Rose City Free Fall

by DL Barbur

  "Let's not forget we might just want to rescue those girls that are about to get shipped to someplace very dry and sandy," I heard myself saying it before I realized it. Oh well. I never was very good at keeping my mouth shut at meetings. Beside me, I saw Casey nodding.

  Bolle had one hell of a stare, I'll give him that. Those burning, believer's eyes fixed me like twin searchlights. I think most people would have been intimidated by him, but in the last few days, I'd had the shit kicked out of me twice, been framed for a murder, and found out my girlfriend split for the bottom half of the country.

  "I'm going to be very honest with you Miller. If my sources are correct, what is on that plane is a matter of the gravest national security. I feel for those girls, but I don't want you to misunderstand me, the cargo that is coming into this country is much more important than what is going out."

  That hung in the air for a minute like a bad smell that nobody wanted to comment on.

  "Let's keep one thing in mind," Al said in that easygoing, conciliatory way that I’d seen him use countless times before when two detectives were arguing over a case. "Bolle isn't saying the girls aren't important. They are. They're just a very close second to what's on that plane. And on a pragmatic level, if we're going to get to that plane, we're going to have to get those girls. One is the key to the other."

  His tone said "trust me," the way it always had in the past.

  I nodded, feeling somehow like I'd made an ass out of myself, but not quite sure how.

  "What we all need to do now," Al continued smoothly. "Is get some rest. We've all been burning at both ends for a long time now. We finally got a relief team in to take over the surveillance, so I want everybody to get some sack time. I've got enough cots, sleeping bags and couches upstairs for everybody to have a spot to rack out. I've got catered food coming, so you don't have to worry about that."

  That was Al at his best, taking care of the troops.

  "Anybody have anything to add?" Al looked around the table. Nobody said anything. "Ok. Get some rest." Everybody started to stand and stretch. A look around the table revealed a lot of bags under eyes and rumpled clothing.

  My stomach rumbled and I rubbed my eyes. Some food and a bed sounded like an excellent idea, but I had something I had to do first.

  Alex was standing by the stairs, hesitating and looking over her shoulder at me. She smiled when I walked over.

  "Hey," she said.

  "Hey. I need a favor."

  "What?"

  "This place they're keeping Mandy, where is it?"

  Something passed her face, something I couldn't quite read. It almost looked like disappointment. Christ, I was too tired for this stuff.

  She named an address over in Southeast Portland. Damn. More driving.

  “Thanks,” I said, not sure if I should just go, or what.

  She took a step closer to me.

  “We should probably talk, about, you know…”

  “We should,” I said. “But first I gotta go see my partner. I almost got her killed.”

  A flicker of something passed across her face. Annoyance? Disappointment? Maybe both.

  “Ok,” she said softly.

  “Let’s talk when I get back though,” I said. “I, uh, I really want to.”

  I was halfway across the room when I realized she was still standing there, looking at me. Jesus. I wasn't the most socially graceful person under the best of circumstance, but throw in a few days without sleep and killing two guys and I turned into a real tool. I'd make it up to her somehow.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I drove around in circles until I was sure I was clean of surveillance, then I drove to the clinic. It was in a cul-de-sac not far from Powell Boulevard, inside an old converted Victorian house. There was a discreet sign on the porch that would have been easy to miss.

  I took a minute to scope out the neighborhood. Parking was mostly on the street here. Among the Hyundais and Toyotas and Lexi were two pickup trucks I found interesting.

  I was a long time aficionado of the American pickup truck. I found it offensive that they were increasingly becoming a favorite suburbanite vehicle. I had seen dozens of giant trucks that would be put to no better use than occasionally hauling a set of golf clubs. That was wrong. Pickups were for work, not for some kind of rugged fantasy image you indulged in between your office job and taking the kids to soccer practice.

  These two trucks didn't fit that mold. They were a few years old and well maintained. They'd been washed, but not waxed or detailed. There were work gloves in the cab of one truck. An atlas open to Portland sat on the bench seat of another. The beds of both trucks were clean, but they'd obviously been used for more than golf clubs and hauling furniture home from Ikea. They had deep gouges all the way down to the metal. They'd been used to haul feed, gravel, wood, machine parts, you name it.

  The clincher was the gun racks. Over half the homes in America had a gun in them, but in Portland, it was déclassé to admit it. If you hunted or shot skeet, or just wanted to blow away the occasional burglar you kept your mouth shut about it. Mentioning that you owned firearms was somewhat akin to farting in public.

  Not so out in Eastern Oregon. Out there guns weren't totems. They weren't a hobby. They weren't a political statement. They were just a tool, like a shovel or a good cultivator. You never knew when you might need to pop a coyote or put down a sickly animal. You put a gun rack in your truck, not because you wanted to show off, but because it was the handiest way to tote the damn thing around.

  Well, in the back of my mind I had always been curious to meet Mandy's family. I just hoped they'd gotten the message that I was one of the good guys.

  I walked up to the porch. At second glance, the house was more than it appeared. The door was steel, not wood. The windows had that greenish, distorted look that came from heavy polycarbonate, shatter resistant, maybe bullet resistant. The fisheye of a video camera was mounted at eye level on the door. I pushed a button on a metal box with a grill mounted next to the door.

  "Can I help you?"

  "It's Dent Miller. For Mandy Williams."

  There was a long pause. I started getting itchy between my shoulder blades. I didn’t like standing out in the open. I was reasonably sure I hadn’t been followed, but not certain. Finally, there was a buzz from the door and when I pushed, it gave.

  I was in a small foyer, with another metal door directly across from me. The only furniture in the room was a metal desk with "receptionist" on one of those little placards. Receptionist my ass. The guy standing behind the waist-high desk had a crew cut and no neck. He was a thug in a suit. The suit fit him ok, but not well enough to disguise the bulge on his hip. He looked halfway competent, unusual in the security world. You had to pay well to attract decent people and most security outfits wouldn't do that.

  "Shut the door please, sir." He said, flat and mechanical. I pulled the front door shut and he buzzed the inner door open with a switch on the desk. Interesting. The inner door apparently wouldn't open while the outer one was open. What the hell kind of clinic was this?

  Mandy’s family was waiting on the other side of the door. Between the five of them, they probably added up to half a ton. They stood there in a semi-circle, blocking the hallway, in almost identical postures, arms folded, faces dour. They all wore jeans, faded but washed; denim or checked shirts; work boots scuffed and broken in, but clean.

  They were all big enough to strain the seams of their shirts and had heavy plain features and short hair. But they weren't stupid. Your average urbanite would probably look down on them, but dumb ranchers didn't last long. You had to be able to do a little of everything, be your own veterinarian, your own mechanic, your own doctor sometimes even. And you had to be a financial genius to make any money at it. No, these men were used to relying on themselves and nobody else, thank you very much.

  I couldn't tell which brother was the oldest or the youngest, they all looked so damn much alike. But dad was easy t
o pick out. He stood in the center, an older version of all the rest. On one thick, veiny forearm that was threatening to split the seam of his shirt, was an eagle and globe tattoo, with "USMC" inked below it. It was a little blurry and faded, like the sort of thing a young Marine might get before shipping off to some exciting little place called Vietnam.

  I stepped forward, held my hand out to him. "I'm Dent Miller. And I don't care what anybody says, I didn't hurt your daughter."

  He measured me for a minute, up and down, looked me in the eye. I bet he was an NCO, I thought. He reminded me of any one of a dozen men who had kept my dumb ass alive while I was in the Army.

  He too reached out and took my hand in a grip that was like an arbor press. "I'm Dale Williams and I believe you. If I thought you'd hurt my daughter, you'd already be a dead man."

  I figured we'd get along fine.

  Mr. Williams made introductions all around. The brothers all looked the same, but I managed to sort out the two older ones. I would have bet they'd done a little military time themselves. The two youngest just weren't old enough yet. They looked like grown men at first glance, but I realized they were maybe fifteen and seventeen.

  I shook hands and nodded with each. There were no smiles. After introductions, each one stepped away and took a strategic seat where they could see down a hallway or keep an eye on a door. Interesting. They weren't just here for a visit. It looked like Mandy had her own personal protective detail.

  I was left standing in the middle of the hall with Mr. Williams. The place was decorated like a nice hotel, all carpet, and artwork, mahogany furniture. But it smelled like a hospital, and in the background, I could hear the beeping of machines. Nurses walked through in scrubs, giving us a wide berth.

  "I'd like to see her, if that's alright with you," I said. He nodded, jerked his head down a hall. I followed behind him.

  "I always worried something would happen to her," he said as we walked. "I worried about her just like I worried about Robert when he was in Afghanistan, and Danny when he was in Iraq. Young David there is making noise about joining up as soon as he graduates, and I reckon I'll worry about him too.”

  We stopped by a closed door. A vein throbbed on Dale’s forehead and I realized I was dealing with a man who felt that the natural order of things had been undone, that everything he believed in couldn't be trusted. I was looking at another man in free fall.

  “I've prepared for the day I might bury one of my children in the service of this country. But I never figured on this. First, they told me her own partner put her in a coma, damn near killed her. Then I get down here and she tells me with her own mouth that you didn't do it, that it's all a lie."

  He put a hand on the doorknob but didn’t open it yet.

  "I don't know who to trust," he continued. "Mandy says I should trust you."

  "You're right," I said. "Don't trust anybody. It's spook stuff. We stumbled into something big. I'm not sure how big, but we crossed some people that swat people like you and me like flies."

  "Christ. I thought I'd never have to deal with this again." Unconsciously, he fingered a long jagged scar that ran the length of his jaw line on one side of his face.

  "Soon, I hope you won't have to," I said.

  He stopped rubbing and looked at me intently. "Any luck finding the men that did this?"

  I hesitated. What I was about to do was phenomenally stupid. I'd just met the man two minutes ago. But he deserved the truth.

  "The one that's most directly responsible is a step on. I need that kept quiet."

  'Step On' was an old Vietnam term for an enemy casualty that you had actually seen lying on the ground dead. You could step on him if you wanted to. I’d heard some did.

  I had a feeling Mr. Williams probably had a step on or two in his past and would know what I meant.

  He looked at me. His nostrils flared unconsciously as if he were trying to detect the slightest scent of a lie.

  "I appreciate that," he said finally. "But it sounds like there might be more to it than just the one man."

  "There is," I said. "Much more. But I don't know how much. But do me a favor?"

  "What's that?"

  "You just worry about taking care of that daughter of yours. She's a special one and you should be proud. You leave the rest of this business to me. I've got nothing to lose anymore. You do." I jerked my head down the hall towards his sons and looked at the door to his daughter's room.

  That rankled him a little, I could tell. But wisdom has a way of keeping pride in check.

  "I'll agree to that for now." He reached into a shirt pocket, pulled out a card. He pressed it into my hand. "But if you need some cover son, you get in touch."

  I looked at the card: Dale Williams and Sons. Fine Oregon Beef. A home number, cell phone, fax number, address. I put the card in my wallet.

  "I'll do that," I said.

  He nodded, satisfied, and stepped aside.

  I took a deep breath and walked into Mandy's hospital room. The light was dim inside, and at first, I thought I was in the wrong room. The figure on the bed had to be somebody older, somebody heavier. I stood there, sick to my stomach, for a second or two before her features finally resolved themselves under the swelling and bruises. Her face looked twice as broad as it was supposed to be.

  She seemed to be asleep, but right as I was turning to go she opened her eyes. They were bloodshot. The blue of her iris contrasted strangely with the bright red.

  "Dent," she mumbled. When she opened her mouth I could see one of her front teeth was broken in half. "Hey."

  "Hey yourself." It sounded stupid but it was all I could think of to say.

  "Winter was here," she said. Her speech was low and slow, hard to hear. "Tried to tell me you beat me up. Dumbass."

  "Yeah," I said. "Things got a little confused for a while."

  "I set him straight…" Her voice trailed off and her eyelids fluttered. I thought for a second she'd gone back to sleep, then her eyes snapped back open again. "It was that Marshall kid. And some big bald dude. Scary looking."

  "Yeah. I know."

  "Winter said they'd find them. I wanna be there. Gimme a coupla days."

  "Yeah. Ok." My eyes were tearing up and it was a little hard to talk.

  "This stuff hurts though." She lifted one splinted arm and grimaced. "I feel pretty dopey."

  "Yeah. You get some rest ok?" I hated myself for it, but I just wanted out of the room. I'd always hated hospitals. They could put all the Martha Stewart decorations up they wanted, but this place was still a hospital. It sounded like one, smelled like one and there was somebody important to me lying in a bed. That was a hospital.

  "Yeah. Coupla days. Then you come get me and we'll find that Marshall and his buddy."

  Her eyelids drifted closed again and I was relieved, hating myself for it. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I looked down at her. I wanted to reach out and touch her, squeeze her hand or give her a pat on the arm, something. But everywhere I looked I saw either a bandage or a bruise.

  I stood there while her breathing became slow, deep and regular.

  Finally I turned and walked into the hall.

  Mr. Williams and Mandy’s brothers were all standing down the hall, in a semi-circle around a small balding man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck. They were talking in hushed tones and the doctor looked a little nervous surrounded by the Williams brothers. Oh well. Maybe it would be an incentive. Mandy's father must have seen me in the corner of his eye.

  He turned, gave me a slow steady nod. I returned it. There was a flat expression on his face I recognized. I probably had it on mine too. He turned back to the doctor and I walked down the hall and out the front door.

  Anger is a funny thing. I get pissed too frequently. I'll be the first person to tell you that. It isn't healthy, for me or for people I run across. In my younger years, right after I got out of the Army and my first little bit of time on the Police Bureau, I beat up some people who p
robably didn't deserve it: frat boys, penny ante thugs I arrested who resisted more with their mouths than their fists.

  I probably should have gotten fired from the Bureau for a couple of them. These days I probably would get fired, but those had been different times. A couple of busted up dirtbags was an expected price to pay in developing a good cop. Al had brought me along, helped me channel things into productive things.

  As I walked over to my car, I felt it settle over me, that ice cold, deliberate anger. Anger wasn't even a good word for it. I don't think there's a word for it in English. Maybe German has a word for it. They're good at that. On second thought, maybe the Japanese would be the place to look. Those Samurai guys would probably understand this.

  As I slid into the car, my actions were calm, deliberate. My mind was linear, focused and rational. But if Todd had appeared in front of me, I would have killed him without the slightest hesitation. If he'd been surrounded by an army, I'd just kill them too. I had no thought of myself, of any kind of future. I just wanted Todd in my gun sights or, better yet, in my bare hands.

  I'd kept it all buried until now. I'd been treating this like another law enforcement exercise, albeit with some strange twists. I'd been viewing Marshall and Todd the same way I viewed anybody else I hunted, as one more head to put up on my trophy wall. It had snapped to the surface when I shot Marshall, but I'd buried it just as quick.

  Now I let myself feel it all. My job was gone. There was no use fooling myself. I'd killed two people and covered it up. There was no way I was going to work at the Police Bureau again.

  Audrey was gone. I wondered if I'd just been fooling myself all along, trying to force things to be something they really weren't. I wanted a woman, wanted a wife in my life very badly. But that was probably a pipe dream. Guys like me weren't cut out to have relationships.

  And then there was Mandy. I'd only seen people beaten that badly a handful of times, and most of those people were dead. I didn't know what else they'd done to her, had gone out of my way not to ask. Things like that were only supposed to happen to the vast majority of the population I put into the "victim or potential victim" category. It wasn't supposed to happen to people on my team.