Out of Exile: Hard Boiled: 2

by Jack Quaid

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She stared him down.

  ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘She’s our daughter. Always has been, she . . .’ His words trailed off into nothing.

  Mackler watched his movements and tried to gauge the truth of his words. Then she changed her focus.

  ‘At this point, it’s almost irrelevant. Campbell has Monique and Sarah, and we have to get them back. That’s all that matters.’ She pulled out her phone and began punching in numbers. ‘Get back to the office.’ She pushed the phone to her ear and walked off down the alley.

  ‘You believe me, do you?’ Jones called out, but by the time the words had left his mouth, she was already gone.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Lopez was redlining her Chevy down the I94 toward Detroit when Chief Mackler called. She wanted Lopez to drive to the car park of the Palmerston Hotel, instead of Major Crimes, and wait for her there. Besides a friendly hello when they passed in the halls, Lopez had never spoken to the chief before.

  Three days earlier, Jones had assigned Lopez to investigate a police-involved shooting in Dearborn Heights. A mentally disturbed forty-five-year-old man had come at a rookie with a meat clever. The rookie put two bullets in his chest, the man died, and the public were up in arms. Lopez spent three days interviewing witnesses, analyzing evidence and stepping through the crime scene. She came to the conclusion that if a person, mentally ill or not, charges another person with a meat cleaver, that person is justified in trying not to get stabbed. She cleared the constable of any wrongdoing and had since received two death threats for her troubles.

  She had left Dearborn Heights as soon as she heard of the shooting on Michigan Avenue and had been listening to the radio, but there was very little in the way of balanced news, and the eyewitness accounts were sketchy at best.

  The car park of the Palmerston Hotel was nearly empty, and as soon as Lopez pulled in, she saw Chief Mackler leaning against the hood of her government-issued vehicle, with her phone pushed to her ear and speaking into it at a hundred miles an hour. When she saw Lopez, Mackler hung up, slipped the phone into the pocket of her leather jacket and climbed into the passenger seat of the car.

  ‘Does anybody know you’re back in the city?’

  Lopez shook her head. ‘No, Chief.’

  ‘Keep it that way. For a while, anyway.’

  Lopez nodded as if she understood but she had no idea what was going on. ‘What happened here today?’

  ‘Jim Jones’s wife and daughter have been kidnapped by rogue DPD officers.’

  Lopez drew a breath. ‘Oh, fuck.’ Then she remembered who she was sitting with. ‘Sorry, Chief.’

  Mackler waved it away. ‘They’re claiming Jones stole his daughter, Monique, from a couple when she was an infant. That he’s just as corrupt as those bastards he put away.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘I don’t believe it either. But I want you to find out if there’s any truth to this claim.’

  ‘There isn’t.’

  Mackler wasn’t used to being challenged, and certainly not by someone so low on the food chain. ‘Sorry, Chief.’

  ‘I don’t, for a minute, believe there is any truth to this, but we can’t ignore it,’ Mackler said. ‘Can I count on you?’

  Lopez cracked a window to get some cool air into the car. It didn’t help. ‘I’ve known Jim since I was a rookie. He took me out of the academy, he trained me. This doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘Jim Jones has a lot of enemies. I need somebody to look into this who doesn’t hold a grudge. That said,’ she held her finger up, ‘If you find something, anything at all, bring it to me. Do you understand?’

  Lopez nodded.

  * * *

  Guard duties had been swapped. Deacon had taken over from God, and he took his role seriously. He paced the same patch of concrete in front of Sarah and stared at her the entire time. Monique had cried herself to sleep with her head in her mother’s lap.

  Deacon stopped with the pacing. ‘I’ve got to go shit,’ he called.

  Campbell dialed his phone, cupping the mouthpiece as it rang. ‘Sullivan, guard the girls.’

  Sullivan made his way over and sat on the plastic lawn chair in front of them.

  Sarah stared him out. ‘You said, trust me?’

  ‘And you can,’ Sullivan said and motioned with his chin toward Monique. ‘Is it true?’

  She looked at him with a mix of disgust and hate in her eyes. ‘Don’t be stupid. Jim wouldn’t do anything like that.’

  Sullivan threw a casual glance around the room. Everyone was too far away and too preoccupied to hear a word they were saying. He shifted his gaze back to Sarah. ‘Right now the truth doesn’t matter. All that matters is what Campbell believes, and he believes Jones to be guilty.’

  She closed her eyes and let the air leak from her lungs, and her entire body relaxed. ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘Your husband helped me a couple of years ago.’

  She smiled. ‘And then he put you in jail?’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect,’ Sullivan said with a smile.

  ‘Christ.’ Her face softened, and she laughed to herself. ‘I was leaving him. That’s why we were at the hotel. I’ve been seeing someone else, for months. He’s some detective, huh? He didn’t know, or maybe he did and didn’t care. I don’t know . . . Phil Masi,’ she said, with a slight shake of her head. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking, running away with a real estate agent.’ She laughed. ‘It’s such a cliché. And now that all this has happened, all those reasons I had for running away don’t seem so important.’

  Sullivan put his hand gently on her knee. ‘I’ll get you back to Jim.’

  She smirked as if she knew something Sullivan was yet to realize. ‘You’re not a cop anymore, Angus.’

  Sullivan rubbed the back of his shaved head. ‘I don’t know how to be anything else.’

  Deacon returned and relieved Sullivan. As he cut across the office floor, he saw Campbell check his watch, then kick the television to the ground.

  Jones’s deadline was up.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Jones stared out of the dirty office window at the city. The desk behind him was blanketed with faded hard copies of the files on the men who had taken his family. Campbell, Deacon, God, Hogan, and in other piles around the office were the files on everyone they had ever worked under or partnered with. It would take ten cops working for a month to sift through all the files and make sense of them. The only man whose file wasn’t on the table was Angus Sullivan’s.

  Nobody but Jones knew Sullivan was involved in this mess, and even though he himself didn’t fully understand why, Jones was keeping it that way. Images ran through his mind of bullets cracking down Michigan Avenue, uniforms descending on the van, Campbell and his crew blasting away, and Angus Sullivan protecting his daughter.

  Mackler stood behind Jones’s desk, knuckles on the glass, her eyes looking over the files. ‘Anything stand out to anyone?’

  Without even so much as a glance away from his iPad, Rodine said, ‘Nothing that can help us.’

  Mackler looked at her watch. ‘Come on, people, we need something.’

  O’Conner’s phone rang. He answered it, listened for a moment, and hung up. ‘Campbell, Deacon, Hogan; all of their families are gone, and the houses are empty.’

  Mackler’s chin tapped her chest, and she sighed. ‘We need to get better at this, people.’

  ‘We’re doing everything we can.’

  ‘And do you think that’s good enough?’ she asked.

  None of her young staff had the balls to challenge her. O’Conner was older and did. ‘It may be to our detriment not to start thinking about other options,’ he said.

  Mackler waved her hand dismissively. ‘And what other options do you have in mind?’

  ‘Give them what they want.’

  Jones shifted the angle of his chin and caught sight of half the room. It was the first time since they
had returned to IA that the conversation between them had his attention.

  ‘We are the Detroit Police Department,’ Mackler said. ‘We do not negotiate with criminals.’

  O’Conner scratched his beard. ‘We may not have a choice.’

  ‘They’re not ghosts. We’ll find them.’

  ‘In a couple of minutes, that telephone is going to ring,’ O’Conner said. ‘And Campbell is going to want to know why his demands haven’t been met, and then he’s going to do something about it.’

  Mackler took a seat, dug out a pack of cigarettes from her handbag, and lit one. ‘If Jones goes on live television and confesses to being as corrupt as the cops he’s sent to prison, whether it’s true or not, it will destroy the credibility we’ve spent the past three years building, as well as Jones’s credibility. The floodgates for retrials will open, and all of the crooked officers will be on the street within six months.’

  O’Conner leaned against a filing cabinet and thought carefully about his next words. ‘What is our goal here? Are we protecting the integrity of the DPD, or are we trying to save Jones’s family?’

  ‘I believe we can do both,’ Mackler said. ‘They’re bluffing. Yesterday they were cops. They’re not going to turn into murderers overnight. Jones hasn’t done anything wrong.’

  Everybody in the room looked to Jones. They were all asking themselves the same question, and they hadn’t had an answer from him. Jones shifted his weight, turned, and faced the rest of the room. The throb in his knee was on par with the one in his head. He thought about Sarah and how they had grown apart. He thought about his daughter, Monique, the little girl he hardly knew. He thought about everything he had achieved in the past three years. He thought about how he went from being a young cop with a huge future, to losing his leg, to being buried in IA and fighting his way out. He thought about taking his career, his future, and reputation back again.

  One thought played over in his mind.

  I haven’t done anything wrong.

  I haven’t done anything wrong.

  I haven’t done anything wrong.

  Then the telephone rang.

  Documented Evidence Insert Number: #304

  DOCUMENT TYPE: Official Detroit Police telephone call transcript: ‘Recorded at the Chief’s request’

  DATE: 31/01/2012

  CONFIDENTIAL: ‘Chief’s Eyes Only’

  PERSONS: JAMES JONES, WILLIAM CAMPBELL, SARAH JONES

  * * *

  >>BEGINNING OF TRANSCRIPT<<

  * * *

  JAMES JONES: This is Jones.

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: I’ve been watching the television. I saw a bit of M*A*S*H, a little bit of the cricket, but do you know what I didn’t see?

  JAMES JONES: No.

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: I didn’t see you.

  JAMES JONES: No you did not.

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: Why was that?

  JAMES JONES: We need more time.

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: Oh, it’s we now? Who else is listening here?

  SILENCE

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: Hello? (singing) Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?

  SILENCE

  JAMES JONES: Chief Mackler is here.

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: Oh, hello, Chief. Surely she can call a press conference?

  JAMES JONES: We need more time.

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: You had the last three years to do right by your fellow cops.

  JAMES JONES: How about another hour?

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: I don’t think that’s going to work for me.

  JAMES JONES: I want proof of life.

  SILENCE

  (INDISTINGUISHABLE SOUNDS)

  SARAH JONES: Jim?

  JAMES JONES: I’m here, sweetheart?

  (INDISTINGUISHABLE SOUNDS)

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL: I’ll give you thirty seconds to think it over.

  JAMES JONES: . . . I don’t need the time. I think you’re bluffing. Keeping them alive is the only thing keeping you alive. Now, I’ve got a demand of my own. You turn yourselves in and maybe, just maybe, you’ll breathe some free air at the end of your life.

  (INDISTINGUISHABLE SOUNDS)

  JAMES JONES: . . . Hello?

  * * *

  >>END OF COMMUNICATION<<

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Jones held the phone to his ear.

  He turned white.

  ‘Oh no . . . What have I done?’

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  ‘Get her over here!’

  Deacon pulled Sarah to her feet. She fought him.

  Monique screamed and tried to run to her mother.

  Bear-like, God grabbed her from behind and raised a fist. ‘Calm her down!’ he said. ‘CALM HER DOWN!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Sarah said calmly, for the sake of her daughter. ‘It’s all right.’

  Monique’s legs kicked at impossible targets until she tired herself out. Then, as she listened to her mother’s words, she settled down.

  Deacon threw Sarah toward a chair. She stumbled over it, hit the ground, and without being told, climbed up onto the chair. Sullivan could see her eyes dart around the room at the hard men surrounding her. Things didn’t look good.

  Campbell turned to Sullivan. ‘Cut her finger off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her finger. I want you to cut it off.’

  Sullivan looked to Sarah and then back to Campbell. ‘No.’

  ‘You’re a late addition to this band of merry men, Sullivan. And, although you have a very impressive résumé and we’ve had dealings in the past, I’m still struggling with something.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘The DPD were pretty quick to get to the Westin this morning.’

  ‘Deacon shot at one in the lobby,’ Sullivan said. ‘They probably weren’t too happy about that.’

  ‘Yeeeaaah,’ Campbell said, turning the word into a note. ‘They still got there pretty quick.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘He’s saying that you done us in,’ Deacon spat.

  ‘You start shooting in a hotel,’ Sullivan said, ‘police are going to come. I don’t give a shit how optimistic you are.’

  ‘Needless to say, I’d like to know if you can be trusted,’ Campbell said.

  Sullivan saw the fear in Sarah’s eyes. ‘I’m not cutting this woman’s finger off.’

  Campbell smiled. ‘I think you’ll start to see things differently soon.’

  ‘Really?’ Sullivan said. ‘When would that be exactly?’

  Campbell shifted behind Sullivan and pushed his weapon into the base of his skull. ‘How about now?’

  ‘No,’ Sullivan said, with a shake of his head. ‘I’m not seeing it.’

  Campbell pushed the weapon deeper into his neck. ‘Take her ring finger.’

  ‘No.’

  Campbell swung the butt of his weapon across the back of Sullivan’s head. A cut opened up, and blood rolled down his neck. He pushed the pain out of his mind.

  ‘Look, I wouldn’t really know where to start.’

  ‘Horse, bring me some pliers,’ Campbell called over his shoulder.

  And, like an obedient puppy, there was Horse a moment later, with a pair of pliers. He handed them to Sullivan.

  Campbell leaned forward, whispered in Sullivan’s ear. ‘Either you take off her ring finger or I put a bullet into the back of your head.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Abib Pappas was going into his fourteenth straight hour behind the wheel of his cousin’s cab. He had just spent the past two hours at Detroit Metro airport, waiting in the queue for a fare big enough to make it worth the wait, but the one he got was a short trip, fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes away. Thirty dollars, if he was lucky.

  The time he had spent in the hot cab on this summer morning, listening to talkback radio and reading the paper, could have been spent with Laura and their newborn. Since his little boy had come home from the hospital, Abib hadn’t spent more than six consecutive hours with him. Between driving
the cab, doing his second and third jobs, and going to night school, there wasn’t much time left over.

  Then he got another short fare, from Temple to Rosa Parks. At least he didn’t have a passenger in the back seat to complain about the smell in the cab or the music he played on the radio. All he had was a small cardboard box sitting next to him on the passenger seat. The man at the pickup gave him one hundred dollars to deliver it to someone on the eleventh floor of a building just across town.

  Abib pulled the cab into a taxi rank on Turnbull Avenue and entered the building. He was given a visitor’s pass and rode the elevator to the eleventh floor. The doors opened with a ding, and he stepped into chaos. Pointing to the name written on the cardboard, he showed the box to a passing policeman, who pointed to an office door at the far end of the room. Abib stepped off and navigated his way among the mass of people until he came to the closed door. He knocked.

  A man opened it and looked down his nose at him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have a package for . . .’ Abib tried again to read the name on the cardboard box, but the writing was as bad as his English. ‘Jones?’

  A man in his forties, who looked as if he hadn’t slept in three days, limped toward him. ‘I’m Jim Jones,’ he said.

  Abib shoved the box at him. Jones peeled back the long piece of sticky tape that held it closed. When he saw the contents, his face turned white, and he stumbled to the floor and vomited into the rubbish bin.

  An older man picked up the box.

  ‘It’s Sarah Jones’s ring finger,’ he said. ‘There’s a note.’ He read it and looked at the others. ‘This just bought us four hours.’

  Chapter Thirty One

  Lopez had thought she would have more time. The phone rang. It was the chief wanting her to go up to the eleventh floor. Lopez collected her notes, closed her laptop, and headed for the elevator.