Page 16 of Fish in a Barrel
“Not her throat, either,” Henry said. “It was along her clavicle, across her shoulder, and into the meat of her arm.”
“Not comfortable—and scary as fuck for poor Annette, who was just there to walk with a friend—”
“But not lethal either,” Henry finished. “Yeah. I think you’re right. He was there to raise a stink, and he didn’t count on getting this super sweet woman as a hostage, and he didn’t want to see the guy and his dog get blown away, so he gives her a flesh wound and disappears.”
“And Zeke gets the blame because the cops figure him for homeless too. They have no idea he’s got people who will go to the mat for him. They’re halfway through their case—I swear to God the DA filed charges while he was still getting stitched up from the beating the cops gave him—and they didn’t need to interview a soul.”
“Oh my God!” Henry exploded. “That’sright! Those names you showed me. There were mostly cops and Annette’s friend, but none of the people on that list were, you know, homeless. And that’s wherethis happened.”
“Yeah,” Jackson said bitterly. “It’s like they didn’t fucking matter.”
He and Henry breathed out slowly and evenly because they were both furious. Then Henry said, “But how do we find this undercover guy?” he asked. “How do we track him down?”
“We got sources,” Jackson said, his gut clenching. “Remember?”
“K-Ski’s still not working,” Henry said, referring to their friend Sean Kryzynski, who had been hospitalized for a punctured lung only days before Jackson and Ellery had been involved in the car wreck. “As far as we know, he’s getting fucked into the mattress by that hot nurse you got to take care of him.”
Jackson smirked. He was not actually positive Sean was having an affair with the porn model who had volunteered to be Sean’s stay-at-home help for room and board, but if hewas, it might be the most emotionally healthy thing the repressed young detective had done in quite some time.
“And his partner is about through with us,” Henry warned.
Well, shit. “That’s true,” Jackson agreed. Andre Christie, K-Ski’s partner, had worked with them over the last two months, and they’d managed to make a number of legitimate busts out of the hash Christie’s department had been trying to make of their reputation. But Christie was in hot water for depending on Jackson and Henry so much, and this latest case had given them an excuse to leave him alone so he could do his job without getting hassled by his department, and for him to distance himself from them so when they reallydidneed him, and later K-Ski, their reputations would be in good enough shape to give them some clout.
“So not them,” Henry prompted, breaking into Jackson’s thoughts.
“No,” Jackson said. “I was thinking more along the lines of Fetzer and Hardison.”
“Beat cops,” Henry said, proving that he remembered them from the thing that had gone down in August. “Is Hardison back up and running?”
He’d been shot in the leg—a through and through—but that didn’t rule him out as a source of information.
“One way to see,” he said. “Find Fetzer’s number. She’s the leader. Then give me the phone.”
“I’ll put it on speaker,” Henry said primly. “Since you’re old-school and all and don’t have Bluetooth or earbuds.”
Jackson risked a glower at Henry as he pulled to a halt in front of a red light. “Don’t talk that way in front of Jennifer,” he said meaningfully, because the car had obviously been made before Bluetooth was a standard feature.
“You’re right,” Henry said through clenched teeth. “My bad. Let me put it on speaker so we can all talk.”
“Don’t say a word,” Jackson muttered, sotto voce. The phone stopped ringing and a woman’s crisp voice came on.
“Fetzer speaking. I’m off duty, and I don’t know you, and if you’re a spam call I’m climbing through the phone lines and—”
“You know me,” Jackson said, pouring charm through his vocal cords like whiskey through a bottleneck. “Adele! How’s it going?”
“Like molasses until Jimmy gets put back on street duty,” she snapped. “Hot Dog, you had better be calling to wish me Happy Halloween!”
Jackson belted out some artificially hearty laughter, aiming his car toward Stockton Boulevard. “Happy Halloween, Adele. What’syourcostume going to be?”
“A very pissed-off cop unless you tell me what you want,” she said, but Jackson’s eyebrows were still attached, so he thought maybe some of her fire was for show.
“Okay,” Jackson said. “Maybe notyourcostume. Maybe another police officer’s costume. A detective’s costume. Someone who’s been off the grid for a month. Probably a decent guy, but he’s been under too long. Everybody’s worried about him. What’shiscostume right now? Where’s he trick-or-treating, Fetzer?”
“Oh shit,” she muttered. “Gabriel. Cody Gabriel. You’re looking for him?”
“I don’t know,” Jackson replied, losing all of his bravado in the face of her quiet concern. “Has he been missing since Harmony Park?”
She sucked in breath. “Isthatwhy he went under? Was he there?”
