Croaker: Tequila Mockingbird (A Detective Fey Croaker LAPD Novel Book 3) Read online

  Several other uniformed cops were on the sidewalk and in the street, all pointing guns at the pregnant woman.

  “What are you waiting for?” April Waverly screamed, taking the hand away from her face. “Come on, kill me! Kill me!” She didn't raise her gun.

  “Drop the gun!”

  “Put it down!”

  “Freeze!”

  “Relax! Everyone just relax!” Fey's bellow overrode all other sounds. “Don't shoot!” She even surprised herself with the power of her voice.

  There was obviously something going on that nobody understood yet. Fey, however, was sure of one thing. No matter what the justification, if they shot and killed this pregnant woman, the press would make the police look bad.

  “Relax!” Fey yelled again. “Put your guns down.”

  The officers on the scene were young, assigned to uniformed positions within the station. Most had never been in a shooting situation. Fey's voice of reason was a welcome relief. They were more than glad to follow direction from somebody—anybody—who was willing to take control.

  Fey brought her attention back to April.

  The woman continued to cry, slowly sinking to her knees, the gun still in the hand at her side.

  Swallowing, Fey stepped forward.

  “Don't do it,” Terry Gillette said sharply.

  “Shut up, Terry,” Fey snapped. “What are we going to do? Kill her and the kid she's carrying? This is a police station, not an abortion clinic. She isn't going to shoot anyone else.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “She would have done it by now.” Fey wasn't sure she believed herself, but it sounded good.

  Moving with determined deliberation, Fey walked toward the kneeling woman. When she was standing directly behind April, Fey stopped. The only movement April made was the shaking brought on by the sobs racking her body.

  Fey reached out a hand and touched April on the shoulder. There was a soul wrenching wail from April, and Fey knelt to wrap her arms around the woman. April turned into the embrace, allowing the gun to fall with a clunk to the sidewalk. Monk was there instantly to retrieve it.

  Down on her own knees, the fabric of her slacks scraping on the hard concrete, Fey held April tight in her arms. She could feel the tremors in April's body being absorbed into her own. How odd, she thought, to embrace a killer.

  “Monk,” Fey called out. She moved one hand up to the back of April's head, pulling it forward to bury it in her shoulder. “I want everyone holstered up, and take care of the plainclothes guy behind the other car. I want him isolated. Put him in an interview room.” She knew Monk was sharp enough to understand she was talking about the unknown detective behind the Monte Carlo.

  “You got it,” Monk said. “How about the crime scene?”

  “Get Hammer and Nails to close off the entire street,” Fey said. “We need a complete cordon around the station. I don't want a three ring circus when the press hears about this.” Fey was rocking April in her arms now as if comforting a child.

  “Find out where Alphabet and Brindle are and get them down here,” she said, referring to the other two Homicide Unit detectives. “Tell them to find some way to screen off the victim's car. I want to know who he is as soon as possible. I don't recognize the car, so I don't think he's from West LA.”

  Terry Gillette was now standing beside Fey. He had a blanket in one hand.

  “Any idea who she is?” Fey asked Gillette as she took the blanket from him.

  “April Waverly,” Gillette said. “Apparently, the guy she shot is her husband, Alex Waverly. He's a detective with ATD.”

  “Where did you get your info?” Fey asked.

  Gillette nodded his head toward the detective who had been hiding behind the other vehicle. “That's Waverly's boss, Lieutenant Dancer. He drove the wife here to meet her husband.”

  Fey could see Monk talking to Dancer, but that wasn't her immediate priority. Monk would keep him on ice until she had the chance to get to him. Making soothing noises, she wrapped April in the blanket and eased her to her feet.

  Slowly, with her arms still encircling her, Fey led April toward the station entrance.

  TWO

  Fey was barely through the front doors of the station before everything hit the fan again. With her arms still around April, Fey heard a scream of anguish from the records room located behind the front desk.

  “No! No! No!” It was a high pitched, hysterical, yowl.

  Gina Kane, a civilian record clerk, exploded out of the records room and crashed into the front desk. She pushed herself off and ran toward the side door that secured the rear area of the front desk from the lobby.

  Gina was a twenty-something bubble-gummer with round heels and a taste for married men. She had long legs, and her chestnut brown hair tumbled down her back in a cascade of waves. The breasts underneath her too-tight cashmere sweater had cost her a fortune and were large enough to keep her feet out of the sun.

  Gina suddenly spotted Fey with her arms around April.

  “You bitch!” Gina yelled, the expression on her face turning from anguish to hatred in a split second.

  Fey looked up to see Gina coming straight at her with long, blood red nails bared.

  “Gina!” Fey yelled. She released April and turned.

  Gina, however, ducked past Fey and cannoned into April. Knocked off her feet, April fell to the floor. Gina leaped on her, scratching and slapping at April's face.

  “You bitch!” Gina screamed again. “I loved him! I loved him!”

  Fey grabbed two handfuls of Gina's hair. Viciously, she yanked backward, pulling the record clerk away from April.

  Gina screamed in pain as Fey dragged her upright and thrust her into Monk's arms. Before he could get her under control, one of Gina's flailing elbows struck Monk a glancing blow under his right eye.

  “Crap,” he swore, an unusual occurrence for Monk, and stopped trying to be gentlemanly in his handling of the still hysterical woman.

  “Cuff her,” Fey said, “until we figure out what's going on.” She turned to tend to April.

  April lay very still, the blanket fallen away. She was on her side, her legs pulled up to protect her belly. Her eyes were glassy, and blood seeped out of long scratches on both cheeks.

  “April?” Fey said, but there was no response. She went down on her knees beside the pregnant woman.

  April's hands moved to her stomach and she gave a grunt of surprise and pain.

  Fey suddenly felt something wet soaking into her knees. She looked down and saw a puddle of water on the floor. Her heart started pounding.

  “Don't do this to me,” Fey said. She reached out and touched April, whose face was contorted in pain. “Damn it,” Fey said.

  “What's wrong?” Terry Gillette demanded.

  “Her water has broken and she's going into labor. Get me a black-and-white unit out front right now, and clear us for a code-three run to the hospital. We're having a baby!”

  THREE

  By the time Fey returned to the station, she felt as if she had given birth herself. All she wanted was to go home, crawl into bed, and be left to die in peace. She knew there was no way that was going to be allowed to happen. Some days it just didn't pay to get up in the morning.

  A full cordon was still blocking all public access to the station. The division had been placed on an official tac-alert. Uniformed officers had been held over from day watch to man the barricades while their night watch counterparts handled radio calls as usual. Other crimes didn't stop simply because the police were busy with one particular incident.

  When she checked her watch, Fey was surprised to see that it was only late afternoon. And miles to go before I sleep, Fey thought with a mental shrug.

  At the hospital, the baby had slid out of its womb like a runner stealing home. Hammer and Nails had remained with April. Fey would have preferred to stay with them, but she knew her place was back at the station supervising the crime scene.

  Pulling into the station parking lot, Fey could see a temporary screen of blankets had been rigged around Alex Waverly's vehicle. the van from the coroner's office was already on-scene. Fey was sure, however, that they wouldn't move the body until she gave the word.

  Monk met her as she entered the station. He wore a dark brown suit with a purple dress shirt and a gold tie. The colors went well with his ebony skin, and the double-breasted cut of the jacket complimented his slender build. As the Homicide Unit's second in command, he was Fey's closest confidant.

  It was clear he had been hanging around, waiting to intercept Fey and brief her before she went upstairs.

  “Did she have the baby?” he asked.

  “About thirty minutes after we arrived. I think the lights-and-siren treatment all the way to Santa Monica Hospital was more than enough fanfare to hasten the birth.” Fey still wasn't used to seeing Monk's bald head. He'd shaved it two weeks earlier at his wife's request. The rude squad room jokes about why his wife made the request were only now dying down.

  “Boy or girl?”

  “Girl.”

  “Is she going to name it after you?” Monk asked with an amused grin.

  “Shut up,” Fey said, in a friendly manner. “I'm too tired to be jerked around.” She ran a hand over her face. At forty-something, rapidly approaching fifty-something, she found she didn't have the same energy as when she was younger. She was still a good looking woman with shoulder-length blond hair and soft curves that hid the few extra pounds she carried.

  “Mother and baby seem to be doing fine physically,” she said. “But mother hasn't said a word. She's working on the thousand yard stare to beat all thousand yard stares. The doctor called it a dissociative state—a complete mental shut down. And there's no telling when or
if it will pass.”

  “Just what we need,” Monk said.

  “What's the situation here?” Fey asked.

  “Everything at ground zero appears to be under control. Hammer and Nails took care of the cordon before they followed you to the hospital. Alphabet and Brindle are standing by with the coroner's investigator.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Lily Sheridan.”

  Fey nodded her approval. “Did Alphabet organize the makeshift screens around the scene?”

  “Yeah, and it's a good job he did.”

  “Why? Is the press everywhere?”

  Monk nodded. “Most of them are set up across the street at the courthouse. They've all got long-range lenses pointing at us from there.”

  “Bloody vultures,” Fey said. “What's the score with Gina Kane? How does she fit in?”

  “I questioned her briefly while you were gone,” Monk reported. “She was having an affair with Alex Waverly. She thought he was going to leave his wife and marry her.”

  “Silly bitch,” Fey said. “Women who fall for that never cease to amaze me.”

  “It happens.”

  “Yes, it does,” Fey agreed. “But not to women like Gina.”

  Monk held both hands up in front of his chest. “I won't argue with you.”

  Fey's expression was thoughtful. “So, the play on this is that April Waverly found out about the affair and decided to do hubby in?”

  “In the absence of April Waverly making a statement to the contrary, that's the way it's playing right now.”

  “How about upstairs?” Fey asked.

  “A nest of vipers,” Monk told her. “The chief is here along with Commander Searls from Bureau. Cahill is trying to keep them both entertained. Keegan and Hale just showed up from Robbery-Homicide along with Deputy Chief Harrison.”

  “Oh, man. What are those cowboys doing here?”

  “Looking to take over the case,” Monk said.

  “You're kidding?” Fey said.

  “It is their jurisdiction,” Monk replied, raising his eyebrows. “Investigating homicides where a cop is the victim is part of their mandate.”

  Fey shook her head. “I know it is, but this case is open and shut. We could handle it with our eyes closed. They just want to jump in and take the credit for their clearance rate.”

  Monk shrugged. “Not much we can do about it.”

  Fey started up the back stairs to the squad room. “I guess not.”

  Upstairs, Fey could see all the players gathered in Lieutenant Mike Cahill's office. Cahill was the commanding officer of the detective division. He had a large office in the front corner of the squad room with a bank of interior windows. Blinds could be pulled down for privacy when needed, but Cahill liked to see what was happening in the squad room, so they were open most of the time.

  Fey went in without knocking.

  “Chief,” she said, immediately acknowledging the department's chief of police who was standing next to Cahill's desk. He was a big man with a moon face and curly hair cut close to his scalp.

  “Hello, Fey,” he responded. He didn't smile, which added to the tension Fey could already sense in the room.

  Deputy Chief Vaughn Harrison stood next to the chief. He was tall and wiry with gunfight eyes. His right hand was a mangled and scarred hook of thumb, index, and middle finger. The two missing fingers had been torn off by shrapnel from a grenade in Viet Nam.

  Standing beside Harrison was Commander Searls, a nervous ferret on a caffeine high. Searls was the ultimate suck-up. Fey checked his nose for brown stains.

  Keegan and Hale leaned against the back wall of the office like matched bookends. Wearing black suits and morose sneers, they were renowned as Vaughn Harrison's hit squad.

  It was significant that nobody was sitting in the padded chairs surrounding the office conference table. Fey didn't know what it meant, but knew it couldn't be good.

  “What's the status of April Waverly?” Cahill asked. So much brass in his office was making him sweat.

  Fey deliberately sat down at the conference table. Normally, she wouldn't want to be on a lower plane than the person with whom she was talking, but in this instance, she felt the need to defuse the tenseness of the situation.

  “She and the baby are fine physically. The kid shot out of the womb like a rocket down an ice chute. No complications for the kid, but April has gone into a dissociative state—hasn't said a word since we took her into custody.”

  “Is she aware of what's going on?” Cahill asked.

  Fey tilted her head, thinking. “The doctor doesn't think so. She's out of it big time, and it's impossible to tell when or if she'll start functioning again.”

  There was silence in the room. Fey decided to wait it out. She looked at the chief. The big man slowly batted his eyes and then sat down at the conference table across from Fey.

  Everyone else suddenly scrambled for seats. The image of kids playing musical chairs popped into Fey's head.

  “We have a difficult situation here, Fey,” the chief said. His forearms were flat on the table, his hands clasped. An old Rolex showed below an inch of monogrammed cuff.

  Fey didn't answer. She didn't know the ground rules yet, and felt the best course was to keep her mouth shut.

  “As you know,” the chief continued, “a situation like we have here would normally be handled by Robbery-Homicide.” He paused again.

  “But?” Fey said, giving the chief a slight prompt.

  “But there are some extenuating circumstances, and as a result, I'd like your unit to run with the investigation—get it cleaned up as quickly as possible.”

  Fey leaned forward in her chair. She could feel Monk Lawson watching her. In fact, she could feel everyone's eyes on her. “Extenuating circumstances?” she asked.

  “Nothing that should affect the investigation,” the chief told her. “I'd just prefer your unit handle the case.”

  Fey cut her eyes to Keegan and Hale. Both of them stared straight ahead, purposely not looking at her.

  Fey turned her attention back to the chief. “I take it we're playing this as a domestic dispute that turned deadly? Nothing to do with Alex Waverly being a cop?”

  “Is there any indication to the contrary?” The chief's voice was as hard as his stare.

  “Not that I've come across yet, sir,” Fey told him truthfully.

  “Fey,” the chief said, his voice softening. “Something like this hurts us all. I want it wrapped up quick and tidy. No muss, no fuss. The department has taken more than its fair share of bad press in the last few years. Let's clean our own doorstep and move on.”

  Fey realized that now was not the time to argue. The orders were coming straight from the chief. She knew she wasn't being given the whole story, but she'd been forced to fly blind on other occasions. She just hoped this wouldn't be the sortie in which she crashed and burned.

  Fey looked at Monk. “We'd better get busy.”

  FOUR

  Fey felt blood zinging through her veins. She took a deep breath to ease the tightness in her chest, and then another to take the edge off jangling nerve endings. This moment defined police work for Fey. The seconds before stepping into the deep end of an investigation were as deadly an addiction as any needle Nirvana.

  April Waverly's shooting of her husband appeared cut and dried, a routine domestic that would look as sordid on paper as it did in real life. It was a classic triangle of love, lust, and betrayal that was mildly out of the ordinary because it involved a cop. But there was an intangible something about the case that Fey could sense as if she were an animal anticipating an earthquake.

  Leaving Cahill's office, she moved quickly to her desk. Her mind was whirling as she rapidly formulated a mental game plan. Monk followed behind her, stopping only to pour two mugs of coffee.

  The squad room itself was a wide open work space with no dividers or private cubicles. Desks were grouped together in domino patterns, each cluster defined by an investigative priority.

  Connected to the homicide unit's desks were those of the major assault crimes (MAC) and sex crimes. In WLA both units had previously been under the jurisdiction of the homicide supervisor. However, with the department's current emphasis on spousal abuse and community policing, the workload had become overwhelming. Homicides citywide were not getting the attention they demanded. As a result, a new supervisory position had been created strictly for the MAC and sex crimes units. Homicide went back to their original mandate of handling murder, kidnapping, and high grade deadly weapons assaults.