Page 56 of Ground Truth

Drake came back with the coffee, handed one mug to Flint and sat across from Gaspar.

“I do have some bad news,” Gaspar said solemnly.

“We were just shot out of the sky and nearly drowned,” Drake joked. “How much worse can it get?”

Flint replied, “That’s never a question you want to ask. Bad karma. Things can always be worse. Trust me.”

Quietly, Gaspar said, “Detective Dean Myer was killed about three hours after you met with her.”

“What?” Flint asked, as if he hadn’t heard.

“They were called out to a homicide. When she got there, she walked into a firefight between rival gangs. She was killed. Her partner seriously wounded,” Gaspar continued. “He may not survive, either. Touch and go, last report I heard.”

Drake cupped his mug in both big palms and stared into the coffee as if it might reflect his mental image of Detective Myer’s friendly face and dazzling smile.

Flint said, “No doubt they were wearing body armor. Where’d she get hit?”

“Myer took four bullets. Two to the head, one in the neck, one in the chest,” Gaspar replied. “Head wounds killed her.”

“Unlucky shots,” Drake said. “Gangbangers point, shoot, aim. Bullets go wild. They couldn’t hit a smaller female target in the head if they tried. Not even once. Certainly not twice.”

“Chest shot to the armor is okay. Hurts like hell, but not lethal. Head shots would have killed her quickly. Neck shot would have done the job a bit slower but still too soon for most first responders to arrive on scene.” Flint sat up and gulped his lukewarm coffee. His tone was thoughtful, like he was working it through. “Myer’s partner was wounded, presumably unconscious. So he didn’t shoot her. Got a witness?”

“Other officers were at the scene.” Gaspar shook his head. “None with a clear view of Myer’s position.”

“So who says the bangers fired those four shots?” Flint asked.

“Good question. Ballistics are inconclusive. Could possibly have been unauthorized ammo. But the ordnance definitely wasn’t Atlanta PD standard issue.” Gaspar gave Drake another moment to grasp the same conclusions he and Flint had already reached.

“So preliminarily, given the ordnance, we don’t think Myer was killed by friendly fire,” Flint explained.

“They’ll need to locate the weapons actually used to kill her.” Drake replied slowly. “Any luck with that?”

“Still searching.” Gaspar paused, drained his sweet Cuban coffee, and replied. “What the ballistics show is all four shots most likely came from the same weapon.”

Flint gave Gaspar and Drake a hard look.

“So we’re supposed to believe some street punk was good enough with a gun to hit Detective Myer in the head and neck and chest with not one but four lucky shots?” Drake said, shaking his head slowly. “Not a chance in Hell.”

Flint said quietly, “It’s notable that Myer died within hours after talking to us. Seems like they’d have killed her before she gave us the Ella Belle Reed file, doesn’t it?”

Drake’s eyes widened. “You think Myer was killed for giving us that file?”

“It’s a reasonable assumption. She was alive and well until she handed over those materials. Now she’s dead,” Gaspar said.

“Yeah.” Flint felt a slow burning anger in his gut.

“I’m sorry, Flint,” Drake said. “I know you liked her.”

Gaspar rose to refill his coffee. “Could be coincidence or just bad luck. But that’s not likely, is it?”

He put on a new pot to brew and made a quick round to check on his sleeping family. Gaspar wasn’t an anxious man, but he’d seen more than his share of crime. One perk of the new job was his around-the-clock availability to protect his family. Which was a job he took more seriously than any other.

After the security check, he popped his head into his office to check on the screens he kept running around the clock. Gaspar didn’t sleep well or long, and he wanted his systems up and awake whenever he was.

He’d set up extensive facial recognition searches for both Phillip Reed and Greta Campbell Reed when Drake first approached him. The only exclusions he’d put on the searches were time-based. He asked the systems to find images after the date of the boating accident when Greta and Phillip were both declared lost at sea.

Even with that limitation, he expected the searches to take a good long while.

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