“Yes.”
“I’ve got to talk to Nagata,” Cain said. “I want you to pack a bag. Whatever you need.”
“For how long?”
“A week, to start.”
She nodded, then used his shoulders to push herself up.
When he came downstairs, Fischer was sitting at the dining room table with Nagata and Frank Lee. A department photographer was setting up lights in the music room to take pictures of the blood-stamped sheet music spread across the floor. Sumida came in the front door, nodded to Cain, and led a team of three technicians down to the basement. Red and blue lights pulsed through the open door and the windows. There was probably half a liter of blood in the house and outside. Plenty for CSI to work with, but they wouldn’t get anywhere if the tall kid’s DNA hadn’t already been uploaded to a searchable database.
Cain pulled out the chair across from Nagata and sat.
“Who shot him—Chun or Grassley?”
“We don’t know,” she said.
“How is it possible you don’t know that?”
“Because he took their weapons,” Nagata said. “There was one forty-caliber casing in the bedroom. So one of them got off a shot, but we don’t know which.”
“You put out a notice to all the hospitals?”
“Of course.”
Fischer was looking at the blood below the wainscoting on the dining room wall. He must have stumbled into it. Judging from how high up the wall it was, the wound was above his knee. Maybe it had nicked his femoral artery and he’d hole up in someone’s backyard and bleed to death. That would be the best thing, even if it meant they couldn’t sit him down in a windowless room and ask him questions. Better that he die with his secrets than spend another hour on his feet with a pair of police-issue guns and nothing on his mind but murder.
“We need a safe house,” Cain said to Fischer. “Somewhere Lucy and I can stay until this is over.”
“I called as soon as I heard, and they’re setting them up,” she said. “Two apartments, side by side.”
“We just need one.”
“I’ll be next door,” Fischer said. “If they came for you, they could come for me.”
He wasn’t thinking straight, and it was showing. Nagata hadn’t said anything about taking him off the case, but it might still be coming. She couldn’t pull him until she talked to the new mayor, and she didn’t have an open channel the way she used to. Now there was a chain of command to work through, and that gave him a day or two of leeway before anything changed. That could be enough, if he pushed hard enough. And if he stayed on track right now, she might not even go to the mayor.
He turned to Nagata.
“Lucy saw him, when he came in. Not his face, but his body. He’s tall, like the guy Chun and I chased. Caucasian. And he was here less than ten minutes ago.”
In the kitchen, the china cabinet began to rattle, and overhead, the chandelier’s dangling crystals started to shiver. The CHP helicopter was hovering directly above the house. The pilot switched on his spotlight and suddenly the garden was lit up like home plate on a game night.
“If he came in the front and left over the back fence, he might’ve ditched his car. Or someone else drove him here from Grassley’s place,” he said. “If that person was waiting—”
But Nagata stopped him, shaking her head.
“He didn’t get a ride—he came in Grassley’s car. It’s parked out front. Three spots down from yours. The driver’s seat is covered in blood.”
“Then we’ll find him,” Frank Lee said. Above them, the helicopter veered off and began to sweep the backyards. The rattling stopped in the kitchen, but the chandelier was still moving, making the shadows dance. “He’s on foot, with a bullet in his leg.”
“Ten minutes ago he was on foot,” Cain said. “But now he’s got two guns, a knife, and nothing to lose. He just killed a cop—two cops, as far as he knows. He’s got to have found a car to use, which means he’s either got a hostage or there’s another dead body.”
Frank looked at the table, then nodded.
“Lieutenant, you need to get on the radio,” Frank said. He slid a handheld unit across to her. “Throw up some roadblocks, lock up this neighborhood. And we’ve got to watch the bridges—these guys, once they get wheels, they always head for the bridges.”