Luke Murphy - Dead Man's Hand

Now all Dale had to do was catch two killers, win his family back, outwit the mayor and the other cops, and keep Watters from getting killed before he could find out what was really going on.

The crime scene unit arrived and cleared the scene. As the murders continued and the investigation kept getting much more complicated, seeming to go in all directions, with only suspicion to guide them, all of Dale’s veteran instincts after twelve years as a homicide investigator told him that somehow all the murders were connected.

He immediately had officers do a canvas, but the only interesting thing was a neighbor who saw someone trying to boost Watters’ car, then give up. How did that fit in?

To make matters worse, the sergeant came by before the lab guys had finished—another chance to parade his authority and ask about Watters, again. He was obsessed with Watters. To Dale, that was tunnel vision. The sergeant’s obsession with Watters made him rule out all other suspects, no matter what Dale reported or showed him.

Supervision was bad enough, but the sergeant was basically controlling the investigation and all Dale could do was follow orders. The sarge had moved his way through the ranks from his success as head of the Vice Squad. That meant he had no direct homicide investigation experience of his own and it showed over and over again.

Dale was going to have to do what that lazy desk jockey told him, but find enough time to really solve the case. With the mayor, lieutenant and sergeant watching his every move, he hoped that he’d successfully solve these cases and still be sane.

He watched the sergeant cross the lot, stop at the bottom of the stairs, drop his cigarette and step on it. Dale met him at the top. “The apartment is being processed.”

“Good. What do you think?”

“Looks like—”

“Detective.” A CSI stuck his head out the door. “You should come and see this. Sarge, if you’re coming, put on the paper boots.”

“Christ.” Dale heard his boss say as they headed inside.

“We found where the murder happened.”

Dale followed the tech into the main room. The man turned and hollered, “Wally, hit the lights.”

When the room went dark, the techie turned on a handheld ultraviolet light and waved it in front of the wall. Dale could see the trace of a large blood spatter.

“We have the scene pretty well narrowed down.”

“Tell me.” Dale heard his boss’s footsteps enter the room behind him.

“We think the killer was already in here when Craig entered. He might have surprised Craig and got his gun. They moved over to this side of the room.” The CSI member moved as he spoke, following the direct line and imitating as best he could how the team discovered it had taken place. “Craig was in the lead with his back turned and the killer was behind him with a weapon with a silencer.”

So it was a pro.

“The killer put one round through the back of the head. He dragged Craig’s body to the closet and then had the presence of mind to come back, methodically take time to wipe away the blood and chunks of tissue with a disinfectant and dig the slug out of the wall. The only thing he didn’t do was plaster over the hole.”

“Any chance of identification from just the hole?”

The CSI tech removed a tube of Mikrasil from his kit. “I’ll make a mold of the impression and take it back to the lab. Maybe size and internal characteristics will help. But I’m not optimistic.”

“What happened next?”

“The killer stuffed the officer in the closet and came back to make everything clean as a whistle.”

“Jesus, Jenkins, enough already. You sound like a fuckin’ fan,” the sergeant chimed in.

Jimmy said, “What’s the point of cleaning it all up but leave behind the body?”

“He would never be able to sneak a body out of here in broad daylight. He was probably hoping to come back tonight when it was dark. But we got here first.” Dale thought about something else and said, “So let me get this straight,” You have never seen an amateur work like that, have you?”

“No.”

“This is a seasoned assassin, right?”

“Calvin Watters is no pro. He’s a street thug on a mission,” the sergeant replied.

Dale ignored him.

“Hey, Sarge!” Officer Simpson came into the apartment from outside. “The boys just found Watters’ car in the parking lot. It’s been abandoned.”

“Impound it. Maybe we’ll be lucky and the guy who tried to jack it left something.”

There was something at the edge of Dale’s mind. He walked out and had to squint even though he wore sunglasses.

As he crossed the lot to his car, he could hear his sergeant following him, wheezing like an asthmatic smoker. The sarge called after him.

Dale waited to be caught and told himself not to fly off the handle.

“So, where’s Watters?”

“Not here.” He kept his answer short, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

“He took out one of our own.” The sergeant glanced at the body bag.

“We don’t know Watters killed Craig.” He resisted saying anything more.

“Listen, Dayton.” The sergeant’s voice grew louder. “You need to get on the same page with the rest of us. We all feel bad about Craig. He was a good kid. But we need to focus and do our jobs.”

“If I’m not conducting this case up to your standards,” Dale said, his voice getting louder, “then take me off, but if not, then—” It clicked, midsentence. He turned away from the sergeant and ran across the lot.

He picked up his pace. “Hold on guys. Back away from the car.”

The officers looked confused, but they backed away. Dale knelt underneath the car and spotted the casing and detonator. “This is great news. If we have a demolitions expert, this is going to lead us somewhere.”

Dale didn’t bother to wait around for the bomb squad. They knew their job.

He grabbed Jimmy and got in the car. He had not mouthed off. He had found a bomb and had probably learned as much from the crime scene as they ever would. For a moment he thought he was doing pretty well.

But he was going to have to tell Craig’s family before they heard it on the news. He could do little for them, but at least he could tell them in person. He loved being a cop, but delivering the death notification to a family always made him feel like a failure.

Chapter 25

Outside the house, Mike had mounted hidden security cameras at each corner. He positioned motion sensors on the surrounding grounds as well as tiny, potent booby traps. Then he hooked up a remote-control joystick before handing the controls over to Calvin, who maneuvered the joystick back and forth. From his seat he could control every mounted camera and motion sensor around the “fortress.”

Mike then installed three phones with an unbreakable code that scrambled all communications coming in or going out. He’d also brought two military satellite phones with the same scrambling functions. The phone batteries would provide power for a full year. They were more for backup and when he was on the move. When Calvin was in the computer room, he was to use the landline phones—three instead of one, for double backup.

Also, for backup, Mike had brought military wireless servers that would receive Calvin’s signal, boost it and then provide him with continuous internet access and untraceable e-mail.

He performed all of the outside duties while wearing a telephone lineman’s suit, to make it look like phone company work.

In four hours, the building and attic inside and outside had the finest defense and security system Mike had ever installed. Calvin felt fully relaxed for the first time in two days.

“That’s it,” Mike said with a smile. “You’re protected almost as well as Fort Knox now.”