By Any Means

by Chris Culver

  “I should have seen that earlier.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Ash, slipping his phone back in his pocket. “My wife’s thinking about buying the same car. It’s the only reason I knew to look. Did you find any witnesses?”

  Doran panned his gaze over the strip mall before shaking his head. “None of the stores here have been open for at least two or three years.”

  Ash pointed to a pawnshop and a liquor store across the street. “How about those two?”

  Doran removed a notebook from his pocket. “The guy who runs the pawnshop didn’t see anything.” He looked up and pointed toward the empty parking spots near Shadeland. “He did mention that someone parked a green Pontiac Grand Am near the street for a couple of weeks. The guy in the pawnshop thinks it was for sale, but he doesn’t know if someone bought it or the guy trying to sell it finally decided to quit.”

  Ash nodded. “Did you follow up with auto theft?”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t have anything. I already called patrol and told them to be on the lookout for a suspicious green Pontiac. Nothing so far.”

  “How about the liquor store?”

  Doran shook his head. “Waste of time. The guy who runs it didn’t stop smoking the entire time I was there. Literally lit a new cigarette on the tip of each one he finished. The front windows are so covered in film that you can’t see anything through them.”

  Ash nodded and stared at the street. Even well after rush hour, dozens of cars still lined up at every stoplight on Shadeland. That number would probably double during busy times of day. With that many people around, someone must have seen their perp drag Rebecca out of her car and throw her in another. It would have been nice if they could be bothered to make a two-minute call to 911 to save her life. He took another quick look around the parking lot but didn’t find anything.

  “Wrap it up here when you can, and then head downtown. We’ll release some information to the press tonight, but I want to meet with everyone first for status updates. Meet me around eight-thirty. I’ll reserve a conference room.”

  “Sure. I’ll be there.”

  Ash got back in his car and buckled in before heading into traffic. In elementary school, he used to read comic books and adventure stories beneath his desk when he should have been listening to the teacher. He liked Batman the best; he lost his parents just like Ash lost his father. For much of his childhood, Ash had dreamed about being a hero and going back in time to save his father. Most boys in his position probably had the same fantasy. In the comic books, the hero almost always saved the day—at the last moment, he’d sweep in and save the girl or rescue the kids or win the race. In real life, the hero rarely wins, a lesson Ash had learned when he became a police officer. He hoped and prayed that this case would be an exception.

  5

  When Ash reached the interstate, he called Mike Bowers and asked him to set up a press conference for nine that night. They couldn’t stop the TV stations around town from reporting the story, but they could at least share real information rather than rumors and speculation. That would go a long way to consoling the nerves of a city rubbed raw by a sensational news story. As soon as he hung up, Ash glanced at his watch. The sun hadn’t even set yet, but he had already worn the same uniform for over thirteen hours. As much as he disliked admitting it, appearances mattered, which meant he needed fresh clothes and a shower if he wanted people to take him seriously. He also wouldn’t mind grabbing some food.

  When he got home, lights illuminated the front room of the house but the rest were mired in shadow. He and Hannah had planned to have his sister and her husband over for dinner, but the family must have gone out in his absence. Ash parked in the driveway and went through the side door to the kitchen. His daughter had strewn coloring books and drawings on the breakfast table, and his son had left his roll-along rocking horse beside the door that led to their backyard. He found a note beside the microwave; Hannah had taken the kids and met Ash’s sister and brother-in-law at their mosque for a potluck iftar meal. Over the years, Ash had missed a lot of family gatherings because of work, but all the practice didn’t make things easier. When he worked long, odd hours, his kids missed him and he missed them. He made a mental note to call before everybody went to bed.

  Ash rinsed off the day’s grime in the shower before changing into a suit and tie in his bedroom. He also grabbed his department-issued, forty-caliber Glock 22 from a lockbox in his closet. As a community relations officer who spent most of his days in elementary school auditoriums or providing security advice to worried city residents, Ash rarely carried a firearm and hadn’t worn a holster since qualifying on the shooting range a few months ago. The nylon felt stiff and unfamiliar to his shoulders after such a long absence, but the feeling faded quickly. He hadn’t always worn a shoulder holster; he began by wearing a holster attached to his belt and only switched eight years ago when he was still a homicide detective. He and a partner—the best one Ash ever had—came under fire while trying to execute an arrest warrant on a man suspected of killing his wife and her boyfriend. Ash took a round to the shoulder, but their suspect shot Ash’s partner in his neck. The round nicked a major artery, and he died on the sidewalk. Ever since then, Ash had worn a shoulder holster. It caused a dull ache to spread across his chest whenever he put it on, a constant reminder of the friend he lost and the life he could have lost had he been just a little less lucky.

  Once dressed, he called the detectives in his hodgepodge task force and requested that they meet him downtown in about half an hour. The sun had set while he was in the shower, so Ash had a glass of water and then salat al-Maghrib, evening prayer, before making himself two chicken sandwiches. Traditionally, he would have broken the Ramadan fast with a date, but they didn’t have any. A chicken sandwich would do. He wolfed both down, feeling better almost instantly, then headed to his car.

  A layer of clouds stretched across the evening sky. Early onset arthritis had few advantages, but it did have one: He rarely had to consult a meteorologist to know when he should bring an umbrella to work. The throbbing in his shoulder let him know that they’d receive rain soon. The city needed it, but it’d make outdoor crime scenes difficult.

  When he arrived at the homicide squad’s floor downtown, Eddie Alvarez, Greg Doran, and Tim Smith had already set up camp in the conference room. Someone had evidently ordered pizza because he found three boxes from a local place and a roll of paper towels on the table.

  “The bottom is cheese,” said Alvarez, pointing to an unopened box. “The other two have sausage or pepperoni on them.”

  “Thanks,” said Ash, shuffling the tower of pizza boxes around so he could open the bottom one. He had already eaten two sandwiches, but a day without food had left him famished. “Have you guys eaten yet?”

  Tim Smith burped an affirmative and leaned back in his chair. Their conference room had built-in sound and video systems for presentations and space for eight comfortable leather chairs around its center table. Unknown to most, the department had also installed pinhole cameras in the walls and microphones behind acoustically transparent panels in the ceiling, making the room an effective spot for interrogations as well as interviews. With the flick of a switch beside the door, a computer would record everything said and done in the room for playback in court.

  “Captain Bowers had us order you a cheese pizza,” said Smith, digging between his front teeth with a fingernail. He flicked something out before wiping his hands on his pants. “Why is that?”

  Smith already knew the answer, so Ash stared at him, trying to figure out why he had asked the question.

  “I’m a Muslim, so I don’t eat pork. You know that.”

  “But you drink.”

  Eddie Alvarez started to say something, but Ash held up a hand to stop him. He didn’t keep his faith a secret, but he didn’t try to flaunt it, either. Over the years, he had become accustomed to the questions, though, some of which were hostile.

  “If you’
re worried about my ability to handle this case, I haven’t had a drink in over eight months. If you genuinely have questions about Islam, I’ll give you the name of the Imam at my mosque. If you’re wasting my time, please stop.”

  Smith crossed his arms. “I just have one question, and I’d like you to answer it. About a year and a half ago, you broke my window. Were you drunk then?”

  Ash lowered his eyebrows, confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and even if I did, we’ve got other matters to focus on.”

  “I’m not taking orders from you until you answer my question. Do you remember when Rachel Haddad died?”

  “That’s enough, Tim,” growled Doran.

  Ash should have let Doran stop it there, but his mouth and his common sense didn’t always communicate well.

  “Rachel was my niece. Of course I remember.”

  “Captain Bowers ordered us to follow you after she died. When we did, you broke a window on my wife’s car and stuck a gun in my face. I want to know if you were drunk.”

  The story jogged a memory, causing Ash to grip the end of the table hard enough that his fingers hurt.

  “For the record, I never stuck a gun in your face. I pressed it to the back of your head. If you had been even halfway decent at your job, that wouldn’t have happened.”

  “And if you had been—” began Smith.

  “Shut up,” growled Doran again, drowning out his partner. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  “No,” said Smith. “This is exactly the time and place. This guy’s a washed-out drunk. You can’t tell me you’re okay taking orders from him.”

  “Yes, I can,” said Doran. “That’s what we’ve been ordered to do, so that’s our job.”

  Doran stared at his partner with hard, green eyes. Eventually, Smith shook his head and muttered that Ash was guilty of doing something quite inappropriate with his mother. Ash counted to five, breathing deeply, before speaking.

  “Would you like to be reassigned, Detective?”

  Smith looked at Doran and then Alvarez, both of whom glared at him.

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Good,” said Ash. “And I suppose for your own edification, Detective, I was sober.” Smith scowled but didn’t say anything. Ash panned his gaze to the other men in the room. “With that out of the way, let’s try to focus on Rebecca Cook. Do we have anything on her car yet?”

  Doran leaned forward and opened his notebook.

  “Forensic services had it towed back to their garage, and they’re working on it now. Like I told you earlier, we found seven sets of prints on the car’s exterior. At least three of those sets were so small that they probably came from kids. The techs are cataloging everything now. Do we have prints from the vic’s family to eliminate them?”

  “Not yet,” said Ash. “But I’ll have someone swing by tonight to get them. How’s the inside look?”

  “Hair, fibers, fingernail clippings. It’s a family car, so until we get samples from Rebecca’s family, we’re not going to know if something’s from our perp or from one of her kids.”

  “And still no witnesses, right?”

  “None that have come forward.”

  Ash wrote the pertinent facts in his notebook before turning to Eddie Alvarez. “How about the scene by the fairgrounds?”

  Alvarez shifted on his seat and cleared his throat. “After you called about the trunk release, I had my men look around. They found it in the grass beside the road. We didn’t see it earlier because it blended into the weeds. We’ve got a smudge and a partial on it. The lab is running it through our databases right now.”

  It wasn’t much, but he’d take any good news he could get. Maybe they’d get lucky and find their perp in the system.

  “How about the victim’s phone? A patrolman picked it up.”

  Alvarez’s nostrils flared as he exhaled. “Nothing. We might have had a print on it at one time, but when Ryan picked it up, he smudged the whole thing. It’s useless.”

  Ash threw his pencil on the table and sighed.

  “Okay. Here’s the plan so far. Mike Bowers and I are going to hold a news conference at nine, and we’re going to ask the public for help. We should be able to make the ten o’clock newscast. When that happens, I want one guy on the phone at all times, two guys following up on leads, and one guy sleeping. We’ll rotate every two hours, and nobody will go home until we find Rebecca. Questions?”

  Smith raised his hand. Ash wanted to ignore him, but he nodded in the detective’s direction.

  “We going to get overtime on this?” asked Smith, looking at Doran and then Alvarez. “I don’t know about these guys, but I’ve already worked my shift today. If I’m not getting overtime, I’m going home.”

  Ash nodded toward the door, feeling his temper start to rise.

  “I’m sure Captain Bowers will authorize overtime, but why don’t you go home anyway? I can find someone who actually wants to be here.”

  Smith shifted under the stares of the men around him.

  “If we’re getting paid, I’ll stay. That’s all I was asking. I just wanted to know.”

  “I’m glad you’re so cooperative,” said Ash. “Any other questions?”

  “We got anyone else on our team?” asked Alvarez.

  “If we need help, I’ll call David Lee from Narcotics or Paul Murphy from Auto Theft. Both of them know the east side of town well, so they ought to be able to help us there.”

  Lee and Murphy both had enough seniority within the department to put Smith in his place if he became mouthy. Since the guys didn’t have any more questions, he dismissed them for the next half hour so they could call their wives and tuck their kids into bed. He also took a moment to call his family. Kaden, his youngest, babbled for a few seconds, while Megan, his daughter, told him a story about her day. Hannah, his wife, wished him luck, which he likely needed.

  At just before nine, he met Mike Bowers in the lobby of the building for the press conference. Every station in town, save for Kristen Tanaka’s, had a reporter in attendance. She knew everything they planned to report anyway, so that didn’t surprise anyone. For the next twenty minutes, they candidly answered questions about the case and asked the public for help. Hopefully it would get them somewhere.

  6

  Indianapolis, 2002. Despite the manicured lawns, the landscaped flowerbeds, the expensive suburban homes, and the numerous people he saw, Kostya had never driven on a lonelier road in his life. He supposed he would have felt that way driving from any gravesite, though. His daughter Kara sat in the passenger’s seat of his Jaguar, staring out the window. She appeared thinner and paler than he remembered, but she still had her mother’s rounded cheeks and naturally straw-colored hair. Storm gray and cold, her eyes seemed to be the only physical characteristic he had passed on to her.

  “It was a dignified service,” he said, pulling the car into traffic and away from the cemetery. “Your mother would have liked it.”

  “You have no idea what my mother would have liked. You weren’t around enough to find out.”

  “I wasn’t around very much because she asked me to stay away. Believe it or not, I cared about Alicia enough to respect her wishes.”

  He glanced over, catching Kara’s gaze. She quickly withdrew and turned to face the window again.

  “What makes you think my wishes would be any different from hers?”

  “It was just a hope.”

  Kara didn’t even look at him that time. He glanced in his rearview mirror. A navy blue Ford followed two car lengths back. He didn’t know what agency its occupants worked for, but it didn’t really matter. They followed him wherever he went and had since he relocated to the state four years prior. They hadn’t even bothered trying to hide during his ex-wife’s funeral.

  “I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” he said, braking suddenly. The vehicle behind him came to within two feet of hitting him. Kara either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “Would you like somet
hing?”

  “It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.”

  “You always have a choice. I’ve worked too hard for you not to have that.”

  She ignored him, and he turned into a coffee shop with a covered concrete patio and a bright red awning over the front door. Several people sat on wrought-iron chairs outside; most looked happy. Kostya parked in the first open spot he came to and checked to see if his escort had followed him in. They continued driving, though, giving him a welcome moment of privacy with his daughter.

  “I can take you home if you’d like.”

  “We’re here,” she said, opening her door. “We might as well get something.”

  Kostya followed her, noticing several men stare at his daughter. As soon as they saw him, most of those stares turned away quickly; those who kept eyeing his daughter turned after receiving an extended glance from him. Kara had her mother’s good looks and had likely become inured to the attention over the years, but Kostya didn’t like people looking at her, not like that at least.

  “I’ll get coffee if you sit down.”

  “Black, no cream,” said Kara, slowly lowering herself into a plush armchair big enough to accommodate two of her. Kostya ordered and paid for two small black coffees before sitting across from his daughter on an identical plush chair. A young man read the paper on a love seat nearby, but Kostya ignored him and said nothing until a barista arrived with their coffee.

  “Thank you,” he said, smiling slightly as the young woman walked away. The coffee tasted good, but he hadn’t stopped for a drink. After his first sip, he settled the cup on the table and looked at his daughter, trying to draw her glance. “How are you?”

  She turned toward him, her eyes indifferent.

  “Why are you interested? After Mom kicked you out, I saw you, what, twice a year? You didn’t seem interested in me then.”

  He looked at his cup. “It was complicated.”

  “No, it wasn’t. If you really cared, you would have been there. We needed help, and you just...I don’t even know what to say to you. Mom’s dead, and you think you can waltz back into my life? It doesn’t work like that.”