Lucky Town

by Peter Vonder Haar

  “Ballistics don’t lie.”

  “Not generally, no,” I said, “but it’s hard to know for sure when the results aren’t released to other agencies. And since when does DHS run its own lab? I thought all your shit got farmed out to the FBI.”

  Garcia couldn’t help glancing at the mirror. “That’s a, uh, new directive.”

  I folded my hands in front of me. “Sure, Jan.”

  “I think a better question” — he was trying to get the ball back in his court — “would be how you came by some of this information.”

  “You mean besides the information your own boss’s secretary told me?”

  He gave good glare, you had to credit him for that.

  “The address was on the county appraisal district web site," I said. “Contact info for your people is publicly available, if you know where to look.”

  “I was thinking more about how you learned about certain … operational details,” he said.

  Garcia either suspected we’d hacked their files and couldn’t prove it or was on a fishing expedition. Either way, he could pound sand.

  “We all have our sources,” I said. “Are y’all going to charge me with something? Or are we going to keep going around in circles?” I nodded to the mirror. “Somehow I don’t think your people are getting all the material they want.”

  Garcia scooped all the papers (except the photo of the anonymous dead guy, of course) back into his folder and walked to the door, knocking once. It opened enough to let him out then closed. I heard the bolt latch again.

  Sighing, I rubbed my eyes. This was shaping up to be another long day in what was already a very long week, and instead of being any closer to finding Mike, I was cooling my heels in what I was increasingly sure was a black site. Garcia hadn’t used the word “terrorism,” but accusing me of that seemed like the next logical step in justifying my detention.

  I must have dozed, because I jerked awake at the sound of the bolt on the door being thrown again. It wasn’t Garcia who came in this time, though I did recognize the man. His expression wasn’t as friendly as it’d been the first time I’d made his acquaintance.

  “Dave Hammond,” I said. “How’s Dot doing?”

  Chapter THIRTY-TWO

  Though I have no proof, this is how I imagine events played out this morning.

  First, I’m arrested. Pretty straightforward.

  Next, after a brief interval (call it 90 minutes or an hour) Charlie and/or Don would have grown worried and tried to call me. My phone was taken away when I was arrested, so their calls would’ve gone straight to voicemail, probably alarming them further.

  One of them (Don, probably) would have fired up his police scanner to see if there was any chatter. DHS traffic wouldn’t have shown up on this, but a raid in an East Houston neighborhood would likely generate some conversation.

  Depending on how much detail they were able to dig up, Charlie could check the booking databases to see if they had any information. No, I don’t know what databases, my only superpowers are taking punches and remembering movie quotes.

  If DHS was careless, my real name would be on the booking sheet. Not that it mattered, because “Caucasian male, mid-30s” would stand out just as starkly for the area.

  The only wild card at that point would be who they decided to contact to get me out. I was fairly sure Don wasn’t careless enough to leave Charlie alone at the hospital, and he had to know it wouldn’t do any good to show up solamente at … wherever I was.

  I didn’t even know if this place had a front desk.

  That’s assuming Charlie didn’t fake an email ordering my release. If she spoofed it from the President’s address, I’d buy her a new pair of Chucks.

  Anyway, these were my thoughts as Hammond started talking to me in the interrogation room. Forgive me for not being especially interested in what he had to say.

  “Mr. Clarke?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Did you hear what I just said?” The earnestness of his expression was precious.

  “Sorry, I must have zoned out,” I said. “It happens when I’ve been wrongfully arrested for murder.”

  An expression of annoyance crossed his features, but he composed himself. “I was saying, while we at the DHS understand your family’s concern over Mike Clarke’s disappearance, we condemn in the strongest possible terms your insistence on interfering in our investigation.”

  “Wow, what a heartfelt expression of sympathy. I’d give a round of applause if you hadn’t chained me to a table,” I said. “Was that a version of the official statement you were going to release if I got shot at the fake Garcia’s house?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said. “We’re trying as hard as we can to find out what happened to Mike.”

  “By telling everyone he shot Ramirez.”

  “We didn’t leak that.” He was visibly angry now.

  “Bullshit. It couldn’t have come from anyone else,” I said. “HPD doesn’t even have the weapon to do their own testing, so either you ordered it or you’re incompetent.”

  Hammond stood up. “Now listen to me, you son of a bitch …”

  I remained seated. “Or what? You’re gonna bounce my head off the table a few times? Might want to turn the cameras off before you do. Lawyers have a field day with that kind of thing.”

  Like Garcia, he couldn’t resist sneaking a look at the two-way mirror. It comes with time, I thought; spend enough hours in the interrogation room and you don’t even think about who else is watching. It can cause problems.

  Hammond sat down, looking ruddy as ever.

  “You and Garcia really need to work on your good cop/bad cop thing,” I offered. “By which I mean, you can’t both be the bad cop …”

  “Clarke …” He began.

  “… it’s right there in the name.”

  “Enough!” Then, “You know what? It doesn’t even matter if you stop snooping around the Ramirez investigation,” he said.

  “Is that a fact?”

  He nodded. “We have you cold on murder, which ought to put a stop to your —” he made the “air quotes” symbol with his fingers “ — investigation.”

  “You have exactly jack shit,” I said. “That guy was dead half a day by the time I got there.”

  “Won’t matter if the ballistics match your weapon.”

  I said, “Oh right, ballistics. Would this be the same lab that so expertly tied my brother’s gun to Ramirez? The lab HPD has never heard of? Is the Department of Justice aware you’re operating your own shop for that now?”

  Hammond didn’t answer, so I kept going, “In fact, I bet all concerned law enforcement agencies would be very interested in this little fiefdom you’ve set up out here. Does this have official sanction from the Secretary?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Maybe not,” I said. “Tell you what, y’all see if you can get the U.S. Attorney to bring charges based on the garbage you’ve got, and I’ll see how quickly I can get my lawyer to sue your asses. All this?” I waved to the mirror. “Inadmissible the second I asked for my attorney.”

  He opened his mouth as the door opened behind him. It was an agent I didn’t recognize. Hammond turned. “What?”

  “Need to talk to you,” the agent said.

  Hammond got up for the second time and walked over to the door. An intense, albeit quiet, discussion ensued. At the end of it I saw Hammond’s shoulders slump somewhat and he returned to the table. He didn’t sit down.

  Instead, he produced a key and unlocked my handcuff. “You’re free to go.”

  I stood, rubbing my wrist, but didn’t say anything. Truth be told, I was about as surprised as he was. Not waiting for someone to change their mind, I stepped past him. The agent glared at me, but didn’t shut the door in my face.

  “Where to?”

  “Follow me,” he muttered.

  He led me down a long, brightly lit hallway with a d
isconcertingly large number of doors that appeared identical to the one I’d emerged from. After a couple turns, a door marked “Exit” appeared, though without the usual prominent red neon sign accompanying it.

  He stopped, and so did I, until he held his arm out. “That way.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Do I want to know?”

  “I don’t know how it happened,” he said, then shook his head. “Your lawyer’s here.”

  Hoping my poker face hid the fact I was just as surprised as they were, I nodded like my lawyer popping in was something that happened all the time and walked through the exit.

  And then stopped, unable to keep the surprise to myself this time.

  Son of a bitch, I thought. Twelve thousand lawyers in this city and my ex-girlfriend has to be the one to bail me out.

  Emma McKenzie and I broke up a little over a year ago. Nothing sinister: no screwing around, no fights, no fundamental disagreement on principles (she wasn’t a Yankees fan or anything), we just sort of … drifted.

  She was an attorney with a fairly well-known downtown firm. We’d dated for almost three years, and at one point I (and everyone in my immediate family) thought we were going to get married.

  After a while, her partner track lifestyle and my own increasing workload caused us to start drifting apart. I don’t remember what the final straw was, but I’m sure my own petulance at her success had nothing to do with it, no sir.

  I knew she’s already made junior partner, because we both kept up to date on each other through mutual friends.

  At least, I kept up to date on her. I assumed she did the same, because otherwise it made me a bit of a creep.

  “You’re looking … fit,” Emma said. “Still throwing hands, I take it.”

  I touched my swollen eye self-consciously and was immediately annoyed with myself for doing so. “What are you doing here?”

  “Getting you out of government custody. You’re welcome.” She smiled, and for a moment it felt like old times again. I let the moment pass.

  “I just meant I’m surprised you showed up is all.”

  She said, “I’m a little surprised myself. This place is like the Black Hole of Calcutta with better toilet facilities.”

  It finally clicked. “I assume Charlie had something to do with that.”

  “Yes, something,” she said. “She was practically frantic when she called me, after what I assume was some time spent doing things on her computer to uncover your whereabouts that I as her attorney advised her not to tell me about.”

  “Did you talk to Don, too?” I was trying to get us out of there as fast as possible without looking like we were doing so.

  “I did,” she said. “He asked how I was, then convinced Charlie to take a sedative so she could get some sleep.”

  “I didn’t ask to get arrested,” I said, defensive.

  She stopped and turned to face me. “No, just like you didn’t ask your family if you should go breaking and entering into a federal agent’s house without a warrant and put yourself and them in danger.”

  “The back door was unlocked,” I said, trying to ignore her usual correctness. “I think that’s just called ‘entering.’”

  “Hasn’t your mother been through enough? She already lost Lee, then Mike goes missing, and you want to add to that by getting thrown in Supermax?”

  “I don’t think I’m sexy enough of a criminal for Supermax,” I said.

  Her eye roll was still on point, as the kids say. “Let’s just get out of here. I’ll give you a ride to the hospital.”

  I said, “Who says I need a ride?”

  For the first time in over a year, I heard her laugh, and it was … great.

  “I say.” She chuckled. “Because either the car you drove is in impound, or you’re still in that shit-ass Corolla, and I wouldn’t trust that thing to roll downhill if it was at the top of K2.”

  Chapter THIRTY-THREE

  “This is a nice ride,” I said.

  We’d settled into Emma’s 2018 Lexus RX, a car I might be able to afford if I stopped eating for 10 years. Or if I ever decided to sell my soul and become a lawyer.

  "The shyster gig does have its perks,” she said, starting the car and easing us out of the parking labyrinth nestled beneath the DHS complex. Apparently we’d been in Pasadena this whole time, so I was even more eager to get going.

  On any other week when I’d been up for almost 24 hours, involved in a near-fatal traffic accident, beaten by Russian thugs, and illegally interrogated by the government, my first inclination would’ve been to recline the passenger seat and pass out. I hadn’t seen Emma in a year, though.

  And naturally, she wasn’t done talking.

  “I think you need to back off,” she said.

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  “I’m not kidding,” she said, “I know you. I know how you latch onto something like a pit bull until you find the answer you’re looking for. The problem is, you always do this without thinking about how it affects anyone else.”

  “Mike’s my brother,” I began.

  “And I get that, but Cy,” her tone softened, “you’re practically on a suicide mission to find him. Meanwhile it sounds like Charlie is basically working herself to death. And I don’t have to be at your mother’s house to know it’s tearing her apart.”

  I kept my mouth shut, not sure if it was out of agreement or aggravation.

  “I’m not family,” she said, “and I gave up my right to my opinion a year ago, but if you’re not careful, this is going to tear you guys apart.”

  “‘You guys,’” I snickered. “You’ve been lawyering too long.”

  “You know I’m right.”

  “And what do you suggest?” I snapped. “Everybody take a week off? Maybe a spa day? I’m not trying to cause collateral damage, but this is the only way I know how to find him. All of us are doing the best we can. Except maybe Jim.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” Emma said.

  “Am I?”

  “He may not be the one to call when you want to kick a door down, or hack into the NSA, but I know for a fact he’s been calling in favors from everyone he can think of, including local lawyers.”

  “He called you?”

  She nodded. “He’s playing to his strengths, just like the rest of you.”

  Great, now I had guilt to go along with my exhaustion and internal injuries.

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Emma,” I said, “but this whole thing is bigger than I think you realize.”

  “How do you mean?”

  I said, “This isn’t just a case of Mike being accused of a crime he didn’t commit. At the very least, his superiors are trying to railroad him, and it looks like they’re even actively covering up illegal activity in the DHS.”

  She stared straight ahead. “That’s a pretty serious charge. What are you basing it on?”

  “A little from column ‘hunch,’ a little from column ‘stuff I can’t tell you about because of your chosen profession.’”

  She scoffed. “You sound like one of those YouTube psychos ranting about chemtrails or the NSA putting acid in the water supply.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not ranting, and I don’t believe 9/11 was an inside job, but if you honestly think the Department of Homeland Security is incapable of this sort of fuckery, you’ve been spending too much time in your penthouse office.”

  “My office isn’t in the penthouse,” Emma said.

  “Does it have a window?”

  “Lots of windows.”

  I said, “The defense rests.”

  She shook her head as she steered the Lexus onto the I-45 north onramp. “Always have to be the superhero. You haven’t changed one bit.”

  “As opposed to all the other thirty-six-year-olds who can completely reverse personality in twelve months’ time.” This was all sounding familiar. “Look, I’ve had a bitch of a day. If you don’t mind, I’m going to catch some sleep on the drive back to the hospital
.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “And Emma?”

  She looked at me. “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  The hum of the Lexus’s engine lulled me into slumber almost before my head hit the seat. It wasn’t much as far as naps go, maybe 25 minutes, but every little bit helped.

  I dreamed about Mike.

  Sometimes the dreams we have are full-blown epics, dredging up stories from our pasts or subconscious and shaping them into exciting new narratives. I have one recurring one that’s been going on since I was a teenager, involving the stable, long-lasting relationship I’ve built (in my head) with Beyoncé. In my dream narrative, she and I have been married nearly 15 years, possibly with kids (children filter in and out, but are never the focus), and are living on a ranch in Montana.

  [That last part may be a result of my love for The Hunt for Red October. Something to do with an inadvertent crossing of pop culture streams, or whatever. I’m not a neurologist.]

  Dreams can also be influenced by events taking place in our lives. They can be as ephemeral as dreaming about doing laundry because you passed a laundromat that morning. Others are a result of events so traumatic they’ve left lasting psychic impressions, which is why I assume everyone has the same one about showing up for a class final having done none of the reading on the syllabus.

  This wasn’t like any of those.

  My Mike dream was a pastiche of vignettes, inelegantly edited (if I may offer critical commentary), not all of which were based on actual events. Here was a memory of the time we’d ridden our bikes to White Oak Bayou and gotten chased by older skateboarders; next, that evening I caught him coming home drunk after Reagan High School’s baseball team won the district playoffs.

  I made him give me his 1986 Mike Scott Topps baseball card for that.

  But then we are both at Lee’s funeral, which wasn’t right. Mike hadn’t attended that because he was in Iraq. And he didn’t come to my graduation from the Academy, but in my dream he’s sitting next to Mom and Charlie.

  And Beyoncé, who looked especially beautiful.

  The images fade, and in their place comes a room, plain except for two chairs. Mike is sitting slightly across from me, but at an angle, like we’re on an old talk show, only instead of a TV camera, we’re both facing what looks like a two-way mirror.