Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,72

appeared, a tall black guy who looked like a college student. He’d changed out of his uniform, wearing jeans and a brown leather coat. He walked towards them and Archer showed him his badge.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Sir, we need to ask you a few questions concerning a customer who was in here almost an hour ago.’

‘OK.’

The manager passed Jay the sheet and pointed at Sway. ‘Do you recognise him?’

Jay looked down.

He nodded straight away.

‘Yeah. I do. That guy was in here.’

Archer glanced at Josh. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah. He had a real strong accent. Sounded like a Southern boy.’ He looked up over his shoulder, and pointed at a camera mounted on the wall facing the counter. ‘He had the camera in his face too. Check the tapes.’

‘I think we need to,’ Josh said.

The manager nodded, and stepped away from the counter.

‘Follow me.’

Five minutes later, Archer walked out from the security room and pulled his cell phone. The call connected to Marquez downtown.

‘It’s Archer. You’re not going to believe this. Our boy is telling the truth.’

‘What?’

‘We’ve a sworn witness who says he was in here the same time as the shooting. He’s also on the CCTV. I just watched the tape. It’s him. He even looks up at the menu-board and you can clearly see his face.’

‘Shit.’

‘We matched the time. He was here at the exact same moment that Jacobs went down. His story checks out.’

‘But we need to take him back to the Bureau, right?’

‘We don’t have anything to charge him with. We don’t have any proof that he has the virus or knows where it is. He’s got nothing incriminating on him.’

He paused.

‘We have to let him go.’

‘OK, I’ll tell Shepherd. He’s going to be pissed.’

Archer ended the call, then looked back as Josh joined him.

‘Damn it. I thought we had him.’

‘Me too.’

‘Shit.’

‘So now what?’

Archer checked his watch. ‘The club situation is being handled. Jacobs is dead. Sway’s off the hook. No sign of Rourke anywhere. I guess we wait on orders from Shepherd or pray that the virus shows up at the campsite.’

Josh nodded. He glanced at the barista and manager who were just stepping out from the tape room.

‘You guys still serving?’

THIRTY FOUR

A couple of minutes later, the two detectives were sitting across from each other at a table on the second floor in the coffee shop. Despite the lateness of the hour there were still some people scattered around, most of them engaged in either quiet conversation or tapping away on netbooks. Archer knew most of these places shut at 10pm, but given the winter season they must have pushed it back by an hour or so to capitalise on the extra business. He and Josh had both ordered a drink and a quick bite. They’d been on the go all day, no time to grab anything to eat, and the old army adage held water. Whenever there’s a break in battle eat something. You never know when you’ll get the chance again.

‘I still don’t believe this,’ Josh said, biting into a Danish and wiping some icing from the corner of his mouth. ‘That was one nasty son of a bitch. I thought he was a slam dunk.’

Archer shrugged, taking a bite from an oatmeal cookie. ‘His alibi checked out. Nothing we can do.’

‘And now Jacobs is dead. You catch the way Sway was getting at Marquez? Racist asshole.’

‘Our profile of him as the shooter was purely based on Peterson’s assumptions. Hendricks called in and said there’re about thirty of them on that estate and they’re coming and going all the time. Any one of them could have pulled the trigger. Until we find a murder weapon or a witness, this is all just a guessing game.’

‘So why don’t we bring them all in?’

‘Two reasons. ATF has jurisdiction. We move when they say we move. Catching Jacobs’ killer isn’t the priority here. The virus is. And also, no one has any idea where Rourke is. We can’t arrest him if we can’t find him. And if we arrest his entire gang, he might disappear for good.’

‘But you heard the call Jacobs took at the Bureau. We just heard Sway talk. They had the same accent.’

‘He had an accent. And he didn’t mention the virus during the call. It’s all hearsay. It would never hold up.’

Josh considered this, looking down at his cup of coffee. ‘Shit, you’re right.’

Pause.

‘But that son of a bitch knows something.’

‘But he also now knows we’re onto him. If he’s got half a brain cell,