Jonathon King - A Killing Night

"I'm not sure what we're going to, Max."

I got out and leaned back against my closed door. She crossed her arms. The ball was in her court.

"O'Shea called me at the office," she started. "It was nearly midnight but he talked dispatch into giving me his cell number by telling them he had information about the missing girls I was tracking."

I nodded my head. At midnight O'Shea would have been on the stakeout of Marci's apartment for several hours. Long enough to do some thinking.

"When I reached him he was cryptic as hell. Told me he thought you were getting in deep chasing down Morrison and that the only way he figured he could really help you was by coming out with the truth."

I couldn't react. It was too much to grind. I could still feel the sand in my shoes from pulling a guy out of the ocean, a guy I should have been guarding. I was less than twenty-four hours from getting caught trying to tail a cop, a cop who might be guilty of multiple homicides.

"So what's the truth?" I said.

"That's where we're going, Max. He gave me an address," she said, pulling an orange "While You Were Out" message note from her pocket. "He said not to get there until after two. He told me it would be safe and in fact kind of begged me not to bring anyone but you. He said bringing you would be proof that it wasn't some kind of setup that would be dangerous."

I looked around in the garage like I was searching for the SWAT boys.

"And you're going to trust him?"

"You did, Max," she said.

We took her car and I rode shotgun. The address was a few blocks to the north along the Middle River. She was nervous. I knew because she always had to talk when she was nervous.

"So tell me about the scene at the Flamingo," she said.

I told her the story in more detail, how Rodrigo had somehow slipped out of the bungalow and took his chances in the water.

She stopped at a light to cross Sunrise and rolled down the window.

"I'd have to agree with Deputy Cardona," she said. "Those spots of blood on the walkway would make me nervous, too."

I shook my head and told her that from the impressions left in the walls and the descriptions that the women gave Cardona, it had to be David Hix.

"This is your union-busting guy? The one who took on you and O'Shea in the alley with his brother?" she said.

I nodded and then told her about the photos and the threats that Billy and Diane had received at their home and the additional photo of the Fort Lauderdale attorney.

"You do know how to get your nose into the shit, Max," she said.

"It is a talent," I said.

She cut her eyes at me and I thought I could see a smile play at the corner of her mouth. I took advantage of the moment.

"And since Mr. Colon has been attacked twice by this baseball bat-wielding felon, can we get an officer to watch his room over at North Broward Medical Center?"

She looked over at me and then picked up the radio. She made the arrangements with dispatch, only asking me the spelling on Rodrigo's name and then checking a computer screen attached to the dash in front of her and finding the case number.

We turned east for a few blocks and then made a right onto Middle River Drive.

"Thanks," I said.

The address on the note was a small, two-story apartment building. Eight units in all. Painted a powdery light green. There were three cars parked in spaces at the front, older models, a four-door Caprice, a small SUV, a Volkswagen beetle, the original, with rust spots on the rounded corners and door seams. We sat quietly and watched for a minute. Richards wrote down the license plate numbers in her notebook.

"Not the Ritz," I said.

"Unit C has to be on the first floor, huh?"

"That'd figure."

Richards pulled the 9mm, checked the load, slid it back in the holster.

"Let's go find the truth," she said and we got out together.

The tiny pool in front of the complex wasn't much larger than a hot tub. The shrubbery was dry and needed clipping. Unit C was in the middle and we stepped under an overhang and flanked the door. Inside I could hear the sound of a television, the tinny words of a game show host, the canned applause. When Richards knocked someone turned down the volume. There was a peephole in the door and Richards stood in front of it but I could see by the cant of her hip that her weight was all on her right leg, ready to push off to one side if she didn't like what appeared. We heard the snick of a lock and the door opened only as far as the safety chain would let it.

"Yes?"

The nose, full mouth and expectant eyes of a woman filled the crack.

"Can I help you?"

"Hi," Richards said. "Uh, Colin O'Shea sent us over. He said that you might have something for us."

The woman's eyes were dark brown, wary, but not afraid. She looked straight into Richards's face and then down to the badge, maybe the gun.

"Do you work with Colin?" she said, shifting her sight to take me in, but did not meet my eyes.

"Yes, in a way, we do work with him," Richards said. "May we come in?"

"Uh, yes," the woman said. "Yes."

She closed the door and while she slipped the chain Richards and I exchanged raised eyebrows.

Richards stepped in and to the right, I moved automatically to her left, like an entry team. Inside, the sun struggled to lighten the place. I marked the pass-through serving opening to the kitchen first, then the short hallway. Nothing. When I scanned back to Richards she was looking past the woman to the windows and the long couch pushed flush against the wall. Her hand moved off the butt of her gun and I almost expected to hear someone yell, "Clear!"

Then I focused on the woman. It was after four now and she was dressed in some kind of uniform. Waitress, I guessed. She was barefoot and there was a stain on her apron. Her hair was pinned up but strands were leaking down onto her shoulders.

"My name is Sherry Richards. I'm a detective with the Broward sheriff's office," Richards said. "And this is Max Freeman."

The woman nodded, looking at Richards and still avoiding my eyes.

"Hi," she said again. "Um, Colin said you were going to come here, just to talk, he said."

She stepped back and at first I thought she was just getting distance between us but then I realized she was shielding something. Behind her was a playpen. A child was standing up with her hands knuckled around the top bar.

"Well, what a beautiful girl," Richards said, a lilt in her voice that was far too convincing to be faked. The woman turned as Richards took a step forward and a smile was coming into her face.

"Oh, this is Jessica," she said, moving to the playpen. "She just woke up from a nap because Mommy's home." Richards sat down on the end of the couch and reached out to touch the girl's hand. The woman bent and gathered the child up in her arms and held her on her hip, letting her look out at us. She had flame red hair and wide blue eyes and when the contrast with the woman's coloring struck me, I stared closer at her face and knew who we'd been sent to meet.

"You're Faith Hamlin," I said, and the astonishment in my voice caused her to finally look into my face and she nodded.

"You're the one from Philadelphia, right?" she said. "Colin told me. You were a cop."

I nodded my head. Richards looked from me to the woman and her mouth had opened slightly but nothing came out.

Over the next hour Faith Hamlin told us her story, how Colin O'Shea had come to tell her that she needed to leave Philadelphia because the officers she knew from the store were in deep trouble and everything that she had done with them was going to come out in the newspapers. At first she told him she wanted to stay. She wanted to help them. She didn't care what the news said.

"But when I told Colin that I knew I was going to have a baby, he said I had to leave and that he had to leave and that and everything would be better if we left together."