Brass in Pocket Read Free Page A

spatter on the bed.”
    â€œI noticed that too. So Deke was trying to shield someone—maybe Antoinette O’Brady—who was on the bed when he got shot. She was hit by blood spatter.”
    â€œDo you think Deke got off a shot?”
    â€œEither that or just the sight of that big Desert Eagle made the shooter hesitate,” Nick said. “The difference in the angle between the two shots indicates a delay of at least a second or two—first shot from a bit of a distance, the second closer, and at an upward angle.”
    â€œBut if he did fire, where’s his round? And a witnesssaid someone fired from near the pool. What’s up with that?”
    â€œThat’s right. I’ll have a look around out there.”
    â€œI’ll be here,” Catherine said. “Probably still collecting hairs.”
    Nick walked out to the pool area, stopping every few feet to look back toward the open door of the room. As long as there were no tall vehicles parked in front of the room, someone could have fired from around the pool. But why would they? And if there was someone else in the doorway, would they take the shot, knowing they might hit their partner or accomplice? He supposed the first shot could have been fired from there… but it didn’t make sense to shoot at a closed door, and they hadn’t found any sign of a bullet or bullet hole in the wreckage of the door. And no one would ram in the door and then run to the pool to shoot.
    The pool smelled almost as bad as the room. Nick let himself in through an unlocked gate in the tall chain-link fence and walked around the concrete basin. At least a foot of trash coated the bottom, maybe more. He wondered if the motel had quit paying their Dumpster fees and intended to just use the pool instead.
    He swept his flashlight’s beam around but didn’t spot any shell casings on the concrete surrounding the pool, or any other sign that someone had fired a weapon. He hoped he wouldn’t have to go wading in the collected trash. But as he let his eye drift over the scene, taking in the fence and the view back towardthe motel building, he saw that one corner of the fence, where it connected to an upright and a top rail on the side nearest the building, had been broken loose.
    He circled back around the pool to take a closer look. The fence was broken so cleanly that it might have been clipped. But there was a crease in the top rail, the steel slightly blackened.
    Nick stood in front of it and looked toward the room. Right on line.
    He was starting to think the witness had been wrong.
The guy didn’t see a muzzle flash
, he realized with sudden certainty,
he saw a spark
. Nick could confirm his hunch with laser beams, since the distance was too great for trajectory rods, but it looked like a bullet fired at a slight upward angle from near the bed in Room 119 would gain just enough elevation to hit the top rail right where the fence was broken. The witness reported that he was already trying to leave, that the first loud noise—no doubt the battering ram taking down the door—had frightened him. Looking through a rearview as he was trying to get the hell out of there, in the dark, even a small spark might have seemed like a bright flash.
    If the round had glanced off the rail, then it had to have gone somewhere.
    Unfortunately, the most likely place was down in the pool. The bullet would have been slowed, redirected by the rail, and fallen in. He shone a flashlight along the wall and spotted what looked like a fresh chip in the pool wall, but the momentum had been slowed enough that the bullet hadn’t become embedded there.
    Nick would have to go wading after all. And in something far worse than stagnant pool water.
    â€œDeke Freeson did take a shot,” Nick said when he came back into the room. “But his shot missed. It flew out the open door and struck a steel rail by the pool, causing a spark, which our witness