“Is it possible that one or both was shot while standing and then sat down?” Hailey asked.
Mike shook his head. “Blood spatter shows both boys were shot while sitting on the couch.”
“Opposite couches,” Hal confirmed.
“Right.”
“How far apart are these couches?”
Mike studied the pages until he found what he was looking for. “Five feet, seven inches between the two boys, but the couches don’t sit face-to-face. They’re set up like an L, at ninety degrees, more or less.”
“The angle sounds wrong,” Cameron said, speaking for the first time since they’d left the car. She pointed to a photograph of the dead kid. “If they shot each other, the entry wounds should have been more or less parallel.”
“You’re right.” He turned back to Mike. “Did CSU test the trajectories to confirm if the shots were fired from those positions?”
Mike shook his head. “They took photographs and did the measurements, but they’re four weeks out to run those kinds of scenarios. Too much other stuff to work on and trajectory work is time-consuming.”
“They test for residue?” Hal asked.
“GSR positive on both of them.”
“What about other bullets?”
“They found two others,” Mike said, flipping through the report. “One slug in the wall and one in a baseboard.”
“One from each gun?” Hal ventured.
“Good guess.”
“Sounds like a setup,” Hailey said.
“What do we know about this kid Robbins?” Cameron asked.
“No record. No truancy issues. Parents are both gone but he works at a dry cleaner on Cesar Chavez and helps raise his kid sister.”
“And he confessed to shooting his friend inside his own apartment?” Cameron asked.
“Doesn’t sound right,” Hailey agreed.
“He’s in room 6110,” Mike said. “I’ve got to get back to the station for a briefing. I’m meeting Kong and O’Shea here to interview him in a couple of hours but call if you learn something.”
“Will do,” Hal said. Kong and O’Shea had been assigned Carson’s murder case. Hal was here because this thing related to the earlier murders. He felt it in his gut.
He had a bad feeling, that tightness in his chest, the light-headedness that reminded him of the back of that patrol car after his father’s death. Even with effort, he couldn’t quite shake it as they made their way to room 6110.
Two officers guarded the door. Inside the room, the overhead lights were shut off. The outside light created striped shadows between the thin slats of vinyl shades.
A low intermittent beep was the only noise in the room as the patient turned his head slowly from the far wall.
James Robbins wore a hospital gown in prison orange.
Though he had dark skin, the kid’s angular nose suggested mixed ancestry.
Maybe the shooting was a gang thing. Maybe it had nothing at all to do with their case. Maybe it was just a coincidence that he’d killed Carson after he was released on charges related to the guns stolen from the Dennigs. For all they knew, this kid Robbins might have been tracking Carson for weeks.
But if it was gang-related, why did Carson look so scared coming out of the station? He didn’t look scared at the sting. If he knew he was a wanted man, he should have been afraid then, too.
No. Something had changed between when Carson pulled Martin Abbott’s business card from his pocket and when he hit the street the next morning.
Lying in the hospital bed, the kid watched them with narrowed eyes, a little dull. He tried to lift an arm, but the restraint held him to the bed. Instead he turned his head to wipe his face on the shoulder of his gown. Thick white gauze circled his head like a sweatband. Above and below the bandage, he wore his hair in an Afro. It was a little long and unruly, but clean and evenly cut.
Bruises had formed under both eyes. They were deep violet half-moons above angular cheekbones. The whites of his eyes were yellow, his pupils tiny.
Without speaking, Hal set the recorder on the rolling table by his bed. That close, Hal smelled the kid’s sweat, pungent and acidic. He smelled scared. His wrists were bound with thick white Velcro straps that fastened him to the bed so that he could move each one only a few inches. “You want, I can loosen those.”
He licked his lips, nodded. “Yeah.” Cleared his throat and added, “Please.”
Hal ripped them open and immediately the kid rubbed his wrists.
Hal glanced at the thin, delicate arms, not much bigger than Sheila’s, as the kid stretched his arms straight and bent them again as though his elbows ached. The inside curve of his arm was free of track marks, his face clean of scars, not even a nick from shaving. “Better?”
He nodded. “Thanks.” He turned to the cup of water on the table. “You mind?”
“Go ahead.” Hal waited while he drank the water, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and refilled his glass from a small pink plastic pitcher then drank that down, too. When he was done, he placed his cup back on the table, crossed his hands and stared at the white beds of his fingernails.
Hal looked, too. Clipped, cut. No dirt. A well-groomed kid.
There were well-groomed killers, he told himself.
Sure.
The kid nodded that he was ready and Hal made a show of pressing the red button to record the conversation, then stepped to the end of the bed. Hailey moved in beside him while Cameron remained at the door.
Hailey caught Hal’s eye, but Hal ignored her. He was in charge of this one. “You know why we’re here?”
The kid seemed to have some trouble swallowing then nodded. He glanced at the recorder. “Yes,” he said, his voice raspy.
“Please state your full name.”
“James Charles Robbins.”
“Date of birth?”
“December 10, 2000.”
“Age?”
“Sixteen.”
“Mr. Robbins, do you understand that this conversation is being recorded?”
He rubbed the bandage on his head gingerly. “I do.”
“You also agree that you are not being forced to talk to us.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“And you understand that it is your choice to have an attorney present?”
“I don’t want an attorney.” He paused. “Thank you.”
Robbins was an easy interview, helpful and polite, made eye contact, spoke with proper grammar, the kind of kid a dad would be proud of. Not the kind of kid Hal usually interviewed for murder.
He came across more like an awkward high school debate student than a killer. But he was scared. Just like Carson had been. Hal wanted to know who had scared these guys and why. He was going to do his damnedest to find out.
Hal walked him through the details of the day before, beginning with when he woke. Only when the interview reached the point when Carson and Sigler were killed did his demeanor change. His posture stiffened, his voice cracked and he stopped making eye contact. “We went down there. Fish drove, I shot them. Then, I shot him.”
James Robbins was a bad liar. Bad liars didn’t make it in the world of crooks and gangs. Lying was more essential than being able to shoot or fight.
In that world, lying was on par with breathing.
Hailey stepped away.
Cameron shook her head.
Hal studied Robbins, waiting for something to give. But the kid kept his mouth closed.
“Who were the guys you shot?” Hal asked.
Robbins shrugged. “Some guys.” When Hal pressed, he added, “They owed Fish some money.”
“And who shot Fish?” Hal asked him.
His Adam’s apple bobbed like a buoy he was trying to hold under water. “I did.”
“
You shot Fish after shooting two other men who owed Fish money?”
Robbins blinked and nodded.
“Out loud, please,” Hal said, losing patience.
Something in the kid looked dead then, his eyes heavy, almost closed, as he turned his mouth down to face the recorder. “I shot Fish.”
Hal had been handed confessions before—once when a guy split his wife’s head open with a tire iron, once when a babysitter had accidentally smothered a child, but almost always there were strong emotions at work—bottled up aggression or boiling anger or profound sorrow, regret—hell, something. This kid showed nothing. “You want to tell us why you shot your friend?”
His shoulders dropped and his chin fell. “He stole something from me,” he said flatly.
“What did he steal?” Hailey asked.
“It don’t matter.”
Hal noticed it was the first time his grammar had slipped. “A woman? Money?”
The kid nodded like he was being offered free samples. “Yeah.”
Hal pressed his palms into the bar at the foot of the bed, leaned in. “Well, which was it, James?”
“Maybe it was both.” Before Hal could ask another question, Robbins said, “I’m done talking now.”
Hal waited another minute, one last holdout, but Robbins remained silent. Hailey tucked the digital recorder into her purse and left the room. Hal stayed back until all the women were gone. “You sure you done talking?”
The kid looked away.
Hal left. Outside the door, the guard stopped him. “He cuffed?”
Hal shook his head. “That kid don’t need to be cuffed.”
Guard shrugged. “Policy, man. You know how it is.”
Halfway down the hall, Hailey and Cameron stood talking. Cameron turned to him. “Did you watch his hands?”
Hal tried to picture the kid’s hands. Clean hands.
“No,” Hailey said. “Why?”
“He’s left-handed.”
The kid had scratched his head with his left hand, but he’d been scratching that side.
“Which hand had gunshot residue?” Hailey asked.
Hal flipped open the ballistics report Mike had left, skimmed through several pages while Hailey began to pace along the linoleum. Finally, he found it. “Shit.”
“Right hand?” Cameron guessed.
Hal nodded, his gaze on Hailey who had halted. “Right hand.”
“That’s not all,” Cameron said. “The shooter I watched was left-eye dominant.”
Hal was impressed. He hadn’t noticed either of those things. He was distracted. As far as he was concerned, part of the distraction was on Hailey. If he couldn’t trust his partner, how the hell could he stay on task?
Focus. “How do you know someone is left-eye dominant?” Hal asked.
She tilted her head to demonstrate. “You can tell from the way he pitched his head when he fired.” She looked back at Robbins’s room. “This guy’s not the shooter. I’d testify to it in court.”
“Now remember,” Hal said. “You only saw him for a few minutes on the street. It was a stressful situation. You said it yourself—you’ve never been that close to a shooting before.”
“It’s true, Cameron. Are you sure you couldn’t be wrong?”
“It’s my job to watch people with guns,” Cameron said. “Although I’m usually farther away. That shooter last night—he used an Israeli shooting stance. That’s something taught in training schools.” She squatted down, held her hands up, left cupping the right. “It makes the shooter a smaller target, provides good balance for better aim.” She rose to her feet and hitched her thumb toward the door, the frenetic energy she’d had at the department back again. “That kid in there didn’t learn to shoot at any school, if he’s ever fired a gun. If he knows how, he learned it on the street, and I’d bet my next paycheck that he wouldn’t use an Israeli shooting stance.”
“Okay,” Hal said. “Now we just have to prove it.”
“Ask him to show you how he shot the gun,” Hailey said, shrugging. “Have him demonstrate.”
He didn’t want the wrong guy and if Cameron was right about any of it—gunshot residue, eye dominance, shooting stance—then Robbins was the wrong guy.
He’d known Robbins wasn’t their shooter as soon as he laid eyes on the kid. Cameron’s observations only made him all that more certain.
“I’m telling you,” Cameron said again. “That guy didn’t do it.”
Hal nodded. “I remember the shooter squatting.” Fear was the only motive for lying that made sense, and if the kid was scared, there was someone out on the street Hal wanted to find. “Let’s do it.”
When they walked back in, Robbins glanced at Hailey then focused his gaze on Hal as he edged himself up in the bed. Hal undid the binds and stepped back. Robbins rubbed his wrists again, wincing a little this time.
“They do those up too tight?”
Robbins glanced down, shrugged. “A little.”
“I’ll make sure they’re looser next time.”
“Thanks.” He scanned the group. “You got more questions?”
“A few.” Hal took his notepad from his shirt pocket and wrote, “Is there a bug in here?” “We just wanted to confirm a couple things,” Hal said as he passed the notebook to the kid.
Robbins frowned at the note. “What?”
Hal took the sheet back, wrote “Microphone? Someone listening?”
Robbins shook his head, said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His gaze tracked around the room. No. The kid didn’t suspect a bug, so he was lying for another reason.
Hal slid the notebook back in his pocket. “Are you okay to stand?”
Robbins shrugged. “Sure. Why?”
“We want you to show us something.” Hal helped him out of the bed and when Hal handed him a cell phone, Robbins took it with his left hand. “What? You want me to call somebody? I don’t have nobody to call.”
Hailey’s turn. Good cop. “We want you to pretend it’s a gun and show us how you shot those men.”
Robbins tipped his head to the side. “Come on, lady. That’s crazy.”
“No, it’s not,” Hal snapped. He fought to control his temper. A young black kid with his shit together and he was going to confess to a crime he didn’t commit. These kids didn’t have a chance as it was. Why the hell would Robbins make it worse for himself?
Hal didn’t care. He was not going to let this kid go down for a murder he didn’t commit.
If he wasn’t that shooter.
He wasn’t, was he?
The kid straightened. Giving in, he lifted the phone toward Hailey then shifted his aim to the wall. “Bang, bang.”
The gun was still in his left hand.
Hal glanced at the spot on the wall where the bullets would’ve punctured the plaster. The kid had started to aim at Hailey but then turned his aim to the wall instead.
Pretend bullets from a pretend gun.
“Now do it for real,” Hailey instructed. “Show us exactly how you stood when you shot those guys.”
“It’s a phone.”
“Do it and we’ll leave you alone,” she promised.
He hesitated, then tossed the phone on the bed.
“Man, you didn’t shoot them anymore than I did,” Hal said, his voice a low whisper, thankful there would be no record of his words.
Robbins waved them off. “That’s crazy. I’m giving you a full confession. What more do I need to do ‘fore you arrest me?”
“Sit down,” Hal commanded.
The kid’s bravado sank as he did.
“Tell us about the car,” Hailey said.
Robbins licked his lips, shrugged.
“Where’d you get it?”
“Fish dealt with that.”
“You rode in the back?”
He looked up at Hal then his gaze skittered over the others. He knew they didn’t believe him. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?” Hal asked, voice booming.
Robbins shrank smaller. “We’d been smoking.”
“Smoking?” Hal repeated.
“Yeah, smoking. We had some Pump, some amp, Dizzy D. You know, Crack,” he added, his own voice splitting over the word.
“You remember how you got the guns?” Hal asked.
“Fish got ‘em.”
Hailey handed her notebook and a pen to Robbins. “Write out your full name and address.”
He hesitated before taking the pad and pen then began to write. With his left hand.
From her place against the door, Cameron emitted a tiny moan.
“You happy now, lady?” he said and slumped against the headboard.
Hal sat on the edge of the bed. The anger he normally felt with lying punk kids had been replaced by something more like empathy. “I would be a hell of a lot happier if I knew how a left-handed guy fired two perfect shots with his right hand in front of a couple dozen witnesses.”
Robbins’s gaze slid back to Hal then away again. He blinked, his lids resting closed just a moment too long. When they opened again, he stared at the far wall.
“I guess we asked all our questions.” Hal let the kid have some more water and replaced the bindings himself, leaving enough space for two of his own fingers to slip in easily.
Then he led the procession out, told the guard that the prisoner was bound. No one spoke as they rode down the elevator where Hal held his breath, or in the short walk through the hospital doors and into the parking lot.
Finally, when they’d climbed in and Hal had started the car, Cameron spoke from the backseat. “What are you going to do?”
It was a damn good question.
“Got to figure out a way to get him to tell us who really shot those guys,” Hal said softly, hearing the defeat in his own voice.
How the hell did they do that?
Chapter 13
Hal and Hailey didn’t have a chance to talk about the letter Jim had received from Nicholas Fredricks. They’d been busy with James Robbins, but Hailey felt the tension mounting again on the ride back to the station. Cameron sat in back and provided conversation, but the closer they got to the station, the worse she felt.
One Clean Shot Page 14
