Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Sean
“You have a minor concussion, which isn’t really a surprise considering what happened.
The bullet glanced off the side of your skull but didn’t penetrate it.
The force of the shot rattled your brain, as I’m sure you realize.
There’s no swelling, so you should be good as new in a couple of days.
The police have some questions for you. Are you up to it?
I can put them off until tomorrow if you’d prefer,” Dr. Latham said.
Concussion aside, my head was spinning from the disaster that had occurred earlier in the day. Everything happened so fast.
Jericho had used his boot that covered his prosthetic foot to hold the door open so it didn’t make a sound when I came down the stairs. I’d only been wearing socks since I didn’t want to give away that I was in the stairwell.
At Jeri’s direction, I crouched and hurried over to him. Slapping sounds came from below, so he sent me back to the stairwell to call the police. I did as he asked without question.
When the gunshots started, I went down a set of steps, covering my ears because of the frightening sounds outside the door, and I actually prayed. “Please, God. Please let both of us live. Please don’t force that wonderful man out there to endure anything more than he already has.”
Time seemed to stop, but when Jeri wrapped me in his arms, I was able to breathe. When that woman pointed the gun at me and Jeri tried to divert her attention, I thought, “This is it. This is where we both die.”
“Mr. Fitzpatrick?” I opened my eyes to see the doctor standing in front of me, waiting for an answer.
“Where’s Jericho?” I needed to see him and touch him. When the police and paramedics arrived, I was taken to an ambulance and driven to George Washington University Hospital because there was a lot of blood. In the process, I lost track of Jeri.
“Uh, who’s Jericho? Is he a relative?” the doctor asked.
“No, he’s... Where’s my cell phone?”
“You went into shock before you were put in the ambulance, Mr. Fitzpatrick, which isn’t uncommon under these circumstances. The police have your belongings. I’ll get the detective.” Dr. Latham left, so I sat up and swung my legs over the side. I needed to find Jeri.
I glanced at my feet, finally registering that I hadn’t put on shoes when I left the condo to go downstairs. A pair of slippers was on a chair in the corner, along with a set of scrubs. My T-shirt was soaked with blood because head wounds bled a lot, so I really needed to change.
I glanced in the mirror by the sink to see a bandage. They’d shaved a strip of hair where the wound was located, and I got nine stitches to close the cut. It was going to be a mess for my barber to fix, but that was future Sean’s problem. Right now, I was too fucking happy to be alive.
I was pulling the scrub top over my head when the curtain was whisked back and Detective Compton stepped inside with Officer Mathers at his heel. I pulled down the shirt, slid on the slippers, and sat in the chair, bracing myself to retell the story, but first... “Where’s Jericho Hess?”
“He’s at the station giving his statement. We wanted to get both of your statements before you talked to each other. How’s the head?” Compton asked.
“Have you ever been shot in the head?”
“No, thankfully. Anyway, tell us what happened.”
I told them what happened. “Someone came off the elevator to help Jeri, I think, but I didn’t see who it was.”
“It was Austin and Dominic Torrente, and we spoke to them on the scene. You hired Golden Elite Associates to work for you, and Jericho Hess was a contractor for them. Is that true?”
“My car was blown up and my assistant was dead in the trunk. Did you think I wouldn’t hire someone?”
Mathers stepped forward. “You did what I’d have done in your position, Sean.
Anyway, we think this was part of a coordinated effort of a hate group from North Carolina that’s spread north.
A reporter was undercover with the Defenders of the Faithful at their home base in Southern Pines, North Carolina, when your name was mentioned. ”
Great. Now I’m being talked about in hate groups. “What happened that my name came up?”
Compton stared at me without blinking before he spoke.
“It was the scene of a murder-suicide that occurred around the same time as a group of Defenders showed up here looking for you, a homosexual who they believe is leading decent young men down a sinful path. Judith Hill, the woman Hess hit in the face with his foot—”
“The woman who shot me?” No way were they going to make it out like it was Jeri’s fault. That harpy tried to kill me, plain and simple.
“Please forgive my homophobic colleague. Detective Compton, who bleeds Republican red, is leaving the job here in DC and returning to Mississippi to take a position as an investigator for the governor down there. He’s anxious to be back with his people, as he calls them.
” Mathers gave Compton a scathing look, which brought a smile from me.
“I’m not homophobic. I’m just stating the facts, Mathers.” Sure, he’s not homophobic.
“Anyway... How did my name come up?” I didn’t give a fuck about their arguments. I had my own issues.
“It’s an ongoing investigation, but we’re sharing information with the North Carolina State Troopers who were first on scene. They were able to send us this picture of the members of the Defenders of the Faithful. Can you point out any familiar faces for us?”
Mathers handed me a tablet with photographs. I glanced at the first one, seeing a very old woman standing with her arm around someone who had been cropped off. “No.”
I swiped the next one, seeing the woman who had shot me. “Yep. That’s the shooter. I also saw her at Café Berlin once, a few weeks ago.”
“Judith Hill. Keep going.” Mathers made a note on a pad she pulled from the front of her belt.
The next photo was one of the twins. “Yes. I saw him at Café Berlin with Judith Hill. He threatened me in the men’s room.” The next one looked just like the first except he had a scar on his right eyebrow where some of the hairs were missing.
“That’s the other man I saw at Café Berlin.
He made a motion like he was pointing a gun at me.
” I held up my fingers and mimicked his gesture for Officer Mathers.
“I don’t know their names, but they weren’t the ones downstairs holding Adriana and Ralph hostage. I’d never seen those men before today.”
“The twins are Abner and Aaron Hill. The first picture was their grandmother, Judith’s mother.”
“Judith mentioned that someone like me—which I took to mean a gay man—took her husband away. I’m guessing that’s where part of the hate comes from.”
Mathers nodded.
I flipped through a few more pictures. “Yeah, this one was one of the men downstairs.” I flipped through five guys more, who were probably just thrown in to make it interesting. I noticed Judith Hill and her mother were the only women in the photo array.
I swiped to the next picture and froze. “This has to be a mistake.” There, looking back at me was Marvin Thompson. Chief of Staff to Senator Eileen Rowe.
Compton stepped around and glanced over my shoulder. “You know him?”
I swallowed. “Where was this taken?”
Compton flipped through his notebook. “Uh, Camp Brotherhood. Southern Pines, North Carolina.”
Fuck!
“That’s Marvin Thompson, Chief of Staff to Senator Eileen Rowe from Texas.
I had drinks with the two of them yesterday.
My late assistant had been shopping a story to the press about Marv and me having shared a few.
..uh, liaisons of a sexual nature. Marv’s married and has a few kids.
He’s in a closet so deep it’s like the presidential bunker.
“Byron Haight had dinner with the Hill twins and their mothers at Café Berlin a week before he ended up in my trunk, charging the dinners to my account. Do you have the pictures you took inside my office building’s garage?
I realize the two men in the pictures from the garage were masked, but maybe you can compare them? ”
I then remembered what Lawry Schatz had told me about Dagmar and Claus.
“You should also look into Dagmar Volt and Claus Wagner. They both work at Café Berlin. Dagmar warned me that someone wanted to kill me.” I thought I’d told them about Claus and Dagmar, but so much shit had happened that it was hard to remember what I’d said to whom.
Mathers turned to Compton. “That’s how we tie it all together. Wagner is the brother-in-law of Martin Dale, the leader of the Defenders. God, it’s a conspiracy. We need to bring in the Feds. This is above our pay grade.”
Another uniformed officer walked in with Jericho following him. He saw me in the chair in the corner with a bandage on my head, and he rushed forward. “Baby.”
He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight. “I thought she’d killed you.” He sobbed into my hair, and I pulled him closer, kissing his cheek.
“You threw your foot at her. How many guys can say their boyfriend did that for them?”
Jeri pulled away and dried his eyes on his shirt.
“They wanted to take it into evidence, but their boss said they could just take pictures of it instead. I had to clean it up after they dusted it for fingerprints. Anyway, can we get out of here? I need to call Mom before she hears about this on the news.”
Mathers stepped closer, putting her hand on my back. “Please don’t leave town, or if you must, please tell us where you are. We’re going to have to call in the FBI, and they’ll want to talk to both of you.”
We nodded. I’d do whatever it took to see that all of those people were thrown in jail. It was the least I could do for Byron.