Snitch

by Rene Gutteridge

  “Your brother runs the shop?” Mason asked.

  “The part that doesn’t require late-night meetings in bars.”

  Mason checked his watch. It wasn’t even midnight yet. Maybe she was being facetious.

  He did need money.

  Kyle returned with a stack of napkins and a pen. Mackenzie took one and slid it to Mason, then set the pen on top of it. “I want a contact number. We’ll call you and let you know when to come to the shop. If you give us a fake number, that’s the end of our business relationship. Don’t ever try to get in contact with us again. We’re not here to mess around.”

  Mason hesitated. Mackenzie’s smile faded. Kyle looked around nervously, then grabbed a napkin and blotted his beer-dampened shirt. Mason jotted down his number and slid it across the table. Mackenzie folded it and put it in her back pocket. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Great.” Mason grabbed the pack of cigarettes and looked at Kyle. “I guess you won’t be needing these.”

  “Not at all. Go ahead and take them.”

  Mason laughed as he got up. These two were absolutely absurd. Somehow, though, that put him at ease. The last guy he dealt with may have looked the part, but he turned out to be a cop.

  “Thanks.”

  As Mason walked away he overheard Kyle say to the girl, “So … do you want to sit on my lap again?”

  Chapter 27

  An hour later, the team was back at the house. Dozer had spotted Mason leaving the bar, but Kyle and Mack still took extra precautions to make sure they weren’t followed.

  Wiz was in a back room ordering pizza and mourning the fact that he missed an opportunity for action. Jesse didn’t have much of an appetite. He was still reeling from how it all went down. What were the chances he would run into Mason Capps again? In Vegas, no less. Capps was known for doing deals in Henderson, but not much in Vegas.

  Sergeant Yeager was on the phone, explaining to his wife that Kyle was all right. Kyle and Mack were discussing every detail of the event.

  Jesse glanced out the window into the dark, quiet street. Framed perfectly in orange light from her living room, Ruth stood at a bay window with arms crossed. Jesse yanked the curtains closed.

  “How long do we wait before we contact Mason?” Jesse asked.

  “We’ll move as quickly as possible, but we can’t rush,” Sergeant Yeager said, snapping his phone shut. “Hank’s working around the clock to get the shop in decent working order.”

  “I just don’t want to waste our big break or risk Mason losing interest. If this thing doesn’t kick into high gear soon—”

  “We don’t want to look overly anxious,” Sergeant Yeager said. “What happened at the bar is most likely going to make him extra cautious.”

  Jesse leaned back into the couch. He knew Mason was in it for the money. Everything he did was driven by his money problems. If this didn’t turn out to be lucrative, Mason would move on.

  “You were amazing,” Mack said to Jesse.

  “Amazing?” Jesse asked.

  “How did you think that quickly?”

  “It’s all about thinking on your feet.” He looked at Sergeant Yeager. “And taking a few risks.”

  “The biggest risk any of you will be taking for the rest of the night is with the double-sausage pizza Wiz ordered.” Sergeant Yeager held up four blank pieces of paper.

  “What’s that?” Wiz asked.

  “This will be your police report.”

  Jesse laughed. “You want us to draw what happened?”

  “I’m going to introduce you to the four-corners doctrine,” said Sergeant Yeager.

  Jesse folded his arms. “Is this in honor of our resident pastor?”

  “You young cops are going to learn how to write a police report. A real police report.” He held up the papers again. “What do you see on this paper?”

  “A cloud,” Dozer said and laughed. “The absence of my childhood pet.”

  “I’ll pass. I’ve had enough mental evaluation for one night.” Wiz said.

  Jesse stared at Sergeant Yeager. “Nothing. It’s blank.”

  “No lines, no questions, no boxes to check.” He passed out the paper. “Today, officers rely too much on forms. Back in my day, we didn’t have fancy recording equipment. Didn’t need it. Our testimony in a court of law was enough. The reason it was enough was because we wrote down everything that happened. If it isn’t written down, then it didn’t happen. My mentor taught me to use every inch of white space on the page. Now it’s your turn. Fill your paper with every detail you remember from tonight. Don’t stop writing until you’re completely out of paper. Both sides.”

  Jesse shook his head. This was nonsense. If Sergeant Yeager had such a passion for this kind of basic training, why not teach at the academy?

  He started writing anyway. There was no point in arguing about it. He didn’t want to hear another lecture about the old days. His mind wandered as he wrote. He couldn’t figure out why Mason was in Vegas. What was his connection? And why auto theft? Mason had no history of auto theft. He was a cocaine user who dabbled in dealing. Someone else must be driving him into this new venture.

  With a long sigh, he tried to concentrate on his report. Maybe after they were finished, they could have milk and cookies.

  Dozer smirked from across the room. “Wax on, wax off, baby.”

  A hole was about to burn through Laura’s stomach.

  Everything had started with a hunch. She overheard a conversation while on lunch break. Then another in the parking lot after work.

  One thing led to another, and now she was tailing Detectives Byers and Bourquin under a dark sky into a neighborhood that was starting to confirm her suspicion. Streetlights highlighted neatly trimmed lawns and flowerpots filled with colorful flowers in front of all of the houses except the one where they parked. She watched the two detectives get out of their car, walk across a yellowing lawn, through a cluttered maze of children’s toys, then up the sidewalk past a pot of dead flowers to the front door. Laura parked a half block away and waited in her car under the shadow of a tree.

  After a few moments, someone answered the door. She couldn’t quite see from her vantage point, but if her gut was right, it was a woman. The detectives stood outside and questioned her for about ten minutes, then left.

  After they’d left, Laura drove up to the curb outside the home, got out, and walked up to the door. She knocked loudly, and the door opened quickly.

  “What do you wa—” A young woman with heavy red eyelids and splotchy skin stared at her through glassy eyes. “Who are you?” When she spoke, Laura noticed the black rot to her teeth, probably from the acid in the meth.

  “You drive a minivan, don’t you? You reported it stolen yesterday.”

  “I just told the cops that. Are you a cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “You guys need to get your act together.” This coming from a woman who was wearing a blouse with pajama bottoms.

  “How long after it was stolen did you wait to report it?”

  “Look,” she said, running a finger under her nose, “I was busy, okay? My boyfriend and I share the car sometimes. I thought he’d taken it. Couldn’t get ahold of him. What good’s a cell phone when they don’t turn it on?” Laura nodded like she was buying her story.

  “Thank you for your time,” Laura said.

  “That’s it?” The woman’s eyebrows came together.

  “You’re not the only one with cell phone problems. If my superiors would turn theirs on, we wouldn’t have cops out here bothering you all night.”

  A small child emerged from behind the woman. He wore a Superman T-shirt and a diaper that had reached maximum capacity. The woman didn’t seem to notice him.

  Laura walked back to her car. She was right. She’d been right all along. These vehicles were being stolen or loaned to run drugs. There was no way she was going to let narcotics score this one. She was way ahead of them, and that was how it was going to
stay.

  No matter what.

  Ron stood outside a small convenience store, cell phone to his ear, trying to explain the situation to Nan, though even he wasn’t sure why Laura had wanted to meet him at this late hour. “I’m sorry. You know I can’t control these things,” he said to Nan.

  “There are a lot of things that can’t be controlled,” she fumed, “which is why they have restrooms in five different locations at the mall.” She paused. “Hold on, there’s someone at the door.”

  Ron snapped his phone shut. He knew it was Kyle at her door. He’d sent him to deal with the fallout that would come with telling Nan he would be home later than he planned. Besides, Kyle kept lingering near Mack, who was trying to finish her police report. Ron made an overly dramatic plea to Kyle: “Nan is going to be upset about another late night. I would appreciate it if you would talk to her.” He didn’t warn Kyle that Nan would probably take out her anger on him, but the visit would still serve its purpose.

  Ron had something more pressing to consider—like why Laura insisted on meeting him in a greasy diner at a remote convenience store.

  Laura got right to the point. “Task Force Viper is going to take a big turn.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t think this will surprise you. You seemed to be drawing your own conclusions.”

  “About what?”

  “The minivans that are being stolen.”

  “The ones that you took out of the report.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about them?”

  “I have good intel that says these vehicles are being used for drug running.”

  Ron nodded. “Makes a lot of sense. I suspected any damage they had was just to make it look like they were stolen for, at the very least, joyriding. But who steals minivans for joyriding, right?”

  “Theres another pattern—these vehicles aren’t reported missing until at least twenty-four hours after they’ve disappeared.”

  “Crack rentals. They loan the car in exchange for dope.”

  “I’ve known this for a while,” she said, each word carefully spoken. “Even before Viper.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I set Viper up for this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I want this, Ron. I deserve it.”

  Ron leaned back and stared at her. “You set up the entire task force for a drug bust?”

  “It’s going to be huge. This thing keeps growing. If we can get someone on the inside, I’m certain we can get all the way to the top.”

  Ron grew angry. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

  “That’s why I signed you up for this, Ron. I knew you could handle it. You have a lifetime’s worth of experience in undercover drug work.”

  “That was yesterday, Laura. I came on board to bust up a car-theft ring. That’s it.”

  “You have to do this. We have to do this. I can’t let narcotics take this over.”

  “They don’t know?”

  “They’re starting to suspect, but they’re way behind the curve. They’ve been tied up with a huge heroin bust. If narcotics gets involved in this task force now, there will be so much red tape, we’ll trip over it with every step. We’re already in. We can move quickly. We keep going and we topple this thing.”

  “This sounds like a vendetta.”

  “You don’t know what I’ve had to listen to for the past ten years. I deserved that position. It got ripped from me.”

  “Because of a cop’s pregnant wife? Is that what you’re talking about?”

  “It could’ve happened to anybody. A lot of people would’ve made the same decision. They penalized me because I’m a woman.”

  “What decision?”

  Laura sighed and drew back her intensity. “I let the cop see his wife.”

  “Your partner’s brother, right?”

  “Not my partner, really. Only my partner on paper. It was an accreditation test.”

  “This whole thing was over a promotional assessment? A policies and procedures test?”

  “It wasn’t just a test to me. It was my chance to get into narcotics. That scenario … I made my decision. It’s all subjective, you know? And they failed me for that.”

  “Look, Laura, we’ve all gotten bad breaks here and there. So you didn’t get narcotics because of one question on an exam. You’re the head of a bureau. That counts for something.”

  “They don’t respect me, Ron. And they won’t until I can prove that I’m as good of a cop as they are.”

  “Are you talking about the narcotics guys or your father?”

  “Leave my father out of this.”

  “I don’t think you can.”

  “I read your file, Ron. I know what happened to your partner. He fell in love with an informant, turned on you, and you had to shoot him. Now that’s a problem to worry about.”

  “That was a long time ago, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the work we’re doing here.”

  “I chose you because I knew this was going to be an extraordinary case. We have a chance to bring down some very powerful and dangerous people. Tell me, what’s wrong with this scenario?”

  “Motivation,” Ron said.

  “What’s the difference if the job gets done?”

  “Trust me. It makes all the difference in the world.”

  Laura squeezed her hands together to look calm, but her knuckles were turning white. “Are you with me on this or not? Of course, you’re welcome to sleep on it.” She glanced at his cell phone sitting on the table. “It’s getting kind of late.”

  “That’s a big chip you’re carrying on your shoulder,” Ron said. “My old partner carried one too. He got disgruntled, blamed the force, turned on us.”

  “We’ve all got motivations. You do. I do. Look at Mack. She cares that this world is going to hell in a handbasket. She thinks she can do something to help. Yes, I realize she’s on the upswing of idealism, but I’m not sure she has a downswing. So what? It’s all motivation.”

  “Narcotics changes the game. If the drug-running theory is true, we’re dealing with a very dangerous group of people.”

  “That’s why we need to get them. We have an open door. This Capps guy is known for dealing drugs, right?”

  “Small-time. In Henderson.”

  “He could be connected to somebody bigger.” Her eyes held a quiet desperation.

  Ron rested his forearms on the table. “After we get Mason, if we want to push him for contacts, fine. If it leads us to drug dealers, though, I don’t have the right people in place to do what needs to be done. We may need to pull in some guys from narcotics.”

  “Jesse is capable of handling it, and there’s no reason we can’t use Mason as an informant.”

  Ron slid out of the booth. “Right now, I’ve got to go home, see my wife, and get some sleep.” Ron grabbed his cane and walked out into the still, dark night.

  Laura Gates was in way over her head. But Ron knew, deep inside, he wasn’t.

  Chapter 28

  Jesse and Kyle scurried down the porch steps and sidewalk of Sergeant Yeager’s home and jumped into Kyle’s car.

  “Well,” Kyle said softly, staring forward and gripping the steering wheel. “That didn’t go well.”

  That was the understatement of the century. Jesse wasn’t exactly sure why Sergeant Yeager had sent Kyle to visit Nan, but whatever the reason, it had backfired.

  Jesse hadn’t really gotten to know Nan at the cocktail party since nobody was allowed to speak, but she seemed like a decent person. She had a bit of an edge to her, but that wasn’t uncommon for cops’ wives.

  During the party, he’d even let his mind wander to thoughts of marriage. His had been a disaster. He wanted to believe there was a chance for something better down the road. But while he found that a lot of women liked the idea of dating a cop, when the reality of police life set in, off they went. On the rebound from his marriage, he’d started dating a beautiful woman name
d Lindsey. Then he got shot. She stood by his bed, carrying on about how brave he was … until they put in a catheter. She watched with her hand over her mouth, and he never saw her after that. Her parting thought was written all over her face: He can’t even use the restroom by himself? Jesse shook off the thoughts and turned to Kyle. “What, exactly, did the sarge expect you to do in there?”

  “I’m not sure. Usually I’m called in to people’s homes to comfort them or offer counseling. But with the Yeagers, well … you never know.”

  “So what would you call that?”

  “Possibly an exorcism,” Kyle said with a wry smile as he started his car. “Nan can be pretty stubborn. She’s the secretary for our ministry committee. She takes the job very seriously. But I’ve never really seen her like this. She’s angry, and I think it’s because she’s really worried about Ron.”

  “Join the club,” Jesse said with a sigh. “The guy is wearing me out.”

  Kyle pulled away from the curb. “Maybe he’s just trying to pass on some traditions.”

  “We’re not talking about Christmas, here.”

  “No, but wouldn’t you agree that tradition is a big part of your occupation? It’s certainly true in Christianity. Some of the traditions are good … some bad. But when the good is lost, it can be troubling. Tragic in some cases.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for instance, studying the Scriptures. Decades ago, Christians knew and practiced the importance of reading God’s Word daily. That’s being lost more and more in the church and it shows. People aren’t reading God’s Word, and so they’re not equipped when trouble comes knocking.”

  “Nan seemed perfectly equipped, if you define us as trouble.”

  “Well, with a mouth like that, who needs a weapon, right?”

  Jesse laughed. “No kidding.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you wanted to come along, unless it was to escape writing your report.”

  “I wrote it. I used big letters to fill up the page faster. It’s a trick I learned in the fourth grade. I had to fight the urge to draw smiley faces and stick people.” Jesse slouched into his seat. “I’m sure the sarge is a great guy. He’s just not what I’m used to. If I were an old guy in his position, I’d make sure everyone knew I could keep up.”