by Kate Flora
"My God!" Perry breathed. "It's a freakin' arsenal."
It would have made such a nice photo and headline for the paper: "Refugee Resettlement Creates New American Entrepreneurs." Everyone loved a success story.
Burgess got on the phone to dispatch, calling for more back-up and the Strategic Response Team, SRT. The he called Vince Melia.
He brought his lieutenant up to speed, then said, "We got a stash here that's gonna make ATF dance like pixies," he said. "And I don't want them in the picture until we've had a chance to do our interviews. And searched Ibrahim's house before they've carried off everything but the foundation and mucked up two death investigations. Which means simultaneously searching Addison Westerly's. Which means we need those warrants ASAP."
"I'll get Press on it right now."
It was five in the morning.
"He's on the SRT, Vince."
"I'll get people on it, Joe. You want me to have Cumberland PD sit on the place?"
"Places. You think they can do that without attracting attention?"
Melia snorted. "I'll see what I can do. See you in a few."
Melia would have to notify the brass. That was SOP. Burgess said a brief prayer that Melia would leave a message or a text and Cote wouldn't get word of what was happening until they'd gotten what they needed here and Ibrahim and his companion were in custody, the truck impounded. Once word was out, there were going to be so many people fighting over a piece of this it would be like wild dogs over a bone. By then, he wanted to be in Cumberland, taking a couple of houses apart.
"Vince? See if Sage can cover the autopsy. We're gonna be busy here for a while."
"Done."
Ibrahim had finished loading one of the bags and was directing his companion to haul it downstairs. The man set off toward the elevator, a bulge in his sweatshirt pocket that said he was armed.
"We meet the elevator," Burgess said. Perry nodded. He looked at the security guard. "Where?"
The man pointed to a door. "Jus' go through there and down the hall. Is there gonna be shootin'?"
"We don't think so."
"Good. 'Cuz I got me the PTSD, and I don't do so good around guns." Then he answered Burgess's unspoken question. "My job's to watch them screens, and if I see anything hinky, call you guys. The boss wants everything done real legal. He wants a calm head and open eyes. Don't want no cowboy cop wannabe here in the office."
The boss was a prince among men.
He and Perry headed for the elevator.
Chapter 31
In the end, it was a gift. To better haul out the heavy bag, the man backed out of the elevator, right into Stan Perry's waiting arms. Perry jammed his gun into the man's back and barked, "Portland police. Put your hands up."
The man confused "up" with "pocket," and ended up flat on his face on the floor, Perry's foot on the back on his neck while Burgess moved his gun out of reach and cuffed him. Much of what he said was a confused babble, but what was clear was that the man was saying these were his guns, and he had every right to take them out his locker and put them in his truck.
Rights. Property. Mine. They were used to the first—every bad guy knew his rights, or thought he did. Far fewer of them did the cops of the favor of claiming ownership in a stash of prohibited, probably stolen, weapons, ownership of a storage locker he'd cut his way into, and a truck they could likely connect with at least one other robbery.
"Thank you," Burgess said as they hauled the man, identified by the papers in his wallet as Hassan Ibrahim, back to the office. Burgess now recognized the man as one of the ones who had been with the Imam during their interview. A phone in their prisoner's pocket chirped. Muhammad was getting impatient. On the screen, Muhammad Ibrahim made another phone call, then finished loading his bag with guns. He stood impatiently in the hall, watching the elevator, presumably looking for the return of his companion.
The cameras monitoring the outside of the building showed Melia arriving along with the SRT vehicle.
"Keep an eye on him," Burgess told Perry. "I'll brief Melia and SRT." He grabbed their prisoner by the upper arm and started to lead him outside.
"Hold on a minute, Sergeant," the guard said. "I think you should look at this."
"This" was an outside camera showing the arrival of a small black Honda. It parked beside the truck and five men got out. This time, their weapons were openly displayed.
"Is there going to be shooting?" the guard asked again.
"There might be," Burgess said, already on the phone alerting Melia. "You got any duct tape around here?"
Puzzled, the guard pointed toward a tall supply cabinet. "Might be some in there."
He continued to look puzzled as Burgess and Perry duct-taped their prisoner to a chair.
"We've got to go upstairs and take care of some business," Burgess said. "Don't want this guy running around, giving you trouble."
An insistent bell was ringing.
"That's them at the door," the guard said.
"Don't let them in."
"As if I would."
"Lock this office door behind us," Perry said. "And don't open it to anyone who doesn't show you a badge."
There was a muffled rumble from outside that became increasingly louder until it was easily identifiable as a group of Harleys. Burgess looked at the guard and saw all the things he'd missed because his head hadn't been in the game, because he'd been moving on instead of being present in the present. The long gray ponytail wrapped in leather. Tattoos. A leather jacket hung on a rack.
"You called them, didn't you?" he said.
The guard nodded. "Man's gotta do," he said.
Burgess looked at Perry. "Looks like Vince and SRT got a war on their hands. Let's go finish our business." He turned back to the guard. "Don't hurt this man. Don't open the door to anyone. Not even your buddies. You do and you go to jail. Not a good place if you've got the PTSD. Got it?"
"I got it."
He hoped so. There were stairs at each end of the building. They conferred briefly and headed up the stairs.
Muhammad Ibrahim was in the storage unit, his back to them, packing guns into an oversized plastic bin. He turned as Burgess stepped in, immediately and without hesitation ramming the butt of the rifle he was holding into Burgess's rib cage. Not a good day to have gone out without a vest, Burgess thought, as the pain flared. But he'd been going fishing, not hunting.
Just as immediately, and equally without hesitation, Perry grabbed the gun and swung it into the side of Ibrahim's head. Ibrahim was a hardheaded lad. He swayed but didn't fall, and the two of them spilled out into the hall, wrestling over the rifle until Burgess could raise his own gun.
"Portland police. Drop it," he barked.
Ibrahim jerked the gun from Perry's hands, flung it away, and clawed a handgun from his pocket. When a bad guy turns on you with a gun, you don't wait to find out if it's loaded. The Ibrahims had already had one pass, and that was enough.
Burgess fired.
In real time, these things happen in seconds. In the mind, it sometimes happens in slow motion, a progression that can feel like forever. Burgess saw Ibrahim's gun coming up, then his own hand coming up. He saw the bullet emerge from his gun in a blaze of sparks and smoke. Saw the spent casing fly up in an arc, travel through the air, and bounce on the carpet. Saw the bullet traveling toward Ibrahim, something he knew he couldn't see—but he could. Saw it strike Ibrahim. He saw Ibrahim's gun fire a bullet toward the ceiling, then fly out of his hand and travel slowly through the air to land on the carpet behind him.
He saw Ibrahim's look of utter surprise, two dark hands flutter like birds to the chest as Ibrahim fell slowly, slowly, slowly through the air and landed with a small bounce on the carpet. He saw brilliant red blood oozing from between the clutching fingers. Focus came back as Ibrahim started writhing and screaming.
Then Ibrahim quieted, and Burgess bent down to catch the man's whispered words. Regret, fear of death, calls for mother, and prayers—
Burgess had heard all of these from injured men. "My brother is going to kill you," Ibrahim said. "You and all your family."
Burgess got on the phone and called dispatch for an ambulance, then called Melia and filled him in.
"He alive or dead?"
"He's making a lot of noise, so I figure alive."
"Well, see if you can keep him that way. We've got ourselves a potential war out here."
"I'll see what I can do."
He shoved the phone back in his pocket. His ribs hurt like hell. He was pretty sure something was broken and that really pissed him off, because he didn't have time for the ER right now. He had places to go and people to see.
"Joe, are you okay?" Perry asked.
"Kinda busted. Look, our guy downstairs. The guard. If he called them, what's the likelihood he'll also let them in, no matter what he said? They're here for the guns."
"And for the Ibrahims," Perry said. "So maybe I'd better hop back downstairs and make sure he doesn't act on that thought."
"If he hasn't already."
Perry sighed. "Right. We'd better both go. And bring Mr. Ibrahim."
Muhammad Ibrahim was not a happy camper. He was bleeding but he was breathing, and his comfort was not one of their chief concerns as they half dragged, half carried him to the elevator. The security of their colleagues, and maintaining custody of the stash of guns was. Luckily, the security guard hadn't been able to open the door for his brethren without also admitting the five men from the black Honda.
It was some time before, between arrests and dispersals, between SRT and the gang officers' negotiations, they were able to send one of their prisoners to jail and the other to the hospital and turn the shooting scene, and the storage locker, over to the evidence techs without any further violence.
Captain Cote, who had rushed to the scene to take command, got some great moments on the news and had departed content. He had not taken the time to ensure that all his people were okay, and for that, the one of his people who was very much not okay was deeply grateful.
Melia wasn't so indifferent, nor so oblivious. "Joe, you're green," he said. "What happened?"
"I need some coffee."
Melia's eyes slid to Perry. "Stan?"
"Rifle butt to the ribs."
Melia rolled his eyes. "We need results, not heroics, Joe."
Burgess cut his eyes toward the building. "You don't call keeping these guns off the street results? And we're gonna get you more results. You got those warrants yet?"
He needed Advil and coffee. Maybe a breakfast sandwich. He needed to sit down for a few minutes and collect his thoughts. He needed to clear the vision of that slow-moving bullet out of his head, push away the pain, and get back to work.
"Kyle has them. But right now, all my evidence techs are here, and SRT's gonna need a little time—"
"For what, Vince? Cookies and milk? This goddamned standoff tipped our hand. Have we got people sitting on those houses? Because this is all over the news, which means we have to hit Westerly first, before he clears out his house, his office, and his boat. If he hasn't already. Do we even know if he's home?"
"In case you haven't noticed, we've been a little busy here, Joe."
But Melia knew.
Chapter 32
He took Kyle and headed out to Addison Westerly's house, sending Perry and some uniforms next door to Ibrahim's house. Sage Prentiss would join them when he was done in Augusta. On the way, he sent a text to the person he was supposed to meet at the library, asking for another day and time. He didn't get a reply.
There were two cars in the garage and a green truck parked in Westerly's yard, but no one answered when they knocked. As Burgess waited, knocking again and identifying himself as a police officer, Kyle slipped around the house to look in the windows.
He was back seconds later, shaking his head. "You've got to see this, Joe."
Burgess followed him around to the back where they could see through a gap in the blinds into a large, pleasant family room. There were two men there, engaged in earnest conversation. One of them was a man they'd never seen before, a broad-shouldered man in his forties with military short hair and a furious face. The other was Westerly, lying on the floor between a blue denim sofa and the fireplace, neatly hogtied.
"Guess we're not the only ones who have business with Westerly," Kyle said. They could see the watch and the ring from the hospital's surveillance pictures.
As a streak of afternoon light fell on the other man's face, Burgess knew immediately who he was. Kelly's father. It was the eyes, so surprisingly dark, and the forehead, that on this man was so fierce, and on Kelly gave her face the heart shape that made it so sweet. Quietly, they went back around to the front and tried the knob. The door was unlocked. They slipped in and made their way to the kitchen, pausing outside the door to listen.
"I've got all the time in the world, Add," the man said. "And you don't. So you can start answering my questions any time. Where is Lori? Where is my wife?"
"I have no idea," Westerly said.
"I think you do. I think you and Lori had a thing going. I think she was living here. So where is she now?"
Westerly's voice was strained, though he tried for easy and conversational. "Untie me, Jeremiah. Untie me and I'll tell you everything."
"Tell me everything now. Then maybe I'll untie you. Where's my wife? Where is my daughter? Where's Kelly?"
"Lori's dead. An overdose. She got into my stash, man, and she didn't know what she was doing."
"Dead as of when?" The man's voice was dangerously calm.
"Almost a year."
"You're lying. We were e-mailing. Until six months ago."
"That was me. I kept it up for a while. But that got old." Stupidly defiant for a man with a rope around his neck. Maybe that had always worked for Westerly. Maybe he'd been the bully in this relationship and thought he still was. Westerly didn't seem to appreciate the danger of his situation.
Burgess and Kyle exchanged a look. In Burgess's the question: should we intervene? In Kyle's: not yet.
"Where is Kelly?" This time, the danger was tangible.
"No idea. After Lori died, the state took her."
"You're a goddamned liar. I've been in touch with the state and they don't know anything about Lori or Kelly. The state has no record of Lori's death, either, Add. I've been looking. Looking for a week now. All our stuff is gone. Our house is empty. There's no record of Lori or Kelly anywhere, and I had a damned hard time finding you. So let's try this again. Where is my wife and where is my daughter?"
There was no response.
"Where?"
Burgess heard rapid feet and then the man must have done something, because Westerly screamed, "Don't!" and then a slightly strangled, "Okay. Okay. I'll tell you!"
He started into the room, but Kyle put a hand on his arm. "Give it a minute."
"I'm waiting," the man Westerly had called Jeremiah said.
"I told you. She's dead. I buried her. Out back behind the barn."
"You buried my wife out behind your barn?"
There was a muffled affirmative from Westerly. It sounded like he was beginning to appreciate his situation. Or to understand that whatever relationship the men had had, it had changed. What could he have been thinking? That a man's wife could die and his daughter disappear and none of it would matter? Maybe Westerly had never expected this man to return. Maybe that last six months was significant.
He looked at Kyle, and Kyle nodded. It was time.
Burgess stepped into the room and held up his badge.
The man said, "He's all yours, Officer, just as soon as I get some answers. I need to find my daughter." So focused on his mission the arrival of the police didn't really register.
Then he sagged suddenly, like a puppet whose strings were cut, and staggered toward a chair. "Do you... is she... can you tell me where I can find her? This piece of shit says he doesn't know anything about Kelly, and I know he's lying."
; Burgess gave the man one of his handkerchiefs. "I know where she is. Before I send you there, maybe you could answer a few questions?"
"Just tell me she's okay." Voice breaking on the word "okay."
"She's okay. She needs you badly. She needs safety and caring for, but she's okay."
It was part of the truth. The part the man needed to hear right now.
"Goddammit, Officers!" Westerly yelled. "Untie me. This man has invaded my home and tied me up, and you're chitchatting with him instead of helping me."
Kyle waved the warrant before Westerly's furious face. "Addison Westerly?"
"Yes. Dammit. I said—"
"I have a warrant here to search your property: your house, your garage, your outbuildings, and your vehicles." He slapped it down on the coffee table near Westerly's head. "You've been served."
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" Westerly said. "This man is holding me prisoner in my own house and you—"
Burgess looked at Westerly's hands, at the watch and the ring that confirmed their suspicions, and turned to the man in the chair, "Detective Sergeant Joe Burgess, Portland police, and this is Detective Kyle. What's your name, sir?"
"Davis. Lieutenant Colonel Jeremiah Davis. And my daughter is Kelly Davis. She's fourteen."
"Just back from an overseas deployment?" Burgess said.
Davis nodded.
"How long have you—"
Davis hung his head. "Sixteen months. It wasn't supposed to be that long. And I thought... Lori said it would be okay... Kelly would be okay. She was old enough. And then Lori stopped communicating and I couldn't reach her by phone and then I was..." The strained voice died out as Davis looked for strength to go on. "I was somewhere where I couldn't get back. He—"