11th hour

Chapter 17

After Jason Blayney’s story about Chaz Smith’s murder appeared, the phone lines lit up with calls from tipsters, hoaxers, and reporters from all corners of the Inter-Web. People were afraid and they were also titillated. A professional shooter had killed a drug dealer inside a school.

Whose side was the shooter on? Would he kill again?

Was it safe to send your kid to school?

While Brady fielded phone calls in his office, Conklin and I sat across from each other in the squad room, pecking at our keyboards.

If Revenge was a cop, the clues were in the paperwork. Conklin and I worked a page at a time, comparing hundreds of time sheets with the four drug dealers’ times of death, stamping our feet at square one.

Up to a point, the premise was valid — separate out the cops who were off duty when all four shootings went down and check their alibis.

But the flaw in the premise was obvious. A cop’s being off duty when a dealer was killed was not a smoking gun. We were using a very large-holed sieve. It was all we had.

Conklin said, “This guy Jenkins fits the time frame.”

“I know Roddy Jenkins,” I said.

“He’s a crack shot.” “He’s a candidate.”

By noon, Conklin and I had a list of a dozen cops whose time sheets showed that they were off duty when the four drug dealers were killed. Three of those cops had worked in Narcotics at one time in their careers. Stick a gold star on each of them.

I forwarded our list of cops to Brady, who wrote back saying he would have their personnel jackets pulled. Just then, my intercom buzzed.

It was Clapper, calling from the compound. I put his call on speakerphone.

“What’s new, Charlie?”

“We’re still sifting the dirt in the yard, but we’re done with the main house,” he told me. “We found nothing in there. No blood or decapitated bodies, no additional index cards. Prints are the Worleys’. I told Janet that they could go home.”

“How’d she seem to you?”

“Wired. Chatty,” Charlie said. “Her daughter is back from the wilderness. They’re going to do some housecleaning. And Janet is in a swivet about the mess we left. Another citizen complaint.”