Fallen (16 page)

“Heard what?”

“Kimmel. He’s on suspension pending an internal investigation. As of last night.”

Ryan put the receiver back down.

“He pulled a car over on the Fourteenth Street ramp—failure to yield or something. There was an altercation that ended with him Tasering the hell out of some guy.”

“What did the dash cam show?”

“I don’t know. Thompson’s not talking, and Kimmel was riding alone since he’s still between partners. But the civilian had to be hospitalized, and he’s screaming police brutality. The news stations are requesting the video.”

Ryan glanced at the closed door to the captain’s office. Normally, he took such allegations with a grain of salt, but he knew firsthand Kimmel was a ticking bomb. He went back to trying to reach Chin.

“Hold down the fort,” he said a short time later, standing and retrieving his coat as Mateo returned from the break room.

“Chin and Hoyt like somebody?”

“Unfortunately, no. But since I’m free now, I’m going to take one myself. Leonard Salyers.”

Salyers had been an illegal bookmaker who at one time had a dozen corner bookies working for him until he’d been the target of a Vice sting led by Nate. After being released from prison, he’d opened a small auto repair shop on Clairmont Road. Salyers was low on their list since he’d been out for two years and had kept out of trouble, but they were running out of names.

“Want me to come with you?” Mateo asked. “Salyers used to be a tough customer.”

“What you’re doing’s important. I can handle this alone.”

Stepping outside, the June heat hitting him like a furnace as he pushed through the precinct doors, Ryan battled discouragement. In the past week, they’d canvassed the area around Nate’s condo building three different times, interviewed more than fifty perps from his files and conducted a raid in search of the murder weapon. None of it had panned out.

He thought about last night and Lydia, too. It didn’t help with his mood.

There was another stop he planned to make after he saw Salyers.

*

The repair shop had appeared legit, with vehicles on hydraulic jacks, mechanics in overalls speaking rapid Spanish and Salyers himself under the hood of an antiquated Mercedes when Ryan arrived. The grizzled ex-con had professed no sorrow over Nate’s death, but the grease stains under his fingernails indicated he was immersed in his new career. He’d also had an alibi for the night of the murder. His daughter had been giving birth at a suburban hospital north of the city.

There were details to verify, but Ryan’s gut told him another name could be ruled out.

Driving on tree-lined Clairmont, he checked in with Mateo, who was on the interstate fighting the early-evening exodus from downtown, on his way to a birthday party for his seventy-year-old mother. Ryan ended the call when he reached the small ranch house on Candler Street that Adam rented. Located on the perimeter of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, it was leased to him by the women’s university at a reduced rate since it encouraged having law enforcement nearby. Adam hadn’t returned his call from earlier that day, and it appeared now that he wasn’t home.

Ryan knew he wasn’t on duty and suspected where he could find him. Making a U-turn, he headed toward Decatur’s town square, which was bordered by century-old brick buildings that housed funky music venues, restaurants and bars, many of which were just coming alive for the weekend. Spotting Adam’s open-air Jeep, he parked in the last available spot.

His brother was nothing if not predictable. If he wasn’t on duty, he came to Ocho’s on Friday nights for beer and Mexican food.

Dropping coins into the meter, the air heavy and warm, Ryan shouldered his way into the open courtyard at the restaurant’s rear. Already, the patio teemed with people. Small white lights hung overhead from a massive oak tree, and several tables had dogs sitting underneath, on leashes held by their owners. The area was known for its canine-friendly atmosphere.

Adam stood with a group near the bar. Ryan recognized several of them as officers from his brother’s precinct. Wearing jeans and a golf shirt, Adam held a beer bottle, his back to him.

“Hey,” he said, surprised when Ryan appeared. Adam introduced him around. “You want a beer?”

“No, thanks … Actually, I want to talk to you,” Ryan said once the others had directed their attention elsewhere. “In case you didn’t pick up on that from the message I left on your cell.”

Adam frowned. He still wore sunglasses, although the sun had already retreated from the sky, leaving in its wake a fading wash of robin’s-egg blue.

“What did you say to Lydia last night?” His tone must have told Adam this wasn’t the place for their conversation. He walked from the courtyard with Ryan following. They moved to an alley on the restaurant’s side.

“I knew she’d go crying to you,” Adam grumbled.

“She didn’t cry to me about anything. But I could tell she was upset when she left. You said something to her, and I want to know what.”

With a jerky motion, Adam took a pull from his beer. “I’m just trying to look out for you, all right? She doesn’t need to be coming around again—”

“That’s none of your business,” Ryan cut in sharply.

Adam took off his sunglasses, disbelief hardening his expression. “The
hell
it isn’t. You’re my
brother
. I know how bad things got.” His voice roughened. “I walked in on you the night she left for New Orleans, or have you forgotten that, too?”

Ryan nearly winced, his face heating as Adam continued.

“Let me remind you. You were just sitting there on the floor in the dark with a bottle of whiskey and your gun beside you.”

He hadn’t forgotten. The recollection of Adam kneeling next to him, his hand on his back as he wept, hardened his gut. He’d done his best to stay strong for Lydia, but with her departure, he had come apart. The empty house, his grief and guilt … it had been too much. Adam had taken vacation time to stay with him.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said tightly. Shoulders hunched, Ryan shifted away, but Adam blocked him, his face inches from his.

Adam lowered his voice. “I know how much you loved him …
we all did
.” He paused heavily, pain in his eyes. “But what happened was an
accident
. It could’ve been Lydia with him that day, but you never would’ve run out on her. No matter how much you were hurting, you would’ve done everything in your power to make sure she got through it. And you sure as hell wouldn’t have punished her by getting on a plane and leaving.”

Adam’s jaw clenched. “I keep hoping one day you’ll move on, Ry. Let her go. Get out of that house with its goddamn ghosts—”

“I appreciate your concern,
I do
.” His heart hurt at Adam’s fierce loyalty. He placed his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “You don’t have to worry about me. But just cut Lydia some slack, all right? She’s … still more fragile than you think.” He wished he could make Adam understand. “That’s all I came to say.”

Ryan dropped his hands. Adam frowned at him, seeming on the verge of a rebuttal. But instead he released a resigned sigh. “Whatever. I just don’t want to see you hurt more than you’ve already been. Or putting your life on hold another damn minute for her.”

“Nothing’s on hold.”

Adam appeared doubtful. He looked off to the courtyard. “If we’re finished here, I’ve got a date who just showed up.”

Ryan followed his gaze. A pretty redhead had joined Adam’s group at the bar. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and lifted her hand in greeting. Adam nodded back. There was no denying his brother got around. But he was young and single. Ryan supposed he had been like that once.

“Who’s this one? Another girl from the gym?”

“This one’s different,” Adam said, actually sounding serious. “Her name’s Rachel. She’s a kindergarten teacher. I met her awhile ago at a youth field day when they asked some of the cops from my precinct to volunteer. She made me work for it, man. I’d pretty much given up on getting her to go out with me, and then she finally texted this morning … Hey, if we’re good, why don’t you stay for a beer?”

He shook his head.

“C’mon. A big-time homicide detective might impress her.” He indicated Ryan’s bandaged forearm, visible with the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up. “You can play up the wounded-hero thing. Put in a good word for me.”

“I’m not going to horn in on your date.”

“I’m not offering to share her,” Adam said with a grin. “It’s kind of a group thing tonight, anyway. We’re just hanging out. Who knows? You might actually have some fun for once. You can prove to me nothing’s on hold.”

They’d begun walking back to the patio when Ryan’s cell phone rang. He returned to the alley to take the call as Adam went on without him to meet his date. A sick feeling speared through him at what he was told over the airwaves.

Returning to his vehicle, acoustic-guitar music wafting from one of the bars, he called Adam’s cell to let him know he wouldn’t be staying, after all. There must have been something in his voice, because Adam said, “Christ. There’s another one, isn’t there?”

He felt the gathering tension in his shoulders worsen. Climbing into the SUV, he placed the mobile strobe light on the dashboard.

“Keep that information to yourself for now.”

Before he could be asked more questions, Ryan disconnected the call.

Chapter Thirteen

Corporal Matthew Boyce
had been based out of the APD’s zone six precinct, thirty-two years old and recently divorced. Ryan had learned he’d been scheduled to take the detective’s exam next week.

“Poor bastard,” the uniformed first responder uttered, still clearly shaken. He waited nearby as Ryan knelt beside the corpse, the ME’s office having finished its examination. Anger and sympathy tightened his throat. The bluish-green pallor of the head and neck, the near-absence of rigor mortis and odor of early-stage decomposition, like rotting meat, indicated death had occurred some twenty-four hours earlier. Looking over the body, Ryan pressed the back of one latex-gloved hand against his nostrils in an attempt to block the stench.

“God rest his soul,” the officer intoned.

Three entrance wounds were visible through Boyce’s blood-caked T-shirt. They were in his residential garage, a single-car structure with concrete flooring and windowless walls. It sat slightly behind the small house in the Maplehurst neighborhood, not far from the restaurant Ryan had just departed.

Small cones marked the shell casings on the floor. Controlled chaos was everywhere—forensics techs going about their jobs, the ME’s wagon backed up to the open garage door. Other grim-faced detectives with jurisdiction were there as well, while just beyond the yard, officers kept out curious onlookers.

“Who made the 9-1-1 call?” Ryan asked, noticing a news van as it rolled to a stop out front as he stood.

The officer pointed to a bulky, new-looking house squeezed onto a parcel lot across the street. “Neighbor noticed the garage door had been open since the previous evening. Thought it was unusual and came over to see what the deal was.”

Ryan regarded the residence. Dwarfing the Victorian-era bungalows on the street, it was what in-town preservationists snidely referred to as a McMansion. Desirous of the convenient location, the wealthy bought up smaller houses indigenous to the area, tore them down and put up their oversize dwellings.

“Neighbor’s the CEO of a software company. He’s pretty upset. Indicated he’d had words with Boyce when the house went up, but they’d smoothed things over recently. Said he liked having a cop across the street.”

“He didn’t hear shots last night?”

“No. Said he was home, too. I’m thinking a silencer?”

Ryan didn’t respond. “I’m going to want to talk to him.”

“He’s expecting it. We’re running down an address for the ex-wife, too.”

He took another look around the small, neat garage. There was a workbench with tools in one corner and an older model Subaru Forester that belonged to Boyce. The driver-side door hung open, although the interior light had since died out. A deep key scratch ran along the vehicle’s side. Ryan made sure the CSI photographer had gotten shots of it. Both the car and adjacent wall were splattered with blood.

It appeared Boyce had exited the car and been immediately confronted by the shooter. Based on the sneakers, T-shirt and sweat pants he wore, as well as the duffel bag in the car’s passenger seat, it looked as though he’d gone for a workout after getting off shift. One of the detectives on the scene from Boyce’s precinct had already indicated the deceased had signed out around seven on Thursday night and hadn’t been scheduled for duty on Friday.

Stepping carefully around the body, Ryan reached into the vehicle for the duffel. Placing it on the hood, he sifted through the contents. Boyce’s gun, Kevlar vest and uniform—shirt, pants and shoes—were tucked inside. Ryan extracted the navy, short-sleeved shirt, feeling a quiver in his stomach. The badge that should have been under the officer’s nameplate was missing, the cotton torn as if someone had ripped it off in haste.