Page 72 of Fish in a Barrel
“Naw,” Jackson muttered, making sure the guy was unhurt. “And that cat’s something special. He’s the stompiest, loudest roommate I’ve ever had, and that includes Ellery. Vocal motherfucker. I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to kill anyone sooner.”
“Was that why you named him Lucifer?” Sean asked.
Jackson shook his head. “Oh no, that was after Ellery’s mother. Speaking of which, we should go. Just mentioning her is like saying Beetlejuice three times. She’s likely to pop up on our porch out of thin air. Hey, it’s happened. I’m not shitting around here.”
Sean and Billy gave him skeptical looks, but Jackson just gestured them toward the door, grabbing his denim jacket from its spot on his closet doorknob as he went, shaking it for the reassuring clink of his keys. Unlike his sport coat, the frayed garment washed just fine, and his wallet was in the pocket as well. A grab from the table for his phone and he was good to go.
When they got outside, Billy gestured to the Dodge Charger sitting next to the minivan, and Jackson groaned, thinking about getting in and out of the low-slung vehicle.
His two companions looked at him, and he gestured to the turd-brown minivan that he was about to go purchase for keeps.
“Uhm, it’s comfy?” he suggested.
“Sure,” Billy said, deadpan. “And when we’re done with our errand, we can run snacks to your kid’s soccer team.”
“And there’s bandages in the back!” Jackson added brightly. Without his prompting on the key fob, the lights started flashing and the side doors opened. “See? She’s all excited about being taken for a spin.”
He tossed the keys to Billy, who grimaced. “You know, I thought hanging with an action hero would make me cooler.”
“Oh it does,” Jackson retorted. “So much cooler. Icy cold. Now get in.”
Jackson sent the address to Billy’s phone, and he and Sean got in the back seat, where Jackson had room to look at the files while he trusted the driving to Billy.
“Okay,” he said, settling carefully and drawing his seat belt closed. He was suddenly grateful for the room in the vehicle—he could stretch out his legs, and there was a cunning little pocket in the back of the passenger seat in front of him where he could stow files and organize. As far as mobile offices went, it beat the hell out of a motorcycle. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
He studied the photos for a moment and then read the report, frowning.
Then he studied the photos again.
“This… this isn’t right,” he murmured. “All Christie and de Souza told me was that there was unforced entry and he was shot in the chest. This….”
The photos showed Charlie Boehner splayed out on the ground, legs slightly apart and arms both bent at the elbows, hands near his shoulders, almost like somebody who’d been holding his hands up to show he had no weapon. But lots of people fell backward like that, and Jackson didn’t think the rest of the evidence pointed to that being the case.
“That’s a small wound in his shoulder for all that blood,” he said.
“I agree,” Sean replied. “I asked Christie about the slug, and he said forensics was looking for it as he and Leslie were being sent out to question you. When he left, they hadn’t found it yet, and everything he heard from the lab since said it had gone through his shoulder, through three walls of the second-story apartment, and out over the street behind his apartment to spend itself in a nearby park, which is terrifying, by the way.”
“Oh my God, yes,” Jackson breathed. “And wait—second-story apartment?” He rifled through the pages in front of him. “Has Christie shown you any pictures of the exit wound?”
“Wait.” Sean was texting madly as Jackson searched the file. “He’s in with Toe-Tag right now.”
Toby Tagliare worked in the forensic pathology department attached to Davis Med Center. Given the location of Arden Hills, Christie must have requested Tagliare personally, which made sense because he was one of the smartest death docs Jackson had ever met, and he was also a helluva nice guy. In Jackson’s pre-Ellery days, going to Toe-Tag’s house for dinner had been the high points of Jackson’s year.
“Have him tell Toby hi for me,” Jackson murmured. “What’s the exit wound look like?”
Sean stared at his phone for a moment and then showed the picture to Jackson.
Jackson sucked in his breath. He knew that kind of exit wound; he had one of those himself. It was the kind that took all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put back together again, except Charlie Boehner hadn’t been shot on a city street in broad daylight. He’d been shot in a fairly nice second-story apartment.
“That wasn’t a nine-millimeter,” he said hoarsely. “That wasn’t a Saturday night special.”
Sean shook his head. “No, sir, it’s not.”
“That’s a sniper shot,” Jackson muttered. “Do we have any idea where the point of entry was?”
“Nope,” Sean muttered grimly. “Why? Because Trey Cartman sent his two best detectives off to roust your scrawny ass at fuck-you a.m. That’s why.”
Jackson scrubbed at his face with his palm. “Okay. So we need to see that crime scene. How far away is my little errand from that apartment building?”
