by Greg Enslen
Black smoke moved across the sky in thick clouds. The sky above looked huge, edged by what looked like tall grass in each direction. Grasses and weeds, so it wasn’t a cornfield. A cornfield would run in rows, topped with corn. This was scrub--he was in an empty field or some type of abandoned lot.
Frank realized he was cold and felt woozy, detached from the world. He remembered someone, or something, had hit him in the back of the head, back in the parking lot. Was it the next day? Where was he now?
Frank shook his head to clear it and tried to sit up.
He could not.
His hands were caught on something. Tugging, he realized they were tied together behind his back.
He looked down and saw his ankles were bound as well. Frank could see a thin plastic zip tie around the tops of his boots, two plastic strips tied together to interlock his legs. Those were black zip ties, like the ones cops used to restrain prisoners.
For the first time, he caught a whiff of something burning.
Frank couldn’t sit up or stand, so he tried to roll over. After a struggle, he managed to get up onto one side. He couldn’t see anything except tall grasses and weeds in every direction. He felt around with his hand and found they were zip tied as well--those plastic cuffs were impossible to break. That was why many police departments around the country used them instead of handcuffs--no amount of picking at the lock or twisting and fraying would get him free.
Frank wasn’t sure what to do next.
Smoke, dark and thick, blew over his head. He coughed and realized he wasn’t in a clearing--he’d simply been dumped in a field of tall grass. The weight of his body was making a temporary depression by holding down the grasses beneath him.
Smoke, and the smell of the fire, gave it away. And the distant sound of unconcerned voices. He was in a field that was on fire. Frank’s mind clicked--it was probably Sunday morning.
Frank had been bound and left in Freeman’s Prairie, where they were doing the prescribed yearly burn.
He’d been bound and left for dead.
“Hey!” he yelled, but no one answered. The voices sounded distant. The only people around, besides Frank, were probably the local firefighters setting the fire and monitoring the burn. The people who had jumped him were surely gone by now.
“Hey, can anyone hear me?” he shouted, but his voice didn’t carry. He was too low to the ground and surrounded by tall grasses. It didn’t stop him, though. Frank continued yelling for a few long minutes, but no one came. The smoke got thicker, white and blowing through the tall grass. For the first time, he felt distant heat. And the sound of the fire was getting louder. It sounded like a huge, approaching campfire. The smell was similar, heavy and metallic.
Frank turned his face in the dirt, blowing the grass away from his mouth and shouting again. It sounded loud--his face was an inch from the ground--but not loud enough for anyone to hear over the crackling fire.
Frank pulled his legs up as high as he could and wiggled to get his hands down to his boots. Straining, he held his hands flat and slid them under the soles of his boots. Working them around the soles of his boots, he finally pulled his hand under and around to the front, letting out a sigh of relief. The new position was much more comfortable, and now he could move.
Frank felt a gust of heat as another large pall of black smoke rolled over the field.
Rolling onto his back, he sat up and tried to get his bearings, but couldn’t see over the grasses. Frank turned to climb up onto his knees and saw, through the grasses, white square shapes about ten feet away from him, behind a thick stand of grass.
At first, he didn’t recognize them. He hopped toward them and saw more. The smoke parted for a moment, and he suddenly knew what he was looking at--papers, scattered in the field.
He hopped closer. His feet were still bound together. He fell once, and again, but followed the papers, until they led to three cardboard boxes on the ground, papers and file folders spilling out of them. One of the file folders was splashed with red.
The boxes from his trunk.
He saw three boxes, two with files and papers and a third box, empty. That had been the money from the second ransom, now gone. Papers blew around the open boxes, files with his notes written in the margins, driven by the rising heat and the smoke and wind of the burn. He could see “Police Files--Confidential” scrawled on the side of one box in Deputy Peters’ handwriting. Whoever had hit him over the head had not only taken him but also the money and case files. They had kept the money, presumably--the box was empty--and dropped him and the files here in the middle of the field to burn.
Frank flopped down and started wiggling toward the boxes, pressing down the sharp grasses with his arm and leg and face. He crawled closer to the boxes and finally reached the first one--it was the money box. He pushed it out of the way. It fell over, and one corner hit him in the face. Cursing loudly, he moved his shoulder and head, butting the box out of the way, and continued struggling toward the other boxes. Smoke stinged his eyes. Frank scrabbled over spilt manila folders and papers, and some part of his mind noticed the labels on the folders--all files about people involved in the case, written in Deputy Peters’ handwriting. Filled with Frank’s notes.
Peters. Frank remembered his talking about zip ties, and how much he approved of them. Could it have been Peters who jumped him? The man was always around, keeping an eye on Frank. But yesterday, Frank had eliminated him as a suspect. If someone wanted Frank out of the way, you could do worse than volunteer to be a helper on the case, all the while looking for an opportunity.
Or maybe it was Chief King. Maybe he’d assigned Peters to keep tabs on Frank, to monitor whatever Frank discovered in the investigation process.
Frank slowly crawled to the next box. It was on its side, spilling out papers and folders. Black smoke blew through the tall grass. Frank grabbed the top of the box and flipped it over, but only more papers came out. He pushed it away and started pushing with his legs, crawling to the last box.
Black smoke and heat rolled over him. The smoke made it hard to breathe. It smelled angry, unrepentant. The gusting wind carried burnt pieces of plant material and burning embers across his vision, and he looked to see some of the flying ember land on dry stalks nearby and begin to smolder.
A draft of heat picked some of the papers up into the air. Frank felt the temperature rise in his small clearing and knew that the fire was quickly approaching. If Frank didn’t get out of here soon, he would be roasted alive. Mud caked his shoes and pants and shoulders and hair, and he wondered if the cool mud and dirt would protect him from the fire, when it overtook him, for an extra moment or two.
He found the last box and pulled it to him. It was still closed up. Frank slapped at it and the top of the box popped open. Out spilled more folders, stacks of papers, pens.
And the scissors.
He grabbed at them, turning them in his hands and sawing against the plastic tie that bound his wrists. After a moment, the metal edge sliced through the plastic, and his hands were free.
Frank sat up and started cutting at the plastic binding around his boots. Whoever had tied him up had used several ties, chained together, to reach around his feet. After a moment, he cut the ties and felt the tension on his feet suddenly let go.
Frank stood up, looking around.
He was in Freeman’s Prairie. It looked like the whole field was ablaze. Black smoke and flames surrounded him on all sides. He could see the road to his south, with several fire trucks parked along the edge of the field, and the town beyond, blocked by clouds of black smoke. Much of the fire was between him and the road. The field was burning in this direction, and he saw several firefighters in heavy gear, guiding the fire. They had those fire-starting lamps that dripped burning gasoline.
He waved his arms, shouting, but they were too far away through the black smoke to see him. Even if they could see him, there was nothing they could to do help. They couldn’t get to him or stop the fire--it wa
s too late for that.
Frank turned around, frantic, looking for a way out. Behind him, Frank saw he was close to the river. The taller trees that lined the bank were much closer than the road. He turned to run and then stopped.
Zip ties.
Frank dropped back down on the ground, searching the grasses and papers, finally found the ones that had been around his feet and wrists. He grabbed two of the file folders as well--they were smeared with mud--and the scissors, and began making his way to the riverbank.
Chapter 52
“What?” The fire chief turned, looking.
“Look,” one of the firemen called out. “There’s someone in the fire.”
The fire chief was wearing full gear, even though they were out in the middle of a field. It felt odd to be fully dressed out so far away from any structures, but the field needed to be managed.
“Over there, by the river,” the man said again.
The fire chief followed where his man was pointing. The helmet made it hard to see anything farther away than about twenty feet, so he pulled off the mask and scanned the riverbank on the other side of the fire.
There was a dark figure slumped against one of the trees.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the fire chief said. “That’s too far to go through. Call it in. Send the EMT to circle around where the field isn’t burned yet and get them out. I’ll call the others to slow the burn,” he said. “And get the police out here. Now.”
Chapter 53
“You okay?” Chief King said.
He was looking at Frank Harper, covered with mud and caked with black soot. The man was alive, barely, sitting in the back of an ambulance. It had come over from dispatch that a man had been staggering by the river near the prescribed burn in Freeman Prairie. King had already been on his way over when they had come over the radio with a positive ID on the person.
Harper pulled off the oxygen mask.
“Nope, I’m pretty goddamned far from alright. Someone jumped me, hit me over the head, and left me in that field to burn.”
He was pissed and had every right to be. He was huffing on the oxygen provided by the EMT. Frank’s clothes were torn and he was bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts on his hands and face. The EMT team was working on his face, cleaning off the soot and applying something to the cuts.
“Did you miss me?” Frank asked.
King nodded. “Thought you took the half million and ran.”
“What, and miss out on the $50,000 reward?” Frank asked.
“You suck at math,” King said.
Frank leaned forward to talk to King privately.
“By the way,” Frank said quietly. “I think it was Lassiter. And Agent Shale.”
King looked around at the others and climbed up in the ambulance, shooing the EMT and firemen away.
“What?”
“I was checking on the Holly Toys property last night. The guard walked me through, and he said that the place had already been sold to another investment group. Lassiter sold it already. I was calling you when I got jumped.”
“I got that part of the message,” King said.
Frank nodded. “To have a buyer lined up that fast, he would have had to know it was coming to him. I’d bet a case of Maker’s Mark that he’s behind the kidnapping--took the girls, squirreled them away, then waited on Martin to liquidate.”
Chief King nodded, thinking about it. If Lassiter was behind this, he was playing the long game, setting everything in motion and then waiting for Nick Martin to come to him, hat in hand, and sell the property. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“No, not unless he needed money,” Frank said. “It’s actually pretty smart--he gives Nick money for the other half, so Lassiter owns the property outright. Then he sells it--if Lassiter already had a buyer lined up, he was free and clear. And he’d get some of his original payment back from the ransom, depending on how many other people are involved.” Frank said, and then he went back to sucking on the oxygen mask.
“You think Lassiter knocked you out?”
Harper shrugged. “Not sure. But Shale, how could he have missed the property sale? Seems like a big thing to miss. Somebody hit me, but I don’t think it was Lassiter or Shale. Though, how they got the jump on me, I’ll never know.”
King thought about it. “I’ll call it in.”
Frank shook his head.
“No. It doesn’t explain everything. Unless Nick Martin was passing along pertinent information to Lassiter every step of the way, you’ve still got a leak. Maybe it’s Shale, or maybe not. Here, look at these,” Frank said, and began fishing in his pocket. He pulled out a handful of zip ties and put them in King’s hand. “I was zip tied,” Harper said. “Black zip ties, like those used by everyone on your police force.”
“And anyone who’s ever shopped at Menards,” King answered.
“Maybe. But the boxes of case files, and the empty box that held the ransom money, they were all in my trunk. They all ended there in the field with me, and now they’re gone. If I hadn’t woken up...”
King nodded.
“Glad you did. OK, let me do some work on Lassiter, and then I’ll bring him in, personally. You get cleaned up and come in.”
Frank looked at him.
“Should I stay gone? Whoever did this thinks I’m dead--maybe that could be helpful.”
“Nah,” King said. “It’s already been on the police band. Anyone listening would know.”
Frank nodded.
“Gotcha. Will you have someone swing by Holly Toys and check to see if my car is still there?”
Chapter 54
Frank had refused the paramedics’ offer to go to the hospital--it was just smoke inhalation and cuts and bruises. His wrists hurt the worst--too much rolling around and crawling on the wet ground, struggling with the restraints. He looked bad and needed a shower, but he had something he needed to do first. The EMTs had been kind enough to drop him at Laura’s apartment. He’d knocked for a minute before someone answered the door. It was early Sunday morning.
“Grandpa?”
Frank smiled when he saw Jackson, who let him in, and was hugging the small boy when Laura came in. Her eyes grew wide as she took in his burnt clothes and general appearance.
“What happened?”
Frank hugged Jackson again. “You still got those dinosaurs I got you?”
“I sure do,” Jackson said. “They’re cool.”
“Can you go get them for me?”
Jackson squeaked and ran off into the apartment.
Frank turned to Laura.
“Someone tried to kill me,” he said matter-of-factly.
Her face fell. “What?”
“I’m going to be straight with you--that’s what you wanted, right?”
She nodded, wary.
“Okay,” Frank said. “I was working on the kidnapping case, and figured out who did it, or at least I think he’s involved. Anyway, last night I was following up on a lead and got jumped, knocked over the head--”
“Oh my God,” she said, shaking her head. “Are you OK?”
Frank looked at his daughter.
“It gets worse,” Frank said. “They tied me up and left me in a field, east of town, that was being burned. They were doing a scheduled burn, and whoever put me there knew it was going to happen. They wanted me dead.” As he talked, her eyes got bigger. “I woke up and got free.”
She hugged him, spontaneously, and then backed away. Dust and soot from his clothes wafted between them, and the room suddenly smelled like smoke.
“But the prairie burn didn’t start until this morning,” she said. “It was in the paper. Where were you all night?”
“No clue,” he said. “Knocked out, sedated, probably. My car and phone are gone, but my wallet was in my pocket.” King had called the EMT team to let Frank know his car was no longer parked at the Holly Toys warehouse.
Jackson came back into the room and held up the dinosaurs for Frank to s
ee, then plopped down on the floor at their feet and started playing.
She shook her head and lowered her voice. “Something horrible could have happened to you.”
He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.
“I’m glad you’re OK,” she said. “I’m just so glad that nothing--”
Frank nodded. “But it’s not over--they thought I was dead. Chief King is making an arrest soon, but until the girls are found, I need you on your toes.
She made a face that said he didn’t understand.
“Me?”
“Yes,” Frank said quietly, glancing at Jackson playing on the floor. “I think a policeman might be involved. The person behind the kidnapping knew everything we were doing. Knew where I was. So don’t talk to anyone and don’t get in any cars with strangers. Even cops.”
Her eyes went wide.
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” he said. “If it’s a cop, they might try to get to me through you or Jackson. My hands were zip tied,” Frank said, holding up his wrists. “Civilians don’t do that. And I was dumped in the field, and I don’t know how I got out there, unless it was from a vehicle.”
She bit her lip, thinking.
“Any idea who’s involved?”
“Nothing yet,” he said. “It might be the guy that’s getting arrested now, but I don’t think so. Too many things are off about this case.”
He watched Jackson play for a moment, then continued.
“Look, I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m helping out with the case because that’s what I do,” Frank said. “And I’m good at it. Your mother always thought I had some kind of death wish, but that’s not it. I’m just good at this, good at catching bad guys. But they don’t play nice.”
Laura nodded.
“You are good at it,” she said. “Mom always said you were, but it was just too hard for her. She told me once that she hated the sound of a phone ringing. She always assumed it was someone calling with news about you. Bad news.”