Second Chance

Chapter 6

MERCER STRODE IN, all two hundred fifty pounds of him, trailed by Gabe Carr, a mean little weasel who was the department's press liaison, and Fred Dix, who managed community relations.

The chief was still dressed in his trademark dark gray suit, blue shirt, and shiny gold cuff links. I'd watched Mercer manage a number of tense scenes - transit bombings, Internal Affairs stings, serial killers - but I'd never seen his face so tight. He motioned me into my office and, with barely a word, pulled the door shut. Fred Dix and Gabe Carr were already inside.

“I just got off the phone with Winston Gray and Vernon Jones” - two of the city's most outspoken leaders. “They've assured me they'll plead for restraint, give us some time to find out just what the fuck is going on. Just so I'm clear: By restraint, what they mean is, deliver the person or group who's responsible for this or they'll have two thousand outraged citizens at City Hall.”

He barely relaxed his face when he stared at me. “So I'm hoping, Lieutenant, you got something you want to share... ?”

I took him through what I had found at the church, along with Bernard Smith's sighting of the white getaway van.

“Van or not,” the mayor's man, Fred Dix, cut in, “you know where you have to start on this. Mayor Fernandez is going to come down hard on anyone operating in the area espousing a racist or antidiversity message. We need some heat to fall their way.”

“You seem pretty sure that's what we're looking at,” I said with a noncommittal glance. “Your garden-variety hate crime?”

“Shooting up a church, murdering an eleven-year-old child? Where would you start, Lieutenant?”

“That girl's face is going to be on every news report in the country,” Carr, the press liaison, pitched in. “The effort in the Bay View neighborhood is one of the mayor's proudest accomplishments.”

I nodded. “Does the mayor mind if I finish my eyewitness interviews first?”

“Don't worry yourself with the mayor,” Mercer cut in.

“Right now, all you have to be concerned with is me. I grew up on these streets. My folks still live in West Portal. I don't need a TV sound bite to see that kid's face in my mind. You run the investigation wherever it leads. Just run it fast. And Lindsay... nothing gets in the way, you understand?”

He was about to get up. "And most importantly, I want total containment on this. I don't want to see this investigation being run on the front page.

Everyone nodded, and Mercer, followed by Dix and Carr, stood up. He let out a deep blast of air. “Right now, we have one hell of a press conference to muck our way through.”

The others filed out of the room, but Mercer stayed behind. He leaned his thick hands on the edge of my desk, his hulking shape towering over me.

“Lindsay, I know you left a lot on the table after that last case. But all that's done. It's history now. I need everything you have on this case. One of the things you left behind when you took that shield was the freedom to let personal pain interfere with the job.”

“You don't have to worry about me.” I gave him a solid stare. I'd had my differences with the man over the years, but now I was ready to give him everything I had. I had seen the dead little girl. I had seen the church torn up. My blood was on fire. I hadn't felt this way since I left the job.

Chief Mercer flashed me a smile of understanding. “It's good to have you back, Lieutenant.”