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“Claire, I’ve got to get in there to see him.”
She shook her head. “He’s barely alive, Lindsay. Besides, he’s under anesthesia.”
I had this mounting sense that I owed it to Mercer, each unresolved death. That he knew, and if he died the truth would die with him. “I’m going in there.”
I pushed through the doors leading to the ER, but Claire held on to me. As I looked into her eyes, the last glimmer of hopefulness drained out of my body. I had always fought with Mercer, battled him. He was someone to whom I felt I always had something to prove, and prove again and again. But in the end, he had believed in me. In the strangest of ways, I felt as if I were losing a father all over again.
Barely a minute later, a doctor in a green smock came out, peeling off latex gloves. He said a few words to one of the mayor’s men, then to the assistant chief, Anthony Tracchio.
“The chief’s dead,” Tracchio uttered.
Everyone stood staring blankly ahead. Claire put an arm around me and hugged.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said, holding tightly on to her shoulder.
“Yes, you can,” she said.
I caught Mercer’s doctor as he headed back to the ER. I introduced myself. “Did he say anything when he was brought in?”
The doctor shrugged. “He held on for a while, but whatever he said was incoherent. Just reflexive. He was on life support from the moment he came in.”
“His brain was still working, wasn’t it, Doctor?” He had faced his killer head-on. Taken three shots. I could see Mercer holding on just long enough to say something. “Anything you remember?”
His tired eyes searched for something. “I’m sorry, Inspector. We were trying to save his life. You might try the EMS techs who brought him in.”
He went back inside. Through the windows in the ER doors, I caught a glimpse of Eunice Mercer and one of their teenage daughters, tearfully hugging in the corridor.
My insides felt as if they were ripping apart, a knot of nausea building.
I ran into the ladies’ room. I bent over the sink and splashed cold water all over my face. “Goddamn it! Goddamn it!”
When my body calmed, I looked up in the mirror. My eyes were dark, hollow and blank; voices drummed loudly in my head.
Four murders, they tolled… Four black cops.
Chapter 46
LORRAINE STAFFORD walked me down from the stone gate on Cerritos. “The chief was on his way home.” She bit her bottom lip. “He lived a couple of houses down that way. No witnesses, but his driver’s over there.”
I went to the spot where Mercer’s body had been found. Charlie Clapper’s team was already combing all around it. It was a quiet, residential street, the sidewalk guarded by a high hedge that would’ve blocked anyone from seeing the killer.
The spot had already been chalked off. Blotches of blood soaked the pavement inside the outline of the body. The remains of his last moments, some plastic bags containing magazines, fruit, and a bottle of wine, were scattered around.
“Didn’t he have a car stationed in front of his house?” I asked.
Lorraine nodded toward a young uniformed officer leaning against the hood of a blue-and-white. “By the time he got down here, the perp had fled and the chief was bleeding out.”
It became clear the killer had been lying in wait. He must’ve hidden in the bushes until Mercer came by. He must’ve known. Just like he knew with Davidson.
From up on Ocean, I saw Jacobi and Cappy coming toward us. The sight of them made me exhale with relief.
“Thanks for coming down,” I whispered.
Then Jacobi did something totally uncharacteristic. He grasped my shoulder and looked firmly into my eyes. “This is gonna get big, Lindsay; Feds are gonna come in. Anything we can do, anything you need, anytime you need to talk about it. You know I’m here for you.”
I turned to Lorraine and Chin. “What do you need to finish up here?”
“I want to check along the escape route,” Chin said. “If he had a car parked, someone must’ve seen it. Otherwise, maybe someone saw him come out on Ocean.”
