Kill Fee (2 page)

W
indermere was on her feet before the white-haired man hit the ground. She ran across the cobblestone street and up the hotel driveway, dodging angry taxicabs as horns blared. Someone was still screaming. Bystanders ducked for cover.

The man was dead; Windermere knew it instantly. He’d taken the shot to the back of his head, just behind his right ear, and the results were not pretty. There was blood, lots of it. Bone, too. Gore spattered the driveway. Windermere dashed toward the hotel doors and ducked behind the big Bentley, wishing she’d brought her service Glock.
“Everybody stay down,”
she said.
“And someone call 9-1-1.”

Stevens crashed in beside her, breathing hard. Looked across at the white-haired man. “Shit,” he said. “Where’s the shooter?”

Windermere crouched low and played the scene back in her head. Heard the shot again; watched the white-haired man fall. Pictured the entry wound and tried to map the bullet’s trajectory. “Sniper,” she said.

Stevens got it immediately. He twisted around and peered across the back of the big sedan. Behind them, the Landmark Center loomed, its myriad turrets and towers excellent vantage points for any would-be killer with a rifle and a scope. Stevens nudged her.
“Up there.”

L
ind dropped the rifle as soon as the target fell. He pulled the window closed and walked out of the room and onto the balcony surrounding the inner courtyard.

Already there were sirens outside. Word was spreading. People stood on the balcony, their office doors open, cell phones and paperwork still clutched in their hands. They shot quizzical looks in Lind’s direction. He ignored them and walked along the balcony to the stairs.

The sirens grew louder as he descended to ground level. The stairwell was crowded. Clerks. Secretaries. Librarians and curators from the museums housed inside the center. Lind walked past a tour group and descended quickly to the main level, then crossed the courtyard to the building’s front doors. He slipped around another group of confused workers and hurried out into daylight, passing a man and a woman on the front stairs, a black woman and an older white man, their jaws set, both of them moving quickly. Lind didn’t slow down. He turned right on 5th Street, away from the swarm of police cars outside the hotel, and kept walking.

STEVENS AND WINDERMERE
hurried into the Landmark Center, dodging scared civilians every step of the way. It was chaos inside, people everywhere. Stevens pushed through to the inner courtyard, Windermere right behind him. “The towers,” Stevens said. “How do we get up there?”

Windermere searched the courtyard. Spotted a set of stairs. “Come on.”

A woman flew out of the stairwell just as they approached. Nearly collided with Stevens, her eyes wide and wild. Windermere caught her. “Whoa,” she said. “Slow down. What’s the rush?”

The woman squirmed. Fought Windermere’s grasp.
“Let me go,”
she said. “I have to find the police.”

“We’re police,” Stevens told her. “BCA. FBI. What’s the story?”

The woman looked at Windermere. Then at Stevens’s badge. “Thank God,” she said, pointing across the courtyard. “He went that way.”

“Who?” said Windermere.

“
The shooter.
He went that way. I followed him down.”

Windermere swapped glances with Stevens. “Describe him,” she said.

“A smaller guy. Brown hair in a buzz cut. Young. Mid-twenties, maybe.” She looked at them, her expression urgent. “He’s getting
away
.”

“We passed him,” said Stevens. “On the steps. We walked right past him.”

Windermere was already halfway across the courtyard. “You coming or what, Stevens?”

T
hey left the woman in the Landmark Center and burst out onto 5th Street, Windermere in the lead, moving fast. She turned right and kept running. Stevens struggled to follow. He kept himself in decent shape, mostly, but Windermere was a heck of a lot younger. Plus she’d been some kind of track star back home in Mississippi.

Windermere reached the end of the block and slowed to look up and
down Washington. Then, just as Stevens caught up, she took off again. Stevens paused, caught his breath. Then he hurried after her.

LIND WALKED WEST
down 5th Street, skirting the high, windowless brick walls of the stadium where the pro hockey team played. He walked quicker now on the empty sidewalks, the sirens and the chaos retreating into the background. He walked quicker, but he didn’t run. Running would attract undue attention.

He circled the arena until he reached 7th Street, and then cut across the busy intersection, toward the bus station. Downtown was behind him now; the land here was vacant—event parking for the hockey arena, mostly. In the distance, he could see the spire of the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Lind cut through a thin copse of trees lining 7th and came out into a half-empty parking lot. He walked across the dusty gravel until he reached his car, and was about to climb in when someone called out behind him.

Lind turned and saw the black woman from outside the Landmark Center hurrying toward him. Her companion followed, about thirty feet back, both of them running hard, their faces determined. Lind watched them approach.

“STOP!”
Windermere called across the parking lot. The kid did as he was told. He straightened. Turned from his little hatchback and looked at her. Windermere met his gaze and felt a chill run through her.

He was a normal-looking guy, just as the woman at the Landmark Center had described. Probably five seven or five eight, he had close-cut brown hair and was dressed like your everyday rube. He looked normal. Except that he didn’t. He didn’t look normal at all.

It was his face. His
eyes
. It was his slack expression, the way he studied her with no hint of malice, no fear, barely any comprehension at all. Windermere slowed, involuntarily, wishing again that she’d remembered her Glock.

The kid looked at her for a couple seconds. Then he turned around—calm, deliberate. Slid into the car and turned the engine over and drove out of the lot.

S
tevens caught up to Windermere. “Why’d you slow down?” he said. “You had him.”

Ahead of them, the car reached the end of the parking lot and pulled out onto 7th Street. It drove fast, but not wild. Not out of control.

“Chevy, right?” Stevens said, pulling out his cell phone. “An Aveo, I think. You get the plates?”

“Yeah,” Windermere said. “I got them.”

Stevens had his phone to his ear. “Crowson,” he said. “Get a pen. The shooting downtown, the Saint Paul Hotel. We make the shooter’s ride.”

He handed Windermere the phone. Windermere recited the plate number and handed the phone back to Stevens.

“Get that to Saint Paul PD,” Stevens told Crowson. “It’s a little Chevy hatchback, gray, an Aveo, most likely. Get them looking.” Stevens ended the call and turned back to Windermere. “So what the hell happened?”

Windermere looked out to where the gray car had disappeared into traffic. Didn’t answer a moment. “I just lost it, Stevens,” she said finally. “The kid looked at me and I spooked.”

“Spooked. What the heck do you mean?”

“I just lost it.” She shrugged. “It’s like I was a potted plant, the way he looked at me. A cloud or something, insignificant. Like I wasn’t a cop and he wasn’t a killer.”

“You didn’t show him your badge,” said Stevens, “or your gun. Maybe he didn’t make you for a cop.”

Windermere shook her head. “It was more than that,” she said. “He just murdered somebody. He was making his escape. And he looked at me like he was waiting for a bus.”

She frowned, staring across the parking lot toward 7th Street, where the traffic slipped past, normal, like nothing had happened at all.

THEY WALKED BACK
along 5th Street toward Rice Park and the Landmark Center and the Saint Paul Hotel. There were police everywhere now, and ambulances and the rest. TV news trucks. Bystanders. Like a movie scene.

Here we go again.
Stevens flashed back to the kidnappers, Arthur Pender and his gang. Carter Tomlin and his team of bank robbers. He felt a brief twinge of excitement, and nursed it as long as he dared. Then he chased it from his mind.

Not your case,
he thought.
Not Windermere’s, either. This is Saint Paul PD all the way.

They waded back into the mix. Showed their badges to the uniform holding the line outside the hotel’s driveway. Then they walked up to the entrance, where the white-haired man’s body still lay on the pavement.

Uniforms lurked at the margins. Forensic techs combed the body. A couple dour-faced men in rumpled suits stood by the Bentley, sipping coffee, watching the techs. Every now and then one of them would crack a joke and the other would laugh a little, grim. Homicide cops.

Windermere flashed her badge at them. “Windermere, FBI,” she said. “Who’s working point?”

The men glanced at each other. Then the older guy stepped forward. “Parent,” he said. “Remember me?”

“The Tomlin case,” Windermere said, nodding. “You worked that poker game, right? This one yours, too?”

“At least until the FBI takes it off my hands.”

“No such luck. We’re just witnesses, Detective. This one’s yours.” She introduced Stevens.

Parent looked at them both. “Witnesses, huh? The two of you together?”

“Interdepartmental bonding,” said Stevens. “We saw the shooting from that bench over there. Got a look at your suspect and the plates off his car.”

“No shit.” Parent glanced back at the body. Then he pulled out a notepad. “Well, all right, witnesses,” he said. “Tell me what you know.”

L
ind drove the speed limit southwest down 7th Street, trying to blend in with traffic. Trying to ignore the little pinprick of panic that had started to itch in his mind.

The black woman would have memorized his plates. She would have called them in to the police. Right now, the police would be looking for the car.

Remove yourself from the scene without being detected. Don’t attract undue attention. Secondary objective.

Lind checked the road for police cars. Checked his rearview mirror, oncoming traffic, the parking lots that lined the road. He saw a couple cruisers. They didn’t follow him. He kept driving.

He followed 7th Street until it merged with the highway and turned south to cross the Mississippi River, and he drove past the lakes and the grassland and forest until he reached the airport turnoff. He parked in the rental car lot and waited as a man scanned something off the windshield. The man grinned at Lind. “Enjoy your visit?”

Lind didn’t answer. The man frowned and handed Lind a receipt, glanced back at him once before hurrying away. Lind was already walking to the terminal. He found a garbage can and tore up the receipt, just like he’d been taught. Then he rode the concourse tram to the main terminal building and found the Delta line.

The woman at the counter frowned when she read his alias off the computer. Lind felt the little niggle of panic return. “You’re a frequent flier, you know,” the woman said finally. “You could have skipped this whole line.”

Lind relaxed. “Next time,” he said. He took his ticket and walked to the security lineup. The guard waved him through. The metal detector didn’t beep.

He boarded the plane with the frequent fliers and the first-class passengers in the priority lane. Sat in his window seat as the plane slowly filled, as it taxied from the gate, as it careened down the runway and reached a safe cruising altitude. He didn’t look out the window. He didn’t read the in-flight magazine. He sat in his seat and wondered if the black woman and her companion constituted undue attention.

Two and a half hours later, the plane landed in Philadelphia. It was dark outside, and raining. Lind walked off the plane and out through the terminal to the parking garage, where he retrieved his car and drove away from the airport.

He drove along Interstate 95 over the Schuylkill River and into downtown Philadelphia, navigated the busy, rainy streets, and parked in an underground garage and rode the elevator to the apartments above.

He stepped off the elevator to his apartment on the building’s top floor. Kicked off his shoes and then moved from room to room, turning
on every light he could find. When the whole place was daytime bright, he went into the living area and turned on the television and turned up the volume. Took a TV dinner from the kitchen freezer and heated it in the microwave, brewed a strong pot of coffee, and brought the dinner and the coffee into the living area.

It was dark out, and rainy. The city’s sounds were muted far below. Lind ate his dinner and drank from his coffee mug, sat on his couch in the middle of his bright living room, watching the television play an endless loop of movie previews. He sat on his couch all night, drinking coffee and watching the TV, praying his phone would ring again soon.