by Nora Roberts
“Dinner,” Ava reminded her. “Saturday night.”
“Yeah, well, he’s smooth,” Phoebe muttered. “He’s pretty damn smooth.”
The scene was a little storefront operation. Jasper C. Hughes, Attorney at Law. The intelligence Phoebe had indicated that Hughes, one Tracey Percell and an armed individual named William Gradey were barricaded inside.
The tactical team continued setting up outer and inner perimeters. Phoebe grabbed her ready box and headed for the first on scene. She was already unhappy knowing it was Arnie Meeks.
“Situation.”
Arnie wore dark glasses, but she could feel the derision in his eyes as he stared down at her. “Guy’s got two hostages. Witnesses heard gunfire. When I arrived, the subject yelled out that if anybody tried to come in, he’d kill them both.”
Phoebe waited a beat. “That’s it?”
Arnie shrugged. “Subject claims the lawyer cheated him out of six thousand dollars and he wants it back.”
“Where’s the log, Officer?”
The way his lips curled, Phoebe wondered if he practiced the sarcastic look in the mirror.
“I’ve been trying to keep this asshole from killing two people. I haven’t had time for a log.”
“At what time was gunfire heard?”
“Approximately ninea.m. ”
“Nine?” She could feel both temper and fear knot up inside her. “Nearly two hours ago, and you’ve just decided to send for a negotiator?”
“I have the situation under control.”
“You’re relieved. You—” She pointed to another uniformed cop as she pulled a log sheet out of her ready kit. “Everything gets written down. Time, activity, who says what and when.” She took out a notebook.
Arnie grabbed her arm. “You can’t just walk in here and take over.”
“Yes, I can.” She wrenched free. “The captain’s on his way, and Commander Harrison is in charge of Tactical. Meanwhile, I’m in charge here, as negotiator. Get the hostage-taker on the phone,” she ordered the cop she’d drafted as second negotiator.
“I’m the one keeping this from blowing up.”
“Is that so?” She whipped around to Arnie. “Have you spoken to either hostage? Have you ascertained that they’re still alive? If they’ve been harmed? If anyone requires medical attention? Where is your situation board? Your log? What progress have you made toward ending this situation without loss of life in the damn near two hours before you deigned to call this in?”
She grabbed the phone, checked her notebook where she’d already written down names.
“I don’t want to talk to you!” The voice that answered screamed with emotion and fury. “I said I’m through talking to you.”
“Mr. Gradey? This is Phoebe Mac Namara. I’m a negotiator with the police department. You’ll be talking to me now. You sound upset. Is everyone all right in there, Mr. Gradey? Does anyone have medical problems I should know about?”
“Everything’s gone to hell. It’s all gone to hell.”
“Let’s try to work all this out. Is it all right if I call you William? Is that what people call you?”
“I’m through talking!”
“I’m here to help.” She heard it in his voice, he was through talking and poised to act. “Does anyone need anything in there? Medical attention? Water? Maybe something to eat.”
“I needed my money.”
“You need your money. Why don’t you tell me about that, Mr. Gradey? Let me see if I can help you with that.” She wrote downused past tense.
“I said it all already. Nobody listened.”
“Nobody listened to you. You sound angry about that. I understand, and I apologize if you feel your problem wasn’t given attention. But I’m listening, Mr. Gradey, I’m listening to you now. I want to help you resolve all this.”
“It’s too late. It’s over.”
She heard the gunshot in her head a second before it blasted the air. She’d heard it in his voice.
The lawyer had a mild concussion, some bumps and bruises. The secretary was hysterical but unharmed. William Gradey was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
“Nice negotiating,” Arnie said from behind her.
She turned, very slowly, until her eyes burned into his. “You arrogant son of a bitch.”
“He took himself out while you were on the line. Not me.” With his trademark smirk in place, Arnie swaggered off.
She forced herself not to go after him, not now, not now when her rage was so full and sharp and deep she could—would—do something she’d regret later.
It would wait for later. She promised herself that later she would deal with Officer Arnold Meeks. For now, Phoebe stood and watched Crime Scene walk in and out of the building. A hand dropped on her shoulder.
“Nothing more for you to do here,” Dave said to her.
“I never had a chance with him. A minute, maybe two. It was over before I got here. I couldn’t bring it back.”
“Phoebe.”
She shook her head. “Not now, please. I want to debrief the hostages, and take statements from any witnesses.” She turned around. “I want all debriefing and statements recorded, and I want you to witness them.”
“You and I both know sometimes things go south.”
“What I don’t know is if this one had to.” The rage wanted to make her tremble. She refused. “I’m going to find out. The hostages are en route to the hospital, but the woman didn’t seem to be hurt. She can talk. I’d like you to go with me, now, talk to her.”
“All right. You may want to talk to the counselor. When you lose one—”
“I didn’t lose him, and that I know.” She bit off the words, so they both knew how close she was to snapping. “I never had him.”
She didn’t speak on the way to the hospital, and Dave didn’t push. In the silence, she stared out the window and outlined the questions she’d ask, the tone she would take, to build the foundation for what she needed to prove.
Tracey Percell rested on a gurney in the ER’s exam room. She was young, Phoebe noted, barely old enough to drink. A well-endowed young blonde who needed her roots done.
Red-rimmed, swollen eyes were weepy yet as she gnawed on her thumbnail.
“He shot himself. He shot himself right in front of us.”
“You had a horrible experience. It may help you to talk about it, and it would certainly help us. Do you think you could do that, Tracey?”
“Okay. I hyperventilated, they said. Passed out. They said I should lie down awhile, but he didn’t hurt me. I’m really lucky he didn’t hurt me. He punched Jasper, and he stuck the gun right in his face. And—”
“You must’ve been scared.” Phoebe sat beside the bed, patted Tracey’s hand before she took out her tape recorder. “Is it all right if I record what we talk about?”
“Sure. They said they were going to call my boyfriend. Brad? My boyfriend Brad’s going to come.”
“That’s good. If he doesn’t come before we leave, I’ll check on Brad myself. How’s that?”
“Thanks. Thanks.” Tracey stopped biting her thumbnail as if the mere thought of having her boyfriend come was enough to settle her. “I feel so weird. Like I watched a scary movie, but I was in it.”
“I know. But it’s over now. You work for Mr. Hughes?”
“Uh-huh. I’m a legal secretary. It’s not much, but it’s okay.”
“And you went to work today, just like usual.”
“I go in to open the office at, like, ten to nine. Jasper got in at the same time today. Lots of times he’s later, but we got there right before nine today. We’d barely opened when he came in. Mr. Gradey. He pushed right in the door and punched Jasper in the face. Knocked him down. I screamed because he had the gun. He looked crazy.”
Tracey’s eyes watered again as she snatched out two tissues from the box nested on her lap. “He looked just crazy.”
“What happened then?”
�
��He said for me to get up and lock the door. He said he’d shoot Jasper dead if I tried to run. He had the gun right to his head, and I was scared; I just did what he said. He said for us to push the desk in front of the door, and when we didn’t move fast enough, I guess, he shot the gun.”
“He shot at you?”
“No. He shot it into the floor, put a hole in the carpet. I guess I screamed again, and I was crying. He said to shut the hell up and do what he said. So we did. Then he hit Jasper again and started yelling that he wanted his money. His six thousand five hundred twenty-eight dollars and thirty-six cents. Every penny.” She started on her thumbnail again. “Um, I guess you could say Jasper sort of talked him out of the money, for, you know, expenses and costs for this suit. And, um, the suit didn’t really go anywhere.”
“He was a client?”
“Well, I guess Jasper didn’t really put him on the books. So to speak.” Her gaze skidded away. “I don’t know all the particulars, really.”
“We’ll get to that later.”
“Okay. It’d be better if you asked Jasper about all that anyway. Jasper told him he didn’t have the money, and he said Jasper better get it or else. They were talking about going to the bank, then the cop came.”
“The first officer arrived on scene at that time.”
“Well, yeah. Sort of. You could hear the sirens, and Mr. Gradey made me go with him to the window and peek through the blinds. Mr. Gradey yelled out something like: ‘Get the hell away. You try to come in and I’ll kill everybody.’ How he had two people in there and a gun, and he’d use it. Gradey told me to yell out, too, so I did, like, please, he means it.”
She knuckled her eyes. “Gosh.”
“You must’ve been scared.”
“Oh my God, ma’am, I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.”
“Did Mr. Gradey hurt you then?”
“No. No. He made me lie down on the floor, on my stomach. Jasper, too. Then the cop, I guess he had one of those what-do-you-call-it? Bullhorns? He called out how he was Officer Arnold Meeks, and how Mr. Gradey was to put down his weapon and come out with his hands up. Right quick, too, he said, like he meant business. And Mr. Gradey, he just yelled back he was William Gradey and we could all go to hell unless he got his six thousand five hundred twenty-eight dollars and thirty-six cents back.
“Then they just yelled at each other awhile.”
“Yelled at each other?”
“Yelled and cursed at each other for I don’t know how long. Mr. Gradey wanted to know where the cop was, where the law was when Jasper stole his money. And the cop’s like, ‘I’m not concerned with your money, and you better get your ass out here, boy, with your hands up.’”
Phoebe glanced at Dave. “How did Mr. Gradey react to that?”
“He got really pissed, you know, ’specially when the policeman said how Mr. Gradey didn’t have the balls to shoot us. Honest to God, I thought he’d do it then and there just to prove the cop wrong. I couldn’t stop crying.”
“You heard the policeman say that?”
“Yes, ma’am. Only he didn’t say Mr. Gradey didn’t have the balls, he said ‘you asshole.’”
Phoebe looked at Dave as Tracey began to shred one of her tissues into bits of fluff. “And so Mr. Gradey, he told the cop to come on in and get him, and he’d shoot him, and us, too. How he needed his money. He had to sell his car, and he didn’t have anywhere to live, and the cop’s saying he’ll be living in a cell and won’t need a car. After a while, it seemed like a long while, more cops came.
“Do you think Brad’s here yet?”
“I’ll go find out in just a minute. What happened next, Tracey?”
“Well, Mr. Gradey, he got more upset. I thought, I really thought he was just going to shoot us and get it over with. I started crying again, loud I guess. He told me not to worry, it wasn’t my fault. Cops and lawyers, he said. It was cops and lawyers, and they always fucked over regular people. I think…”
“What do you think?” Phoebe prompted.
“I think he was going to let me go on out. I just got the feeling. Me, not Jasper. ’Cause he asked if he let me go out, would I tell the cops about the money, and I said I would. Sure I would. Then the phone rang. That cop Meeks yelled for Jasper to answer. ‘Pick up the phone, you son of a bitch.’”
Tracey let out a sigh. “I know it sounds stupid, but that policeman scared me about as much as Mr. Gradey and the gun.” She swiped at her eyes. “I wish he’d just shut up. I wish he had because I think Mr. Gradey was going to let me go, and maybe he wouldn’t’ve shot himself in the head right in front of me. I don’t know.”
“Okay, Tracey. All right now,” Phoebe soothed as Tracey began to sob.
“It was soawful to see. He said how I could sit up when he was asking me if I’d tell the police about the money. So I was sitting there on the floor when the phone rang and all. I couldn’t hear what the other guy said, but I was watching Mr. Gradey. I was watching and thinking if he lets me go, I’m never coming back to this office. I’ll go back, take some more business courses, get me a better job. Mr. Gradey didn’t say much, but he looked sad. Scared. Sad and scared like I was, and he hung up the phone. Next time it rang, I didn’t think he was going to answer. Then he looked at me and said how he was going to put it on speaker so I could see how y’all treated people like us. So I could see how we didn’t have a chance. There was a woman on this time. It was you,” Tracey said after a moment. “Sure, it was you. So you know what happened next.”
“Yes. I know what happened next.”
Phoebe waited until they were outside, away from people, in the balm of spring air. “He incited the suicide. He risked the lives of two hostages with his posturing. He ignored procedure, trampled over every guideline of negotiation. And for what?”
“Not every police officer has negotiation skills, or understands how to handle a hostage situation from that standpoint.”
She rounded on it, couldn’t stop herself. “Goddamn it, Dave. Are you defending him? Are you, for one second, defending what he did?”
“No.” Dave held up a hand. “And I’m not going to argue with you, Phoebe. Not when you’re right. Officer Meeks will be debriefed.”
“I’ll be debriefing him. It’s my purview,” she said before Dave could deny.
“And you and Arnie Meeks already have considerable friction. You were on the line with the subject when he terminated.”
“If I don’t debrief Meeks, it undermines my authority. He didn’t call it in for nearly two hours. Right there, he’s earned a rip. This isn’t a matter of him having a problem with me. It’s a matter of him being a problem, with a badge.”
“You be careful it doesn’t smell like payback.”
“A man’s dead. There’s no paying it back.”
Phoebe took her time, in fact took the rest of the long day, to gather statements, information, to write up her notes and complete the incident report.
Then she called Arnie into her office.
“I’m going off shift,” he told her.
“Close the door. Sit down.”
“I’m on eight-to-fours. I go past four, I put in the OT.” But he swaggered over, took a seat. Lifted his jaw at the recorder on her desk. “What’s this?”
“This conversation is being recorded for your protection, and mine.”
“Maybe I need my delegate.”
“If you want your delegate present, you’re free to call him.” Deliberately, she nudged the phone across the desk toward him. “Be my guest.”
Arnie shrugged. “You got five minutes before I start clocking OT.”
“At oh-nine-eleven this morning you responded to reports of gunfire at the offices of Jasper C. Hughes, Attorney at Law. Is that correct?”
“That’s right.”
“You responded to this location, running hot, approached the building in question. At that time, an individual inside the premises informed you he was armed, with two hostages. Is th
is correct?”
“If you’re going to go through the whole report, we’re wasting time.”
“Did you call for backup or for a negotiation team at that time?”
“No. I had it handled. Until you got there.”
“You identified yourself as a police officer, via bullhorn.”
“I took cover, as procedure, and ID’d myself, sure. I told the guy to put down the gun, to come out. He refused.”
Phoebe sat back. “You’re right. We’re wasting time. The reports are here, including witness statements, statements from both hostages, statements from the officers who arrived on scene subsequently. Which include the fact that you did not follow procedure, did not call for a negotiation team, did not follow any of the guidelines in hostage negotiation and instead threatened and berated the hostage-taker into an agitated state.”
“Guy shoots up an office, he’s already in an agitated state.”
“And there, you’re correct. You never tried to talk him down.” Though her eyes flashed fury, her voice stayed flat, cold, utterly calm. “You told him you didn’t care, you told him he was going to jail.”
He sent her that tight, smirking smile. “Not supposed to lie in negotiations.”
“You’re going to want to wipe that smirk off your face, Officer. You pushed and you pushed.” She snatched up a page from a report. “‘Officer Meeks then engaged the subject via telephone and advised the subject he’d be better off just putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger.’”
“Reverse psychology. It was under control until you got on the line. Hostages made it out, didn’t they? No loss of life.”
“There were three people in that office. Only two walked out.”
“Only two mattered.”
“In your opinion, yes, which I assume is why you felt entitled to call the hostage-taker a worthless fuck. Although I see nothing in the report that indicates the hostages mattered to you. You never asked for or ascertained their condition, and took actions that endangered their well-being—including telling the armed hostage-taker he didn’t have theballs to shoot the hostages.”
“You want to blame somebody for your screwup,ma’am —”
