by Rick Murcer
“I’ll kill all of you sinners,” Henry screamed, grabbing the knife closest to his right hand.
In an instant, Beaux had the knife by the hilt while she bounced on Henry’s chest. Once Beaux was clear, she flipped Henry over on his back, despite his bellow of pain, and pulled his left arm behind him.
“Get off from me you damned heathen,” he screamed again.
“I think not,” she answered, pulling his arm harder.
Brice arrived a split second later, grabbed the man’s right arm, and slapped cuffs to his wrist so fast Ellen hardly saw it.
In the next motion, Brice tore the other wrist from Ellen’s hand. Their attacker cried out a third time but Brice paid no heed and clamped the other side of the cuffs over it to complete the action of binding the man.
By then, two of the three CPD units had screeched to a halt, lights blazing, transforming the artificial dusk into a full-blown daylight experience.
Doors opened and closed, voices rose as six cops surrounded the suspect, her, Brice, and Beaux in a classic, by the book, circle complete with guns drawn, as they demanded their captive to stay still.
“Back it off,” said Brice to the six, irritation in his voice. “We’ve got this. Just step back and watch our asses while we flip this one over.”
The young cop closest to Brice spoke with a decided air of nervous apprehension. “Don’t flip him, Boss, until we get in the proper―”
“Why don’t you do what you’re told, officer?” answered Brice.
The blue stepped back, weapon still pointing at the suspect.
“Yes sir, asshole.”
Ellen turned toward the young cop in concert with Brice. His response demanded it. His gun was leveled at Brice.
What she saw raised a horror in her she’d hadn’t imagined possible.
She reached for her weapon but knew she’d never make it. She thought no one would.
She was wrong. The ferocious snarl caused her blood to curdle in her veins. In a split second, Beaux flew at the young cop.
For the second time in five minutes, her heart felt sick as the young cop’s weapon exploded into the night. It was followed immediately by a sound that hit the very center of her soul.
CHAPTER-49
“We got to stop meeting like this,” said Bella as Big Harv rolled his chair closer to her.
“Yeah? Let me think about that after you do your job.”
Bella smiled and elbowed him in the arm to get him to roll his chair over closer to the wall of the cubicle. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, setting up the computer’s video base for an encore performance.
As she continued, she thought about how complex integrating thousands of cameras into one informational source could be. She smiled. She hadn’t invented this technology, but she could run it better than most. Bella hated to admit it, but she liked it far better than being in the field and running down scumbags who would just as soon shoot you as look at you.
“What’s first?” asked Big Harv.
“We go back to where we left off and then plot possible routes the car would have taken after it left that intersection.”
“Shouldn’t we magnify the stills you captured first? That might show something.”
“I already did, Big Boy, and there wasn’t anything.”
“Shit. That’s what I get for taking a leak.”
“I’ve also tapped into the data base that tracks which CPD units would have been in that area in that time frame.”
“So?”
“So, there were six within a quarter mile and they all seemed to be accounted for.”
“Then someone screwed with the GPS.”
“Yeah, there’s that.” She frowned. She thought about what she’d seen when she went over the last close-up still of the CPD unit that had handed out the cash.
Bella began typing again. “But what if that’s not the only possibility?”
She caught Big Harv’s stare out of the corner of her eye. He rubbed his stubbled chin as his eyes moved side to side. “You men counterfeit CPD unit?”
“Just saying. You always told us to think outside the norm so I’m throwing it out there.”
“Tell me why you think that.”
“It just dawned on me, that’s all.” But that wasn’t all, was it?
That FBI Special Agent, Manny Williams, had said something about intuition and how it could be a combination of something one’s mind hadn’t processed fully and how the brain’s cognitive ability eliminates possible scenarios involving a certain situation. Like seeing a dollar bill in a row of fives. They looked the same and were close, but not the same.
“That’s all?”
“I don’t know what’s up, exactly. When I flashed back to that section, something clicked.”
“Let’s have a look,” said Big Harv.
Bella panned over the next twenty-three stills she’d created during the last search and then settled on the twenty-first one.
The larger than life monitor displayed the left front fender with a wider angle towards the vehicle ID numbers outlined in red.
“See that?” asked Bella, trying to keep her excitement to a minimum. “Something about that just doesn’t work.”
“You mean the numbers?”
“Yeah. There’s only three digits and there should be four, given the make and model of the car. We didn’t put three digits on the Chargers, only four.”
Big Harv reached over and kissed her on the cheek. “Great work, Sanchez. I wouldn’t have caught that.”
She felt herself go flush at his act of emotional gratitude, not something he’d been known for over the years. The man had a heart after all and she had felt it first person.
Will wonders never cease.
She refocused on the screen, but she suspected the glow of his kiss wasn’t going to fade so easily.
“Okay, okay, that only means it wasn’t numbered properly. Let’s see if there’s a unit with that number or some chance one of the digits may have come off from the unit.”
“Good route to go.”
After about two minutes into the registration data base, she had the answer. Her excitement swelled.
“Nothing close to that four digit on a Charger and the original three number ID belonged to an old Chevy. There is definitely something wrong with that machine.”
Big Harv ran his hand over his face. “So, that has some far-reaching possibilities and raises about ten million questions.”
“It does. Like, for instance: why?”
“And who would do it? And where in the hell could they pull this off that no one suspected that there was a problem?” said Big Harv.
“Yeah, there’s that. So we go back to the beginning, right? The reason we came back to start with.”
“Right. Let’s see if we can get a look at who was in the car.”
“Feels like de ja vu all over again,” she said, smiling.
“Okay, Yogi. Let’s hit it,” he said, small trace of that smile she’d come to like tugging at the corners of his mouth.
The last time they searched for Henry, they had to wait for a hit. Not this time.
The first predictive path that the system’s artificial intelligence offered for the route the vehicle may have taken after it left Henry was the right one. The vehicle was stopped at a red light three blocks away. The most fortunate part of that stop, for her, was the way the angle of the traffic camera was arranged toward the counterfeit unit. She could see the driver and passenger almost head-on.
“Let’s dance, bastards,” she whispered.
“Get closer to their skanky-ass faces, Sanchez,” growled Big Harv.
“That’s the idea, Old Man. Sit tight.”
Each angle adjustment and subsequent magnification made the process more maddening. When dealing with this software, it took longer for the facial recognition to interface with the other programs because the details forced it to search harder.
The ticking clock on the wall seemed
like a foghorn in the quiet as she and Big Harv waited in between bouts of refocus and magnification. It seemed like an eternity, but in reality, it had only been about four minutes.
Then the pictures were there in front of them. Bigger than life and twice as real.
Both faces in the front seat of the make-believe cruiser had been enhanced and brightened by the ambient light at the intersection. That was enough for the facial recognition program to fill in the missing pixels that redefined shadowy into clear as a bell images.
Her gaze darted to the passenger, whom she didn’t immediately recognize. No surprise there. These people weren’t going to be public figures.
Then she looked toward the driver. She felt her heart skip a beat as her eyes widened in disbelief. She’d been wrong about the public figure assumption.
Shit. Are you kidding me?
Before she could turn to look at Big Harv, she heard him.
“Son of a bitch. Is this for real?” swore Big Harv. “Bella. Is this contraption and all of those damned programs working right? Could there be a screw up here?” he said, so quietly she had to strain to hear him.
She sighed. “No Big Harv. This program says that it’s 98.7 percent accurate on the image consultation.”
Another moment of silence passed before he stood, clenching and unclenching his large hands slowly.
“Then let’s go find this lying bastard. I want a piece of Detective Frank Brown.”
CHAPTER-50
Things were a blur for a moment as Ellen grasped the full extent of what had happened. Then she charged the young cop who, for whatever reason, wanted to send Brice to the next world, hitting him with a resounding roundhouse.
The other three blues were on him quickly, forcing him to the ground and cuffing him even as Ellen turned back to Beaux.
The big dog lay still, a stream of blood running from the left side of his head. He wasn’t breathing.
Her stomached clenched in anguish. He’d acted out of duty, no doubt, but Ellen knew it was more than that. He’d saved Brice, sacrificing everything, because he cared.
She remembered a bible verse from her Sunday school days. It said that there is no greater love than giving your life for your friends. No one had done that better than Beaux. No one.
Bending closer to his head, Brice right beside her, tears clouding her vision, she stroked his unmoving shoulder and flank, not feeling a heartbeat. More tears cascaded down her cheeks.
Damn. She hated this job. Right now, she could walk away and never look back. Ever.
“I’m sorry, Ellie. He was a great dog,” said Brice, softly.
His words slammed the truth home. She felt her body go into defense mode as she experienced an out-of-body sensation that she hadn’t felt since Big Harv was being rushed to ER. The worst part of this wasn’t just losing Beaux, but not being able to say thank you for saving Brice.
She bowed her head and let the tears fall again.
After a minute, she put both hands on Beaux, thanked him anyway, and kissed him on the forehead.
“We have to get someone to pick him up,” said Brice.
“I’ll do it. I’ll take him to the car.”
Bending over, she scooped him into her arms and was about to take him to the car when she felt it. A faint twitch of his front leg. A spasm from his neck. Then, unbelievably, his eyes popped opened, looking her over.
She almost dropped him.
“Beaux!”
In all of the excitement, she suddenly realized she hadn’t checked his wound closely. When she’d felt no heartbeat, she’d assumed he’d been shot square on and killed. That wasn’t always the case in humans and apparently not always for dogs. Sometimes, after a trauma, the pulse was so shallow that it was hard to detect. For one of the first times in her life she was glad she’d screwed up.
She pulled his head close, he licked her weakly, she kissed him again, then got a good look at the grazing bullet wound running two inches along the side of his head. It resembled the gashes he’d got from the knife, but there was no hole. She didn’t know much about dog physiology, but she was pretty sure he’d live, headaches notwithstanding, but they needed to get him medical attention.
She laid him back down on the sidewalk. He blinked, got to his front feet, then stood. He wobbled, then sat down, blinking at Ellen, then Brice. His eyes were a tad glassy, but he was gaining his wits, she thought.
“Just stay, Beaux. We’ll get some help for you,” said Brice, phone to his ear. “I’m sending for Anna. She’s a vet too, if I recall.”
“You heard the man,” she said.
The dog adjusted his legs to a wider stance and sighed.
Ellen patted him one more time. “Keep that asshole cop still a minute. I need to talk to this other piece of work.” She then turned toward Henry, lying on the ground beneath the two detectives, one on his back, the other on his legs. He was staring at her, a smirk on his face.
“You may have caught me, Harper, but we’ll win. We always come out on top. God has our back,” he yelled. “We always win. Even when we lose, we win.”
Her hands clenched in sudden rage.
Joel was dead, five other innocents as well, killed in violent, unimaginable deaths. He’d almost taken out Beaux and now was talking like God and he were best friends. Enough was enough.
“Let’s see how God covers your ass while I’m beating the shit out of you.”
She took two steps, seeing only the red of her emotion when she felt two arms lift her off the ground and walk her closer to the lighted building on the other side of the alley.
“Ellie. You can’t,” he whispered in her ear.
“I can. Let me go.”
“No. I need you here. There’s too much going on right in front of us to complicate things.”
She stopped struggling, her control beginning to return. “He has it coming.”
Brice agreed. “He does. But we have to do this right. I have to find out what’s going on with the cop who took a shot at me. You have to find out what the hell Henry’s talking about. They might even be related. Feel me?”
Taking a deep breath, she leaned her head back, almost back to normal. “I feel you. You’re right.”
“Should I let you down?”
“I don’t know. I kind of like this,” she said, grinning.
“I know what you mean. We’ll have to discuss this later.”
Gently, he set her on the ground.
“What’s going on, Brice? Henry and now this cop?”
He shook his head. “I-”
He was interrupted by a yell from one of the Detectives holding Henry on the ground.
“Detective Rogers. Come quick.”
CHAPTER-51
Amanda stood between the two armed officers dispatched by the CPD to help keep order in one of most horrendous crime scenes to hit the Windy City in decades. Right up there with the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Granted, that was a bloody event as brazenly performed as any. Except for maybe today. Today would go down in the city’s history, but she suspected for all the incorrect reasons. She doubted that Capone had planned as she had. He’d wanted to kill Moran, to put away his rival, which, in essence, he did. But he’d been shortsighted and driven by emotion. Not so with her. Emotion caused mistakes.
“Are you alright, Miss Blunt?”
She looked up to see another concerned officer, a young Latina woman with huge brown eyes peering from a handsome face.
“Yes. I am. I’ll have a mark or two, but it could have been worse.”
The young cop tilted her head. “Thank God. It’s so horrible we lost who we did tonight. I’m just glad a woman like you, you know, one who stands out in the community, is still here.”
Amanda felt that twinge touch her gut. That sixth-sense itch that had served her over the years was speaking to her again. Warning her that something might be coming down the pike, so heads up.
“Thank you for the kind words. Sometimes fate
is best unquestioned.”
She nodded. “You were certainly fortunate.”
The young cop exhaled. “You’ve probably been asked this, but do you have any idea why you weren’t killed inside? According to reports from other witnesses, you could have been shot like the others, especially the McCann woman, but you weren’t.”
“I’m sorry, what is your name, officer?” Amanda asked politely.
She shot her hand toward Amanda. “Oh. I’m Lidia Garcia. This is my last night as a blue. I’ve been promoted to Detective and will get assigned this case tomorrow with four other teams from the CPD and two detective teams from Winnetka. We’re going to meet as a taskforce tonight after the FTs are done processing the building.”
“Congratulations to you. It’s good to see women advance through the old boy network.”
Garcia nodded. “Thank you. Although it’s getting better for us. Hard work pays off no matter the gender, pretty much.”
Amanda glanced from one side then to the other. “Officers, I’m going over here to chat with Detective Garcia. I won’t be far away.”
She then looped her arm though Garcia’s and they stepped away some twenty feet. She stopped and stood face to face with the new detective.
“Detective. I can’t tell you why I wasn’t shot. I couldn’t help myself when I responded to that horrible woman. It just happened. She should have ended my life. Believe me, I’ve run it through my mind a hundred times. The only thing I can think of is that they were in a hurry and ready to go. God knows how much money they got away with.”
“That sounds right. Or maybe you were the wrong kind of person.”
“How so?” asked Amanda.
Garcia looked at the floor, then back to her. “It was probably no coincidence that four of the six people killed here tonight were politicians of some sort and the other two were spouses of politicians. We’ll probably work that angle. If you have anything that might add to that thought, let us know, okay?”
“I wasn’t aware of that detail. I will, Officer Garcia. I will.”
“Thank you. I’m just glad the rest of you are okay.”
