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

by Dustin Stevens

  Especially considering a lot of it was during the busiest daylight hours.

  Unlike the previous two trips, this meeting had been called by Reed. Not quite a demand, but definitely far north of a request, he had contacted Grimes on his direct line and told him he would be in shortly.

  They had things to discuss that could not wait.

  At the time Reed could tell Grimes wasn’t especially fond of being told by a detective what was going to happen, a fact that was now made even more apparent by the glower splashed across the captain’s face. His jowls hung on either side of his face and tiny red lines crossed over the whites of his eyes, the telltale signs of a man that hadn’t been sleeping well.

  Reed knew the feeling.

  “I hope to hell you’re here to inform me that you’ve got this thing figured out,” Grimes opened with, assuming his usual posture behind the desk, his fingers lined up over his abdomen.

  “Pressure coming down from on high?” Reed asked.

  “High, low, kidney shots, you name it,” Grimes said. “Your outburst at Brandt yesterday bought you some time, but I don’t need to remind you that it is running out fast.”

  The words had not been stated out loud, or if they had Reed had left too fast to hear them, though he had suspected as much. A woman like Brandt was too concerned with her own image, both within the community and the organization, to let either this case or Reed’s outburst go for long.

  What he was about to share certainly wouldn’t help either.

  “Media?” Reed asked.

  “Every hour on the hour,” Grimes said. “Which means we have about ten minutes here before I’m sure somebody will start calling again.”

  He leaned forward a few inches in his chair, his head extended at the neck. “Trust me, you don’t want to be here when that happens.”

  Taking the hint, Reed launched forward with everything he had discovered in the previous twenty-eight hours, beginning with his trip downtown to meet with Morris and the gang task force and ending with his encounter with Judge Bennett right next door to headquarters.

  He delivered the entirety of the update in a straight ahead style, rattling it off like a reporter reading from a teleprompter, even managing to keep his tone neutral as he delivered the punch line. When he was finished he fell silent, waiting as his captain processed the news, the internal sequence playing out on his features.

  A full minute of silence passed as Grimes made sense of what he’d been told, his chin receding back against his neck, his breathing growing more pronounced as he did so. By the time he spoke he appeared to have aged several years in just a span of seconds.

  “So he never actually said...” he began, his voice trailing off.

  “No,” Reed said, shaking his head. “I think it’s pretty obvious where he was going, though.”

  “Very obvious,” Grimes said, “but he was smart to give himself plausible deniability. If we pursue this and it blows up, you know this is entirely on us.”

  Twice in his response Grimes used first person plural pronouns, a fact that was not lost on Reed.

  “Any idea why she might have done it?” Reed asked. “Maybe if we can figure out her angle it will dictate how we approach it.”

  “I think the obvious answer is just as the judge intimated, which is this all went down at a time when she could ill afford a scandal. Whatever it was must have been big enough it made her concerned about her new post as chief.”

  Already having considered it, Reed nodded in agreement. “My next move was going to be digging around and seeing what kind of connections she has to The Bottoms, seeing what she might have been trying to cover.”

  He paused a moment, considering how to best put the next sentence.

  “That’s part of why I came here first. If somebody figures out I’ve been snooping through the chief’s laundry...”

  The statement was left there, Reed feeling he didn’t need to take it any further.

  “So if your ass gets burned I’m going with you,” Grimes said, his expression even. “Gee, thanks.”

  There was no way of telling if the comment was an attempt at levity or the truth so Reed let it go, waiting for some clear directive.

  Another moment passed as Grimes peered across at him, his lips pursed, wrestling with the position they were in. There was no clear answer and both of them knew it, each trying to weigh the politics of the force with the greater ramifications of the crimes being committed.

  “Go,” Grimes said. “Do what you have to. Right now we’re lucky to have this mess in the Near East Side dominating most of the headlines, but the longer this goes unsolved the more heat it’s going to pick up.”

  “You think she’s going to be alright with us doing this?” Reed asked.

  “Definitely not,” Grimes said. “In fact, we should both be prepared for her to sweep in here like a hurricane the second she finds out we’re looking her direction, but right now we don’t have a choice.”

  A sardonic smile picked at the corner of Reed’s mouth as he thought about it. “So we’re going after this thing, even it costs us both our careers.”

  The same look fell over Grimes’s features as he glanced to his phone. “Didn’t I just tell you I’ve got the media calling me all hours? We solve something this big it’ll be all over the state in minutes, she won’t be able to get rid of us.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The thought of paying Deek a third visit crossed Reed’s mind after leaving Grimes’s office, though he decided against it. There was little doubt the overgrown child was still curled up in bed, sleeping off the remains of a massive hangover, having already given Reed a lecture on the state of any future working relationship.

  Instead Reed went straight for the bullpen, bringing Billie with him as he ascended to the second floor. Still several hours before Jackie came on he made a hard left at the top of the stairs without glancing over, weaving his way through an odd assortment of people and chairs en route to his post in the corner.

  Much like it had a few nights before at Midwestern Paper, the weight of stares seemed to burn on his back as he went, though he pretending not to notice. For months his presence had been an oddity around the precinct, something he knew others spoke about, though with the exception of Iaconelli nobody dared voice.

  Now that he was the attached lead to the biggest case in the region, he could only guess how much the speculation surrounding him had grown.

  “Down,” Reed said as he reached his desk, Billie going to her stomach beside him as he fell into his chair. Seeming to sense the demeanor of the room she kept her head upright as he went to work on the computer, poised like a solid black sphinx watching over him.

  “Good girl,” Reed whispered without looking down at her, his face partially hidden from view by the computer screen in front of him. Still he could feel the occasional glance lobbed his way from the small handful of men working nearby, though not once did he meet their gaze.

  The first place Reed looked was in the CPD personnel database, getting as far as the entry for his name and badge number before balking. If there was any way to obtain what he needed without setting off warning flags in the system he would prefer to do so, minimizing the screen and bringing up a basic internet search engine.

  Beginning with “Eleanor Brandt,” the site spit back over half a million hits, the top links being for Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. Scrolling down through the list he saw a row of pictures of women of various ages, many of them grainy black-and-whites, appearing to have been from the first part of the century.

  The fourth picture in the row was a uniformed shot of Brandt taken several years before, the link an article from The Columbus Dispatch announcing her appointment as the new Chief of Police.

  Pulling the story up, Reed browsed down through it, the bulk of the text providing an overview of her previous career stops, postings in precincts around the city, service on different task forces. Nowhere did it make any mention of family or pe
rsonal history, Reed backing out from the story to begin anew on the search engine.

  For a second stab he added the words “Columbus Police Department” to the end of Brandt’s name and set it to searching, the number of responses swelling considerably. The top result was the personal bio for Brandt on the CPD website, a condensed version of everything the news article had just stated.

  “Shit,” Reed muttered, feeling his heart rate begin to rise, a film of sweat starting to pop up on his skin.

  Pulling back a final time Reed erased any mention of the department and simply attempted “Eleanor Brandt The Bottoms.”

  Once more the website returned a host of options, though a quick pass through confirmed that none of them were what he was looking for. In addition to the same profiles he had bypassed a moment before were now a litany of mentions about horse racing and fishing, though nothing pertaining to even the state of Ohio, let alone the woman he was searching for.

  On the floor beside him Billie lifted her body onto her front paws and moved a bit closer to him, settling herself down again just inches from his feet. Leaving the search engine in place Reed looked down at her, watching as she settled in, looking out over the room before twisting her head up to look at him.

  “Yeah,” Reed said, nodding in agreement with his partner’s assessment.

  At this point, the fact that somebody was terrorizing the area they were meant to protect far outweighed any potential for inflaming one public official.

  Drawing the personnel database back up, Reed entered his name and badge number, the front screen dissolving, bringing up a searchable site that resembled the public one he had just been using. Without delay he entered the chief’s name and began to search, the file coming back to him in under five seconds.

  The top page of the report was the basic info sheet made for every cadet upon enrollment. It showed a photo of a twenty-two year old Brandt, her hair much longer, her features softer. Below it was all vital information, including her height, weight, and blood type.

  The second page was her personal history, showing she had earned a BA in criminal justice from Capital University in Bexley before receiving a Master’s in criminology from Ohio State.

  The last entry on the page was her family history, showing her father to be deceased, her mother living at an address in Worthington. Below it were listed two siblings, both younger, a brother and a sister.

  A thought sprang forth in the back of Reed’s mind, his breathing picking up a bit more, the cotton t-shirt beneath his hooded sweatshirt now sticking to the small of his back. Dropping the personnel database from sight he pulled up ViCAP and the NCIC, entering both of the sibling’s names into the system.

  Both results came back negative.

  “Son of a...” Reed whispered, closing both the programs.

  Never during her time with CPD had Brandt worked in The Bottoms. With no husband or children of her own, the only people she could have been protecting were her siblings. The odds of anybody being important enough to earn her coverage, or potentially inflammatory enough for her to offer it, had to have been family.

  Once more he went back to the search engine and entered the name of her brother, adding “Columbus, Ohio” to the end of it. On cue, a website listing came back for a dermatology practice in Dublin, the pictures therein showing a man that vaguely resembled the chief, his arms spread wide around a wife and two children well into their teen years.

  Retreating away, he erased the man’s first name and inserted the sister, clicking it to search.

  The first image that came up was a shot of a servicewoman in an Air Force uniform, her appearance a carbon copy of her older sister. She had the same short hair and flinty features, her narrow form swallowed up by the blue uniform she was wearing.

  In the photo she wore a medal around her neck, Reed recognizing it as a Governor’s Service Award, the time stamp at the bottom showing the photo to be from eleven months before. On sight he felt his mouth go dry as he stared at the image, blowing it up to full screen, leaning in so close his nose almost touched the glass.

  His interest had nothing to do with Bonnie Brandt, not the uniform she wore or the award she’d be given.

  Instead he was focused solely on the young man beside her. With short dark and smooth skin he appeared to be somewhere in his mid-twenties, smiling as he draped an arm around his mother’s thin shoulders.

  An arm that had just the hint of the KOTB tattoo Reed had been chasing for days extended beneath the rolled up sleeve of his dress shirt.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “Tell me something, do you have the Chief of Police on speed dial?” Pierce Brandt asked, an eyebrow cocked upward at Reed as he settled down into his chair on the opposite side of the interrogation table. “Because I do.”

  A smirk was the only response Reed offered as he dropped the stack of case files he had amassed onto the table and lowered himself into his chair.

  The reaction wasn’t out of amusement at the vague threat that was being lobbed his way, he had heard much worse over the years. It wasn’t in the cocksure manner with which Pierce carried himself, the kind of kid that was used to getting away with things. That too he had seen more times than he could count.

  What got him, bringing on the smirk, making him take on an almost jovial tone, was that the kid had no idea what was about to hit him. He had no clue that encased in the files between them was enough concentrated information to wipe the conceit from his system, reducing him to nothing more than babble.

  An hour ago, the thought would have never crossed Reed’s mind. He had no ill will towards Pierce, had not once even heard his name before today. Never before had the two crossed paths, Reed willing to overlook whatever he had gotten into in the past for the sake of dealing with whoever was picking people off in the present.

  When he pulled up to the two story ranch Pierce lived in his only intention was to have a civil conversation, ask a few questions, determine what he needed to know so he could finally get out ahead of the killer.

  Pierce had made sure things didn’t go quite so easily.

  A sharp knock on the window behind him drew Reed up just a moment after touching his chair, rising to full height and turning towards the door. He purposely left the files out in the open as he went, almost daring Pierce to take a look through them, passing out into the hall without looking back.

  Standing just feet outside the door was Grimes, a frown so deep it almost touched his jaw line on either side. His arms were folded across his chest as he looked at Reed, his eyebrows raised, forming deep creases across his forehead.

  “You brought him here?” Grimes opened, no lead-in, no preamble. “When I gave you the green light to pursue this, I guess I erroneously believed you would exercise some level of discretion.”

  Keeping his hands plunged into the pockets of his sweatshirt, Reed shrugged, rotating at the waist to see the young man inside the room. True to form he was sitting and staring at the window, posturing for them to see.

  “Believe me, I tried,” Reed said. “He didn’t want to talk and he sure as hell didn’t want to cooperate. Started in with all the usual pig jokes, followed it up by telling me to get off his porch, lot of profanity thrown in just to prove how tough he was.”

  The same expression remained on Grimes’s face as he looked past Reed, taking measure of Pierce through the glass.

  “Got so damn ugly after I threatened to bring him in I had to go get Billie,” Reed added. “That shut his ass up right quick.”

  Only Grimes’s eyes moved as he shifted them from Pierce to Reed.

  “After that he just kept mentioning over and over again who his aunt was, like that was supposed to be enough to make me go away.”

  “You know she’s probably en route as we speak,” Grimes said, keeping his focus on Reed.

  “She probably is,” Reed said, “but the kid has the same tattoo as all three of our victims. If nothing else we can tell her we’re just trying to protec
t him.”

  “Yeah, that’ll work,” Grimes groaned, raising his wrist and pushing back the cuff of his shirt to reveal a wristwatch on a battered leather band. “My guess is you’ve got less than ten minutes. You’d better get in there.”

  For the second time on the day Reed understood the unspoken statement that Grimes would support him as much as he could, turning on his heel and walking right back into the interrogation room. He slammed the door behind him harder than necessary as he went, the metal-on-metal contact echoing off the concrete walls.

  At the sight of him Pierce opened his mouth to speak but Reed cut him off, waving a hand at him. “Yeah, I know who your aunt is, and no, I don’t care.”

  He went straight to the table and slid the chair in flush against it, remaining standing as he spread the files out three across.

  “What I do care about is that tattoo on your forearm.”

  The statement was left vague on purpose, floated out there as Reed positioned the files in the correct order, the new jackets they were in void of any identifying marks. The odds were good that Pierce was already intimately familiar with what was going on, but in the event he wasn’t, Reed didn’t want to give him any chance to steel himself.

  Any reaction that was evoked needed to be spontaneous.

  “My tattoo?” Pierce asked, a half-smile on his face. He raised his right forearm above the table top and pulled back the sleeve of the plain blue sweater he was wearing, the script K and block OTB Reed had grown so familiar with coming into view.

  “This?” Pierce asked, his voice relaying his surprise. “You hauled me down here to talk about some ink I had done a while back? Well hell, why didn’t you say so? Could have saved us all a lot of time.”

  Most people inside the interrogation room fell into one of a few distinct categories. People like Lucy Barr were a wreck, too emotionally damaged by whatever happened to be of any use. Those like Hank Winters knew they had nothing to hide, people that just wanted to get things over with, get on with the lives they had waiting for them.