Someone carefully orchestrated her every move as the only live witness to a cop’s murder.
Shaking her head, Delta entered the bar.
“Hi, Gina,” Delta said, bending down to kiss the top of her head.
“Hello, Delta. I see that the two of you are a bit deeper into this than you imagined you would be.”
Delta nodded. “And I’m afraid we’re only going to go deeper.”
Connie motioned the waitress over and ordered Delta a Diet Coke. “You have more, don’t you?”
Delta nodded. “I’ve been struggling with the question about why, if this guy is supposed to be a cop killer, why he didn’t kill me, too. Tonight, as I shot out of the truck, I remembered something.”
Connie leaned forward. “What?”
“The killer was wearing a tank top, Con. A damned tank top in twenty-degree weather.” Delta hesitated for emphasis. “He wanted me to see the tattoo. Someone wants me to believe that Miles was killed by a gang.”
Gina and Connie exchanged glances. “That would explain why they didn’t shoot the only witness.”
“Exactly. The tattoo is a sham meant to lead the investigation astray.”
“How does this connect with Larson’s phony report?”
Delta rubbed her tired eyes before answering. “His report supports the theory of a cop killer on the loose. Instead of us looking within, as Miles must have been doing, now all our efforts are concentrated on the outside. It’s the perfect diversion.” Sipping her Diet Coke, Delta leaned over to Connie. “What did you and Eddie find out?”
Letting go of Gina’s hand, Connie pushed a computer printout over to Delta. “Eddie was able to get the list from the evidence room. You’re not going to like it.”
Delta looked at it. For a moment, she did not know what to say. Miles’s name appeared over a dozen times on different dates in the past month. “This can’t be.”
“That’s what I thought. According to this, Miles makes it a habit to visit the evidence room.”
Delta’s eyes scanned the list and the dates. “Miles hated it down there and felt that his job was to arrest people, not push the paperwork around. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Tell that to the computer.”
“Wait,” Delta said as her eyes zeroed in on a date that rang an alarm in her head. “This can’t be right.”
“What?”
“This says that Miles went to the evidence room not once, but twice on the third. The fact is, Miles was out of town that day.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I am. Remember? His grandmother was getting married, and he and Jennifer went out of town for the weekend.”
Connie looked at Gina, who shrugged. “Are you positive?”
“Absolutely. I went out with a training patrol rookie instead. Checking my activity that night will prove that we weren’t working together. And a call into Jennifer will confirm that Miles was with her.”
“Del, do you realize what you’re saying?”
The ball of fear in her stomach grew. “I’m afraid so. Someone has one hundred and forty-four pounds of crack that Miles and I collected from that bust. That someone is one of us.” A cold chill ran down Delta’s back as her words slid out her mouth. “Miles must have discovered the missing dope as well and—”
“And was that close to finding out who it was.”
“So ...” Delta said, inhaling a painful breath, “they killed him.”
For a long, tense moment, the three women sat, quiet in their own anxious thoughts, feeling their own personal fears and trepidation as the data loomed heavily before them. It was incomprehensible that they were after fellow cops; incomprehensible that Miles may have been killed by a colleague.
Connie was the first to move, and slowly put her hands out for both Gina and Delta. As they all held hands, joined by a growing fear and painful silence, Connie slowly, quietly asked, “You’ve been to the evidence room, haven’t you?”
Delta nodded.
“That means they’ll know you’re on to them.”
Delta nodded again.
“If they suspect that you know . . .”
“Then they’ll come after me like they did Miles.”
Again, the three women lapsed into silence. Somehow, Miles had stumbled onto a pilfering scam at the station. Dirty cops were dirtying the streets with the dope she and Miles had risked their lives to get off the streets. Miles fell into this mess, possibly by accident, and must have seen cleaning it up as his ticket to Vice.
Squeezing hard Gina’s hand, Delta fought back the angry tears forcing their way to her eyes. In this one blink of Time’s eye, everything she believed in, everything she held dear, was flushed down the toilet and into the stinking sewer below.
“Miles,” Delta said slowly, “must have been killed by one of us.”
Again, an eerie silence surrounded them. As hard as it was to believe, everything they uncovered pointed in that direction.
“So why was Hammond killed? Think he was working with Miles?”
“Maybe they needed another death to substantiate the cop-killer story.” Connie brought Delta’s hand to her face and rubbed it against her cheek.
“Maybe.”
Gina reached over and held Delta’s other hand. “What are we going to do? If they believe you’re onto them, your life is in danger.”
Connie agreed. “Right now, their story is foolproof. The media have everyone believing that a cop killer is on the loose. If they take you out, you’ll just fit right into their story line.”
Inhaling deeply, Delta shook her head. “The problem is we have an invalid players’ card. We can’t trust anyone and that places us at a distinct disadvantage. We can’t make a move until we know who all the players are.”
“And how do we do that?”
Leaning back, Delta stared into her empty glass. She now knew what Miles must have gone through the weeks before his death. Nothing felt tangible — it was as if they were chess pieces in a chess match being moved by some mysterious power.
“We don’t. From here on out, we’re on our own.”
Connie took the printout and looked at it. She studied it a long time before speaking. “Miles is their out, isn’t he? He’s their escape valve.”
Delta nodded. “Someone has set him up to take the fall should anyone get suspicious. How easy it will be for them to blame it on a dead man. They have all the proof they need right there in that phony list. It’s the perfect plan.” Delta’s eyes burned with anger. “Perfect, but for one major flaw.”
Connie nodded. “Us.”
“And we are going to flush the bastards out.”
Connie looked up from the printout, pupils small as a pinhead. “If I had to bet who typed Miles’s name in here, I’d bet it was the person responsible for setting up this sign-in sheet in the first place.”
Delta looked at Connie and nodded. It was the only answer.
“Captain Williams.”
Delta was glad that her weekend had already begun. This way, she had three more days to figure out where to go from here. Rocked by the revelation that her partner had been killed by her brothers in blue, Delta wrestled with the anger and bitterness growing inside. She was angry with herself for not making him talk to her about it. She was mad at Miles for not sharing this with her. Together, they might have been able to work it out. Once he knew what was going down, and they knew he knew, he had very little time with which to work. As it was, his time had run out. He would never make it to Vice.
Laying down on the bed, Delta looked at her uniform hanging on the knob of the door. Being a cop had meant so much to her. She remembered how proud her mother was the day she graduated from the Academy. Delta’s three sisters snapped photos like crazy while her mother and Sandy sat proudly in the grandstands. It was the first time she felt as if she really belonged someplace. Now, her badge was tainted with good blood and bad dope. So much of what she believed in was being sold on the corner of the street, and Delta didn’t know where to begin to fix it.
Slowly, she got off the bed and pulled her badge off her shirt. Then, she pulled Miles’s badge out of her pocket and stared at them a long time. Badge numbers were important to cops because they identified them as someone different from the others. She and Miles used to play games all the time, using their badge numbers as answers. Miles used to say that her badge number, which was 182 read “one lesbian ate two and that made for women stew.”
“We were so weird,” Delta said aloud, still gazing down at the badges now laying on the bed. For a second, she stared hard at the two badges, before rolling over on her side and quickly dialing the telephone.
“Connie?”
“What’s up?” came Connie’s voice.
“Try putting my badge number and Miles’s badge number into Eddie and see what you come up with.”
“182 and 342?”
Delta grinned. “How do you do that?”
“I never forget a number once I see it, you know that.”
“Yes, I do, and if I recall correctly, that made you very unpopular in Reno.”
Connie’s laughter rang through the phone lines. “Hell, they kicked us out because they didn’t want a minority to take any money home. So, what am I looking for?”
Delta shrugged. “Miles used to have a thing about badge numbers. He played games with them all the time. Just put those into Eddie along with the list of numbers and see what he comes up with.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, I need a break from all of this. I think I’ll go on a date.”
“A date? Is it that gorgeous blonde, Megan?”
Delta smiled. “Yeah.”
Connie squealed. “Good for you. It’s about time.”
Delta nodded. “It sure is.”
“Sounds like you’re hooked already.”
“Maybe. If I wasn’t thinking about this case all the time, I’d be thinking about her.”
“Good for you. Does she feel the same?”
“I think so. We haven’t discussed it much.”
There was a short pause on the line before Delta heard Connie draw in a breath. “Delta? There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Delta only nodded.
“Is she married?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
Closing her eyes, Delta let it out. “She’s a prostitute.”
The silence on the end of the line was deafening, and then, in one big roar, she could hear Connie laughing. “Is that all? So what?”
“I thought—”
“You should know me better than that. If she makes you happy, I couldn’t give a shit if she ran a block long brothel.”
Delta released a huge sigh. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me, thank my parents. They left the Catholic church before I was born. God knows how many pounds of guilt I’d be wearing if they didn’t. I’ll get back to you as soon as Eddie burps it out.”
“Burps it out? Isn’t he feeling well?”
“He’s got indigestion from this whole thing.”
“You be careful. Don’t get caught sneaking around inside someone else’s software.”
This made Connie snicker. “Gina tells me to stay out of other women’s underwear, you tell me to stay out of other people’s software ... I’ll never have any fun.”
“Thanks, Connie. You’re a doll.” Depressing the receiver, Delta called Megan at home but got no answer.
Checking her watch, Delta saw that it was close to seven o’clock. Megan would just be starting work.
Staring out the window, Delta felt a void. This time, it wasn’t the void from missing Miles; it was a hole from missing Megan.
Tossing her jacket on, Delta headed out the door. Perhaps if Megan had been missing her too, she could persuade her to take the night off as well.
Hell, it was worth a try.
As the fine mist continued winding its way down to the dampened streets, Delta parked her truck a few blocks down the street from the Red Carpet. Opening the door to the mist and cool air, Delta inhaled deeply. She had always loved winter. She and Miles would always share what they were getting everyone for Christmas. He would beam about the toys he bought the kids; toys he usually played with more than they did. He had always shown her the jewelry or sweaters that he bought Jennifer to make sure they weren’t ugly. She would miss that more than she had ever imagined.
As Delta turned onto the walkway leading to the hotel, a large man suddenly burst through the doors, rammed into her like a linebacker, and sent her sprawling onto the wet grass. Rolling to her stomach, Delta pulled her 9 millimeter from her ankle holster and drew down on the guy, but he was already hopping into a white Ford pickup with no license plates.
Watching the truck roar out of sight, Delta jumped to her feet and plastered herself against the side of the hotel. Her heart pounded wildly as she regripped her automatic.
As she inched her way to the lobby, Delta could hear the commotion inside. Someone was yelling at someone else to call an ambulance, and another woman was crying loudly. Holding her breath, Delta slammed open the front door, pointing her automatic at the group huddled around the reception desk.