Warn Me When It's Time

by Cheryl A Head

  “I know she’ll be worried, but you’ve got to tell her, Charlie,” Judy said.

  Don picked up the pressure: “You’re a target for these guys, so you won’t be going anywhere alone. My idea is to put you in your car at night, call to tell Mandy you’re on the way, and she can see you into the house.”

  “I think that’s overkill.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. And about the leak?” Don asked. “You think Saleh can be trusted?”

  Charlie and Judy gave Don hard stares.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I know you two think the guy is handsome and all that, but we haven’t been in touch with James for months. He bleeds FBI. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “I trust James implicitly. I’m following my gut on that,” Charlie said.

  “Me too,” Judy said.

  “Okay, okay. I thought you always said there were no bad questions,” Don said, pouting.

  # # #

  “Mom called this afternoon. She’s invited you and me to her place for Saturday brunch. She wants to introduce us to her new beau.”

  “You said yes, I hope.”

  “I did. I know you’re as eager to meet Mr. Constantine as I am.”

  “Is she doing okay? Is she in love?” Mandy asked dragging out the word love.

  “It’s a little fast for that, don’t you think? Especially at her age.”

  “You can’t mean that, Charlie. People can fall in love at any age.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Are you jealous someone else has sparked your mother’s interest?”

  “No. Of course not. Mom and I will always be close. We talked a lot today about this hate crimes business. She’s really curious about the case.”

  “I was only teasing. I know Ernestine will always be your biggest fan, and you hers.”

  Charlie bumped Mandy with her hip. “For the record, I’m your number one fan, too.”

  Hamm yanked his leash to chase a squirrel who dared cross their path, and Charlie pulled him back to the sidewalk. These evening walks were good for all three of them. Now that the weather was milder, they were seeing a lot more neighbors on their porches, and interacting with more dog walkers.

  Mandy came from a family of dog lovers. Her parents had presented her and her brother with a puppy when they were very young kids. Since then, she had loved various family dogs. On the other hand, Charlie—raised by a school principal mother and a lawyer father with erratic hours—hadn’t grown up with any pets. She was only now learning how much you could love a dog.

  “Having a dog is a good way to meet people,” Charlie said. “If you own a dog, you can connect to strangers about poop, pet food, grooming, those sort of things. You don’t have to talk politics or think about your differences.”

  “Dogs just want to give and receive love,” Mandy said. “We can learn a lot from them.”

  Their pooch, MC Hammer Porter-Mack, was a rescue dog, shaggy and gregarious, with big paws and an equally big heart. Hamm had become a bit of a celebrity in their community last fall when he’d been dognapped by bad guys intent on scaring Charlie off a case. Following his rescue, he had gotten more treats and ear rubs than any other dog in the neighborhood.

  “Have you Googled this Constantine guy yet?” Mandy asked.

  “I haven’t had time. It would be a perfect task for Judy but we’ve all been consumed by the Pashia case.”

  “How’s it going?”

  Charlie still hadn’t told Mandy the latest about Wyatt. Not about his connection to an organized hate group, or about the deal he’d proposed to avoid prosecution. And not about the note in his pocket.

  “Nothing much to report.”

  Charlie waited until they had eaten ice cream, watched the local news, and locked up for the night before she offered the news about Wyatt. Mandy was angry.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “After we’d had a stress-free evening. I knew you’d be alarmed and ready to defend me.”

  “Well I am.”

  “You and Don are on the same wavelength. He says he and I are going to be tied at the hip during this case. He walked me to my car before we left the office today.”

  “Charlie, promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t take any unnecessary chances, and don’t try to protect me by withholding information. Please.”

  “I won’t. I’m sorry.”

  Charlie nudged Hamm off the human bed to sleep in his own, and pulled Mandy into her arms.

  Chapter 10

  Robbie’s appointment with the local recruiter of Stormfront was in a few hours. The man was in Lansing, but they’d agreed to meet in Ann Arbor when Robbie admitted he didn’t have a car.

  There was a bike trail that would get him to the appointment in two hours, and the ride would give him an exceptional workout. The round trip and the meeting would take most of his Saturday.

  He’d slept well last night even after staying up late to watch an online training on the effects of tear gas. This morning, he’d showered and dressed for his trip and now he was having cereal. His mother had started nagging him about not helping around the house, so when he got back home this afternoon he had to clean the gutters and mow the lawn.

  “When will you be back?” his mother asked.

  “I told you. Before five. I’ll have plenty of time to do the outside work then.”

  “Biking is not your job. I depend on you to help around the house.”

  “I know. But I have a business meeting today. I’m not just fooling around.”

  “Robbie, don’t let me down.”

  “Get off my back, Mom. How many times do I have to tell you, I’ll do the damn yard work.”

  Robbie couldn’t wait to get his own place and get away from his pain-in-the-ass mother and his juvenile delinquent kid brother. In the meantime, he was glad to have his own space in the attic. He kept it orderly, with his books and videotapes organized on shelves. He had two computers and a laptop. His handgun and a rifle purchased from a big-box store were stored in his closet. One time Robbie had found his brother in his space taking selfies with the rifle. He gave the kid a beating just like the kind his loser father had given him before he left for good five years ago. Since then he’d padlocked the attic door to keep his nosy brother out.

  Robbie methodically ticked through his bike safety checklist. Air in tires. Check. Cables not cracked. Check. Handle grips tight. Chain lubed. Pedals tight. Make sure the saddlebag has a spare tube, tire levers, hand pump, Allen wrench, bike clips, goggles, gloves. Check.

  The day was bright, dry, and mild—great for a bike ride. By the time he hit the Ann Arbor bike trail he was in a peaceful, focused state. He’d agreed to meet his contact, Arthur Spader, at an outdoor market area. Robbie spotted the guy sitting at a picnic bench near the man-made lake, and secured his bike to a rack. Spader said he’d wear a red cap, which he’d done. It stood out among the blue and maize scarves, hats, and jackets worn by the University of Michigan fans. Spader was clean shaven, lean, and from the tug of his jacket at his shoulders, he looked fit. He was in his mid-thirties or early forties. Not handsome, but probably considered so because of his aqua blue eyes.

  They shook hands.

  “So, you’re a serious biker from the looks of you. What was your trip, maybe two hours?”

  “A little over two, and with the hills it was a great workout. I try to do a two to three-hour ride a couple of times a week.”

  “That’s impressive. Tell me about yourself,” Spader dived in. “Wait, I’m sorry. You want to get a chowder or hot dog or something? All the food in the cul-de-sac is good. You could get something more substantial if you like. I’m buying.”

  “I could eat a fish sandwich. Maybe some onion rings.”

  “Beer?”

  “Make it a Coke.”

  “Okay. You wait here to save the bench. Everybody wants to sit near the water. I’ll be right back.”

  Robbie watched Spader walk away. His leather jacket had
an eagle painted on the back. His jeans and boots made him look like a motorcycle guy. Robbie took off his jersey and spread it on the table to discourage anyone from trying to sit with him. He looked around. This was a typical Ann Arbor crowd. A lot of mixed-race families with kids ranging from peach-colored to caramel. A bunch of minorities, liberals wearing Obama tees, and college kids who thought they were better than him.

  Spader returned with two trays of food. “I got you a bowl of chili, too, in case you were hungry after your bike ride.”

  Robbie shook his head. “Naw. I don’t eat red meat.”

  They sat for a while, looking at the goings-on at the market. At the gazebo a bearded, long-haired guy with a guitar played old-fashioned folk tunes. A few college students were throwing a Frisbee, and a guy at a booth was registering people to vote.

  “So what do you do besides bike?” Spader asked.

  “I work in the IT department of an insurance company. It’s a new job. Before that I was doing deliveries on my bike. I took night classes to get my associates degree.”

  “You a Christian?”

  “Uh, I mean, I used to go to church when I was a kid, but I haven’t had much time for that lately.”

  “Jesus is the light and the way,” Spader said. “The Christian right is part of the solution to the flood of foreign ideologies to this country. The country might be going down a cesspool, voting for a man from Kenya for President, but in my county we put four new independent candidates in office. They believe in the second amendment, the white man’s role as leader, and the right to life.”

  Robbie knew Spader was associated with the European groups and they talked a lot about the cleansing of society, and returning it to its original status where it was run by free white men. They were suspicious of national governments, corporations, and the liberal media.

  “I haven’t really thought about most of that, but I do believe a man should be able to buy and keep a gun, and have a job. There are too many people trying to keep both those rights away from us.”

  Spader nodded and smiled. “I understand you’re affiliated with the White Turks. I know some of those guys. What do you think of them?”

  Robbie wondered if this might be part of a test of his allegiance to the cause. “I, uh, they’re all right. I guess. They don’t seem like they’re doing a lot of preparation for what has to come.”

  “What do you mean?” Spader asked, scooping a spoonful of chowder.

  “Well. Most of these guys are soft and old. They have guns and talk about defending their way of life, but they couldn’t run a half mile if they had to, and they aren’t learning the modern skills they need to fight a war. They watch army movies and fight wars in their imaginations.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  They talked for almost two hours, then Robbie watched Spader amble to a new Jeep Cherokee and glance back before he drove away. He had said Robbie was just the kind of young guy with computer skills the group leaders were looking for. He promised to be in touch.

  Robbie used the Porta-John, filled his water bottle at the fountain, and got back on his bike. The return ride was into the wind, and on the hills he had to downshift more than usual. He began to feel his legs getting tighter. Pulling over to take a break, he drank half the bottle of water. I probably shouldn’t have had the onion rings. Empty calories.

  It was four-thirty when he locked his bike in the garage. Glancing up at the sagging gutters before he went into the house, he heard his mother yell his name repeatedly as he climbed the stairs to his attic room. With his legs burning he locked the door behind him.

  Chapter 11

  Charlie brought Danishes, orange juice, and a small tray of fruit into the conference room and set it up on the table. Sometimes she liked getting into the office before the others. She looked around the bullpen desks where she, Don, and Judy did the bulk of their work and silently thanked God for their good fortune. Many small businesses didn’t last past three years, but the Mack Agency was now in its fifth year of operation.

  Charlie heard the front door open. “Judy?”

  “Yep. It’s me.”

  Charlie joined Judy in the reception area and watched her unload files, her tote, and a couple of bags from McDonald’s.

  “Great minds think alike,” Charlie said, pointing at the bags.

  “Did you bring in food too?”

  “Pastry, OJ, and some fruit.”

  “I bought ten hash browns.”

  “I guess we both know we’re getting to that point in the investigation where eating and brainstorming is everything.”

  “Yep. You’re in early. Did you sleep okay?”

  “Not really. I wanted to come in and look at the board for a while. Sometimes you have to look at just one thing, and get that right. After that the rest of the picture becomes clearer. Like ‘Finishing the Hat.’”

  Judy put her scarf on the clothes tree. She and Charlie stared at each other. They both knew another game of “name that Broadway show tune” was afoot. It was their ongoing fun to invoke a musical that fit their immediate problem. Judy smiled.

  “You know it, don’t you?” Charlie asked.

  “Sunday in the Park with George,” Judy said.

  “You see. That is why you and I will always be together. I can’t do that with any other human being in the world.”

  “We’re certainly two nerds of a kind,” Judy agreed.

  “Okay, I better get to it. Don will be here soon and I won’t have the quiet I need. Come in and get some fruit and a Danish if you want.”

  Charlie had put the Post-its back into their categories: questions, facts, what-ifs. She lifted a note from the board. Hassan Pashia was killed in a mosque attack. Charlie placed the note in the middle of the table. She was doing a reset. She grabbed a strawberry, took a bite, and stared at the board.

  Why was he killed? That was the question that kept them involved in this case. Did an aggrieved student plan his death? If so, the student would have to know Pashia’s schedule, his routine. Was his murder an accident? A robbery or hate crime gone wrong? Charlie scrolled through the task force report on her computer. Ten cases in six months. Five churches, two mosques, one temple, two funeral homes. All connected, but how? The attacks happened at night. One man, a caretaker at a funeral home, had seen someone running away from the facility. He described the person as a white man in a baseball cap. The witness also heard a truck or SUV squeal away from the location. Besides Mr. Pashia, no one else had been killed in this string of crimes. Why had the mosque attack become personal? Why did Mr. Pashia have to die alone at the end of a normal workday?

  Charlie stood back from the board taking in all the questions. After a few minutes she moved to Judy’s desk in the bullpen.

  “How’s it going?” Judy asked.

  “Nothing, so far. Did you find anything interesting in the student profiles?”

  “There’s one guy . . .” Judy said.

  # # #

  Robert Christopher Barrett was twenty-one years old, a graduate of Garden City High School. He’d applied for, and was accepted into, the Computer Information Systems Program at Wayne County Community College. He’d taken night classes and online classes at the college—four of them taught by Hassan Pashia. His known address, in Garden City, was a home owned by Susan Barrett. He’d worked as a sales clerk at a Walmart, as a computer assistant at FedEx, and was now employed at Guardpost Insurance Company in Southfield.

  Judy had included several photos of the boy pulled from his social media accounts. In one he posed in camo pants, holding a long gun and wearing a baseball cap labeled Security. Charlie thought he was the kind of kid who might have been bullied in school for being too skinny, too pale, too geeky.

  “He certainly doesn’t look like a domestic terrorist,” Judy said.

  “Maybe not,” Don said chomping on a Danish. “But he does look like a kid on the path to self-radicalization.”

  “I think we all have a prejudgment
about what these people will look like. Barrett’s pretty close to the profile actually,” Charlie said. “But these guys come in all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds.”

  “Look at the next page,” Judy said. “These are posts from his Facebook page. Look at his writing. Remember the weird spellings in the mosque graffiti?”

  Barrett liked to write a lot, and his posts were about a range of topics. What he didn’t like about Detroit seemed to be a favorite topic, and he had a definite anti-immigration bent. Sometimes he recommended books and websites to prove his points. Other times his posts were personal rants about how he had been mistreated. Each post had misspellings, letters gone astray and placed in the wrong part of a word or sentence. The most obvious one was in the last post on the page. Fukc these mongrels! he had written with the c and k transposed.

  “That’s got to be our guy,” Don announced.

  “Yep,” Charlie said, looking at the whiteboard. “Judy, were there any photos of him with a bike?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s have Tamela create a list of the bike stores in the metro area. Maybe James can get a team to contact the shops and see if Barrett has an account. The more we have connecting him to the mosque bombing the better to make a prosecution stick.”

  “We better call Mr. FBI, don’t you think, Mack?”

  “I’ll text James now, and set up a Skype call.”

  # # #

  Their new SMART Board had come as a bonus from building management for signing a multiyear lease at the beginning of the year. The board could be used for simple note taking, as a projector screen, and as both a TV and online monitor. Judy was enthralled with the whiteboard and, so far, only she knew how to operate all its functions. They mostly used it for the low-tech tasks, but today they were doing a video conference with James and one of the Detroit police members of the task force.

  Charlie, Don and Judy sat side by side at the conference table, lined up across from the electronic board. On the other end, James and Commander Yvonne Coleman sat across the table from each other. Charlie knew of Coleman. She had worked her way up the ranks during eighteen years on the police force, but they’d never met.