The Invictus, page 28
“Uh huh,” the Chief said in a suspicious tone. He glanced around, taking in the disarray
“And I’m glad they did. Thank God,” Danny jumped in.
“I’m still not understanding this angle, Walsh,” the Chief said. “Why was your cousin here? And to have his poor girlfriend dragged into it, as bait or whatever, I just don’t get it.”
Danny worried he was losing control of the narrative with the Chief. It would only raise more questions.
“That young lady, Walsh, you familiar with her next of kin?” the Chief asked.
Just then, Hammond entered through the front door, flashing credentials to the uniformed officer who was controlling the entrance.
“Chief, you called Hammond down on this?” Mason asked.
Hammond was slowly making his way over to them, scanning the scene in the abandoned factory as he did.
“Eric . . . who the hell at DHS vouched for this guy? This is Bishop’s work, or at least that entourage he travels with.” The Chief flung out his hands in disgust. “Why the hell does this guy want to infiltrate my force and take down my men?”
“Looks like there’s a few less of that entourage now,” Hammond said, glancing at the two bodies of Bishop’s men. “The dispatch said our men were okay—that true?”
“Couple of scrapes and one wound that cut into flesh.” Mason nodded in the direction of Sullivan. “But otherwise, we held up.”
“Did I also hear right that there was a female civilian down too?” Hammond asked cautiously.
Mason looked to the floor as Danny reluctantly nodded in the affirmative.
Hammond walked past the Chief and scanned the stairwell and the landing where Lauren’s body lay, surrounded by two techs from the medical examiner’s office. Silently, he turned back toward the Chief. He patted Danny’s shoulder as he walked past him, gently pushing him away at the end. Danny understood this as an attempt to let him disengage from the discussion.
Danny complied and drifted away from them. He began the dreaded walk to rejoin his cousin. He paused a few feet before reaching Craig, who sat with his back against the wall. His jeans and shirt were disheveled, stained with grease and blood from wrestling on the floor.
Danny knew he didn’t look much better himself, and he took a moment to smooth his blazer. He passed his hand through his hair to tame it as his prosthetic hand held his cane.
Then he marshaled as gentle a tone as perhaps he’d ever used. “Craig, how are you doing, man?”
Although it was a moment of significance, words came easily to Craig at this point. “Why? Why did this happen? How did Bishop get Lauren here, and why did he take her?”
“You know why, Craig.” Danny understood the waves of emotion Craig must be struggling with as he processed it all. As carefully as he could, he sought to drive home the point. “Bishop is what he called himself, but we both now know what he is. The same type of thing as in Iowa. The same shadow that killed that gang. Teased us with those same three letters. Drew you down to this place.”
Danny raised his palms and looked around the factory. As he did, Craig pressed his hands tight over his eyes and gritted his teeth, as if he were internally kicking himself for not seeing it sooner.
“You can’t be blind to what he represents and what he really came to take.”
Craig opened his eyes and looked up at Danny. “What? What did he really come for?”
“You. And he almost had you. I could tell.”
“Danny, he did get me. She’s gone, goddamn it!” Craig said, his voice rising.
“Please, quiet down. We got people for this. There’ll be someone you can talk to about this . . . trauma.”
“Trauma? That’s what supposedly led us to this fucking Bishop guy in the first place! What I can do was supposedly activated by it, remember?”
“Craig, I know you’re hurting. But you’ve got to lower your damn voice,” Danny answered sternly.
Craig was enraged and didn’t care for Danny’s admonition.
Their conversation had drawn the attention of the various groups of law enforcement who were scattered about. A few glanced over before returning to their work. They understood the raw emotions of the victims of such scenes.
Danny tried his best to get Craig to focus through his pain. “This is such an agonizing blow. I know, I’ve been there, remember?” But his reference to Emma’s death didn’t seem to calm Craig at all.
Danny tried a different angle. “We’ll regroup, like we’ve always done. Together. We’ve got to lean on each other, Craig.”
Craig’s body slumped. “Danny, there’s nothing left. She’s gone. She meant everything to me.” His eyes welled up, and his hands shook as he spoke. Then Craig froze. His eyes grew wide as he pushed against the wall to stand up. “My God, her parents. I promised them I could protect her. Danny, I gave them my word!”
“I know it probably doesn’t feel like much now, but I’ll help you with that.”
“I don’t need any help. And after this fucking debacle, I don’t need you!”
Danny tried not to take Craig’s attack personally. “I’m sorry, Craig.”
“No, it’ll be the rest of those things that will be sorry. I’ll make them hurt. I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done to me.” Craig’s jaw clenched as he glanced at the form of Lauren’s body lying beneath a police blanket. Danny didn’t think he’d ever seen his cousin in such a state of grief before.
Danny touched Craig’s shoulder, a gesture meant to calm or comfort. Craig’s hand jerked out and swatted it away.
“Get away from me, damn it!”
“Craig—”
“Being involved with you and . . . this stuff has only ever brought me more pain and loss. I’m done with it and with you!”
And with that, Craig spun around and headed toward the front entrance. He brusquely pushed aside the officer who was stationed there as he passed through the door.
The commotion was now evident to everyone on the scene. Danny could feel their eyes on him, but he could only watch as Craig’s form stormed away from the building and into the night.
From the shop floor near the foot of the stairwell, the Chief watched Craig and Danny, and he appeared to have heard Craig’s words before he left. Danny stood alone.
“Walsh has put it all out there for this force, no doubt about that. But I’ll be damned if his methods aren’t coming home to roost,” the Chief said.
He turned and addressed Hammond and Mason. “We’ve given Walsh a hell of a lot of latitude, but the shit is officially hitting the fan. I need to know how Walsh’s cousin is tied into this, and how and why Bishop got to his girl. That understood?”
Both men nodded.
Hammond took a more informal approach. “Jim, you know we’ll get to the bottom of this. Walsh and I have a long history. And I’ve gotten to know Craig pretty well.”
The Chief went back to the night’s events. “But why kill the girl? Why come at the two of them from that angle?”
“Who knows,” Mason replied. “Maybe it was for leverage. And when Adams, Sully, and I arrived on the scene, we blew up his plans to the point that he panicked and took her out.”
Mason came across like he was making excuses and trying to explain away a situation he clearly didn’t understand. It was tragic, surreal, and mind-boggling, especially since he saw Craig take a direct gunshot and emerge unscathed.
“The girl. Henriksen’s girl. What did you say her name was?” the Chief asked.
“Harris,” Hammond answered. “Lauren Harris. Her father is a partner in a small accounting group downtown. The mother and father live here in the city.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter right now. They’re going to have to wait on any details.”
“What?” Mason said.
The Chief lowered his voice. His tone was serious. “Create a story. Get it explained away for now. At least from the outside point of view.” He paused for a moment. “Say it was a sleeper cell of radicalized former military. Hell, that’s what we’re gonna find anyway with those DOAs. That’s the way the public needs to see it now until we learn what’s really going on. Leverage the spotlight that’s on this terrorist bullshit.”
“Get a story together?” Mason asked, quizzically.
“Damn right. Until we figure this out. Laying it all out there right now, solving it publicly, that’s an old way of thinking. We’re dealing with new challenges, especially when it comes to terrorism. We’ve got to find a way to adapt and keep the details in-house until we learn more.”
Mason spoke up, seeming to soften. “When I was in the military, the loved ones of those killed in duty always deserved respect, sir. They were owed a level of decency and transparency. Walsh’s cousin, his girl getting killed, we’ve got to be able to tell the family what happened and how we plan to investigate.”
The Chief grunted. “The texture of justice is different here. We need to circle the wagons and keep this in-house, at least until we understand what Bishop’s motive was.” His gaze fell on the front entrance Craig had passed through moments before. “Ms. Harris’s parents will have to wait for more information until we get a better handle on this.”
Two exhausting days after the terrible events in the warehouse district, Danny Walsh and Eric Hammond pushed their way through the doors of the Daley Center. Their tan overcoats flapped open as the detectives came in from an afternoon that was unusually chilly for late May in the Windy City.
They had just returned from the home of Lauren’s parents’ where they had delivered the curated official story of her death. Danny fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his phone, hoping for a voicemail from Craig. Nothing. He hadn’t spoken to his cousin since Craig had stormed out of the crime scene.
A fresh wave of guilt and anxiety washed through Danny’s chest as he and Hammond passed through the metal detectors. Danny slowed as he walked toward a bench in the hallway leading to the bank of elevators, leaning more heavily than usual on his cane. He felt as if he shouldered the weight of the world.
“Eric, just give me a couple minutes, okay?” he said as he slumped down onto a bench.
Hammond let out a long, measured sigh and placed his hands on his hips. “I know, Danny. It’s about as bad as it gets right now. But you know how this has to work. Let’s just put one foot in front of the other and get up to the Chief’s office. He’ll be wanting to hear how it went with the Harrises.”
How it went? Danny thought. At the Chief’s request, he had stayed in the car while Hammond delivered the news. But how else could it have gone? Grueling. Awful. Cruel. It would be bad enough to be parents of a woman taken so early in life and in such a horrific manner. But they were also being lied to and not yet getting the full story. The version of events was staying vague and sanitized for now, and it would fill the Harrises with even more questions. Why had their daughter gone to that godforsaken place to meet Craig and Danny? What did the killer seek to accomplish by killing her in front of them? And where were Craig and Danny when Lauren was killed?
Danny propped his cane against one leg and stared at the floor. He nodded, indicating that he understood Hammond’s counsel. He grabbed his cane and helped himself up, and they resumed their walk to the elevators.
By the time the elevator doors parted to let them out on the Chief’s administrative floor, Danny had regained some of his energy. But he was nervous about facing the questions the Chief might still have about the entire situation and how it had unfolded.
Mason stepped out in front of them. Clearly, he had been waiting to walk them in. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, Walsh.” Mason’s impatience cut short any further consolation. He looked around and lowered his voice. “But first we all need to be on the same page when we meet with the Chief. There were a lot of things that went down that raise questions about Bishop and other things.”
“For sure,” agreed Hammond. Danny nodded.
Mason went on. “But I also saw some things the other night that I can’t really explain.” His eyes darted from Danny and Hammond. It was clear he was referring to Craig being shot and his behavior thereafter. “There’s no way any of us want Adams and Sullivan wondering what the hell all that was actually about, let alone the Chief. Am I right?”
Hammond drew in a breath, appearing ready to rebut, but Danny broke in first.
“Yes, but that’s for another time. Right now, we need to deal with Bishop.” Danny sought to leverage the camaraderie the three of them had recently established. “Jack, you knew something wasn’t right about Bishop. That’s why you and the other two tailed us there. I’m grateful, please understand that. But right now, we have to keep the Chief’s focus on him and only him because Bishop represents a real threat, potentially to others on the force.”
“Others on the force?” Mason raised an eyebrow. “Or do you really mean a threat to you and your cousin?”
Danny and Hammond fell silent. They were saved from further inquiry when the door to the Chief’s office opened just down the hall. His assistant stepped through the doorway.
“Gentlemen, the Chief has been waiting for you. Are you planning on joining him or not?”
The three quickly broke off their discussion and dutifully made their way into the office. The Chief was clad in his typical dress uniform. Built-in shelves behind him held an assortment of awards, proclamations, and family pictures. He remained seated behind a large wooden desk as they filed in, his large hands clasped in front of him.
“Well, gentlemen, this is a hell of a mess.”
“Any word on the identities of the two bodyguards who made it out of there?” asked Hammond. He and Walsh drifted closer to the Chief’s desk. Danny hung back near the door.
“So far, not much,” the Chief started. “Ex-military. Other than that, nothing really remarkable about either of them in the info we could dig up. Which makes it all the stranger how coordinated it was.”
His attention turned to Danny. “Walsh, you gave a statement that Ms. Harris left you a phone message saying you asked her down to the machine shop.”
Danny closed his eyes and lowered his head. “Yes, she left a phone message. But I did not ask her to do that.”
“Detective, you wrote you took your cousin with you when you went to the Yards after your shift to investigate stray leads.”
“Uh huh.”
“What the hell for?”
“It’s helpful when we go over things together,” Danny struggled to explain. “He’s . . . he’s been good to bounce things off of since I’ve returned to duty.”
“I don’t like it,” the Chief said. “That’s another issue we have to get to.”
Danny looked down at his lap, hoping the Chief didn’t mean they’d get into it now.
“But right now, let’s talk about that voicemail you got from the girlfriend. If you didn’t tell her to go down there, who was it? Why would Bishop or one of the others mess with that angle, Walsh? What was she to you? She was your cousin’s girl, not yours. Makes no damn sense.”
No, it makes perfect sense, Danny thought. The more it became clear that Craig’s abilities had reemerged and were gaining strength, the more it made sense that Bishop would want Lauren as leverage.
“You’re telling me,” Hammond added. “And the discussion I had with her parents was rough.”
Despite the horror of it all, Hammond seemed glad to have been the one to break the tragic news. Perhaps he figured it would be too emotionally difficult for Danny. The way Danny was slumped in the hallway when they arrived seemed to validate that.
The Chief didn’t seem interested in how the parents were handling it, but he did want details on the conversation. “So? How did it all go down?”
“What story did I give them, you mean? What you told me to say.” Hammond replied. “That we don’t know how she showed up in the Yards. That no one on the force reached out to her, and that the fact that she was killed during the attack on our detectives is, as of now, an unexplained coincidence.”
“How’d they react to that?”
“They’re devastated, as you can imagine. And angry at the force, and at the cousin for putting her in danger.”
“I get that. How did you describe the attack?”
“I said there’s still a lot we don’t know, but that it was likely gang violence directed at the police and at people in their orbit.”
The Chief didn’t seem ready to speculate about Bishop’s intentions. He shifted in his chair and stared out the thirtieth-floor window. “The body we dragged out of that shop isn’t going to fit the narrative the public is used to hearing about terrorism, about sleeper cells. We need to keep up the story that they’re probably part of a domestic gang, but we really don’t know. They could be a terrorist sleeper cell that was radicalized here.” The Chief appeared to be calculating how to leverage the preoccupation the city maintained about possible terror threats.
“That will be the story for now.” He paused. “And, unfortunately, that’s the way it’s going to have to stay. We won’t be letting the Harrises in on anything else.”
“What?” Danny barked, his eyes flashing. Mason and Hammond’s eyes widened in alarm.
The Chief leveled his gaze at Danny. “What’s on your mind, Walsh?”
Danny thoughts churned. He’d had his differences with Lauren. But he had known her well, and he knew how much Craig cared for her. The Chief’s cavalier dismissal of her parents’ interest offended him, and he didn’t care about rank right now.
“They deserve better than that. She was my cousin’s girlfriend. How and why she was targeted and dragged into that attack is something we need to learn for ourselves and then share with them. They deserve that.” Danny realized his situation was precarious, but he just didn’t have the stomach for this.
Mason and Hammond opened their mouths to come to Danny’s defense, but the Chief brusquely waved them into silence.
