Red Man Down Read Online Free

He musta been around for a while, too, because he was on the training crew for recruits when I went through the academy.’
    ‘Jason, now, that can’t be, I’m sure you’re wrong.’ Delaney hustled over to where Greenberg had just zipped up the body bag. A crime-scene specialist was standing ready to help him hoist the body onto the gurney, and as Delaney approached they squatted, Greenberg counted to three, and together they settled it onto the narrow cot. ‘Wait a minute,’ Delaney said, as they began to raise the securing straps, ‘I need to take another look.’
    ‘Oh, Sergeant, for God’s sake, what now?’ Greenberg yelled.
    Delaney raised one hand in magisterial silence, bent, grasped the metal tab and pulled. When the bag opened enough to reveal the face, he motioned all his detectives over to stand beside him. ‘Once and for all now, anybody else think he looks familiar? Because I’ve been in this department a lot longer than you, Jason, and I certainly don’t remember this man around the academy.’
    Leo Tobin, who had been on a hike far up in the Tortolitas when the call came, had just parked in front of the half-dozen other department cars. Getting out, he saw the entire detective squad lined up in a row, bending forward and occasionally straightening, like toy birds by a water dish. Curious, he strolled up to their backsides and said, ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘Oh, Leo, you made pretty good time down the mountain, huh?’ Delaney said.
    ‘Yup. This the alleged thief?’ Tobin peered at the weathered face. ‘Aren’t we being a little extra punitive on this poor hard-working wire stripper?’
    ‘He drew down on Officer Spurlock, who did exactly what he was supposed to do,’ Delaney said.
    Beside her, Sarah heard Dan Spurlock suck in a breath.
    ‘But now, Leo,’ Delaney said, ‘stand over here by me and take a good look, will you? Jason claims he remembers this man – used to be a Tucson cop.’
    ‘Jason is right. Just this once, of course.’ Leo turned his crusty half-smile on Jason Peete, who flipped him the bird. Leo turned back to Delaney. ‘Come on, you remember this guy. Man, he’s really gone downhill, though, hasn’t he?’
    ‘Downhill from what? I don’t remember him at all. You’re sure he was in the department?’
    ‘Think a minute. You’d have been long out of training by the time he joined that crew. But before that, he worked graveyard out of East Side for years and years, so you must have known him there. Name is …’ he clasped his forehead, ‘… come on, brain, you can do it … Ed Something.’
    ‘Yeah!’ Jason said, lighting up again. ‘Ed Lawson … Lewis? No, Lacey.’
    ‘That’s right, Ed Lacey. Whose specialty on the training crew was putting on that red padded helmet and beating the bejeesus out of dozens of would-be street patrolmen.’
    ‘You see? Now I’m not so crazy, huh?’ Jason grinned around the circle of his fellow detectives. ‘That’s why I remember him! Because the year I trained, Lacey was a Red Man, one of several who beat my black ass around that gymnasium more times than I can stand to think about.’

TWO
    T hinking about the first time she met the Red Man, the most feared and respected trainer in the academy, Sarah felt the wind grow colder. It was almost ten years ago – no, longer, closer to eleven.
Man, time really rips along.
    She’d been warned. Recruits in the class before had told her, ‘Watch out for the Red Man. He’s not kidding when he says you have to fight.’
    But she was a ranch kid, raised to think townies were softies. And this was law enforcement, right? There might be some tough tests to pass, but they weren’t going to chain her in a dungeon and turn the ravenous dogs loose. And it wasn’t as if she’d never felt pain – growing up, she’d fallen off a horse plenty of times and, as her father always insisted, got right back on. A steer had knocked her down once, and she’d broken her arm calf roping