True Blue K-9 Unit: Brooklyn Christmas

by Laura Scott

  “Hi, I’m Matty’s grandfather, Fred Jolly,” he said. He nodded to a smiling woman with long white braids who he’d been setting up the stage with. “That’s my wife, Irene.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Noelle said. “I’m Officer Noelle Orton and this is my partner, Liberty.”

  “Are you two looking for something?” he asked.

  “We are,” Noelle confirmed, hoping the couple would respect it if she left it at that. So far the NYPD had chosen not to go to the public with news about the trace drugs found at the dock, as details were still scarce and they didn’t want to start a panic. “You guys are handing out toys at five?”

  “Hopefully,” Fred said. “We had a bigger turn out than expected at a previous event this morning and had to send someone to get more toys from our warehouse.”

  “Where was that event?” she asked. Could that have been where little Matty came into contact with whatever scent Liberty had picked up on?

  “A fire hall in Queens,” Irene called, as she walked over to join them. “You should talk to our son, Adam. He runs our family charity and he’s down at the loading dock, waiting for the van.”

  She gestured toward an unmarked double door behind the stage. Yeah, judging by the tug on the leash, Liberty thought she should go that way too.

  “Thanks,” Noelle said. “Will do.”

  She followed Liberty across the floor, through the door, and out into a dingy back hallway as she radioed Raymond and filled him in. Raymond reported back that he and Abby hadn’t found anything at the toy store. She thanked God another store’s inventory had checked out clean. Liberty’s pace quickened until she was practically running down the hall. They pushed through another door and out into the cold. The sky was gray with thick clouds that blocked out any glimmer of the setting sun. Flakes pelted down from above. The loading dock was empty except for a white van with Jolly Family Charity on the side. Liberty pulled her toward it. Then the dog stopped outside the van’s back door and barked. Could this be the lead they’d been waiting for?

  “Morrow,” Noelle spoke into her radio. “Liberty’s reacted to the Jolly Family Charity van.”

  “Gotcha,” Raymond’s voice came back. “Stay with the van. I’ll speak to the Jollys and get their permission to search it.”

  “Understood,” Noelle said.

  Liberty whimpered loudly. Noelle ran her hand over the back of her partner’s head to reassure her.

  “I hear you,” Noelle said. “There’s something important in that van. But we can’t just open the door and check it out without permission or a warrant, unless we hear someone in imminent danger inside.”

  A motor rumbled and the van lurched forward, as if someone behind the wheel had just mashed their foot on the accelerator. Liberty barked furiously as if to say, it’s getting away!

  “The van’s pulling out!” she shouted to Raymond and reeled off the license plate as the van sped away. Help me, Lord! Even with traffic, there was no way she’d catch up to it on foot.

  A black four-door pickup tore around the side of the building. She ran toward it and raised her badge. It screeched to a halt.

  “Stop!” Noelle called. “NYPD! I need to commandeer your vehicle!”

  The passenger door swung open and she looked up into the sharp blue eyes of the man in military fatigues from the poster.

  Was this Adam Jolly?

  “To chase my stolen van?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Get in,” he said. “I’m driving.”

  * * *

  Adam’s right hand tightened on the steering wheel, letting his injured left hand with its three missing fingers stay down by his side. His van had just left the lot with his wounded and kidnapped employee, Quentin Stacy, trapped in the back. As long as Quentin’s phone stayed on and was sending out a signal, Adam’s phone would be able to track his GPS. But pausing to wait to pick up a passenger hadn’t been part of the plan and he didn’t have a moment to waste.

  “I drove tactical convoys in Afghanistan,” he said, “I was a corporal in the United States Army. I’ve got a man inside the van and a way to track it. Now come on.”

  She quickly checked in with someone named Morrow on the other end of her radio, then glanced at her dog. “Liberty, back seat.”

  The Labrador leaped in the passenger door and climbed in the back, pushing its furry body through the gap between the seats. Half a second later and the cop was in with her seat belt buckled and the door closed.

  “You sure you want to bring a dog on a high-speed chase?” he asked.

  “She’s my K-9 partner,” the cop said, “and considering New York traffic, I’ll be impressed if you actually manage to speed.”

  He chuckled. Okay, so the cop was decisive and seemed to have a sense of humor. He cast her a quick side glance as he put the truck into Drive. She was beautiful too, Adam thought. Unusually so, with high cheekbones and long dark hair tied tight in a bun by the nape of her neck.

  “Noelle Orton,” she said, as if sensing his glance. “Brooklyn K-9 Unit.”

  “Adam Jolly,” he said. His eyes cut to the windshield. “Nice to meet you.”

  He peeled out of the lot, glancing from the road ahead to the blue dot on the map on his cell phone mounted to the dashboard.

  “Nice to meet you too,” Noelle said. “What do you mean, you have a man inside the van?”

  He pulled his truck out onto the street. Traffic surrounded them almost immediately, and the van was nowhere in sight. But the tiny blue dot showed the van had turned left. He followed.

  “I got a call from my employee, Quentin Stacy,” he added. The light ahead turned yellow and a car coming the opposite way was trying to push a left turn. He gritted his teeth, pressed the gas and steered around it. The car honked loudly, but he’d safely made the light. “He was in the back of the van about to unload toys when a masked man caught him by surprise and stabbed him. Thankfully, he managed to call me.”

  “So it’s a kidnapping?” Noelle pressed. “Or the masked man panicked and left with him in the back?”

  Good question.

  “I don’t know,” Adam admitted. All he knew was that he was not about to let him die. He’d lost more people than he liked to count, from those he’d served with to Matty’s mother. The last convoy Adam had driven overseas might’ve ended in an IED explosion that had cost him a few fingers and prematurely ended his military career. But others in his armored vehicle had lost their lives.

  By the look of things, the blue dot was heading toward the parkway. If he was right, maybe he could cut them off, or at least catch up. An alley loomed ahead on his right. It hadn’t been plowed, but there was only a couple feet of snow on the ground. He shifted into four-wheel drive and prayed his hunch was right.

  “And you’re tracking him on GPS?” she asked.

  “Yup.” He swerved down the alley. The ground was slick with slush beneath his tires. His wipers beat hard and fast against the falling snow like a metronome. Noelle turned to her shoulder radio and filled Morrow in on the pursuit, reeling off details about his van, their route, and the likely route of the vehicle they were after with a precision and sharpness that impressed him. He left the alley, merged with traffic, glanced at the rearview mirror and caught sight of a blond furry face. It looked like Liberty was smiling at him.

  “Oh, so you think this is fun, do you?” he asked.

  Noelle turned to him and he realized she’d ended the call. “Are you talking to my dog?”

  “Maybe.” He realized he was grinning. Not that there was anything really to smile about, but Noelle had that same quality of lightening the tension while still keeping focus that some of the best soldiers he’d served with had. “You’ve called for backup.”

  “Police and paramedics,” she said. “They’ll try to cut him off.”

  The
Belt Parkway on-ramp loomed ahead. He took it and a sudden prayer of thanksgiving filled his lungs—the shortcut had worked and he could see his van just a few vehicles ahead. It was also speeding and driving recklessly by the looks of it. But he had eyes on it and it sounded like help was on the way.

  Thank you, Lord. Please, help the paramedics get to Quentin in time.

  Okay, now it was just a matter of keeping eyes on the van. Traffic was heavy enough that people would probably complain, but light enough some people were still trying to speed. He watched as the van dodged left and right, swerving between vehicles without signaling. He gritted his teeth, set his jaw and followed.

  And now that he was no longer watching both the dot and the road, he realized there was something he hadn’t even asked. “If you didn’t know about Quentin, why did you even want to chase my van?”

  She prayed under her breath and decided to trust him.

  “We have reason to believe illegal drugs might’ve been smuggled into the country via the port in a shipment of toys,” she said. “We were doing a search of the mall and your family pointed me in the direction of the loading bay. Thankfully, the toys in the mall store seemed to be clean, but Liberty smelled something in the van. But before I could investigate further, the van took off.”

  She’d met his family? He wasn’t sure why that thought struck his mind as hard as it did, but he didn’t have time to figure it out. Because the van cut a hard left, coming too close in front of a slow-moving truck. The truck swerved, hitting its brakes. But it was too late. As he watched, the truck jackknifed, smashing into the van as it did so and taking out another car in its wake. The car right ahead of Adam braked hard and swerved, fishtailing out of control. He heard the sound of horns blaring and the screech of another vehicle smashing into the guardrail to his left.

  A multi-vehicle accident was happening and they were caught right in the middle.

  “Hang on!” Adam shouted. Gripping the steering wheel tightly, he fixed his eyes on the road ahead and prayed. “Lord, keep us and everyone else on this road safe!”

  Then it was like time slowed, as it always had when he’d found himself maneuvering under fire in a danger zone. He set his sights on the safest route he could find and drove, blocking out the noise and steering around the crashing cars and chaos as it spiraled out around them. A small blue car spun out in front of him. Noelle gasped sharply. He weaved between the accidents and heard his own taillight crack as a car skidded into them from behind, knocking them forward.

  But he slid his pickup past the jackknifed truck, pulled to the verge and braked. Only then did he let himself breathe and take in the wider scene around him. The accident was behind him now and clear road lay ahead. He looked up at the sky and thanked God, half expecting to see the hot searing blue of the Middle East horizon instead of the dark gray of twilight in New York.

  “Thank you,” Noelle said. Her fingers brushed his right arm, which was still locked in a tight grip on the steering wheel. “That was incredible driving and you might’ve just saved my life.”

  She shoved the door open, and cold air rushed in. He felt Liberty’s soft snout brush against his cheek and he couldn’t tell if it was the dog’s way of thanking him or making sure he was still breathing. A man in dark clothes and a ski mask bolted past them down the verge. Noelle jumped out, shouting for Liberty even as the dog leaped to her side. Cop and dog bolted after the man. For a second he could see Noelle yelling into her radio for backup, then they disappeared from view. But for a moment he just sat there, with one hand on the wheel, the other at his side, and his heart beating so hard it felt like it was trying to ricochet its way out of his chest. He prayed and thanked God. Then he pelted across the pavement in the opposite direction toward his van. The front door lay open, and the driver was gone. He ran to the back and yanked it open.

  Bashed and dented toys littered the floor, their brightly colored wrapping paper ripped and tattered. For a moment he couldn’t see Quentin. Then he heard a groan and saw something move under a pile of boxes to his right.

  “Quentin!” Adam dropped to his knees. “Don’t move. I’ll get you out.”

  He pushed the gift-wrapped toys aside. There lay Quentin, a former military veteran himself almost two decades older than Adam. His face was pale. Blood seeped through the sleeve of his ski jacket. Instinctively, Adam pressed one gloved hand against the wound to staunch the bleeding. With the other he checked the man’s pulse. Thankfully, it was strong.

  Quentin’s eyes fluttered open. “Adam?”

  “I’m here,” he said. “Just hang on. Ambulances are on their way. Are you okay? What happened?”

  Already he could hear the sirens coming.

  “He offered me five hundred dollars.” Quentin’s voice was so quiet Adam could barely hear it. “All I had to do was let him take the truck and walk away... I said no.”

  Adam’s chest tightened. When Quentin had left the military, he’d had a hard time adjusting back into civilian life. He’d served time for drug possession with intent to sell and was currently on parole. Adam couldn’t imagine the strength it had taken for him to turn down that kind of money.

  Probably not even a fraction of the drugs’ worth, if the cop was right.

  “Who was he?” Adam asked.

  “Dunno,” Quentin said. “Big man, ski mask, heavy Eastern European accent that seemed fake.”

  The door behind Adam flew open, then paramedics were asking him to step aside as they reached for Quentin, helped him carefully onto a stretcher, and carried him out and into the ambulance. Adam looked around at the wreckage of damaged gifts that he, Quentin and his family had so carefully and lovingly wrapped. His heart was so heavy he didn’t even know what to think. Then he felt the van shake as two more bodies leaped up into the back and a gentle hand brushed his shoulder.

  “Adam?” Noelle’s voice was surprisingly tender. He turned and looked up into her deep green eyes, the color of fir trees and pine. Worry pooled in their depths. “Are you okay?”

  He glanced down and realized his gloves were streaked with Quentin’s blood. He pulled them off.

  “Yeah.” He stretched and stood. “According to Quentin, a masked man offered him five hundred dollars to walk away and let him steal the van.”

  If Noelle was surprised by that, it didn’t show in her face.

  “And you believe him?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Adam said, “of course. I saw you chasing someone. Did you catch the guy?”

  “No.” She frowned. “He got away. But police, paramedics and firefighters have arrived. It’ll be a little while before they clear all the vehicles and get us moving again. But, thankfully, despite some injuries, there seem to be no fatalities.” He thought she was about to say something more, but instead she stopped and looked down at the dog as if Liberty had just spoken in a frequency only Noelle could hear. “Search.”

  The dog’s ears perked. Liberty pressed her body through the packages, furrowed out a large red box, dropped it at Noelle’s feet and barked.

  She’d found something.

  TWO

  The dog’s bark was triumphant. Noelle’s heart leaped in her throat. She glanced from her K-9 partner to Adam, and then down at the large shiny red gift on her feet.

  “Go ahead and open it,” Adam said. “I’m not about to demand you get a search warrant.”

  She would’ve chuckled if she’d been able to breathe. Noelle knelt down, tightened her gloves and slowly unwrapped the present. A large toy dog with bright eyes looked out at her from the clear window of a box. It was a black lab, by the looks of it, and was about sixteen inches tall with a big green-and-red bow around its neck.

  “It’s a FlupperPup,” Adam said.

  So said the large swirly letters on the box. But that didn’t mean anything to her. She turned the box over in her hands. A squad of eight dogs was listed on
the back. “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s the must-have toy this year,” Adam continued. “They’re like little furry robots that can respond to voice commands, follow you around and learn tricks. They connect to the internet and have some kind of camera too. Apparently, some breeds are rarer than others. We’ve managed to receive a few to give out at events.”

  “And where do you get your toys from?” she asked.

  “Large companies mostly,” Adam said. “We do get individual donations and some schools and churches do toy drives. But the bulk of what we give away comes from large organizations. Our suppliers are pretty generous.”

  “And how many toy suppliers do you have?” she asked.

  “Eighteen,” he said. “And before you ask, we pulled these toys from our warehouse. There’s no way of tracking who donated any given toy.”

  She opened the top of the box carefully and pulled the dog out. The toy was surprisingly sturdy and incredibly fluffy.

  “My son Matthias... Matty...really wants one for Christmas,” Adam added.

  She thought of the boy with the mop of dark curls, eager smile and blue eyes the same color as his daddy’s.

  “Did you get him one?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Adam said. “They’re pretty pricey.”

  She turned it over in her hands.

  “Presumably, there are some pretty heavy robotics, a camera and computer inside,” she said. “But I don’t see a hatch. How do you put the batteries in?”

  “No batteries,” he said. “Seems those days when toys all ran on big fat Cs or Ds like when we were kids are long gone. You plug it into the wall to charge and it connects to the computer via WiFi.”

  Well, this one no doubt had a hatch. Liberty’s tail was still thumping and that was good enough for her. She pulled a knife from her pocket, opened the blade and slit it into the toy’s soft fake black fur. She peeled the fur back. Sure enough there was a large cavity inside. But instead of the expected electronics, there sat a large baggie filled with thousands of brightly colored pills shaped like white snowmen, green Christmas trees and red bells. Liberty barked triumphantly. Noelle sat back on her heels and blew out a long breath. She guessed it was two to three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of MDMA—probably a strain of Ecstasy.