“What else could have happened?” asked the deputy.
“Suppose he never drew his weapon in the first place?” “Shit,” the deputy snorted. “That don’t make no sense either.”
Warren nodded pensively. “No. No, it doesn’t. A cop hears shots, he’s gonna pull his gun. It’s instinct. Unless…”
Suppose somebody shot Watts first? Chest shot first, then, as he lay on the ground, the head shot. That would work. And Schmidtt? He had to be shot second. Well, maybe he didn’t have to be, but it sure made sense.
The accomplice!
So, somebody comes in the front door, pops Watts, and then goes into the cellblock to break out his buddy, Nathan.
Okay, so where was this accomplice now? Helps the kid break out of the JDC and then disappears, only to reappear in New York in time to kill two cops. That Was some accomplice!
Then he saw it.
The mind is a funny thing. You program it with a certain set of assumptions, and it will dutifully draw dozens of conclusions, all of which are plainly obvious—common sense, even—so long as you never question the validity of the assumptions. The most oft-forgotten job of a police detective is not only to seek evidence, but to continually question the most basic assumptions on which the case was based.
In a single moment of inspiration, Warren realized that they’d been looking at all of the evidence surrounding Nathan’s escape from the wrong angle. Even when he had allowed himself to accept the kid’s version of what happened at the JDC, he hadn’t seen it. Those two deputies were never the target of whoever shot them. They were just in the way.
Warren’s body jumped visibly when it all crystallized for him. Nathan was in far deeper trouble than any of them had realized.
“Deputy, get me Sheriff Murphy right now,” he Commanded.
The young man seemed startled by Micliaels’s suddenly harsh tone. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know where he is…”
“I didn’t ask you if you knew where he is. I told you to go get him. And point me to a phone.”
Jed Hackner nearly dropped the phone when he heard Michaels’s theory. “A hit? Jesus, Warren, are you sure?”
“Think about it, Jed,” Michaels said urgently. “If we assume somebody’s got a contract out on Nathan, everything else falls into place. This kid’s not a killer. He’s just defending himself.”
Jed admitted that the theory had merit, but making sense didn’t make it so. Perhaps Brian’s death last fall was making the boss lose perspective. “With all due respect, Warren, don’t you think maybe you’re taking benefit of the doubt too far?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Warren acknowledged, his voice getting more anxious. “I know it sounds like I’ve lost it, but think. It’s more than just the killings. How do you explain the breakdown of the video security at the JDC—not the whole system, mind you, but just the parts that would show Ricky coming and going.”
“And the plane ticket.” Jed saw it, too.
“What plane ticket?”
Jed told him about his visit to Ricky’s apartment and his talk with Mitsy.
Warren’s excitement showed in his voice. “I think that pushes it over the top,” he said. “Why else would Harris go to so much trouble just to kill a kid? You don’t trash your whole life just because you don’t like a resident at the JDC. Hell, he didn’t like any of the residents of the JDC. Somebody had to be paying him.”
“So who’s gonna put a contract out on a kid?” Jed asked.
“Beats the hell out of me,” conceded Warren. “That’s what I want you to find out. I’ve got to call off the dogs up here. You said you were gonna do some digging into Ricky Harris. Try his financial records. See if you can ID who’s funding him.”
Jed frowned. “We’ve already started, but we haven’t turned up much. Wait.” A manila envelope had materialized in Jed’s in basket since the last time he had visited his office. It bore the logo of Braddock Bank and Trust. “Cancel that. We have his bank records. Must have just gotten here.”
“All right, good. Start there. Get me a good solid case that Nathan’s a good guy and that Ricky’s the bad guy.”
“You got it, boss.”
“And Jed?”
“Yeah?”
“Get that kid Thompkins involved in the investigation. After the week he’s had, he could use a few (atta boys.”
Jed smiled. “Nobody was ever that nice to us, you know.” Warren laughed. “Yeah, I know. Well, if I’m wrong on this one, there’ll be plenty of career mobility for all of you.”
Chapter 33
Nathan dialed continuously for over an hour before the phone line finally rang. Billy caught the change in the rhythm of dial-hang-up, dial-hang-up, and instantly shifted his attention from The Price Is Right.
After thirty rings, a familiar voice answered.
“You’ve reached The Bitch line,” Enrique said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Hi, it’s me,” Nathan said simply. “I need to talk to Denise.”
Enrique recognized the voice right away. “Hold on, Nathan, I’m sure she’ll put you right on. Callers have been pretty tough on you today.”
“I bet,” Nathan said dejectedly. “Been a tough day all around.”
“Did you do any of what they’re now saying?” Enrique probed gently. It wasn’t his place to ask such a question, but he couldn’t help it. He had to know.
“I didn’t kill those cops, if that’s what you mean.”
“Glad to hear it,” Enrique said, meaning every word. No doubt about it, he was a believer. “I’ll put you through now.”
While on hold, Nathan could hear the end of the last conversation. Some lady was calling him a “bad seed,” whatever that meant. Denise hung up on her abruptly, and his line went live.
“Nathan Bailey, are you there?”
“I didn’t do it!” Nathan blurted out.
Denise read the panic in his voice and fought away tears. “Okay, kid, I believe you,” she soothed. `Tell us what happened.”
He did. When he was done, The Bitch was fifteen commercials behind. The list would grow considerably longer before it began to shrink.
Harry Thompkins couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “You mean he named me specifically? I thought he was pissed.”
Jed laughed. “I’ve known Lieutenant Michaels a long time, kid. Trust me, if you leave the meeting able to stand, he’s not pissed.”
Thompkins was overcome with a sense of respect and warmth that he had never before felt on the job. Michaels could have had his ass fired, and no one would have said a thing. Instead, he ordered him by name to be put on the most visible case of the year—hell, of the decade.
Jed laughed again. “Christ, Harry, don’t look so stunned. He was a rookie once. A pretty stupid one, at that.”
Harry smiled. “The mirror?”
“Yep, the mirror.”
“So that actually happened?”
“Sure did. Took him years to recover the ground he lost that day.”
Harry couldn’t shake his feeling of incredulity. “I guess I owe him one.”
Jed clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “Yes, you do,” he said jovially. His mood turned suddenly serious. “Now to the business at hand,” he said. “The lieutenant wants us to swim upstream on this case. Wants us to prove that somebody has a contract out on the Bailey kid; that that’s the reason Harris tried to kill him. We’ve got bank records on Ricky that show a twenty-thousand-dollar deposit three weeks ago and then a total withdrawal of all funds the morning he was killed. When we’re done there, he wants us to show that the cops in New York were killed by a hit man, not by Nathan. We’re both convinced that Nathan was the intended target.”
“A hit man?”
Jed nodded. “Makes sense, really, if…”
“Holy shit, that’s it!” Harry proclaimed, cutting Jed off in mid-sentence.
“What’s what?”
Harry didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up Jed’s phone and dialed information.
“Braddock Hospital, please,” he said after a short pause. “Emergency Department.”
Tad Baker hadn’t given the Bailey matter much thought since he had last spoken with Harry Thompkins. When he heard that the police officer was holding for him, it took Tad a minute to piece together their last conversation.