Bury the Past

by James L'Etoile

  “Go ahead. It doesn’t look like that phone will be worth much on trade-in.”

  Paula walked to the first large shard and pulled a glove from her jacket. She pulled it on and picked up the largest piece of phone; the screen and the lip of the bottom case.

  She searched for another piece and found the back case. She left it on the ground without bothering to pick it up.

  “What are you looking for? You want me to gather up some of these?”

  “No. I got it. There. There it is.” She bent and picked up a small hunk of phone guts, less than an inch square.

  From behind, Brian said, “Smart.”

  “What am I missing here, guys?” John said.

  “If it doesn’t have a tin can and a string, he doesn’t understand how it works,” Paula said.

  Paula plucked out the small SIM card and held it between two fingers. “It doesn’t look damaged.” She looked to John. “Give me your phone.”

  “Why? Use your own damn phone,” he said.

  “You have an ancient one that the card will fit. Give it.”

  John handed his phone to Paula, and he expected her to stomp on it to get what she needed. She pulled the back off and slid an identical card out of his phone. She handed the card back to John, slid the one she recovered in the phone and powered it on.

  “You cloned his phone,” Brian said.

  Paula pulled up the log of recent calls ingoing and outgoing. A few numbers repeated on the list, including one she recognized from the police department. The text messages were saved to the card, and she pulled up the last three messages, all to the same number.

  “4587 Seventh Avenue. That’s the location he gave Simmons.”

  SIXTY-FOUR

  “You think Simmons will still be there?” John asked.

  “Sherman’s deal was for a quick score for some traveling money. It will be pretty straight up. How long till SWAT gets there?”

  John turned on Franklin heading south. “They’re fifteen minutes out. We’ll be there in two. We can provide overwatch and direct the tactical team in.”

  “Sherman will be nearby. He’ll want to take out Simmons when he makes the pickup.”

  “Or, he’s halfway to San Francisco and a plane out of the country,” John said.

  The neighborhood property values diminished with each block. Vacant storefronts gave way to homes in foreclosure and abandoned furniture at the curb. Blocks from their destination, the occupied homes were marked with iron bars over the windows instead of plywood.

  “Up on the right. The gray one with the Chevy Nova in the drive,” Paula said.

  John coasted the sedan to the corner, a few doors down from the address left on Sherman’s phone.

  “See anything?” John said.

  “Nothing. Can you see the plate on that Nova?”

  John read it off, and Paula ran the registration on the vehicle.

  “The plate comes back to a ninety-nine Toyota truck,” she said.

  “There’s our probable cause.”

  “Where’s Sherman? And what’s he up to?” Paula looked over her shoulder and scanned all the homes along the block. The home directly across the street from the address was unoccupied, and its windows were covered with plywood. A gap between the boards on one window was slightly wider than the others. The muddy darkness inside quivered with a flash of gray.

  A dark form moved across the opening. “There,” Paula said. She darted out to the dark house.

  “Dammit, Paula.” John leapt from the car and followed his partner.

  They crouched below the open window, and Paula pointed up to the torn screen. John nodded. He knew what she intended. As she started to grab the window frame, he grabbed her and pulled her down. He motioned across the street at the dope house. A limping Simmons came out the front of the house carrying a pry bar. He made quick work of the lock on the garage door. The rotten wood splintered away with the first tug.

  Simmons shoved the door upward, and his sidekick stood inside, next to the blue van that Paula had lost in the storage yard.

  John checked his watch. “Tac is still ten minutes away. We can take one or the other. Your call, partner—Sherman or Simmons.”

  “Damn, damn, damn. We can’t let those drugs get into circulation.” Paula paused for a moment, eyeing the open window above them and the blue van across the road. “Something’s going on over there.”

  Simmons had flung open the van’s rear doors, and from his angle, John couldn’t see what was inside.

  Simmons stood at the open van door and pulled at a large bag near the opening. He pulled a second one out to the garage floor, then another with a frantic energy. Whatever he hoped to find in the van wasn’t there. He kicked at a bag on the floor, and it split open. It wasn’t confiscated drugs that stuck to his boot. It was steer manure. Bags and bags of garden-quality steer manure filled the van.

  John and Paula crept up on Simmons while he pawed through a few more bags of manure. The smell was stockyard fresh, made worse by the heat in the enclosed garage.

  The skinny biker noticed them first, and his response was hands up, down on his knees with his hands behind his head, without being told. He’d been through the drill before. Simmons saw his sidekick drop and spun around. His hand slipped behind his back.

  “Don’t do it,” John said.

  “No use in getting shot over a load of bull shit,” Paula said.

  Simmons retracted his empty hand from behind his back and faced the detectives. He got down on his knees like his partner.

  Paula stepped forward and removed a snub-nosed .38 revolver from the small of Simmons’s back. She put him in handcuffs while John provided cover. When she finished with Simmons, John tossed another set of cuffs, and she put them on the skinny biker.

  “How much did Sherman take you for?” Paula asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Simmons said, but the sharp look in his eye confirmed it was a lot.

  Paula dug in the gangster’s pockets and pulled out his cell phone. She didn’t need to risk opening the text messages without a warrant because a text appeared on the screen: “GOT YA.” The message came from an unknown sender, but she had no doubt that Sherman had sent it.

  She held it in front of Simmons. “You want me to reply for you?”

  “You ain’t got nothing on us.”

  “I’ll start with an ex-con in possession of a firearm and go from there,” she said.

  John stepped into the back of the van and retrieved two large SSPNET evidence bags with pound-sized bindles of meth and heroin. Nowhere near the quantities that Simmons paid for, but enough to ensure he did prison time when he was caught in possession of the contraband.

  Support units and the tactical team arrived at the house. The two gang members were stuffed into the back of separate patrol units, and the house was searched.

  The tactical team leader reported that there was no sign that the home was occupied, nor was the rest of the cache of stolen drugs in the place.

  Simmons was angry but not at being arrested. He rocked back and forth as he sat in the back of the car. He looked worried. His deal with Sherman had gone bad, and he’d obviously been playing with someone else’s money—gang money. John picked up on the cues and pressed.

  “How much did Sherman take you for?”

  Simmons peered up at John and kept a tight jaw.

  “You wouldn’t be the first, you know.”

  “I’ll damn sure be the last,” Simmons growled.

  “We haven’t turned up anything other than the firearm possession and a midlevel possession beef. Hypothetically, if you did have something going with Sherman, how much was it worth?”

  “Hypothetically?”

  “Yeah—it means—”

  “I know what it means. If—someone had something going on with Sherman, it would have been to take over his inventory.”

  “He had that much?” John said.

  “That’s what I hear.
”

  “Where is he now?”

  “If I knew, you and I wouldn’t be here having this conversation. Sherman screwed some important people.”

  “How much, hypothetically, did he take from them?”

  “Like seven-fifty,” Simmons said.

  “What happens if you don’t make good on the deal?”

  The man didn’t bother looking up. “Nothing good.”

  The two prisoners were driven off for booking, and the searches wound down. The house across the street, where Paula saw the shadow, was empty.

  Her phone rang. “Newberry.”

  “You need to come in,” Lieutenant Barnes said.

  “What’s going on, Lieutenant?” she asked, pointing at the phone so John knew whom she was speaking with. She put the call on speaker.

  “We’ve run this as far as it can go, Paula. I’m sorry; it’s time to come in.”

  “Come in? What do you mean—like turn myself in?”

  “Where are you?” Barnes asked.

  “Detective Penley and I are at the house where Sherman was supposed to have hidden his inventory. Came up dry.”

  “You’re with Penley and not on your way to SFO?”

  “What? SFO? Why would I be in San Francisco?”

  “The DA’s office just got a hit on your credit card for two airline tickets, one in your name and one in Sherman’s.”

  “We’re here in Sacramento, Tim,” Penley said.

  “The DA is hot on this one. It doesn’t look good, Paula. You get what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah. Sherman did it again, making me look like his accomplice in all this.”

  “When is the flight he booked?” John asked.

  “Ten-oh-five tonight on Singapore Air to Hong Kong.”

  “We’ll get to SFO as fast as we can. Let TSA know—”

  “Paula, it’s over. You need to come in. It looks bad enough already. Don’t go running to the airport. You can see that, right?” Barnes said.

  “Where did Sherman make the ticket purchase?” John said.

  “Online.”

  “That means he’s probably not at the terminal yet,” John said.

  “Does the online ticket have an e-mail account or phone number listed? If he wanted to download a boarding pass, or get flight information, he’d need to give a number,” Paula said.

  “Hold on a sec,” Barnes replied. Paper rustled in the background. “Good call, Paula. There’s a phone number listed in flight reservation.”

  “He must have picked up a burner phone,” Paula said. “What’s the number?”

  “Doesn’t matter; I’ll make a call and the local sheriff’s department will pick him up when he hits the security checkpoint. Come in,” Barnes said.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Paula disconnected the call.

  John watched Paula shove the phone into her jacket and tuck her head the way she did when she’d made up her mind. He caught up with her halfway up the drive.

  “We’re not going back to the office, are we?” John said.

  Paula’s eyes fired. “My whole life, I’ve had to work twice as hard to get anything, just for someone to come along and destroy it.” She tightened her fists until her knuckles paled. “My father left when I was three, and it tore my world apart. Did you know I was engaged once? That asshole drained my checking accounts and took up with some goth chick. In the academy, I worked my ass off, only to have the training sergeant grade me down on a bullshit use-of-force exam—just so I couldn’t graduate as number one in my class. Now this.” Paula shook with the final words.

  “So what are you gonna do about it?” John asked.

  It was all the prodding she needed. “I’m sick of letting them win. I’m not gonna go down without a fight this time. Sherman’s not getting on a plane tonight.”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  “Hey, you missed the exit,” Paula said. The green-and-white Interstate 80 San Francisco sign shot past in a blur.

  “Sherman’s been all about misdirection and manipulation. He’s not going to San Francisco,” John said. He stomped on the gas pedal and shot around a lumbering semitruck.

  “He bought tickets with my credit card for a flight out of SFO. The lieutenant told us that. We need to get there before Sherman gets on that plane.”

  “Why would Sherman use your credit card and get tickets in your name and his?”

  “Because that ass wipe wants me to take the fall.”

  “Don’t you think he’d know his name would get flagged, along with your credit card? He made certain the DA would be looking for you—at SFO.”

  “But I’m not there.” She tensed in the seat.

  “Neither is Sherman. He wants everyone there looking for you. I’m betting he’s closer to home.”

  “That’s a hell of a long shot,” she said.

  “It popped into place when you were talking to the lieutenant. He said the DA’s office got the hit on your credit card. The DA, not internal affairs. I don’t trust Clarke.”

  “I don’t trust her either, but I’m still not following.”

  “Clarke said she planned a warm vacation next week.”

  “Yeah, she wants my ass behind bars before she leaves.”

  “If you were leaving for a flight, where would you leave from?”

  “San Francisco wouldn’t be my first choice.”

  “Nope, that’s why we’re going there.” John pointed at the lights in the distance. High-masted poles towered over the parking lots of the Sacramento International Airport.

  The airport was international in the sense that it offered three flights a week to Mexican tourist attractions: Guadalajara, Cabo, and Mazatlán. The only “international” carrier, Aeroméxico, had gates located in the newer expansion of Terminal B, a sleek modern structure that featured a fifty-six-foot-tall red rabbit sculpture in the main atrium. Locals never understood the significance of the public art project, and visitors couldn’t understand why a city would choose to have the first thing a new arrival saw be a rabbit’s butt.

  John and Paula cruised the ticket counters in their search for Sherman. The Aeroméxico counter was open, but the line was nothing compared to the other regional, low-budget carriers. As busy as the ticketing and baggage areas were, the late hour hosted fewer outbound flights. Fewer flights meant fewer passengers milling about.

  A quick chat and flash of badges with an Aeroméxico ticket agent gave them nothing on Sherman, but the airline had one flight departing for Guadalajara within the hour.

  When they cleared the ticketing area, John and Paula rode the long escalator to the upper level, underneath the dusty underbelly of the red rabbit, to the terrace of shops and the tram that connected to the Terminal B gates.

  A few of the shops had shuttered their doors for the day, and Sherman wasn’t in any of the coffee shops, bars, or waiting areas. The level cleared, the detectives joined a group who looked to be heading for a family reunion somewhere, based on the bright-green “Johnson Family Meetup” T-shirts they all wore.

  The tram pulled into the glass enclosure and spit out a few stragglers from arriving flights and TSA workers leaving after their shifts.

  “You know, that’s pretty smart, when you think about it,” Paula said. She tipped her head in the direction of the off-duty TSA screeners. “He’ll have our people chasing their tails in the crowds at SFO. Here, it looks like he timed his flight to the shift change, so there are fewer security personnel on duty to deal with. Sherman can slip right through.”

  The tram ride was two minutes long, hardly worth the effort, but it dropped all the passengers at the entrance to the security checkpoint. When John and Paula rounded the corner, a single conveyor belt for screening was operational. All the foot traffic fed through this single point. A lone TSA screener checked identification and tickets as passengers passed. There were Sacramento sheriff’s deputies at the checkpoint—more than usual for this time of day.

  Paula pointed at the line of black-and-yellow unif
orms behind the metal detectors. “I guess the lieutenant got the message out here too.”

  John approached the TSA agent at the podium and identified himself and Paula.

  “We’re looking for Charles Sherman, might be ticketed for an Aeroméxico flight to Guadalajara in less than an hour. Can you tell if he’s checked in through here?” John asked.

  “Not from here. You’d have to ask the supervisor. She can pull up a passenger manifest for you.”

  The TSA agent pointed out the supervisor’s desk, and John and Paula bypassed the security checkpoint and found her on the phone. From the one side of the conversation they overheard, one of her employees had called in sick, and it wasn’t the first time. She hung up the phone and said, “I guess I’m expecting too much asking people to show up.” The last two words were said in a loud voice for the benefit of the rest of her staff. “Now, how can I help you?”

  Paula pulled up a mugshot photo on her phone. It was older, but it had Sherman dressed in an orange jumpsuit with a California State Prison placard under his face—and that arrangement pleased her.

  “We’re looking for him—Charles Sherman. He’s likely on the next flight to Guadalajara, Mexico,” Paula said.

  “That narrows it down a bit.” The TSA supervisor tapped a keyboard and looked surprised. She tapped a finger on the screen. “He’s checked in for his flight—gate twenty—but his traveling companion, Paula Newberry, hasn’t checked in yet.”

  “Yeah, she probably won’t,” Paula said.

  “There’s a note here to detain Newberry if she tries to check in.”

  “What! Why?” John said.

  The supervisor shrugged. “You got me. All it says is LEO hold—local law enforcement hold, per the district attorney.”

  “If she comes in, what happens?” Paula asked.

  “We turn her over to the sheriff’s department.” She pointed at the black-uniformed sheriff’s crew. “Kinda explains why there are extra deputies tonight.”

  “Can you print that manifest for me?” John asked.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  A couple of the deputies stared at John and Paula. They were taking too long, and one of them broke away and came toward the supervisor’s desk.