Herb shakes his head, his jowls wiggling.
“She’s not hiding anything, sir. It went down like I said.”
“I still need her statement. There’s blood in the water, and the sharks are circling the wagons.”
Herb has no idea what that means, and he guesses the Grouch doesn’t either. But he can’t let the deputy chief find out that Jack lives outside the city.
“She’s not at her apartment,” Herb says. “She’s with her mother. Her elderly, sickly mother.”
“Her mother is sick?” the Grouch asks.
“Very sick.”
“Which hospital is she in? I can meet-”
“She’s sick in the head,” Herb says.
“Is it pyromania?” the Grouch asks.
“Huh?”
“I had an aunt with pyromania. She’d knit sweaters, then set them on fire.”
Herb tries to judge if the Grouch is being funny, but he sees a tear in the corner of the man’s eye.
“I think she’s just failing mentally,” Herb says. “Jack ran out to the suburbs to check on her.”
“Do you know where?”
Herb shakes his head. The Grouch gets in close, so close his pointy nose almost touches Herb’s. Herb rears back slightly, afraid he’ll lose an eye.
“I will bring your partner before a disciplinary committee if I don’t hear from her within the hour. So if you have any clue where she might be, Sergeant, I suggest you find her.”
“Jack saved lives today,” Herb says, his voice steady.
“I don’t care if she saved the mayor’s daughter from being eaten by sharks…”
“… I want her debriefed right now. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Herb says.
The Grouch backs off a few feet.
“Good. Now I’ve got to talk to the media. They’re having a field day with their cockamamie theories.”
“Are they jumping the shark?” Herb asks innocently.
The Grouch doesn’t respond, already walking away from Herb’s hospital bed. Herb looks for nurses, then discreetly picks up his cell phone, which isn’t allowed in the ER. He can’t reach Jack at either number.
Herb knows his partner well. If Jack’s phones are off, that means something really serious is happening, something so serious it is making Jack neglect her responsibility here. Though Herb made up the story about Jack’s mother failing mentally, he knows she has some health problems. Could that be what’s taking Jack so long?
Herb tries the two hospitals nearest to Jack’s suburban home. Neither has admitted Mary Streng, or any elderly Jane Doe. He calls Dispatch, has them check suburban 911 calls. While he’s on hold, he digs into his pocket stock and eats a power bar. For energy. He considers drinking the bag full of bran-fortified breakfast shake, but dismisses the idea. Dispatch comes back, informs Herb there haven’t been any calls from Jack’s house.
The Novocain numbness makes it difficult to put his pants back on because he can’t feel if his leg is in the hole, and he can’t really see it either, thanks to a belly forged by de cades of poor dietary choices. But he manages, and then he straps on his empty holster – IA took his gun to rule out friendly fire from the crime scene – and puts his jacket on.
Then Sergeant Herb Benedict heads to the suburbs to find his partner.
9:09 P.M.
MUNCHEL
JAMES MICHAEL MUNCHEL takes another sip of Gatorade from his canteen, wipes the sweat off his eye, and peers through the scope again. So far, he’s been the lucky one. He has the kitchen covered, and that’s where most of the action has taken place.
From what he’s figured out, the tall bitch with the messed-up face is causing all sorts of problems for the female cop, the guy next to the refrigerator is stuck there because he has some kind of James Bond mechanical hand that won’t let go, and there’s a cat in the house in serious need of a distemper shot.
Munchel could have ended it for all of them, at any time. But he didn’t. He made sure his shots came close without hitting any of the targets. Scaring them, but not wounding them. He’s having too much fun for this to end.
That tight-ass Swanson is looking to kill everyone, then high tail it out of here, quick and dirty. But this should be savored. There’s a real-life drama going on inside the cop’s house. It’s far more interesting than Munchel’s everyday life, punching a clock at the English muffin factory. Munchel is the gluer there. His job, for eight mind- numbing hours from ten p.m. until six a.m., five days a week, is to add glue chips to the melter, which is then picked up by the roller, which paints glue on the flat cardboard blanks prior to them being folded into muffin packages. His work is literally about as much fun as watching glue dry.
He’s going to miss his shift to night. Maybe he’ll even be fired. But he doesn’t care. Right now he feels like he’s watching a movie. No, like he’s starring in a movie. Starring in it
Munchel hits the talk button. “I came close. They’re hiding. Don’t have a shot.”
He squints through the scope. The chick cop is right in his crosshairs. All he needs to do is pull the trigger, and it’s game over.
But where’s the challenge in that?
That gives Munchel an idea. A way to make this even more interesting, and to get the same adrenaline rush he got in Ravenswood. But he needs to get back to Pessolano’s pickup truck, which is parked in the woods half a mile away.
“I gotta take a leak,” he tells the guys. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Then Munchel stands up, stretches, and heads off to get another rifle.
9:10 P.M.
JACK
AFTER A SEMI-FRANTIC SEARCH I find the handcuff key on the kitchen counter. I unlock the remaining bracelet, drag Alex across the floor by her hair, and secure her wrists around the U pipe under the sink.
“See if she’s got my battery pack in her pocket,” Harry says.
I don’t like touching Alex – even restrained and unconscious she frightens me. But when I reach for her pocket she doesn’t leap up, break free, and then plunge a knife into my chest. She just lies there, unmoving. I locate the bulge in the front of her pants and tug out Harry’s battery. Well, a few pieces of it.
“Shit hell damn,” Harry says. “Kick her in the head, from me.”
“Can’t you pry open your hand?
“Yeah, why didn’t I think of that? Then I could have actually tried to hide, rather than just squat here like an idiot.”
I frown. “Maybe we could pull off the handle.”
“I already tried. Who the hell made this fridge? Brinks?”
Harry reaches inside, helps himself to one of my Goose Island India Pale Ales.
