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I PICKED UP THE GUN. I was right—it was a Heckler & Koch P30L. I detached the silencer and slipped it into my pocket. I wasn’t concerned with stealth. I sat on the bench in the cell and slipped my shoes on, one-handed. I had kicked them off before I went to sleep. The strings were still laced up and tied.
I walked past the holding cells and out of the hallway and then checked the bullpen. No one was around. I searched for my belongings and found them in a manila envelope marked Widow, sitting in an evidence cabinet with a tiny steel drawer that squeaked when I opened it. My passport, ATM card, and cell phone were the only items in it. I tore it open, emptied the contents, and returned them to my pockets.
I stood up and explored the rest of the station, clearing each room as I went. Nothing. Then I started to wonder where the hell the night watch deputy was. Surely someone was assigned to watch the jail while I was there? But there was no sign of life anywhere.
No matter what happened next, I wasn’t going back in the cell. No way. That was for damn sure. I tucked the gun into my waistband and exited the police station.
The night air was clammy and gusty. Thin, almost nonexistent clouds moved fast overhead like someone was speeding up time. Through the breaks in the clouds, I could see the stars. One of the perks of living in a small town in the country was seeing bright stars.
I could see the lake off in the distance, a couple of blocks beyond the Eckhart Medical Center. It looked quiet, peaceful.
The streets were quiet. I heard the faint whines of a steel guitar from the country bar down the street. To the north, I heard the sedate buzzing of one of those pesticide trucks that drove up and down the street at night, spraying for insects, almost like a pest itself as it buzzed through the silent town.
I began walking through the parking lot when I noticed something irregular. One more sound hit my eardrums. It was a beeping sound. No, it was a dinging sound. A familiar sound like a car’s seatbelt alert.
I crouched down low and looked around the parking lot. I positioned my hand near the butt of the P30L, ready to draw it quickly if I needed to. I looked left. Looked right. Checked all around me. The building was empty, but the parking lot still had cars. There were five police cars and two trucks, all with reflective, official markings on the doors, and all quiet.
One car had no light bar on the roof, and across from the cars were two civilian vehicles. All of the cars were parked in two neat rows — all except for one. One police cruiser was stopped in the middle of the parking lot, facing the street.
I stood up tall to get a better look at it. The passenger door was wide open, but no one was in it. From this distance, it appeared unoccupied. The open door was tripping the seatbelt alert in the dash, and it beeped and beeped.
I crept over to the cruiser, staying close to the rear of the parked cars for cover. I hadn’t drawn the Heckler & Koch, not yet. If there was a cop inside or nearby, he would’ve been within his rights to shoot me without warning if he had seen a gun in my hand. As far as he knew, I was an escaped, armed fugitive. No judge in the world would convict him of a wrongful discharge of his weapon under those conditions.
I neared the car and gasped. Inside, sprawled across the front bench, was Gemson. Blood covered the dashboard toward the passenger side like it had been sprayed across the front of the car. He had been shot in the head.
I drew the P30L out of my waistband and scanned the area. There was no one in sight. He must’ve been shot by the Mexican guy. That was how the guy had gotten the keys and access to my cell. Then I stopped, frozen in place. Just to be sure, I ejected the clip and counted the rounds. Missing a round, plus the one fired back in the cell.
Great. Now I was holding the weapon that had shot a cop. And a cop I’d had an altercation with in public. With witnesses.
Why had the guy tried to get me to hang myself if he had just shot Gemson? I had no idea. Best I could figure was that it was a message or some kind of sick turn-on the guy had. Like he got off on making his victims kill themselves. A lot of hired killers in history had their own signature styles. Maybe suicide was the Mexican’s.
Since Gemson was an armed deputy, I guessed that the guy hadn’t wanted to take a chance with him, so he put a bullet in his head. I lowered the gun and swung the car door open. I leaned in and checked Gemson’s pulse. Suddenly, his left hand grabbed my wrist. He was still alive.