Shoot (17 page)

I followed Izzy and Phil back up to Chesterfield’s room, where the crime scene crew was still bagging and tagging. By phone, Izzy delivered the bad news to One Police Plaza and to City Hall that hacking had robbed them of a record of the killing and that he was exactly nowhere. Of course, he didn’t say that.

“Yes, Commissioner, I understand. Please tell him we have numerous good leads and we are actively in the process of including and eliminating suspects as we speak, sir.”

Phil turned to me and silently mouthed the word “Bullshit.”

“Yessir, we will absolutely catch the shooter. Well… it’s very early in the case. Of course the APN cell are at the top of the list and they are still in the wind. With current manpower, it will take us twenty-four hours just to… Yessir, that would be helpful. Right away. Thank you, sir,” Izzy said, disengaging.

“You tell him we have dozens of armed suspects and no fucking clue?” Phil asked.

“Not in those words,” Izzy smirked. “He’s sending us assistance.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Everybody,” Izzy replied. “We’ve got twelve hours to close this out.”

We all laughed.

“It’ll take weeks just to interview all these assholes,” Phil pointed out.

“I know,” Izzy agreed. “Everything is fast-tracked. As soon as the troops arrive, detectives from our squad and every homicide squad in the city, we’ll assign them and observe the autopsy of Chesterfield at the ME’s office. Then we come back and do re-interviews, lock up our suspect and have a beer.”

After Izzy and Phil made a few more calls, about fifty suits arrived, with more on the way. We went to a meeting room downstairs and Izzy and Phil set up a command structure to interview suspects and lock them into alibis and timelines, for later comparison with evidence that either confirmed or contradicted them.

Phil gave the assembled detectives a short version of the murders, including victims’ names, estimated times of death, wounds, possible weapons and the situation concerning the smoke alarm and video shutoffs. He emphasized that the murdered appeared to be the result of an organized, premeditated conspiracy, probably carried out by multiple suspects, all of whom were to be considered armed and dangerous.

“We will be gathering evidence from each and every suspect’s hand and clothing worn at the time of the homicides for a GSR test, to determine if they recently fired a weapon,” Izzy added. A hand shot up and Izzy pointed to the detective, a chubby, silver-haired veteran with his tie askew.

“Lieutenant, as you know, GSR testing is only good for maybe four hours and they can wash it off or clean their clothes.”

“Yes,
I
know that but many of our subjects may not. Also, it can’t tell if they fired a gun or were just near a gunshot. Doesn’t matter. It’s like asking a suspect to submit to a polygraph exam—the most important result may be that he refuses, displaying consciousness of guilt. If a suspect refuses to submit to a GSR test or surrender their clothing or weapon, they will go to the top of our suspect list and we will bird-dog with warrants. Call it in to our field office here.”

He explained that there were more than four thousand delegates to the convention, and so, as a practical matter, they would start questioning those who threatened or opposed Chesterfield. The first inner circle would include former governor Miranda Dodge and the blogger Clayton Littleton. Izzy said that the next group in the expanding circle would be elimination interviews and tests on those who had access to Chesterfield and the other victims, including staff. He estimated that was at least fifty subjects. Full departmental paperwork would be completed later. The Manhattan DA’s office would expedite subpoenas and search warrants for the gunshot residue tests, room searches and firearm ballistics testing. Phil handed out assignments to teams of investigators, who received a computer printout of their subject, with photo, state, name and room number.

“You’re first,” Izzy told me.

“What?”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Phil said.

“Oh, okay. Right,” I said, sitting down.

They asked me my whereabouts between six p.m. last night and nine a.m. this morning. I told them everything. Almost.

“So, you came to the Knickerbocker Convention Center for the second time last night,” Phil said. “You’d already had a conference about Chesterfield’s safety earlier in the day?”

“Yup.”

“Then the smoke alarm went off and you went to Chesterfield’s room, saw them get disconnected, then had dinner?”

“Correct.”

“How did he seem?” Izzy asked.

“The same as before. Nothing unusual.”

“How did she seem?”

“Who?”

“Tiffany.”

“The same. She was a little annoyed with Chesterfield over the smoke alarm thing. He pulled the same shit in Washington.”

“How annoyed?” Phil asked.

“Not enough to blow a hole in his chest… I feel bad for her.”

“Yeah,” said Izzy, turning toward me. “Nice kid. Wait a second… who did you have dinner with?”

“You know, the GOP people.”

“Like Tiffany?” Phil asked, as they both edged in closer, smelling a half-lie.

“Yeah.”

“Anybody
other
than her?” Izzy demanded.

“Nope, just us,” I admitted.

“After this alarm rhubarb, you spent the night in the hotel?” Phil asked.

“I was there all night. I left early.”

“He didn’t ask you when you left,” Izzy said. “Where did you sleep?”

“Who says I slept in a room?”

“Are you… Shepherd, are you and Tiffany…?”

“What?” I asked, as innocently as possible.

“You’re my hero, Shepherd,” Phil added.

“You guys are nuts. Give me a break.”

Sometimes hanging out with detectives was a pain in the ass.

“So Tiffany is your alibi and vice-versa?” Phil asked.

“Yeah.”

After a few more questions, they called over a surgically gloved CSU officer from NYPD, a thin woman in a lab coat, who used a clear adhesive tape on the back of my hands, like a lint brush. Then she also used the sticky tape on my shirt before putting it into a plastic bag, which she labeled with my name and date of birth.

“Have you fired a weapon today, sir?” she asked me.

“No. Not today.”

She also wrote that down, asked me to sign a label, and gave me a numbered and dated receipt.

“Give this to your defense lawyer,” she told me, with a smile.

My phone buzzed with emails. I left the meeting room and leaned against the hallway wall. My office was sending me fresh website front pages and also demands for more news.

Our new webline was “DEAD HEAT: Ballots or Bullets?” My story was updated with delegates of the Grand Old Party voting Chesterfield the temporary, honorary nominee: “The GOP has voted a dead man as their standard-bearer in the upcoming presidential election. The move is allegedly a temporary honor but the struggle within the party, which appears to have become an actual shooting war, threatens to detonate the convention before a living candidate can be voted on.”

Our competition, the
New York Mail
, called events “ELEPHANT WAR,” and, as usual, had its own unique approach to the crisis: “HEADLESS PARTY TAPS LIFELESS BODY. Panicked GOP delegates continue to vote for a dead man and failed policies, rather than back viable candidates, such as Governor Dodge—who can take the fight to the enemy in November.”

“Siri, would a dead man make a good president?” I asked my phone.

“Hmm,” Siri responded, “let me think. I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

“Siri, I didn’t mean you should kill somebody.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Sorry.”

This was getting weird because I didn’t want Siri to think ill of me or to hurt her feelings.

“Siri, don’t be sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You have no reason to be sorry, Siri.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Siri, unless you’re making a joke. Unless you’re smarter than me?”

“Who, me?”

I was wondering what to say to her next, when Izzy and Phil told me things were getting hairy on the convention floor and we should head there.

“We’ll interview this governor woman and the blogger guy, if you want to tag along,” Izzy said in the elevator.

“Okay.”

“Were you talking to your phone?” Izzy asked me.

“You talk to dead people,” I pointed out. “At least Siri answers me.”

“You’re both nuts,” Phil observed.

The convention floor, an echoing vault ten stories high, was a huge, red-white-and-blue zoo—populated by about 5,000 costumed delegates, separated into screaming armed camps. Many of the men and women, ranging from sitting congressmen to aspiring dog catchers, were leveling their assault rifles at each other and cursing. TV crews, scrambling to cover the chaos, scurried from one confrontation to another. Some intrepid reporters were wearing bulletproof vests and combat helmets. Several people with delegate ID cards were exiting the floor. They were all rolling carry-on travel bags and hard rifle cases. One told us that about twenty per cent of the delegates had sided with Governor Miranda Dodge and her Tea Party stalwarts, who were demanding Dodge get the nomination.

“Where are you going?” I asked one man.

“Home,” he said, and headed for the exit.

“Don’t you have to nominate somebody for president?” I shouted after him.

“Some gunfighters. Fucking pussies are afraid of being shot,” Phil sniffed.

“Aren’t you?” Izzy asked him.

“Yeah, but this isn’t my convention.”

At the front, an elevated stage featured a podium and a large C
HESTERFIELD FOR
A
MERICA
banner. Above that, a mammoth vertical screen pleaded: P
LEASE
C
OME TO
O
RDER
. I spotted Senator Carroll and Tiffany—plus their respective staffs—behind the podium, locked in intense argument.

“Holy shit!” Phil said.

“You live long enough, you see everything,” Izzy grinned.

“I used to think politics was boring,” I told them.

“Let’s get down there,” Izzy ordered.

Onstage, I pulled Tiffany away from her discussions with Carroll and asked her what was happening.

“See for yourself, Shepherd. Delegates are running away, not even waiting to do their job,” she snarled. “Carroll and Dodge both want the top spot and have placed their names in nomination. Carroll offered Dodge the vice presidency but she refused. Now Carroll wants to put it to a straight up or down vote between the two of them. But Dodge knows she will lose that contest, so she has threatened to leave the party with her people unless she gets her own, personal, unopposed vote first.”

“Why does Dodge want a first ballot vote alone if she doesn’t have the votes to win?” I wondered.

“We don’t know,” Tiffany said. “We don’t trust her. She acts like she has something up her sleeve. She might have proxies from fleeing delegates.”

“Don’t give her her own ballot,” I warned. “Maybe that’s part of a plan that included the killings.”

“I agree,” she said. “We’re deadlocked and every minute, another coward turns tail and runs for home.”

“Who’s leaving?” Izzy asked. “Your people or hers?”

“Both. Especially our people. No one feels safe. The longer this goes on, the closer we get to losing a quorum— and then we won’t be able to do anything. A dead man will be our candidate.”

“Voters have elected dead men before,” Phil pointed out.

“True, but never for president,” Tiffany agreed. “At this point, that may be our best option. If Percy’s ghost wins in November, the Electoral College will
appoint
a president. It’s better than having Dodge in office.”

“That’s just dumb-ass stupid,” Izzy said.

“I’m the head of the Rules Committee. I’m open to suggestion,” Tiffany said.

“Dodge says her crew will quit the party if she doesn’t get her way?” I asked.

“Yes, then we won’t even have a quorum, a minimum needed to take action.”

“Call her bluff,” I suggested. “Tell Dodge to fuck off.”

“What?” Tiffany shouted.

A network camera crew had noticed our lively discussion and moved closer, pointing the lens at Tiffany. She grabbed my elbow and moved us away from the newsies until we were alone.

“I have to get back,” Tiffany told me. “I’ll see what Carroll thinks.”

“So, you’re with her now?” I asked Tiffany.

“Maybe,” she sighed, before turning and striding away.

“We better interview this moose killer lady and that blogger before they secede or they all shoot each other or whatever,” Izzy said.

“I second the motion,” I agreed.

“Let me guess,” Phil said. “You were a Student Council government nerd in high school?”

“No. I learned dirty politics at the Shura Council in Khost.”

“The what in where?” Izzy laughed.

“Ask your phone,” Phil told him.

Former Governor of Alaska Miranda Dodge, dressed in a form-fitting red dress—which accentuated her prominent breasts—was on the convention floor, surrounded by a loyal mob of Tea Baggers, rifles at the ready. She was giving a speech to several TV cameras, whose lights made her matching necklace and earrings—in the shape of polar bears—sparkle. Behind her, her skulking husband Fred Dodge was whispering key words to her, which then came out of her mouth as mangled, disjointed non-sentences.

“Did us a favor…” Fred murmured.

“Whoever exercised their Second Amendment Measures against these RINOs, these Republicans In Name Only, may or may not have committed a crime but they sure did America a favor—taking action against socialist tyranny is what I’m talkin’ about!” Dodge declared loudly, with a sexy wink.

There was a smattering of applause from her supporters and she raised her black assault rifle—which had a fancy rhinestone US flag on the stock—over her head, pumping it like a hockey player after scoring a goal. Her speech was oddly slurred, as if she was stoned.

“We the people…”
Fred whispered.

“Now, We the People of this great land of patriotism for each other have the opportunity to really act in a way that we all can praise God now that we are on the right path for all real Americans, all the precious children, ready to fire against godless perversion…”