For reasons that Michaels could never understand, it was important to Petrelli that all bad guys be portrayed as sociopaths whose actions were irrational. He had no tolerance for extenuating circumstances that might have driven the criminals to behave the way they did. His obsession with dehumanizing lawbreakers pushed him to be the first to the microphones with a hard-line prosecution strategy. His approach had certainly served his career well, but Michaels, as cynical as he himself had become, couldn't help feeling sorry once in a while for the poor bad guy.
In the case of Nathan Bailey, Michaels didn't know what to believe. Prisons of all sorts, whether built for adults or for children, were inherently violent places, occupied by criminals with violent pasts and staffed by personnel whose primary function was to quell violence. It didn't stretch his imagination at all to envision a staff member becoming homicidal. As unlikely as Nathan's story was, the boy's presentation of the facts was too detailed, too articulate, to be written off as a complete lie. Indeed, if it weren't for the fact that Ricky Harris was dead, Michaels might have been inclined to launch a second felony investigation.
Yet, even if he accepted Nathan's claim that he had killed in self-defense, it was still true that the boy had broken the law when he escaped from the Juvenile Detention Center, and he remained a fugitive from justice. As a law-enforcement officer, Michaels's obligation to apprehend the escapee had not changed one whit. While he agreed with The Bitch that the kid was undoubtedly due a little luck in his life, Michaels would continue to turn the area inside out until he was caught. He'd also continue reminding his patrol officers and detectives that a prisoner capable of killing once was capable of killing a second time.
For Michaels, the most telling and convincing words the boy spoke on the radio were his vow never to return to the JDC. They were the words of desperation; and desperate people were known to do foolish things, even in the face of outrageous odds. Nathan still was a very dangerous young man indeed.
On the other end of the phone line, J. Daniel Petrelli had built a much more complicated world for himself than the one in which Warren Michaels lived. In addition to considerations of mere guilt and innocence, Petrelli had to consider how each prosecution would play in the press, constantly weighing the political impact of every win and every loss. There were times when pollsters in his employ could barely keep up with the changing tides of investigations. The perceived guilt of any defendant was a key element in determining how public and how aggressive the pursuit of a guilty verdict would be.
This morning, it had seemed so clear in the Bailey case. People were sick and tired of being frightened of out-of-control kids, and the blatant and willful murder of a corrections official by an escaping convict had been more than the public could bear. Rarely had there been such an opportunity to show strong leadership in the Commonwealth's Attorney's office.
True, the initial stages of the investigation had begun to unearth some dirt on Ricky Harris, but Petrelli and his staff had already devised a strategy whereby any leaks about violence in the detention facility would be made a secondary issue. It would be stressed that no child had the right to take the life of a corrections officer just because he claimed to be frightened.
Who in the world would have thought that the kid would take his case directly to the people on a nationally syndicated radio show? The little shit's performance was perfect. It was still way too early to have any hard polling numbers, but there was no doubt what they would show. Americans loved the underdog, even underdogs who killed. In twenty short minutes, Nathan Bailey had placed the police and the prosecutors on the defensive.
Petrelli saw it all so clearly. The Bailey kid had been incarcerated by a judge for stealing his uncle's car, and for being declared incorrigible. He was to have remained in detention for eighteen months. He had taken it upon himself to unlawfully leave the Juvenile Detention Center, and in the process killed a supervisor. He was a thief, a jailbreaker and a murderer, and he deserved to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
But Petrelli knew, even before the first polling question was asked, that all the public would see was a small, beaten boy being pursued and outnumbered by big bad cops. Petrelli was reminded of the old television series The Fugitive. Everyone knew from the outset that Richard Kimble was a fugitive from the law, and that Lieutenant Gerard was just doing his job, but who did everyone see as the villain?
The senator-to-be was sitting on the edge of a public relations nightmare, and he held Michaels responsible. If the police hadn't botched the response, the ,kid would have been reincarcerated before dawn. Now he'd been on the run all night, and he had done incalculable damage to a political career in its infancy.
"So listen to this carefully, Lieutenant Michaels, because I will only say it once. I expect you to apprehend Nathan Bailey by this afternoon at the latest. And I don't want to hear any excuses!"
That was it. Michaels had been able to tolerate Petrelli's rantings to this point, busying himself with other trivial tasks on his desk. But the prosecutor had crossed the line.
"All right, J. Daniel, I've listened carefully," Warren said in measured tones, "and I guarantee you'll only say it once. Here's how I see it: You just couldn't wait to open your big mouth this morning and make wholly unjustified comments to the press. I'm the cop, J., you're the mouthpiece. If you'd have waited for us to collect evidence before you rested your case, you wouldn't be looking like such an asshole now. My heart fucking bleeds for you.
"Personally, I don't give a rat's ass who's elected senator this year. I probably won't even vote. All I care about is doing my job. Save your speeches for the press, J. And stay off my phone!"
He slammed the receiver onto the cradle. Damn, that felt good.
"Feel better?"
The familiar voice startled him. When Michaels looked up, he saw Jed Hackner's form filling the doorway. "Jesus, Jed, I don't need a heart attack today."
Hackner smiled, helping himself to one of the straight-backed chairs in front of Michaels's desk. "Lighten up, boss. Talking to your buddy Petrelli?"
"You got it. The asshole's beginning to panic after Nathan Bailey's radio debut. Did you hear it?"
Hackner nodded. "Yeah. Well, most of it. I missed the first couple of minutes. He sounded pretty convincing to me. Overall, I think Petrelli's got reason to panic. He made the kid sound like young John Dillinger, when Oliver Twist might have been a better choice."
Michaels smiled wryly. "Yeah, well, I don't remember little Oliver killing any law-enforcement personnel." He abruptly changed the subject. "I don't suppose you have any good news for me."
"Well, I don't know if it's good or not, but it certainly is interesting."
Michaels's thick eyebrows raised in anticipation.
"First of all, we haven't been able to contact the kid's uncle and ex-guardian, Mark Bailey. We tried on the phone; even sent a unit around, but if he was home, he wasn't answering the door."
"You think he helped in the escape?"
"Not likely. There's not a lot of love lost between the two of them."
"Give me the lowdown."
Hackner removed the notebook from his pocket and started reading. "This all comes from the Juvey files. Judge Potter unsealed them for us this morning. Kind of a sad story, really. For the first ten years of his life, Nathan Bailey was raised by his father. His mother died when he was just a baby. Daddy was a lawyer with lots of bucks, but not much in the way of estate planning. Two years ago, Daddy's car got whacked by a train, killing him. With no provisions for who was gonna take care of Nathan, custody went to Uncle Mark, way down in the Jackson's Corner area. Apparently Mark thought that the kid would be supported by a trust fund, but Daddy had just sunk two-plus million into his practice, secured against every asset he owned. By the time his estate cleared probate, there was nothing left.
"Needless to say, Uncle Mark was not a happy camper. Not only did he have custody, but he had no way of paying for Nathan's upkeep. So, he didn't
. Social Services was out to the house a half-dozen times over the year Nathan was there, responding mostly to neighbor complaints, but nothing ever came of it. Finally, about a year ago, Nathan stole his uncle's car, claiming that it was the only way he could get far enough away from the son of a bitch. Of course, Uncle Mark pressed charges. Record shows that Judge Potter offered a sweetheart of a probation deal, but Uncle Mark didn't want to hear it. He told the court, and I quote, 'A little time in prison never hurt anyone:"
"Nice guy," Michaels snorted.
"No, he's not," Jed corrected, very serious. "Mark Bailey knows whereof he speaks, having logged seven years at Leavenworth for burning down an officers' club in Texas. In the eight years he's been in the county, he's had three DWIs, two disorderly conducts, and an assault and battery charge that was dropped when the victim had a change of heart about testifying. He's also logged about a million bar fights, almost all of them on the losing end."
Michaels was incredulous. "Did Social Services know about all this when they assigned custody to him?"
Hackner shrugged. "I guess so. To be honest, there really wasn't much of a choice. It was either Uncle Mark or foster care."
Michaels shook his head slowly, briefly pushing aside his cynical cop's perspective and seeing it as a father would. "Tough breaks for a little kid."
Jed flipped a page in his notebook. "Yeah, well, it gets worse. Two different psychiatrists, paid for by Daddy's lawyer friends, submitted petitions to the court for the kid to be kept out of the Juvey system, claiming that the emotional stress would be too much for him." Hacker held up a yellow sheet of paper. "Report here says the two docs claimed the kid 'lags behind his peers physically and emotionally.' But you know Judge Potter. He feels for the kids whose cases he hears, but if you've broken the law, you're gonna pay. So he shipped Nathan, who'd just turned twelve, up to Brookfield and put him in the general population. He arrived on a Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday night, he's gang-raped with a broom handle and has to spend a week in the infirmary."
Michaels winced and held up his hand. "That's enough. I don't want to hear any more. Is the rest just gossip, or does it have any real bearing on the case?"
Jed shrugged, his feelings hurt. He was a cop, not a columnist. He didn't deal in gossip; every detail had a bearing on a case. But he had known Warren long enough to know his meaning. He flipped his notebook closed. "No, I suppose that's about it. But there is more news."
"And what might that be?"
"Turns out we've got a videotape after all."
"I thought the camera was broken."
"The camera in the Crisis Unit was. But we were able to catch Master Bailey on his way out through the in-processing area."
"Were other cameras working, too?"
"Not all of them. The rec hall camera was off-line as well. All the others seem to be in good shape. But the Bailey kid only passed through that one zone. Plus, we've got another couple of seconds of him exiting the back door. You want to see the tape? I've got it set up in the conference room."
Both men rose together, Michaels following Hackner out of the office. The squad room beyond the glass partitions of Warren's office was crammed with twice the number of desks it was designed to contain, providing space not only for Michaels's eight subordinate detectives and the clerical staff, but also for three building inspectors, a probation officer and a displaced Welfare staffer who never seemed to move up on the priority list for space at her own agency. Wedged into a third-floor corner of the forty-year-old Civil Defense Building, the view from the windows was dominated by the Adult Detention Center on one side and a sprawling magnolia tree on the other.
"So how come the only cameras that weren't working were the ones we needed to see?" Michaels asked, navigating a serpentine route through the maze of desks.
Hackner shrugged. "Pretty convenient, isn't it?"
"I want you to look into that angle, okay, Jed? I want to know if somebody helped him. Start with the uncle."
Hackner agreed. "I've already got Thompkins trolling that line."
They entered the conference room opposite Warren's office and closed the door. The television was on, the tape cued. With the press of a button, the image on the TV screen wiggled and danced while the heads in the VCR took up the slack. In the fuzzy black-andwhite shadows typical of security cameras, Michaels watched an empty room he recognized from the night before as the in-processing area. From the upper right-hand corner of the screen, a boy appeared, looking ridiculous in a hugely oversized pair of coveralls. He looked frightened; his movements were simultaneously quick and hesitant. He was barefoot. His clothes were smeared with what could have been ink, or even chocolate syrup in the colorless image, but what everyone knew was his victim's blood.
"Stop the tape," Michaels commanded. An instant later, the boy on the screen stopped, his legs slightly skewed from his torso, a fuzzy electronic line bisecting the two halves. "Bailey said on the radio that the guard-the supervisor-took away his shoes. Why did he do that? Is that standard practice?"
Hackner shook his head. "Don't know for sure yet, but I don't think so. If we believe Bailey's story on the radio, could be that Harris was just trying to be nasty. I'm meeting with Johnstone this afternoon to find out what I can."
Michaels motioned with a nod. "Go ahead. Start the tape again."
The boy's body became whole again, and he darted straight for the camera, looking over alternating shoulders with every step. He moved like a dog encountering a shadow in the night, not sure whether to stand and fight or to run away. The boy on the screen was visibly startled when he noticed the camera. He turned completely around, presumably checking to see who would be following him.
When Nathan turned back to the camera, Michaels's heart stopped beating for just the briefest of moments. The expression in Nathan's eyes was one he had seen before.
"Stop the tape!"
The command was louder this time. The body was cut in half again, more severely this time, but the face and eyes were untouched by the interference. Nathan's eyes spoke of fear and uncertainty, the wrinkled brow showing greater age than the smooth features should allow. Beyond the blood and the fear was the face of a young boy begging for help.
Michaels had seen that very expression dozens of times from the face of another insecure, introverted twelve-year-old who'd once depended upon him for so much, but now was silent forever. An image flashed though his mind of that other boy's face-now expressionless-reclining against a satin pillow, looking so uncomfortable in an ill-fitting suit, a ridiculous gap around the shirt collar. So confined in a narrow box.
Michaels felt suddenly light-headed, and lowered himself clumsily into a chair at the conference table. His face was drained of color.
Hackner reached out to help his friend into the chair. "My God, Warren, are you all right?"
Michaels thought he shook his head, but in reality didn't move. "I don't know, jed." His eyes never left the screen. His throat was thick. "Look at his face, Jed. Look. He's got Brian's eyes."
Jed saw it, too. The likeness was remarkable, though not so much in the eyes as in the expression. He felt awful for not catching it during his previous viewings of the tape. He could have warned Warren up front, or even avoided that portion of the tape. Jed felt genuine pain for him.
"I'm so sorry, Warren," Hackner said. "I'll turn it off."
"No, don't:' Michaels said firmly, having regained his composure before ever really losing it. "Jesus, Jed, I thought I was past it. I can't keep reacting like that. I'm okay. Let's watch the rest of it."
Jed kept a careful eye on his boss as he restarted the tape. Once again, the electronic image melded together, just long enough for the boy to slip quickly out of the frame. There was a quick editing blip on the screen, and then they were looking at the exterior of the exit. In the foreground were a portion of the driveway and a short sidewalk. In the background was a door, which opened slowly to reveal the hero of this little television drama as he slipped
out of the door, relocked it, and then sprinted out of the picture. One more blip, and the screen was blank.
Neither man said anything for a long moment while Hackner thumbed the power button and killed the television. "Well, boss, what do you think?"
Michaels sighed loudly, rubbing his face with both hands. "I think I wish I hadn't watched it. That tape's going to make my job a lot harder. Does the press have it yet?"
"What, are you kidding? Petrelli's hounds were all over that tape like flies on dog shit. He's got a movie of a blood-soaked murderer. My guess is they had it to the news stations even before we had copies made."
Michaels chuckled softly. "I don't know about you, Jed, but what I saw looked less like a murderer than a frightened puppy." He could just imagine the look on Petrelli's face the first time he viewed the tape and realized that his minions had already turned it over to the press. It wasn't going to be pretty, but Warren would have paid a hundred dollars just to be there.
"J. Daniel's going to shit pickles."
With the briefest movement of his head, Michaels returned to the business at hand: catching the whipped puppy who was making Petrelli sweat so much. Rising abruptly out of his chair, he led the two-person parade back toward his office. "One thing I want you to check up on, Jed, is the telephone records to that radio show. Every time a call is made to an 800 number it's got to be logged into a computer somewhere. I want you to tap into that computer and find out the number where that call originated. We'll trace it and get the kid back home."
Hackner moaned. He had done similar searches before, most recently for a fraud case, only to be inundated with hundreds of telephone numbers, each of which had to be checked. The case he recalled was an investigation of a small consulting business, and that investigation had taken a week to complete. The Bitch had a nationwide audience, attracting probably a thousand calls an hour. There weren't enough police officers in the world to complete that kind of investigation in anything close to a reasonable time.
Nathan's Run (1996) Page 7
