“Hanson?”
“Yes?” Olav Hanson’s voice came over the speaker.
“I’ve talked to the video center and told them to send all further information via me from here. Where are you?”
“I’ve got this, Myers. I expect to be arresting Gomez at any moment. I’ll let you know if I need backup.”
“I repeat, where are you?” said Kay.
“Myers, like I told you—”
“This is my case, Hanson, and I’m asking you to provide me with adequate information.”
“I was first on the crime scene, Myers, it’s—”
“Bullshit! The instructions are for the duty detective to take the case until notified otherwise. You want to complain about it, call Walker. So for the last time, and before this thing goes any further: where the hell are you and what is happening?”
There was a long silence.
“I’m at the pizza restaurant,” Hanson said eventually. “Gomez isn’t here anymore. What does the video center say about where he is?”
“Just that he’s moved away from the restaurant, and they haven’t seen him on any of the skyways so he’s probably still inside the Track Plaza building. I’ve called in SWAT, so if you find Gomez, keep him under observation but do not attempt an arrest on your own. Got that?”
“But—”
“No buts. Let me know if you see Gomez and I’ll send in SWAT.”
Another silence.
“Okay,” said Hanson.
They broke the connection.
“I still don’t get what he thinks he’s doing,” said Kay.
“Maybe he sees his chance to get a St. Cloud,” said Bob.
Kay shrugged. Bob was referring to a part-time officer who had shot and killed a man who went berserk with two knives inside a shopping mall in St. Cloud. The officer, who ran a shooting range and was armed wherever he went, even on an off-duty visit to a shopping mall, became a local hero and a poster boy forthe NRA, which had bestowed on him the dubious title “NRA Officer of the Year.”
“Hanson may be stupid, but he isn’t crazy,” said Kay. “How this ends is up to Gomez.”
The traffic wasn’t moving and farther ahead in the jam she saw a police car, a rescue vehicle and two damaged private cars.
“Okay,” said Bob, “maybe Hanson won’t shoot anyone, but I guarantee you that if he sees Gomez, he won’t wait for us or SWAT. If we stay in this traffic much longer he’ll have the cuffs on Gomez and be posing for the press photographers long before we get there. So I suggest you swing up onto the sidewalk and drive around.”
“You men and your pissing contests,” Kay snorted. “What matters is thatsomeonearrests him, not who does it.”
For eight seconds they remained there in silence.
Then Myers put her foot down hard, swung the car up onto the sidewalk and sped past the jammed cars with the horn going full blast.
27
Skyways II, October 2016
It was a Harry Winston diamond ring. It lay cushioned on black velvet in the jewelry-store window and twinkled more brightly than any of the others. Tomorrow would have been our wedding anniversary. It was expensive. But I had the money. Monica hadn’t wanted a ring like that, though, and she didn’t get one either, but I knew she would have loved it. And I would have loved it. Loved to have been standing in the kitchen making our breakfast, knowing that right then she was waking up and discovering the box on the pillow. No, it wasn’t correct to say our anniversarywould have beentomorrow, itwastomorrow. You can’t stop the days from coming. Time just keeps rolling along, no matter how meaninglessly.
The security guard inside the jeweler’s stood with his arms folded, swaying back and forth on his toes. There was no music to sway to, the stores at Tracks quit playing canned music afterresearch showed that it distracted people from their shopping. The guard could see me outside. From the scarred Latino face and the moth-eaten hoodie he guessed I couldn’t afford their jewels. Maybe he was wondering what was inside the bubble wrap. When you work security I guess you see potential threats everywhere. You don’t ask yourself, “Is that thing there a rifle?” You ask, “Can Iexclude completelythe possibility that that thing there is a rifle?” Well, anyway, I guess that’s a question people in this country must have been asking themselves ever since the birth of the nation: does that person intend to shoot me?
