But no way in hell was I going to let her fall with me. She didn’t do anything wrong. She was KOP’s only chance for a better future. She was family.
I had to keep her clear, but a flurry of logic painted a bleak best case. There’d be a full investigation. She’d have to face inquiries. What was your relationship with cop killer Juno Mozambe? To defend herself, she’d have to vilify Mota. She’d have to sully a dead cop’s name. That in itself was a violation of the cop code. Even if she managed to keep her shield, her chances of becoming brass would be destroyed. Rusedski would bump her out of Homicide. She’d never be trusted with a position of leadership.
Cleaning up KOP was Maggie’s mission. People like us needed a mission. Without a mission, we were empty shells. Husks of skin and bone.
Without a mission, we were like Niki. We might as well kill ourselves.
Maggie sliced me again with her tongue. “You ruin everything you touch, everything and everybody.”
No. I squeezed my hand into a fist, pressed it into my forehead. I wouldn’t go down like that. I couldn’t. There was always a way. I’d flip this thing on its head. No such thing as a rap I couldn’t beat. Nobody could work the angles like me. I was the king of cover-ups. Master of the frame job. Reality didn’t mean shit to me. Not when I could create my own.
There was always a way.
I closed my eyes, darkness closing around me. I pushed a knuckle into my temple. Think!
Darkness cracked, a ray of light shining through. I rode the light. Thoughts dominoed. Random patterns lined up into rows.
I rushed up to Maggie, nose to nose, eye-to-eye. “Lock the gate.”
She scrunched up disbelieving brows, but already there was a glint of hope in her eyes. She knew my genius. My gift.
I could feel the fire in my eyes, nerves gone electric. I was a mad scientist. A possessed soul. “Lock the gate. Do it now!”
She ran down the stairs, the power of my insanity impossible to resist.
I knelt next to Mota’s body, blood seeping into my pant legs, flies bouncing off my hand, my face, slipping inside my shirt. I didn’t let myself think about what I had to do. I grabbed his belt, yanked it free of its prong, and slid it through the buckle. I reached for his pants, grabbed the cloth next to the button, and wrestled it free.
Maggie was back.
I didn’t look up. “My rifle. Get rid of it. Heave it onto another roof.”
I pulled down the zipper, parted the flaps.
I heard the gate rattle on its hinges. They were here.
I gave instructions, my voice calm and flat. Disassociated. Like it wasn’t my voice at all. “Flash your badge. Give orders. Tell them there’s no emergency. I need a minute so don’t let them break through the gate. Make them get a key. Stay back so they don’t see the blood spatter on your clothes.”
I reached into his shorts and pulled it out.
Voices echoed up the staircase, Maggie’s take-charge attitude silencing them. She was the real deal. Always rose to the occasion. She was going to make a great chief.
I took a moment to study the broken glass that had been trapped under his body when he fell. I selected a long shard, picked it out of the expanding pool of blood.
Maggie returned. “What now?”
I stayed between her and Mota’s body. “Did you let them see you?”
“I stayed back far as I could.”
“Good. You need to cover the spatter patterns on your clothes. Flip Panama over like you’re checking to see if he’s alive. Get as much blood on you as you can.”
I squeezed the glass shard tight in my hand, felt it dig into my palm. “We were following Lizard-man. He did this. We surprised him before he could finish. He made it down the stairs before we could stop him. He locked us in.”
She wrestled with Panama’s body, knees slip-sliding in blood as she rolled him over. She rubbed her hands together, wiped them on her shirt.
“That’s good enough. Now get down there to greet them.”
She hurried for the staircase. I waited until she disappeared from view. Didn’t want her to see this.
I pinned it to his stomach with my right, sawed with my left. I was on autopilot. A machine. My soul locked inside a safe.
Cold. Efficient. Utterly ruthless.
The glass cut all the way through. The jingle of keys on a chain sounded nearby. I took my glass shiv by the edges and wiped it back and forth on my pant leg, bloody prints wiping off before carrying it a couple steps to a ventilation fan and dropping it through the grate, hearing it shatter somewhere inside.
The gate creaked open, the sound of shoes on stone stairs. I rushed back to Mota’s body. Reached for it, picked it off his stomach.
Unis spilled onto the roof, two, four, six. Flashlights and quiet voices.
I held it in my fist. Had to take it with me. Had to plant it on Lizard-man when I found him. Had to.
I backed away from the body, from the mass of dancing flies. Nothing to see here.
I watched the unis, watched them look at me, at the bodies, back at me. I moved into shadow, leaned against the wall. I took my balled fist and shoved it into a pocket.
Maggie jumped on them. “This is a crime scene, people. We have a dead captain here. Nobody touches anything. Somebody go get me a goddamned towel.”
One of the ashen-faced unis leapt at the chance to get away from the corpses. Maggie called to his back, “Get one for Juno too.”
More unis arrived, one of them announcing that Lieutenant Rusedski was on his way. I stayed put, felt the cool brick through my shirt, luxuriated in it. A rush came on. The surge of exultant heat made my skin flush. My tingling feet felt like they were floating. I’d done it!
My soul came up from where it hid, body and soul reintegrating. With it, my mood spoiled, the rush going south. My floating feet fell, and my flushed skin broke into a sweat.
Did I really do it? Inside my pocket, I felt it in my fist. God, I had it in my hand. The urge to throw it and run seized me, and rattled nerves brought on a case of the shakes. I tamped it down, forced my hand to let go and pulled my fingers out of my pocket.
I stared at Mota’s corpse. His defiled, desecrated corpse. Christ. If there was any justice at all, hell would have a special place reserved for me. They’d build me a whole wing.
The young officer returned with towels and a couple wet cloths. I approached and greedily nabbed a cloth before moving back into the shadows. I wiped my face, rubbed it over my cheeks, my forehead.
Maggie talked as she cleaned up, explaining to no one in particular, “We came here to find the serial who killed Froelich and Wu. I caught a tip from one of my informants. Said she heard from one of her hooker friends who turns tricks downstairs that she’d seen a strange guy hanging around up here. The description was close enough I thought I should check it out. Juno had a run-in with this guy so I brought him with me to see if he could identify him. We were about to plant ourselves in that bar across the way and watch for him to show when we see these two fools head into the alley and up the stairs. We wait a few minutes, unsure what to do, then decide to follow them up.”
I wiped the cloth across my neck and forced myself to pay attention. Maggie wasn’t really speaking to them. She was talking to me. Getting our story set before Rusedski arrived. Just in case he interviewed us separately.
“We come up those stairs, and this is what we find.” She gestured at the bodies. “He must’ve heard us coming and hid behind that pile of junk there. We come through, and all of a sudden he’s racing down the stairs behind us. Juno tried to catch him, but the guy was too quick. He got to the gate at the bottom first and locked us in.”
I could feel the bulge in my pocket. I stood totally erect, trying to make my pants hang loose so I wouldn’t feel it pressing against my leg.
Maggie unfolded her cloth, put the whole thing over her face and scrubbed it clean, her voice coming through her hands. “We checked to see if they were still alive, but they were long gone. By the time I went for my phone,
