by Susan Dunlap
But when you’re dealing with an armed perp and a hostage in as bad shape as our victim could be, you don’t have the luxury of following regulations. Besides, breaking the rule is the rule in the city of Berkeley.
The level footing of the canyon rim fell off by the live oaks above the streambed. From there it would be a matter of my hanging on to branches and bracing on rocks, maneuvering down the crevice.
Berkeley is striped with streams, but most have been covered over. This one, Cerrito Creek, runs under the Arlington and out for a while before it goes back underground at the other end of the canyon. In November there isn’t much water down there. Just enough to make the rocks slippery. The local kids didn’t call this the chute for nothing.
An icy Pacific wind was blowing up the canyon, rustling live oak leaves and teasing us all with the homey smell of bay leaves. End-of-the-weekend traffic had subsided; the Arlington had shifted back from main thoroughfare to mere hillside conduit. Cars still squealed to halts spewing out off-duty sworn officers, crisis groupies, and a Super Bowl’s worth of camcorders, toted by a passel of news photographers and three or four passels’ worth of civilians. My descent into the canyon would be better documented than The Catch that gave the 49ers the 1981 championship. By midnight I’d be a star in living rooms, family rooms, entertainment centers, and bedrooms all over Berkeley.
Doyle and Murakawa came up behind me. I glanced at Murakawa. He was one of the patrol officers I felt most at ease with, a tall, thin guy, with a spray of brown hair that fell boyishly over his wide forehead. With minimal provocation he’d tell you he was just doing police work till he applied to chiropractic school. But we’d all heard that tale for five years; now Murakawa was the only one left who believed it. In Berkeley few of us want to admit that whatever we’re doing is our ultimate job; most of us secretly believe there’s something more on the horizon, for when we grow up. So we can’t afford not to be gentle with the chimeras of our friends. Whatever Murakawa’s future, now he was thorough and almost compulsively reliable—just the guy I wanted to back me up in the canyon. As primary negotiator I’d do the talking, bond with the hostage taker. As my secondary, he’d be in my ear every moment, listening to that bond form, and making sure that when the transference linked us, it pulled the hostage taker into me, not the other way around. The intimacy between the negotiator and the hostage taker can overwhelm everything we’ve learned. It can turn on you, and draw you in too deep. Negotiators have trusted too much, and they’ve died. It would be Murakawa’s job to see that I stayed out of the line of fire.
“You ready, Smith?” Inspector Doyle asked.
“Ready, sir.”
“Smith—”
I had the feeling he’d been about to pat me on the butt and tell me the whole game was riding on my throwing arm. And that he’d thought better of the pat. “Get him to talk, Smith. We don’t want half the team going in there blind.”
I started down the creek crevice, hanging on to a live oak branch, bracing my feet against the rocks. I wanted to move silently. I’d clipped the loudspeaker to my belt. But I couldn’t keep it from banging sharply into my thigh and loudly against the rock. The flashlight next to it rattled. I sounded like the entire offensive line rushing down the cement hall to the dressing room. Murakawa, behind me, sounded like the rest of the team. I just hoped the perp wasn’t near enough to hear.
All around the canyon the Tac Team would be inching their way down, eyeing the dark terrain around them for signs that the perp had been there, trying to discern drag marks of the victim.
The stream gurgled anemically. In the distance I could hear a rubbing noise. The perp? Or a deer? There was supposed to be a herd of deer in the canyon, fat, happy deer who moved from garden to garden devouring rosebuds. Deer, and raccoons, possums, and skunks. And snakes. Critters a city cop shouldn’t have to deal with.
Above, the cars still had to be idling in first gear waiting to move to the upper level of the Arlington, the radios still spraying calls, brakes still screeching. But I couldn’t hear any of it. It was as if I were in a swimming pool and someone had pulled the canvas cover over it.
Murakawa eased down onto the rock behind him. I started forward, pushing a branch out of the way, holding it till I could feel Murakawa take it. In the dark I could make out a narrow path, but I couldn’t see more than a yard on either side. And that nursing home light that might have been a landmark wasn’t visible at all.
The cold nipped at my face, but under the black coverall I was sweating. The ground was mushy. Down here the pungent aromas of bay and eucalyptus leaves were muffled by the smell of mud. I stopped, listening. There was no sound but indistinguishable rustling. Wind in the leaves?
The Tac Team would stop halfway down the hill. They didn’t want to spook the perp. They couldn’t take him out before they knew the status of the hostage.
I moved forward slowly, making a visual sweep of the area on either side with every few steps. The fog was sinking into the canyon like sludge. If the perp wasn’t moving, he could be a yard away and I wouldn’t spot him. But he wouldn’t be on this entry path, not unless he’d abandoned the hostage, and one of the things I’d learned was that hostage takers understand the value of their hostages; they know that without them they’re dead.
I almost fell over the lean-to—the kids’ clubhouse. Lean-to was too grand a word for this rotting door propped on cement bricks. One side backed in toward the canyon wall. I crouched down under the door and looked around at a stash of soda cans, a clutter of magazines—I couldn’t read the print but I could make out the naked female bodies. Some things never changed. Stuffed in the back was a blanket. The stench of wet wool battled the smell of mold. Even skunks wouldn’t have bedded down on it. And just beyond the far edge of the roof was a small three-legged pot, probably about a quart. I pointed it out to Murakawa. “A caldron. Maybe we’ve got a community center here, horny adolescents Tuesdays, witches Wednesdays.”
Moving carefully on the slippery ground, Murakawa edged around me to look at the caldron. I squatted down and unhooked the loudspeaker from my belt. The lean-to wasn’t much but it was as good a setup spot as we were likely to find for the moment.
Still bending over, Murakawa turned back to me. He was holding a black running shoe. A woman’s shoe with mud caked on the back of the heel. He squatted and eyed the ground. “Looks like drag marks.”
“There’s supposed to be a quarry office, or remains of one, farther into the canyon.”
“How far?”
“Thirty yards, maybe. Grayson was trying to round up a kid who’d been down here recently.” We both knew we couldn’t wait to see whether Grayson succeeded.
The perp could be in the quarry office remains, or not. But I had to play it as if he were in spitting range. I clicked on the speaker. “This is the police. We’ve got you surrounded. Give us your location. Call out, and flash your flashlight.”
No answer.
Murakawa had his hand on my shoulder. “You see anything?” he whispered.
“Nothing. We wait.” I had a palm on the ground for balance. We squatted, stone still. The wind rasped the leaves. The stream sounded like Niagara Falls. I could have sworn I heard the thump of feet, but I knew that adrenaline had magnified everything, and those feet, if they even were feet, belonged to nothing larger than a squirrel.
“This is the police …” I repeated the instructions. “Can you make out any movement, Murakawa?”
“Nothing.”
I lowered the speaker. “We’ll give John another minute.”
We called the perp John, the most innocuous name. He hadn’t given us a name, and we knew not to make up another one, one to which we’d unconsciously attach attributes. No tough guy we’d overestimate or weenie we’d take too lightly. I’d heard a tale about guys who’d labeled their perp Twinkie, flubbed and called him that on the line, and blew the whole scene.
Behind me I could hear Murakawa talking softly into his mike.
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br /> “Anything from up top?” I asked, even though I knew he’d tell me if there were.
“Nada. Doyle’s checking back with the city manager.”
I lifted the speaker. “This is the police. Signal us, now. Flash a light. Make noise. We want to work with you. Give us a sign.”
The sudden silence told me Murakawa was holding his breath. When he started breathing it sounded like someone turned on the air-conditioner.
The Tac Team would be in place for the final assault by now. From the look of the overhanging branches, the high ground observers could be right over the perp—if they could spot him. I opened the mike one more time and repeated the call, expecting no reply and getting none. To Murakawa I said, “Tell the inspector we’re getting no response.”
I leaned forward and moved my feet out to the sides. There was no decent position in here. The damp rose up from the ground. Already my butt felt icy. I thought of the hostage. Most likely she’d be lying on the bare ground. She’d been dragged down the chute. That descent was jarring on foot. To get down there and haul her, the perp had to be in good shape. I wished it were light enough to look at the trail to see if he’d had to stop to adjust his burden, or if we were dealing with someone strong enough to carry the body over the hard spots. Whichever, by the time he got here he’d been dragging her. And when her shoe came off, he’d have been banging her stockinged foot along the ground. Farther along the path the mud would have pulled off the sock, the rocks would have scraped her heel raw, and now, was that heel lying bloody in the mud?
“Any word, Murakawa?” I whispered.
“Doyle can’t get an answer.”
“We got a hostage here who could have broken bones, infected wounds; she’s probably terrified and freezing. She could be dying while they test the wind.”
Murakawa nodded. “Inspector,” he said, softly, “Smith says to ask them to consider the state of the hostage.” Part of the liaison’s job was interpreting.
“So, Murakawa?” I knew I was pushing him, but I couldn’t keep quiet.
“Doyle’s waiting.”
“John could be cooking the hostage by now. Ask him how that’d play in the papers: ‘Kidnapper cooks woman while cops wait for dinner invite.’ Tell him, Murakawa.”
“Inspector, the perp could be up to anything.”
I stood up and bent over. My lower back felt cold and brittle as ice.
Murakawa’s radio crackled. “Inspector says the manager’s office is trying to get the mayor.”
“Shit! What about the city council? We wait, we lose what we’ve done. Tell him this is it!”
I could hear Murakawa calling Doyle as I said into the speaker, “This is the police. This is your last chance. Signal us now!”
Time stopped. The rustling of the leaves, the scraping of the underbrush seemed deafening. My chest shook with each heartbeat, and the thump seemed to echo off the canyon walls. I stared into the charcoal-brown fog around me. No light flickered. Only leaves moved, or so it looked in the dark. No sound broke the rhythm of my heartbeat and Murakawa’s breathing.
I wanted to push Murakawa, make him goose Doyle, goose the O.C., the chief, the city manager sitting on his padded chair in his heated room in City Hall, thinking not of the sludge and jungle down here, of every moment when a sudden noise could loose a trigger, not thinking of the terrified victim, but of the vast and ambiguous larger picture.
“What are they saying, Murakawa?”
“Nothing. Same as a minute ago.”
I wanted to grab his mike, to yell “To hell with public relations!” My legs screamed their need to pace, my feet yearned to kick ass.
“If we’re just going to sit here, we might as well drive down to City Hall and do it with them.” I didn’t expect Murakawa to call that in.
It was a minute before he said, “Okay, Smith. Prepare for Plan C.”
“Tell them we don’t know what we’re dealing with here. John could walk a yard in front of us and we wouldn’t spot him. Tac Team will be banging into each other. Keep on the horn while they move in.”
Murakawa reaffirmed our location, and translated my instructions into phrases more pleasing to an inspector’s ear. Then we waited.
“Okay, Smith,” Murakawa said. “Count three and make the last call.”
I forced myself to count slowly, listening to the silence between each number. “This is the police.” I let another second pass. “We know you’re in here.” I repeated, “We know you’re in here.” I had to make my diversion last long enough for the Tac Team to get a bead on him, figure a path in behind him, and move in quietly. The lead guys would have night glasses, but I didn’t know how good they’d be in dark, fog, and underbrush. “There’s no way out, you know that, don’t you?”
Tac Team’s trained for negotiations to break down, to have the scene mapped out, hours of planning the entry behind them, and a picture of the perp etched into their brains. They’re ready to run in with weapons drawn, assess the threat, and, if necessary, take out the perp. Adrenaline just about busts the skin then. It’s all go. But this, creeping into unknown territory in the dark, not daring to shoot, not knowing what they’d find—all that adrenaline would be pounding back on themselves.
“Let’s talk about what you want here. Let’s talk.”
Ahead a light flickered. I could feel Murakawa’s hand tighten on my shoulder.
I murmured, “You can never guess—”
“Smith,” Murakawa said, “Doyle says Tac Team’s got the hostage.”
I squeezed my lips together to keep from yelling “O—kay!” My heart thumped against my ribs. I was grinning and squeezing my hands so hard into fists my skin hurt. “They’ve rescued the hostage? What shape is she in? And John, what about him?”
“No sign of him.”
“Where’s the hostage?”
Murakawa relayed my question. After a few seconds he said, “Quarry office.”
The light flickered again. It looked to be twenty yards ahead, as much as I could figure in the dark. “Tac, that you up there?”
The light flashed five times—the signal.
“We’re coming on.”
Murakawa grabbed my shoulder. “What do you think you’re doing? John could be halfway there. He could be anywhere.”
Murakawa was right. The negotiator never puts himself in the immediate danger zone, I knew that. Still, I insisted, “He’s not there.”
“Let Tac secure the path,” he insisted.
The adrenaline surged against my skin. I wanted to run forward, to see the victim, to know she was all right. Instead I waited while he called.
“Ask them how she is, Murakawa.”
It was a moment before he said, “Grayson says she’s depressed, seems a bit deflated, but she can be patched up fine.”
“Sounds pretty good.”
Murakawa nodded. His radio crackled. “Okay, now we can move.”
The light stayed on ahead. I flashed my own light on the path and pushed through the underbrush. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to see the woman, to know for myself she was going to make it. The quarry floor would probably be no bigger than an eight-by-ten-foot room. My light caught the edge of the raised cement floor. In front of it was enough firepower to subdue a small nation. The black-suited Tac guys stepped back off the path as I neared the cement floor. The first thing I spotted there was the other black running shoe.
It was a moment before I noted the leg it was attached to—or what remained of it. I stared in disbelief—and rage. The legs were plastic—blow-up dummy legs. It looked like a blow-up dummy like the kind you get from the sex catalogs. But I couldn’t be sure because all the air was gone. In the harsh beams of the flashlight the too-blue eyes, cherry-red lips, and pink cheeks looked garish and the deflated body unbelievably old.
“A dummy,” I muttered. My neck was so tight the words were barely audible; my head throbbed. I wanted to kick something, someone, the perp, till he was as lifeless as the dummy. “Shit! S
hit! Shit! We’re the dummies.”
The Tac Team guys were grumbling and shaking their heads. “At least, Smith,” Murakawa said, “you got us down here now. We could have spent half the night up top waiting to liberate these plastic legs.”
I nodded. I hoped the city manager’s officer and Inspector Doyle saw it that way.
The remains of the old quarry office and the ground around it were bright as day. Every one of the Tac Team, plus Murakawa and I, had our flashlights out. We were all spraying the lights, looking for something to save the situation.
It was Murakawa who spotted the wooden box under the overhang against the hillside. It was covered with papers. Envelopes, official forms.
“Here’s the final irony,” one of the guys said. “An extra load of paperwork.”
“Hey,” another said, “add that to your report. You can check it out in your spare time.”
Groans came from all around. Hostage Negotiation Team work was extra—the exercise and the follow-up. Everyone would get home late tonight and spend tomorrow trying to squeeze in writing the report.
“Look at this!” Murakawa held up a form.
“Parking ticket?” someone asked.
“Right.” He turned back to the box. “The whole batch are parking tickets. Christ, there must be hundreds of them.”
We all made for the pile and grabbed. There were plenty to go around.
One of the Tac Team, Samson from traffic, was the first to say “Oh, hell! Parking tickets! And they’ve all got different license numbers.”
“From different cars,” someone said.
I picked up one. “This is dated five months ago.”
“This one’s yesterday,” Murakawa put in.
“I don’t believe it!” Samson said. “This bastard’s been lifting parking tickets from windshields for months. All over town people have been thinking they’ve gotten away with not feeding the meters. They haven’t paid their tickets because they didn’t know they got them.”
“And if this hits the newspapers, no one in town is going to pay a ticket. They’re all going to say theirs got lost,” Murakawa predicted.
