Джеймс Паттерсон - Cross Kill

“I’m serious. Let’s go, let the crime-scene guys do their work.”

“No formal statement?”

“You’ve made enough of a statement to satisfy me for the time being.”

“Chief of detectives and wife,” I said. “That’s a conflict of interest any way you look at it.”

“I don’t care, Alex,” Bree said. “I’m taking you home. You can make a formal statement after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

I almost agreed, but then said, “Okay, I’ll leave. But can we stop by Sampson’s room before we go home? He deserves to know.”

“Of course,” she said, softening. “Of course we can.”

I stayed quiet during the ride away from the ambush and shooting scene. Bree seemed to understand I needed space, and didn’t ask any more questions on the way to GW Medical Center.

But my mind kept jumping to different aspects of the case. Where had Watkins and Soneji’s widow met? Through Kimiko Binx? And who was the other wounded guy? How had he come to be part of a conspiracy to kill me and Sampson?

Riding the elevator to the ICU, I promised myself I’d answer the questions, clean up the case, even though it was all but over.

As the door opened, I felt something sharp on my right arm and jerked back to look at it.

“Sorry,” Bree said. “You had a little piece of Scotch tape there.”

She showed me the tape, no more than a half inch long, before rolling it between her thumb and index finger and flicking it into a trash can.

I twisted my forearm, to see a little reddish patch, and wondered where I’d picked that up. Probably off Nana Mama’s counter earlier in the morning, left over from one of Ali’s latest school projects.

It didn’t matter because when we reached the ICU, the nurse gave us good news. Sampson was gone, transferred to the rehab floor.

When we finally tracked him down, he was paying his first visit to the physical therapist’s room. We went in and found Billie with her palms pressed to her beaming cheeks, and her eyes welling over with tears.

I had to fight back tears, too.

Sampson was not only out of bed, he was out of a wheelchair, up on his feet, with his back to us, using a set of parallel gymnastics bars for balance. His massive arm and neck muscles were straining so hard they were trembling, and sweat gushed off him as he moved one foot and then the other, a drag more than a step with his right leg. But it was incredible.

“Can you believe it?” Billie cried, jumped to her feet, and hugged Bree.

I wiped at my tears, kissed Billie, and broke into a huge grin before clapping and coming around in front of Sampson.

Big John had a hundred-watt smile going.

He saw me, stopped, and said, “’Ow bout that?”

“Amazing,” I said, fighting back more emotion. “Just amazing, brother.”

He smiled broader, and then cocked his head at me, as if he felt something.

“Wha?” Sampson said.

“I got him,” I said. “The one who shot you.”

Sampson sobered, and paused to take that in. The therapist offered him the wheelchair, but he shook his head slowly, still staring at me intently, as if seeing all sorts of things in my face.

“F-get him f-now, Alex,” John said finally, with barely a slur and his face twisting into a triumphant smile. “Can’t yah see I got dance less. .sons ta do?”

I stood there in shock for a moment. Bree and Billie started laughing. So did Sampson and the therapist.

I did, too, then, from deep in my gut, a belly laughter that soon mixed with deep and profound gratitude, and a great deal of awe.

Our prayers had been answered. A true miracle had occurred.

My partner and best friend had been shot in the head, but Big John Sampson was not defeated and definitely on his way back.

Two days later, I awoke feeling strangely out of it, as if I were nursing the last dregs of the worst hangover of my life.

Department protocol dictated I sit on the sidelines on paid administrative leave while the shootings were investigated. After what I’d been through, and because I was feeling so run-down, I should have taken the time to stay home and recover with my family for at least a week.

But I forced myself out of bed and headed downtown to talk with my union representative, a sharp attorney named Carrie Nan. I walked her through the events in the factory. Like Bree, she felt comfortable with me talking to Internal Affairs, which I did.

The two detectives, Alice Walker and Gary Pan, were polite, thorough, and, I thought, fair. They took me through the scenario six or seven times in an interrogation room I’d used often on the job.

I stuck with the facts, and not the swinging emotions of elation and rage that I’d felt during the entire event. I kept it clean and to the point.

The scene was an ambush. In all three shootings, I’d seen a pistol. I’d made a warning. When the pistol was turned on me, I shot to save my life.

Detective Pan scratched his head. “You sound kind of detached when you describe what happened.”

“Do I?” I said. “I’m just trying to talk about it objectively.”

“Always said you were the sharpest tack around, Dr. Cross,” Detective Walker said, and then paused. “After you shot the third Soneji, did you scream something like ‘I’ll kill every single Soneji before I’m through?’”

I remembered, and it sounded bad, and I knew it.

“They had me surrounded,” I said at last. “I was caught in an ambush, and had already engaged with three of them. Did I lose my cool at that point? I might have. But it was over by then. If there were others, they were long gone.”

Pan said, “Kimiko Binx was there.”

“Yes. What’s she saying?”

Walker said, “We’re not at liberty to say, Dr. Cross, you know that.”

“Sure,” I said. “Just being nosy.”

Pan said, “There were others there, by the way. In the factory.”

Before I could say anything, Pan’s cell buzzed. Then Walker’s.

“What others?” I asked. “I didn’t see anyone else.”

The detectives read their texts, and didn’t answer me.

“Sit tight,” Pan said, getting up.

“You need anything?” Walker asked. “Coffee? Coke?”

“Just water,” I said, and watched them leave.

There were others there, by the way. In the factory.

I hadn’t seen a soul. But was that true? Different spotlights had been aimed at me from different places and angles. There had to have been a fifth person at the least. There had to—

Two men in suits entered the room along with Chief Michaels and Bree. The first three were stone-faced. Bree looked like she was on the edge of a breakdown.

“I’m sorry, Alex, but...,” she said, barely getting the words out before she looked to Chief Michaels. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” I asked, feeling as if I were suddenly standing with my back to the rim of a deep canyon I hadn’t even realized was there.

“Alex,” Michaels said. “The third Soneji, the one you shot off the roof of the alcove, died two hours ago. And some very damning information has come forward that directly contradicts your account of the shooting.”

“What evidence?” I said. “Who are these guys?”

One of the suits said, “Mr. Cross, I am Special Agent Carlos Ramon with the US Justice Department.”

Coming around the table, the other suit said, “Special Agent Jon Christopher, Justice. You are under arrest for the premeditated murder of Virginia Winslow and John Doe. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and—”

I didn’t hear the rest. I didn’t need to. I’d recited the Miranda warnings a thousand times. As they handcuffed me, I kept looking at Bree, who was crushed, and wouldn’t return my gaze.