Bullseye (16 page)

TWENTY-ONE

H
is heartbeat pounding in his ears, Mason whirled. Not a soul in sight. Shrubs lined the side of the building on the far end, swallowed by darkness just past the ring of light cast from the bare bulb beside the last apartment door. Should he give chase?

A gurgling sound behind him. He whirled. Dropped to his knees beside Graham. Pressed his ear to the man’s nose. There! A faint breath.

“Help!” His shout pierced the night almost as loudly as the gunshot had a few seconds before.

Doors flew open. The one next door, and then two doors down and then, thankfully, Karina’s.

“Call 911,” he yelled at Caleb. The big man’s eyes took in the scene at a glance, and he dashed back into the house.

As Karina rushed forward, Mason remembered Graham’s radio. He grabbed the shoulder mic, pressed the button and shouted to the dispatcher. “Ten thirty-three at—” What was Karina’s address? His mind grasped and dug up a fact he barely remembered that he knew. “—at Mountain View Apartments on North Chico. I need an ambulance, and I need it yesterday. Officer down.” His throat caught on the words. “I repeat—officer down.”

A small crowd had gathered around them. In the distance he heard a siren begin, and then another. His call had been heard.

He jerked his head upward to look toward the corner of the building. The shooter was getting away. He had to go after him.

The dispatcher said something in response to his call, but Mason wasn’t listening. Graham gurgled once more, and then went silent.

No! He stopped breathing
.

His gaze darted around the circle of observers. “Does anybody here know CPR?”

Nobody answered. Karina dropped to her knees beside him. “I don’t, but tell me what to do.”

Mason shook his head. It would take longer to tell her how to do it than to do it himself, and time was something Graham didn’t have. “No time.”

Moving by instincts he thought he’d forgotten long ago, he jerked Graham’s body straight. When he did, he felt the hard surface of the trauma plate of a bulletproof vest beneath his uniform. No way to get effective compressions with that thing on. He was ripping the buttons off his uniform shirt when Caleb reappeared in the doorway, a cell phone held to his ear.

“What’s the address here?” he asked.

Four people in the crowd shouted answers. Mason ignored them and continued with his job of exposing Graham’s chest. He was vaguely aware that Caleb relayed the address into the phone. A useless effort, he wanted to say. Help was already on the way. Couldn’t they hear the sirens approaching? A whole chorus of them filled the air, coming from all directions.

He ripped the Velcro straps open and jerked the vest away, experiencing another burst of grief. The vest could have saved Graham if the shooter hadn’t aimed at his head. “Quiet!” he yelled at the onlookers, and lay his ear on Graham’s chest.

Please, please. Let me hear something
.

Not a prayer, exactly, because he’d learned long ago that prayers for shooting victims went unanswered. More like a fervent, desperate wish.

A wish that was not granted.

“No heartbeat.”

Karina sobbed beside him as he felt for the man’s sternum. He rose up on his knees, locked his fingers and placed the heel of his lower hand in exactly the place he’d learned. Then with his elbows locked, he pushed down. Again. Again. Again. At the count of thirty he side-crawled to Graham’s head and lifted his chin. He saw the damage now. The bullet had taken him in the cheek. Judging by the amount of blood it had probably hit something vital, but he had to try. He wiped away as much blood as he could, covered his nose and lowered his mouth over the dead officer’s. Blew. A deep breath. A wave of relief swept over him when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the chest rise. That meant, incredibly, the air passage was clear.

Two breaths, and then back to the chest. Pump. Pump. Pump. Thirty times. Now two more breaths.

But as he lowered his head to Graham’s, someone rushed up from the side. And then someone else.

“I’ve got this, sir.”

He looked up, and realized the woman talking to him was a paramedic. Red lights flashed in the darkness, throwing spots of color onto the brick apartment building. And blue lights, too. A police car arrived, and an officer jumped out, ran toward him. Then another and another. The parking lot was alive with color.

He shifted away to let the paramedic take his place, and then another one, a man, pushed him away—not unkindly, but firmly—and lowered his ear to Graham’s chest. “Bring the shock box,” he shouted toward a third paramedic who was rounding the ambulance, then nodded at the woman. She gave the dying officer two breaths, and then the man started compressions.

Mason climbed to his feet and stood over them, watching. A soft arm looped through his, and Karina pulled him gently backward, out of the way. Police officers ran up from all
directions, their expressions as they saw one of their own prone on the ground ranging from nausea to fury.

Mason jerked upright. How long had it been? The killer was getting away.

“The shot came from over there.” With a jerky motion he pointed toward the corner of the building. “The shooter can’t have gotten far.”

Three officers nodded, drew their guns and took off. Two others started pushing back the crowd, which was increasing in number by the second. Mason watched, his stomach churning, while the third paramedic ran up with a defibrillator, and the other two stopped CPR long enough to get the paddles in place.

An officer burst through the crowd and ran toward him, his expression frantic.

Parker.

He looked down at his partner’s body, and then choked back something that was either a sob or a shout. Then he caught sight of Mason, and rushed over to him.

“What happened?” His hands grabbed Mason’s arms and tightened, as if he could squeeze the answer out of him. “Who shot him?”

Words stuck in Mason’s throat. He shook his head, and managed to choke. “I don’t know. My back was turned. He…”

His voice caught. Caleb placed a huge, steadying hand on his shoulder. Those final seconds replayed in his mind. Graham’s gaze sliding from his to something behind him. His hand going toward his gun. Left arm rising, extending toward Mason.

Not to hit him.

Mason closed his eyes, the memory alive. If Graham had been planning to hit him, he would have cocked his right arm back. Instead, his left arm reached toward Mason at an angle. He wasn’t getting ready to strike. He was trying to shove him out of the way.

An electrical whine came from the defib machine, increasing in volume and pitch until the hair on Mason’s arms rose. Then the paddles went onto Graham’s exposed chest, and a
kathunk!
sounded.

The female paramedic placed a stethoscope on his chest, listened, then shook her head.

“Again,” said the first.

Another whine. Another
kathunk.

Nothing.

Mason closed his eyes, unable to watch anymore.

* * *

She had never felt more helpless in her life. Karina stood in the doorway of the kitchen and listened to Detective Grierson’s angry voice. Mason sat in the living room in the corner chair, his arms on his thighs, his head drooped between hunched shoulders. On the couch, Parker sat with his elbow on the padded arm, his hand covering his eyes, fingers massaging his temple. She wanted to rinse the washcloth that lay on the carpet at Mason’s feet, the one he’d used to wipe Officer Graham’s blood from his face. But she didn’t dare enter the room.

Behind her Caleb sat at her kitchen table, his lips moving in a silent prayer. That’s what she should be doing, too. Praying for Officer Graham’s family. He had a wife, now a widow. Two children who were now fatherless. Pain twisted her heart. She knew the agony of losing a father.

Grierson’s shout filled the tiny living room with fury. “I don’t know what’s going on here, Sinclair, but you’d better start giving me some answers.”

Mason shook his head. “I don’t know anymore.”

“That’s not good enough!”

Mason’s head jerked up and he fixed Grierson with an angry stare. “Do you think I wouldn’t tell you what I knew?” His volume matched the detective’s. “A man just died trying to save my life. A police officer is dead because of me. I’m not holding anything back.”

Parker unshielded his eyes to scrub his hand across his mouth. “Let’s try to stay calm here. Mason, are you sure you didn’t see anything?”

Though he continued to glare for a minute at Grierson, he finally heaved a breath and turned a calmer look on Parker. “I wish I had. I heard the bushes rustle. Graham looked at something behind me, and he yelled in my ear. I dodged sideways, and the next thing I knew…”

Karina shut her eyes at the pain on Mason’s face.

Father, comfort him. He doesn’t know it, but he needs You
.

“What were you talking about?” Parker asked.

“Uh.” Mason rubbed at his forehead. “We were talking about Maddox, and—”

“Russell Maddox?” Grierson stomped across the carpet to stand in front of Mason. “What about him?”

Mason’s gaze connected with Karina’s across the room. She didn’t think he’d intended to mention Maddox in front of his former boss. The day’s stress had caught up with him. He looked tired. And no wonder. For a moment he stiffened, and she thought he might avoid answering. But then his shoulders drooped again.

“I’ve been doing some checking into the restaurant where José Garcia worked—”

“I knew it.” Grierson tossed his hands in the air and whirled around. “I told you to stay out of this investigation, but you wouldn’t listen. And now look what’s happened. A man’s down, a good man. I ought to haul you downtown tonight, you and her,” he jerked his head toward Karina, “and that bouncer you’ve got in the kitchen.”

Karina glanced behind her, and Caleb had straightened in his chair. He cast an offended look toward the living room.

Grierson shook his head and heaved a sigh. “But right now I’ve got to go tell Graham’s wife that she gets to raise those kids by herself.” He looked at Parker. “And since you were his partner, you get to go with me.”

Mason straightened. Every muscle in his body displayed reluctance. “If you want, I’ll go, too.”

The detective shook a finger in his face. “Not a chance. You are going to stay here and write a detailed statement telling me everything—
everything
—you’ve done since the minute you stepped off that plane. I want to know every person you’ve talked to, every place you’ve been, even every piece of food you’ve put in your mouth. And I want it in my hand by eight o’clock in the morning. You got that?”

Mason’s answer told Karina just how much Officer Graham’s death had shaken him. In a meek voice, he said, “Yes, sir.”

The response surprised Grierson as much as her. His brows arched, and for a moment he said nothing. Then he turned to Parker. “Harding, let’s go. I’ll leave my car here and ride with you. We have to pick up the grief counselor on the way.”

Parker rose. He skirted the coffee table and placed a hand on Mason’s slumped shoulder. “I’ll talk to you later, buddy.”

Behind Karina, Caleb rose from the table and joined her as Parker exited through the front door. Grierson stared at him for a moment, his eyes narrowing to slits.

“I don’t know who you are, or why you’re here, but see if you can keep him out of trouble, okay?”

Caleb nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

The detective’s gaze slid to her, and his seemed to soften a bit. But the next instant she thought she was mistaken, because he didn’t say anything. Instead he headed toward the door after Parker.

Just before he closed it, he paused and turned to look back into the room. “Sinclair.”

Mason looked up.

“It might be a good idea if you three didn’t stay here tonight. Go to a hotel somewhere, one where the rooms open into a hallway, not outside. Ask for an upper floor, so the windows are secure.”

Without waiting for an answer, he left. The three of them stared at the closed door in silence.

Finally Caleb said, “I could be wrong, but I think that man knows more than he’s letting on.”

Karina agreed. And if that were true, then there would only be one reason for his advice to get out of the apartment tonight. If they stayed here, they would be in danger.

TWENTY-TWO

M
ason tossed Karina’s overnight bag beside his and Caleb’s in the trunk of the rental, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “How about the Marriott on San Francisco Road? It’s got at least ten or twelve floors, and we could get two adjoining rooms.” He glared sideways at Karina. “And we’re leaving the connecting door open.”

He expected an argument in response, but she merely nodded. In the dark interior of the car her eyes were lost in pools of shadow, and her face looked abnormally pale.

No wonder. I’ll bet we all look a little shell-shocked
.

Mason started the engine and steered out of the parking lot. The clock on the dashboard read almost one in the morning. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror, watching for anything that might look like a tail. Not much traffic in the area right around the apartment complex, so he was fairly confident they weren’t being followed.

His gaze connected with Caleb’s in the mirror. The big man’s chin jerked upward. “You doing okay?”

Referring to the shooting, of course. The sight of Graham’s body flooded his mind’s eye. A shudder threatened, but Mason controlled it before it took hold. At the moment he wasn’t sure he’d ever be okay again.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Karina twisted around in the seat, one hand holding on to the shoulder strap of the seatbelt. “What were you and Officer Graham talking about when…” She cleared her throat.

“When he shoved me out of the way and took a bullet for me?” He winced at the harsh sound of his voice in the car’s otherwise quiet interior. “We were talking about—”

He’d been about to say they were talking about Maddox like he told Grierson, but they weren’t. Not really. Mason had been thinking about Maddox. He ran over the conversation in his mind. Maddox’s name was never mentioned.

“We were talking about the possibility of an illegal arms racket in Albuquerque, and Graham said he thought there might be something to it.” He lifted a shoulder. “Or, actually, he said it wasn’t impossible to believe, but a scheme like that would have to be huge to reach all the way up into the court system. And then he kind of changed the subject. Said he’d checked out my record, and it was clean. That he didn’t believe I killed Margie.”

He fell silent. The mention of Margie brought a wave of grief, as it always did. Only it was even heavier now. Maybe because someone had just died in front of him, killed the same way she had been. Or maybe it was because of the neighborhood he steered the car through. They’d lived not far from here, in a tiny apartment on the top floor of an old house. Quirky, she’d called it. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. They could have afforded something bigger, but Margie didn’t want to live in a housing development. She wanted to be in a neighborhood. And the apartment was close to the fitness center where she worked.

With a start, Mason realized the fitness center was only a couple of streets away. The place where José regularly delivered packages containing weapon parts. The place where Margie had been gunned down while leaving work. Somehow that fitness center tied the past and the present together.

He glanced in the rearview mirror. Nobody behind him. Without signaling, he jerked the wheel to the right and turned onto a side street.

Karina was thrown sideways in her seat. Clutching at the strap, she gave him a startled look. “Where are you going?”

“Just humor me for a minute.”

Suspicion drew her features together. “You’re going to that gym, aren’t you?”

He didn’t answer, but executed another turn.

Caleb spoke up from the back seat. “If I can weigh in on—”

Mason cut him off. “You can’t.”

“Why did you bring me here if you’re not going to at least listen to what I have to say?” He turned his head to stare through the window, sulking.

Karina cocked her head. “Gee, where have I heard that before?”

Mason ignored them both. The fitness center lay ahead of them. A sprawling one-story structure with a parking lot in the front and a drive that led around the back. When Mason and Karina had been teenagers, the building had housed a small grocery store. It had closed down during their senior year in high school and had been converted a few years later.

Mason slowed the car near the entrance to the parking lot. His eyes sought out one particular square on the sidewalk, exactly eleven feet from the place where the road concrete changed to asphalt. There. Right there. The muscles in his throat tightened. That’s where his wife had died. She’d just left work and was walking toward their home.

Karina’s hand snaked across the console. Her fingers touched his arm. No words of sympathy, but he didn’t need any. He’d heard them all before. They didn’t help.

He jerked the wheel and stepped on the gas. The car bounced as it crossed into the empty parking lot.

“There’s nobody here,” Caleb commented.

“No kidding?” Mason couldn’t have filtered the sarcasm out of his voice if he’d tried. His emotions were too raw, too close to the surface. “I was
sure
we’d find at least a half-dozen gym rats working out at one in the morning.”

He rolled through the parking lot, scanning the windows all along the front of the building. They’d been lined with a reflective coating that blocked the sun’s rays and made it impossible to see inside. Both Karina and Caleb held their tongues as the car rolled past, and Mason stared at their reflection in the glass. At the end of the building he turned onto the side driveway and headed for the back.

“What are you looking for?” Caleb asked.

The truth was, he had no idea. Something to prove his gut feeling about Maddox was correct? But even if they found proof that the fitness center was involved with illegal arms traffic, Maddox had placed enough padding between himself and this place that nobody would ever be able to get to him.

“I’ll know it when I see it,” he answered.

The drive opened onto a narrow rear lot. A big loading dock lay at the far end of the building. The huge metal door had rusted, and looked as though it hadn’t been opened in years. Beside it, nearer, was a regular door, also of thick metal. A Dumpster sat in the far corner of the lot. Old scraggly trees reached into the sky along the back of the asphalt, and giant scrub bushes had grown up between them to form a barrier to the buildings that lay on the other side. Nothing moved. The place was as deserted in the back as it had looked from the front.

Mason executed a U-turn so the car faced the only exit—a habit he’d learned at the police academy and had never given up—rolled to a stop by the door and shifted into Park. The hum of the idling engine provided a faint background that only made the silence in the car louder.

“I wish we could get inside,” he said.

“And see what?” Karina ducked her head to see across him, through the window. “Gym equipment?”

Mason shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s all there is. Maybe not.”

He noticed something then. Beside the door, mounted on the brick, was a keypad. The kind alarm companies installed in commercial buildings. It looked old, but the buttons glowed with a faint light. Maybe it still worked. Maybe this was the way the manager got inside every morning.

He opened the door and got out.

“Hey, Brother, where are you going?”

Caleb’s voice called after him, but he ignored it. He approached the keypad, bent over to examine it. The numbers on the buttons were almost rubbed off from frequent use.

Two car doors slammed, and then Karina and Caleb were beside him.

“This thing looks like it’s still being used,” he commented.

Caleb looked at it, then into his face. “Yeah. So?”

“So, I wonder if we can get in.”

Karina’s eyes widened. “Mason, you can’t be serious.”

“Oh yeah. I can be. And I am.” He looked from her to Caleb and back again. “Don’t you two see? There’s something going on. Graham knew what it was, or at least he suspected. Grierson knows something. I’ll bet if we can get inside we’ll find something in the manager’s office. Some sort of documentation or something that we can use as proof.”

“Proof of what?” Caleb asked. “Brother, that man we talked to today isn’t dumb enough to leave written records lying around that will point to him.”

Mason held Karina’s gaze when he answered. “Maybe you’re right. But maybe we’ll find proof that Alex didn’t kill José. Or at least something that will leave a questionable doubt in the minds of a jury.”

Her lips twisted as she thought about that. Then she nodded. “If we can do that, Alex will be found not guilty.”

“Exactly.”

Caleb’s head was still shaking. “I don’t like it. Besides, how are you going to get in there?” He tapped on the keypad. “This means there’s an alarm system. Unless you have skills I don’t know about, we can’t crack an alarm code.”

Mason clamped his jaw shut. Therein lay the problem. He could barely manage to remember the code to the alarm in his home, much less figure out someone else’s.

But he knew someone who might be able to.

He grinned at Caleb. “It’s for times like these we have a computer geek at our beck and call, right?”

He whipped out his cell phone and dialed Brent’s number. The line rang four times, and then went to voice mail. Mason immediately dialed again. This time the call was answered on the second ring.

Brent’s voice, husky with sleep, came on the line. “Are you
seriously
calling me at three fifteen in the morning?”

Mason had forgotten the time difference between Albuquerque and Atlanta. But even if he’d remembered, that wouldn’t have made a difference. He ignored the cranky comment.

“Power up your computer, dude. I need you to work some techno-magic and get me past a security system.”

In the background he heard a sleepy woman’s voice ask a question. Lauren, Brent’s wife.

“It’s Mason,” Brent answered. “Who else would have the nerve?” Then into the phone. “Where are you, anyway?”

Mason examined the darkness around him. “I’m standing in a parking lot, trying to get into the fitness center where my wife worked when she was murdered.”

A pause. He heard the shuffling sounds of movement, and knew Brent had gotten out of bed.

“All right, give me a minute to boot up. Did Caleb arrive okay this morning? I haven’t heard anything from either of you all day.”

“Yeah, he’s here. We’ve had a bit of excitement tonight. I’ll tell you about it later.”

The time seemed to stretch into hours. Familiar computer tones sounded in the background. A minute or so later Brent said, “Okay, I’m ready. What kind of system is it?”

The company name was etched on the side of the keypad. “Sugarcreek Security Systems.”

“Sugarcreek.” Computer keys tapped in the background. “Yeah, here it is. Hmm. I wonder what kind of system it is.”

He examined the keypad, but couldn’t find a model number. Of course, that didn’t mean a thing. This was just the access panel. The real system lay inside somewhere, probably in the back office. “It looks pretty old.”

“Well, let’s hope not. It’s going to be hard to disrupt the code in an old analog system. But if it’s a voice-over IP system with a digital signal, I might be able to do something. Give me a minute.”

Minutes passed, during which the only sound Mason could hear was the tapping of keys and Brent’s breath coming in over the phone.

“Let me see. Looks like you’re at 756 West Jefferson Avenue?”

Mason held the phone out and looked at it. Amazing. He’d known there was a GPS system in this fancy device, but had no idea it could pinpoint his location down to a specific street address. Karina and Caleb both watched him, unspoken questions etched on their faces. Mason shook his head and put the phone back to his ear.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Okay, I’m tapping into you now and scanning for signals in your area. Stand as close to the alarm system as you can.”

Mason edged toward the wall and bent at the waist until his cell phone, still held to his ear, was inches away from the keypad. “I’m right next to it.”

“Good. Give me a minute.”

More tapping, and then a long pause.

And then a sound that cracked almost as loud as a gunshot in the parking lot. The click of a door lock.

Mason grabbed the metal handle and shoved it downward. All the way down. He could hardly believe it. Karina’s mouth hung open, and Caleb’s eyeballs nearly popped out of his head.

“We’re in.” He pulled the door open, speaking into the phone at the same time. “Dude, you rock.”

A smile sounded in Brent’s response. “Next time give me something hard.” His tone became serious. “I assume you know what you’re doing, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mason replied. “Don’t worry. I can handle it. Go back to bed.”

He disconnected the call and pulled the door open. Exchanging a glance with Caleb, he stepped forward. The big man nodded and stepped in front of Karina. He put a protective arm in front of her, and followed Mason across the threshold.

Inside the fitness center, nothing moved. Mason stood, statuelike, and scanned the room. The shadowy, spidery figures of exercise equipment filled a wide-open area. Beneath his shoes the same thin, worn carpet he remembered. The combined odors of stale sweat and antiseptic spray filled his nostrils.

The door started to swing closed behind Karina, but in the moment before it latched shut, he leaped backward and caught it.

“We might trigger the alarm if we open it when we leave.”

He found that he had whispered the explanation, though he couldn’t say for sure why. Obviously no one could hear. He looked around for something to wedge in the door, but came up empty.

“Here.” Karina slipped off a sandal and offered it to him. “I’ll get it on the way out.”

He set the thin shoe in the crack between the door and the doorjamb while she removed the other one and set it aside. Then they crept forward.

The office was in the corner to their right, and he directed Caleb there with a nod. The door was closed, but when Caleb turned the knob, it opened. He grinned at Mason, opened the door and went inside.

“Help him check the files,” Mason told Karina. “I’m going to look around out here.”