High Risk Read online

  “Thanks, Doc.” Fennel took a slow, deep breath and peered into the dumpster, jumping back when Jake Voletek stood up. “Jesus.”

  Voletek laughed. “And I didn’t even get a chance to yell ‘surprise’.”

  “Now’s not the time, Jake.” I glared at him.

  “Tell me about it,” Detective Lisco said. She stepped into the alley. “I just finished up with the 9-1-1 caller. But he didn’t get a look at the shooter. When he heard car doors slam, he looked out his window. He saw a security guard drag this guy,” she jerked her head down at the body, “out of the back of the car, pull off his pants and shirt, and then carry him to the dumpster. A few minutes later, he heard a loud bang. He thought the car backfired, and they were leaving, but the car hadn’t moved. That’s when he realized it had been a gunshot and called us.”

  “What else did he see?” I asked.

  “Nothing. He gave us a vague description of the two men he saw near the dumpster. Both had dark hair, were fairly tall, and athletic looking.” She gazed at Fennel’s pants. “Hey, Jake, do you have a pair of those on under your slacks?”

  Voletek snickered. “I didn’t know you were interested in what’s under my slacks.” He grabbed the edge of the dumpster and swung one leg out and then the other.

  “How’d the game end?” Fennel asked, though I could tell he was focused on the case.

  “We called it a tie. Too many calls coming in for us to figure it out.” Voletek looked at me. “It’s not every day two top detectives abandon not one, but two crime scenes. Tell me you had a good reason. I’m sure Lt. Winston’s dying to hear it.”

  “The 9-1-1 caller said the men headed into the subway station. We thought we might have had a chance to stop them. But we didn’t.”

  “Shit,” Voletek swore. “Any idea who they are?”

  “I think we’re tracking the same men from yesterday,” I said. “First they broke into Star Cleaners to steal a LockBox uniform. I verified that with Mr. Lee on our way back here. And then they hit the truck.”

  “Okay, so why’d they take this guy hostage, strip him, and dump him if they already finished their armored truck heist?” Voletek asked. Fennel looked at me. Neither of us had figured that out yet. “Do you think Rook could have been an inside man and this was a double cross?”

  “Could be,” Fennel said.

  Voletek nodded, but a thought gnawed at him. “What do you think, princess?”

  “I think if you call me that again, I’ll toss you back inside that dumpster and shut the lid.”

  Lisco stifled a laugh.

  “Seriously,” Voletek stared at me, all joking aside, “is that what you think happened?” He held out his phone. “I ran our DB through the database. No outstanding debts. No record. The guys who work for LockBox are squeaky and not in a wheel’s falling off kind of way. They get good benefits, a pension plan, retirement, vacation. It’s one of the better companies. Apparently, they realized it’d be wise to keep their employees happy so they don’t get robbed blind.”

  I scanned the details. Lindsey Rook appeared to be just as clean and wholesome as Jonathan Gardner. “The killings aren’t personal. These were good men who were just doing their jobs.” I handed Voletek back his phone and crouched down beside the dumpster, hoping a different position would give me a new perspective.

  “Who do they have in common?” Fennel asked.

  But no one had an answer. The name Lindsey Rook hadn’t come up yesterday. And from what I recalled from Moonlight Security’s records, he had never been one of theirs. As far as I knew, Gardner and Rook never crossed paths. But that didn’t mean anything. They might have traveled in the same circles or concentric circles. Something like that.

  “I guess we better find out.” But something told me that wasn’t our connection. I just didn’t know what was.

  Seventeen

  As soon as we returned to the precinct, I tore through everything we had. But I didn’t find a connection. I had Mac and every available tech and uniformed officer reviewing the data, searching social media, and analyzing the surveillance footage we had gathered. But we still hadn’t come up with anything solid.

  “Ballistics said the same gun that killed Jonathan Gardner also killed Case Jeffers and Alan Croft.” Fennel rubbed a hand over his mouth.

  “What about Lindsey Rook?”

  “Different gun.”

  “And the slugs they found in the subway station?”

  “Those were too badly damaged, but they matched the caliber used to shoot Rook.” He rocked back in his chair and rubbed his palms on his pants, probably glad to be out of the softball uniform and back in business attire. “We’re dealing with two shooters.”

  “We knew that already.”

  “But now we have proof.” He leaned forward, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “I’m guessing they’re working together.” He squinted at the screen. “Have you found any overlap with LockBox and Moonlight?”

  “Aside from Gardner working as night watchman at the pot shop, I haven’t found anything else. They never shared any employees. No one we investigated from Gardner’s past has anything to do with the armored truck company or vice versa.”

  “DeMarco, you need to see this.” Lt. Winston stood in the doorway to the conference room where most of the geek squad had set up. “You too, Fennel.”

  We exchanged a glance and crossed the bullpen. “What is it, sir?” I asked.

  He pointed to the screen. “It turns out LockBox didn’t make their pickup today.”

  “You mean the truck that broke down?” Fennel asked.

  Winston didn’t even bother answering my partner. He pointed to one of the techs. “Johnson, play the traffic cam footage.”

  A moment later, the large monitor flipped to a shot of the LockBox truck arriving and parking at the end of the block. Jeffers opened the passenger door and climbed out. He went around to the back of the truck and opened the rear door. After that, we couldn’t see what was happening. The camera angle didn’t allow us to see inside the truck, but they must have been prepping the interior for the pickup. That was the only thing that would explain the delay.

  “Johnson, switch to the store’s exterior feed. Same timestamp,” Winston said. While the LockBox crew was occupied, two similarly dressed men entered the pot shop. “Freeze it there.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the grainy feed. “Son of a bitch.”

  “We’re attempting to run them through facial rec, but that’ll probably be a bust.”

  “Those guys don’t work for LockBox,” I said.

  Winston rolled his eyes. “You think?”

  “What about the interior footage?” Fennel asked. “That shop had cameras coming out the wazoo. Did any of them catch anything?”

  Winston crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the table while the tech cycled through the various feeds. “Nothing but the bills of their caps and some chin.”

  “Their uniforms don’t fit.” Just like our eyewitness had told us. I thought about the shop owner, but I’d been notified ten minutes ago that he didn’t make it. “What about after they left the shop?”

  The tech switched the feed again. “They’re on their way out, but the shop owner stops them.”

  “He probably realized something was off about them,” Fennel said.

  “Yeah, so they killed him.” Winston turned away while the one on the right struck the owner in the throat with a baton. Blood splashed against the bottom of the door, just like you’d see in a Tarantino film, except this violence was real. I grimaced.

  “That’s probably the weapon used to knock Rook unconscious.” Fennel tightened his jaw but kept his eyes glued to the screen. “Do we have footage of the firefight?”

  “Nope.” Winston spun to face the conference table. A sketch had been made to scale of the area with points of interest marked. “Forensics determined this is where the bulk of the action happened. It’s in a blind spot. It’s out of range of the shop a
nd the traffic cams. No other cameras in the vicinity caught it. We aren’t sure how Lindsey Rook managed to get himself taken or how he became another victim, but LockBox has turned over their recordings from inside their truck. Unfortunately, right before this massacre happened, the footage turns to static.”

  “Jammer,” Fennel said.

  “Or inside job.” Winston shrugged. “Guess that’s up to you two to decide. But I want this mess put to bed quickly and quietly. Shutting down a subway station at lunchtime on a Saturday isn’t something my detectives should be doing. Understood?”

  “But, sir, the shooters were right there,” I protested. And they’d basically used the same play they had at the cleaner’s, except this time four men were killed.

  “Then why didn’t you arrest them?” Winston asked.

  “They got away,” Fennel said.

  Winston kept his gaze on me. “How? You stopped the trains. Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know. I only saw one. He might have escaped into the tunnel when the train stopped,” I said.

  “And the other?” Winston asked. He pointed at the image still on the screen. “I count two, and so did the 9-1-1 caller and the eyewitness you questioned.”

  “We only encountered one shooter,” Fennel said. “They split up before we arrived.”

  “I don’t give a shit what they did. You just have to find them and arrest them.” He jerked his chin at the door. “Get to it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fennel said before I could open my mouth. I glared at the lieutenant, but he was right. This was our case, and if we’d handled it better yesterday, five people might still be alive today. The thought sickened me as we returned to our desks.

  You can’t think like that, Olive, my dad’s voice said. All you can do is your job. The rest is up to them. Shitheads will always find a way, no matter what you do. Leave that behind. It won’t help you.

  “Liv,” Fennel nudged me, “you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m just thinking about something my dad used to say.” I slammed my palm on the desk. “I wish I’d realized it sooner. The uniforms. The dry cleaner’s. They must have had this planned all along. If only I’d figured it out, connected the dots.”

  “Go easy on yourself. We didn’t have anything to go on.” He straightened the papers on his desk and reached across to organize the stack at the edge of mine. “But now we do.”

  “We do?”

  He offered a wan smile. “Yeah.” He grabbed the legal pad he’d been using and flipped to a clean page. “The target couldn’t have been the couple dozen grand they got from the dispensary. The target was the hundred million that should have been in the back of the truck. They wouldn’t have gone to that kind of trouble to steal uniforms and time everything so perfectly if they just wanted to rob one place.”

  “Yeah, but how would that have worked?”

  “It’s elementary, my dear. They probably didn’t count on the delay or the shop owner stopping them. I’m guessing they would have left the shop, found someplace to take cover, waited for LockBox’s actual guards to go inside, and then they would have approached the truck. The driver would have seen the uniforms and carts and opened the doors, and once inside, they would have convinced him to take them to a predetermined location or killed him and driven the truck themselves.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot of speculating.”

  “It’s what I’d do. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

  I bit my lip. “It’s a good plan, except none of it worked out, including the timing. And we still don’t know where they went after they abducted Rook and before we caught up to them in the train station.”

  Fennel grabbed a map and marked the two locations, and then he grabbed a different colored pen and marked Star Cleaners and 24/7 Spirits. “Looks like they could have gone anywhere.”

  “That doesn’t help us.”

  “No, so we need to find something that can.”

  The original truck’s guards had come to the station to answer our questions about the breakdown and delay, but after running their names and cross-referencing them to the limited amount of intel we had, nothing pinged. Fennel and I interviewed everyone from Star Cleaners, Moonlight Security, and LockBox, but as far as we could tell, none of them had been involved.

  “God, I’m so sick of dead ends.” I sat up straight, my neck cracking in the process. “We’re looking at this wrong. We have to be. This isn’t a disgruntled employee, an inside job, or a double cross. I don’t know how the killers knew to disarm Star Cleaners’ security system, but at this point, I’m willing to say it was a lucky guess.”

  “It’s a professional crew,” Fennel said. “I spoke to a few of the other units, but they haven’t heard much. I put a call in to the Feds, but so far, no dice. But you said it, Liv. The grouping on the shots was done by a pro. They avoid the cameras. At every location they’ve hit, it’s been the same thing. They didn’t get lucky. They know where the blind spots are. They must plan meticulously, including contingencies. This isn’t their first rodeo. They probably did some research or staked out the dry cleaner’s until they spotted someone entering the code. That’s how they disarmed it. They couldn’t afford for us to respond to a triggered alarm. They needed the extra time to search for the LockBox uniforms.”

  “Then why kill Gardner?” I asked. “Couldn’t they have just slipped in the back and slipped out?”

  “I don’t know. But killing him probably made it easier. No witnesses.”

  “Except the woman who tried to save the station agent,” I said. “Any idea what happened to her?”

  “Hospital released her. We have no reason to believe the shooters know her name or where she lives. And quite frankly, she never got a good look at them. I don’t think they’ll waste their time worrying about her.”

  “You’re probably right.” But that did little to assuage my fears. “I’m going to check with the watch commander and see if anything turned up on the canvass or the search of the subway tunnels.” Remaining behind my desk and staring at a limited number of facts wouldn’t solve this. I just didn’t know what would.

  “Yeah, okay. In the meantime, I’ll work on coming up with their next possible targets.”

  “Next targets?” I practically choked.

  “Yeah.” Fennel gave me a worried look, like I’d missed a key point that should have been obvious. “Our two unsubs got up this morning thinking they’d be one hundred million dollars richer. I doubt a few grand is enough for them to walk away, especially when we have no leads.”

  “They don’t know that.”

  “Don’t they?” Fennel pointed to the TV in the corner of the room. “If we knew something, we wouldn’t be asking anyone who had been at the train station to call the tip line. As far as these bastards know, they’re still in the clear.” He sighed. “Which, unfortunately, they are.”

  I went in search of the watch commander. Sgt. Chambliss had reported to both scenes. That’s what happened when patrol called for a supervisor. Frankly, this was as much his show as it was mine. Except, I was expected to piece together the intel.

  Knocking on his office door, I took a breath and waited. He looked up and gestured that I enter. “I take it you heard.”

  My stomach dropped, as if I’d just plummeted from a cliff. “Heard what?”

  “Guess not.” He scratched the back of his head and got up from behind his desk. “I just got word back from the search of the subway system and stations. One of ours got the living daylights knocked out of him.”

  “Who?”

  “Officer Cruz. Do you know him?”

  “His name doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “He works out of a different precinct. He and several other officers had been rerouted to connecting stations. When the 11:15 train arrived, he spotted a man in a LockBox uniform exit the train. Cruz followed him from the platform into the public restrooms. The suspect had a crowbar and attacked Cruz the moment he entered. The asshole knoc
ked the gun from his hand, broke his leg, and several of his ribs. Before backup arrived, he stole Cruz’s badge and escaped. We didn’t spot him on any of the camera feeds.”

  “They split up before we could intervene.” I thought about the train schedule. Between the woman screaming, the single gunshot, and tracking down the shooter, I hadn’t noticed any other trains departing from that platform, but since there were so many different ones in the vicinity, he could have been on the other side and left before I even noticed. “I should have gotten there faster.”

  “We all should have. But we can’t change what’s already happened.”

  “No, sir. But I’d like to.”

  “Me too.”

  We stood in silence for a moment. “Cruz should be okay. The doctors want to keep him overnight as a precaution, but he doesn’t need surgery.”

  “Did he get a look at his attacker?”

  “LockBox uniform, blond hair, tall, athletic, his pants were too short. Other than that, the restroom was too dimly lit, and the guy had the LockBox cap on. He didn’t get a look at his face. Just the back of him.”

  “But he noticed that the offender was blond? Are you sure?”

  “That’s what Cruz said.”

  “Any identifying marks?”

  “Nothing. The guy even wore gloves. He left the crowbar behind, but we didn’t find anything on it except Cruz’s DNA. But I will tell you one thing, DeMarco. These bastards are attacking cops now. That means they just declared war.”

  “You said Cruz works patrol. Was he in uniform?”

  “Yep, so this bastard knew for sure he was a cop.”

  At least they didn’t try to steal a police uniform. That was a plus. A thought struck me, and I headed for the door. “Make sure everything gets forwarded upstairs. We need every bit of intel if we’re going to stop these bastards before they kill again.”

  “You got it,” Chambliss said. “But patrol’s on the lookout. If you don’t find these assholes, one of my guys will. I can almost guarantee it.”