[Frank Harper 01.0] A Field of Red

by Greg Enslen

  “Not a lot, anymore, with the economy,” Jake said, wiping his hands on a rag and then stuffing it back into his toolkit. It looked like he had one of everything in there. “I did a lot of work for Nick Martin, when they were flush, but there isn’t much call for custom cabinetry right now. Or pocket doors,” Jake said.

  Frank nodded. “Carpentry?”

  “Mostly. I do a little carving, too, mostly working with natural materials. I’ve done some mantles and fireplaces, too, but now it’s primarily furniture.”

  Rosie walked up. “Don’t let him fool you, Frank--Jake can do anything. He has like five businesses--he makes his own beer, fixes and reupholsters chairs. He works on cars, does electrical repairs. Last year, he made his own cheese and sold it at the farmers market,” Rosie said proudly.

  “You sound like a real renaissance man, Jake,” Frank said, tipping his coffee cup at the man. “Here’s to staying busy.”

  Jake nodded, a little embarrassed. “Rosie’s got the hots for me, so you can’t believe anything she says.”

  “Hots?” Rosie said, putting her hands on her hips and faking a shocked British tone. “Surely you jest. I have no idea what you mean, good sir!” She turned and walked away, smiling.

  Jake smiled, following Rosie as she went to help other customers. “Too much ‘Downton Abbey’--the woman is obsessed with it.”

  Frank followed Jake’s eyes and smiled.

  Jake turned and started to say something when a loud group of men entered the bar, shouting at each other and at Rosie for beers. Frank recognized one of the men as the loud drunk from Frank’s first night in town. It looked like the man had already gotten the evening’s festivities kicked off, judging by the loud talk.

  Jake shook his head, grimacing. “That’s Derek and his boys,” he said, finishing up his beer. “Rosie, make sure you kick them out if they get to be trouble. Or call me, and I’ll come back.”

  Rosie came back over and nodded.

  “You worry too much, Jake. I can handle them.”

  Jake was looking at Derek’s group. “It’s my job to worry,” he said, smiling at her, and then he picked up his toolkit, nodded at Frank, and left. Through the open doors, Frank saw it was sprinkling again.

  The place was getting busy. Frank talked to a few more people as they came in, just getting casual answers about Nick Martin--what people thought of him and his wife, what they thought of the kidnapping. Most people seemed saddened by the fact it had happened in their little town. It appeared that the folks in Cooper’s Mill were a pleasant lot who jealously guarded their “small town” atmosphere and didn’t like to see it threatened.

  It grew warmer in the bar as the crowd swelled. In less than an hour, patrons were stacked three deep along the rickety wooden bar top. More people came in, talking loudly about the high school football game that had just ended in City Park--it reminded Frank that that was the location for tomorrow morning’s ransom drop.

  Frank felt out of place with his coffee. He was the only one not drinking, and it wasn’t by choice. He was watching for people he might recognize as connected to the case, but he knew so few faces, it was probably pointless.

  Frank found an open table and sat. He pushed the several empty beer bottles to the side and grabbed the only hostess who dared to come out from behind the counter. Her name tag read “Denise.”

  “Hey, whatcha want?” she asked him, and he immediately liked her.

  “Coffee,” Frank said. “Two, since you’re here. And two minutes of your time to chat.”

  She stopped and really looked at him for the first time.

  “Pardon me?”

  He smiled. “You heard me fine, Denise. I need to talk to you.”

  She nodded and smiled, scooting away between two groups of men shouting at the TV. Frank noticed there was a game on--it looked like Ohio State, probably a local favorite, which might explain why the place was packed. Or maybe because the economy was in the shitter and everyone just needed to blow off steam.

  The girl came back with two cups of coffee and a little plate of creamer and sugars. She plopped down in the seat across from his.

  “Three minutes,” Denise said. “Rosie’s covering for me.”

  He nodded.

  “Thanks--I know you’re busy. Do you know the Martins?”

  She smiled. “You a cop? Never seen you in here before.”

  “No, not anymore,” Frank said. “I was a cop. Now, I’m helping out with the case.”

  She shook her head. “Nah, they’re never in here. Too snooty. He’s rich, and she’s hot. When they drink, I’m sure it’s at a dinner party somewhere with their snooty friends.”

  “They have any friends who come in here?”

  “Nah.”

  “OK, last question. Anybody new hanging around town lately, non-regulars in here?”

  She looked around the room and shook her head. She was about to add something, when her eyes grew big. He turned to see a fat patron pushing another man up against the bar.

  “Shut up, dipshit!” the larger man yelled.

  Frank slowly stood as Denise scurried back behind the counter. The shouting match at the bar was attracting everyone’s attention, and it gave him a chance to scan the room. Most of the patrons looked half-drunk and bleary-eyed. The cops must just sit outside this place every night when it closed and pick off the slew of over-the-limit drunk drivers.

  There were a few people that looked out of place--three guys dressed in nicer clothes near the back, drinking slowly and watching the spectacle. They looked like visiting journalists, in from out of town for the kidnapping coverage and getting a little “local color.” Frank might have to swing by and chat with them before the night was over.

  Near the back of the place, several couples were making out in the darker confines of the bar, ignorant of the shouting match and the rest of the world around them. One of them looked familiar.

  Frank turned to see that the skinny guy, one of the guys who had entered the place with Derek, had broken loose from being pinned against the bar and shoved the fat guy, who moved only a few inches. His arm went up into the air, and he swung, punching the guy in the face. The skinny guy fell backward against the bar and leaned there. Derek and his friends stepped up to help.

  “Come on, Taylor,” the fat man shouted. “Say it again!”

  Taylor, the skinny one, reached for a beer bottle and swung it crazily. Out of luck--certainly not skill--it connected with the fat guy’s head and shattered, sending glass flying in every direction. Other patrons ducked to avoid the glass, or at least those sober enough to understand what was going on ducked.

  The fat guy staggered, his hands at his bleeding head. Three other big guys joined him from the crowd, and they stepped toward Taylor. Derek shielded him, and Frank could tell that, while he was drunk, Derek looked sober enough to be primed for a fight.

  Frank shook his head and stepped between them.

  “That’s OK, he’s learned his lesson.” Frank said loudly, his hands up. Frank turned and took the broken bottle out of Taylor’s hand and set it on the bar. “He’s done.”

  The fat guy looked at Frank.

  “We’re just getting started, friend. I’d suggest you move along.”

  Frank nodded, smiling. “I understand. Let me take Taylor and his friends out of here and get them off to home and then--”

  The fat guy swung at Frank.

  Frank had been waiting for it--the muscle flex in the fat man’s right shoulder had telegraphed the swing a full half-second before the beefy arm even started moving.

  Frank put up his left arm and blocked the roundhouse punch. At the same instant, he spun and slapped an open, flat palm hard into the bloody wound on the man’s temple. Frank felt the glass grinding under his fingers. Then he brought both hands down, keeping them together, and shoved at the fat man’s neck, aiming him backward into one of his approaching friends.

  Derek and another friend stepped up and started punching
one of the fat guy’s friends, and Frank knew this would quickly devolve into a nasty bar fight, if he didn’t incapacitate some of them quickly.

  Another friend of the fat guy’s stepped around the pair and kicked at Frank, but Frank spun away and caught the foot in midair. Using the foot’s momentum, he pulled upward on the foot and leg, sending the third assailant to the floor. Leaning down, he punched the man on the ground hard across the jaw, knocking him out, hurting his own hand in the process.

  The hardest part was keeping track of everyone in his head. Situational awareness.

  Okay, it was the fat guy and his three friends versus the skinny guy Taylor, Derek, and two other friends. Four on four, with Frank in the middle.

  Derek had gotten one of the fat guy’s friends into a bear hold, choking him.

  While he was counting, the fourth friend of the fat guy circled around Frank and landed a punch into Frank’s back, and it hurt like hell. Frank turned and used an upward strike to hit the man’s crotch twice in rapid succession. As the man bent over, Frank turned and grabbed the man’s arms, pulling him down to the ground. With a rolling motion, Frank was back up on his feet.

  The second guy had climbed out from under the fat guy, and he and the third guy approached together. They were moving together, getting smarter.

  Frank moved to the side so that one was closer than the other. Krav Maga taught several basic tenets, among them never fight more than one person at a time, and get away as soon as possible. Frank slid to the side, so the second guy was closer, and Frank was five feet closer to Derek’s group.

  By now, the place was silent and an open space had miraculously cleared out in the middle of the bar. No one was jumping in to help Frank, but, then again, no one was coming to the aid of the four fat guys either. And one glance told Frank that the couples making out hadn’t yet noticed that anything was happening.

  The two friends of the fat guy charged him together.

  Frank calculated the possibilities. Derek’s group was complicating things, but the four larger men, the friends of the fat guy, were the primary threat. Derek and Taylor and their two friends were smaller and scrawny. But Frank needed to end this quickly, before someone really got hurt.

  The two men ran at Frank, and he, again, shifted sideways, so that one would get to him first. Frank ducked the first punch and lowered his head, sliding to the side and pushing the rushing man down and to the side, using his momentum to trip him.

  Frank turned and caught the second guy low in the stomach with a pointed elbow--the man had punched at the open air where Frank’s head had been a moment before. That was always one of the hardest lessons to teach his students--Frank had always stressed the point. It was not logical, but you didn’t punch where your assailant was at the time. Instead, you needed to predict the future location of the assailant and aim there. It took some practice to get good at it.

  Frank had had plenty of practice.

  The man doubled over just as Frank stood up quickly, head-butting the man under his chin. Blood exploded from the man’s mouth as Frank landed another hard punch to the man’s stomach. Getting an assailant to bite his tongue could end their fervor in an instant. Frank helped the man into an open chair and turned.

  Two of the well-dressed men Frank had seen before snapped photos of the fight in progress from a safe distance, and he knew he’d been right about them being press.

  Derek still had one arm tightly around a man’s neck, and Rosie was scrabbling at his back, trying to get him to loosen up. Frank stepped quickly over and punched Derek in the kidney, just hard enough to break his stranglehold on the man, who collapsed to the floor.

  Taylor and the other three men were fighting--the fat guy, still bleeding from his head, was pounding on Taylor, and one of Derek’s friends had the last fat guy on the ground, punching his face into the floor.

  This was going to get out of control, and then someone might really get hurt. Frank took out his gun and waved in the air. He gripped the gun tightly, even though his right hand was screaming with pain.

  “Stop,” Frank said loudly. “Or I will shoot.”

  The fat guy turned to see the gun pointed at him and backed off--for a moment--one fist hung comically in the air. The guy on the floor stopped punching, and the sounds of shouting and breaking glass were replaced with moaning from Derek on the ground, along with the raspy breathing of the man he’d been strangling.

  Christ, Frank thought. What a mess.

  Chapter 40

  The man stood by the window of his apartment, looking out over the downtown scene. Lights and sirens and several cop cars parked in front of Ricky’s--just another night.

  The man had a cell phone propped up on the window sill, talking to someone over the speaker.

  “Good, that’s really good to hear.”

  A deep voice came back, made tinny by the phone’s small speaker.

  “That’s a great property. After a certain amount of time has passed, we’ll get you back involved, on a consultancy basis,” the man with the deep voice said. “No way I’m leaving Vegas and moving to that hick town of yours.”

  The man smiled, not wanting to answer at all, but he needed to acknowledge what the man was saying, even if he didn’t agree. Vegas didn’t know he wouldn’t be around to manage the location for them.

  “Sounds good. Glad the FedEx came through.”

  “Yup,” the man on the other end said. “Anything else?”

  The man looking out the window was sweating. This wasn’t a conversation he’d been looking forward to having. But the question needed to be asked.

  “Yes, one more thing,” he said gingerly. “With that delivery, we should be square.”

  There was no response from the other end. The man looking out the window could hear nothing except for the tall grandfather clock that ticked away in one corner of his apartment.

  “Yes,” the deep voice finally answered. “You’re all paid up.”

  The man by the window thanked the man with the deep voice and hung up, his hands slick with sweat.

  Free and clear.

  The man smiled and looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked downtown Cooper’s Mill. This really was a great apartment--it was one of the few things he would miss about this town.

  The streets were dark and shiny from the recent rain--it seemed like it had done nothing but rain for the past two weeks. The only things he saw of interest were the spinning lights of several police cars and an ambulance in front of Ricky’s, two blocks down.

  Chapter 41

  Saturday morning, the sun shone brightly into Frank’s hotel room window. He’d gotten home late and stood by the window for a long time, looking out over the highway. And when he’d finally gone to bed, he’d neglected to close the blinds.

  He sat up groggily and looked around. The room was a mess, with papers and files strewn over every flat surface in the half of the room next to the window. The table was covered with six stacks of papers, notes, and files. The two boxes sat leaning up against the wall, empty except for some pens, a roll of clear tape, and a pair of scissors.

  Chief King was pissed at him.

  The fight hadn’t been Frank’s fault. In fact, he’d argued with King and Graves that Frank had been the one to keep it from escalating out of control.

  They didn’t seem to buy it. Frank didn’t have a scratch on him, but everyone else on both sides of the fight was hurting, moaning to the EMTs. Rosie had backed his story, and King had carted everyone outside for processing. But, after everything was wrapped up, King had pulled him aside and accused him of drinking again.

  Frank shouldn’t have been surprised. He was in a bar, after all. But Frank had patiently explained what he’d learned over the afternoon from his trip to New Stanton and his time in Ricky’s, and King had finally come around. It hadn’t hurt that Frank was stone cold sober.

  But Frank wasn’t too sure how long he’d be in King’s good graces. The man had taken a chanc
e on Frank, risking alienating his entire staff to play a hunch and bring in an outsider. And, so far, Frank had produced nothing, other than a bar fight, a policeman with a broken arm, a pissed-off psychic, and exactly zero new leads.

  Frank hadn’t shared anything with Chief King yet about theory #3.

  To burn off some of his aggression, Frank climbed out of bed and worked out. He flipped on the TV and watched the morning news shows. Different ones ran on Saturday mornings, but they were as equally pointless and insipid as the weekday shows.

  Frank rewrapped his right hand again--the bandages were just to keep the swelling down. It wasn’t broken, just sore. He needed to be icing it; instead, he worked out and showered, then headed across the parking lot to get breakfast.

  The waitresses and greeter were happy to see Frank, and seated him in the usual booth--he’d been in here almost daily since arriving in town--but Frank noticed a change in their treatment of him. Since the incident with Gina’s husband, they treated Frank like a rock star, bringing him anything he wanted. Dessert had been on the house every meal since. And, without fail, someone would recount the story for other patrons, making Frank squirm.

  Apparently, Gina got first dibs on Frank’s table, as she was his waitress now every time she was in. She made faces at his hand and the scrapes on his face from last night’s fight.

  “Oh, Frank,” she said, setting down coffee and water and the day’s paper. “What did you do to your hand?”

  “Thanks, Gina,” he said. “Ah, broke up a bar fight last night in town. How are you?”

  She rubbed her arm where Stan had tried to wrench her from behind the counter. Frank could see a large black bruise in the shape of a hand.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m just glad you were here that day,” she said. She always said the same thing, and she meant it, every time.

  He said what he always said.

  “I was glad to help--actually, I talked to Stan yesterday on something unrelated,” Frank said. As part of the investigation, he’d talked to all the on-duty officers, including Stan, who had been returned to duty to assist with the kidnapping investigation. Even though he was still under observation, he was helping out with the tip line. “I think he’s calmed down. Have you talked to him?”