Paula was pecking away at a report on the information that Stubbs had offered when her cell phone chirped. The screen showed a blocked number. She held the phone to her ear, listening. The faint whoosh of city street noise carried through.
“Hello?” she said.
“It’s so nice to hear your voice, Detective,” Sherman said on the other end. To Paula’s ear, he sounded surprised to hear her.
“I’m not that easy to kill. Next time, have the balls to face me like a man.”
“I’m calling to help you, Detective.”
“Who says I need your help?”
“You’re looking for Wallace. I can tell you where he’s gonna be. I need him out of the picture as much as you do. You understand that, don’t you, Detective?”
“I know why I’m looking for him, but I don’t much care what he did to hurt your feelings.”
Sherman sighed. “Fine. Don’t believe me. You getting him will clear you and me from the killings. I had nothing to do with them. You have to help me to help yourself.”
“You gonna come in and show us where Wallace is hiding?”
Sherman laughed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Wallace isn’t hiding. In fact, he’s palling around with some Aryan Brotherhood types.”
“And they want your stash,” she said.
“Of course they do. But they aren’t gonna get it.”
“That’s kinda risky, don’t you think?”
“I’ve got my reasons. I’ll turn the stuff—all of it—over to you.”
“Not that I’m not the trusting sort, but why would you do that?” Paula asked.
“Like I said. I’ve got my reasons.”
“All right, tell me.”
“Wallace and his racist pals will be at the state capitol in about an hour.”
“The capitol? What do they have going on there?”
“It’s not because they’ve had a sudden crisis of civic consciousness. That’s where the deal will go down.”
“I need you there,” Paula said.
“Why, Detective, I’m touched. See you in an hour.” Sherman disconnected the call.
Paula sat back in her chair and questioned Sherman’s motives. Nothing was straightforward with this creep.
She dialed John and gave him a rundown on Sherman’s demand for a meet up. “He’s trying to sell us Wallace,” she said.
“What’s his angle? I mean, he’s not gonna just hand over his stash without something in it for him.”
“I don’t have much of a choice but to go with it. Unless I get Wallace, I’ll never get the DA off my back.”
“You can’t trust him,” John said. “You think he’d actually turn over his stash? This is a big risk.”
“I can live with that.” Paula rose from her chair and grabbed her jacket. “Sherman said the deal is going down in an hour at the state capitol. That’s a whole lot of space to cover.”
“I’ll make a call to the highway patrol. They run security at the capitol. I’ll meet you there. We can get set up in their offices and watch the surveillance feeds of the place,” John said before he hung up.
Lieutenant Barnes approached Paula’s desk. His expression was tight, his emotions buried deep.
“You need to find someplace to be,” Barnes said. “Don’t tell me where. The DA and her investigators are on the way over here to see the chief. Clarke is pissed off that we hid the fact you were alive and let her run with her television interview, and she wants to nail down this case. If I don’t know where you’re off to, I can’t tell them where to find you. Get it?”
“They don’t have anything. It’s all circumstantial.”
“They pulled hair and fiber from the bodies and DNA off the hammer used on Wing and the knife from the Ronland stabbing.”
“I know. They should have my DNA on them. They’re mine. Someone—Sherman—took them from my place. My DNA is on the murder victims.”
“This was the bombshell you warned me that Karen had? Never mind. Not now. It doesn’t look good, Paula. Find someplace to be and we can work out your surrender.”
“Or, we could nail the killer,” she said.
“Time’s run out.”
“So I have one shot to make sure it isn’t me.”