The Room Where It Happened

by Jason Letts

  But even as her arms were tucked under her as she lay flat on the dock, she was alive and energized. Whatever had happened, it felt liberating, like she’d been stripped bare and emerged stronger and more centered without the baggage of fear or doubt. The sensation came over her that she could do anything, and as she got up she surveyed the landscape of the commercial structures along the shore with the confidence that she could solve this puzzle.

  The first step she took made a squishing noise as the water in her shoe sloshed, so she kicked them off and left them behind. Before it might’ve struck her as ridiculous to roam around in her socks in a place where she knew there was broken glass and who knew what else around, but right now she couldn’t have cared less.

  The only thing that made her feel naked was not having her gun, and she stalked back across the distance she’d first come with Brady to return to the hideout. Her ears were pricked for any kind of sound, and her eyes took in everything as she passed the intermediary building and began to approach the warehouse’s rear. Any of the men running around could’ve found the gun and picked it up, but considering the sense of urgency she’d heard from them and how quickly they ended up reaching the sedan, she suspected they hadn’t.

  She spotted a pair of them at the front corner of the building by the street and stopped behind one of the shipping crates. More sounds filtered through from inside the hideout, making Tera suspect that the search for Brady was growing more rancorous. Maybe he’d gotten out, or maybe he was trapped. The window they’d used was still closed, but all of the lights were now out.

  Although the building was quite long, the open space and the moonlight shining off the lake made her doubt she could run across the gap without being spotted. The gun wasn’t visible, and if there was someone just inside the open loading door she could be faced with a confrontation quickly.

  But none of it could be helped. She had to move, and she would deal with whatever came her way. Light on her toes, she stepped away from the shipping container and began a swift dash along the deck.

  “Look!”

  The call was one thing, but the gunshot that shortly followed was another, and she scampered behind the warehouse trying to think if she’d ever been shot at in earnest before. It was like the first night she’d had sex, mentally tabulating a list of things being done to her and that she was doing that she’d never experienced.

  If she hadn’t known roughly where she’d dropped her gun, she never would’ve found it, but the little black Luger was in the shadows not far from a couple of boxes where spotting it from a distance would’ve been hopeless.

  There wasn’t time to relish having retrieved her firearm, and even with it staying out on the open wasn’t a good idea. She could hear footsteps racing along both ends of the warehouse, leaving her with little choice but to duck inside through the large opening in the center.

  She entered into a cavernous section where a number of pallets had crates stacked on top of them. As she passed three or four rows, trying to glance down every aisle and along every edge, she tried to spot Brady. If he wasn’t in here, he had to be in one of the offices lining the perimeter. Some had windows, some didn’t.

  The approaching footsteps forced her to take cover and hunch down. Her finger was on the trigger and she felt ready, but this wasn’t at all like the shooting range.

  “You go that way,” said a deep voice, and Tera imagined that they’d be trying to pin her in from the sides. She had to make a decision quickly, gain more distance by retreating toward the front of the building or find a way to take them on. Peeking from beside a crate to spot the three thugs prowling between the pallets, she felt like getting shot at from a number of different directions was more than she’d be able to handle.

  Turning tail, she navigated deeper inside, trying to keep her breathing from being audible and avoiding any of the objects around her. Water still dripped from her limbs, possibly making a trail they could follow if they had the wherewithal to notice.

  A shot rang out and more breaking glass followed, seeming to split Tera’s ears, but as she took a frantic breath and another gunshot followed she began to gather that she wasn’t the target.

  Amidst some yelling, she dared to peek above a crate to see that the three assailants now had their attention set on one of the offices, not the one Brady had climbed into but one a couple of doors down. It was difficult to see, but a large window had come down in the shooting, and there was little inside for Brady to hide behind but another desk.

  She watched openly as Brady fired back, but considering his trapped, hunkered-down position his shot did little more than make their adversaries cautious. They were bearing down on him, and as best she could tell he had nowhere to run and the only way out would lead him straight into the arms of his attackers.

  Staying quiet, she raised her gun and took aim with her arms stretched across the top of one of the crates. One of the men was creeping closer to the window, and it wouldn’t be long before he had enough of an angle to take a point blank shot at Brady.

  It felt satisfying when she pulled the trigger and the target dropped to the ground with an anguished cry. But there wasn’t time to relent, and she took a shot at one of the others to make sure they were on the defensive. It narrowly missed, and the two men quickly began to backtrack.

  “Brady!” she called, and he didn’t hesitate for a moment. Out of her peripheral vision she could see him emerging from behind the desk as she started forward. He looked ravenous but unhurt. He busted the door open and took a shot at the men, who were now scrambling out of the warehouse’s gaping mouth.

  “After them,” he called, waving her over. Tera got up and started rushing past the pallets as quickly as she could to catch up to him. He peeked around the exterior before barreling around the corner. By the time Tera caught up to him, they had come around the other side and were sprinting along the length of the building in the direction of the street.

  Storage sheds, port-a-johns, and a forklift whizzed by as they sprinted the length of the warehouse. The figures were fifteen or twenty paces ahead and not slowing, and Tera watched them vacate the vicinity of the warehouse in favor of the street, but by the time she got there the pounding on her bare feet was starting to take its toll. Giving up her squishing shoes seemed less worth it now.

  Brady peeled around the front fence at the entryway full of intention to chase the men down and make sure they didn’t escape, but when Tera looked ahead at the industrial area doubts about the prospects of that immediately hit her. There were so many dark alleys, dumpsters, open entrances, and urban sprawl that the men would have a thousand places to hide or blocks to roam through if they chose to lead a chase.

  She could just see what would happen to her feet the first time she tried to hop a chain-link fence in pursuit.

  “Brady!” Calling his name again, she tried to get across that she was beginning to flag.

  “I’ve got them,” he said over his shoulder without breaking stride.

  The force of inertia hit her legs, and she doubled over with her hands on her knees gasping for breath once she came to a stop. Brady got smaller and smaller as he sailed down the road and after the men, who turned a corner. When the detective disappeared from sight, she shook her head. Those guys weren’t who they were after anyway.

  Tera recoiled from the streetlight she was under and turned back to the warehouse entryway, looking ahead to solving their next problem. She hoped there’d be a car parked somewhere that they could use to get out of this section of town, but nothing was visible from where she stood. It was possible the warehouse had a front section that doubled as a garage. Her plan was to start looking around inside for a way to raise the front retractable doors or maybe peek around to see if any keys were evident.

  Now that everything was quiet and still, the fatigue and shock started to settle in. She could’ve died, and after some of the deaths she’d witnessed—caused—it was not so poetic or meaningful as it seemed. One t
ime she’d been riding in a car with an underage drunk driver who jumped a curb, blew a tire, and collided with a garbage truck. They said she was lucky to be alive, but even dying in a stupid accident seemed more significant than losing a fight with random gang thugs in this wasteland.

  Maybe her father’s death wasn’t one she should emulate or resign herself to.

  The memories had unconsciously brought her to a stop long enough for the door to one of the portable toilets to creak open, and Wayne Chechy emerged after apparently thinking the coast was clear. She had her gun trained on him before he could fully step out, but even though she was right there all of her black clothing made him oblivious of her.

  “Nice to see you again,” she said.

  He froze, eyes widened and raising his left hand while his right was tucked behind the large closing plastic door that was attempting to push him back inside.

  “I…‌it’s you,” he said, stifling a laugh as if her presence was a big joke.

  “I told you we’d be keeping an eye on you,” she said. She felt gross and exhausted and had no shoes on, but she didn’t think that was justification enough for him not to take her seriously. She wondered who on Earth would buy the smile on his face considering his history and what they’d tracked him here for.

  “Put that thing down. Come on,” he said, waving some of the fingers on his raised hand. “There’s nothing going on here. I didn’t kill Kim. I told you what happened.”

  Every word out of his mouth incensed her more. How could he stand there and say those things to her now that Kim was gone?

  “Which of those lies would you like me to pick apart first? We’re not here by accident.”

  Wayne Chechy had a leather jacket on and baggy jeans. He looked strong enough to lift the unit he was stepping out of and toss it ten feet. But he didn’t have the truth on his side, so he swallowed and came out with something else.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he said, almost shrugging.

  “We have the texts. We know you went to meet with her that Sunday night. You told me you were with Meghan Lavoisier,” Tara said through gritted teeth. Just because he didn’t leave fingerprints in her apartment didn’t mean he wasn’t wearing gloves or kept his hands off things when he got into her bedroom.

  It was like Tera was feeling the loss of her friend all over again now that she was getting down to the bare truth of why she died. Chechy shifted his head in an apparent search for help. None was coming. The barrel of the gun pointed at him wasn’t wavering.

  “OK, she was being stupid saying that. She didn’t know who she was talking to. I never would’ve said anything like that.”

  “You went along with it!” Tera shouted.

  “I did. I’m sorry about that, but come on. I went to talk to Kim and tell her it was over.”

  “She was telling you it was over! We know about the bank transfers and the stolen money,” she said.

  Chechy’s lip curdled and he glared at her. Popping his lies was causing the walls to close in on him, and he seemed to sense that his only way out was to fight.

  “Not about the bank, I mean between us. The only reason I hooked up with her was because of her job and that I thought she’d do what I wanted, but if she wasn’t going to help I didn’t need her for nothing. But I said that was it, give her what she’d earned, and split the joint. Didn’t lay a finger on her. I don’t hit ladies. Now come on, you can respect that.”

  Tera swallowed. She couldn’t take one more lie.

  “I’m not sure what makes you think admitting you lied is going to help anything else you say seem more believable,” she said, breathing heavily. She felt overcome and holding her arms straight became increasingly difficult.

  “I didn’t kill her!” he said in a pleading sort of way as if he couldn’t understand why the stories he told weren’t protecting him.

  Tera was about to tell him to step out and put both hands behind his head when he elbowed the door farther open so he could raise the pistol in his right hand. Before Tera could even think she pulled the trigger, striking him in the chest. His weapon discharged against the ground and Chechy’s body followed suit.

  The man slumped against the plastic exterior and he put his hand over his bleeding wound. Tera carefully kicked the gun away from him, and by the time she looked back at his face he was gone.

  All of it happened so fast, the appearance of the gun, the shooting, his passing away. She hadn’t even had time to ask him about the money.

  Tera hadn’t moved by the time Brady came back. She didn’t know how much time had passed. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes? Mostly she’d just been developing a strong sense of resentment that Wayne Chechy couldn’t have come clean for a single second before he attempted to pull the gun on her, a foolish move that once again showed her no respect.

  He’d counted on her being too afraid or too timid to pull the trigger, but he was wrong.

  Brady’s jog slowed as he approached. He’d put his gun away and even though Tera didn’t turn to look at him she sensed that the men he’d been chasing had vanished. Whether he was angry or disappointed wasn’t of much concern to her. It was just her standing there over a dead body along a stretch of pavement beside a derelict warehouse.

  “You’re wet,” he said, and she was surprised that of everything around them that’s what drew his attention. Based on a comment like that there was a fair chance he was admiring her figure or noticing how her clothes clung to her body, her nipples hard from the cool breeze.

  “I went for a dip. So did the car,” she said.

  “That’s fine. I called for backup a few minutes ago. Someone will be along. When I was stuck inside I couldn’t so much as reach for my phone without someone noticing. Then when they found me…‌I owe you one.”

  “Technically we’re even then,” she said, never taking her eyes off of Chechy and his face that seemed arrogant and condescending even in death.

  “I didn’t mean for this to be a bloodbath.”

  “What else could it have been?”

  Tera saw that she’d been swept up in Brady’s confidence and looks, resulting in her putting him on a pedestal and giving him a degree of deference that he didn’t necessarily deserve. Considering how much they’d had on Chechy already, a stakeout and a hideout break-in were stupid moves when they could’ve gone forward with a good old-fashioned bust, taking them all alive and wrapping up Kim’s murder investigation with whatever they found after the fact once the thefts were settled.

  Instead Brady had wanted to pull a risky move, and it almost got them killed. She’d blinded herself to how he was roughly the same age as her with only a tad more experience, a few Yale classes notwithstanding, and their difference in position was not the result of a difference in competence, just some different choices. And some new choices could fix that.

  “Did he tell you anything before he pulled that gun on you?” Brady asked, finally getting around to the question he should’ve started with in the first place. Tera sighed and put away her gun, which had seemed attached to her hand. She crossed her arms over her stomach; the chill was beginning to make her uncomfortable.

  “He admitted that he met with Kim the Sunday night she died but was adamant that it wasn’t him. The story was he handed over the cash and left. I kept calling him on it and he decided to make a move on me, his last move.”

  “That money is the evidence you were looking for all along. Even if it doesn’t show any prints after further analysis, I bet we can trace the bills from the ATM right over there. And he knew it. He was out of options and going through you was the only way to avoid decades in prison, if not life.”

  Police sirens began to catch her ear, and she sensed the moment was passing. She’d wanted to see Kim’s killer dragged into court and sentenced, but perhaps that had been naive around these parts of Chicago where so many would rather take their chances with a gun than ever be caught.

  There was more work to do to sort out everything that happened tha
t night, but Chechy had been relegated to the past and wouldn’t be causing anyone more problems.

  “Should we have a look inside and see what we’ve won?” Tera said, beginning to walk back to the warehouse’s opening by the water’s edge before he even had a chance to respond.

  Brady didn’t seem to care to lead her like he usually did, and in this moment walking beside her wasn’t something he was inclined to bother with.

  “When I was inside checking the computer I did see some stuff about Bitcoin, but there was also some contracts with programming groups. He wanted to turn his cash funnel into something like a real bank to give the operation cover. The last thing I saw were some real estate listings in Miami. Chechy would’ve been out of state if he’d gotten away with this much longer,” he said from a short distance behind her.

  That was useful information, but after being up close to some of those crates inside she had a feeling there was more going on here. She didn’t know all that much about Bitcoin, but the drugs in Kim’s apartment may well have come from one of these crates.

  Picking up a crowbar around the back, she continued through the large loading door and began looking over the crates. Some were old and had straw poking out. Others had new nails that caught the moonlight. Taking a deep breath, she jammed the end of the crow bar between the slats of one of the crates and started breaking it open.

  When enough had been removed, she cleared away more straw to see something that very obviously wasn’t drugs.

  “What in the world?”

  As she stared in confusion, Brady pulled out a small colorful box that was about half the length of a shoebox and was wrapped in clear plastic. She knew what Pokemon was but couldn’t understand what little boxes that were evidently full of trading cards were doing here. In just this one crate there were a dozen of these things.

  “I didn’t expect this,” Brady said.

  “Is he a fan or something?”

  Brady set down the box and rubbed his eyes. Tera was at a loss. Maybe there were some things that she wasn’t all that competent about, but she decided she could give herself a pass for not understanding how these things fit into what Chechy had going on.