hold these two any longer?”
The second cop, white and overweight, glanced at his notes and shook his head. “Nah. From what we’ve found, these guys couldn’t have been the shooter. The bullet that killed Sam matched the size of the casings from the roof across the street. The two Glocks found at the scene have no serial numbers, probably bought by Sam for protection. And just like the guys said, the damn things appeared to be unfired. We couldn’t smell discharge.”
“On top of that,” Rutherford added, “the two suspects are covered in cuts and scratches, which were probably caused by flying glass. That means they were in the shop when the shooting started.”
“Yep, and the initial 911 call mentioned a sniper as well.”
“What about their histories? Any warrants?”
“We checked their backgrounds, and neither of them have any prior convictions. Both of them have military academy educations, and both are currently employed by a reputable company, Payne Industries. In fact, the white guy in your car is CEO of the corporation.”
“You mean it’s
corporation?” Rutherford asked.
“Yes, sir. He’s the head honcho. Flew down here on his private jet.”
“I’ll be damned. What the hell is a rich corporate type doing in a New Orleans ghetto in the middle of the damn night?”
“Apparently getting a tattoo.”
Rutherford laughed at the suggestion. “Kind of unlikely, huh?”
“Yeah, but I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think he flew all the way down here to kill Jamaican Sam, either. A rich man like that doesn’t commit his own crimes. A millionaire pays to have them done for him.”
Rutherford nodded. “True, but we’ve already decided that Payne and Jones didn’t kill anyone, right? So what brings them here at this hour?”
“Drugs?”
“I doubt it. I ordered a background check on Jamaican Sam Fletcher, and he had no record other than a few busts for marijuana. The guy was a smoker, not a seller. The cops that patrol this neighborhood claim he ran a clean place. In fact, his artwork was so admired by the local gangs that thugs went out of their way to protect him.”
“Where does that leave us?”
Rutherford didn’t want to admit it, but he had no choice. “Honestly, it leaves us without a case. We can’t charge these two without just cause, and we can’t prove that these guys did anything wrong. We could hold them for twenty-four hours of questioning if we wanted to, but I guarantee that Payne would have a fancy-pants lawyer down here in the blink of an eye causing a big stink about something. No, thank you! It just wouldn’t be worth it.”
“Then we’re kinda forced to let them go, huh?”
“It looks that way, but that doesn’t mean we’re gonna forget ’em.”
The cop looked at his superior and grinned. “What do you have in mind? Some kind of tail?”
Rutherford laughed at the suggestion. “Nothing that drastic, at least not yet. I’m gonna do some digging when I get back to the station and see if I can turn up anything that makes sense. If I do, I’ll nail these guys before they know what hit ’em.” Rutherford groaned as he stared at the captives in the back of his squad car. “Let ’em loose, but tell ’em I want to have a brief chat with them before they leave.”
While waiting for the duo, Rutherford leaned against a nearby building, ready to verbally pounce on the men at the first opportunity. Payne and Jones barely had time to stretch their legs before the veteran cop started his lecture.
“Gentlemen,” he said sternly, “y’all should know better than to be roaming this type of neighborhood in the middle of the night. Violence is pretty common here, and the idiot that told you to visit Sam’s shop at night should’ve known better. Y’all are lucky to be alive.”
Payne nodded his head in agreement as he walked toward the sergeant. “Thanks to you, we are. If you guys didn’t show up when you did, we would’ve been killed by the sniper for sure.”
“Don’t thank me,” admitted the cop. “Thank the person who called 911. He was the one that made us aware of the shooting.”
“Actually, I’d like to. Is the guy around?”
Rutherford shrugged while staring at the crowd that had gathered across the street. “Probably, but I don’t know where to find him. He used a pay phone to report the incident, but refused to leave his name.”
Jones smiled to himself, wondering if Levon Greene was the person who’d made the call. If he had, they probably owed the Buffalo Soldier their lives. “If you manage to find out who it was, thank him for us, okay?”
Rutherford shook Jones’s hand and smiled. “You got it.” Then he turned to shake Payne’s. “In the meantime, stay out of trouble, all right? Keep in mind if I hear your names mentioned at the station in connection with any other suspicious events during your vacation in New Orleans, I might be forced to reconsider your involvement. Do I make myself clear?”
Both men nodded even though they realized that their trouble was far from over.
In fact, it was just beginning.
CHAPTER 23
LIGHTNING
bolts. The pain felt like lightning bolts surging through her brain.
Ariane did her best to ignore it-tried to open her eyes, tried to fight through the jackhammer that thumped inside her skull-but the agony was overwhelming. God, she wondered, what’s wrong with me? She’d never felt this bad before. Ever. She’d suffered through hangovers, migraines, and a skiing accident that left her with a severe concussion, but in all her years, she had never come close to feeling like this.
Hell, it felt like she was giving birth through her nose. The pain was
intense.
To escape the pounding, Ariane was tempted to fall back asleep. She figured if she got a little more rest she’d have to feel a whole lot better than she did now. Then, if all went well, she’d roll out of bed like she had planned and whip Jonathon’s butt in a round of golf.
Golf? Wait a second. Something about that didn’t seem right. She tried to figure it out, struggled to put her snippets of memory together in an orderly fashion, but was unable to. She could vaguely remember waking up and brushing her teeth and getting a shower and . . . the door. Something about the door. She could remember someone pounding on her door.
Or was the pounding in her head?
Wow! She honestly didn’t know. The details were hazy, like a painful childhood incident that had suddenly crept back into her consciousness. Why couldn’t she remember the door? What was it about her door?
Ariane tried to open her eyes, fought to pry her lids apart, but the pain was too intense. Wave after wave crashed inside her head, causing her to lurch forward into the fetal position. As she did, the maelstrom surged toward her gut, inducing the worst muscle spasms of her life. To her it felt like her innards were exploding upward. Like her gallblad der, liver, and intestines were inching their way toward her mouth, swimming ever so slowly up the back of her throat on a viscous river of bile.
“What’s wrong with me?” she called out, hoping God would provide her with an answer.
“Shhh,” a motherly voice replied. “Just relax. The pain will soon pass. I promise.”
The sound of a strange voice sent shock waves through Ariane.
“Who are you?” she shrieked, now trying to open her eyes with twice the urgency of before. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”
The voice sighed at the query. “You’re not in your bedroom.”
That was news to Ariane. She honestly couldn’t remember leaving her apartment. “I’m not? Where am I, then? What’s wrong with me?”
“I’m not sure where we are. I wish I knew. And as to what’s wrong with you, you’re having a reaction to the
