Warn Me When It's Time

by Cheryl A Head

  “You spotted a spelling error?” Judy teased.

  Don smirked. “Even I know the c comes before the k in fuck you,” Don quipped. “It’s in that fourth note, and then in the last note America isn’t capitalized.”

  “Why is that important?” Charlie asked.

  “Do you remember the photographs of the crime scene? The graffiti had the same misspellings, and the same problems with the writing.”

  They called James immediately to tell him of their discovery. The student who had threatened Professor Pashia was also responsible for the graffiti in the mosque’s prayer hall. It was an early breakthrough in the case. Another avenue of investigation.

  “Someone has to reach out to the community college,” James said. “Do you have the bandwidth to do that?”

  “Yes. We’ll take care of that,” Charlie said. “We’re also trying to get more security footage. The six files we have are very limited. You must know that.”

  “The Dearborn cops only sent you six tapes? Damn. We have hundreds of hours of tape. Okay, I’ll take that task off your plate,” James said angrily.

  “Also, do you know if there’s footage from the nearby strip mall?” Charlie asked. “We think that might be useful to have.”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll see if we can get it.”

  “I think you and Judy should do the college visit,” Don announced when they’d disconnected from James.

  “Okay, but what will you be doing?”

  “I want to sit down with a couple of guys in the hate crimes unit at DPD and find out what else they know. Maybe they’ll tell me what other cases they have. If the Dearborn department starts to stonewall us, we’ll need another door into the case files.”

  “Can’t the FBI get us anything we want?” Charlie asked.

  Don shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve never seen any department welcome the FBI with open arms. James is a good guy, but as long as he wears a dark suit and a lapel pin, he’s going to have the suspicion of the uniforms.”

  “That rings true. Okay, Don, you check in with your contacts at the department.”

  “I’m calling now. Maybe I can buy a couple of rounds of drinks tonight.”

  Chapter 6

  Notification of the gathering had been posted in a private group page on Facebook. There was to be a special guest, a guy running an operation out of Tennessee called the Knights of the Citadel. The warehouse was located on the outskirts of Detroit. Too far to bike. So Robbie bummed a ride from another recruit. He and the guy had talked a few times between meetings and had compared notes on their initiation assignments. His new friend thought Robbie’s mosque tagging was a lot more impressive than his own task, which had been to skim information from a couple of credit cards.

  There were already thirty or forty guys mingling around, showing each other their handguns and sharing survival magazines. There was lots of testosterone in the room. The old-man kind. The guest speaker was holding court near the front of the room. He was dressed in a purple robe with two gold crosses. They don’t do this kind of Halloween dress-up stuff in the serious groups like Stormfront. Stormfront had rules of membership, protocols, training, online discussion forums, and experienced leaders. They had been in touch with Robbie, and had introduced him to their local contact in Lansing.

  “I think this is going to be a good talk,” the fellow recruit said. “Look at the guy. He must be almost six-four. He looks like John Wayne.”

  “Yeah, but John Wayne never wore a purple dress,” Robbie said, shaking his head.

  Robbie felt somebody staring at him and turned to see Frank. His look wasn’t friendly.

  “Come on,” Robbie said, slapping his friend on the back. “Let’s get a beer.”

  That was another difference between the European and American associations. The European rules were explicit about not drinking, and for those in the upper echelons of the group there were strict health requirements.

  The guy in charge of the warehouse had set up a couple of tubs filled with beer on ice—one with long-neck bottles, the other with cans. Every drink was a buck. Robbie paid for two bottles and handed one to his friend. There was also a table set up to purchase books by the speaker. Robbie picked up a book titled Peril to Democracy. The cover illustration was a montage of signs, languages, and symbols of America’s growing immigrant population. Robbie gave the vendor ten dollars for the book. He was thumbing through the pages when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “I need to talk to you,” Frank said, whispering in Robbie’s ear.

  “What about?”

  “Just follow me, newbie,” Frank growled.

  Robbie hesitated a moment. His friend had moved over to the group listening to the guest of honor, and Frank was heading to the back of the room near the main door. Robbie reluctantly followed.

  “I haven’t seen you since the assignment,” Frank said.

  “No. I’ve been studying and reading.”

  “You talk to anybody about what happened?”

  “No,” Robbie lied.

  Frank nodded. He threw back his head, and lifted his can of beer upside down as he finished it off. He gave Robbie a strange look, then crushed the can in his meaty hand.

  “You know nobody was supposed to die that night. I must have put the Semtex too close to the door,” Frank said, staring into space. “Anyway. Shit happens and sometimes there’s collateral damage.” Frank didn’t wait for a response or any more small talk. “Keep your nose clean, kid. And your mouth shut.” He turned and moved back to the beer tubs.

  The man from Tennessee, a former prosecuting attorney from California, inspired his audience. He spoke of the courts being overrun with criminals who came over the border and got caught up in gangs and the drug enterprise. He talked of the loss of American values. He blamed the liberals in American politics, the Democrats in Congress, and the university elites. He spoke of the need to take back our institutions and get rid of big government in our lives. He got a standing ovation.

  The ice tubs had been replenished, and while the speaker signed books everyone had another beer. Robbie looked for his ride, and spotted his friend waiting in line to shake the speaker’s hand. He waited in the last row of seats, pulling up the website for Stormfront and browsing videos on how to construct a pipe bomb. He was startled by the voice behind him.

  “You need a ride home, newbie?” Frank asked. His eyes were watery and he wore a goofy smile.

  Robbie didn’t want Frank to know where he lived. He hadn’t thought of it before, but he was afraid of him. Frank had maybe thirty pounds on him and a sidearm affixed to his belt. Frank was also clearly drunk.

  “No thanks. I’m waiting for my friend.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Robbie watched Frank move unsteadily to the door and open it, glancing back with a look that sent a shiver up his spine.

  # # #

  Behind the locked door of his attic retreat, Robbie scanned the conversations of a dozen Stormfront members on one of his computers and on the other, he pulled up the Facebook page of the White Turks. Someone had already posted a photo of tonight’s guest speaker in his purple satin robe gesturing with one hand, and displaying one of his books in the other. Robbie closed the FB page.

  He minimized the Stormfront listserv and typed in the link posted by a member. The photo that popped up was of swarming Guatemalans breaching a fence line in Texas. The accompanying article—from an Arizona blogger—was a list of crimes reported to have been committed by Latinos in the United States. The most heinous was the rape of two young, blond cheerleaders returning home from practice in Bakersfield, California.

  Next he viewed a YouTube video about the top ten hybrid bicycles, followed by a thirty-minute tutorial on the safety precautions required to assemble improvised explosive devices. He finally laid across his bed with a pounding headache. That asswipe Frank! He claimed he knew what the fuck he was doing.

  When Robbie awakened with a start, he’d sweated th
rough his tee. In his dream he’d been running from an explosion that sent shards of tile scattering through the air. He’d been propelled from his bike by the wave of the blast. When he looked back, Professor Pashia was engulfed in flames, beckoning and holding a textbook out to him.

  Chapter 7

  Judy had made an appointment with the Director of Human Resources at the community college—a woman named Roberta Suttles. She was more than happy to meet with the investigators who were helping the Pashia family. “He was one of my favorite and most effective teachers,” she’d told Judy.

  Suttles’s office was in the administrative building on Fort Street only a half mile from the Mack offices. Charlie and Judy had considered using the People Mover, Detroit’s elevated rail system, and then walking the short distance to the college, but finally opted for the quick drive to the downtown campus.

  Suttles was an attractive, friendly, middle-aged woman with black curls that bounced around her face as she talked. She reminded Charlie a bit of her mother. It was quickly determined that individual student files were off-limits, but Suttles made a call to the school’s dean who gave her permission to make copies of Hassan Pashia’s class rosters for the past five years. The forms included student names and their enrollment in particular classes.

  “I see several names that repeat over a couple of years,” Judy noted.

  “That’s not unusual for students taking night classes. Professor Pashia taught classes in our Computer Information Systems Program. We offer associate degrees and certifications in that program.”

  “Is there any way to get more information on these students?” Charlie asked.

  “As I said, with a court order or if asked by a law enforcement unit. There’s a specific protocol they use.”

  Charlie nodded and thanked Suttles for her help.

  “I hope you find the people responsible for the professor’s death. He was a very decent man,” Suttles said earnestly.

  # # #

  “She’s a nice woman,” Judy said as they walked to the car.

  “Yup.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Ernestine has a boyfriend.”

  “What?’ Judy was smiling broadly. “Well, that’s great news. Good for her.”

  “I guess so. It just seems kind of sudden.”

  “I recall you saying you wish she weren’t so alone. She can use the company, right? You won’t have to worry about her so much.”

  “She already has her girlfriends at her building. Plus, she has her walking group.”

  “And now she’s got a man,” Judy said enthusiastically. “Go Ernestine!”

  # # #

  Charlie and Judy mapped out the rest of the day’s work. Judy would scan social media for the students that showed up multiple times on Pashia’s class rosters. It was tedious work but she was good at that sort of research, and she would enlist Tamela, who had already proven herself valuable in online searches. Charlie would focus on scanning security video.

  James had delivered on his promise, and this morning a thumb drive had been delivered that included ninety video files. Don was meeting again with his DPD contacts, hoping to gain their fullest cooperation in the Pashia case.

  # # #

  Charlie had no special technique for effectiveness in viewing security footage. In a murder investigation last year, she and Don had pored over hours of footage in a cramped room at police headquarters. Just being able to spread out in her own conference room was already a plus.

  She’d organized the files chronologically in each category: street views, mosque cameras, and strip mall. She’d began with the mosque parking lot footage, which had the fewest files, and had been at it for a couple of hours.

  “How’s it going?” Judy asked, sticking her head in the room.

  “Not bad.” Charlie’s feet were in a chair, and a cup of coffee and notebook by her side.

  “Are you ready for a lunch break?”

  “Maybe in a half hour. I have one more parking lot tape to look at. How’s the Googling going?”

  “So far, so good. I’ve divided the names with Tamela. I started with a general search to see if the students have a social media presence. Most of them have old Facebook pages but many of them post to Twitter, too. One thing we found is a website Mr. Pashia used with his study groups. I’m cross-referencing the class rosters with the study groups.”

  “Very good, Judy. What were you thinking for lunch?”

  “That’s the same question I got from Don, who just called. He’ll be back by one o’clock. He’s grumpy.”

  “What else is new when he’s hungry?”

  “I thought maybe I’d have pizza delivered. I know you hate it, but it pacifies Don.”

  Charlie nodded. “Okay. Will you get me a salad? Extra tomatoes and cucumbers?”

  “You got it. Oh, and Don said he’d help you look through the footage.”

  “That’s the least he can do, for us having pizza again.”

  Charlie looked at her notes. So far there was not much of interest except for the two times she’d watched Pashia’s car leave the mosque, only to return a half hour later. This was before the parking lot cameras had been mysteriously disabled.

  # # #

  Don arrived at ten of one. Charlie knew the exact time because the noise level from the reception area and bullpen tripled. Don never entered any room timidly, and a few minutes later he burst into the conference room.

  “I’m back.”

  “I heard.”

  “Anything from the footage yet?”

  “Nope. But I have it organized and you’re going to help me I understand.”

  “Is that the food?” Don responded, heading to the credenza.

  They all stopped their tasks for a brief lunch break and to hear Don’s report on his meeting with DPD’s finest. The night before, he’d bought beers for two members of the hate crimes unit, and today had a conversation with Captain Travers, the officer-in-charge at headquarters.

  “Travers sends his love, Mack,” Don said, scarfing down a half slice of pizza. “He asked how you were doing.”

  “I hope you told him I’m fine now that I don’t have to see him very often.”

  “I think he gets that.”

  “You two really have it in for each other, don’t you?” Judy asked.

  “He’s not my biggest fan,” Charlie answered. “And vice versa.”

  “Travers did give me a lot of information to follow up on. I have the names of additional witnesses who aren’t on the task force list. He’s really pissed off about these white supremacist groups. His own church had an incident. Someone broke into the office and trashed it.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “The church didn’t report it. They didn’t want the press to get hold of the story but the task force is investigating.”

  “Judy, do you remember what the FBI report said about the breakdown of these incidents in the past year? How many churches, mosques, and temples?”

  Judy punched a few keys on her newest toy. She was the agency’s early adaptor of technology, and she’d been happy so far with her new Windows mobile device. “Thirteen churches, two temples and seven mosques.”

  “What’s on your mind, Mack?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Just something I’m noodling on. Let’s get back to the security files. I think screening this footage will take the rest of the day and part of tomorrow.”

  It was almost four o’clock when Don shouted, “I think I found something.” He waved Charlie over to his side of the table. “Look here.” Don pointed at his laptop screen.

  “What is that?” Charlie asked, squinting. “A bicycle?”

  “Yep. A guy just stopped it at that tree where I found the gum wrapper and clip, and walked across the street toward the mosque. He hasn’t come back into view yet.”

  “What day is this?”

  “A week before the mosque bombing.”

  They stared at the footage for t
en minutes, the time code ticking away the seconds and minutes on the screen. At three minutes after 10 p.m. a figure came in view just below the camera, walked briskly across the lawn and across the street, and retrieved the bike. The face was never in view, and the person’s actions at the bike were blocked by the tree. The biker rode out of view, headed north.

  “A guy on a bike,” Charlie said.

  “Or it could be a woman,” Don said.

  “Good looking out, Don. Let’s see if he or she shows up again.”

  The next two hours were spent with footage from a camera at the bus stop a half block away. That camera caught a glimpse of the biker riding toward the mosque, but lost the image before the tree. Since then the footage had only showed lots and lots of cars and buses, but no bikers.

  By six o’clock they were both bored by the task, and Don scrounged for the last slice of pizza. Judy and Tamela had left an hour ago.

  “Where did Judy put it? It’s not in the fridge, and I don’t see the empty box,” Don complained. “How many more tapes are there, Mack?”

  “Six or seven. They’re from the strip mall.”

  “Can we tackle them tomorrow morning?” Don asked. “I can barely see straight after staring at that screen, and I promised Rudy I’d play video games with him tonight. I better give my eyeballs a break.”

  “Yeah. That’s okay. I’ll finish off the tapes. Tomorrow we can focus on that witness list you got from DPD.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Don grabbed the tweed jacket from his desk, then stuck his head in the conference room door. “You parked in the garage?”

  “No, I found a space on the street when we got back from the college.”

  “Okay. See you tomorrow and, uh, thanks for the conversation earlier.”

  Charlie checked in with Mandy who was already home and starting dinner. A lasagna.

  “Oh, that sounds really good but I have to work a couple of extra hours. I have a task to complete for the Pashia case. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You can zap some lasagna when you get in, and I’ll save you some salad.”

  # # #

  The security camera at the strip mall, a couple of blocks from the mosque, had a broad view of the parking lot on the corner of Ford Road. Charlie had two weeks of footage and she watched cars enter and exit, mostly headed to and from the liquor store. Three days before the mosque bombing, Dearborn Heights police had been dispatched, and Charlie watched as they cornered, and arrested, a man who had exited the store. She also saw the unsteady treks of a half dozen people who, even before they made their drink purchases, were too drunk to drive. There was an altercation between two ladies who might not have actually been ladies. Charlie watched as one of the women snatched the wig off the other which led to a brief scuffle just before another police cruiser showed up.