Warpath

by Ryan Sayles

  “Sure. When?”

  “How about now?”

  “Now I’m in a drive-thru, waiting to order.”

  “Skip it. Lunch is on me. You name it.”

  “Wow. You must want to talk. Sure, why not?”

  Madison named the shittiest gyro stand in all of Saint Ansgar.

  It’s a Greek taco truck. I’ve eaten at roach coaches before and never minded a bit of it. But this, much like Disney World, being on trial for brutality and asking a gal out on a date after I’ve arrested her for DUI, is an adventure I’ll only do once because of the poor experience.

  We get our food. Lean on the bumper of my car. I don’t want the smell inside the vehicle, nor do I want something to slop of this pita and wind up in my lap or staining the interior. I have standards.

  “So, I wanted to ask you about Clarence Petticoat.”

  Madison takes a bite of his gyro and raises an eyebrow. “Really? You looking to buy a house from him also?”

  “Did you buy a house from him?”

  “Almost ten years ago. Is he your agent? I thought he was mostly doing commercial stuff now.”

  “No. No house. He’s my client. He said he knew you. He said you were an old friend.”

  Madison wipes his face and smiles like he was just fed a line of shit. “He was our realtor. And he was a cheese dick at that. As a guy, I mean. He was a shark in the real estate game. But, I first met him when we walked into his office. Almost ten years ago. I guess that qualifies as ‘old,’ but it was business. I think ‘friend’ is stretching it.”

  Hank smirks, looks me in the eye. “All that fucking guy did was ogle my wife. The only thing I liked about him was how he got us into our place. Other than that, he can fuck off.”

  “You’re not friends?” I set my food down. “I want to be clear on this.”

  “No. We didn’t hang out together, go for beers, play on the same softball team. We never had him over for dinner. You and I are closer friends than he and I were, and I haven’t spoken to you in how many years? Why? What did he say?”

  “So you didn’t recommend me to him within the last week or two? To hunt down the man who raped his wife?”

  “No, Richard.” Very pointed. “I don’t know anything about a rape. I didn’t know he was married. Hell, whenever my wife was in the room, he’d be checking her out and whenever my wife would leave the room he’d brag about all the tail he was pulling. Why? What did Petticoat say?”

  Another buddy of mine sent me to you. Hank Madison. He said you were the kind of guy who could walk into maximum security in the prison and those felons would step back. Hank said you’ve earned that reputation.

  I light a smoke. “In early ’92 his home was burglarized and during the course of events his wife was assaulted. She was raped. Eventually she killed herself over it. The case went cold. You remember Trevor Gillispie?”

  “Yeah,” Madison says. “Suicide. Divorced over his gayness. And why did they send a burglary dick to work a rape?”

  “Right. Gillispie investigated. Went cold. That much is true. So now, all these years later Petticoat says he’s getting major surgery next week and his odds are so-so at best. He wants that rapist dug up and in jail. He’s shelling out big bucks for fast results. He said you’re an old buddy who said if anybody can get it done, it’s me. Which, of course, is true.”

  “He said that, huh?”

  “Yes, he did. He said you told him I was the kind of guy who could walk into maximum security and those felons would step back. That’s my reputation. Again, true.”

  “I haven’t spoken to him since we bought the house. I sure as hell didn’t talk to him about you in the last week or so.”

  “Interesting. Any idea why he’d lie about it?”

  “He knew I was a cop. That’s about it. I know you, but it’s not like I talk about you to folks I meet in the course of my day. Although, everybody—including me—still tells the story about when you served the warrant on that child molester and the guy ran away. Right out the window.”

  “Davis something. That was fun,” I say. It was.

  Once, back in the day I did some extra credit work on a warrant task force. We served a child molester living in Saint Ansgar that some Three Mile High detectives had connected to a series of new sex crimes. Davis’s apartment was on the fourth floor. I knocked on the door, he opened it a crack and I kicked it in. The freak took one look at me, said, “Oh my God, not you. Anybody but you. I know what you do to guys like me,” and took off running. Well, it was actually a half-prance but it was the best he could do. He also screamed about four times, each one sounding like Michael Jackson getting fisted. I had three cops behind me who heard the whole thing.

  I went after him. Davis took one look over his shoulder, saw me and changed course. I think he was running towards the fire escape until he saw how close I was. Instead, he ran right to a plate glass picture window that overlooked the street below. He went crashing right through it. No hesitation. One long King-of-Pop-getting-fisted scream followed him all the way down. The pavement beneath greeted him with firm, open arms. Case closed. Morbid, but hilarious. I’m glad that story still gets told.

  I guess I do have that reputation.

  “I don’t know, Richard,” Hank says, using thumb and forefinger to pull slices of lamb-flavored particle board from his gyro. “Petticoat is having surgery next week and he’ll die? Why not just wait until after? If he survives, he’s got his whole life to find out. If he dies, he can just ask God who did it.”

  “The more I learn about this guy, the more it seems like he’s not going to get a lot of face-time with God before he’s sent on his way,” I say. That also gives me an idea about the surgery.

  “For that matter, why not start this sooner?”

  “Petticoat said he got a tip from a friend last month. Gave the case some momentum.”

  “So he skipped the police? Went right to you?”

  “Yeah. Dedicated personal service, mostly.”

  “I guess I can see that,” Madison says. “Although, the whole maximum security analogy makes sense to me.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” I’m not hungry anymore, and not just because of the food either.

  “He was a prison guard.”

  I look at Madison like there is some big joke he’s in on and I am the butt of. “What?”

  “Yeah. Petticoat used to be in corrections before he was in real estate. Quite a career jump.”

  “Where at?”

  “We talked about it a little bit during the house thing. I remember he said a couple of places.”

  “Happenstance Women’s Correctional?”

  “Yes!” Madison snaps a finger. “Happenstance. How could I forget that name? Then there was another one. A male prison.”

  “Did he say why he switched?”

  “No.”

  There was a big corrections officer house cleaning at Happenstance right around then. Male guards and female inmates. It was problem. Mickey wrote a letter and said probably half those CO’s wound up at his prison.

  I look off into the distance and two seagulls steal a piece of trash from a third bird. Then those two white-feathered rats peck each other until only one remains with its worthless prize.

  “I bet I know why.”

  10

  0600 hours, Tuesday

  I walk into the lobby of the University hospital trying to look as caring and concerned as I ever could.

  It isn’t much.

  I walk to the bathroom. I’ve done undercover work, but that was for dope. This requires a special Boy George skill I don’t have. I loosen my necktie considerably, undo the top three buttons on my shirt, then untuck the whole thing. Spit shine the toes of my shoes real quick.

  A guy walks in behind me, looks at the stalls. I turn around. “Hey, bro, you got any cologne?”

  “What?” he asks. He looks like he’s been up all night. His wristband has mother/baby visitor on it. Long labor, I guess.
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  “Cologne? I need a spritz...or whatever the word is.”

  “Nah.” He gives me a weird look and goes to a stall. I shrug, leave.

  Hank Madison gave me an idea about Petticoat’s surgery. I walk to the gift shop. A female employee is just opening the doors for business as I arrive. I blow past her, snatch a GET WELL balloon and a stuffed teddy bear without so much as halt my stride going in. I go to the register and wait for the woman, who is still flipping around the CLOSED/OPEN sign.

  She waddles across the small gift shop floor, squeezes her considerable mass behind the counter. She’s already out of breath from shifting about her gigantic weight. I pay and leave. I walk right from there to the Admissions door. Into the waiting room. Another woman is behind a secretary’s desk. I go up to it, bear and balloon first.

  “Hello. May I help you?” she asks. Young. Like twenty. Homely but thin. Glasses, straight brown hair.

  I’ve had worse. Much, much worse.

  “Hi,” I say, squeezing the teddy bear for effect. “My name is Joe Proctor. My romantic partner is Clarence Petticoat. Clarence T. Petticoat. He’s supposed to be having heart surgery today. His mother is bringing him up here—she doesn’t know about us—I was hoping to see him. He asked me to wait until later but I can’t. I just can’t. I—” I have to swallow hard, “—love him too much.”

  The secretary begins typing away as I ramble off my sob story. As I figured, what she finds makes her eyebrows scrunch together. She types some more, scans the data. Types a third time.

  “Mr...?”

  “Proctor,” I say. Lean in.

  “Mr. Proctor, you said Clarence Petticoat. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t see a Clarence Petticoat in our system. I don’t know what to say.” She starts to look around for help.

  Before she goes and gets a manager who might be more concerned about HIPPA law than my bullshit gay relationship, I say, “Well, miss, I used to do this also. Data entry, records keeping, phones, that kind of thing. Maybe I could make some teeny-weenie suggestions?”

  She just looks at me and says, “Sure.”

  “He said the University hospital. I could have the date wrong...but I doubt it. Maybe you could check the entire week’s schedule?”

  “Sure. We should have all the scheduled procedures in the system...let’s see...” Keystrokes, more keystrokes. She sits back, types something else. Huffs out.

  “I’m not seeing Mr. Petticoat slated for anything cardiovascular or otherwise in the entire month. I’m so sorry, sir. I’d hate to ask you to call him but I’m just not sure what I can do.”

  He lied about Dan Martins and Carla Gabler. He lied about a potentially lethal surgery. What else now? What the shit is going on?

  The young secretary looks up and sees my face. She doesn’t say anything. I can’t queer-up this kind of fury. The girl believes my boyfriend is lying to me about something. Worse. A client is lying to me about something. Something tense that might end poorly.

  “Never mind.” Ice. Finished. I push away from the counter.

  “You’re welcome,” she calls after me.

  I walk into the lobby. A large cardboard box is set up to collect clothes and toys for children in the hospital burn unit. I drop the teddy bear inside. I walk out the front door and let go of the balloon. It sails off into the gray morning sky off towards a cold death somewhere alone.

  Something is happening next Monday that requires this whole thing to be wrapped up. Something Petticoat felt he had to lie about. What was he planning on doing if I found out he lied?

  I should ask him.

  At gunpoint.

  11

  Running around. Mundane.

  I meet with Rose MacHowell at her new office in Precinct 3. She has all the paperwork required for me to request a DNA sampling from Sheila Petticoat’s case. All nice and neat. Everything I need to sign is highlighted. Marked with an X. It still takes twenty minutes to go through.

  We catch up for a while and I ask her to get ahold of her husband so I can take them to lunch. We meet him at a nice place where the appetizers are forty dollars and sodas are not on the menu. Lunch is pleasant. Rose has her shield displayed on her belt and her compact semi-auto handgun on her hip for the world to see. My iron is stashed under my jacket and I wonder if the wait staff can see it. I’m always curious how sneaky I am with it.

  Rose, her husband and I part ways at the restaurant’s front door. She says she’ll get the paperwork filed today and expedited as fast as she can.

  “Hopefully no later than Friday,” Rose says, patting me on the shoulder. “Friday by the very latest.”

  I pull up in front of Petticoat’s office, ready to acquire some answers, even if he has to eek them out around my squeezing mitts.

  The office complex is very modern. It can’t be older than a few years. Three stories. A pediatric dentistry practice occupies all the first floor except for the building lobby. The second floor looks like it has lawyers. The third has accountant next to one person’s name. Petticoat has a corner space. I take the stairs.

  His office door is closed, locked. A printed sign is attached to the door reading CLOSED and then a phone number. I call the number. Office line. I hear the fucking phone inside ring. Aggravating. Who tells people the office is closed but still wants them to call the unoccupied office? I dial his cell phone. On the second ring he answers.

  “Mr. Buckner. How are you?”

  “Clarence. I stopped by your office. I want to talk to you.”

  “Oh, sorry. I’m at the hospital. They want to run a bunch of tests before the operation. Blood work, EKG, you know the type.”

  I hear a ghostly noise in the background. I know what it is, but I need to stall him so I can hear it again. To make sure.

  “The University hospital, right?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Good folks.”

  “You might want to reconsider who cuts you open,” I say. “I hear that hospital doesn’t have the survival rate the other area hospitals do. Just saying.”

  “I’ll be fine. I actually have to go. They’ll be keeping me overnight.”

  “Maybe I can come by and talk to you there.”

  “I think it’s going to be a hard night, Mr. Buckner. I’ve been on a downhill slide for the past few days. Stress is really getting to me. They say I just need some rest. I’m hooked up to some machines—”

  There is the noise again. A hollow, metal howl like a specter coming down a hall. I know where he is.

  “You sound so full of life. I figure a man who is going to have such a risky operation should cough or something.”

  Petticoat gives me two little squeaker coughs. “Happy?”

  “Okay,” I say, heading back out to my car. “I just wanted you to know I’ve requested the DNA sample from the PD. With any luck I’ll be able to take it to a private lab that can run it against any DNA on file. I can only hope in the past twenty years the rapist has been arrested for something—anything—because then they’ll have taken a sample from him. If so, we’ll get a hit.”

  “Great. Just great. I’ve gotta go—”

  “And Carla Gabler was a dead-end. She says she hasn’t seen her boyfriend since they were locked up.”

  “Mr. Buckner—Richard, I need to hang up now. The nurses—they’re getting on me for using a phone inside the hospital. You know. It may interfere with some of the machines and I—I need to go.”

  There the noise is a third time. Motherfucker.

  “Not a problem, big guy. You get some rest. Take care of that cough.” I hang up.

  Dig in my trunk. I have a toolbox. Open it. Inside there is the usual stuff that anybody would have: duct tape, a drill, a straightened coat hanger, door wedges, lock-picking tools, a couple of cheap cell phones I’ve converted to listening devices, latex gloves, a couple of empty syringes I could fill with things like Drain-O or turpentine, some key blanks for bump keys, a gun. Probably some screw drivers and a hammer. Regu
lar stuff.

  I smoke a cigarette and go back inside. Gloves on. Pick the lock. Enter.

  Inside the office a quiescence whispers through. I, in turn, walk with silence sewn onto the bottoms of my feet. Just in case.

  The haunting ghost sounds behind Petticoat were the sounds of the rail train. The echoing squeals of metal on metal as they rub their smoothed surfaces at sixty miles an hour. The lilting hum of the train passing through a tunnel. You don’t get that in a hospital room.

  He’s heading to Three Mile High. The rail doesn’t run through town; it connects our two cities and that’s it. Lying about that as well.

  Plot point: for whatever reason Petticoat wants me to think he’s ill. It gives him a convenient excuse to put a deadline on me. So him lying about being on the train might not mean anything by itself. It goes with the cover story. Wherever he is, he’ll want me to believe he’s in the hospital.

  Of course, it might be very significant he’s heading to Three Mile High. I tuck that in my mind and scan the office.

  The hallway door opens into the secretary’s space and waiting room. Nothing more than a welcome mat and a desk. By the look of the desk Petticoat doesn’t think much of his secretary. She must be ugly or he’s already fucked her. I don’t think he’s the type to hire a dude secretary. Even a homo one.

  Pictures and reference letters all over the walls. Thank you notes, some from recognizable names and companies to boost his credibility. Nothing says worth-the-money like an autographed picture of a pro athlete thanking you for whatever service you did. I see four in Petticoat’s front room. A couple of photos side by side that show a brown field of flat, barren earth as a before picture and next to it an after picture with a building constructed there. Manicured lawns, landscaping, lighting. Real estate development.

  There is a drafting room. Nothing more than a box space big enough for five folks to stand around a table, pointing to a blue print and feeling self-important. The walls here are covered in artists’ renditions of various projects. Schematics. Aerial views.