The Pain Scale

by Tyler Dilts

  I lifted the top photo to reveal another. The green footprints tat on the arm of the SUV driver. This was what we’d been leading up to. Jen was as focused on Baker as I was.

  “Dude was a poser.” He recognized the tattoo and knew it shouldn’t have been on the driver’s arm, but that was it. No twitches, no pauses, no uncertainty, no discernable micro-expressions, no red flags of any kind.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t know about the green footprints?”

  “What about them?” I said. “We saw the color and thought it looked like Kawasaki green. Figured there was some kind of motorcycle connection.”

  “No. That’s an air force Pararescue thing.”

  “Pararescue?”

  “That’s the air force version of the Green Berets or the SEALs.”

  “Really,” Jen said. “This guy was special forces?”

  “No,” Baker said. He leaned forward, enthusiastic, pleased with himself. Maybe even showing off a little. “He wasn’t. If you’re Pararescue, you get the footprints on your ass. This guy was a tool. A wannabe.”

  “Oh, wow,” I said. “That really helps.”

  “No sweat,” Baker said. He looked directly at Jen. “Can I do anything else for you guys?”

  She just smiled at him, tilted her head, and said, “I can’t think of anything.”

  He smirked, completely oblivious to the fact that he was the only real tool anywhere in the vicinity.

  The price we paid for the beauty of the sunset was rush hour traffic on the 405 back to Long Beach. Jen was driving, though, so I didn’t mind.

  “How do you want to go at the Ranger?” I asked.

  “The Kawa-Kaze thing just jumped right out at us. Didn’t really have to think about it.”

  “True,” I said. “We can just go with a body in the neighborhood.”

  “He’s in Pasadena?”

  “Yeah.”

  “In a nice part of town?”

  “Isn’t Pasadena all nice parts?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “If we go in talking about a body, he might think twice about it when none of the neighbors bring it up.”

  “True.” In Long Beach, murder is common enough and the population dense enough that we could make up a murder and no one would really think twice about it. Pasadena, as far as we knew, was in a different category. You can’t always get away with stories like that in areas with low crime rates. “We’re not going to fight the traffic tonight anyway. Let’s sleep on it and see if we can come up with an angle tomorrow.”

  We drove in silence for a few miles, and just when we were passing LAX, my throwaway cell rang.

  “Patrick,” I said.

  There was no reply.

  “Patrick?” I repeated. “Hello?” I looked at the display. His name and number were there, and the line was still open. I tried again. “Hello?”

  I hung up and redialed his number. The generic voice mail greeting answered.

  “That was weird,” I said.

  “Try mine,” Jen said, fishing the phone from her jacket pocket with her left hand.

  I tried on her cell.

  “No,” I said. “Straight to voice mail again.”

  “Want to stop by his place?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Probably just the crappy phone. We can try back in a while. How about we get something to eat and wait for the traffic to lighten up?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “There’s a CPK in Manhattan Beach.”

  “Really? CPK?”

  “Yeah. It’s right by the Apple Store.”

  “The truth comes out.”

  “I’m thinking about an iPad.” It was one of the few tech toys that I’d wanted but hadn’t actually gotten for myself during my leave.

  “Didn’t you just get a new MacBook?”

  “That was months ago.”

  We went to the China Grill instead; then she indulged my techno lust. After oohing and aahing over all the merchandise and playing Angry Birds on the relatively large screen of an iPad for the better part of an hour, it was a challenge to talk myself out of spending a thousand dollars on shiny things I didn’t need. Only the surety of Jen giving me shit about it all the way back to Long Beach gave me the strength to hold off.

  “I think I’m jealous of Patrick,” I said as we were getting back on the 405.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I want to be a hacker when I grow up.”

  “You were practically a Luddite before your leave,” she said. “When did you send your first text message? A year ago?”

  “I had a lot of time on my hands.”

  “Learning how to make an iTunes playlist doesn’t make you Steve Jobs.”

  “I know that. I was thinking more of the Woz, anyway.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and I could see her decide not to indulge me any further.

  After Patrick’s throwaway went straight to voice mail again, I said, “Screw this. I’m just going to try his real phone.”

  “You think you should? He might not like it. He was pretty adamant about not using official hardware.”

  “Well, I won’t say anything I shouldn’t.”

  It didn’t matter what I said, though, because I got another message prompt. This time I had to wait for six rings, though. “You ever see Patrick without his phone?”

  “No.”

  “Still want to stop by his place?” I asked.

  Later that night, at the hospital, even though Jen tried to convince me otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from laying blame on my own seemingly infinite childishness and self-indulgence.

  Nine

  HOW MANY THINGS in life are dividing lines that separate the before from the after? I keep thinking I’ve encountered what surely must be the last of these, the final split, the ultimate separation. The first, of course, was the death of my father. Then the graduations—high school, college, the academy, becoming a cop, getting married, making detective, Megan’s death, the onset of my chronic pain. Befores and afters. How many more would there be? How many more times could something happen that would make me think, This is it, things will never be the same again?

  Driving south, we started to worry. I added two more voice mails and three text messages to Patrick’s various inboxes.

  “That’s not like him,” I said.

  “I know,” Jen said. “He’s even texted me once from court.”

  “How’d he manage that?”

  “He does it without looking at his phone. You’ve never seen him?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t even need to take it out of his jacket pocket.”

  “Really?”

  The headlights of the cars behind us reflected in the rearview mirror cast a bar of light across her eyes, and I could see the concern in them as she nodded. She’d partnered with him for almost a year. That was the first time I’d really thought about it. It had never occurred to me how close they must have become.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything.

  I speed dialed Lieutenant Ruiz and waited for him to answer. When he did, I asked, “Have you heard from Patrick in the last few hours?”

  “No,” he said. “Why?”

  We knew it was wrong even before we stopped the car.

  “Drive past,” I said to Jen as we approached Patrick’s loft. “Check the side.” When we saw that the big roll-up door facing the street was closed, she made a U-turn and parked on the other side of the street, just far enough away that no one would be able to see the cruiser from the front windows or the door.

  Patrick’s Mini was parked out front, but there were no lights on inside. Jen drew her Glock and started across the street.

  “Wait,” I said quietly. “Pop the trunk.”

  I took the Remington 870 out of the war bag inside and racked the slide to chamber a round. “Let’s go.”

&nbs
p; We approached the door in a wide curve and stacked on the left side. I nudged the door with the muzzle of my pistol.

  “Unlocked,” I whispered.

  “Wait for backup?” she asked.

  Part of me was hoping we’d go inside and find Patrick in the dark, staring at one of his screens, headphones on, engrossed in a game of Gears of War. The other part couldn’t stop worrying about what else might be inside.

  I shook my head, crouched down, pushed the door open, and went inside. There was a light switch over my left shoulder, but I left it as it was. If I turned it on, it would give anyone in the expanse of the warehouse a perfect target.

  When my eyes began to adjust to the darkness in the front room, I pulled the door open for Jen and she followed me inside. We took flanking positions on either side of the doorway leading into the short hallway.

  I made eye contact with her, and when I saw that she was ready, I began down the hallway. Hugging the wall, I leaned into the stock of the Remington. The kitchen and bathroom looked clear, although, in the darkness, I couldn’t be positive. I knew Jen had my back, so I kept moving.

  A few short steps in front of me, the hall opened into the large expanse of the warehouse. All I could see was darkness.

  Behind me, I heard Jen move into the kitchen, then the bathroom, to be sure we wouldn’t be surprised from behind.

  If I remembered correctly, there was a light switch just around the corner that was wired to turn on half a dozen lights around the edges of the large space.

  When Jen was at my heels, I turned to her and whispered, “Lights.”

  She gave me a single nod.

  I reached up and tried to find the switch with my fingers.

  The adrenaline was pumping at full force, and I could feel my hands shaking.

  I took two deep breaths and slid my hand around the wall. I could have sworn I’d seen Patrick turn on the lights there, but all I could feel was the empty wall.

  No lights.

  I shook my head to tell Jen what she had already figured out.

  She took the SureFire flashlight out of her pocket and held it up.

  I nodded and motioned for her to move to the right of the door, then pointed at myself and gestured to the left.

  When we were in position, she crouched low and raised her left hand high before hitting the flashlight’s thumb switch.

  At the same time, I flicked on the Remington’s fore end–mounted tactical light.

  We moved the spots around the big space, looking for movement or anything out of place.

  Nothing.

  When we knew we’d seen everything we could from that position, we began to move.

  Not more than ten feet from the door, Jen said, “Danny,” and her beam of light stopped on the far side of the loft.

  Patrick’s computer setup had been trashed. As we moved closer, we could see someone had taken great pains to see that nothing would be salvageable. I was still looking at the mess when I heard Jen gasp.

  She was already kneeling next to him before I even understood what had caused her exclamation.

  On the floor, with his hands and feet bound and strips of duct tape across his mouth and eyes, was Patrick’s motionless body.

  From the evidence at the scene that Dave and Marty gathered while we waited at the hospital, and the reports of the paramedics and the emergency room doctor, we knew that he had been Tasered and had hit his head on the edge of one of the computer tables as he fell. He was unconscious when he was bound and gagged. If not for the head injury, the assault would have been relatively minor.

  But the trauma was serious—a severe concussion and a cracked skull led to a subdural hematoma and brain herniation. He was in a coma, and the doctors were unsure of his prognosis.

  Had he been found sooner, the surgeon said, he could have been more positive. As it was, we’d have to wait and see.

  “Stop it, Danny,” Jen said.

  “Stop what?”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  I wanted to argue with her, but I knew doing so would be self-indulgent, and that was exactly what I was blaming myself for already. I didn’t believe it was my fault Patrick was attacked, but I knew that if I hadn’t been dicking around, we would have gone to his house sooner.

  “What should we do?” I asked.

  “The lieutenant’s on the way. Let him call it.”

  When he got there half an hour later, he told us we could stay at the hospital, go work the scene, or even go home and try to get some sleep. Which, of course, wasn’t any help at all. Jen decided to stay.

  “Is it okay if I go see how Dave and Marty are doing?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “One of us should. I’ll call you as soon as there’s any news.”

  With that, I drove the ten minutes back to Patrick’s loft.

  There were four cruisers, a Crime Scene Detail van, and two unmarked LBPD vehicles. The one I was in made three.

  I badged a rookie I didn’t know, and he let me inside.

  “Danny,” Marty said as he saw me walk toward him, “what’s the latest?”

  Dave joined us, and I told them everything I knew about Patrick’s condition.

  “He’ll be fine,” Dave grumbled. “He’s a hardheaded bastard. He’ll be fine.”

  I tried hard to believe him, and judging by the look on his face, Marty did, too.

  “Detectives?”

  The three of us turned back toward the door and looked up toward the voice. Above the front rooms was a second floor, kind of a loft within the loft. One of the crime scene technicians was looking down at us and waving. “I think there’s something up here you should see,” he said.

  The only access was a steel ladder attached to wall in the corner.

  “After you,” Marty said.

  I climbed up. “Hey, James,” I said to the tech. When he looked at me oddly, I second-guessed myself. “I’m sorry. Jim?”

  “Ben,” he said.

  Before I could apologize again, Marty stepped off the ladder. “Hey, Ben,” he said. “What do you have?”

  “Right over here,” he said, gesturing to a three-foot-square metal access hatch. “I hope it’s okay,” Ben said. “I used Detective Glenn’s keys to open this.”

  “Why?” Marty asked. We felt awkward snooping through our colleague’s things. None of us were sure how much privacy we should afford him. It wasn’t a stretch to assume Patrick’s attack was connected to the Benton investigation, and he had been assaulted and was in critical condition. It was a stupid thing to worry about, but cops always get uncomfortable when one of our own is on the other side of an investigation. Fortunately, though, Ben had a good answer.

  “I was following this.” He motioned for us to step closer, and he ran his hand along the joint where the wall met the low ceiling of the loft. “Feel up here,” he said.

  I did. There was a ridge of spackle that filled in the right angle of the joint. As I followed it with my fingers, I could see the unusual convex curve where the seam should have been sharper and more angular.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “There’s a wire underneath,” Ben said. “Runs out here to the edge.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Take a look.”

  I leaned out over the railing and looked at the edge of the joint. There was a shallow hole that was perhaps a quarter of an inch across with something black inset into the opening. “What am I looking at?”

  “A lens,” he said.

  Marty and I looked at him expectantly.

  “The wire runs into the wall and inside.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “Take a look.”

  I got down on my hands and knees and crawled halfway into the hatch. The first thing I noticed was how clean it was. There was no dust on the floor, no cobwebs hanging from the studs. It didn’t even smell musty. Just inside was a rack of what looked like computer equipment. I think Ben expected me to recognize what I was lookin
g at. I didn’t. As I backed up out of the hole, I said, “You’re going to have to help me out with that, too.”

  “It’s a video control unit hooked up to a couple of hard drives.”

  “Surveillance?” Marty asked.

  “Yeah,” Ben said.

  “Did it get what happened here?”

  “Power’s on and everything’s running, so I’m guessing yes.”

  “Guessing?”

  “Can’t tell for sure. Security’s tight. Didn’t want to risk damaging any of the data.”

  “It’s connected directly to the camera?” I asked. “Why not use wireless?”

  “Six cameras,” Ben said. “And they’re all hardwired. Closed circuit. With wireless, if somebody had the right frequency and they were close enough, they could intercept the signal. With wires, no one’s going to see anything you don’t want them to.”

  “Where are the other cameras?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll follow the wires and find them.”

  “This hardware, it’s not the kind of thing somebody would plant here, right? It’s for security?”

  “Right. Detective Glenn knew his tech. This is his.”

  Marty started down the ladder. While I was waiting for him to clear the bottom, I turned back to Ben and said, “Good work. This is big.”

  He looked pleased, and I hoped that helped to make up for my mistake with his name.

  “Thanks,” he said. “That really means a lot coming from you, Detective Ionesco.”

  When I got down to the bottom of the ladder, Marty asked, “What’s so funny?”

  Dave, Marty, and I gathered around the wreckage of Patrick’s computer equipment. “They destroyed everything. Took the hard drives, ripped them right out of the machines. Weren’t messing around,” Dave said.

  “Who do you suppose ‘they’ were?” Marty asked.

  “Not the shooter from the SUV,” I said.

  Dave’s brow furrowed. “Why do you say that?”

  “He shot the driver at the first sign of trouble. Whoever did this was trying to avoid violence. Used a Taser. Patrick’s only critical because he hit his head on the edge of the table on the way to the floor. They probably didn’t even know how bad he was when they tied him up.”