True Blue (16 page)

Beth didn’t bite. “Where the hell is Mace?”

Roy’s smile disappeared. “I don’t know.”

Since Beth was wearing two-inch heels she was nearly eyeball to eyeball with the tall Roy. “You want to try that answer again?”

“We hooked up and then we parted company. And I came back here.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t gotten a lot of work done lately, for obvious reasons. Just trying to catch up. And I was going to make some phone calls.”

“At this hour?”

“To Dubai. It’s the next day there.”

“Thanks for the geography lesson. Where is he?”

“Fourth floor.”

He led them to the stairs. “Why not the elevator?” asked Beth.

Because your little sister has my key card
, thought Roy. But he said, “The elevators were acting a little funny when I came down. I don’t want to get stuck in one.”

They trooped up the steps, two armed plainclothes and a uniform in the lead. Other cruisers and unmarked cars were pulling up out front and a perimeter was being set.

“How did you go from working late to ending up on the construction floor in a confrontation?” Beth asked.

“Heard something.”

“From the sixth floor!”

“I meant I heard something on the elevator ride up. Didn’t think too much of it, but then I remembered the day porter telling me about stuff going missing from the construction site so I decided to check it out.”

“You should’ve called the police right way. You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

“I guess you’re right.”

They reached the fourth floor and the lawmen pulled their guns and lights and followed Roy’s directions. They found the Captain still on the floor, only he wasn’t twitching. He seemed to be asleep.

They gave the okay and Beth and Roy came forward.

She looked at the man on the floor.

“He’s a big, tough-looking guy. Ex-military if the jacket and medals are real. How’d you subdue him?” She turned and looked at Roy intently.

Roy bent down and picked up the piece of wood that Mace had given to him. “I used this. You can see the blood on it.”

“You whacked him with this? Did he attack you?”

“No, but I was afraid he might. It all happened so fast,” he added.

Beth turned to her men. “Get Sleeping Beauty out of here.” She glanced at Roy. “I think we can chance the elevator. I need your key card to access it.”

Roy patted his pockets and checked his windbreaker. “Damn, I must’ve left it in my office. Now I can’t get back in. I’m sorry, you’ll have to use the stairs.”

Several more uniforms had joined them and it took all of their combined strength to get the bulky Captain down to the lobby.

Beth said, “I want you to run through everything from the top.”

“Okay, hey, you want to go get a drink while we do it?”

“No, Mr. Kingman, I don’t want to go get a drink. I want the truth.”

“I’m telling you the truth, Chief.”

“From the top, then, and don’t leave anything out, slick. I’m this close to busting your ass on obstruction, tampering, lying to the police, and for just being
stupid
.”

Roy said wearily, “Are you sure you and your sister aren’t twins?”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind.” He drew a resigned breath and started talking.

She went over the timeline again that her sister had told her and Roy had supplemented. Because Tolliver had had to use her key card that morning they had a pretty detailed understanding of her movements. The garage entry showed Tolliver had checked in at six. Ned had heard her voice in the lobby a minute or so later. She’d swiped her card in the elevator and entered the premises of Shilling & Murdoch ninety seconds after that. Roy had arrived at the office at seven-thirty and found her at a bit past eight. Mace didn’t believe that Tolliver had been alive when Roy got to the office, so she was looking at about ninety minutes for the murder to have occurred and the lady to get stuffed in the icebox.

Tolliver had e-mailed Roy late Friday night. She also had sent him a book with a key in it, probably on the same day. An ex–Army Ranger had been hiding out on the fourth floor and right now was probably the prime suspect. Mace looked at her watch. Gazing out Roy’s office window she’d seen the patrol cars pull up to the building. She figured Dockery was already under arrest, and they’d take a DNA sample from him. If it matched, he was done. Neat, tied together. And then Mace could tell Beth the truth of her figuring it out, nailing the guy, and possibly get her old job back.

So what was bothering her?

She trudged back to Roy’s office so she could see when they brought Dockery out. Like Roy had said, he had a dead-on view of the front of the building.

She pulled something from her pocket. It was a copy of the key that Tolliver had left in the book for Roy. Mace had had a “friend” make the copy for her after she’d left Binder’s goodie shop, with the warning that if he messed up the prints on the original key, she would Taser him until his brain started smoking. That actually would pale in comparison to what Beth would do to her if she found out about the key copy.

She thought of the e-mail Tolliver had sent Roy.
We need to focus in on A
. And the
A
was followed by a hyphen. A seemingly trivial detail, but she knew the seemingly unimportant usually became critical in a criminal investigation. She came by her investigative instincts honestly. Her father had been so good at observing and deducing things that the FBI had asked him to teach a course on fieldwork for them at the academy, a tradition that Beth had carried on.

Roy was right, though. It was awkwardly phrased.

We need to focus in on
.

She looked down at the key in her hand. Why not just say,
We need to key on A-
?

“We need to key on A-,” she said out loud, hoping something would click in her head. Just a coincidence? Key and key? Key on a key?

She sighed and looked out Roy’s office window. Marked and unmarked cars were slung around the front with uniforms and plain-clothes standing around, probably wondering when they could either go back on patrol or return to their hoodles and wait for their radios to bark.

No one was coming out of the building yet, so Mace sighed and lifted her gaze from the front entrance to the building across from where she was.

When she saw the neon, at first she couldn’t believe it.

“Damn!”

She looked down at her key and back at the flashing sign. How in the hell had she missed it? It was purple! But then again she’d never looked out this window at night. But still. Some detective she was.

She snatched the phone from her pocket and fired off a text to Roy.

Come on, Roy, we need to talk like right now.

“Dubai calling?” she said coolly.

“No, just a bud in town.”

“Bud’s up late.”

“We’re both night owls.”

“Good for you,” she said, her tone of skepticism delivered like a cannon shot.

“Are we done here, Chief?”

“For now. But next time you hear strange sounds, call the police.”

“You have my word.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t do trial work anymore.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because your bullshitting skills aren’t that good.”

She turned and marched out of the building while Roy sprinted for the stairs.

Mace was waiting at the front doors to the law firm.

“What the hell is it?” he said as she grabbed his arm and pulled him into the suite. “Your sister was still with me when you sent the text.”

“Come on.”

They hustled to Roy’s office.

Mace went to the window, Roy beside her. She pointed out. “Tell me what you see.”

He scanned the darkness. “Buildings. The street. A pissed-off police chief.”

“Think Viagra.”

“What?”

“Purple!”

He saw the large purple neon sign over the door of a ground-floor shop in the building directly across from his. “A-1 Mailboxes! That’s what the key’s for?”

“That’s right, genius. Focus in on? Try
key
on A-1. Right across the stupid courtyard.”

“She must’ve figured it was outside my window and the e-mail she sent would be enough for me to figure it out.” He looked chagrined. “I’ve been looking out this stupid window all day. But
you
figured it out.”

“Don’t feel too bad. If I hadn’t looked out the window to see if my big sister was scaling the building like King Kong to grab my butt I never would’ve seen it.”

“But now we can’t do anything. The police have the key.”

“Roy, Roy, I’m disappointed.” She held up her key.

“You made a copy?”

“Of course I made a copy.”

“Mace, that’s evidence tampering. That’s illegal.”

“Now do you understand why I put you on retainer? So you can’t squeal on me.”

“I could lose my license over this!”

“Yeah, but you probably won’t.”

“Probably again? I don’t like those odds.”

“Fine, you can sit this one out. I’ll check out the mailbox tomorrow.”

“But you don’t know which mailbox was hers.”

“Roy, again, I’m very disappointed in you.”

“You have a way to find that out?”

“There’s always a way.”

“Just so you know, your sister clearly didn’t buy my cover story.”

“Of course she didn’t. Contrary to popular belief, one does not get to be police chief of a major city by being either stupid or gullible.”

“Mace, what if she finds out you’re investigating this thing on your own?”

“Well, there’s always suicide.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Look, I know it’s risky and stupid, but I’ve got my reasons.”

“What are they?”

“Let’s just say I had a revelation while taking a pee in the ladies’ room. Now give me a ride back to the hotel. I need to pick up my bike.”

“Okay, I need some shuteye too.”

“I didn’t say I was going to bed.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Until we can check out the mailbox I need something else to occupy my mind. So I’m going to see some old friends.”

“At this hour?”

“They do their best work in the dark.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “You’re not a cop anymore, Mace. You don’t have the shield to back you up. These gangs are dangerous.”

“As you should have realized by now, I can take care of myself.”

“I’ll go with you then.”

“No. Me they’ll tolerate. You, they’ll kill, okay?”

“Don’t do this. It’s nuts.”

“No, this is my world.”

Mace lifted her visor and did a quick recon. The part of D.C. she was in right now, within smelling distance of the Anacostia River, was not listed on any official map of the area for the simple reason that robbed, assaulted, or murdered out-of-towners were never good publicity for the tourism industry. Even with the new ballpark and attempts at gentrification in nearby areas, there were sections of turf here that even some of the blue tended to avoid if they could. After all, they wanted to go home to their families at the end of the day too.

Mace hit the throttle and moved on. She knew there were eyes everywhere, and she was also listening for the sounds of “whoop-whoop” or collective cries of “Five-O.” This was the way the folks around here let it be known that blues were in town. The bandits’ network even knew which fleet the MPD used for unmarked cars. Since the fleet purchases were large, the police force had to keep them for about three years. Before Mace had gone to prison, the array of unmarked cars had all been blue Chevy Luminas. Every night she’d heard the whoop-whoops as soon as she pulled down the street in her glow-blue ride. She’d gotten so ticked off she’d started renting cars with her own cash.

In one ear she had a bud connected to a police radio she wore on her belt. She was scanning calls to see where the action was. So far it was a quiet night, at least by D.C. standards. She figured she might find some useful intel at a hoodle.

Along the way she passed a bunch of hoopties, old junked cars lining the street. Many of them, she knew from experience, were probably stolen, used for a crime, and then dumped here. Yet enclosed spaces were popular around here for multiple reasons, so from habit, Mace peered in a few as she passed by. One was empty, one had a syringe shooter getting happy juice up his arm, and the last one was a fornication feature starring two girls and one very drunk guy who she knew would wake up in about an hour with his wallet gone.

Mace pulled slowly into a church parking lot and spotted a trio of cruisers parked side by side hood to trunk. This was a hoodle, the place where cops who’d made their rounds went until the dispatcher’s squawk over the radio brought them back to fighting crime. She knew better than to zoom into this little circled wagon train. You didn’t want to get drawn down on because you interrupted the rest of a stressed-out patrol officer. She stopped her bike well in front of one of the cruisers facing her, took off her helmet, and waved. Chances were good that she knew at least one of the blues in these rides, and her hunch was proven correct when one of the cop cars blinked its lights at her.

She slipped off her Ducati and walked over. The driver of the first cruiser slid down his window and the man leaned out his head.

He said, “Damn, Mace, heard you got your ass lifted out of West Virginia. Good to see you, girl.”

Mace leaned down and rested her elbows on the ledge of the open window. “Hey, Tony, how’s hoodle time?”

Tony was in his mid-forties with a thick neck, burly shoulders, and forearms the size of Mace’s thighs, all the result of serious gym time. He’d been a good friend to Mace and had provided her with flawless backup on more than one occasion when she’d been with Major Narcotics. Next to him was a Panasonic Toughbook laptop that was about as important to a cop as a gun—although the most important piece of equipment any cop carried was his radio. That was his lifeline to call in help when needed.

Tony flashed a smile. “Quiet tonight. Not so quiet last night. Did the circuit, been here twenty minutes, listening to some tunes.” He looked over at the young female cop next to him. “Francie, this is Mace Perry.”

Francie, who had short strawberry red hair and braces and looked like she was about fifteen, smiled at Mace. Yet she had a blocky build with buffed shoulders that told you not to mess with her. Both officers wore gloves thick enough that a syringe couldn’t penetrate easily. The last thing you wanted was to stick your hand under the front seat of a car you were doing a stop-and-search on and pull it back out with a needle sticking in it. Mace had known one beat cop who’d become HIV-infected that way.

“Hey, Francie, how long you been riding with this big old bear?”

“Six weeks.”

“So he’s your training officer?”

“Yep.”

“You could do a lot worse.”

Tony said, “Throwing arrests her way left and right. Getting in her courtroom OT. Being a real gentleman and teacher.”

Mace smacked him playfully on the arm. “Hell, you just don’t want to do the paperwork.”

“Now don’t go disillusioning the girl.”

“Sometimes I still miss roll call.”

Tony cracked a grin. “You’re crazy, Mace. Same old, same old. Just doling out bodies and wheels and running around trying to find some damn car keys.”

“Beats staring at a wall for two years.”

Tony stopped smiling. “I bet it does, Mace, I bet it does.”

“Same old same old bandits around here too?”

“Except the ones who’re dead.”

Mace glanced at the other cruisers. “Anybody I know?”

“Don’t think so. They send folks all over the place now.”

“So remind me how big your kids are?”

“One in college, two in high school and eating me out of house and home. Even when I pull my full twenty-five and get pensioned out, gonna have to get another job.”

“Go into consulting. Doesn’t matter what, it pays a lot better.”

“So why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re doing out here at two a.m. on your fancy bike with no gun.”

“How do you know I’m not packing?”

“Can you say probation violation?”

Mace grinned at Francie. “You see why he’s such a good T.O. Nothing gets by this guy. He looks like a musclehead but the dude’s got brains.”

“Seriously, Mace, why here?”

“Nostalgia.”

Tony laughed. “Go look in a photo album if you want that. Streets ain’t never fair, especially around here.” He turned serious. “You know that better than anybody.”

“You’re right, I do. Only they never found out who ripped me. That’s not right.”

“I know.”

“So how many blues think I’m dirty?”

“Honestly?”

“Only way that matters to me.”

Seventy-thirty on your side.”

“I guess it could be worse.”

“Hell yes it could be, considering who you share DNA with.”

“Beth is a cop’s cop. She came up right from the pavement, just like I did.”

“But she’s also a gal and you know some still don’t like that.”

“Well, hang in there, Tony, four more years.”

“I’m counting, baby, every damn day.”

She looked over at Francie. “And if Tony does pull his gun, just remember to duck. The son of a bitch never could shoot straight.”