A Field of Red

by Greg Enslen

  Nick thought about it. It was a fair deal, more than fair. And Matt was good for it. After a second, Nick nodded his head.

  “It hurts, but I can do that,” Nick said, shaking his hands. “I had plans for that space, but now it looks like you’re getting your wish—but at that price, you’d be overpaying.”

  Matt started to argue, then nodded. “I’m okay with overpaying a little.”

  Nick nodded, relieved but also saddened. Nick hated selling properties. It was like an admission of guilt, taking a loss. “And I’m gonna sell that Dragon’s property,” Nick said. “Another guy in the ownership group wanted to buy me out anyway.”

  Matt started to say something but went back to his drink.

  “Thank you,” Nick said to Matt. “And thanks for stepping up. I hate the idea of selling. But between the Lofts and the Dragon’s project, I should have nearly enough.”

  Matt nodded, smiling. “Yeah. But I’m happy to help. I’ll get you a cashier’s check in the morning. Or do you need it tonight?”

  Nick shook his head. “No, the morning is fine. I need to get word to the Dragon’s people to set up the ownership transfer in the morning. And Shale, the FBI agent, said that if the money were in the account, he’d be able to facilitate converting it into cash.”

  Lassiter sipped at his blue drink as Nick took out his phone and started dialing.

  10

  The phone on the small table next to the bed rang.

  Frank was watching TV and looked up at the clock—it was just after 10pm on Monday night. Only three people knew he was staying here at the hotel, and Frank quickly ticked them off in his head: it wasn’t his daughter—she would call his cell, if she were delaying or canceling their lunch meeting tomorrow, something he’d been half-expecting all day. The staff at the Tip Top Diner next door wouldn’t be calling—the place was closed up tight. No one in Birmingham had the number of the hotel—they would call his cell, same as his daughter, if they needed him. That left only the front desk.

  Frank muted the late local news and picked up the phone.

  “What?”

  “Hi, Mr. Harper,” said the high, squeaky voice on the other end. Oscar at the front desk. “Sir? Umm…there’s a policeman here, asking to speak to you...”

  Frank sat up and shook his head.

  “Fine,” Frank said. “Send him up.”

  He knew what this was about. Gina, the waitress, had mentioned that her husband was a cop. And cops usually stuck together, especially in small towns. His name was Stan, or something like that. Frank had given her some advice on how to get clear of the guy, and now Stan had showed up here at the hotel to scare Frank off, or at least get him to stop putting ideas in Gina’s head.

  Frank felt sorry for Stan. It didn’t matter to Frank if the guy was a cop. Stan was used to pushing his wife around, and Frank didn’t have any use for those types of guys. And if Stan was here to scare Frank off—well, Stan would find Frank hard to frighten.

  Frank had fought cops before. Plenty of times.

  He shook his head and glanced around at the messy hotel room. Frank stood and started clearing away the bottles and beer cans. There was no need to give the guy an excuse to search the hotel room. As he picked up the empty glasses and tidied up, he shook his head at his own stupidity.

  Ben Stone had gotten himself killed by taking chances, trying to do things without backup. Getting involved in stuff that didn’t really matter, like this Gina situation. Why hadn’t Frank learned his lesson? Don’t get involved. Frank felt like he should get it tattooed on the back of his hand, where he could always see it. Or get it tattooed along the scar on his left arm, where he would see it every day and never forget.

  When he was done, Frank opened the hotel room door and stood in the doorway. He heard the steps on the stairs before he could see them, and then a cop emerged from the stairway and turned up the carpeted hallway, looking at the room numbers.

  He was a big sucker.

  Frank didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do now except stand his ground. And avoid getting into a shootout.

  “Hi, Mr. Harper?” the policeman said, as he approached. At least he appeared friendly.

  Frank nodded.

  The man stopped about eight feet back, well out of grappling range. Smart.

  “I’m Sergeant Burwell,” the burly cop said. He nodded at the hotel room behind Frank. “Can we speak for a minute?”

  Frank nodded slowly, curious. This guy didn’t look mad, or spoiling for a fight.

  Frank stood back and held the door open, allowing the policeman inside. Deciding to take a casual approach to this “meeting,” Frank closed the door, then nodded and crossed in front of the cop, taking a seat in one of the two chairs that flanked a small table by the window.

  The cop stood by the television, even after Frank motioned him to sit. The cop’s hands rested on the gun and container of mace located at each hip. Frank wondered if the cop even noticed what he was doing with his hands.

  “How can I help you?” Frank asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Well, Mr. Harper,” Burwell began. “Chief of Police King asked me to come out and see you.”

  Frank looked up, not surprised.

  “Oh? Why? Need me to keep out of it?” If this wife-beating cop already had his Chief involved, things could go south for Frank in a real hurry—

  The cop looked confused. “What?”

  “I know what this is about,” Frank said, shaking his head. “You’ve got a cop that likes to use his wife like a punching bag, and you’re here to tell me to mind my own business. Or you’re the cop—I wouldn’t know, since I haven’t met the guy.”

  Burwell continued to look more and more confused. Frank started to feel less confident that the cop had any idea what Frank was talking about.

  Finally, the burly cop shook his head.

  “I’m not sure what we’re talking about,” he said. “Are you talking about Stan and the restraining order? How do you know about that?”

  Frank looked at him. “You’re not Stan?”

  “No, sir. He’s been suspended,” the cop said. “Too much going on right now for the Chief to look into it, so Stan’s riding the pine.”

  Frank nodded, then shook his head.

  “Okay, sorry about that. His wife works next door, and she wanted some advice about how to proceed. Sounds like you guys are handling it.”

  Burwell nodded.

  “Okay, so how can I help you?” Frank was genuinely curious.

  Burwell shuffled, looking at the ground. “Well, Chief King thinks you could help with a case we’re working. It’s the kidnapping, been going on for a week or so, and we got word you were a cop—”

  “Ex-cop,” Frank interjected.

  The police officer looked at him.

  “What?”

  “I’m not a cop anymore, Sergeant Burwell.” Frank said, looking out the window. “I’m retired. I’m part-time now with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. Me in my cubicle, working cold cases.”

  Frank saw the officer’s head nod in the reflection in the window.

  “That may be the case,” Burwell said. “But we’re not trained for this kind of thing. We heard you worked these kinds of cases before, had some good insights. The Chief had me run your file, mostly to make sure you weren’t somehow involved in the case. New faces in town can make people nervous.”

  Frank nodded.

  “A few of us have had some training in this area,” Burwell continued. “Detective Barnes worked one years ago in St. Louis. He and the Chief are the only ones with experience. But not a lot.”

  Frank turned and nodded at the muted TV. The large-haired anchor was back, her lips moving but no sound coming out.

  “Sounds like you’re doing the right things,” Frank said, nodding at the TV. “I just saw the coverage—searches, talking to the family, looking for people with grudges. And the ransom call today—that’s always good. Keep the bad guys talkin
g.”

  Burwell nodded.

  “That’s right. But nothing is coming up.”

  Frank hated kidnapping cases. They almost never turned out well.

  He turned and looked at the cop for the first time, really looking at him. The abrupt change in expectations had clouded Frank’s view of the man, but now he could see that the sergeant was quiet, hat in hand, just looking at Frank. Frank didn’t know what to say. This sounded like a genuine cry for help, not an invitation to come help them cover their asses with this investigation.

  “No luck yet?” Frank asked.

  Sergeant Burwell shook his head.

  “The family checks out,” Burwell said. “Both families, actually. The housekeeper has been with the Martins for years, and the girls practically grew up together. The Martins have money, although they might not have enough. The ransom call came in today. They want a million by tomorrow evening.”

  Frank nodded but didn’t say anything.

  The cop waited for a response from Frank, but none came. After a moment, Burwell continued.

  “We were treating it as a missing person’s case and worked it a while, before the Chief called in the Bureau. The kidnappers called the mom’s cell phone yesterday, first call. The FBI representative up from Cincinnati will take point on that. I’m not sure…well, Chief said not to say much about Agent Shale, the FBI liaison. Anyway, it’s been days, and you know, better than anyone, the statistics on kidnapping and child abductions. Most of the kids recovered alive are found with two days of the initial abduction.”

  Frank nodded.

  “Yeah, after 48 hours, the percentages drop off,” Frank said.

  Burwell nodded and took out a small notepad and pen, taking notes, but Frank did not elaborate. After a moment, the cop looked up.

  “And?” the cop said. “The percentages drop off, but not always, right?

  Frank sighed. “The drop off severely. But those are in the cases of abductions.”

  Burwell wrote it down, then looked back at Frank. They both waited for the other to speak, but nothing came.

  “Look,” Burwell finally said. “I get that you might not trust us because of the Stan situation. But we have an active investigation going on here, and you’re in our jurisdiction. If you know anything that can help—”

  Frank shook his head.

  “So, you’re going to bring me in because I can’t solve your case for you? What’s the charge, officer?”

  Burwell seemed taken aback by Frank’s outburst.

  “That’s not what I meant, sir,” Burwell said. “But I’m sworn to uphold the law, same as you were.”

  Frank nodded. “Emphasis on the past tense.”

  The room grew quiet. Frank wondered if Burwell had figured out Frank’s little system of staying quiet to let the silences grow. Maybe Frank was getting a little of his own medicine.

  Finally, Frank sighed again. “It’s true, it’s more likely in abductions that, as more time passes, it’s more difficult to recover the victim. But in kidnappings for ransoms, the timeline doesn’t matter as much. It can drag out over weeks or months.”

  “Oh,” Burwell nodded, jotting it all down. “I hadn’t thought about that. But we were relieved when the kidnappers called. Chief King wants you—”

  “I can’t,” Frank said, shaking his head and cutting Burwell off. “I’m not getting involved. I told you what I know, and what I think about your prospects, but I’m not helping with the case.”

  Burwell looked up from his pad.

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Frank said. “But…any dialog with the kidnappers is good,” he said, changing the subject. “Just give them what they want, keep them engaged.”

  The cop paused for a long moment.

  “Yup, okay,” he said. “Chief is working through all that with the Bureau. They will handle the ransom and the drop. But our investigation is going nowhere.”

  Frank thought about it for a minute to let the cop think he was considering it. But his mind was already made up. His mind had been made up since the conversation started.

  “Look,” Frank said. “I’m done with this kind of stuff. I...I’m done. And it sounds like you’re on the right track. The Bureau is involved, now, so you don’t really need me. Just follow the money, and it should work out.”

  Sergeant Burwell didn’t answer.

  “Have the Chief look into everyone’s background that has regular contact with the family,” Frank continued, suddenly feeling weary and old. Frank knew he should stop talking, but the cop looked like someone had just shot his dog. “It’s often a family friend or accountant or someone like that, someone with ties to the family but without the loyalty of being part of the group.”

  The cop jotted down what Frank was saying. But just talking about it made Frank start to feel weary, remembering all the cases he’d followed and how few of them ended well. He remembered the kid in downtown Atlanta, buried in that cardboard box by the highway. Frank had gone through all the steps, done the work, just like he was telling this sergeant to do. Follow the leads, check the family. Cross the “i’s”, dot the “t’s,” as Williams, the arson investigator, liked to say with a wry smile.

  But if this case was like the one in Atlanta, they could do everything right and still not get there in time. Frank remembered that poor little boy—

  The sergeant stared at Frank, waiting for more words of wisdom, but Frank had none.

  The room grew quiet.

  “So, you’re not going to help—” the sergeant began.

  “No,” Frank said.

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t need me,” Frank said, his voice coming out harsher than he wanted. “Just investigate the case and everyone involved. The kids will turn up.”

  It was cold. And a lie. They both knew it. The chances of recovering the girls alive diminished with each passing hour. But Frank didn’t want to go down this road again.

  Ever.

  Another long moment of silence, with the burly cop staring at him, hands on his hips.

  Frank shook his head and stood slowly. He always stood slowly when he was around angry, armed men. Frank walked to the hotel room door and pulled it open.

  The burly cop hesitated and then shook his head and walked toward the door.

  “You know, I would think you would want to help,” Burwell said as he passed Frank. “Two young girls’ lives are at stake,” the sergeant said, stopping on the carpet out in the hallway and looking at him angrily.

  “Don’t you even care?”

  Frank looked down at the carpet at the man’s feet. Boots, clunky, good for running through muddy fields. Cop boots.

  Frank resisted the overwhelming urge to say something nice. To get involved. To get back on that horse and have something in his life that didn’t come out of a bottle. But he couldn’t. He was here to see Laura and that had to be the only thing in his life right now. Laura, and Jackson, and getting his shit together. Not getting involved in another messy case that would probably end badly.

  Frank looked up at Burwell.

  “Sorry,” Frank said. “But I can’t help you.”

  Burwell looked at him. His face was hard, disappointed.

  “Those girls are going to die,” the sergeant said quietly, just between the two of them. Two professionals, standing in a hotel hallway late at night and assessing the case and the likelihood of a positive outcome. To Frank, it sounded almost like a plea.

  He nodded somberly.

  “Well, it’s always something,” Frank said, and slowly closed the door.

  11

  It was Tuesday morning, and Frank was back in his booth at the Tip Top Diner.

  He was trying to read his free copy of the Dayton Daily News. There was a big article on the front page about the ransom call and the kidnapping case and another article out of D.C. about an assassination plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States.

  He’d tried to read
both articles three or four times now, but his mind kept wandering back to the conversation last night with Sergeant Burwell. Frank knew that not getting involved was the right thing to do, and yet, it still bothered him.

  The restaurant door jingled again. Frank forced himself to keep his eyes on the paper. Situational awareness was overrated.

  Plus, he had his gun, just in case.

  Frank suddenly remembered another one of his old partners, Steve Furrows, who had just up and one day decided to quit smoking. The guy had acted like a class “A” prick for about three months, but Steve got through it and never smoked again. Frank just needed to get past the need to always know everything that was going on around him. He needed to relax, make “not looking” his priority. If Frank could stick with it, like Furrows, maybe he’d break the habit.

  Frank’s breakfast was gone and now he was having a piece of pie and finishing up the paper. Pakistan and Afghanistan were going at it again, according to the International section of the Dayton Daily News, arguing and threatening to invade each other over some random patch of scrub. That region, along with the Middle East, had been in bad shape for millennia, and nothing that had happened over the past twenty years was going to make anything better.

  Frank knew the region well. During his six years in the Marines, he’d never been deployed overseas, but it had been the focus of all of their training.

  And 1983–1989, the years he’d been in, had been a tense period in the region: Iran and Iraq were duking it out along their border, bombing pipelines and shooting down aircraft. Lebanon was undergoing “difficulties,” and Libya was on the warpath.

  Incidents came to mind: 220 Marines killed when Hezbollah bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut in ‘83; the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian passenger jet; 270 people dying when that flight went down over Lockerbie, Scotland. Too much killing. Too much death.

  Reagan and the U.S. stood by, tensely monitoring the situation and getting involved when necessary. Frank had trained for a war in the Mideast, a war that didn’t come until after he’d gotten out in ‘89. But he knew lots of people who ended up in Kuwait, rolling into Iraq with Desert Storm in ‘91.