Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(29)
“You need to get down here ASAP.” She gave him directions. “One of your people, Dominic Sheridan, has been in a car wreck.” Ava watched the fire service ease Sheridan into a neck brace and then onto a hard stretcher. The only good news was he was still breathing. “He’s alive, but it looks bad.”
*
Excitement was like a drug through her blood. The flashing yellow and red lights made the scene of the accident look like a dance party. The car was jagged, twisted metal, ripped open and glittering like a tin can. Blood covered one of the airbags.
Well, that didn’t look good.
Suppressing a grin so as not to rouse the attention of the patrol cop wasn’t easy. But nothing worthwhile ever was. Bernie was going to be very, very happy.
Chapter Nine
It was nearly two AM when Ava knocked on the door of the neat little craftsman tucked into a quiet bay about a quarter of a mile from the Mule & Pitcher. She’d barely stopped shaking since watching Sheridan carted away in the back of an ambulance. One of the firefighters had assured her that although he was unconscious, all his vitals were good, and he hadn’t suffered any obvious injuries aside from a possible broken shoulder. Didn’t mean he hadn’t suffered some sort of head injury or brain damage or internal injury—
She shut down that train of thought. Dominic Sheridan was in good hands, and her time was better spent trying to figure out what had happened this evening. Something about the bar fight no longer rang true, and her cop instincts had been aroused.
She eyed the big black truck in the driveway. Even though it was walking distance from the bar, Ava had a feeling Karl Feldman hadn’t used his feet.
She knocked on the door again, and a light went on inside. She held up her badge to the peephole. She also wore her raid jacket because she didn’t want anyone in any doubt that she was here in her official capacity.
“Mr. Feldman? This is FBI Special Agent Kanas. We met earlier tonight. I need to talk to you about what happened in the bar.”
There was a shuffling sound, and Ava eased her hand onto the grip of her Glock. Maybe she should have told someone where she was going.
The door opened wide, and there stood the giant who’d started the bar fight, wearing pajama bottoms, an off-white t-shirt, and a loose cotton robe that didn’t meet in the middle. Ava was five-ten and this guy made her feel like a gnat. He was balding with glasses and a bristly mustache. His eyes looked like those of every photograph of every serial killer she’d ever seen. Maybe this wasn’t the smartest idea she’d ever had. He squinted at her and sighed gustily. She got a face full of stale booze and bad breath.
“I didn’t realize a bar brawl was a federal offense.”
Disturbing the peace, assault, battery—there were a lot of potential charges to arise from something as seemingly innocuous as a bar fight. And if Ava and Sheridan had arrested this man, maybe Sheridan wouldn’t have driven into a telephone pole.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Come on in.” He let go of the knob and walked away, leaving her little choice but to follow.
But before she stepped inside, she texted Feldman’s address to Sheridan with a time stamp and “Going in.” It might not prevent anything happening to her if this guy was a psycho, but at least her colleagues would know where to start looking for the body.
She walked inside the house and was pleasantly surprised by the simple decor and classy color scheme. The floors were hardwood and the rugs looked Persian but could be Ikea for all she knew. She followed him through to the kitchen which looked freshly renovated with pale shaker cupboards and a large farmer’s sink. Feldman sat on a sturdy kitchen chair at a big wooden table.
“You have a beautiful home, Mr. Feldman.”
He looked at her with small beady eyes. “It’s what I do.”
She raised her brow in question. The strong smell of metabolized alcohol pervaded the room and stole some of its charm.
“I renovate old homes and restore them to their former glory. Actually, I make them even better.” He went over to the freezer, grabbed a bag of frozen peas, wrapped them in a dishtowel and pressed them to the knuckles of his right hand as he sat back down again. “The guy I hit changed his mind? You came to press charges?”
“No, sir. Although Mr. Gardner”—the man he’d punched—“might still file charges.”
Feldman grimaced. “It’s probably a good thing I’m self-employed.”
“You get in fights often?”
He grimaced. “It’s been known.”
Ava ran her hand over the smooth surface of the island, hoping to put the guy at ease. “This is a nice piece. Marble?”
“Actually, it’s a rare piece of pale granite I found. Easier to look after than marble. Stains less.”
“Nice.”
Feldman nodded and picked up a tall glass of water. He drank deeply.
“You said that a woman told you Mr. Gardner beat her. Did she approach you directly and ask you to intervene on her behalf?”
A frown pushed bushy eyebrows together. “I came out of the washroom, and this woman stumbled away from me and started sobbing. I asked her if she was okay. At first, she wouldn’t tell me what the matter was, but finally she admitted she was scared of the guy in the red shirt sitting at the bar.”