High Risk by G.K. Parks (books for 10th graders TXT) 📕

harem of sorts. What did you make of Michael Tolliver and his roommate?”

“I’m going with potheads. Carter was so fidgety. I swear he went in the bedroom and took a hit because, when he came back, he was chill.”

“Yeah.” But something still bothered me about that.

“Hey,” Fennel nudged me, “do you think Michael Tolliver had something to do with Gardner’s murder?”

“No. He seemed genuinely shocked when he heard the news.”

“That might not have been shock.” Fennel let out a breath. “I spotted what was left of the after party. Half of them were passed out on the bathroom floor. I’ll put a call into the rideshare guy and make sure he picked them up and dropped them off at that address, but if he did, I’d say they have a solid alibi.”

“You said the killer could be working with a team.”

“Not an entire bachelor party. We’d have eyewitness accounts if that were the case.”

“True, but that apartment gave me a bad feeling.”

“Probably because they hoped you were a strippergram.” He handed back my phone. “I bet the pay’s nice. You could do it on the side. You wouldn’t need to buy any props, you already have a nightstick and handcuffs, and Mr. Lee would give you a discount on uniform cleanings.”

“Hey, now. Stripping is an equal opportunity business. You could just as easily shake it for some rolled up dollar bills.” I laughed, recalling my first encounter with Voletek.

“What? You don’t think women would be into this?” He gestured at his body.

“And some men too.”

He snickered. “Equal opportunities, huh?” He reached for the door handle.

We went up the steps and knocked on Gardner’s door. Not surprisingly, no one answered. So we did the next best thing. We knocked on his neighbors’ doors. No one remembered seeing anyone new dropping by for a visit. No suspicious vehicles had been parked outside, and no one recalled hearing arguments or fights coming from Gardner’s apartment. As far as his neighbors were concerned, Jonathan Gardner was a quiet guy who threw barbeques on the weekends during the summer and picked up groceries for the two old ladies who lived upstairs.

I called to check on the status of the warrant while my partner paced just outside the building. When he worked off the nervous energy, he took to leaning against the car. “How long?” he asked.

“It’s signed and on the way.”

He stared up at the looming apartment building. “I doubt we’ll find anything inside. I keep running over it in my head. The broken front door and the punched in security code at the rear, along with the disabled cameras, don’t make a lot of sense.” He checked his phone again. “According to Mr. Lee, the register was emptied but nothing else was taken.”

“Aside from the contents of our victim’s wallet.”

“What could Gardner even have had in there? I doubt he carried more than a hundred bucks, if he even had that much.” Fennel let out a sigh. “This is ridiculous. The only thing I can come up with is it was a robbery, possibly a stickup or mugging, gone wrong. Why kill a man over two hundred and fifty bucks? That’s insane.”

“It happens.”

“No shit, Liv.” He blew out a breath. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re mad. I am too.” I thought about Star Cleaners’ security system. “It’s a bad neighborhood, but still, the scene doesn’t make much sense.”

Fennel straightened and stepped away from the car. “Okay, let’s say I’m Jonathan Gardner. For some reason I went outside to check on something. I came back in at 4:12 and entered the code, but someone was casing the place and sprayed the cameras.”

“Do you think that’s why Gardner went outside?” I asked. “He noticed something weird on the camera feed or heard a noise out back? Maybe he spooked the shooter, so the guy went around the front and broke in.”

“Except there are two obvious problems with that theory.”

“What are they?”

“The killer fired from behind the counter.”

“So he emptied the register, then shot Gardner.”

“Except I don’t see why the security guard would let him do that. He had a gun. He’s trained to deal with trouble. Why didn’t he pull his piece?”

“It’s one thing to read a manual and go over instructions. It’s another when you’re in the middle of the action. You know that better than anyone.”

“Except I always pull my piece,” Fennel said, “and so do you.”

“We’re cops, not security guards.”

“All right, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. But that doesn’t explain the security system logs.”

“You checked them?”

“I did. And Chambliss said the log showed someone entered the disarm code at 4:12 a.m. from outside the dry cleaner’s. The sergeant assumed Gardner must have stepped out for a breath of fresh air and was coming back inside, but wouldn’t he have needed to disarm the system before opening the door in order to step outside?” He waited for the light bulb to flick on over my head. “There were two other men inside Star Cleaners besides Jonathan Gardner.”

“Unless the front door was broken after Gardner was already dead,” I suggested. “Maybe someone entered from the rear door, killed the guard, emptied the register, and retreated out the back. With the security system disengaged, we have no idea what doors were opened or when. And then someone else wanders by, notices the body peeking out from behind the counter, busts through the front door, and…”

“And what? Empties his wallet?” Fennel asked.

“Well, he was already dead.”

My partner rubbed his eyes. “We need to watch the surveillance footage.” But before he could say or do anything else, a police cruiser pulled up beside us.

Officer Roberts got out. “Did someone call for a search warrant?”

Fennel took the folded document from Roberts’ hand, checked the details to make