The Wicked Flee (A Marty Singer Mystery Book 5)

by Matthew Iden

  “Shut up,” he shouted as Lucy groaned again. “I swear to God I’ll beat the living shit out of you, you don’t shut up. I don’t care how much money I lose, you understand?”

  The moaning died down, but Lucy said, “Why are you doing this?”

  He glanced at her. Her eyes were bright red around the dark black-brown irises and her nose was red and glistening. She looked like a little girl and he turned his gaze back at the road. “For money. Why do you think?”

  “But . . . it’s my life,” she whispered. “You’re ruining my life.”

  “Your life isn’t worth shit next to mine, okay?” he said. “I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you. I don’t care about you and I’m not going to care. You don’t matter to me. Everyone thinks they’re special, that bad things can’t happen to them or their family. Until it does and then life gets real, fast.”

  Lucy sniffled but didn’t say anything.

  “It’s funny how everyone thinks they’ve got the right to do what they want, live how they want. They think they’re owed, that they deserve a comfortable ride. When disaster strikes, somehow it’s not fair, it’s a mistake.” Eddie’s voice rose to a mocking falsetto. “This is someone else’s problem . . . what am I doing with it?”

  He thought for a moment, his eyes following the road in front of them, but not seeing it. “Life is shit. You do what you can with it. You grab what you can, when you can, or someone else takes it from you. Plus a little extra. And if that happens to you, you deserved it.”

  They were both quiet for a second. Lucy wiped the back of her hand across her nose and swallowed a few times. “Why don’t you do something different, be somebody different? My parents were killed in a car wreck. My brother and I—”

  “I don’t care,” Eddie interrupted. “Understand? I . . . don’t . . . care. I don’t give a shit that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps or your brother is living the American Dream or your family found Jesus and is born again. I. Don’t. Care.”

  Lucy shrank back in her seat, silent. The only sound was the tires on the road and his own ragged breathing. He felt like he’d run a marathon. His hands were sore from squeezing the steering wheel, and a dull ache that had started at the base of his neck was now progressing through the rest of his head, threatening to blow it off.

  A memory teased him. Late fall or early winter. He was cold, because the utility company had turned the heat off earlier in the week. His mother, standing by the window, arms crossed, smoking. Waiting. Watching the street. Eddie sat on the grubby suede couch, watching her, too scared to move or say anything. When she finished one cigarette, she would reach over to the TV where she’d set the pack down, pluck out another and light it, then slap the lighter down and go back to looking out the window.

  She’d stayed that way for hours. The light outside began to fade, then died completely. Finally, the streetlights came on and she turned around from the window as though that had been the sign she’d been waiting for all along.

  “Well,” she said. Resigned. Tired. “I guess your daddy’s not coming home.”

  She went into the kitchen and poured herself a shot of vodka from the bottle of Aristocrat they kept on top of the refrigerator. Three nights later, she sent him out to play at a friend’s house all day. Two weeks later, she told him to go play outside after it was already dark. It was when he came back because he was so cold he couldn’t feel his toes that he saw a strange man coming out of the house.

  He refused to look at Lucy. “My dad was a junkie and weighed a hundred pounds when he died in an alley in Cherry Hill. My mom fucked for food so I wouldn’t have to. And if I didn’t do what I do to survive, then and now, I’d be dead or wishing to God I was,” he said in a hoarse voice.

  Lucy stared at him, scared into silence.

  “You’re merchandise. That’s all you are. If you find a way out later, on your own time, more power to you. You try to run out on me now, I’ll kill you. See the difference? If I don’t protect me and mine, that’s the same as flushing it down the tubes. And that isn’t going to happen. Now, sit back and shut up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  There was a time for jokes. To take people’s minds off their troubles, to let the air out of a tense situation, to gently and diplomatically express a different viewpoint. Then there were times when humor could only do damage and the joke you thought would be the perfect icebreaker turned out to be the worst possible idea. The line between was thin and always shifting.

  Take, for instance, the situation I was in, riding shotgun with Chuck driving while Trooper First Class Haynesworth followed us in her cruiser. Chuck, who normally drove at twice the recommended speed limit, was pushing the upper range of just how fast a modified Acura Integra could go and still stay on the ground. And I think he was only going as slow as he was out of consideration for me. His concentration was absolute. His face, in profile, appeared to be carved out of granite.

  It seemed to be the wrong moment for humor.

  Still, it might be worth one last joke before I died. I was gripping what we called, in high school, the “chicken bar” or the “oh-shit handle,” struggling to look nonchalant as we outraced the Integra’s headlights and for sure Chuck’s ability to brake in a reasonable manner. Instinctively, my feet had wedged themselves in opposite corners of the passenger’s-side foot well, bracing for what I believed was our inevitable wreck.

  One consolation was that only two of us would go out in a blaze of glory, since Sarah wasn’t in the backseat. I was happy she was following. First, she didn’t have to feel she was playing second fiddle to the two of us. And, second, if we got to Breezewood and found out that information we’d teased out of April had only been half right, we’d need all the legwork we could get to search the Town of Motels. And, third, of course, she might be the only survivor of the road trip.

  In the end, I decided the last thing we needed was a joke. Chuck had a decent sense of humor, but this was a serious situation and one that might end badly. I respected that and we’d been quiet, watching the Maryland countryside fly by for long minutes, when he suddenly spoke.

  “Hey,” he said, breaking the silence.

  “Yeah?”

  “How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

  I looked over at him, not sure I’d heard correctly. “What?”

  “How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

  Eyebrows raised, I said, “I don’t know, Chuck. How many?”

  “Two. If they’re small enough.”

  I stared at him, amazed, not sure how to respond.

  He glanced over, giving me a weak smile. “You looked pretty serious. Thought I’d lighten the mood.”

  I shook my head. “As jokes go, it’s weak tea, but I’ll take it.”

  The smile grew into a grin, but it faded quickly. “Hey, back there at the motel. I’m sorry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hitting that guy. Paul,” he said. We hadn’t shifted gears in thirty miles, but Chuck rested his hand on the stick shift anyway. “I know you know, but I wanted to put it out there—I’m not that kind of cop.”

  “Really? I thought you guys in Gangs all worked that way,” I said. “You know, ‘If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.’ That kind of thing.”

  He shot me a look, making me wonder once again about the judicious use of humor in stressful situations, but the grin flashed back on, then off again. “We never hit our suspects. You never know when you might need to score a couple of tickets to a Wizards game from the guy in the chair.”

  I laughed and something bad went away. I knew Chuck was a good cop and that the episode back at the motel had been under exceptional circumstances, but it was nice to know he wanted to get it out on the table and square things with me.

  “Changing the subject, what do you think of . . . ?” He jerk
ed a thumb behind us.

  “Trooper First Class?” I asked. “Smart, competent. Definitely more with it than I was at her age.”

  “That’s not saying much.”

  “Granted. Her initiative makes me curious, though. It’s clear she’s moonlighting.”

  “Good for her,” Chuck said. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, as far as I’m concerned, although working in Gangs might’ve screwed with your sense of proper departmental conduct. But she’s, what, twenty-four? Would you have felt okay working off the clock with only a year or two under your belt?”

  Chuck pursed his lips. “Gangs is different than normal police work. Sometimes it’s as much life as job. So, yeah, I would’ve scratched around here or there, maybe. You need to exercise a little ambition if you don’t want to walk a beat the rest of your life. But I see what you mean.”

  “Question is, is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked.

  “Like, is she a glory hound?”

  “Something like that.”

  He considered it, then shook his head. “Don’t think so. She adjusted quickly to a screwy situation at the motel, then chipped in when we started quizzing the girls. She seems like she wants some answers, not a chance to grandstand.”

  I nodded. “I thought so, too. Just wanted to get your take on it.”

  We hit an uphill slope and Chuck downshifted to fourth. The needle redlined on the RPMs and the engine screamed, but we took the hill at ninety. Before you could get through the opening line of the Gettysburg Address, we’d plateaued and were back in fifth gear.

  “Question,” Chuck said after a minute.

  “Answer,” I said.

  “We’re chasing this guy Eddie, but what about the guy he’s meeting?”

  “What about him?”

  “There are a couple of scenarios,” Chuck said, clearing his throat. “Best case, we get there in time and nab both of them. Life is good and we go home.”

  “Okay.”

  “The other possibility, we get there too late for the exchange, but we catch Eddie.”

  “Or worst case, we get there too late, and we miss both Eddie and this guy,” I said, because one of us had to.

  “Right. What are our options in each case?”

  The question was rhetorical—Chuck knew as well as I did what we would do—but I ran through the list as an exercise. “In the best case, we get Lucy back. Life is good and, if we’re feeling charitable, we hand the two scumbags over to Sarah so she can get credit for the collar. We’ll be pulled in to testify, but whatever.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You and Sarah might get a slap on the wrist for, uh, exercising your ambitions outside jurisdictional lines, but nobody’s going to complain too much.”

  “Right.”

  “In the worst-case scenario,” I said, slowly—it was not a pretty thought—“we’ll need help. Every state cop in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and probably West Virginia, Ohio, and New Jersey will have to be on the lookout for one or both of them. Maybe we can help Sarah chase down more of this superpimp’s network and get a plate to chase or a cell phone to tap. Find one of the other managers like this guy Gerry and lean on him. Pull on a string and maybe we can get someone to roll on him if we pull hard enough.”

  “Okay,” he said. “What if we get the middle scenario?”

  “Like?”

  “What if we get to Breezewood but snag just one of them?”

  “And Lucy’s with the other guy? Okay, then we have to work quickly and get whoever we have in custody to cough up some intel on the other one.”

  “What if we can’t convince him to talk?”

  I hesitated. “Then we’re . . . well, we’re essentially back in worst-case-scenario territory and we’ll have to call in the cavalry.”

  “By then, it’ll be too late,” Chuck said matter-of-factly, though I knew it cost him to say it.

  I took a deep breath and nodded.

  “So, the reason I asked is,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “we got a clear course of action in both the best and the worst situations. No questions, just do this, do that, and go with it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But the situation in the middle is . . . dicey. We spend too long asking one of these guys who, what, and where and I—” His breath caught and he coughed. “I might not see Lucy again.”

  I nodded, finally seeing where this was going. “On the other hand, this might all have a happy ending if we get the information we need.”

  “Right,” he said and we were quiet for a full minute or more. I looked out my window. The orange glow of lamplight in the distance spoke of homes and families safe in their beds, their lives serene, quiet, and untouched as we flew through the night.

  In the window’s reflection, I saw Chuck glance at me, then turn back to the road. “What I’m saying is, if we catch one of these guys, but not the other, I’m going to do whatever it takes to find Lucy. I can’t afford to play nice. I can’t let the middle scenario turn into the worst case. I need you to understand that.”

  “You’re asking if I disapprove?” No answer. I looked over. Chuck’s face was stony. “No, you want to know if I’m going to stop you.”

  He nodded.

  I looked out the window, thinking about lines I’d crossed in my past. Memories of those events had less to do with whether what I’d done had been right in the general sense of the word and more to do with if I’d regretted it in retrospect, if time and perspective had justified a choice that had felt wrong at the time. “Good people do bad things. Sometimes bad people do the opposite.”

  “Then how do you measure it? You break a guy’s arm to get a confession, you’re a bad cop. And I believe that. But, tonight, if we catch one of these guys and that’s the only way to get Lucy back, I’ll break every bone in his body.”

  I took a deep breath and leaned back in the seat. “This stuff is always a matter of degree. The questions we should be asking are, how often do we do this? How far are we willing to go? For what reasons?”

  “And do you have a choice,” he said.

  I nodded, reluctantly. We were attempting to rationalize something ugly and dangerous. It was slippery moral ground, and I thought I knew where I stood on the issue. I’d been involved in plenty of uncertain situations where a modicum of persuasion would’ve gone a long way toward getting the truth.

  I’d also seen it used for lousy reasons, too, like to save time or because it felt good to some cops to beat the hell out of the bad guys. Observe that enough, though, and you realize you need to step back, think on it, and make a personal decision before the situation happens again. Because if you rely on the heat of the moment to guide you, you’ll make the worst choice, every time. Upon reflection, I’d decided early on, like Chuck, that I wasn’t going to be that kind of cop and if I had to take the long way around to get to the finish line, then that’s how it was going to have to be.

  But we weren’t talking abstractions right now. We were discussing what lengths we were willing to go—maybe by the end of the night—to save someone’s life. And not just anyone, somebody Chuck knew. Someone he loved. What would I do if it was Amanda?

  “So what does all that add up to?” he asked after a minute. “I already know I’m going to do whatever it takes to get Lucy back. But how do I wrap my head around what I’m willing to do? What’s righteous and what’s not? Where’s the line?”

  “You won’t know where the line is until you’ve crossed it,” I said. Then we both fell silent, because it was a terrible answer, but the only one we had.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The twin taillights of Rhee’s Integra were bright red rubies a hundred feet in front of her, twisting and blending at times into four, then six, and back to two again as her eyes lost their focus, the lids lowered gently—then snapped open
again as Sarah caught herself dozing off. If there was anything more monotonous than following another car at four in the morning with the snow coming down in an endless, curving waterfall in front of you, Sarah hadn’t seen it.

  Rhee was pushing triple-digit speeds but, like anything else, extremes became the norm and soon cruising at almost a hundred miles an hour seemed as ho-hum as fifty-five. The landscape was still shrouded in darkness, and traffic was sparse enough that she didn’t have a frame of reference. The only clue she had for how fast they were going was when they approached a car doing the speed limit, overtook it in a blink, and left it behind faster than thought.

  Fast was fine with her, since she didn’t know how much time she had. Technically, this was her day off, but all state troopers were on call and with weather this bad, it wouldn’t be unusual to get a call telling her to hoof it back to Waterloo. Double-time-and-a-half pay, and that was great, but she’d have to tell Rhee and Singer that they were on their own. They’d understand—hell, they’d probably be relieved—but she could kiss her moonlighting case good-bye. Rhee was a good cop and Singer appeared to be cut from the same cloth, but their primary goal was to get Rhee’s sister back and if that meant letting the pimp off in exchange for Lucy, they’d do it without hesitation.

  She couldn’t blame them. But what about the rest of the girls, the ones she knew and the ones she didn’t? Tiffany had been somebody’s baby girl. And maybe Trish was someone’s sister. And next month there’d be another girl in their place. If she threw away a chance to break up the network, there wasn’t anyone left to rescue those girls.