The Boat Man: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1)

by Dustin Stevens

  Another moment passed as Rasul stared at him, a bit of color returning to his cheeks. Reed could see his chest begin to rise and fall as he resumed breathing normally, the top of his head rising an inch in recognition.

  “You’re here because of the complaint I filed against them,” Rasul said, his voice low.

  Reed felt a stab of adrenaline in his stomach as he stared at the man, fighting to keep his features even. Not once had he made any mention of who or why he was there beyond mentioning a prior complaint, but already the man knew what he was referring to. “I am.”

  “So am I,” Rasul said, reaching out and extending a hand towards the door, folding his fingers back towards himself. “Please, come in.”

  Reed cast a glance over his shoulder to see the girl behind the counter still engulfed in her electronic conversation, the remainder of the store lifeless. Shifting himself inside the door, he swung it closed behind him, resting his back against it.

  “What do you mean, so are you?”

  One at a time Rasul brought his hands up onto the desk and laced his fingers together, leaning forward so his wrists pressed against the edge of it. “Tell me, what did you see when you drove in here this morning?”

  The word traffic was the first thing that came to mind, but Reed let it pass, content to allow Rasul to continue.

  “Or perhaps, what didn’t you see?” Rasul asked, the stare remaining affixed to his face.

  “I’m not sure what...” Reed managed, letting his voice trail off, uncertain where the question was meant to go.

  “Crime,” Rasul answered for him, the word coming out harsh and bitter. “Poverty. Vagrancy.”

  He rattled the terms off one at a time, each with more acrimony than the one before.

  “Those are the reasons I am here, on this side of town, a long way from The Bottoms and everything found there. The higher rent, the nervous staring, the snickering at my accent, all worth it to be here.”

  Finally what the man was saying fit into place in Reed’s mind, bringing with it understanding of what he was being told, why Rasul seemed so angry.

  “At night I leave, I lock one door, I walk to my car and I drove home. No looking over my shoulder, no wondering if this place will be here in the morning.”

  It was apparent from the growing animosity, from the rapid-fire cadence the man was employing that it was a speech that had been said many times, one with no apparent denouement in sight.

  “What happened in May of 2011?” Reed asked, hoping both to stem the monologue before it went any further and to channel the already apparent frustration into answers.

  At the mention of the incident Rasul paused, his mouth still open, ready to deliver more, before a sour look passed over his face. He worked his mouth up and down twice as if trying to take the taste from his tongue before beginning anew.

  “Gangs weren’t new to me, you know,” he began. “I had been told many times when I decided to open the shop that they were down there, but the city was so eager for businesses to come in that they were practically giving floor space away.

  “I figured if I could just make a go of things for eight, ten years, I would have enough put back to go elsewhere, pay cash for something better, maybe even open a couple of shops.”

  Again Reed waited as Rasul collected himself, content to let the man finish whenever he was ready. Handfuls of questions came to his mind, wondering how the man had ended up in Columbus and why he thought being a shopkeeper was his life’s calling, but each one he let fall by the wayside.

  “The first five years or so, there were incidents, sure,” Rasul said, scrunching his face and wagging a hand at Reed in a dismissive nature, “but nothing too bad. A few sodas here, a candy bar there. The occasional bum wandering in looking for a handout.”

  It was apparent the man was working towards something, his meandering back story headed on to information Reed needed. For that reason he let him keep going without interruption, nodding as if every detail was important.

  “Little less than a year before I shut down, those bastards started showing up,” he said, a harsh glower crossing his face.

  The feeling in Reed’s stomach kicked up at the mention of the men in question, his senses rising, fueled by the carbonated caffeine. “And?”

  “And...” Rasul said, muttering to himself, collecting his thoughts. “At least most of the people that stole tried to hide it, you know? These guys just walked in and grabbed whatever, started saying they were the Kings, could do as they wanted.”

  As he spoke, Rasul waved his hands in front of him, his expression becoming more animated.

  “At first it was just one or two of them, but pretty soon it was all of them, grabbing things by the handful, threatening the girls behind the counter if they said anything. Got to the point where I couldn’t even find people to run the register. Was just me and my wife, and she was afraid to be there alone.

  “They made me a slave to the place.”

  With each sentence Rasul said, Reed forced his expression to remain even, allowing his brain to soak up the new information, fill in the cracks of everything he already had.

  “Is that why there aren’t more complaints against them?” Reed asked. “People were afraid to say anything?”

  “You damned right!” Rasul shouted, the words sounding distorted through his accent. “After my inventory started coming up so short my suppliers thought I was lying to them, I had no choice but to file an insurance claim. They said I needed a police report to process it, so I called the station and asked someone to come out.”

  He paused there, his gaze turned towards the wall beside them. “Best and worst thing I ever did.”

  This was the part of the story Reed had come for, of that there was no doubt. He kept his hands balled into the front pockets of his jacket and moved an inch away from the door, anticipation gripping him.

  “What happened?”

  Rasul glanced up at him and back again, shaking his head from side to side. “One of them happened to be driving by, saw me talking with the cops. That night they came by just before closing time, trashed my store, threatened to kill me, have their way with...”

  He stopped midsentence, Reed knowing where he was going with the statement, not willing to make the man say it aloud.

  “And so a few weeks later you moved out?”

  Once more Rasul shifted his attention to Reed before looking away, the corners of his eyes now damp. “A few hours later I moved out. It was just a few weeks before I stopped having to pay rent.”

  More questions came to Reed’s mind, but he let them pass. There was no point to inquire why the man had not filed another report or done anything else, Rasul’s shame already apparent. Instead he extracted a hand from his sweatshirt and reached into his rear pocket, pulling out a thin stack of papers folded into quadrants.

  Smoothing them out against his thigh, he turned the stack upside down to himself and spread them out in front of Rasul, five sheets of paper in total.

  The crime scene shots of Mentor, Wright, and Durell were too outrageous to show an informational witness, so Reed had pulled DMV photos for the three of them, along with Pryor and Knighton. Lined up together they resembled mug shots, all five young men in their mid-twenties, menacing looks on their faces.

  “Are these the young men you named in the complaint?”

  Shifting his attention from the wall to the desk in front of him, Rasul raised himself to a standing position, pressing his palms into the desk and looking down at the photos. Moving his weight onto his left hand, he extended his right towards them, using his index finger to nudge them forward.

  “This one, this one, these two,” he said, moving all pictures except for Knighton. “This last one I recognize, he was with them, but nobody knew his name at the time so we didn’t include it.”

  Reed nodded, the data fitting with why Deek found Pryor’s name in the file but not Knighton’s.

  “But you’re missing one,” Rasul said,
lowering himself back into his chair and looking up.

  “I am?” Reed asked, looking at the sheets, running over each one in his mind.

  Pearlman had said the number was something like a half dozen, though no mention of a sixth member had ever been made.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very,” Rasul said, nodding his head in an exaggerated fashion. “I know this because he was the only one that was white.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Mrs. Chamberlain was dressed the same exact way she had been the night before, the pink bath robe still encasing her body, the same fuzzy slippers covering her toes. She walked without raising them from them floor as she moved, their soles scraping against linoleum, announcing her presence long before she got to the door.

  It took her a moment to place Reed despite their recent interaction, standing and blinking into the morning light. “Can I help you?”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Chamberlain, Detective Reed Mattox,” Reed said, reaching into his sweatshirt and exposing his badge out of pure habit. “We met last night.”

  A long moment passed as she stood and stared at him, her eyebrows pulled together in thought, trying to place him.

  Not fourteen hours had passed since their last encounter, though to watch her try to remember it was something akin to seeing an animal attempt to decipher trigonometry.

  “I came by for Deek’s help?” Reed added, the words coming out as a question, meant to jog something in her memory.

  Another moment passed before she pulled her mouth into a tight circle and said, “Oh, yes, that’s right, I remember now,” though it was apparent from her tone that she didn’t.

  Despite the obvious lie Reed used the opening to shove out his request. “Is he home this morning? I know it’s early, but I really need him to take a look at one more thing for me.”

  For the first time Reed saw some semblance of the woman he had spoken to the night before, the same look of pride sweeping over her features. “Oh, yes, yes. You go right on down. My Deek’s such a good boy, always ready to lend a hand to the police when they need it.”

  She added a wink to the last line, letting Reed know it was a playful jab. Out of courtesy he offered a small chuckle, the barb just one more in an endless string that had come his way over the years.

  At least she had the good sense not to say she was just making breakfast and try to offer him bacon.

  The entirety of the basement was dark as Reed descended the stairwell, running a hand along the walls, groping for a light switch. When none came he removed his keys from his pocket and snapped on the pen light clipped to them, the glow doing little to penetrate the vast space.

  “Deek? You down here?” Reed called, raising his voice a bit more than necessary, making sure to be heard. “It’s Detective Mattox, I need another favor.”

  Remaining at the foot of the stairwell, Reed rotated at the waist, the small light doing little to illuminate the room. To the left the entirety of the entertainment system sat dark and silent, nothing more than hulking shapes.

  On the opposite side the neon lights from the night before were blacked out, the scent of whiskey thick in the air. Remembering the gift he brought, Reed shook his head, only hoping the whole bottle wasn’t now working its way through Deek’s digestive system.

  “Deek!” Reed called once more, his voice gaining a few more decibels, the word coming out in a sharp crack.

  A moment later a groan was heard from deep in the recesses of the room, the sound of springs creaking as Deek rousted himself from the depths of slumber. “Good God man, what time is it?”

  The words came out low and raspy, the sounds of someone clearly in pain.

  “It’s going on ten now,” Reed said. “You decent? I’m going to turn on a light.”

  “For the love of God, no,” Deek said, his voice still contorted. “And why the hell are you here so early?”

  There were a dozen retorts Reed could have stated in reply, but he held back. He knew he was seeking the help of someone that was unaffiliated, this time coming empty handed, hoping that residual goodwill from his previous offering was enough to cover the slight gaffe in protocol this morning.

  “I need you to go back into those files,” Reed said. “You’re the only one I know that can get in there or that knows I found them.”

  “Christ,” Deek muttered, lying silent for a moment before rolling across his bed, the sound of his bare feet thumping against the floor ringing out.

  Remaining in place, Reed stood and waited as a silhouette emerged from the darkness, a thin pair of shoulders with an oversized head, a hand outstretched before him. The stench of booze seemed to hang around him like a halo, burning Reed’s nostrils.

  More than once he had the thought of inquiring how much of the bottle Deek had put down the previous night, but opted against it.

  “Please kill that damn light, will you?”

  A click of the plunger extinguished the bulb as Deek moved past him, using the same shuffling gait as his grandmother until dropping his weight unceremoniously in his desk chair. A moment later the monitor before him came to life, pulling a wince to his face as it bathed him in light.

  “This better be important,” he muttered in a mock whisper, pretending his voice was lowered but purposely leaving it loud enough to be heard.

  “Extremely,” Reed said, choosing to say as little as possible, not trusting what might come out if he began commenting on the man or his lifestyle. Instead he stood and waited, watching as Deek slowly went to work.

  “Okay,” Deek said, “what am I looking for?”

  Reed felt his eyebrows rise a bit on his forehead in surprise, taking a step forward towards the computer monitor. “Just like that?”

  “It’s a lot easier when you’ve already been inside,” Deek answered, lacing his fingers and stretching his arms up high, both shoulders letting out a series of popping noises.

  “I need a name,” Reed said, taking another step forward and immediately regretting it as the stench of booze rolled off of Deek’s exposed skin.

  “I gave you the only name there was last night,” Deek said. “Prince or Peters or something like that.”

  “Pryor,” Reed corrected. “And I don’t mean in the complaint, I need to know who entered it in the system.”

  Stifling a yawn, Deek shrugged his shoulders and typed in a few keystrokes, his eyes pinched to almost slits as he read. “Nothing doing, man. If it was ever here, it’s gone now too.”

  “Damn,” Reed muttered, shaking his head, staring over into the darkness that he knew housed an oversized television and gaming system. He remained that way a long time, thinking about everything he knew, about the gaps that still existed.

  Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to keep a simple complaint out of the books, so much so that even the officer filling it out had been redacted as well. To pull something like that off took a lot of juice, clout that originated pretty high on the justice system food chain.

  High enough that somebody would remember something from the incident, no doubt finding it as odd then as he did now.

  “What about a judge?” Reed asked. “Does it say who it was that ordered the records sealed in the first place?”

  Another clatter of keystrokes could be heard in the darkness as Deek went to work, stopping a moment later, his voice just audible as he mumbled to himself, reading off the screen.

  “Good call, man,” Deek said, stopping and looking up at Reed. “Looks like some guy called the Honorable Jackson Bennett.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  In the time since the complaint was expunged from the record, Jackson Bennett had moved on from presiding over the Franklin County Municipal Court. Appointed a year earlier by sitting United States District Judge Bryan Hansen, he had become the newest United States Magistrate Judge in the state, sailing through the confirmation vote from the other judges in District Six.

  After moving over he had served strictly in an overflow capac
ity from Hansen, seeing almost no new business, being used only to cull the mass of cases that were hitting the federal desk. A quick search had shown many of them to be fairly benign in nature, agriculture and interstate commerce being the biggest two. Only a few were even remotely interesting, though Reed found nothing in them that connected to his case in the slightest.

  The conglomerated information on Bennett, including the case files, was printed out and sitting on the passenger seat as Reed drove. Every few moments he glanced over, somehow hoping a breakthrough would work its way to the surface, shouting for him to notice it.

  Instead it remained as dull and lifeless as Deek no doubt already was, making it very clear when Reed left what he considered acceptable business hours.

  In the back seat Billie had regained a bit of spring, a nap while Reed was tucked away in Deek’s basement having rejuvenated her. Reed could hear paws squeaking against the plastic cover as she moved about, her constant motion arising from a host of possibilities, the top two on the list being hunger and the need to use the restroom.

  Reed felt pangs of the same two things as he maneuvered his sedan back across town, pulling up in front of the U.S. Southern District Court.

  Just one block down from the CPD headquarters, it had the same style architecture, the entire thing cut from grey stone. A little boxier in shape, it stood four uniform floors in height, even rows of windows lining each of the sides. A pair of gleaming brass flagpoles extended up from the roof of it, the United States flag on one, the Ohio state flag on the other.

  Given that the man he was going to see was a judge long familiar working with law enforcement, Reed opted to bring Billie along, attaching the short lead to her collar. As they made their way to the corner and used the crosswalk, he pulled his badge out from the folds of his sweatshirt, careful to make sure it was seen as they approached.

  While his particular manner of dress was a personal choice, it wasn’t hard to see how it was viewed by the public at large. Brandt’s comment about him resembling a gym teacher was hardly the first he had heard, Riley herself having made similar comments on an almost daily basis.