Leftovers (9 page)

“Is everyone alright?” Land shouted. “Anyone need help?”

A voice I didn’t recognize replied, “No injuries back here. Are you okay?”

Land assured the tellers that we were fine. Given the level of intensity, I really hadn’t taken the time to determine my own health. I ran my hands over my legs and torso, looking for blood or cuts. Everything appeared to still be intact, although shards of glass were stuck to me in various places. I tugged a few of them out and left the rest for the EMTs.

Land looked at me. He brushed some glass from my hair and looked into my eyes. “What did that lady have to say about her sister?” he asked.

Though there had been multiple women talking about sisters lately, I knew he was talking about the most recent one. “Nothing. She shared next to nothing with me.” I recounted the exact conversation to him.

He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure if the gunfire is related to her or not. The deposit to the bank was made before she came to see you. So either she is another matter altogether, or she was sent to throw you off the story.”

“Then why the money?” I asked. My brain was frozen with fear. I couldn’t think of anything but how close I’d come to death. I couldn’t die. I didn’t even have my student loans paid off yet. And I was damned if Detective Jax Danvers would be my last kiss before I departed this earth.

“The money was a lure. I’m betting that they knew you would stand here and dispute the deposit with the bank. That would give them sufficient time to drive by and shoot you, and you’d be a standing target, which is much easier to hit than someone who is moving. I know you come to the same branch every day, so your routine would be easy to determine. It wouldn’t be much hardship to learn it and find a place to ambush you.” Land winced. I wondered if his thumb hurt that bad or if he’d been hit elsewhere.

“Are you okay?” I asked, realizing that I’d only been thinking of my own fate to this point. “I know about the thumb, but I mean, anything else?”

He held up the right arm, and I could see another bullet crease in his forearm. It wasn’t terribly deep, but it was bleeding a little. I tore off part of my own t-shirt and spent the time wrapping his arm with it. The routine of doing something I knew soothed me to some degree. It took my mind off the fact that someone had shot at me. Shot at me, and meant to kill me.

“Thanks,” he said finally.

“So you think that someone has been following me and that they were here today to kill me?”

He nodded. “I told you that this wasn’t like your other cases. This was a closed police matter until you came along and started stirring things up. I can’t imagine anyone being too happy with that. Snipers and drive-bys are professional jobs, not the strictly amateur stuff that you’re used to.”

“What type of case do you think this is?” I asked, trying to understand what he meant. I’d never really given murder thought in terms of what types of murders were out there. They were wrongs to be righted in my book.

“Two things that worry me. First, there are some deep pockets here. Someone bribed Linda Zoz to keep your aunt’s truck out of commission. Enough cash so that she could buy a boat and more. I’m guessing that they bribed the truck permit person too. Then the same people put $30,000 in your account today. So there’s some real money here.”

“So the case involves rich people. How is that different?” I asked, trying to think of anything but the facts of what had just happened to me.

“Not just money, but power and connections. They knew enough to approach the health inspector who could be bribed. I bet they’d already figured out who was most likely to be coerced in that way. Then they arranged for your aunt to get that inspector three times in a row. That’s connected. They were also able to get your account numbers and fake this deposit. Again, connections and power. People who have money and power are dangerous. They never like to lose it.”

“Okay, I agree with that. But lots of people have that type of money, and they don’t all go shooting out bank windows.” I was shivering a little as I spoke. I knew the signs of shock. Apparently Land knew them as well, because he wrapped his arms around me to keep me warm.

“I guarantee you that when they find the guys who shot this place up that they won’t be the type to have power and money. This was a hit for hire scenario. If they get caught by the police, someone else will take the fall for this, and the person behind all of this will still be free to do whatever they want, which includes taking another chance to kill you.”

“If? I want to know—do you think that Jax is involved in this? I mean, that he’s been bought?”

Land shrugged. “I told you to keep your distance. The suit he had on the other day was very expensive. It was not something he could normally afford on a policeman’s salary, even if the policeman is single. It was a warning flag to me. If they can bribe him, then no one is safe.”

I took a deep breath. At least he was just making assumptions based on what he saw. While I thought Danvers was an unmitigated ass, I wasn’t yet ready to call him a thief and worse.

“You said there were two things that bothered you? What would the second be?” I felt myself warming a little in the comfort of his arms. My lips didn’t feel like they were blue anymore. My teeth had stopped chattering.

“The woman today who came to talk to you, the one whose sister was shot. She told you that she’s from Russia. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’m praying the Russians are not involved in whatever is going on. They’re a nasty lot. If that’s the case, we might as well take the food truck and move to another city.”

“Without a fight?” I asked, feeling my blood warm. I wasn’t the type to cut-and-run, no matter who shot at me.

“Without a fight. They would have no qualms about killing both of us, and Mariel Mills as well. You don’t want to mess with them.”

I could hear the wail of sirens in the distance. I was glad to know that help was on the way. The teller was still whimpering, and I wanted someone to look at Land’s gunshot wounds.

“So why did you have a gun on you?” I asked, thinking about how he’d saved my life again. He was certainly prepared for anything.

“Concealed carry,” Land said without elaboration.

“Come on. What were you before you were a chef? A hit man, a sharpshooter in the military, a major in the Army? There’s no way that you don’t have military training for what you did today.”

He looked down at me with a frown. “I’d rather not talk about it now. Besides, I’m not an American citizen. How would I be in your Army?”

I noticed how he didn’t bother to try to refute the rest of the occupations. “I don’t know. I’m fishing here. So what do we do next?” I asked.

“We wait for the police and turn over everything—and I mean everything to them. This needs to stop now.”

“Will we be safe?” I asked as the EMTs pulled up to the bank.

“Safer,” Land said.

Danvers was there in minutes. He barely beat the EMTs, who came into the bank and started looking at us. We directed them to look at the tellers first. They didn’t seem to be hurt, so the EMTs approached us again. One of them started pulling a few shards of glass from my face and arm, while the other took a look at the wounds that Land had received.

They started moving us to the ambulance. I wasn’t worried about the costs at the moment. I knew that Land had good insurance, the same as mine, and we would be covered under my short-term disability policy since this had happened while conducting business on behalf of the food truck. Still it seemed anticlimactic to be carted off to the hospital and far away from the scene of the action.

Danvers took one look at us in the back of the ambulance and called for additional back-up. He must have suspected something along the same lines as Land, because he had a full crime scene team coming out to look at the bank.

The doors closed, and the ambulance started moving. “Just a precaution,” said one of the EMTs. “I can’t understand how you got out of there with just a few minor injuries. The place looked like a battlefield.”

I nodded. “I had back-up,” I said, looking at Land.

The EMT smiled. “That’s always good. Your injuries are not life threatening, but obviously we want to get you stitched up and ensure the wounds don’t get infected. Hopefully, you’ll be out of the hospital in no time.”

Land looked at the man. “Did you happen to notice if there was any blood outside? I emptied a magazine at the guys who did it.”

The EMT shook his head. “I didn’t notice, but to be honest, most of the times those guys have a person they can go to in order to treat injuries. If they come to the hospital the gun shots have to be reported, and there would be a lot of unwanted questions.”

The ambulance pulled up at University Hospital, which seemed to be where all the victims of this case ended up. We were put into two wheelchairs. The doors opened, and the EMTs took us in different directions. “Wait—we’re together,” I said, thinking as the words came out of my mouth that they would be misconstrued.

“You can see him again after he’s cleaned up. Don’t worry. I’ll tell the ER nurse about it.” He wheeled me to a hospital bed with a curtain around it. They helped me on to the bed, and I waited for someone to come see me. Finally, a nurse brought me a gown, and indicated that I should put it on. As I took off my t-shirt, I understood why. The shirt was stained with blood, cut from the shards of glass, and torn where I’d used it to treat Land’s wounds. I slid the gown on and waited some more.

Finally a doctor and a nurse came in. They began to pull out some of the shards, the ones that were more deeply embedded. One was on the side of my forehead, and the doctor added two stitches to that one. The rest of the cuts either didn’t bleed at all or only required a Band-Aid. I was glad. I had no desire to go back to the food truck looking like a version of the Frankenstein’s bride.

Fortunately for me, they provided me with a slight sedative. The sensation of having glass pulled from my body following the shoot-out I’d experienced had frazzled my nerves. I rested on the bed and allowed them to work. I floated along as if I were watching them work on my body from afar.

When they were done, the doctor took one look at my t-shirt on the chair and offered to give me a hospital t-shirt as a replacement for it. Given that my choices were the hospital shirt or a gown, I figured that the new t-shirt would be less noticeable. I waited some more for someone to bring it back.

Finally, an orderly brought me the shirt and I changed as soon as the curtains were closed again. I felt much better to be back in normal clothes.

I stood up, opened the curtain and walked down the row of beds, looking for Land. I found him about seven beds down. He was still in the hospital gown and looking impatient. His arm had been bandaged over the crease and his thumb appeared to have stitches. It looked much less dangerous now than it had at the bank. I was glad to see that he was going to be okay.

“That was my first shoot-out,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I can’t say that I want to try this again.”

Land shrugged. He seemed very mellow, and I wondered if he’s been given some of the same sedative that I’d been given. He seemed almost too mellow to be Land. “You get used to it.”

“In what life do you ever get used to people shooting at you?” I asked. I couldn’t believe that he was so unconcerned about what had happened. I was freaked out by the entire thing, even on the meds.

“Security, undercover work.” He said it matter-of-factly, as though I already knew that he had such a background. I had suspected something like this in the past few days, but I’d given up hope that he would ever explain his past to me.

“I serve hot dogs, so I’m a little out of my element,” I said. I started thinking about what he’d said. “Are you on assignment now? Is working at Dogs on the Roll part of an undercover assignment?”

He laughed. “Yeah, someone is killing the great hot dog chefs of Europe.” He leaned back and smiled at me.

I recognized the reference—and the sarcasm. “Fine, but why hot dogs after being a secret agent? Doesn’t this seem dull?”

He smirked at me. “First, that’s not even a job title. Secret Agent Man is a 1960s song. I got good at what I did before, but I hated it. I wanted to move to America, so I decided to switch careers as well as continents. This is much more enjoyable than being shot at.” He stopped and looked at his arm. “Well, most days.”

I thought about pushing the matter to learn more, but he’d trusted me with this much—or he’d been too mellow to stop his mouth. In either case, I didn’t want to take unfair advantage of him. I stopped an orderly and asked for a shirt for Land as well. I figured that he would need it given that his shirt was in no better condition than mine. The orderly looked at me, and then trotted off to find a shirt.

While we were waiting, Detective Danvers entered the ER. I could hear his voice down the hallway, apparently causing a commotion because I’d left my bed. He was afraid that I’d been taken by force from the hospital.

The nurse came down to Land’s bed and pulled the curtain open. “They’re both in here.”

Danvers strode in, looking like thunder. “You’re supposed to wait to be released, not just go wandering the hallways. In case you missed it, someone tried to kill you today.”

In my slightly fuzzy state I wasn’t sure if he was annoyed because he actually cared about me or if I was just causing him a lot of work these days. I thought about consulting Land, but my chef was about to nod off on the bed.

“I remember being shot at, yes,” I said, “but answers are not going to come to someone who sits on a hospital bed waiting to be discharged for two stitches. I’m fine.”

Danvers looked at Land’s arm. “So I see.”

“So have you learned anything about the shootings?” Land asked, even though his eyes were closed. I had assumed that he’d dropped off to sleep, but apparently he was listening to the conversation.

“Not much. A few people at the restaurant next door gave us a description, but it boils down to blue sedan. The plates were covered with mud or paint or something, so we couldn’t get the plates either. So now it’s a matter of looking at some traffic cameras and seeing if we can locate them.”

I remembered Land’s words. Even finding the men would not fix this problem. The shooters would not sell out the person who had hired them to do this job. The person who wanted me dead would just look elsewhere for someone else do to the crime.

That didn’t get us any closer to the person behind all of this. It just meant that I had to be careful. I knew I’d start by varying my routines. Even so, there was only so much I could do. I still had to be at the food truck from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the window open and coming in contact with everyone who stood in front of me. I knew that I couldn’t shut down the truck either. I needed the money too much. Even if I had an extra $30,000 in the bank, I didn’t want to give in to those who would try to kill me. I was stubborn.

“So were you in security too?” I asked, the words spilling out of my mouth without thought. I wasn’t sure if it was the stress or the sedatives, but I was certainly open with my questioning today.

Danvers shot Land a look that was both pleading and pissed. I wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but obviously he had not wanted to share that information with me. Now he knew that the cat was out of the bag.

I waited for an answer, but nothing was forthcoming from him. The moments passed in silence.

“Yeah, that’s none of your business,” Danvers said finally. True, it wasn’t my business, but my curiosity was aroused since neither one of them were talkative about it. I envisioned them as James Bond types, who circled the globe fighting crime, except that they’d ended up in Capital City.

“Land thinks that the person behind this insulated himself from the crimes by hiring someone to shoot at us. Thoughts on that?” I said, sitting down on the edge of Land’s hospital bed.

“Land certainly talks a lot when he gets shot,” Danvers noted. “Yeah, this feels like a gang shooting except that there are no gangs in this part of town. It would be odd if they just drove half an hour out of their way to shoot up a bank branch.”

I remembered the money that had been deposited into my account and explained the situation to Danvers. He nodded. “The tellers brought that up. We had them check again, and the money is gone. It was definitely used to keep you standing in one spot, so you’d be an easy target.”

Even though I knew the money wasn’t mine, I felt robbed that someone had taken it all back. It had been a lure, a bait to get me in a place where they could shoot me. With access to electronic fund transfers, this definitely looked like something much larger than a gang drive-by gone wrong.

“We’re looking into the transfer to see if we can find where the money went, but if they were sophisticated enough to do this, then I’m sure they’ve managed a series of transfers to keep us guessing for months.”

Danvers asked a few more questions and left. Land was pretty out of it still, so I let him sleep for a while. The ER staff indicated that he could rest there unless they got swamped. Since I was still feeling a little fuzzy, I decided to walk it off rather than stay put. My mind was reeling, and I needed the exercise to get away from these thoughts.

I decided to walk up to Mariel Mills’ room and see how she was doing.