‘You’ll get used to it,’ she assured him.
‘I thought the Federal Building’s security was tight,’ he said, hanging his coat on the rack in the corner. ‘I had to swipe eight different doors and the elevator to get here, and this place is set up like a maze.’
‘The security in our last building was non-existent. And you know this used to be the old federal courthouse, right?’ She didn’t know how long Matt had been in Buffalo, but she assumed he didn’t know about her getting stabbed in her own office. She was grateful the brass had finally taken security measures seriously.
‘I was informed by my bosses, but I didn’t know what to expect.’
‘Matt, what did you do before you got into the Bureau?’ Lauren asked as she wiggled her mouse around to bring up the home screen on her computer. She’d already been in the office for a half hour, made some phone calls, and had coffee with the sergeant.
‘I ran the Internet Frauds department for a bank.’
‘I figured as much.’ She took in his expensive suit and shiny black shoes. ‘You don’t look like a cop.’
‘Just because I wasn’t a cop doesn’t mean I don’t know how to work a case,’ he said. Matt dropped his briefcase next to his temporary desk with a loud thunk. He was right to be a little pissed and Lauren knew it.
Seeing the deep frown creeping across his face, Lauren added, ‘That’s a good thing. I don’t need a cop right now. I need a computer expert to track this mystery guy. Lucky for me the Feds sent me one.’
Placated, Matt gave her a half-smile and reached for the landline. ‘I’ll call and find out who Gunnar Jonsson crossed over the Peace Bridge with.’
‘Thank you.’ The gratitude in her voice wasn’t exaggerated.
‘I spoke to Erna, Mr Hudson’s nurse, as soon as I got in,’ she said. ‘Brooklyn never came home last night.’
‘So she’s in the wind right now?’
‘Junkies don’t go far. Iceland is a lot farther. See what you can dig up.’
While Lauren worked on the numerous reports that went along with any routine follow up, Matt was making plays over at Reese’s desk. Within a half hour he had the name, date of birth and citizenship of Gunner’s traveling companion.
‘Ragnar Steinarsson, age fifty-seven of Reykjavik, Iceland crossed the American-Canadian border with Gunnar Jonsson. He crossed back into Canada the night of the murder at 8:40 p.m.’
‘We’d just made it to the crime scene and he was slipping out of the country,’ Lauren said.
‘Maybe not,’ Matt said. ‘Gunnar extended his stay, maybe this Ragnar guy decided to leave early. Maybe that’s why Gunnar was by himself getting money out of the ATM.’
‘Speaking of ATMs,’ Hector Avilla came walking in with a sheaf of papers in hand, ‘these are the stills from the one your victim visited. No one but him in the pictures.’
Lauren took the photographs from him, passing each one to Matt after she was done with it.
‘Gunnar doesn’t look scared or nervous,’ Matt commented, handing the shots back to Lauren to add to the file.
‘No, he does not. If he suspected Ragnar was going to beat him to death, he sure didn’t show it.’ Lauren turned back to Hector. ‘Any other luck with the video canvas?’
‘The security company from the hotel called. They got the subpoena and are getting the digital files together. The woman said they’ll be emailed to you by the end of the day. Problem is, the company is in California and you’ll be done for the day by the time that happens.’
Lauren wasn’t in the mood for sitting in front of the computer all morning. ‘That’s hours of footage we have to go through. We can get to that later,’ she told Matt.
‘What about the city cameras?’ Lauren asked.
‘I got you some still photographs but they aren’t going to help. That huge scaffolding is perfectly positioned to block the view all the way to the corner. You can’t even see Gunnar approach the ATM, let alone the killer.’
‘Figures,’ Lauren replied.
Hector excused himself, grabbing his keys and jacket from his desk. ‘I have to run to the holding center. There’s an informant there with possible information on the case. Says he knows some things about some street robberies. He wanted to talk to someone right away. Could be related to Gunnar Jonsson’s murder. I’ll let you know. Oh, and Doug Sheehan called in sick. Good luck, guys.’
‘Same to you,’ she told him as the door shut. Hector couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. With his regular partner, Reggie, off on medical leave, Hector popped in and out of the office all day long, not content to even take a coffee break.
Matt hit some keys on his computer and Lauren could hear the copy machine outside their door rumble to life. He went out and returned in seconds, handing her some papers. ‘I printed out the border crossing information from the Homeland Security database. I have a call into ARC – the Airline Reporting Corporation – and they should be able to tell us what airline Steinarsson left on, what flight number, right down to his seat assignment.’
Lauren nodded her head as she mentally tried to organize that information. ‘Good, good. All this is good. Maybe Hector’s informant will pay off. If he knows about a guy doing street robberies, maybe he heard about Gunnar’s murder and wants to make a deal.’
‘Does that happen a lot?’ Matt asked.
‘More than you would think but we can’t wait around and hold our breath. You have Gunnar’s cellphone at your computer lab?’
‘They’re already trying to crack the code. It could be a couple hours or a month. There’s no telling.’
Matt picked up his Tim Hortons coffee cup and took a sip. Lauren was glad to see that particular Buffalo fetish had rubbed off on him. ‘Now what?’
‘Now we go look for the sister. Let’s take a ride over to Brooklyn’s friend Lenny’s house. Maybe he knows where she is.’
They gathered up their things, put on their coats and stopped at the front desk to let Marilyn know they’d be out on the street.
‘Make sure you call it in!’ Marilyn reminded Lauren as they walked out of the squad room door. Always the mother hen of the Homicide office, Marilyn felt it was her duty to try to take care of the infamous detective Riley. She rarely succeeded.
They took Lauren’s detective car so as to not lose the prime parking spot for Matt’s Fed vehicle. Also, the apartment building they were heading to was rough, so his pristine, polished ride would stick out like a sore thumb. It was too square to be a drug dealer’s and too new to be a resident’s. ‘You know this place?’ Matt asked as Lauren eased onto the Kensington Expressway.
‘It’s been a thorn in the E District’s side for twenty years. It caught fire on New Year’s Eve about eight years ago, but the out-of-state landlord rebuilt. It should have been demolished.’ Lauren’s eyes flicked from one mirror to the next as she watched the lanes of traffic. Rush hour was creeping up and the expressway was notorious for accidents.
Lauren pulled off at the Grider Street exit, heading left instead of right towards the Erie County Medical Center. She was silently grateful for that small thing. She’d already spent enough of her life in ECMC, between her getting stabbed and Reese getting shot. Within four months of each other, she thought as she pulled up to a red light. We didn’t even have the luck to have it happen on the same night.
The building hadn’t changed since the last time she’d seen it. Three stories high with its red paint peeling from the wood frame, it had once been a grand single house. Now it was chopped up into six shitty one-room apartments, each floor sharing a bathroom. Over the years Lauren had been there for a multitude of reasons: serving search warrants, looking for witnesses, arresting suspects. The faces changed, but one thing remained constant – it was a sad, awful, depressing place. The structure itself seemed to list to the side, as if the weight of the years and broken lives inside was dragging it down. An old shopping cart filled with a crusty layer of snow sat on the front lawn
like a sentinel.
Parked out front was a brand new, cherry red Mustang.
‘Brooklyn’s here.’ Lauren pulled across the street and threw her car into park. ‘That car was parked in her father’s driveway yesterday.’ She typed a message to dispatch on her dashboard computer that they were on scene at the house on a follow-up. She waited for the dispatcher to reply with a message acknowledging, then she slumped down in her seat. Matt mirrored her.
They sat on the house for a few minutes, watching it. Lauren could see a well-worn path in the snow leading up the front walk onto the saggy porch. Foot traffic to the derelict building looked heavy. Sure enough, a rail-thin man in an old bubble coat came shambling out the front door. He looked left and right, pulled the coat tighter around himself then shuffled off the porch. He paused for a second to look at the Mustang and tried the passenger-side door handle. When he found it locked he made his way down the street, peering into every car window that he passed.
She unclipped her seatbelt and turned to Matt, leaving the keys in the ignition. ‘Wait here. I’ll go in and grab her. Then we’ll take her to headquarters and get her on paper.’
‘Hold up,’ Matt said, brows furrowing. ‘You want me to wait in the car while you go in there alone?’
‘Look at yourself,’ she countered. ‘In that suit, with those shoes? You’ll scare our witness. She’s got to consent to come down. Besides, you want to bring roach eggs home to your baby? This will only take a minute. I’ll be right back.’
The idea of cockroach eggs clinging to his shiny black shoes was enough to make Matt agree, with one condition: ‘If you’re not out in five minutes I’m coming in.’
‘Give me eight.’ She picked up her portable radio from the console and grabbed the door handle. ‘I might need a minute or two to convince her.’
‘Five,’ he called as she closed her door on him.
Ignoring him, she crossed the street, looking both ways as the skinny crackhead had done. It was still morning but cloudy and overcast. The windows, with their make-shift curtains, gave no clues as to which apartments were presently occupied. She paused on the porch to look at the row of mailboxes, with names written on ragged slips of paper and taped on the front.
Leonard Able lived in apartment one. Bingo, Lauren thought, first floor. Today’s my lucky day.
She twisted the outer knob and pushed the heavy wood door open. On either side of her she could hear the muffled sounds of people talking. From somewhere upstairs the smell of curry flooded the narrow hall.
Someone had tried to paint the apartment door a cheery yellow, but had only succeeded in making it look like the would-be artist had rubbed egg yolk all over the wood. A metal number one was nailed in the center, there was no peep hole. It had been kicked in recently, splinted wood had been roughly patched together to keep the door closed but it still sat slightly ajar. Using the butt end of her radio, Lauren knocked twice.
From inside she heard glass smashing. ‘What the fuck? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Then someone else cried out.
She pushed the door open with her hip as she pulled her Glock out. ‘Buffalo Police!’
Brooklyn was on the ground convulsing next to a ratty plaid couch, while a man with long hair pulled back in a ponytail and a thick beard knelt beside her. A broken bottle littered the bare, scratched hardwood floor by her feet. Another man stood slightly behind them, his head whipping up at the sound of the door flying open. He pulled a six-shot revolver from his waist band and drew down on Lauren.
‘I ain’t getting robbed again, bitch,’ he growled. Brooklyn’s mouth frothed with white foam as her eyes rolled back in her head.
‘Buffalo Police!’ she repeated. ‘Put the gun down!’
‘She’s dying here, Devon!’ the man who must have been Lenny screamed. ‘Where’s the fucking Narcan?’
‘Did my probation officer send you?’ A short guy, with shaggy brown hair, Devon had a face full of open sores. His position behind Brooklyn and Lenny didn’t give Lauren a clear shot.
‘No,’ Lauren told him. ‘I came to talk to Brooklyn. Drop the gun so I can help her.’
‘The Narcan. Devon, where’s the Narcan?’ Lenny reached over and riffled through the trash strewn across a scratched up, garbage-picked coffee table. He grabbed a pink-and-white box, shook it and dropped it back down. It was empty.
‘It’s all gone, Lenny. I used the last of it two days ago.’ Devon’s eyes didn’t leave Lauren. ‘You go for that emergency button on your radio and I’ll shoot you in the face.’
The fingers on Lauren’s left hand had been searching for the little red button, while she was holding him at bay one-handed with her right.
‘Drop the radio,’ he told her.
She did, but only to bring her other hand up to double grip her Glock. The radio bounced on the dirty floor with a loud squawk. ‘She’s going to die,’ Lauren told him. ‘Put the gun down and let me help her.’
‘Give her your fucking gun!’ Lenny was desperately slapping Brooklyn’s face and shaking her. ‘She’s dying.’
‘I don’t give a fuck. And I’m not going to jail for your bullshit.’ Devon inched his way to his right, knowing the other two junkies were providing him with cover. ‘She wouldn’t have OD’d if she wasn’t such a pig. That was the last of it.’
‘Listen to me,’ Lauren kept her voice even. ‘I have Narcan in my police car. We all carry it. Drop the gun and I’ll go get it.’
‘No way,’ Devon’s eyes flicked to the open door. ‘Drop your gun and let me walk out of here.’
Sweat glistened on his forehead and his hands were shaking slightly. Lauren wondered when he last shot up.
‘Let her help my girl.’ Lenny was pleading now. Brooklyn’s chest barely rose under her black tank top. She was fading fast.
Devon shook his head, sending beads of sweat flying. He was dope sick and desperate, a volatile combination. ‘Drop it now.’
It was an ultimatum, but Lauren knew you never give up your gun, ever. And their standoff had to end because Brooklyn couldn’t wait any longer for that Narcan in her car.
Lauren had the best angle she was going to get. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
‘FBI! Drop your weapon!’
Matt came in around the back of her, flanking Devon in on the left. Devon’s gun swerved from Lauren to Matt as he tried to make sense of what was happening. Lauren squeezed the trigger. Devon fell backwards with a howl, revolver clattering to the floor next to her radio.
‘You fucking shot me!’ he screamed, clutching his right arm. Matt ran over and flipped him on his belly. The shot had gone through his upper arm, Lauren could see the bullet hole in the drywall behind him.
‘Stay with us, Brooklyn,’ Lauren said as she grabbed her radio. She quickly called for an ambulance, backup and a supervisor, not pausing to hear dispatch’s response.
‘Cuff him,’ Lauren tossed Matt her handcuffs. ‘I’m running out to the car to grab my Narcan.’
Matt, with Lenny’s help, had pinned Devon to the floor. Brooklyn wasn’t moving. ‘Hurry,’ was all Matt said as he yanked Devon’s left arm behind his back. He clicked one cuff to his wrist, then clicked the other cuff around the leather belt holding up Devon’s pants. Not ideal, but it would have to do.
Five minutes, Lauren thought as she raced across the street to her car. The glorious little boy scout literally waited five minutes.
If he had waited six minutes someone would be dead right now.
FIFTEEN
In all her years on the job, and all the trouble she had gotten into with Reese, Devon Crosby was the first person Lauren had ever shot. It was a through-and-through wound; the doctors at the Erie County Medical Center had stitched him up in no time. Poor Matt had his special agent in charge there at the hospital within minutes of them walking in the door, along with his supervisor from the computer task force. They’d led him away to grill him about what went down, leaving Lauren by herself to make sure Devon was
treated, charged and sent upstairs to the ninth-floor lock-up – where the medical center had secure rooms for police prisoners – until Connolly showed up.
The homicide squad investigated all police shootings, even non-fatal ones, and the sarge had showed up to take care of business. Now they were waiting for Brooklyn to regain consciousness so they could talk to her.
Lauren’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she checked it. Reese.
You sure you don’t need anything?
She thumbed the tiny keyboard: For you to feed Watson.
Three dots and then: I’ll talk to you later.
OK. She slipped the phone away. That had been the third exchange they’d had since she got to the hospital. A year ago she wouldn’t have bothered to return Reese’s texts. Now she made sure she always answered him in a timely manner. All it had taken was a bullet to his head to convince her he deserved at least that.
‘Hell of a day,’ the sarge said as they stood in the hallway of the emergency room. He was trying to fill in her silence with mindless chatter. Lauren could stand quietly for hours, and it unnerved some people, like her sergeant.
‘It was legitimate,’ she said. ‘When Matt surprised him, I thought he was going to shoot.’
The sarge rubbed the colorless stubble on his face absently and looked at the closed door to the ER where they were still examining Brooklyn Hudson. Usually a good squirt of Narcan up the nose caused addicts to pop up like cork from a champagne bottle, but in Brooklyn’s case she needed three doses just to bring her back to semi-consciousness. ‘Good thing you only winged the guy or I’d have to place you on administrative leave.’
‘Believe me, I would have rather he just tossed the gun,’ Lauren said. She’d been placed on administrative leave at the end of March, and hadn’t gotten back to work until she was ‘no billed’ by the grand jury at the beginning of August. It had given her plenty of time to take care of Reese, but she needed to be working. ‘Are they going to take Matt back to the Feds?’ She hadn’t seen him since his bosses got to the hospital. As soon as his special agent in charge came through the sliding doors, Matt’s face had fallen into a look of restrained worry, his forehead creasing, his eyebrows drawing together in a tight V.
A Full Cold Moon Page 9
