by John McMahon
“Okay,” I said. “Yeah.”
But I could tell Remy wasn’t done.
“Somebody needs to tell you that you’re worth betting on, P.T. That you deserve good things.”
I nodded.
“So maybe it’s the drugs talking—but I gotta be straight with you. You listening?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not at fault for that shit that went down with Lena. You worked late, P.T. You took a case. You worked late a million other nights. It’s what we do.”
I could feel a tear moving down my cheek, but Remy kept going.
“If you attracted the wrong type of attention, it was ’cause you were trying to help someone,” she said. “And Lena knew that about you. Probably why she loved you.”
I sniffed now, my nose clogging up.
“So you find these fuckers, P.T. But then you gotta be over with it. Y’understand?”
“I do.”
“All right,” Remy said, giving my hand a squeeze. “So what are you still doing here?”
I tapped the edge of her bed and took a step back. Turned and left.
Out in the lobby I crossed the room toward Darren Gattling.
“I know what you’re gonna say.” He put up his palms. “When you came in. You saw us holding hands.”
He stopped talking and stared at me. My face was probably still covered in tears.
“Take care of her, Darren, okay?”
I patted him on the shoulder and left.
39
I stepped out of the elevator and crossed the lobby of the hospital, trying to remember where I’d stowed my truck when I’d arrived in a panic.
Standing in front of me were two giant men. They were Black and built like S.E.C. tight ends. Each at least six foot tall and ripped. Pure muscle they couldn’t hide, even in a two-piece suit.
“Mr. Bleeker would like a word,” the man closest to me said in a baritone.
He steered me toward an E.R. waiting area, and I noticed a man I’d seen only on TV.
Councilman Jerome Bleeker was five foot ten, with a few extra pounds around the middle. He was in his forties and dressed in gray slacks and a white dress shirt. A tie, no longer around his neck, was laid out atop a magazine copy of Atlanta, on a chair beside him.
“Detective Marsh.” He stood up as I approached. “I understand I owe you and your partner a debt of gratitude.”
“Councilman.” I shook his hand. “It’s our pleasure. If you have a moment, Detective Morgan is on the third floor, in recovery.”
“That’s my next stop,” he said.
He scanned me, stopping at a red mark that was probably Nolan Brauer’s blood on my shirt. And I stared at him. He had a kind face and unusually large brown eyes.
“From what I hear-tell, your partner nearabout died.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess that’s true.”
“Are you a religious person, Detective Marsh?”
“I grew up going to church,” I said. “My father was religious. I don’t go now.”
“Well, I only know one person well in Mason Falls,” he said. “A preacher by the name of Reggie Webster. He speaks very highly of you.”
I smarted, almost embarrassed. Remy and I had worked a hate crime against Webster’s son, Kendrick. But we came onto the case after the boy had been killed. Too late to prevent the catastrophe.
“I’m curious how you knew someone was going to shoot me,” Bleeker said.
“We worked a lead,” I replied. “Sometimes it’s more gut than science. I’m just glad everything turned out okay.”
The councilman nodded, studying me.
“And you’re the one that Governor Monroe praised on the news,” he said. “You live a complex life, don’t you, Detective?”
I stared at Bleeker for a spell. I hated that I sounded like Toby Monroe’s boy. “I work for the Mason Falls PD, Mr. Bleeker. Not Governor Monroe.”
“And thank God for that,” he said.
He put out his hand, and I shook it again. “All right, I’ll go see your partner. You get some rest. Your eyes are bloodshot, Detective.”
I headed out the door of the hospital, and after a minute I located the doctor’s parking lot where I’d stowed my truck.
I’d already sent Wolf and Chester back home. As it turned out, Chester had gotten his ass kicked, but wasn’t hurt too badly. Mostly cuts and swelling on his face that needed ice and time.
“Detective Marsh,” a voice said as I walked under the ER’s portico.
I turned and saw Quarles, the Fed from the day before. Jesus, I just wanted to go home.
“I’ve been asked to bring you over to the Midtown Suites.”
“I’m tired, man,” I said. “I’m going home to crash.”
“Detective Clearson said you might say that.”
I turned and stared at Quarles. The starchy white shirt and dark blue coat. Were all these guys issued the same suit as some uniform?
“Detective Clearson wanted to make sure I passed on his gratitude,” Agent Quarles said.
“His gratitude?” I blinked.
“For your part in the multi-agency approach. You were the third leg of the chair—as he just announced at the press conference. Federal. State. And locals, all working together.”
I smiled at Quarles.
So teamwork—that’s the story we’re going with?
“My pleasure,” I said.
“Yourself and Detective Morgan will be properly acknowledged once she’s better.”
“Sure,” I said. I turned toward the parking lot, but the guy kept walking alongside me.
“We did have a question about this man,” he said, holding up a photo.
I stared at a shot of Chester Gardner. The angle was from above. A hotel security cam, and it showed Chester and the bodyguard in a face-off.
“We’ve got an APB out on the bodyguard, Anton Sedonovich,” Quarles said. “But it appears that this man tried to slow him down. Do you know him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s the fourth leg of the chair, Quarles. Civilians. It’s who you count on when the first leg of the chair sends you a text that says ‘Stand down.’ Tells you that you’re grasping at straws.”
“Right.” Quarles nodded.
I clicked the fob and unlocked my truck. Pulled the door open.
“So do we need to take care of this gentleman?” he asked. “Make sure he’s clear on his story? Reward or acknowledge him in some way?”
“He did his civic duty,” I said. “He’ll be bragging about it at barbecues. That’s enough for him. And I get to hear as the stories get better each year. In ten years, he’ll have kicked Sedonovich’s ass.”
The Fed smiled at this.
“You wanna be clean with me?” I asked. “Not have any PR problems, right?”
“It’s like you’re reading my mind,” Quarles said.
“The old guy we were hunting.” I looked at him. “He killed a cop’s son in Mason Falls. Why don’t you put the same attention on finding him as you did on Brauer? All those agency resources you talked about. Find us something, and I’ll say whatever words you want.”
“Done,” Quarles said.
And I got in my truck and drove off.
40
By two p.m., I’d made it home and saw Purvis in the window, wagging his backside. Beau quickly scooted in front of him, his youth an undying engine. He placed his front two paws up on the window, and the glass shook with excitement.
I took both dogs for a walk, their leashes twisting around each other as Beau ran in circles like a kid hopped up on Easter candy.
“C’mon, puppy,” I said to him, untangling the cords as I walked.
It had sprinkled in the neighborhood overnight, and water pooled unevenly in the street. A
neighbor was circling the duck pond with a set of Yorkies, so I took my time getting there, and she saw me with my two wild beasts and headed in the other direction.
At the pond, I let go of Purvis’s leash, and he walked slowly around the perimeter. There were no mallards today, or Beau would’ve gone ape shit and yanked himself out of his collar.
I sat on the grass at the edge of the pond, even though I immediately felt the wetness of the Marathon sod soak into my pants.
I pulled Beau into my lap, calming him down by putting my arms around him and rubbing at the tufty area that ran from his neck down toward his stomach.
After a minute, he was restless, and I got up, barely able to stand with fatigue.
Back at the house, I filled both of their bowls and stepped out onto the porch, hearing the scuffing of aluminum against tile as each of the dogs scarfed up their food, pushing their bowls with their faces until they clacked against the molding at the two corners of the kitchen.
Where the hell did the last day go?
My eyes grew lazy, and I realized that, other than the time with Kelly on the houseboat, I hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest in days. I had also been up for thirty hours straight.
I moved inside, closing the doggie door to lock the dogs in the house with me and keep the barking down. I closed all the drapes and turned the AC low, getting under the covers and letting the stress of the last week disappear.
Get some rest, my partner had said. And then get going.
When I awoke, seven hours had passed, and it was night. Maybe nine or ten p.m. Beau jumped onto the bed and walked straight across Purvis’s body to lick my face.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m up, boy.”
I took a hot shower while Beau ran laps around the house, chasing an imaginary foe.
I could hear him slam against walls as he cornered, and I wondered if we had chosen each other because of common DNA. Dead ends were my specialty too. But maybe with my mind clear, I could find some new string. Some tiny thread that would lead me back to Lena. Back to my past and this robbery and maybe even to a crash along I-32, two Christmases ago.
Coming out in jeans and a sweatshirt, I realized that Beau had accidentally closed the bathroom door on himself and panicked. Locked inside, he’d scratched half the stain off the door.
I let him out and stared at the damage.
I’d ask Kelly about it later. She was a painter. She’d know how to fix scratches on a stained door.
I moved into the dining room and took a weathered manila folder off the shelf. The one that had everything I knew about the Golden Oaks robbery on December 12, 2017.
I hadn’t put quality time into this case in months, but tonight I felt a fire in my belly.
My phone pulsed and I grabbed it. I was thinking it might be Remy, but I was wrong. It was Kelly Borland. Funny, I’d just thought of her.
Doing anything tonight?
I typed back.
Working on a case. Sorry. Miss hanging out with you.
The three dots blinked and a new text appeared.
Me too. Soon then? After your case is over?
I typed back:
For sure.
I switched my phone off, going back to the opening of the case in December 2017. To what was stolen and how patrol first got to the liquor store.
I unclipped the case extract, breaking the file into pieces, mimicking the normal sections that make up a murder book. Even though the case was a robbery and not a murder.
Separate sections for witness statements.
For detectives’ notes.
For evidentiary matter.
Organize the information in a fresh way. And start from zero.
For this case, that began with a call on December 12 to 911.
I stared at the transcript, which was typed and pasted into my notes from two years ago.
Operator: 911, what’s your emergency?
Caller: A guy just came in here. Fuckin’ robbed us.
Operator: I see your address is 2016 Pike Street. Is that correct, sir?
Caller: Took his fuckin’ time after he hit me too. Got a damn Cherry Coke.
Operator: Sir, is anyone seriously injured or shot?
Caller: No. Thank God. But son of a bitch, my heart is rac—
Operator: Sir, can you still see the
Caller: No, he’s gone.
Operator: Good, are you in a safe place, sir? Are you okay?
Caller: He hit me in the fuckin’ head, so no. I’m not okay. He had a gun to my face.
Operator: Officers are on their way, sir. Can I get your name?
Caller: He was a white guy. He had a single bro—
Operator: What was that?
Caller: —tattooed.
Operator: You’re cutting out, sir. Can I get your name?
Caller: Christian.
Operator: Christian what?
Caller: Pelo. Like yellow, but with a p.
Operator: Can I confirm your address is—
Caller: Yeah, like you said before. The Golden Oaks. Pike and 20th.
Operator: Officers are on the way. Would you like me to stay on the line?
Caller: Not if someone’s coming this
Operator: Excuse me?
Caller: What?
Operator: I’m sorry, sir, what did you—
I flipped the page forward and saw that the call ended. I remembered Christian telling me he hung up in frustration. At the questions the woman was asking. How he couldn’t hear her. How his head was throbbing from the hit he’d taken.
On the next page were the notes taken by Emmanuel Bastian, the first patrol officer who responded to the call. Bastian was an older guy, and I’d been to his retirement party last year.
At the top of the page, the report listed the address of the Golden Oaks, along with the type of incident, which was first-degree robbery and assault, along with criminal codes 16-7-1 and 16-5-20.
Below that, Patrolman Bastian had written his case summary:
On December 12 at approximately six p.m., Mason Falls Police responded to a 911 call on the 2000th block of Pike Street of a potential 211 in progress at the Golden Oaks liquor store. I arrived at the store at approximately 6:14 p.m. and found no suspects present.
Per Christian Pelo, the store clerk, an unknown male had entered the package store armed with what appeared to be a bolt-action rifle. The suspect approached the checkout register. He held the weapon to the right temple of Pelo. Then the suspect demanded all the money in the store.
Pelo opened the cash drawer, revealing the contents as thirty-three dollars, broken into the following denominations: one twenty-dollar bill, one ten, and three singles. The suspect struck the clerk in the head with the butt of his rifle and quickly ran to the clerk’s side of the counter. The suspect told Pelo he knew there was a “fuck-ton of cash in this joint” and to “give it up”—tapping the butt of the rifle on a safe that was obscured behind a series of liquor bottles along the back counter.
Pelo opened the store safe, but it was empty, as his manager had one hour earlier headed to the bank. At this point, the suspect became irate and struck Pelo a second time, knocking him to the floor behind the counter. The suspect grabbed a plastic drink cup from behind the register and told the clerk to stay down.
Taking the thirty-three dollars from the cash drawer, the suspect asked the clerk if his fountain machine dispensed Cherry Coke, to which Pelo, from the floor, affirmed that the machine did. The suspect then filled the cup with the beverage and left, telling Pelo to count to fifty before he got up.
Pelo reported the suspect wore a black ski mask over his face with one oval hole for the eyes and nothing where the mouth was. From the skin he could see, Pelo reported that the suspect was white and
about his height, which was five foot ten.
The report was signed by Bastian and dated December 12, the day of the robbery.
I sat back, noticing that Purvis had settled atop my right foot. A line of drool hung from his mouth and across my sock, ending on the hardwood floor.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting, here, buddy,” I said to him, looking from the file to my bulldog.
Just work the details, Purvis said.
I flipped to the next page, but I remembered well what happened after that, because that’s when I came onto the case.
Dispatch called robbery, who said they were backed up, and a request went out to Miles Dooger, who was the police chief at the time.
Miles called me at my desk and asked if I could help.
The next page contained my interview with Pelo from the day of the robbery.
This was the only time I’d spoken with the clerk, since in subsequent visits, I had instead spoken to the day manager, John Adrian, who insisted that the establishment didn’t want the incident followed up on, and that Pelo had abandoned his job in distress after the robbery and left no forwarding address.
When I pushed for a home address where I could speak to Pelo, Adrian told me he didn’t know how to find the clerk and that the address line on Pelo’s job application had been inadvertently left blank.
“What about his I-9 form?” I’d asked, and Adrian went into the office at the rear of the store. Came out five minutes later and apologized. Told me Christian hadn’t yet filled out his I-9.
“You’re a real hustler,” I remember Adrian saying to me. “Thirty-three bucks and a drink and you’ve been back here three times. My view of the whole Mason Falls PD is changed for the better.”
I slipped my foot out from under Purvis. Got up and grabbed a hard rubber ball that I’d bought for Beau.
Pacing around the dining table, I bounced the ball, trying to shake the rust from my memory of those days. Across the room, Beau lifted his head, but then dropped it, falling back asleep on the couch once he realized I wasn’t playing with him.
