Jo Leigh - Little Girl Found

He lurched to the table and picked up his weapon, his thumb resting on the safety. Then he made his way to the door. He looked through the peephole and saw the distorted face of a man, someone familiar, but he couldn’t place him. He leaned on his good leg, resting the cane against his bad leg, and then opened the door.

“McCabe,” the man said, his voice so high with tension he sounded like a woman. “Thank God!”

Jack’s gaze moved down to the two bundles in the man’s arms. One of them was a child, wrapped up in a quilt. The other was a stuffed pillowcase. He looked once more at his visitor and remembered where he’d seen him before. “Roy.”

“Yeah, Roy. Roy Chandler. From downstairs. Listen, man,” he said, edging his way inside, “I need your help.”

“I’m on medical leave. You’ll have to call the department.”

“No, not that. I…it’s my wife. She’s hurt. Real bad. I need to get to the hospital.”

“You want my car?” Jack asked, confused.

Roy held the kid out, pushing the bundle against Jack’s chest. Jack grabbed hold with his free arm, instinctively, surprised at the weight. His cane fell, bouncing off the door frame. “What the hell?” he said, trying not to bounce off the door frame himself.

“I have to get to the hospital,” Roy said, dropping the pillowcase by Jack’s feet. “Now. I can’t wait and I can’t take her with me. I’ll be back. An hour. Two at the most.” Roy stepped back quickly, moving neatly out of range. He looked behind him, down toward the parking lot. Then he turned again to face Jack, the desperation that had made his voice so high now in his eyes. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Take care of her. She’s all…” He didn’t finish, just turned and darted toward the staircase.

“Hey!” Jack started forward, but realized instantly it was a mistake. The pain in his hip almost doubled him over, and it was all he could do not to drop the child. When he was finally able to stand again, Roy was halfway down to the parking lot.

Jack hobbled to the couch and used his free arm to balance himself. He swept last Thursday’s Chronicle to the floor, then put the kid down, moving the quilt aside to make sure the small bundle was in fact a living, breathing child. It was. A girl. Maybe four or five. Blond hair a mess of curls, pale skin with pink lips. Amazingly enough, she was sound asleep. He wondered how she could do that.

He’d think about that later. For now, he had to try to catch Roy Chandler. He turned, and even that small motion had to be timed, weighed carefully, planned and executed with a deliberation that made Jack sure he’d found hell and moved in. A trickle of sweat itched at the back of his neck, but he couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone pick up his cane, hold his gun and rub his neck. His focus remained on the cane and he forced himself forward. Step by bloody step until he reached the door.

He put his gun in the waistband of his pants so he could grab hold of the door while he bent for his cane. He felt as if he were using someone else’s body—an old man’s, weak and brittle. The joke was, inside he still felt like the basketball player he’d been in college. The cop who’d aced the obstacle course at the academy. The man he’d been only four short months ago.

He straightened and shifted his weight to the cane. He looked back, but the kid hadn’t moved. Then he went outside, the cold wet of the Houston night a jarring contrast to the cozy heat in his apartment.

Looking down over the balcony, he saw that Roy hadn’t gotten into his car yet. He stood under the light from the pole behind him, staring at a car pulling into the lot. As Jack hobbled toward the stairs, he kept checking on Roy and then shifted his attention to the car. A Ford Taurus, dark, two men in the front. He relaxed, recognizing the unmarked police car. HPD had half a dozen just like it for the vice boys.

Knowing they’d check out Roy and hold him for a while, Jack slowed his pace, but didn’t stop. As he reached the staircase, he realized he hadn’t asked what hospital Roy’s wife was in or what had happened to her. Why in hell he’d have to leave his kid behind, especially with him. Jack didn’t know spit about kids, except that they were noisy and they usually smelled bad.

The steps weren’t easy for him, and he had to lean on the railing just the right way. As he lowered his bad leg, he heard two short pops, and he froze, except for his thumb which released the safety on his gun almost of its own accord. The sound was unmistakable. Gunshots through a silencer.

He looked down to see Roy on the ground, a dark stain spreading on his chest. The cop in the passenger seat jumped out of the car and bent over to evaluate his work.

Jack’s every instinct urged him to hurry. To find out what the hell was going on. This was bad. It was bad in a way he could feel all the way to his bones. Cops didn’t shoot like that. Not an unarmed man.

But he couldn’t hurry. The best he could do was take the steps one at a time, forcing the pain to the back of his mind to be remembered in vivid detail later. He watched the cop stand and head back for the car. “Hey! Wait!”

But either the cop didn’t hear him or he didn’t care, because he just kept on going. Even though Jack tried like hell, he couldn’t make out the guy’s features. The way he stood, he was more of a shadow than a man, and then he was back in the car. The driver hit the gas so hard the car lurched forward, tires squealing.

A light went on in the apartment on Jack’s left, and then a woman’s head poked out the door. She looked at him with terror in her eyes.

“Call 911,” he said. “Now.”

Her head snapped back and the door slammed shut, and he could hear the dead bolt click as he finally reached the parking lot. He hoped the woman would do as he asked, but from the way Roy looked, she didn’t have to rush. Jack could see the unnatural attitude of the body, the crooked way Roy’s head lay.

Cursing his luck, he made his way over, and as he moved next to Roy he saw the dark pool of blood blossom around the motionless arms and chest. A man’s life seeping into the filthy asphalt.

Then he saw a movement. One he hadn’t expected. Roy’s head tilted to the left, and Jack saw his eyes open, then close. Jack bent his good leg, holding on to the cane with all his might as he eased down to his knees. It hurt like hell, but Roy was alive. Trying to say something.

“Protect her…” he said, his voice as whispery as a ghost. “Get the money. Don’t…” He stopped, frozen in a seizure, then relaxing nearer to death. “The cops…Don’t…”

The last word was drowned in a sickening gurgle, and Roy was gone. Jack put his hand to Roy’s neck, checking the jugular for a pulse. Nothing. Stone-cold nothing.

Jack looked back at the apartment building. Several lights were on now, although no one had come outside. They all stayed behind their plywood doors, as if that could keep them safe. He heard a distant siren, which, he supposed, was all he had a right to expect.

If he hadn’t been caught so off guard, he never would have let Roy leave his kid behind. He’d never have let Roy leave at all, at least not until he understood what was going on. But he had been caught, and he had taken the kid and let the father go. So while everyone else in the building stayed inside, peeking through parted curtains, he was left with a kid, a body and one hell of a question. Why had the cops gunned down Roy Chandler in cold blood?

It took him a couple of awkward minutes to stand again. By that time, a patrol car, familiar blue, arrived. The car stopped a couple of hundred feet away, so the cops wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene. The doors opened and Jack recognized Bill Haggart immediately, just from the way the man stood.