Shock and Awe

by Hervey Copeland

  He walked for about a minute, then turned left at the first road and felt his heart start to beat faster. To say that what he was attempting to do was risky was an understatement of massive proportions. But then again, it was so brazen and unexpected that it might just actually work.

  He could see the corner up ahead, about sixty yards away or thereabouts, and he walked toward it feeling like a condemned prisoner on death row walking toward the execution chamber.

  He prayed that no one would be looking his way when he turned that corner. That they would be too focused on what had happened inside the house to pay any attention to a lone pedestrian walking down the sidewalk.

  Then he was there.

  He turned left and about a hundred and fifty yards up ahead he could see that the street had been cordoned off. There were several patrol cars parked in front of the cordon, and a handful of uniformed officers along with what he suspected were detectives and forensic investigators out in the front yard.

  Every instinct in Matt’s body told him to turn around and get the hell away from there. That what he was about to do was utter madness. But he kept on walking, trying his best to appear as normal and unaffected as possible by the heavy police presence.

  The sight of the bike helped to ease his nerves ever so slightly. He could see that the crash helmet was still hanging from the handlebar. Good, no one had tried to steal it. He put his hand in his pocket and clutched the key. If everything went according to plan, he would be on that bike, riding away from this neighborhood and away from this city within the next minute. That was if none of the people behind that cordon recognized him.

  He kept walking, and now he was less than fifty yards away from the bike. Another twenty seconds and he would be there. He kept staring at the cops from behind the dark sunglasses, trying to see if any of them were taking notice of him. He didn’t think so. They all seemed preoccupied with their own things. Please, let it stay like that for the next sixty seconds, he thought.

  The t-shirt was drenched and sticking to his back as if someone had put glue on it. And his heart was beating so hard that he thought it was going to rip a hole right through his chest. Come on, just keep it together for another thirty seconds, man. Then you can relax after that. It was only twenty yards to go now. The tension was almost unbearable and he had difficulties breathing. His legs felt heavy and moving them was a real struggle. It was like he was coming apart at the seams.

  When he was ten yards away, he felt a terror unlike any he had ever felt before. A uniformed officer lifted up the plastic cordon and started walking toward him. Matt felt like someone had just sucker punched him in the gut. Was this how it was going to end? Would his life be cut short, because of an over vigilant cop? Had the guy managed to recognize him, despite his disguise?

  Matt knew that any attempts at running away at this stage would be futile. He probably wouldn’t even make it back to the corner before a bullet would slam into his backside.

  Well, at least he’d given it his best, no one could claim otherwise. But unfortunately it just hadn’t been enough. It had all come to an end, and it was time to face the music. And the funny thing was that he didn’t really know how he truly felt about it. Whether it was bottomless desperation, or some kind of relief, even though the idea of getting caught scared him to death.

  He was about to stop and just let the cop get on with it and arrest him, when he saw the guy turn and walk over to the back of one of the police cruisers. There he stopped and popped open the lid of the trunk.

  Matt was so completely stunned that he began walking up the driveway of the house next to the bike. It was like he was walking around in a daze. The cop hadn’t recognized him, nor had he stepped under that cordon to address him. Matt found it almost impossible to comprehend, and one part of him expected that the cop would soon come charging at him, wrestling him to the ground and sticking his gun in his face. He had been convinced that the guy had seen straight through him, and that he had only been seconds away from capture.

  Matt stepped off the driveway and followed a narrow concrete path, and arrived at the entrance door of the house. He was currently two doors down from James’ place. The cops were no longer able to see him due to the hedge separating the property from the one next to it. Matt carefully leaned his head against the door and closed his eyes. His breath was coming out in rapid short bursts, and his mind was in a state of absolute chaos.

  He stood like this for a good ten seconds, before finally getting himself together. He then took a few steps back from the door and pulled out the hand holding the key from his pocket. When he opened it and looked at his palm, he could see that the key had left a big white imprint there. He closed his eyes again, lifted the hand holding the key and put it up to his face.

  The best thing to do now was just to walk down to the bike, put the key in the ignition and drive away. If his march down the street was any indication of what was going to happen next, then it was safe to assume that no one would take any particular notice of him. He was just a random guy, getting on his bike and heading into the city.

  He opened his eyes again and took a few more deep breaths. He had to get it over and done with. Time was running out for him, and the sooner he’d hit the city limits the better. Then he could go into hiding and lay low. But first he would have to get to the bike.

  He could feel his legs starting to carry him back toward the driveway. And a few moments later, he was walking down toward the sidewalk and the bike that was parked next to it. He didn’t dare to move his head and kept looking straight ahead. He had no idea whether the cop that he’d seen was still rummaging around in the trunk or not, or whether he was following him with his eyes. Nor did he want to find out.

  He quickly lifted his right leg and sat down on the bike, his heart hammering away in his chest. No one was calling out to him, asking him who he was and what he was doing.

  With a trembling hand, he inserted the key in the ignition and turned it, and the engine immediately came to life. He didn’t waste any more time, and quickly pushed back the kickstand with his foot, shifted into first gear and twisted the throttle.

  The bike started moving forward, and Matt increased the speed. His eyes were glued to the side mirror, but he saw no one attempting to get his attention or trying to stop him. When he arrived at the corner a few moments later, he was doing close to twenty miles an hour. But he didn’t slow down. Instead he leaned into the corner and felt himself drifting over into the opposite lane. Thankfully there weren’t any cars coming toward him.

  And then he was out of sight.

  He had managed to get away without getting noticed. Now all that remained was to create as much distance between himself and Phoenix as possible.

  When he turned at the next corner, he quickly pulled over to the curb and put on the crash helmet. He placed the cap and the sunglasses inside the backpack, and then he started moving again, toward the freeway and hopefully away from the nightmare that his life had turned into. As he increased the speed of the bike, he allowed himself a tiny smile. Finally, things were going his way.

  The case had just taken another strange turn and Morrell had difficulties figuring out the logic behind it all. But he was convinced that there was some logic to it, that Brunner had thought things through and that he had carried out some type of a plan.

  What Morrell had initially suspected were random and irrational events, he now believed were calculated and well thought out moves. Steps that had seen Brunner slip out of their grasp. But still, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how he’d done it. How he had managed to pull the wool over their eyes.

  They were standing in front of the Honda Civic that Brunner had stolen from the shopping mall in Maricopa. Someone had seen the car and notified the police of its location, and Morrell and Valdez had arrived there shortly after. It hadn’t taken them long to get there. In fact they could have just left their car at Matthews’ house and walked over to it. They would have managed
to get there within a minute and a half easy, because Brunner had parked it in the street over from where he’d killed his friend earlier that day.

  And that was the thing that Morrell couldn’t figure out. Why had Brunner decided to return to the area where the crime had been committed? What was it that had made him come back?

  “This is beyond weird,” Valdez said. “If I were in a similar situation, I would have tried to get the hell out of the city as quickly as possible. And I certainly wouldn’t have gone back to a neighborhood that I knew was swarming with law enforcement officers, and especially not ones that were trying to catch me.”

  He got a cigarette out from the pack in his pocket and lit it. He inhaled and blew the smoke out through his nose, as he leaned up against the hood of the Crown Vic. Then he just stood there looking at the Honda with a vacant expression on his face.

  Morrell tapped some ash from his own cigarette with his index finger and brought it back up to his lips.

  “Maybe, he had another car parked here?” Morrell said slowly and unconvincingly after exhaling another lungful of smoke. Then he sighed and rubbed his face with the hand that was holding the cigarette. He didn’t have any evidence corroborating his claim, but it was the only rational explanation he could think of.

  Valdez shook his head.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “If he had a second car here, then why didn’t he just flee in that one straight away? Why did he drive around in the Mitsubishi for two hours after killing the guy? And why did he leave it in the parking lot in Maricopa and not here? And why on earth did he choose to steal another car and increase his odds of getting caught? It makes absolutely zero sense to go through all that trouble, when all he had to do was to walk a block over, jump into a car that is unknown to us and drive away.”

  “I don’t know. Why did he kill the journalist? And why did he kill the person, who by his own admission was his only true friend in this world? I mean he had even gone over there to say goodbye to the guy the previous evening, before relocating to Seattle. None of it makes any sense to me.”

  Valdez leaned forward and spat out the gum he’d been chewing on for the last twenty minutes.

  “Maybe he wanted Matthews to help him escape, and he refused? Maybe Matthews threatened to contact the police, and Brunner shot him in order to save his own hide? Who knows?”

  Morrell nodded. It was a plausible theory, and one that he had thought about himself.

  Valdez lifted his left arm and checked his wristwatch.

  “It’s nearly seven o’clock,” he said. “If we assume that he drove straight over here after leaving the shopping mall, got into another car and took off, then he’s got a nearly six hour head start. He could be halfway to California by now if he decided to head west, or in Texas if he decided to go east. If he keeps a low profile, it’ll be almost impossible to find him.”

  Morrell knew that Valdez was right. It would be hard to locate Brunner. They had also learned that Brunner had withdrawn a large sum of money from his bank account earlier that day. Add that to the three thousand dollars he had withdrawn from the ATMs yesterday, and he could live quite comfortably for the next twelve months. And if he was disciplined and only paid cash, which Morrell suspected was his plan, it would be very difficult to apprehend him. If Brunner was smart, he would also change his appearance and start using a fake identity.

  Morrell took another drag from the cigarette and noticed how tired he was. The day had been a continuous succession of highs and lows, of hope and despair. He had been like a wound up cat trying to catch a mouse, and now after a twelve hour chase, he had finally had to concede defeat. At least for now.

  He pushed himself forward, threw the cigarette down on the ground and squashed it with his shoe. Then he just stood there and looked at the old Civic, thinking about how close they had been at apprehending Brunner. They had been mere minutes away. If the margins had been on their side, they would have been back at the station now in one of the interview rooms, questioning Brunner about his role in the killings.

  Instead they were here in this crappy residential area, looking at the car that Brunner had used to get away in.

  He spat and turned to Valdez.

  “There’s no point in hanging around here anymore. All we’re doing is wasting time, and I’d rather do that somewhere else.”

  Valdez nodded and stepped away from the car. “Yeah, we might as well head back to the station.”

  That night Morrell had trouble sleeping. He crawled in under the sheets at eleven, but kept tossing and turning and staring at the blades of the ceiling fan cutting through the hot air. His head was filled with thoughts of what he’d gone through that day, and he had this strong feeling that they had overlooked some crucial detail. Some clue that would lead them straight to Brunner.

  At one o’clock, he got tired of just lying there, and got up and poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge. Then he pulled out a chair and sat down at the dining room table and gazed out at the moonlit backyard.

  What is it that I’m missing, he thought. What mistake did Brunner make that I just can’t see?

  He kept going over all the details of the case, starting with the phone call they had received early that morning. The grisly scene that had met them at the house that Brunner, up until that point, had been renting. Then the second crime scene, just as grisly as the first one, and the sighting of Brunner down at the shopping mall in Maricopa.

  His thoughts started centering on how Brunner had ended up on the police radar. The tip from the journalist, who had subsequently become Brunner’s second victim.

  It wasn’t uncommon for the police to receive tips that helped them solve cases, so in that regard there was nothing unusual about it. But there were still a lot of unanswered questions in this particular case. For instance, who was the anonymous source that had contacted the journalist, and how had this individual learned of Brunner’s involvement in the contract killing of Rodriguez?

  Did the source know the people who had hired Brunner? Was he a rival or a disgruntled colleague who had wanted Brunner out of the way? And more importantly, did Brunner know, or suspect who the guy was? And if that was the case, was he out for revenge? Morrell figured that that was a no-brainer. Of course he would be looking for revenge if he knew who the source was.

  The more he thought about it, the more he started to lean toward the opinion that everything wasn’t what it appeared to be. Things had been handed to them on a silver platter, and all they’d had to do was to bring Brunner in for questioning. Everything else had followed from that. And if things had played out slightly differently, Brunner would quite possibly have been booked after the initial interview and charged with the murder of Rodriguez.

  Granted, the case would more than likely have collapsed later on if they’d failed to unearth some more evidence. Evidence that would have conclusively linked Brunner to the crime, because at the moment, no such evidence existed. All they had was the tip and the money that had been deposited into Brunner’s bank account. And there was no way they’d get a conviction based on that.

  No, the slimy lawyer had been quite right in pointing out that they had nothing linking Brunner to the crime. The money was of course a good indication that he had been involved in some way or another, but that was all, and any decent judge would see it for what it was.

  But why had it been deposited there? And if it wasn’t a payment for the hit, then what was it for? Brunner had practically been broke before the money hit his account, nor did he have a well paying job. And there had certainly not been a history of large sums being transferred to him, which made the tip seem even more trustworthy. People weren’t in the habit of handing out a hundred K to random strangers for no apparent reason. No, Brunner was definitely involved.

  The tip that the journalist had received, had also ensured that the information would be passed on to the police. No serious journalist would withhold that kind of thing, wh
ich made it even more likely that Brunner had been betrayed by one of his own.

  Then there were all the other signs that proved that the tip was a solid one, and that strongly suggested that Brunner was the guy they were after. The second murder that had occurred in Brunner’s house, the car he’d been driving when he’d been pulled over before being taken to the police station, and which had subsequently been found inside Matthews’ garage.

  Then there was the phone call that Brunner had placed to Matthews’ workplace before the murder had been committed, and the fact that the call had been made from Matthews’ house. It suggested that Brunner had been present at the time of the murder.

  There was the theft of the car from the shopping mall, and the rental car that he’d been driving around in after the murder. A car that had been rented out to a fictitious person, a fictitious person that perhaps would turn out to be Brunner?

  Morrell sat at the table, going over all the scenarios and all the physical evidence they had found at the crime scenes, and tried to make sense of it all. But he still wasn’t able to come up with a theory that would explain why Brunner had done what he had done.

  It was almost three thirty before he got back to bed again. And the last thought that ran through his mind before he fell asleep was that he had to figure out what the missing clue was. The one that would lead them to Brunner.

  That detail came to him a few hours later, when the alarm bell rang and he was in the process of getting out of bed.

  There had been a motorcycle parked a few houses down from Matthews’ place. It had been there when they first arrived and had discovered the body. But he hadn’t paid much attention to it for obvious reasons. Nor had he paid any particular attention to the crash helmet that they’d found on a shelf in one of Matthews’ bedrooms, even though there hadn’t been a bike on the property.

  Morrell now realized with a rising sense of dread that he should have paid more attention. He also remembered that the bike he’d seen when they first arrived at the house hadn’t been there when they came back from the shopping mall.