14th Deadly Sin (Women's Murder Club 14)

CHAPTER 22

I GRIPPED MAYA PEREZ’S hand and mumbled assurances I didn’t quite believe.

Where were the EMTs? Where were they?

“This cop who shot you,” I said. “Have you ever seen him before? Has he come into the store?”

She whipped her head from side to side. “They were wearing. Police. Jackets. Masks. Gloves. Latex.”

“Is there someone I can call for you? Maya? Do you want me to call a friend, a relative?”

Colored lights flashed through the front window as the ambulance parked on the sidewalk outside the market.

Conklin shouted, “She’s over here!”

I stood up to give the paramedics some room.

“Her name is Maya Perez. She’s pregnant,” I said.

The EMTs spoke to one another and to their patient, lifting her onto the stretcher and wheeling her out the door. I followed them.

My heart was aching for Maya, imagining her fear for her unborn child. I stood for a moment and watched the receding taillights as the van took her toward Metropolitan Hospital.

Then I called Brady.

He asked, “So, this was another cop heist?”

“’Fraid so,” I said. “Windbreakers. Masks. Gloves. She didn’t know the shooter.”

As I talked to Brady, I was looking at all the likely places for a security camera to be positioned inside the store. I was hoping for an eye on the front door or the cash register. I found nothing, so, still talking with Brady, I went outside and looked for cameras on other shops that might be angled so that they caught the front of the mercado.

I said, “Brady. I don’t see a security camera. Anywhere.”

He cursed and we had a few more exchanges until I couldn’t hear him over the sirens coming toward us from all points. Conklin and I closed the shop door and were waiting for CSU when I got another call from Brady.

“Maya Perez didn’t make it,” he told me.

“Damn it!” I shouted. “Killed for the contents of her cash register. Does this make sense, Brady?”

“No. Come back to the house. I’ll wait.”

CHAPTER 23

IT WAS CLOSE to midnight when Conklin and I got back to the Hall. Brady was in his office, and although we’d been in constant contact for the last four hours, he wanted to talk to us.

The fluorescent bulbs overhead cast a cold light over the night shift behind their desks in the bullpen, making them look as bloodless as zombies. Brady, too, looked half dead, and I would say that my partner and I didn’t look any better.

Conklin and I took the two chairs in Brady’s cubicle. My partner tipped his chair back and put his shoes on the edge of the desk, which Brady hates, but this time, he let it go.

“The MO was the same as the last two times,” Conklin said. “The shooters left nothing behind except the rounds in Maya Perez’s body. The ME is sending them to the lab.”

“We have to turn over every stone,” said Brady. “And the dirt under every stone.”

I said, “Assuming these are the same Windbreaker shooters, they’re slick, Brady.”

I went on to say that in the morning we’d go through the cop records again and look for motive: cops who were ambitious but undistinguished, those who were disgruntled, or had been suspended, or had retired early. I said to Brady, “But even saying they’re actually cops, they may not be from our station, or even our city.”

Brady nodded.