Deadly Dreams (13 page)

“Fuck me,” Hans whispered. Johnny had the man’s attention now.

“Want to know how he died? Want to guess?” Johnny gave him a caustic grin. “House fire. Killed him and his wife five months ago.”

Hans was silent. Taking quick puffs off the cigarette. Barely exhaling before he drew on it again. Then finally, “You’re sure about this.”

“Damn straight. Read all the online news reports I could find about each incident.”

Dropping the cigarette butt, the other man ground it beneath the toe of his shoe, his movements slow and methodical. For the first time he looked old to Johnny. Every one of his nearly sixty years, and then some. “Because people have the same name. See that all the time where someone is being dunned because someone else with that name has bad credit. Or a record. Or . . .”

“Jesus H. Christ, you think I’m an idiot?” For a minute Johnny had his doubts about whether Hans was. “Pull up their obits yourself, if you don’t believe me. They both list their service to the city of Philadelphia. It’s them. And I don’t care what the official report reads for each, it was murder.”

“Christ Jesus.” Hans wiped his brow, and Johnny knew he wasn’t imagining the real fear in the man’s eyes. “That means whoever is torching members of the John Squad has gotten five of us so far. Picking us off like ducks in that stupid carnival game.”

“Not anymore.” A little calmer now, Johnny dropped the stub of his cigarette and let it burn out on the ground. He lit another, then said, “I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not waiting around with my dick in my hand for the guy to choose me next, you know?”

“I see a few scenarios. You mentioned a couple the other night. One is that our business partners somehow got organized—” Hans waved away any objection Johnny might make. “Somehow . . . and put this all together. Decided to take us all out, keep a larger piece of the pie themselves. They don’t consider the protection we’ve provided them every time one of them does something stupid and lands in lockup. They think short-term, and go cowboy. Problem with that idea is these dirtballs spend more time shooting each other than they do talking and comparing notes. They’d be more likely to knock the next guy off, take over his territory, and get all of
that
pie. I also don’t see it being their suppliers who got involved. Makes no difference to them one way or another.”

He held his hand out in silent demand. Johnny lit another cigarette for him. “Maybe we’re giving them too much credit. It could just be one of them that put it together. He goes to the others, says, ‘Hey, I’ll take care of those cops for you and I’ll take two-thirds of their share. More for each of you.’ ”

“Maybe. Maybe.” Hans was concentrating fiercely. “But why not just take us out? Shit, follow us to a call and do a drive-by shooting as we get out of the car. Isn’t going to raise any more hell than lighting up cops one at a time.”

“See that’s what I’m saying.” This is why he’d called Hans in the first place. The man could reason things through. He didn’t let fear color his thinking. “Why the human torches? Offing cops is going to bring a shitload of attention to bear anyway, but doing it like this? He’s trying to prove something. Can’t be one of those dickwads from the street. Doing it this way takes too much finesse.”

“Yeah.” Hans brought the cigarette to his lips. Blew out a cloud and waved it away from Johnny. “Finesse. We can’t discount them, since they have the most to gain. But maybe we’re making this too complicated. We’re assuming none of us ever talked about our deals. With anyone. Not to a wife. A son. A partner.”

Johnny stopped breathing for a moment. Such was the sacredness of the silence invoked by the group, the thought had never occurred. “Fastest way to end up in cuffs.” Or dead. Because if he ever heard of one of the members talking, he’d personally put a bullet in him.

The older man gave him a humorless smile. “So maybe whoever hears about it bides his time. Works out the details for a way to take over the entire sweet deal for himself. And this is how he chooses to do it. For whatever reason.”

“Okay, I can see if one of us talked to someone.” Even if the thought of that sort of betrayal had his chest going tight. “But to have given up all our names?”

“Just throwing out possibilities.”

“And ignoring the obvious,” Johnny retorted. “That it’s one of us.”

“Fuck that.” Hans pointed the cigarette at him. “
Fuck
that. I’ve trusted these guys for over two decades. And now I have to wonder which one is targeting us? To what, take over the whole operation? That’s too much exposure. One of us would never risk it.”

“Maybe it’s not about the money. Maybe it’s conscience. Hell, maybe one of them got religion.” But one of them had had religion all along, he recalled. Hadn’t stopped Jonas from taking the money, though, had it? Somehow money always trumped God, when it came right down to it. “You can do what you want, but I’m taking a closer look at some of the squad. Maybe I’ll hear something about one of them having a gambling problem. Or their kid has cancer.” His imagination deserted him at that point. Because even those scenarios couldn’t have made him turn on the group. “Hell, maybe one has IA up their ass, and they gave us up to save themselves.”

Hans made a rude sound. “Oh, now IA is killing cops?” He smiled then, his usual good humor returning. “Besides, you’re the only one I know of under an active IA investigation.”

“What, that excessive use of force bullshit? Just a punk trying to weasel out of an attempted murder rap.”

“So you didn’t kick him in the balls once you cuffed him?”

“Well, yeah,” he drawled, recalling the moment with pleasure. “Think I want the little asshole reproducing?” They laughed, a little longer and louder than was warranted. Two men in desperate need of some relief.

After a minute, Hans asked, “I hear that McGuire got himself appointed lead on the task force.”

Johnny grunted. He’d heard the same thing. “I’ve never met any of them on it. You?”

“One of them. He isn’t giving up much yet but I’ll keep working on him. We need to keep tabs on how close they’re getting. He did say they haven’t connected the victims yet.”

“
Yet
.”

“We take what we can get, Johnny boy. Maybe we should meet up again in a few days. Compare notes.”

“Good idea.” They could confer before calling the others together. Decide what to tell them. What to keep quiet.

They walked toward the street. A drunk lurched around the corner, nearly plowed into them. Johnny gave him a shove and the man fell to his knees, cursing him in a slurred voice.

“Tell you one thing,” Hans said. “With this idea of yours that it’s one of us? Next time you call, I won’t be meeting you alone in a dark alley.”

Her eyes opened, the breath sawing in and out of her chest. And the relief of discovering it was just a dream almost overtook the dread of knowing they were back. Really back. Her breath shuddered out of her lungs at the realization. It hadn’t been a one-time thing. This had been a near duplicate of the one she’d had the night before last.

She sat up, used the sheet to wipe the perspiration from her face. There had been nothing new in this rendition. Except for the fact that she’d been closer. Not just a passive watcher, but near enough to smell. Hear. Feel.

Pushing her damp hair away from her face, she discovered her hand shaking. Goose bumps broke out on skin that was still overly warm to the touch. She crossed her arms to rub at the raised flesh. And forced herself to concentrate. To examine each minute detail and try to draw information from it.

Coming to a sudden decision, she surged from the bed, found her legs unsteady. Flipping on the lamp on her bedside table, she tugged open the lone drawer.

The tablet and pencil had sat unused the entire time she’d been here. There was a time when she’d thought—hoped— they’d go unused forever. And the possibility had elicited twin spires of hope and despair.

Shoving aside the thought, she drew out the drawing pad. Flipped it open. Better not to think. Better to dwell on the individual elements of the dream. They lost power that way, extracted from the whole. They’d absorb her for a time. Until the sketch was complete, a vivid reminder of what her unconscious had wrought.

It had been this way for nearly three decades. Since the first time she’d pointed to a newscast showing a murder suspect and announced to Hannah and whoever the boyfriend had been at the time that that was the bad man from her recent nightmare.

Her head began to throb, a common enough souvenir from the dreams. She worked through the headache, anxious to have the task done. When she was on a case, she treated each sketch as part of her personal investigative file. After the drawing was complete she’d jot down notes, impressions.

Like the figure was definitely male. In good shape. More than that she couldn’t be certain. At least not until the next time the vision recurred.

She knew from experience it wouldn’t be long. And if they were going to torture her sleep, they may as well be put to good use.

That idea is what had driven her to join the academy in the first place. That desperate need to make the psychic episodes useful. If she was never going to be normal, if she was going to spend her life a freak, the dreams damn well would count for something.

Risa had meant to get an early start that morning. It wasn’t as if she’d gotten much sleep the night before. Her mouth pulled up humorlessly as she waved at Darrell behind the bulletproof glass and quickened her step toward the conference room.

But she hadn’t counted on her mother being awake. Hannah hadn’t even been to bed yet, although the bus had probably had her home by two A.M. “Too much to do and not enough time to do it in,” she’d told Risa. But it had given them a few minutes to sit down and visit. Their paths hadn’t crossed much in the last couple days. As a result, Risa had been later than she’d wanted in calling for a cab. Then it had taken longer than expected at the car rental agency. She couldn’t depend on taxis to get to and from the station daily.

Slipping into the conference room, she found it full. Nate was talking and Morales was standing silently in the front of the room. Rather than call attention to herself, she leaned a shoulder against the wall just inside the door and listened.

“. . . be pursuing the identities of the men on the tape, see if that connects to our case. We’ve also got a lead on another person who was in the park the morning Christiansen was discovered. I’ll be following up.”

“What about the autopsy report?”

The voice calling from the back sounded familiar. With a glance, Risa determined it was Brandau.

“Nothing yet. Hopefully today. Let’s start with report outs on yesterday’s assignments. Brandau and Recker, what do you got?”

“Not much.” Cass did the talking this time. “We visited Parker’s widow and showed her pictures of Detective Christiansen. She’d never seen him before. Although she obviously couldn’t say whether Roland knew him, she could tell us he’d never been to the house and she didn’t recognize his name.” She stopped reading her notes to look at Nate. “Except from the newspapers, of course.” Without waiting for his nod, she went on. “We’re still trying to track down the ex-wife of Sherman Tull. Got a lead on her from the neighbor across the street from his house. Apparently the women were friends. She claims the ex never made it back for the funeral.” She shrugged. “Anyway we have an address to start with on her.”

“You canvassed the neighbors? Showed pictures of the three men?”

“Just Parker’s and Tull’s. No one recognized them. We’ll hit Christiansen’s neighborhood today.”

Nate’s gaze moved on. “Shroot, what about you and your team?”

“Combing through the case files is going to take a while.” Shroot was the tall, lanky detective with ginger-colored hair, Risa observed. His voice had a distinctive southern drawl, causing her to wonder how he’d ended up in the City of Brotherly Love. “We’ve found a couple things to tug on. Tull and Christiansen were once called to testify on a case against a con artist running scams on the elderly. Parker busted a B and E guy, one Tommy Naigle, about ten years ago, and seven years later Christiansen and his partner brought him in for the same charge. Near as we can tell, Naigle is still serving his stretch but we’ll follow up.”

“Do that. There’s a lot of material to dig through. All these men had long careers with the department. That’s a lot of arrests, a lot of potential perps harboring grudges.”