After the discovery was called in, the evidence bagged and tagged, and the homeless had boarded the bus, Cruz caught Angie alone in her office. “Which church tonight?”
Every local church provided a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night during the winter.
“Presbyterian,” she replied shortly, and held her hands up, palms out to ward off his next question. “I ain’t gonna talk about this, Officer Cruz. I just ain’t.”
“I understand,” Cruz soothed, “but don’t you find it odd that the backpack turns up near Jesus Saves, the very place Dickey always hangs out?”
Angie set her mouth in a thin, stubborn line. “Sergei didn’t do this.”
“I’m not saying he did, but somebody stabbed Dickey multiple times and then added insult to injury by smashing him to bits with a metal pipe.” He wasn’t sure that was the way it’d happened, but what the hell.
Angie chewed on her lower lip, then her thumb. “You’re saying someone’s trying to frame one of us, huh? This is a set-up?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Cruz frowned. “Look, I know you’re scared – ”
“No, you don’t,” Angie spat. “You don’t know what it’s like for these people. They don’t need any more hassle from cops like Officer Rawley, who’s always harassing them, and parole officers who give ‘em trouble.” Here she flashed a gimlet eye at him. “Life’s hard enough without more shit.”
Cruz ignored the criticism. “Sergei found the backpack, right? His prints will be all over it and probably inside the dumpster. You know I can roust him and make it harder than it needs to be.” Cruz sighed. “Look, Angie, Dickey was one of mine. He wasn’t the brightest guy and he was wasted most of the time, but ... ”
Cruz felt the same overwhelming emotion he’d felt a lot lately. Like he was swimming upstream all the time. That what he did was useless because neither the system nor the people in it – felons and cops alike – changed. “It’s just a matter of time before the police catch him,” he warned.
“What if he’s got an alibi?” Angie suggested.
“Hell,” he muttered, “let’s hope so.”
Chapter 15
By the time Frankie was able to closely examine Cole Hansen’s note again, she discovered he’d already been paroled.
So fast!
Administration must have processed him through the system right after he left the hospital wing. The question nagged her – why had he given her the note? Should she pass it on, or remain silent?
Conflicted about what to do, she retrieved the message from her jacket. She flattened it out on the desk, examining the series of figures on the faded page.
1BTO+O-HKDD11-15RP10P
The letters, numbers, and symbols made no sense. Some sort of code, she guessed. Not mathematics or the two zeros – or were they the letter “O”? – would have another letter or digit after them instead of the plus sign, right? Was the next sign a minus, or a hyphen, or ... what? The harder she stared at the message, the less she understood.
Even if she were inclined, how could she take such flimsy evidence to the warden? She sat at her desk in the SHU medical wing, the paper curled in her fingers. Harry and Mike were tending two newly-admitted flu patients. The regular inmates on the ward were relatively quiet, sleeping or resting from their recently-administered doses of pain meds.
Rising from her desk, she pulled out a file cabinet drawer and rummaged through the patient files, looking for Hansen, Cole.
His file wasn’t there.
That didn’t make sense. Maybe she hadn’t returned it to the cabinet after she’d seen him. Or misfiled it. She riffled through several dozen folders before and after the alphabetical position where Cole’s record should be.
Nothing.
Walking down the corridor, she stopped at the hospital bed where Harry was adjusting an IV tube. She motioned him aside. Most of the patients in the SHU hospital were critically ill, but they had excellent hearing. And snitches were everywhere.
“Harry,” she asked, touching his white jacket sleeve. “I can’t locate Cole Hansen’s medical file. Have you seen it?”
The nurses weren’t supposed to enter her office without permission, but those regulations were loosely kept. The truth was that the medical dispensary lay behind her office, and although the nurses didn’t dispense narcotics, they did have access to the closet that held other medical supplies necessary for them to perform their duties.
“No, doc,” Harry answered easily, his large homely face showing a gap-toothed smile.
She shrugged casually. “Oh, well, it’ll show up sooner or later.”
It wouldn’t do to make a fuss over the missing file. Better for anyone who might’ve taken it to think she believed she’d misplaced it. The patient was discharged and paroled, and the matter no longer concerned her.