Sharon Hartley - Her Cop Protector

But right now the only thing open was a half-assed surf shop instead of a celebrity-owned gourmet restaurant.

Across the street, Dean noted a large woman, hair covered with a bright yellow turban, sitting on a wheeled walker facing the dunes. Huge tortoiseshell sunglasses hid most of her face. Her head swiveled as she followed the police cruiser.

He also spotted a cart decorated with wooden and beaded jewelry on the wide sidewalk close to the dunes. Where was the owner? He or she would have to be found and interviewed.

“There it is,” Sanchez said, pointing to a three-story structure with faded pink and aqua paint. The roof featured a stair-step roofline, leading to a spire at the apex. Neon signage announced they’d arrived at the Sea Wave Hotel.

“I see it,” Dean said. Maybe five or six onlookers stood behind the crime-scene tape that blocked entrance to the hotel’s lobby. Filthy clothing, backpacks and a couple of shopping carts told Dean these were street people.

He continued his assessment as he braked to a stop in front of the Sea Wave. Not many people around. Pitiful few tourists—but of course South Florida was in the middle of the mean season.

The heat enveloped him like a wet sponge when he exited the air-conditioned cruiser. Not even 11:00 a.m. and already sweltering. He smelled the ocean—and damn if he couldn’t actually hear the crash of waves. You didn’t get that on Ocean Drive.

“Jeez, it’s hot,” Sanchez said.

“That’s why we live here, genius,” Dean said, still evaluating the scene. The subject hotel sat in the shadow of two larger properties, the one to the right part of a well-known hotel chain and better maintained.

Dean stared at the dirty glass block and one oversize porthole window in the hotel’s facade. A series of streamlined balconies wrapped around the sides of the structure. Satisfied he understood the setting, he stepped onto the hotel’s wide, covered porch, where he was met by a young male uniformed officer whose badge read Robert Kinney. Dean had seen him around but didn’t know him.

“You first on the scene?” Dean asked.

“Right,” Kinney said with a nod.

“What have we got?”

“Body on a balcony on the second floor. Gunshot wound to the head.”

“Who called it in?”

“Multiple 911 calls. A single shot was heard at 7:18 a.m.”

Damn early in the day for a murder. “Any witnesses?”

“No.”

“What else?”

The officer checked his notes. “The vic is one John Smith from Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

“John Smith? You’re kidding me, right?”

Kinney shrugged. “The room is registered to John Smith. Room twenty-two.”

“Okay. My partner and I will check the scene. You and other officers begin interviewing bystanders and determine if anybody saw anything.”

Dean entered the lobby and scanned its contents. Along the south wall, a sparse breakfast buffet on a long table. Straight ahead, stairs covered with filthy carpet led to a hall and rooms. To the right of the stairs was the front desk, where the only other occupant, a thirtysomething heavyset clerk, leaned against the counter, watching him. The way the guy rubbed his dark beard told Dean the clerk was plenty rattled. A surveillance camera hung over the desk.

Dean nodded at the clerk and proceeded up the stairs, followed by Sanchez. The carpet, which Dean noted was full of sand, covered the same cracked pink terrazzo as the lobby.

The door to unit twenty-two stood open. Dean looked through the room onto the balcony, where the medical examiner, Dr. Owen Fishman, a good man he’d worked with before, looked to be finishing up with the body. Dean nodded to himself and he pulled on latex gloves and cloth booties over his shoes. Excellent. He’d have control of the scene soon. The forensics team was still maybe ten minutes out.

“Inventory the room,” he told Sanchez. “And begin making sketches. We go in and out the same way each time we access the scene.”

The smell slammed into Dean when he crossed the seedy motel room toward the balcony. The smell was always the first thing. That coppery smell of old blood—lots of blood—and spilled guts.

God help him. He’d missed it.

He was back. He had a murder to investigate. Maybe his lieutenant had been right to bench him for a while to make him remember how much he loved his job. Maybe he’d needed that reminder to follow the rules.

Dean moved onto the balcony, where the ME completed his initial exam.

“Got a time of death?” Dean asked.

“Good morning, Hawk,” Dr. Fishman said with a grin. “So you’re back?”

“Depends on how quickly I can close this case.” Dean snapped a series of photos of the body with his phone.

“Well, we’ve got a mystery here.”

“Let me hear it.”

“I’m putting time of death approximately seven thirty. GSW to the head. I’d say the shooter was on the roof of the Night’s Inn next door.” Fishman motioned with his head.

Dean looked across a narrow alleyway to the Night’s Inn. “You’re saying a sniper took the vic out?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

But why? Dean wondered, taking a good look at the man’s face for the first time. This John Smith appeared to have lived on the streets for some time. Shabby clothes, no jewelry, dirty hair, unkempt.

So how did this down-and-out vic wind up on the balcony of a hotel, which although clearly not the Ritz, easily cost a hundred bucks a night? Definitely a mystery, Dean thought, feeling more jazzed every minute.

“The vic’s obviously a vagrant,” Fishman said, agreeing with Dean’s thought process. “No ID.”

“He pissed somebody off somewhere,” Dean said.

The doctor rose. “Will I see you at the autopsy?”

“You got it.”

Fishman grabbed his medical kit. “So, who would go to the trouble to set up a difficult shot on this guy?”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Hawk,” Sanchez yelled.

Dean looked over and saw the forensics team had arrived and were suiting up to process the scene. He snapped a series of photos of the room, then exited to give the new arrivals space, careful to travel the same way he’d entered to avoid any more contamination than necessary.

“Come with me, Sanchez,” he said to his rookie. “We’re going to talk to the desk clerk.”

The clerk remained where Dean had last seen him, leaning against the desk counter watching the police activity. He straightened when Dean and Sanchez approached, a guarded expression on his bearded face.

“I’m Detective Dean Hammer, and this is Officer Ruben Sanchez.” Dean stuck out his hand for the clerk to shake it.

“Walt Ballard,” the clerk said, rubbing his hand on his jeans before shaking Dean’s.

“Were you on duty when the shot was fired?” Dean asked. He withdrew his spiral pad to make notes.

“Yeah. I start work at six a.m.”

“What can you tell me?”

“I’d just started a new pot of coffee for the breakfast buffet when I heard this pop. I knew right away it was a gunshot.”

“You familiar with guns?” Dean asked.

“Not really, but—well, it was a strange, scary sound. Not normal, you know. Nothing I heard around here before.”

“What happened next?”

Ballard shrugged. “Couple of screams from upstairs. Another guest came down, a guy, and told me there’d been a shooting. I called 911.”

“Did you go up?”

Ballard shook his head. “No, sir. I went nowhere near that room. I didn’t want to get shot.”

Dean believed him. “What can you tell me about this John Smith?”

“He checked in yesterday at noon. Polite enough, but secretive, like. Nervous, you know what I mean? Looking around constantly.”