Fatal Chaos Read online

  “We’re on standby.”

  “I’ll be back to you shortly.”

  Thankfully, the traffic had let up and they were back to HQ a short time later.

  “Go to processing,” Sam said to Freddie as they walked in through the morgue entrance. “Get me their addresses.”

  “On it.”

  “I want them kept separate and put into interrogation as soon as they’re processed.”

  “You got it.”

  Sam popped into the morgue, looking for Lindsey. “Doc, I need you to take some DNA swabs. I think we’ve got our murdering, raping scumbags in custody.”

  “Well, hallelujah. Let me know when they’re ready to be swabbed.”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Sam walked to the pit, went into her office and found the bottle of painkillers she kept her in desk, swallowing two of them, hoping they’d dull the pain in her head and face. After they closed this case from hell, she was taking a few days off.

  Malone came into the office. “You got ’em?”

  “We got ’em. I just need to dot a few Is and cross some Ts to make sure it’s them, but with Angel’s ID we’re at ninety-nine percent certainty. Lindsey is coming to swab them as soon as they’re through processing.”

  “Great work, Lieutenant. As always.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You look like hell.”

  “I feel like hell.”

  “We could take it from here, you know.”

  Sam rolled her one working eye at him. “Like that’s gonna happen. You wouldn’t want me to miss the best part, when we get them in a room and let them know they’re screwed, glued and tattooed every which way to next Tuesday, would you?”

  “I’d never deny you that moment.”

  “Detective Green did great work on this case. He’s going to be an asset to the department.”

  “I had no doubt.” Winking, he added, “He came highly recommended.”

  Sam laughed. “I’m not sure if he still thinks I did him any favors recommending him.”

  “He’s thrilled to be working for you. They all are.”

  “Thank you. I’m lucky to have them.”

  “We need to brief the press about the arrests.”

  “I’ll take care of that and notify the families as soon as we know with one hundred percent certainty that we’ve got our guys.” They’d have to wait for DNA to confirm it.

  “I’ll let you get to it.”

  Sam sent a text to Nick. We got ’em.

  He wrote right back. Oh thank God.

  Gonna be here a while sewing it up.

  Take your time and congrats. So proud of you.

  Thanks! Love you.

  Love you too!

  Sam took a moment to sit at her desk, collect her thoughts and wallow in the relief of knowing they’d gotten the guys who’d ended six innocent lives and savagely attacked Angel. Closing her eyes, she released a deep breath and allowed in the euphoria that always overtook her at these moments. It was an incredible high to know that she’d again contributed to making their city a safer place for everyone who called it home as well as the millions who visited each year.

  When Freddie knocked on the door, Sam realized she’d dozed off.

  “We’re ready for you, Lieutenant.” He handed her the booking information for both suspects. “They’re in Interview 1 and 2. I saw Detective DeMaio and took the liberty of giving her their addresses. I hope that was okay.”

  “That’s great, thanks. Any talk of lawyers?”

  “Not that I heard.”

  “Good. Give me five minutes, and then we’ll take them one at a time.”

  “Okay.”

  Sam used her five minutes to call Lindsey to come do the swabs, to ask Assistant U.S. Attorney Faith Miller to come observe the interviews and to review the booking sheets on both men. Curtis Moore, twenty-three, listed an address in Southeast and had a long list of priors, all misdemeanors, ranging from vandalism to simple assault to shoplifting, as well as a sealed juvenile record. The other one, Deacon Holt, was also twenty-three with no priors. Very interesting. Gee, I wonder who the ringleader was.

  Operating on a hunch, she decided to start with Holt. If this was his first rodeo, he was apt to be scared shitless and having him freaked out could be helpful under these circumstances.

  Sam stepped out of her office. “Cruz!”

  He popped up in his cubicle like a target in a whack-a-mole game. “You bellowed?”

  “Let’s go.” As they walked to the interrogation rooms, she said, “We’re starting with Holt. No priors, which means this is his first time visiting our esteemed headquarters.”

  “He’s apt to piss himself after five minutes with you.”

  “Let’s see if I can get him to pee his pants in three minutes.”

  “My money is on you, LT.”

  Lindsey joined them, and Sam asked Freddie to wait outside until they had the swab.

  Inside the room, Lindsey made fast work of explaining what she was doing and retrieving the swab from the inside of Holt’s cheek. “I’ll get this to the lab.”

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  Sam nodded to the officer guarding the room, dismissing him, and turned to Holt, who sobbed uncontrollably. “I’m going for pee in two minutes or less,” Sam whispered to Freddie when he came in.

  He grinned in response to the comment. “AUSA Miller is in observation with Captain Malone and Chief Farnsworth.”

  With all the players in place, it was time to get down to business. “Mr. Holt,” she said sharply, “pull yourself together.”

  His hands shook as he wiped the tears off his face and tried to sit up a little straighter. He was so thin and wiry his bones were visible under his T-shirt. With close-cropped dark hair, light tan skin and brown eyes rimmed with red from crying, he hardly looked twenty-three.

  “I’m Lieutenant Holland. This is Detective Cruz. We’ll be recording this interview.”

  His eyes bugged when he recognized her. He shook uncontrollably. For once, being recognized didn’t suck.

  Freddie pressed Record on the device on the table, recited the date, time, the officers present and the name of the suspect.

  “You want to tell me what the hell you were thinking driving around shooting innocent people in my city?”

  He broke down, sobbing. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “You didn’t mean to kill six people and viciously assault another?”

  He shook his head, and then dropped it onto his arms on the table. “I…I didn’t want to, but Curtis, he said I had to drive or he’d take my sister.”

  “Did he make you rape that girl too?”

  Nodding, he said, “He had a gun on me. He said I had to do it or he’d do the same thing to my sister.”

  “Our victim didn’t mention anything about one of you threatening the other.”

  “He told me before we grabbed her. He said I had to do it or else. I love my sister. She’s all I got since our Ma died. I can’t let nobody hurt her. She’s only sixteen.”

  “What was Curtis hoping to gain by killing people?”

  “He wanted revenge because the city fired him.”

  “How’d you get mixed up with him?”

  “We were friends when we were in school. I saw him for the first time in years at a friend’s party, and he started hitting me up, acting like we was best friends. Then I saw him looking at my sister, and I didn’t like it. I told him to cut it out, and he said he was gonna do a lot more than look if I didn’t do exactly what he told me to.”

  “How did his stepfather figure into it?”

  Holt jerked his head up, his eyes wild as the unmistakable scent of urine filled the room, turning her stomach.

&n
bsp; Under two minutes, as predicted. She shot Freddie a victorious smile.

  He smiled back at her.

  “You’re in a shitload of trouble here, Mr. Holt. We’re running the DNA we took from the girl you two attacked as well as hairs and fibers found in the cars you stole. That DNA is going to match the sample Dr. McNamara just took from you, isn’t it?”

  Holt nodded as tears continued to roll down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to do any of it. Curtis… He made me.”

  “You’re going to tell us everything. Every single thing from the first second you reconnected with Curtis all the way up to your mother’s wake. If you leave out anything, I’ll make sure you’re charged right along with him. If you fully cooperate and we determine you’re another victim here, you won’t be charged. Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  Sam pushed a tablet of paper and a pen across the table. “Start writing. I want names, dates, places and every detail of what went down. And make it so we can read it.”

  Holt took the pen, wiped his face again and began writing.

  * * *

  TWO HOURS LATER, they had the full story laid out before them. Curtis Moore had roped Deacon Holt into his plan to rain terror down upon the city he used to work for until he’d been fired from his public works job for falsifying his hours. He wanted revenge and had killed six innocent people and assaulted another to get it.

  “Where’s Wallack?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. Curtis, he wouldn’t tell me where he was holding him.”

  To Freddie, Sam said, “Tell DiMaio to focus their efforts on Moore’s place.”

  “Got it.” He left the room to see to her order.

  “Do you know anything about how he kidnapped his stepfather?”

  “He grabbed him after the A.A. meeting he goes to. He said Kenny made it easy because he was so fucking predictable. Curtis said Kenny left his mom because of him, and she never got over it so he deserved to go through hell for doing that to Curtis’s mom. Kenny broke her heart, he said.”

  Holt wiped more tears from his face. “It made Curtis real mad that Kenny loved his new wife so much. He knew that threatening her would get Kenny to do what he said. But he didn’t want to do it either. Curtis made him. He had a gun on Kenny the whole time while he made me drive the car. He kept saying, ‘If you want to see your precious Leslie again, make the shot. If you miss, I’m going to get her, and I’ll make her wish she was dead.’ Kenny took the shots Curtis told him to take, and he never missed, but he was a fucking mess afterward every time. That’s why we stopped. Kenny was so fucked-up, which made Curtis real mad. He beat the shit out of him.”

  As Sam took notes, she battled nausea at how disgusting this entire thing was.

  “What’s gonna happen to me?” Deacon asked in a small voice.

  “If you continue to cooperate, and Captain Wallack verifies your version of events, I’ll talk to the assistant U.S. attorney about waiving charges.”

  He broke down again. “I’m so, so sorry. I hate myself for what we did.”

  “That’s gonna go a long way with the U.S. attorney. Stay here for now. We’ll be back.”

  They left the room, and Sam took deep breaths of the clean air. “God, it freaking reeks in there.”

  “Pee stinks,” Freddie said.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “For what it’s worth, I believe him.”

  “I do too. Living with what he was part of will be punishment enough for him.”

  “I agree,” Faith said when she joined them. The blond prosecutor, one of the three identical triplets that served as assistant U.S. attorneys, wore a tailored black suit and her trademark stilettos. “He’s the key to our case against Moore. We’re going to want to put him under protection until the trial.”

  “We’re probably going to have to protect his sister too,” Sam said.

  “We can make that happen.”

  Malone joined them. “They found Wallack in a shallow hole in the ground under the shed in Moore’s yard. He’s in rough shape. They’re taking him to the E.R. and notifying the wife that he’s been found.”

  “Holy shit,” Sam said. “What a messed-up case this is.”

  “What do we do about Moore?” Freddie asked.

  “We do a ‘drive-by,’ pun intended, to let him know his buddy rolled on him.” Sam rubbed her hands together. “Let’s do it.”

  Their conversation, such as it was, with Moore was largely one-sided. “Your buddy Deacon rolled on you.”

  Moore stared at them with cold-blooded disdain. “He’s a pussy. You can’t believe anything he says.”

  “The thing is,” Sam said, “we do believe him. And we’ve found your ex-stepfather too. I’m sure he’s going to have plenty to say about how he ended up in a hole under your shed.”

  Moore shrugged. “Whatever. You ain’t got dick on me.”

  Sam laughed. “Isn’t that ironic, Detective Cruz? Seeing as how it was our friend Curtis’s dick that gave us such a nice, juicy DNA sample. Too bad he had to go and rape Angel and leave us with all that DNA.”

  “It sure is ironic,” Freddie agreed.

  She had no doubt she’d hear from Freddie later about how gross she was. What did she care when gross got the job done. For the first time, Moore’s bravado slipped.

  “That don’t prove nothing.”

  “Oh, Curtis, you poor stupid fool. DNA proves everything. We’ll leave it at that. I don’t know about you, Detective Cruz, but I’m ready for bed.”

  “I’m ready,” Freddie said. “It’s been a long week.”

  They moved to the door.

  “Wait! Don’t you want to hear my side of it?”

  Sam glanced at Freddie, and then back at Moore. “Nah, we’re good.” She loved the look of disbelief that crossed his face when he realized they didn’t care what he had to say.

  Outside the room, Sam and Freddie exchanged a high five.

  “Goddamn, that was fun.”

  “Lieutenant! I’ve asked you not to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “My heartfelt apologies.”

  “You’re not even kinda sorry,” he muttered. “And PS, the juicy dick thing was disgusting.”

  “Did it or did it not get the job done?”

  “I refuse to encourage your grossness.”

  Sam did a giddy little dance. Almost nothing made her happier than putting the screws to a murdering asshole, especially someone who picked innocent people off the street and killed them for no good reason.

  “What now?” Freddie asked.

  “Now we write it all up, prepare a press release to let the public know that we’ve made an arrest in the shootings case, call the families to update them and go home until the lab confirms the DNA is a match and until Wallack is able to talk to us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  SAM NEVER DID make it home. At midnight, they got the word that Wallack was asking to speak to her, so she went by herself to see what he had to say. As she approached his hospital room, she found Dr. Trulo, the department shrink, standing outside with Wallack’s wife, Leslie.

  Sam approached them, feeling like she might be intruding, but she went anyway.

  “Lieutenant,” Trulo said. “I’d say it was good to see you…”

  Sam shook his hand. He’d gotten her through some of her lowest moments on the job and had helped her get her career back on track after Stahl attacked her. “How is he?”

  Trulo frowned. “Not good at all.”

  “He did it for me,” Leslie said, wiping away tears. Her eyes were red and raw, as if she’d been crying for hours. “When Curtis said he’d make me regret ever being born, Kenny believed him. He knows what that kid is capable of. Curtis wanted Kenny to suffer for breaking his mother’s heart, but he is the one who
broke his mother’s heart, not Kenny.”

  “That’s what we’ve heard.” To Trulo, Sam said, “Captain Wallack asked to see me?”

  Trulo nodded. “He has something he wants to say to you.”

  “Is now a good time?”

  “As good as any. Leslie, do you want to take a break while we’re in with him?”

  She nodded, using her sleeve to wipe up more tears. “Tell Kenny I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  “Will do.”

  Trulo watched her walk away, her shoulders hunched. “They’re both going to need extensive counseling to deal with this.”

  “How do you ever get over being part of something like this?” Sam asked.

  “I’m not sure you do, but we can try to help them cope.” He pressed a hand to the door. “Shall we?”

  The last place in the world Sam wanted to be was in the middle of Captain Wallack’s nightmare, but he’d asked to see her, so she nodded.

  Trulo held the door for her. “Lieutenant Holland has come to see you, Kenny.”

  The captain lay on his side, his face swollen, bruised and wet with tears.

  “How you doing, Cap?” Sam asked, affording him the respect of his title.

  “Not good.” He looked up at her with broken eyes. “I wanted you to come so I could say how sorry I am.” A sob hiccupped through him. “I never wanted to hurt those people.” He wiped his face, wincing when his hand connected with bruises. “I didn’t care about what happened to me, but Leslie… Curtis said he’d rape her and murder her and make her suffer. I knew he’d do it—and he’d enjoy it.” More sobs. “She’s the only person who’s ever truly loved me. I couldn’t let that happen to her. I just couldn’t.”

  Sam rested a hand on his shoulder. “No one blames you.”

  “I blame me. I should’ve fought back or done something to stop him…”

  “He’s bigger and stronger than you, and he had a gun,” Sam said. “If you’d fought back, you’d be dead and Leslie might be too.”

  “That little girl… I just…” His voice broke and sobs shook him.

  “Take it easy, Kenny,” Trulo said.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” he said to Sam. “Will you please tell everyone? Tell the families… I’m so sorry.”