Before the Sirens by K R Hill

Author:K R Hill [Hill, K R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

When Lieutenant Harry Deutz clicked the wiper lever, the sprayer shot a stream of fluid over the top of the car. “Perfect,” he said, turning off the wipers.

He turned onto a street jammed with firetrucks, ambulances and squad cars. Emergency lights flashed, casting shadows on the apartment buildings along the street. Patrolmen walked about stringing up yellow ribbon barriers. Others shouted at the crowd and motioned for people to move onto the sidewalk.

Deutz rolled forward a few inches and turned on the siren for a second.

A dumpy beat cop looked up, waved, and pulled the barricade to the gutter and allowed Deutz to drive past.

Once inside the barrier, he turned into a driveway and straightened the wheel so that one of the front wheels climbed up on the curb. Parked with half the car on the sidewalk, Lieutenant Deutz climbed out, left the door hanging open, and stood in the street stirring his coffee with a finger.

“This is a bad one, Lieutenant.” The sergeant took off his hat and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.

“The dispatcher said there’d been a shooting.” Deutz licked his finger and snapped the top on his steaming coffee.

The sergeant nodded and flipped a thumb over his shoulder. “Oh, there’s been a shooting all right. All total we have three bodies. But only one was shot. One of them was stabbed with a beer glass. That’s where most of the blood came from. And the last guy, by the back door… well, we haven’t established the COD. The strange thing is, the dead guys look like pros.” He shook his head. “You have to keep me filled in on this one. I’d really like to know how three pros get taken out in an African bar?”

Deutz pointed at the bar sign. “Jamaican, not African,” he said.

“Come again?”

The lieutenant clapped the sergeant on the shoulder as he walked past. “You a Bob Marley fan? ‘No Woman, No Cry,’ did you ever hear that song?”

The sergeant shook his head and put on his cap. “No, sir, I can’t say I have.”

Deutz walked toward the entrance of the bar. “Trenchtown is a neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica,” he said over his shoulder, but the sergeant was already halfway across the street by the time he finished the explanation.

Harry Deutz inhaled deeply and turned a circle, looking up at the clouds and the blue sky. “Well,” he whispered. “It’s now or never.”

He stood in the doorway and sipped his coffee while sweeping his gaze over the scene. Three bar stools lay on the floor. Around them, spilled beer and pieces of glass reflected the lights and camera flashes of the investigators in white coveralls. In the middle of the barroom lay a dead man, a pool of blood surrounding his head like a black halo.

The investigator standing over the body snapped a few photos and looked over. After a moment he walked through glass to the front door, looked up at Deutz, and pulled off the white hood.

“This is a strange one, Harry.

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