A Voice from the Field

by Neal Griffin

  He said nothing, watching her. Tia went on. “You think I made that up? Or what? That I imagined it somehow?”

  Ben blew out a long breath. “Tia, doesn’t this sound, I don’t know, pretty damn familiar?”

  “What?” Tia pushed herself off the desk. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What are you saying, Ben?”

  “Look,” he said, sounding defensive and a little exasperated. “You’ve been through a lot, Tia. It’s been a rough few months. I mean, think about what happened in the courtroom. Couldn’t it be—”

  Tia shook her head. She knew exactly what Ben was talking about—the experiences she’d had after being shot. But this wasn’t the same. “Ben, there was a girl in the van. I know what I saw. Let me work on it. All we have to do is put a tail on Kane when he leaves the jail. I bet the dumb ass will take us right to her.”

  “No. Absolutely not.” Ben gave Tia a look that said he knew who he was dealing with. “Listen to me on this, Detective. You’re done nosing around this case. Newberg PD has zero jurisdiction here, not to mention the case is closed. This guy is walking and that’s where it ends. From here on out, you stay away. Are we clear on that?”

  Damn, this is frustrating, she thought. On top of her having to sit through the lecture, her head was pounding from long nights of no real sleep. She’d snatched a few minutes here and there, but the face of the girl in the van had haunted her dreams as much as her waking hours.

  How much longer could she keep this up? Maybe it was time to check out, head back down to Mexico. Her disability retirement pay would go a long way in Jalisco. Hell, maybe she could talk Connor into going. Just the two of us. A beach in Mexico. Ben’s voice brought her back.

  “So will you do that for me, Tia?”

  “What? Sorry, what did you say?” Her mouth was suddenly dry as cotton and she craved the meds that had become part of her daily routine.

  “I said, I think you need to talk this thing through with somebody who can help you deal with it.”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing right here,” Tia replied.

  “I mean someone from outside the department.” Ben took a deep breath and went on, “I think you should go back to Dr. Gage.”

  Tia shook her head, insulted. “I don’t need any more shrinks. Especially him. I’m fine. I’m pissed, but I’ll get over it.”

  “Tia, you were attacked. It was a traumatic event. It may have triggered something from before.

  “It was your first time out since coming back. Like I said, I blame myself. I shouldn’t have let you go out this soon. But what’s done is done. You need to debrief this with a professional. Someone who can help you deal with it.”

  Tia stood up. “Well, like I said, thanks, but I’m not interested in getting my head shrunk anymore. I’m good with where I’m at.”

  Ben took a deep breath and blew it out. “What makes you think I’m asking, Detective?”

  Irritated now, Tia spoke more aggressively. “I thought this was all about our special connection, Ben. Now you’re playing the chief card?”

  Ben got up and came around his desk to stand near Tia. He put both hands on his hips like he didn’t know what else to do with them. He hates this, she thought.

  “I’ll fill out a form two ten right now, ordering you into no-duty status until you get cleared by the county psych. Or you can go on your own and there doesn’t have to be any paper trail. I wouldn’t extend that offer to anyone else on the PD, Tia.”

  Tia gave Ben a harsh look. Her tone of voice didn’t hide the fact that she felt betrayed. “That’s mighty big of you, Chief. Save the paper—I’ll go see the damn shrink. But remember, whatever goes on between me and Gage is privileged. If he signs off on me, I come back to work and that’s the end of it. No questions asked.”

  Ben started to respond and Tia put up a hand.

  “I’m done talking to you,” she said, heading for the door. “That is, unless you’re going to order me to stay.”

  Ben shook his head and said in a tightly controlled, low voice, “No, Tia, you can leave if that’s what you want.”

  At the door, Tia turned back to her boss and friend.

  “What I want?” Her voice cracked. “What I want is the next time you call me in for a friendly chat you stick to the weather and family stuff. I am not interested in being judged by a guy who committed half a dozen felonies when he decided the whole law-and-order route wasn’t working. But if that guy comes back, that Ben Sawyer, hell, I’ll talk to him anytime. And about anything.”

  The air grew thick with tension and disappointment. After a long silence, Ben took a step forward.

  “Tia—”

  She didn’t want to hear any more. “Stop, Ben,” she said sharply. “I get it. Things are different now. I respect that.”

  Ben shook his head in surrender.

  “Talk to Dr. Gage, Tia. Let me know when you’ve worked through all this baggage so we can move on.”

  “We? There is no we, Ben.” Tia headed for the door, leaving him alone in the office. “It’s pretty obvious you moved on a long time ago.”

  EIGHT

  The hell with this chief crap, Ben thought. There was a time he could just lean back and say exactly what was on his mind. Now every word had to be guarded, even when talking to someone like Tia. He thought back over the conversation he’d just had. How had it gone so wrong?

  Ben didn’t care about the lawyer getting all up in his grill about his insolent detective and her unauthorized jail visit. Tia was right about Graham: she came off as some kind of high-strung control freak. Still, Ben had done the chiefly thing and offered his apologies on behalf of Newberg PD.

  Tia going off the reservation and doing her own thing was nothing new. The jail visit was just Tia being Tia. Hell, that’s what he loved about her. But something else was going on; he was certain of it. Something was wrong with her. Unsurprising, perhaps, given that she’s been to hell and back. And whose fault is that?

  Almost a year earlier, Tia had come to the Sawyer home and basically told Ben to pull his head out of his ass. Ben’s wife, Alex, had been locked up on a bogus murder charge, staring down the barrel of a conviction. Ben had been wallowing in despair and frustration. If not for Tia Suarez spurring him to take action, what would have happened? On top of that, it was Tia’s trip to Danville, Illinois, that broke the case … and nearly got her killed.

  There was no denying that Tia’s trials and tribulations had begun when she’d reached out to save Alex.

  Ben conceded that Tia was right about one thing. He had broken just about every department regulation, not to mention more than a few laws, to prove his wife’s innocence. But without Tia’s help, Alex might be dead or serving a life sentence for a murder she didn’t commit. Ben owed Tia a debt he could never repay.

  Not that he hadn’t tried, but at the beginning there wasn’t time. While Tia was convalescing in Mexico, Ben had had to put his family—and Newberg PD—back together. When she’d returned to Wisconsin, the entire community had rolled out the red carpet for their local hero; on her first day back on the job, there’d been a ceremony, attended by all the local big shots. Tia had been promoted to detective. It should have been a great moment for Tia, but Ben had known even then that something wasn’t right.

  At first, he’d written it off as a case of nerves—until the episode at the Waukesha County Courthouse. The call had been stunning. Tough-as-nails Tia Suarez had been reduced on the witness stand to a sobbing mess, screaming about the girl in her head.

  He’d had no choice. Police Chief Ben Sawyer had ordered Tia into “no-duty” status pending a psychiatric examination. Everyone—Ben included—assumed Tia was suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of the shooting incident. There was some talk about forcing her into early retirement—a suggestion Ben rejected absolutely. After two months of intensive therapy, Tia had been cleared to return to limited duty.

  Back at work the second time, Tia had let B
en know she understood. She’d said all the right things, including that there were no hard feelings and that she didn’t blame him, but Ben knew things would never be the same between them. Their relationship was now strictly professional and Ben missed their friendship.

  And now he had to wonder, Should she even be a cop anymore?

  There was gossip about Tia showing up for work in rough shape. Hitting the bottle, hard. Maybe misusing her meds.

  Ben knew the time might soon come when he would be forced to make a tough decision about Tia’s future.

  He shook his head, wondering how he had ended up on the wrong side of this fight. He picked up the phone and punched out the number he had written on his notepad. The call was answered after two rings.

  “This is Patricia Graham.”

  “Ms. Graham? Ben Sawyer calling from Newberg. We spoke earlier and I promised you a callback.”

  “Yes, Chief. Did you get everything worked out?”

  Ben leaned back against his desk and looked out the window at the parking lot. He saw Tia walking toward her GTO with the short, jerky pace she used when she was really heated up.

  “I spoke to my detective. We’ll have no further contact with Kane.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” The voice was laced with the fake sincerity lawyers specialize in. “I’ll smooth things over on this end. I don’t want anything coming down on your officer.”

  “She’s a detective, actually.” He’d heard from Jackson about Graham’s mischaracterization of Tia’s rank; he wasn’t going to let her get away with it either.

  “Yes, of course. Just no more jailhouse visits, okay? And make sure she gives Mr. Kane a wide berth.”

  “Like I said, Ms. Graham, we’re out,” Ben answered, matching the woman’s terseness. “But I have to say, this is a tough pill to swallow. You kicked this thing all the way down to disorderly? Seems like you settled pretty low. I guess we’re just used to taking officer-assault charges a little more serious in Waukesha County.”

  “I thought we agreed, based on Suarez’s history, that it would be a good idea to avoid any court proceedings.”

  “Forget about what Suarez may or may not have seen. I get it. But that doesn’t change the fact Kane assaulted her.”

  “I understand how you feel, Chief. But I’ve seen the surveillance footage. Your detective got her licks in as well.”

  Ben was confused. “What surveillance footage?”

  Graham sounded flustered when she continued after a long pause. “Thanks for speaking with Suarez, Chief. I hope we get a chance to work together again soon.”

  “Hang on a second. What did you mean by—”

  The phone line went dead. Ben was certain TJ had told him Tia had wandered off camera. Why was the lawyer talking about surveillance footage? He took another look out his window and saw the sleek white GTO still in the lot. Tia sat in the driver’s seat, her head resting against the steering wheel.

  A friend would go to her, he thought. Instead, you sent her off to talk to the frickin’ shrink. Again. He pulled the string and the venetian blinds snapped shut. He moved to his desk and got busy being the chief.

  NINE

  Gunther Kane sat alone at the bar of the Roadhouse Score and took a drag on his cigarette, thinking that the gateway to hell probably looked a lot like a strip club at 8:00 A.M. on a Sunday. A few stools away sat the faithful gathering of a half-dozen or so hard-core drunks, hunched over a liquid breakfast served up by head bouncer, Buster Cobb. At this hour, Buster also served as bartender and grill cook. It saved money on overhead and who knows—maybe one of those pickled bastards would miraculously decide to eat an egg or some such shit.

  The men conferred among themselves, bemoaning the sad state of national affairs and the hijacking of the American government by a foreign-born, mixed-race dictator. It was the same rant day after day, but not one of the grizzled sons of bitches could stand up long enough to do anything about it. Kane shook his head at the pathetic state of the rank and a file of the notorious North Aryan Front, also known as the NAF.

  Kane knew he couldn’t be too hard on the boys. They were, after all, a pretty damn good meal ticket for a solider of the Aryan Brotherhood and full-patched member of the Hells Angels who happened to be looking for a new home. When Kane was discharged from Waupun Prison almost three years back, he’d fallen in with the NAF and found it served as a solid base camp for his criminal enterprise. As he was a man who always had an ear to the ground, it had come as no surprise to Kane to learn the NAF was now recognized by the FBI, the Department of Defense, and most civil rights watchdogs as an organized hate group that espoused white Aryan superiority. Looking over the men at the bar, Kane thought, If these guys are a threat to national security the U.S. better not piss off Canada. Or Greenland for that matter. A well-organized Girl Scout troop would kick the shit out of the NAF.

  For the morning, Kane had nixed the Roadhouse Score’s usual country dance music and cranked up the thrasher rock of Metallica, currently spewing out his own personal theme music from Kill ’Em All. The lights were turned up high, exposing the nicotine-yellowed popcorn ceiling and the cheap faux wood–paneled walls. Three silver poles rose up out of the nearby stage, abandoned and empty, of no current interest to anyone. The thick air was drenched with the lingering odor of last night’s five hundred unwashed bodies, mixed with the sickening, sweet smells of beer, cheap wine, hard liquor, and a dozen or so pools of vomit that still needed to be located and hosed down the floor drains. Even with the nighttime veneer of sex appeal stripped away, leaving the joint with the energy of a moonscape, Kane knew the Roadhouse Score still beat the hell out of county jail.

  No doubt about it. Kane had dodged a major bullet. When the lawyer put the offer of disorderly conduct on the table his first thought was, They’re fucking with me. Cop humor or some shit. Right up until yesterday, when the jail doors opened and they let him walk out, Kane had been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  He gave himself a mental shake. He was out. It was time to get back to business.

  The run-in with the cops and the week in custody had cost him. Without Kane on hand to oversee operations the Roadhouse had done a fraction of its typical $10–15K a night. Not to mention the major deal that remained on the table. Gotta get back in the game.

  The strip club’s door opened and a single figure sauntered in. Kane sat and watched as the newcomer got put through a shakedown by Jessup Tanner, Kane’s right-hand man. Curtis Bell wasn’t just any patron, and even from a distance Kane sensed danger in the man’s cold stare. Even as Bell turned over his cell phone, wallet, and keys, then took a seat on a lap dance couch in a far corner of the club, he kept his gaze fixed on Kane, who finally looked away as if he had grown disinterested.

  Kane had known Curtis Bell long enough to realize the man had an appreciation for smooth-running operations. Today’s meeting might be rough.

  It had been almost three years since Kane and Tanner had gone to Sturgis for the single weekend of the year when the town was overrun with one percenters. Tanner, who had never been to the famous gathering of outlaw bikers, had talked Kane into making the run. It was there that Kane met Curtis Bell, turning the trip into a most fortuitous venture. Kane, a Hells Angel, found he had much in common with Bell, who, back in the day, had ridden with the Mongols. Both had moved on since then, Kane to prison and Bell to the army.

  When they first met in Sturgis, Kane was still under the control of the Wisconsin Parole Commission but had already begun his association with the North Aryan Front. The NAF was never about ideology to him; it was an opportunity to cash in, to use the quasi-organized militia group as a base of operations for low-level organized crime. Prostitution, drug sales, and as of late, illegal gun purchases. That was where Curtis Bell came in.

  In Sturgis, the ex-con and the war hero struck up a friendship based mostly on excessive shots of Jack Daniel’s chased with PBR. Kane was fascinated by Bell’s stories of killing Arabs at close r
ange during his two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. Bell wanted to hear all about Kane’s life on the inside under the protection of the Aryan Brotherhood.

  At some point the conversation turned to Kane’s frustration over his inability to buy a gun on the legitimate market. A few days later they arranged to meet at a rest stop in Minnesota, where Bell sold Kane a still-in-the-box, government-issue, SIG SAUER 229 forty cal with three extended magazines. Bell had even thrown in a half-dozen boxes of Hydra-Shok ammo.

  That first deal had marked the beginning of a mutually beneficial partnership between Bell and Kane. Over the past few years, Kane had played middleman for other NAF members and associates who, like him, felt incomplete without a forty caliber or above somewhere on their body. Bell always provided new stock and Kane moved it along quickly at a tidy profit. The NAF provided him never-ending access to men with an insatiable iron deficiency. Bottom line: there was money to be made. Now, two years after their first business transaction, the time had come to find out just exactly what Mr. Curtis “War-Hero-Gone-Bad” Bell was really capable of.

  Finished with Bell, Tanner approached Kane at the bar. “He’s all set, boss. Cell phone’s off, battery out. He’s clean of any other electronic shit. But…”—Tanner hesitated—“he knows about the deal in Milwaukee. Seems put off about it.”

  Kane looked past Tanner and studied the new arrival.

  “Is that right? I hope you took full credit.” Kane stood and hitched his jeans up so the waistline fit snug under the overhang of his fifty-four-inch gut. “Follow me over, but hold back ten feet. You’re strapped, right?”

  Tanner pulled back on the denim vest that exposed his boney white arms, showing the forty-five shoved in the waistband of his jeans. He spoke as if he didn’t like it when his preparation was called into question. “Come on now, boss.”

  “Fine. Walk with me. But don’t speak. I’ll handle this.” Kane’s tone was harsh. The ill will from being left to fend for himself in the parking lot still grated on his nerves. A long conversation on the subject still needed to be had. Kane would see to it that Tanner never left him behind again.