Marshall was no amateur, and he was prepared for just such a question. “Hey, I only take them in. What happens down the road is out of my hands.”
Adam nodded as if he understood and was after the next person on the list. “I know that, Marshall. You have no control over someone in property who might develop sticky fingers.”
Ruben hadn’t said a word, but he hadn’t let go of the folder either.
“But here’s my problem. You switched from pink forms to yellow ones two years ago, but you’re still using the pink ones for special items. And none of those special items that got a pink form have showed up in property.”
With that, Ruben laid the folder on the table and began to take out pages, one at a time. “This is the number of guns turned in for destruction the first six months you worked the front desk.” Ruben reached for another piece of paper. “This is the number of guns turned in over the last six months. Here we have other types of weapons the first six months and the last. The same with drugs.” He flipped over two more pages.
“Here we have purses, wallets, cash, anything of value. Do I need to show you how few of those have made their way to property lately?” Adam waited. He kept his face natural, but he couldn’t control his heart rate. This was it. There was no turning back now.
“I told you—I pass them on. I can’t be responsible for what happens to them after that.” Marshall’s forehead broke out in sweat and he kept glancing toward a bottle of bourbon.
Ruben took out several pictures and spread them in front of Marshall. “Can you explain why the items you use the pink forms on are the only ones that disappear?”
Suddenly Marshall pushed back from the table. “What’s going on? You aren’t on duty. And you. . .” He pointed at Adam. “You work homicide. If you’re trying for some kind of shakedown, you’re shit out of luck.”
Adam leaned in and spoke softly. “This isn’t a shakedown. It’s your one chance at salvation.”
Marshall froze. “What do you have in mind?”
“You’re going to retire immediately. You’ve developed health problems. You get to keep your pension, your dignity, your reputation. And best of all, your freedom. All you have to do is tell us exactly what happened and then hand in your resignation.”
They had reached the tricky part. Marshall could decide to fight the charges and it would get ugly, or he could decide to fight them and it would get dangerous.
Instead, he started to cry. “I don’t know what happened. It was that dammed Luger. I saw it and I couldn’t bear to have it destroyed. I kept thinking ‘This is a piece of history. It belongs in a museum.’ So I saved it.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to a museum?”
“Well, it wasn’t really that old or unique, so I kept it. It was so easy I kept a few others. Then my wife left me and I was short of cash, so I sold them. It was only a few at first, so no one noticed. Then that same voice said, ‘Go ahead. You deserve it. You’ve spent your life helping other people. Now it’s time to help yourself.’”
Adam sat back. “What voice? You didn’t say anything about a voice.”
“That’s what’s so strange. It was a woman’s voice. Why would I think in a woman’s voice? Almost a little girl.”
Adam would have sworn someone hit him in the gut. He couldn’t breathe or move for several beats, but dealing with the problem at hand was all that mattered for now.
“Here’s the deal we’re offering you. We’re taking everything with us tonight. Let’s load it all in the trunk of my car—every gun, every ounce of drugs, everything of value. Tomorrow morning you retire. No two-weeks’ notice. You clean out your locker and go home. You aren’t well. If you do that, and don’t make a fuss, we never say a word.”
Marshall looked almost relieved to have it over with. He nodded his head and rose from the table. “It’s all in the garage,” he said.
Adam backed his car into the driveway, close to the garage door. It took several trips to load everything into the trunk. Adam was hot, but Ruben was sweating and had turned white. “Sit for a few minutes, partner, I’ll finish here. If anything happens to you, Mamacita will have my nuts in a grinder.”
Finally, Marshall crammed the last box into the back seat. “That’s everything,” he said.
“Maybe,” Adam said. “Let’s check, just to be sure.”
He and Ruben searched the entire house, looking in closets and under beds. Hidden beneath Marshall’s pillow was a Smith and Wesson revolver, which they took. In Marshall’s bathroom, they found several containers of pills and white powder, even a few baggies of crystal meth.
Adam shook his head. Now, there’s a lethal combination—excessive firepower and a drug that makes you paranoid. They could have just waited. At the rate he was going, Marshall was due to have a complete meltdown at any time.
“Don’t take those,” Marshall begged. “I need them.”
“I guess you won’t have any trouble looking sick tomorrow.” Ruben pulled the door closed behind him.
“That went better than we had any right to expect.” Ruben’s color was returning.
“It could have gotten ugly.” Adam slumped in the car as the tension left his body.
“It still could. He’s in there right now, trying to come up with a plan to make it all go away. If he shows up tomorrow morning and blames it on you, we’re in deep shit. We need to find a place with no ties to either of us to stash this stuff until we can get rid of it permanently.”
“Jillian has a storage shed behind the shooting range. I could put it in there temporarily.”
“So y’all are speaking again?” Ruben tried to turn to face Adam, but there wasn’t room in the car.
“I don’t know about that, but she has a vested interest in seeing Marshall go down.”
“Are we going to talk about the phone call, or pretend it didn’t happen?”
Adam gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead. “We’re going to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Okay, but we’ll need to pretend Marshall didn’t hear a little girl’s voice, too.”
“I can do that.”
“Have you made plans for disposing of this stuff permanently?”
“Not yet. I’ve had a few other things on my mind. Anyway, we can’t do that until we’re sure he’s gone away for good. We still need the proof if he decides to fight it. The pictures of him taking the gun from Jillian are enough for me, but they won’t convince IA.”
Adam dropped Ruben at Mamacita’s. As soon as the door closed, Adam pulled out his cell phone. He’d waited to call until Ruben was out of car. Again, he started talking as soon as she answered, not giving her time to hang up.
“It’s over. We didn’t have any trouble. He sold a lot, but he still had plenty. Guns, ammo, drugs, you name it, he had it. What about you? Did you have any trouble? I should never have asked you to do that for me.”
Her voice was cool and clipped. “It’s not something I can talk about over the phone. Where are you?”
“Turning onto I-45, headed north. Any chance I could store this stuff in your shed for a few days until we decide what to do with it? I don’t trust Marshall not to come to my house looking for it. You gave a fake name and address on the form, so he doesn’t know who you are.”
“Yeah, for a few days, but only temporarily. Most of that stuff’s illegal, and I don’t want it on my property. I gave my real name the first time, although I can’t imagine he’d keep an incriminating piece of paper like that. But who knows what Heather might do if she’s angry enough.”
By the time Adam reached the store, Jillian had the door to the shed open and a space cleared in the back, behind some boxes. He’d removed his vest before he got to Jillian’s, but the night was humid and the shed was an oven, holding all the heat of the day. His shirt was sticking to him by the time he moved everything for the second time. A spot between his shoulders protested. Dust filled his nose and he fought back a sneeze.
He slammed
the trunk and leaned against the car, wiping his face on his sleeve. “Tell me what happened after I called.” Half his brain insisted he didn’t want to know. The other half was determined to make sure Jillian was okay.
She looked around quickly but didn’t answer. She motioned upstairs with her head and led the way. Once inside, she opened two beers and offered him one.
“I thought you wanted me to slow down on the drinking,” he said.
“This might not be the time to quit drinking entirely.” She gave a slight smile. “Heather was in rare form tonight. She laid down several ultimatums. Get rid of you. Sell the store. Move home with her and open a dress shop that we both could run.” Jillian laughed, but it wasn’t the usual pleasant sound.
“Can you imagine me running a dress shop? And with Heather. That would be a laugh. You should see her taste in clothes. It runs from high school prom to Hollywood tacky. Otherwise, she threatened harm to you, Cara, and any future children I might have. If I don’t like it, I can always give up and let her have my body. She promises to take good care of it as soon as she has the tattoos removed.”
He loved those tattoos. No one was removing them. “What do you mean, move home with her. Where does she live?”
“In our old house. It’s still there. I haven’t sold it or anything, although I did turn off the utilities. It’s just sitting there, unoccupied except for Heather and an occasional drug dealer that stops by.”
“I guess I never thought of . . .” he struggled for the word, “spirits needing a place to live.”
Jillian shrugged her shoulders. “Everybody’s got to be someplace, I suppose. That’s how she knew the young girl that got shot. She and her friends used the house to do drugs until I called the police and had them run off.”
“So she did know her. You said she was protecting Manny.”
“I was feeling charitable that day. After all, she saved your life and Cara’s when she sent Snake-Eye to check on things.”
“I had things under control.” He ducked his head and took a long, slow swallow of beer, savoring the cool liquid on the back of his throat.
“Sure you did. Snake-Eye told me all about it when he explained how the little voice urged him to see if I was okay.”
And he’d thought Snake-Eye showed up for just the reason he gave. Because he’d been shorted on ammo.
“Maybe I can come over on Sunday and we’ll move the stuff to your old house. Then you can blame it on drug dealers if someone finds it.”
“We’ll have to make sure Heather is occupied someplace else. It could get dangerous for you if she found out.”
He kissed Jillian gently and started for home, still amazed that he was able to discuss Heather as if he believed in her.
Marshall did exactly as he was told. He came in on Friday morning and put in for immediate retirement due to health issues. Looking at him, it was easy to believe he was sick, but Adam knew, as did anyone familiar with narcotics, that he was suffering from a bitching case of withdrawal.
It was late afternoon when Adam got a call from the security company that his alarm had gone off. He tried to hurry home, but rush hour traffic was in full swing and rain had slowed things to a crawl. His heart stopped when he saw the trunk of his car pried open in his driveway.
Two uniforms were waiting for him. The senior officer, a balding man with a paunch that reminded Adam what happened when you drank too many beers for too many years, stepped forward.
“No one was here when we arrived. We can stay and help you nail up the door if you need us to. Make a list of anything missing, and we’ll stay on top of the pawn shops.”
“I can take care of the door, thanks. I know you have other calls. I’ll make that list and drop it by the station.” Adam needed them to leave, fast. He didn’t want his fellow officers to see him as a victim, and he certainly didn’t want them to find any trace of Calvin Marshall.
His first stop was the garage. It looked like an angry whirlwind had vented its anger on the contents. Tools were everywhere. Anything breakable was destroyed. The old Chevy he’d been working on was dented and scratched, but relief flooded him when he realized the motor hadn’t been touched. Only a car buff would realize the motor was the part he cared about.
He held his breath as he trudged to the back yard. The tool shed was upended and the contents scattered. Rover’s grave had been partially dug up, but the rancid odor must have warned the intruder that it wasn’t hidden treasure. For one moment he was glad Rover was already gone and hadn’t been put in danger.
The back door had been kicked in, and it surprised him how violated he felt. Inside, everything was in shambles. He could find nothing missing, but everything he owned had been swept onto the floor.
The open trunk on his car left no doubt Marshall was the culprit, and the old crook would have known exactly how much time he had before the police arrived.
Bile rose in Adam’s throat and he took several deep breaths before changing into old clothes and tackling the mess that was his home. It seemed like déjà vu. Only this time the culprit was someone he could actually get his hands on. Thank God Ruben had the foresight to insist he not leave the weapons in his trunk last night.
After fifteen minutes of cleaning, Adam threw the broom across the floor and it crashed into a table leg. To hell with this. He latched the broken trunk of his car with Bungee cord and headed for Marshall’s. Full dark was still an hour away and he couldn’t afford to be seen, so he parked two houses down. He reached the back door and was about to kick it in when he decided to try the knob. Unlocked.
He opened it quietly and stepped inside. He didn’t hear anything, but he slipped softly through the house. When he reached the back, he found Marshall lying on the bathroom floor.
Adam watched with disgust to see if he was breathing. It turned his stomach to think the pathetic specimen laying in his own vomit had been a police officer only a few hours before. Marshall’s feet were facing the door, so Adam prodded them with his shoe. Nothing happened the first time, but when he tried again Marshall lifted his head and opened one eye.
“Fuck,” he said when he saw Adam. “Go ahead. Do your worst. I don’t even care.”
“If you don’t care, where’s the fun in that?”
Adam reached in Marshall’s pocket and took out his billfold. It must have contained close to a thousand dollars. Adam took out $200 and put the rest back. “I’m going to need a new back door,” he said.
Marshall rolled over and groaned.
After watching for another minute, Adam marched back to the kitchen. Even the thought of helping Marshall repelled him. The drug-addicted thief deserved whatever happened to him.
He pulled out the same chair he had used the night before, and sat. He gazed around the kitchen and sighed. It looked worse than his, and no one had vandalized it.
Finally he stood and searched the kitchen for an address book. He found one in the cabinet over the telephone and thumbed through it until he found an entry that simply said Maggie.
A female voice answered.
“This is a friend of Calvin Marshall’s. I’m looking for his daughter.” He couldn’t believe he was helping the man who had trashed his home and spit on the badge that meant so much to him.
“We’re not exactly on speaking terms at the moment. I can’t help you,” she eventually said.
“I don’t care if you speak to him or not, but he’s lying on his bathroom floor in big trouble and he needs someone to make decisions for him. If you don’t want to do it, I can call 911 and let them handle it, although that’s going to put him in a bigger mess than he’s already in.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, but Adam didn’t break it. Twelve years on the force had taught him to wait out the most hardened criminal. Marshall’s daughter didn’t have a chance.
“If you’re his friend, can’t you take care of it?”
“I misspoke. We were never friends, even less so now. Last night I took all
his drugs and destroyed them. He obviously spent the day looking for new ones. He needs to go to rehab, and he needs to do it tonight. If you’ll come get him, I’ll find a place that will take him.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said and hung up before Adam could answer.
As he dialed the phone again, he realized how often he’d asked Jillian for help in such a short time. He couldn’t remember anyone beside Ruben that he’d ever felt comfortable depending on. Jillian gave him the name of the rehab center she had used, and even called it for him. When she called back, Marshall had a slot and was expected anytime.
Maggie was about Jillian’s age, but looked a hundred years older. Her face was drawn and pinched and her shoulders slumped. She was about seven months pregnant. The glow he had always heard about was definitely missing.
“I’ll get him settled,” she said. “But I’m not up to dealing with this long term. I’ve already told him I don’t want him around the baby, and that was when I thought it was just alcohol.”
Adam helped her get Marshall to his feet and out to her car. He then ran back in to grab a barf bowl and a towel. He locked the door behind him.
“This is the name of the place, and the address. They’re expecting him. Someone will help get him out of the car for you. Whatever you decide to do, it’s between the two of you. I’m not involved.”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Good, then you can’t ask me for help.”
Adam slept in the guest room again. Saturday morning, he started cleaning. Staying busy kept his mind from dwelling on Jillian and the empty place he felt inside. At noon, he borrowed his neighbor’s pick-up and went to Home Depot for a new back door. It took most of the afternoon to install, even with Chester holding it in place. For some reason, he took the cat door out of the old one and saved it before putting the broken door in the trash.
When he finished, he looked up at the motion detector security light. He had angled it high so Rover wouldn’t set it off. He flipped the breaker switch and pulled a chair under the light. As soon as he touched it with the screwdriver, a jolt of electricity threw him back, out of the chair and onto the deck.
The Secrets on Forest Bend Page 22
