Killing Red (24 page)

A second shot followed, this time from the other end of the corridor, the one Chapa had walked through back when he still thought following dangerous men into dark alleys was a good idea. Then another, and the large man’s forehead exploded into blood-slicked shards of torn flesh an instant before he crumbled into a mass of muscle beside the Dumpster.

“Were you hit?”

The voice seemed to be coming from another area code.

“Can you hear me, Mr. Chapa?”

Closer now, but still not in the same neighborhood where Chapa lay, sprawled across a dank bed of filth.

“We’re going to need an ambulance and the coroner.”

Chapa wondered which one was coming for him.

“Is he shot?”

This voice was different.

“I don’t think so, I’m pretty sure I saw the bullet bite off a piece of brick along that wall.”

Chapa opened his eyes and took a moment to process the face that was looking down at him with a moderate degree of concern.

“Brandon.”

“Yes sir.”

“You brought me the shitty coffee this morning.”

The agent smiled and turned to his partner.

“He’s okay, Eisenhuth. Looks like he just scrambled his brains a bit when he went down.”

They told him not to move until the paramedics got there, but Chapa did not listen. Willing himself to stand, he stumbled over to the body. He had to get a closer look at the face of the man who had tried to kill him.

“Actually, I’m not sure he was shooting at you,” Brandon said.

“I think he was aiming at us,” his partner, Eisenhuth, a well-worn man in his fifties, added.

The body seemed smaller now that it was folded up and resting there, like just another piece of refuse. An undersized yet dedicated drum and bugle corps started playing in Chapa’s head when he bent down to get a better look. Eisenhuth quickly stepped in and slipped a gloved hand beneath the dead man’s chin.

“Let me help you here, Mr. Chapa.”

He tilted the head up, and Chapa studied what was left of the guy’s face. He had seen what a bullet could do to a body a few times over the years, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you ever got used to. The shot had removed the upper half of the man’s forehead and several inches from the front of his scalp.

“I just don’t know. Maybe I never saw his face,” Chapa said, then fell back into a sitting position, and Brandon knelt behind to keep him from going all the way down.

“But I remember that,” Chapa said, pointing to the distinctive tattoo.

Eisenhuth picked up the dead man’s flaccid hand and examined it.

“It’s a tarot symbol.”

Brandon leaned in, across Chapa’s shoulder.

“What does it mean?”

“Damned if I know, but a crazy in-law of mine was into this shit.”

“They’re not into it anymore?” Chapa joined the conversation.

“They’re no longer my in-laws. Divorced.”

“Been there, still there,” Chapa said and forced himself to stand as he heard the sound of sirens rushing down a nearby street.

“The ambulance should be here any second now, we’ll get you down to the hospital,” Brandon said, cradling Chapa’s elbow for support.

“The hell you will,” he responded and shook his arm free. “You need to get a statement from me, down at your office. Just get a doctor there to look at my head, and maybe my back.”

“Andrews warned me you’d be—his words, not mine—a stubborn pain in the ass.”

Chapa nodded as he tried in vain to wipe off some of the grime.

“Get him down there too. Tell him his old pal will buy him a drink if he drags his sorry carcass out of bed.”

“He’s already on his way to the office.”

Chapa closed his eyes and tried to get his mixed up thoughts to quit doing cartwheels.

“Check his other pocket, he was reaching in it for something,” Chapa remembered. “But be careful.”

Using a thin pair of silver tongs, Eisenhuth removed a syringe that was half full, and also what appeared to be a ceremonial dagger.

“I wonder if that knife is a match for the ones in the tattoo,” Brandon said.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Eisenhuth responded as he slipped the items into clear plastic evidence bags.

Paramedics were making their way into the alley, but Chapa’s thoughts were finally starting to come together. He turned to Brandon, who was busy directing all of the people who were suddenly flooding into the area.

“So Andrews got the call and sent you down here?”

“What call?”

“I left him a message a short while ago.”

“He didn’t say anything about that.”

Some pieces were still missing, and Chapa gently ran his hand along the back of his head to see if maybe a few of them had tumbled out.

“I don’t get it, then how did you find me?”

With a sternness and sense of authority that belied his age, Brandon ordered the growing crowd of onlookers to step back and clear both ends of the alley, before giving Chapa his full attention.

“I’m sorry to break this to you, Mr. Chapa, but we’ve been on your tail since you left the office this morning. Boss’ orders.”

With that, Brandon returned to his duties, leaving Chapa to face a trio of paramedics who were anxious to get him on a stretcher.

“Not a chance,” he said, and walked off in search of Eisenhuth and a ride back to his car.

“What, exactly, in our long and sordid history would lead you to believe I would listen when you tell me to trust you with something like this?”

Chapa was already feeling like an idiot, sitting there with his shirt off, fourteen fresh stitches where the edge of the Dumpster had sliced off a small piece of his back. Now he was getting lectured. He deserved it all right, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant.

“Look, Joe, can this scolding wait until the next time my head feels like it has something, anything, in common with the rest of my body, other than hurting like hell, that is?”

“You have a minor concussion. Maybe it will do you some good.”

“Like I told you this morning, I had it all under control.”

Brandon walked up behind Andrews who was lining up the half dozen or so perfectly sharpened pencils on his desk. The young agent was all business, and he carried himself in a way that suggested a veteran who had seen a few things during his years with the Bureau.

“You got lucky, Mr. Chapa. My partner was in Prather’s, I was in the car and everything was cool. Then all of a sudden you came tearing out of there and vanished down a side street.”

“The doorman told us where you’d gone and that you were chasing some guy,” Eisenhuth said as he walked past.

“Did you have to pay him for that info?” Chapa asked.

Brandon reached inside his suit pocket, “No, I just showed him my credit card,” he said, flashing his badge.

Though it was already pushing midnight, the office was buzzing with more than a dozen agents and other employees all moving around like bees in a hive. Chapa looked down at his bare chest and stomach. Was he starting to get a little flabby? Must be the lighting.

“Why did you go after him?” Andrews asked, taking one of his pencils out of formation.

“Instincts, maybe. I had to know who he was, and what he was doing. Don’t you ever act on instinct?”

“No.”

There was a reason why Chapa trusted his instincts. Andrews thought it was because his friend was impulsive and unfocused. But that wasn’t it. Chapa’s instincts were good, damn good. When he was on a story Chapa was in his element, moving through a maze he already had the key to.

“What about Dominic Delacruz, anything new?”

“Yeah, quite a bit, Al. He either died in a botched robbery or his killer’s cold body is lying on a slab.”

“So you think it could’ve been the same guy?”

“When we get the ballistics we’ll know for sure. Now it’s my turn to ask the questions.”

Over the course of nearly two hours Chapa gave them a full report, holding nothing back this time.

Andrews slid a copy of the dead man’s ID in front of Chapa. At first glance it looked like a driver’s license, but it wasn’t.

“Lorn Strasser, ever hear the name before?”

Chapa shook his head, and immediately regretted it.

“I think I know what kind of car he drives,” Chapa said, then did his best to describe the green Dodge sedan he’d seen a few days earlier, leaving out the part about the chase through suburban neighborhoods.

“This ID is probably a fake. A couple of our guys are headed over to the address on the card.”

Chapa took one of Andrews’ pencils and a square off a notepad, and wrote down the guy’s name, and other vitals.

“So why not kill you? He certainly had enough chances.”

“I think he wanted to make sure I gave Grubb the sort of press he’s looking for. Apparently they see me as their ad hoc PR guy. For someone who murdered children, Grubb is really image conscious.”

“And apparently you’re going to do that, you’re going to give them the coverage they want,” Andrews said, pointing to the slip of paper that Chapa had filled with notes.

“Not a chance. Don’t forget, Joe, we’re both pretty damn good at our jobs.”

Chapa felt his cell phone vibrate in his left pants pocket, then “Guantanamera” started playing. He checked to see who was calling.

“I’ve got to take this,” he said to Andrews who responded by rolling his eyes and organizing the items on his desk again.

“Hey, Matt. Sure, read it back to me.”

Matt Sullivan had been on his way out of the
Chicago Record
office, heading home to watch a Jim Carrey movie his wife had rented earlier in the day, when he got a phone call from the back of an FBI car. It had been some time since Chapa had last called a story in from the field, and the reporter got an unexpected rush out of it.

“No, wait, we have the assailant’s name now,” Chapa said, ignoring his own scribbling and reaching across Andrews’ desk for a legal pad that was full of neatly written notes. “It’s Lorn, no
e
at the end. No, not
Greene
, though that too would be a hell of a story. The last name is Strasser, double
s
in the middle.”

Andrews figured out what was going on. “You called in a story?”

Chapa nodded, and signaled for Andrews to be quiet.

“We’ve held back every other paper, even the Chicago PD isn’t entirely in the loop yet.”

Chapa pressed his hand over the mouthpiece. “I know, and I so appreciate that,” he said, then turned his attention back to Sullivan. “Yep, that’s the name of the agent who gave me a quote.”

“Who the hell gave you a quote?” Andrews was half out of his chair.

Chapa mouthed the name
Eisenhuth
, then whispered, “He did an excellent job, he was really good, you’ll be proud of him.”

After he’d signed off and slipped the phone back into his pocket, Chapa took another square from the paper cube and wrote down a couple more notes. When he glanced up at Andrews, his friend was staring back at him with a look that could melt steel.

“Joe, did I ever tell you that I write for a newspaper? At least today I do, I think. And my responsibility is not to protect the law or help anyone do their job. It’s up to me to tell people what’s going on outside their front door.”

“Just you? You’re the only one out there doing that?”

“That’s the way you have to approach it, the only way. Otherwise you start negotiating with yourself and pretty soon you’ve become something else, just an air-taker with a byline.”

“Are you done preaching?”

“It’s the same with you, Joe. You put a tail on me because you were doing your job.”

Andrews sprung forward, leaving his cool against the backrest of his leather chair.

“I put a tail on you because I was worried about a friend.”

The two men nursed a precarious silence until an assistant brought them fresh cups of coffee.

“Did you get anything else from Annie Sykes?” Andrews asked after swallowing a mouthful of steam and a sip of black heat.

“No, just what I told you.”

“We didn’t get much from her either.”

“You talked to her?”

“We brought her down here,” Andrews said, opening a folder and pulling out a formal looking sheet of paper. “She gave us a statement, but she didn’t recognize your assailant, or Lance Grubb.”

Chapa got up and swung around to look at the official FBI form Andrews was holding.

“May I?” Chapa asked as he slipped it out of the agent’s hand.

Andrews hesitated for a moment, then shrugged, “Help yourself, there’s not much there.”

There wasn’t, but Chapa did find Annie’s contact information near the top of the sheet.

“Why are you writing that down?” Andrews asked as he tried to casually retrieve the document.

“You never know.”

“Just wait a damn second, Al.”

“Joe, her family has been trying to find her. Maybe they deserve the opportunity to do that.”

“Maybe you should mind your own damned business.”

“What are you going to do about Lance Grubb?”

“We’ll hold on to him for a couple of days, probably until after the execution.”

Eisenhuth walked up with two photos in his hand—a close-up of Strasser’s tattoo, and one of the knife. Chapa looked at the weapon’s ornate handle.

“I think he was going to threaten me with this, but not use it. His plan was to drug me, not kill me with some fancy show knife. At least not right away.”

“I got some info on the tattoo from the Internet.” Eisenhuth seemed a bit confused and a little taken aback by the way Andrews was glaring at him. “Like many occult symbols it can mean several things, in this case a dark female spirit, or a broken heart.”

“Or it could be that the crazy bastard liked the design,” Andrews said, taking the photo from Eisenhuth, then sending him off with a dismissive nod.

Chapa added that information to one of the already crowded pieces of paper he’d been using for notes. He then folded the squares, as if he were preparing to slip them into a pocket, and remembered he was missing something.

“I need my shirt.”

A young woman dressed in a gray skirt and black blouse brought it to him. Chapa surveyed the four inch hole in the back, surrounded by a bloodstain the size of a salad plate.

“You can’t drive home,” Andrews said as he watched Chapa cautiously slip the shirt on.

“I’m not staying here,” Chapa said, hoping he could stand long enough to tuck the shirt in, but doubting it was worth the effort.

“You know you’re welcome at our place. We always keep the guest room in ready condition.”

Chapa dropped back into his chair. “Thanks.”

“I’ll call Jenny and let her know you’re on your way. One of the guys will drive you.”

“Eisenhuth?”

“No. Decidedly not Eisenhuth.”