Page 78 of Fish in a Barrel

“Why would you do that?”

“Because Cartman had me rousted at fuck-you in the morning! What do you think that was? Just a chance to say hi?”

“A warning,” she murmured. “A chance to get Christie and de Souza away from the crime scene. A twofer.”

“Yup. And the only thing I’ve done lately that would get Cartman to stroke his meat on my irritation would be….”

“Getting sliced and diced by Boehner’s lapdog,” she said softly. “I’m starting to see how this might pull together for you. So Cartman’s at the crime scene, he sees something that scares him, orders Christie and de Souza out of there so theydon’tsee it, and is so freaked out he bounces off your friend’s vehicle on his way back to work. Andwehave an excuse to call him in.”

“Yup,” Jackson said. “On a hit-and-run. You don’t even have to tell your shit-for-brains lieu that’s what you’re doing.” His assessment of Lieutenant Chambers had been “green and clueless” over the summer; he hadn’t seen anything since to change his mind.

“Oh,thisis how I wanted to retire, Rivers. You do bring me and Jimmy the prettiest messes.”

Jackson grinned. “You’re welcome. I ruined a suit in court the other day. I wouldn’t mind a new shirt for Christmas.”

Her laugh came from a lot of hard years on the streets as a woman of color working a white man’s job, and it was, surprisingly, not bitter in the least.

“I’ll make it bright Noel green,” she promised. “I’ll even let Jimmy check out the tie.”

“I look forward to it. But will you let me look in on the interview? That’s what would really turn my key.”

“I’ll call you when we hit the interview room. Let’s hope he’s too much of a bastard to lawyer up.”

Oh, wouldn’t that be sweet. “I’m getting all swoony just thinking about it. Go get ’em, Fetzer. Give my regards to Jimmy!”

“Oh, I will.”

“So,” Henry said as Jackson hung up, “do we go to the station and see if we can get in on the other side of the mirror? ’Cause I’m not gonna deny, I’m pretty excited about that.”

Jackson’s mouth twisted. “You and me both, brother. Even if all he gets is a traffic ticket. But before we do that, I want to know what scared him so bad. Let’s find us the bad guy. Once we know his nightmare, we can give him a way to wake up.”

Henry nodded and pulled up to a parking place on the cracked pavement right in front of a side entrance alcove to the building itself. Jackson couldn’t have chosen a better spot. They both had lockpicks on them, and getting into the building shouldn’t prove that difficult—it was old, obviously empty, and probably slated for demolition soon. Much of this area, nice to begin with, had been remodeled. Fair Oaks past Manzanita had experienced new life in the past three years: new restaurants, new businesses. This small medical center had probably once been an offshoot of one of the prosperous HMOs in the area, but new buildings had opened up for almost all of them, and now it was obsolete and out of place.

And easily the tallest building for a mile in any direction.

As they got out and headed toward the side door, Jackson’s phone buzzed. He answered it and gestured impatiently for Henry to get on with the lockpicking.

“Me?” Henry gestured, looking pleased.

Jackson nodded, keeping his expression mild. He hadn’t realized it would be a big deal. The truth was his back was on fire, and the idea of bending down right now to pick the damned lock made him a little bit queasy.

So he let Henry get to it and took Sean Kryzynski’s call. “What you got for us?”

“Christie was here. Swears to God nobody saw the small hole right at the top of the window until I pointed it out to him. But then, as you know, he’s been distracted, and not just by pursuing you. Cartman has had him and de Souza running around town trying to prove it’s you or Ellery. Did you know they had to look through traffic-light footage around your house for an hour?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jackson muttered.

“Don’t worry, they put an FNG on it while they snuck away to see what was left of the crime scene.”

Jackson had to grin—Fucking New Guy had always been one of his favorite acronyms. “Okay, so are you there?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Can you or Billy or Christie or whoever get up on a ladder and sight through the bullet hole at the right angle? I need to know what you see.”

“Ugh. Yeah. Give us a few minutes. We’ll call you back.”

“Deal.”