Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (i can read books TXT) 📕

“I’m gonna sue the shit outta your department before all this is over,” Wally Ray said when Rafael and Travis stepped inside.

The detectives exchanged a look of incredulity.

“Sue us for what?” Rafael asked, moving to his left as Travis edged along his right.

“Brutality!” The gravel in his voice seemed to take on a bit of helium. “Look at me!”

After a beat, Rafael and Travis both laughed.

“You saying a cop did that to you? Sure, Mr. Rimes is some kind of cowboy.” Travis looked at the mirror and winked. “But he’s a private citizen.”

“He was working with you people! That makes you responsible! Arrest him!”

“You got cojones,” Rafael said. “I’ll give you that.”

“Must have a J.D. too,” Travis said. “Tell me again where you went to law school.”

“Mr. Rimes is a licensed private investigator and security expert hired to protect the woman you tried to kill,” Rafael said, leaning close to Wally Ray. “He fought an armed man in a stairwell, but I’m sure he’s bonded and insured, so if you want to sue somebody, get a lawyer and go after him. Maybe your public defender will take a shot at it. Lotta witnesses. What about Mr. Donatello, who killed your buddy in self-defense? He had family hurt in the bomb blast.”

“Ms. Zielinski would make a good witness,” Travis said. “She could tell the civil jury how you held her at knifepoint, how you tried to stab Mr. Rimes with the same knife. His lawyer could demonstrate your Wasp by stabbing a watermelon and blowing it open from the inside out. Of course, we were there and could testify. Right, Sarge? What did he call you?”

“Spic. You, detective?”

“Nigger.” Travis waited a moment before shrugging. “Why not sue the hotel, Mr. Tucker? The owner’s a billionaire. He could pay a lot more than Rimes or this department. But his son was one of the people killed by your bomb.”

Wally Ray hesitated before replying. “I want a lawyer.”

“You’re gonna need one,” Travis said. “Domestic terrorism, three counts of murder, using a weapon of mass destruction, and that’s only New York. Parole violation in Maryland. Home invasion and murder in Virginia. If you dance past the needle there, you’re still inside forever. With a rep that’ll fire up a lot of your fellow inmates.”

“I said I want a lawyer!”

Rafael unlocked the cuffs and offered an acid smile. “Then it’s back to your cell till we can find one so weighted down with law school debt he has to take on your sorry ass.”

Drea released my arm and threw open the door to the corridor as Rafael and Travis led Wally Ray back to his cell.

“The brothers are gonna love you,” she said. “May the wolf die—but not too soon.”

He glared at her over his shoulder but said nothing.

Later, after Pete and Ramos had given their statements and taken Drea back to the suite, I ran into Amy Ann Zielinski on her way out of headquarters with her mother, also small, olive-skinned, and dark-haired. After she introduced me, I apologized for throwing her backward so hard she landed on her rump atop Stanley Maxwell.

“That’s okay,” she said, pointing to the blood on the front of her dress. “He couldn’t get up. I could, thanks to you.” She and her mother hugged me before they left.

I gave two statements that afternoon, one to Terry Chalmers and another to the chief of detectives and Tripp Caster. After I was directed to Commissioner Cochrane himself, I found myself on a corridor bench outside his office, beside Mark Donatello.

“Thanks,” I said. “You kept me from going too far.”

“Like I did,” he said. “Guess I could’ve disarmed him, but like I said in my statement, we struggled for the knife and Duke’s thumb was on the button when the blade went in. But detectives weren’t there yet to see what happened with me. They were right above you.”

“If Ferguson was my friend,” I said, “I’d want his killer to feel what he felt. But if I’d put Wally Ray down, friend or not, Rafael would have had to take me in.”

“Friendship’s complicated.” He sighed. “Anything bugging you about the bomb?”

“How they got it past the bomb-sniffing dogs?”

Mark shook his head. “There are ways. You saw all the little cuts on Randall’s face? A small bomb could be sealed in glass and still be light enough to fly. Dogs can’t smell through glass.” He took a breath. “What’s bothering me is where the drone came down.”

“Travis said the jammer would drop the drone where it was or return it to its point of origin,” I said. “But it’s new technology. I suppose it could have dropped anywhere.”

For a moment neither of us said anything.

“If it went back to its starting point,” he said, “we miscalculated. We assumed the flight would start and stop with the operator.”

“We didn’t anticipate a two-person job, the operator in one location, an inside man to turn on the drone in another. Or an inside woman, who carried the drone in a purse she kept by her chair and opened when the time was right.”

“Randall’s girlfriend. That’s the idea I can’t get out of my head either.”

“Drea’s book says a woman lawyer in Maryland kept Tucker from being extradited to Virginia. Shouldn’t be too hard to find out if it was Chelsea Carpenter.”

“You think it was, don’t you? You think Tucker sacrificed her to get away?”

I recalled Wally Ray’s confusion when I said he’d made sure Copperhead couldn’t help. His look supported my belief Carpenter was Copperhead, not a cousin but an old friend who gave legal support. “I doubt he knew the drone went back to her. He might have thought twice if he did.”

“I wonder what Randall knew,” Mark said. “Was he an inside man too? Somebody had to get the drone and Wasps past all the security. Who better than the hotel’s co-owner?”

“He did try to throw himself on the bomb,” I said.

“Because he knew it was