Michael Lister - Soldier 03 - The Big Hello by Michael Lister

“I’ve got it from here. Go back to what you were doing.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Come with me,” Collins said to me.
    I motioned for Clip to come and we ducked under the rope.
    “He with you?” Collins asked.
    I nodded.
    He shook his head in disapproval. “Okay. Come on.”
    He took us several feet inside the perimeter to an empty area where we’d have privacy. There were a few cops scattered throughout the lot, but mostly they were all clumped in the front corner near the building and, I assumed, the body.
    “I’m Chief Collins,” he said to Clip.
    “This is Clipper Jones of the Ninety-ninth Fighter Squadron First Tactical Unit.”
    “Presently?”
    “Nah suh, presently I of the Riley Detective Agency.”
    Collins let out a mean little laugh at that.
    Turning back to me, he said, “Whatta you say you tell me what you know.”
    I did. Nearly all of it.
    When I finished he was quiet for a long moment.
    Beneath the neon light, the pavement of the mostly empty lot looked bathed in blood, its red residue forming a film on everything.
    The intermittent flash of the squad cars added to the tension and intensity of the scene, the brilliance on the black backdrop of dark night making it seem later than it really was.
    “You got one of my men killed,” he said. “The facts support no other possible conclusion, leave no room for any other interpretation.”
    After all this time his disappointment and disapproval was still a knife slice through a sweet spot of skin and muscle and scar tissue––the latter caused by him many years before.
    “Whatta you say we see what happened before we draw any conclusions?”
    He waved his arm in a be-my-guest gesture toward to the clump of cops, and we walked over toward them.
    “Whatcha got, Staney?” he asked as we walked up.
    “It’s Dana Shelby, Chief,” Staney said. “They got one of ours.”
    I was gripped by a vice-like guilt that began to buckle my knees.
    I looked down to see Shelby as I tried to steady myself. He was lying face up on the ground not far from the open door of his car, his bullet-riddled body contorted slightly, his right foot bent back beneath him.
    “It was an ambush, sir,” he said. “Witnesses say they started firing the moment he opened the door. They shot the shit out of him and the car.”
    “Language, Lieutenant.”
    “Sorry sir. He didn’t even draw his weapon. Two men unloaded into him and his car, then jumped back into their vehicle and sped away. Nobody can give us much to go on––on the shooters or their car.”
    Collins looked over at me, his narrowed eyes burning with anger and disgust.
    “You got a good cop killed,” he said.
    The other officers standing around all suddenly turned the focus of their attention onto me.
    Everything went silent and still, the only sound the soft whine of the cold wind and the hum and flicker of the neon sign hanging above us.
    “Who was he here to meet?” he asked.
    “He thought he was meeting Valerie Powell,” I said, “but that’s not her real name.”
    “What’s her real name?”
    “Vanessa Patrick.”
    “Wilson,” Collins said to one of the cops nearby, “see if there’s a Valerie Powell or a Vanessa Patrick in there.”
    Wilson turned to walk inside.
    “And don’t just go by the witness statements or the names they’ve given. Check IDs.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Why’d y’all think she was here?”
    I shrugged. “Not sure. He had someone in the department working on it for him. He made a call. He was told she might be here, but he said he didn’t think so. Said he suspected the place was too low-class for her.”
    Collins looked back at his men. “Who was working with Dana on this?”
    No one responded.
    “Well, find out,” he said. “Now. And find me an address for Valerie Powell and Vanessa Patrick.”
    I considered telling him about Lee Perkins and what he’d said about Patrick having a room at the Cactus, but decided I couldn’t run the risk of their involvement