Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

Bobby’s smile widened. “What’s the best-known part of The Divine Comedy?”

“Dante’s Inferno,” I said. “Flame Bright Fame. He named the whole damn company after himself as if he shares his identity with it.”

My phone vibrated. I took it from the pocket of my jeans and looked at the screen.

Mira.

34

I don’t see any cookies and milk,” I said.

In dark slacks and a heavy green sweater, Terry Chalmers sat behind his desk in the squad room, which was busier than it had been the other night—voices, ringing telephones, clicking computer keyboards. Tan suit jacket unbuttoned and a round toothpick in his mouth, Rafael Piñero straddled a steel folding chair beside the desk, his arms resting atop the back. As I took the chair across from Chalmers, and put my manila envelope on the desk, they looked at each other for a few seconds. Then Chalmers sighed and leaned forward to pull a wallet out of his back pocket. He took out a ten and gave it to his partner, who pocketed it.

“A bet whether we’d have to go get you,” Piñero said. “My faith was not misplaced.” He took out the toothpick and made a sad face. “But I hear Cookie Monster got busted last night trying to pick up a hooker on Genesee Street. Means you’re shit outta luck on snacks.”

Chalmers stood, several file folders in hand. “Too noisy here. Interview Two is free.”

Picking up my envelope, I followed them to the same windowless, pale green interrogation room where I’d spent a Sunday morning back in October. This time, however, I was dressed in more than shorts and a T-shirt. Nor would I be cuffed to the table ring. I pulled a chair to one end of the rectangular table and sat. Piñero took the opposite end, and Chalmers sat on the interrogator’s side, tapping his file folders with a ballpoint pen.

“Two city homicide cops, one retired CID investigator, and nobody wants to sit in the suspect chair,” I said, putting my envelope on the table. “Interesting.”

“Okay, Rimes, no smart-assedness from here on out,” Chalmers said. “You too, Raf.”

“All right,” Piñero said.

Chalmers sighed. “We got enough work to do on a normal day—if there is such a thing around here—without having to waste time on every crazy idea you get, G. But I spent part of last night and most of this morning going over that overdose case and the old lady’s shooting.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Shit doesn’t add up.”

“You’ve been a cop a long time,” I said. “What stinks to you?”

Chalmers crossed his arms and let out a long breath. “First, the autopsy report on the dead teacher. Height, weight, skin condition, teeth, general appearance of health—there was nothing in there to suggest any drug habit. Good veins, no tracks or needle marks. No sneaky injection sites, like between the toes. No damaged nasal tissue. No lung or heart damage. All that’s not to say he couldn’t overdose his first time riding the horse, but it feels wrong.”

“Narcotics buttoned it up quick because it was just another tragic opioid death,” Piñero said. “The ME says the COD was an overdose. The tox screen says heroin and China Girl. If folks off themselves by accident and the evidence supports it, the case is closed quickly.”

“Right,” Chalmers said. “The detectives saw no bruising to suggest either one had been held down and injected by force. Williamson’s prints were on the hypo they both used.”

“A gun,” I said. “Somebody puts a gun to your head or points it at somebody you love and says swallow this or inject that, what do you do? You take it because lots of people get high without dying but not too many come back from a double-tap to the head.” I paused. “How are you supposed to know it’s laced with enough fentanyl to kill you?”

“That brings us to the second thing,” Chalmers said, thumbing his pen button. “Why? I don’t mean why go to the trouble of making this look like an overdose. That’s easy. It won’t be the same kind of investigation. But why do it at all? What’s the motive?”

“Not robbery,” Piñero said. “They both had money on them when they were found, not enough to suggest dealing, but amounts that fit their jobs. Maybe payback?”

“For what?” I said. “I haven’t found a single person who thinks either one of them was using. Or hung around users. Or suppliers. But before we go there, what about the guys who said Odell was dealing? There were supposed to be three informants.”

“Weren’t ours,” Chalmers said. “Somebody fed that straight to a reporter at the News. Everybody ran with it, even the DA by not charging the survivor. How’s that for fake news?”

“The finest kind,” I said. “The little lie that doesn’t get a lot of attention. No tweets. No deflections. It just sits there, without controversy, doing its job, day after day.”

“Then there’s shooting at the parents,” Chalmers said. “The detectives on that haven’t found anything solid but some brass in the street, 9mm casings with no usable prints. They looked into Mr. and Mrs. Simpkins. He’s retired from the goddamn gas company. She gets social security from a lifetime of jobs in retail stores. Solid salt-of-the-earth church folk. Fixed income, a paid-off house in the inner city. These kinds of people aren’t targeted unless it’s for robbery. They’re collateral damage, waiting to be caught in a crossfire. Except there was nobody else out on the street that day.”

“Then the other night, this meth mama tries to cap the mother,” Piñero said. “But you just happen to be there because none of this makes sense to you either. So you break her nose in self-defense. With no witnesses, it’s a he-said-she-said, hard to make a charge stick. But then Harlow Fucking Graves comes to get her out and he doesn’t even know her name.”

“Which brings us back to the why.”