Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

by Gary Earl Ross

  “South stairwell on the shopping concourse,” Mark said. “Multiple sightings. They just slipped inside. They’re below us and on hidden cameras, heading down, two guys and a woman.” Mark held his phone so we could see the image being patched in. “The blazer’s too big for the asshole wearing it, a guy with red hair.” Mark thumbed in a message and bared his teeth in a predator’s smile. “Follow me.”

  38

  Once we reached the south stairwell door, Mark turned to Rafael and Travis. “They’re below us,” he said. “Once you’re past this point, it’s three stories down to the lobby with no way out of the stairwell.” He pointed to his phone, which showed three figures still moving cautiously.” I have your number, sergeant. When I text you NOW, ease this door open and start down as quiet as you can.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “At the bottom. They’ll have nowhere to go. But we have to hurry.”

  Rafael looked at Mark for a moment before nodding.

  Mark led me around a corner to a STAFF ONLY elevator and produced a keycard to activate it. Ten seconds later we were descending. When the stainless steel doors slid open we were in a service corridor off the main lobby. Mark looked at his phone and texted Rafael as we rounded the corner to the stairwell door. He handed me his phone. “A flight above. Almost here. What do you think?”

  The image was low def but I saw the woman was in the middle, the redhead in a DPS blazer pressed tight against her right side and a balding man in a white shirt hugging her left.

  “Maybe this is a hostage situation,” I said. “They look like conjoined triplets.” I passed the phone back. “If it was the two of them and the two of us…”

  He nodded. “Hard to get off a clean shot in a narrow stairwell with a hostage and cops coming down from above. Bullets could go anywhere.” He took a look at his screen before pocketing his phone. “But it’s go time if we’re gonna do anything.”

  He opened the door, which squeaked loudly as I followed him into the stairwell.

  The noise brought the bald man in white shirt and khakis hurtling down the remaining stairs, right arm above his head and beginning a downward swing with the knife in his hand.

  Though he had an isolated target, Mark had no time to draw and take aim. Instead, he reached up to grab the man’s right wrist with his left hand and spun him like a dance partner. “Gonna use a blade, at least learn how,” he said, clamping his other hand on the man’s wrist. Wrenching the knife arm down, Mark pulled the man in for a bear hug.

  Sidestepping them and starting up the stairs toward the man in the DPS blazer, I heard the sound of something sharp punching into a beach ball full of gelatin, followed by a brief exhalation. Next came a muffled whump and the thud of something heavy hitting the floor.

  “For Jake Ferguson,” I heard Mark whisper.

  Wincing at what had happened behind me, Wally Ray Tucker—in a wig guaranteed not to look out of place against pale skin—made sure I saw the knife he was holding to the abdomen of the trembling woman whose left arm he kept in a hammerlock. She was small, dark-haired, young, maybe Native or Latina. Wearing a simple summer dress, she had no uniform to identify her as a hotel employee, no lanyard with ID to say she had attended the conference. She was likely a tourist who had passed two men at the wrong moment and now looked frightened, maybe terrified because she’d just seen what a knife like the one against her belly could do to the human body.

  “There’s nowhere to go, Wally Ray,” I said. “Copperhead can’t help you. You made sure of that when you created a panic to get away. But you don’t have to die here.”

  He cocked his head, as if uncertain he had heard me correctly. Then he swallowed, hard. “She dies first, Rimes.” Gravelly voice full of new resolution, he shifted to put his back against the wall and moved down two steps, using his hostage as a shield. “And if the fuckers trying to tiptoe down the steps behind me don’t stop, she dies now.”

  Rafael and Travis, guns drawn, came into view on the landing above and froze.

  “Why don’t y’all put those guns away,” Wally Ray said. “Bullets can go every which way in a tight space like this. You might hit me, but you might hit her or these other assholes. No matter who gets shot, one finger twitch from either one of you and I guarantee this bitch will look like the cat that swallowed the cherry bomb.”

  Rafael and Travis holstered their weapons.

  “Ain’t this a crazy picture!” Wally Ray laughed, his head half behind the woman’s. “Got us a white man’s standoff. Above me a nigger and a spic. Below me another nigger. In my arms…” He tightened the hammerlock. “What are you, anyway, darlin’?”

  “American,” the woman said, tears rolling down her already wet cheeks.

  “Now you know that’s not what I mean!” He twisted harder. “Be more specific.”

  More tears. “Polish American! Amy Ann Zielinski!”

  “I’ll be damned!” Wally Ray said.

  “One way or another,” I said, remembering Drea’s book.

  He ignored me. “Nobody knows who anybody is these days. I mean, I could believe it if she was Italian, but Polish?” He snorted. “No way she’s a hundred percent. That’s what this country has come to, with all this race mixing nonsense.” He shook his head. “Ironic the only other white man here killed my friend Duke. Looks like he wants to do the same to me.” He took a breath. “So what are we gonna do, people?”

  I glanced back at Mark, standing above Stanley Maxwell and gazing at Wally Ray with unblinking intensity that would have snapped the supremacist’s neck if it had hands. Rafael and Travis stared at him too, jaws clenched. I knew we all were calculating scenarios, anticipating the consequences of specific actions to end the standoff. We wanted this bastard but not at the cost of this woman’s life.

  “You’re right, Wally Ray,” I said. “Nobody knows who anybody is.” I made a sweeping gesture that included Mark and the detectives. “These cops here? They don’t know this lady. Something happens to her, sure they’ll feel bad but it won’t hurt the way it will if something happens to a friend.” I tapped my chest. “I’m their friend. Let Amy Ann go and take me. Long as they care what happens to me, I’m your passport out of here.”

  He laughed. “You must think I’m stupid. By now you got snipers outside, roadblocks, helicopters and shit ready to blow me away.”

  “Helicopters don’t fit in the underground parking ramp,” I said. “But my car does.”

  “Which means what?”

  “I can drive you away from here.”

  “Right!”

  “Least I’d give you a chance. If we’re followed and cornered, won’t you feel better killing a Black man before you die instead of a white girl you mistook for something else? What’s better for Liberty Storm, dying here or on camera with my blood on your hands?”

  He looked at me for several heartbeats. “Taking out the trash.” He grinned. “You make a tempting offer, Rimes, but I know you think you’re setting me up, figuring a way to get the drop on me. Disarm me. Shoot me. But let me tell you how it’s gonna go.” He pressed the tip of his Wasp blade against the flimsy fabric of Zielinski’s dress. “For starters, you’re gonna give me your gun.”

  “No!” Mark and Rafael said in unison.

  “Yes, or this Polack dies here.” Wally Ray made a quarter-inch of the Wasp tip disappear into the folds of her dress. “You other fuckers are gonna take your guns out first, drop the magazines, and put everything on the floor. Then you’ll step back.” He looked up at Rafael and Travis. “You two, up to the next landing.” He looked at Mark. “You, big man, are gonna kneel on your hands, right on this concrete floor. Once I got his gun, none of you can get to yours before I shoot, so you better be still.” He pressed deeper, his thumb close to the CO2 button on the hilt. Zielinski stifled a scream as a spot of blood appeared.

  Travis glared at me as she ejected her magazine and put it and her gun on the step where she stood. As she started backing up the stairs, Rafae
l popped his own mag and followed suit, as did Mark, who at Wally Ray’s command kicked his gun out of reach under the staircase. Moving away from Duke’s body, he knelt on his own palms and grimaced.

  “Time for your gun, Rimes,” Wally Ray said.

  I held open my sports coat so he could see the baby Glock under my left armpit. Then I took hold of the stock with my left hand and eased it out of the holster awkwardly. Keeping it upside down with no finger near the trigger guard, I leaned forward to hand it up to him, keeping my right hand behind me as if for balance.

  The next move was Wally Ray’s. I knew he would have to release his hostage’s arm to take the gun with his left hand. But he was right-handed. If he was going to handle the gun, to aim and shoot, he would have to drop the Wasp or transfer it to his left hand. Either way, he would have to let go of Zielinski or the knife. For a moment he weighed his options. Then he pulled the knife back to shift it to his left hand, putting it behind Zielinski for the transfer.

  Now!

  I leaned forward as if falling, dropped the gun to the bottom step, and grabbed Amy Ann Zielinski’s shoulder. I had hoped the gun wouldn’t go off but it did, its bullet ricocheting off the riser and, fortunately, I later learned, into the late Stanley Maxwell. With my gun out of reach, I jerked Zielinski backward, thrusting her toward the stairwell door as Wally Ray returned the Wasp to his right hand.

  He lunged down the last few steps, thrusting his blade toward my belly. I pivoted, the tip of the Wasp catching my vest and ripping into Kevlar not designed to stop it but not going into me because I was sideways. I hit his arm with my left fist and heard the CO2 cartridge in the hilt discharge with a long hiss, the gas chilling me even through the Kevlar. At the same time I slid the baton off my belt, flicked it open, and thought of Drea.

  I swung it across the left side of Wally Ray’s face. As he cried out, I thought of Bobby. I brought the baton down on his right forearm hard enough to hear a sharp crack. As the Wasp clattered down the steps, I thought of Kayla and Sam and followed through with a Serena Williams backhand to the other side of his face. Howling as he spun away, Wally Ray caught the railing and sank to his butt. Thinking of Lucy Bishop and her family, I was about to hammer his head like a railroad spike when someone grabbed my arm. Behind me, Mark was back on his feet, an arm locked around mine, pulling me away.

  “He’s down, man! Out of the game. You got him.”

  39

  Drea never made it to Niagara Falls or the Underground Railroad Museum in Lewiston. Instead, she spent much of the afternoon at Buffalo Police Headquarters, where she gave her statement, met with ADA Tripp Caster, and later, alongside the mayor, answered reporters’ questions in the press room. After the impromptu press conference, Rafael took Drea and me to the observation room to watch Wally Ray Tucker’s interrogation.

  Wally Ray had spent late morning and early afternoon in the Buffalo General ER. Now, handcuffed to a table ring, he looked small and broken. He had a black eye, stitches in one cheek, a gauze bandage on the other, and a cast on his right arm. His wigless head had very short hair dyed unnaturally black.

  Drea held my arm, her nails digging into my biceps. “I wish we were here to watch him get an injection.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Won’t happen in New York but there’s always Virginia.”

  “I’m gonna sue the shit outta your department before all this is over,” Wally Ray said when Rafael and Travis stepped inside.

  The detectives exchanged a look of incredulity.

  “Sue us for what?” Rafael asked, moving to his left as Travis edged along his right.

  “Brutality!” The gravel in his voice seemed to take on a bit of helium. “Look at me!”

  After a beat, Rafael and Travis both laughed.

  “You saying a cop did that to you? Sure, Mr. Rimes is some kind of cowboy.” Travis looked at the mirror and winked. “But he’s a private citizen.”

  “He was working with you people! That makes you responsible! Arrest him!”

  “You got cojones,” Rafael said. “I’ll give you that.”

  “Must have a J.D. too,” Travis said. “Tell me again where you went to law school.”

  “Mr. Rimes is a licensed private investigator and security expert hired to protect the woman you tried to kill,” Rafael said, leaning close to Wally Ray. “He fought an armed man in a stairwell, but I’m sure he’s bonded and insured, so if you want to sue somebody, get a lawyer and go after him. Maybe your public defender will take a shot at it. Lotta witnesses. What about Mr. Donatello, who killed your buddy in self-defense? He had family hurt in the bomb blast.”

  “Ms. Zielinski would make a good witness,” Travis said. “She could tell the civil jury how you held her at knifepoint, how you tried to stab Mr. Rimes with the same knife. His lawyer could demonstrate your Wasp by stabbing a watermelon and blowing it open from the inside out. Of course, we were there and could testify. Right, Sarge? What did he call you?”

  “Spic. You, detective?”

  “Nigger.” Travis waited a moment before shrugging. “Why not sue the hotel, Mr. Tucker? The owner’s a billionaire. He could pay a lot more than Rimes or this department. But his son was one of the people killed by your bomb.”

  Wally Ray hesitated before replying. “I want a lawyer.”

  “You’re gonna need one,” Travis said. “Domestic terrorism, three counts of murder, using a weapon of mass destruction, and that’s only New York. Parole violation in Maryland. Home invasion and murder in Virginia. If you dance past the needle there, you’re still inside forever. With a rep that’ll fire up a lot of your fellow inmates.”

  “I said I want a lawyer!”

  Rafael unlocked the cuffs and offered an acid smile. “Then it’s back to your cell till we can find one so weighted down with law school debt he has to take on your sorry ass.”

  Drea released my arm and threw open the door to the corridor as Rafael and Travis led Wally Ray back to his cell.

  “The brothers are gonna love you,” she said. “May the wolf die—but not too soon.”

  He glared at her over his shoulder but said nothing.

  Later, after Pete and Ramos had given their statements and taken Drea back to the suite, I ran into Amy Ann Zielinski on her way out of headquarters with her mother, also small, olive-skinned, and dark-haired. After she introduced me, I apologized for throwing her backward so hard she landed on her rump atop Stanley Maxwell.

  “That’s okay,” she said, pointing to the blood on the front of her dress. “He couldn’t get up. I could, thanks to you.” She and her mother hugged me before they left.

  I gave two statements that afternoon, one to Terry Chalmers and another to the chief of detectives and Tripp Caster. After I was directed to Commissioner Cochrane himself, I found myself on a corridor bench outside his office, beside Mark Donatello.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You kept me from going too far.”

  “Like I did,” he said. “Guess I could’ve disarmed him, but like I said in my statement, we struggled for the knife and Duke’s thumb was on the button when the blade went in. But detectives weren’t there yet to see what happened with me. They were right above you.”

  “If Ferguson was my friend,” I said, “I’d want his killer to feel what he felt. But if I’d put Wally Ray down, friend or not, Rafael would have had to take me in.”

  “Friendship’s complicated.” He sighed. “Anything bugging you about the bomb?”

  “How they got it past the bomb-sniffing dogs?”

  Mark shook his head. “There are ways. You saw all the little cuts on Randall’s face? A small bomb could be sealed in glass and still be light enough to fly. Dogs can’t smell through glass.” He took a breath. “What’s bothering me is where the drone came down.”

  “Travis said the jammer would drop the drone where it was or return it to its point of origin,” I said. “But it’s new technology. I suppose it could have dropped anywhere.”

  For a moment n
either of us said anything.

  “If it went back to its starting point,” he said, “we miscalculated. We assumed the flight would start and stop with the operator.”

  “We didn’t anticipate a two-person job, the operator in one location, an inside man to turn on the drone in another. Or an inside woman, who carried the drone in a purse she kept by her chair and opened when the time was right.”

  “Randall’s girlfriend. That’s the idea I can’t get out of my head either.”

  “Drea’s book says a woman lawyer in Maryland kept Tucker from being extradited to Virginia. Shouldn’t be too hard to find out if it was Chelsea Carpenter.”

  “You think it was, don’t you? You think Tucker sacrificed her to get away?”

  I recalled Wally Ray’s confusion when I said he’d made sure Copperhead couldn’t help. His look supported my belief Carpenter was Copperhead, not a cousin but an old friend who gave legal support. “I doubt he knew the drone went back to her. He might have thought twice if he did.”

  “I wonder what Randall knew,” Mark said. “Was he an inside man too? Somebody had to get the drone and Wasps past all the security. Who better than the hotel’s co-owner?”

  “He did try to throw himself on the bomb,” I said.

  “Because he knew it was a bomb and not a toy.” Mark was quiet a moment. “Why would he set off a bomb in his own hotel?”

  “Do you remember Randall’s mother?” I asked.

  “Sure. Nice lady, but wrapped too tight. She died a long time ago. Pills and booze.”

  “Could it have been suicide?”

  He thought for a moment and nodded. “Could be, covered up by money.”