Klein left the living room, walked through the dining room and entered the adjacent kitchen only to set the mail down on the counter. Klein missed the splinters of wood on the floor near the side door as he stared at the return address label from the delivered package. When he bent down into the refrigerator to retrieve a bottle of water off the shelf Klein noticed the splinters on the floor from my earlier illegal search and seizure.
“What the hell?” he finally blurted out when he turned to toss the bottle cap in the garbage next to the side door. Klein bent down and stabbed his finger into the linoleum tiles to pick up a few splinters. The paranoia uncontrollably began to set in. Klein quickly paced around the open expanse of the main floor not sure what to look for. Another point of entry? A broken window? A person hiding behind a curtain? His head was on a constant swivel.
He jogged back to the door and yanked it open. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Klein exerted when he saw the door handle. Bending down to analyze the damage, he immediately knew that someone had intentionally jammed an object, most likely a screwdriver or an awl or a crow bar into the handle to gain access. “Son of a bitch!” he added for emphasis. Klein was afraid of what might be the end result of this apparent chain reaction.
He nearly vomited when he saw the door underneath the staircase was tampered with as well. The padlock peacefully rested on the floor while the hinge loosely dangled off the wooden doorjamb. Ripping the thick door nearly off the wall, Klein jumped down the shallow flight of stairs into the basement in one shot, nearly clanking his skull off the sloping cement ceiling above the staircase. A sense of calm enveloped Klein when he saw his local supply still intact, despite being revealed to whomever chose to break into his home. Since the drugs were still there, he eliminated robbery as a motive for the break in. Or a junkie who knew about his home- based operation looking for a free fix. He dropped into the desk chair like a bag of dirty laundry and rested his heavy head on his limp arm and thought. Who would break into his house? Jamal? Couldn’t be. Jamal didn’t know Klein had sent out his goons to track him and monitor his moves. Or had he? How would Jamal even know where he lived? Klein was convinced Jamal wasn’t that savvy. Klein’s mind raced like a thoroughbred stampeding down the homestretch.
The chair rolled closer to the desk with the quick thrust of his body movement, which allowed Klein to rest his elbows on the edge of the mahogany desk. He stared at the cork bulletin board in a mystical haze. What the hell is going on here?, was all he could repeat in his mind. Staring at the cork board he knew something was either out of place or missing. He couldn’t figure out what. The little league baseball picture of his nephew was there. The softball picture of his niece was there. So was their Christmas picture from last winter. Klein felt like there was something that was supposed pinned to the bottom right section of the board.
His head slumped into his hands and his forehead fell into the crevice between his thumb and index finger of both hands. The light bulb brightened and the sirens went off, pounding his eardrums. Klein cursed so loudly the pushpins on the cork board appeared to rattle. He pounded both fists on the desk when he saw the list of his teenage drug runners and the receipt of their makeshift cell of a storage unit were gone.
Klein sprang from the desk chair and reminded himself that he needed to check his other prized possession- the stash. He retrieved the crowbar from behind the filing cabinet and walked three paces from the front of the filing cabinet and five paces to the right. The worn marks on the floorboard almost stood out too obvious for an intruder. He’d have to get a throw rug to cover the trap door. When Klein pried up the single floorboard he let out a sigh of relief because his bricks of Ben Franklin’s remained untouched.
I sat in my car, wondering what Klein’s face looked like once he noticed the splintered wood on the kitchen floor. It made me smile. What would make me laugh the most, almost to the point of pissing myself, would to see Klein’s face once he noticed the list of his prisoners was gone.
Part IV- Crash and Burn
SIXTY EIGHT
I sat on Klein’s house for the rest of the afternoon with not much action. Klein had taken out the garbage and a small plastic can of recycling but immediately returned to the house. I wondered about the moment Klein noticed what I had done and what I had taken. I also wondered what he thought his next moves would be. Who was he trying to contact? What was he planning? I certainly didn’t have the technology to tap phones and run microscopic cameras and microphones under Klein’s front door to spy on him. I simply had to fuel my investigation on my own natural abilities and resources. Klein’s living room lights were dim so I headed home.
I finally stole a few moments to talk to Drew. I caught him on his cell phone just as he was finishing a late lunch.
“How’s the beat without me, partner?” I asked.
“It’s all right,” Drew replied.
“Who do they have you working with these days?”
“Conroy,” he said. I could tell there was something wrong in his voice. I figured there should be at least a smidge of jubilation in his voice. We hadn’t talked all that often since I went on leave.
“He’s not so bad, is he?” I asked.
“Yeah, he’s pretty good,” Drew said.
“What’s going on with you, man? Are you all right? I know working without me can’t be that bad, is it?” I attempted to joke.
“Ah, nothing. It’s just- I don’t think I should tell you this on the phone. I’ve been meaning to give you a call for a while now. You got a few minutes to meet me somewhere?”
I was surprised at the question but of course I agreed.
Twenty minutes later I found Drew sitting in a booth in a McDonald’s on Hamburg Turnpike. It was about equidistant from both of our houses so it was a good rendezvous point. When I sat across from Drew he was staring down into a half- empty cup of coffee and was pushing it back and forth between his thumbs. I had to tap him on the elbow to get his attention. He looked up at me.
“What’s going on?” I straightforwardly asked. I watched Drew look around as if we were being watched by a couple of hit men but all I saw was an elderly couple sharing an ice cream and a lonely guy in the corner reading the newspaper and drinking a coffee.
“I’ve heard some things,” was all he said, still staring at the rippling waves in his coffee as he pushed the cup back and forth. I waited for more but I got nothing. Something was eating at him. I could tell.
“Ok. What kind of things? About what?” He was starting to freak me out.
Drew finally met my eyes and said, “You.”
“Me? What about me? From who?”
“Guys talking around the department,” he said, “about why you went out on your own.”
I thought for a minute. I thought Fitzgerald had given me the full story when we met a couple of weeks ago and broke the news to me that it was recommended that I go private.
“What’s being said? Who’s saying it?” I said a little too loudly. I looked around and thought the elderly couple probably couldn’t hear an atomic bomb drop on their table and the lonely guy seemed too into his paper.
Drew opened his mouth then hesitated. He finally said, “Ok, here it is. Now, I’m only telling you because you and I were- are- pretty good friends over the last few years. Rumor has it that the chief wanted you out because he didn’t want any of the publicized backlash if you were allowed back in and went ‘bonkers and off the deep end’ again- as Millburn apparently put it.” Drew casually made quotation marks around the bonkers phrase.
My blood pressure instantly reached its boiling point.
The chief. I instantly recalled Fitzgerald telling me that the decision had come from the chief but conveniently left out Chief Millburn’s worry about his political reputation. I slapped the table with both hands, which got the attention of Lonely Guy.
“That weasel. That son of a bitch!” I yelled. “How could I not see it?” I said more to myself than to Drew. “Ho
w did you find this out?” I found myself yelling at Drew and I didn’t mean to.
“Like I said, people have been talking and when I began to hear the same thing over and over again from a few different people I began to think it had to have some credibility. So many guys would bring it to me seeing how we were partners and all. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this but a few have been calling you “The Kid Killer,” Drew said. “The other day confirmed it, though” he added but stopped right there.
The Kid Killer? Ha! That’s a good one! If the shoe fits, right?
I shook it off while Drew was staring at his coffee again.
“What happened the other day?” I asked.
“I was changing in the locker room after my shift and overheard a couple of guys talking about you and how Millburn didn’t want Chase Barnes to be the latest blemish on an already tarnished department as if you were his latest punch line. Like I said, I’ve heard it enough to make it believable.”
I thanked Drew for telling me but didn’t need to ask him why it took so long for him to let me know. We managed to change the subject after I told him I’d take care of it and talk about a few superficial topics but I couldn’t get my mind off what Drew just told me. The Kid Killer.
Despite the reasoning, it was still nice to see my old partner. I thanked Drew again and shook his hand before I got up to leave. I could see an increased amount of strain on his face. I knew I couldn’t leave Drew this way after he had given me such valuable information.
“Just keep this between us,” he finally blurted out when he held onto my forearm. I simply acknowledged with a rap of my knuckles on the edge of the table and walked out. I sat in my car in the McDonald’s parking lot processing my conversation with Drew. Was I really being labeled as the Kid Killer? That explained why I was receiving so many awkward and uncomfortable side glances from some of the other cops around the squad room each time I’d been up to see Fitzgerald.
Without realizing, then without caring, for the first time in as long as I can remember, a tear fell from my eye.
SIXTY NINE
Lindsey and I had only lived in our house for three years. It was built in the fifties as a cape but the previous owners had blown out the back to extend the kitchen and add a spare bedroom to the back of the house. The hardwood floors were in good shape from the day we moved in and the walls screamed for some color. Carpeting had been replaced in all rooms that were carpeted and most of the light fixtures had been updated.
Just when I felt like I was all caught up with the landscaping, painting, and carpentry something else would come up. Lindsey never seemed to have any issues creating another “Honey- Do” list to leave on the counter. The lists seem to recreate themselves somehow each morning. I was beginning to convince myself that Lindsey would sneak down in the middle of the night just to reproduce a fresh list of things for me to do with my apparent down time. It’s as if she literally dreamed of things for me to do. I welcomed some of the chores once I began to think of it as a stress reliever and an alternate method to gathering my thoughts and clearing my head. I certainly had a lot more time on my hands in the last six months. Dr. Sharper had recommended household chores as a method of easing my painful stress from losing Jake but I was nothing but a resistant thirteen- year old. After meeting with Drew, some sort of chore or meaningless task was screaming my name. But I knew the only task at hand should be finding Esteban.
I had put some more thought into Dr. Sharper’s recommendation of playing Tetris as a way to overcome post- traumatic stress disorder. I had downloaded the app to my phone but hadn’t had a chance to sit and play. I’d recently been a little busy.
After my visit with Drew, I returned home. I needed some time to decompress and process what he had just told me. As angry as I wanted to be with him for withholding this information from me as long as he did, I forced myself to understand why he had. I still kept my newly surfacing suicidal thoughts to myself and also my new nickname floating around the Paterson squad room from Lindsey. I knew I was in no position of keeping things of this caliber from her any longer but it suddenly became second nature.
I felt like I was neck- deep in this Esteban Machado thing and was killing myself trying to pick up the scent of his trail. There wasn’t any more I could gather from sifting through his paper work from school. There wasn’t any more I could gain from staring at the papers I lifted from Klein’s house. There sure as hell nothing I could solve painting a linen closet.
Time was becoming my worst enemy. Esteban was gone just about a full week now. The longer he was gone the more he became a fresh memory in my mind, which is bizarre to me because the longer Jake’s been gone I feel like he’d become more of a distant memory. Not that Jake’s memory will ever completely erase itself from my brain and I’m not sure if it’s a forced movement on my part to let him rest in peace but I’ve been thinking of him less often with each passing day. I couldn’t fathom the fact that Esteban could be lost forever on my watch. Trying to block the worse- case scenario out of my mind, I kept convincing myself that Esteban was much better off than Jake at this point because he still could potentially to return home alive and safe. However, a week of being where ever he may be was still entirely too long.
I finished the first coat of the linen closet and hoped to the high heavens that that would do the trick and pass Lindsey’s inspection. As therapeutic I found painting and some moderate housework to be, nothing was going to settle my mind after what I learned from Drew. I knew I had to push forward and I should be out on the streets searching high and low for Esteban but my body, my mind was becoming so resistant.
I didn’t hear my phone buzz from where it rested on the kitchen table while I was in the basement washing out the brush. For as little as the brush was and as tight the space I painted was there sure as hell was a ton of paint rinsed out in the sink. I changed out of my painting clothes and washed up before I realized I had four missed calls. All were from Fitzgerald.
The number of missed calls in a three minute span told me it was urgent enough to return the call without having to listen to the messages. “Where the hell have you been, Barnes?” Fitzgerald said by way of a greeting.
“I’ve been out back planting dandelions. Why what’s up?” I could sense the level of urgency in his voice but could never pass up an opportunity to slip in a wiseass retort.
“I got something here I think you might want to take a look at,” he said. He told me a surveillance tape just surfaced that showed a black van screech to a halt, two guys dressed in head- to- toe black, string up what looks like a young adolescent boy to the metal fencing of the caged backstop of a baseball field on some street somewhere. I asked him if it had anything to do with Esteban and he told me he was pretty confident it did.
I asked, “Why the hell is this only showing up now, a week later?”
Fitzgerald was silent for a while then said, “I don’t know. I’m pissed about it, too. I sent out a couple of guys to do a surveillance sweep the day the call on Esteban came through but nothing turned up until now. I don’t even know when it came in today. We have it now and that’s all that matters.”
I told him I’d be over there to check it out.
SEVENTY
I suddenly felt like I was on a weight- loss diet.
When we try to lose weight we tend to repeatedly step on the scale until we see the results we expect. If the first attempt shows we gained weight for the week we get frustrated and step back on just the right way to convince our minds that we actually did lose even just an ounce. But if the first weigh- in shows we were a little slimmer for the week, even if just a couple of ounces, then the scale immediately goes back in the closet until next week. That’s kind of how I felt this case was going for me.
In the beginning, about a week ago, I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted so I was trying to tweak the scales and slide it around the floor to find that right spot to give me positive results. But since my meeting with Jamal I knew things
were swinging in my favor but I had difficult time feeling it. Between finding the hidden file on Esteban, which still hasn’t revealed any reason as to why it was hidden in the first place, now knowing that Klein and Garvey were working in tandem to recruit their own students to promote their illegal drug business, and my own version of a search and seizure of Klein’s house I was feeling like I lost ten pounds over the weekend. But this new surveillance tape made me think I’d hit my goal weight.
An hour later, I sat with Fitzgerald and a guy named McDonald who was one of the department’s tech gurus. We sat in a cell- block sized cement room with a cafeteria- like table pushed up against the rear wall. Sitting on the table were two computers, both with twenty- seven inch screens. Fitzgerald turned the lights off then we each pulled up a metal folding chair to watch the tape.
“Why wasn’t this tape discovered a week ago?” I asked the question again but this time to both men. I was hoping either McDonald could give me a technical response or Fitzgerald could give me a believable cop response. Something in layman’s terms.
McDonald didn’t have a response because that wasn’t his area of expertise but Fitzgerald said he learned that it was a feed from a nearby grocery store parking lot and the owner doesn’t check the tapes but every few days. And at the time the guys Fitzgerald sent out to do the sweep of the area said they missed that camera.
We watched a grainy video reveal a dark colored van pull up to the curb on Lafayette and a plume of smoke permeate around the back end of the van. “Now you see here,” Fitzgerald narrated, “the driver gets out then the passenger. The passenger lets the dog out, looks to be a pit bull, and quick step to the back doors of the van.” I looked on like I was watching a black and white silent film, trying to interpret the plot just by watching. The back hatches flung open so hard that they repelled back and nearly clipped the dog in the head. The two men dragged a smaller body from the back seat of the van and I watched the horizontal body violently flail and fight for its freedom but the grasp on the ankles and wrists appeared to be just too powerful. I had to ask McDonald to gradually zoom in from this point on because the men carried the body father away from the camera. I heard the faint clicking as McDonald rolled the dial on the mouse to zoom in.
The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) Page 19