Broken Saint, The (22 page)

Chapter 38

“Let’s move,” I said to Ryan. We rushed out of the hospital.
On the way over to Jared Higley’s house, I filled him in on what Mark had just
told me.

Jared’s place was just a few blocks from my own house.
It was a Craftsman style bungalow, almost a hundred years old, painted a pale
blue with navy wooden shutters. One window was missing a shutter, revealing a
darker blue rectangle in its place. A couple of the shutters had busted slats.

Walking up the brick walkway, I saw bald spots as
big as dinner plates on the lawn. I really liked the covered front porch that
ran the full width of the house, although I didn’t care for the way Jared and
his idiot housemates decorated it with a ratty couch, a rusty grill, and some
bikes.

I rang the doorbell, then heard steps. Amber Cunningham
opened the door. She looked flustered.

“Detectives,” she said.

“Amber,” I said. “We didn’t expect to see you
here.”

“Yeah, this isn’t what it looks like. I just came over
to get a few of my things. Let me get Jared.”

She turned and walked back into the house. I was
looking at a cat crouching down in the next yard when I heard her scream.

Ryan grabbed me, half tackling me as he swept me
away from the front door. There were two loud pops, one after the other. I
heard Ryan grunt and he started to stagger. He pushed me away as he fell so he
wouldn’t land on me. He collapsed onto the painted wooden floor of the porch.

He had taken the second bullet to his midsection. Curled
on his side, he was dragging himself toward the house. He was breathing hard,
and I saw the red stain expand across the left side of his white shirt, near
his stomach. “You go,” he said. “Cover the back door. I’ll get him if he comes
out the front.”

“No, Ryan, I’m staying—”

“Go,” he shouted, crawling toward the wall. He grimaced
as he pulled his pistol out of the belt holster, which he wore on his right
side. “I’m okay.”

He didn’t look okay. He pushed and pulled himself
until he was leaning against the outside wall of the house.

Just then, Amber came running out of the front
door, crying, her hands up.

“Where is he?” I shouted.

“He’s in a back bedroom. He’s pushing furniture
against the door.”

“Get out of here.” I pulled my phone out of my
jacket pocket, called in
Officer Down
and requested backup at Jared Higley’s
address.

I went over to Ryan. His breathing was short and
rapid, and his eyes looked glassy. He wasn’t focusing on me. His left hand
covered the wound in his abdomen, but blood was seeping out between his fingers.
His pistol was in his right hand.

“How’d you know he might take a shot at us?”

“Amber’s at his house, she might have told him we
got his sneakers.”

“I’m going in,” I said.

“No, don’t, Karen.” He was trying to shake his
head, but he could barely keep it from flopping to the side. “Backup will be
five minutes, tops.”

“He killed Maricel, just shot you.”

His voice was a hoarse whisper. “That’s one dead
already. You go in, one or two more … going to die.”

I smiled at him. “You’re such a pussy.”

He tried to smile, but I saw his eyelids starting
to droop.

His left hand was slipping away from the wound. I
pushed it back in place. “Stay with me, Ryan. Just one more minute.” I heard
the sirens coming in from a couple of directions. A man and a woman from the
block had materialized on the sidewalk in front of Higley’s yard. “Get back in
your houses, now,” I shouted to them. “There’s a gunman in this house. Go,
now.”

Ryan’s eyes were dull. I had my coat off and was
holding it against his midsection. “Here comes the backup and ambulance. Hang
in there, partner.” He reached for my hand and tried to squeeze it, but he had
the strength of a baby.

“One more minute, Ryan,” I said into his ear. I
was losing it. I couldn’t see through my tears. I felt for a pulse on his neck.
There was nothing. I held his nose closed with my left hand and tried to
breathe into his mouth but I couldn’t even get my own breathing under control.

I didn’t hear the ambulance come, but I heard a
voice. “We got him, Detective.”

An EMT, a big, broad guy in a green uniform, put
his hand on my shoulder and pulled me away. “Let us get in there, Detective.” I
fell over on my side. I was crying out of control now, and I tried to crawl
away from Ryan so the EMTs could get to him. I bumped into a bicycle, which
fell over onto me, but I didn’t feel it.

One EMT was hunched over Ryan. Another one was
yanking a gurney up the steps onto the porch.

Things went black. When I came to, maybe a few
seconds later, I was on the ratty couch on the porch. I saw the chief’s big
Buick blocking the street, and a couple of squad cars, their lights blazing.

The chief was bent over the gurney, saying
something to Ryan. The EMTs had him on some kind of drip suspended from a metal
pole on the side of the gurney. They strapped the belts on the gurney and
started to carry Ryan down the steps toward the ambulance.

The chief came over to me. “You okay?”

“Is he gonna make it?”

The chief shrugged his shoulders, but his expression
said he just didn’t want to say no.

The uniforms on scene had already cordoned off the
block and surrounded the house. There must’ve been ten squad cars on the
street. You put out a call that an officer’s down, every squad car within ten
miles hits the siren and descends on the address. It doesn’t matter which cop
is down; they don’t know and don’t care. We just really don’t like it when
someone shoots a cop.

Our policy is to bring in the SWAT guys whenever
we know someone is armed and holed up in a building. Since we were making so
much noise, with all the sirens and the bullhorns telling people to stay in
their houses, I imagine Jared was shitting bricks in that back bedroom, and we
probably could’ve talked him into walking out with his hands up in a couple
minutes. But the chief made the decision not to make contact with Jared until
the SWAT guys arrived. Which was probably smart since this was a residential
neighborhood: better to keep Jared bottled up until the SWAT team could
neutralize him quickly.

One of the uniforms told me that there was a
screen missing on the window in the bedroom where Jared was holed up. So I
intercepted the SWAT guys when they arrived and told them about it. It was a
piece of cake: they busted the window and tossed in a tear-gas canister. He
came running out in a couple seconds. I was there to greet him, the barrel of
my pistol up against his face. He didn’t look any the worse for wear.

Chapter 39

“Okay, what kind of shit is this kid in?” Larry
Klein said. The chief had called the prosecutor over to headquarters to help us
figure out how to charge Jared Higley.

Klein had come to Rawlings
about fifteen years ago, from Philadelphia, where he had been some sort of
assistant to the prosecutor. He was a little guy, maybe a hundred and forty
pounds, mostly gristle and beard stubble. He always looked like he needed a
shave, even though he’s told me he shaves twice a day. Once I asked him why he always
wore what appeared to be the same black suit, white shirt, and black tie, with
a small tie clip. “So you don’t confuse me with Brad Pitt,” he said.

All the cops liked him because he had a really high
conviction rate and because he didn’t treat us like we’re stupid or hicks, even
when we acted that way.

“Karen, you want to brief Larry?” the chief said.

“The main case is Maricel Salizar, which you
already know about. Then there’s two other things that’ve happened since then.
First, Higley threw a couple shots at my house in the middle of the night, last
week. Nobody hurt. Then, this afternoon, my partner and I go over to Higley’s
place to bring him in for questioning, he takes two shots at us. One hits my
partner.” I had some trouble getting that last sentence out smooth. “I want
this guy to get the needle.”

“Well, let’s see what we’ve got.” Larry shifted in
his seat. “He did those things, I want him to get the maximum sentence, too.”

“How do we do that?”

“We start by you telling me the story, and I ask
you some questions,” Klein said.

“Okay, Larry,” the chief said. “What do you need
to know?”

“Let’s start with the easy one: today’s shooting.
He took two shots at you, one hit Ryan. That right?”

The chief looked at me and nodded, telling me to
answer him.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Are you sure it was Higley fired the shots?”

“There were only two people in the house: Higley
and his ex-girlfriend, Amber Cunningham. She goes to tell him we’re there to
talk to him, we hear her scream, two shots are fired, she comes running out of
the house. When the SWAT team tosses the tear gas into the room, he’s the one
comes out, with a goddamn .45 in his right hand. Yeah, I think that one’s
pretty solid.”

“Do you have forensics?”

The chief said, “We’re doing a gunshot-residue
test on him right now.”

“Okay,” Larry Klein said. “Do we know Higley knew
who it was came to see him?”

“Jesus Christ, Larry,” I said. “You saying he took
a couple shots at us because he thought we were Girl Scouts and he doesn’t like
cookies?”

“Karen,” Larry said, “I understand you’re upset—”

“What was your first clue?”

“Detective, knock it off,” the chief said, giving
me a real nasty look.

“It makes a difference,” Larry said. “It goes to
motive. If the girlfriend told him you were cops, we can go with attempted
murder of a police officer, two counts. If the girlfriend told him something
else, or he understood her to say something else, it could be attempted murder,
or unlawful use of a weapon, or a bunch of other things.”

The chief turned to me. “Will the girlfriend
testify that she told Higley you two were police officers?”

I let out a big breath. “Shit, I don’t know. She
knows he’s bad news. Last week she told us she was breaking up with him, but
she didn’t follow through. Today she told us she was over at his house to pick
up some things. I have no fucking idea what’s going on in her head.”

“Karen,” the chief said, “is it possible he
thought he was firing at someone else?”

I sighed. “If he was trying to frame Hector Cruz
for the Salizar murder, it’s possible he thought it was Cruz at the door. Or
some gang bangers from the Latin Vice Lords. Actually, no, it’s not possible he
thought that. But I guess it’s possible his lawyer could say he thought that.”

“Thank you, Karen,” Larry Klein said. He smiled
sadly. “Now you’re helping me figure out what to do with this guy.” He jotted a
few notes on a pad in his lap. “About the drive-by. What have you got on Higley
there?”

“We have two slugs we pulled out of my house from
last week. From a .45. Today he shot at me and Ryan with a .45. If ballistics
matches those rounds, we’ve got him on that.”

“Where are you on the ballistics?”

“The two rounds from Karen’s house have pretty
good markings,” the chief said. “We’ll get the round out of Ryan. We’ll do some
test firings downstairs today.”

Larry wrote some more on his pad. “Tell me your
case for Higley killing Maricel Salizar.”

“We think what happened is Higley got into an
argument with Maricel after Amber, his girlfriend, discovered Higley in a
three-way with Maricel and her boyfriend, Hector Cruz—”

“Jesus,” Larry said. He winced. “We’re going to
put the victim in a three-way?”

“Way I see it, Larry,” I said, “it was Maricel who
put herself in a three-way.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Higley and Maricel get in an
argument. How does she end up dead?”

“Higley stabs her.”

“You got forensics or a witness?”

I looked at the chief. He shook his head. “No,” I
said. “Not yet. We know the three stab wounds killed her, but we can’t put the
knife in Higley’s hands. But we’re gonna toss Higley’s place, right, Chief?”

“Top to bottom,” he said.

“Is Higley extremely stupid,” Larry said, “as in he
stabs her and keeps the knife, or just moderately stupid, as in stabs her and
tosses the knife?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m afraid he might just
be moderately stupid.”

“Okay, there’s no witness. How do you know it was
him stabbed her in the first place?”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out his black
earring. “Here’s how we know.” I handed it to Larry.

He turned it over in his fingers, a puzzled look
on his face. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s the earring from his right ear,” I said.

“All right,” Larry said. He raised his eyebrow
like he didn’t quite see how that thing could be an earring. “Good. You got
blood, prints, what?”

“No, nothing on it.”

Larry looked at me and put his hands out, palms
up, telling me to explain.

“The earring was found in Maricel’s hand,” I said.
“She’d ripped it out of his ear when they fought. Then we think he stabbed her,
threw her in his trunk, drove her out to the river, and dumped her body.”

Larry looked a little confused. “Okay, so you
logged the earring at the scene, but it didn’t have any tissue or anything on
it, right?”

The chief was looking at me, wearing a somber
expression. He knew what I had to say.

“No, we didn’t log it at the scene.” I paused. “We
didn’t discover it until this morning.”

“You’ve had the scene locked down more than a
week?”

“No, we got it off of Mark Gerson.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s the kid, the kid with schizophrenia. Maricel
lived in the house with him and his parents. He’s the one we think followed
Higley down to the river. He’s the one dunked her in the river.”

Larry leaned toward me, like he was really going
to concentrate and try to understand what I was saying. “Now why would he do that?”

The chief said, “We think he was carrying out some
kind of LDS baptism ceremony on Maricel.”

Larry Klein adjusted his thick black plastic glasses
on his face. “Gerson is baptizing a dead girl? Or is she not dead yet?”

I shook my head and put my hands out in a gesture
of confusion.

The chief said, “Like we said, Larry, this kid has
schizophrenia, and we think he was off his meds at the time.”

Larry Klein looked at the chief. Then he looked at
me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. “So Gerson came forward with
this evidence this morning to implicate Higley?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Gerson didn’t even know
what the earring was. He thought it was some kind of jewelry of Maricel’s. We
saw it in his stuff at the hospital.”

“This is not good,” Larry Klein said.

I was starting to feel sick, like Klein was saying
that Higley was going to get away with the Salizar murder.

The chief said, “You’re thinking the Salizar case
isn’t going to work?”

Larry Klein shook his head. “Not on the forensics,
it isn’t,” he said. “There’s a dozen ways to get to reasonable doubt. The
defender can say there’s no proof Higley stabbed her. And without a knife in
his house—with his prints and her blood on it—he’s right. The earring shows
that the two of them got into a fight and she ripped it out. Or it shows that
she was really in love with Jared and he gave it to her.” Klein paused, then
turned to me. “Did Higley ever tell you what happened to the earring?”

“He told us he took it out because he was
stretching his ear too fast and the skin broke and it got infected.”

“There’s another explanation you can’t refute,”
Klein said. “Couple of big problems here. You don’t have a witness to tell the
story of the earring the way you say it happened. And the kid who has the
earring, the Gerson kid—how do I say this diplomatically?—we don’t want to put
him on the stand. Even a rookie public defender will say, ‘So, Mark, in
addition to finding Higley’s earring, what else did you do with Maricel out at
the river that night?’”

“Okay, thanks a lot, Larry.” The chief stood. “I
hear you saying charge Higley with attempted murder of a police officer, two
counts, for the time being.”

“No, I’m saying bring the girlfriend in, get her to
state she told Higley they were police officers at that door. If she goes on
record with that, then charge Higley with the two counts.”

“And we’ll keep working the forensics,” the chief
said, “to try to tie Higley to the drive-by.”

“Once we formally charge him with the attempted
murder, that’ll get his lawyer’s attention. I’ll sit down with him and see if
we can work out a deal that implicates him in the murder and gets him more
time.”

I was feeling woozy, not really able to focus on
what the prosecutor was saying. “Larry, are you gonna let this guy walk?”

He walked over to me and took my hand. “Listen to
me, Karen.” His voice was low. “I am absolutely not saying that. If you can find
gunshot residue on him from this morning, I promise you he will do at least twenty.”

“Even if Ryan is okay?”

“Even if Ryan is okay, which I pray to God he is.”
He pulled me in for a hug. His scratchy little stubble felt comforting on my
cheek.

“Okay,” I said, and I started to cry.