Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (i can read book club .txt) 📗

into focus and he realized where he was: Titanic Productions’s medical room in the location services compound.

“He’s awake again.”

The door opened fully and Amy Moore came in.

“And you don’t remember getting here?”

“I don’t remember Christmas.”

“Not helpful. We’re thinking a bit more recent.”

“You don’t believe the amnesia defence then?”

“You don’t need defense with us. It’s not what we want. Just information. Like why you stopped us from calling the police.”

Amy stood over him while the unit nurse checked McNulty’s dressings. There were a lot of dressings now, the taped nose, the strapped ribs, the scrapes and bruises, and a nasty cut to the back of his head. The last thing he remembered was being punched in the back and flung into the river. Some gasping and struggling. A few random snatches of consciousness but nothing concrete about how he got all the way from the junkyard to the production compound, or how long it had taken. Amy sat in a chair next to the examination table that doubled as a bed.

“It’s been all over the news.”

McNulty didn’t sit up. “What has?”

Amy leaned forward. “The gunfight at the Cloverleaf Body Shop.”

“That’s what they call it? I thought Harris was being cryptic.”

“Place doesn’t have a name. TV news reporters always label things but the OK Corral was taken.”

McNulty looked at Amy. “But they know it was a gunfight?”

Amy couldn’t keep the concern off her face. “Five dead and bullets everywhere? Hard to describe it as anything else.”

McNulty frowned. “Five?”

“That’s what they’re saying.”

McNulty wondered about the gunman that Billy Bob had shot. The other two must have taken the body with them, which was the obvious thing to do. Leave no man behind. More importantly for criminals, leave no evidence behind.

Amy broke into his thoughts. “And they found your car parked halfway up the on ramp.” She lowered her voice. “Police have been looking for you. Got you pegged as a suspect or a witness. And a missing person, whichever it is. Practically waved a warrant for your arrest at Larry.”

McNulty glanced toward the door. “Where is Larry?”

“Gone to the diner to fetch some food. Location caterers are off today. You closed us down. Remember?”

McNulty didn’t speak. It seemed there really were no secrets in the movie circus. Larry had given the cast and crew a few days off until after the Fourth of July parade, not out of concern for his crew but to give McNulty time to make some inquiries. Look where the inquiries had led him—five men dead, Mickey Mouse full of explosives, and himself banged up and knocked out and almost drowned.

“Is he still planning on getting pickup shots at the parade tomorrow?”

The nurse interrupted before Amy could answer. “You should be in hospital.”

McNulty thought about the firefight at the junkyard. “I should be in the cemetery.”

The nurse didn’t pull her punches. “If you don’t get proper medical care that’s where you’re going to end up.”

McNulty looked at the nurse and tried to lighten the tone. “You mean Larry doesn’t offer proper medical care?”

The nurse wasn’t for turning. “Larry provides First Aid. You’re way past First Aid.” The look on her face emphasized her concerns. “If you hadn’t kept waking up during the night and crying off the police, I’d have called them myself just to get you back in the hospital.”

McNulty looked at the nurse. “During the night? How long have I been here?”

It was Amy who answered. “Too long. Like she said. You should be in the hospital.”

“But, overnight?”

Amy nodded. “Yes. Larry’s got F.K. on standby at the parade. He’s heading over there once he’s brought the food.”

McNulty’s chest emptied. “The parade’s today?”

Amy gave him a funny look. “Of course. The July Fourth Parade is always on the Fourth of July.”

FORTY-SEVEN

“Shit.” McNulty didn’t apologize for his language. He swung his legs off the bed and almost collapsed when a wave of dizziness hit him. He rested one hand on the bed until his head stopped spinning and dry-heaved again. Nothing came up because there was nothing left to come. Amy handed him a glass of water and the nurse gave him the strongest painkillers she had. His head cleared a little but he was going to have to live with the pain because there wasn’t time for it to ease.

“Call Larry. Tell him to forget the food and get back here right now.” He handed Amy the glass and fixed her with stern eyes. “Urgent dead people right now.”

Amy took out her phone. The nurse saw the look on McNulty’s face and gave him three more painkillers. Overdosing was the least of their worries.

“Shit.” It was Larry’s turn to swear. “Mickey Mouse?”

McNulty lowered himself into a chair in Larry’s office. “And marzipan.”

Larry gave him a questioning look.

McNulty answered. “The two most non-threatening things…” He looked Larry in the eye. “…are going to give the Fourth of July a whole new meaning.”

He explained again how he thought this was going to go down, but in more detail. As with his previous theory about the movie-set shooting being a decoy, this was just speculation, but his last speculation had proved correct. Larry took him seriously, then stated the obvious. “You should go to the police.”

McNulty shook his head. “The police think I just shot five men to protect you and the orphanage.”

“Not anymore, surely.”

McNulty tried not to move because every shift of position sent pain screaming through his ribs. “They’ve got my car at the scene and Harris knows I went there before. At the very least he has me pegged as being involved, which I am.”

Larry sat back in his chair. He looked helpless, not something you saw very often with the boss of Titanic Productions. He held his hands out, palms up. “What then?”

McNulty considered that for a moment while he got his thoughts straight. He was weighing up their options and ticking off the available resources. If they worked quickly he thought they could pull this off, but it would have to