School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,69
bell?”
Mayer’s ruddy complexion paled to paste. “I had nothing to do with a cop getting stabbed,” she said.
“Except you did,” Christie told her, his voice pitching, showing his anger. “Do you know what else I did yesterday? Besides wait for word on whether my partner was going to live or die?”
“I got no idea,” Mayer said, but she was watching Christie carefully, like a snake might watch a mongoose.
“I sat by the bed of the guy who tried to shoot up the PD’s office yesterday morning. He had a concussion and had been tased within an inch of his life, but you know what? That didn’t stop him from talking in his sleep.”
Ellery could actually hear her swallow, but he kept his face straight and expressionless because it was a masterful lie on Christie’s part. Jackson had checked that morning as Ellery had driven them to the jail. That prisoner was still in a coma, eyes rolled back in his head, unconscious.
“Do you want to know what he said?” Christie went on, keeping his voice satin with an edge of broken glass. “Because I gotta tell you, it sure would make an interesting court transcript.”
“Fiction, I’m sure,” Mayer said, voice flat.
“Perhaps.” Christie inclined his head. “Perhaps not.”
Mayer took a deep, fortifying breath. “I need my lawyer now,” she said.
“Sure,” Arizona told her, pulling out her phone. “Ellery, did you want to call Ambrose, or should I? When did you say he could get an arraignment? Next week? The week after?”
“Wait!” Mayer said, a hint of desperation in her voice. “You can’t put me in gen pop. They’ll kill me and Jarvis if you don’t get us in isolation.” And finally, a hint of humanity. “Our kids are so vulnerable. We need to be able to move them out of school.”
Ellery narrowed his eyes, and at the same moment, Jackson said, “Wait a minute. Which school do they go to?”
And the light bulb went on.
“Capitol Valley High,” Mayer said. “The guy who asked for the info, he’s one of the assistant coaches on my son’s football team. It’s the reason we gave it to him.” Her eyes cut left. “One of them. Our kid’s only a freshman but he’s got so much promise, and the guy threatened to cut him from the team.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “He loves it so much. It’s the only reason he stays in school.”
To Ellery, it felt like all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, and the room itself had been put on one of those horrible spinning carnival rides.
Tage Dobrevk, James Cosgrove, Ty Townsend, hell, even Ziggy Ivanov. The one thing—the one thing—they all had in common was the high school, and it was such an ordinary, everyday part of their lives that Ellery hadn’t even seen the connection.
“What’s the assistant coach’s name?” Ellery said, giving Jackson a small nod. Jackson started to edge his way to the door.
“Schroeder,” she said. “Baldwin Schroeder.”
Jackson blinked. “Baldwin?” he mouthed.
Ellery’s lips twitched. Well, it wasn’t the kindest thing anybody had ever done to a baby, but it certainly didn’t justify manipulating high school kids. Or trying to get them killed.
“What exactly did Mr. Schroeder ask you to do?” Ellery said, his voice losing some of its edge.
“He just wanted to know what would happen to the case file at first. Said he knew the kid. I have access to the lists of which PD gets which case, so it wasn’t that hard. But then it got shifted to your office—” She nodded at Ellery. “—and things started to go to shit.”
“What about your husband?” Ellery asked. “How did he get sucked into this?”
She swallowed, her eyes cutting left again. “That’s when Schroeder started to get nasty,” she said. “Told Jarvis that if something unfortunate didn’t happen to Tage, something unfortunate would happen to Carlton.”
Ellery could see Jackson’s expression, and he was right on board. Carlton was almost as cruel a thing to do to a baby as Baldwin.
“That’s not the only reason, is it?” Jackson asked cannily.
She took a steadying breath, as if to still her outrage. “No.”
They all stared at her, and Jackson glared at Christie as if to say, “Do something!”
Christie cleared his throat meaningfully, and Mayer blanched.
“Our kid got busted with drugs,” she rasped, eyes growing bright. “He swears he didn’t know where the damned pink pills came from, but the SRO officer had him dead to rights, and Schroeder said he could make it go away.”