Mercy Dogs

by Tyler Dilts

  The day had left him drained and exhausted. Bernie called twice to check on him, and after the second call, he took his meds and tried going to bed. It was almost nine. Even though he felt thoroughly beat, there was still too much anxiety roiling in his stomach for him to sleep.

  He did twenty-five hundred steps inside to wear the anxiousness down. When he finished in the living room, he laid himself down on the couch and tried to find something on TV that might help him stop thinking for a while. Bill Murray had just punched Ned Ryerson in the face when the phone rang. It had to be Bernie checking in on him again, so he answered it without looking.

  “I’m okay, Bernie.”

  But it wasn’t Bernie.

  “Ben? Is that you?”

  A woman’s voice, soft, uncertain. He took the phone away from his ear and looked at the display. The number wasn’t one he recognized. Could he be hallucinating? An aftereffect of the seizure?

  “Ben,” Grace said. “I need help.”

  TWENTY

  Ben couldn’t believe it was her. Was this a hallucination? A dream? He looked around the living room. Groundhog Day was still playing on the TV. He wasn’t light-headed. The moment he heard her voice he’d instantly felt sharp and alert. “It’s really you?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and he knew.

  It was her. He really was talking to Grace. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in a Target parking lot. I just bought this phone.”

  “Okay, good.” He was glad she wasn’t using her own phone. There was a good chance someone would be paying attention to the activity. Becerra, definitely, but Ben wasn’t worried about him. It was whoever else was looking for her that concerned him. “I’m going to help. It’s going to be all right.”

  “That cop who got killed at that hotel, that was Rob, wasn’t it?” There was genuine fear in her voice. She must have seen the news. They still hadn’t released Rob’s name.

  “Yes, it was.” Ben got up from the couch and started toward the office while they talked.

  “Oh god.” She sounded as if she was starting to panic.

  Ben knew he needed to help her calm down as much as he possibly could. “It’s going to be all right, Grace. It is.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  Ben didn’t see how, either. Not yet. But if he kept her talking, he might be able to keep her focused on him. When anxiety was facing you down, sometimes the best thing to do was look away from it. He tried to keep his voice calm, to let go the urgency he was feeling. “Where have you been staying?”

  “At a friend’s apartment. He left to go up to Northern California for a while.”

  “Is it Kyle’s place?”

  “You know about Kyle?” There was uncertainty in her voice.

  “I’ve been trying to find you. Amy helped me figure some things out.”

  When she didn’t say anything, he pushed forward. “Does he know you’re there?”

  “He said it would be okay if I crashed there for a while.”

  “Nice place?” He felt stupid asking that. What he really wanted to know was if it was safe. But he didn’t want her to be any more fearful than she already was.

  “It’s okay. You can walk down to the water.” The tone of her voice was changing. More conversational. Calmer.

  “Does anybody else know you’re there?”

  “No.”

  “Are you driving your car?”

  “No, his. Mine’s in the garage.”

  That’s good, Ben thought. No one knew about Kyle except Jennifer, Becerra, and Zepeda, and they all knew that Rob had been investigating other cops from San Bernardino. There was no way they’d let anyone else know. Maybe Kyle’s apartment was the best place for her right now. Maybe it was okay to ask. “Do you feel safe there?”

  “I did. Then I saw the news about Rob. Now I don’t know anymore.” The uncertainty was creeping back into her voice.

  “Do you want to come here?” He wanted to get her to talk to Zepeda as soon as he could, but she must have been leery of the police or she would have gone to them already. He’d have to work to convince her.

  “They know your house.” She was right about that. He still thought she’d be safer here, but her feeling secure was important too.

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  “Lopez and Sowers.” Lopez. The San Bernardino deputy sheriff who knocked on the door. “I saw that damn car. That’s why I ran.”

  “The red Camaro?”

  “You saw it too?”

  “Yeah. And Lopez. It’s Matthew Lopez, right?”

  “Oh god.” She was slipping back into the fear.

  “Did Rob know where you were staying?”

  “Not exactly. We met at a coffee shop a couple of blocks away. He said if I felt safe, it was better if he didn’t know exactly where I was.” That was good. If Rob didn’t have her exact location, then the people who killed him couldn’t have gotten it from him.

  “It’s okay, Grace. I promise we’re going to get this all straightened out. I’ve been talking to some friends of mine with the Long Beach Police. They’re investigating Rob’s death. They need to talk to you. We can keep you safe.”

  “Rob said don’t talk to any other cops no matter what.”

  “I know. But he thought he’d be able to watch out for you.”

  She was quiet on the other end of line.

  “I trust them, Grace.”

  “I promised him. No other cops. That’s why I didn’t even say anything to you.”

  That caught him off guard. She had wanted to tell him, but Rob, either directly or indirectly, had stopped her.

  “If you don’t want me to go to the police, how can I help? I can come right now and—”

  “No,” she said, her voice firmer now. “You can’t leave Peter alone.”

  “It’ll be okay. He hardly ever wakes up in the middle of the night.”

  “We both know that’s not true.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I need money.”

  He hadn’t wanted to hang up. Only after she promised to keep the phone with her and call him if anything at all alarming, or even just unusual, happened. The plan was to go to the bank as soon as he could in the morning to withdraw as much money as he and Peter could spare, then to meet her at a Starbucks, the same one where she’d met Rob, and deliver the money to her. Then she’d disappear again until Rob’s case was closed, hoping that at that point she’d be safe. She made him promise not to tell anyone what he was doing, especially not the police. He couldn’t blame her, really. Even though he knew little of her personal history, he knew enough people who’d been cornered into becoming confidential informants that he understood why she didn’t trust cops.

  He knew he had to change her mind, and he even considered calling Jennifer and taking her with him when he went to meet Grace. If anyone could convince her that the LBPD could be trusted, it would be Jennifer. He’d never worked with anyone who was as good at making empathetic connections with victims as she was. But Grace was on shaky ground in terms of trust. If Jennifer couldn’t pull it off, he’d lose Grace’s confidence. And if that happened, she’d be completely on her own and in more danger than ever.

  There was a kind of selfishness there, too, he had to admit. He didn’t think he could bear it if he broke his word to her and she lost her trust in him. It would be too much. He’d been broken too many times. If it happened again, there’d be no putting him back together.

  So he decided. He’d meet her and do everything he possibly could to convince her not to run.

  It was a very long night and he spent much of it on his feet. By the time the sun came up, he’d already topped ten thousand steps.

  Even though Ben hadn’t managed much sleep, he felt a kind of energy that he hadn’t since he’d dressed in his detective clothes and flashed his shield. He woke his father a little earlier than usual and was at Wells Fargo at three minutes after nine. Between their two pensions, he and Peter took in al
most six thousand dollars a month. Ben had been doing his best to build up their savings in case the time came when Peter could no longer live at home. Grace had asked for a thousand dollars. Ben decided that wasn’t enough, so he withdrew three thousand. He would have taken out more, but he was worried that it might be a red flag. The raised eyebrow he got from the teller when he requested all twenties was enough. He’d give her more if she needed it and, in the event that he couldn’t convince her to talk to Jennifer, hoped the offer would be enough to keep her from disappearing completely.

  It took almost fifty minutes to get from the bank to the Starbucks. The circuitous route he drove before getting on the freeway added to the time. It was worth it, though, to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had driven over the Vincent Thomas Bridge. It had to be back when he was on the job. In those days, he had reason to cross the bridge much more frequently. There was always some investigation or other that would take him to the harbor, to either the Long Beach port on the east edge of the bay, or its LA sister across the water. He remembered how much he used to enjoy the trip. Every time he drove over the bridge and saw the water and the piers and the cranes below and all the ships out in the harbor waiting to dock, he remembered being a child in the passenger’s seat of one his father’s previous Volvos, and staring with slack-jawed wonder out the window. How he would imagine the places those freighters and tankers had come from. He never realized his father was manufacturing reasons to travel over the bridge because of how much Ben loved it. “Hey, kiddo,” he’d say every couple of weeks, “I need to go to the hardware store in San Pedro. Want to come?” Ben was a teenager before he realized there were a dozen closer hardware stores and that the bridge wasn’t even close to the fastest route to the True Value where they always wound up.

  The Starbucks he was looking for was on Western, right on the border between San Pedro and Palos Verdes. If Kyle’s place was within a few blocks, Grace was in a much more upscale neighborhood than he’d imagined when Amy first mentioned the city to him.

  Most people, Ben figured, were like him and didn’t imagine the city much beyond the harbor and the downtrodden industrial areas around it. That was good. Even if someone knew to look for Grace in San Pedro, they wouldn’t start anywhere near here.

  The Starbucks was in a shopping center anchored by an Albertsons and a Rite Aid, but it shared a separate building with a Supercuts, behind Coco’s Bakery and across from the Cold Stone Creamery. Ben ordered a venti vanilla latte and took a seat in the corner that allowed him to watch the front door. He was still ten minutes early.

  The top of the hour came and went with no sign of Grace.

  It’s okay, he told himself.

  He’d always been a stickler for punctuality, and he’d only gotten worse after his recovery. His invariable anxiety over the possibility of being late usually meant he’d be early, wherever he went. He checked his phone to see if he had missed any calls or messages. He hadn’t. At ten after, he sent a text to the number she’d called from last night.

  You ok?

  He waited a few minutes for a reply, but nothing came. Now he really was worrying and he couldn’t rationalize it away anymore. So he called. It rang and rang and then the automated voicemail greeting came up. “It’s me,” he said, trying to be as vague as he could and still be understood by Grace. It was very unlikely that anyone was listening, but he didn’t want to take the chance. “You all right? Let me know.”

  At half past the hour he called again. “I’m really getting worried. If I don’t hear from you soon, I’m going to have to call my friends.” Would she even understand that? It was clear who he meant by friends, wasn’t it?

  His latte was three-quarters gone and so cold it might as well have been iced. It was nearly eleven. She wasn’t coming. Ben tried to maintain his composure, but his anxiety was overtaking him. What could have happened? Best-case scenario—she changed her mind. Worst case—he wasn’t the only one who came up with the lead on Kyle, and someone else had gotten to her.

  What could he do at this point?

  He went out and got in the Volvo. He could still see the entrance to Starbucks through the windshield. Something was stopping him from turning the key in the ignition. What if, somehow, she was still coming and he left? She would think he let her down. Could she have gotten the time wrong? Just a few more minutes. He’d wait a little longer. Just to be sure.

  But what then?

  He’d have to call Jennifer. There weren’t any more options. But that would mean breaking his promise to Grace. The latte churned in his stomach.

  Then he got an idea. He found the number in the contacts on his phone and made the call.

  “Becerra.”

  “Detective, it’s Ben Shepard.”

  “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “I need to ask you a question.”

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “Were you able to do anything with that lead from yesterday? Kyle from San Pedro?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was. One of the numbers in Grace’s phone records belonged to a Kyle.”

  “In San Pedro?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure there’s anything there, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “I visited the billing address this morning,” he said. “No one seemed to be there. A neighbor told me that he was out of town for a few weeks.”

  “What time were you there?”

  “Eight thirty. Why?”

  “No reason.” She could have been in the shower, or maybe still sleeping. But even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t open the door to a stranger. Especially not a cop. Becerra would have done everything he could to determine if anyone was inside the apartment. But without knowing the layout, that probably didn’t amount to much. How many windows was he able to look in? Would he have been able to hear a shower running, or anything else inside? Until Ben could get a look at the apartment he wouldn’t know what to make of it.

  Unless she was already outside, though—then, even if Becerra hadn’t announced himself, she would know it was a police visit, and at this point, he knew, she wasn’t making any distinctions between Long Beach cops and San Bernardino cops. There was a good chance Becerra had spooked her.

  Ben needed to know where she was. He could try to reason with Becerra, but he thought he’d try something else first. “What’s the address again?”

  There was a long pause. “Again?” Becerra said.

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “I just need to write it down.”

  “I never gave you the address.”

  “Of course not. That’s why I need it now.”

  Another pause. “Are you okay, Mr. Shepard?” It was “Mister” now, not “Detective” anymore.

  “I need your help,” Ben said, his posture collapsing along with his voice.

  “What do you need?”

  “Kyle’s address?”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t say. But I really do need it. I made a promise that I can’t break.”

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

  Ben wasn’t sure either, but that didn’t matter, he needed the address. He needed to convince Becerra to give it to him and knew that required a new tactic. Suddenly, surprisingly, he remembered what Becerra had said to him the first time they met, what his lieutenant told him. “Please, Henry. Don’t let me down.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  “I don’t know if you saw him when he knocked on the door, but he’s one of the good guys, Grace,” Ben said. She still wasn’t answering, so this was the third voicemail. “And he thinks it’s a dead end, that no one’s there. It’s still safe, so go back, okay? Go back and call me.”

  He was parked across the street from the address Becerra had given him, a nondescript wood-trimmed apartment-and-townhouse complex that looked like it had several dozen units sprawling around central common areas. More than anything, he wanted to investigate, to go inside and look at the apartment fo
r himself, but he decided he wouldn’t approach any closer without explicit permission from Grace. He wouldn’t make the same mistake that Becerra had.

  Ben had been even more cautious this time than he had on his earlier trip to the Starbucks in San Pedro. Before he made lunch for Peter and left home the second time, he’d pulled the Volvo into the garage and dug through boxes until he found the radio-frequency detector he’d purchased online a few years earlier during a paranoid phase. After replacing the batteries, he checked the car thoroughly to be sure no one had planted a GPS tracking device. When he was satisfied, he pulled out into the alley, locked the garage door, and placed a tiny dollop of toothpaste at the edge of the key slot on the bottom of the padlock so he would know if anyone tried to open it.

  Now, after he’d exhaustively surveyed Kyle’s neighborhood, and sat and watched the building for as long as he dared, he knew it was time to head home. He’d been away from home for nearly three hours already, and he was afraid to leave Peter alone any longer. He’d already be hungry for dinner and probably worried. The thought of calling Bernie had occurred to him, but it worried him, too. There was no doubt in his mind that Bernie had meant what he said the night before—that there was no such thing as too much when it came to helping them. It wasn’t abusing his generosity that concerned Ben, it was more that Bernie was already beginning to question Ben’s actions, and that was worrisome. He knew that Ben had his shield, and that he’d been using it.

  That was Ben’s own fault, of course. But he still believed it was the right move—he literally wouldn’t be where he was at that moment had he left his badge in the block of Lucite. And honestly, he worried about what Bernie would think of him. Trying to find Grace was one thing, but somebody needed to be taking care of Peter, and Ben was definitely dropping the ball.