Xavier, Bria's partner on the force and a friend of mine, grinned when he saw me come up behind Finn. "Hello, Gin. Good to see you out and about. Tell me, have you danced on Mab's grave yet?"
"No," I replied, smiling back at him. "But only because they haven't officially buried her yet. Trust me. It's on my to-do list."
Xavier glanced over at a group of three dwarves who were wearing gray coveralls, drinking sodas, and leaning on shovels a few feet away from Mab's coffin. Apparently they were waiting for everyone to clear out before they buried the Fire elemental. They'd be waiting awhile longer now that the police were here.
While Owen and Finn talked with Xavier and Roslyn, I headed over to Bria, who was using a pen to flip through the dwarf's wallet, which she'd fished out of his pants pocket.
"Anything interesting in there?" I asked.
She shook her head, making the sunlight dance through her blond hair. "Not much. Driver's license says his name is Jack Spenser. Address says he's a local who lives in an apartment building over in Southtown. I've got someone running down his friends and family now, but so far no luck finding anyone who knew him."
"Cell phone?"
"Just a brand-new burner phone in his pocket, with a log that looks like he only got calls from another brand-new burner phone. Some odds and ends in his pockets: loose change, a pack of gum, a paper clip. The most interesting thing is the five thousand dollars in cash he had on him."
She pointed her pen at the fat roll of hundreds bound together with a rubber band that was sitting on the grass. The money was splattered with blood, just like the rest of the dwarf was, and it looked like a bullet had cut right through Ben Franklin's face and lodged inside the rest of the cash.
I arched an eyebrow. "He only got five thousand dollars to try and take me out? I'm rather insulted. I didn't realize my rates had dropped so much so fast. Mab was offering at least five million to anyone who bagged me - ten if her bounty hunters managed to take me alive."
Bria didn't say anything, and she didn't crack a smile at my black humor. If anything, her face darkened at the mention of Mab's bounty. Instead of looking at me, she stared back down at the dead dwarf, thinking.
"We'll look at his phone calls and backtrack the bullets and the sniper rifle . . ." Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged.
I knew what she meant. "But you doubt either one will lead you anywhere."
"We both know how easy it is to get any kind of gun and ammo you want over in Southtown with no questions asked, and these burner phones are even more popular," Bria said. "Sorry, Gin, it looks like whoever hired the dwarf to crash the funeral covered his tracks pretty well."
This time I shrugged. "Well, you know me: I prefer to handle my own problems anyway rather than relying on the police."
Bria's features hardened a little more at that. One of the uniformed officers waved at her and she got to her feet and went over to him without another word, her high heels driving spikes into the grass. I knew Bria was still trying to come to terms with the torture she'd suffered at Mab's hands, but it was starting to feel like she thought the attack today was my fault. Hell, maybe it was. No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, trouble just seemed to follow me everywhere I went. I was just glad neither she nor any of the others had been hurt today.
Part of me wanted to go after Bria, to say that I hadn't planned any of this, but I didn't know that it would do any good. So I turned my attention back to the dead dwarf, kneeling down beside his body. But there were no more clues to be found. Someone had cut open his shirt, probably one of the paramedics who'd arrived with the cops. I couldn't even begin to count the number of bullet holes that riddled his chest, tearing through his muscles before punching out his back. He looked like ground-up sausage meat.
Still, I had to admire the cleverness of the person who'd hired him. With so many bigwigs at the funeral and so many bodyguards, the dwarf had never had a chance of getting out of the cemetery alive. Even if he'd managed to kill me or one of the crime bosses, someone - Finn, Kincaid, or one of the bodyguards - probably would have gunned him down after the fact. So I would have been dead, the sniper would have been silenced, and whoever had planned this whole thing would probably have been whistling as he walked out of the cemetery.
I just wondered who had hired the dwarf - and how long it would be before he or she decided to try again.
It didn't take the police and coroner's office as long as I'd thought it would to put the dwarf in a black body bag, cart him away, collect their evidence, and go on their merry way. I guess because what had happened had been so cut-and-dried - and seen by so many witnesses.
Chapter Six
No one asked me any questions, and I didn't volunteer to give a statement. The lower the profile I kept, the better. It was bad enough every crime boss in the city had been here today and had seen me racing toward the sniper. I didn't want the cops to focus their attention on me as well. Then again, they didn't really have a reason to, since I hadn't actually killed anyone today - for a change.
Still, I stayed in the cemetery, with Owen and Finn by my side. While the cops worked, Finn had his ear glued to his cell phone, calling number after number, seeing if any of his many spies and snitches had heard any chatter about the sniper at the funeral. Just about the time the cops wrapped up their investigation, Finn did the same and snapped his phone shut.
"Nothing," he said. "Nobody heard so much as a peep about this before the guy started shooting this afternoon. Whoever hired the dwarf to ambush you did it real quiet like. But him shooting at the other bosses, too . . . well, it's got everyone plenty pissed right now. They all want blood. At least, more than what was in the sniper."
I'd figured as much, given the lack of evidence Bria had found on the body, but I nodded at my foster brother. "Thanks for checking anyway."
"I wish I could tell you more, Gin," he said. "This worries me just as much as it does you."
I hugged him. "I know, and I appreciate your concern, but we'll figure it out. This isn't the first time someone's tried to kill me, and we know it won't be the last. But we'll be ready for them, just like we always are. Just like the old man taught us to be. Capisce?"
Finn grinned. "Capisce."
He hugged me again, then walked over to where Bria was wrapping things up with Xavier and Roslyn. Finn was going to catch a ride back into the city with the three of them. That left me and Owen standing by ourselves. We were the last two people in the cemetery. Even the minister had left a few minutes earlier, along with Jonah McAllister, although the lawyer hadn't been able to resist giving me one more dirty look before he'd gotten into his car and driven away.