by J. A. Kerley
“Why come here?” Ryder asked. “Why not just go to HQ and wait for Squill?”
Duckworth’s eyes flashed with anger, but he kept his voice even. “I got a bad feeling in my gut. I figure Sandhill went nuts when he screwed up and the Charlane girl got grabbed. He snapped his fucking crown.”
Ryder said, “Sandhill hated Squill, but he wanted nothing to do with the man. None of this makes any sense.”
“It all makes sense,” Duckworth said. “The chief spearheaded the dump-Sandhill movement when he got caught thieving to advance his career.”
“Sandhill was protecting evidence,” Ryder said. “Something bad was happening, evidence being destroyed.”
“THAT’S FUCKING RIDICULOUS!” Duckworth roared, his face squeezed tight in fury, his fists clenched. “WHY CAN’T YOU PEOPLE LEAVE ALL THIS SHIT ALONE?”
Ryder froze and stared at Duckworth. “What did you just say? What shit?”
Bidwell shot Duckworth a perplexed look. Duckworth frowned. His eyes darted from side to side. “All this … shit about Sandhill and evidence. That was years ago. What’s happening now is one dead Chief of Police, killed by Ryder’s buddy. I’ll tell you something about Sandhill: He’s slick, we might never find him. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Ryder, you little scuzzball?”
Ryder launched into Duckworth, grabbing the man’s shirtfront and jamming him against the wall.
“What’s going on with you, Duckworth? What the hell’s going on?”
“Detective Ryder!” Bidwell yelled. “Go outside to the street and wait. I’m sure we’ll have more questions, so stay there, and that’s an order.”
Ryder backed away, his eyes never leaving Duckworth. The burly commander straightened his shirtfront, leering. “Assaulting a superior. I got the feeling this is your last day with us, Ryder.”
Ryder strode from Sandhill’s apartment. He went to the street and leaned against the restaurant, watching several cops wave a blue Prius toward a secured area halfway down the block. He saw a woman behind the wheel, Mayor Philips. Another car followed, a white Acura.
Ryder turned away, Duckworth’s words echoing in his mind, turning his blood colder with each repetition.
I’ve got to get to Harry, he thought. But how?
The inside of Sandhill’s container was dark save for pale light through the rust holes, enough to show the module had suffered misfortune at some point. It resembled the inside of a shoebox someone had sat on, then tried to reshape. Sandhill saw light through dime-sized punctures, rivet holes, the rivets that had once bound the corrugated skin to internal bracing.
Sandhill inventoried his assets: Clothing. Shoes and shoelaces. A few coins jingling in his pockets. His badge wallet, ready for disposal along with its owner.
And his ankle holster, just above the dozen or so wrappings of silver tape. Duckworth had removed the .32, leaving Sandhill with useless leather strapped to his leg, or so he’d thought. But tucked behind the sheepskin liner was the small lockpick.
Could he reach it?
He wore the gun on the inside of his leg, the Velcro strap to the outside. If he could get the strap open, he could work on freeing the lockpick. Sandhill had more flexibility than most men his size, but hours of being bound had cramped his muscles, tightened them. He rolled on his side and arched his back, bent his legs, pulled his ankles upward. His ribs screamed with pain, stitches tearing.
He managed to grab his pants behind his knees and edge them above the holster, but when he reached for it—fingertips clawing centimeters away—his body shook convulsively and went no farther.
It wouldn’t get better. His kicked thigh was swelling and stiffening. He needed something to snag the holster strap and peel it loose.
Light through a corroded section of the container’s wall caught his eye, a hole the diameter of a softball. Sandhill wormed across the floor and positioned his feet against the hole. He pushed, and his heels cracked through the corroded edges. Sandhill slowly withdrew his right foot, hoping the edge of the metal would snag the strap and free the holster.
It took a dozen tries before Sandhill felt the metal edge catch on the strap, heard Velcro sizzle. The holster fell to the floor.
Blinded by sweat, he writhed until his hands were over the holster. He fumbled the holster upside-down, rewarded a few seconds later by the tick of metal hitting the wood slats. He wriggled until his fingers located the lockpick.
Sandhill’s numb digits dropped the pick a dozen times before he found the best position, the base of the pick steadied at the root of his thumb. As he struggled, he heard the rumble of a powerful engine, distant, but nearing. It didn’t seem to be coming from within the ship, its own engines already a steady underlying shiver.
Several minutes later the click of the spring sounded and his hands were free. He peeled the tape from his legs. After massaging feeling back into his hands and shoulders, he crept to the door end of the trailer and ran his hands across its surface. The doors only opened from outside.
Sandhill went to the far end of the container. One metal panel was torn partway from the bracing. He leaned against it and felt it sway outward. Light poured in. He leaned harder and two damaged rivets popped out like gunfire.
Sandhill froze, listening for approaching footfalls. The ship shuddered and the heavy throbbing of a powerful engine began echoing through the hold. Water drummed the hull.
The ship began moving sideways.
Sandhill speculated that a tug was against the hull, maneuvering the Petite Angel from the dock. He figured disembarking required the crew to man various stations and he might be alone for a while. Sandhill pitched himself against the damaged wall of the container like a battering ram.
More rivets popped. The panel waggled like a tent flap. Sandhill squeezed through. He saw at least fifty containers in the hold, a wall of semi-trailer-sized modules. He looked skyward through the huge opening. Stars drifted past. He was a speck in the hold of a ship he knew nothing about, looking for a smaller speck who might be God knows where.
He was unarmed. Moving out to sea. Cramped and crippled and wearing a headache the size of hell’s back yard.
Think. Prioritize. First, find a weapon or weapons.
Sandhill heard footsteps and retreated between stacked containers. At the far side of the hold the bald man double-timed down metal steps, a dark-suited man following at a casual pace. Cursing under his breath, Sandhill squeezed back inside the container as the footfalls reached the floor and grew louder.
“Open up. Let me by.”
Mayor Philips threaded through milling cops to the bathroom. The lapel of her tweed jacket still held the VOTE SMART, VOTE PHILIPS button from the fundraiser vacated minutes earlier. Behind her was Thomas Clay, pale and distressed, looking a heartbeat from fainting dead away. Philips pushed through the bathroom door, stared past Bidwell at the floor.
“My God. What happened?”
Bidwell said, “We’re just starting to put the pieces …”
Duckworth out-volumed Bidwell. “An ex-dick, Mayor Philips. Conner Sandhill. Had a long-time blood grudge against the chief. Looks like it came to a head.”
Thomas Clay took Philips’s shoulders to turn her away. “Step over here, Norma. You don’t need to see—”
She shrugged her assistant’s hands away. “A grudge? That’s why he did it?”
Duckworth said, “Sandhill’d been acting crazy, Mayor. He turned worse when that girl he was supposed to be watching got snatched. You warned him off, I heard. So did the chief. Sandhill wouldn’t listen; acted like he thought he was still a cop.”
“Oh shit,” she said, covering her eyes with her hands.
Clay said, “What, Norma?”
She sighed. “He is a cop, Tom. I reinstated him with that old law you dug up. I thought maybe he’d contribute to the investigation, a pair of experienced eyes working outside Squill’s rigid confines.”
Clay shot a glance at Bidwell and Duckworth and gently pushed the door
half-closed, speaking in a whisper. “We’ll keep it quiet, Norma. No one has to know. It’d be the kiss of death for your campaign. No one will say a thi—”
Duckworth said, “I won’t tell, Mayor. Sandhill’s slick, a bullshit salesman. He could convince anyone of anything.”
Bidwell nodded his compliance, but Philips shook her head sadly. “Thank you, gentlemen. But it doesn’t change a thing. I returned Sandhill’s police powers. On my own and surreptitiously.”
Clay said, “This might have happened anyway, Norma. You heard the commander, a long-simmering grudge. No one needs to know.”
Philips pulled the campaign button from her jacket, looked at it, shook her head. She dropped the button in her pocket.
“Yes, they do, Tom. People need to know the whole story. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
Duckworth looked behind the backs of Philips and Bidwell. He stared at Clay and winked, as though blinking something from his eye.
Chapter 52
The container door squealed open. Two men stood outlined in the soft amber light. The suited man was average in size and form, the other wide-shouldered, shirtless and seemingly constructed of various diameters of rope and cable.
“Ah, here’s our new passenger, Tenzel,” the suited man said, crisp and businesslike, a banker approving a loan. “Mr Sandhill, is it?”
The bald man slipped toward Sandhill, catstealthy, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other. He bent to check the ankle tape. Sandhill had quickly rewrapped his legs, hoping the silver façade would fool a cursory inspection. If he had to show his un-cuffed wrists, it was all over.
Sandhill mock-battled the tape, pounding his heels on the floor, gasping with effort. “You sonsabitches. Let me loose. People know where I am; the cavalry’s on its way.”
The suited man stepped forward. “I’ve been listening to the police bands. No one knows where you are, although every police agency from Florida to Mississippi seems desperate for your location. Some little contretemps which ended in the death of a police chief, perhaps?”
Sandhill squinted past the glare of the flashlight. “Where’s Jacy?”
“Hurt him, Tenzel. Nothing major.”
The bald man kicked Sandhill in the thigh. It was like being kicked by a mule. He couldn’t stifle the gasp.
Mattoon said, “This is not merely a ship, sir; it is my sovereign nation. The privilege of questioning is mine alone. And my first question is, Why does the girl concern you so?”
“I’m a cop. What happened to the girls?”
Another kick stabbed into the nerve mass above Sandhill’s knee. “One more time,” Mattoon said, and a second kick arrived.
“The first kick was for the question. The second was for lying. You’re no longer a policeman; you haven’t been for years. When you were, you were a thief. What’s a thief’s interest with the girl?”
Sandhill spoke through clenched teeth. “She’s the daughter of a friend.”
“A good deed for a friend? Admirable, under ordinary rules. But a more refined set of rules holds here, sir. In my world you are an impediment.”
“Impediment to what? Pederasty?”
The bald man’s leg was a blur. Sandhill almost instinctively brought his hands around to grab at the pain in his leg. Instead he gritted his teeth and rocked side to side.
“An impediment to my happiness, Mr Sandhill. And nothing shall disturb my quest for joy.” Mattoon nodded to Atwan. “Make sure he’s restrained, then meet me on the bridge.”
Atwan aimed his weapon at Sandhill and inscribed a circle with the muzzle. “Roll. I need see hands.”
Mattoon reached the end of the trailer, hands clasped behind his back, stepping outside.
The bald man crouched into kick stance. “Roll now,” he commanded.
“Mattoon,” Sandhill called at the departing back. “Mattoon, I’ve got to tell you something.”
Mattoon spoke over his shoulder without pausing. “I don’t have time for your pleadings, Mr Sandhill, and strongly suggest that you heed Tenzel. Bon voyage.”
“Mattoon! The girl; she’s my—”
Atwan’s kick felt like a bomb going off in his thigh. “Roll, fuck you dammit!”
“She’s my daughter!” Sandhill screamed toward Mattoon. “Jacy Charlane is my daughter.”
Mattoon stopped dead. He turned, his face quizzical, and stepped into the container. “Say that again, Mr Sandhill.”
“Jacy is my daughter. That’s why I’ve been investigating.”
Mattoon crouched over Sandhill’s face as if whispering a secret to a corpse at a wake. “Tenzel likes pain more than he likes to eat, more than sex. Lie to me and he owns you. So think before you answer: You’re truly the girl’s father?”
“Who’d invent something like that?”
“You no question Mr Mattoon,” the bald man snarled, but kept his distance. Mattoon straightened and walked to the door of the container. He looked through the hatch to the stars and studied them for a full minute.
“Father, daughter, suitor, all crossing the same sea,” he whispered, his voice as soft as sand over glass. “Sharing the same voyage, the identical universal moment, the Now.” Mattoon turned to study Sandhill. “What role have you been sent to play, Mr Sandhill?” he mused. “Why were you delivered to this moment?”
“Father give bride away, maybe,” Atwan said. Mattoon turned his face sharply to Atwan, but checked his admonishment as a light came to his eyes.
“Bride?” Sandhill said. “Bride?”
Mattoon said, “Now I understand, Mr Sandhill. You’ve come bearing sanction.”
Mattoon seemed to float from the container, leaving Atwan to close the doors. Sandhill’s wrists went uninspected.
Ryder was outside the restaurant, leaning against the wall beside the shuttered window, glass shards still glittering on the sidewalk. The case seemed infected with madness. Part of the problem was not having Harry Nautilus at his side, the sanest man he knew. Or, in a strange inverse, he would have loved to consult his lost brother, Jeremy, a scholar of madness. But Jeremy had become no more than a phone call in the night, months sometimes going between calls. He wondered who his brother had become. What he had become.
A beeping interrupted his thoughts and Ryder watched the ambulance reverse toward the door to Sandhill’s apartment, back doors wide for the body.
Mayor Philips exited the building, flanked by Bidwell and Duckworth. Bidwell shot Ryder a sad look, then climbed into a command vehicle, a dark SUV. Ryder figured that, as the department’s public face, Bidwell had mountains of spin to create. Duckworth’s eyes trained on Ryder like twin lasers. He patted the mayor on her shoulder—wait a second—then called to a pair of uniformed officers three dozen feet away.
“You, get over there and jam Detective Ryder’s ass in the back of your cruiser. Shoot the fucker if he doesn’t obey.”
The officers exchanged nervous glances.
“I gave you a goddamn order,” Duckworth repeated. “Do it.”
Instead of waiting, Norma Philips had followed Duckworth, her eyes alert and scanning. She pointed to Ryder.
“That’s the guy Sandhill was working with, right?”
“He and Sandhill were playing some angle. It’s been a long time in coming, but Ryder’s cooked.”
Philips studied Ryder. “I want to talk to him. Alone.”
“Not a good idea. Come over here and I’ll get you a cup of—”
Philips ignored Duckworth and walked to Ryder. The two uniforms stopped in their tracks and looked uncertainly to Duckworth. “When those two are done talking, lock Ryder in that car. Got that?” he barked.
The men nodded. Duckworth shot Ryder and Philips a look of unconcealed anger, then turned his attention to the ambulance, its lights splashing the street with bursts of red and white.
Norma Philips bulled toward Ryder so fast he almost jumped from her path. Her eyes blazed into his. “I want some goddamn answers, Ryder. Lie to me and I’ll
do everything in my last weeks as mayor to nail your ass to a burning wall. Do you know where Sandhill is?”
“I have no idea.”
“Everyone’s telling me the sonuvabitch killed Squill.”
“You’ve talked to Sandhill, Mayor. Did you get the impression he was a killer?”
“He impressed me as a man who did what he wanted, no matter what. His hatred of Squill was unconcealed.”
Ryder spoke quietly. “Exactly, Mayor. If Sandhill wanted to kill Squill, the last thing he would have done was broadcast his hatred. And no one would ever find the body.”
“You managed to keep Sandhill free of the cops, right? Filling him in, covering for him?”
“He was the best chance the cases had.”
“You still believe that?”
“Completely.”
Philips shot a glance toward Duckworth, now clearing bystanding cops from the doorway of Sandhill’s apartment. The pair of cops assigned to hold Ryder watched attendants emerge with the bagged body.
Norma Philips dropped her voice to a whisper.
“You’re not gambling with your job, Detective; you’re gambling with your freedom, years of it. You’ve put all your chips on a man who wears purple vests and a floppy crown. Do you realize the potential consequences of believing in Sandhill?”
“Yes.”
Philips sighed. “Jesus. Welcome to the club.”
She stared at her Prius in the shadows down the block, then reached in her purse and produced a jangly clot of keys.
When the pair from hell closed the box, Sandhill waited until their footsteps evaporated before leaving the container. He limped into a corridor running toward the rear of the ship. A grimy foot-square box against a wall caught his eye, a red cross painted over it. He opened it, surprised to discover neat stacks of bandages, surgical tape, tubes of antiseptic cream …
And a big, beautiful bottle of aspirin.
Sandhill swallowed a dozen, hoping his body would stop screaming and he could think clearly. He continued down the hall, stopping once when his feet became entangled in baling twine, squatting to pull the twine from his ankles.