Frank Zafiro - And Every Man Has to Die

Like clay.

Saturday, July 19th

0027 hours

Detective Ray Browning stood in the doorway of the hotel room, staring at the smeared blood against the wall. He didn’t use his detective eyes to examine the pattern or direction of the smear, though his mind clicked through those facts automatically: Victim fell against the wall sideways, slid down. Was likely turned to the right, back against the wall, prior to transport.

Mostly he just stared and thought to himself how that was Battaglia’s blood.

When was the last police officer death he’d investigated? Karl Winter, back in ’94? That had been something of an ambush, too. The driver of the vehicle later gave an account that mirrored what he and Detective Winokur, now retired, had determined from the examination at the scene. Here, though, he had the eyewitness testimony of the wounded FBI man, Agent Leeb. Too bad he was in the john at the time.

The tell-tale holes of a large caliber handgun in the door tied in perfectly with what Leeb had told him. To the right and down, he saw the scuff of a bootprint near the doorknob. His gaze drifted over to the doorjamb. The wood near the bolt receptacle was shattered. Browning ran his fingers over the splinters.

This was a carefully planned operation. Just like the gang shooting.

He stepped into the room and scanned it carefully. Small chalk marks showed where Battaglia’s body had been. That had been Officer Westboard’s doing. The quick-thinking patrolman did the same thing for the Russian lying in a heap in the corner, who’d been so obviously dead that the medics had left him in place.

Browning noted the large holes in the bathroom door, corresponding with the shotgun Leeb had reported. Several pellets of double-aught buck had torn into the agent’s right shoulder and knocked him back into the bathtub. Browning could see the torn metal on the outside edge of the tub. Falling into the tub had probably saved him.

The table against the wall had three chairs pulled up to it. Battaglia’s sunglasses sat on one side next to a pair of cards. Another pair were tucked neatly under a coffee cup in front of the chair opposite him. A small stack of dollar bills lay next to five upturned cards in the center. Browning wondered who had won the hand.

It didn’t matter. They both lost tonight.

“Detective?”

Browning looked up. A female rookie he didn’t know stood in the doorway holding the sergeant’s cellular phone.

“Yes?”

The rookie extended the phone. Her hands were clean but her sleeve and cuff were soaked in blood. “It’s for you.”

“Who is it?” he asked.

The rookie gave him a hollow, apologetic shrug. “Sergeant Shen just told me to give it to you.”

Browning strode to the door and took the phone. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, but tears glistened in her eyes. “Is Batts going to make it?” she asked him, her voice tremulous.

She’d obviously missed the radio traffic that Officer Battaglia had died before he reached the hospital. “What’s your name, Officer?”

“B.J.” she whispered. “Carson.”

He pointed to her sleeve. “How’d that happen?”

Carson looked down at the bloodied uniform sleeve. “I got here and he was shot. I tried to stop the bleeding, but…” She shook her head, then looked back up at Browning. “Is he okay?”

Browning paused. She was pretty shaken up. He was going to need longer to break the news than he had right now with someone, probably Crawford, waiting on the phone. Plus he’d need to interview her for the case.

“I need you to keep everyone outside of the inner perimeter,” he directed. “I’ll come talk to you in a few minutes, okay?”

The rookie seemed grateful for the task. She nodded and hurried back to the edge of the crime scene tape.

Browning put the phone to his ear. “Detective Browning.”

“This is Lieutenant Crawford,” came the gruff voice from the other end of the line. “I’m on my way up.”

Browning didn’t answer.

“Browning? You there?”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant.”

“I said I’m on my way up.”

“I heard you.”

“Well, goddammit, what do you have?”

Browning took a breath before answering. “Lieutenant, I’ve been here five minutes. All I can tell you is that I have a dead Russian and a murdered cop.”

“That’s it?”

“And that this was well planned and executed.”

Crawford cursed into the phone. “Do you need me up there?”

“No. I’ve got crime scene coming up to start processing. I’ll send Finch and Elias up to the hospital to do a more thorough interview with the FBI agent who was wounded after they finish canvassing for witnesses here at the hotel. Unless you want to make a statement to the media…”

“No,” Crawford said. “Not yet. I have a feeling the chief is going to want to handle this one.”

“That decision is above my pay grade.”

Crawford grunted. “I’ll head over to see Tower at the secondary scene. Call me if you need anything.”

“Will do,” Browning said, and hung up.

He glanced back to the scene, staring again at the bloody smear on the wall, which told him everything even though he didn’t want to see any of it. Then he turned away and went to talk to the shaken rookie.

0031 hours

As far as Detective John Tower was concerned, things had gone from horrible to not so bad to just about great and back again.

When he received the call-out, along with the news that an officer had been killed, that was the horrible part. His stomach was tight as he threw on his jeans, T-shirt, gun, and badge as Stephanie slept soundly on the bed behind him. He remembered when Karl Winter had been shot. He’d still been in Sex Crimes when that happened, so he hadn’t taken part in the investigation. But the loss of a popular officer less than a year from retirement had been… well, it had been horrible.

It stayed horrible for the entire drive to the Hillyard warehouse, where Crawford had sent him instead of the primary scene at the Quality Inn. It was probably a bit of a jab from the Crawfish, but the reality was that the lieutenant needed his most veteran investigator at the primary scene. That was Browning, no question. The fact that Crawford seemed to have it in for Tower probably didn’t have anything to do with his decision. Probably.

Crawford still seemed to blame Tower for every failed investigation that ever happened in the Major Crimes Unit. Just last year he’d worked on the Rainy Day Rapist case. Thanks to Renee, he’d managed to solve that case, even though it seemed to be going nowhere for the longest time. But all Crawford remembered was that the suspect attacked Officer Katie MacLeod before Tower managed to figure out his identity.

That was par for the course with him and Crawford. He wondered if it would ever change. He doubted it. Most likely it would just get worse.

By the time Tower arrived on scene at the warehouse, Chisolm had set up a solid outer and inner perimeter. He walked Tower through the scene, pointing out anything he thought was important. Tower followed along, sipping burnt coffee in a Styrofoam cup from the 7-Eleven and admiring how calm Chisolm seemed to be.

When the patrolman pointed out the dead suspect lying on the ground with a shotgun an arm’s length away, Tower smiled grimly. It didn’t get much easier than that to prove a case of justifiable homicide. And that was something better than horrible.

The dead body still clutching a.44 Magnum inside the white Mercedes definitely sealed the deal. Things at this crime scene were most assuredly not so bad.

Then FBI Agent Maurice Payne had shown up. That’s when things springboarded to just about great.