by Kate Flora
He hoped—but didn't for a moment believe—that this car and its occupants were perfectly innocent. Let that hope go when he ran the plate through his computer and it came back as stolen. Car theft wasn't that big around Portland, but the evidence of the past two days would suggest an epidemic.
Kenny Munroe and Rob Staines appeared at his window, and Burgess got out. He briefed them on how he wanted to proceed, then he and Staines moved through some quiet yards until they could approach the car. He checked his gun. Staines checked his. Then Burgess moved quickly to the driver's door and rapped on the window.
As he did, patrol cars slipped quietly into place, blocking each end of the street.
"Portland police," he said.
The man in the driver's seat didn't respond.
He moved his gun to low ready and rapped again. "Portland police," he repeated, "roll down your window, then put your hands on the wheel where I can see them."
Suddenly, the driver opened the door and started to get out. That was why officers were trained to stand behind the driver's door when doing a traffic stop. Because these situations were inherently dangerous. Because guys like this always thought they were so smart.
As the man emerged, Burgess grabbed his shoulder, pulled him the rest of the way out, and slammed him to the pavement.
On the other side of the car, he heard Staines's calm voice. "I'm going to open the door now, and you're going to step out of the car. Nice and easy now, and keep both hands where I can see them."
Then he heard, "Hey!" and the sound of a struggle, followed by a body hitting the pavement. He hoped Staines, quick on his feet for such a big guy, was winning.
"On your stomach," he told the driver, "and put your hands on your head."
"Take it easy, buddy. I got a bad shoulder," his man complained.
"Should have thought of that before you decided not to cooperate. You have any ID?"
"Fuck you," the man said.
He was unshaven, his clothes were shabby, and he had the battered hands of someone who did manual labor. He smelled like tobacco and the great unwashed. But he had workman's muscles, and the way he tensed when Burgess put the cuffs on said getting cuffed was not a foreign experience. He didn't look familiar.
Across the car, he heard Staines asking nearly identical questions as they moved through the drill to get cuffs on the men before searching them for weapons and ID.
Kenny Munroe and the officers from the second car had moved their cars up, and were coming to lend a hand. Up and down the street, lights were coming on in the houses. There were no lights in his.
"Check him for weapons and ID, would you, Kenny. I want to take a look in the car."
Over on the sidewalk, he heard Staines say in tones of mock surprise, "Why, if it isn't Kimani Yates? We've been looking for you, Mr. Yates. Something about an assault on a security guard over at the hospital?"
So much for good behavior.
Was this just deliberately "in your face," sending someone known to the police to stake out an officer's house, or were these guys just seriously stupid? He wished the answer were stupid and thought otherwise.
The registration was in the name of the man in Cumberland who had reported the car stolen. Burgess put on gloves and searched under the seats. He felt two guns and left them there for the evidence tech to collect. Then he took the keys and opened the trunk.
The contents rocked him back on his feet. Rope, four sets of plastic handcuffs, duct tape, four extra-large industrial-strength trash bags, a big green plastic tarp, a container of clean-up rags, and a bottle of chloroform. And an everyday tool that taken with everything else shook him right to the bone—a shovel.
"Sweet Jesus, Kenny," he said. "Take a look at this."
Munroe peered into the trunk and then into Burgess's face. "Not much doubt about their intentions, is there?"
Four bags. Four sets of handcuffs. There were four people in Burgess's house. The audacity of it stunned him. Time to get some A-level interrogators in to work on this. A tow truck for the car. Make sure there was an evidence tech available. Time to let his family know everything was okay, to stop in before heading back to 109.
Shaking his head and wrapped in a chill that had nothing to do with weather, Burgess pulled out his phone.
Chapter 21
He sent the two bad guys back to 109 in separate patrol cars, with instructions that they were to be put into separate interview rooms and given no opportunity to talk. Then Burgess went upstairs to reassure his family.
When he came through the door, they piled on him, Chris with an embrace, Nina clinging to his arm, Neddy worming his way between him and Chris and clinging to his waist like he was a human life ring. Only Dylan held back, watching from across the room. His expression said he was fine with it, though. His father had trusted him with a task involving the family's safety, and Dylan had come through.
Over Chris's head, which was burrowing into her favorite place in his neck, he caught his son's eye. "Thanks," he said.
"No problem."
Dylan opened the refrigerator and took out the milk, then got the cookie tin. "Who wants milk and brownies?" Chris's mother, Doro, always made sure the cookie tin was full.
That pulled Neddy, and then Nina, away, giving him a private moment with Chris. He led her into the living room.
"What was that about?" she whispered.
"Patrol spotted a stolen car on the street."
She tipped her head back and gave him an appraising look. "That just happened to be parked across from our house?"
He nodded.
"And if I believe that's just chance, it's because I was born yesterday?"
"Not chance," he said, "But I'm not going to let anything happen to you or our children."
"Our children," she breathed. "Say that again."
He pulled her closer. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you or our children."
"Should I be worried? What do we need to do to be sure they're safe?"
"I don't think you should worry. It's taken care of. But I'm going to put some precautions in place. Like regular patrols on the street. I wonder how Neddy would feel about riding to school in a patrol car?"
"Neddy would love it. I'd hate it," she said. "It makes things seem too dangerous. But what about Nina? And Dylan? And am I going to be safe?"
"It's not likely they'll try something like this again."
She pushed back so she could look into his face, her hands braced on his arms, her fingers gripping him too tightly. "How not likely?"
"Very not likely."
The lights were still off, and in the illumination from the street light, her long hair down and in her pale blue robe, she looked like a girl, not the brave, sturdy woman who shared his life. He felt such a protective wave sweep over him, for her, and for their children. He'd been spared fifteen years of this. Fifteen years of being pulled in two directions, of anxiety, and love. He wondered how Kyle and Melia did it every day.
"Everyone will be okay," he said. "So how did Dylan handle things? What did he do?"
Her smile was beautiful. "He was like a big sheepdog. He herded us into the kitchen, made us sit at the table with the lights off, and told us about the car, and your call, and that everything would be okay, you were taking care of it. He was..."
She considered. "He was like you, Joe. He was strong and certain and in charge. I had such a wave of... I don't know... nostalgia for the you I've never known. For your mother, and what she's missed, not knowing him. And I felt..."
Chris was quiet for so long he thought she couldn't find the words, or was ready for the conversation to end. Then she said, "I felt something shift. Like despite all our frustration and uncertainty, despite all the things we get wrong and that we know will go wrong, we're really becoming a family."
He'd felt it, too.
"I have to go back in," he said. "Interview the two men in that car."
"Can't someone else—?" She checked herself. "I wou
ldn't want someone else to do it." She put her arms around his neck, pressing her body against him, making it terribly hard to leave. But they both knew he had to, and it was better to go with her blessing.
He meant to pass quickly through the kitchen, hug the kids, and be gone, but it wasn't that easy. He wasn't allowed to leave until he'd joined them at the table. The new balancing act. He had a brownie and milk, Nina watching him anxiously until she was sure he wasn't going to bolt.
Finally, he pushed back his chair. "Gotta go talk to some bad guys," he said. "You guys get to bed. It will be morning before you know it."
A round of hugs and he was finally back on the street. Across the way, the stolen car was being loaded onto a truck. One more vehicle for the collection they were making at 109. Pretty soon, the garage would be full. Never mind Zipcar, if they got to keep these vehicles, Portland PD could start their own company, the far more ominous Black Honda.
* * *
Their two suspects were cooling their heels in interview rooms, and Stan Perry was standing by his desk, grinning. "Heard you needed another interviewer," he said.
"Heard how?" Burgess said. "Scanner land?"
"Something like that. Which one do I get?"
Burgess wanted them both, but that was because of the circumstances. Two sets of eyes were always better. "You take the driver, and I'll monitor the interview. He's the weak link. And the longer Mr. Yates has to cool his heels, the better. In fact, I'm going to call down to the lab and see if our tech could do a quick check on those guns, see if Yates's prints come up."
He made the call, then filled Perry in on the arrest and what they'd found. "Don't mention the stuff in the trunk until you've got him worked up and talking to you. I don't know if he was in on that or not. Our friend Mr. Yates might have wanted him too far down the road, with money in his wallet, before he shared the details."
He settled in to watch the interview on a monitor while Perry went into the room. The driver, slumped in his chair, wore the forlorn look of someone realizing he's made a big mistake. He'd claimed to have no ID, but turned out to have a wallet in his pocket and a license in the wallet. Henry James Wallace. A Westbrook address. Burgess figured he probably wasn't named after the famous writer. He'd also had a knife on his belt.
"Detective Stan Perry." Perry kicked back a chair and settled into it. "So. You're driving a stolen car, in the company of a convicted felon, with two guns under the seat. Things are looking pretty bad for you, Mr. Wallace. You want to explain this to me?"
"I'm not saying nothin' to you."
"Fine," Perry said. "No skin off my nose if you want to hook yourself up with someone like Kimani Yates. You oughta know, though, that loyalty to Mr. Yates is a one-way street. He'd sell his own mother if he could get a good price. He's putting it all on you. Stealing the car, getting the guns, the whole deal."
"I didn't steal—" Wallace fell silent. Studied the blank walls. Interview rooms were deliberately plain. Table. Chairs. Blank walls. Nothing for a witness to fix on as a distraction. "I need to make a phone call."
"You'll get your chance, Mr. Wallace. Don't worry. You want to call a lawyer?" Perry moved his chair closer to Wallace and leaned way into his personal space. "You gonna lawyer up on me? Because if you are, why don't you just go ahead and say that, don't waste any more of my time. With your record, what we found in the car, and what Yates is gonna say to save his sorry ass, we really don't need anything from you."
He made a show of shuffling through some papers. "I've got your record here. Looks like aside from that one domestic, you've kept your nose clean for a long time. Pity to go and screw all that up now just 'cuz some lowlife asks you to drive him somewhere. You got a job, Mr. Wallace?"
"Sternman on a lobster boat. Mostly filling in for other guys, ya know? I usta do commercial fishing, but with all them catch limits? The jobs have just about dried up."
"Getting back to Kimani Yates," Perry said. "How did the two of you get hooked up together?"
Wallace shook his head. "I ain't—"
Some quick shuffling and studying of papers, and then, like a magician plucking a quarter out of the air, Perry pulled out a card and started reading Wallace his rights.
Wallace waved a hand like he was signaling Perry to stop. Ignoring that, Perry slid a sheet of paper in front of the man and stabbed at the various paragraphs with a vigorous finger as he went down the list, his voice getting louder as he went along. Finally, he said, "Do you understand?" and slammed a pen down.
By this time, Wallace was leaning as far back in the chair as he could. He stared at the pen like it was an object he didn't recognize.
"Sign it," Perry barked.
Wallace signed.
"Now, do you want to call an attorney?"
Wallace shook his head.
"Are you willing to talk to me without an attorney present?"
"I want to make a—"
Perry dropped his voice and leaned in, "Do you want an attorney?"
"Jesus, man, will you get out of my face?"
Perry shoved his chair back. "Mr. Wallace, you didn't want cops in your face, you shouldn't have been in that car tonight, isn't that right? So now what, you're going to whine because you made a bad call? You think I'm picking on you? You're just a poor misguided little man who was doing a favor for a friend?"
He leaned in again. "Are you saying that Kimani Yates, who has a record as long as you are tall, and for things no decent person would want to be associated with, is your friend?"
"I never met him before today. Look, Officer, I—"
"Detective. Are you telling me that you staked out a Portland detective's house tonight, with his family at home, in a stolen car, with someone you never met who happens to be a convicted felon? Why on earth would you do that?"
"I didn't stake out—"
"So it was perfectly innocent, Mr. Wallace? You just happened to be on that street, across from that house, with those guns, in that car and with that accomplice, for no reason?"
"He wasn't my accomplice," Wallace said.
"You mean you were his?"
"I wasn't... I didn't know... Look, I would like..." This time, Wallace stopped before Perry cut him off. There was a discernible shake in his voice. Then, almost in a whisper, he said, "I didn't know it was a cop's house. Yates said—"
But that was beyond the limits of his courage. Perry would have to wind him up some more before the story would come tripping out. But come out it would. Wallace had been there as muscle. It was Yates who was ruthless.
Burgess tried to push away images of those two bursting into his house. Of the impact on Nina and Neddy, who had already suffered so much at the hands of conscienceless monsters who had wanted Neddy, and used Nina to get at him. He imagined Chris coming to their defense. And Dylan, trying to protect everyone. His brave little family against bad guys with guns. He wanted to go through the door and rip the man's head off.
He imagined Perry hearing this on the scanner and putting it together. Maybe calling Kyle to consult. Perry wanted a piece of the action because he needed to redeem himself. But he was there for Burgess.
"What did Yates tell you?"
Wallace studied his hands again. They were hard-worn hands, a roadmap of a life as a laborer. Part of a fingertip missing. Knuckles too gnarled for a man barely into middle age. The shiny pink and purple of healed scars. Give it up, Burgess thought. Don't tie your fate to a POS like Yates. Like it had been telepathy, Wallace seemed to reach the same conclusion.
"He said the guy who lived there owed his boss money. We were going to scare the family a little. Send a message about what would happen if the guy didn't pay up. That's all he said it was."
That's all it was? An increasingly good idea that Burgess wasn't in the room.
"You know the boss's name? Hear him say it?" Wallace shook his head. "Did you meet the boss?" Another shake. "Overhear him talking to his boss on the phone?"
Wallace nodded.
B
urgess was already heading out to his desk to look at the inventory of what had been taken from Yates, to see if there was a cell phone. Perry would know he was doing that. Wouldn't want to stop the interview to do it himself, not when he had some momentum going.
Yes. There was a cell phone. A throwaway. It would still show what calls had been made and received. He flipped it open, checked that there was a record of calls made. Good. They could write up a warrant in the morning. He went back to watching the monitor.
"What did you hear him say?"
Wallace studied his hands like the answers were written there. "I really wasn't paying attention. Just wanted to get going, get the thing over with, and get paid."
Perry banged his fist on the table and Wallace jumped. "Goddammit, Mr. Wallace. I am losing patience with you. What did you hear Yates say?"
But Wallace had once again decided not to share, which suggested to Burgess that whatever it was, it wasn't just the "scare" he'd described earlier. That was okay. Perry would settle him down and circle back, and eventually they'd get what they were looking for. Meanwhile, Perry asked Wallace if he'd like a soda or some coffee, and left the room to get coffee.
While he waited for the interview to start again, Burgess started making a list of things to deal with at tomorrow's team meeting. Top of the list went the warrant for that cell phone and its records. For Osman's cell phone records. Osman's apartment. The Imam's house. Warrants, warrants everywhere. Then, because it seemed like Perry was taking forever to find that coffee, he called the hospital to check on Osman's condition. No change. No news.
They were now into what Burgess thought of as the sad time of night. Regular people were sleeping, and cops and robbers, insomniacs, and those who worked the night shift had a mostly quiet and empty world to themselves.
He flipped the monitor and checked on the other interview room, where Kimani Yates was cooling his heels. Perfectly confirming the old saw about the guilty, Yates's head rested on his arms on the table, and he snored softly.
He returned the focus to Wallace as Perry came in, carrying two cups of coffee, and swung right back into questions.
