“We’ll go with you,” she said.
“We’ll what now?” Reggie glared at her, but when Jessie followed Rais toward the sound of the gunshot, she heard his soft curses as he followed reluctantly behind them.
11
In one of the attorney-client conference rooms, Kenny Rodriguez sat across a metal table from the unidentified would-be killer. His original plan had been to watch over the man until Security sent someone to interrogate him, but a moment ago, he’d received a call telling him that wasn’t going to happen. This floor was cut off from the rest of the courthouse, and it was now up to Rodriguez to conduct the interrogation. He found the responsibility more than a little overwhelming.
Rodriguez didn’t know the first thing about interrogation. His job involved shepherding prisoners from buses to holding cells to courtrooms, making sure they didn’t kill each other, and, occasionally, breaking up fights or controlling unruly witnesses at trials. Once he’d had the pleasure of removing a defense attorney who’d started singing and dancing in court. Throwing that clown in a cell had been one of the highlights of his career.
But questioning assassins? Not really his thing.
A lawyer had told him once that the best way to get a witness to talk was to not interrupt. But he’d already figured out that that advice was not going to be much help with this guy. The man had not spoken one word since Jessie Black had corrected his misunderstanding of the Miranda law.
“What’s your name?” Rodriguez asked for the hundredth time. As always, he faced the man at a slight diagonal, with his good ear thrust forward. It was a reflex, almost automatic, and he wouldn’t have even noticed his own motions had the man not smirked at him. Rodriguez felt his face redden. He hated the thought that this man saw him as some bumbling, half-deaf courthouse flunky as opposed to a real officer of the law. What he hated even more was that, right now, that’s how he saw himself.
The man’s smirk faded. His slate blue eyes shifted away from Rodriguez, seeming to stare into nothingness. Rodriguez studied the man. He had close-cropped brown hair and straight posture. Muscles were visible under the material of his suit. It was tough to judge his age, but Rodriguez thought the man was older than him, maybe in his early forties.
None of that was helpful, of course. Courthouse Security needed words, information, not a physical description.
“Why did you try to kill Tuck?” Rodriguez tried again.
The man did not answer, or even acknowledge that a question had been asked. He continued to stare into space. I may be deaf in one ear, Rodriguez thought, but this guy’s acting like he’s deaf in two.
“Why did Estrada let you through security with a weapon? Did you have something on him? Blackmail? Or did you pay him off?”
No response.
“How many men came here with you today? Was it just you and the other four?”
Nothing.
The guy was creepy. Rodriguez worked some saliva around the inside of his mouth and swallowed. He was getting nowhere with this, and the longer he sat in here alone with the man, the more anxious he became about what was going on outside this room. Had the other deputies succeeded in corralling all of the civilians into a safe zone? Had the man’s accomplices been apprehended? Had any progress been made clearing the stairwells or elevators? He was sitting here with no information, talking to a man who wouldn’t talk back.
He sat back in his chair. How did cops on TV make suspects talk? He racked his brains as the man sat silently with his steady, bemused stare. Then he remembered something.
“Listen,” Rodriguez said, “it’s only a matter of time before your four friends are apprehended. Do you think they’ll be as uncooperative as you? I mean, you’re the one who fired a gun inside a government building and attempted to murder a district attorney. The only thing your friends did was sneak weapons past security. Don’t you think they’re going to want to serve you up to save their own asses?”
The man did not respond, but Rodriguez thought he saw a change in his expression. Tiny, fleeting, maybe even imaginary, but he could swear he saw a moment of doubt.
“That bothers you, doesn’t it?” Rodriguez said. “Because it’s not fair, right? Your friends are every bit as guilty as you. You’re just the one who was unlucky enough to get caught. Are you really going to let them sacrifice you? Are you going to sit here silently while they make deals and walk? Come on. Tell me your side of the story while you still can.”
The man sighed, but said nothing.
Rodriguez balled his fists under the table, and tried to think of more scenes from TV shows, more strategies. Nothing came.
“Fuck this.” He stood up, walked to the door, unlocked it, and stepped into the hallway. The moment he was out of the man’s sight, he leaned his back against the door and squeezed his eyes shut. He was fucking this up big time.
But what more could he do? If the man refused to speak, how could Rodriguez force him to answer his questions? He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. They were still balled into fists, knuckles white, fingernails digging into his palms.
What had Jessie Black said about the Miranda warnings? Something about the rules not applying here because there was an exception for the public safety? And if the rules about being entitled to an attorney didn’t apply, didn’t it make sense that other rules would be disregarded, too? Rules like how you’re not allowed to use force? That made sense. It explained why terrorists could be water-boarded, right?
Rodriguez was no wimp, but he wasn’t exactly a tough guy, either. The handful of physical altercations he’d had in the courthouse had mostly been with scrawny junkies. He couldn’t remember the last fair fight he’d been in.
But this wouldn’t be a fair fight. The man was shackled. He couldn’t use his arms, couldn’t defend himself at all.
No, he thought. I’m not that kind of deputy.
But wasn’t this an extraordinary situation? There were people counting on him, civilians whose lives were in danger. And he wouldn’t have to water-board the man. He breathed in deeply through his nose as he thought about it. The man looked tough. Rodriguez had no doubt the man could take a punch, probably several, and laugh off the pain. But even a tough man could only take so many punches, right? How many would it take?
He thought about Jessie Black, lying on the ground amidst chips of broken floor, a bullet hole no more than a foot from her head. The man inside that conference room was dangerous. His four accomplices were likely just as bad. And they were here, in the courthouse. Sometimes violence is the only way to prevent violence.
Rodriguez turned around, unlocked the door, and stepped back into the room.
“What the—” He barely got the words out before one of the steel chairs connected with his chin and sent him flying across the room and into a wall. His vision swam. He blinked a few times and saw the shackles on the floor. The man had somehow picked the locks while Rodriguez was in the hallway, and had then waited for him to come back.
Rodriguez grabbed for his gun, but by the time he unsnapped the holster, the man was on top of him, pinning one of Rodriguez’s arms under his body and the other to his side. Rodriguez could feel the heat of the man’s breath on his face as the man’s free hand tried to worm toward the holster. Rodriguez squirmed, but couldn’t get either arm free. The man slammed his forehead into Rodriguez’s face and Rodriguez felt the bones in his nose shatter. Blood poured into his mouth.
“Who has the upper hand now, deputy?” The man got a hand into Rodriguez’s holster and ripped out the gun. Rodriguez watched, hardly believing any of this was real. As the weight of the man shifted, Rodriguez managed to get one hand free and grabbed the man’s hand that held the gun. The gun swung from left to right as they wrestled for control of it. He couldn’t believe the strength in the man’s arm. He felt like he was struggling against an inexorable force. His breath stopped when the hole of the barrel swung into view, but he managed to push it away before the man could take a shot.
>
A sound came roaring out of his throat—something between a war cry and a squeal—and he shoved the man off of him. They rolled together and the gun swung madly. For a moment it was aimed at the wall, but it wouldn’t be for long. Rodriguez’s biceps strained against the pressure of the man’s strength. He could feel his arms trembling and he could see the gun moving toward him again.
He worked a finger into the trigger guard, feeling the coarse skin of the man’s index finger. Their fingers curled together in a horrifyingly intimate way. The man’s eyes—inches from his—registered surprise.
Rodriguez turned his head and squeezed his finger down.
For Rodriguez, the sound of the gun going off in the tiny conference room was like an explosion. He could only imagine what it was like for the other man. Rodriguez had turned his already deaf ear to the blast. He felt the man’s body jerk against his, and the man’s grip on the gun loosened just enough for Rodriguez to tear it from his grasp and scramble away like a crab skittering across the floor. When he rose to his knees and aimed the gun at the man, he saw a stream of blood trickle from the man’s right ear and down the side of his face. The sound of the blast at near point-blank range must have burst his ear drum.
Rodriguez was bleeding himself. A steady river of blood oozed from his broken nose, over his lip and into his mouth. He spat, splashing the floor with a dark red splotch.
The man rose on wobbly legs. He lurched toward Rodriguez. There was nothing bemused about his expression now. The man had murder in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to rip Rodriguez apart with his bare hands. Rodriguez didn’t give him the chance. He shot him twice. Once in the chest, which knocked him back, and once in the face, which brought him down.
Rodriguez’s breath hitched out of him as he gasped and coughed. Specks of blood flew from his mouth. A moment later, the door behind him banged open and Mo Rais rushed into the room with his gun raised.
The kid’s eyes seemed to take in the scene piece by piece—the blood, the body, Rodriguez—before he holstered his weapon and helped Rodriguez up into one of the steel chairs. Rodriguez saw Jessie Back enter the room next, and behind her, Reggie Tuck.
“What happened?” Jessie said.
Rodriguez struggled to catch his breath. Seeing the look on Jessie’s face as she stared at the body on the floor, he realized the impact of what he’d just done. He’d killed their best chance at learning what was going on, and stopping it.
12
Reggie bumped her from behind, and Jessie stepped further into the conference room. The cramped space stank of spent gunpowder and blood. Even though she was no stranger to murder—her job required her to look at grisly crime scene photos and videos on a regular basis, and hear horrifying eyewitness accounts, often from victims—she rarely got this close to it. Encountering two dead bodies in what felt like minutes was taking a toll on her. Her stomach sloshed with nausea. She put a hand against the wall to brace herself.
“You okay?” Reggie said. “You gonna puke?”
She waved him away. “Fine.”
“Guess it’s a good thing we didn’t have sushi this morning, am I right?”
That almost sent her over the edge, but she managed to choke down the column of vomit that surged halfway up her throat. “I’m fine.”
Rais took Rodriguez’s gun from the man’s trembling hand. “What happened here, Kenny? What the hell?”
“I had no choice.” Any air of authority that Rodriguez had possessed earlier in the day was gone now. He looked terrified and desperate. “He was going to kill me, Mo. He almost did.”
“But you had the gun,” Rais said. “I don’t understand.”
Rodriguez shook his head. “No, he had the gun. I mean, I had it first. It’s my gun. But he took it from me. I managed to get it back. We were on the floor, both of us, fighting. He was trying to kill me.”
Jessie sensed that the man was in shock. She stepped closer to the table and touched Rais’s shoulder. “Let’s give Deputy Rodriguez a few minutes.”
“Yeah,” Reggie said. “Give the guy a break, Rais. It’s not like he shot Santa Claus. Dude tried to kill us.”
“And now we won’t know why,” Rodriguez said. His voice was a low monotone. He sounded weary and defeated. “Rais is right. I fucked up.”
“But it was self-defense, right?” Rais said. “That’s what you’re saying?” The note of youthful hopefulness in his voice was heartbreaking, and Jessie could see its instant effect on the older Rodriguez.
“Yeah, but....” Rodriguez shook his head miserably. “I don’t know. I think I put myself in that position somehow. I got frustrated. I left him alone in here for a minute, while I gathered my thoughts, and when I came back, he was free.”
“He probably picked the locks with this,” Reggie said. The informant bent down and plucked what looked like a needle from the floor. “I hear dudes talk about these in prison all the time. You hide one in your mouth, between your teeth and your cheek. Good for picking handcuffs, but it doesn’t work on those zip-tie things. Maybe it’s time you guys upgraded your equipment, you know? Get with the program?”
“Do you ever shut up?” Rais grabbed the pin out of Reggie’s hand.
Jessie squatted beside the dead body. She reached a hand into the man’s suit jacket, checking the inside pocket. She checked his pants pockets next.
“We already searched him,” Rodriguez said. “You know that. There’s nothing.”
The dead man’s eyes were still open, and he seemed to stare directly at her. But his gaze was as empty as his pockets. No answers here.
“Come on,” Rais said. He took her hand and urged her to her feet. “Let’s get to one of the courtrooms Fincher was talking about. Somewhere safe.” He must have seen something in her expression, because after a pause, he added, “You and Tuck, I mean.”
13
Leary met Isaac Jacoby at the DA’s Office. Leary noticed the older man’s silence, which broke only when they were alone in the elevator, heading up to the Homicide Unit. Jacoby said, “I hesitate to ask, but isn’t what’s happening at the CJC outside your jurisdiction?”
“You know a lieutenant named Kareem Chancey?” Leary said. “A hostage negotiator?”
“Sure,” Jacoby said. “Guy’s a rising star in the PPD. Deputy Commissioner Slone loves him.”
“Well, today I’m working directly for Chancey.”
Jacoby whistled over the hum of the elevator. “I see you’ve taken my career advice to heart.”
Not all of it, he thought, his mind on Jessie. But he said, “I’m a quick study.”
“Apparently.”
The doors opened and they stepped out of the elevator car. In Leary’s experience, the Homicide Unit of the District Attorney’s Office and the Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Department only had two things in common—their names and their joint mission to bring murderers to justice. Beyond that, the two offices were night and day. His squad room was always loud with camaraderie and ribbing, while—to him, anyway—the DA’s office always seemed too quiet. When his work took him into Jessie’s domain, he could usually walk the entire hallway between the elevator and her office without hearing a single word, each lawyer staring at a computer screen, and more than half of them with their office doors closed. He’d often wondered how Jacoby had adjusted to the more reserved atmosphere.
Today was different. At first, when he stepped out of the elevator and didn’t see anyone in the nearby offices or desks, he worried no one was there. Then he heard voices from further down the hallway. He followed the sounds to the floor’s largest conference room, Jacoby trailing behind him. Every chair around the oval table was taken, and a few people were standing. Someone had wheeled in a TV, and an image of the Criminal Justice Center filled the screen as a reporter repeated the story he must have been telling for hours now. Armed men. Lockdown. Hostage situation. The image abruptly switched to video of a room full of blood stains and bodies. Leary felt his guts twis
t before he saw the caption at the bottom of the screen and realized the footage was from a different hostage situation, from years ago and across the country. He exhaled, touching the doorframe for balance. Fucking news. So convinced that death and despair would keep eyeballs on their channel, they’d show unrelated material if they couldn’t get what they wanted from the actual event they were supposedly covering. If they cared at all about how the loved ones of the people inside the CJC might react to seeing such footage, they didn’t care much.
Loved one. Is that what I am? He didn’t know. Amazingly, years after their moment in his car, he still didn’t know where he and Jessie stood. But now was not the time to worry about it.
He caught the eye of Warren Williams, the head of the Homicide Unit. The man looked even less healthy than usual. His eyes looked watery, red-rimmed, and bloodshot in his sallow face. The few wisps of hair on his mostly bald head were in disarray. When he rose from his chair, Leary noticed his belly pushing the waistline of his pants to its limit.
“The reporters don’t even know the latest,” Williams whispered as he stepped into the hallway and Leary followed. Jacoby joined them. “One of the gunmen, the one who made an attempt on Tuck, is dead,” Williams said. “Something went wrong while a deputy was questioning him. Apparently the man got free and the deputy shot him in self-defense.” A few of the people in the conference room looked up to watch them. Williams closed the door, cutting off their stares and—mercifully—the droning voice from the TV.
“Did they learn anything from him first?” Leary said.
“No.”
Shit. This situation seemed to get worse with every passing second. “Do you think the deputy could be part of this? He killed the man to keep him silent, made it look like self-defense?”
Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Box Set 1 Page 39
