The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(25)

That sounded not okay at all. Beyond which, Alondra’s voice was breathless and shaky.

The elevator doors opened, and Livia’s lieutenant, Donna Strangeland, emerged with her trademark giant coffee thermos. “Hey,” she said in her outsized Brooklyn transplant accent. “You’re going the wrong way. Big shooting this morning in Freeway Park. Come on.”

“Be right there,” Livia said. And then, when Strangeland was safely out of earshot, “What’s going on?”

“I was on my way to Freeway Park for my morning run. I thought I heard gunshots, and . . . there are bodies. I think six.”

The corridor seemed suddenly ten degrees colder. “You’re in the park now?”

“Yes.”

“Did you call 911?”

“Yes. They’re sending a car. Or cars.”

“Are there people around?”

“A couple now, yeah. I think they called 911, too. Now they’re just . . . staring. Taking pictures with their phones.”

“That’s good. With that many dead, I doubt any who got away would be coming back. Plus there are witnesses now. You should be okay.”

“I don’t think this was gangs.”

“What, then?”

“There was this guy. I was going up the stairs, after I’d heard the shooting. He told me not to go in the park. Because there were people there who were planning to hurt me. And he called me by name. ‘Ms. Diaz.’ I mean, he also called me ma’am, but he knew my name. I’m sure of it.”

No. It’s not possible.

“He called you ma’am?”

“Yes. So what?”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He said it was about ‘that big case of yours.’ What else could that be but Schrader?”

“I don’t know. What else did he say?”

“He told me . . . I need to watch my back. And not go anywhere where people might expect me. He was with two other men, or at least two . . . I didn’t get a good look at any of them. They were big, though, I could see that. And the one who warned me had an accent.”

Livia closed her eyes. “What kind of accent?”

“I think Southern. Maybe Texas. I’m not sure.”

Without thinking, Livia said, “When the detectives take your statement, leave that detail out.”

“What? Why?”

“Just don’t mention it. You can always remember it later.”

There was a pause. Diaz said, “Do you know something about this?”

“No. But I know some people I can ask. Just trust me for now, okay?”

“Okay. Can you come?”

“I’m on my way into the morning briefing and my lieutenant just saw me. I don’t want to advertise that we’re in touch about this and I don’t want to make up an excuse. Just forget that you called me for now. I should be there in an hour at most. Okay?”

“Okay. Just come as soon as you can. I swear, if Schrader was behind this . . .”

“We’ll find out. Stay cool. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She clicked off and headed back toward the conference room. She badly wanted to call Carl, but she couldn’t do that from her regular phone. And besides, whatever his involvement in what had happened at the park, the conversation was bound to be fraught. She knew he’d been waiting for her to call him again. But she hadn’t. One month had become two, and then three, and then six, and she was just too . . . afraid.

It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t.

It felt like him, though. The accent. The ma’am. The chivalry.

But if it was him, he’d protected Alondra. Warned her. And he would have useful information. He could help Livia get to the bottom of this, and make sure Schrader and any coconspirators got what they deserved. If Carl was involved, it was good news, not bad.

So why was she so enraged?





chapter

twenty





DIAZ


A guard unlocked the door and Diaz walked into the SeaTac Federal Detention Center interrogation room. She’d called ahead and Schrader was already there, sitting in one of the room’s two chairs, his wrists manacled to the rectangular table.

The guard walked out and pulled the door closed, and for a moment the painted cinder-block walls echoed with a metallic clang. Everything echoed in these places. The doors, the gates, the locks . . . the constant, background exclamation points. She secretly hated all of it.

At least the FDCs didn’t smell like the local jails. Though as bad as decades of accreted sweat and urine could be, the federal devotion to unlimited ammonia and bleach was only a marginal improvement.

She pulled the second chair away from the table and sat. Schrader’s chair was bolted to the floor and his ankles were manacled to it. You own the room, they’d taught her. Make sure the subject feels it.

She made him wait for a moment—you never know what a prisoner might say. But Schrader offered nothing. He just sat there, watching her, his expression perplexed. The orange jumpsuit, which could make the hard cases look even harder, on Schrader was more like a clown costume. And the missing hairpiece—a constant in the society magazine photos, but confiscated upon his arrest—was worse. Without it, he looked older. Exhausted. Exposed.