Buried (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (26 page)

Ellie was pale, which was accentuated by the blood on her clothes, which were pajamas—that blood being his, or he hoped so—and she shook her head. “Just the kid with the fishing pole. And his back was turned to the gunmen because he was staring at us since we scared him half to death. Who else would see anything? It was late. All sane people were asleep. But we caught them.”

He was sitting on an exam table in a room in the emergency department of some regional hospital in the middle of the boonies and in a pretty unhappy mood at the moment. His upper arm throbbed like hell. “I think you just implied I might be lumped into the insane category, MacIntosh. Thanks. And we caught them? Only thanks to errant wildlife. Otherwise they would have gotten away.”

It galled him. The idea of that kid with his bucket and fishing pole caught in the crossfire. Fine, target cops. Cops could fight back. Don’t endanger a kid …

“Did you think you would be in any other category?” Ellie looked unapologetic. “Both the driver and passenger, by the way, are in the hospital. But there were guns in the car, now in the custody of the state police. If they can be matched to any of the murder scenes, it looks like we’ve got our guys. At the least, we have them for assault with a deadly weapon for the attack on you, and fleeing the scene of a crime, not to mention resisting arrest.”

“It’s something. Are they talking?”

“How would I know? I’m here with you.” Her dark blond brows rose. “Besides, this is not our jurisdiction. We’ll get a chance once they are transferred down to Milwaukee.”

She had a point.

“I’m wondering … how did they find us?” Her gaze was direct.

“That is a pretty good question. How did they blow up my car? They have long arms, it seems.” He winced as the nurse got out a syringe. “Okay, whoa. Hey, do you need to do that?”

The woman was older, a little stout, dressed in pink scrubs. She said in a pragmatic tone that was no doubt a result of working a night shift in the ER, “You have a bullet wound and from those scars, it isn’t your first either. My needle scares you? I think you can endure a little prick, Officer.”

“Never say little prick to a man,” he muttered. Truth was, he didn’t like needles. He never had.

The nurse laughed. Ellie gave him a look of reproof, which he ignored.

“I don’t suppose there is any chance the parking area at the motel has surveillance cameras?”

“Why would they? To watch the deer wander by?” Ellie shook her head. “Besides, you know they’d be disabled. Our enemy is more careful than that.”

Our enemy. She was right there.

“I’m starting to think he is a genius.” He exhaled and closed his eyes as the nurse gave him an injection in the upper arm. It wasn’t bad. It was just the sight of the needle that bothered him for whatever reason. Maybe he needed to go see Ellie’s shrink.

“The doctor will be right in.”

He nodded, but his gaze was fixed on Ellie as the door closed behind the exiting nurse. “They are tracking your car somehow. You could have a passenger in the form of a GPS device. Either that or they are sophisticated enough to be able to track your phone. The Henleys have deep pockets, and so do the people they are in bed with if the money-laundering theory is true.”

“Here’s the problem with that theory. They didn’t know you’d be leaving with me after the explosion. You wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t been physically right on the scene. What about Metzger?”

“What about him?”

“I don’t think it is my car.”

Whatever the nurse had given him started to kick in. He was pretty sure he was still in pain, but starting to not care as much already. “You think the chief took a potshot at us an hour or two ago? I think if I’d seen
him
out my window, I might have recognized that big square head. Was he pulled out of that car and I didn’t realize it?”

Ellie didn’t share in the joke. “No. I’m wondering if his phone is the one that might be compromised. He called to ask where we were and I told him. A few hours later, they show up.”

“I bet he sleeps with his phone, MacIntosh. I’m doubting that’s the case.”

“Yeah, but a certain DEA officer visited him right after all this started. All Metzger had to do was get up to talk to someone at the door of his office, or leave the room for any reason if his phone was out on his desk. Whoever is running this seems to be a step ahead of us all the time.”

“Oh, holy fuck.” Jason’s tongue felt thick. “Remember I told you Danni was going to call the chief?”

And the next morning she was dead.

“I remember
now
.” His partner’s face was set. “Did she?”

“I don’t know.”

A grim truth.

“That makes two connections between his phone and the shootings. With what just happened to us, maybe three. I told him you’d had dinner with her.” Ellie stood up, her bloodstained coat moving around her. “I might place another call to him myself. We could be totally off base, but there is a way to find that out.”

“Over the phone suddenly seems like a bad idea.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll actually call the night-duty operator, leave a message to call me back from someone else’s phone and to have his swept.”

“I wonder if Chad Brown called him. Me too.” He stopped, wondering if it was a bad idea, but said it anyway, “We going to talk about it?”

“About you threatening to shoot someone right in front of me in a manner that could be presented as self-defense if I didn’t point out it wasn’t?” Her hands slid into her pockets but she didn’t flinch from the question or try to pretend she didn’t know exactly what he was asking. “We probably should, but let’s postpone it to when we aren’t so tired and you didn’t just get a big dose of a narcotic painkiller.”

Would he have done it? Even he didn’t know. It was damned tempting though.
An eye for an eye
 …

The door opened and a man in scrubs came in carrying a file. “Are you Jason Santiago? I’m Dr. Jackson. Let’s see what we’ve got here, shall we?”

Ellie went out the way the physician had come in. She glanced back over her shoulder. “I’ll be outside.”

*   *   *

Carl got the
second call at exactly 1:10. He was travel weary and unwinding, but unable to sleep yet, so he was still up, feet propped on the generic coffee table in a hotel by the beach, watching a late-night show and paying attention to about half of it.

His head hummed, his body was weary with fatigue too, but he was not quite ready to let the day go.

He glanced at the display on his phone. Unknown number.

But he recognized it. He’d always been good at that; it had gotten him through school. Photographic memory. He’d sit down to take a test and could recall the page in the textbook almost exactly. He’d never pored over notes or worried too much about the lectures in college, he’d just read the books. Usually, it had worked pretty well, and this was the same person who had given him the connection between Brown and Crawford.

“Lindsey.”

“You have a good memory, Lieutenant. Did you see my sister?”

“I did.”

“Is she okay?”

“Not cooperative, but okay.”

“You are asking a lot of her.” The throaty voice was exactly as he recalled. “How was my nephew? They stayed at my apartment right after the shooting for a few days. He would wake up screaming. He’s not quite two years old, you know.”

Carl did know. That tiny peaceful figure in the crib had left an indelible impression. In his mind’s eye, it was still there. “He seemed to be sleeping very soundly when I saw him. Listen to me, you need to stay out of this. Whether Joanne gave me valuable information or not, she and I agree on that one.”

“I’m going to give you a clue. Do you have any idea of how a conspiracy works?”

“Lindsey … how much do you know?” He had to admit a rush of adrenaline shot through him. “Don’t poke your nose into business that is better left off to the police.”

“I know enough. Now … conspiracy?”

“A pretty fair idea,” he amended, “but define it for me.”

“Lots of bad people with the same goal. That’s a conspiracy.”

“I’ll buy that. Any reason we are having this dictionary discussion?”

“This isn’t a conspiracy.”

“This … being what?”

“This is someone putting out a fire. You know how a fire starts, Lieutenant? A single spark. Then you have to kick the coals, but sometimes they scatter, and before you know it there are all these small blazes going and you have to pick and choose which one might turn into an inferno and turn you to ashes.”

“Is the fire we are talking about something to do with the Henley family business being tied to drug running?”

“Actually, no.”

No? That was not quite the answer he expected.

Carl rubbed his jaw. “Mind telling me what then? I’m just not following. You weren’t clear the last time we talked and you aren’t clear now.”

“I’m trying to help.”

“I know, but it isn’t working so far. Like when you called about Danni Crawford? She’s dead now, by the way. And your sister wouldn’t offer me anything.”

“I’ve already said you are asking a lot of her.”

“I’d like to save her life. And it seems to me you are asking me for something, but not being very clear about it.”

“What about Angelo Terrance?”

The name Lena had given him. Now they were getting somewhere. “Okay … I don’t know. What about him?”

“Ask yourself this: is he yours, or is he theirs?”

The call ended. Carl held the phone in his hand and stared at it as if it would give up secrets it did not even hold.

Incredibly, the phone rang again just a few minutes later.

“Carl … we have a problem.”

Metzger? This wasn’t good. “We do?” Carl wasn’t normally sarcastic, but it was pretty damn late. “I thought that was why I was in Florida.”

“Go move Fielding’s wife right now. That’s an order.”

“This time of night? Why?”

“I’ll explain later. Let’s just say Santiago and MacIntosh are headed back here. As far as I can tell, all hell just seems to be breaking loose. Anything you can do to fix it, I’d appreciate.”

“Fine.” Carl was still dressed, so he got up and reached for his keys.

“I want Joanne Fielding in our protection just as soon as you can get there. And you watch your own ass, got it?”

“I can’t promise she’ll cooperate.”

“Then arrest her.”

“For?”

“Make up something.”

Serious stuff. Carl contemplated the parking lot of the motel, but it looked clear and he closed the door quietly.

“What am I supposed to say to Joanne Fielding when I pound on her door at this time of the morning?”

“That she isn’t safe unless she comes with you, and by the way, the locals will meet you there, because I am taking no chances. Did you know that Santiago was shot this evening up north?”

He didn’t, but then again, he was going to guess MacIntosh hadn’t called him because it was pretty late. Or early, depending on how a person viewed the time.

“Again?” Carl pressed a button to unlock his car.

“Arm this time. Flesh wound. I doubt he’s a happy camper, but you know, I’m not one either. Use this number if you need to reach me. I’ll explain why later.”

“Okay … Joe, I have a theory.”

“That is music to my ears, Lieutenant. I want to read about it in an article titled:
Milwaukee Police Department Solves a Recent Rash of Homicides Involving a Threat to Its Own Officers
. Catchy, right? Tell me about it later. In the meantime, please call me back when we have a material witness and her son secured and safe. The title I don’t want to read is:
Murders in Florida Related to Serial Cop Killings in Wisconsin.
”

Chapter 24

The door creaked.

He heard it, but then again, he heard things in the night now. A scrape that turned out to be a loose shingle. Or the screen door he forgot to latch, gently bumping the side of the house in the soft breeze off the lake.

This wasn’t the wind.

The real mistake was thinking he could actually sleep. He couldn’t. He hadn’t in weeks.

So when the door opened, he knew it.

The creak of those old hinges. That noise was familiar. He heard it every day when he came inside, but it was different in the middle of the night. Cold and eerie, especially as he lay there in his bed, his eyes focused on the ceiling.

Someone was downstairs, moving around.

*   *   *

She’d spent the
night pursuing would-be assassins and errant deer, explaining in her pajamas the situation to the state police and trying to be taken seriously, and then there was that pleasant stint at the hospital.

No one could call her life boring, anyway.

Ellie ended up driving back to Milwaukee with a wounded man who wasn’t known for his social graces in the first place and was half doped up on morphine. Going back to the motel had not seemed like a good idea, so considering the circumstances, she’d decided south was her best choice. Once at Bryce’s empty house, she led Santiago into one of the vacant guest rooms, told him firmly to go to sleep, which really wasn’t necessary since he was weaving on his feet, taken a long, hot shower, and then had managed to grab a few hours of sleep herself before her phone beeped.

With a Santiago-worthy curse before answering, she said, “MacIntosh.”

“I want you here by one o’clock.” Metzger could be as charming as her partner. “Grasso is bringing in Mrs. Fielding and I want you to be the one to talk to her.”

“I thought she was in Florida and had already been interviewed.”

“She was, she has, and I want her interviewed again.”

Ellie had shot him a text with their location at the new number he’d given her so he knew they were back, but a part of her still resented the order as she rolled out of bed. Her knee ached from when she’d twisted it trying to keep from being shot, but it did seem like a small price to pay. “Why me?”

“Hamish and Rays are both men, and have already interviewed her. Grasso doesn’t seem to be able to get anything out of her except an impression she is scared, which by the way, I believe. Therefore, Detective, you. Like her you are young and female and I think she could use a friend right now to tell her troubles to. You seem like a good fit. Strong-arming her hasn’t worked at all.”