It was a mutual lapse of judgment and could have been the biggest mistake of our lives.
The girl went for her learner’s permit and pulled out a gun. She got off five shots, hitting me twice, and her brother put three rounds into Jacobi before I managed to take them down. Then we lay on the deserted street and almost bled to death before the ambulance came.
Jacobi’s injuries that night had slowed him down. He couldn’t run. He put on weight. He was in constant pain, and about ten months ago, Jacobi had been promoted to chief.
The pain got to him though, and recently, Jacobi had taken medical leave to have his damaged hip replaced.
“He’s been out for three months,” Brady said to me now. “Jacobi was either off duty or on leave when the first three shootings occurred. He was off the radar when Chaz Smith was taken out and when those three shits were wasted on Schwerin.”
Brady talked over my objections. Told me to hear him out.
“Jacobi can use his radio two ways: to gather intel and to create a distraction. He has street sources. He could go into the property room at any time. He’s chief of police, Boxer. Who’s gonna suspect him? He can hide in plain sight the way only a fifty-five-year-old white guy with a limp can.”
“He’s not a killer.”
“Let’s say you’re wrong,” Brady said.
“He’s like family to me,” I said.
“I don’t buy it either,” Conklin said. “He’s a great cop. He just wouldn’t go off the deep end and become a vigilante.”
Brady waved our comments away.
“I need you both to work closely with me. We’re not going to say anything to Jacobi or to anyone else. We’re just going to watch him.”
My mind drifted.
I hadn’t been in touch with Jacobi in months. I’d gone to the hospital after his operation. I’d brought flowers, but I’d called him only a couple of times after that. It was embarrassing to think about it. I wondered now how was he doing.
Was he depressed?
Was he angry?
Did getting shot on Larkin Street by a drug user constitute motive to go on a killing spree?
According to Brady, it did.
“Are you listening to me, Boxer?”
“I’m sorry. No. What did you say?”
“I said, if anyone can talk him in, it’s the two of you. I’ll tell you where to be and when. That’s all.”
Chapter 53
At just after 6:00 p.m. Revenge was standing at the counter at Peet’s waiting for take-out coffee for his drive home.
Someone had left the Post behind and he read the front-page story about the shooting outside the projects. Despite the overheated writing about the deaths of the three dirtbag drug dealers, it was clear that the cops had nothing on the shooter except the gun he’d tossed into the car, the gun that had been used to take out Chaz Smith.
There were no prints on that gun, and there was no way to link it or anything else to him.
The primary on the case was Lindsay Boxer. He had met Boxer a couple of times back in the day. She was a hands-on homicide cop, maybe gifted, and certainly tenacious. But smart and dogged could only help you so much when you didn’t have a clue.
Martina, the girl behind the counter, took cash from an old man with a limp, said, “Thank you. Come back soon.”
She closed the cash drawer, dropped the small change into a cup, and exhaled a long sigh.
Revenge knew that Martina was depressed about her pending divorce. Although she laughed it off, called it “losing a hundred and seventy-five pounds,” Martina was obviously heartsick.
She put on a brave face for him and said of the front-page story, “That’s something, isn’t it?”
She poured hot coffee into a cardboard coffee cup, leaving two inches at the top for milk, the way he liked it. “Some kind of vigilante is killing drug dealers. Have you heard about him? He’s called Revenge.”
“Just reading about it now,” he said. “I don’t read the paper all that often.”
“But you do watch TV, right? One of the guys Revenge killed was a big-deal undercover cop, and his wife is going to be on TV tonight. With Katie Couric.”
“No kidding. Well, maybe I’ll watch it then.”
He smiled at the waitress, poured milk into the cup, and capped it. He left four dollars on the counter, told Martina to take care, and went out into the strip mall.
He got into his vehicle and called his wife, told her he’d be home in half an hour; did she need him to pick up anything?
“No, thanks. We’re good, sweetie,” she said.
Revenge hung up and had just started the engine when he saw something that almost snapped his head back. It was Raoul Fernandez, a scumbag drug dealer who was moving up in his world from small-timer selling teenths in the hood to distributor with young kids doing the dealing for him.
While Revenge was with the DEA task force, he’d looked for evidence against this ugly piece of work. Fernandez was cagey and elusive, and after serving two years for dealing, he had been released.
That should never have happened. Now Revenge watched Fernandez lock up his sporty little Mercedes and head across the parking lot toward the Safeway.
The strip mall was busy. Revenge had just been seen by Martina and everyone who’d been in Peet’s. He knew he ought to let Fernandez go. He should drive home to his family, just drive away.
But fuck it. He might not get this chance again.
Revenge got his gun out of the glove box and stepped out of his car. He walked past the Mercedes and followed a dozen yards behind the drug dealer, his gun pressed against his leg.
Fernandez might have heard something, or maybe he just had a sixth sense; the dealer turned toward Revenge, and he had a gun in his hand.
Revenge felt his heart rate spike.
The voice inside his head was saying, This was a mistake. This is where I go down. I guess I want it to happen. Today.
Chapter 54
Conklin and I stood with Charlie Clapper on the bricks behind the Ellsworth compound watching CSU pack up their gear. The garden was pocked with holes and heaped with mounds of dirt; it looked as if a hundred woodchucks on crack had run amok there.
Still, no additional heads or any other body parts had been found. There was no new evidence of any kind.
I was struck again by how twisted this case was, how unusual in every way.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, a homicide investigation revolves around a body and a scene where the crime actually took place.
You’ve got an assortment of material to work with: clothing, blood, fingerprints, hard evidence that can tell you who the victim was, what caused his death, and possibly when the victim died. You can even compare a photograph of the victim with the DMV’s database and most of the time can come up with a name.
