Maya barely saw the second man move, he was so fast. His hand came down hard on her arm. She got off a shot, but even in that split second, she knew her shot had gone into the floor.
After that, the bullets punched into her and everything went black.
CHAPTER 21
IT WAS AFTER 8 p.m. when Conklin and I left the Hall, both of us wiped out and done for the day. My partner walked me to my car in the Harriet Street lot. We were making comfortable small talk about whose turn it was to bring breakfast to our desks in the morning. I told him I’d see him then.
I rolled up my window and had just fired up the engine when Brady called on my cell. I slapped my window, signaling to Richie to hang in.
Brady sounded edgy.
“Boxer, a tipster has reported multiple gunshots coming from a Mercado de Maya on South Van Ness Avenue. He saw cops exiting the store in a hurry. Sounds like a possible Windbreaker cop hit. Check it out.”
He gave me an address and I said, “We’re on the way.”
Rich was still standing next to my car.
“On our way where?” he said.
I headed my car toward South Van Ness with sirens and lights full on, while Rich called Joe and Cindy to say we’d been detoured. Within five minutes, I pulled up to the sidewalk twenty yards down the street from a small market with a sign over the window reading MERCADO DE MAYA.
A cruiser pulled up behind us. I got out of my vehicle and asked the two uniformed officers to drive around to the rear of the shop. Then Conklin and I advanced on the front entrance to the little grocery store.
This is always the worst moment: when you don’t know if the scene is still hot, if bullets are going to fly, if victims are being used as shields.
The front door of the market was wide open when my partner and I approached with guns drawn. The doorjamb was intact, lights out in the store. Smell of gunfire.
Hugging the doorway, I called out, “Police. No one move.”
I heard a moan and then a woman’s voice saying, “Over here.”
We entered the store. Conklin found the lights and covered me while I followed the voice to the floor behind the counter only yards away.
I holstered my gun and knelt beside the victim. She was writhing in pain and bleeding from what looked to be several gunshot wounds.
“I’ve been shot,” she told me. “He shot me.”
The cash drawer was open. Bottles had fallen off the shelves. There had been a struggle.
I heard Conklin speaking to dispatch, and backup was coming through the back door. I said to the victim, “Hang on. Paramedics are on the way. What’s your name?”
“Maya. Perez.”
I said, “Maya, an ambulance will be here any minute. You’re going to be OK. Do you know who shot you?”
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “You have to save my baby.”
“Don’t worry. The baby will be fine.”
I said it, but Maya Perez had lost a lot of blood. It was pooling on the floor, and she was still bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to her thigh. I pulled my belt through the loops and cinched her thigh above the wound.
It really didn’t help.
I asked her again, “Maya, do you know who did this to you?”
“A cop,” she said. “Two of them.”
She coughed blood, and tears streamed down her face. She groaned and cupped her stomach through the blood-soaked fabric of her dress. “Please. Don’t let my baby die.”