I tried some more questions, but Leopold Heinrick had given out all the information he was going to give. He finally asked for a lawyer, and the interview was over.
I stepped out into the main area, and it was in chaos. People yelling, running. I caught the phrase, "officers down." I grabbed Detective Webster of the blond hair and bad coffee. "What's happened?"
O'Brien answered for him. "The Mobile Reserve Squad that went out to pick up Van Anders-he cut them up. At least one dead, maybe more."
"Shit," I said.
She had her jacket on and was digging her purse out of a drawer.
"Where's Zerbrowski?"
"He's gone already."
"Can I catch a ride?"
She looked at me. "Where to? I'm going to the hospital."
"I think I need to be at the crime scene."
"I'll take you," Webster said.
O'Brien gave him a look.
"I'll be at the hospital later. I promise."
O'Brien shook her head and ran for the door. Everyone was leaving. Some would go to the hospital. Some would go to the crime scene and see if they could help there. Some would go sit with the families of the downed officers. But everyone would go. If you really wanted to commit a crime in any city, wait until there's an officer-down call, everyone drops everything.
I'd go to the scene of the crime. I'd try to help figure out what went wrong. Because something had gone very wrong if Van Anders had taken out an entire squad from the Mobile Reserve. They're trained to handle terrorists, hostage situations, drugs, gangs, biochemical hazards; pick your nastiness, and Mobile Reserve can handle it. Yes, something had gone terribly wrong. The question was, what?
58
I'd seen enough of Van Anders's handy work to be prepared for the worst. What I saw in the hallway wasn't even close to his worst. Compared to the other crime scenes, it was almost clean. There was a uniformed officer standing next to the window at the end of the hallway. The window was almost completely free of glass, as if something large had been thrown through it. I turned away from the thought of one of the city's finest plunging to his death. Other than the window, there wasn't much else.
A sprinkling of blood on the pale brown carpet in the hallway. Two blood smears on the wall looked almost artificial, overly dramatic on the off-white walls. That was all. Van Anders hadn't had time to enjoy himself. One officer was dead, maybe two, but he'd just had time to kill them. He hadn't had time to cut them up. I wondered if that made him angry? Did he feel cheated?
There was a trickle of police in the hallway, but the sound of voices from the open door of the apartment was as murmurous as the sea. A sorrowful, angry, urgent, confused sea.
The apartment was pristine, untouched. There had been no fight inside. All the trouble had started and ended in the hallway.
Detective Webster had come up with me. He was still in the doorway, because there wasn't room to walk into the room. Every homicide has more cops than you think it needs, but I'd never seen a crowd like this. It was nearly wall-to-wall people like at a party, except that every face was grim, or shocked, or angry. No one was having a good time.
Zerbrowski had called my cell phone in the car on the way there. Everybody was wanting answers, answers about the monsters, answers that he couldn't give, because he didn't fucking know. His quote, not mine.
I debated on whether to yell for Zerbrowski or call him back on his cell phone. I don't usually mind being short, but this time I couldn't see through the crowd, and I sure as hell couldn't see over it.
I glanced at Webster. He was damn near six feet. "Can you spot Sergeant Zerbrowski?"
Webster suddenly looked even taller. I realized that he'd been slumping, artfully, the way some tall people do, especially if they got tall early and didn't like it. Standing with his shoulders back, and trying to gaze across the crowd, he was at least six one, maybe an inch more. I'm usually a pretty good judge of height.
"He's on the far side of the room." He suddenly seemed to shrink, shoulders rounding, almost like his spine compressed before my eyes.
I shook my head, and said, "Can you get his attention?"
He got a mischievous grin on his face, a look that Zerbrowski and Jason had made me dread. "I could put you on my shoulders, then he'd spot you."
I gave him a look that wilted the grin into a smile. He shrugged. "Sorry." But it was the kind of sorry I'm used to, the one Jason always gives when he's not sorry at all.
Either Zerbrowski is more psychic than I thought, or he was trying to get away from the man who was dogging him. It was one of the Mobile Reserve officers in full combat black, body armor still in place, but he'd lost his helmet, his mask, and his eyes were wild. The whites kept flashing like a horse's when it's about to bolt.