by Zack Klika
“No. I was just . . . ,” Sanchez was saying. “I was just in a hurry. You did well on this case. Sorry things had to play out the way they did. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.”
Conn knew it was an idle gesture. She couldn’t think of a good reason for running after him. He was letting a case go that wasn’t done yet, but it wasn’t personal. He was just doing his job and following orders. Another pawn being pushed across the board.
“It was good working you, Agent Sanchez,” Conn said.
“You too, Detective.”
She watched him drive off and then went back into the station and grabbed her jacket, ready to leave for the day as well. If she was lucky, she could still make the end of her son’s soccer game.
On her way out, a lean desk sergeant with a thick mustache stopped her.
“A call came in,” he said. “Lady says it’s about Jennifer Carlson’s belongings.”
Conn went back to her desk and hit the blinking red light for line two.
“This is Detective Conn.”
“Hi. This is Martha at the Flat Rate Inn,” said the woman. “I just saw the press conference about that soldier Jennifer Carlson. Such a shame. Should I bring her belongings to the police station or can someone pick them up?”
Conn froze for a split second, then snatched the closest pen and piece of paper.
“I’ll come pick them up. What’s the address?”
“512 Wilma Rudolph Boulevard. Just ask for Martha when you get here.”
Conn scribbled the name and address down.
“Will do. Don’t give her things to anyone but me. Okay?”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Martha said and hung up before Conn could say anything.
Conn looked around for Johnson to let him know where she was headed but didn’t spot him. She threw her jacket on and headed out.
*
The Flat Rate Inn was an old pay-by-the-week-type inn. The two-story tan building had forty rooms in total. The paint had been done recently, which helped justify an increase in weekly price. It was five minutes away from the main gate of Fort Campbell, so visiting families rotated out of the rooms often.
As the sun was setting over the surrounding buildings, Conn pulled up to the waiting area just outside of the double sliding glass doors. Inside the inn, there was an older woman with a tall hairdo and thick turquoise glasses. She looked like a Martha.
“Martha?” Conn asked as she walked in.
“You must be Detective Conn,” said the woman with a raspy voice.
“That obvious?”
“No. I used a fake name when I called the station.”
All Conn could do was smile.
“That’s very clever,” said Conn. “Before I take Jennifer’s things, would you mind if I looked in her room?”
“Be my guest. It’s right this way.”
Detective Conn followed “Martha” up to the second floor and waited as she fumbled with a set of keys. After unlocking the door, Conn had her wait outside the door. The room reminded Conn of the barracks. The bare minimum in furnishings. A carpet of burgundy and gold swirls covered the entire room. The smell wasn’t bad. And the stains on the walls looked like they had been removed as best as humanly possible.
Conn checked the drawers, under the mattress, in the bathroom . . . Nothing. The room was empty.
“Martha. Can you come in here please?”
Martha pushed through the white door.
“Yes?”
“How long had Jennifer been staying here?”
“A few months.”
Conn nodded and took in the room one last time. “Did she have any visitors or anything you might have seen?”
“Not that I remember.”
“All right.”
Back at the front desk, Martha set a box on the high counter.
“Here ya go,” she said. “It’s not much, but there are a few valuables in there.”
“You’ve been a big help here,” Conn said.
“I’m just glad the bastards that killed her were caught.”
Yeah, Conn thought. If only you knew.
Conn set the box in her passenger’s seat and walked around the car, sliding behind the wheel. She flipped her dome lights on and shuffled through the contents of the box. There was a laptop, a camera, some clothes and toiletries. The camera still had some life in it, so she checked to see if there were any photos stored on it. No luck. The SD card in it was blank. She opened the laptop, but it was password-protected. Great, she thought.
She tried to plan her next move wisely. This was new evidence. She should take it to the police station and log it. She knew that. But somehow she knew it would end up in Agent Sanchez’s hands and nothing would come of it.
She couldn’t tell Johnson about it either. As far as he was concerned, Jennifer’s murder was an inconvenience that had cost both of them their own investigation into Buck Miller’s dealings. She thought about calling Riley, but she still had no idea if she could trust her.
As a journalist, Riley must want to find out what happened to Jennifer to get a story out of it. Something about Riley struck Conn as genuine, though. The more Conn thought about it, the more it made sense to give Riley a call. Even if Conn didn’t tell her about the laptop, at least she could get a feeling for what Riley was really after.
Chapter 34
Lee awoke from his drug-induced slumber with a nudge from his favorite nurse. He was a bit disoriented, but he could hear what she was saying.
“You’ll be able to go home this evening,” she said while setting a tray of food down in front of him.
Lee looked out the window. Pitch-black. How long had he been sleeping? The clock by his bed said 7:34. The last time he looked at it, he couldn’t even make out the numbers. Luckily the drugs were wearing off.
“Home?” Lee asked.
“Yes, you can leave after the doctor talks to you. He should be in shortly.”
Everything came rushing back to Lee. He looked at the door. No MPs. Where were they? They were supposed to stay there in case anyone came looking for him. Someone had killed Buck. He was sure of that. He needed protection, and no one was there to protect him.
“Where are the MPs?”
“They left a few hours ago,” said the nurse while she pulled out Lee’s folded cloths and set them on a chair in the corner.
“I need to talk to a police officer. Someone should be outside of the door guarding me.”
“Just calm down.” It was the nurse and she was rubbing his arm with those soft hands of hers.
Lee tried to concentrate on his rational fear, but her hands felt amazing. “Listen to me. Get the police here now. There’s been a mistake. I’m working with detectives on this.”
The nurse shook her head and walked out of the room. She motioned to someone down the hallway, and a few seconds later a uniformed police officer arrived. Lee could see him speaking to the nurse through the window. Then he came into the room.
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m working with Detective Conn. There’s supposed to be someone posted outside of my room.”
“You were cleared earlier.”
“But what about the guys that killed her?” Lee asked.
“They held a press conference a few hours ago,” the cop said. “Both men were linked to the soldier’s murder. A crime of passion. You should be happy. You’re not a suspect anymore.”
The cop didn’t understand what Lee was trying to say. Really, though, what could he expect from Conn after what he told her. He’d almost forgotten he’d threatened her. After the cop left, Lee switched on the little television in the corner of the room and found the local news channel. Knowing there was a cop down the hallway gave him some peace of mind. Highlights from the press conference were still playing.
There were stories that were only a blip on the media’s radar, and then there were stories like Jennifer’s. Stories that excited people. Ma
de them feel like they were watching a movie. The story Agent Sanchez spun would have been perfect for a movie. But it wasn’t the truth. The only reason Lee knew that was because he was the one who killed Danny.
Lee took a bite from the yogurt the nurse had brought in and left at his bedside table as a doctor entered with a clipboard. The doctor took a seat in the chair next to Lee.
“Good evening, Mr. Parsons,” the balding doctor said. A little nameplate on his left breast pocket said “Middleton.”
Lee gave him a nod and a smile.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.
“My head still hurts a little bit.”
The doctor smiled. “That’s to be expected after taking a piece of timber to the noggin.”
Something about the doctor put Lee at ease. He had a calm that Lee found refreshing after dealing with people like Conn and Sanchez and Johnson and Buck.
“You sure I should be leaving this soon?” Lee asked.
Everyone in the hospital knew about what had happened to Lee. Maybe that’s why they treated him the way they did. He had never known such kindness in all his life. And it hurt to know that it was only because he almost died at the hands of a couple of psychos.
“Things will get better. I know you’ve been through a lot, but you’ve got to move on.” Dr. Middleton placed a hand on Lee’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. “And I need this room back. I’ve got a woman in the ER that ate a tub of ice cream even though she has severe lactose intolerance.”
Before Lee could respond, Dr. Middleton was gone.
*
The air was still and icy when Lee emerged from the hospital. He stopped at the curb for a taxi, and a few of the nurses gave him well-wishes. Wishes wouldn’t keep him safe. A miracle might, though.
The cop at the hospital told him his Honda had been taken to the impound lot. Surprisingly, there was no bill for the impound. The female officer manning the desk gave him his keys and had him sign for them.
Walking down the line of cars that were locked up for different reasons, Lee noticed for the first time in two days that he felt great. The gash in his head didn’t look awful now that it was cleaned and stitched. The swelling had gone down since his kidnapping. And he was about to get his car back. The Honda wasn’t much to look at, but the heater kick-started better than any he had ever felt.
After finding his car, he inspected the inside. Nothing had been moved. Conn had held her end of the deal. Maybe he had gone too far with his threat. Maybe she was going to protect him no matter what but would do it on her terms. Too late now.
He pulled up to his apartment, half hoping that reporters would be there. He’d never gotten his fifteen minutes of fame and figured he never would now. Jennifer’s murder stole the spotlight from him. Just another black man used by the police, he thought. He sat in his car and scoped out the scene for a few minutes before heading up the stairs and going into his apartment. Would whoever killed Buck come after him, though? Did they know about him? He had no idea, but it was easy enough looking over your shoulder. A lot of people had no idea what situational awareness was. Lee did. The only person who had your back when you were growing up in the projects was yourself.
Everything in Lee’s apartment looked to be how he’d left it. He set his keys on the table next to the door, kicked off his shoes, and went straight to the bathroom. A bath was what he wanted, and he was determined to get his way after being taken advantage of for the past three days. He dropped a caramel-scented bubble bath pod under the stream of steaming water. The suds fizzled and bloomed to the edges of the tub, creating a work of art, and then dispersing as quickly as they formed. He eased into the tub and let the hot water take over, soothing his battered body, clearing his head, affording him a sliver of peace from an otherwise unimaginable week.
When he woke up, the water was lukewarm. He climbed out of the tub and grabbed the Best Buy bag off his kitchen counter. He opened the burner phone he had picked up on his way home and called Jarvis.
“You had me worried, man,” Jarvis said when he heard Lee’s voice. “I heard about Buck and Danny on the news.”
“That ain’t even the half of it. Who do you think took care of Danny,” Lee said, realizing it came off as bragging. Not what he had intended. But he had always acted a different way around Jarvis.
“Nah. You? For real?” Jarvis asked.
It could have been paranoia, but for whatever reason, Lee opened his laptop and started going through his security camera footage for the past twenty-four hours.
“It was me or him,” said Lee, trying to figure out why he was talking the way he was. Jarvis knew who he was. Lee didn’t need to show off.
“You gotta come through and tell me about it,” Jarvis said. “The bar’s starting to fill up. Catch you tomorrow?”
“That works,” was all Lee said and set the phone down.
The footage from his surveillance system wasn’t showing him anything besides an empty apartment. Watching something like that seemed spooky to him too, though. He hit the fast-forward button again.
A quick blur shot across his laptop screen at around four in the morning. He rewound the footage and hit play at 4:15 on Saturday morning.
“No, no, no,” Lee said to himself.
A white guy in a baseball cap and sweatshirt entered his home and looked around his living room. He looked in the bedroom too. Then he left, as empty-handed as he had been when he first arrived. Lee paused the footage. The time stamp said 4:18. The man had looked around the apartment for three minutes and then left. Lee checked the exterior camera footage, hoping to see the car the man had pulled up in. Nothing there. The man in the baseball cap came out of the night like the grim reaper.
Lee tried to comprehend what he had just seen. Someone was in his apartment. Looking for something, probably something having to do with Buck, or Danny, or maybe even Jennifer. He didn’t know if he should be scared or not. Of course he should be. Someone had broken into his home. But since he didn’t find anything, maybe he wouldn’t be back.
He thought about calling Conn. Bad idea. She didn’t want anything to do with him. Plus, the man’s face in the video was covered by his hat. There was no way to identify him.
The same fear Lee had felt in the trunk of Buck’s car came rushing back. He made a promise to himself right there: It’s time to grow up. You’ll never be that scared again. This was a second chance. A second chance to be a man. Lee went down to his car and popped the glove box open.
The gun was still there. He pulled it out and tucked it into his jacket pocket. He flicked both locks on the front door when he got back into his apartment and put the gun on the coffee table.
He didn’t have any other choice but to keep watch that night. Enough sleep had been had in the hospital anyway. He stared at the television, the view of his front door on it. If someone wanted to come for him, he’d be ready.
Chapter 35
Riley eased out of the shower and wiped away the moisture that had formed on her bathroom mirror. If only she could do the same thing to Jennifer’s story. Wipe away everything that was getting in the way. See the details clearly. Sanchez had spun a believable tale at the press conference. Riley didn’t buy a word of it. A scorned lover gone mad? No way. The way Jennifer was killed . . . Too horrific. All of the pieces pointed to a cover-up. Agent Sanchez leading Andrew Brown’s investigation two years ago was icing on the cake.
A sharp stabbing pain had formed near Riley’s left temple. She didn’t feel like going out to dinner with Thomas, but he had provided her with some valuable information and a deal was a deal. She popped some aspirin and two Vicodin and closed her eyes until the pain subsided. Warmth spread throughout her body as she lay on her bed. The concoction took less than ten minutes to kick in.
Dressed for a night out, Riley eased out of her front door. Her apartment complex was well lit, but it was night and a person could only see so far past the artificial dome of safety the street lights cast
. Her Volvo was in the same spot it had been before, but now it had four new tires.
Thomas liked his whiskey, so she had offered to drive. Halfway to the barracks to pick him up, she got the call from Conn.
“Can you meet me tonight?” Conn asked.
“Sure,” Riley said. “What time?”
“Now.”
Thomas would be upset, but screw it.
“Text me the address,” Riley said and hung up.
Riley tried calling Thomas to let him know she would need to reschedule. No answer. She sent him a text message instead: “Following up with a lead. Can’t make it tonight. Will make it up to you tomorrow night.” The message was short and sweet. A reply message came back almost immediately: “No worries.”
Providing Thomas with a reason for bailing bothered Riley. She didn’t owe him an explanation. Could have canceled the date altogether. But she didn’t. A vague fondness for Thomas had been brewing inside her lately. She would be out of the Army in less than a year, though. A relationship shouldn’t be in the cards.
The Volvo’s clock read 9:12 when Riley arrived at the curb of a surprisingly lovely home. She checked the house number on the mailbox and made her way to the front door. Conn opened the door before Riley knocked. She was in sweats and a tank top with her hair down. It was much shorter than Riley’s, stopping a few inches past the shoulders.
“My son’s sleeping,” Conn said, extending her hand.
“Gotcha,” Riley said, her knuckles cracking under Conn’s grip.
“Come on in.”
Conn led her through the hallway into the spacious living room. Riley shook her coat off and sat on a plush armchair across from the couch. A fire roared to her left.
“Can I get you a coffee or something?” Conn asked.
“Water’s fine.”
Conn came back a moment later with a water and a can of beer. She handed the water to Riley and sat down on the couch.
“Normally,” Conn said, “I would have met you somewhere else, but I couldn’t get a babysitter.”
“This is fine. Nicer than meeting in a seedy bar anyways.”
