by Rob Ashman
‘But, lady, your change,’ the driver called after her as she got out of the car and ran up the white wooden steps two at a time to the first floor apartment. She could see her sister’s truck in the parking lot at the back and banged on the door with thudding urgency. She banged again. Jessica Sells opened the door and was shocked to find her sister barging past her, already talking at a hundred miles an hour.
Bassano swung into the road just in time to see the taxi pull away and head back to the freeway. The driver had a satisfied grin on his face after the twenty dollar tip the previous fare had thrown onto his seat. Bassano clocked Jo racing up the steps. He radioed in the details of the property to Lucas who started running records on the occupants. After several minutes Bassano was joined by another two cars, each with four people. They killed their engines and waited.
Fifteen more minutes passed which felt like a lifetime, then Lucas radioed in.
‘There are eight apartments in the building and only one of them is let to a single female. Her name is Olivia Dunn and she’s in number five. I suggest we get the place surrounded. How many men do you have?’
‘We have nine including me, sir. That should do it. It’s a residential area with plenty of visibility and clean access, there’s little room for surprises. I think we should go in, sir.’ Bassano was pumped with adrenaline.
The team were impatient and it seemed that Lucas took forever to respond. ‘Okay. Move in.’
The car doors swung open and the men spilled onto the road and the sidewalk, fanning out as they approached the building. Bassano gestured and three went around the back as the others filed up the white steps.
Apartment 5 was at the top of the second flight of stairs. Two men stood on one side of the door and three on the other. Bassano stood in the middle. He reached for his radio and squirted the transmit button to signal to the guys at the back they were ready. He gave a finger countdown: three, two, one – crash. His right foot ploughed through the mortise lock securing the door to the frame. The door swung back, hitting against the wall in a shower of plaster and paint.
The men either side burst in with their weapons raised. ‘Freeze!’ they yelled at the crumpled figure crying on the sofa.
‘Don’t move, Jo,’ yelled Bassano as the officers peeled off into the adjoining rooms.
She turned and looked at Bassano, his gun levelled at her head. Makeup streaked down her cheeks and her face was red. Her mouth was open but nothing came out.
One of the officers pulled her off the sofa and forced her to the ground. She yelped in pain as her shoulder hit the wooden floor and the cuffs clicked into place. The other officers swept the remaining rooms shouting, ‘Clear!’ as it became obvious the place was empty. Bassano inspected each of the rooms in turn. He shouted to one of the men. ‘Get her up.’
He yanked her to her feet and shoved her back onto the sofa. She was still crying with tears streaming down her face and onto her jacket.
‘Where the fuck is she, Jo?’ Bassano shouted in her face. She flinched at his aggression and turned her head away.
‘She’s gone,’ she said choking back a cough. ‘She’s not here.’
‘Tell me Jo, where is she?’ Bassano shook her by the shoulders.
‘I don’t know,’ she said with complete desperation in her voice. ‘She’s gone, and I don’t know where.’ She was sobbing uncontrollably. Bassano gestured to the officer and he marched her out of the door to the waiting car outside. Bassano turned to the others. ‘Shut this place down and get forensics in here. I’m taking her back to the station.’
Bassano stomped out. This was not the way it was supposed to have happened.
They sat in the car in silence. Bassano drove, with a police officer in the back next to Jo. She was still sobbing. ‘What will happen to me?’ she asked through the tears.
‘That depends on you,’ said Bassano looking in the rear-view mirror. ‘But I doubt you can do anything to keep your sorry deceitful ass out of jail, and with any real justice you’ll take a needle.’
45
‘Jo, this isn’t helping. You’re gonna have to talk to us eventually.’
Lucas and Bassano sat opposite her in the interview room. Her head was bowed, she looked a total wreck. She had stopped crying for long enough to confirm her name and date of birth for the benefit of the tape but other than that had said nothing.
They fired a barrage of questions at her but she refused to say a single word. She just stared at the table top, with one hand resting in her lap and the other cuffed to the table leg. As the hours ticked by she said absolutely nothing.
‘We can sit here all night if necessary,’ Lucas said in his best flat unemotional interview voice. It was now 11.45pm, they had been going at it for three hours.
Lucas continued, ‘I’ve called Quantico and they are sending someone over to join us. They are not happy with you.’
‘You will talk to us you know, Jo,’ Bassano said. ‘We will get to the truth and we will catch your sister. You do know that don’t you?’
She looked up and took everyone by surprise. ‘I want a lawyer.’
‘Wow, now we’re getting somewhere,’ said Lucas. ‘Okay, if that’s what it takes to get you talking then let’s get one.’ Lucas made a call and sat back down. ‘So what now, we play the silent game until he arrives?’ He knew the answer before he asked the question.
After forty-five minutes of stone cold silence there was a knock on the interview room door. Bassano got up to open it and there stood his favourite attorney, Jefferson Gill, defender of the guilty. Never had Bassano been so pleased to see his nemesis. He shook his hand and said, ‘Good to see you Mr Gill.’ The warmth of the greeting took Gill by surprise considering Bassano normally looked as if he’d rather shake him by the neck. Bassano ushered him in.
‘Can you give us the room, gentlemen?’ Gill said. ‘My client and I need to talk.’
‘Good luck with that,’ said Bassano and the two of them left.
They made their way to the small kitchen area located at the back of the interview rooms to make coffee.
‘What the hell was going on in there?’ asked Bassano when they were out of earshot.
‘I have no idea. I don’t get it, she could make life a lot easier for herself if she co-operated.’
‘Looks like that’s the last thing she intends to do.’
The door to the interview room opened. ‘My client wishes to make a written statement. I presume that is okay with you?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ said Lucas, appearing from the kitchen.
‘Oh, just three things. She can’t do it if she’s handcuffed to the desk, she doesn’t want you two bearing down on her when she does it, and could you bring us some coffee?’
‘I’ll send in a supervising officer and the drinks are on their way,’ Bassano called out from the small kitchen area as he reached for a tray to assemble the necessary items.
He piled up a stack of plastic cups, spoons and napkins along with milk and sugar. He had an overwhelming sense of relief.
Lucas walked off muttering something about, ‘Could have done that three fucking hours ago.’
The clock on the wall in the incident room said 2.05am. Lucas was staring at the boards filled with photographs and sticky notes while Bassano slept with his head resting on his folded arms on the desk. There was nothing to do but wait.
Lucas rose from the hard wooden chair and, deciding not to wake Bassano, made his way back to the interview suite. What the hell was taking so long? Even the officers at Jessica Sells’ apartment had called it a day. They had found very little to suggest where Mechanic had gone, however they had a bucket load of confirmed thumbprints. That much was certain: Mechanic and Jessica Sells were one and the same.
Lucas wandered along the corridors to where she was being held, the place was empty without any of the usual mayhem of late-night policing. Even the interview rooms were quiet and, as far as he knew, Jo was the only one occupying a slot on
the board. Lucas passed the small kitchen. He noticed the plastic tray sitting on the worktop stacked with discarded Styrofoam cups and an empty flask of coffee. Napkins and spoons littered the tray along with a confetti storm of empty sugar packets.
Lucas stared at the tray in horror.
He ran to the interview room, bursting through the door.
The attending officer was slumped on the floor with his back to the wall and his legs straight out in front of him. There was no obvious sign of injury, just his head lolling sideways against his left shoulder, the snapped vertebrae in his neck unable to support its weight. His eyes were wide open in a dead-fish stare and his mouth gaped open.
Jefferson Gill was sitting upright at the table. His arms hung down by his sides and his head was tilted back looking at the ceiling. Two inches of pen could be seen sticking out of his left eye socket. The spatter of blood and vitreous humour on the wall and table bore witness to the force of its entry. His mouth also gaped open, as if mimicking his dead companion.
Lucas hit the alarm strip which ran around the room and went to the officer first. He put his fingers against his neck to feel a pulse but he was gone. Even with his limited medical knowledge Lucas knew there was little point checking the pulse of Jefferson Gill. Within seconds three officers fought their way through the open door and started attending to the two dead men. Bassano was one of them, having woken and wondered where his boss had gone.
‘It was Mechanic,’ Lucas yelled. ‘We had Jessica Sells, not Jo Sells. We had the wrong one.’
‘Fuck,’ Bassano said through gritted teeth as he knelt by the officer. ‘How did that happen?’
‘Damned if I know.’ Lucas shook his head and barked orders. ‘She can’t be far, get a photo circulated, check the outside CCTV, she’ll be on foot.’
‘Yes sir. I’ll set up road blocks at all the major interchanges and alert public transport. We’ll get the bitch.’ Bassano rushed out of the room.
Lucas noticed three handwritten pages on the desk. He picked one up and read it.
Johann Pachelbel was a Baroque composer. His precise date of birth and death are not known, however he was baptised on 1 September 1653 and was buried 9 March 1706. He was born in Nuremburg into a middle-class family. His father was a wine dealer named Johann Hans and his mother was Anne-Marie Mair. He was an exceptionally gifted musician and received his early tuition from Heinrich Schwemmer. He was enormously popular during his lifetime and composed hundreds of pieces of music. His most famous was his Canon in D which was the only canon he ever wrote.
Lucas read on.
He was forced to quit university after less than a year due to financial difficulties and took up a scholarship ...
He scanned further.
Pachelbel was married twice. His first wife, Barbara, and their only child died in October 1683 during the plague. He married for a second time to Judith Drommer on 24 August 1684 and had five sons and two daughters.
And so the strange biography continued.
The Canon is based on a simple theme of three voices and is a polyphonic device in which several violins play the same music entering in sequence. It was originally scored for three violins and was originally paired with ...
Lucas murmured to himself, ‘What the hell is this?’ He flicked over to the last page and at the bottom he read.
Music history lesson over, Lucas. By now you will have worked out you had me and let me go. Very, very sloppy. We swapped clothes and you did the rest, so predictable. Jo will be 250 miles away by now and out of harm’s way, so it’s time for me to go. Sorry about the mess.
Must dash
Jess
PS I will kill anyone you send to find me. If you are in any doubt ask my ex-roommates.
The last three sentences were smeared with blood. He looked at the two dead people in the small interview room and a shiver ran down the back of his neck. She had written this Pachelbel essay and then, when the time was right, she went to work. This was her written statement for Gill, after all she had to be seen to be writing something.
Jess was the consummate professional when it came to situations like this. Her training and dozens of successful ops had honed her skills to perfection.
As she wrote her so-called confession, Jess was planning the endgame. This was a three-strike offensive, first the attorney, then the officer. That way Jess could count on a split second of officer indecision when he thought about helping Gill. A split second of indecision was all she needed.
She had written her fake confession until she was ready, waiting for all the players to be in the right place. Then, she struck with clinical precision. No fuss. No drama.
She had looked up from her paper and waited for Gill to hold her gaze. The police officer was standing behind her, and with a slight turn of her head, she could see both men. She raised her pen from the paper and chewed the end in an act of supposed concentration. She smiled at Gill.
The officer fumbled for something in his pocket. Her right arm snaked out with a straight jab – strike one. The pen entered Gill’s left orbit with a squelch as eye fluid spurted out.
He let out a gargled scream and brought his hands up to his face. The second blow drove the pen deep into his brain killing him instantly. Strike two.
The officer rushed in and the valuable split second of indecision came into play allowing Mechanic to step behind him. Left hand around his face with a tight grip on his jaw, right hand round the back of his head and … twist. Hard and fast. Listen for the crack. Strike 3.
Job done, she was still smiling.
46
Lucas sat in the incident room. The bodies downstairs were being photographed, along with the walls, floor, and anything else which found itself in a camera viewfinder.
He was deep in thought. How the hell had they got it so wrong? How had they not recognized the switch? He tried hard to focus on what needed to happen next, rather than raking over the errors of the day. It had been forty-five minutes since his discovery. Bassano was out in his car, racing around the streets trying to find Mechanic, as were the rest of the force.
They had set up roadblocks and were already undertaking random stoppages. They’d found Mechanic’s clothes discarded in the gym – she must have found some old clothes to change into. The CCTV footage outside the station showed her wearing a dark hooded top, dark tracksuit bottoms and trainers, like ninety percent of people roaming the streets at this time of night.
Lucas shook his head. It was needle-in-a-haystack time.
Fortunately for Lucas, Bassano was a world-beater at finding needles in haystacks. The streets were empty, not only because of the lateness of the hour, but also because it was pouring with rain. The drains were struggling with the volume of water which caused mini lakes to form at the side of the road. Bassano reckoned the best way for Mechanic to get about was by taxi, but dressed like that it wasn’t going to be easy. She looked like a homeless bum. No taxi driver in his right mind would pick her up, and besides, she was going to be soaked through by now.
She must be on foot. There was very little parkland for her to use, so the streets were her only route. He cruised up and down the side roads figuring she wouldn’t keep to the main drag.
Then he spotted her in the distance. She was about a hundred and fifty yards ahead. He couldn’t see her face and she was walking away from him, but he knew it was her.
Everyone else walking around at this time of night had a slow and shaky gait, born out of excess alcohol or drugs. This hooded figure had neither and walked with a steady purpose, it had to be her. He killed his lights and gained ground on Mechanic.
Bassano thought the hood pulled tight around her head would muffle the sound of the car engine, so he speeded up. It did no such thing, and she turned to see a car cruising towards her with no lights. She changed direction and ran up the main street.
Lucas stroked his chin, ‘Where the hell would she go?’ he said to no one. ‘Think man, think.’
J
o had a six-hour head-start and was by now holed up God-knows-where waiting. Maybe Mechanic was going to lie low and meet up with her sister later? But that was too risky – the longer she remained in the confines of the city, the more chance there was of being caught. If they found Jo, they would find Mechanic. Of that he was certain.
His thoughts came together, at last making sense. Jo and Mechanic had only had a short period of time together to develop a plan to get themselves out of this so it couldn’t be very complex. Jess must be going somewhere predetermined. The obvious thing to do was to meet up with Jo, but that was impractical. Or was it?
Suddenly the answer went off in his head like a bomb.
Lucas banged his fist onto the table. ‘Damn you,’ he said, and reached for the phone. ‘Patch me through to Bassano.’
Jo sat waiting, chewing on a breakfast bar in the dark. Despite there being no windows, she wasn’t taking any chances and the large strip lights in the ceiling were switched off. Her sugar levels were dropping due to the stress and wrappers littered the floor. She was trying to stay calm and take deep breaths but her panic levels were running close to the surface and kept bubbling up, causing her to reach for more food.
‘It will take several hours, so don’t worry,’ Jess had told her as she hurried Jo from the apartment and down the fire escape at the back of her building. ‘Just sit there and wait and I will come for you.’ Jess had a reassuring way of speaking when under pressure. It made Jo feel safe.
‘Okay,’ was all she could manage as a reply.
As she sat in the gloom, her head was racing. What a fucking mess. If only Jess could control it better, if only …
There were lots of if only statements crowding in on Jo. If only they hadn’t gone to San Diego, if only Mom hadn’t gone off the rails, if only Daddy hadn’t chosen to fuck his own daughter. If only ...
