Stray Bullets Read Online Free PDF Page A

his father. No one saw where the short red-haired guy went, but many saw the tall one with the long hair sprint across the parking lot and run out onto Elm Street.
    As Greene’s night wore on things had become even clearer. Just after ten, Detective Officer Ho walked into the command unit with the surveillance footage from the doughnut shop. The inside camera caught the two young men seated at a table near the door, drinking coffee. The camera angle was from on top, making it impossible to identify them. The one with the long hair all the way down to his waistwas chatting to some girls at the next table. At 5:00:34, according to the counter in the corner of the video, the shorter one tapped his partner on the arm and pointed out the front window toward the parking lot. The two exited at 5:00:58. The first 911 call reporting gunshots came in at 5:03:01, and seconds later, at 5:03:49, the tall guy could be seen rushing into the parking lot. He looked over to the spot where the child had fallen, stuffed something into the front of his pants—it wasn’t clear enough to identify as a gun—and ran out onto Elm Street. Just before he took off, he turned and looked right into the camera, which captured his face perfectly.
    “Stop it right there,” Greene said to Ho, who was playing the video on his laptop. “I recognize that face. Looks like a younger version of Austin St. Clair, who I’ve arrested six times. He’s still in jail on a jury-tampering charge.
    “Excellent guess. It’s his son.” Ho chuckled for the first time all night. He pointed to the screen. “These two young geniuses left their coffee cups on the table. I rushed them up to the lab and the overnight operators lifted two sets of prints.”
    “You get a match?”
    Ho pulled some police reports from his bag. “We got a definitive for Larkin St. Clair, your old pal Austin’s only son. Take a look at his latest mug shot.”
    It was the same guy. “And the short one?” Greene asked.
    “Got a partial that’s probably Dewey Booth. Wouldn’t stand up in court but take a look at their file. These two jerks have a long history of committing crimes together. Last time they robbed a pharmacy late at night. Booth punched a female pharmacist in the face when she hesitated handing over the money. Broke her jaw. He got three years. St. Clair was standing six outside and he only got a year plus probation. Booth just got out of jail four days ago and the next day St. Clair’s probation officer reported him as AWOL. He missed his weekly appointment.”
    Greene called headquarters. The front desk back at Homicide was going crazy fielding calls from the media, who wanted a news update for their morning editions. He dictated a press release with Larkin St. Clair’s most recent police photo on it, not the image from the video. He didn’t want to reveal that St. Clair was captured on tape. That would lead to questions about whether the police also had pictures of his partner. And right now, he wanted to keep Dewey Booth’s name under the radar.
    Just after seven in the morning, minutes after he’d finished interviewing his last witness, a call came in on his cell.
    “Detective Greene?”
    “Yes.”
    “This is PC Darvesh. I’m one of the officers guarding the Wilkinson family at the hospital.”
    Greene closed his eyes. “Yes.”
    “The child. Kyle. He died.”
    Breathe, Greene told himself, breathe. He wasn’t quite sure how long it took him to say, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    The icy walk up the snow-covered street only took a minute or two and when the elevator opened on the ninth floor of the hospital, the sun, which was climbing over the downtown skyline, hit him square in the eyes. He squinted involuntarily.
    “Sir, I’m afraid only authorized personnel are allowed on the floor this morning,” a young female police officer said, stepping in front of him. She had dark hair, blunt-cut tight to her head. Her face was stern, her eyes