by Archer Mayor
But right now, he had to document an automobile’s provenance, as part of its being transferred from one owner to another. Not glamorous, but necessary, and certainly an opportunity for a nice drive in the country.
He wasn’t crazy about how this particular road was turning out, however. This was his first time in this corner of the county, and from a well-maintained, well-traveled dirt road—if a little spongy because of mud season—this one was rapidly disintegrating into little better than a greasy rutted goat path. Still, his GPS urged him onward, insistent that the address he sought lay ahead.
Which it did, finally. Through his mud-spattered windshield, Dave made out a sad-looking trailer tucked under a row of ancient hardwoods, with a blighted front yard spread out like a soiled apron. He pulled up next to a battered pickup truck, swung out of the cruiser, and looked around.
“Hello?” he shouted, at least expecting the obligatory Heinz 57 dog.
But there was no response.
He reached through his vehicle’s open window for the radio mic, to inform Dispatch of his arrival and confirm the address, when he felt a rough hand yank him back outside. Something hard jabbed him in the back, and a harsh voice ordered, “Move one muscle and you die. Do not turn around.”
Of course, instinct dictated otherwise. Dave did twist slightly, quickly enough to catch a glance of his assailant’s shoulder, before a thick cloth sack was dropped over his head, obscuring his vision.
“What the hell?” he yelled. “I’m a cop.”
“No shit,” was the response, as Dave felt multiple hands seize his arms and legs and yank him free of the ground.
“Put me down,” he ordered, kicking and struggling as best he could.
They did, dropping him hard on his face. The wind knocked out of him, he heard several people laughing and felt one of them use his own handcuffs to secure his wrists behind his back.
“Can’t believe it was so simple,” someone said, his voice tense with excitement.
“Guys think they’re so fucking great,” said another. “Wait till this gets around. Got the camera?”
Dave was fighting panic, his own rapid breathing making him light-headed in the bag. “Stop this,” he said. “Stop it now. What you’re doing isn’t worth it. This is a major felony. You will be caught.”
“Use the tape,” ordered one of the voices. “Shut this asshole up.”
The familiar screech of ripping duct tape preceded Dave’s head being wrenched to one side and a tight band clamping the bag’s fabric against his mouth. Breathing became even more challenging, and speaking impossible.
“That oughta do it.”
More tape was then used around his ankles and knees, severing his last vestige of independence. With that piece of tape applied, David felt his heart sag, and he stopped resisting.
Instead, he altered strategies—trying to make out how many of them there were. Identify them via their voices, he told himself. Link them to a cause, or a purpose, or a locale by some carelessly dropped reference. And listen for any names that might be mentioned.
And try not to think of what they’re planning.
As they manhandled him across the yard—presumably to another vehicle hidden behind the trailer—he thought that he could distinguish three voices, which fit the number of hands he felt on his body. They sounded young, as if in their twenties or late teens, like himself, and high-strung—nervous about what they were doing. From odd snatches of conversation, the entire enterprise was starting to sound like an absurdist prank of some sort, rather than a lethally intended kidnapping.
Whatever it was, David’s ability to listen in on it vanished as he was dumped into the trunk of a car, and all sensory input was reduced to darkness and a muffled orchestra of indistinguishable voices, engine noise, and a string of thumps and bangs as the car traveled down the same rough road he’d used to get here. He remembered TV shows where the victim cataloged any and all passing sounds—factory whistles, train noises, the echoing rattle of a car passing over a wooden bridge, and so on—to be relayed in perfect order to investigators later. All he was aware of were his aches and pains, his rising panic, his increasingly labored breathing, and a sense of impotent rage.
It ended, seemingly a long time later, when all motion stopped, fresh air poured into the trunk, and David was lugged back outside to the accompaniment of his captors’ laughter, to be unceremoniously dumped onto a thick patch of grass. In the background, he could hear the sound of rushing water.
“Okay, asshole, end of the road. Smile for the camera.”
He heard them arguing about the best angle for their shot, before another voice asked, “You ever been on the receiving end of a Glock, Mr. Deputy?”
David felt what he assumed to be the hard, metallic pressure of a gun barrel against his head.
“This is what it feels like. Before everything goes dark.”
He waited, not breathing, not moving a muscle, his eyes squeezed shut.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. The gun was removed, the laughter faded, the car drove off, and David Spinney was left alone, listening to the water passing by.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Joe hung up the office phone and addressed Lester Spinney. “Technically, that call was for you. We’re going to the ER.”
Joe was slipping on his jacket as he spoke. “Everything’s okay—a hundred percent, from what I was just told—but your son was just transported there to be checked out.”
Lester stood up quickly enough to send his chair skittering into Sam’s desk. They were alone. “What the hell?”
Joe placed his hand on Lester’s shoulder. “He’s fine. They’re following protocol—same process you’ve been through a dozen times. I’m coming with you, and,” he added with emphasis, “I’m driving.”
“What’d they tell you?” Lester asked as they left the parking lot shortly thereafter.
“Essentially, nothing,” Joe said. “The sheriff got an anonymous call, telling him to pick up one of his deputies by the side of Stickney Brook, right off Route 30.”
“What?” Lester exclaimed. “He was standing there with his thumb out?”
Joe kept his eyes on the traffic. He was taking backstreets to the hospital, hoping to reduce the trip to no more than five minutes. “I don’t know, Les, but I doubt it.” He suddenly flashed on a case he’d investigated over twenty years earlier, and added, “Maybe someone handcuffed him to a tree or something. Weirder things have happened.”
The ER wasn’t busy, it being only midmorning, and one of the nurses at the long counter lining the central passageway looked up from her paperwork, took them in at a glance, and directed simply, “Room Three.”
There, they found a doctor and another nurse, the first a woman and the second a tall bearded man, tending to David Spinney, who was sitting upright on a gurney in his undershorts. His face fell at the sight of his father.
“I don’t believe it. Dad, who called you?”
Lester gave him a lopsided grin. “Like I needed calling. Don’t you know you’re part of the biggest gang in the country?”
Despite his son’s obvious unhappiness at being found so exposed, Lester walked up to him and tousled, if not his hair, there being so little of it, at least his son’s closely cropped head.
“Dad,” Dave protested.
Lester ignored him, addressing the doctor. “Any damage?”
She shook her head. “Minor abrasions and bruises. We conducted scans of his head and neck to be on the safe side, but he appears to be in perfect shape.”
She turned to the nurse, said something unintelligible, signed a clipboarded form, shook David’s hand in farewell, and left, taking the nurse with her.
Lester and Joe waited for the door to close.
“So, spill,” Lester told the young man.
“Mind if I eavesdrop?” a male voice said from the reopened door.
Jeffery Wallace, the county sheriff, stood before them in uniform. “It
took me longer than I hoped to get here.” He spoke directly to David. “You okay?”
“Perfectly, sir,” David answered, straightening awkwardly on the gurney. “They’re all just making a fuss. I’m really sorry about this.”
“It’s not a fuss. It’s what should be done.” Wallace glanced at the other two men and added, “I’m only sorry I wasn’t the first one here.”
Only then did they all exchange handshakes. Jeff Wallace was a no-frills, hardworking, well-regarded cop. Trained for over a decade by the state police, he’d opted to run for office when the old sheriff announced his retirement. Throughout most of New England, throwing your hat in for sheriff barely rippled the local political waters. As a result, keeping the post often boiled down to not making a mess of things.
As far as Joe was concerned, Jeff had done much better than that, and he’d been happy to hear of David’s signing on with Wallace for his first job in law enforcement.
Following the niceties, Jeff took a small recorder from his pocket and laid it on the metal table adjacent to the gurney. “Sorry to do this, but I need to be sure everything’s recorded. Who knows what may be waiting down the line, huh?”
Nobody argued the point. They’d all been around too long for that. But a coolness had been injected into the air.
“You want us to step out?” Lester asked, his expression clearly demonstrating his lack of enthusiasm.
But Jeff remained reasonable. “Not at all. I want this to be friendly and supportive. I also don’t want it to be used against any of us later.”
He faced David again. “You good with this?” He nodded toward the recorder.
“Yes, sir.”
“And do you swear under penalty of law to tell the truth to the best of your knowledge?”
“I do, sir.”
Jeff then rattled off who was in the room with him, the date, and the location before saying, “Okay. Back to what I so rudely interrupted when I walked in. What happened, Dave?”
Dave ran his hand across the top of his head, clearly embarrassed. “I guess I was mugged, sir. I went to that VIN, as instructed by Dispatch, and got jumped when I leaned into the EQ to radio in my twenty-three. To be honest, I was also going to ask for confirmation that I was at the right place, ’cause there was nobody there when I drove up.”
“Where were you?” Jeff asked.
David gave him the address, adding, “It’s a trailer, in the middle of nowhere, which is what got me wondering.”
“Go on.”
“Not much more to it. Somebody grabbed me from behind, put a hood over my head, trussed me up like a turkey with duct tape, and chucked me into the trunk of a car I never saw. There were three males, as far as I could figure. They sounded young. They never mentioned any names or places that I heard. One of them talked about taking a picture, which means it’ll probably go up on Facebook or somewhere pretty soon, if it isn’t already there.”
He paused before adding hesitantly, “One of them also put my gun against my head, as if he was gonna shoot.”
The young deputy looked pleadingly at his boss, the recorder forgotten, as was usually the case. “Am I going to be fired, sir?”
Jeff almost cut him off. “Whoa, whoa. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. And let’s get something straight. Word gets out fast about these things, like you said. Assuming there are reporters in the parking lot—which I’m not saying there are—you and I will be getting into my vehicle in a while, and you will be wearing your full uniform, including my weapon in your holster, and we will drive away from this facility with you sitting in the front seat of that car. This conversation is obviously going to continue, but if what you just said is confirmed—and I have no reason to think it won’t be—then you were a victim here, son, and bear no culpability whatsoever. Is that clear?”
David nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“It’s just the way these things ought to be done,” Jeff said flatly. “Back to your narrative: Was there anything that sticks in your memory? Especially in the few seconds before the hood was put on? Maybe a movement from the trailer. Was there another vehicle in the dooryard, for example, besides the car you didn’t see?”
“An old pickup,” Dave told them. “But it didn’t look drivable.” He then said, “There was one thing. The guy behind me—who grabbed me by the collar and jabbed the gun in my back—he told me not to turn around, just before he covered my head. But I did anyhow, and I saw his left shoulder. He was wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off, and I saw a tatt, high on that shoulder.”
“Can you describe it?”
“No, sir. I’m really sorry.” He stopped, his expression blank, before adding, “I know it’s pretty lame, but that’s all I can think of. I tried to remember the tones of voices, or if anything smelled funny, or even if there was something I could pick up in the trunk. All I could get was this.” He held out both his hands, looking apologetic.
They all three stared at what looked like nothing at all, until Joe tumbled to what he’d meant.
“You scratched into the trunk’s carpeting,” he said. “Good man. Smart.”
Jeff had already moved to the door. He opened it, caught a nurse walking by, and asked, “Could we have a rape kit in here, please? I gotta collect some evidence from under my deputy’s fingernails.”
The sheriff returned to the bed, announced the termination of the interview to the recorder, hit the Off button, and said, “Okay. Enough of that. We’ll pick through the details later. You did good, Dave. I didn’t tell you, but we collected your EQ at the scene, along with your cell phone, which was on the ground next to it. As far as I’ve been told, there doesn’t seem to be anything missing. We’ll issue a BOL on your gun, of course. But right now, I want you to go home to your family and let some of this sink in. I know you’re feeling fine and probably just want to get back on the road. But you need a breather. And I’m going to set up a meeting with a counselor. No arguments. That’s an order. Crap like this can run deeper than you know.”
Jeff pocketed the recorder. “I’ll step out so you and your dad can have a little private time. But I’ll be ready to get you out of here when you’re done.”
Joe accompanied him into the hallway, where the sheriff immediately said, “Hope I didn’t come across too strong in there. I was just picking up vibes that he thought he was to blame. In the meantime, assuming I can confirm what I can of his story, I’m already thinking of something that ought to make the media happy without actually spilling the beans. Fingers crossed, we catch the bastards fast.”
“What did you get from the trailer?” Joe asked.
“Nuthin’. It was a blind. Nobody’s lived there for over a year. They just gave that address to draw him out.”
“Him meaning Dave, specifically?” Joe asked.
“No. The call came in for a VIN check. That was it. Plain and simple.”
“They might’ve known Dave’s schedule and coverage area,” Joe argued.
Jeff nodded. “Could be—he was on his assigned route, which is probably as well known to the public as it is to us. You thinking this was personal?”
“Not necessarily,” Joe admitted. “Just keeping my options open.”
The nurse that Jeff had stopped earlier appeared with the requested rape kit.
“Would you do the honors?” he asked of her. “Just the fingernails. I wouldn’t want to mess it up.”
* * *
Inside the room, Les and Dave stopped talking as the nurse entered. They silently watched her collect her evidence, package it up, and disappear, virtually without saying a word.
Dave glanced at his fingernails, as if judging a manicure. “Well, that was painless. Hope it’ll do some good.”
“We’ve cracked cases with less,” his father said optimistically.
Dave dropped his hands dejectedly. “Yeah. Good luck with that. Be a little late to save my career.”
Lester burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me? Look at Willy
Kunkle, for crying out loud. After all the shit he pulls, and stays employed, you’ll likely get a promotion. Jeff wasn’t bent out of shape.”
“Not in public, he wasn’t.”
Lester realized that his son was not going to be cheered up so easily. He reached out and massaged Dave’s shoulder briefly. “Come on, kiddo, let’s wrap up here and take the rest of the day off. Maybe go fishing or something. Let some of this drain out, like Jeff said. I mean, it ended up fine, but you must’ve been scared out of your mind, not knowing what they had planned.”
Dave didn’t make eye contact as he quietly conceded, “Yeah.”
* * *
“No way that was random.”
Joe looked at Willy, not surprised at the paranoia, and intrigued to hear the reasoning behind it.
Sammie, by contrast, merely rolled her eyes.
“Do tell,” Joe urged him.
They were in the squad room, minus Lester, who’d taken his son home for the rest of the day.
But Willy remained silent, causing each colleague to react in turn.
“That’s it?” Sam prodded. “No conspiracy theory?”
“Hey,” he responded. “I’m usually right about that shit. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Why’s David being grabbed not random?” Joe asked quietly, actually shopping for a valid theory.
Willy approached his answer indirectly. “All we ever do in this job is say how much we hate coincidences. So, why would the kidnapping of one of our kids be a coincidence, just as we’re looking into this long-lost secret homicide? Cops don’t get grabbed like he was. Somebody’s making a point.”
“But they didn’t,” Sammie argued, more conditioned than Joe to take issue with Willy’s pronouncements. “From what it sounds like, they scared him, took pictures, stole a gun, and beat feet. And he said they were kids. It was probably a double-dare. What’ve you got that says otherwise?”
