by Amy Cross
VIII
A shot rings out, and the figure runs. I push Alice's body off and look at her face, or what's left of it. Most of her head is intact, but her eyes and nose have been blown away by what must have been a beveled ballistic from a high-powered semi-automatic handgun. I reach down and check the pulse at her wrist, but I already know that it's far, far too late.
"Holy shit!" says a voice.
I look up. It's Tepper.
"He went that way," I say, pointing after the man. "Go!" I shout.
Hesitating for a moment, clearly shocked, Tepper turns and runs into the darkness. For a moment, I consider calling her back. After all, I just sent her running after a killer into the pitch black of night. Then again, she's a cop, and that's what cops do.
I wipe my face. There's blood and fragments of bone all over me. I wipe a small, moist piece of meat from my eye. I look at my hands. There's blood everywhere. Blood with bits of splintered bone in it. Pieces of Alice.
***
Two paramedics lift a stretcher and carry it to an ambulance. The whole street is now dotted with police cars and medical vehicles, each with lights flashing on their roofs. The men carrying Alice's body don't hurry. There's no need. The sheet is over her, so that no-one else has to see what has happened to her face. Police are crawling all over the scene. Alice's colleagues... former colleagues... are mopping up and looking for evidence. Tepper is talking to other officers about what happened, about what she saw, and about how she lost the shooter in the maze of alleyways on the other side of the industrial estate.
"We're both wearing odd socks," I say to Frank as we sit on the porch of his house.
"It's been a long time since the planes were here," says Frank, his eyes fixed on all the lights of the vehicles.
"You see planes?" I ask, following his gaze. "I wish I saw planes".
"Who got shot?" Frank asks.
"A friend of mine," I say.
A few minutes of silence pass between us. "She dead?" Frank asks.
I nod.
"The pretty one? Brown hair?"
"No," I say. "The blonde one".
"Damn," he says. "She was beautiful".
I smile. "Are you sure you're nuts?"
"Watch out for the dog," he says. "He bites".
I nod. "I'm sure he does. What kind of dog is he again?"
"Hey," says Tepper. I hadn't noticed her walking over. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," I say. "And so's my friend here".
"I can't believe I lost him," Tepper says. "I was so close, but it was dark. I guess he knows his way around this place. He's probably in a different county by now".
"I wouldn't be so sure," I say.
"He wouldn't stick around now," she replies.
"Wouldn't he? He stuck around so far. Something was keeping him here, even after his little scheme started to unravel. And I mean -" I indicate the destroyed warehouse. "He was literally still here. The scene of the crime. Why the hell would he still be hanging around?"
"Habit?" asks Tepper.
"I don't know," I say. I turn to Frank. "Come on, Frank. Let's see if we can get a moment of clarity here. Why would a guy be hanging about at a place where he knew there'd be police crawling all over the damn scene?"
Frank stares at me for a moment. "Maybe he likes the planes?" he says.
I look at Tepper. "Sorry," I say. "I thought maybe he'd come up with something insightful".
***
"Alex Costas," says Lou, staring at the computer screen. "Just appeared out of nowhere a few years ago and started renting warehouses and shipping containers. No verifiable facts about him. The guy just doesn't exist".
"Who's that?" I ask, looking up and seeing a man speaking to the captain of our division.
"Alice's husband," says Lou.
"Alice had a husband?"
"You didn't know?" Lou says. "Married woman. Couple of years".
I stare at the husband. "I didn't know," I say after a moment.
Tepper walks in, reading a printout. "Alex Costas paid for his rentals with a credit card. It was in his name. I've got a trace on it. If he uses it again, we'll know within thirty seconds".
"Good," I say. "Make sure it's active".
"He won't use it," says Lou. "It'd be suicide. He knows we're onto him. We've got to get smart here".
I look at his computer screen. "Google?" I ask.
"You got a better idea?" Lou asks.
The truth is, I don't. A year ago, I would have. Every case has clues, you just have to be able to spot them. But I've still got the chemicals flooding my system, and the cancer. I'm facing a couple of years of steady decline before it gets to the point where I can't function. But even now, the chemo affects me too badly. I've got to find a way to clear my mind.
"Drink?" asks Lou.
Tepper scowls at him.
"No," I say. "I need to keep my head clear". I look at Tepper. She looks proud, which makes me feel faintly sick. "Later," I say. Tepper frowns. That's better.
Lou gets up and hauls his ass heavily out of the room. I watch him go. "I don't mean to be harsh," I say, "but that guy's an idiot and we're never going to solve this case if we listen to him".
"You got any better ideas?" Tepper asks.
I shake my head.
"You need to take a break," she says. "What happened last night, that'd screw anyone up".
"I'm fine," I say.
"That's all you ever say. You're 'fine'. Don't you ever want to be better than 'fine'?" I know she's staring at me, but I refuse to look at her. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, John?"
"Can I stop you?"
"Are you ill?"
I look at her. "What?"
"I'm worried about you," she says. "And you're not yourself. You seem distracted, and there's something different about the way you walk, the way you talk".
I'm about to say something when I notice a familiar face walking towards the door. "I'm fine," I say. "Got to go".
***
"What are you doing here?" I ask, keeping a safe distance in case he has any more needles.
"How are you doing?" Dr. Fibes asks.
"As it happens," I say, "I'm recovering from having some maniac sticking a needle in my neck".
"I heard you were recovering from something more traumatic," Fibes says.
"It's fine".
"I want you to undergo a psychiatric exam".
I stare at him. "A what?"
"I want to know how you're dealing with all of this. Studies show that emotional stress can have a negative impact on the body's immune system and can limit your ability to recover physically. Your immune system is probably shot to pieces".
"My entire body's shot to pieces," I say. "You want me to spend my remaining energy just trying to survive?"
Tepper approaches.
"Anyway," I say loudly. "Thank you for inviting me for a few drinks, but I'm afraid I'll have to turn you down. I drink very little these days, as I have told you repeatedly. Really, as a medical man you should know better than to try tempting me like this".
Tepper eyes us as she walks past.
"Sorry about that," I say to Fibes. "Just got to get the crow off my back every now and again".
"You have an appointment for chemo on Friday," says Fibes. "Don't make me come and find you this time".
***
Her name is Esmerelda Smith and when I arrive at her house, she initially claims – yells, actually, though the letterbox – that she has no idea what I'm talking about. But I keep banging on her door, my voice getting louder and louder until she opens up and lets me in. Even in a crumby part of town, some people still worry about what the neighbors might think.
"You sold your kid," I say.
"What kid?"
"Sixteen years ago. You had a kid, and you sold him".
For a moment, she looks angry, but then a wave of sadness comes across her face. "What do you want?"
"I'm not here to judge you," I say, "an
d I'm not here to get you into trouble. I'm just here to tell you what happened to him".
She sits down. I stay standing.
"You sold him to a man, right?"
She nods. "He said he could get Thomas a better life. With parents who could take care of him".
"How much did he pay you?"
"Five hundred".
"The guy you sold your son to... He didn't give a damn about whether Thomas would get a better life. He kept him chained up for the past sixteen years".
Esmerelda's face breaks into sobs.
"He fed him just enough to keep him alive," I continue. "Last month, Thomas turned sixteen. So our guy collected his details, got him a passport, and he sold Thomas's identity for a hell of a lot more than five hundred pounds".
Esmerelda stares at me, with tears in her eyes. "Where's my son?" she asks.
"On a morgue slab. He wasn't needed anymore. In fact, he was an inconvenience. So he was killed".
She nods. I expected her to keep sobbing, but she seems to be pulling herself together. "You didn't have to come and tell me all of this," she says slowly.
"Why not?" I say. "Don't all mothers want to know what happens to their children?"
She gets to her feet. "You must leave now. My husband is coming home".
"Lucky man," I say, showing myself to the door. "I assume you won't have the guts to tell him what you did, or what happened. Good luck keeping your dirty little secret".
My phone rings. I grab it from my pocket and answer it gratefully. "Hi," I say. "What is it?"
"He used his card," says Tepper on the other end. “Three minutes at a petrol station near the harbor".
"Pick me up," I say. "By the Harbor Bridge metro station in five minutes".
"Harbor Bridge?" she asks. "What are you doing in that dump?"
“I told someone the truth about something. I thought you'd approve.”
IX
"We have a track on him," says Tepper, keeping a vague eye on the road as we speed past other cars on the freeway. She's also glancing at a mobile phone. "He's on North Bridge Road".
"How the hell are you tracking him?" I ask.
"Easy. When he used his card in the petrol station, there was only one unknown mobile phone signal detected in the building. So we're tracking that phone". She looks out the window. The road is about to merge with another, and traffic is streaming down the ramp. "Look out for a white freezer van". She glances at the mobile phone. "About... now!"
And there it is. A white freezer van races down the ramp and joins our flow of traffic. I look over my shoulder as I hear a helicopter above us.
"You know, that thing's going to tip him off," I say.
"Can't do anything about that," Tepper says.
Sure enough, the van accelerates away from us. The driver has clearly spotted the helicopter, although he probably doesn't know about us yet.
"Want me to drive?" I ask hopefully.
"No time," she says, pulling the car out into another lane, tires screeching. I've been in a few car chases over the years, but always with someone whose driving skills I trusted. This is different. Tepper drives like a maniac on the best of days. I guess this time, at least, her abilities are in some kind of context.
"Can you see him?" she asks.
I stick my head out the window and look ahead. Briefly, in a gap between two lorries, I see the white van. "He's still there," I say. "Just... keep going".
I fall back into my seat as Tepper jerks the car into another lane, miraculously missing two other vehicles. "Are you sure you don't want me to drive?" I plead.
"Relax," she says. "Don't you trust my driving?"
I open my mouth to say something, but at that moment I spot a huge lorry hurtling straight toward us. At the last minute, Tepper swerves into another lane. "You're either really really good," I say, "or really really bad".
"I'm really really good," she says. "But where is he?"
I try to see the van ahead. "Call the pilot, see where he went".
"Okay," she says, but as she starts fiddling with her phone we score a glancing hit on the side of a car in the next lane, sending us speeding off the road and down onto a stretch of wasteland. Tepper slams on the brakes, but we just skid along until we hit a small earth bank and the car does a slow-motion roll onto its side. There's dust everywhere.
"Ow," I say.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"I'm fine," I say, unbuckling my seat-belt and climbing up and out through the window. I look around and there's no sign of the helicopter. We've come to a stop near the river, under a bridge. "Nice view," I say.
Tepper climbs out next to me. "I swear I only took my eyes off the road for a second. Less than that. Half a second".
"Come on," I say. "We need to a ride back into town. Is this your car?"
"Cop car," she says.
"Leave it, then," I say. "Get in touch with base and see how they're doing". I look at her. She's not doing anything. "So now you don't want to use your phone?"
Looking annoyed, she brings up the number and waits. "We took a detour. Where are you?" She listens. "Great. Let us know". She disconnects. "They lost him. Apparently they got distracted when they saw us flying through the scenery. And he's turned his phone off, I guess he worked out how we found him".
"You know the best way to track someone?" I ask.
"A tracer stapled to their butt?"
I shake my head. "Apparently," I say, "the best way to track someone is to crash your car under a bridge and then stand around arguing until you spot that target pulling up in the distance".
Tepper stares at me. "What?" Then she twigs, and she turns to see where I'm looking. About five hundred meters away, down near the water, a familiar white van is pulling up. He probably hasn't seen us since we're so far away and we're partly camouflaged by some bushes. "Wow," Tepper says softly.
"Works every time," I say. She looks at me. "One out of one is still every time," I point out.
***
As we get closer, we see a figure working at something on the back of the van. He's changing the plates. It's hard to make him out, but he seems to be middle-aged, with dark hair and wearing a workman's boiler suit. He clearly has no idea that he's being watched. The bridge curves over his position, so he probably thinks he's sheltered from the helicopter's view.
"How lucky were we?" whispers Tepper.
"The harder you work," I say, "the luckier you get".
We're now about two hundred meters from him. We watch as he finishes with the plates and then opens the back of the van. I hear Tepper take a deep breath as we see what's in the back of the van: a dozen kids, chained to the floor.
“This is bad," Tepper whispers. "We have to stop this now".
"Can you take him out from here?" I ask. “I assume you're armed?”
Tepper pulls her gun from its holster. "Maybe".
"Maybe's not good enough," I say. "You miss, he's off".
"I could blow out the tires".
"We need to get this right," I say.
"Are you a good shot?"
"Me?" In my mind, there's a brief montage of a bunch of times when I fired at one thing and hit something else entirely. "Not especially," I say.
Tepper holds out the gun, closes one eyes and squints as she aims. It's not a look that inspires much confidence. "Couldn't we just hold the gun up and tell him to surrender?" she asks.
"We need to get this done right the first time," I say.
She concentrates, even though it's obvious her hand isn't very steady. For a while, I assume she won't be able to do it, but as the target shuts the van doors, Tepper fires.
The bullet hits the side of the van.
The guy looks around.
Tepper fires again, this time hitting and breaking the glass window in the van's side.
The guy runs for the cab door, but Tepper fires a third time and finally blows one of the van's tires
"This is going really badly," I hiss at her.
"Freeze!" she shouts, standing up and moving toward the van with her gun raised. The suspect seems frozen to the spot, with the door to the driver's side of the vehicle open and his arm reaching inside. He could jump in at any second, but with a blown tire he wouldn't get very far.
If I had a gun...
I follow Tepper, making sure to keep a pace or two behind her. Not particularly good for my ego, but probably safer. Besides, we don't know for sure that the guy hasn't got a gun himself. In fact, he might even have a partner.
"Watch out," I whisper. "In case he's got a friend".
We approach the van. When we're a few meters out, Tepper stops. "Put your hands where I can see them".
"I think that would be a bad idea," the guy says.
"Put your hands where I can see them!" Tepper shouts.
"Are you sure?" he asks.
"Now!" she yells.
He pulls his hand out and the van immediately starts rolling towards the water. "Handbrake," he says simply, with a faint smile.
"Damn it," says Tepper, but before she can say anything the van rolls straight over the edge and hits the water hard, immediately tilting onto its side and starting to sink.
"That was your fault," says the guy. "Now all those kids are gonna drown".
For a moment, I have no idea what Tepper's going to do. And then she does exactly what I'd do in her situation: she shoots the guy in the chest. Just one shot, probably not enough to kill him, but enough to knock him to the ground.
"Come on," she says, running to the edge of the water. "We've got to save them". She takes off her jacket and throws it to the floor, gun and all. At that moment, the guy leaps up and tries to grab the gun, but Tepper spots him at the last moment and pushes the gun away, sending it skidding into the water.
"Bullet-proof vest," says the guy, smiling, before Tepper kicks him in the face.
"Come on!" Tepper shouts at me as the van disappears completely below the surface, air bubbles rising. She jumps into the water and I run to the water's edge, watching her swim down to try to get the van's back door open. I hear a sound and turn to see the guy running off. Without a moment's hesitation, I run after him.
