came up with the only possibility: a political field trip.
The goddamn publicity machine, he thought, is taking the secretary on some baby-kissing visit and it’s going down near my goddamn kill zone.
“I know that, Lieutenant,” Hargrave said, keeping his voice in check. “But if nobody’s seen Redman, and none of his SWAT friends have heard from him, it’s impossible to put a motive on this guy so we can predict what he’s going to do next.”
Hargrave had badged his way past the police cordon and followed Walker’s F-150 into a neighborhood of industrial businesses. When Walker pulled up in front of a corrugated steel warehouse and went inside someplace called Archie’s, Hargrave parked across the street. First he tried to get Mullins on the reporter’s cell. He was immediately forwarded to some message service. Then he called Canfield and for the next thirty minutes found himself trying to explain why he was following Walker around. Who the hell even cared?
“Wait a second,” Hargrave said into the cell. “He’s leaving again.” The detective watched as Walker came out of the shop, looked around and then got back into his truck and drove north, away from where Hargrave now knew there was an “official visit” going down at a nursing home only a few blocks away.
“Look, Mo. Like I said, you do what you think needs to be done with this asshole Walker. To tell you the truth, nobody here in command— and not Fitzgerald either—gives a damn about yours and Mullins’s theory. The priority has shifted to the Secretary of State and not on solving the deaths of a few cons that probably deserved to die in the first place,” Canfield said when the detective came back. “I know how that goes against your ethic, but like I said, you’re hanging your own ass out there.”
“I appreciate the help, Lieutenant.”
Hargrave pushed the end button and stared out his windshield as Walker’s truck disappeared around a corner.
“I might add,” he said to no one.
The detective opened his car door and stepped out. His inclination was to go back to the office and again try to track hotel and motel registries for Redman’s name even though he knew that was fruitless. Instead he locked his door and started walking south toward the cordon that was set up a couple of blocks away. Maybe he’d shoot the bull with the uniform guys doing duty. Ask if the feds were any more antsy than usual. Try to spot Fitzgerald somewhere.
Nick made it down again, thinking like a sniper. He’d always heard the SWAT guys talking about taking higher ground and the philosophy moved him to the three-story building next door. He crossed the alley that ran straight south, looking for some kind of box or board to get within reach of the first ladder rung, and settled on an old shipping pallet with the nailed crosspieces and leaned one end up against the wall and used it as a makeshift stepladder. He had to stretch to get a grip on the first rung and hauled himself up. Again, the metal had not been touched, probably in years.
But he climbed. Thirty feet up he slowly came over the roof edge. Again, there was nothing to see but tar and air-conditioning vents, though over to his left a square bunkerlike access room protruded up. From his angle he could see two sides of the structure. One side had a door.
Great, he thought, I should have just walked in, flashed my press credentials and walked up the damn stairs. His cynicism was back, along with his doubts that he had any idea what the hell he was doing up here. But he still moved low along the roofline to get a look around the third side of the access room.
He was circling when he saw, or heard, the beat of a helicopter and raised his eyes to the sky. It was a small craft, not the big Channel 7 chopper shooting pictures of his ass again. But as he watched the aircraft slide to his left, his line of sight crossed the top of the access room and from this new vantage point he noticed a stepladder leaning against it, and then an odd platform on top. It looked as if someone had mounted a sheet of corrugated metal across two sawhorses. Nick looked behind himself for space and then stepped backward, forgetting to stay low and going up on his toes to gain a few more inches