Second Chance

Chapter 14

SO NOW I KNEW... These cases were probably related. Bernard Smith's sighting of the fleeing van had been on the mark. We had our get-away car. We might have a double killer.

It didn't surprise me that when I finally got back to the Hall, an angry Chief Mercer insisted he be buzzed the minute I walked in.

I closed the door to my office, dialed his extension, and waited for the barrage.

“You know what's going on here,” he said, the sting of authority rippling through his voice. “You think you can stay out in the field all day and ignore my calls? You're Lieutenant Boxer now. Your job is to manage your squad. And keep me informed.”

“I'm sorry, Chief, it's just that--”

"A child has been killed. A neighborhood terrorized.

We've got some psycho a brick short out there who's trying to turn this place into an inferno. By tomorrow, every African American leader in this town will be demanding to know what we're going to do."

“It's gotten deeper than that, Chief.”

Mercer stopped short. “Deeper than what?”

I told him what I had found in the basement in Oakland.

The lion-like symbol that had been at both crimes.

I heard him suck in a deep breath. “You're saying these two killings are related?”

“I'm saying that before we jump to any fast conclusions, that possibility exists.”

The air seemed to seep right out of Mercer's lungs. “You get a photo of what you found on that wall over to the lab. And the sketch of what that kid in Bay View saw. I want to know what those drawings mean.”

“It's already in the works,” I replied.

“And the getaway van? Anything back on it yet?”

“Negative.”

A troubling possibility seemed to be forming in Mercer's mind. “If there's some kind of conspiracy taking place here, we're not going to sit back while this” city is held hostage to a terror campaign."

“We're running the van. Let me have some time on that symbol.” I didn't want to tell him my worst fear. If Vandervellen was right, that Estelle Chipman's killer was black, and Claire was right, that Tasha Catchings was an intended target, this might not be a racial-terror campaign at all.

Even on the phone, I could sense the creases underneath Mercer's jaw deepening. I was asking him to take a risk, a big one. Finally I heard him exhale. “Don't let me down, Lieutenant. Solve your case.”

As I hung up the phone, I could feel the pressure intensifying. The world was going to expect me to bust down the door of every hate group operating west of Montana, and already I had real doubts.

On my desk, I spotted a message from Jill. “How about a drink? Six o'clock,” it read. “All of us.”

One full day into the case... If there was anything that would calm my fears, it was Jill, and Claire and Cindy, and a pitcher of margaritas at Susie's.

I left a message on Jill's voice mail that I'd be there.

I glanced at a faded blue baseball cap hanging on a wooden coatrack in the corner of my office, with the words “It's Heavenly” embroidered on the brim. The cap had belonged to Chris Raleigh. He'd given it to me during a beautiful weekend up at Heavenly Valley, where the outside world had seemed to disappear for a while and both of us had opened up to what was starting to take place between us.

“Don't let me mess up,” I whispered. I felt my eyes begin to sting with tears. God, I wished he was here.

“You sonofabitch.” I shook my head at the hat. “I miss you.”