you ought to be, Lieutenant. You just let us handle it, okay? Go be with your daughter. I’m glad she’s okay…And get them to take a look at that gash. Damn, LT, you know how lucky you are?”
A sobering exhale accompanied Hauck’s nod. “The sonovabitch shot right at me, Freddy…I just stood there, the window rolling down. Stared right at him. Froze.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Lieutenant. Anyone would freeze.”
Hauck nodded, eyes fixed on the body, unconvinced. “That could be Jessie.”
“Yeah, it could be, Lieutenant, but it’s not. You said you caught a glimpse of the shooter?”
Hauck nodded. “Twenties. Hispanic. Wearing a red bandana across his head. I put an APB out on a red Ford pickup, CT plates. ADJ9 or something…Couldn’t get more of a read. Listen, Freddy, I want you to get an ID on the guy inside. Have Stevie and Ed start in with the witnesses.”
“Will do.”
“And, listen, Freddy…”
“Yeah, Lieutenant?”
“I’m okay, got that? It’s business as usual here.”
“You bet your ass you’re okay, sir.” Munoz tapped Hauck on the shoulder, grinning. “Like my mother would say, LT, you had an angel riding on your shoulder today.”
“Yeah.” Hauck looked at the caved-in storefront, the man in the green vest’s legs visible through the shattered door. “Been meaning to talk to you about your mom’s take on angels, Freddy.”
Hauck got the gash on his neck looked after, while Ed Sweeney and Steve Chrisafoulis started to interview the bystanders and Munoz went to check out the body.
Maybe he and Jessie did have an angel watching over them. There were at least eighty to a hundred bullet holes where rounds had slammed into the station, and only three people had been hit, including a woman outside, struck in the arm from a ricochet.
Eighty to a hundred shots—and only that one poor bastard killed.
Vern Fitzpatrick, Greenwich’s police chief and Hauck’s boss, was on his way down from Darien, where he had been at a golf outing. News vans were starting to line up across the street, camera crews pushing for witnesses. Patrolmen were keeping the pressing reporters at bay.
Hauck could only imagine the headlines. “Posh NY Suburb Ripped by Deadly Gunfire.” “Bystander Killed in Drive-By Attack.”
Greenwich had Saks and Ralph Lauren and Laura Ashley. This kind of thing just didn’t happen here.
While they bandaged his neck, Hauck flipped out his phone and called Jessie’s mom. “Beth, something happened…” he said at the sound of her voice, then stopped, the freeze-frame of his daughter there and all that blood rushing back to him. He moistened his lips. “Listen, Beth,” he said, “Jess is alright. She’s fine, but…” He took her through what had happened, his ex-wife gasping, “Jesus, Ty, oh, my God…”
“Beth, listen, please…” They had spent ten years together. He had been a New York City cop then. A young detective in the 122nd in Queens, fast-tracked to the department’s Office of Information, who acted as a liaison officer during 9/11 with the FBI. That was before the accident with Norah. Before the blame and their marriage fell apart. “She’s alright,” he said, “just a bit scared. They’re going to take her to Greenwich Hospital—just to look over her a bit. You should come. Now. There are people dead here. I’m gonna have to go…”
“Oh, Jesus, Ty, tell Jess I’m on my way.”
“I’ll see you there.” He hung up. The med tech finished taping his neck. Hauck went over and sat beside Jessie in the van. They were running an IV. Hauck put his arm around her and pressed her head to his shoulder, trying to smile away the scared, confused tears welling in her young eyes.
“You okay?”
She nodded, donning the brave veneer. “I think so, Dad.”
“Mom’s on the way. They’re going to take you to the hospital here. They may give you something—just for shock, honey.”
“I’m alright,” she insisted. “You’re the one who’s been shot.”
Hauck winked at her and grinned. “You okay with putting off that boat ride for the rest of the day? I know you weren’t so keen on it.” That made her smile. “Listen, honey, you know I have to go to work now. You know they need me here…”
“I know, Daddy…” Her baby-blue sweatshirt was still damp and matted with someone else’s blood. “How’s that guy?”
Hauck shrugged. “I don’t know, baby doll.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he? I saw him, Dad.”
Hauck bunched his lips and nodded. “Yeah, he’s dead.” He pressed her face into his chest and squeezed. “You know I love you, Jess. I’ll check in on you at the hospital. Mom will be there soon.”
Patrolmen were setting up barriers, cordoning off the scene. Hauck knew this was one you were going to hear about. No avoiding that. This was Greenwich. The people with the big rap sheets here were hedge fund managers and CEOs. Investor fraud and Sarbanes-Oxley violations were the typical crimes of passion.
Drive-bys just didn’t happen here.
Hauck had looked squarely into the shooter’s eyes as he squeezed. He tried to think: Who might want to take this kind of revenge?
Three months ago, he and his team had shut down a meth ring operating out of a bodega in nearby Byron. Word was it was connected to the Vine Street gangs up in Hartford. They were bad people.
He had busted the son of a local real estate magnate for coke; the kid had been bounced out of Brunswick Academy in his senior year. The dad had threatened to ruin Hauck.
But this? Right in front of everybody’s eyes? That would bring the whole goddamn system of justice down on top of their heads. That would be suicide.
It didn’t make a goddamn shred of sense.
Inside, Ed Sweeney was taking a statement from Sunil, who still looked like a ghost, dabbing at his brow.
Freddy Munoz kneeled over the body. The dude had seemed friendly, nice. They’d shared a smile; he was sympathetic to what was going on with Jessie. He probably had a daughter himself.
As Hauck came up to him, Munoz whistled and rolled his eyes. “This ain’t so good, Lieutenant.”
“What?”
The victim looked about forty. Sandy hair, flecks of gray in it, tortoiseshell frames. Two rounds had caught him squarely in the chest, knocked him back into the magazine rack—probably why no one had seen him at first. He’d never had a chance. Must’ve been killed by the opening
