Light It Up

by Nick Petrie

  The smell was unmistakable, deeply lodged in Peter’s memory from his years at war. Burned plastic and something like roasted pork, made worse because you knew it was human flesh. It stuck in the nose and back of the throat like a physical thing. Not like the corruption smell of a two-week-old corpse, but somehow not that different, either.

  The brain knew what it knew.

  Death was death.

  Peter looked closer and saw that the seat buckles were connected, the diagonal remains of the strap melted, sagging but still visible. The man had been belted in. Something about that was especially disturbing.

  The trunk yawned open. Peter stepped around and saw the remains of three more bodies tucked into the trunk. They lay on their sides, their contours aligned, their limbs entwined like lovers.

  The man in the trooper’s uniform had come down the mountain with his dead. He’d driven them around the city. Had probably stopped for dinner while Peter went fifteen rounds with the cops. Then chased Peter and Miranda with the corpses of his comrades in his car.

  Steinburger loomed behind him. “These crispy critters ring any bells for you?”

  They were different now, Steinburger and Sykes. Last night they’d been professional, exacting, thorough. Good cops on good behavior with an attorney present, still sorting through what might have happened, with only the red wrecker and Henry’s truck and Peter’s story to guide them.

  Now they were less controlled, though still not sloppy. They were tired and angry, powered by caffeine and a deep desire to know what had happened, their human selves peering through their official masks.

  The burned car had changed something.

  Peter wondered if that meant the car was a real police car, the state trooper a real trooper.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Peter said. “Tell me what happened here.”

  “Us tell you?” Steinburger asked, rounding on Peter, the remains of his placid civil-servant façade now entirely fallen away. “That’s not how this works, fuckhead.” He stepped in close and tapped Peter hard on the sternum with one thick finger. Peter could smell the bourbon and coffee on his breath. “We don’t tell you. You tell us. So what the fuck happened up there? Was this the car up on that mountain?”

  “How do I know if this was the car?” asked Peter. “It’s all burned up. I don’t even know what color it used to be.”

  But he knew.

  Sykes was watching him. Sykes knew, too.

  “Let’s try this,” Sykes said. “A citizen called in a report of a red BMW sedan being chased by a police car, with shots fired. The police car is reported as unmarked, no light bar on the roof but flashers on the grille and back window.” Sykes’s eyes gleamed amid the planes of his dark face. “Detective Steinburger and I happened to see you drive off in a red fucking BMW. And this burned-up car here, this has every appearance of being a fucking police car. Unmarked, no light bar. Flashers in the grille and rear window.”

  “So this is a police car?” asked Peter. “Do you have any reported stolen, or otherwise unaccounted for?”

  Steinburger took a deep breath, then let it out. He smoothed his mustache with his hand. “I think there are a few details you’ve neglected to share with us. That’s the impression I’m getting here. In fact,” he said, “I think you’re a regular shit magnet. Wouldn’t you agree, Investigator Sykes?”

  “Yes, Detective Steinburger. I agree completely.”

  “In fact, I think the shit magnet should come downtown with us for some more conversation. Best case, he’s handcuffed to a chair by my desk for a few hours while we work this out.”

  “Or cooling his heels in an interview room,” said Sykes. “That’d be the next step. Locked door, cuffed to a ring bolt on the table. More secure, really.”

  “He’s a dangerous character,” said Steinburger. “By his own admission. He killed four people less than twelve hours ago.”

  “Those rooms are pretty small,” said Sykes. “No windows. Ceiling kinda low.”

  “After that, of course, the next step is a holding cell. Bigger room, but filled with some not-so-nice people.”

  “He can take care of himself,” said Sykes. “Tough guy like that? He’s not scared of the Mexican Mafia.”

  Steinburger nodded. “But maybe he’s tired, what with killing all those people last night. So that interview room is probably best. Small, safe, secure. Waiting while we call his lawyer.”

  “Although sometimes that can take a while. Maybe she gets sent to a district station by mistake.”

  “Or the desk sergeant can’t find the paperwork. It happens.”

  Just listening to the conversation, Peter could feel the static crawling up his brainstem.

  He said, “You guys practice this routine, or improvise as you go?”

  They just looked at him, utterly without mirth. Pale, looming Steinburger in his baggy brown suit, beside lean, dark Sykes in his fitted black shell jacket, both of them cops to the bone.

  Peter was stalling. They knew it.

  It was only a matter of time.

  If they went to look at Miranda’s car—hell, if all they did was call his lawyer and she drove up to the precinct—they’d see the creases in the hood, the bullet hole in the rear window.

  If she showed up in a rental, they’d ask about it.

  And she’d tell the truth. She was an officer of the court. She wasn’t about to lie to the police, not for him. Not with four dead bodies in a burned-up car.

  For all she knew, he’d done it.

  And Peter’s path to find the people who’d killed Henry was gone with this burned-up car, and these dead bodies.

  Which was maybe why they’d done it. Whoever they were.

  “Okay,” he said. “The car on the mountain was dressed up like an unmarked car. No light bar, but it had flashers like this one. State plates.” He gave them the number from memory. Sykes wrote them in his notebook. “The fifth man, the one who got away?” He looked at Sykes now. “Wore a state police uniform. Pale blue shirt, darker blue pants, that Smokey the Bear hat with the flat brim. He was directing traffic around what they worked hard to make look like an accident, the ambulance and tow truck already on the scene.”

  Sykes’s face was serene and composed. “And you chose not to share that information,” he said. “Why?”

  Peter shrugged. “I’ve had mixed experiences with law enforcement,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I trusted either of you. The guy looked like a state trooper. And I don’t know how he found us again last night, unless he had help.”

  “I don’t like your tone,” Steinburger said.

  Sykes patted at the air with both hands, an attempt at keeping things calm. “We know it’s not a patrol car,” he said. “We’ll know for sure when we pull the VIN off the engine block, but it doesn’t have any of the gear that a state police vehicle would have. No dashboard camera, no computer stand or shotgun rack, no puke-proof back seat, no sergeant in the trunk.”

  At Peter’s curious look, Sykes explained, “A ‘sergeant in the trunk’ is what we call the location hardware, so the supervisors know where the car is at all times. But it’s not a police cruiser. Anyone can buy those lights. The security guard at the mall has those lights.”

  “What about the license plate,” said Peter. “Is the plate real?”

  “Probably from a different state-owned vehicle,” said Sykes. “The DNR or something. We’ll know soon enough.”

  Steinburger pushed his breath out, shaking his head. “Okay, hotshot. What the fuck else haven’t you told us?”

  “Well,” Peter said, “I was thinking. The payday for both robberies would have been just over a half million dollars, right?”

  Sykes cocked his head. “What about it?”

  Peter shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like enough money,” he said. “This is a big operation, well planned and ruthless. Three vehicles and five people. They disappeared Randy and Leonard on the first run, and were going to do the same to the four of us
yesterday.”

  “What’s your point?” Steinburger was clearly annoyed but interested despite himself.

  “For both robberies, five men, that’s about a hundred grand each. For six murders? That’s a lot of risk, and not much reward.”

  “Are you kidding?” Steinburger said. “You go to the state prison in Cañon City, you can buy a hit for an ice cream sandwich.”

  Peter shook his head. “These were professionals,” he said. “Something else is going on here.”

  Steinburger and Sykes looked at each other for a long moment. Some unspoken communication between them.

  Then Steinburger nodded and Sykes stepped away and pulled out his phone. Steinburger waved a meaty hand in the air and a uniformed officer hustled over.

  Steinburger said, “Get this man out of my crime scene. Mr. Ash, try not to kill anyone for the rest of the morning. I’ll see you downtown at noon.”

  That was when Peter understood they meant to use him as bait.

  He didn’t mind.

  Peter had plans of his own.

  20

  The uniformed officer escorted him away from the clinging stink of the four burned-up bodies in the burned-up car.

  They walked up the winding dirt track through the tall grass of the vacant lot to the street, where Peter stood a few feet from the police SUV guarding the scene, looking up and down the road, acutely aware that Steinburger and Sykes were dangling him like a worm on a hook.

  Henry’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

  A text from June. Got a minute?

  She answered after a single ring.

  “You’re some kind of trouble magnet, you know that?”

  He smiled, just hearing her voice. “So I’ve been told. How’d you sleep?”

  “I didn’t, much,” she said. “I did some digging instead.” Because of her association with Public Investigations, a deep-dive journalism nonprofit run by and for refugees from the slow death of newspapers, June had access to a number of subscription-only databases.

  He heard her yawn. “Heavy Metal Protection has never been hit before last week. Their financials seem pretty robust for a new business, although these hijackings will certainly change that. And there have been no other major marijuana-related armed robberies reported west of the Mississippi.”

  “Nothing?” He couldn’t quite believe it. Almost the entire cannabis economy operated in cash.

  “Oh, there’s plenty of small stuff,” she said. “Stickups and smash-and-grabs, spread out all over the West. A few people have been killed, thieves and employees both, although it looks pretty rare. Most of the journalists covering this stuff seem to think there’s probably a lot more crime that doesn’t get reported, because the cops are bad for business, legal weed or not. But I can’t find anything with the size and scope of this one.”

  “So you’re telling me there’s no vast crime ring of professional dope money thieves.”

  Hearing only Peter’s side of the conversation, the uniformed officer gave him a look.

  Peter stepped away from the patrol car as June said, “Dope money is the best kind of money to steal, because criminals can’t call the cops. Cannabis legalization is supposed to help solve that, but until they get the feds on board, that cash will always be a temptation. But it doesn’t look like that’s what’s happening here. Lewis heard back from his contact at the Department of Defense about the guys you worked with. He forwarded me their official files.”

  “Lewis has a contact at the DoD?”

  “Lewis has contacts everywhere,” June said. “Anyway, Randall Hansen, a minority owner of Heavy Metal Protection Inc., has no criminal record other than a single DUI two years ago. His Army file shows an honorable discharge as a PFC, a few commendations, nothing outstanding, nothing horrible. His commanding officer’s comments were lukewarm.”

  “How many deployments?”

  “Two.”

  And he didn’t even make corporal?

  Most guys, when they signed up for war and landed in the infantry, had no idea what they were getting into. Most took a step forward and worked hard to learn the job and do it well, take out some bad guys, and protect their friends.

  Others just tried really hard not to get killed.

  Randy seemed like a guy trying not to get killed.

  Shows how well that approach worked out.

  Although Peter wasn’t one to talk. He’d started out a lieutenant, and had remained a lieutenant for eight years. Albeit for very different reasons.

  “What about his wife, Eleanor Hansen?”

  “She owns fifty-one percent of the company, to her husband’s forty-nine. She’s got a single drunk and disorderly, back before she got married, and something like two hundred parking tickets, mostly since the business took off. Other than that, she’s clean.”

  “What about the other guys?”

  “Your friend Henry did two tours in Vietnam, no police record, not even a speeding ticket. Parents deceased, three ex-wives, a sister in Minneapolis, Eleanor his only child. He owned his house free and clear, and had enough in the bank for a modest retirement.”

  “That sounds about right,” Peter said.

  “Deacon Jones, thirty-four years old, was a highly decorated soldier, including a pair of Purple Hearts. Also maybe an anger management problem. There were discipline issues noted in his file but by all reports he was an excellent sergeant. His father was a minister, his mother a housewife. His wife divorced him after his second deployment. He has no criminal record and died with money in the bank.”

  Peter thought of Deacon looking at Peter out of the corner of his eye, readying himself to jump the hijackers. Deacon who had switched to nonalcoholic beer. Deacon who had a new girlfriend, and had just bought a house in Aurora.

  “And Banjo?”

  “David Fleck, lieutenant, twenty-seven. Genuine war hero, multiple commendations including a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. An English major at Kentucky. Came from a prominent family in Lexington, could have chosen to do a lot of things with his life. Apparently he told the recruiter he wanted to join the Army to pay it forward.”

  That sounded like Banjo. Peter had imagined him ending up running an organic farm or some damn thing. Hands in the dirt, feeding people.

  “Leonard Wallis, now, he’s a different story,” said June. “The other guys, their lives are open books. They’re all over social media, even your friend Henry, who kept up with his ex-wives on Facebook. Paper trails a mile long, military records go back forever. A sharpshooter badge in basic training, dysentery in Ramadi. This guy Wallis, he has what looks like a relatively normal financial history, given that he was in the Army for twenty years. A couple of credit cards, a loan on a Dodge Durango. But his Army record is basically empty.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, aside from his photo and basic details of his units and postings, there’s nothing there. Cleaned and sanitized. No fingerprint card, and according to Lewis’s source, the DNA sample is gone.”

  Like Peter’s own file, he thought. Because of a Marine Corps major in Iraq who had removed some items from Peter’s record. A kind of reward, Peter supposed. For doing something ugly that needed to be done.

  What had Leonard Wallis done to earn that reward?

  And for whom?

  “So listen,” June said. “My plane should get in around twelve-thirty.”

  “Hang on. This is a bad idea. Can you at least wait a day or two?”

  “Peter Ash,” she said, “if you think I’m going to wait around and watch CNN to see if you’ve been shot or killed, you obviously don’t know me very fucking well. So if you’ll excuse me, my flight leaves in three hours and I still have to pack and drive to Portland.”

  Then she hung up.

  Well, hell.

  Peter didn’t like it.

  But there wasn’t anything he could do about it, either.

  —

  He looked down the dirt track toward the metal shed. The cri
me scene techs were poking through the burned-out car, and Steinburger and Sykes were both on their phones.

  He walked south toward Forty-fifth Avenue. Not a lot of traffic yet. It was just after seven in the morning. Lewis’s plane should already be on the ground.

  Time to put the bait on the hook.

  He made another quick phone call, then checked the map on his phone. He was about fourteen miles from Henry’s house. He wore broken-in combat boots, clean dry socks, comfortable mountain pants, and a green Deschutes Brewery T-shirt.

  He looked both ways, clocking the cars parked on the street, then started to run.

  21

  He’d tried out a lot of names since he’d got started with his little hobby, but those were onetime names, only put on for a few hours. When the Colonel had hired him, it was for the name his daddy gave him, all that true history. He hadn’t wanted to, but it was special circumstances, opportunity come knocking. A chance to use up that old name and get rid of it for good.

  He’d never liked his daddy, and he’d never liked that name, neither.

  In his mind, he thought of himself as Big Dog.

  No collar, no license, no fence. Big Dog goes where he wants. Does what he wants. Takes what he wants.

  Big Dog was free.

  The Colonel had hired him because he had a connection, a way in, and it made him extra valuable. He could get inside deeper than anyone else, and do it faster, too. He’d even negotiated a bonus.

  The work required playing nice, fitting in, getting the trust of strangers. The Dog could do the job, hell, he’d been fooling everybody his whole damn life. He could play nice for a little while longer.

  But it was tiring, having to wear that friendly mask all the time.

  He was looking forward to being himself for real. Unleashed.

  Normally, Big Dog would have been all over a tasty young piece like Elle Hansen. He knew from years of experience that Elle was the kind of girl who would do absolutely anything in the sack. At least with the right kind of discipline.

  He could see it in the way she’d stood in the doorway in her thin robe that one time, sash coming undone, the filmy fabric practically falling off her big, lush body, nothing underneath but skin. Hell, she was asking for it.