Fish Out of Water (10 page)

For hell’s sake—Ellery Cramer didn’t need an engraved invitation.

He didn’t even need to examine his motives too closely.

HE PULLED
up to Connie Coulson’s house and tried to smooth the wrinkle out of his nose. The neighborhood was terrifying—Ellery was glad there were cops out front, no matter how dirty, just so his damned car didn’t get destroyed. Or stolen. Or stolen
and
destroyed.

The summer heat seemed to beat down especially hard on this stretch of road, and every lawn was a desert of dead grass and dirt. And trash. One of the houses he’d passed had a burst bag of dirty diapers strewn across the front yard, complete with scavenging dogs.

The house next door had expensive wrought iron and dogs the size of Hyundais. And a couple of scrawny, nervous smokers jittering in the far corner from the garage.

And a cop car around the corner.

Ellery didn’t want to think about what that meant. Were the cops staking out the place to close down the shop? Or, given the can of worms Jackson and Kaden had opened for him that morning, were they waiting for their take?

He hated this feeling. He’d always believed in law and order, and even though he defended people—and not always the innocent—he’d believed the system was designed so that when people
were
innocent, they had a voice.

To find out, to be shown in lurid color and twisted flesh, that part of this system was flawed—was
soiled—
was the ultimate in losing faith.

He was driving his Lexus through the shadow of crime, and his gods of law and order had deserted him. And the people wearing their uniform were swarming over Connie Coulson’s house like maggots.

Ellery parked on the shoulder of the road in front of the house next door to Coulson’s, in front of the coroner’s van. Even as he got out of his car and walked around the van, the coroners were shoving the gurney and its burden, the body-sized zippered black bag, into the refrigerated back of the bus.

He resisted the urge to gawk morbidly, well aware he would see crime-scene photos in exceptional detail, hopefully bright and early the next morning. And hopefully taken by one of the CSIs swarming this particular scene and not a random bystander with a camera phone.

In the meantime, his attention was caught by the dirty, banged-up man standing, hip cocked, with all his weight on the ball of one foot, as though favoring the other leg.

He’d bled through a bandage on the outside of his arm, and he had a bruise and a cut under one eye. His clothes looked as though he’d rolled around in the dirt, and the knee of his jeans was torn, showing a bad scrape and swollen joint under the fabric.

He had his arms crossed and was staring with a stony sort of fury at the five policemen surrounding him.

Ellery had taken three steps toward him, the better to get on his high horse and be the sort of defense lawyer cops abhorred, when he saw the car.

The car with no windows and a peppering of holes through the hood, and a spill of ping-pong-ball-shaped trash littering the ground by the back door, which had apparently opened in the onslaught.

Ellery’s mouth went dry, and he looked from the car to the house, which was torn apart like paper. Behind him, the coroner’s van started up and drove away at a sedate pace, no siren.

He looked at Jackson again, in better shape than the house and the car—and in
much
better shape than the man in the back of the coroner’s van—and took a deep breath, trying to still the retroactive flood of panic rushing through his veins.

The stride he resumed toward the figures on the lawn was a little less high-and-mighty and a little more determined.

“Again,” Jackson was saying, voice flat, “I was in the backyard. Connie took the rounds because they had a clear line of sight down the side yard. I saw him go down, and hit the mud myself.”

“Not fast enough, huh, Rivers?” asked the thirtyish cop with gray-shot black hair and deep lines by his eyes and mouth.

“Am I
dead
?” Jackson snapped. “If I’m not dead, then it was fast enough.”

“Yeah, well, too bad you didn’t give Coulson some warning,” another officer said. This one had plain brown hair and one of those faces that would remain young for a very long time. And gray eyes that looked like they had
never
been young.

Jackson’s face went hard, like granite and nails. “Yeah. That’s why Connie is dead, because I didn’t know someone was shooting at us until I
saw him get shot
!” Jackson scrubbed his face. “You know who Connie Coulson was, don’t you?” he asked conversationally.

“Two-bit hood?” That guy with the deep crow’s-feet had a smart mouth on him. Ellery wanted to smack it off.

Jackson looked at the guy with eyes as flat and cold as a soulless sea.

Ellery would have said that look wouldn’t have worked, but the cop—all of them, in fact—started to shift around, fidgeting as Ellery had wanted to that morning.

“Who was he, Jackson?” Crow’s-feet said after a moment.

“He was the guy who called in sick to Kaden Cameron’s quickie-mart last night. He’s the guy who was
supposed
to be there when Bridger and Miles came in.”

Silence. Nothing but silence.

Jackson shook his head in disgust. “Yeah—and not one of you has anything to say to
that
,
do you?” He spotted Ellery and turned away from the interrogation circle, only to be stopped by a shove to the shoulder from one cop and a kick to the swollen knee from another.

He almost went down but stopped himself with his hand. “We’re done here,” he growled.

“I thought you IA rats were tough,” Crow’s-feet sneered. “C’mon, Jackson, can’t you hang around with your brothers long enough to keep your story straight?”

“Yeah,” Dead-eyes sneered, clearly enjoying Jackson’s little grunt of pain. “From what I hear, the story’s not the only thing he can’t keep straight.”

“Yeah, Rivers—I thought you were supposed to screw the
female
nurses. The guys you just let blow you!”

Oh God, that must have been a reference to the guys with the immolated Ford. Whatever it was, it had apparently snapped the very last of Jackson’s reserves, because his arm cocked back in the unmistakable precursor to what was about to be an epic beating of ex-cop ass.

“Hold up there,” Ellery called, hustling across the yard as though he’d never paused. “Do you have any reason to detain Mr. Rivers?”

He pulled up short in front of Jackson, buttoning the front of his sadly wrinkled jacket and fixing the officers with a dispassionate eye. “I’m Ellery Cramer from Pfeist, Langdon, Harrelson & Cooper,” he said, pulling out a business card and dropping it on Crow’s-feet’s clipboard. “Jackson Rivers is here on our behalf investigating the arrest of Kaden Cameron. Do
you
have an excuse for not letting him attend to his damaged property or seek medical attention?”

“He declined medical attention,” Crow’s-feet said, throwing the card on the ground like trash. “Apparently he thinks rats heal themselves.”

“Or maybe he was afraid you people would poison his bandages, and he prefers to live?” Ellery insinuated with a saccharine smile.

“We’re not dirty,” Dead-eyes snarled.

Ellery rolled his eyes. “Do you know that nearly a third of the women who get abortions in the United States belong to those radical religions that picket the Planned Parenthood locations?”

The policemen looked at him blankly. For that matter, so did Jackson.

“So your point would be…,” Dead-eyes said slowly. He seemed to be the leader, and Crow’s-feet seemed to be the most aggressive. They’d been the ones to try to knock Jackson to the ground.

“That some of those women walk into the abortion clinic, get abortions, and then walk out of the clinic and join the people in the sidelines screaming at the people going inside for mammograms and pap smears. Just because someone’s screaming about evil in their loudest voice doesn’t mean they’re not participating in what could get them in the most trouble.”

Jackson let out a reluctant chuckle. “You all have been schooled by a man in a suit,” he said with cheerful rancor. “And he’s right. I’ve been humoring you bozos, but you’ve got my official statement—several times. Now either take me in or let me go—but I need some water, and a Band-Aid, and a fucking chair. If you’re not willing to offer me any of that shit, you’ve met my lawyer. He just made you all look like assholes.”

Jackson turned his back on them, damned near kicking the grass backward like a cat pleased with the dump he’d just taken.

“You ready to go, Mr. Cramer?” he asked, heading for Ellery’s car.

“I am indeed. Which towing service do you use?”

Jackson looked at him with a truly ferocious grin. “Don’t need one. Saunders over there”—he jerked his chin toward Dead-eyes—“ran my plates and realized they were obligated to tow the thing anyway, on account of too many parking tickets.”

Ellery groaned. Of course. Of
course
Jackson would land on his feet.

Except he really wasn’t walking too well.

Ellery clicked his remote so Jackson could get in and then swung into the driver’s seat while Jackson orgasmed over the all-leather interior.

“Oh man,” the guy purred. “This is… mmmm….” He made kneading motions with his fingers and everything. “Is this sort of thing even
legal
?”

“You should feel it in the winter, when the seats heat,” Ellery said dryly. “Do you need medical attention for your knee?”

That opened Jackson’s eyes right up. “Do you got any ibuprofen, Princess? I don’t want a doctor, but I could
seriously
use a painkiller and some ice.” His voice sank to a grumble. “Of course I have
both
a bottle of Motrin
and
an ice pack in the damned car, but was I allowed to touch it? No-ooo!”

“Part of the evidence too?” Ellery asked, not without sympathy.

“Yeah—all sorts of stuff from my car that they decided they needed. My sports jacket, water, my painkillers, my fuckin’ Taser….”

Jackson was starting to sound loopy, and Ellery asked, “Your insulin?”

He got a grunt in return. “I’m not diabetic,” Jackson muttered.

“Hypoglycemic?”

“Not diagnosed,” he admitted grudgingly. “I just need a fuckin’ granola bar or something. God,
that
would be awesome. And some ice. And some Motrin. And some—”

“Jack in the Box,” Ellery muttered with distaste. “We’ll have to settle for that.”

Jackson grunted and threw himself back against the seat. “Chipotle?” he asked plaintively. “I’ll buy.”

“If you walked into a Chipotle right now, you’d scare the customers,” Ellery said. “I’ll buy. Where do you live, and where’s the one nearest your house?”

Jackson groaned. “Ugh…. Okay, where the fuck are we again?”

“Well, we just passed a junior high—”

“
Fuck—
can you find Northgate? Take a right on San Juan and a right on Truxel. There’s probably one closer to my house, but—”

“Yeah, thinking’s a problem right now.”

“It’s been a day!” Jackson snapped. He took a breath. “How’s K?”

“A lot calmer than I would be,” Ellery admitted. “His sister got a chance to visit. They’re sweet together.”

Jackson gave a half laugh and tilted his head back. “Yeah. J and K—always had each other’s backs. Good people.”

“How long—”

“Grade school,” Jackson said, his voice going sour. “We just passed it. I’m going to close my eyes for the rest of the tour if that’s okay.”

Ellery swallowed. He should just stay quiet. He and Jackson had a lot of business to take care of that night. Once Jackson got some food and some first aid, Ellery needed to run a
lot
of shit by him, because his conversation with Arizona made no goddamned sense and Jackson might have some insight. So yeah. Long night. Leave the guy a—

“This is sort of a rough neighborhood.” Apparently keeping your mouth shut was not the hallmark of a great defense attorney.

“This is a garden spot right here,” Jackson snorted, eyes still closed. “You should have seen it in the nineties.”

“Tell me.” Because the neighborhood had shaped them, hadn’t it? Jade, Kaden, and Jackson. Had made them the tight-knit little band of musketeers they were.

“What’s to tell? Bad neighborhood is bad. The nineties were… well, drugs, gangs, guns—that was the nineties. I mean, they’ve cleaned it up some. The schools started working with the parents who started working with their kids—there’s a whole new thing going on. But back then the good parents were just, you know,
good parents
.
Jade and Kaden’s mom was one of the best. Me and Kaden had each other’s six all through school, so she was good for me too.”

“What about your own—”

Jackson grunted. “Cramer, you know, I got shit for sleep last night, okay? Do I have to tell you about my day? And you and me got shit to sort. I have basic needs right now. I’ve got to fucking eat or I’m going to fucking kill you right fucking now. Some water would be
perfect
. Motrin would be better. Ice would be icing. And I need to feed my fucking cat, because he got left inside this morning, and if he hasn’t crapped on my bed, he’s probably eaten something I cherish.”

“You have a cat?”

“
Arrrrgh
!”

“I’m turning right—are we a grown-up now?”

“Fuck you.”

And that, apparently, was that.

Ellery left him to bleed in the car while he got them food, sodas, and a couple of bottles of water. When he stopped at the gas station for painkillers, Jackson handed him his takeout wrappers, neatly and psychotically rolled into the little round balls, and asked him nicely to put them in the trash.

He came out with a cup of ice, a towel, and Motrin, and was greeted with a genuine—if tired—smile. One that had teeth and made the little crinkles in the corners of those green eyes bunch up. It was just wide enough to show off a slightly crooked front tooth and a quirk to Jackson’s upper lip.

“Thank you,” Jackson breathed, downing about six painkillers before wrapping the ice in a napkin and resting it on his knee. “This is amazing—you’re a totally decent human being and I owe you.”