Nickel City Crossfire

by Gary Earl Ross

  “I tried but the whole thing had been wiped, going back weeks.”

  “Whoever did it had to have seen you opened the email too. Did you tell the Markhams?”

  “Not at first, but then I started getting calls on my cell saying I’d better not tell anybody what I knew. Different men. No voices I recognized, then. One of them said I couldn’t possibly understand what I was reading. Another told me this business proposal could fall apart and bankrupt the church if it got out early so if I loved my church I’d keep it to myself. Somebody else said, ‘It would be a shame, Sugar Notch, if your folks got hurt.’”

  “Sugar Notch,” I said. “So you knew at Wylie’s it was the same man.”

  “Yes. I was insulted and mad but didn’t take it seriously until the Sunday my purse disappeared at the monthly church luncheon and later turned up in the men’s room. The only things missing were the two flash drives I kept in it. That’s when I went to Mrs. Markham. I told her about the threats and the theft. I thought the foundation was in trouble. I resigned as church secretary. I knew it couldn’t be everybody but the idea that somebody in my worship family could harm me or my folks was like acid poured on my faith. Once I got home, I did my best to hide the other files. If somebody got in and stole my computer, they wouldn’t find any reason to hurt us. The next Sunday, during announcements, Dr. Markham told everybody I was retiring from my post as secretary because the demands of my job were so great. They gave me a standing ovation. I thought that was the end of it.”

  “Until you and Odell were forced into the stadium lot.”

  “Yes. More threats came after I got out, from the same man, so I ran.” Lips pressed together, she closed her eyes, squeezing out more tears. “I tried to get off the grid. I was homeless for a week or so, roaming the streets, going from one shelter to another because I was afraid if I used a card somebody could track me. I couldn’t put my family or friends in danger. But after a while—” She wiped her eyes. “It was too hard, so I called Fatimah. But even after I was in the room over her garage, I went back to homeless shelters now and then to toughen myself up, in case I brought heat on Fatimah’s family and had to leave.”

  I took out my notebook and pen and slid them across the table to her. “Give me the names—not the titles or boards—but the names of everyone with access to that account.” As she wrote, I gave her the two-minute summary of FBF’s business model and expansion to other cities. She slid my notebook back across the table just as I began telling her about Dante Cuthbert. The list had seven names. I recognized only two: Custodian Tito Glenroy and attorney Harlow Graves, the church treasurer. I was forming my first question about Tito when I looked up and saw astonishment spreading across Keisha’s face.

  “Dante?” she said. “The guy pointing the gun at me called the man in charge Dante.” She hesitated, narrowing her eyes, perhaps processing what I had said or resisting an immediate conclusion. “Cuthbert is Mrs. Markham’s maiden name.”

  38

  I should have seen it,” I said again, checking my rearview mirror once more as I pulled onto the Kensington Expressway toward downtown and police headquarters. “I should have put it all together long before now. Damn it, I’m slipping in my old age.”

  Back in the coffee shop, Keisha had been stunned by the possibility that the man who had tried to kill her was related to the minister’s wife she admired. She had said nothing as I flipped back through my notebook for all I had on Dante Cuthbert. When I found the name Melony listed as the fourth-born child of Rod and Lizzy Cuthbert, I realized I had invested so much thought in my theory Dante and Quentin were the same person that I never considered his siblings or where Loni Markham had come from. Now, with Keisha in the back seat, we were in my car and headed toward Chalmers and Piñero.

  “It wasn’t obvious,” Phoenix said. “You were looking at two different names in two separate places. Melony Cuthbert in Detroit, Loni Markham here.”

  “It’s not just that,” I said. “It’s Harlow Graves too. I skimmed some church bulletins early on but I didn’t remember H. Graves, treasurer, so I never connected him to the lawyer who got Felicity Sillers out.”

  “I don’t know every lawyer in town and we all belong to the same Bar Association,” Phoenix said. “Why should you?”

  “I don’t blame you, Mr. Rimes,” Keisha said. “You came looking for me and took care of my parents. You even kept that Sillers bitch from killing my mother. I’d rather you did that than sit still and think of everything.”

  Can’t afford to sit still, I thought but did not say. Sitting still gets you caught.

  “Listen to her, Gideon,” Phoenix said. “Stop beating yourself up.” She half-turned toward the back. “Keisha, I know you’re disappointed, but maybe Mrs. Markham has nothing to do with her brother’s business. He could be going after her foundation because he saw a weakness, a chance to score big. But the fact they’re related might get somebody interested enough to look into your case deeply enough to get justice for Odell.”

  “I didn’t deny Odell and I shot up together. What happens when I change my story?”

  “You gave your statement under duress. You can recant it.”

  I had noticed the vintage blue Cadillac DeVille behind me on Grider a block or two before I turned onto the expressway ramp. I had noticed the broad grille in my rear-view mirror because the Cadillac emblem above it sat inside a widened V, which meant the car was decades old, though it appeared to be in excellent condition. When it turned onto the entrance ramp behind me, it ceased being a curiosity, probably driven by an elderly man who just couldn’t part with it, and became a concern.

  It was late Saturday morning and sunny. Last night’s snow had been cleared from the expressway. Light traffic was heading deeper into the city. At first, the Caddy kept pace with me, six or so car lengths back. Now, as we passed under the Delavan Avenue overpass and emerged in the center lane on a straight shot to downtown, it began to speed up. Five car lengths. Four. Three.

  The expressway began its descent below street level, to stretch nearly two miles long that had high walls at first and then sloping greenery. Over the years planners had proposed covering the walled section to make a tunnel below a restored Humboldt Parkway. A few years earlier, an elaborate action sequence for a Mutant Ninja Turtles movie had been filmed in this section. But the Caddy closing the distance between us to less than two car lengths was likely not being driven by a trained stunt man. A tap the wrong way risked forcing either car into a concrete wall or abutment. Still, the Caddy swung into the left lane and began to pull alongside us.

  Just before it entered my side mirror’s blind spot, the passenger window slid down.

  And time began to slow.

  “Get down!” I shouted, lowering my head as much as I could without taking my eyes off the road. The instant I heard the shot, both rear passenger windows exploded. What the hell was he shooting? A second shot punched through my door, and I felt it tear through the width of my seatback. Phoenix and Keisha both let out full-throated screams, which I prayed meant neither had been hit. If this had been a movie, I might have reached for my gun and fired back with my left hand—after I lowered the window, of course. But it wasn’t a movie, and as someone who remembered how hard it had been to get a cell phone out of a pocket before Bluetooth technology was standard in cars, I knew I had no choice but to drive.

  Phoenix shouted to Keisha, who answered yes, she was okay. I jammed my foot to the floor. But my four cylinders were as much a match for the Caddy’s eight as my Glock was for whatever gun they had. The Caddy kept up with me effortlessly. A quick look told me the big man in the passenger seat was white, with close-cropped hair and a dark beard that posed no threat to ZZ Top but seemed more than menacing enough in its own right. I glanced again but couldn’t see past him to the driver, mainly because he was steadying himself for another shot. He took aim with a large revolver.

  I swerved left slightly, hoping to nudge the Caddy into the concrete Jersey
barrier that divided the highway. Yes, I had seen too many movies but I couldn’t think of anything else to try at that moment. When the cars touched, however, the squeal and scrape of my middleweight SUV shuddering against an old tank vibrated through every tire and bolt, into the steering wheel, and right up my arms to my shoulders. I pulled away, fearing I’d lose control, almost doing so. I dropped off the gas a bit and slowed just enough to regain control as the Caddy pulled ahead.

  “Son of a bitch!” I said.

  Having prevented one shot, I had set up another. Now the passenger turned and stuck his gun out the window. The angle was awkward, an over-the-shoulder left-handed effort that might have been hampered by his seatbelt or his size. His attempt to adjust himself gave me the time I needed to shift lanes and get behind them.

  I shot a sidelong glance at Phoenix, who hunkered as low as she could with her seatbelt still fastened.

  “I’m okay!” The combination of speed and shattered back windows gave us a noise level that required her to shout. “Drive!”

  The Best Street exit was up ahead, the same exit Odell and Keisha had taken the night they were intercepted. We were in the far left lane. There was not enough time to get over to the right lane to take it. Maybe at Jefferson, the next exit, but that meant passing a car whose shooter had time to reorient himself and his hand cannon for a shot through my windshield or into the engine block. If there had been no Jersey barrier on my left, I might have risked riding the shoulder because surely the gunman would not try shooting past the driver.

  The Caddy began to slow. I got close enough to see the big man trying to get over the front seat into the back. Without his seatbelt, he could lean out a rear window and take careful aim with his left hand. With a heavier car and no passengers, I might have tried a PIT maneuver right about then, even without a PIT bumper. But it had been too many years since my law enforcement pursuit intervention training, and the car I would attempt to spin around from behind might have a thousand pounds on mine.

  Promising myself my next vehicle would have a PIT bumper, I hoped the shooter wasn’t left-handed.

  We passed Best Street.

  “Phoenix, can you reach my gun! My belt, on the right!”

  She sat up a bit. I felt her fingers groping for my Glock. I shifted a bit, hiking my right side an inch or so, and felt the gun pulled free.

  “I haven’t fired one in a long time!”

  “Give it to Keisha!”

  “Keisha! Here! Take it!”

  I couldn’t quite hear Keisha’s response, so I raised my voice. “Both hands! Short barrel so brace it on the window frame! Shoot when we’re close!”

  I checked my passenger side mirror, relieved to see other cars had slowed and fallen far back. I made the only move I thought I could. I shifted into the center lane again and put the pedal to the floor. Trying to pull alongside the Caddy, I made no attempt to hit it. I hoped to keep my car close enough to it that the shooter inside would be reluctant to stick his arm out.

  Keisha didn’t need me to tell her when to pull the trigger. As soon as we drew even with the Caddy and I caught sight of the driver because the shooter was in the back seat, she let loose, squeezing off four shots before we passed. The explosions were loud inside the car, but I managed to stay focused on my driving as I counted. Six left in the magazine.

  The Cadillac dropped back just as we passed the Jefferson exit and entered the stretch of highway that gradually rose to street level. Ten or twelve car lengths behind us, the Caddy kept coming. We had bought ourselves breathing room, nothing more. Locust then, maybe Goodell—I hoped to get to one of those exits before they caught up to us, swing onto a street, and scramble out of the car for a last stand. I also hoped Keisha hadn’t dropped my Glock out the window. But that fear vanished when my peripheral vision caught sight of a shaking hand coming over the back of the seat and returning the gun to Phoenix. The relief I felt at the sight of the gun let me process the other information I had taken in.

  Tito Glenroy, the church custodian, was driving the Cadillac—which, I remembered, he had inherited from his father, an elderly man who probably couldn’t bring himself to part with it.

  We reached the Locust Street exit.

  I took the off-ramp at full speed because Tito had gained on me and I needed time to angle the car into a defensive position when I stopped. But while the expressway had been plowed already, the access street parallel to this section of it had not. Hitting a patch of snow-covered ice, I lost control as I tried to make the near-hairpin turn onto Locust. Despite all-wheel drive, the Escape spun out. I turned into the skid but was going too fast to keep the car on the street. Both back tires blew out when we swung into and past the curb. The back end slammed into the street sign and one-way sign on the corner, shearing off the thin posts that held them. The explosion stunned us. We stopped in a snowbank.

  The front airbags hadn’t deployed. But the left side impact had caused the driver’s side airbags to go off like mortar shells. My hearing gone, time seemed to slow even more, seconds stretching forward until the numbness in my body began to recede and my vision to sharpen. I felt pain in both shoulders. Brushing off bits of safety glass and fumbling with my seatbelt, I saw my gun was not in Phoenix’s hand or on the seat beside her. Somewhere on the floor? Panic set in that I would not find the Glock in time. I looked up, saw the Caddy barreling down the access road straight toward us, picking up speed, fishtailing as it came.

  “Get out!” But even as I screamed I knew there wouldn’t be enough time.

  Tito must not have anticipated that this adventure would damage his automotive inheritance. I had no way of knowing just then whether his car was badly scraped by our contact with it or how many bullets had struck it. But he must have decided his classic had suffered enough insult and injury for one day. Rather than ram us, he turned the wheel slightly to avoid us—planning, I was sure, to stop so the shooter could get out and finish us. But the Caddy hit more ice, at a faster speed than I had reached. The rear-wheel-drive must have thrown Tito off just enough that in attempting to straighten out the car he jumped the curb and shot straight into the abutment of the pedestrian bridge past the corner.

  The crash was deafening.

  Gun or no gun, I had to move fast if I wanted to stop them from killing us. I got out and stumbled through the snowbank and then through the Caddy’s tracks to the wreck. The driver’s side back door was jammed shut. The shooter was in a heap, his legs up and his head in the footwell. He was still. The front end was crumpled against the concrete, steam rising from within, the hood now shaped like a tent, antifreeze melting snow near the flat left front tire. There were no flames. The windshield had rained inward, leaving bits of safety glass everywhere. The side window had disintegrated, its door hanging by a hinge. Tito was inside, unmoving, covered with glass, his large body enveloping the steering wheel as if shielding it. His head was still attached to his neck but at a sickeningly unnatural angle.

  Presently, pounding drew my attention back to the rear. The door began to move with each thump as if the shooter had righted himself and was trying to kick his way out. An instant later the door squealed open wide enough for him to begin to work himself free. I didn’t know whether he had his gun, but I knew I didn’t have mine, so I threw myself against the door when his legs were halfway out. He howled and swore at me. I slammed the door against him again. Then I jerked it open and grabbed him by the front of his studded leather jacket. He was even bigger up close, and heavy. With both shoulders hurting, I had a tough time dragging him out. When, finally, his huge head cleared the door, I let him go. He slumped onto his back in the snow, blinking, chest heaving. Blood streamed down one cheek from a gash in his forehead.

  I glanced into the Caddy and saw no gun.

  Intending to pat him down for the gun, I dropped a knee into his chest. That knocked wind out of him but not enough to keep him from swinging on me with his left fist, weakly. If he hadn’t just been pulled from a totaled
car after being battered by the door, he might have knocked me cold. His glancing blow to my chin had enough behind it to rattle my brain. Something cut me at the point of contact. Twisting my head away, I pushed his arm down across his belly and held it there with my left as I poked him in the eyes with my right. He screamed, whipping his head from side to side, free arm flailing as he tried to grab me. Then he began to buck as adrenalin kicked in, but he couldn’t throw me off. Calling me a cocksucker and threatening to rip my balls off, now he tried to work his free right hand down his side—maybe in search of his gun or a knife. When I reached for that arm, he wrenched his pinned arm free. I pushed myself up just enough to drop my knee into his chest a second time. Then I snatched a handful of beard and punched him squarely in the face. Again. Again, cracking his nose. Still, he struggled, snarling, spitting blood at me. His rage seemed to grow with each inhalation. Both arms now free, he went for my neck.

  Just then a leather boot came down hard against his cheek and a 9mm muzzle pressed into his temple. Breath ragged and eyes wet as she bent over him, Phoenix held my Glock with both hands, the left gripping and steadying the right. “Sneeze,” she said in a hollow whisper, “and I swear to God your brains will decorate the snow!”

  Sliding off the shooter, I stood and took the gun from her, carefully.

  39

  Are we gonna find bullets from your baby Glock when we go through this wreck?” Piñero asked as we walked away from the Caddy. Tito’s body had been removed from the car but not the scene. Having been examined and photographed in situ, it was now in one of the ambulances on the other side of the yellow police tape that cordoned off the entire corner. Soon Tito would head to the ME’s office. I wondered if Mira would catch his postmortem.

  “You might,” I said, shrugging. “Can’t say for sure where they went because I was driving. These weren’t exactly range conditions, you know.”