Quick Be Jack: A Jack Nolan Novel (The Cap's Place Series Book 3)

by Robert Tarrant

  I'm not very good at sucking personal information out of people. It's not that I don't like people, it's just that I don't like to pry. I think it's a fine line between flattering someone with a sincere interest in their life and being just plain nosy. I guess I usually err on the side of not seeming interested in people. Oh well, something else to put on my next list of New Year's Resolutions.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  PJ was just finishing up the mountain of paperwork that needed updating when her cell vibrated. It was Tim calling to say he was on his way back and would be there in a few minutes. PJ told him she'd meet him at the back door.

  Waiting outside when Tim pulled into the fenced employee parking area, PJ got into the passenger side of her department Crown Vic as Tim said, "I still can't believe the department lets you keep this old relic. Ford doesn't even make these any longer. Why don't you get a new Taurus and put this old girl out to pasture?"

  PJ said, "Don't talk about my baby that way. I like the way it rides and you could live in the trunk."

  "Yeah, but honestly how do you get away with keeping it. It's got to be well past the rotation point."

  "It is, in years, but the mileage is still below the limit. I don't live that far away and we use your car half the time, so I keep my mileage low. Every time the motor pool contacts me I beg and plead and they let me keep it." After a short pause, PJ asked, "How'd it go out there? Any luck?"

  As he pulled back out into traffic, Tim shook his head, "None. I did manage to get six sites checked, but we couldn't have picked a worse time of day to be out there looking. Between rush hour traffic and the number of vehicles moving in and out of every parking area in the city at this time of day, it was to say the least, frustrating."

  PJ said, "I'll bet you that tomorrow Kahn will be grumbling about the same thing, but conveniently forgetting it was his idea."

  "Probably so, but we can't underestimate his influence on everyone's attitude, so we should just shrug it off. More importantly, another thought occurred to me as I was looking at these sites. One check will certainly not be sufficient. Just because there is no camera car at a particular site tonight doesn't mean there won't be tomorrow morning."

  PJ nodded wearily, "Yeah, that had occurred to me, but I didn't think bringing it up at the meeting would do anything positive for morale."

  Tim glanced at PJ and said, "You getting any rest these days partner? You seem really worn down."

  PJ replied, "Ah, nothing to worry about." Changing the subject, "Do you think, after our first round of checks, we should give the locations to uniform and have the area cars keep an eye out?"

  Tim shook his head, "No. At least not at this point. I do feel this is a potential lead, but I'm afraid if black and whites start cruising the lots it could just as likely scare them off as lead us to them."

  "Yeah, you're right. There are no shortcuts."

  "I don't think you're trying to find a shortcut, I think you're thinking ahead to the reality that we can't keep a task force of investigators running back and forth checking parking lots."

  PJ rubbed the back of her neck, "Maybe Moore will find something in Tampa."

  "That would be nice, but I'm not banking on it. It's a long shot at best, but you never know if you don't try. Funny about following up on long shots, if they pan out everyone forgets about what a long shot it was in the first place. If they don't, everybody grumbles that they knew it was a waste of time all along."

  PJ shifted from rubbing the back of her neck to rubbing the bridge of her nose, "Yeah, but the last thing you want to find out after the fact is that if you had taken that one long shot you could have wrapped things up so much faster."

  Tim said, "Something else is eating at me though. This whole thing just doesn't quite seem right to me. These people are putting a lot of fairly sophisticated work into setting these heists up and they're using pretty high powered firepower. Why not just sit and watch a night deposit and when a vehicle pulls in walk up and stick a 9 mm in the vic's face. Results would be the same, with a lot less work."

  PJ pondered Tim's words and then asked, "So what are you getting at?"

  "I just can't help but wonder if these jobs are just rehearsals for something much larger," replied Tim as he pulled into the garage where Hollywood Police vehicles are serviced.

  "What about Jacksonville? Those jobs rehearsals, too?"

  Tim answered, "I just don't know. We don't know for a fact that our perps are responsible for the Jacksonville jobs, although they sure seem like the same crew. All I know is that something doesn't smell right to me."

  As they both got out of the car PJ asked, "So, should we be doing something differently?"

  "Yeah, we should be hurrying to catch them before the something bigger happens." He started to walk toward the front door of the garage, but turned and said, "Damn, almost forgot my files. I stopped to grab a coffee earlier and didn't want to leave them in plain sight on the seat so I stuck them in your satchel." With that he leaned in the back door and pulled a handful of file folders from PJ's leather satchel.

  As she was pulling back onto the street, PJ looked over her shoulder at Tim going in the front door of the garage. The relief from the haunting specter that today's progress on their case had brought was fading. She felt once again as if ever increasing atmospheric pressure was crushing in at her from all directions. She didn't know how much longer before she would implode.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The conclusion of another sleepless night found PJ in the shower at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. Not even the pounding water could drive the specter away. It had infested her subconscious and reared its ugly head at will. She couldn't focus and she knew it was severely impacting her work. She could sense that Tim knew something was wrong with her, hopefully he had no idea what it actually was. The sleeplessness last night had been filled with going over her alternatives. She knew that doing nothing was not an option. If she did nothing, the specter would totally devour her from the inside out.

  She had boiled her options down to three. She could confront Tim, but with nothing except circumstantial speculation to confront him with why would he admit anything? Of course, that would destroy her relationship with him and she might never know the truth.

  Her second option was to go to Internal Affairs with her allegation and let them dig into it and see what they could find. Ultimately, Tim would find out she made the allegation and that would also destroy their relationship and quite possibly her reputation around the department. The IA investigation might not prove anything either.

  The third option she had identified during her sleepless night was to go to Lieutenant Hassinger. She didn't have a close relationship with Hassinger, no one did, but she did feel like he had come to respect her. He was known to be a straight shooter who wasn't afraid to buck the powers above on behalf of his officers. Maybe if she sat down with him, and went through everything she and Jack had learned, Hassinger would identify a way forward. Maybe there is a way forward that she just can't see because she's too close to the whole mess.

  As she was toweling off and putting on her robe, it occurred to her that Hassinger would not be at all pleased that she had enlisted the assistance of a civilian in her informal investigation. Maybe she could repackage what Jack learned and not mention his participation. At least not when she first brought what she knew to Hassinger.

  Sitting down at the kitchen table she could hear Angela going into her own bathroom to begin her preparation for the day. It would be forty-five minutes before Angela burst into the kitchen saying she was running late and only had time to grab a bagel for breakfast before heading to school. Conversation with her mother would be limited to one word answers, grunts, or exaggerated eye rolls. PJ thought about pulling together a decent breakfast in hopes of stimulating some level of real conversation with Angela, but she just didn't have the energy. Besides, that ploy had consistently failed in the past, why should she expect it to work today?
r />   Her work satchel lay on the table where she dropped it last night when she got home. She took a sip of her morning tea and reached into the satchel to pull out the file Jack had given her the other morning at his apartment. She'd look through his notes and figure out a way to incorporate them into a written narrative of her own recollections from the night of the attack on Sissy. She could review that narrative with Hassinger.

  Not immediately finding the folder she pulled the satchel over and placed it on her lap so she could look into it from the top. Thumbing through the contents she couldn't find the folder. It was a simple tan file folder containing several sheets of paper. She knew it had to be there. She had stuck it into the satchel when she left Jack's and the satchel was always with her, or in her car. It couldn't have gotten lost. She saw it in there just yesterday morning.

  It struck her like a bolt of lightning. Yesterday. Tim used the car yesterday and he said he put his files in the satchel while getting coffee. He must have inadvertently taken the file along with the stack of his own files when he left last night. Oh my God!

  PJ felt herself physically shaking. How could she have been so stupid as to leave the file anywhere Tim could have found it? In all the years of working together she couldn't remember him ever being in her satchel before. Why now? How could she have let this happen?

  Maybe Tim didn't have it. Maybe it was somewhere in the car. It was her only hope. She'd check . . . she'd check now. She called out to Angela that she had to go down to the car for a minute, grabbed her keys and ran out the door in her bath robe. The entire elevator ride down to the parking garage she was chanting, "It has to be there. It has to be there."

  On the elevator ride back up PJ felt numb. The file wasn't in the car, she'd known in her heart it wouldn't be. So Tim had it. Now what the hell was she going to do? She'd go to Hassinger as soon as she got to the office. That was her only choice. Tim would know that she was investigating him. If he was guilty he'd be covering his tracks, if there even were any tracks. If he was guilty, her bungling was going to let him slip away, and if he wasn't guilty, it was going to destroy their friendship in the worst way.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  On the drive to the office PJ called Hassinger's desk phone. He was always in early and his secretary wouldn't be there yet, so he would answer. No one answered, it went to voicemail. His message said he was out of the office until 11:00 a.m. that morning. She started to call his cell phone, but remembered that today was the monthly command staff meeting and that cell phone calls were strictly forbidden. If a police emergency arose requiring command staff, Dispatch was to place a radio call to the portable radio in the meeting room. There was no possible way she could make that happen in this instance.

  PJ continued on to the office, not by choice, but simply by rote. It was as if she didn't know how to stay away. She had just slumped into her chair when Tim came into the room. His face was a dark scowl as he said, "Morning PJ." He set his briefcase on his desk, picked up his cup and headed toward the coffee pot. A couple of detectives had come in, but they had an early case so they'd already left to fight the morning traffic on the way to court. PJ and Tim were alone in the office.

  PJ replied to Tim's back, "Morning." What was she to say?

  Returning with his coffee Tim said, "Jimmie Moore called me last night. It was hard to hear him. Sounded like he was at the Hard Rock in Tampa. Moore likes his blackjack. Anyway, doesn't sound like he found much yet. This morning he's going to track down the property records of the address they're using. Maybe something will pop from there. Maybe someone associated with the property will ring a bell with Tampa PD."

  PJ shook her head, but didn't say anything. Tim looked across the desks and asked, "Hey, are you actually here with me today? Something eating at you?"

  "No, I'm fine. It's just this case, I guess."

  Taking a long drink of his coffee Tim said, "Yeah, I know what you're saying. Soon as I finish this cup we'll hit the streets. Check some more of those lots. You drive, I'll navigate. You'll feel better on the street."

  "Sure."

  Fifteen minutes later they were in PJ's Crown Vic on their way to the first of the remaining addresses on the list. PJ had suggested that they could cover twice as many addresses if they split up, but Tim said that his experience from last night told him that it was probably as efficient to have a second set of eyes that could concentrate on the vehicles in the lot without worrying about driving in traffic. He said that he thought the best approach was to drive through the bank as if going to the night deposit and scan for any vehicles in the adjacent parking lot with cameras mounted on the trunk. He pointed out that they needed to be inconspicuous about it, in case they did cross the path of the camera and it was transmitting remotely. They didn't want to spook the perps.

  PJ attempted to focus on the task at hand, but couldn't take her mind off of the fact that Tim must have the file. Her only glimmer of hope was that maybe he hadn't seen the file yet. Maybe he grabbed it up with his stack of files, but hadn't looked through the stack since then. Her guess was that the stack was in his briefcase. He hadn't opened his briefcase in the office and had casually tossed it on the backseat of her car when they left. He'd been carrying the list of addresses in his hand when he came in this morning, saying that he checked one on the way in.

  "Hey, pay attention, you just drove by the bank," said Tim, jarring PJ out of her thoughts.

  "Ah, sorry. Must be sleep deprivation. I'll turn around, come back, and pull through the drive."

  As they drove through the bank parking lot and past the night deposit, Tim scanned all of the vehicles parked in the adjacent public parking lot. Most of the cars were nosed in, so they could be immediately eliminated. None of those backed in had any signs of a camera mounted on the trunk.

  PJ asked, "The video in which Beans spotted the camera had it mounted on the trunk lid, but there is no reason that they couldn't mount in on the roof just above the windshield or even on the dashboard shooting through the windshield. In either of those situations the car would be nosed in."

  "Yeah, I thought of that. In many ways that would be much easier, so why, in the one we saw, were they backed in? No, I think there is some operational reason why they want the camera mounted on the trunk lid. Still, we shouldn't just summarily dismiss the cars nosed in. You have a good point."

  PJ wasn't positive, but she felt that Tim was being more direct in his comments this morning. Not what he said, but the tone of his voice. He seemed much sterner than usual. More like the cop voice he used with suspects, not the voice he usually used with her. Who knows what reality is though, she was so damn distracted.

  After they checked two more locations, on a journey punctuated with long periods of silence, Tim said, "I need a coffee, you want a Coke?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  Pointing ahead Tim said, "Pull into that 7-11. I'll run in. I don't want to stop long enough to sit down anywhere."

  PJ pulled into a parking spot in front of the building and Tim went inside. She realized this was her chance and she turned around and reached over the seat back toward Tim's briefcase laying on the backseat. She couldn't reach it. She unfastened her seatbelt, glanced at the front of the store, and not seeing Tim she slid out from behind the wheel, so she could reach the briefcase. She pulled it closer so she could open it. Looking quickly through the stack of files she didn't see the file Jack had given her. She started to go through the stack again when a knock on he window startled her.

  PJ spun in the seat and found Tim standing next to the car. She turned and put the window down. Tim said, "Came out to tell you I'm having them make a new pot. Just be a couple of minutes. You looking for something?"

  "Ah, ah . . . yeah, I was looking for the file that has the still shot of the car with the camera mounted. I don't know what it is, but something is bother me about the whole camera thing. Wanted to stare at the picture, see if it jarred anything loose."

  Tim hesitated and then said,
"Should be in the top file folder, but don't you have a copy in your packet?"

  PJ shrugged, "I do but my satchel is on the floor behind me, your briefcase was closer."

  "Yeah, okay, well it should be in the top file." With that, Tim turned and walked back into the store.

  This time PJ gave the briefcase a thorough search. Jack's file wasn't there. Where could it be? Could it be that Tim doesn't have it after all? If that's true, where could it have gone? She closed the briefcase and turned back into her seat. Step by step she replayed where her satchel had been every minute since Sunday morning when Jack gave her the file. It had never been out of her possession except for when it was in her locked car. That is, except for the time Tim had used her car. He had to have it, but why hasn't he said anything? Why isn't he hopping mad?

  The passenger door opened and Tim leaned in handing her a Coke and placing his coffee in the cup holder protruding from under the dash. He eased his large frame back into the seat and closed the door. Looking at PJ he asked, "Couldn't you find the picture?"

  PJ realized she had forgotten to take the picture out of the briefcase. That was her whole excuse for rummaging through his briefcase in the first place. "Oh, no, I mean yes, I found the picture, but decided after a glance at it I was just going around in circles. Left it in the file."

  Tim nodded slightly, "Oh, really?"

  Wearily, PJ said, "Yeah, like I said earlier, this case has me all tied up in knots. I don't seem to be able to keep my focus."