Page 45 of Fish in a Barrel

“Yeah.” Gabriel’s voice grew angry. “He told me that they’d been asked to clean up the park, get rid of the homeless people there, but the neighborhood was too active. People complained if the cops were too forceful, so they wanted to stir up sentiment against the population. They needed somebody homeless to go off the rails and scare people.”

The courtroom had grown so silent Jackson could hear Henry breathing on one side and Jade breathing on the other.

“Did you share that goal? Did you want to clear the park too?”

“No!” Gabriel bit out. “I… I had become part of this group of people. I was there for the higher-level drug dealers—not for the addicts, not for the people on the street. I… I knew them. I knew who got food from friends and who had a place to stay when everybody got rousted. I knew who stayed at which shelter and who needed their psychotropic medication. I… this was a community I was well integrated with, and they were not horrible people. Having them picked up and just… moved to someplace they were unfamiliar with—it’s cruel and unnecessary. I hated this idea. I didn’t want any part of it.”

“Then why did you do it?” Ellery asked when the echoes of Gabriel’s voice died down.

“Because if I turn myself in to my supervisor and ask for time off to go get cleaned up, that’s one thing. But if I get turned in for drug use, my career is over. No health, no dental, no paid rehab. You’re done.”

“You’d be left out in the cold,” Ellery said softly.

“Yeah.” Cody took a long, careful breath.

“What did you do?”

“Well, Goslar said he’d be back in fifteen minutes, so I ducked into the bathroom and set my watch for twelve minutes. Three minutes is a lot of time when you’re pretending to be crazy—I wanted to have as little time as possible for anything to go wrong.”

Ellery swallowed. “Did you do anything else?”

“Yeah,” Cody said, closing his eyes.

“What?”

“I shot up. I didn’t think I could do what Goslar asked me to do when I was sober. It… it fucking hurt too much.”

Gabriel leaned forward and rubbed the stubble on his scalp.

“We’ve all heard what happened next. I’m going to ask you two more questions now, so I’m almost done. Then we’ll get you a drink of water and it’s Ms. Brooks’s time, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, now first question—it’s a two-parter. If you were planning to ‘be crazy’ to stir up sentiment, why did you grab Ms. Frazier? And why wound her?”

Cody looked directly at Annette as he spoke. “The cops showed up, and I thought they’d talk me down, just like she did, but they all had their weapons drawn. I… I realized how vulnerable I was. If they shot me they could simply say I’d shot up and lost my mind. There was nobody to speak for me. I… I’m not proud of what I did when I grabbed Ms. Frazier, but I thought that they wouldn’t shoot her. If I could maybe back into the underbrush, it would all be okay.” He took a moment. “I’m so sorry. Most cowardly thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“Thank you,” Ellery said quietly, nodding. Jackson saw Gabriel’s reaction to Ellery’s voice, his expression, his posture, and he gave a silent prayer of thanks that Ellery Cramer was such a good man. “Why did you cut her, after that?”

“Because fucking McMurphy was gonna shoot the fuckin’ dog!” Cody burst out. “Goddammit! I was carrying a knife! There was no reason for his hands to be shaking on his gun like that. There was no reason for him to be aiming at old Paul and Zingo—that’s the pit bull. They didn’t do anything. They were just in the park enjoying one of the last good days, you know? And he was pointing that gun and I couldn’t… couldn’t just watch him do that. I cut Ms. Frazier and took off, expecting them to run me down, but they didn’t.”

“What did you do then?” Ellery asked.

“God, I was so high… I don’t even remember. I woke up in the corner of a parking lot a little while later. Made it to the homeless camp by the station. Thought… I don’t know. Somebody would see me. Come get me.” His voice broke. “Help me.”

“Who did come get you?” Ellery asked, voice low.

“Your guys, Rivers and Henry. They… they were really kind. Offered to help me get cleaned up. Offered me Federal Marshals for protection. From what I can see, they ponied up.”

“They intend to keep ponying up,” Ellery promised. “We appreciate your bravery here. Now here’s my last hard question—”

“You promised me that two questions ago,” Gabriel said, voice thick, but he still got a laugh.

“My bad. I apologize. But here’s the last one. I do promise. Are you high right now?”

“Yes and no,” Gabriel said.

“Explain that?”