Nathan’s Run

by John Gilstrap

  The circumstantial, physical evidence was undeniable, but Warren still couldn’t put it together in his head. How did a kid who had spent most of his formative years in upper-crust suburbia learn to kill with such skill? How did a twelve-year-old who was known by his peers as a wimp muster the courage and physical strength to overcome three adults and kill them? Okay, so the first one was drunk and unlucky—or so said Nathan—but what about the ones last night? How does a boy wrestle a gun from a man and still have enough composure to snap off perfect kill-shots?

  For that matter, what were the cops doing wearing firearms in the cellblock? That violated the most basic security procedures followed by every jail in America.

  He tried to reduce it to a timeline on his legal pad. Assuming that Nathan got as far as his cell, and according to Deputy Steadman, that was where the boy was the last time he saw him, Schmidtt had to be the first one killed. Otherwise, where would Nathan have gotten the gun? Warren wrote on his pad, Smuggled in gun?

  No, the gun he took from the Grimeses’ house was found in the Honda, unused. Could always have been a second piece, but where would he hide it? Steadman’s report said that Nathan was thoroughly frisked before he was put away.

  So, one way or another, Nathan whacked Schmidtt. With the door open, he had free access to the hallway. So why didn’t Watts react? He was shot in his chair, once close up, and once from further away. The Polaroids clearly showed powder burns around the mouth shot, but none on the chest. When you hear shooting down the hall, you don’t just stay in your seat. You react. At the very least, then, there should have been a shootout in the hallway, but that wasn’t the way it happened. Watts was shot dead where he sat. Shot twice.

  Michaels strolled out to the watch desk and ran some quick mental calculations. The young deputy assigned to maintain security stepped aside to let him past. Standing at the side of the watch desk, at the doorway to the cellblock, Warren pantomimed a shot. His extended arm came within three feet of the taped outline on the floor. This had to be where the head shot was fired. The circled hole in the linoleum even showed where the bullet exited Watts’s brain and lodged in the floor.

  That meant Watts was already on the ground when Nathan allegedly fired point-blank into his mouth. In all his years on the force, Warren could only point to a handful of sociopaths with the cojones to shoot a man in the face at close range.

  Why would he do that? Warren asked himself.

  Taking care not to step in the blood slick, Warren stepped in behind the watch desk to pantomime the events. “Okay,” he said aloud, talking himself through the timeline. “I’m sitting here doing paperwork, and I hear a shot from down the hall. What do I do?”

  “You’d go and check it out,” the young deputy answered, apparently thinking the question was addressed to him.

  “Huh?” The comment briefly broke Warren’s concentration. “Right. Yes. That’s exactly what you’d do.” He again stepped over the mess to enter the hallway. “So, reacting to the noise, you run out into the hall like this, with your weapon drawn, right? I mean, you’d be ready for a fight, right?”

  “Shit, yes,” the deputy declared.

  Warren nodded. It was coming together. “Yes. Shit, yes. Like you said.” He fumbled through the Polaroids again. “But Watts’s weapon remained in its holster. Why wouldn’t he draw his weapon?”

  The deputy shrugged. “Beats me.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Maybe he holstered it after he was hit.”

  Warren considered that. “So, you hear gunfire. You react. You come out into the hall, and you’re bushwhacked with an incredibly good shot. You’re hit in the chest. Surely you know you’re dying, or at least you know you’re in a hell of a lot of pain. Are you going to take the time to reholster your weapon?”

  The deputy shrugged again. “Don’t know. Never been shot.”

  Warren chuckled. The logic amused him. “Fortunately, neither have I. But I just can’t imagine that. The last thing I’d do is take away my last chance for fighting back.”

  “What else could have happened?” asked the deputy.

  “Suppose he never drew his weapon in the first place?” “Shit,” the deputy snorted. “That don’t make no sense either.”

  Warren nodded pensively. “No. No, it doesn’t. A cop hears shots, he’s gonna pull his gun. It’s instinct. Unless…”

  Suppose somebody shot Watts first? Chest shot first, then, as he lay on the ground, the head shot. That would work. And Schmidtt? He had to be shot second. Well, maybe he didn’t have to be, but it sure made sense.

  The accomplice!

  So, somebody comes in the front door, pops Watts, and then goes into the cellblock to break out his buddy, Nathan.

  Okay, so where was this accomplice now? Helps the kid break out of the JDC and then disappears, only to reappear in New York in time to kill two cops. That Was some accomplice!

  Then he saw it.

  The mind is a funny thing. You program it with a certain set of assumptions, and it will dutifully draw dozens of conclusions, all of which are plainly obvious—common sense, even—so long as you never question the validity of the assumptions. The most oft-forgotten job of a police detective is not only to seek evidence, but to continually question the most basic assumptions on which the case was based.

  In a single moment of inspiration, Warren realized that they’d been looking at all of the evidence surrounding Nathan’s escape from the wrong angle. Even when he had allowed himself to accept the kid’s version of what happened at the JDC, he hadn’t seen it. Those two deputies were never the target of whoever shot them. They were just in the way.

  Warren’s body jumped visibly when it all crystallized for him. Nathan was in far deeper trouble than any of them had realized.

  “Deputy, get me Sheriff Murphy right now,” he Commanded.

  The young man seemed startled by Micliaels’s suddenly harsh tone. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know where he is…”

  “I didn’t ask you if you knew where he is. I told you to go get him. And point me to a phone.”

  Jed Hackner nearly dropped the phone when he heard Michaels’s theory. “A hit? Jesus, Warren, are you sure?”

  “Think about it, Jed,” Michaels said urgently. “If we assume somebody’s got a contract out on Nathan, everything else falls into place. This kid’s not a killer. He’s just defending himself.”

  Jed admitted that the theory had merit, but making sense didn’t make it so. Perhaps Brian’s death last fall was making the boss lose perspective. “With all due respect, Warren, don’t you think maybe you’re taking benefit of the doubt too far?”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Warren acknowledged, his voice getting more anxious. “I know it sounds like I’ve lost it, but think. It’s more than just the killings. How do you explain the breakdown of the video security at the JDC—not the whole system, mind you, but just the parts that would show Ricky coming and going.”

  “And the plane ticket.” Jed saw it, too.

  “What plane ticket?”

  Jed told him about his visit to Ricky’s apartment and his talk with Mitsy.

  Warren’s excitement showed in his voice. “I think that pushes it over the top,” he said. “Why else would Harris go to so much trouble just to kill a kid? You don’t trash your whole life just because you don’t like a resident at the JDC. Hell, he didn’t like any of the residents of the JDC. Somebody had to be paying him.”

  “So who’s gonna put a contract out on a kid?” Jed asked.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” conceded Warren. “That’s what I want you to find out. I’ve got to call off the dogs up here. You said you were gonna do some digging into Ricky Harris. Try his financial records. See if you can ID who’s funding him.”

  Jed frowned. “We’ve already started, but we haven’t turned up much. Wait.” A manila envelope had materialized in Jed’s in basket since the last time he had visited his office. It bore the logo of Br
addock Bank and Trust. “Cancel that. We have his bank records. Must have just gotten here.”

  “All right, good. Start there. Get me a good solid case that Nathan’s a good guy and that Ricky’s the bad guy.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  “And Jed?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get that kid Thompkins involved in the investigation. After the week he’s had, he could use a few (atta boys.”

  Jed smiled. “Nobody was ever that nice to us, you know.” Warren laughed. “Yeah, I know. Well, if I’m wrong on this one, there’ll be plenty of career mobility for all of you.”

  Chapter 33

  Nathan dialed continuously for over an hour before the phone line finally rang. Billy caught the change in the rhythm of dial-hang-up, dial-hang-up, and instantly shifted his attention from The Price Is Right.

  After thirty rings, a familiar voice answered.

  “You’ve reached The Bitch line,” Enrique said. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Hi, it’s me,” Nathan said simply. “I need to talk to Denise.”

  Enrique recognized the voice right away. “Hold on, Nathan, I’m sure she’ll put you right on. Callers have been pretty tough on you today.”

  “I bet,” Nathan said dejectedly. “Been a tough day all around.”

  “Did you do any of what they’re now saying?” Enrique probed gently. It wasn’t his place to ask such a question, but he couldn’t help it. He had to know.

  “I didn’t kill those cops, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Enrique said, meaning every word. No doubt about it, he was a believer. “I’ll put you through now.”

  While on hold, Nathan could hear the end of the last conversation. Some lady was calling him a “bad seed,” whatever that meant. Denise hung up on her abruptly, and his line went live.

  “Nathan Bailey, are you there?”

  “I didn’t do it!” Nathan blurted out.

  Denise read the panic in his voice and fought away tears. “Okay, kid, I believe you,” she soothed. `Tell us what happened.”

  He did. When he was done, The Bitch was fifteen commercials behind. The list would grow considerably longer before it began to shrink.

  Harry Thompkins couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “You mean he named me specifically? I thought he was pissed.”

  Jed laughed. “I’ve known Lieutenant Michaels a long time, kid. Trust me, if you leave the meeting able to stand, he’s not pissed.”

  Thompkins was overcome with a sense of respect and warmth that he had never before felt on the job. Michaels could have had his ass fired, and no one would have said a thing. Instead, he ordered him by name to be put on the most visible case of the year—hell, of the decade.

  Jed laughed again. “Christ, Harry, don’t look so stunned. He was a rookie once. A pretty stupid one, at that.”

  Harry smiled. “The mirror?”

  “Yep, the mirror.”

  “So that actually happened?”

  “Sure did. Took him years to recover the ground he lost that day.”

  Harry couldn’t shake his feeling of incredulity. “I guess I owe him one.”

  Jed clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “Yes, you do,” he said jovially. His mood turned suddenly serious. “Now to the business at hand,” he said. “The lieutenant wants us to swim upstream on this case. Wants us to prove that somebody has a contract out on the Bailey kid; that that’s the reason Harris tried to kill him. We’ve got bank records on Ricky that show a twenty-thousand-dollar deposit three weeks ago and then a total withdrawal of all funds the morning he was killed. When we’re done there, he wants us to show that the cops in New York were killed by a hit man, not by Nathan. We’re both convinced that Nathan was the intended target.”

  “A hit man?”

  Jed nodded. “Makes sense, really, if…”

  “Holy shit, that’s it!” Harry proclaimed, cutting Jed off in mid-sentence.

  “What’s what?”

  Harry didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up Jed’s phone and dialed information.

  “Braddock Hospital, please,” he said after a short pause. “Emergency Department.”

  Tad Baker hadn’t given the Bailey matter much thought since he had last spoken with Harry Thompkins. When he heard that the police officer was holding for him, it took Tad a minute to piece together their last conversation.

  “Hi, Harry,” he said cheerfully as he snatched up the hand set. Harry was all business. “Tad, you remember our little talk the other day?”

  Tad shrugged. “Uh-huh.”

  “You remember our rules of engagement? Say nothing if you agree and…”

  “Yeah, I remember,” he interrupted, none too comfortable about walking the ethical tightrope on an open phone line.

  “Okay, I’ve got one more theory for you. You ready?”

  Tad looked around casually. No one was within earshot. “I suppose?”

  Harry took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes. I think that Mark Bailey’s fingers were broken intentionally, by someone intending to do him harm.”

  There was a pause. Tad said nothing.

  “And I think that to do that, the perpetrator would have to be one sick son of a bitch.”

  Another pause. More silence.

  “Like maybe a hit man.”

  Tad didn’t say a word.

  “Are you there, Doc?” Harry asked at last.

  “Yeah, I’m here, but I’ve really got to go,” Tad said hurriedly. “Thanks a million, Tad,” Harry said, genuine affection in his voice.

  “Yeah, right. We’re not doing this ever again.”

  The line went dead, and Harry placed the receiver on the cradle.

  Jed was getting tired of feeling like he had entered this show in the middle of the third act. “What the hell was that all about?”

  “Come on,” Harry said, heading for the door. “I’ll explain it in the car.”

  Jed followed without thinking. “You think the kid’s uncle did all this?”

  “No. But I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he knows who did.”

  Chapter 34

  Lyle Pointer had endured just about as much of Nathan Bailey as Li he could stand. His face was everywhere: front page of the newspaper, the morning news, the evening news, every fucking place. Now the son of a whore was on the goddamn radio again.

  As he replayed the fuckups from the night before in his mind, Pointer absently rotated his wrist, trying to work some of the soreness out. What he needed was some aspirin for his throbbing head and arm, but he refused to give in. The dull pain helped him focus on what he had to do.

  One way or another, Lyle knew that he himself was a dead man. Even if Mr. Slater didn’t have him whacked outright for bungling such a simple fucking job, without the old man’s tacit protection, Pointer’s countless enemies would stand all night in long lines just for a chance to take him out. It was the curse of being good at your profession.

  Faced with his own mortality, he found himself surprisingly at peace with it all. Mr. Slater had a business to run, and the kind of sins Pointer had committed made it very difficult to conduct that business. But if the old man thought that Lyle was just going to saunter on into a trap—if he thought that he was just going to write off this Bailey kid and then make a suicide trip into the paws of Slater’s attack dogs—well, he had another think coming. Lyle had a job to do, and that job was right here in Pitcairn County.

  Lyle had thought a lot about death over the years. It was his business. It was his future. Hell, it was everybody’s future.

  He’d always had a premonition of how his own end would come. In his fantasies, it was always a gallant thing, perhaps taking the bullet meant for his boss, propelling himself into the special company of heroes among villains.

  Now there’d be no heroics, only shame. He could hear the mocking laughter now as his rivals pissed on his grave. Lyle Pointer—the Hit Man—beaten by a little boy.

 
Nathan Fucking Bailey had robbed him of his honor. A punk kid had made him a laughingstock. Who’d have ever thought it was possible?

  One thing was for goddamn sure. The little bastard wasn’t going to be around to share in the laughter.

  Until now, killing had always been business. Suddenly it was personal. And Lyle was going to enjoy every minute of it.

  Where does a kid go when he gets driven underground by the cops? he thought. His first two nights, the punk had time to scope out his hiding places. But this morning was different, wasn’t it? He had to work fast. He’d get out of the business district quickly; head for the boonies. Would he take a car? Maybe, but he always had keys before. Hot-wiring was a lot harder than television led people to believe. Pointer was willing to bet that the kid didn’t know how to do it.

  That meant he had stayed on foot. How far could he go on foot? Depends on how long he ran, doesn’t it? Young kid like that, in good shape, could probably run forever. He didn’t run forever, though, did he? Hell, no, he’s on the radio right now!

  Pointer prided himself on his sense for things like this, and he knew that the kid was close. If only he could pinpoint where.

  The telephone. The radio. The link was there somewhere. What was it that he’d read in the paper? Not the part where the idiot prosecutor couldn’t get his way, but something else. Something about that witness in Pennsylvania. He worked for the phone company, didn’t he? Yes, by God he did! Bastard said he felt “terrible” that he hadn’t put the pieces together sooner. Poor fool seemed to be really beating himself up over dropping the ball on identifying the kid when he saw him.

  A plan started to form in Pointer’s mind. The witness—Todd Briscow, there it was, right in the paper—probably would do just about anything to assuage his guilt, wouldn’t he? Given an opportunity to redeem himself—say, to cooperate with the prosecutor’s investigation—Pointer was by God certain that old Todd would just jump at the chance. If not, well, Lyle had made a very good living at being persuasive.