False Witness (John Steel series Book 3) (25 page)

Steel watched as the man quickly put his bottle of water down.

“And she began to spit blood, I mean it was comin’ out like it was from a fireman’s hose! Then she just collapsed. I told everyone to get the hell out of there and radioed it in so nobody could leave.” The bailiff looked at one of the pictures on her wall—an old photograph of her from when she had graduated from law school, alongside another woman who was around the same age.

“She didn’t deserve that,” the poor man concluded. “She was a good judge and a good person.”

The Englishman noticed a family photograph on the desk. It was of the judge, her husband and their kids. The oak-framed photo sat neatly on a corner under a brass desk lamp.

“We will come back later,” Steel told him. “In the meantime can you secure this room? CSU will probably want to come in just in case.”

The bailiff was still shaking with shock, and McCall made a mental note to ask the paramedics to come and take a look at him.

Steel had come up empty but if there was something to be found, he figured it would not be in plain sight. They could hear the commotion from the frightened people in the other part of the building. Steel got up out of the chair and helped the bailiff out of the room, through the doorway to the hallway instead of making him look at that courtroom once more.

But something played on Steel’s mind. How, she wondered, did the judge fit into this whole mess?

And what the hell was the girl whose life he’d saved, doing there?

Tooms and Agent Lloyd
sat in the briefing room looking through the files on the prisoners. They also had paperwork on the guards and the bus driver, just in case they red-flagged.

Tony had sent a request to the financial department for anything on the guards. They had already found the one guard had taken money that could not be explained, and maybe there were more unexplained payments. However, that would take time—or so they said.

Tooms looked over at Agent Lloyd as she sat in the chair opposite. She wore a grey suit with a black blouse that had the first two buttons unfastened: probably not for his benefit, after all she knew he was married, but the bared flesh made sure that she got a lot of attention from the other detectives, who seemed to time their coffee breaks to coincide with hers.

Her hair glistened from the artificial overhead lighting. Though Tooms had to admit she was a stunningly beautiful woman, he was aware that she was damaged goods.

She caught him staring and smiled, almost as if she had misjudged his attention.

“Anything wrong, Detective?” Her voice was soft and rang with a hint of a sensuality.

Tooms leaned back in his chair and looked at her through half-closed eyes. “I guess I’m just trying to work out why you’re here.”

Lloyd looked puzzled for a moment, not really knowing where this conversation was going. “I thought it was easier than rushing back and forth between here and the office.”

Tooms shook his head at the evasive answer. “No, I mean this case. Why are you here, Agent Lloyd? If it’s a federal case we wouldn’t be anywhere near it apart from acting as your lapdogs, but we seem to be doing all the lifting on this gig. Plus where’s the rest of your team? Don’t you guys normally travel in packs?”

Cassandra Lloyd nodded, a smile of approval on her face. “We all have our orders, Detective, whether we like them or not.”

Tooms sensed a tone of disappointment in her voice, as if she’d been assigned to this case like a kid sent to the corner of the classroom for misbehaving in class. He knew there was no use pressing the matter, and that she wouldn’t unburden herself, at any rate not to
Detective
Tooms. However she might open up to
Joshua
Tooms.

Detective Tooms smiled and shrugged as if defeated, then he picked up the file on the driver, hoping to defuse the situation. Lloyd watched Tooms look quickly through the file as if he was using it as an excuse to end their discussion. She smiled at his attempt to hide his curiosity about her, but then he stopped reading and she saw his expression change.

She could see that he had found something. He stood up and quickly looked through the files he had just skimmed through quickly.

“What did you find, Detective?”

Tooms raised a hand so as to silence her, before he lost concentration. Lloyd leaned forwards with interest as she watched him scan the words in front of him.

For a moment she thought Tooms looked excited by something. He grabbed two of the files and looked through them with interest, his fingers flying up and down the paragraphs as he started to compare them with something in the driver’s file.

The paperwork had revealed something to Tooms that everyone else had missed.

Tooms looked up at Lloyd with a surprised expression on his face. “It says here that the guard who we found in the Hudson and the guard who was sat with the driver, they had both been transferred to the prison two days before. Someone wanted them on that bus. The question is who and why?” He looked at Cassandra as she raised an eyebrow. “I think we need to speak to the survivors in the hospital. They are the only ones who can tell us what happened on that bus.”

Lloyd threw down her file and sat back, tilting her chair onto its rear pair of legs. “Good luck with that, Detective. But we’re waiting for the hospital to phone back to tell us when they are conscious.”

The detective stood up and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. “Look, Agent Lloyd, I am going to the hospital anyway, so you can come with me or you can stay here, the choice is yours.” He turned to walk out of the door but then stopped suddenly before turning back towards her. “Oh, by the way it’s either Tooms or Joshua, I think we have outgrown the formalities, don’t you, Agent Lloyd?”

Cassandra nodded with a friendly smile and took his outstretched hand and shook it. “Okay, Joshua. Let’s go.”

*

Nobody saw a cautious ‘DC’ Williams enter the main entrance of the safe house. He nodded to the two armed men who sat around acting like bums just squatting, their .50 calibre Desert Eagles and MP5K machine pistols hidden safely under their long coats.

He made his way up to the top floor, where his brother and fellow escapees had called home for the past couple of days.

The corridors and staircases were left dimly lit, so as not to draw the attention of the outside world. A musky smell of an aging building filled DC’s nostrils as he walked towards the last apartment on that floor.

He tapped the door three times with his boot, as his arms were full of groceries.

The lack of any noise made DC suddenly become uneasy. Where were they, he wondered? They couldn’t have gone out during the day, the cops were looking for them. DC tapped on the door again, this time a little harder.

The silence continued. He was just about to throw down the bags and go for his keys when he heard the sounds of the deadbolts and chains being taken off. The door opened slightly and the familiar face of Tyrell peered around it.

“What’s up, man?” Tyrell asked.

DC scowled disapprovingly as he raced past his yawning brother, then re-locked the door behind him.

“What took you so long, man?” DC snapped. “I thought you motha’s had bolted!”

Tyrell looked strangely at his maddened brother. “Oh yeah, we were gonna take off to the mall or catch a friggin’ movie!” Tyrell laughed at the comedy of his brother’s statement.

DC headed for the kitchen, where he found Darius making chilli from items he had found in the refrigerator and cupboards. Darius looked almost excited at the sight of the new groceries, and Tyrell looked at the man in surprise as he watched him examine each packet as if he had some grand plan for each of the items, almost making up menus in his head.

“So—what, you’re a chief now?” Tyrell joked.

Darius shrugged and smiled. “See, before the cops grabbed me and locked me up I was due to open a new restaurant. I guess someone didn’t want some black dude stealin’ their business, so I figure that’s why they got me out the way.” What Darius was saying made sense to Tyrell. Hell, they had both bad histories, but they were both trying to start legitimate businesses before they got stung.

Tyrell had to laugh. For years the cops had tried to get them, yet the moment they were going legit they arrested them on something they never did!

As they cleared the stuff away DC looked around with a suspicious look on his face. “So, where’s the professor?”

Tyrell nodded towards the back room with half a doughnut in his mouth. “The man has been a bit of a loner since we got out. Something is bugging him.”

Darius had wondered about the teacher. He kept to himself and he would slip out at night on his own, sometimes for hours.

Tyrell looked at his brother and rubbed the top of his head to break a smile, but DC’s face looked more troubled than usual.

“Hey, man, what’s wrong with you?” Tyrell asked as he packed the milk into the refrigerator door.

DC looked over at the closed door. “You remember that bitch lawyer who put you away?”

Tyrell’s face soured as he stopped halfway to the cupboards next to the stove. “Yeah, she was hard to forget. She made a career out of screwing me, goddamn counsellor Carmen Mathews.”

Darius looked over towards the two men. His mouth fell open at the mention of her name. “She was your prosecutor? You’ve got to be kidding me, man! Shit, she screwed me over as well, damn bitch,” Darius growled as he impaled a red pepper to the chopping board with a large knife.

“Yeah well, she was a Supreme Court judge,” DC said.

Tyrell gave his brother a sudden look of panic. “What do you mean
was
?”

DC leaned against the wall and shrugged as he stared straight into the eyes of his brother. “Somebody took her out this afternoon. In her own courtroom too.”

Tyrell crossed his arms to defy the implication. “You think I would be dumb enough to kill a friggin’ judge, in her own damn courtroom?” He saw the questioning look in his brother’s eyes.

“You do!” Tyrell declared. “You think I killed her!”

DC shook his head after a moment. “When you didn’t answer the door I thought you had gone to settle up, but I figured how would you have got past my boys and the guards at the courthouse, especially with that huge ugly head of yours, I mean, man, cops would spot you a friggin’ mile away.”

Tyrell threw a damp dish cloth at his laughing brother.

There was a click. The front door opened and the hooded figure of the teacher walked in. His expression was stony, and he nodded a greeting, then disappeared into his room and shut the door. The three men stood open-mouthed at the door as it closed. DC shook off the confused look as it changed to anger.

“Hey, Teacher,” Darius asked casually, as if it was a daily routine. “Where you been, man?”

Armstrong shrugged and a smile broke the corner of his mouth. “I have been to see, er, an old friend.” And with that he disappeared into his room and shut the door.

The three men shrugged it off and continued packing the groceries away until DC stopped and looked at the front door, his eyes burning with rage.

“Wait a minute, how the hell did that motha fucka get out?”

*

Steel and McCall returned to the courtroom to be greeted by CSU teams with body suits and buckets. The acid had reacted quickly and was turning the judge into soup. McCall headed for Tina, who was standing to one side, with the jug and a glass in two evidence buckets.

“What have you got?” McCall asked curiously on seeing the two items.

“I’m not sure,” Tina replied, “but these things are made from plastic not glass.” McCall shrugged, unable to see the point that her friend was trying to make.

“I get it,” Steel chipped in. “The acid would have melted the glass, but it wouldn’t melt the plastic?”

Tina gave Steel the thumbs up. “Gold star for you. My question is, who brought the plastic to the party?”

McCall looked back at the door to the judge’s chambers. “Could it have been the bailiff? After all, he brought her the glass.”

Steel pondered the question, for anything was possible and it would make sense.

“Let’s go ask him, shall we?” McCall said.

As they walked away, Steel received a text. He stopped as he read the message and his gaze fell onto the courtroom doors. Distracted, Steel put the cell phone back into his pocket, his gaze still locked onto the doors.

“Hey, Steel. You okay?” Sam asked him.

John Steel turned back to face McCall and smiled. “Yes, sorry, it was nothing.” He beckoned her forwards with a flat palm towards the door to the chambers. McCall turned the handle and opened the door to the empty room.

“Okay then, that’s a problem.” Steel joked, causing McCall to give him a stern look.

Tooms and Agent Lloyd
arrived at the Manhattan Hospital. Its long sterile corridors shone with cleanliness and overhead lighting gave everything a brighter illumination, but the smell of disinfectant hung in the air like an invisible smog.

Joshua Tooms did not care for hospitals, he had lost too many friends in them; but on the other hand a lot of them had also pulled through. It only seemed like yesterday that he and Tony had rushed in with the medical team accompanying McCall, who was being wheeled on a gurney. He had been surprised that so much blood could come from just one wound.

That was their first case they’d worked on with unorthodox Detective John Steel. It had involved catching a serial killer and breaking a weapons-smuggling organization, during the course of which McCall had taken a bullet in the shoulder after a fire fight. A year had passed since then and he had never forgotten that day in the hospital—in fact it was this same hospital.

The injured men from the crash were in separate rooms so they could not plan or confer: the last thing they needed was the same lie from all of them. Tooms knew that some would lie at first, but at some point someone would tell the truth, it was inevitable.