but there was no serial number. Setting the log aside, he turned to the box’s contents. There was a sweatshirt, a brown-stained bullet hole visible through the plastic bag. He came across a small baggie holding a shotgun shell and a misshapen bullet that he guessed was the one taken from Angela’s chest. Finally, his hand touched something hard and he pulled out the Beretta.
He held the plastic tight, down against the barrel. Damn, the serial number had been filed off. Without it, there was no way to prove it was a throw-down. A lab might be able to raise the number but he knew that only Steele could make that happen now.
Louis poked his head outside the grating and scanned the room. It had thinned out some, the search called off because of darkness.
“Hey,” Louis called out to one of Steele’s aides. “Steele around?”
The man looked over. “Nope.”
“Where is he?”
The man glanced at his watch. “Probably at about 35,000 feet right now.”
“What?”
“He’s the keynote speaker at some banquet in Detroit. Starts at nine. He said not to interrupt him unless Lacey is either in custody or dead.”
Louis rubbed his forehead. His eyes drifted to the sweatshirt. He pulled it from the plastic bag, laying it across the open box, revealing the hole and brown stain just below the MACKINAC ISLAND lettering.
From the folder he had brought in, he pulled out the autopsy photo of Angela’s chest. The bullet hole was dead center in her chest but the one on the sweatshirt was lower. He moved the sleeve up, as if her arm had been raised over her head, and the hole in the sweatshirt fell into place, center of the chest.
He stared at the sweatshirt, his anger rising. How the hell had they expected to get away with this? And where had they gotten the throw-down in the first place? They wouldn’t use one of their own weapons and there was no easy black market in a location like this. The most logical answer was that the gun had come from another evidence bag that no one had reason to ever open again.
He started moving bags and boxes, searching randomly, trying to remember anything from the case files he and Jesse had gone through. His eyes scanned every name and number but nothing registered. Then he stopped, his eyes locked on a brown bag tucked far back on a top shelf.
HAMMERSMITH #75-88961. The dead motorcycle guy who had been arrested in Loon Lake eight years ago for drawing a weapon.
He pulled down the bag, slipped his finger under the dried, cracked tape and reached in. His fingers hit something sharp and he withdrew them. Cursing, he pulled out a broken beer bottle, set it aside and carefully patted down the bag. Nothing. No gun. It should have been there and it wasn’t.
He pulled the evidence log out of the bag. Hammersmith’s gun was listed, a 9-mm Beretta, serial number SYL61829.
SYL61829…
It was the number in Pryce’s notebook, the number he had written on the back of the legal pad.
Louis felt his skin grow cold. Pryce knew. He knew that Hammersmith’s Beretta had been used in the raid.
Pryce knew about what happened at the cabin and it explained a lot of things. It explained Pryce’s secrecy and his sudden desire to get out of Loon Lake. But why hadn’t he done anything with the information?
“Louis?”
He spun around.
It was Edna. She was standing just outside the grating. “The chief just called for you.”
“What did he want?” he asked.
“I don’t know. He just asked if you were still here.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Just wanted to know if Mr. Steele was here too.”
Edna gazed at him over the top of her cats-eye glasses. For several seconds she just looked at him as she munched on a cookie. “Want one?” she asked suddenly, holding out the bag.
Louis shook his head. She withdrew the bag, her eyes drifting down to the sweatshirt draped across the evidence box and then back up to Louis. She trudged back to the dispatch desk, shooting Louis a final look over her shoulder.
Louis let out a long breath. Had she told Gibralter he was in the evidence room? Had someone else seen him? No, no, he was getting paranoid. No one in the department could possibly know what he was doing. But why the hell was Gibralter checking up on him? Christ, maybe he was just trying to find out if he was with Zoe.
He was clammy with sweat and the small, warm room seemed to close in around him. It hit him in that instant, the gravity of what he was doing. He wasn’t just breaking the rules; he was breaking the code among cops. He was turning against his own.
Had Pryce had the same doubts? Had he come to the same choice? Is that why he hadn’t acted on what he knew? Had he simply decided to turn his back and get out? But there was no way to know what Pryce’s plan had been because it was cut short by Lacey.
Louis put the beer bottle shard back in the Hammersmith evidence bag. He hesitated then folded the log and slipped it in his pocket. Refolding Angela’s sweatshirt, he put it back in its evidence box but stuck that log in his pocket, too.
He picked up the plastic-wrapped Beretta, turning it over in his hands. With a look back at Edna, he turned his back and slipped the gun in his belt under his shirt. After putting the raid box back in its place on the shelf he left the evidence room, locking it behind him.
Edna didn’t look up at him. No one in the office did, as he went back to his desk. He stopped short.
The two German shepherds were staring at him. A trickle of sweat made its way down his back. Holding his breath, he reached between the two dogs for his jacket. Slowly, very slowly, he backed up, moving toward the door.
CHAPTER 35
The damn Mustang wouldn’t start again. Louis looked at his watch, deciding against calling Dale for a jump. The kid had his own problems after yesterday’s mess with Cole.
Grabbing the black garbage bag off the seat, Louis climbed out, slamming the door. It was snowing, a wet snow that coated everything like heavy cake icing. Gray clouds hung low in the morning sky and a mist hovered over the lake. Hefting the bag under his arm, Louis turned up his collar and started to walk.
A church bell clanged somewhere in the distance. A few cars puttered down the street. Everything seemed to be running in slow motion this morning, even his mind. He hadn’t slept. Partly, it was because he was afraid that Gibralter would discover the Beretta missing from evidence.
But mainly it was because he was uneasy about what he was going to do this morning. He had decided to go to Steele with the evidence he had against Jesse and Gibralter. It had to be done, but that didn’t make things any easier. It didn’t make his thoughts less chaotic.
As he walked, he had a vision of Jesse and Gibralter being hauled off in handcuffs, the damn TV cameras capturing it all for national feed.
He could see Steele standing there, spewing out his self-righteous crap about corrupt cops. As much as he
