Cyril Timko stood twenty feet away. His back was to Frost, his arms outstretched with a gun in his hands.
Then everything happened at once.
Someone shouted. It was muffled by the roar on the roof.
Cyril fired. Once, twice, three times, four times, in almost instant succession, with a flash of light each time. Smoke burned the air. Frost wheeled around the corner and aimed his own gun at the other cop.
“Cyril!” he shouted, his voice barely audible.
The captain’s aide turned his head and saw him, and his gun hand went slack. “It’s okay,” he called. “It’s over. We’re clear.”
Frost hurried toward him as Cyril calmly holstered his gun. On the other side of the shed, ten feet away, Frost saw Trent Gorham stretched across the ground, motionless, leaching blood into the puddles. Gorham’s own gun was next to his hand. Beyond Gorham, trapped against one of the air conditioning units with nowhere to run or escape, was Fox.
“Gorham was going to kill the kid,” Cyril said. “I had to take him out.”
Frost studied the man’s face, which was expressionless. Cyril had just killed another cop, but the incident seemed to have taken no emotional toll on him. Frost went to Gorham and checked his condition, but Cyril’s aim had been precise. Three bullet holes made a tight circle around Gorham’s heart. One was in the center of his forehead, bright red below his wet sandy hair. He’d died instantly.
They could hear sirens on the street below.
“The cavalry is here,” Cyril said. “I’ll let them know where to find us.”
Frost didn’t say anything in response. He stared at Fox, who was frozen in place, his back against the metal panel, his hands clenched into fists. The boy was dressed in black, as he always was, but his teenage James Dean bravado was gone. His eyes were frightened and wide, shifting back and forth from Frost to Cyril to the dead body on the roof.
“Is that what happened, Fox?” Frost asked the boy, his voice low enough that Cyril couldn’t hear him. “Was the cop on the ground going to shoot you?”
Fox’s eyes darted nervously to Cyril, and Frost took a step sideways to block him from the boy’s view. He repeated the question. “You can tell me the truth. Was he going to shoot you?”
“I guess he was,” the boy murmured.
“You guess?”
“He had a gun,” Fox said, “and he killed Mr. Jin.”
“Are you sure? Did you see him do it?”
“He was standing over the body when I came in the window,” Fox said. “Who else could have done it?”
Frost stood up in the rain and shook his head. When he looked over at Cyril, their eyes met across the dim light of the roof. The other cop had already pulled out his e-cigarette again and was sucking on it calmly.
“Yeah,” Frost said. “Who else?”
39
It was midafternoon by the time Frost had wrapped up several hours of questioning inside police headquarters in Mission Bay. When he was done, Captain Hayden called him into his office. The captain closed the door behind them and settled into the oversized chair that he filled completely. The smell of a cigar wafted from his uniform.
“How’s Fox?” Frost asked.
The captain cocked his large head. “Fox? Who’s that?”
“The boy. Mr. Jin’s son.”
“Oh, of course. The psychiatrist says he’s not dealing well with his father’s death, but that’s to be expected. He’s in the hands of Human Services now. They’ll look after him until we can find other relatives.”
“Is that safe?” Frost asked.
“Given the way things turned out, he shouldn’t be in any further danger,” Hayden replied. “With Gorham dead, the boy doesn’t know anything that would put him at risk from Lombard.”
Frost frowned. “I hope you’re right.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning the boy may be too scared to tell us everything he knows.”
Hayden shook his head dismissively. “What are you saying, that Gorham was innocent? If Gorham didn’t kill Mr. Jin, who else could have done it? You said yourself that the apartment was empty. Cyril didn’t meet anyone coming down the stairs, and neither did you. There’s no way anyone else made it out of the building.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Frost waited a moment and then added, “I’m curious, sir. Why did Cyril move in on Gorham so quickly?”
“You know exactly why,” Hayden said. “We talked about it last night.”
“Yes, but we had no actual proof that Gorham was connected to Lombard.”
“Maybe not, but Gorham was on the move, so I felt we couldn’t take any chances. It was my call to have Cyril go into that building. And now we know we were right about Gorham. Whether he was Lombard himself or just an operative, he was definitely part of the network. He killed Mr. Jin, and he would have shot the boy if Cyril hadn’t been there to stop him. He took two shots at him up on the roof. What more do you want, Easton?”
Frost had been asking himself the same thing. What more did he want?
The truth was, he wanted to know what Fox had seen from the balcony window. And he wanted to know who Gorham was really shooting at on the roof.
“I’d like to talk to Fox myself,” Frost said. “If he knows more than he’s telling us, I may be able to get it out of him.”
Hayden shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You know that. We’re talking about a cop shooting a cop. I don’t want anyone coming up with the idea that we’re coaching witnesses.”
“So what are you going to tell the press about Gorham?” Frost asked.
“I’ll tell the truth. Gorham was dirty. He was involved in eliminating witnesses, including Mr. Jin and possibly several others. Given that he was formerly on the drug beat in vice, the obvious conclusion will be that he was recruited by Diego Casal or one of Casal’s competitors.”
“In other words, Denny and the others were casualties in a drug war,” Frost concluded. “That’s exactly what Lombard wants everyone to believe.”
Hayden shrugged. “Look, you know how it works, Easton. Sometimes we have to accept the cover story because we don’t have a choice.”
“In other words, Lombard wins?” Frost said.
“Maybe. For now. Or maybe Lombard died on that roof.”
“I’d like to share your optimism about that, sir,” Frost replied, “but I’m cynical. Lombard gets everything he wants and then gets shot just as he eliminates the last witness? I have a hard time believing that.”
“You may be right,” Hayden agreed. “That may be wishful thinking on my part. It’s possible Gorham was just one more Lombard pawn. But if you take enough pawns, eventually you get the king.”
Frost studied the captain behind his desk. He knew he had to make a decision about whom to trust. He thought about his former lieutenant Jess Salceda, who’d been killed the previous year. Frost and Jess had been colleagues. Friends. One-time lovers. Jess had also been Captain Hayden’s ex-wife. It made for an uncomfortable triangle, and Frost was sure it was part of the reason that Hayden had never liked him.
But he also remembered what Jess had told him about Hayden. She hated him as much as she loved him, but as a cop, he always had her back. He was ambitious and political, but he was one of the good guys.
He was willing to put his faith in what Jess believed.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir?” Frost said. “You won’t like it.”
Hayden offered him a curious smile. “Go ahead.”
“How well do you know Cyril?”
The captain was silent. Frost expected anger, but there was no sign of it on Hayden’s face. He leaned back dangerously far in his chair and stared at the office ceiling. “In other words, could the spy be in my own house?”