Page 15 of Fish in a Barrel

He held out the picture of Zeke that Arturo had taken—apparently he took the residents’ photos whenever they had a good day and gave them copies so they had an easier time of it when they had bad ones. Zeke’s wide mouth was relaxed in a smile, and he was sitting up, facing the camera. The focus was precise enough so Annette couldn’t see any of the physical anomalies—the larger joints, the elongated fingers—that would have marked him as having some sort of disability that would have made moving the way she’d described her assailant moving a chore.

“Zee?” she said, looking at Jackson’s phone in wonder. “They’re tryingZeefor this?” She looked at Larry in distress. “The papers said Ezekiel Halliday. I had no idea…. Oh God.Zee?”

“You know this man?” Jackson asked, his heart hammering in his chest.

“Yes! His care home brings groups of residents there every week. I wave to them, they wave back. Zee comes out and talks. I say hello. He’s very sweet, but….” Her brow furrowed. “The police are trying to sayZeeheld a knife to my throat? How in the hell would he do that?”

“The question we’ve been asking since we got this case,” Jackson responded grimly. “But it helps that you know the victim—I mean, the accused.” He grimaced. He couldn’t make that mistake. He couldn’t.

“Wait,” she said, frowning. “The newsfeed said the perpetrator had to be taken to the hospital for injuries sustained in jail….” Her voice cracked, and the cat vacated her lap. “Theybeat him?” she shrieked.

“Which we will address in another trial,” Jackson said. “As soon as we make sure he never has to go back to jail.”

“I want blood!”she shouted, standing up abruptly and swaying a little on her feet. “Goddammit, Larry, somebody’s got to pay. This isbullshit. This is atravesty. This is—oh my God, this is—what in the fuck is going on?Why haven’t I been called in to testify?” She glared at Jackson, who gave her a serene smile back.

“Would you like to testify?” he asked, practically batting his lashes. “Would you be prepared to testify tomorrow, for instance?”

She bared her teeth, a pudgy little woman who liked cats, liked to make fleece scarves and Christmas dinner for people who had none, and knew the name of the disabled folks who came to visit the park and the homeless people she saw every day.

“Try to fuckin’ stop me!” she snarled.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am,” Jackson said. “But we need you to do us a favor and stay hidden until all the witnesses for the prosecution are inside the courtroom. I’ll meet you at the side of the courthouse and escort you in, but you can’t come in through the main door. Do you understand?”

She smiled a little. “They didn’t ask me for a reason, that’s what you’re telling me. They’ll object to me if they know I’m there.”

Jackson nodded. “Oh yes, they will. And we want to catch them by surprise.” He tried to calm himself down and remembered the other important thing she’d need to know. “And… and this is going to be the hard part. The guy with the knife? Therealperpetrator? He might be there too. Can you face him? If Henry and I are there to keep you safe?”

She gave a sweet little smile—one of the saddest and bravest things Jackson had ever seen. “I swear to God, he didn’t scare me as badly as the police. I think I’ll be just fine.”

In his pocket Jackson felt his phone buzz, probably with Ellery’s text of the officer whom Annette had possibly seen in the park with the perpetrator. Oh yes, things were about to turn Zeke’s way.

TWENTY MINUTESlater, after Jackson had put Annette Frazier in touch with Ellery and left them conversing about particulars, he and Henry ventured out into the blustery dark.

“Fuckme,” Henry muttered. “Jackson, that wasnuts. I mean, I expected it to not be our guy, but… but was I hearing that right? Was that anundercover copwho sliced her up?”

“You know what’s even more bonkers?” Jackson asked, approaching Jennifer with his hands up. “Sweetheart, you’ve got to let us in. We’ve got a few more places to go.” And with that he clicked the key fob and the lights blinked and—contrary to every feature the car was supposed to have—the two front doors popped open.

Jackson and Henry stopped, and Jackson swallowed. “Thanks, honey. You’re a good girl, and we’re grateful. I’ll try to get your oil changed sometime this week—how’s that? Sound good?” The lights blinked on and off, and he and Henry got in the car.

“Uh, Jackson?” Henry whispered.

“We’re not talking about it,” Jackson muttered. “We’ve got shit to do tonight, and if, uhm, Jennifer is up to help us, that’s even better.”

“Good car,” Henry said, patting the dashboard. “Happy to work with you.” Then he got back to the matter at hand. “You were telling me what was even more bonkers?”

“Yeah,” Jackson said. “The most bonkers thing about that entire scenario is that I think he cut her to keep that young blond cop from shooting the guy with the dog.”

Henry let out a low whistle. “I didn’t catch that. But it would make sense. Everybody turns around to see the dumb kid cop aiming at the dog and his owner, and our guy…. It sounds like he went in the bathroom to get high on purpose, right?”

“That was my take. He’s an undercover cop. He’s told by his handler that he’s supposed to create a stink in the homeless encampment. He’s not happy about it. He goes into the bathroom, gets high as a fucking kite because he’s been under too long, and he comes out ready to raise hell.”

“And then Annette steps in, trying to talk him down,” Henry continued. “And she’s good at it. And he’s thinking, ‘I can just walk away from this and tell my handler it wasn’t a good day to fuck around here,’ when the cops show up, so he takes her hostage because that was the sort of thing he wastoldto do.”

Jackson nodded, accelerating gently through the sopping wet streets of the residential neighborhood. It was exactly the sort of lower-middle-class area where thereshouldhave been homeless encampments all over the place. They should have covered the park, been sleeping in alcoves near the drugstore he was about to pass, be hunkered down under the carport of the shopping mall, not because anybody should be living like that, but because this was the sort of neighborhood where the cops only came so often.

But they weren’t—just like the pavilion at the park had been power hosed, this entire part of the city had been scrubbed clean of the people who would have gone home if only they could.

“It was,” Jackson said. “He was obeying orders, but he didn’t want to. That’s why he got high as a fucking kite. So he’s got the knife out, and he’s hating the sitch, and he sees the dumbfuck young cop about to blow away the guy and his dog, and he says, ‘I’m sorry,’ and cuts her. Not her face—did you notice that?”