Hollow Man

by Mark Pryor

  It took three full seconds to realize that she was directing me to the gas station two blocks away. They had Otto's gun.

  I was the first one there, and I parked my car in the middle of the enormous and empty lot. I couldn't tell whether it was parking for people at the warehouse behind me, or whether the gas-station convenience store was overly optimistic. I leaned against the outside of my car and kept my eyes peeled for the cavalry, but after three minutes, the back door to the gas station opened and a middle-aged man started toward me. He was dark-skinned and wore that expression so many gas-station owners and clerks wear: tiredness, boredom, anticipatory hostility, and an edge of fear.

  Behind him, about half a mile away on Montopolis, I saw the procession I'd been waiting for, hoping for, the procession that told me I was still in the clear: an armored vehicle and the bland sedans driven by cops on duty. No lights, no sirens, in stealth mode, for now.

  Twenty yards away from me, the man waved a hand and yelled. “You can't park there.”

  “Who says?”

  “I do. This is my lot.”

  “We're going to be borrowing it for a few minutes.”

  He was in front of me. “What?” Indian, maybe Pakistani. “It's not for rent.”

  “I didn't say rent. I said, we're going to be borrowing it for a few minutes.”

  “Who are you? Who is borrowing?”

  I smiled genially and pointed behind him as the armored car growled its way through the parking lot toward us, four beige cars fanning out behind it like a wedding train.

  “What is this?” The man was indignant, not intimidated, and for a moment I was impressed.

  “We're meeting here for a chat, then going somewhere else. Nearby, but somewhere else. Now do me a favor and go back to your business.”

  He didn't budge, but his eyes got wider as the armored car pulled up near us and eight officers in full SWAT gear piled out. The police cars lined up behind the truck, and doors slammed as more cops joined the circle. I recognized one detective, Megan Ledsome. I'd gotten pretty close to her during a week-long trial when she'd been in Robbery. I didn't know she'd moved over to Homicide. She was blond, petite, and probably the prettiest cop I'd ever seen, and she carried an air of confidence (and a gun) that made her even sexier. Our lunches that week had lingered a little too long, become a little too informal, and when she realized what was happening, she made up for it by talking about her husband, Greg, how hard they were trying to have a baby. That was eight months ago, so it looked like the baby thing hadn't happened yet.

  She seemed pleased to see me but keen to hide that fact. We shook hands.

  “Who's this?” she asked, nodding to the Indian.

  “It's his parking lot,” I said. “Apparently, you forgot to make a reservation.”

  She turned to the man and introduced herself. “Sir, I apologize for taking up your time, and your parking lot. We're about to execute a very important operation nearby. We needed to stage somewhere out of sight of the target location, and this was the most convenient place. If you'll give us fifteen minutes or so, we'll finalize our plan and be out of your way.”

  “Yes, of course. Certainly.” He started back toward the station, stopped to look at us, then continued on his way.

  Ledsome turned to me. “Did Ms. Barcinski tell you we're here for Otto Bland?”

  “Otto? Seriously?” I did my utmost to look shocked. “No, she didn't. What does Otto have to do with this?”

  “That's what we plan to find out.”

  “She mentioned the gun. You found his gun?”

  “Yep. We got a call about it, from someone who saw him there. The ballistics match the bullet taken from one of the victims.”

  “A call? A phone call? From who?”

  “Yeah, a phone call. Is there any other kind?”

  “No, sorry, I just…from who?”

  “Anonymous. We're working on finding out, though.”

  “Okay, good.” I shook my head slowly. “Otto,” I said, “I just can't believe it.”

  We huddled around the hood of my car. Detective Ledsome had a map, and I stood back as she pointed out Otto's house. The plan was simple. A slicktop would drive down Porter Street and a detective in the backseat would hold his phone up, video app running, for a drive-by. They'd look at the video on the way back here to see if he was home, any little sign would do. Once back here, whether he was home or not, two more slicks would set off and block either end of the street. The SWAT vehicle would lead the way to Otto's, pulling up on the lawn and decamping in a matter of seconds to take down the door. SWAT would clear the place, the detectives would follow right behind.

  Ledsome went to the trunk of her car. “You know Bland pretty well, don't you?”

  “Acquaintance, I'd say.” I kept my face blank.

  “He worked at the DA's office, right?”

  “He did.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “Not much. Nice guy. Nice enough, anyway.”

  “Why'd he get fired?”

  “No clue. Probably spoke his mind and upset someone.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  Why is she pushing me like this? “At the DA's office a month ago. Juvenile Justice Center. He's a witness in a case and I interviewed him. Burglary, or car theft, I can't remember the case, it's not mine.”

  “Okay.” She started to turn away.

  “Oh, wait,” I said. “Jeez, I forgot. I was at his house, like, two weeks ago.”

  “His house.”

  “Yeah, it was weird. He called me after we'd met in the office. I guess for old times’ sake or he thought we'd connected, or something. He and I, we'd always got on pretty well. I know, you wouldn't think, but I kind of liked him. Maybe I felt sorry for him. Anyway, he called me one evening, I was just heading out of the office and he was all upset, not making any sense. Not babbling, exactly, but he sounded truly miserable.”

  “Why would he call you?”

  “From what he said, he didn't have anyone else. Anyway, he said he wanted to ask me about something, and when I asked what, he changed his mind and said he just wanted to talk. I didn't have anything planned, so I went over and drank a beer with him.”

  “What was his state of mind?”

  “All over the place. I mean, I had one beer, he must have had five or six. Eventually he nodded off on the sofa and I left.”

  “Did you hear from him after that?”

  “Nothing. Not a word.”

  “Okay, thanks,” she said. “So, you're not one of those paper-pushing DAs, are you?”

  “Meaning?”

  She popped the trunk and handed me a bullet-proof vest. “Meaning, you're coming in with us, right?”

  “Absolutely.” She was testing me, not just to see if I'd be scared of running into the home of a murderer, but to see what kind of person I was. Some irony, there. I pulled the vest over my head, secured the Velcro straps, and turned to her. “So do I get a gun? AR-15 preferably, but I'll take a shotgun.”

  “Funny,” she said, with the first hint of a real smile. “You can ride with me, I'll carry the gun.”

  Ledsome went over the plan one more time, and when the recon car drove off to scout Otto's house, the SWAT commander assigned specific roles to his men: who would breach the door, who would go in first, second, and third. The detectives and I would go in as soon as the place was secure.

  The recon car returned within five minutes, and we took turns looking at the video, grainy and wobbling, but we all agreed that Otto's car in the driveway meant he was probably home. With a rumble of exhaust and a small crowd watching from the gas station, we headed out of the parking lot and set off north on Montopolis Drive. I rode in Ledsome's slicktop at the head of the convoy, saying nothing. I could tell she was nervous; she was checking her mirrors, licking her lips, and adjusting her radio every few seconds. I shifted about in my seat to give that same impression, but I wasn't feeling it. Nerves didn't come to me
that way. My responses were physical, if any. My mind didn't seem able to torture itself with the what-ifs that empaths suffered in certain situations. Maybe he'd be there with a bazooka to blow us all away. Maybe he'd be on vacation in Hawaii and we'd find no evidence of anything. I knew Ledsome was considering all the options and her mind was teasing her with which it might be, and her body was responding accordingly. Like the robbery itself, I hoped she was too preoccupied with her own worries to notice my lack of them.

  Ledsome signaled and turned right on Porter Street, and when she saw that her entire team had made the turn, she picked up her handset. “Charlie 501. Let's go.” She gunned the engine and the car leaped forward, and I turned to see the snake-tail of vehicles surging after us, winding around the cars parked on the street and snapping back to the curb. A block away, Ledsome pulled to the side, and the car following us roared past. It was one of the detectives, who'd park his car across the street fifty yards on the other side of Otto's house. The armored truck went by next, aiming straight for Otto's lawn, bumping over the curb and coming to a halt across his front path. We followed at a crawl, giving them time to get into position and execute, watching them as they leaped from the back of the vehicle. Two men ran around either side of the house to cover the rear, while the rest went straight to the front door. A short battering ram made quick work of it, and as we pulled up opposite Otto's house, the door flew inward and the troops went in.

  We got out of the car and Ledsome looked over. “Follow my lead,” she said.

  “Will do.”

  Her head turned toward the house and we waited for a minute. Then she put a hand to her earpiece. “We have the all-clear.” She started moving toward the house.

  “That was quick.”

  “Those guys are good. And being fast is part of being good.”

  We reached the front of the truck. “Not in my book.”

  She looked over like I was weird, but part of not being nervous was not recognizing when to make sexual jokes. And when not to. I just smiled and followed her through the front door, going in sideways as several of the SWAT officers filed out.

  As we passed them, Ledsome stopped the team's second-in-command with a hand on his arm. His name patch read Shindler. He pulled off his helmet and looked like a Boy Scout, young and fresh-faced, like he wouldn't be ruthless enough to win an arm-wrestle with a preteen. Ledsome still had her hand on his arm and I felt a flash of jealousy.

  “Greg,” she said, “no one in there?”

  “Yes and no.” He grinned like a kid playing a prank on his mum. “It's safe, but I'll wait out here for you.”

  For you. Greg.

  She let go of his arm, and we went inside.

  “Detective, over here.” The SWAT commander stood by Otto's dining table and pointed at the floor. From the entrance, his sofa blocked our view, but as we rounded it, we saw what he was pointing to. Otto's body lay face up, his eyes half closed and his mouth slack. The right side of his head sported a black hole the size of a dime. Blood had trickled from the wound, down into his ear, a dark line leading to a congealed dark pool on the floor. A gun lay under the table.

  For ten long seconds we stood there looking at Otto Bland's body, all processing this apparent suicide in our own way. Ledsome's way was to lick her lips some more and slowly reach for her little notebook; the SWAT commander's was to stand in grim and respectful silence, Otto's personal honor guard. Me, I felt a warm wave of relief that started in my toes and washed upward, a relief so palpable I was sure these cops would feel it emanating from my body, or see the muscles of my face fighting the smile that every man smiles when he's told he no longer has to go to prison.

  As Ledsome took notes, I moved forward to get a better look. I knew Otto was dead, but the best way to truly believe something is to see it with your own two eyes. Up close. But when I drew level with her, Ledsome put a hand on my chest.

  “Let's let CSU do their thing,” she said.

  “Sure.” I nodded and backed off. The crime-scene guys were thorough, and they'd almost certainly find my prints. They wouldn't be able to identify them, though. Even though all county employees gave prints for a criminal-background check, they weren't put into the automated fingerprint identification system, more commonly known as AFIS.

  Ledsome wandered over to me. “So what you told me before. Looks like we'll need that in a formal statement.”

  “Yes, of course. Whatever you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don't understand something, though,” I said. I didn't understand a lot of things. Suicide, especially in this situation, was one of them. To me, there is no one as important on the planet as me. My world revolves around me, and I try to make other people's do the same. So the idea of ending my own life is incomprehensible, and that meant I had my doubts about Otto's demise. I didn't think Tristan was up to the task, but given Gus's odd disappearance and Otto's unpredictable nature, there was room for doubt.

  “That's suicide for you,” Ledsome was saying. “Although most people who blow their brains out don't have the cops about to descend on them.”

  “Can you tell when he did it?”

  “No. The medical examiner is on his way. He'll give us an idea. Five or six hours ago, maybe, since the blood looks dried but there's no smell.”

  I grimaced. “Poor Otto.”

  “Unless he killed two men, in which case sympathy will be a little harder to come by.”

  “How did he know you were onto him?”

  “That's what I want to find out. Being former law enforcement, my bet is someone tipped him off somehow. Or just called with a question about his gun that made him suspicious. I really don't know, but I sure as hell intend to find out.”

  “I can't believe he's really a suspect in a double murder.”

  “It'd explain his bizarre behavior with you the other week.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But his crappy, dead-end job and objectively miserable life would explain that too.”

  “And you just gave him a motive to commit those crimes.”

  “To commit murder? Why?”

  She looked at me for a moment. “No harm in me telling you, I guess. We think one of the victims was basically a slum lord. Likely he had a few hundred, maybe a few thousand, bucks on him in cash.”

  “For real?” I processed the information for a moment. “How would Otto know that?”

  “Not sure yet, but he did a lot of security-guard gigs, and that included one at the Crooked Creek trailer park. He'd just started and maybe he got the job there on purpose when he found out about the money.”

  “That's possible, I guess.”

  Ledsome looked back toward Otto's body. “It's also possible he had no idea we were coming and decided that killing people wasn't something he wanted to live with.”

  “He killed himself from guilt?” An image flashed in my mind, not of Otto but of the man who'd accused me of stealing his music. The image wasn't dissimilar to what I was seeing here, a gun and a body, but the body had a different face. The reason was similar: the bastard's guilt at ruining my music career in Austin.

  “It's certainly possible. We'll look around once the body is gone, maybe find a note or something.”

  “Suicides usually leave one, I suppose?”

  “No, in my experience that's a myth. More often than not they don't. You have to look for other, less obvious signs.”

  “Such as?”

  “A glass of whisky. A sappy card to a relative. Evidence of private or business affairs being put in order. Sometimes there's nothing at all, no evidence whatsoever. If a sense of guilt hit him, it might have come like a tidal wave. People commit suicide very quickly, sometimes, when they see no way around what they've done.”

  “I didn't know that.” I turned to look out the window and suppressed another smile. If he'd done this to assuage his guilt, and not because he wanted to avoid prison, then he was heaping irony on top of irony. If that's what happened, then a man with
a conscience had seen the error of his ways and reaped his own soul, thereby saving a man who didn't have one.

  It may have been that warm tickle of relief still, but oh, how I wanted to laugh.

  The cops cleared out of the house when CSU arrived. In the front yard, neighbors peered over the yellow crime-scene tape and took photos with their camera phones, and we all knew that the media were minutes away.

  With so much going on, it was easy for me to slide around the crime scene, listening in and watching but with no one paying much attention to me. I didn't know what I expected to learn, or hoped to hear, but I kept my eyes and ears at work for anything that might conceivably link me to this place or the dead Otto. At about three o'clock, Ledsome offered to have an officer drive me back to my car.

  “We'll be here for hours, not much for you to do,” she said. “And after the initial excitement, now come hours of tedious police work.”

  I felt like I was in the clear, and while I was reluctant to separate myself from a place that might incriminate me, to give up this illusion of control over a potentially dangerous situation, I was genuinely tired. I also told myself that if they'd not yet turned up a diary or some sort of written confession with my name in it, they were unlikely to. I accepted that offer of a ride.

  The cop's name was Steven Constable, which was perfect of course. He was built slightly but moved like an athlete, graceful almost. He held the passenger door for me and went around to his side. As we drove down Porter Street, we talked.

  “So you knew that guy?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Decent chap, I'd always thought.”

  “Maybe he was. Couldn't live with what he'd done and ended it. Better than most assholes who try and get away with it.”

  “I suppose. I just couldn't see Otto doing a robbery like that. Always been a law man, one of the good guys.”

  “People change. Desperate circumstances, maybe. I heard he quit APD under a cloud and got fired from your office.”

  “Yeah, I don't know what for, though,” I said, preempting the inevitable question. “And he was working some pretty shitty gigs, security-guard stuff.”