Page 57

The candles that had been given out by the sponsors of the event did provide one service: they lit up the face of the person holding them. Ethan and his men were crisscrossing through the crowd in a grid pattern now. Looking at faces. Watching those who held no candles atall.
He thought again about the odds of the UNSUB coming. Although it was out of character, an obsession could compel a person to take risks they ordinarily wouldn’t. Risks that just might get the man nearer toAlexa.
He looked in the direction of her stand-in. The offender would have to get fairly close to Dara now to identify her. Maybe he’d never shown up. Perhaps he’d wait to make his move when she was leaving. Frustration mounted. And maybe this whole thing had been a complete waste oftime.
Moments after he had the thought, three loud reports sounded behind him. “Gun!” a male voice shouted. He whirled, pulling his weapon in one smooth move. People began screaming, pushing at each other in their rush to get away. Candles were dropped in the frenzy. A few sparked and flamed in the grass. He ran toward the fountain where he’d last seen Dara and the uniforms. They were spreading out in an arc across the southeast corner, weaponsdrawn.
Ethan mentally cursed. “Position two,” he said into the phone, “reassume your original stance.” Without waiting for them to do so, he continued, “It’s a distraction. Look for someone approaching Lavoie.” Pandemonium reigned for a few minutes. One uniformed officer was shouting into a megaphone, trying to bring order to the exodus. Others were rushing to put out the small fires that had sprung up where the candles had been abandoned or aiding people who hadfallen.
There were no wounded as far as he could tell. Because there hadn’t been a gun at all. To Ethan’s trained ear, the noise had likely been firecrackers. A planneddistraction.
Because, Ethan thought as he ran through the jostling crowd, this was the effect the offender had wanted. Exactlythis.
There. The uniforms had resumed position around Lavoie, probably too late. A figure was peeling sharply away from the trio and heading diagonally for the nearby street. “Positions eight and nine. Southeast corner behind the fountain. Dark pants and cap. Oversized gray shirt.” He holstered his weapon, running now, but he was slowed by people fleeing the area. With relief, he saw two of officers racing in his direction. “Spread out. Cut himoff.”
But once out of the park the figure sprinted across traffic, dodging cars. Tires shrieked as the vehicles jerked to a stop. Horns blared. Ethan and his men followed suit. The stranger ran down a block and then veered into analley.
“Position eight take the street on the south side of the buildings. Nine opposite.” Ethan’s cell was still at his ear. He winced as he banged his hip against the car that had barely avoided mowing him down, and headed down the shadowy passageway in search of thestranger.
He pulled his weapon again. He had no way to be certain the man he was chasing was the UNSUB. But the stranger had run, and that was suspicious in and of itself. He flattened himself against the wall of a building and moved swiftly down the alley, swinging around at every doorway, weaponready.
He kicked through piles of rubbish piled high enough to conceal someone. The Dumpster was pressed up against the wall of a building. He moved around the three free sides before flipping open the lid. Checked inside. A foul odor emanated. Ethan pulled out his cell and turned on the flashlight app. The receptacle was full. He watched for several moments. Was there the barest movement inside? Could be arat.
Or it could be a two-legged rodent. Ethan lowered the lid, keeping an eye on the Dumpster as he quickly finished searching the rest of the alley, before backtracking, checking the entrances into the buildings that lined it. The doors were alllocked.
Meechum and Kelly were waiting at the end of the alley. Ethan tucked his phone in his pocket and silently waved them toward the Dumpster. It was large, made of hard plastic instead of steel, with a split top. He positioned himself at the back end, while the other two men took thefront
Ethan held up fingers for a silent countdown. Three. Two. One. In unison, the three of them heaved and pulled at the container, finally managing to tip it forward, its contents spilling onto theground.
Ethan pulled his weapon and crouched down in front of it, while the other two officer flipped the lids up. “You’ll need to crawl out. Slowly,” he said conversationally to the figure cowering inside. “Because I’m sure as hell not coming inside to getyou.”
* * *
The stench emanatingfrom the man on the other side of the table in the Halifax PD room was enough to turn Ethan’s stomach. He had a feeling that just his brush with the Dumpster had left a similar smell clinging to his clothes.The glamour of the job, he thought sourly,just neverquit. Not to mention the frustration. Because whoever it was that they’d hauled back to the police headquarters, it was easy enough to see that it wasn’t the UNSUB theysought.
“I didn’t do nothing wrong,” the man insisted stubbornly. He had a few days’ growth of beard on his jaw and was missing his front teeth. He’d refused to give a name and carried no ID. He did, however, eagerly drink the can of Pepsi Meechum had fetched for him, objecting angrily when the officer took it away before he finished it. The officer would lift a print. If the stranger were in the system, they’d find out soonenough.
“Then why did you run?” asked Ethanlogically.
“’Cuz you was chasingme!”
“You had firecrackers in your pocket when we searched you. You deliberately caused a commotion that could have caused serious injury to a panicked crowd. There is any number of charges we could bring.” He paused, letting that sink in for a moment before continuing. “Maybe it wasn’t your idea, though. If that’s the case, you need to let usknow.”
“She said it was just a prank. No one would gethurt.”
Ethan stilled. “She?”
“The old lady who stopped me on her way to the park. She said there was a service going on over there. Gave me ten bucks to light the firecrackers when it gotdark.”
“An old lady didthat.”
Stubbornly, the man nodded. He looked like he was in his mid-sixties, Ethan figured, although a hard life had a way of carving years onto a face prematurely. “She had long brown curly hair and a big hat on. One of those long flowered dresses with a sweater over it.” He lowered his voice. “She wasn’t much to look at. A woman her age shouldn’t wear her hair that long, you askme.”
Son of a bitch. It didn’t take much imagination to know the man had talked to the UNSUB. Ethan thought quickly. If they were lucky, maybe one of the video cameras around the park had picked up the offender. But he neededmore.
He took copies of the two sketches out of his pocket and showed them to the man, who studied each intently before slowly shaking his head. “These are men. I talked to alady.”
“Look at the faces,” Ethan instructed slowly. “Are any of them the same shape as the woman you saw? Are the noses or mouthssimilar?”