42

Lauren shivered against the rough wool of the surplus Army blanket someone had dug up around headquarters for her. The shivering only increased the pain running along her torso, but she couldn’t stop. Her tongue throbbed from where she had bitten down on it. Every time she took a sip of hot coffee it was a bittersweet combination of caffeine and pain.

One of the responding South District cops had found her lost shoe on the floor of her SUV, not that it made her any more comfortable; she was still just as cold in her pair of fancy overpriced flats.

Carl Church sat across from her in one of the Homicide interview rooms. She knew they had taken Reese for stitches and that Charlie was in the Homicide squad somewhere, giving his statement about the night’s events. Carl Church told her Vince Schultz was in the ninth-floor lockup at the Erie County Medical Center, where they treated prisoners for injuries, with possible internal damage from the crash. Now Church and the Kinger were trying to piece together what they needed for Vince’s arraignment on the charges they were laying against him.

Carl rubbed his hand back and forth over his salt-and-pepper hair as he went over an application for a search warrant for Vince’s apartment. Church had been in bed when he got the call and had rushed down to police headquarters in a pair of Buffalo Bills sweatpants and a stained tee shirt from a bar that read: Good Time Chaz’s, Memphis, Tennessee. Rough stubble covered his usually close-shaved chin.

On the table in front of him was Lauren’s cracked cell phone. He’d watched the video five times in stunned disbelief, from the snagging of the glass, to the assault in the kitchen, all the way through the car chase and crash. Lauren’s smart phone, which she had always hated to be tethered to, had documented the entire incident. She swore to herself she’d never complain about having to carry it again.

The union lawyer, Amelia, was in the room with her, more for moral support than anything else. She sat next to Lauren as she gave her statement, fetched her some coffee, and demanded someone find Lauren a blanket.

“What are you charging him with?” Lauren asked, watching Church and King create more paperwork before her very eyes. The Kinger was busy alternately scribbling notes on a legal pad next to his boss and typing things into an official Erie County District Attorney’s office iPad. His red hair seemed especially enflamed, as well as his freckles, with the pressure from Church to get everything right.

Lauren could see by the look on his face he’d rather be going to a hockey tournament for his son at that time of the morning than working on a high-profile case. Kevin King pretended to like the action, but Lauren knew it was all for show. He’d proved that a year ago when a murder suspect had blown his own head off when Lauren and Reese had come to arrest him. King had walked into the crime scene, taken one look around, and walked right back out to his car, leaving Lauren and Reese to piece everything together themselves.

“What aren’t we charging him with?” Church asked, looking up from the warrant. “Three counts of attempted murder, criminal use of a weapon, reckless endangerment, assault second on Reese, carjacking …”

“And Gabriel Mohamed?” Lauren pulled the blanket tighter to suppress her shivering. The maintenance staff hadn’t gotten around to turning the ancient boiler on in the basement yet and the building was ice cold. “What about his murder case?”

Church gave her an apologetic smile. “Not yet. We’ll hold off on that until we serve the warrants. But we have more than enough to hold Vince until we do. The charges for your assault are pending, but I am going to charge him. His admission on the recording is clear as a bell. That was a stroke of brilliance to let that phone just keep taping.”

She wanted to tell him she forgot to turn it off. After it was knocked out of her hand in the kitchen, she had forgotten it was still recording and just stuffed it into her pocket, but did that really matter? It was all there. Every last sound, every punch, impact, and crash, including the gunshots.

“What about Sam Schultz?”

“Charlie gave us Rita’s address and called to let her know officers were coming. We’ve already moved her to a safe place. We’ll be taking formal statements from her as soon as possible, but right now, I have to focus on Vince.” Lauren didn’t like the sound of that. She and Reese would have to make sure they kept Rita safe. Witnesses had a habit of going back to their old haunts. Rita was no exception. She was older now and that apartment was all she had.

“What about charging Sam Schultz?” Lauren’s voice went up a notch. “What about Rick?”

Church deflected the questions again, likely because he knew she wouldn’t like the answers. “We need you to put the glass into the lab.” He motioned to the perfect champagne flute encased in its clear evidence bag sitting on the desk next to her. “I’ll go with you to do that. I’m going to need all the paperwork, and copies of the file, of course. The state attorney general’s office will probably take that aspect of the case over from me. Conflict of interest. But brace yourself for a major media shitshow.”

“Sam is going to lawyer up right away.” Lauren was thinking out loud now, the odds and ends of the case popping out of her mouth as they came into her head. If Church wasn’t going to say it, she would.

“He is a lawyer,” the Kinger pointed out, “and it’s safe to say all three brothers won’t be cooperating with this investigation.”

It was almost dawn and they weren’t even close to finishing the paperwork, there was so much to do and search and document. Lauren leaned her head against her hand. “What about Joe Wheeler? Do you think we’ll be able to charge Vince with his murder?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Amelia told her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. The little union lawyer was so tiny it felt like one of her daughters giving her a Christmas hug when they were tweens. “Thanks to you, Mr. Church here has weeks’ worth of evidence to go through. You know it’ll be a while before everything is sorted out.”

Lauren did know that. But they’d just stuck it to all three Schultz brothers. There’d finally be justice for Gabriel Mohamed and his family. It was worth a knife in the ribs to bring these scumbags down. It’s taken years, she told herself, what does a few more days matter?