“And then?”
“Then I turned out the lights so I wouldn’t be seen leaving, and I sneaked out. Found a payphone a mile away and called in a shots-fired to nine-one-one. Muffled my voice so I couldn’t be identified on tape.”
“Why report shots fired, if there were none?”
“I figured it was the best way to get a fast response.”
“Why call the police at all?”
“So they would find his gear, link him to the shooting in San Fernando. Come on, Tess, you know how I work.”
“Yes,” Tess said quietly, “I know how you work.”
“Not sure I’m liking the mother superior tone. I was trying to help out. I even left the door unlocked to make it easier for the cops to get in.”
“When they got in, they didn’t find Dylan Garrick unconscious. They found him dead.”
“I know. I was watching.”
Michaelson turned to face her. “Watching?”
“After I called nine-one-one, I doubled back and parked a few blocks away. Then I found a vantage point where I could observe the action. I wanted to make sure the cops checked out the whole apartment and found the gun in the bedroom. That was the only link to the assault on Andrea. Instead I saw them call for a morgue wagon. I saw Dylan carried out in a body bag. That’s when I knew there was a problem.”
“A problem,” Michaelson said coldly, “because you shot him.”
“No, dickwad. A problem because somebody else shot him, but I would be linked to the crime. People saw me leave the bar with Dylan. Tess here already suspected me of having vengeance in mind-”
“Because you did have vengeance in mind,” Tess snapped.
“I didn’t shoot Dylan.”
“No, I’m sure the thought never even crossed your mind.”
“It crossed my mind.” Abby took a breath. “I thought about killing him. I wanted to. And… I came close. When I put the pillow around the gun, I wasn’t just trying to scare him. I was… thinking about it. How easy it would be.”
“And you yielded to that temptation,” Michaelson said. “Come on, be straight with us. I understand what you were feeling. I can sympathize. You’d hardly be human if you didn’t hate the man.”
This was the ADIC’s ham-fisted way of trying to establish rapport with the suspect. Abby could see why this bozo didn’t do fieldwork. Any halfway intelligent street criminal would see through him like Plexiglas.
“Don’t give me the touchy-feely routine, please,” she said. “I cry real easy, and I don’t want us to get all Oprah and start exchanging hugs.”
Michaelson backed off, frustrated. Tess took over again. “If you left Garrick alive, how did he end up dead?”
“Obviously someone else decided to do the job. I guess I’d made it easy. I left the door unlocked, lights off, Dylan unconscious with his gun on the floor where I’d left it, and the pillow right next to it.”
“In other words,” Michaelson said with heavy sarcasm, “someone just happened to walk in there, saw Garrick unconscious, and whacked him?”
Abby wrinkled her nose. “Don’t say ‘whacked.’ Too Sopranos.”
“It’s a rather large coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not necessarily. Dylan was pretty nervous. He’d screwed up royal. Disappointed Reynolds-and other folks, too. It’s not too surprising someone would take him out.”
“Someone like you.”
Abby sighed. She definitely was not getting through to this guy. “No, someone like one of his fellow gang members, enforcing discipline, imposing the penalty for failure. Maybe someone who was watching the apartment and waiting for Dylan’s girlfriend-namely me-to leave. When I did, this other guy comes upstairs, finds the door open, sees Dylan asleep, or so it appears. In the dark the intruder wouldn’t see the bruises or the blood. He moves closer, finds the gun on the floor. Realizes he can do the job with Dylan’s own piece. Fires twice through the pillow. Then runs.”
“All this takes place while you’re off providentially making a phone call to nine-one-one?”
“I’m not sure how much providence had to do with it, but yeah.”
“Why would the shooter run?” Tess asked. “Why wouldn’t he search the apartment like you did, take the evidence tying Dylan to the San Fernando raid?”
“I’m guessing that was his plan. But maybe the second shot was too loud. Or he might have heard the sirens of the cop cars responding to my call.”
Michaelson folded his arms again. A bad sign. “That’s an interesting series of suppositions.”
“Thank you.”
“But entirely unnecessary. We don’t need a mystery gunman on a grassy knoll. We have you.”
“I never mentioned a grassy knoll.”
“Are you listening, Ms. Sinclair? We have you. You’re looking very, very good for the murder of Dylan Garrick.”
Abby gave up on Michaelson and looked at Tess for support. “You know that’s not my style.”
Tess took a long moment to respond. “Honestly, Abby, I don’t know what to think about you anymore.”
Silence in the room, broken finally when Abby heard herself say words she had never spoken before. “Maybe I’d better call a lawyer.”
Michaelson gestured for Tess to rise. “There’ll be time for that later.”
“Hey. I’m supposed to get a phone call. It’s in the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence, or some old document under glass.”
Tess walked out of the room without answering.
“It could be the Magna Carta,” Abby added helpfully. “You might check there. You hear me? I want a lawyer.”
Michaelson gave Abby a dismissive backward glance. “Later,” he said.
The door shut behind him, and she was alone.
50
Abby didn’t know how long she was left in the interrogation room. Time had a funny way of not passing when there were no windows and no clocks. Even her wristwatch had been taken. From beyond the closed door she heard activity in the hall, which seemed to flow in cycles, brief periods of commotion interspersed with long intervals of quiet. After a while the quiet times seemed to become longer. She had the impression that it was late. They had brought her in at eight o’clock and interrogated her for more than an hour. By now it must be well past midnight. She wondered if she had been forgotten.
“Hey,” she said loudly. “Anybody home?”
No answer. She spent some time making faces at the corner of the ceiling where she believed a hidden camera would be installed. She half hoped somebody would come in and tell her to cut it out. No one came. Maybe no one was watching.
Her left wrist remained manacled to the table. Although it constrained her movement, she was able to perform some simple exercises to work her biceps and hamstrings. Just because she was a prisoner in a federal facility didn’t mean she intended to get out of shape.
At some point she became aware of being hungry. The roast chicken and potato salad she’d swiped at Reynolds’ barbecue had been the last meal she’d eaten. How long ago was that? Almost twelve hours, she figured. If she’d been smart, she would have grabbed an early dinner rather than a quickie with Wyatt.
Then again, it might be the last quickie she would have for a while. Did they allow conjugal visits in federal prison? Didn’t matter; she wasn’t married. She had no husband to visit her. Ordinarily that thought wouldn’t have bothered her, but for some reason it chewed at her like acid tonight.
She was all alone. She had no one to come to her aid. She’d built a life based on isolation and secrecy, and
