Probable Cause

by Ridley Pearson

  With Emmy Dewitt as a central target from the beginning, he had followed her a great deal, knew all there was to know. The one person who controlled her—aside from her father—was Billy Talbot. Talbot would make the perfect bait. Talbot would lure Emmy away from the aquarium.

  Predictability was such a fine thing. As expected, there were Talbot and his hoodlums huddled around a long-legged young tart, trying to impress her with their intimate knowledge of hard-rock recordings. As best Quinn had been able to determine over the past few months, one of Talbot’s gang worked here most nights. He wasn’t absolutely certain, but he believed they dealt in items other than musical recordings when the manager wasn’t around. That’s what accounted for the popularity of the place and the constant loitering. “William Talbot?”

  When Talbot saw the uniform, his face twitched as if he had just been hit.

  “Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.”

  “I can see that.”

  “We’d like to have a few words with you downtown. Would you come with me, please?”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “You own a red Ford Escort, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Police business. I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss it,” Talbot repeated in a mocking tone. “You had better discuss it.”

  “We can do this one of two ways, kid. With or without you wearing a pair of bracelets, okay? Your choice.”

  “Chill out, okay? The charges?”

  “No charges, William. I told you, at this time we only want to have a few words with you concerning the operation of your vehicle. You want to keep your license or not, William? You’re making this difficult and I don’t appreciate it one bit. You think I like playing baby-sitter?”

  A friend encouraged Talbot to go.

  “So let’s go,” he told Quinn.

  When they were outside, Quinn said to him, “Show me to the vehicle, please.”

  “Why?”

  “William, if you’re a law-abiding citizen and have been operating your motor vehicle in a manner appropriate to city and state motor-vehicle codes, then you have nothing to worry about.”

  “This about my insurance or something? My dad did renew the insurance, didn’t he?”

  Quinn didn’t answer. It was everything he could do to suppress his grin. Hook, line, and sinker. Believability was the key to a verbal trap: acting a role and staying with it. He felt wonderful.

  They stitched their way through the parking lot and reached Talbot’s Escort.

  “So what now?”

  “Open it, please.”

  As Talbot worked the key into the lock, Quinn made a quick assessment of his surroundings. Clear. The door came open.

  Quinn took Talbot by the hair and leveled the boy’s head into the door frame, which smacked him in a straight line across the forehead. With Talbot dazed, nearly unconscious, he folded the boy up and propelled him into the front seat, stuffing him over to the far side as he followed him inside. He seized Talbot by the windpipe and squeezed. A little harder and he could kill the kid. But he didn’t want to, yet.

  “We’re going for a little drive. Are we feeling like cooperating?” Another nod. “No hassles?” A nice firm shake of the head. “Okay,” he said, fishing out the handcuffs from Harry’s belt, “onto the floor, hands out on the seat.” He released Talbot’s throat. Like an obedient little kid, Talbot scrambled into the tight space in front of his seat.

  Talbot lunged forward, arm stretching beneath the seat. Quinn reacted instinctively, sensing trouble. He reared his foot back. The handgun came out from under the seat, aimed into his eyes. Quinn’s foot caught the barrel of the gun and swung it around so quickly that Talbot shot himself in the chest. The kid’s body quivered violently and went still. The smell of excrement filled the car. Blood! Quinn sat transfixed by the sight of it. Nauseated. Small beads of blood dripped from the end of Talbot’s little finger. It dripped for nearly a minute and then stopped. The dead don’t bleed.

  Finally, Quinn took his eyes from the corpse. He knew death well enough. He kept his foot pinned against the body just the same. He switched on the headlights and placed the car in reverse, finally lifted his foot off the boy, and leaned to get hold of the gun.

  Win a few, lose a few. Adapt, Maintain your cool. Stupid kid had gone and screwed up his plans. Everyone kept screwing up his plans. Then again, he had a pistol now. Maybe it was fate talking to him. Emmy would be heading over to the aquarium at any minute. Maybe he didn’t need Talbot, after all. He could use the gun to his advantage.

  Maybe he could do this alone.

  5

  At the same moment Michael Quinn pulled the Ford Escort into an outlying parking lot near the Monterey Aquarium, James Dewitt’s pager was sounding on his dresser bureau. The plaintive electronic beeps rang out unheard in the empty room.

  Board member Cynthia Chatterman’s shrill voice caught Dewitt by surprise from behind, actually causing him to jump. “Phone call for you, James. Man says it’s an emergency. I had it transferred—”

  “Tell him I’ll be right there, Cynthia. And don’t transfer it anywhere. I’ll take it at Information in a minute.”

  “He said it’s an emergency.”

  “I’ll bet he did.”

  “James?”

  “It’s not an emergency, Cynthia. Don’t worry,” he said, walking in long quick strides alongside of her. He gave her a nudge toward Information and nearly ran to the bank of pay phones at the member’s entrance, expecting any second to intercept Billy Talbot coming his way. When he reached the pay phones, however, none was off the hook and only one in use, this by an overweight man in a loud Hawaiian shirt and jogging pants. Christ, he’d been fooled again; no doubt Talbot, using a different phone this time—the gift shop perhaps or even one outside.

  He knew damn well that there wouldn’t be anyone on the other end of the phone Cynthia Chatterman was holding for him. As he attempted to pass her by, she called out to him, “He’s pretty upset, James. Says he’s with the Sheriff’s office. Insists it is an emergency.”

  Mention of the MCSO stopped Dewitt. An emergency… The last time he had heard those words, Anna had been left to die. Emmy and Briar had arrived only minutes before. They were in the upper levels somewhere. It couldn’t have to do with Emmy. And that left…

  He walked to the Information booth slowly, wearily, looking upon the waiting receiver as a messenger of bad news. He accepted it from Cynthia and pressed it to his ear. “Dewitt,” he said.

  The husky voice on the other end introduced itself as Desk Sergeant Hack. “We got a problem here, Dewitt. Quinn has escaped. Injured two guards, stole one of our radio cars. We got out a BOL and APB, but my lieutenant says to track you down and let you know. When you didn’t answer the page, one of your people figured you might be there at the aquarium.”

  “Escaped?” Dewitt gasped. The incongruous peacefulness of the aquarium didn’t fit. “I’ll be right in.”

  He dropped the phone, jumped the counter, and sprinted for the stairs, the only thought in his mind, the only image before his eyes, the innocent face of his daughter.

  His feet slapped the stairs as he bounded up toward the third level, and he was momentarily relieved to see the back of a uniform just cresting the stairs. However, the brief flirtation with relief was squashed by his distrust of coincidence, and his voice failed him as the man reacted to the approaching footfalls by glancing over his shoulder. Dewitt found himself fact-to-face with Michael Quinn. There was a gun in his hand. A police issue .38. Dewitt fished under his coat for his.

  As Dewitt reached the third level, Quinn had Emmy’s neck in the crook of his elbow, the gun waving in the air carelessly. “Always fucking up the schedule, Dewitt. What is it about you?” He motioned for Emmy’s friends to get back.

  Dewitt could envision his wife in the grasp of Steven Miller—this man’s son—standing not ten feet away; could feel the war
m grip of Lumbrowski’s gun in hand, the crisp coolness of the trigger. He could summon no words.

  Where his wife had hesitated, however, his daughter did not. She had practiced the move a hundred times, and she executed it swiftly and professionally, as if showing off for her teacher. Her leg rocked forward and shot back, connecting squarely with Quinn’s knee, while in the same seamless motion, her right elbow found his ribs and her left hand swiped the gun out of her way. She ducked, rolled, and dove to the floor.

  At the same moment, Dewitt squeezed the trigger. Quinn staggered with the blow to his knee, and Dewitt’s shot missed. But Quinn had fled out through the fire doors to his right. The door alarm sounded. DeWitt looked out to see Quinn running between the open mouths of the huge display tanks.

  Dewitt dove to cover his daughter, convinced he would feel Quinn’s shots pepper his back.

  “I got him!” Emmy proclaimed in an uncharacteristically enthusiastic voice.

  He pulled her to her feet, holding her face-to-face. “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Straight to Security. I’ll meet you there.” He slapped her on the bottom. “You did good.”

  She took off down the stairs at a run. “Call in Monterey,” he added. The cop’s daughter acknowledged by waving overhead.

  The door alarm still sounding, Dewitt hurried out onto the rooftop. Before him was the open top of the Kelp Forest and, across the flat roof, the huge piston that drove the wave motion.

  He was only seconds behind the uniformed Quinn, who was checking the various available doors in search of escape, unaware that this rooftop area only offered access to the research and workshop laboratories. None of these doors was left unlocked. By the time Dewitt spotted him, and he Dewitt, Quinn had exhausted his possibilities. In panic, Quinn stuffed away the gun and leaped up onto the slick gray slate of the rooftop, wet from the continuing drizzle. He slipped, regained his footing, and ascended to the peak. The ridge lines of the enormous structure interconnected one to the other. Quinn straddled the peak and ran.

  Dewitt clambered up from behind, gun returned to his holster. His feet went out from underneath him. He slid, planted his heels, and braked himself, clawing his way quickly back up. Quinn’s attention, like a teenager at his first night of ballroom dancing, was fixed firmly on his feet. Although the slant of the roof to his left led down to the third-story research area from which he had come, to slip to his right would leave him a fall of forty feet to cement.

  Dewitt proved fast on his feet, agile and well-balanced. In deft footfalls, he quickly closed the distance between himself and the fleeing Quinn, who glanced over his shoulder repeatedly.

  Quinn turned sharply left and, with bent knees, dropped into an intentional slide, like a person playing on ice, skiing down the slick slate before leaping catlike to the adjoining roof and scrambling up the side to the peak.

  Dewitt followed closely, also balling himself into a tuck and springing to the connecting roof. Midway into the ascent of this next section, he managed to reach out and bat Quinn’s ankle from below, sending the man into a spin, during which both men lost purchase and scraped sideways down the slant, groping for control. Quinn caught hold of a vent stack, braking his fall, and Dewitt caught hold of Quinn’s left foot. The escapee delivered his right shoe onto the bridge of Dewitt’s nose, breaking the glasses off his face, the shattered lens slicing the skin below his eye. Dewitt let go and slid away, stopped only when his toes caught in the rain gutter, which bent and tore from the roofline as it assumed more of his weight. He pressed his cheek flat against the cold slate and spread his arms, lowering his center of gravity and distributing himself as evenly as possible.

  Quinn collected himself and continued toward the peak.

  Handhold by handhold, Dewitt drew himself up the roof and reached the stack vent. Quinn danced his way along the ridge, more surefooted now, increasing his lead. Dewitt reached the peak, pressed himself to standing, and hurried quickly behind. He looked up in time to see Quinn make a spectacular leap to the oceanside rooftop of the second level, the third-level balcony immediately to his right. As the man landed, he lost his footing, came down hard on his face, and then rolled down the pitch, able at the last possible moment to check his roll by briefly catching his fingers on the gutter. He dropped to the balcony feet first.

  Dewitt pushed harder with each stride, the upcoming gap growing ever closer and seemingly wider. The gap was created by an EMPLOYEES ONLY passageway from the third-level balcony to the back side of the research areas. Dewitt flew across it, pulled his feet beneath himself, and smacked into the shale, tumbling down the pitch in a ball and crashing painfully to the balcony’s cement. “Don’t!” he shouted as he looked up. Quinn, perched and poised on the balcony’s retaining wall, sprang into the drizzle and disappeared. Dewitt expected the thud of flesh on rock. He painfully came to his feet and raced to the edge of the balcony in time to witness Quinn’s slow descent. The escapee had leapt straight out and had taken hold of the very top of a planted tree and was now riding it as it bent with him past the second-story balcony, down, down, down, to the outdoor Great Tide Pool. Dewitt watched on as Quinn released his grip and dropped to the rocky edge of the pool as gently as if he had ridden an elevator. His ride damaged the tree. It did not return but, instead, remained bent in a long curve. Quinn sprinted toward the end of the building and disappeared around the corner.

  Dewitt ran down the two flights of stairs and hurried to the phone at Information, his disheveled wet appearance drawing the attention of the tourists. He phoned the Monterey department and issued an update to the BOL, providing Quinn’s last location, hoping, miracle of miracles, they might pick him up yet.

  He caught up with Emmy in Security, pulled her out of her chair, and threw his arms around her, holding her tightly to himself, congratulating her, refusing to let go despite her complaints that he was wet. At last, she gave in and returned his hug, her words muffled. Dewitt thought he heard her say, “Now I know how Mom felt.” He couldn’t be sure. When she looked up at him, she said, “I was lucky.”

  13

  LAST CALL

  1

  The early-morning phone call caused Dewitt to sit straight up in bed, and before he had even fully opened his eyes, the Smith and Wesson was in his hand. Despite the fact that he had posted uniform guards at both his front and back doors, he didn’t trust the situation. He wouldn’t feel right until Emmy was back on that plane again, and this time he would deliver her personally to his mother’s, would guard her until Michael Quinn was taken into custody.

  He answered the phone only after he heard the ringing stop and realized Emmy had beaten him to it. “I’ve got it,” he said to his daughter, who hung up her extension.

  “Dewitt?” It was Nelson’s voice. Sergeant was the proper way for Nelson to address him. The familiarity annoyed him. You give these guys an inch…

  “What is it?”

  “A suicide, Dewitt. In the beach parking lot. It’s him. I was going to call it in, but you’re not on-call and I thought you would want to have it. You want me to call it in?”

  “No. Wait for me,” Dewitt said wearily, stumbling through his words, alarms sounding inside him. He dressed quickly, checked with both uniforms standing guard, and headed to the trunk of the Zephyr. He found it in the back, under a bunch of stuff that he had to move to get at it.

  2

  The sun was hinting at the sky, spreading a bluish wash into the blackness. Images—including the red Ford Escort with the garden hose running from its exhaust pipe—were hazy and dull, like looking through fogged glass. No other cars but Nelson’s radio car. He appreciated being given the first look at the body. Dr. Christiansen had been right: suicidal.

  The uniformed patrolman waved and approached from the far side of the lot, where he was establishing the crime scene with the familiar Day-Glo police tape.

  Dewitt approached the Escort slowly, his full attention on the cloudy driver’s window. He he
sitated by the driver’s door, exhaust seeping from the seams, slipped on a pair of the latex gloves, removed his gun, and pulled the door open, ready to shoot.

  The head and body of patrolman Buford Nelson slumped out of the car, falling into his arms, his head badly cut where he had been clubbed.

  Movement from behind him! As Dewitt spun around with the .38 in hand, the uniformed man, Michael Quinn, held the handgun trained on Dewitt’s chest. “Sucker,” he said, squeezing off his first shot.

  The muzzle flash lit up in Dewitt’s eyes—something every cop heard about, was warned about, and never wanted to witness. That peculiar brilliant color of sulfur yellow that warned of a bullet coming directly at you. A piece of Dewitt’s left arm disconnected from his body and sprayed across the car. The next shot bore into his chest, as did the next and the next, sledgehammers at this distance. He felt the suffocating crush of his ribs breaking. Darkness threatened from the edges of his eyes, and he thought only of Emmy, that she was safe. Alive. He thought of God and he wondered how a man like Michael Quinn could be allowed to walk the earth while his girls had been taken from him. Justice, he thought, is something that doesn’t exist in nature. It is a creation of mankind. Darkness willed him into unconsciousness, but he would not obey.

  The loud barking of the handgun ceased, the smell of cordite overpowering the exhaust.

  “Bastard,” he heard Quinn say.

  Michael Quinn turned toward Dewitt’s police car. James Dewitt, peering out from squinting eyes, drew the hammer back on his weapon and struggled to his feet. His left arm screamed at him. He could barely breathe, but he managed to say to the man’s back, “Sucker.”