The Bear Trap

by Grant Pies

  Carter settled his head into the soft pillow. After their fight earlier that day, he knew there was no way Sam would hang around, and there really was no reason for him to. Sam didn’t make for a very good nurse anyway. Carter shut his eyes and went to sleep.

  When he woke, blood had dried in his hair and stuck to the pillowcase. He rolled over, slowly pulling the fabric from his head and re-opening whatever wound he had.

  “Shit,” he mumbled and winced. Even that caused more pain. He lifted his hand to the side of his face, and he knew it was misshaped.

  He sat up. His vision blurred, and his body tried to pull him back. But he leaned forward and stood. The room spun. He stumbled. Bracing himself on the nightstand, his hand slid and knocked the alarm clock and lamp onto the floor.

  He limped to the bathroom. Each step felt like his ankle was being hit with a mallet. Wrapping his hands around the pedestal sink, he held himself up in front of the mirror. His right cheek was red and puffy, his lip split open, and the side of his head was caked in dried blood.

  Aside from the wounds, he looked barely alive. Certainly not well. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, and the cheek that wasn’t swollen was sunken in. Dark stubble with a speckling of white hair covered his face and neck. Unable to stand any longer, Carter sat on the toilet.

  He began the laborious task of pulling his clothes off. His shoulder screamed at him as he pulled his arm through the sleeve of his coat, and his ankle pulsed with pain as he pulled his shoes off.

  Once naked, Carter saw the road rash covering a good part of his bicep and back. He looked at the pile of clothes on the floor and saw his coat was torn.

  He sat in the bathtub and turned the shower on. The hot water soothed his aching muscles, but it also stung and burned the patches of missing skin around his arm. He laid back and closed his eyes.

  Now, alone in a dirty motel near Midway International, laying in the shower, bruised and bloody, washed with warm water, steam rising around him, and a box of stolen fifteen-year-old sperm donor records on the bed, Carter wondered if he had made the right choice, if this would be worth it. Or was he chasing a ghost, a girl who had been dead for two months? This might be the point of no return. He’d already broken the law to solve a case—how much further would he go? He stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out.

  Any Publicity is Good Publicity?

  For the next day and a half Carter tried to sleep, but he mostly tossed and turned, trying to find a position that didn’t send waves of shooting pain through him. He thought back to all the movies he had seen where people rolled out of cars and were running down the street in the next scene, barely a scratch on them.

  In between moments of sleep, he turned the news on, flipping through each channel. The story of the sperm bank robbery was all over the local news, and even some national cable news programs. Some of the news outlets floated the idea that Bridgeport Cryobank may have to dispose of their entire supply of samples, for fear that the thief may have tainted them. Other than that, Carter could see disappointment in the reporters’ eyes. They wished they could report vats of sperm had been stolen, or this was the first in a long spree of sperm bank robberies. It made for catchy headlines, but unfortunately for them, they had few actual facts to report.

  None of the stories mentioned the missing donor records. They only played the security footage of Carter in his ski mask running through the sperm bank, firing his gun and running back out with a large box in his arms.

  Is Bridgeport Cryobank withholding that information for some reason? Or are the reporters being purposefully vague because they know stolen sperm makes for a better story than stolen records?

  Carter looked at the three bills wadded up on the dresser where Sam had left them. Then he looked at his cell phone. He only had one more night paid for at the motel.

  There was a knock at the door. Not the polite knocking of the housekeeping staff, but a closed fist pounding. Ignoring the pain, Carter jolted upright and stood in the middle of the room. His heart thudded inside his chest and he jumped when a second knock came. He quickly scanned the room to determine what items he needed to grab before he made a run for it. Shirt. Phone. Cash. Everything else he would leave behind. Another knock.

  “Who is it?” Carter asked, having to clear his throat before speaking. He was shocked at the gruffness of his own voice.

  “Me!” Sam said from outside. “C’mon!” A fourth knock landed against the door, but this time it was low, like he’d kicked it. “Open up.”

  Carter limped towards the door and looked through the peephole. Sam stood there, a paper bag and newspaper in one hand and a coffee in the other. He opened the door and Sam barged in without an invitation.

  “Holy shit, man. You seen the news?”

  Nodding, Carter said, “Yeah.” He was shirtless, so Sam got a look at his injuries for the first time.

  “Shit.” He dropped his things on the bed. “You got fucked up, huh?” Carter just nodded. “Was that van even going that fast?”

  “I don’t know.” Carter hobbled to the bed and sat back down. “Maybe thirty miles per hour? I was kind of out of it when they threw me in the back.”

  “The head? Was that from jumping out of the van or from them hitting you?”

  “Not sure.” Carter lightly touched the back of his head and felt the dried scab and matted hair.

  “Here.” Sam tossed him the paper bag. “Breakfast.”

  Carter was able to move quickly at the thought of food, ripping open the bag and grabbing a breakfast burrito. “Thanks. I’m starving.” In a matter of seconds, he was chewing a mouthful of food and staring at Sam’s coffee.

  “Don’t look at me, this is my coffee.” Sam pulled a prescription pill bottle from his coat pocket and tossed them on the bed next to Carter. “Had a few of those lying around. Might help with the pain.”

  Carter knew this was a much larger sacrifice than bringing him breakfast. “Look, Sam, I’m sorry—"

  “Don’t.” Sam shook his head.

  “No, really Sam.” Carter swallowed another bite of food. “I shouldn’t have said all that, about your ex and Ashley. I was just pissed about the case, that’s all.”

  “It used to happen all the time on the force. It gets tense. You can’t hold it against anyone.” Sam smiled and grabbed a newspaper off the bed. “Plus, I can’t be mad at the guy that caused this headline to be printed!”

  Sam held up the paper, and the front page read: Sperm Bank Thief’s Got Spunk!

  “You get it?” Sam asked, pointing at the headline. “You’ve got spunk, like—"

  “I get it,” Carter said, waving away the newspaper and shoving what was left of the breakfast burrito in his mouth.

  “It’s funny, right?”

  “Eh.” Carter shrugged.

  “C’mon, I thought it was damn clever.” Sam tossed the paper back onto the bed.

  “I’m sure whoever came up with it thought it was clever too. But it’s not that clever.” He paused, and then said, “I’m glad you’re my partner, Sam.”

  “Partner?” Sam’s smile grew.

  “Yeah, partner.” Carter nodded and tried his best to return a smile. “I’m just not used to doing this with a partner that isn’t Leland. After he died, I spent a year and a half doing this on my own. My own way. You know. Figuring out what I wanted to do with the business, what kind of work I wanted to take on.”

  “I get it. You were a fucking asshole, but you didn’t deserve to get hauled away by those guys in the van. Look at you! What am I gonna do that hasn’t already been done to you?”

  Carter groaned and laid back down on the bed. “Those guys had been following me for a while, I think.”

  “When’d you first seem ‘em?”

  “At the office, but I didn’t pay any attention until I saw the same van parked outside the cryobank.”

  “Sperm bank. Call it what it is.”

  “Cryobank just sounds a little more … proper?” Carter
tried to find the right word. “They store more than sperm too, you know. Blood, plasma, that sort of thing.”

  “Whatever, so you saw them at the sperm bank.”

  Nodding and wincing, Carter said, “Yeah, but who knows how long they’d been following us. Could’ve been tailing us at the high school.”

  “So … any theories?”

  “Nah. Can you toss me my shirt?” Sam threw it in a ball and it draped over his face.

  “Well who would want to know what you’re up to?” Sam asked.

  Slowly pulling his arms through the sleeves, Carter shrugged. “I don’t know. And it’s what we’re up to. You’re on this case too, you know.”

  “My case ended when we caught our suspect. I didn’t sign up for the part where you robbed a sperm bank. I went home that night and slept like a baby. No one was waiting there for me.”

  “Maybe they were, and you just didn’t know it.”

  “Maybe it’s someone that knew Orcheck? Like another teacher … the church? Trying to cover something up at St. Mary’s. Maybe more people knew about Rose.”

  “I don’t know,” Carter pondered. “Orcheck … I believed him, you know … when he said he didn’t hurt Rose.”

  “They all say that.” Sam chuckled. “You kick the door down and find a guy holding a knife over a dead body, and he’ll still say ‘It wasn’t me.’” Sam took a gulp of coffee.

  “I hear ya.”

  A plane from Midway flew overhead, taking off just a couple miles away.

  Sam swallowed the last of his coffee and tossed the cup in the garbage can. “You said you saw them outside the office before you ever went to the sperm bank.” Carter nodded. “And you snuck out the back of the office the night you went to the sperm bank?” He kept nodding. “So, then how’d they know to find you at the sperm bank? How’d they even know that sperm bank was tied to any case you’re working? For all they know, you went there earlier to make a deposit.”

  Carter pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. He ran through the maze in his mind, following the twisting pathways and turning around at each dead end. At the end of his maze, he saw one name.

  “Claire,” he said. “Only thing that makes sense.”

  “The mom?”

  “After you left the other day, I went to see her, and she admitted that Robert wasn’t Rose’s father. I’ll save the ‘I told you so’ for another time.”

  “Saying you’re not gonna say ‘I told you so’ is the same as saying ‘I told you so,’ with the added bonus of acting like you’re better than that. It makes you seem like even more of a prick.”

  “Sorry. Not another word.” The two men chuckled.

  “So, what? You just asked Claire, and she spilled the beans about Rose’s father? Just like that?”

  “Well … I insinuated that if she wasn’t honest with me, then I’d tell Robert she was fucking Roy.”

  “Insinuated?” Sam raised one eyebrow.

  “Heavily insinuated.”

  “And I assume you had more evidence of her cheating than that old neighbor of theirs?”

  “I was confident. But that’s beside the point. She’s the only one that could have even guessed I was going to Bridgeport, the only one that knew the sperm bank had anything to do with the case. But it makes no sense.” Carter shook his head.

  “None of it makes any sense,” Sam laughed.

  “Maybe she told Roy, got a couple of his friends to jump me?”

  “I’m telling you, the simplest solution is the most likely. I hate sounding like a broken record, but Orcheck is our guy. The men at the sperm bank were likely private security. They were just stopping a robbery.”

  “A sperm bank with private security? C’mon!” Carter rolled his eyes and shook his head. “No, something’s up there. Something in these records.”

  Outside, several car doors slammed in quick succession. Sam turned and pushed the curtains aside.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” Carter’s heart sped up, and he stood from the bed, ignoring the enormous amount of pain.

  “Some plainclothes officers just pulled up.”

  “What!”

  “Yeah, four of ‘em, heading to the main office.”

  “How?” Then something flashed in his brain. Something he hadn’t thought of, or hadn’t been coherent enough to explain to Sam the other night. “What name did you give the front desk when you checked me in?”

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t give them your real name. I used your alias. Ratliff.” Sam grabbed Carter’s shoes and coat.

  “Fuck. That’s the name I used at the sperm bank. I talked to the lady at the front desk. Shit! She must’ve given it to the cops.”

  “We gotta go!” Sam said, grabbing Carter’s coat, the newspaper, and the three-dollar bills sitting on the dresser, and dropping them in the large box with the sperm donor records. Carter stumbled to the bathroom and tried to wipe things down as best he could.

  “Let’s go!” Sam said, throwing the box in his back seat. “They’re gonna head this way any second!”

  Carter limped from the bathroom, running a towel over any smooth surface he could reach. He made it to the door and wiped the doorknob then left the towel on the floor. Sam opened the passenger door and circled around to the driver side. By the time Carter sat down, the car was running and already in reverse. Sam pulled out of the parking lot and sped towards the freeway.

  Twisting to look behind them, Carter saw four men jogging towards his room, the door still open.

  “That was close. Guess I gotta find a new alias.”

  “That’s the second time cops have seen my car speeding away.”

  “Now it’s your car. I thought it was a company car?”

  “It’s only a matter of time until one of them catches my license plate!” Sam smacked his hand against the steering wheel. The Sam that was amused by the sperm bank robbery quickly disappeared, and the pissed off Sam was back. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” He made several quick turns in case any of the officers tried to follow them. “You’ve got to listen to me when I tell you Orcheck is the guy! You’re out there breaking the law. Putting yourself in danger. Putting me in danger!”

  “It was a lead. You know we have to follow every lead, and Rose’s biological father is a big one!”

  “You follow every lead unless you got your suspect!” Sam said, finally slowing down and blending in with normal traffic. “We got Orcheck. Letters back and forth. You saw those pictures on that memory card.”

  Carter reached in his coat pocket and felt the small memory card he forgot to give to the police. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You said it right there. Suspect! Orcheck is a suspect.”

  “A pretty big fucking suspect! He admitted that he impregnated Rose, had all those pictures on his camera. C’mon that’s the guy!”

  “Well it doesn’t hurt to follow other leads.”

  “It does when your idea of following a lead involves breaking and entering! You’re beat up. I shot a guy the other night! Don’t talk to me about how it doesn’t hurt to follow a lead! You promised we’d be done with this once we found the person who got Rose pregnant. You gave me your word!”

  Carter said nothing.

  Sam sighed and shook his head. He gripped the steering wheel tight. “Where the fuck am I going?”

  “The office. We gotta check on the office.”

  “You sure it’s safe?”

  “No, but we’re running out of options.”

  Tit for Tat

  They parked behind the office and came in through the back door. Carter held his index finger over his lips, then pointed to the ceiling and his ears.

  “Huh?” Sam said. He carried the box of sperm donor records.

  Carter mouthed the word ‘listening’. Sam nodded. The two walked cautiously through the office. Things looked as they were when Carter left. He pointed at the files of missing people on the desk. Sam nodded and piled
those files in the box with the donor records. Carter crouched by his safe and spun the dial until it clicked open, grabbing more ammunition and tossing his ski mask inside.

  He looked around the office. Picking up an old newspaper, he spread individual sheets over the windows, taping them in place until all of them were covered. The light coming in shone through the paper and bathed the office in a sort of antiqued yellow light.

  Sam went to the large white board on one wall and wrote the word ‘bugged???’ and tapped the board with the marker. Carter shrugged. Then Sam wrote ‘cameras???’. Carter shrugged again. Sam rolled his eyes and huffed. Carter grabbed the marker from Sam and wrote ‘better safe than sorry’.

  Out front, a single silhouette of a man walked by the windows. His outline crept along the store front until he reached the door. Through the thin pieces of newspaper Carter saw a large man with broad shoulders and a thick waist. He and Sam ducked down behind the desk and he reached his hand back to grip the gun shoved in his waistband.

  The large man pulled on the door, rattling the glass. Carter pulled his gun out and pointed it at the door. He hoped the man would leave, turn around, and not force him to make the decision to shoot or not.

  The man pulled on the door again, harder this time, throwing his weight behind it. Carter held his breath, hovering his finger over the trigger. Sam slowly backed away, making his way to the door leading to the side alley. The man outside cupped his hands around the sides of his face and pressed against the window. He backed away, then held a phone up to his ear.

  “It’s me. Mm-hmm.” His silhouette nodded. “I’m here.”

  Carter twisted his head and nudged forward to position himself to hear the man. He lifted his finger from the trigger and lowered his weapon.

  “Locked,” the man said. “Two days.”

  The guy’s voice was harsh, raspy, like sandpaper. Carter crawled until he was only a few feet away from the office door. His heart pounded, rattling against his rib cage, and he breathed shakily. He looked back at Sam, who held his revolver in his hand.