Page 76 of Fish in a Barrel
Which was why he’d sent Henry off to supervise Jackson and his new playmates. Jacksonwasa good investigator, and he was damned smart and damned intuitive, and once he started putting puzzle pieces together, it was hard to keep up with him, although trouble always tried.
Would it try today?
“Ellery!” Jade actually snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Ellery, where did you go?”
“Jade, they’re on to something,” he said, hating that it was driving him crazy.
“I know it,” she replied. “I can’t argue with you. But we’ve got a job to do, and we can’t help them research if we’re driving all over the damned city. We do our part, they’ll do theirs. Now you’ve got ten minutes before your eleven o’clock. I’m going to get your coffee, you’re going to take notes on your last case, and we’re going to trust our boys to call us if they need us, okay?”
Jade’s brows were lowered, and her chin was thrust out, and all in all, she meant business. Ellery nodded and looked around his office to clear his head. He’d done the place in shades of blue, green, and teal, including an abstract mural wall opposite his desk that held his degrees as well as Jackson’s credentials. Jade’s also.
But mostly it showcased that complicated storm of color, which also featured notes of an earthy brown that helped to center him when he was having trouble concentrating. His desk was situated with the back to the wall facing the street, which meant clients could get a glimpse of the shade tree that graced that corner of the building. Leafy in the summer, it kept the room cool, and it gave people something to look at when things were particularly hard in their lives. Ellery’s window to his left showed the same tree, as well as the rooftops of the nearby buildings, also partially obscured by naked tree limbs as October neared an end.
Still, something about the overcast sky on the horizon gave him the hope he craved, and he took a deep breath and followed Jade’s orders.
“Five more minutes,” he told her, and she nodded.
“Good boy.”
He finished taking notes on the last client and tried to keep his eyes from straying to his cell phone. Something was brewing. He knew it in his gut.
HENRY CAUGHTup with them in Galen’s luxury sedan as they were about to pull away from Sandra Kingston’s house.
When Jackson told Sandra he was a friend of Joey’s too, she greeted him warmly, gave him a napkin full of pan dulce, and begged him to be safe.
And then she asked them all politely to leave so she could call up the insurance company and play two truths and a lie.
“Okay,” Sean said as they all lingered by the cars for a moment. “What are we up to?”
Jackson nodded grimly at him. “You and Billy are going to take Jennifer to the actual crime scene. We’ll follow you and scope out the outside while you’re talking to the cops on the inside. If you can get me a trajectory for the bullet, Henry and I can try to track it down. If Christie calls you with a type, let us know. Henry, you know your sniper rounds?”
“Mostly a .308. That’s a quick and dirty little bullet. Good range, good accuracy, and a hollow point will make a gooey mess on the way out.”
Jackson grunted. “Tell me about it. We need to take a look at the crime scene and the slug and figure out where the shooter was stationed. The cops are looking at this like a basic murder, but this was a long-range hit, and that takes a specialized skill.”
“Tell me about it,” Henry retorted, and Jackson frowned, thinking about a question he’d never asked.
“What were you rated in the military?”
“Expert,” Henry grunted. “It was my least favorite skill, so I mostly took the shiny medal and the promotion and did anything but apply to sniper training.”
Jackson felt a tug of affection for his friend. “Yeah, if I’m gonna kill someone, I’d rather it be personal.” And it had been. Every time.
“Right?” Henry nodded soberly. “But I can tell you where to look and what to look for. It’ll be fun. Like a scavenger hunt!”
“Did you hear that, everyone?” Jackson asked. “We’re going on a scavenger hunt. Let’s go find us some bad guys!”
THE APARTMENTcomplex Jackson and Henry followed the brown minivan to was gated, with golden stucco buildings, rounded archways, and a pool and clubhouse in the middle. The suburb itself was old money, much like Ellery’s suburb. The houses were fifty, sixty years old, with big yards and gorgeous customized landscaping. Many of them had their own pools in the back.
Property values here were decent, Jackson knew, and an apartment complex needed to be well kept and tasteful. This wasn’t a crappy cop-flop, and Jackson wondered how much the rent here was in relation to Boehner’s salary. It wasn’t a house on the hill, but with Sacramento rents, it didn’t have to be.
But that wasn’t even the most important consideration. As Jackson and Henry circled the parking lot, the true problem of the location hit them both at the same time.
“Shit,” Jackson muttered.
“Oh, this is bad.”
They were surrounded by one- and two-story buildings. Depending on the angle of entry—and Sean could not get there quickly enough with the pictures—there was very little way for someone to get a sharpshooting round through the front-room window of an apartment in the complex without standing directly on somebody’s house.
