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The officer continued, “He’s got a couple priors. Drugs. Drunk and disorderly. Even if he gets time, which I doubt, he’ll do six months. Not enough leverage to give up the money.”
And even if they found it—unlikely—what would it show? Woman X wasn’t going to give anything away by touching the bills.
She disconnected, sighed.
Spencer asked, “Did she think we’d all go running to the gunshots and leave the grave unattended?”
“It was never about her getting to the grave. She ran the scam just to see if we were on stakeout.”
“Flush us.”
“Yep. She took off the minute the officer broke cover. Hell. My fault. I should’ve told everybody to expect something like that.”
Nodding at the officers, Spencer said, “Instinct. I almost went too.”
“Yeah.”
The ESU commander called in. “She’s gone, right?”
Probably, she thought. What she said was: “Maybe.”
A pause. It washeroperation. He needed her okay to leave.
“Stay in position.”
Another pause, this one more irritated, if science can radiate that trait. “Roger, Five Eight Eight Five.”
Two hours later, she got the inevitable call. “ESU to Five Eight Eight Five.”
“Go ahead.”
“Detective, we’ve gotta stand down. Sorry, but my people need to get back to watch.”
“Understood.”
The woman was surely long gone. Now that she knew there’dbeen surveillance once, she’d assume there would always be eyes on the grave, maybe a camera, maybe plain-clothed.
The ESU team emerged from the trees and joined Sachs, Spencer and Pulaski outside the shed. They discussed who’d write the report up—ESU glancing at her in a way that said “Your op, you do the paperwork.” She agreed. They started back to where their cars and an unmarked van were parked, in the shadows of a narrow street across 233rd. On instinct, Sachs stopped abruptly. Pulaski looked her way as she turned back.
“No,” she whispered, nearly a gasp.
She, Pulaski and Spencer jogged back to the grave. There, on the plaque that was Hale’s tombstone, was a folded piece of paper, weighed down by a red-painted ring about five inches across.
They scanned about them.
“The shots …” Sachs muttered.
Pulaski nodded. “Itwasa diversion.”
It sure was. But not to shift attention away from the grave while Woman X slipped up to it. No, the purpose of the assault was just what they had believed: that it was a trick to flush them—to find out what the officers on surveillance duty were wearing.
So she could dress in similar gear. She must’ve had a wardrobe in her car or van. It was just the foresight Hale himself would have.
She’d strolled right up behind the officer, invisible, because she too was in a full ESU tactical outfit.
Which Sachs now found behind a tree about forty feet from the grave.
Woman X had been among them the whole time, since delivering the gun and cash to the homeless guy.
