Light It Up

by Nick Petrie

Peter didn’t ask why Lewis wasn’t coming with them. He figured Lewis had his reasons, including a kind of metabolic incompatibility with law enforcement.

  “A state police investigator named Sykes, and a Denver PD detective named Steinburger.”

  Lewis’s face widened in a smile. “Would that be Steve Steinburger?”

  Peter blinked at him. “I believe so.”

  “You go ahead,” Lewis said. “I’ll be right there.”

  As Peter and Miranda crossed the street, the Jeep cut smoothly into traffic and around the corner.

  —

  They walked between two pylons and into the plaza. The wind whipped through the narrow gaps between buildings, clouds moving fast overhead. People in office clothes hurried through, trying to get where they were going before the weather turned.

  By the main entrance to police headquarters, three men stood in a loose triangle in a temporary patch of sun. One of them looked at his watch.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Peter said as he approached. “Tell me what you know about the bad guys.”

  “Not how this works.” Lean, dark Sykes held yet another tall paper cup of coffee. He had a fat three-ring binder, stuffed with paper, tucked neatly under his arm.

  “Can we please just lock him up?” Pale, looming Steinburger held a can of Coke in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Neither man looked like he’d caught any shut-eye since the early-morning wake-up call.

  “Wow, you guys look like shit,” Peter said, pretending he didn’t need another gallon of coffee and twelve hours of rack time himself. “Is that why you’re so grumpy?”

  “Shut up, Peter,” Miranda said. She put her hand out to the third man, who’d been watching with dry amusement. “Hello, Andrew.”

  “Miranda,” he said. “I didn’t think we’d be doing this again.” He was in his late forties and very tall with slightly rounded shoulders, as if he’d long ago had to come to terms with a shorter world.

  “Believe me, I’ve been trying very hard not to,” she said. “Peter, this is Andrew Jones, with the attorney general’s office.”

  Jones offered Peter a smile. He wore blue suit pants and a starched white shirt, no tie, and frameless glasses over thoughtful eyes that functioned, Peter imagined, somewhat like camera lenses, capturing everything in view.

  “I’m the person who will likely decide whether the state of Colorado will charge you with a crime.” Jones had the quiet voice of one accustomed to others listening closely. “Although we may end up with some jurisdictional issues, given the scope of events.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Peter extended his hand on the theory it might be harder to decide to prosecute a polite person, no matter that he’d killed four men in the last twenty hours.

  Jones looked down at Peter’s hand for a short moment, likely with Peter’s recent history very much in mind. Peter got the impression the attorney didn’t do anything without thinking it through first. When they shook, Jones’s hand was large and warm and dry, and also more calloused than Peter had expected.

  “Part of the problem, Mr. Ash, is that we haven’t gotten your service records from the Pentagon yet. They’re not known for cooperating with local authorities.”

  Miranda spoke. “I’m not sure that’s relevant, Andrew. My client and his coworkers were attacked by armed men, and he acted both in self-defense and within the parameters of his employment.”

  “Mmm,” said Jones. “I’ve read the statements of the investigators. I’d like to hear it directly from Mr. Ash.”

  So Peter told it again to the man from the attorney general’s office, who leaned in with gentle questions ruthlessly designed to catch any flaws in the story. This time Peter included details about the man in the state police uniform, and the black sedan set up to look like an unmarked police cruiser, and the cruiser’s midnight chase of Miranda’s red BMW.

  While Peter talked, Lewis ambled through a narrow space between the buildings and leaned on the wall a dozen feet away. He wore a baseball hat pulled low over his sunglasses, and appeared to take a stand-up nap in the fleeting sun like any other bureaucrat on his lunch break. Peter saw Sykes note Lewis, then disregard him. Steinburger looked at Lewis, looked away, then looked back.

  When Jones was done with his questions, Miranda said, “Do you plan to charge my client?”

  Jones took off his glasses and cleaned them with a cloth taken from his pocket. “Not at this time.”

  “That’s good,” Peter said. “I really do want to know what you’ve learned. The company I work for has other shipments out there, and other employees. The owner has lost her husband and her father and is alone with her three children. And my friends are dead.”

  Jones gave a small smile as he put his glasses back on. “Your concern has been noted, and also your interest. Frankly, it’s your interest that is problematic. You don’t appear to be a person willing to, ah, sit on the sidelines. I am concerned about interference in the investigation, which might hamper prosecution, and also with preventing future violence.”

  “What about catching the bad guys?” said Peter. “You have any interest in that?” His tone was sharper than he’d intended.

  “I have every interest in that,” replied Jones, enunciating clearly. “Don’t mistake me for a nice man, Mr. Ash. I won’t have any Wild West bullshit in my town. If I catch you misbehaving, I will come down on you like a fucking landslide. Am I clear?”

  Peter smiled, liking the man and not doubting him a bit. “Crystal.”

  “Good.” Jones checked his watch. “Now. That said, I believe Mr. Ash has earned some credibility.” He looked at Sykes and Steinburger. “Are you willing to share anything?”

  Sykes looked at Steinburger, but Steinburger was still staring at Lewis. “Steve.”

  Steinburger waved a hand. “Sure, tell him.”

  Sykes said, “No usable fingerprints in the ambulance or the tow truck. The sedan, as you’ll recall, was burned to a crisp. We’re waiting on the DNA, that will be a while.”

  “What about the cars?”

  Sykes tossed his coffee cup in a trash can, opened the fat three-ring binder and flipped through the pages. The wind rattled the paper.

  “According to the VINs, the ambulance was sold almost four weeks ago out of an auction lot in Pueblo. Cash sale, the buyer’s ID was from Arizona, but Arizona never heard of him. Multiple security cameras on the lot, but the resolution is crap. All they caught was ten grainy minutes of a cowboy hat.”

  He flipped another page as if reading, although Peter was certain Sykes had it down cold already.

  “The wrecker was stolen three days ago from a service station in North Platte, no video, no leads from the locals. The sedan was so burned up the garage techs had to pull the VIN off the engine block. It was a Dodge Charger, registered to the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs in Centennial. It’s a pool car, and it was never reported stolen. Someone there told me, off the record, they thought it had been ‘misplaced.’ The last known use was six days ago. And the plate on the car was taken from a different car in the same lot.”

  “So the Charger and the wrecker were taken after the first shipment disappeared a week ago? Along with Leonard Wallis and Randy Hansen?”

  Sykes raised his eyes from the binder. “Gold star to the new guy.”

  “So either a different method on the first one, or different vehicles?”

  Sykes nodded. “The Charger and the wrecker were stolen, so we’re thinking they just picked up what they needed for the job. They probably had to buy the decommissioned ambulance because real ones are harder to steal, and they have tracking systems, LoJack or something like it.”

  “What about the electronics they pulled out from under Henry’s truck?”

  Sykes made a face and turned the page. “Two separate pieces there. Our guy tells me one was a GPS tracker, probably to get the location of the truck, and the other was a multi-signal jammer, for blocking cell signals and Heavy Metal’s own GP
S tracker when the bad guys got close enough for a visual. The tracker is fairly cheap. Companies use them on delivery vehicles, helicopter parents buy them to track their teenage drivers. But that signal jammer is for the serious paranoid and/or criminal. The one they were using cost a couple thousand dollars, you can pick and choose which frequencies to jam, and blocks everything within a hundred and fifty meters.”

  “Serial numbers?”

  Sykes nodded. “We’re backtracking the sales right now, but with what we’ve seen with our bad guys so far, I wouldn’t hold your breath. Our electronics guy tells me most of these devices are sold online, and there are any number of ways to buy anonymously these days. The most common way is to log on at a hotel lobby computer or Internet cafe. Use a pre-paid credit card, which you can load with cash at any Target or Walmart or a thousand other places. Then have your stuff delivered to one of those mailbox stores. We’ll do all the legwork, in case someone got sloppy, but they haven’t been sloppy yet.”

  Peter sighed. “The weapons?”

  Sykes flipped through more pages. “Four pistols in the burned car with the bodies. Our techs managed to get a serial number off one of them. It was originally registered to a man in Cheyenne who says he sold that gun in a lot of five, a month and a half ago. Private sale, cash, no background check, perfectly legal. The guy sells fifteen guns a week over the Internet. He met this particular buyer in person but can’t seem to remember anything about him. He’s faxing us his paperwork, but Wyoming doesn’t require shit on a private sale so the paper won’t tell us anything.”

  “And the shotgun?”

  “From Western Arms in Cheyenne. Legit sale from a legit store, but again, it’s fucking Wyoming. They don’t require checks for long guns. The store video is overwritten after two weeks, so that’s useless. Store records say the sale was the same day as the pistols, six weeks ago.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”

  Sykes snapped the binder shut and closed his eyes. “Give us time. It’s been less than twenty-four hours. These people are planners, and they are very good.”

  “Yes,” said Peter. “They are. What about an inside man? Are you looking at Randy Hansen and Leonard Wallis?”

  Sykes looked at him. “We have done this before, you know.”

  “You’ve had a week since Wallis and Hansen disappeared. You must have found out something.”

  “Hansen was a pothead and a functional alcoholic. According to his VA caseworker, he was probably clinically depressed, and according to his coworkers he never did more than the absolute minimum. No evidence of the kind of motivation required to commit a crime of this scale and make himself disappear. His wife was the one with the ambition, but the disappearance has hurt the business, so she’s not on our list of suspects.”

  Peter thought of Elle’s ambition, recruiting him to be her new operations manager before her father was in the ground. The cool way her eyes had appraised him, as if he were some kind of equipment she was considering acquiring. For the moment, he’d keep that to himself.

  “And Wallis?”

  Sykes sighed. “Wallis is a weird one. Still waiting on military paperwork from Uncle Sam, of course, so we don’t know much. Financial history is pretty basic. We know he moved to the area from Henderson three months ago, right before he started his job. The owner, Elle Hansen, says he served in the Army with her husband, that’s why they hired him. She says he’s very bright, very good at the job. No wife, no girlfriend that we know of. He rents a little shitbox in Arvada that’s got almost no furniture in it. Just an air mattress on the floor, a folding chair, a television with no cable connection, and a very nice set of free weights. Not even a computer, although his financial records show that he bought a laptop. We’re assuming he had it with him.”

  They didn’t know much more than Peter had learned from June. But they had something.

  “You talk about him like he’s still alive.”

  Sykes shrugged. “We just haven’t found his body.”

  “But.”

  “Well, like I said, Wallis is a little weird. His coworkers said he was a great guy, funny and good company, but none of them spent any time with the man after work. Nobody had been to his house. Nobody knew anything about his family. Nobody could tell us anything truly personal about him.”

  That was odd, in Peter’s mind. He’d spent three days with Deacon and Banjo and got their whole life stories. You had a lot of time for conversation, working protection. Hurry up and wait.

  “Apparently,” Sykes said, “Wallis has three favorite topics. He talks about the Army, which makes sense because he had twenty years in. He talks about firearms, which isn’t unusual in a career infantryman, or here in the great state of Colorado, for that matter. And apparently he talks a lot about women.” Sykes glanced at Miranda, then back to Peter. “Kind of a poon hound, I guess. He told his coworkers that he could pick a woman out of a crowded bar and have her buck naked and doggy-style inside of thirty minutes.”

  “Yuck,” Miranda, making a face.

  “Yeah,” said Sykes. “Put it all together, you have an intelligent, charming loner who loves guns and uses women. Classic shithead personality.”

  “And by shithead,” Miranda said, “you mean psychopath.”

  “You think Wallis is involved in this?” Peter asked.

  “Let’s just say I’d like to find him,” Sykes said. “Alive or dead.”

  “Maybe we can help with that,” Lewis said, walking over.

  He gave Steinburger a tilted smile. The Denver detective just stared at him.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Sykes asked.

  “This is Lewis,” Peter said. “A friend of mine.”

  “Is that a first name or last?” Sykes asked.

  Lewis gave one of his elaborate shrugs to accompany the tilted smile. “Just the one.”

  “Like Madonna?” Sykes said. “Or Cher?”

  “Or Björk,” Lewis said. “Or Liberace.”

  “What would it say on your driver’s license?”

  “Can’t remember,” Lewis said thoughtfully. “Lost it a few weeks ago. Still waiting for the replacement.”

  “How about fingerprints,” Sykes said. “Is there a name on those?”

  Steinburger finally broke into the conversation. “What are you doing here, Lewis?”

  “Catching up with old friends,” Lewis said. “How you been, Steve-o?”

  Sykes looked at Steinburger. “You two know each other?”

  “Years ago,” Steinburger said. “Bad penny kind of thing.”

  Jones, the man from the attorney general’s office, had been quiet through the conversation. “Is there something I should know?”

  Lewis looked at Steinburger. “I’m not sure,” he said. “What do you think, Steve-o?”

  Steinburger looked away. “Ancient history.”

  Peter saw the opening. To Sykes, he said, “You mind if I take a look in your book, there?”

  “Yes, I fucking mind,” said Sykes, tucking the book back under his arm. “This is an active investigation.”

  “I’m only interested in one thing,” Peter said.

  Jones said, “Something tells me I don’t want to be around for this conversation. So I’m going back to the office before the weather hits.” He caught Peter with his eyes. “Right now you’re off the hook,” he said. “If you act like an asshole, that can always change. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Peter said. “It’s been a pleasure.” He extended his hand again.

  Jones took it. “Four armed men,” he said. “By yourself. Jesus Christ.” Then he turned and walked away.

  When he was gone, Lewis smiled brightly at Steinburger. “How’s your mom doing, Steve?”

  Steinburger filled his chest with air, then let it out. “I always thought you might come back.”

  “I’m not here for myself,” Lewis said evenly. “I promised you that, and I’m keeping that promise. All we need is a little help. After that, I�
��m gone forever.”

  “Steve,” Sykes said, “what the fuck is going on?”

  “Show them the book,” Steinburger said.

  “Steve, how long have I known you? We were in the same goddamn class at the academy. We worked together for ten years before I left for the state police.”

  “Paul.” Steinburger ran a big hand down his face. “Just show them the fucking book, okay?”

  Sykes stared at Steinburger for a minute, then turned to Peter. “What’s your play here?”

  “I told you. Those were my friends who got killed.”

  “But why the fuck am I letting you in? Why are we talking to you at all?”

  “Because Lewis has Steinburger’s nuts in a vise. And because we can do things you can’t.”

  “Like what?” Sykes said.

  Lewis tipped his chin at Steinburger. “Ask Steve. He knows.”

  Steinburger shook his head. “Don’t ask. Some things you don’t want to know.”

  Sykes sighed. “All right. What do you want to see?”

  “I want to see a copy of McSweeney’s shipping manifest. What the grower claims was in Henry’s truck when we got hit.”

  Sykes flipped through the book and came up with a printout. The list of items headed for their final destination, Zig McSweeney’s cabin in the mountains.

  To Peter and the other guys, the cargo was a series of numbered cardboard boxes sealed with tamper-resistant tape. On the manifest, they were packages listed with their contents, place of origin, and destination.

  There was nothing unusual on the list. Peter pulled out Henry’s phone. He used Henry’s passcode to unlock the phone, then opened the Web browser. As Elle had thought, the Heavy Metal website was open and Henry was still logged in. He found yesterday’s manifest for their team.

  The Heavy Metal manifest was the same as McSweeney’s in Sykes’s binder. Nothing different.

  “What are you looking for?” Sykes asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Peter said. “Something that doesn’t belong. I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it. Can you show me the list of evidence recovered from Henry’s truck?”

  Interested despite himself, Sykes flipped through the book and found several lists, one for each vehicle, and one for Peter’s clothes.