think my sergeant is going to pat me on the shoulder and say, ‘no problem, we’ll just forgive and forget.’ If that’s what you think, you’re dead wrong.”

  “But you didn’t know—”

  “You think they’ll care that I didn’t know? Or that she claims she didn’t mean to shoot him? I should have already called and reported it.”

  “You can’t do that! You heard the recording. It was accidental.”

  “Yeah, I heard the recording. The guy says she’s got a nice gun, then she shoots him. She stole a car, drove without a license and threatened a guy with a loaded gun. Does that sound like an accident? What’s a judge supposed to do with that?”

  “You can’t let her go to juvenile hall! She tried to kill herself last time she was there.”

  “It’s not up to me, and you know it.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He stared at her, looking incredulous and more hurt than she could imagine. “You can’t be thinking—”

  “You said yourself that Viper will never tell.”

  “And you think he won’t come after her? Remember what happened to Angel.”

  “I thought you were almost ready to arrest him. We can keep her safe ‘til then.”

  “Claudia, listen to me and listen good. You’re talking about crossing a line here. That bullet will go into IBIS. If we were to cover up a major crime, which is what you’re talking about, this gun can never be used again. It would come back to the slug they took out of Viper.”

  “Then make it go away somewhere it’ll never be found. I hate the fucking thing.”

  “I took an oath to uphold the law. Now you want me to break it?”

  “Of course I don’t want you to. But Joel—”

  “She might keep quiet now, but who’s to say she won’t shoot off her mouth somewhere down the line?”

  “She couldn’t. She’d be implicating herself.”

  “Annabelle needs to come clean, for her sake and mine. I’ll still be in trouble, but at least I’ll know I did the right thing. It won’t do her any good to grow up having this on her conscience. She’s under sixteen and he didn’t die. She won’t be charged as an adult. With a good lawyer—”

  “Her father’s coming home next weekend. We won’t have to deal with it anymore.”

  “Are you serious? We’ll have to deal with it for the rest of our lives.” Jovanic shook his head. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation.”

  He picked up his coat from where it lay across a chair and started for the door. “I have to go back to the hospital and check on Viper.” He did not look back at her. “Don’t wait up. I’ll stay at my place tonight.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Jovanic drove to the hospital and shut off the engine feeling sick to his stomach. So few hours ago Claudia had been in his arms, giving herself to him without reservation. Now there was a wall between them a yard thick and a mile high. From where he sat, he was not sure he would ever be able to breach it. Or even whether he wanted to.

  He had been a cop for more than twenty years. A good cop. That didn’t mean he had never bent a rule or cut a corner, but what she was asking him to do went far beyond cutting corners.

  Claudia was the love of his life. He wanted to grow old with her, to take care of her and shield her from the crazy and dangerous situations she all too frequently got herself into. He could understand her attachment to Annabelle, and if he had not exactly welcomed the girl’s
intermittent presence as part of their picture together, he had reconciled himself to it. But his dreams of the future had never included Claudia asking him to cover up a crime.

  Disillusionment shot through him like a cold poison invading every cell of his body.

  If he swept this criminal misdeed under the rug, what else might Annabelle do? The girl was a loose cannon. If she got away with it this time, would she feel empowered to go further the next time something made her angry? Jovanic knew that he would never be able to trust her again.

  He was screwed. Whatever decision he made, it would always be between him and Claudia, a sharp thorn of resentment rubbing a hole in their relationship. Either he would go against his principles and resent her for it, or he would not and she would resent him. He thought of the engagement ring in its blue velvet box hidden in his sock drawer. Maybe it was a purchase made in vain.

  He had virtually moved in at Claudia’s house. He could not remember the last time he had spent a night at his own apartment. The only time he went there anymore was to pick up mail and pay the rent. But tonight he intended to sit on a bar stool at Cowboys for a few hours and make a big dent in a tequila bottle. When he was well and truly blitzed he would go to his apartment and sleep alone in his own cold bed. Picturing the night without Claudia snuggled against him, his heart plummeted even further.

  His phone beeped, signaling a text from Randy Coleman:

  You want the Lancaster sheriff to notify Gerald Harris re Navarette, or wait?

  Jovanic stared at the message, his mind clicking like a computer, running the data.

  Gerald Harris lived in Lancaster.

  “Crash,” the artist who put Viper’s tattoo on Annabelle lived in Lancaster.

  Travis Navarette was Gerald Harris’s son.

  Harris has a twenty-year-old grudge against Viper, who beat him so badly that he sustained a head injury and broken bones.

  Travis was killed in a firebombing presumably engineered by Viper.

  Using his smartphone, Jovanic accessed the DMV database and pulled up Harris’s driver’s license picture. And as he sat there gazing through the windshield, fitting the pieces together, something in the parking lot caught his notice.

  A white cargo van had drawn up in the red No Parking zone next to the hospital entrance. The driver’s door opened and a man jumped down. From where Jovanic sat, the man’s face was not fully visible, but he could see the rangy frame, the long, greyish ponytail. According to Annabelle, Crash drove a white cargo van and sported a ponytail.

  Under his breath he muttered, “Harris.”

  Jovanic climbed out of the Jeep, trying to look casual. He wanted to run, but that would alert the man he now believed to be Gerald Harris aka Crash. Jovanic strode fast in his direction, but Harris, walking like he was in a hurry, was already disappearing through the hospital front doors. The slight bulge in the back of his jacket made Jovanic quicken his pace, but he was too late. As he entered the lobby, the elevator doors were just sliding closed on his quarry.

  With Harris’s son dead and his old nemesis Alvin Rousch lying in a bed in this building, there was no good reason for Harris to be here. Instinct told Jovanic he was on a mission of vengeance. There was no time to stop and ask for Rousch’s room number at the front desk, no time to wait for the elevator to return.

  Jovanic spotted the stairwell door. He slipped through and ran up two flights, glad he had quit smoking. At the third floor landing, he took a moment to catch his breath before stepping into the hallway where he had met with Dr. Redfern that morning. There was no sign of Gerald Harris.

  Turning left, he started down the corridor, opening doors, looking into rooms.

  “Hey, can I help you?” A male nurse in blue scrubs hurried up to him, a look of concern on his face.

  “Where’s Alvin Rousch’s room?” Jovanic demanded.

  “Are you family?”

  Jovanic opened his coat to let the nurse see the shield on his belt. “I’m a police officer and there may be a dangerous person on the floor.”

  The nurse looked him up and down. Jovanic’s business suit, his neatly trimmed hair and authoritative manner seemed to convince him. “He’s in 310.” He was pointing behind him.

  Quietly, Jovanic told him to call Security. A few seconds later he heard the coded call over the PA.

  He drew his Glock and pointed it at the floor. Keeping to the wall, he moved fast down the long, curving corridor, praying no one stepped out of any of the rooms. The nursing staff would have heard the security code and be preparing for lockdown.

  Even before he reached Viper’s room he could hear the sound of an angry raised voice. Getting down into a crouch, he began to edge his way to the half-open door. If Harris heard him and turned, his eyes would be trained at head height, not down low, which would give Jovanic the advantage.

  “Come on, motherfucker, open your goddamn eyes,” the voice rasped. “I want you to see what’s coming to you.”

  Jovanic rapidly crossed the entry. Still in a crouch, he eased the door open just wide enough to see into the room. A glance inside showed him the foot of the bed and Gerald Harris standing next to it, his back to the door. He was holding a gun and it was pointed at Viper’s head.

  All the years of training and experience coalesced into that laser-focused moment.

  Jovanic backed out and straightened up. Leaning his cheek on the wall, he brought the Glock up to shoulder height and held it on the door jamb. With his dominant left hand holding the gun and his right hand steadying his wrist, Jovanic pressed the back of his right hand to the door jamb.

  Protecting his face, exposing only as much as he had to, he brought his head away from the wall and peered over his hands. He gave a loud shout. “Drop the fucking gun, Harris! Police. Don’t fucking move. Don’t turn around. Drop it! Drop it!”

  Somewhere along the corridor, someone screamed. Jovanic, figuring it was a panicked patient, ignored the sound and held his stance.

  Inside the room, Gerald Harris never moved. He spoke calmly, as if he had been expecting this confrontation. “This time, he killed my boy. I got nothin’ left.”

  Jovanic took it down a degree. “Slowly put the gun down, Gerald. No sudden moves or I’ll drop you right here.” His finger was already on the trigger, squeezing. “Fucking do as I say. Do it now!”

  In his peripheral vision Jovanic was aware of movement; people running in the corridor behind him, putting themselves in the line of fire. He knew he would have to calculate his next move at lightning speed. He raised his voice again. “Drop the gun, Gerald.”

  Gerald Harris brought up his weapon. He pulled the trigger once and started to turn toward the doorway. A half-second later he was dead.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Claudia could not stop crying. She had locked herself inside her bathroom with a full box of tissues and was rapidly running through them. When Annabelle knocked on the door after the first hour, timidly asking if she could do anything, Claudia was not even able to answer.

  It felt like someone had died. Jovanic was gone and she had a terrible dread that he would not be coming back. When he’d told her he would be spending the night at his apartment he had not looked at her, just walked past as if for him, she no longer existed.

  She lobbed the soggy tissue clutched in her fist into the trash basket with a dozen others and plucked a fresh one out of the box. It was unlike her to weep and she hated the sense of vulnerability she was left with. Even her skin felt exposed, raw, like a bad sunburn that was unbearable to touch. When had she become this weak person?

  She knew the answer. It had happened gradually as she let herself love him. It had been a fatal mistake to believe it was okay to open up and welcome him in. That thought brought a fresh round of sobs and she pressed her face into a towel so that Annabelle woul
d not hear her.

  Annabelle. The daughter she would never have. She huffed an ironic laugh at herself. She was nobody’s mother. She knew better than to blame herself for the child’s actions—Annabelle already had a long history of neglect and abuse before Claudia came into her life—but that she had so completely stepped outside the bounds of what was right was a bitter disappointment. Claudia had wanted to believe that the influence she exerted was stronger than that.

  Who was she fooling? She pulled herself up from the toilet lid and leaned her hands on the vanity, gazing in the mirror at her puffy face and bloodshot eyes. In one day, she had failed two of the people she loved most in the world. She had seen the betrayal reflected in Joel’s stunned expression. It ripped through her all over again, a dagger to the heart. He believed she had chosen Annabelle over him. A sharp flash of anger shot through her. Why couldn’t he see that the girl needed protection?

  Why hadn’t she seen that she should protect him?

  A new torrent of tears welled up and spilled over. The anger she felt was directed at herself. The sadness was that she had done no better than Annabelle in keeping a clear perspective.

  Joel was right. It would do no good to protect the girl from the consequences of her actions, even though they were well-meaning. What if Viper had been killed? There were stories in the news every day of kids being criminally tried as adults because they had committed horrendous crimes. Was that how she should be viewing Annabelle, as a criminal?

  No. She had her faults, but Annabelle had a good heart. She wanted to be good and she had worked hard on herself over the past couple of years. She had made excellent progress, too. Until Angel.

  Having given in to her misery for long enough, Claudia ran cold water into the sink and splashed it on her face. She had decided to call her friend Ann Cunningham and get some advice.