That was the part she had missed, though it had been there the entire time, plain as day for her to see. Richard was a loner. He might enjoy the company of a woman, but he was just as happy by himself. Just him and his gin. Had she actually missed it? Or had she disregarded all signs of danger that hovered around their arrangement?
Anger settled over her as she silently questioned how she had allowed herself to get involved with a cop in the first place. As his psychiatrist, she knew his darkest secrets, his challenges, and his flaws. But she had been drawn to him nonetheless, and she had followed her emotions rather than her head. Now look at her.
Disgusted with herself, she opened the Uber app and summoned a ride from the airport. She would deal with Richard tomorrow. If at all.
Floyd said, “Who are you ignoring, Dickie? Is that Katherine?”
Josie watched me, waiting to hear the reply.
“It’s the vet’s office.”
“Really? Interesting, since you don’t have any pets.”
“I have fish.”
“Oh, and one of them is at the vet?”
“Cosmo.”
“Cosmo,” Floyd repeated.
“Yeah, Cosmo, the wang-tang. It’s the purple little bastard with fins.”
“The Purple Tang.”
“Yes, that’s correct. A Red Sea Purple Tang, if you’re going to be precise about it.”
“And he’s at the vet.”
I nodded. “Minor surgery.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve gotten into the fish, Dickie. It’s good for you to have companionship, living beings that won’t eventually take half of your retirement. Now, just out of curiosity, what is it exactly that ails your fish? Cosmo.”
“He had a cold.”
“So, you took him to the vet, and they did surgery. And now the vet’s office is calling you at two in the morning with a report of his condition.”
I locked eyes with him as I would an opposing attorney in a jury trial. “Yes, that’s correct.”
He grinned. “You’re doing that thing you do.”
“What? What thing?” I insisted.
Josie watched as if it were a tennis match. Enthralled. The helicopter circled above, and a dead woman lay on the ground fifty feet from where we stood, rapidly cooling in the damp night air.
Floyd leaned against the sedan with his arms crossed, the grin now gone. “You’re pushing Katherine away. I’ve been watching, and I’ve seen you do it. You got scared again, like always. You started to let someone move into your life and then you panicked. Work makes more sense to you, so that’s what you do. You work. You can’t lie to me, Dickie. Telling fish stories, for fuck’s sake.”
I didn’t respond.
He looked at Josie. “Don’t ever get attached to this asshole.”
She smiled. “Hey, that’s my partner you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Then Floyd said to me: “Well, what’d you decide about this cluster? Are we going to sit here until dawn discussing your Purple Poon-Tang, or are we going to go kill this asshole ourselves?”
My brain swirled with the possibilities: wait for SWAT to arrive and then wait for hours more as they conducted their search. Or, do it ourselves, now, with the aid of a few patrol deputies and a canine unit. Call Katherine back and tell her what I had going on and explain why I couldn’t answer the phone. Send her a text. Deal with it all tomorrow and explain it then. Or just end it, which is where I was headed, and had been for some time now. Jesus. Floyd was right about me. The dead woman hadn’t moved. I wondered where it all went wrong for her, and for a moment questioned if it all was luck, or was it destiny. What was the difference? I didn’t know.
All I knew for sure is it was time to make some decisions. Somehow, Floyd had managed to put it all on me. How was this my decision? How was it even my circus? We were all equally involved, and we would all have to deal with the consequences. In the old days, I would have said yes to the search a long time before now. There wouldn’t have been much discussion or consideration. But now, times had changed. My gut said to wait for SWAT. They were the pros at taking on heavily armed, tactical thugs like the one we now hunted. At least he didn’t have his AR-15; we had recovered it from the car. Why hadn’t he taken it with him though? This guy was bad news and he would likely be waiting for our next move.
We needed to wait. But Floyd wasn’t with me on it; I could tell. I was about to state my position and argue my point when two gunshots rang out a short distance from where we stood.
The three of us looked at each other. Floyd held up the radio and we all stared at it, waiting for some type of news to be relayed from somewhere in the containment. Finally, after what seemed like minutes but was only seconds, a female voice excitedly announced on the frequency, “Suspect just ran into a garage on the north side of the containment, shots fired.”
“Who fired?” Floyd said into his handheld.
“I did,” she puffed, the transmission crackling. “He’s armed. He tried to break containment and when I hit him with the spotlight, he darted toward a garage. He had a gun, and I fired two rounds at him.”
“Shit,” Floyd said. He keyed the mic. “What type of gun did he have?”
“How would I know?”
The three of us exchanged glances. Floyd grinned. “Was it a handgun, or a rifle?”
“Oh, sorry. It was a handgun. He carried it in his hand while running.”
“He definitely did not have a rifle, right?”
“No sir.”
Floyd nodded. “That’s two now who confirm he doesn’t have a rifle. It changes everything. I say we go get him.”
“Let’s go over to her location and get some more details, see how it looks. Maybe come up with a plan.”
“Let’s do it,” Floyd said. As we were getting into my car, he added, “I don’t want to miss out on the chance to shoot that sonofabitch.”
As we drove off, Floyd glanced in the back seat. “Here we go, Josie. Tighten your bra straps.”
33
The garage stood apart from a two-story residence that remained dark and quiet in spite of the gunshots and now a flood of lights focused on it. The occupants were probably rehearsed at locking up and staying low during times like this. People in safer neighborhoods would often make the mistake of coming outside and insisting that the cops explain what was going on. A man in a bathrobe would appear at the edge of the yellow tape, or the outskirts of a containment, the wife peeking out the door, encouraging him. Not in this neighborhood. Nobody stirred.
We were a hundred feet away with an unrestricted view. Our headlights pointed at the garage and we huddled low in the door openings of my Crown Vic. There were two black and white radio cars positioned closer, though not directly in front of the property.
“First things first,” I said. “We need to consider evacuating the immediate neighbors. The two next door, those across the street, and we should consider the next street as well, those houses right on the other side of the alley.”
Floyd said, “Let’s see about getting some AR-15s out here.”
Josie said, “I’ll work on that. I know the watch commander.” With that, she turned and hustled to a radio car that sat idling nearby. There were two deputies sitting inside, their doors open, the front of the car pointed down the block with headlights and spotlights flooding the street.
“Good, thanks,” I called out to her back.
After a few minutes of reflection in the ensuing silence, I looked at Floyd. “I’m not pushing her away. She left to be with her parents. They’re old and sick. It’s just the way it worked out.”
He grinned. “Sure, Dickie.”
Two hours had passed since the female patrol deputy had spotted our suspect trying to break containment and had rightfully fired a couple of rounds at him for his trouble. Josie and I spoke with her briefly at the scene, explaining that at some point, another team of homicide detectives would be asking her for a statement. We assured her
that she did the right thing and she assured us that she had no problem with her actions. Though she hoped she had hit him, she didn’t think she had. We would find out soon enough. There had been no additional sightings of the suspect.
Floyd had ducked his head and jogged from our position in order to get AR-15s from the command post when we learned they had arrived. A short time later, he informed us by radio that SWAT was now at the command post, and that they were going to be systematically replacing the patrol deputies that were near the home with SWAT deputies. I told Josie that we were staying put, and she agreed. I wished Floyd had been able to get back with the rifles, and hoped he still would.
Methodically, men clad in olive drab-colored jumpsuits with blacked out patches and tactical gear and firearms prowled through yards, following the shadows as they took positions of cover in various positions in our vicinity. Once the location was secured by SWAT, a command was made for the patrol units to retreat. A few minutes later, the streets were dark. The patrol cars had retreated, and the airship now orbited higher and wider. They would no doubt continue to watch the garage and its vicinity through their night vision cameras. Soon, an inquiry was made by one of the SWAT members asking for the identity of the unmarked unit that remained inside the containment. I replied that we were Homicide, that it was our case, and we were remaining where we were. There was no response, which told me the inquiring SWAT cop didn’t like my position on the matter but thought it best not to argue about it either. This was not the time nor place for a pissing contest. Josie smiled widely at the comment.
Another fifteen minutes clicked off slowly in the quiet early morning hours. In the stillness, a military-style armored vehicle rounded the corner and drove toward the location. Men stood on platforms that line the sides and back of the vehicle, holding onto the handrails along the top. As the vehicle came to a stop, the men leaped from the vehicle and moved to various positions of cover in pairs. Once in position, the announcements commenced. For the next thirty minutes there were pleas for the suspect to surrender peacefully, and warnings that gas would soon be deployed. There was no response.
Soon, canisters of gas streaked through the night crashing through a window in the door to the garage, and another through a window on the side of the garage. SWAT was doing what they do best. What they train hard for, what they prepare for, what each and every one of them live for: action.
We waited. After a few moments, more canisters were fired, and more explosions followed. For the next pregnant moment, I wondered if the deputy had gotten it right, that the suspect had in fact run into the garage, the structure that now had smoke leaking from its pores.
I looked around at the adjacent homes and buildings and wondered if the suspect were somewhere else, and I began to worry that we had blown it. The whole operation, the entire night. A killer still on the run, not contained as we had thought for the past several anxiety-filled hours.
It happened more often than we cared to admit. Containments thought to be airtight could net no results after a thorough search, and this would leave many cops scratching their heads and doubting the results. But it was part of the game, a game we didn’t always win.
Smoke billowed out of the garage, through its broken windows, beneath the doorways, from vents on the roof. SWAT cops stood by patiently, gas masks in place beneath their helmets, rifles and shotguns at the ready. Another loud pop accommodated a teargas canister whistling across the horizon and through the broken window. Flashes of light accompanied the concussion, and moments later more light flickered from inside. Soon the flashes of light became flames and the billows of teargas smoke became blooms of black smoke. A fire raged inside. If the suspect remained, he would be consumed by it. I readied myself in anticipation of his exit.
Suddenly, a figure appeared in the doorway, a silhouette against a fully-engulfed inferno. The figure raised a pistol and began shooting in all directions. I heard bullets whizzing past us, and then the sounds of bullets striking my sedan were accented with the popping sounds of the windshield being hit. A barrage of gunfire from all directions answered. Josie and I fired our pistols until they were empty. Gunfire continued. While replacing an empty magazine with a loaded one, I thought again about the rifles and wished we had them. I glanced over to see Josie coming back up on target. Calm, deliberate. Badass. She was back in the gunfight.
As I came back up on target, I saw the figure retreat into the flames and disappear. The gunfire persisted for a brief moment before silence fell upon the night and the sounds of crackling fire and a distant helicopter were all that could be heard. Flames shot through the roof of the garage and reached high into the sky, popping and snapping against the black sky. Our faces glowed from the heat.
The fire department was held at the outskirts while the building burned to the ground. It was not worth risking their lives to allow them in. Though it seemed impossible that the suspect had survived, all precautions would be adhered to until it was proven that he was deceased.
As dawn came, the building only smoldered. We were thankful that the fire had been contained to the detached garage and had miraculously not spread to the home. The helicopter was long departed, but we remained, as did the SWAT team members. It was the calm after the storm, the eerie feel of reflection that follows deadly encounters. The adrenaline dumps we had each experienced would drain us of our energy, if only for a few moments.
We held our positions and waited until it was light enough to see the charred remains of the structure from a distance. Only after seeing no movement or signs of life for another half hour, the SWAT team formed a squad and a search for the suspect began.
Josie and I folded into our seats and laid our heads against the rests and waited. Floyd soon joined us, climbing into the back seat, grumpy that he had missed the action.
“You guys suck.”
A body was recovered from the charred debris of a garage that, for the last seven years, had served solely to house a 1939 Ford coupe owned by World War II Veteran James L. Borgstrom. His grandson, Roland, had been willed the treasured car. As a child, Roland had ridden in the coupe with his grandfather through the streets of New Hope, Pennsylvania, along the canal, over the Delaware River, out through the countryside where wild flowers covered the hillsides and ferns carpeted the mystical, dark woods. On a few occasions, he had accompanied his grandfather on the forty-mile trip north to Philadelphia. Roland recalled many of the trips he’d made in the classic automobile, and he recalled bringing the heirloom home in an enclosed cargo trailer after laying his grandfather to rest in 1996.
Roland had moved to Los Angeles to be a police officer in 1971. Like his father and grandfather before him, he had served his country with the United States Marine Corps. As a rifleman in the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, he’d served in Vietnam, surviving a thirteen-month tour that took him to the streets of Hue City where Marines fought house to house and many did not come home. But he had survived Vietnam and he had survived twenty-six years as a cop on the streets of Los Angeles. He reflected on it all as he stood stoically at the edge of his property, peering toward the burned shell of the old Ford with eyes that seemed to see something or someplace far away from where he stood.
Beyond the smoldering remains of the classic coupe, in the furthest corner of where the structure had stood, lay a pile of burned flesh and bone with skeletal fingers clutching a pistol, its chamber and magazine as empty and finished as the man who had died holding it.
Roland Borgstrom didn’t have many words for the detective who walked him to the edge of the demolished garage and stood with him while he appraised it. He didn’t share his memories of his grandfather that the coupe always evoked, and he didn’t reveal the flashbacks of war sparked by the sight of a charred man huddled in the corner with his gun. Nor did he disclose the reason that he missed all of the action and drama, having spent last night and most others for the past two months with his wife of more than three decades who was fighting terminal cancer at the USC
Medical Center.
When he had seen enough, he thanked the lady detective and disappeared into the home that stood unharmed just twenty feet away.
“How’d he take it?” I asked, when Josie returned to the car. I was waiting with the air-conditioner running and the visor down as my sedan baked beneath the mid-morning sun.
She closed the door and slid her sunglasses into place. “Surprisingly well. Unemotional, really. I guess whatever old heap burned up in that garage must not have had much sentimental value. The sight of a dead man may have stunned him into silence. I guess most people go a lifetime without seeing something like that. But, he’s a nice old man, the type that seemed supportive of law enforcement. He asked if any officers were hurt and shook his head sadly when I told him about Morgan being shot. That was about it. I’ve got his name and phone number. He said call his cell if we need anything, he won’t be home much the next week or so.”
“Oh? Is he staying somewhere else because of this?”
“He didn’t say. Probably headed to Palm Springs or Florida, playing golf or doing whatever old men do.”
“Must be nice to be retired, not have a worry in the world. Even your garage burning down can’t dampen your mood.”
“Someday,” she said, “we may be so fortunate.”
I drove slowly through the maze of detective cars, patrol vehicles, fire department and coroner’s office personnel, making our way back to the command post.
“I think we’ve done all we can do here. I don’t know about you two, but I could use some breakfast and then a few hours of sleep.”
“And beer,” Floyd said.
Hard-Boiled- Box Set Page 89