Douglas Dorow - The Ninth District

Jack stood with his hands in his pockets, looking over the site. “What’ve we got, Pete?”

“This is ground zero, Jack.” Pete squatted down a few feet away from the tree so as not to disturb the area around it where the shooter had laid waiting. “You ran along the opposite bank, right to left, north to south. You can see the shooter was laying in the sand here, the rifle propped on the tree.” There was a large depression in the sand the length of a body, deeper depressions where the knees and elbows rested in the sand. The dead tree, half-buried in the sand, showed lighter marks on top where something had scratched its weathered wood. The scratches presumably came from the stock of the rifle resting on the tree for support. “We found a couple of slugs across the river. It was a hell of a shot to hit a moving target.”

Ross followed what Pete said and looked back across the river. “Jack, you know he was waiting for you. He wasn’t just taking shots at whoever happened to be running by this morning.”

“Yeah, he’s been watching me, that’s how he knew I’d be out for a run. He was waiting here in the shadows. The sun lit us up on the bank over there. He was trying to scare me off. Must’ve surprised him seeing two of us running.” Jack turned around in the sand and looked up the hill, then up and down the shore. “So where did he go?”

Wires with colored plastic flags were stuck in the sand, a different color running off in three directions.

“Guess.”

“Pete, come on. Where did he go?”

Pete grunted and stood up, pushing his body up by placing his hands on his knees. “You guys are detectives.”

“OK, we’ll play.” Jack looked at Ross. “Junior? Your case. What do you think?”

Ross stood back and studied the area.

“And don’t take too long,” Jack added.

“OK. My bet is he didn’t go downstream. The bank gets really steep and further downstream is the dam. He couldn’t go past there.”

“I didn’t ask where he didn’t go. Where did he go?” Jack asked.

Ross shook his head, smiled, and looked out to the river. A silver powerboat from the Sheriff’s department idled twenty feet out from the riverbank. Two deputies in life jackets were in the boat; one driving it and keeping it in place against the current, the second was manipulating something over the side, hanging from a rope.

“What’s up with these guys?” Jack asked.

“They’re looking for the gun,” Pete said. “It’s not here. He either tossed it or took it with him. Me, I think he threw it in the river and took off.”

“Good luck,” Jack said. “Junior, where did he go?”

Ross started walking along the flags and followed the blue ones to the storm sewer. “If he followed the other path up stream, he ran the risk of somebody seeing him. If people up above on the paths heard shots from the gorge, they would have been more alert to strangers. I think he disappeared into this storm sewer and came out a distance from here.”

“How’d he do, Pete?”

“Not bad for a new agent. That’s what we think happened.” Pete stepped up next to Ross and shined a flashlight into the dark sewer. “These things run all over under the city. Farther in there, we found tracks that look like they match. Looks like he came up in a church parking lot about three or four blocks from here. Abandoned his vehicle up in the lot up here. Just walked away. Maybe had another car.”

“Or a bike,” Ross added.

Pete thought for a second. “Yeah, maybe a bike. That would blend in here.”

“You couldn’t have told us that sooner, Pete?” Jack asked.

“If you just wanted me to tell you how he got away, you wouldn’t have walked down that hill through the brush dragging your injured partner along with you. You wouldn’t be standing here looking around to make sure we did the job right. You wanted to be here, see where he was when he shot at you. You wanted to get in his head.” Pete reflexively reached for a breast pocket and then the back pocket of his pants. “You guys don’t smoke, do you?”

Jack yelled out to the group of investigators standing at the edge of the river watching the sheriff’s deputies fish for a gun. “Who has a cigarette for my friend, Pete?” Jack caught the pack of cigarettes that one of the men tossed to him. He stepped forward and offered the pack to Pete. “Thanks, Pete. We’ll look for your report later. Figure out how tall he was from the impression. I want to make sure it was the Governor.”

Ross and Jack worked their way back up along the rocky path and through the trees to get back to Jack’s car. At the top, they stopped to catch their breath, sweat running freely down their faces. “Think Pete will make it up this hill?” Ross asked.

“If he’s lucky, the sheriffs will give him a ride back to the boat ramp. Otherwise it’ll take more than one of those guys down there to get him back up the hill alive.” Jack looked across the river where he’d ran that morning. The image of his morning run with Patty replayed in his mind. The path, the light from the rising sun, the smell of the river, the realization that somebody was shooting at them, that Patty had been shot. Patty was OK. He made it out of the situation a little wet and smelly. He couldn’t think of a thing he would’ve done differently. He didn’t know he was in the sights of a shooter. He needed to change up his routine. Somebody was waiting for him this morning. “Come on, Junior. Let’s go check on Patty.”

The hallway was cooler than the outside, but the unique hospital smell struck Jack as he and Ross stepped off the elevator. “This is like deja vu all over again, Junior. Second time at the hospital this week. Not good.”

“At least this time, I’m not a patient,” Ross said.

At the counter were a few nurses talking and filling out forms. Jack knew about paperwork. The FBI had more than its share. Jack stood at the counter and waited for somebody to notice him. He cleared his throat to get some attention.

“Excuse me, can you tell us where we can find Patty Lopez?” The nurse closest to them turned and opened her mouth to answer, but she paused when she saw Ross.

“You’ll have to excuse him,” Jack said. “He usually looks better than this, but he was in a little car accident. Miss Lopez’s room?”

The nurse smiled, and looked down at her list. “I’m sorry. I just came on shift. Let’s see. She’s in room three oh five, just down the hall here.”

“Thanks.” Jack and Ross walked down the hall in the direction the nurse had pointed. “Junior, you really have an impact on women. Have you thought about dating a nurse?”

Ross didn’t answer, but paused outside of the door to Patty’s room and motioned for Jack to enter first. Jack hesitated, thinking of what he was going to say to Patty. Responsibility, guilt, he should have been shot if anybody was. He took a deep breath, slowly pushed the door open, and stepped into the room. Ross quietly followed and stood with his back against the wall at the foot of the bed. Patty was lying in the bed reading a magazine; the shoulders of her hospital gown showed above the edge of the sheet.

Jack walked over and leaned on the bars on the side of the hospital bed that were there to keep the patient from rolling out. “Patty, how’re you doing? You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“Hey guys.” Patty pushed herself up in bed and ran her hands back through her hair. “I’m not mad at you, but I’m mad. Mad that I got shot, and my leg hurts and I won’t be able to run for a while. If I don’t run, I’m going to get fat. I can’t get fat. Can you believe I got shot?” Patty said a few more words in Spanish.

Jack smiled at Patty going on like this. “Hey, I recognize some of those words and I don’t think they’re nice. You look good and it sounds like you’ll be OK.”