by Spencer Kope
I imagine the speakers are the size of steamer trunks—stolen, most likely.
When Jimmy pulls to the curb, the doper dudes quickly douse their cigarettes and slink into the house, heads down and hoodies up so we can’t get a good look at their faces; all the usual mannerisms of upstanding, law-abiding citizens.
“Tweaker city,” Jimmy mutters as he puts the Expedition in park. “Got your little gun?”
My “little gun” is a Walther P22 semiautomatic. I like it because it fits nicely in the palm of my hand and the holster isn’t too bulky. It may only fire .22-caliber rounds, but with the right load it can be devastating. Jimmy likes to make fun of it because it doesn’t spew cannonballs and blast doors off their hinges like his Glock. He doesn’t kid me about it as much as he used to, not since I shot and killed Pat McCourt.
Another memory I wish I could erase.
“No,” I say, without elaborating.
He nods, unconcerned and unsurprised. Generally, I only pack if things start getting dicey, and, frankly, I didn’t think visiting the relatives of murder victims would qualify as dicey. Who knew? In any case, my little gun is tucked away in a pistol safe next to my bed.
Slipping my glasses off, I start my routine—and immediately stiffen in my seat, my pulse quickening. Sheryl Dorsey is here; her shine is all around the house and in the street and on the sidewalk, but it’s old. She was reported missing five months ago, so that part fits.
It’s what doesn’t fit that has me on high alert, and what doesn’t fit is the Onion King’s shine. I’m not surprised to find it here, but I am surprised that it’s fresh, left sometime during the last few days—maybe even today.
It’s not his first visit either. His shine is everywhere, and it dates back at least a year, probably longer. As my head swivels about, I see his tracks in the street, around the house, on the porch, alongside the house, and even at the mailbox, like the guy lives here. These are the tracks not of someone doing reconnaissance, but of a frequent guest or sometime resident.
As I relay this to Jimmy, he briskly pulls a large folding map of Clallam County from the side pocket of the door and unfolds it across his steering wheel. Then he holds it up between his two hands, blocking out half the windshield.
“What are you doing?”
He grins at me from behind the map, the map of a county two hours away. “We’re just two old-school Feds without GPS,” he says in a twangy country-boy voice.
I nod. “Who pulled over to check the map.”
“Exactly. If they think we’re lost, they won’t think we’re here for them.”
Playing along, I lean over and point to a location on the map. It’s no place in particular, just a random spot my finger lands on. “You know we’re in Pierce County, right?”
“It’s the only map I have.”
Neither of us appears to give the house or neighborhood a second thought, but my eyes are screwed into the corners of their sockets first left, then right, watching for any runners, any weapons or threats.
After a moment, Jimmy makes a big show of folding the map and then points down the road and makes an indication of a left turn with his hand, all above the dash and visible to anyone peering out from the house or watching us from one of the three surveillance cameras I’ve spotted so far.
“What’s the plan?” I ask Jimmy as we pull away from the curb.
“Knock-and-talk,” he replies, “but I don’t want to go in light, especially with you unarmed. We’ll see if Tacoma PD can spare a couple uniforms.”
Parking at an intersection two blocks down and one block over, Jimmy places a call to Tacoma’s finest while I call Diane. I confirm that Sheryl Dorsey is one of our victims and ask her to get started on the BrightPath Wellness warrant. We need to know how many of them received counseling or other services from the chain of clinics, and if so, where.
Diane reads off the list: “Abitha Jones, Jennifer Holt, Debra Mata, Sheryl Dorsey, Erin Yarborough, and Amber Bartlett.”
As an afterthought, I add one more name to the list.
“Why?” she asks.
And so I start to explain, but she understands before I’m halfway through. “Make sure they know it’s urgent,” I say before ending the call.
Four minutes later the first patrol unit arrives, followed a minute later by a second. Each is a two-man car, and as we brief the four cops at the bumper of the Expedition, they seem more than familiar with the house on Gardner Street. More importantly, they’re eager to have a crack at it.
* * *
When we converge on the home again, one of the doper dudes has returned to his post at the side of the Caprice, meaning he’s either a three-pack-a-day smoker or a lookout. I’m betting on the latter.
When the guy turns our way, you can tell the moment of recognition because he suddenly bolts upright. The Expedition’s massive engine roars to life as Jimmy mashes the pedal to the floor. Clearing the last block, he comes to a skidding stop in front of the house, leaving black marks on the road and shedding whiffs of smoke off the smoldering tires.
It’s all for show.
The rapid approach, roaring engine, and tortured tires are meant to draw attention to the front of the house while Tacoma PD rolls unnoticed into the alley behind, the two marked units coming from different directions.
It works beautifully.
Rather than making for the front door, doper dude runs down the side of the house, making for the alley and a quick escape. When he bursts through the back gate, he’s looking over his shoulder at Jimmy and me as we pour from the SUV.
He should have been looking where he was going.
With a neat thud he plows headlong into the side of one of the patrol cars and skids halfway across the hood. Not in the cool way, either—the well-choreographed skid where some Fonzie wannabe flawlessly slides his ass across the hood of a car and lands perfectly on the other side. Doper dude does it face-first and at the wrong angle, so instead of landing like the Fonz, the windshield stops him—hard.
We don’t hear it from our vantage point, but I imagine there’s a crunching sound as his nose gives way, and the obligatory grunt and whimper of pain.
Once the Fonz is detained, three of the officers spread out across the back of the property and cover the sides, while the fourth moves to a cover position at the front right corner of the house.
Watching for any movement in the windows, we make our way to the porch and Jimmy presses the doorbell. It jiggles, loosens from its setting, and then falls and clatters onto the painted concrete. We stare at it a moment, not really surprised, and then Jimmy switches to knocking.
There are different types of knocks one uses when contacting a residence on law enforcement business. This isn’t something taught at the academy or codified in some knocking policy; rather, it’s something one picks up on the job after knocking on a lot of doors and learning what works and what doesn’t, and which to use in each particular situation. Jimmy’s knock isn’t the aggressive bam bam bam that he might hammer out if we were executing a warrant and getting ready to boot the door. Instead, it’s more of a hey-I’m-your-new-neighbor kind of knock, or a here’s-your-mail, the-postman-put-it-in-the-wrong-box-again knock.
It doesn’t work. Apparently neighbors and postal carriers aren’t well regarded in this neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the house has become eerily quiet, intentionally quiet, like a big church on Monday morning. No one peeks out through the dirty blinds, no footsteps creak across the old floor, and no hushed voices seep from the walls and windows. Even the shattering sound waves of Five Finger Death Punch have lapsed into silence.
Jimmy smiles and shakes his head.
It really is predictable and a bit funny how criminals react when 5-0 shows up on their doorstep. It doesn’t matter if it’s Tacoma on a Thursday afternoon or Tampa in the summer. They all hunker down and pretend they’re little mice, hoping the cops will go away. The problem is they often get their wish.
Witho
ut a warrant, we don’t have enough to enter the house. It doesn’t matter that the Onion King is a serial kidnapper and rapist; the only thing we have linking him to this property is shine, which we can’t exactly talk about, not unless I want my own court-appointed mental health sessions at BrightPath Wellness.
So we knock.
If we want to find out why the Onion King has been coming and going from this residence, we need to talk our way in somehow. We need to convince Peggy Camp that it’s in her best interest to open the door and let us in. So far, it’s not going so well.
“FBI,” Jimmy calls out, banging a bit louder, more of an upset-neighbor knock. “Mrs. Camp, you’re not in trouble. We need to speak with you about your daughter.”
The “not in trouble” part usually helps.
The house continues its state of utter quiet for a few more moments, and then things begin to shift. The hiss of urgent whispering rises beyond the door, perhaps an argument over how to proceed, or if to proceed. They may just be fighting over who gets to hide in the attic and who has to use the tight, spider-ridden crawl space.
“If you’d prefer, I can apply for a warrant,” Jimmy adds.
It’s a bluff. If we had enough for a warrant, we wouldn’t be talking.
It wasn’t long ago that you could tell a suspect that you were getting a warrant and they’d figure the jig is up. Getting a warrant implies that it’s a done deal. Sure, you’ll have to fill out some paperwork and talk to a judge, but you’re getting that warrant, no doubt about it.
These days you have to say you’re applying for a warrant. The word applying leaves a lot of gray area; maybe you’ll get it, maybe you won’t. Someone in the halls of justice decided that saying you’re getting a warrant is just too misleading, that it’s unfair to the criminals. These are the types of rules we play by. I sometimes wonder how we manage to arrest and convict anyone.
Regardless, the bluff works, though not as expected.
The occupants must have heard the word warrant and not much else, because the next moment the front door yanks open, imploding with a violent pull. This is followed by an explosion of arms and legs and faces as three subjects seem to fill the empty doorframe simultaneously, fighting for position in their scramble to get away. Like steam from a ruptured pipe, they shoot from the house, bolting for the yard or the street or anywhere without cops.
It happens so fast and with such energy that the first guy in line bowls Jimmy over and knocks him onto the concrete porch hard enough to elicit an unhealthy Umphf. I’m next in line, and with no time to think, all I can do is brace and grab. In a tangled heap we go down, limbs flailing. It’s hard to tell who tackles who, but I find myself rolling around on the cold hard ground with some toothless tweaker’s face inches from my own. His breath stinks of chemicals, smoke, and bile. He’s sweating profusely, despite the cold, and his body reeks of cat urine—only it’s not cat urine, it’s the smell of meth seeping from his pores.
As we struggle, I gain a quick advantage because he’s fighting with just one hand. That’s fine by me until I feel his other hand groping around at my belt. He’s searching for the gun I’m not wearing. It should be on my right hip, but there’s nothing there.
Now I’m pissed.
Jimmy has taught me a lot of cool moves over the years, most of which I’ve only practiced and never actually used because, let’s face it: I’m not a special agent. I’m not supposed to be scrapping with the bad guys. That’s Jimmy’s job. And the problem with practice is that you have to do a lot of it before it becomes instinct. I’ve only had some practice, and some practice is a long country mile from a lot of practice.
The one thing that Jimmy drilled into me was that the eyes, nose, throat, and solar plexus are the weak points, and it’s these four areas that I remember now, when it counts. Using my elbow in place of my fist, I smash it hard into the tweaker’s nose. A satisfying crunch sends him reeling up and back, dazed and bloody.
He punches wildly, unable to see through the tears and disorientation. Lunging, he claws at my face, leaving a fingernail gash along my left cheek. Now would be a good time to shove my thumbs into the guy’s eye sockets, but the thought of it grosses me out. Jimmy says that attitude and the willingness to use total force is what separates the living from the dead in a street fight.
I don’t care. I’m not sticking my fingers in the dude’s mushy sockets.
Instead, I punch him hard in the solar plexus, number four on Jimmy’s must-crush strike zones. It’s the soft spot right below the rib cage that’ll turn someone into jelly faster than a dog can scarf down dropped food.
I hear the air leave him as he crumples into a heap on his side.
* * *
His name is Devon, assuming the wallet in his pocket isn’t stolen. He’s not a very talkative fella, at least not at the moment. I try to make him more comfortable by applying a pair of borrowed handcuffs, and it works wonders. I immediately feel more comfortable.
Jimmy’s tweaker fared much better than mine, despite knocking my partner down in his haste to exit the house. Jimmy has ways of twisting someone around, backward, and upside down until they don’t know if they’re coming or going, only to discover that they’re not going anywhere because their arm is bent halfway up their back and handcuffs are being applied to their wrists. The look on the guy’s face tells me he’s hallucinating badly, or he’s still trying to figure out what just happened.
Maybe it’s a little bit of both.
I was too busy with toothless Devon to see what happened to the third runner, but Jimmy tells me he ran back inside when he saw the officer coming at him from the corner of the house. Jimmy was still fighting the first guy at the time but managed to grab the runner by the leg as he passed. This caused him to fall, but then he kicked his leg free, bloodying Jimmy’s nose in the process.
That’s actually a good thing.
The guy just assaulted a law enforcement officer and fled into the house. That gives us probable cause not just for his arrest, but also for a warrant to enter and search the house. Most judges don’t look kindly on people who thump on cops, and in Washington State that’s assault third, a Class C felony.
Jimmy’s nose is still bleeding, so I try not to sound too happy.
* * *
Sergeant Brice Johnson with Tacoma PD handles the warrant application, and after being sworn in telephonically and testifying before a judge, the warrant is issued forty-five minutes later without having to break perimeter.
The warrant allows us to enter the residence and search for an unknown subject tentatively identified as John Doe and arrest him for assault third of a law enforcement officer.
Because we’re looking for a person, we can only look in places where a person might fit, so closets, attics, bathroom showers, and under beds are all a go, but sock drawers and medicine cabinets are a no-go. There is some reasonable flexibility in this, since there are documented cases of subjects hiding inside couches, clothes dryers, cabinets, and other places the average person wouldn’t consider.
Search warrants can be amended, of course, so while we’re checking under a mountain of dirty clothes in the bedroom, if we happen to come across a bag of meth or some obviously stolen property or firearms in a home occupied by convicted felons, the warrant can be modified to allow a broader search.
By the time we’re ready to make entry, a dozen officers are on hand.
From the porch, Sergeant Johnson announces the warrant in a loud voice several times and then tries again over the PA system in his car, but the mice are all quiet and huddled in their holes, hoping we’ll go away.
After knocking and announcing and waiting an extremely generous period of time, Sergeant Johnson boots the door open with a kick so dainty it would barely rouse a drunk from his barstool. It’s not the first or even the fifth time the door has been booted, and the frame and catch are so obviously battered that if you breathed on the door heavily it would fly from its rest.
Every
one rushes in.
The air explodes with shouts and commands and the thump of something big hitting the floor … and then the real commotion begins.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The ruckus inside the house continues for several minutes and then subsides to quieter voices and only the occasional shout or exclamation. Five minutes after breaching the door, Jimmy exits the house onto the front porch and holsters his Glock. Waving me forward from the lawn, where I’ve been relegated because of my lack of a weapon, he gives me a quick rundown.
“One female and four male subjects detained,” he says. “Three have active felony warrants, and all of them have misdemeanor warrants of one flavor or another—driving suspended, shoplifting, loitering, vehicle prowl, that sort of thing.”
“What about the mom?” I ask.
“Peggy Camp decided to resist,” Jimmy says slowly. “I’m not sure she’s going to be too cooperative. It took three of us to escort her to the ground, and four to cuff her.”
“Four?”
He shrugs. “She’s a big woman. Six-foot at least, and maybe three hundred pounds. I’ve never wrestled a Clydesdale, but after that I have a pretty good idea what it might be like.” He grins and then tips his head at the house. “Tacoma is still sweeping the upstairs, but we can get started on the first floor. Watch where you step and where you put your hands; there’s drug paraphernalia everywhere, including used needles.”
I follow him back into the house and pause in the living room, where two of the detainees, one of them being Peggy Camp, are still laid out facedown on the ratty carpet. The other three have already been helped to seats, hands cuffed behind their backs.
As I follow the Onion King’s trail through the downstairs, I study every chair he sat in, every cupboard or closet he opened, every wall he walked up to. I honestly don’t know what I’m expecting to find, but I look anyway. There’s no way he left anything of value in a drug house, that’s a given, but his movements may give a clue as to what he was doing here.