Assorted banners and pictures hung from the walls around the front foyer as Reed stepped right up to the man and asked, “Harold Baldwin?”
“Yes, sir,” Baldwin replied, extending his hand. “Detective Mattox?”
“Reed,” Reed said, accepting the handshake. He motioned to Billie pressed tight against his knee and said, “My partner, Billie.”
Baldwin raised his head in understanding, his mouth parting as he did so, though no sound came out.
Much like the building itself had an odd familiarity, Baldwin did as well. He reminded Reed of a handful of teachers he’d had over the years, his height measuring a few inches below six feet, a paunch starting to protrude over wrinkled khakis. His blonde hair was thinning and combed to the side on top, a trimmed moustache underscoring a bulbous nose.
“Is there someplace you’d like to talk?” Reed asked, his gaze drifting past the man to the flow of students moving by. Many were blatantly gawking as they went past, dismissing him in a moment, their attention focused on Billie by his side.
Bearing the appearance of a wolf in midnight hue tended to have that effect.
“Certainly,” Baldwin said, nodding. “We can go to my classroom if you’d like.”
“Absolutely,” Reed said, falling in behind the man as he led them in the opposite direction of most of the foot traffic. Reed kept a tight grip on the leash as they went, ignoring the stares of people less than half his age, before making a right down the first hallway.
At the third doorway Baldwin pulled up, extending a hand. “Please.”
Nodding in thanks, Reed stepped inside, the room bringing back a flood of memories from a lifetime ago. The chalkboards on the walls had been swapped out for dry-erase, but otherwise the place was just as it had been in the 90’s. Combination chair and desks still sat in even rows, the floor underfoot still contained the same checkerboard tile pattern.
The only noticeable difference at all was the wooden crucifix hanging on the wall, the hollow eyes of Jesus staring down at them.
The symbolism was not lost on Reed as behind him Baldwin closed the door and stepped over to his desk, an oversized relic piled high with various stacks of paper. He pulled out a matching hardback chair and settled into it, waving a hand at the desks around the room.
“Feel free to have a seat.”
The comment tugged the left side of Reed’s mouth upward as he glanced back before turning to face forward. “Thanks, but we’re good. I’ll try to keep this short anyway.”
Flicking his gaze to the clock on the opposite wall, Baldwin said, “I have almost 45 minutes. Ask away.”
“Down,” Reed said, using his command tone. Beside him Billie lowered herself flat to the ground, allowing him to drop the leash.
“Mr. Baldwin,” Reed began, “I understand you were the first one to arrive on the scene the other night.”
A shadow passed over Baldwin’s features, the previous affability falling away, replaced by a look bearing equal parts horror and sadness. He remained silent a moment, his eyes glossing over, before shaking the images from his mind.
“I was,” he said simply, barely more than a whisper.
“Can you walk me through it?” Reed asked. “That’s probably the best place to start, then I can target any areas of uncertainty I might have.”
“Sure,” Baldwin said, his face beginning to bear the look of someone that might be sick at any moment. “Can I ask before we start though, are the two men I found okay? Did they...make it?”
For a moment Reed cursed his own foolishness, forgetting that Baldwin had been the first to arrive. There was a decent chance that Iaconelli owed his life to the man, if not Bishop too.
“My apologies,” Reed said. “Yes, they are both alive. One of them is awake this morning, I will be heading over to speak to him later this afternoon.
“The other...” Reed paused a moment, contemplating how much to share, before pushing forward. “The other spent most of the night on the operating table, but he’s hanging in there.”
He left it at that, hoping the man across from him picked up on what was being said without pressing it any further.
“I’m guessing that’s...the, uh...” Baldwin said, holding his hands out to either side, making the universal sign for girth.
“Yes,” Reed said. “Detective Iaconelli.”
“Iaconelli,” Baldwin repeated, his voice bordering on reverent. “He was in awful bad shape when I got there. I almost passed out just seeing him.”
Reed paused there, remaining silent, waiting for the man to continue. In his experience it was far better than a series of leading questions, allowing a witness to pick up a story wherever they saw best, telling it in the way that matched how they had constructed it in their mind.
“I was on my way home from my nephew’s game,” Baldwin said. As he spoke he fixed his gaze on the back wall, his voice, his features, taking on a far-off tenor.
“He’s a defensive back for Capital, and I was swinging back around the outer belt from Bexley.” He flicked his gaze to Reed and said, “I live not too far from where we’re sitting.”
Reed nodded in understanding, saying nothing.
“Anyway, there was some pretty heavy construction on the south end of town, so I got off the freeway and cut up through Grove City. I grew up down there and know the area pretty well. Figured I could catch 104 straight up into Hilliard, avoid all the work crews and delays.”
Again Reed nodded. He had been lucky to avoid most of the construction in his run down to the Hendrix’s house the night before, but he knew that things got dicey just south of there.
“I was coming up through the edge of Franklinton, just about to Hilliard, when I saw that a car was pulled over.”
He paused there, his eyes squinting slightly. “The automobile that had them pulled over wasn’t a traditional squad car with red and blue lights up top, but I could see the front beams flashing, so I slowed down.”
“It was a detective car,” Reed said. “Unmarked sedan.”
“Ah,” Baldwin said, raising his chin a few inches. He paused again, collecting his thoughts, before saying, “I was a good ways back when I first noticed it, so I drifted into the other lane, dropped my speed.
“Ahead of me I could see doors on either side of the cop car – I’ll just call it that for now – open up. Two men emerged, both of them outlined by my headlights.”
Again he took a moment, casting his gaze over to Reed.
“To be honest, I didn’t think a whole lot of it at the time. Maybe a little bit of excitement they had gotten somebody that wasn’t me, but not much more than that.”
A look approaching guilt passed over his features as he forced a smile and said, “You know how it is.”
His mind deep in the story Baldwin was telling, Reed had to force himself back to the present. He tried in vain to plaster a half-smile on his face, the look resembling something closer to pained.
He did know the exact thing Baldwin was talking about, had seen it 1,000 times before, had even felt it himself back before joining law enforcement.
“Anyway, I was going along, listening to scores on the radio, when I saw several flashes of light,” Baldwin said, the same sick look crossing his face. He opened his mouth to continue but no sounds came out, his face fast becoming pasty, sweat creasing his brow.
“Gunshots,” Reed whispered, putting himself in Baldwin’s position, trying to imagine coming up on the scene.
Baldwin nodded and said, “At first I had no idea what they were. Five or six in a row, they came out pretty quick – bam bam bam bam bam.”
Each time he said the word he smacked his right hand into the palm of his left, the sound echoing through the room, causing Billie’s ears to perk on the floor beside Reed.
“I hit the brakes hard,” Baldwin said, “screeching to a halt, not sure what the heck was happening. By the time I got to a stop the car was peeling out of there, the tires making a God-awful sound, pushing
a puff of smoke up before taking off.”
Any bit of color the man’s face had held just minutes before was gone. His pallor was chalky as he reached up and tugged on the collar of his shirt, the garment twisting a bit to the side.
“Must have sat there a full minute before I realized that the two silhouettes I’d seen earlier weren’t there anymore. Wasn’t until then that my mind starting piecing things together, caused me to start moving again.”
Reed could tell there was no small amount of guilt in the man’s tone, though there was no reason for it. He had seen police officers, people trained for such situations, react in much worse ways. This was a man that had just been taking a shortcut home on a Saturday night.
To stumble across something as horrific as the scene he’d been to the night before would shake anybody.
“I called 911 before I got there,” Baldwin said. “I don’t know, but I just kind of knew something was wrong. After that I rolled up even with the cop car and parked, got out.”
His eyes slid shut on the last two words, Reed envisioning the man climbing out, seeing the carnage that was sprawled on the street, the smoke burning his eyes, the scent of charred tires in the air.
An all-out sensory assault if there ever was one.
“Blood,” he whispered. “So much blood.”
His eyes opened a fraction of an inch as he raised his hands before him, staring down at them. “I had some old towels and blankets in the back of my car. I tried to stem what I could until the ambulance got there.”
He raised his focus to Reed, his fingers still outstretched in front of him. “But there was so much. It seemed to be coming from everywhere.”
Reed met his gaze a long moment. “You did well, Mr. Baldwin. You probably saved his life. Everybody in the precinct, all of us, are very grateful to you for what you did.”
Baldwin nodded as if he heard the comment, though it did nothing to change the expression on his face. Slowly he lowered his hands back to his lap, saying nothing.
“I don’t suppose you were able to get a look at anybody when you pulled up?” Reed asked. Already he had the make, model, and license plate on the car. He knew that was essentially a dead end.
The likelihood of him having seen anybody, especially from that distance at that time of night, was almost non-existent, but he still had to ask.
“No,” Baldwin said. “It was dark and I was a good ways back. If not for those flashes from the gun, I wouldn’t have even looked over.”
Reed nodded, again placing himself in Baldwin’s position, trying to imagine what he might encounter upon approach.
“You said gun, singular,” Reed said. “You only saw the one?”
Raising a hand to his chin, Baldwin pinched his face in thought for a moment before nodding. “Yes. Like I mentioned, I was in the left lane, coming up on the outside. There might have been another on the opposite side, I just couldn’t see it.”
He paused again, the same look in place, as he continued chewing on it. “I mean, I guess there must have been, both detectives getting hit like that, but I didn’t see anything.”
The answer seemed to track with the initial assessment of Earl the night before. This was most likely a single shooter, firing through open windows. The fact that Bishop had gotten off with only a single shot, that no brass was found on the passenger side, seemed to confirm as much.
Raising his gaze up to the clock on the wall, Reed noticed that Baldwin’s recount of the story had taken most of their allotted time. Down to just his last few minutes, he scrolled through everything again in his mind, careful to cover every last crack before releasing the man from the uncomfortable conversation.
“Mr. Baldwin, when you arrived, were either of the detectives conscious? Did they say anything?”
“The taller one was,” Baldwin said, extending a finger toward Reed. “Twice he told me to help...well, I thought he was saying Mike.”
“Ike,” Reed said. “We call Detective Iaconelli Ike around the precinct.”
“Right, makes sense,” Baldwin said. “He was weak, fading fast. After he saw me start pressing towels on his partner I thought he said one last thing, but I can’t be certain.”
“What was that?” Reed asked, feeling a slight tremor in the pit of his stomach.
“Back?” Baldwin asked, phrasing it very much like a question. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but I’d swear that’s what he said.”
Chapter Fourteen
The man on the opposite end of the line sounded frightened, just short of petrified. His voice was lowered and his words clipped, as if he was standing just out of earshot from someone, a hand cupped over the receiver on his phone.
“I’m sorry, you say our house was broken into?” Jonas Hendrix asked.
In the background Reed could hear commotion – children laughing, water splashing, people in conversation. The combined effects of the noises made him think the Hendrix family was posted up beside a pool somewhere, milking the last few hours of Florida sunshine before heading home later that night.
“Yes,” Reed said, “and I am very sorry to be breaking this news to you over the phone.”
“No,” Hendrix replied, the word terse. “I appreciate you making the call. I apologize for missing your message earlier this morning.”
The man had in fact missed two messages that morning, Reed making a point of calling right after leaving his house and again upon exiting the church. It wasn’t until now, as he worked his way back toward Mercy West, that the man had gotten back to him, a full two hours after the initial request to speak.
Despite all that, Reed opted to let it go. What had happened already would have the man’s hackles raised. The events that had occurred at his house in the preceding day, from the theft of his car to a crime scene unit scrubbing it down, were bound to push his ire even further.
There was no need to add to it by giving a lecture on the amount of time needed to respond to a message.
He was, after all, on vacation.
“Not at all,” Reed said. “I just wanted to contact you as soon as possible and let you know everything that has happened.”
He paused, debating how to most delicately state what he was thinking, before adding, “And to let you make arrangements before your arrival back in Ohio.”
The ambient noise over the line disappeared. In their stead was only the sound of flip-flops slapping against bare skin, Hendrix most likely relocating somewhere to be alone before saying another word.
Reed waited in complete silence as he did so, counting off almost 30 seconds before the man came back on the line.
“Okay,” Hendrix said. His voice was pinched, as if trying to put on a tough exterior, though Reed could tell there was just a hint of cracking present around the edges.
It was far from the first time he had encountered the reaction, stock responses from witnesses and victims both when speaking to the police.
“Start at the beginning.”
Outside, the early-afternoon traffic was thin. It being Sunday, a great deal of the flow was home in the suburbs, watching football or having barbecues. They were far from the congested industrial portions of the city, allowing the streets to be clear as Reed headed toward the hospital.
As much as he appreciated the easy path, he would have given anything to be home with Billie doing either of those things, or a dozen other, for the afternoon.
Just the same, given what had happened to Iaconelli and Bishop, there was nothing else in the world he would be doing until this was figured out.
“Last night your car was pulled over near Franklinton by a pair of detectives from the 8th Precinct,” Reed said. “The infractions were a busted taillight and erratic driving.”
“My...wha...” Hendrix sputtered. “But that’s impossible.”
“We know that, sir,” Reed said, careful to keep his voice just a degree or two away from placating. “We spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Rollins and were told that your family is in Florida until
tonight. They were also the ones to provide me with your cell phone number.”
He added the last sentence as a throw-in, the kind of thing nobody ever thought to ask in the moment, but would certainly wonder about later.
A moment passed as Hendrix blew out a breath. “So if you talked to the Rollins’s...”
“Yes, we’ve been to your house,” Reed said. “Or rather, in your house. Given the information we had at the time, we had probable cause to enter, believing you to be the driver of that car.”
“You went in my house?” Hendrix asked, his voice beginning a slight transition, moving past abject shock, a bit of incredulity creeping in. “Over some moving violations?”
“No,” Reed said. “We went in because your license plate was called in by two detectives that were then shot before your Chevy Tahoe fled the scene.”
He knew the statement was a bit off-sides, the kind of thing meant as much for shock value as to deliver a message, but he needed to stem any growing animosity before it threatened to take over the conversation.
“Again, at this point we have cleared you of any suspicion. Earlier today I spoke to your hotel and confirmed you have been on site for three days now and that a shuttle is already arranged to take you and your family back to the airline.
“Ten hours ago we knew none of that though, so we entered.”
For a moment Reed considered apologizing before deciding against it. Despite it being an ingrained human response, doing so was something Riley had always cautioned him against, stating that it gave the victims the impression that he had done something wrong.
The offense, she reasoned, was on the perpetrators. Any blame should be directed their way, not at the officers investigating it.
When Hendrix didn’t respond Reed pushed forward, adding, “We entered your garage and found signs of forced entry, confirmed that your car had been stolen. Unfortunately, none of your neighbors saw anything, though we are still canvassing the neighborhood.”
The Kid: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 3) Page 6