Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(64)
“Well, whatever happens next,” Maureen said, “it won’t involve these two.”
22
With the bad guys dead, Maureen didn’t have anything to do.
She hung around the fishing aisle, thinking someone might want to ask her questions about what had happened there, but nobody did. Everyone who came through went right to Detillier. As the crowd grew, she grew more and more eager to leave. She wanted to lose the FBI jacket and get out of her heavy vest. She wanted to go home, be alone, and have a drink and a long shower. For right now, she’d be happy to get outside and breathe cooler, less blood-laden air. Outside she could find someone to ask about Preacher’s condition. Christ, she had a shift that night, which was hard to even think about.
Who would do roll call?
Sporting Goods swarmed now with NOPD detectives and FBI agents, large, anxious men arguing in hushed tones over who was in charge of what. The FBI was labeling the afternoon’s shootings acts of domestic terror, which came under their jurisdiction. As far as Maureen could tell, the NOPD didn’t give a shit about terminology and jurisdiction. They wanted an all-out manhunt. They wanted blood. However much of it pooled on the floor of the fishing aisle, that blood wasn’t blood they had spilled. It wasn’t enough. That blood didn’t count. Maureen understood. She watched as a calm and determined Agent Detillier struggled to explain to whoever from the NOPD would listen to him, which appeared to be nobody, that the investigation was paramount now, that the three known shooters from that afternoon were dead.
At the moment, Detillier insisted, there was no one to hunt.
Maureen wasn’t so sure that was true. Somebody, she thought, scratch that, everybody should be looking for Leon Gage. Detillier had to be thinking the same thing.
She suspected, though, that he feared the raw wrath and bloodlust of a gut-shot NOPD. Anyone connected to these attacks who the city cops got their hands on tonight wouldn’t live to see the morning. Any information a prisoner gave up before dying would be beaten out of him, and that information would be useless as a prosecution tool. As badly as she wanted Leon Gage caught or even dead, she understood Detillier’s strategy. He needed Gage, needed the information in his head.
As the voices of the men surrounding her got more heated, Maureen decided that hanging around corpses and angry men did her no good. From a distance, she made eye contact with Detillier and pointed toward the front of the store. He nodded and put a finger to his lips. She got the message. Talk to no one. She decided she might heed his wishes. She might not. Someone had to find Leon Gage. She’d blown the hunt for Madison Leary. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Detillier made a hand signal at his ear that meant he’d call her later, like someone would make to a friend across a crowded barroom. The gesture seemed so absurd, Maureen had to fight back laughter.
On her way out of the Walmart, she passed through the grocery section and grabbed a cold bottle of water. She’d pounded half of it down by the time she got outside.
23
Maureen felt as if she’d escaped from a maze as she stood outside the front door, people in uniform hustling past her. She ran her fingers along her scalp, enjoying the cold air, wondering how she’d get a ride to Dizzy’s to pick up her car.
As she peeled off her FBI jacket, a familiar voice called her name.
She turned to see a smiling man, large and muscular, approaching out of the swirling crowd of law enforcement filling the parking lot. Dressed in full paramilitary gear, with his wraparound shades, flattop haircut, and an automatic rifle strapped across his chest, he looked like a soldier dipped in blue ink. Maureen recognized him right away. Sansone. One of the muscle-bound boys from the Tactical Unit.
“Why am I not surprised,” he said, “to see you in the middle of this mess, Cogs?”
“What can I say? You guys were too slow. The pros had to step up.” She took off her shirt, and unstrapped her vest and pulled it off, dropping it to the ground behind her with a grunt. She put the jacket back on. She rolled her shoulders. In her thin sweaty T-shirt, she shivered in the cold. “Much better.”
“I heard you were rolling with the feds on this. Badass.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” Maureen said. “One fed. Guy named Detillier. He’s working the Watchmen case, the guys who shot up my house. I was with him when this shit went down. It was Detillier who knew they’d be here at the Walmart. We were halfway here before the first nine-one-one call came in from the store.” She patted her pockets. “Tell me you have a cigarette.”
“For you,” Sansone said, “of course.” He produced a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo. He lit hers, then lit one for himself. “Tell me you got ’em. Please tell me it was you and not that fed.”
“I hate to disappoint you,” Maureen said, “but they offed themselves before we got to them.”
“Fucking cowards,” Sansone said, stomping on the pavement. “I hate that shit. Hate it. So much for my hard-on.” He growled. “But I’ll get it back tonight. We’ll be out busting many heads tonight. I’ll be sporting a f*cking table leg. I’ll be staggering.”
Maureen took a long pull of her cigarette. “What’ve you heard about Preacher?”
Sansone shrugged, looking away from her, exhaling a long plume of smoke. “He was alive when he went in the ambo. Conscious, too. Talking, of course, because he’s f*cking Preacher.”