Final justice - W.E.B. Griffin [7]
When he reached the Roy Rogers, he saw there was a blue-and -white, door open, parked on Snyder, which told him the cops had just arrived, and the possible robbery in progress was probably still in progress, because the cop wouldn't have left his car door open if he hadn't been in a hell of a hurry.
He double-parked on Snyder, beside the police car, grabbed his digital camera from the passenger seat, and quickly got out of the Rendezvous. Two black guys were coming out of the restaurant in a hurry. In a reflex action, Mickey put the digital camera to his eye and snapped a picture.
The short fat black guy saw him, raised his arm, and took a shot at Mickey with a short-barreled revolver. He missed, but Mickey, as a prudent measure, dropped to the ground beside the Rendezvous. When he looked up, both of the doers were hauling ass down Snyder Street.
Mickey got to his feet, ran quickly to the Roy Rogers, and went inside.
Just inside the door there was a cop on the floor, facedown, in a spreading pool of blood.
Mickey snapped that picture, and then as he was waiting for the camera to recycle, to take a second shot, realized he knew the dead cop. He was Kenny Charlton of the First District.
Sonofabitch! Kenny was a good guy, seventeen, eighteen years on the job. His wife works for the UGI. They have a couple of kids.
The green light in the camera came on, and he took another picture.
He was about to step around the body when he sensed motion behind him and looked over his shoulder.
A very large black man, in the peculiar uniform of the Highway Patrol, had entered the restaurant, pistol drawn. Another highway patrolman was on his heels.
"I think the doers just ran down Snyder," Mickey said, pointing. "Two black guys, one short and fat . . . two black guys."
Sergeant Wilson Carter turned to the highway patrolman behind him. "Get out a flash," he ordered.
The second highway patrolman--Mickey knew the face but couldn't come up with a name--left the restaurant quickly.
Sergeant Carter looked down at the body of Officer Charlton, dropped to his knees, felt his carotid artery, and shook his head.
"Jesus, Mickey, what happened?" he asked.
"I got here just before you did," O'Hara said, shrugging in a helpless gesture.
There were now the sounds of approaching sirens, at least two, probably three, maybe more.
"They shot somebody in the kitchen, too," one of the restaurant patrons called out.
Sergeant Carter looked around to see who had called out, and when he did, one of the patrons, a very tall, very thin, hawk-featured black man, stood up and pointed to the kitchen.
Sergeant Carter headed for the rear of the restaurant. Mickey followed him, holding the digital camera in his hand, concealing it as well as he could.
Carter pushed open the door and went in the kitchen. Mickey caught it before it closed and followed him in.
There was a body of a chubby woman, some kind of Latina, on the floor, her head distorted and lying in a pool of blood.
"Jesus Christ!" Sergeant Carter said.
"One of them came in the kitchen," a young black guy in kitchen whites said. "Manuela was calling the cops. He shot her."
"They all gone?" Carter asked.
"There was just the two of them," the young black guy said. "They're gone."
"You get a good look at him? Them?"
The young black guy nodded.
Carter went back into the dining room.
Mickey didn't follow him. He took a picture of the young black guy, then held up his finger, signaling him not to go anywhere, and then took two pictures, different angles, of the body on the floor.
Then he slipped the digital camera into his pocket.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Amal al Zaid."
"You want to spell that for me?" Mickey asked, and wrote it down, and then asked where he lived.
Then he asked Amal al Zaid what had happened, and had just about finished writing that down when three other police officers entered the kitchen--a lieutenant, a detective, and a uniform.
Lieutenant Stanley J. Wrigley was acquainted with Mr. O'Hara.
"Jesus Christ, Mickey, how did you get in here?" he asked.