The Innocent

Chapter





52


ROBIE WALKED THROUGH the open gate.

“Where have you been all this time?” asked Vance.

“Let’s go back to Donnelly’s,” said Robie.

“Why?”

“I want to check something I should have already checked.”

Fifteen minutes later Robie stood in the same spot he had on the night an MP-5 had tried to rip his life away. He eyed where the SUV had been, then his defensive position behind the trash cans, and then over his shoulder at the shattered plate glass window. He walked back and forth and framed, in his mind’s eye, the shot pattern of the attackers.

“Total number of dead and wounded as of right now?” he asked Vance, who was watching him.

“Six dead, five wounded. One’s still in the hospital but looks like he’ll make it.”

“But not us,” said Robie.

“What?”

“We’re not dead.”

“A somewhat obvious deduction,” Vance said dryly.

“Eleven people shot, six fatally, and yet the shooter misses us? We were the closest target, right out in the open. Aluminum trash cans the only thing between us, thirty-round clips, and a cooler bed at the D.C. morgue.”

“You’re saying the shooter missed us on purpose?”

He looked over to find Vance staring at him, a perplexed look on her face.

“How does that make sense?” she asked.

“How does it make sense that the guy missed us at basically point-blank range with a weapon that is designed for mass destruction in narrow fields of fire? There should be at least eight dead, including you and me. Look at the shot pattern. He was firing around us.”

“Then are you saying they killed all those people for what? A warning? Something to do with the Wind case? The bus bombing?”

Robie didn’t answer her. His thoughts were racing ahead, taking him in a direction he had never expected to go.

“Robie?”

He turned to her.

Vance said slowly, “I guess looking at it that way, what you’re saying makes sense. I guess we should be dead. Then it has to relate to the Winds, or the bus, or maybe both.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“But Robie—”

He turned back away from her to stare at the spot on the street again from where the SUV had launched its attack.

Someone has tagged me. Someone is playing mind games with me. Someone close is trying to get to me, screw with me.

“Robie, do you have any other enemies?” asked Vance.

“None that I can think of,” he said absently.

Other than a few hundred, he thought.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked.

He broke off his thoughts and rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you tell me everything?”

“What?”

He faced her. “Do you tell me everything?” he demanded.

“I guess not.”

“Then you have your answer.”

“But you told me I could trust you.”

“You can, but you have your agency and I have mine. I’m assuming you’ll tell me everything you can and I’ll do the same. I’ve got people to report to and so do you. It all has limits. But that doesn’t mean we can’t work together to get the job done.”

Vance glanced down at her feet, poked a cigarette butt lying on the street with the toe of her shoe. “So you find anything over at the bus maintenance shop that you can tell me?”

“That bus was parked there a long time, long enough for someone to plant the bomb on it.”

“So the bomber knew the target was going to be on the bus.”

“Do we have a passenger list?”

“Only partially. For those who paid with a credit card, not for those who paid with cash, unless a family member or friend came forward and told us a person was on the bus.”

“So how many people on the bus?”

“Thirty-six plus the driver. We’re doing background checks on all known persons that were on the bus. That’s twenty-nine people. That leaves eight unaccounted for. They were probably walk-ups that night who paid cash for the tickets.”

Robie thought, That includes Julie and the hit man.

“Can I see the list?”

She slipped out her phone and hit some buttons. She held the screen out to him.

He ran his gaze down the list. Julie wasn’t on it. And thankfully neither was Gerald Dixon, which meant Julie had not used his credit card to buy her ticket. But no other name on the list meant anything to him, other than the alias Robie had reserved his ticket under.

Okay, he had been the target, not Julie. But then why really try and kill him on the bus and then miss him on purpose when the MP-5 had him in the kill zone?

The plan changed, that’s why. They wanted me dead. Now they want me alive. But why?

“Robie?”

He looked up from the screen to find Vance gazing at him.

“I don’t recognize anyone on that list.” His lies to her were piling up quickly.

“So we still don’t know the target.”

Robie did not want to lie to her again so soon, thus he said, “Anything new on Rick Wind?”

“ME did the post. Cause of death was suffocation.”

“How?”

“Petechial hemorrhaging was the main clue. But he wasn’t initially sure how it was accomplished. No pillow over the face, nothing like that.”

“Why hide the manner of the killing?” asked Robie as he drew in a long breath.

“Harder to find out who did it.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“But he did find out the manner of killing eventually.”

Robie looked at her. “And you couldn’t tell me that first why?”

“I like melodrama.”

“How was he killed, Vance?” Robie said sharply.

“They forced his severed tongue down his throat and wedged it there. They used his own cut-out tongue to kill him,” she said just as sharply.

“Thanks,” he said tersely.

“Look, Robie. If the killing of Jane Wind and her husband and the bus exploding are connected, there have to be some common denominators.”

“The only reason you think they’re connected is because of the gun. That gun wasn’t used to kill Jane Wind and her son. As I said before, whoever was in that apartment could have just flung it away after he got out of the apartment. It could have nothing to do with the bus exploding.”

“Or it could.”

“You really believe that or do you just want to have a terrorist bust and a murder conviction on your résumé?”

“My résumé is doing just fine with or without this case,” she snapped.

“All I’m saying is don’t have tunnel vision on this. If the cases aren’t connected then trying to hook them together is not smart. You make assumptions and decisions based on those assumptions that you otherwise wouldn’t make. And you pound round pegs into square holes in the process. You get an answer but it’ll be the wrong one. And it’s doubtful you’ll get a second chance to make it right.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Okay, what would you do?”

“Work both cases, but in parallel. You don’t cross the streams unless you have solid evidence of a connection. And that means something more than a gun near the scene.”

“Okay, that makes sense, actually.”

Robie checked his watch. “I’m going to grab a few hours’ sleep. Anything shakes loose you can wake me up.”

“You have a place to sleep now? If not, you’re welcome to crash at my place.”

Robie glanced at her. “You sure about that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You were afraid people might give you shit, even though I’m on the couch.”

“You don’t talk. I don’t talk. And even if it gets out, it was all professional, so screw them. So I can do you the favor.”

“I’ve got a place. That changes, I’ll let you know. Thanks.”

He walked to his car. He had turned her down for a specific reason.

In his line of work favors were almost never free.

And he wanted to check on Julie.