Charlie-316

by Colin Conway

The driver, an Indian man, never made eye contact or conversation with him during the twenty-minute trip. When they arrived, Garrett paid for the ride with crisp twenties and walked up to the front door of the condominium.

  Derek Tillman and Garrett had played high school basketball together. Tillman was good enough to get a scholarship at Eastern Washington University where their friendship continued to grow.

  They walked through Tillman’s condo and stopped at the television. Tillman had it turned to CNN which had a live update scrolling along the bottom of the screen along with the other headlines. One caught Garrett’s eye. Breaking — Spokane, WA—Arrest Warrant Issued for Police Officer Tyler Garrett.

  Tillman grabbed the remote and turned off the television. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay. I heard that it was coming.”

  “Let’s go out on the deck,” Tillman said with a jerk of his head toward the sliding glass doors

  They sat on a couple of deck chairs overlooking the lake. “Want a beer?”

  Garrett shook his head.

  “Water?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Destiny will be back in a bit. If there’s something you want, I’ll send her out for it.”

  Garrett raised his eyebrows. “Destiny?”

  “She’s the flavor of the week.” Tillman smiled while using his hands to mime a set of large breasts. “Can’t be tied down during lake season, you know that.”

  “She sounds like a stripper.”

  “How did you know?” Tillman said with a laugh. “She’s perfect for this time of the year.”

  Garrett shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it, D.”

  “It’s the condo, man. Girls want to come out to the lake, ride the boat, and get drunk. They know the price of admission and I know my role. It’s a symbiotic relationship while it lasts. After a while, they’ll either trade up to one of the nicer houses on the lake or I’ll push them down to the trailers. Either way, it’s summer at the lake.”

  Garrett lifted his face to the sun.

  “Enough about me, man. What the hell is going on with you?”

  Garrett turned to Tillman and quickly relayed his story. When he was done, the two of them sat in silence. Eventually, Tillman let out a low whistle. “This is messed up, T. I mean, when you watch the news, it looks like you’re the bad guy.”

  “That’s how they’re painting it. I make an easy target.”

  “That’s some bullshit.” Tillman sounded indignant.

  “It’s a perfect storm,” Garrett said. “First the shooting happens, then all the assholes post my address on Facebook. That led to those two white power dudes attacking me. Then all this other shit.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Garrett said, “I’m getting set up. The way I’ve figured it, the guy I shot must be connected. It’s the only thing that makes sense. From there, I don’t know who is pulling the strings, but it involves dirty police.”

  “Here? I mean, I get it in L.A. and all, but…”

  “There’s a detective on the department I can trust. He’s helping me figure this out, but I gotta disappear until we can do that. No one can know where I am, so I need a place to hide while we work things through.”

  “Where’s Angie and the kids?”

  “With her parents. I needed to know they were safe.”

  Tillman smiled and gestured toward the lake. “There’s no sweeter place to hide than the lake, my friend. You can do it in style with big-tittied ladies and margaritas.”

  “I don’t think Angie would approve,” Garrett said.

  “What she don’t know…”

  “How about a vacancy in one of your rentals?”

  Tillman scrunched his face. “Sure, if you prefer that over this. Remember that rental house on Hoffman I bought? The one near the mall.”

  Garrett nodded.

  “That’s vacant, now. I just started turning it. If you want, you can stay there for a bit. There isn’t anything inside, no furniture, I mean, but you can use it. I’ve got a sleeping bag you can take. There’s a lockbox on the front door with a key inside for contractors. Code is 6969.”

  “That was your password in high school.”

  “Why change a good thing?” Tillman said with a laugh.

  “I appreciate this, D.”

  Tillman’s laugh faded. “Hey, man, I owe you. If you hadn’t stood for me when that girl said what she said…” He trailed off, then shrugged. “I wouldn’t have finished college, that’s for sure. I’d be putting up jump shots in the penitentiary league, probably.”

  “She was out to get you. It was bullshit.”

  “Don’t matter,” Tillman said. “People might’ve believed her, ’cept for you speaking up for me. Saying what you said.”

  Garrett nodded that he understood. “People believe what they want to believe…” He motioned toward the darkened TV. “That.”

  “To hell with people. I know the truth.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You got it. Hey, are you sure you don’t want to hang here at the lake?”

  Garrett left the condo and walked over to a small, white Toyota pick-up alongside the road. Tillman had given him the keys to his spare rig, the one he used to do work around his rentals. Garrett promised to keep it safe and bring it back in a few days.

  He opened the passenger door and tossed the sleeping bag in. He also put the small brown bag containing the shells on the floorboard.

  “I took a chance and it looks like I won the lottery,” a voice said behind him.

  Ty slowly put his hands into shorts and straightened.

  Detective Butch Talbott stared at him, his gun in his fist. “I was on my way down to that barbershop everyone knows you love so much. I saw you walk away and catch a cab. When I called the cab company, they were nice enough to tell me where they dropped you off. I guess they didn’t want me coming down and digging through the records.”

  The door was between Talbott and him. “Where’s your partner?” he asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  Garrett shook his head. “What game are you playing, Butch?”

  “No game. It’s been the same truth all along. I just took me some time to realize it. You helped me do that.”

  “How’d I do that?”

  “You showed me I was replaceable.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Talbott waved his gun. “Very slowly, step out from behind the car door.”

  Garrett took a slow step to his right, exposing himself directly to Talbott. “You know people are probably watching us right now. I got myself jammed up by not taking that into consideration.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not the one running from the law.”

  “I’m not running. I’m right here.”

  “Take your hands out of your pockets, Garrett.”

  Derek Tillman stepped out of his condo and hollered, “Yo! Is everything okay?”

  Talbott looked at him and yelled, “Get back inside.”

  Garrett ducked and moved behind the open truck door.

  Talbott saw the movement and fired twice, both rounds striking the open door. One round fully pierced the door, exploding the plastic armrest near Ty’s head. Garrett freed the gun from his shorts, dropped to the ground and fired two shots upward at Talbott.

  The detective stumbled backward before tripping on a landscaping rock. He crumpled to the ground and lay motionless.

  Garrett quickly stood and looked around, searching for Detective Pomeroy. Not finding him, he ran around the truck, climbed into the driver’s seat and started it. He glanced over to Tillman who was still on his porch, his eyes wide with shock. The tires chirped as the truck sped away.

  Garrett drove eastbound on I-90, the opposite direction of where he wanted to go. It took him ten minutes to get to the Idaho border town of Post Falls. He stopped in the parking lot of a Super 1 grocery st
ore and pulled out the disposable cell phone.

  Wardell Clint answered on the second ring. “You need to stop calling me. The arrest warrant on you is official now, and Harris still wants to talk to you about the shooting as soon as—”

  “I shot Butch Talbott.”

  “What did you say?” Clint’s voice hardened.

  “Talbott approached me. He drew without provocation and fired two shots. I returned fire.”

  “It’s time to come in, Garrett.”

  “I don’t know who to trust.”

  “I’ll protect you,” Clint said. “We have to get to the bottom of this mess and figure out who else is involved.”

  “Man, I trust you, but I don’t believe you can protect me from this system or whoever is behind it.”

  There was a brief silence on the phone before Clint asked, “Where did this shooting occur?”

  “Listen for the call, Detective. You’ll know it when you hear it.”

  Chapter 39

  Detective Clint rolled up to the crime scene, parking as close as he could get. He didn’t care about stealth or getting a flavor for the scene. This wasn’t going to be his case. It wasn’t even inside his jurisdiction.

  He spotted the Liberty Lake PD cruisers scattered around the block, and several state patrol vehicles tucked neatly against the condo, just outside the yellow tape. A crowd, small by Spokane standards, had gathered at the outer perimeter. People craned their necks for a glimpse of what was happening a half block away.

  Clint wished Garrett had simply told him the shooting happened in Liberty Lake. If he hadn’t flipped to “all-scan” on his radio, he’d have missed the call. Then he wouldn’t have known about this until the media got its first, and likely wholly inaccurate, reports out there.

  He pushed his way through the small crowd to the outer perimeter. He recognized the patrol officer with a clipboard that was guarding the tape as former SPD. Jerry Anderson was five feet ten inches tall and almost as broad. One might think that there was nothing but fat underneath that uniform, but Clint knew better. He’d worked with Jerry more than once and seen him in action. The man had the strength of a bear. Maybe a bear just about ready to winter, but still a bear. When the pace of the work in Spokane didn’t mesh with his laid-back attitude toward life, he lateraled to Liberty Lake. Clint hadn’t seen him since.

  Jerry spotted him right away. His face broke into a smile, though part of it was obscured by his thick beard. “Wardell?”

  Clint held out his hand. “Hey, Jerry.”

  Jerry took his hand and shook it vigorously. “Hey, man. Good to see you.” Then he paused. “Uh, why are you here?”

  Clint avoided the question. “You guys handling the investigation?”

  Jerry hesitated, looking around. Then he motioned with his head for Clint to come closer, raising the yellow tape as he did so. Clint came into the crime scene and the two walked a few paces away, out of the gawkers’ earshot.

  “This is some bad mojo,” Jerry told him. “The DOA is a cop. One of yours.”

  “Butch Talbott.”

  “I don’t know his name, but Alan said it was definitely SPD.” Jerry looked at him. “Wait. How do you know who it is?”

  “They called me in to consult,” Clint lied, feeling a twinge of shame at the deception. If Jerry had a single evil bone in his body, Clint was pretty sure it was a small one. But his immediate need overshadowed his relationship with Jerry.

  “Alan asked for help?” Jerry said doubtfully.

  “He called in state, too,” Clint pointed out.

  “Yeah, I suppose. But that’s the OIS protocol.”

  Clint shrugged.

  Jerry mulled it over for a second, then scratched Clint’s name and the time on his crime scene log. He pointed to a gaggle of men most of a block away. “If you couldn’t already tell, that’s your guy there.”

  “Thanks, Jerry.”

  “No worries, man. Good to see you.”

  Clint gave him a comradely clap on the shoulder and headed up the street. As he drew near, he recognized some of the players. Alan Rogers was the Liberty Lake major crimes detective. As far as Clint was aware, the small city only had one, and he tended to work a lot of property crimes to fill his time. Clint only knew of him passingly and from what he’d seen, the guy suffered from the jurisdictional equivalent of small man’s syndrome.

  He didn’t recognize two of the men in suits but figured them for State Patrol detectives. The chief of the Liberty Lake Police Department stood slightly apart from the other three, on his cell phone. Next to him, Clint was surprised to see Captain Tom Farrell.

  It was Farrell who spotted him first. The captain’s eyes narrowed, and he broke away from the group to approach him. “What the hell are you doing here, Ward?”

  Clint didn’t bother correcting him on his name. “I heard the call on the radio. Thought it might be important that I see what was what.” His second lie, but this one was easier than the one he told Jerry.

  “What, do you scan all police frequencies?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Farrell looked at him, considering. Clint let him, knowing his reputation would work in his favor here. Finally, Farrell said, “What made you think you needed to know something about this?”

  “Come on, Captain. SPD detective gets shot? With all that’s been going on this week?”

  “How’d you know who the victim is? That didn’t go out over the air.”

  Clint smiled mildly. “Captain, we both know that ComSec is pretty weak, especially when you get multiple jurisdictions involved. The word is out there, and I heard it.”

  Farrell scowled, but didn’t argue the point.

  “What does it matter?” Clint continued. “I’m here. Let me help.”

  Farrell shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. Not even in an advisory role. This is the Lake’s jurisdiction, and state is assisting. There has to be clear lines of demarcation here, to protect everyone.”

  “You’re sounding more like a politician every day, Captain.”

  “Fuck you, Ward.”

  “It’s Wardell,” Clint said easily, glad to see Farrell was stressed by all of this. “But that don’t matter. Just tell me this—do we know who the shooter is?”

  Farrell stared back at Clint for a long while. Clint could almost see the gears grinding behind his eyes as he thought through his response. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded slightly calmer. “I’ll brief you, but then you have to do something for me.”

  “What is it?”

  “You go brief Harris on everything I tell you. State and Liberty Lake PD don’t want her or McNutt coming out here complicating things.”

  Clint agreed. “It’s the least I can do.”

  “That’s probably the truth of it,” Farrell said, a little sharply.

  Clint didn’t react.

  “There are several witnesses,” Farrell continued. “All of them saw Talbott approach a male, most likely black, getting into a small white truck. Talbott pointed a gun at the other guy, then shot at him. The other guy shot back, hitting Talbott.”

  Clint glanced over to the group of men huddled around the body on the ground. “What about Pomeroy?”

  “Not here, as best we can tell. He went home after he filed the PC affidavit, and he didn’t answer his page yet.”

  “He got an arrest warrant but went home while his partner went hunting? That seems strange,” Clint observed.

  “Talbott is more dedicated, I guess.”

  Clint raised an eyebrow at Farrell’s comment. Farrell failed to bite, so he asked, “And the black male?”

  “It’s gotta be Garrett,” Farrell said.

  “Because he’s black?”

  “Oh, Christ. Will you dump that bullshit?” Farrell shook his head in anger. “You know, when you take a real problem like racism and you play it over and over again where it isn’t a factor, all you do is take away from the a
ctual problem. It’s like the boy who cried wolf.”

  “Glad to know you’re such an expert on race issues, Captain.”

  “I’m an expert on human behavior. Right now, you’re being difficult on purpose. Knock it off.”

  Clint raised his hands in an easy gesture. “I’m just trying to find out if we made a positive ID on Garrett or if we’re going on assumptions here.”

  “First, there is no we in this situation. It’s Lake and State. Second, it’s neither of what you said, but something in the middle.”

  “That’s too vague for me to understand. What does it mean?”

  “It means that they haven’t had time to show any photo lineups to the witnesses yet, so officially the suspect is unidentified. But—”

  “Whoa. Suspect? I thought you said Talbott fired first.”

  Farrell sighed. “We’ll circle back around to that, all right? Can I finish answering one of your questions before we go down a different rabbit hole?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No one has looked at a six-pack of photos to pick out Garrett yet, but state is hopeful one of them will be able to pick him out. The fact that he was on TV may actually help.”

  We all look alike anyway, Clint thought, but held his tongue. He knew that if the witness admitted to seeing Garrett on TV, an attorney of Pamela Wei’s caliber stood a good chance of getting the ID tossed as tainted.

  “The other witness is Derek Tillman. He and Garrett went to school together. He’s been dodgy, asking for a lawyer right away, but we think Garrett came to him for help.”

  “Did he help?”

  “He wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t even confirm Garrett was there, but one of the neighbors said that the truck the guy was getting into when Talbott engaged him belonged to Tillman. Based on that, I’d say the answer to your question is yes.”

  “Did Tillman say anything else?”

  “Unless something has changed since Rogers first talked to him, all he’d say is that he saw a white guy point a gun at a black guy, that the white guy shot first, and the black guy shot in self-defense.”

  “Hunh. Is Rogers still with him?”

  Farrell glanced around, then spotted Tillman sitting alone on the low porch of his condo. He motioned with his head. “Doesn’t look like it. Tillman’s the tall white guy in the shorts and sandals.”