Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) Gary Ross (most popular novels txt) 📖

“Ramos, still position two. Lotta people out here but I see them. They haven’t started my way yet.”

“Ramos, remember to shift your back to them and turn your collar up. I don’t know about Bishop, but they got a good enough look at you last night to call you out. Shades might not be enough.” I took a breath. “Bishop?”

“They’re looking at me, Mr. Rimes,” she said in a hushed voice.

“Shit!” I said. “Try looking away.”

“I did. They’re still looking at me, talking and pointing.”

“Mars made her,” Pete said. “We gotta get out there!”

Moss stared at us. “Shades. Earpieces? Video surveillance?” He let out a breath. “You got some real James Bond shit going on here.”

“They’re crossing the plaza,” Bishop said. “Coming closer.”

“We’re coming, Lucy,” Pete said.

“They’re two guys short from last night,” I said to him, moving toward the door. “You get Drea to the office behind the check-out desk and stay with her. I’ll handle Mars.”

“Mars?” Moss said, following me. “Like the God of War?”

“The picture you’re holding.” I pushed open the front door and stepped into the sunlight. “It’s his white supremacist codename.” I started down the pedestrian ramp with Moss behind me. Ramos was standing. I gave him a hand signal to get down to Bishop. He began to walk down the ramp, weaving through the foot traffic.

“You got me confused with somebody else,” Bishop said, apparently to the three men in jeans and T-shirts I could see fanning out in front of her bench. “I’m sitting here minding my business. I’ve never seen you guys before.” After a pause, she added, “It’s called a dashiki.” Another pause. “What? No way, man! That’s my phone. I was taking selfies.” A few seconds more passed. “I ain’t gotta prove shit to you!”

All three men leaned in, the classic male move of intimidating a woman by getting in her face. The one in the middle jabbed a finger at Bishop as the men flanking him laughed. Then he seemed to take hold of her by the chin or throat.

Ramos reached the top step. “Hey!” His scream reverberated in my ear—half a second before the explosion.

The man in the middle jerked upright, the center of his white tee blossoming red, and toppled backward onto the lawn. In the instant of silence that fell over the entire area, Ramos froze on the top step, Pete’s “Was that a shot!” pierced my eardrum, and the two men still standing sidestepped to give Bishop a wide berth. Then, as silence gave way to screams and gasps, people ducked under patio tables or hurried inside. The men took off, darting through traffic on Broadway and running north on Washington.

“I’m on it, Pete,” I said. “Bishop is okay.”

Moss and I reached the Reading Park a couple of seconds after Ramos, who ignored the man on the grass and crouched beside his trembling colleague. Her still smoking purse had a large hole in the side. Moss knelt by the body and put two fingers against the carotid artery. Then he stood and shook his head as he unhooked the handy-talkie from his shoulder and moved toward his white and blue cruiser. For a moment I studied Carter John. His eyes were closed, his black glasses askew, and both arms beside him, palms up. His hair was as neatly combed as it had been last night. Well-groomed in death. I sat on the bench beside Bishop, whose hand was still inside the purse on her right thigh. Her cell phone lay on her left.

“It’ll be okay,” Ramos said, now seated on the other side of her and holding one of her hands.

“Lucy,” I said as gently as I could. “I need to take your purse. We don’t want any mistakes when other cops get here. Is your phone still recording video?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll let it keep recording until police brass arrive or Officer Moss tells us to shut it off. All right?”

“Okay.” She withdrew her hand to let me take her purse, which I put on the other side of my body. She continued to stare at the man she had shot, a few feet away. “Is he dead?”

“Yes.” I repositioned her phone to make sure her face, shot from below, was in frame. “You don’t have to keep looking at him. Close your eyes and put your head on my shoulder.”

“I’m okay,” she said, voice quavering. “All the time I spent in the Sandbox. All the time me and my husband spend at the range.” She swallowed audibly. “Never had to shoot anybody before. Never thought I would.” She turned to me, cheeks glistening. “He grabbed me by the throat, Mr. Rimes. He started to squeeze.”

I took her free hand. “It’s all right, Lucy. I know. I saw it. Ramos did too.”

“I did too, ma’am.” Ty Moss had come to the bench. “But please stay right where you are till I finish this and take pictures. Both you gentlemen, too.” Unspooling yellow crime scene tape already stretched between a light pole near the corner and a traffic sign near the curb, Moss passed the bench, circled a sapling, and continued closing off a large swath of the Reading Park from public access. Eventually, he went back down toward the street, looped the tape around an umbrella in a patio table, and returned to his starting point. Next, he began to place numbered yellow evidence tents at various points inside the crime scene, including around the body and at Bishop’s feet. Taking out a small camera, he began a slow pan of the entire scene, which suggested the camera was in video mode. Then he began to snap pictures of the surroundings and the body from various angles.

As a crowd began to gather outside the tape, a cruiser marked SUPERVISOR arrived, followed by an unmarked car. I didn’t know the heavy balding man who heaved himself out of the cruiser, but I was glad to see Rafael Piñero and his new partner Maxine Travis climb out of the