Archer
ARCHER
M y phone rings as we head toward Glenda Morris’ dress shop. Some folks come out to watch us now, but none speak. None offer information except a standard, ‘ I know nothing ’. Spying Minka’s name on the screen, I slow my steps and grab Fletch’s sleeve just a beat before he pushes through the shop door, then I swipe to answer and cast a look out at the street.
It’s so fucking quiet, I’m waiting for tumbleweeds to flitter past.
“Minka?” I press my back to the red-brick wall and wait as Fletch does the same. “You okay?”
“Yeah. But you might not be. Your vic was shot with a tungsten tip. Those are the particularly dangerous kind,” she snarls, “in case you were unaware.”
“You got the slug?” Fletch asks. “And already know what it is?”
“Educated guess that Doctor Emeri and I agree on. You’re gonna need more than bullet-proof vests while hunting this guy down.”
“We’re watching our backs and staying safe, Minnnka. You got anything else from the autopsy?”
“No. Aubree’s only just starting. We had to extract the bullet first, and because this is a homicide investigation, we can’t use tools that may mess with ballistics. Aubree’s cutting now, but external examination tells me Lucas Mercer was a healthy male with an above average muscle to fat ratio.”
“As in, he works out?”
“Yep. He’s no gym junkie with twenty-eight-inch biceps. But he does alright for himself. I expect Aubree will open him up and find a reasonably healthy block. Arteries are anticipated to be fine. Healthy heart.”
“His fingertips are clean,” Aubree announces. “No staining.”
I hesitate… “Which means?”
“Apart from the fact his one lung collapsed under the pressure of a bullet wound, we won’t find the kind of damage we might find inside a smoker. Your vic lived a healthy life. Clear skin. Good hydration. If not for his fate with a bullet, he wouldn’t have died anytime soon.”
“Alright.” I bring my hand up and scratch at the stubble coating my jaw. “Thanks. We’re heading in now to talk to the lady who made the 9-1-1 call. After that, we’ll head over to the George Stanley to take a look at our vic. Can you be available for that?”
“Of course. But listen, …” She pauses for a long, loaded beat as tension swirls and the worry I sense in her words trickles down into my stomach. Then she exhales. “This one’s hitting kinda close to home. Ya know? It’s bad enough he killed a cop. It’s worse he used the kind of bullets you can’t hide from. Add in that your vic is a detective from the narcotics division, and I’m starting to sweat a little.”
“Don’t sweat. We’ve got this under control, okay?” I clear my throat and lower my voice. “Obviously, it’s not cool for me to admit this, especially when I’m on shift and searching for a killer. But if this is gang related, I’m probably safer than most others in this city. Gunning me down isn’t gunning another cop, Minnnka. It’s executing a Malone. There are rules about this, and no gangster with half a brain is gonna aim my way and risk Felix’s wrath. I’m insulated, so don’t worry so much.”
“And Fletch?” she insists. “Is he insulated, too? Or am I gonna worry about the guy I’m trying really hard to be angry at?”
Beside me, his lips curl into a smile. Not his usual goofy expression the ladies are drawn to, but one that speaks of love. Appreciation. He’s copped Minka’s fire for weeks. Her rage. Her disdain. But hearing her speak now, when she doesn’t realize he’s listening, brings him the peace he’s been missing for too long.
“Fletch is safe as long as I’m with him. No one is gonna hurt us. And just as soon as I hang up this call, we’re gonna continue our case, catch a killer, and toss him behind bars. In forty-eight hours, you and I are gonna be in a penthouse suite in Manhattan, sipping champagne and messing up the sheets. ”
She scoffs, brushing me off because she’s a prude during office hours. “I’m going to New York to testify against a murderer. This isn’t Jamaica 2.0.”
“It’s called multi-tasking,” I tease. “I’ll catch you in a couple of hours. That way we can talk dead people, then we can head home together and grab some dinner on the way.”
“Alright,” she sighs, not entirely impressed with my response. But she accepts it. Grudgingly. “Fine. Our autopsy is likely to be complete in about two hours, now that we have the bullet out. I’ll have my preliminary findings ready for when you get here.”
“And don’t forget three o’clock rounds,” Aubs adds. “Since you’re trying to be consistent with that stuff.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Minka turns from wherever she’s standing, her movements a gentle shuffle on tiles that paints a picture in my mind. “Talk to you later, Detective Malone. Tell Fletch to be careful.”
“I will.” I draw the phone from my ear and kill our call, then I look at my partner and smile. “See? She doesn’t hate you.”
He pushes away from the wall, rolling his eyes, and grabs the shop’s front door instead. “She’s emotional because we have a dead cop on our desks. She’ll go back to plotting my murder just as soon as this case is tied up.”
“Maybe, but until then…” I stride through the door and make sure I shoulder-check him as I pass. “You have a truce.” I scan the seamstress’s shop. The mannequin thingies they use to sew outfits around. The wall of rolled fabrics in an assortment of colors and patterns. Shiny silks and muted cotton. Measuring tapes drape all over, and bins of instruments overflow on every surface.
Finally, I catch the movement of an exceptionally tiny, unbelievably old woman who hunkers behind a desk and a mound of fabric. I’m not sure if she’s hiding or if she’s simply too small to compete. “Mrs. Morris?” I take out my badge and slowly make my way through the dimly lit shop. I’m not sure how the woman can create in such bad lighting. But her glasses, damn near thicker than the base of an old-style Coke bottle, might be a clue. “My name is Detective Malone.” I stop just a few feet from her desk and hook a thumb over my shoulder. “My partner, Detective Charlie Fletcher. We’re here to talk to you about that call you made to 9-1-1 today.”
“I didn’t see anything.” She steps to her left and reveals her itty-bitty self in an oversized muumuu-esque dress with a lacy collar and pockets with frills at the openings. I’m not sure if her job is to create fashion or simply mend it. But if her outfit is anything to go by, I’m partial to thinking she appeals to the fifties crowd… as in, the eighteen-fifties . “I stayed right here inside my shop and saw nothing at all.”
“Why don’t we start with what you heard?” Fletch, our sweet, charming half, steps around me and tugs out a chair, overflowing with fabric. Carefully setting the pile on the woman’s desk, he gestures for her to sit down. “You obviously heard something, Mrs. Morris, because you made that call.”
“I heard a gun.” Hesitantly, she comes around her desk and lowers onto the chair, warming under the approving gleam in Fletch’s honeycomb eyes. “It was just a really loud bang-bang . So, of course, I made the call.”
“Only two bangs?” I take out my notebook and scribble notes for later. “Did you hear only two, Glenda?”
“Or maybe three?” She says it like a question, shrugging and preening when Fletch parks his ass on the edge of the desk and his leg brushes hers. She’s old enough to be his great grandma. But sure, let’s charm the oldies . “I-I’m not sure. It was really fast. Startled me, so I put a pin in my finger.” Whether intentional or pure coincidence, the old lady flashes her middle finger, the tip wrapped in a Band-Aid, and her lips wrinkle as though to mask a cheeky grin.
Fletch brings his hand up to hide his humor as she flips me the bird.
“I poked myself. Cussed about it and set my needle down. It was all in the same second. So I’m not really sure how many shots there were. Definitely more than one.”
“I can see the street from here.” Fletch glances through the store and out the dirty windows. The glass panes are dusty and marked, but they’re functional. Translucent. “If I heard a couple of gunshots, I reckon the first thing I’d do, even before my brain registered the thought, is to look out there. Did you see anyone running? Or a car speeding past? Did you see?—”
“My to-do pile is larger than I am.” She gestures to the overflowing desk, her eyes dropping to the Band-Aid once more. “I looked up, but all I saw was more work. I was focusing on the needle. And my finger. If I get blood on someone’s garment, there would be hell to pay. So yeah, I looked up momentarily. Then down again while I ensured I wasn’t bleeding on anyone’s clothes. I didn’t come around my desk for another minute. Maybe two. That’s when I grabbed the phone and called the police.”
“Okay.” One minute, maybe two, from when the shots rang out until the call was made. “Once you did come around your desk.” I turn from the pair, extending my fingers in the shape kids make to create a pretend phone. Then I bring it to my ear and meander toward the glass. “I know I can be kinda nosey sometimes. Adrenaline is up. A gun was just discharged. You knew it was serious enough to make the call…” I stop by the window and turn back. “Did you move over here while on the phone with dispatch?”
She shakes her head.
“I know they would have talked you through things. They would have probably told you to stay safe. Ensure your wellbeing first. But I’m confident they would have asked if someone else was hurt.”
“They did. They asked if someone was shot. I said yes.”
“So for you to know someone was shot, as opposed to, say, someone was playing target practice with tin cans, then you had to have come somewhat near the windows to confirm a man was, in fact, hurt.”
“I don’t…” She shakes her head and links her fingers together. Massaging each other in what I can only assume is a decades-long habit that has seen the elderly woman through a lifetime of working with her hands. “I suppose, yes. They told me to see what I could see.”
“And what could you see, Mrs. Morris?” Fletch pats her hands and smiles when she glances up. “You walked to the windows. You were probably scared. You’ve lived around here your whole life, so you know danger walks these streets. In fact, I doubt today was the first time you’ve heard a gun fire.”
Swallowing, she shakes her head to confirm what he says.
“You have a lifetime of surviving under your belt. You know how to do it, and how to do it well. So it’s not like you’re screaming like a banshee and running into the street. But I bet you were brave enough to walk to the windows. You were certainly brave enough to make the call when no one else did.”
“I saw the man lying in the street.” She gulps and stares into his eyes. Smitten and completely comfortable with the Lothario’s attention. “Like I said, it took me a minute or two to get to the phone. So it was probably another minute or two after that before I was looking out there. I didn’t open the door. But I took a peek and told the lady on the phone what I could see.”
“Which was what?” I press. Though when the pair looks my way, Fletch’s lips pressed in that way he does to communicate, I soften my expression. My words. “Please, Mrs. Morris. You looked out the window. You looked that,” I point in the direction Lucas Mercer laid out not so long ago, “way. You saw him on the road?”
She drops her chin in a gentle acceptance. “I saw the ends of his boots. His head was up on the other end, so all I saw were the soles of his shoes and the shadow of what I guessed was a man. Not a teenager, and not an old, rounded man ready for retirement.”
“You did great,” Fletch coaches. “So while you were looking, did you see anybody else? Anyone running toward him? Anyone running away?”
“I saw some people, I guess.” She narrows her eyes and hardens her face—it’s her thinking pose, I suppose. “A group of them. Youths, I think.”
“Do you think this group of youths were the ones who shot him?” he pounces. “Did you see a gun? Were they wearing hoodies? Something to cover their faces?”
“No.” She steals her hands back and returns to massaging them together. “No, I don’t think they hurt him. They were merely curious, as young boys tend to be. They were looking at him when he was already on the ground.”
“And you saw no one else? No one running away? No cars speeding away?”
“I saw no one else.” She moves off her chair, hardly gaining height when she changes position, then she wanders around her desk and kicks a pedal beneath to start her sewing machine. “This isn’t the first time someone has been shot in my street, Detectives. It probably won’t be the last. But you don’t become as old as I am by sticking your nose in other people’s affairs. I did my civic duty and made the call. But I don’t know who your shooter is.”
Frustrated, Fletch stands and snags a card from his back pocket. Extending his hand over the mountain of fabric, he offers it to the woman. “If you think of anything that might help us, please call. If someone stops by, or is wandering the streets and maybe looks a little shady, call. No one ever has to know you’re talking to us.”
She sets the card down and feeds fabric through the machine. “I will.”
Letting ourselves out and stepping into the sunlight, Fletch waits for the shop door to close before he releases a grunt of dissatisfaction. “She’s too afraid to speak.”
“Not afraid, I don’t think. But she’s smart enough to mind her own business. Like she said, you don’t get to her age by being stupid.”
“So she lives a life of ignorance.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders as we move along the street. “She purposely keeps her head down and her ears closed. If she sees nothing, she doesn’t have to report anything.”
“But hearing gunshots is a whole other thing. Can’t ignore it, so she got ahead of it and made damn sure she saw as little as possible.”
“It would help if we found that group of teens.” He stops in the middle of the still-barricaded street and looks all the way to the cruisers parked haphazardly to block traffic. “Though if she’s telling the truth, it seems they arrived after our shooter left. They might not have seen anything.”
“Let’s talk to the unis who canvassed. See what they came up with and if any reports mention a bunch of kids loitering around. Then we gotta get the bullet from Minka and take it over to ballistics.”
“Then we head to Midtown,” he sighs. “It’s time to talk to Mercer’s C.O. Chances are, whatever he’s working on right now is probably gonna connect to whoever held the gun. He was closing in on a perp who didn’t wanna go to prison, so they silenced him.”
“Doesn’t bode well for us.” I glance over my shoulder to make sure our cop-killer doesn’t have us in his sights. Because fuck it all, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and that foreboding feeling I long ago grew to trust tingles with nerves. “Our to-do list is growing. And I only have a day and a bit to tie this up. No way I’m leaving you to work it alone.”
“Suppose we better get going, then.” He claps my back and pulls me around. “Let’s push on.”