Detective on Call

by Regan Black

  Another customer stood up and blocked their path, offering her assistance. He was knocked aside by the bald man.

  Other customers erupted, and both enforcers were suddenly more concerned with getting away from an angry mob than breaking bones for missed payments.

  Hopes of a quiet takedown were dashed. Everyone in the area leaped into the chase, police and citizens alike. Cell phones were recording it all for later analysis on social media.

  Emmanuel joined the chase when the bigger man ran across traffic to his side of the street. He called out, identifying himself and ordering the man to stop. He pulled his weapon but didn’t dare fire with so many civilians between him and his target.

  He saw the man peel off down an alley and shared that with another uniformed team in pursuit. When he caught up with them, they were calling in the report that they’d lost the larger enforcer.

  “Do we have anything?” Emmanuel asked. “A name, a dropped wallet or phone?”

  “None of the above,” the officers replied.

  “All right. Ask around for any security footage. We might get lucky with facial recognition. I’ll get back and help smooth things over,” he said. When he reached the coffee shop, he discovered customers and police had the bald man in custody. Police and customers alike were celebrating the cooperative effort to stop a bad guy.

  Pleased, Emmanuel headed back to the station. He wouldn’t be involved in questioning, which was probably for the best, considering all the other things he should be sorting out regarding Joe and the Hicks murder.

  He hadn’t found anything on Joe that his lieutenant would take seriously, and he was running out of places to look for useful proof. Ever since responding to the first break-in call at her condo, it felt like two steps forward, one back, and then a brick wall at every turn.

  Just like in the Wentworth case, the department was under serious pressure to make progress to resolve the threat of the poisonous RevitaYou vitamins and find the people behind its development. Riley Colton had pulled serious strings for this cooperative investigation into the deadly product and the loan operation that had bilked hopeful investors.

  Joining a few others in the observation room, Emmanuel got chills watching the henchman stonewall Lieutenant McKellar and Detective Gomez. They wanted the name of the devious person at the top of the Capital X food chain, profiting from deception and death, but the bald man refused to cooperate. The brute in the interrogation room provided only his name, Gunther Johnson, as answer to every question.

  McKellar, using a card from the man’s wallet, finally got him to admit he’d gone to the coffee shop on behalf of Capital X, but he refused to say who’d sent him. A few minutes more of McKellar threatening far more serious charges and Johnson shared more.

  “Look, I’m just an enforcer,” he insisted. “I bust a few bones for good pay. Really good pay. Targets are a whole lot easier than organized fights. No crime in that.”

  Detective Gomez shared a look with McKellar. “Beating up people actually is a crime, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Well, so is missing a scheduled payment.” Johnson shifted in his chair. “You can’t get money for nothing.”

  Gomez stared at him and McKellar asked, “What do you know about the payments?”

  “Nothing. I go out and encourage people to make their payments on time. You may not like what I do, but it’s honest work.”

  This guy was priceless. Either this guy just didn’t get it or, more likely, didn’t care.

  “Who pays you?” McKellar asked.

  Johnson shrugged. “I do my job and cash shows up. Not like they withhold for benefits and retirement.”

  “So you just work broken bone to broken bone,” Gomez said. “No retainer?”

  Johnson puffed up with pride. “Trust me, it’s steady pay. Plenty of people think they can blow off their debts. Capital X doesn’t tolerate it.”

  “How many fingers have you broken this week?” asked McKellar. “This month?”

  “Hell, I don’t keep track. I go where I’m told, do what’s needed. Most of the time after we visit someone, they pay their debt and everybody’s happy.”

  “I imagine the people with medical bills aren’t happy,” Lopez said.

  Johnson snorted. “They can always get another loan.”

  McKellar didn’t bother hiding his disgust. “And you don’t know anyone at Capital X by name other than your fellow enforcer.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What happens if you go out, break a few bones and the customer still doesn’t pay up?” Gomez asked. “Your boss come after you?”

  “Course not. You think I’m trash, but I got value. I broke some fingers on a skinny kid with big dreams. He went underground without paying up. I’m actually getting a bonus to look for that Brody Higgins when I’m not on other jobs.”

  Emmanuel rocked back on his heels. Pippa and her siblings would be thrilled by that admission. Delighted that the police had the man who’d broken up their foster brother. He sent her a quick text update.

  Johnson didn’t seem to realize what he just confessed. Gomez kept him talking about some other less pleasant meetings. But he wouldn’t budge about knowing anyone by name at Capital X.

  “Even if I knew names, I’m no snitch,” Johnson said. “If I’m out here breaking bones for missed payments, what do you think they’d do to me if I talked?” He sat back in the chair, lifting his wrists so that the cuffs banged against the tabletop. “You caught me trying to rough up someone. Big deal. That lady gave her word and reneged on the deal. That’s all I’m saying. I want my lawyer.”

  Emmanuel started back to his desk when he was waved down by Officer Simmons. “Detective Iglesias, I have a caller on the RevitaYou tip line I think you need to hear.”

  “Lead the way.” Emmanuel followed him across the bullpen.

  “The caller claims to have spotted the Toxic Scientist,” Simmons explained.

  Emmanuel’s instincts prickled as he picked up the phone. “This is Detective Iglesias, how may I help you?”

  “Yes. The police wanted us watching for that man who poisoned the vitamins. I’m looking at him right now. The Toxic Scientist,” the caller said in an overexcited rush, referring to the media’s nickname for Landon Street, the scientist who came up with the RevitaYou formula. “You should hurry if you want to catch him.”

  “Where are you?” Emmanuel asked.

  “I’m at the Grateful Bread.”

  That bakery was only two blocks from the station. Emmanuel wrote out the name, and Simmons started organizing personnel to respond.

  “Well, I’m across the street,” the caller said. “But I’m looking right at him. He’s wearing a light blue baseball cap and dark sunglasses, but it’s definitely the Toxic Scientist.”

  “Your name?” Emmanuel thought the caller was female, but it was hard to be sure. The line went dead. “Hello? Hello?” He looked at Simmons and shared the description. “Let’s move,” Emmanuel said. “I want two officers with me on foot and roll backup from all directions to cut him off.”

  “We’re ready.”

  Emmanuel and the others hurried out of the station toward the bakery. It would be a red-letter day if they managed to nab both a Capital X enforcer and Landon Street, scientific genius behind the deadly RevitaYou vitamins.

  This was a huge break. With everyone searching, Emmanuel couldn’t believe Street was still in Grand Rapids. What kind of fool would stick around when everyone was looking for the man behind that lethal compound?

  Emmanuel approached the bakery as casually as possible. He even checked his phone as if this was a normal sugar run. It wasn’t unheard of for the officers to make frequent runs down here, so their arrival shouldn’t surprise anyone. Again, that made it an odd place for Street to show up after going completely off the grid.

  They syste
matically combed the area, and no one spotted him. He was in the wind again. Damn it. No one matching the description was inside or outside the bakery. They fanned out to cover more area, but still nothing. While the others searched, Emmanuel went inside to question the staff, speaking first to the slip of a girl at the register and then her manager.

  The cashier remembered waiting on a man wearing a light blue hat. “It was weird,” she said. “His glasses were super dark, but he wouldn’t take them off.” She shrugged. “People are funny. I thought maybe he was blind.”

  “All right,” Emmanuel said, amused. “Do you remember what he ordered?”

  The cashier recited the order of a tall black coffee and a bear claw.

  “Cash or credit card?”

  “Cash,” she said with a big smile. “He tipped two dollars.”

  Emmanuel showed her a picture of Street. “Was this him?”

  She squinted at the photo on his phone. “Maybe?”

  The manager invited Emmanuel to the back room to check the security cameras. The grainy video feed wasn’t much help. The man who might have been Street kept his head down and his sunglasses on, just as the cashier said.

  He did, however, take his coffee and bear claw to one of the tables outside where other cameras might have caught him after he left the bakery.

  Emmanuel thanked the manager, placed an order for two dozen doughnuts and checked in with the teams searching while it was filled. The caller had said they were across the street when they spotted the Toxic Scientist. He walked that way, keeping in mind where Street had been sitting when the tipster called in. He imagined a man in a hat and sunglasses at this distance wouldn’t be very distinctive. Whoever had called in the tip must have known Street to make such a confident identification. Resigned, he called the searching teams back and went to pick up the doughnuts for the station.

  He walked in, an instant hero just for delivering the sugar rush.

  While Emmanuel refilled his coffee, Joe McRath came in and, with a big smile, chose an apple fritter. “Thanks, Iglesias.”

  “No problem,” he said, managing not to choke on the words.

  With Joe around, Emmanuel immersed himself in the Landon Street file, writing up the tip and the response, even though it had failed. While he worked, another name caught his attention. Flynn Cruz-Street was a half brother stationed at the US Army base nearby. He wondered if the brother had made the ID and urged another customer or passerby to call it in.

  He could see that. It was a way to help without quite turning on family. Everyone wanted to ask Street what he knew about RevitaYou and why he kept working on a flawed product.

  When he thought of sharing this news with Pippa, he realized she hadn’t replied to his earlier text about Johnson. As much as he wanted to talk, reaching out again was more about the temptation than the work on his desk.

  She’d been cool this morning, determined this would be the day she found a pertinent clue. He admired her determination to exonerate Anna, and he could relate to that single-minded focus. What he didn’t understand was her suddenly pushing him away. She needed his help, and honestly he needed to help her. But she’d dug in her heels, insisting he had done enough.

  That kind of talk made him wary. She was a woman used to going her own way, and frankly he didn’t like the chances she was willing to take for her cause of the moment.

  Striving for discipline and logic, he picked up the phone and called another of the Colton sisters. Victoria Colton was a paralegal in the JAG office on the same base as Flynn. It would be easier for her to follow up with the half brother about Street’s possible location and reason for visiting a bakery right under the GRPD’s nose.

  * * *

  Pippa wasn’t making any progress on her discreet inquiries about how much evidence was needed to trip a review of the case.

  Taking a break, she noticed a text alert from Emmanuel. She read through his brief message that they had the Capital X enforcer who had broken Brody’s fingers in custody. She breathed a sigh of relief that something was starting to break in their favor. She sent him a quick reply to thank him.

  It was temping to keep the conversation going, but she needed to get back on task and she wanted to keep her work and his as separate as possible.

  Her phone rang and she cringed at Elizabeth’s number on the caller ID. If she hadn’t had it memorized before, she certainly would now. Pippa understood Elizabeth’s concern. No matter what Elizabeth said, Anna refused to stop taking RevitaYou. The increasing instances of illness and death didn’t matter to Anna.

  “Hello, Elizabeth. How are things today?”

  “You have to do something,” Elizabeth wailed. “She was awful today. I think she’s getting sick. Tell me you’ve made progress.”

  She knew her friend was looking for hope. “I’m working every angle as fast as I can,” she said. It was the same thing she’d said on every call yesterday and the day before.

  “Pippa, I know I’m being unreasonable and asking too much. These deaths...” Her voice broke. “I know Mom won’t quit taking this junk until she’s out of prison. Please don’t let her die in there.”

  She was doing all she could and failing her best friend. She didn’t know how to help either one of them. The brooch was the key; she knew it. She just had to tie McRath to putting it there and everything would unravel in Anna’s favor.

  “This is a nightmare,” Elizabeth said, not for the first time.

  Desperate to calm her friend, Pippa looked at the case spread out before her on the desk. “I’m planning another interview,” she said, deciding on the fly. Confronting McRath directly was her only option. “Before you get your hopes up, it might not even happen. If I can work it out—”

  “You can, Pippa. You can do anything.”

  No pressure. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said. “I need you to be realistic. If, and this is a big if, I can get the interview, it may turn everything around for your mom.”

  “Anything that moves the needle. Please,” Elizabeth begged. “It would be a tragedy for her to die in prison just because she’s too vain to be a normal prisoner.”

  Pippa heard the humor in her friend’s voice, but she couldn’t quite muster a laugh. If Anna died in prison, the case would slip away. No one would pursue the truth. And none of that would compare to the loss Elizabeth and Ed would bear.

  She shook off the worst-case scenario. Anna was still alive and mostly well. Pippa would find a way to see the right person locked up behind bars for the Hicks murder. Wrapping up the call with Elizabeth, she turned back to the photos on her desk.

  The brooch was the key. Who would’ve seen McRath in the mansion? She made a list of household staff, wondering if any of them would speak to her or if they were happier without Anna’s demands day in and day out.

  She went to send Emmanuel a text message, asking for a few minutes of his time, and noticed he’d texted her about having one enforcer in custody. Good news on any front buoyed her spirits.

  His reply to her request for a meeting came back so quickly that she wondered if he’d been watching for any contact from her.

  They met at a food truck famous for its creative tacos and burritos near the station, and it was all she could do not to hold his hand or give him a kiss. But that kind of display would be noticed this close to the police station. For the first time, she regretted that they couldn’t be seen as a couple in public. Not while she was leading the charge to overturn a conviction he’d investigated.

  At the window, they ordered, but when he tried to pay, the woman wouldn’t take his money. He argued, but it was clear he wouldn’t win without holding up the line behind them.

  “I can’t stand it when she does that,” Emmanuel said when they’d found a spot to sit down with their food.

  “Why won’t she take your money?” Pippa asked.

>   An older woman with weathered skin and bright dark eyes brought out paper baskets overflowing with tacos for her, a burrito for Emmanuel and crisp tortilla chips to share. She beamed at Emmanuel, and her gaze slid meaningfully toward Pippa. “Introduce me to your friend,” she said with a gleam in her eye.

  Emmanuel did the honors. “Pippa Colton, this is Maria Alvarez. Maria, Pippa is an attorney and a friend.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Pippa,” Maria said. The older woman squeezed Pippa’s hands between hers. “We do not take his money because he saved us.”

  “Years ago, Maria,” he said, exasperated. “You can’t feed me forever.”

  “I can and I will,” she countered. “You’re a good boy.” She patted his cheek before she returned to the truck.

  She waited, but he dug into his burrito, his mouth too full to talk. “Come on, you know you want to tell me about it,” she pressed.

  “I really don’t. Just eat.”

  That was no hardship. “This is amazing,” she said. She knew he’d share the story eventually. She could see it in the way his eyes crinkled.

  “It’s not a big deal,” he said when he dipped a chip into homemade salsa. “One of my easier cases.”

  “How easy?”

  “They were robbed and the truck was vandalized. I solved the case, and they stayed in business. Of course if they keep feeding me for free, how long it stays that way is up for debate. But the food is so good I can’t stay away.”

  Pippa laughed. “So the culprit must’ve been someone in the family?”

  “You are smart.” He nodded. “One of her grandsons got caught up in the wrong crowd and tried to make it look random.”

  “What gave him away?” she asked.

  “Part of the vandalism was graffiti, and the kid’s a pretty good artist,” he explained.

  “You recognized his work.”

  Emmanuel nodded. “We ended up charging the kid who slashed the tire, and another who stole a set of expensive knives. But they both got probation, along with the grandson. All three of them put in the elbow grease to get the truck back up and going. Last I heard, the kid who was so fascinated with the knives is in cooking school and doing well.”