Fast Falls the Night

by Julia Keller

  His cell rang. “Dammit,” he said. “I’ve got to take—”

  “Of course.”

  She waited, listening to his side of the conversation, the terse replies. He hung up and said, “Steve can’t make it to the Starliner. He’s at an accident scene on the interstate. Bad one. Multiple vehicles.”

  “How about Sheriff Harrison?”

  “She’s with him. All four lanes shut down in both directions. They’re up to their ears. So I’ve got to think of something else. I can’t go without backup.”

  She smiled. “Maybe Malik can come, after all. He’s wearing his Superman PJs.” Then she grew serious again. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” He had an idea, though. Would it work? He’d worry about that later. Once he was back on the road.

  Abruptly he drew her toward him to kiss her again. She pushed him away. Not hard, but her intention was unmistakable.

  “Jake—I thought I was clear. This can’t happen.”

  He was taken aback. “But just a minute ago—”

  He was right. She was sending him mixed messages. She wasn’t being fair.

  “That was a mistake. I got carried away,” she said. “It’s not possible, okay?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You need to go. You’re on duty.”

  “Fine. I’ll go. But just tell me why the hell we can’t at least try this. That’s all I’m asking. If it doesn’t work out—okay. No harm, no foul. But why can’t we try?”

  She looked at him. She liked looking at his face.

  “Why?” he repeated. “Give me a reason.”

  “Be careful tonight.”

  “Molly, I—”

  “Go.”

  Jake

  10:38 P.M.

  At night the Starliner looked a lot like the Emerald Oasis. It was a low, lumpy shape resembling a giant meat loaf, slumped dismally against the sky. He had parked on a tree-studded ridge above the motel, waiting for his new backup to arrive, and from here he could see the front doors to all the rooms.

  The Emerald Oasis was a motel he remembered from his childhood in Beckley. It was surely closed down now, he thought; businesses came and went, and that was a long time ago. Everything changed. The reason it had lodged so permanently in his mind was because, one night when he was five years old, his father had swept him up and placed him in the backseat of the car. They drove. The car stopped, and as his father opened the door he said to him, “Wait here.” Jake moved to the center of the backseat so that he could look out the front windshield. A green neon sign with EMERALD OASIS rose up over the roof of the motel. There was a palm tree under the word EMERALD, with lights twinkling along the leaves.

  Something happened that night. At five, he did not know what it was. His father came back to the car and they drove home. Jake’s questions went unanswered. He found out some details later, of course, and it was as ordinary and sordid as you might expect. His mother was at the motel with another man, one of his father’s friends. Jake never knew what was said inside that room when his father showed up. The incident, in retrospect, did not make Jake think less of his mother. He pitied her, imagining the desperation that must have been clawing at her from the inside out, to make her seek the shabby glamour of a place like the Emerald Oasis. Or the temporary solace of sex.

  “Jake.”

  The big face at the open window of the Blazer just about scared the crap out of him.

  “Charlie. Jesus, you startled me, man.”

  “Focus. You need to focus and concentrate, young’un.” Charlie Mathers grinned. He looked like he was having the time of his life.

  When Jake called his old colleague from the road, he had fully expected to have to do a sales job. He was prepared to appeal to Charlie’s sense of duty, and his pride, and even his manliness. But none of that was necessary. He had explained the urgency and his need for backup, and Charlie immediately said, “I’m there, partner.”

  Jake was still reeling—in a good way—from Molly’s kiss. He had no idea why she had turned him down. He got along fine with Malik. Malik liked him. So what was the problem?

  But right now he needed to compartmentalize, and he would. He climbed out of the Blazer. Charlie had parked his Denali down the road, and hiked up the steep ridge. He was panting heavily.

  They lay on their bellies, watching the Starliner. Jake aimed his binoculars: The office was dark, with a lopsided SORRY CLOSED sign hanging on the door. The parking lot was lit by only a single streetlight. It buzzed and flickered and seemed about to give up. There were no lights in front of the doors. Four cars inhabited the lot. Three of them were parked close together. The fourth was off by itself at the end of the lot, parked at a sharp angle instead of facing straight in.

  The plan was to swoop in with the search warrant, moving very quickly.

  “Sounds like a damned raid, not a search warrant,” Charlie had mumbled, when Jake went over it.

  But Charlie understood. Drug gangs were adept at destroying evidence on the fly; in minutes an entire case could crumble. They had to be quick. In order to be quick, though, they had to be knowledgeable. Jake didn’t want to waste time by starting the search in the wrong room, a move that would tip off the others in adjacent rooms, giving them an opportunity to dump the merchandise. From his swift upside-down view of the spiral notebook in the office, he had seen that all of the rooms were rented to a single person: John Parsons. There was no “John Parsons,” of course. Whatever the gang leader’s real name was, he had paid in cash.

  “What’s the final tally of overdoses?” Charlie whispered.

  “Thirty-three. Three of them died.”

  “Jesus. I heard about McHale.”

  “Did you have any idea he was using?”

  Charlie shifted the position of his stomach on the ground. “You hear things.”

  Abruptly they stopped talking. A door opened; a man came out of one of the rooms. He was dark and slender. Jake guessed that he was Mexican. Was it politically incorrect to assume that, based on what the man looked like through a pair of binoculars? Jake consoled himself: The FBI had briefed the sheriff’s department a few months ago, and they did not hesitate to call it a “Mexican drug gang.” Because that was where they came from.

  Jake still had not found the local dealer, the link between the gang in the Starliner and the addicts collapsing in the streets. But he would. He was going at it from the other end now. Instead of using the dealer to ID the gang, he would use the gang to ID the dealer.

  And they would get the carfentanil-laced heroin off the streets.

  “What’s he doing?” Charlie whispered.

  The man was walking around the lot, chopping at the gravel with the heels of his boots. He spit.

  “Don’t know. Maybe just blowing off steam.”

  They watched as he entered the room next to the one from which he had emerged. When the door swung open, the room’s brashly lit interior was suddenly visible, with a clarity like that of a movie screen. The man closed it quickly behind him, but not before Jake had seen what he needed to see: Two long tables were covered with heaps of plastic packages. The packages were filled with white powder. Seated at the table were two more lean, swarthy men, wearing pale green gloves.

  This was where the heroin was being cut with the carfentanil.

  “Guess they figure they don’t need to be too careful way out here in the woods,” Charlie whispered. “Pretty damn brassy, doing their business out in the open like that. They don’t even have a lookout.”

  Before Jake could answer he felt his cell vibrating in his pocket. The text was from Bell Elkins:

  Coming to join u. Need some diversion. Got to get my mind off something.

  Jake texted back a thumbs-up and their position. Her message was a little more personal than usual—Bell rarely gave a reason for her actions, because it was none of his business—but he didn’t mind her being there. In fact, he welcomed it. They couldn’t let these guys sl
ip away on a technicality. A prosecutor on the premises could ensure everything was done by the book. Minimize the chance of errors that might put these murdering bastards back out on the street.

  “Bell’s on her way,” he said. “Never known her to miss the action.”

  Charlie grunted. “Ain’t it the truth.”

  Now they waited. Once she arrived, they would move carefully down the hill and then, on Jake’s signal, rush the room, brandishing the search warrant and confiscating the drugs. Jake was looking forward to the interrogation. He’d make them give up the identity of the local dealer. And—yeah. Maybe Molly would hear about it. Maybe so.

  “Feels real good, being out here,” Charlie whispered. “Glad you called.”

  “You were my third choice, old man.”

  Charlie chuckled softly. “I bet. So what did the sheriff say when you told her I was your backup?”

  Jake didn’t answer.

  “Come on,” Charlie said in a harsh whisper. “You did tell her, right? You got permission?”

  “Well.”

  “What the hell are you thinking? Technically I’m a civilian. Pam Harrison’s going to chop your balls off when she finds out. And then she’ll go for mine.”

  “You’re a retired deputy. You’ve got more experience than me and Steve—and the sheriff, too, for that matter—put together.”

  Charlie’s whisper still sounded worried. “You’ve put me in a bad spot here. I told Doreen the sheriff signed off on it. Only reason she let me come.”

  “‘Let’ you come? Charlie, Charlie.” Jake’s whisper was lighthearted, but he knew the subtext would hit his friend hard.

  “Give me a break,” Charlie retorted. “Doreen worries about me. And you know what? Kinda nice to have somebody at home worrying about you.”

  They didn’t talk for a time. The crickets took up the slack, adding their jingly chorus to the rest of the night sounds: the spring peepers, the soul-haunting screech of an owl. Despite the danger, Jake felt the old juices stirring, the excitement. His heart rate was elevating by the second—and he loved it. Anyone who says they don’t get off on this, he thought with satisfaction, is a freaking liar. Even the most sincere and dedicated law enforcement professional was also an adrenaline junkie. Not a thing in the world wrong with that, Jake told himself. Not a thing.

  And there was also nothing wrong with wanting to share it with Charlie. Wanting to remind his friend what a kick it was: a stakeout on a warm August night. High risk, high reward.

  Jake heard a slight stir off to his left. He checked it. Bell was approaching their spot on the ridge on foot. She had parked down the road by Charlie’s Denali. She would be there in seconds. If Charlie was going to bail, he would have to do it soon.

  The older man’s voice sounded troubled. “I don’t know. Jake. I’d like to help, but I don’t want to piss off Pam Harrison. Maybe I oughta just go back home.”

  “Hold on,” Jake said. “Ask yourself this. What would Benson and Stabler do?”

  Charlie laughed softly. There was a brief pause. “Okay, partner. I’m in.”

  The moment Bell appeared, the two men got to their feet. There were no greetings, just a round of nods. It seemed to Jake that Bell was a little preoccupied. She wasn’t her usual highly alert, hard-charging self. She was quieter, more taciturn. He chalked it up to the drama of the moment. Draining this particular swamp would mean a lot to Acker’s Gap.

  He was glad, frankly, that she had a lot on her mind tonight. Otherwise she would have posed her own questions about Charlie’s participation. She’d want to know if Sheriff Harrison approved. Jake would have told her the truth—you don’t lie to Bell Elkins—and she might have shut them down. But if she didn’t ask, he was in the clear.

  And she didn’t ask.

  They found the steep path from the top of the hill that Jake had scoped out. Down they went, traveling single file through the tangled brush. They moved stealthily across the semi-dark parking lot.

  Jake took the lead. He approached the door. Charlie was right behind him. Bell stayed off to the right. She activated her cell’s video camera to record the execution of the warrant. No slip ups.

  Jake banged on the door with his fist, a rapid flurry of blows. “Raythune County Sheriff’s Department,” he called out. “I got a search warrant to enter. Coming in.”

  Nothing.

  “Coming in,” Jake repeated. He rattled the knob; the door was locked. “Five seconds,” he yelled.

  He drew his sidearm. He signaled to Charlie. They heaved themselves sideways at the door, using their shoulders as battering rams. The cheap door collapsed without a struggle.

  The room appeared to be deserted. The merchandise was still stacked on the tables. From the bathroom, Jake heard the snick of a hinge.

  “They’re going out the bathroom window,” he said. “Charlie, start rounding up this stuff. I’ll go get ’em.”

  “Copy that,” Charlie said. He pulled out the gloves and the trash bag from his back pocket. He knew how careful he had to be with carfentanil.

  Jake was a fast runner. He had always been a fast runner. And even if he hadn’t been fast, he knew that getting three men out a bathroom window, one by one, would take some time. He rounded the side of the motel and there they were, tumbling out the window. He waited for the final man to hit the ground before he flipped on his Maglite and raised his sidearm.

  “Okay, fellas,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  It had been almost too easy. They weren’t armed, and at Jake’s command the three men, blinking in the bright light, linked their hands behind their heads. He marched them around to the front of the motel.

  Charlie emerged from the room with a garbage bag, now engorged with merchandise. He held it up for Bell to record with her cell.

  “Gonna need another bag,” Charlie said. “Still got more to pack up. These guys were planning to be in business around here for a long time, lemme tell ya.”

  Jake kept his Glock trained on the three men. He hoped Charlie would hurry. He was unsettled by how easily the gang members had surrendered; there were hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake, and they had capitulated without a fight. Weird.

  And he also didn’t like the atmospherics. He felt exposed, remembering how easily he and Charlie had looked down on the lot from their elevated perch. As dim as the single streetlight was, it still turned this area into a stage. Anyone could be watching them from the outer ring of darkness. He and Charlie and Bell were sitting ducks.

  Jake recited the Miranda warnings to the men. When he asked if they had understood him, one man said, “Sí.” Jake replied, “In English.” That prompted a “Yeah” from each man.

  His uneasiness was escalating.

  “Let’s wrap this up,” Jake barked at Charlie. “Finish our business and get these guys back to the Blazer.”

  Charlie grinned. “Come on, partner, chill out. Don’t get your panties in a bun—”

  The flat smack of a gunshot echoed across the lot, canceling the other night noises with a single vivid slash of sound. An eternity passed in the next tenth of a second. Jake’s head whipped around.

  Bell? Did it hit—

  Charlie crashed to his knees. The bright wound blossomed on his forehead. He swayed and then toppled, but before he went down, he looked directly at Jake, confusion in his eyes.

  “Charlie,” Bell cried out. “Oh my God—”

  Jake wanted to go to him, but he had to find the source of the shot. He and Bell were still vulnerable. He dropped to a crouch, arms extended, ready to fire. His eyes swept the lot.

  And then he saw her.

  At the door of the motel office was the manager, the toothless old lady he’d pitied that afternoon. She was holding the 12-gauge shotgun with practiced ease, squinting, taking aim. Her finger was on the trigger. She was ready for the second shot.

  “Jake!” Bell called out.

  He dropped the old woman where she stood. The gunshot hit her square in the
chest and she flew backward, slamming against the screen door. She screamed as she fell.

  He and Bell kneeled down beside Charlie. Three-quarters of his forehead was missing, replaced by a bloody cavity. Charlie’s eyes were glassy. Fluids bubbled out of his mouth and his nose. He opened and closed his mouth spasmodically, as his body frantically responded to the terrible injury. He jerked and twisted for another second or so, and then he stopped.

  “He’s still breathing,” Bell said. She had her fingers on Charlie’s neck, desperate to find a pulse. “Still got a heartbeat.” She ripped open his shirt and started performing CPR, frantically pumping with the heels of her hands.

  Jake was already on the line with the 911 dispatcher, giving their location, giving all the rest of the information. He never let of go of the Glock. Finished with the call, he lifted his weapon toward the three men, aiming it at their faces, one after the other. If they got away, then Charlie would die for nothing.

  “Anybody moves, anybody tries to run—I blow your freaking head off,” he said. “Are we clear?”

  This time they didn’t bother with the “Sí” and went straight to the “Yeahs” and the “Sures.”

  Jake retuned his attention to Charlie. Bell was still doing chest compressions but she was also talking. Her voice was low and affectionate. Charlie was long past being able to understand what she was saying, but Jake was glad she was saying it, anyway. Wherever Charlie was now, he might be aware of a syllable here and there, of the timbre and cadence of her voice, the voice of a friend:

  “Charlie—Charlie. Hey, Charlie. This is Bell. I’m right here with you, Jake’s here, too. Right beside you. We won’t leave you, Charlie. Promise.”

  Clearly the squad was not going to get here in time. In seconds Charlie Mathers, the good-guy deputy, the man who loved self-help books and Law and Order: SVU and chocolate ice cream and doughnuts and Doreen—Charlie was open about his passions, he enjoyed talking about the things he loved—would be no more.

  He was dying. Jake knew it, and he knew that Bell knew it, too. But neither one of them would acknowledge it.

  Bell had stopped talking. She had stopped the CPR as well, because he wasn’t responding, and the violence of it had begun to seem pointless and intrusive. Charlie needed peace now, didn’t he? Peace and rest. He deserved that. Jake almost believed he could read her thoughts.