Stand Down

by J. A. Jance

  I said my piece then fell silent and waited. For a long time, the only sound in the graveled parking lot was the soft roar of waves breaking on rocks far below. I was afraid he would simply turn and walk away. He didn’t. Straightening his shoulders, he looked me square in the eye.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  It was all I could do to keep from hugging the guy. I said, “Get your passengers loaded into the bus. Tell them to take cover as best they can—­to sink down below window level as much as possible.”

  The driver grinned then. “That shouldn’t be a problem. Most of ’em aren’t any bigger than a minute.”

  “By the way, could you lend me another cigarette?”

  “Lend?” he replied. “Are you saying you’ll buy me a pack when all this is over?”

  The cigarette-­smoker’s bonding was back, big-­time. The driver and I were on the same page. We were a team. He pulled out his pack and passed me a single cigarette.

  “Pack? Hell,” I declared, “I’ll buy you a whole damned carton.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to walk over there, tap on the window, and ask for a light.”

  “If he works with your wife, won’t he recognize you?”

  “I doubt it. Manson knows Mel; he doesn’t know me. We’ve never met. When he rolls down the window, I’m going to take him down. While I’m doing that, you get on the horn to 9-­1-­1. Tell them there’s some kind of altercation going down here at the state park. You’re welcome to say I’m involved or not, your call. Say you believe ­people’s lives are in danger and to get here fast.”

  There was a pause. Finally, he said, “What if things don’t go your way?”

  “Then take your bus and your ­people and get the hell out of here because if I don’t succeed in nailing the bastard, my wife’s done for, and so am I.”

  After an even longer pause, the driver nodded and held out his hand. We shook. “Good luck,” he said. “I’m rooting for you.”

  With that, he headed for his bus, and I turned toward the Malibu. It was parked at the far south end of the lot, with the passenger side snug up against a guardrail made of a long length of log rather than metal. Given the distance down the cliff on the far side of that slender barrier, I would have much preferred metal.

  Forcing myself not to rush, I sauntered up to the Malibu’s driver-­side door and rapped sharply on the glass with one hand while holding up a cigarette in the other. Then I bent down and mouthed three understated words through the closed window, “Got a light?”

  Before Manson could reply, I slipped my right hand into my jacket pocket and closed my fingers around the plastic grip on my Glock. Manson must have been dozing when I tapped on the window. He started awake at the sudden noise and reached for something I couldn’t see—­a gun most likely. After a moment and to my immense relief, he seemed to relax. The window rolled down.

  Manson looked at me through bloodshot eyes. “Whaddyu want?” he demanded as a blast of boozy breath spilled out of the car, leaving its stink in the cool, crisp air around us.

  I reasoned that if Manson was going to shoot first and ask questions later, he would have done so already. Luckily for me, the bus was still there and still acting as a deterrent because it meant there were all kinds of possible witnesses on the scene. Even drunk as a skunk, Manson knew better than to gun someone down in cold blood in front of a spellbound audience.

  “Got a light?” I repeated. “I must have blown a fuse or two in my Mercedes. Neither of my lighters work, and I’m dying for a smoke.”

  Manson gave an exaggerated sigh, then he reached over and punched the lighter button on his dashboard. With his right hand. Amen! That probably meant he was right-­handed. It also meant that a hand holding a lit lighter wouldn’t be holding a gun. Couldn’t be holding a gun. I studied him while we waited for the lighter to heat up. Manson was in his midfifties, wore his hair in a graying crew cut, and was reasonably fit. He could have been me a few years ago, up to and including the booze-­fueled breath.

  I waited until he held out the lighter, then I pounced. I dropped the cigarette, grabbed his wrist with both hands, and twisted for all I was worth. Then I bodily dragged his resisting body out through the open window.

  “What the hell?” he yelled, fighting to free himself. “Let go. I’ll kill you, you asshole.”

  Manson’s big problem right then was that he was still drunk, and I wasn’t. I dropped him onto the ground from window height and heard the air swoosh out of his lungs. Once he was on the ground gasping for breath, I was there, too, twisting his arm into an impossible pretzel behind his back in a way that was only a half inch short of pulling his shoulder out of its socket.

  “You bastard,” he howled when he could speak again “Whoever you are, you are a dead man.”

  “No, I’m not, Manson,” I told him cheerfully, “but you’re done. Stand down!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bus driver sprinting toward us from across the parking lot. “Thought you could use these,” he said, arriving out of breath and gasping but holding up a handful of industrial sized tie-­wraps. “You’d be surprised how often they come in handy on the bus. And I called the cops just like you said. They’re on their way.”

  Moments later, with both of Manson’s hands properly cuffed behind his back, I stood up, more grateful than ever for Dr. Auld, the orthopedic surgeon over at Swedish Hospital who had replaced my original out-­of-­warranty knees with properly working new ones. Manson was still on the ground, grumbling and railing. Meanwhile, I slipped the Glock out of my jacket pocket and back into its holster. No shots had been fired. There was no reason to have a weapon on display when the cavalry showed up.

  That’s about the time I first heard a fierce thumping noise coming from inside the trunk. Mel was alive! Tears of relief sprang from my eyes as I searched the interior of the Malibu for the trunk release. A second later, the bus driver and I stood in front of the open trunk, staring down at my wife. She was alive but helpless, duct-­taped from head to foot. A long strip of tape covered her mouth. It hurt me to pull the sticky gag as well as a layer of skin off her face, but it didn’t bother her. In fact, I don’t think she even noticed.

  “Where’s Manson?” she demanded furiously, once she was free of the gag. “Just wait until I get my hands on that bastard!”

  “Manson is handled,” I assured her. “He’s not in custody just yet, but he’s handled. What about you? Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  Still focused on Manson, she didn’t answer, but as I helped her sit up, I saw a streak of dried blood that ran from her right temple all the way to her chin. Most likely, Manson had used something heavy to clock her over the head and knock her out.

  While I loosened the restraints on Mel’s legs, peeling off strips of shredded panty hose along with every piece of duct tape, the bus driver worked at freeing her hands. Once Mel was free from the tape, we attempted to stand her upright, but she immediately toppled over. Luckily, we caught her before she landed on her face. Her lower limbs were so numb, it was impossible for her to stand on her own.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, nodding toward the driver, who was gripping her other elbow.

  “Name’s Sam,” he told her with a grin. “That’s my bus over there. I’m the bus driver.”

  “Today I think Sam is short for Good Samaritan,” Mel declared.

  We all laughed uproariously at that, as though she had just cracked the best joke ever, and maybe she had. Then, as suddenly as our outburst of laughter had erupted, it ended. Limp with relief, Mel fell weeping against my shoulder. “Manson was going to kill me,” she sobbed brokenly. “He said if he couldn’t have the job, I sure as hell wouldn’t have it, either.”

  “I know,” I murmured comfortingly into her ear. “I know.”

  I tried to pretend I was holdi
ng her tightly against me in order to keep her from falling, but that wasn’t the only reason—­not by a long shot. I didn’t want to let go of her ever again.

  After a time, she pried herself loose from my grasp. “Where are we?” she asked, frowning.

  “Larrabee Park on Chuckanut Drive, a few miles south of Fairhaven.”

  “How did you find me?” she wanted to know. “How did you know to come here?”

  I didn’t answer the question, but she figured it out anyway. “Todd?” she asked a moment later.

  I nodded.

  “And he located Manson’s cell phone without having a warrant?”

  I nodded again.

  “Well,” she said, “we can’t just throw him under the bus, can we?”

  When Sam objected to her use of that particular terminology, Mel quickly corrected herself. “I mean, we can’t tell the cops about any of this. If they find out what Todd can do, they’ll be all over him. He might even end up in jail.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “It’s probably for best if we don’t make any mention of him or his participation.”

  “What then?” Mel asked. She fell silent, but soon she brightened. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I know how to handle this.”

  Reaching into the jacket pocket of her very rumpled uniform, she pulled out a spare set of keys. Mel Soames is notorious for losing track of keys—­car keys, house keys, you name it. As a consequence, she never goes anywhere without two complete sets—­one in her purse and one in her pocket. She held the key ring up, in the air jingling it triumphantly in front of my face. “We’ll tell them you used this.”

  Months earlier, for Christmas, I had given her a collection of small squares of plastic tiles, containing locator chips. With the devices attached to her key rings, no matter where she misplaced one of them, we could use our iPhones to find it.

  “Those are designed to work inside houses or apartments,” I objected. “It would never cover this much distance.”

  “Technology is mysterious,” Mel declared. “Nobody else knows that for sure, and what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

  Sam saw that as a signal to take his leave. “I’d better go check on my passengers and let them know everything’s all right,” he said, backing away from us.

  It was a good thing we’d already made arrangements about handling the locator beacon because, at that point, a string of cop cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring came streaming into the parking lot. Someone grabbed up Austin Manson and hustled him away, first into the back of a patrol car and later into a newly arrived ambulance.

  I expected that investigators would immediately separate Mel and me while someone else went to talk to Sam. That’s what cops usually do—­they separate witnesses and suspects in an effort to keep them from comparing notes and collaborating as far as their various stories are concerned. I was grateful that Mel and I had managed to get our stories straight before the new arrivals got there.

  But before we could be separated and interviewed, something unexpected happened. A white Buick sedan nosed its way into the crush of cop cars, and a woman I later learned was Mayor Kirkpatrick bounded out of the car and started throwing around her considerable weight. I have no idea how she learned about what was going on as fast as she did. Maybe she was monitoring police scanners. Maybe someone called her directly to let her know.

  She hustled up to Detective Walsh, the officer in charge. “Is it true?” she demanded. “Is Austin Manson behind all this?”

  Walsh was a cop with a duty to protect the integrity of both the crime scene and the investigation. Even so, he couldn’t help but acknowledge the woman’s authority. Rather than doing his job and ordering her away, he simply nodded. There was so much deference in the gesture that I more than half wondered if the old bat had been his Sunday school teacher once upon a time.

  “Austin’s mother, Mona, is a good friend of mine,” Mayor Kirkpatrick continued. “He’s been staying with her ever since his last divorce and becoming more despondent every day. She called me earlier this morning, worried that he had stormed out of the house in such a state that he might do something to harm himself or others.”

  “Nice of you to let us know,” Mel muttered under her breath.

  Another vehicle pulled into the lot—­a media van. As ­people sprang out, expecting to set up their equipment, Mayor Kirkpatrick immediately shooed them away. “No cameras and no microphones,” she announced firmly before any of the media folk could unpack. “We’re dealing with a mental-­health issue, and we’re required by law to respect the patient’s privacy. Isn’t that right, Detective Walsh?”

  To my amazement, the reporter scurried back to the van without a single word of objection. When it came to wielding influence, Adelina Kirkpatrick was a marvel. Within moments, the entire press corps beat a hasty retreat.

  I looked back at the detective. He was clearly torn—­torn between doing the right thing as a professional cop and knowing which side his bread was buttered on; between the old guard, the mayor, and the new guard, Mel; between Manson, a guy he’d come up with through the ranks, and Mel, his new chief. The old guard won hands down.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Walsh said.

  Mel was offended. “A mental-­health issue?” she stormed. “Are you kidding me? Is that how you expect to handle all of this? Austin Manson attacked me, kidnapped me, and threatened to kill me, and you expect me to forget about all that and let you sweep it under the rug by saying he suffered some kind of psychotic breakdown? You’re engaging in an illegal cover-­up and expecting me to go along with it?”

  “As I said, Austin’s mother and I are best friends,” Mayor Kirkpatrick explained. “Mona will see to it that her son gets the best possible treatment. Sending him to jail certainly won’t fix it. And in this day and age, when police departments operate under so much suspicion, letting word get out that one of our sworn officers has gone on a potentially murderous rampage isn’t going to do your department any favors, and it won’t do my administration any good either.”

  “But . . .” Mel began, but Mayor Kirkpatrick talked right over her, speaking loud enough now for all the officers within earshot to hear what she was saying.

  “Chief Soames has just informed me that Assistant Chief Manson was threatening suicide earlier today. She, with the aid of her husband . . .” She stopped and looked at me, pleading for assistance.

  “Beaumont,” I said helpfully. “J. P. Beaumont. Mel wanted to keep her own name, you see.”

  Mel jabbed me in the rib with her elbow while Mayor Kirkpatrick continued on her merry way.

  “She and Mr. Beaumont here have just now managed to subdue him. Assistant Chief Manson is about to be transported to a facility where he’ll be given the kind of treatment he requires. In the meantime, let’s give Chief Soames and Mr. Beaumont a round of applause!”

  Enthusiastic clapping echoed through the parking lot around us. For once in her life, Mel was caught flat-­footed and dumbstruck besides. She had been completely outmaneuvered by a politician who had somehow succeeded in turning Mel Soames into a reluctant ally. With Manson gone, maybe the undercurrent of objection to Mel’s tenure as chief would be gone as well.

  By the time the applause ended, Detective Walsh was nowhere to be seen. The incident had been publicly declared over and done with. Mel was furious, but I, for one, was grateful. Yes, letting it go that way amounted to crappy police work, but I was glad the mayor had stopped the process before the interviews started and before Mel and I had been forced to perjure ourselves. Besides, the whole shebang had turned into a nonevent. No one had died in the incident. No weapons had been discharged. No one was going to jail. It was a done deal.

  The tour bus left shortly after the ambulance departed. Before the bus drove away, I jotted down Sam’s name and address so I could send him his promised carton of cigarettes. I didn’t
mention to Mel I had been forced to smoke a cigarette in my effort to save her life. Since she herself was a relatively recent ex-­smoker, she most likely would have thought I volunteered.

  Half an hour later, Mel and I left the now-­empty parking lot where, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, nothing at all had happened. We went back to the house on Bayside. We stopped by Mel’s car long enough to collect her missing purse, phone, and shoe. The other black pump had turned up in the trunk of Manson’s Malibu, as well as Mel’s backup weapon.

  With Mel properly shod again, we went around to the front of the house, stripped off the crime-­scene tape, and went inside. Mel took advantage of the relative privacy of our expansive wallboard-­free living room to peel off her tattered panty hose. When we left the house again, after closing and locking the front door, Mel tossed the remains of her panty hose on top of a pile of construction debris in the Dumpster parked next to her Porsche.

  Then, driving two cars, we headed into Fairhaven, found parking places on the main drag, and were shown to a quiet corner table in Dirty Dan Harris’s, a small bistro that has the reputation of being the best restaurant in town.

  We placed our order for an early dinner and sat there holding hands across the white-­linen tablecloth. We both knew how close we’d come to losing it all that day, and we were very grateful.

  “This isn’t over,” Mel said determinedly. “I should have Walsh’s ears for this.”

  “It’ll be better for you if you don’t,” I advised. “With the mayor all over him, the man was caught between a rock and hard place. He knows he was in the wrong. In terms of having the trust of your rank and file, as well as having his long-­term loyalty, resolving it without turning it into a public outcry is a better bet. Without that trust, you’re going to end up being a short-­timer.”

  Mel thought about that. “Maybe you’re right,” she said.

  Our food came then, and we tore into it. We had both missed lunch, and we were starving. It wasn’t until we were sharing a dessert of bread pudding that things turned serious again.