Night Passenger

by David Stanley

  A new thought came to him, from the dark fringes of his mind. He assumed that there was a point of intersection between the gang and the Ashcrofts prior to their meeting at the mall, and that the gang had followed them there from somewhere else. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if both the gang and Throne met the Ashcrofts through the same impossible foresight? Wouldn’t that help prove a link between them rather than destroy it?

  He sighed. It was ridiculous, he was grasping at straws.

  Could he be wrong about Thorne after all?

  In front of him, Barnes sat at his desk talking into his telephone. As ever, he was tilted way back in his chair with his feet up on the desk, the telephone’s curly cord stretched almost straight. To his surprise, he noticed the detective was wearing snakeskin cowboy boots, a fact that momentarily caused his mouth to stop chewing. The tone of the conversation seemed to change as he approached and he sensed that the call was a personal one. Across the narrow divider, he saw that Summersby’s chair lay empty. Cabot sat in it and stared across the low wall at Barnes who hastily wrapped up his call and hung up.

  “Detective,” Cabot said, reproachfully.

  “Lieutenant,” Barnes said, in the same tone.

  The younger man grinned, and Cabot couldn’t help but smile back. The bastard had a boyish charm just like his big hero, Thorne. Perhaps that’s why he can’t see through the actor, he thought; it was too much like looking in the mirror.

  “So, boss, how’re things down at the mall?”

  Cabot nodded, the bitterness immediately back in his mouth.

  “Kids are taking death selfies where Thorne collapsed.”

  Barnes laughed. “No kidding.”

  “Oh yeah. Cold dead eyes, outstretched arm - the whole bit.”

  He could tell that this news had entertained Barnes, and he regretted sharing it. By doing so, he’d somehow validated the stupidity of those kids and given their act an audience.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Barnes said, “but it’s a lot busier than usual out there for this time of year. People are coming here from all over because of what happened.”

  “You mean reporters? TV crews?”

  “No, no. Normal people. It’s like a sort of crime tourism. The place is on TV every day for two weeks, suddenly everyone wants to come visit for themselves.”

  Barnes was right, the area had become jammed. He hadn’t thought too much about it, but it felt like it was peak season. Slower traffic, lines of people in stores - it all made sense.

  Cabot leaned forward and spat his used gum into Summersby’s coffee mug. It would be a nice little surprise for the detective when he came to have his next break.

  “They probably hope to see him walking down the street.”

  “Oh, I’m certain of it. There’s a Thorne autograph on eBay right now. Last I looked, it was sitting at $13,000.”

  He could almost feel his blood pressure rising.

  “Do me a favor, Barnes. Keep shit like that to yourself.”

  His cell phone rang and he was glad of the interruption.

  “Cabot.”

  “This Robert Brookridge again at First National.”

  Thorne’s bank, he’d forgotten all about it. “Go ahead.”

  “The answer is no.”

  Rage swept over him. “You’re refusing to answer my question?”

  “I am answering your question, Cabot. No is the answer. Christopher Thorne received no unusual funds to accounts held with our bank. I trust that this information will help you with your investigation, and you can move in a more productive direction.”

  Brookridge cut the call. Cabot sighed and returned his cell phone to his pocket. Even this banker in L.A. thought Thorne was innocent. Nobody could see past that video. They saw a hero and that was enough for them. Why wasn’t it enough for him too? He ran his hand back and forth over the top of his head as if he could massage ideas into his brain. Video, that was it. He’d been approaching this all wrong. Thorne knew there was footage of everything after he entered the mall, he was relying on it to sell his story. But there was little on that clip that was helpful from an investigative point of view. What happened before, that was what he needed to concentrate on. That part of the story was bullshit. He needed to pull it apart, expose it for what it was: a work of fiction. Only then would he make progress. Have other people questioning Thorne’s actions, his motives.

  “Saddle up, Barnes. We’re heading out.”

  Mason Barnes stood and picked up his jacket.

  “About goddamn time. Where we going, boss?”

  “McDonalds.”

  The detective’s face fell. “I already ate.”

  “This ain’t lunch, asshole.”

  It was after 1 p.m. when they arrived at the McDonald’s Thorne mentioned in his interview, and the place was busy with lunch traffic. In a restaurant like this, you could expect to find people in line for lunch anytime between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. As it was, the line snaked through the eating area and more than half the tables were occupied. It was a small McDonald’s compared with some, but the food would be just the same. Somehow, the food was the same wherever you went. He walked past the line up to the front. One of the servers was just finishing with a customer and he cut in front of a tall, blond surfer. He raised the palm of his hand to the man’s chest.

  “Police business, mac. Stay in line.”

  He turned back to the server.

  “Get the manager.”

  The kid nodded and, without saying anything, left the counter and went through in back. Cabot stared at the ice cream machine. It looked good, he could really do one right now. The surfer was standing next to him now, waiting for his order. He could feel his presence looming over him without having to look. Tall people, he thought, they all have such a god complex. Like they became tall through some great effort of theirs, rather than by the genes they were born with. Thorne was the same way. Cabot saw the surfer’s muscled forearm out the corner of his eye. His skin was a deep caramel color from constant sun exposure. In a couple of years he’d start to look like leather, he had seen it before. Sunlight made you old, if it didn’t kill you first.

  The kid was back, followed by a slightly older kid. This one had to be mid twenties, if that. This was the manager? Jesus Christ. The manager had Clark Kent glasses on beneath a flap of hair that hung over his left eye. He stuck his chin forward.

  “Help you, sir?”

  His face was bored and Cabot didn’t have time for it.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

  “Not really. Just the tables out front.”

  “This is a murder investigation, son, not a complaint about your food. I figure you don’t want to discuss dead bodies next to your customers.”

  The color drained from the manager’s face. Cabot could see the man’s Adam’s apple moving up and down, trying to work something down his throat.

  “I suppose you could come into my office. Public aren’t supposed to be back there, but I guess you’re okay. Go to the side, I’ll open the door for you.”

  Cabot and Barnes stepped away from the counter and walked to where a door was set into the wall. After a moment, it opened and the manager waved them through. The area beyond the door did not have a pleasant vibe and reminded him of a prison. Broken dreams, depression, and the constant smell of grilled meat. Well, most parts were the same. They followed the kid back to a small office. The manager and Cabot sat on either side of a desk and Barnes stood by the door, arms folded. The kid brushed the flap of hair away from his face.

  “What’s this about?”

  “I’m investigating the shoot-out at the mall across the street. One of the gunmen claims he ate here beforehand and I’m here to check it out.”

  “One of those men was here?”

  “That’s right.”

  Again the Adam’s apple pumped up and down.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “I need to speak with an
yone that was working that day.”

  “Of course.” The manager turned to his computer. “What date was that?”

  Cabot told him and the manager typed this into his computer. After a moment, he turned and wrote four names onto a pad of paper that sat next to his keyboard. He typed some more and then looked between the pad and the screen.

  “You’re in luck. Two of them are working today. Want to speak to them?”

  Cabot nodded. When he was sure they were alone, he picked a trash can off the floor and swept items off the desk into it, creating space to work. Car keys, pens, tape. Everything went in. Whatever the man wanted he could pick out later. He pulled a wad of photographs from his pocket. There were a dozen pictures about the size of an old Polaroid print.

  “What’s your thinking, boss?”

  Cabot glanced at Barnes.

  “Thorne said he was here, let’s see if he was.”

  “That’s it? How does that help us?”

  Cabot returned his attention to the photographs.

  “If he said he was here and he wasn’t, I want to know. Then I’d want to know where he actually was, because that might be important.”

  “And if he was here?”

  Cabot sighed. “Then I’d want to know if he was on his own, or with these other clowns planning the whole thing. I’m just doing my job, Barnes. If my investigation clears him, the two of you are free to soap each other up in a shower, or whatever the hell it is you want to do with this guy, I really don’t care.”

  To his surprise, Barnes laughed. Cabot couldn’t help but smile as he heard it. The detective was still laughing when the manager returned with two African-American women.

  “All right ladies,” Cabot said. “Who’s first?”

  The routine was the same with both employees. He laid the photographs out on the end of the desk, revealing the faces slowly like a tarot reading in three rows of four. The pictures were of Thorne and of all the other players, including Ashcroft. For those that were dead, he’d used pictures provided by the DMV, rather than pictures from the morgue. Death really caused problems when it came to facial recognition, people couldn’t get past it. For Morrison, he’d used the grainy still from the security camera above Victoria’s Secret. He’d thrown in some pictures of some local ex-cons for unbiased filler and, to mix things up, a publicity picture of Charles Grodin from the movie Midnight Run.

  Both women picked Thorne out immediately; both smiled as they did so.

  “Him!” Said one.

  “Mmm. That one,” said the other, in a dreamy far-off voice.

  Thorne was the only one they recognized, neither recognized Ashcroft, Morrison, or even Grodin. Both thought Thorne had been seated on his own, but couldn’t be certain. Cabot told each of them they could leave. He looked up from the chair at Barnes as he came in through the door from the hallway.

  “Well?” The detective asked.

  “Charles Grodin hasn’t eaten here. Didn’t even recognize him.”

  Barnes shook his head. “That’s appalling. How about Thorne or Morrison?”

  “Just Thorne, nobody else.” Cabot touched his forehead with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. It was either to help him think or to stop him shaking his head. “Get that manager kid back in here, there’s one more thing I want to check.”

  The manager must’ve been listening at the door because he appeared right away. He squeezed past Barnes then paused for a moment before sitting down to look at the blank space on his desk and his full trash can.

  “Show me footage from your security cameras.”

  “For that same date?” The manager looked at Cabot as if he was joking. “Look, you got to realize, our system has a fixed retention policy.”

  “Meaning what? How long do you keep the footage?”

  “Depends where it’s from. For example, footage from the camera covering the parking lot and the outside of the building is only kept for 24 hours.”

  “Why so short?”

  “Because we know almost immediately if we need to keep anything. You’re talking about customers fighting, or damage to the restaurant or vehicles. Any problems, we flag the file and the footage gets saved, otherwise it just takes up space. There’s also the legality of long term storage of personal activity without permission. This is McDonald’s, not the NSA.”

  Cabot could see where this was going. “And inside?”

  “Well, yeah, I was getting to that. The footage inside the restaurant is split into three areas; public, in back, and the tills. We keep the tills footage the longest, 60 days. It’s used to spot patterns of usage that might point to staff taking money. A lot of employees have little to lose and work unsociable hours. The cameras help keep them honest.”

  “Look,” Cabot said with growing impatience, “I don’t give a shit about your hourly rate. A man who killed three people and put a fourth in a coma said he ate here. How long do you keep footage of people ordering food, sitting there eating, all that?”

  The manager licked his lips nervously. “7 days.”

  Cabot swore. It was 22 days since the shoot-out. Any definitive proof Thorne had been here was long gone. He had the word of two young women who probably didn’t know what day it was today. Thorne’s story could not be proved or disproved: it was the worst possible outcome. With two witnesses independently picking him out, the balance favored the actor’s version of events, but not a hundred percent. People were unreliable.

  All it meant, was that they recognized Thorne.

  Did it mean he’d actually been there, or that they’d seen him on TV? After a short period of time, memory became fluid. Unlike facts, memories became distorted, jumbled up. This raised another, more troubling possibility. Thorne had been purposefully vague during the interview about his activities in the days before the shoot-out. If he’d been in the restaurant on either of the two previous days, it would be a simple matter for him to use that in his story to conceal what he’d really been doing that morning. He’d be able to describe the restaurant with convincing detail if asked, with the bonus that a member of staff might alibi him by misremembering which day he’d been there.

  “Bring up footage from the tills,” he said.

  “From when?”

  “Right now, I want to see the angle.”

  The man selected a feed and enlarged it. “This is camera 1. Camera 2 is pretty much the same but from the other side.”

  The image shrunk down and another image appeared. Cabot shook his head in dismay. The camera clipped off the customer and recorded only the tills and items on the trays.

  “This is all digital, right?” Barnes said.

  “Right.”

  “So it’s not like a tape that gets reused. It can be recovered?”

  “Maybe someone can, but it’s not me.”

  Cabot sighed. Recovered files were problematic at best anyway. It was easy to present it as tainted evidence in court. The files were changed to bring them back to life. Who was to say how much had been changed. Dates? Times? People knew how much can be changed using a computer, they all photoshopped their faces for Facebook.

  “All right, how about credit card transactions? It’s possible he didn’t pay with cash, right? Maybe he’s one of those dicks who pays for everything with his cell phone.”

  “You’d have to speak to someone higher than me about that. We’re not allowed to show financial information without permission from corporate, or a warrant.”

  It was useless. He didn’t have the evidence for a warrant, the evidence was on the other side. Chicken and egg. A perfect loop that seemed to do nothing but protect criminals from legitimate investigation. Cabot got to his feet.

  “Come on Barnes, this is a bust.”

  Out in the parking lot, another sheriff’s car was parked opposite theirs and a couple of patrol deputies sitting inside shoveling food into their faces. Neither of the two acknowledged him in any way, despite prolonged eye contact. This neither shocked him nor angered him, it
was just the way it was. He didn’t mess with patrol, and they didn’t mess with him. He unlocked the door of his cruiser, climbed in and waited as Barnes got in next to him. There was a sense of weary resignation about the younger man as he put on his seatbelt and slumped in the seat. They were no further forward. Thorne had been recognized, but he hadn’t expected anything else. The man seemed to be everywhere right now.

  Cabot pulled the car out of its spot and swung round, toward the exit.

  Identification of Christopher Thorne was going to suffer from this problem wherever he went, whether they remembered the shoot-out footage or not. Witnesses might be pre-inclined to give favorable testimony because at some level they remembered his heroism. He frowned, thinking about the two till cameras. They had the same underwater quality as the feeds at the mall and it came to him what it meant.

  “Something bothering you, boss?”

  He glanced at Barnes, surprised. “Why?”

  “You have that face when something’s going on.”

  “It’s that security footage, it reminded me of the recordings at the mall. Something was the same, and something else was different. I couldn’t place what it was until just now. On TV, the mall footage has sound, but the official footage is silent. I never noticed before.”

  Barnes smiled. “God, you’re right! I hadn’t noticed either.”

  He pulled the cruiser out of the parking lot and swung it across the street, back toward the Sheriff’s Office.

  “Where do you think the sound went? Did someone remove it?”