Warrior in the Shadows (15 page)

2.18

Bobby Lee took the call about the motel shooting from a patrolman who'd been on the Simmons crime scene.

"Hey, Detective?" the patrolman said. "You're going to want to come out to the Days Inn by the airport. We had a guy dressed up like an Indian shoot a cop."

"Shot a cop?"

"Bloomington PD. Took four hits on the vest and one clipped his ear, but he's going to be okay. He emptied his Beretta on the guy, thinks he hit him. Witnesses say it was like the OK Corral out here."

"What do I got to do with an Indian?" Bobby Lee said.

"This guy had a war club he hit the cop with, fucked his leg all up," the patrolman said. "This guy was painted up like the painting on the wall at the Simmons house. I remembered you said the perp used a club on Simmons."

"What's your name again?"

"Tim Chance."

"Tim Chance, you're going to make a fine detective someday. Stay right there, I'm on my way."

"Will do, Detective."

Bobby Lee grabbed his jacket and paused only long enough to grab an extra box of .45 ammo for his Smith & Wesson from the storage room. He took an unmarked squad out of the motor pool and burned rubber into the street, the back window light bar flashing blue and red, just like when he was on patrol in a marked squad, one of the street animals out there running it down, and for a few minutes it was just that simple. This was something he could deal with: a suspect, a sighting, a shooting. This was a starting point. He still had to interview Josie when she got off work and that would eventually lead him someplace, but this might get him where he wanted to be much sooner.

It took almost half an hour with the late rush-hour traffic to get out to the airport and the Days Inn. Marked squads blocked the parking-lot entrance; both Bloomington and Minneapolis PD were well represented. The Days Inn sat right on the border of the two municipalities, but when a cop got shot, nobody paid attention to jurisdiction— you just went. That was the rule. If one in blue goes down, everyone in blue goes out. Period.

Bobby Lee pulled up beside a Minneapolis squad where he saw the patrolman Chance talking with a Bloomington plainclothes. Bobby Lee got out and said, "Hey, Chance!"

Chance waved him over and shook Bobby Lee's hand, then said to the Bloomington plainclothes, "Detective Morrow, this is Detective Martaine from Minneapolis. He might have an interest in this guy we're all looking for."

Morrow was a burly Norwegian with a furrowed face and unusually fat cheeks, which made him look like a sullen chipmunk.

"Hey, Martaine," he said. "You looking for a nut dresses up like an Indian?"

"Run it down for me, will you?" Bobby Lee said. "I just got here, I don't know about any Indian."

"Sure," Morrow said. "Our patrolman answers a complaint from the night manager, she's over there with EMS, took a bad whack in the belly from our bad guy. She tells a story of some weird-looking guy, maybe half Indian, maybe half black, bone in his nose and all kinds of ear piercings, a musician, shows up and wants a room. The guy pays cash. She lets him have the room, then comes up later and smells smoke, hears some weird music. She figures him for a doper maybe setting up to make a deal out of the room, they do that sometimes here."

Bobby Lee nodded and grinned. "Do tell. I was here a couple of years ago, on that takedown with the Jamaicans."

"No kidding?" Morrow said. "I was still in the bag then. Was off that day, but I heard about it."

"So this maybe doper…?" Bobby Lee urged.

"Right. She backs off and calls in a unit. Our guy, Billy Williams, he comes in, she gives him the rundown, he goes up to have a look. Smells smoke, hears the music, bangs on the door. The guy inside has a funny accent, right? Not Indian, Billy thinks maybe English or something, might be an India Indian instead of a Minneapolis Indian, but they don't exchange but a couple of words. Guy won't come out, so Billy uses the access key the manager gives him, then this guy comes busting out. This is where it gets weird. The guy is naked except for a whattaya call them, a lion cloth…"

"A loincloth?" Bobby Lee said.

"Whatever," Morrow said, irritated. "Like a fucking thong for men. He's wearing a backpack and he's got a fucking pistol in one hand and a nightstick in the other. He lays into Williams like a pro, takes out his leg and limps him up bad, pokes the broad from the desk in the gut and drops her, then bolts down the stairs and gets on a motorcycle. He and Williams exchange shots. Williams thinks he got a few into the guy and his motorcycle. The naked Indian gets a couple more off, then rides off like, what was the fucking Lone Ranger's side-kick… Tonto?"

Bobby Lee laughed. "Jesus, that's one for the books."

"You got that right," Morrow said. "Now where do you figure in?"

"I'm looking for a guy who might be some kind of Australian native. Kills people with a club."

"The cannibal killer thing?"

"That's my baby."

"I don't envy you one bit," Morrow said. "Let's go up, have a look in the hotel room. Forensics is working the scene up there now. I got all kinds of extra bodies working this parking lot. Man, I hate a shooting in a parking lot. That's what I tell all my rookies: you want to murder someone and get away with it, kill them in a parking lot. Trace evidence gets blown all over the place, you can't find anything… I hate it."

"We didn't make this guy for a shooter."

"Oh, he's a shooter all right. Forty-five, too, and handy with it. You see some of these dirtbags, they favor the nine. I don't like running into a guy who favors a forty-five and can shoot it."

"I know what you mean," Bobby Lee said.

He followed Morrow up the stairwell to the hotel room, and showed his identification to the patrolman outside the door jotting down the names of each officer who entered the scene.

Morrow pointed to the items the forensic team had carefully bagged.

"We got some good things," he said. "Little CD stereo system, his guitar case. We'll get some prints, there. Guy was toting all his worldly goods in that guitar case like some kind of movie bandit."

Morrow took a pen from his pocket and lifted a loop of a soft roll cloth that held tubes of paint and a wide mouth jar.

"He painted himself up with this stuff," he said. "Didn't do anything on the wall, but maybe we got to him before he did that."

"This connects," Bobby Lee said. "We got paint like that in the two homicides we got him for."

"I can help you out on that," Morrow said. "We're booking it into evidence for our lab, but have your guys bring your samples down and we'll rush it, look for matches."

"I owe you big, Morrow."

"Buy me lunch sometime, you big city detective. Then we'll call it even."

* * *

Bobby Lee did a careful interview with the wounded police officer, and an even longer and more thorough one with Maureen DiMeola, the front desk clerk. She had a sharp eye and was very specific in her description. She figured him for light-skinned black or mulatto and she stuck to her conviction that he was some kind of musician. Between the detailed description of the subject and his motorcycle, some fingerprints and the paints, Bobby Lee finally had a real case going. Now it was time for street police work. He had to get a description out to every patrolman and every snitch in town. It was premature to go to the press, but that was a final option. This guy was a real looker and it shouldn't be too hard to find him if he was still in the Cities, especially since he was sporting an Australian accent. Most people had seen enough Crocodile Dundee commercials to place the accent.

And if someone spotted him, Bobby Lee could catch him. And if he caught him, he could grill him and put the pieces of this bizarre puzzle together.

He got back downtown quickly, winding his way through the light post rush-hour traffic. Back at the office, he hurried through the milling detectives changing the guard for shift change and barricaded himself behind the phone in his cubicle. First he called Oberstar, who was out, then the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension crime lab technician who was working on a match between the paints found in the hotel room and the paint samples taken from the walls at the Simmons and Nyquist homes. After his flurry of calls, he sat back in his chair. Now he had to wait. The lab would be working overtime to make the paint match, but that was still going to take some time, so he'd just sit here and wait. He still had the midnight appointment with Josie to think about. He was tempted to blow off their appointment and catch her another time, but the discipline of a good investigator asserted itself. He'd make that appointment. He picked up the still warm phone and called home.

"Hello?" Maxine said.

"It's me," Bobby Lee said. "We got some big breaks going here, I got a solid lead on the guy. I got to work late tonight, won't be home till after midnight."

"I married the midnight rambler," Max said lightly. "Did you get something to eat?"

"I'll order in a sandwich or maybe Obi and I will split a pizza."

"Make sure you eat something, you always forget to eat when you're excited. You got time to say hi to Nick?"

"Yeah, put him on."

There was a sharp click as Nicky picked up the extension phone. "Hi, Daddy!"

"Hey, buddy," Bobby Lee said. "What are you doing?"

"Playing Nintendo."

"Are you winning?"

"Yeah."

"I'm going to be late tonight."

"Okay. See you later," Nick said. He hung up.

"He sounds sooooo excited," Maxine said.

"Hard to compete with Nintendo," Bobby Lee said. "I got to go. If I get some slack time I'll call you before you go to bed."

"Oh, I almost forgot," Maxine said. "Obi called for you around three."

"I left a message on his machine when I got here. Did he say what he wanted?"

"Just that he had to talk to you."

"I'll find him," Bobby Lee said. "Love you."

"Love you, too. Be careful and remember to eat."

She hung up first. Bobby Lee slowly replaced his phone, then went down the hall to Oberstar's office. The lights were off and Obi's coat was gone. Bobby Lee went back to his desk and phoned Obi's pager, entered in his desk phone number, then sat and worked on his notes from the hotel shooting. It was good to have some solid leads to dig into. Time passed. He looked at his phone and wondered where Obi was. He paged him again, and this time only a few minutes passed before Obi called him back.

"Where you at?" Bobby Lee said.

"You alone there?" Obi said.

"Mullins and Carruthers are here. You need help on something?"

"What you got going?"

Bobby Lee filled him in on the motel shooting and said, "I got great leads on this guy, Obi. I got this son of a bitch, I know I do. Got a good description, witnesses, paint samples. The BCA lab is doing a rush job to match the paint to Simmons and Nyquist. Don't know why he was dressed that way in a motel, but we got him shooting a cop."

"Jesus," Oberstar said. "Is the cop okay?"

"His vest took most of it. He got a good look at the doer, but the motel manager got a memory like a video camera."

"You got a sketch?"

"Bloomington is working one up. We'll get a good one, the Bloomington detective is all right."

"What's his name?"

"Morrow, he's an old hand."

"I heard of him. What about the financial end of things, you sniff anything out on that?"

"Nothing other than what I told you, you were looking more into that. What do you got?"

"I got a few things," Oberstar said. "It sounds like you're right on the doer. What about this meeting you got for tonight?"

"The hooker? At midnight, when she gets off work at the coffee shop."

"Where are you meeting her?"

"At the coffee shop."

Oberstar paused for a moment, then said, "All right. You going to have enough time to get this motel stuff done?"

"I'll get it taken care of."

"I'll talk to you later," Oberstar said.

"You coming back here?"

"No… I'm working on some other things at home."

"Okay, Obi-Wan. Don't work too hard."

Bobby Lee hung up the phone and realized he hadn't eaten since noon. He looked at the clock and figured he could make a drive through for fast food on his way down to the coffee shop.

Everything else was in motion.

2.19

Jay Burrell paced back and forth on the weathered deck overlooking the waves lapping the beach and fought the urge to throw his phone out into the ocean.

"This is a major mess," he said to his caller. "I'm getting him out of there, but I need to know that you can sweep up, after. We can't have any comeback from this."

"What do you expect me to do?" the caller said. "I can't stop the description from going out. Your man won't be able to hide out once we get the description out."

"Do what you can," Jay said. "I'll see to the other and get him out."

"I…"

"Do what you can!"

Jay hit the END button and took a few breaths to calm himself, then dialed in another long-distance number, this one to a plane charter operation in the States.

"It's Jay," he said to the man who answered the phone. "Is the charter ready?"

"Sure thing, no worries."

"It's going to be soon. How long before you can get it on station?"

"Pilot's there now, got a flight plan pre-filed for the weekend, but the aircraft's fueled up and the pilot's at a hotel right near there. I can get him on his mobile anytime."

"Have him stand by that phone and you stand by yours. My cargo is coming out sooner than I thought."

"No worries. We'll be there."

Jay hung up the phone and glared out at the ocean. He'd planned on surfing again this afternoon, but the crisis in Minneapolis demanded attention and he knew there would be more phone calls.

He didn't have to wait long.

"We've got a bit of a bollocks here," Alfie said without preamble. His voice sounded tinny over the line.

"I've already heard," Jay said. "What is in your mind?"

"Don't go that way, mate, I'm in no mood to hear it. Have you got my ride out sorted?"

Jay stifled the urge to shout. "Yes. Eden Prairie Airport just outside of Minneapolis. The charter is waiting for you there. How long before you can get there?"

"I can be there in just a jiff, mate."

"There's some cleaning up to do. Are you up to it?"

Alfie paused before answering. "That depends. I don't have much time."

"Can you check your e-mail?"

"Yes."

"There will be some details in there for you. I need you to take care of the two most pressing loose ends…"

"Send me what you like, mate, but I sort my messes out my own way. I'll see what you've got. Have the aircraft standing by, and I mean standing by ready to fly, four hours from now. That's two A.M. my time."

"Four hours?"

"That's what the man said. Have him there, ready to go. Alfie out."

There was the click of the phone hanging up on the other end.

"But…" Jay began. "Son of a bitch."

He dialed the charter operator again and gave him his instructions, then finally gave in to his frustration and threw his portable phone out into the surf.

"SON OF A BITCH!"

* * *

Alfie was furious with himself. He'd gotten well away from the motel before he pulled behind an empty garage and put his clothes on over the paint and loincloth. He'd wiped his face clean with his T-shirt and kept his helmet in place as he rode to Susan's place, where he cleaned himself up, leaving smears of dirt and paint in Susan's shower. He cleaned up his clothes as best he could and then walked to a nearby Internet café where he called up his e-mail. He read the e-mail carefully, committing it to memory before deleting it.

He didn't have much time to get this last job done. It would be better just to fade away and let the locals spin their wheels trying to find him… he'd behalf a world away and they'd never find him there. Killing the lead investigator wasn't the best way to go, in his opinion. It wouldn't stop the investigation; all it would do would be to stir the cops up even more. But it was too late to question why.

He wouldn't have time for the ritual with this one.