The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1)

by John Montesano

  “This is where the goons string up the kid to the fence of the backstop,” Fitzgerald said. McDonald zoomed in as far as the software program would allow but the images on a screen were too blurry to make out. They looked like reflections in a muddy puddle. McDonald resumed the tape after zooming to a clear view only to watch the van pack up and speed away, leaving the boy dangling from the chain link fence like a wet swimsuit.

  “That’s definitely Esteban,” I finally said.

  “How can you be so sure?” Fitzgerald asked. “It could be any one of the kids that are on Klein’s list. Or any other missing kid in this country for that matter. Regardless, I think we got these bastards on tape. Even if it isn’t Esteban.”

  I unexpectedly left the room and ran to my car to retrieve a photo that Esteban’s mother had given me during our first meeting. I returned to the room before Fitzgerald could figure out why left.

  “This is how,” I said, handing Fitzgerald the photo. He took the photo from me and analyzed it. Eventually, he held it up to the computer screen, asking McDonald to get the best shot of the boy on the screen he could. “His mother told me this photo was taken on her camera phone the day before he disappeared and he’s clearly wearing the same jeans and sneakers.” I caught myself, realizing that millions of kids in today’s world could have the same jeans and sneakers as Esteban.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Fitzgerald said. He kept the photo side by side with the computer screen much longer than I thought he would. I wondered what he was looking at. I came to stand behind him trying to gain the same vantage point.

  “What do you see, Fitz?” I asked.

  “It seems pretty convincing to me that it is Esteban. Looks to be the same height as reported even though he’s stretched out horizontally rather than vertically,” he answered.

  “What about the comparison gives it away?” I asked, attempting to quiz him.

  “The sneakers.” The sneakers were the same give away for me too. Despite the grainy black and white quality of the video there was no disputing the moon boots that modern- day society called sneakers.

  “Anything you can pick up on the two goons that are manhandling the kid?” I asked the guy called McDonald.

  “It’s hard to tell. Not much I can get from them considering they are dressed in black from top to bottom,” McDonald answered. As we were discussing the possibilities he was fingering the keyboard like an experienced secretary. We watched on in curiosity. It felt like hours had passed since McDonald last spoke and started pounding the keys. I watched the screen zoom and swivel at a variety of angles.

  “Bear with me just one second and presto!” McDonald said, leaning back in his chair as if he were satisfied after a Thanksgiving meal. Fitzgerald and I leaned in over each of McDonald’s shoulders and stared at the computer screen as if we were squeezing in for a selfie photo. The screen showed a mid- level quality image of the license plate.

  SEVENTY ONE

  Fitzgerald put in a call to have the license plate traced. It came back that the van was stolen two weeks ago from a shipping yard in Jersey City. The car thieves stole a pair of uniforms and posed as dock loaders. They loaded crates from the trucks to the boats until their opportunity to boost the truck became available. Fitzgerald said the call came in that two guys disappeared during their coffee break, taking the van with them.

  We were back in his office when Fitzgerald started asking me about my thoughts. He wanted my thoughts on Klein, my thoughts on Garvey and which one might be a bigger threat. He also wanted my thoughts on Esteban’s current state. As well as my thoughts on how to blow up this whole operation. In the midst of all of my thought sharing, Fitzgerald told me that the check- ups on Felix Cabrera and Joey Alvarez came up empty. He ran them through the system again just to be sure. Something he always did. In a way, I was kind of glad that there was nothing on either of them. Just another avenue I didn’t have to travel down. However, he could see how frustrated I was growing and it brought me back to my very first arrest as a rookie beat cop.

  It was spring, April of 2012. Drew and I were stopped at a local deli grabbing a quick sandwich. Drew had a coffee and I had a Snapple. I leaned against the hood of a car while I ate my ham and Swiss cheese sandwich. We were checking out a few ladies that were strolling into a pub on the corner. Drew and I debated over who had the shortest skirt and the nicest ass for several minutes. It was clearly a slow night. Just as they were drifting into the darkness of the poorly lit street I heard a piercing scream from their direction. Drew took off first but I got there before him after taking a more logical angle of pursuit across the street. I stomped my feet into the pavement too quickly stop my stride before running over the girl on the ground. It was the blond that I found more attractive. She appeared to have a gash over her left eyebrow that was slowly trickling blood down her temple.

  When I asked her what happened she reported through her nervous gasps that she was knocked down from behind and someone stole her purse. Drew interviewed the brunette and got a pretty solid description of the perp and what he was wearing. It took a little while but we’d eventually found him buying a six pack of beer from a bodega a few blocks away. The rainbow colored belt, which was a certainty by Jennifer, the brunette, clued me in to this guy being our suspect. I tried to enter the bodega as casually as possible, as if I were just looking to purchase a drink, but the suspect quickly took off out the back door. Giving chase, I closed in pretty quickly until I tripped off the curb two blocks later and could only watch the perp fly away into the wind.

  Fitzgerald saw how frustrated I was when I reported back to headquarters after my shift. He made a poor attempt to console me by telling me another cop brought him in an hour prior. I was so infuriated with my poor attempt to bring down my first criminal that I took my frustrations out on my locker door and threatened to quit right on the spot. From then on, Fitzgerald guided me through strategies on how to handle and subdue my frustrations when a perp slipped through the cracks. Come to think of it, Fitzgerald made a much better shrink than Dr. Sharper.

  We were back in his office and continued to stare at nothing, sitting across from each other at Fitzgerald’s desk, stuck in a rut. I pulled out a severely folded piece of paper from my back pocket. It’s where I’d been keeping my notes throughout the duration of the case. Fitzgerald was the first person I’d shown it to since I started jotting down notes. Things were scribbled and crossed out while others were underlined with stars around them. I swung my chair around to sit next to, rather than across, Fitzgerald. I did the best I could to decipher what was worth conveying to him.

  Fitzgerald asked more questions and I tried my best to provide the answers. I rattled off descriptions of who they were and why I thought they were important. Without realizing it I suddenly found myself formulating a pretty solid plan.

  SEVENTY TWO

  I wanted Klein and I wanted him badly. The best part about it was that he didn’t know it yet. With the surveillance tape and the documents I scooped up from Klein’s drug- laden dungeon I had a pretty solid slam dunk in my back pocket. Fitzgerald wanted me to run this out by the book but I told him that’s not how I wanted to do things. He handed this case over to me- well after I had taken it upon myself as per Lindsey’s request to look into Esteban’s street behavior. This case was mine and I wanted it to go down on my terms.

  After many pleads of negotiation, Lindsey had convinced me not to confront Garvey while school was in session. She thought the commotion I’d probably make would be a disaster for the students. I knew she was right. I wanted to go after Garvey first because I figured I’d use his fat rolls as a step ladder to get to Klein. Somehow I had a feeling that this whole operation was an evil dragon breathing fire on innocent kids who never stood a chance and Klein was the head that needed to be chopped off.

  I spoke to Lindsey on her cell and ran my plan by her, which she thought was risky and dangerous. But she thought I was risking my life when I climbed a step ladder to
clean out the gutters. She told me to be careful and asked if I’d be home when her day was through and I told her that I didn’t think so.

  “I’ll probably be meeting with Fitzgerald about my other matter at hand,” I told her, referencing my willingness to confront Fitzgerald about Millburn’s fear of a poisonous political outbreak if I was brought back to the department. She naturally didn’t think it was a good idea but what else did I have to lose? I was already out of the department and getting pretty comfortable out on my own.

  SEVENTY THREE

  The afternoon flew by and I was ready for lunch. Another lunch- on- the- go but I didn’t want fast food and I didn’t want pizza again. I found a small deli tucked away in between two larger shops on Main Street and ordered a buffalo chicken wrap and a Snapple to go. I ate it on the hood of my car while I took in the sights and sounds around me. Paterson tends to have a different perspective when I’m not in uniform. I’ve learned to appreciate the intricacies and nuances of the city. While I ate, I took in the fresh spring air that was unusual for the time of year but I wasn’t going to complain. I also thought about my plan.

  It took me a few tries but I finally got a hold of Jamal. He was a crucial part of my plan. I had left him a couple of messages over a half-hour period but didn’t want to sound too eager. To me, I felt like I was starting to gain a sense of trust in Jamal but what did I know about social relationships with street thugs and small- time drug peddlers? For all I knew, Jamal was trying to get a cop, albeit a small- time private investigator, in his pocket to get him out of jams in the future. I knew that much of the game. I had no problem with that so long as he stuck to our deal of not using kids as runners. If I was going to work this area, I’d need a great deal of street cred and a reputation as a solid dude.

  I read the caller ID and saw Jamal was finally calling me back.

  “Hello?” It was all I could say. I wasn’t quite hip on the latest street lingo and didn’t know what to say to Jamal by way of a greeting.

  “What up,” was all Jamal said. Now I knew the proper greeting.

  “You got some time to meet up with me?”

  “What do you need now, Mr. Barnes?” Jamal asked. I couldn’t tell if he referred to me that way out of respect or to be a wise- ass.

  I didn’t want to tell him too much over the phone so I had to plead my case and tell him that he had to trust me. I heard him sigh on the other end. He was thinking.

  “All right, dude. Gimme a little while to do some things and I’ll hit you up later,” he said.

  “Sounds good,” I said. I wanted to ask him if he could give me a better time frame of when he thought he’d get back to me but I still didn’t want to push the envelope. He ended the call and now I needed to find something else to occupy my new found time.

  While I finished my sandwich, thoughts about Fitzgerald and Millburn devising this whole bullshit scam to push me out of the department consumed my brain. I always had a feeling Chief Millburn was this sort of convoluted type of personality but since my conversation with Drew I’d begun to see Millburn in a whole new light. A dark light that only shines on the selfish and corrupt. But the one thing I wasn’t so convinced about was whether or not Fitzgerald was sinking in Millburn’s dirty quicksand. I had a hard time believing so but you never really know who is susceptible to being sucked into the dirty game of police politics.

  As I got back in my car, Dr. Shaper crossed my mind. Get your mind out of the gutter because I wasn’t thinking about her body- not this time anyway. I thought about what she suggested to me the other day. About playing Tetris as an attempt to cope with, if not cure, my PTSD. Scrolling through my phone, I tapped the Tetris app I had downloaded. I played it a few times and didn’t feel any different. This is crap, I thought and tossed my phone on the passenger seat after I closed out the app.

  I wanted to storm the doors of Treasure Island Storage but Fitzgerald still hadn’t given me the green light. Sitting in my car, I contemplated how much I had really had to abide by Fitzgerald’s words of advisement since he technically wasn’t my supervisor any longer. He’d kicked me to the curb. However, I was attempting to exhibit some level of restraint.

  About an hour later I put a call into Fitzgerald to see if he was still in his office. He was and I told him I was coming back. He asked what else I could possibly have to talk about or share with him. I replied by way of hanging up on him. It was pushing two in the afternoon. I thought about how I wanted to approach Fitzgerald and this whole political bullshit about the chief and the negative impact I’d have on the force if I was allowed back. Frankly, I had no other approach in mind other than a smack- you- in- the- face and kick- you- in- the- balls type of approach.

  Despite being my direct boss while I was a beat cop, Fitzgerald and I managed to become friends. As much as a boss and employee can be considered friends. A bunch of us used to frequent a local cop bar near the precinct called, Foo Bar. I’d need all of my fingers and toes- and maybe some of Fitzgerald’s too to count how many times he and I would be the last two standing at the end of the night. It gave us some quality time to build a social relationship outside of the precinct. That’s how I learned about his athletic prowess as a stud of a high school athlete and the drunk- driving accident that ended his sports career. I also knew about the ex- girlfriends of the past and how he’d met his current wife, how he’d proposed, and how his first born son was in the hospital for the first three months of his life due to a life- threatening case of meningitis.

  We certainly bonded quite a bit in those few years but now things were different. And things in the future were going to be different once I was done with Fitzgerald. This was about me. This was my reputation on the line. Not even my reputation as a cop. My reputation as a human being was being threatened.

  SEVENTY FOUR

  Esteban’s existence was beginning to even surprise himself. He had no idea how much he’d eaten in the week since he’d been snatched up by the goons in the green Explorer. His body was severely weakened and dangerously dehydrated. Never mind the emotional stress that had begun to taken its toll, which was worst of all for a fragile mindset and the unstable emotions of a kid like Esteban. He swore on his grandmother’s grave at least a dozen times that he didn’t know anything about Jamal’s business. He eventually did reveal to Klein himself Jamal’s address and what Jamal looked like. Esteban couldn’t tell if he was subconsciously withholding the information or the trauma of the situation had caught up with him and his mind completely blocked it out. Maybe it was his oppositional defiance or the physical abuse that forced him to withhold Jamal’s address.

  That was truly all he knew. But that wasn’t enough for Klein. He demanded more. He craved more information. Klein found out that Esteban had been running for Jamal the longest, which was still only a few weeks, and which is why Klein and Source rode him the hardest. I guess Jamal wasn’t big on job security. Esteban couldn’t tell if his body hurt more from the physical torture inflicted on him on a repeated basis or the lack of food, water, and solid sleep. The best sleep he’d gotten in the last week had been a two- hour clip when he was balled up in the corner of the cement floor of the storage unit. Sunrise, sunset, and the entire concept of time in between was beginning to become meaningless and obsolete.

  Esteban chalked it up to the fact that he felt Jamal’s information was irrelevant and it truly slipped his mind. It was irrelevant to him at least. He finally revealed the apartment building that Jamal lived in, Godwin Towers on Godwin Avenue. Just off Rosa Parks Boulevard. Klein had sent Source and a couple of his other goons over to Godwin Avenue last night to snatch up Jamal himself and put an end to Jamal’s petty business. And maybe an end to Jamal too.

  Luckily, Jamal wasn’t home at the time of the unexpected raid. Source had planted himself in various locations around the building overnight, waiting for Jamal to return, but Jamal never did. He’d apparently been out of town picking up supplies from a new shipment and visiting a girlfriend. L
uckily for Jamal, he’d spent the night.

  Klein was beginning to grow even more impatient and it was reaching the point where he needed to do things himself.

  SEVENTY FIVE

  I was growing tired and frustrated of paying people visits and I wanted to now wear my true detective’s cap. I pulled into a nearby convenience store, never a 7- 11 since I couldn’t get myself to ever enter one again after Jake died. It was a small bodega tucked off to the side of Main Street. Walking in the store I saw two boys, about Jake’s age walking in behind me. Their clothing, slow- paced casual gait, and sense of teenaged carelessness radiated off of them the very same way it had off of Jake. I got my Snapple and a local newspaper and returned to my car. The boys exited after I was in the car and I saw they both had purchased a bag of chips and some sort of neon colored energy drink. I watched them walk down the block away from me. I don’t particularly recall what enthralled me so much about them but I felt the sudden infatuation with watching their movements. Not so much out of suspicion and curiosity as it was a jealousy that they still had a home to go to.