Detective Jack Stratton Box Set

by Christopher Greyson

  Jack crossed his arms.

  “Warner has been bothering Kelly. Texting her and calling her a bunch of times.”

  Storm clouds were forming in Jack’s eyes.

  “She’s upset. I think… I think he’s been following her too.”

  Jack straightened up. “What’s he drive?”

  “His father’s silver BMW Z4.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “You’re not going to talk to him, are you?”

  Jack’s jaw clenched. “Why did you tell me if you didn’t want me to do anything? Kelly’s upset. I want her un-upset. So I’m going to have a little chat with Warner.”

  Courtney bit her lip nervously.

  “What’s his last name—”

  Kelly, Stephanie, and Leesa came hurrying out of the boutique. Kelly had two shopping bags in each hand. “I bought a sweet outfit for Friday.”

  Jack forced a smile. “Can’t wait.” He reached for the passenger door handle on the Impala. “Can I talk to you for a second, Kelly?”

  “Oh, no!” Leesa grabbed Kelly’s arm. “Hair and nails! We’re late. We’ll lose our spot.”

  Kelly shook her head. “You guys go.”

  “You have to come!” Stephanie grabbed Kelly’s other arm. “You’re paying.”

  Kelly looked pleadingly at Jack.

  “Go,” Jack said. “I’ll call you later.”

  Kelly blushed. “I miss you.”

  As the four of them hurried down the sidewalk, Courtney turned around and mouthed, “I’ll call you.”

  Jack hopped back in his car and pulled out. As he drove down the street, he kept his eyes peeled for a silver BMW.

  Jack entered Hamilton Park through the eastern gate. The park looked much prettier during the day than it did at midnight, but even though everyone seemed to be enjoying a beautiful summer day, Jack was on edge. In the same way a carpenter could stand in the middle of a finished home but still picture the framing and joists behind the walls, Jack watched the smiling people chatting away and playing Frisbee, knowing the dangers that lurked unseen there. Drugs, prostitution, homelessness faded during the day, but they weren’t gone. Just harder to see.

  Jack had only gone a little way when he saw Michelle walking across the park.

  “Michelle!” he called.

  She turned and waved, then ran over to him. “What’s up, my brother?”

  “What are you doing out here by yourself?” Jack asked.

  “What? I went to the Y.”

  “You shouldn’t be walking in the park alone.”

  Michelle looked around, confused. “It’s during the day. It’s fine. And I’m on my way home.”

  “I don’t care. The park’s dangerous. Come on.” Jack motioned for her to follow him.

  “Where?”

  “I’m walking you home. Come on.”

  Michelle made a face. “You sound like Aunt Haddie.” But she fell into step beside him. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not a good day?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Well, for starters, I found out I got someone fired.”

  Jack told her about Jeremy. He always found it easy to talk to Michelle. She listened intently, as she always did, and only asked an occasional question.

  As they walked, Jack talking and Michelle listening, Jack found his eyes drawn to a man in the distance, walking toward them. Something about the man seemed off. Maybe it was his crisp tan pants and bright new shirt. But as Jack kept an eye on him, he changed his mind—it was the man’s walk that stood out. He was tall but his stride was hitched, like he was forcing himself to walk slowly.

  Jack stopped.

  “What’s up?” Michelle asked.

  Jack pressed a finger to his lips. He felt as if he were watching a bad actor who had been given the simple task of walking across the stage and nodding.

  He was approaching a woman on a bench—a tall, shapely brunette in a sundress. He nodded to the woman, then looked forward again. But his motions were stiff and robotic and not at all natural. When he reached the end of the bench, he took his hand out of his pocket and dropped something.

  The bad theatrics caused Jack’s adrenaline to kick in.

  He’s setting her up. Like a spider and a fly, he’s drawing her in closer.

  The woman rose off the bench and walked nearer to the man. She called out to him, and he stopped. She bent down and picked up what he’d dropped.

  The man slowly walked back toward the woman, closer and closer, as she looked down at the object in her hand.

  “That guy’s up to something,” Jack said to Michelle. “Listen, run to the front of the park and get a cop.”

  “What’s going on? I’m not leaving you.”

  “No. I want you to get a cop. Understand?”

  When Michelle turned and bolted for the entrance, Jack started jogging down the path. Neither the man nor the woman saw him approaching.

  The woman suddenly jumped away from the man as though she had seen a snake. She ran, but the man’s hand snapped out and seized her wrist.

  Jack sprinted forward.

  “Let go of me!” the woman screamed.

  Jack covered the distance in seven long strides.

  Glimpsing movement, the man turned toward Jack, but Jack was already lunging. His shoulder caught the man just below his sternum, and the man’s breath exploded out of his lungs. Jack’s arms wrapped around the man’s thighs and yanked his legs out from under him. Momentum carried them across the path.

  The man groaned as he landed hard on his back with Jack on top of him.

  Jack grabbed the guy’s shoulder, rolled him onto his belly, and wrenched one arm up behind his back. His other hand pressed the man’s face into the dirt.

  “It’ll be all right, ma’am,” Jack yelled. “POLICE!”

  The woman turned and ran.

  “Police!” Jack yelled again.

  Almost instantly, nearly a dozen police officers appeared from every direction, racing across the grass and out of the woods.

  Jack was surprised by the sheer number of cops showing up so fast. “He was attacking her,” he said to the one who reached him first. He tilted his chin toward the fleeing woman. “He grabbed her wrist.”

  The cop yanked Jack to his feet. Jack smiled proudly when a second cop took out his handcuffs. A third officer pointed at Jack and said, “Put your hands behind your head.”

  “Me? This woman was being attacked.”

  A couple of officers helped the guy Jack had planted into the ground get up. They didn’t cuff him. Instead, they wiped the dirt off his shirt.

  “What’s going on?” Jack looked around, puzzled. “Why aren’t you arresting him?”

  The guy he had tackled turned toward Jack. “I’m Officer Barton. Fairfield PD.” He pulled out his badge. “You’re under arrest for assaulting an officer.”

  The policeman with the cuffs snapped one around Jack’s wrist. Jack felt the cold metal against the scar that circled above his hand. Panic shot through him like electricity through a condemned man and his whole body stiffened.

  The cop grabbed Jack’s other arm, but Jack held it rigid. “Don’t make this harder on yourself, kid.” The burly cop tried to bend Jack’s arm, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Give him your other arm,” another cop commanded.

  Jack knew what he should do. And he wanted to cooperate—but his body refused to obey. Terror seized him, stripping away rational thought, until only raw emotion remained, and the memory of searing heat in his wrist, fiery pain, and the odor of burnt flesh.

  The other cops circled closer. “Give me your arm,” the policeman ordered again.

  A beefy officer stepped in and placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder, while another placed his hand on his nightstick.

  Jack clamped his eyes closed and forced his arm to bend.

  The policeman yanked Jack’s arm behind him and up
.

  In that moment, Jack’s greatest fear enveloped him and he pictured the dominoes falling—no Army, no college, no law enforcement. With the click of the cuff, all of his dreams…gone.

  21

  Facts

  Once again, Jack found himself at the table in the police department interrogation room. The uniformed police officer guarding the door was different, but everything else was as Jack remembered it. The cop looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.

  So did Jack.

  The door swung wide. When Jack saw Vargas’s red face, he was surprised the door hadn’t slammed into the wall.

  Detective Vargas strode over to the other side of the table and dragged the metal chair back. He planted one shiny shoe on the seat and tossed some folders down. “Do you have any idea what I want to do to you right now?”

  Several flippant answers came to Jack’s mind, but instead he answered, “No, sir.”

  “Let’s start with you explaining why you were in the park,” Vargas said.

  “I was cutting through. I saw that guy grab a lady.”

  “A lady? Ha! That’s rich. Try a lady of the night. I’m sure that the great Detective Stratton has figured out by now how badly he screwed up our prostitution sting, right? That guy was an undercover cop, and that ‘lady’ was a prostitute.”

  Jack ground his teeth.

  Vargas laughed. “I did a background check on you.” He crossed his arms. “You’d think that with your background you’d know how to pick out a hooker. Your mother was one, right?”

  Jack kicked the table back with his leg. He started to stand, but the cop at the door stepped over and placed a large hand on his shoulder. “Settle down.”

  Vargas just smiled, which made Jack want to lunge across the table at him even more. He knew Vargas was just trying to get to him—and it seemed to be working.

  Jack sat back down and tried to control his anger, while in his imagination, he’d already jumped over the table and was going to town on Vargas—slapping that mocking grin off his face.

  The cop stayed next to Jack while Vargas kept pushing. “So you were trying to help that woman? Do you know Brittani Roldan?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve never seen Brittani before today?”

  “I have no idea who you’re talking about. Is that the girl in the park?”

  “She’s the hooker you ‘rescued.’” Vargas made air quotes. “We both know that’s bull. Why don’t you just level with me, Stratton. She’s working for you, right?”

  Jack had to laugh at that one. “Working for me? You think I’m a pimp?” He planted his feet and sat forward. “When do I do that? In between classes at Fairfield High?”

  A smirk formed on Vargas’s lips. “I would believe that a whole lot more than your ‘I’m just a Good Samaritan trying to help’ act. Why else would you pick a fight with the guy in the park?”

  “Look, I was walking across the park and I thought that guy was attacking that lady. If Stacy Shaw’s murder was a sexual assault that went bad, he could have been the guy who killed her.”

  Vargas laughed hard—but it was a forced laugh, and he overdid it. “You thought he was ‘the real killer’?” Vargas made more air quotes. “Oh, that’s right. Your friend Jay Martin is really innocent.”

  Jack felt frustration rise up inside him. That was the truth, but now that Vargas had said it aloud, Jack didn’t know that he’d have believed it either. “Jay didn’t kill Stacy Shaw. I think someone she worked with may have had something to do with it. I spoke with her coworkers—”

  Vargas stuck his hand in Jack’s face. “Hold on, Miss Marple. Did you just say you spoke to someone at Stacy’s workplace?”

  Jack snapped his mouth shut.

  Vargas’s hand slammed down on the table. “I told you to stay the hell away from anyone who has anything to do with this. Are you trying to screw up my case? Are you trying to get your friend off?”

  “No. He’s not my friend. But I know it wasn’t him wearing that jacket that night.”

  “You’re saying Jay’s brother killed Stacy?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. Two Point stole, or more likely found, her wallet, and then he tried to use her debit card at the ATM. But kill her? No. Tommy’s scrawny, and he messed up his wrist when he was a kid. I don’t think he’d be able to strangle her.”

  Vargas’s eyes blazed. “How the hell did you know she was strangled?”

  “I… When I was in the station, I overheard you and your boss discussing the ME’s report,” Jack admitted.

  Vargas pulled back. His hard expression shifted into neutral. Like a poker player who had just received his hold card, he placed one hand casually on the table and relaxed onto his elbow. He drummed his fingers on the table and silently watched Jack.

  Jack felt the tone in the room change. “Detective Vargas, let me explain. You don’t know me, and—”

  Vargas lifted a hand and held his index finger to his lips. “You’re wrong about that, Stratton. I do know you. See, I go by facts. The fact is, you’re a bad seed. You’re friends with a murder suspect. That’s a fact. You visit him in prison and then conveniently find a body hidden in a pond. Fact. Now you tell me that you just happen to know a piece of information that hasn’t been made public. Last week you were almost arrested for fighting over some old lady’s stolen purse. What was the deal with that? Someone on your crew steals a purse but was going to keep it for himself? Officer Denby said you worked the guy over good. Broke his teeth out. I bet if Denby hadn’t caught you, you’d have kept the purse. Maybe that’s what happened with Stacy. Jay tried to steal her handbag but she didn’t want to give it up.”

  “I didn’t know that junkie. I got the bag back for the lady.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “She’s Victor Perez’s grandmother.”

  “Oh, you’re friends with Victor Perez, too?” Jack didn’t answer, and Vargas smiled without showing any teeth. “Nice company you keep, Stratton. Murderers, drug dealers, prostitutes. You’re a regular Boy Scout.” He got nose to nose with Jack. “And here’s another fact. You just lied to my face.”

  “What? I haven’t lied.”

  “I asked you twice if you knew Brittani. You said you’ve never seen her before. But Brittani said she knows you. She said you gave her some money last night. But when I pressed her on that, she closed her mouth and lawyered up.”

  “That’s crazy. I never…”

  Jack remembered the hungry prostitute in the Dolly Parton wig from the night before. She must be the same girl caught in the sting. “Wait a minute. She was wearing a wig when I saw her first. You know how prostitutes vary it up for different clients. The look today must be her daytime look, for businessmen. I saw her at night.”

  “Actually, I didn’t know hookers did that, Jack. But you seem to know all about it.” Vargas muttered under his breath, “Like a pimp.”

  “No. I gave her money, but she was panhandling. She wanted a burger so I dropped a couple of bucks on a bench.”

  “Ha!” Vargas laughed. “You’ve got a smooth answer for everything, and it always has a ‘Saint Jack’ feel to it. ‘I wasn’t stealing. I was really rescuing a little old lady’s purse.’ ‘Why, no, Officer, I did give the hooker money, but just so she could get something to eat, and I got no sexual favors in return. My only reward was her happiness.’ Ha!”

  Vargas laughed, and even the other cop chuckled.

  Jack felt the anger rising in him. He tried to push it down. “Detective Vargas, I can explain. I—”

  “Save it, Stratton. I’m done hearing your lies and fairy tales. I’ve seen your type before. You’re nothing but trash that needs to be locked away.” He walked over and yanked open the door. To the policeman he said, “Bring him out to the holding bench and stay with him. I’ve got to go check a few things.” Then he turned to glare at Jack again. “Better get used to incarceration, Stratton. You’ll be joining your friend in the Bay soon enough.”
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br />   22

  Aunt Haddie to the Rescue

  Jack sat on a wooden bench in the police station, waiting to be charged. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands while police officers went about their day.

  At the sound of Aunt Haddie’s voice, he sat up straight.

  Oh no.

  Aunt Haddie was standing at the front desk. Luckily she hadn’t seen Jack yet, as he was seated off to one side.

  Behind the desk was the old police sergeant, Brian Gibson. Brian had a weathered, dark-brown face, cocoa-brown eyes with a friendly sparkle, and a small smile set permanently beneath his white mustache. And beside Brian stood a poised, trim woman in a dark-blue suit. She stood with her shoulders squared and her arms relaxed. A small American flag was pinned to her lapel.

  “He tackled an undercover officer,” the woman was saying. Jack recognized the woman by her voice, from when he overheard her briefing Vargas after he found Stacy’s body: Superintendent Finney. Now he could put the face and the voice together. She seemed unaware that Jack was within earshot. Either that, or she didn’t care.

  “Who he thought was attacking a woman,” Aunt Haddie explained. “Michelle saw the whole thing. If this Detective Vargas insists on going down that path, I want to file a formal complaint against the police department for putting Michelle and Jack, and other innocent children, in harm’s way.”

  Brian Gibson’s bushy white eyebrows arched high as he looked down at Aunt Haddie. “Haddie, don’t you think that’s going a little far?”

  Aunt Haddie bristled. “The police obviously did not properly identify themselves, or Jack would never have thought the policeman was a potential threat. Michelle is merely a teenager. I would think that an effort would have been made to keep children away from that situation.”

  Superintendent Finney gave the slightest nod, conceding the point.

  Aunt Haddie continued. “What if something had gone wrong? Weren’t other policemen there to keep these kids safe?”

  Gibson smoothed the corners of his mustache and glanced over at Superintendent Finney. “Several.”