Killing Zone (28 page)

“That thing carries a half mile against the wind. They’ll hear you.”

“All right.” She keyed the microphone and started again, “This is Hannah Green, Horace Green’s widow …”

The first sign of life at the intersection was a loud pop that cut through the echoes of Mrs. Green’s voice: the hollow shotgun sound of a gas grenade fired somewhere out of sight. A moment later, they saw a steamy cloud spread past the brick corner, and another pop sent a second grenade into the night. Then they saw a blur of figures dart through the gas—rags tied over their faces and heads low as they ran—scattering like blown leaves through the foggy street and darting for cracks between silent buildings. Then emptiness. A distant wail of shouting voices bounced up the pavement, and, first a pair, then a half-dozen, shapes followed by dark-uniformed figures in gas masks and baseball caps, sprinting through the thinning fumes. Blainey and his partner loosened their sticks and closed the doors to the police cruiser, and Wager started his car’s motor. “They’re coming this way.”

“Wait—don’t go—wait!”

“No, ma’am. We’ve got—” He didn’t get a chance to finish. A howl of shouts and curses exploded from a narrow driveway between two houses beside them. The yells overwhelmed Mrs. Green’s amplified plea and were followed by the clatter of stones and bottles thudding loudly on the car.

“My God!” Councilwoman Voss stared wide-eyed at the charging wall of screaming faces.

“You two get down—get down below the windows!” Wager backed the car like a weapon at the running figures and swung close to Blainey to offer what shelter he could. A club smashed the rear window, shattering flakes of glass into the car like a spray of ice chips, and one white-eyed, snarling youth swung a brick on the end of a rope to smash against the windshield. Wager stepped on the gas, swinging the fenders at the dodging shapes that danced wildly around the car in a storm of shouts and curses and rocks, then he lurched forward again as he saw Blainey and his partner swept over by arms that rose and fell with bats and chains, lashing at the two officers.

“They’re killing them! My God, they’re killing them!”

He thudded the bumper against something soft and then the swarm of arms and legs and hunched, jerking shoulders scattered into fleeing fragments as Blainey, his uniform ripped open above the badge to show his white T-shirt, rose above a tangle of writhing figures. His baton swung hard and repeatedly against jabbing clubs and flesh. Wager backed up and rammed forward again. His wheel lurched over something that howled, and he backed hard again and swung his bumper to snag what it could.

The masked face of a SWAT officer loomed against the splintered windshield, bloodshot eyes wide behind the goggle lenses, and then a dozen blue shapes ran past the car toward the two policemen as the rioters fled. Blainey’s partner—stunned, hatless, blood smearing his face—staggered to his knees to look after the disappearing shapes as Wager’s backup car squealed to a smoking halt beside them and its two officers tumbled out of the vehicle and ran toward Mrs. Green and the councilwoman. Stubbs spilled out of the car and sprinted for Blainey and a SWAT member who struggled to hold a flailing rioter.

“Cuff that fucker! Get the fucking cuffs on him!”

“Goddamn motherfucking—”

“Get the cuffs on him!”

“Stay down, both of you!” Wager, out of the car, shouted at the two huddled women and rested his pistol on the roof as he searched the dark emptiness of housetops and driveways for the flash of a weapon or the spurt of fire in a Molotov cocktail. “Stay in the car—stay down!”

“My God,” the councilwoman’s voice was muffled by her hands. “It happened so fast!”

“Cuff his goddamn feet.”

Hannah Green, the silent microphone still gripped in her fist, stared through the broken windows streaked with spittle, her own cheeks streaked with tears.

SUNDAY, 15 JUNE, 0916 Hours

The clock radio woke him with the cadenced earnestness of a sermon, and he lay under the sheet, half-listening to the voice but not hearing all the words. It was something to do with God’s forgiveness, and that was fine with Wager—he couldn’t think of anyone who didn’t need forgiving for something, himself and God included; and the urgent voice, full of pauses and emphases, seemed certain that God would welcome all sinners. Why not? He put them here in the first place. Yawning with a weariness that lingered in his burning eyes and in the cottony feeling surrounding his thoughts, Wager stumbled into the kitchen to start water for coffee and to slice into one of the Rocky Ford cantaloupes he’d found last night at a twenty-four-hour supermarket. He could still remember the strange dislocation of the early morning quiet, wandering along the neatly ordered rows of food while twenty minutes across town the sirens, the tear gas, the batons were cleaning up the last of the rioters.

After the mob swept across the car, Councilwoman Voss agreed with Wager that Mrs. Green should quit, but the woman held on long enough to make one more tour around the edges of the neighborhood. Her voice was hard to understand because she kept catching the words in tears and gasps. Neither woman urged Wager to drive into the neighborhood’s center, where more reports of quick strikes by gangs kept erupting on the radio. Finally, they convinced Mrs. Green she had done enough.

The papers said
YOUTH KILLED IN FIVE POINTS RIOTS
and named a fourteen-year-old boy who had been shot, although it wasn’t clear whether the bullet had come from rioters or from the police. Some civilians in the neighborhood blamed the police for the death, while others said the youth was shot when two gangs tangled over a looted store. The chief said the matter was under intense investigation and he expected to have a formal statement within twenty-four hours. Wager figured Max and Devereaux were still at work taking statements and collating the physical evidence on that one. Eighteen other civilians had been arrested allegedly for rioting and looting, and, far down the front-page story, a brief paragraph noted that an officer had suffered a heart attack while chasing a group of fugitives down an alley. Damage estimates were mounting—added to, Wager reckoned, by more than one shop owner who saw a chance to clear out his inventory for the insurance. The
Post
editorial lamented the death and destruction and called for calm; the
News
ran a story on the bottom of the front page headlined
GANG LEADERS PROMISE WORSE TO COME
. A spokesman for the Uhuru Warriors, photographed in his dashiki, warned that last night was only a warm-up and that tonight there would be massive riots to protest the murder of a brother by the police.

Wager sipped his coffee and folded the newspapers onto the stack saved up for the apartment’s recycling drive. One of the tenants had organized the Saturday collection to earn money for handicapped children, and it was as good a cause as any. The world was full of causes—good, bad, all kinds. And Wager was faced with his own: Councilman Horace Green’s death. He refilled his cup and cleared the breakfast table to spread the papers and notes he’d accumulated in the last three days. One sheet listed the times and events of Green’s final day—Wednesday, the eleventh—and a little star was penciled by time periods that had not yet been accounted for. A separate sheet listed the restaurants Mrs. Green had given him last night, and he would start that round of the investigation when they began to open today.

Another sheet held a series of questions, some crossed off now and a lot added. A few of them had little stars, too: “Killed nearby? Killer would have looked for a safer dump but was in a hurry?” The answer for Wager was that Green had probably been killed in his car—another starred question—and then dumped. Which brought a new question to Wager’s mind and he glanced through a Xerox copy of the wound chart. One close-range shot to the back of the head—entering just to the right of centerline. That was consistent with Green sitting in the driver’s seat, turning his head to the left, being shot by someone in the rider’s seat. Then they would have to slide the body across the seat and walk around to drive the car. If that’s what happened, there would be plenty of evidence in that vehicle. All they had to do was find it—which, another phone call told him, MVD had not yet been able to do.

But, and this managed to work its way through the slowly ebbing fog of a lack of sleep, that car could help explain the killer’s haste: As Fat Willy said, everybody knew that vehicle. A car that big with Green’s vanity plates. Parked where it could easily be seen. Driven through familiar streets. Half the people in the district recognized it. And, quite possibly, the killer believed that those who knew the car would also remember who was driving it and where. Someone driving that car who could be recognized. Or who shouldn’t be behind that wheel—a white man, perhaps … Cowboy boots. Vote buying. An urgency in getting rid of the body in order to get rid of that car. Why not leave the body in the car … ? Simply shoot him and walk away? Same reason: The killer might be noticed walking in that neighborhood. The car was needed for escape. To get back to wherever the alibi was, or to the killer’s own car or motorcycle. Shoot Green quickly before he could become suspicious or could call for help, dump the body as soon as possible so the killer or killers wouldn’t be seen driving that car, use it to get back to cover. Why not just drive to the other car or alibi with the body still in the Lincoln? Why stop to dump it? Perhaps—and here Wager’s pencil started another little star—because the body might have been seen in the car? Or because the killer had been seen recently in the car with Green? Where would the car be driven that Green’s body might have been seen? Who might have seen Green and his killer in the car? A parking attendant … a security gate with a guard … a ticket booth … A lot of possibilities but fewer than before. He made a note to himself and turned to his section of notes on K and E Construction and began going once more over those items. The construction firm’s name had come up with persistency—enough to make Wager want to dig for more. But proving any link between Green and K and E would be tough.

He glanced at the clock and decided to take a chance on calling this early. After four or five rings, the woman’s sleepy voice mumbled hello. “Miss Andersen? This is Detective Wager. I wonder if I could come over and talk with you for a few minutes?”

“It’s … it’s Sunday morning.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there in about a half hour.”

“But …”

He hung up before she could think of some objection; in less than half an hour he nosed the Trans-Am slowly past groups of condominiums, built to look like mansions that spread over the dark green of lushly watered lawns and thin new trees. Tasteful wooden signs listed the house numbers for each cluster, and he finally found the one he looked for. It was a middle unit, two buildings away from the street, and as Wager walked down the gently arcing sidewalk he could hear carried from the distance the amplified chime of a church carillon ringing a half-familiar hymn. At the far end of the trimmed green, he saw the white frame of a lifeguard tower and a young couple, towels slung around their necks, walking toward the pool, holding hands. Miss Andersen answered the door in jeans and a sweatshirt; the lined paleness of her face was accentuated by the lack of makeup, and she was awake now but said nothing.

Wager smiled. “Can I come in?”

Still silent, she stepped back, turning to lead him into a living room that was designed to make up in height and openness what it lost in narrowness and a lack of windows in two walls. “Would you like some coffee?” A pot steamed on a divider between the kitchen and dining area. “I just made some.”

He watched her fill the blue cup, a slight tremor in her hands. This morning her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail that made her seem less enameled and more vulnerable. “Are you going to the funeral?”

“I don’t know. I want to. He was my employer and, if I don’t, it’ll look …” She gestured at the cream pitcher and sugar bowl; Wager shook his head. “But I don’t know if I ought to.”

“His wife knows about you. She’s known for a long time.”

“Oh.”

He sipped, studying the woman’s face. It was good coffee—freshly ground and made with some kind of filter machine. Wager had been thinking of trying one, but it might spoil his ability to stomach the coffee at the office.

“I suppose I’d better not, then.” The gray eyes looked up. “Perhaps the interment. I can stay at the edge of the crowd.” Her voice broke slightly as she explained. “I just want to say good-bye!”

“Yes, ma’am.” He watched her walk slowly past the fireplace and settle on the tan rug to lean back against a raised hearth. “There’ll be a big crowd.”

“I know.”

“You are the only one who handles the books for the store?”

“What? Oh—I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else. The books? Yes—I do the books.”

“You’re the only one?”

“Yes. Horace would look them over once a week, but I make all the entries.”

“Was the store profitable?”

“Yes.” She looked puzzled. “You’ve asked me that before. Why?”

Wager smiled. “Sometimes I forget what I’ve asked. Furniture sales—that’s the store’s total source of income?”

“Sales and leasing. We lease some items but we don’t really advertise that side of the business; it’s more of a service for certain clients. I don’t understand the question—what else would a furniture store do?”

“Some business owners run their personal income through corporations so they can get a better tax break.”

She shook her head. “No—not Horace. His councilman’s salary was taxed before he got it.”

“Investments?”

“A few. Real estate, mostly. But I don’t know much about that side of his finances.” He had all her attention now. “Why are you asking me these things?”

“There’s a rumor,” Wager emphasized the word, “that he might have been involved in selling votes on his zoning committee. If so, he might have run the money through the furniture company so he could account for it.”

“No—not Horace.”

“It’s just a rumor, Miss Andersen. Something I have to check out.”