Presumption of Guilt

by Archer Mayor

  Lester then indicated the photograph. “How ’bout this? This look even vaguely like the man you just described to us?”

  Dick leaned forward and studied the image. He shook his head. “Sure—a few years ago, maybe.”

  He appeared completely unrepentant.

  Joe displayed his frustration by placing his business card on the counter and stating shortly, “If you could copy the whole file for us, we’d appreciate it. Someone’ll be by later to pick it up. If this guy ever comes back with the car, don’t tell him about our dropping by, but give us a call, okay? We’d like to talk to him.”

  “He like a crook?” Dick asked, his eyes bright.

  “He’s a source of information,” Lester said. “Like you.”

  Both cops were at the open door when Dick followed up with, “’Cause, if he is, his car has a GPS.”

  Joe straightened without turning, rolled his eyes, and sighed at having overlooked something so obvious.

  Lester merely asked, “Is it on?”

  “Sure—company policy. The guy signed the agreement, so it’s legal. He could’ve checked the box saying he wanted it turned off.”

  Joe said in an undertone, “Except it probably never crossed his mind. Like somebody else I know.”

  They returned to the counter. Lester asked the agent, “Do you have the data we’d need to track this customer’s movements? I just want to make sure.”

  “Yeah,” Dick said happily. “It’s a map, with time stamps and everything. I have to download it, but I’ll add it to the other stuff you want. There’s also a printout that goes with it. It’s pretty cool.”

  Joe started walking back toward the door. “Can’t wait to find out,” he said.

  * * *

  Lester’s cell phone began ringing as they reached their car.

  “It’s Willy,” he told Joe, answering, “Go ahead—you’re on speaker,” and placing the phone on the console between the two seats.

  “Chased down Darren Leroy,” Willy reported. “He had diddly on Mr. Hit Man—who called himself Walter—but he told me he did a roundabout tail on Dan and Sally, all the way to Grissom’s Greenhouse.”

  “I thought they went out of business,” Lester said.

  “What better place to hide out?”

  Joe couldn’t argue. “Where’re you now?”

  “Downtown.”

  “Get Klesczewski to order up the PD’s rapid response team. Tell him we think the same guy who killed Lucas is after both Kravitzes at the greenhouse. But,” he added, “also tell him to wait for us before he goes in, so we all stay on the same page.”

  “Boss,” Willy said despairingly, “you know that ain’t gonna happen. They gotta put on their fancy black outfits first. We’ll be there long before they are.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It was raining hard by the time everyone convened a short distance away from what had been Grissom’s Greenhouse ten years earlier. And while Willy was right about VBI’s people getting there first, it wasn’t fifteen minutes before Ron Klesczewski showed up with his entire SRT unit, including a much appreciated mobile command center—actually, a secondhand converted ambulance.

  It was a tight fit in the back of the truck, where they gathered to discuss how best to proceed. Counting Ron, Joe, Sammie, the head of the SRT—a sharp-eyed young woman named Barb Zonay—and the communications guy who would be their air traffic controller once they got under way, there was barely room enough to display the oversized aerial photograph of the site that Ron had brought along.

  “To be clear,” Joe began once they’d settled down, bulky in their ballistic gear, “we’re not sure what we got here. We know Walter hired someone who followed the two Kravitzes to Grissom’s, presumably so Walter could do unto them what he did to Johnny Lucas, and we know from preliminary surveillance that a car matching Walter’s rental is sitting right now in the greenhouse parking lot.”

  He stopped abruptly and looked at Zonay. “Barb, I’m sorry. Have you been filled in on who all these people are and what they’ve been up to?”

  She smiled broadly. “You kidding? It’s been better than watching a soap opera. I was hoping we’d be asked to join in.”

  He liked her attitude—so much for the external grimness of so many other special weapons people.

  “Outstanding,” he said.

  He consulted Ron’s photo and began tapping on aspects of the greenhouse as he continued. “That being said, we don’t know for a fact anyone’s in here. If they are, for sure Walter’s a bad guy, and while we have it on good authority that the Kravitzes are targets only, that doesn’t mean they don’t have weapons for self-defense.”

  “It is Vermont, after all,” Barb threw in.

  “Precisely. Anybody else ever been inside Grissom’s?” Joe asked.

  No one responded. “Years ago,” he explained, “it was the Crystal Palace of greenhouses—high ceilinged, all glass, a bit of a maze, and it went on for acres. With the passage of time and the economy going sour, they shut down parts of it, put up cheaper, plastic greenhouse extensions, tried to make it a community farmers’ market kind of thing, and then finally just gave up. It’s been abandoned ever since.”

  “Except for the occasional squatter or drug party,” Ron added.

  “I drove by there, not long ago,” Joe said. “It’s a mess—lots of wildlife, totally overgrown, broken glass everywhere. The beds have mostly rotted out and collapsed, the concrete is heaved up. In short, it’s a confined combat zone.” He looked up above them at a burst of extra-loud rain on the truck’s roof. “And that’s not counting the weather.”

  “No option to wait out the rain?” Barb asked.

  “Not if we’re sworn to protect and serve like we say we are,” Joe replied. “Plus, the Kravitzes are our only bait for catching this guy. For all I know, we’ll get in there and find he’s already come and gone, leaving their bodies and his car behind. Speaking of which, your team’s already disabled the car, correct?”

  Serious and focused, she merely nodded in acknowledgment.

  “Okay,” he said. “This picture tells you what we got. Buildings radiating out in all directions, all of them big, dark, and cluttered. Field-of-fire concerns are paramount. We don’t want anyone getting shot who’s not looking for it. By the same token, we don’t want to leave any back doors unguarded.” He eyed Zonay directly. “Barb, tell us where you want us and how to proceed. We’ll all be on the same radio channel and monitored through this command center.” He looked at the communications man. “You good with that?”

  “Ten-Four.”

  * * *

  Minutes later, the rain unrelenting, they had all spread out to their assigned entry points. Barb Zonay and her SRT had taken the lead positions, choosing the old greenhouse complex’s several primary entrances, but Joe and others had been distributed as well, the layout being too spread out to be properly contained otherwise.

  The decision had been made to announce their approach. As a result, Joe heard Zonay’s voice being broadcast over a megaphone, telling anyone within earshot to drop their weapons and come out with their hands in plain sight.

  Over his earpiece, however, he also heard that they’d received no takers to that invitation.

  Despite his knowledge of the building’s interior, Joe was taken aback by the reality. As he cautiously entered toward the rear, he was struck by both the overall jumble and the unanticipated roar of rainfall on thousands of glass panels overhead.

  Those that were still intact, of course. Predictably, people had made it their business to apply rocks, bullets, and odd pieces of rubble to everything breakable within reach. Over time, they’d apparently become bored or exhausted, however, leaving half their targets standing, with the effect that, as Joe picked his way ever farther into the gloomy interior, he was beset simultaneously by pouring water and the clamor of its hitting the brittle panes above.

  Also, looking around amid the human destruction and nature’s ongoing and ir
onic efforts to reclaim the place, he was hard-put to use any of his old memories of the layout. He and—as he could hear over the radio—everyone else were pretty much reduced to forging ahead as they might have through a long-forgotten, bombed-out warehouse.

  The combined muck and tangle eventually begged the question: Why had Dan Kravitz—a meticulous, neat, and careful man—come here to hide out?

  “Joe to Barb,” he said, avoiding the usual radio handles, as they’d agreed.

  “Go ahead,” she replied quickly.

  “Sudden thought,” he said. “Look out for any underground entrances. I’m thinking there might be a basement somewhere.”

  “Got it. Thanks. Everybody copy?”

  There was a chorus of affirmative responses.

  Joe was in a narrow, high gallery, dating back to the greenhouse’s origins, which meant that it had a brick foundation, a rusting steel skeleton supporting all the glass, and was among the first of the enterprise’s extensions to have been closed up and abandoned to hard times. It also had an uneven floor of indeterminate soundness, so covered with debris, dirt, and invading vegetation that he might as well have been back outdoors. One of the reasons he’d been assigned here by Zonay—who got to call the shots as the entry team chief—was the low likelihood that anyone would use it as a hiding place.

  When he came upon a four-by-four-foot square hole in the floor, therefore, not five minutes later, he didn’t know if he’d discovered a cellar, or merely an earthen excavation. In the dim light, it appeared weighted toward the latter.

  He got down on his hands and knees, readied his flashlight, and gingerly approached the hole’s edge. Just as he was concluding that the void below reached beyond a shovel’s capabilities, he felt the ground beneath him begin to sag.

  “Shit,” he said between clenched teeth as he dropped the light and began flailing for a handhold.

  It was too late. With a groan and a sigh, the flooring took him down like a collapsing playground slide, and dumped him into the darkness ten feet below.

  The good news was that he landed in a soft pile, showered by wet dirt, but otherwise undamaged, and within sight of his still-functioning flashlight. The bad news was that his radio had been torn from his belt and mangled by an accompanying floor beam.

  He tried it nevertheless, standing up uncertainly and blinking the mud from his eyes. “Joe to Barb. Come in.”

  He didn’t bother repeating the attempt. He knew what he’d done from the unit’s complete lack of life, including the usually flickering LED. He dropped it back onto the ground, reached into his pocket, and halfheartedly pulled out his cell phone. He wasn’t optimistic. From long experience, he’d found the things generally disappointing, despite how his younger colleagues sang their praises.

  Sure enough, there was no signal to be had. He repocketed the phone, brushed off his light, and looked around for an exit.

  The easiest would have been a set of stairs or a door, neither of which was apparent. The next hope was for something he could drag under the hole, in order to climb back out. But again, there were no such offerings. Rather, he found himself in a brick-lined room, paralleling the one he’d dropped from, running off into the gloom and equipped with an assortment of rusted, broken, long-forgotten pipes lining its walls, no doubt once designed to deliver water, electrical wiring, heating, or all three.

  He quickly checked to make sure that his other equipment was still attached, and that his adrenaline wasn’t masking an injury he hadn’t yet registered. Aside from a cut on his hand and a couple of bruised knuckles, however, he was whole, if dirty and wet. He set out in the direction he’d been following upstairs, hoping to discover something more encouraging than a blank wall.

  At least progress was easier. Confusion and clutter were in spades, coming mostly from abandoned and broken tools, hundreds of rotten baskets, and assorted other piles so lost to disintegration as to defy description. But overall, the middle of the corridor was clear, if soaked, allowing for quick and wary passage.

  Even with his mishap, Joe hadn’t overlooked that—planned or not—he was now closer to where he’d just warned Zonay their quarry might be hiding—although without any way to summon help.

  There was a door at the far end, as he’d hoped, locked, of course. Peering closely, and using his Leatherman as a probe, Joe looked for a way to break through as quietly as possible.

  The door was wooden, soft with rot in places, and thankfully, slightly loose in its jamb. Also, both its hinge pins were available. Concentrating there, he seized the top of the lower pin in the teeth of the Leatherman pliers and gently thumped the underside of his right hand with his left fist, hoping to work the pin loose of the hinge’s embrace.

  It worked. He repeated the maneuver on the upper hinge, which of course proved more reluctant.

  “God damn it,” he swore under his breath, looking around for some kind of prying tool. He located a sodden chunk of two-by-four in a corner and rigged a crude fulcrum of sorts, against which he could lever the Leatherman’s purchase on the stubborn pin.

  Finally, the pin slid up just enough for him to draw it out. He then drove the point of the small pliers between the jamb and the door’s edge, and slowly worked it free of its seating. When he could get enough of a handhold, he resheathed the Leatherman, grabbed the door with his fingertips, and pulled it toward him.

  The hinges came free of their insets, the bottom of the door oozed against the mud at Joe’s feet, and slowly but gradually, the whole thing swung open, opposite from the way it was designed to.

  When the gap was wide enough, he carefully stuck his head out, along with one hand holding the extinguished flashlight.

  He listened, holding his breath, hoping the slight noise he’d made hadn’t drawn attention. Hearing nothing, he eased the door back a few more inches, until he could slip through entirely, and stepped into the blackness.

  Only then, breathing silently through his open mouth, did he pull his gun from its holster, brace himself, and turn on his flashlight.

  Perhaps not surprisingly, the revelation proved a letdown. He was in a square, bland, brick-lined room, with open doorways on each wall.

  He quickly checked the openings, conscious of how much time had elapsed since his tumble from above. He still felt he was on the right track—thinking Dan Kravitz went underground for sanctuary—but he had no choice of strategy, and no proof that he was right. For all he knew, his colleagues had already wrapped up operations and were wondering where in hell he’d disappeared.

  His survey revealed one tool closet, one dead-end room with more equipment, and a long, dark hallway with a bend in it, far ahead.

  He took the latter, still using his light, and moving faster than he’d dared before. As he went, the floor dried out, until he came to where the mud was replaced by dust, and the mold by cobwebs. By the time he reached the hallway elbow, he found himself tiptoeing, the earth underfoot no longer absorbing the sounds of his approach.

  Around the corner, he found another door—this time modern, metal, and betraying a thin line of light around its borders.

  He paused. The presence of light gave weight to his conviction. The greenhouse had been unplugged for years, its owners long gone, its security nonexistent. There were no known electrical lines still servicing the building. Whatever lay beyond the door, therefore, perfectly suited what Joe knew of Dan Kravitz through Willy—that the man was a human mole of sorts, secretive and ingenious enough to find a way to wire just one part of an abandoned, huge hulk of a building.

  But the light presented a dilemma. Given that Joe’s suspicions were firming up, where did that put him—alone, in the dark, without communications, heavy weapons, or backup? He was no action hero cowboy, and this was no movie. It had been one thing to pursue a hunch and wander by mischance through a silent, possibly empty building, but what were his options now?

  His own words to Barb Zonay about the need to act quickly, if they hoped to save the Kravitzes, rose
back up with extra urgency—effectively overriding any thought of retreat in order to somehow rally the troops.

  It was an odd and disquieting moment. Joe thought of his family, Beverly, and his extended tribe of colleagues. The results of his actions, if they turned out poorly, would ripple outward to all of them.

  With an apologetic shake of the head, Joe pocketed the flashlight, gently placed his left hand on the doorknob, readied his handgun, and stepped ahead.

  He entered fast, low, and immediately cut left, his back against the wall and his gun covering the room. From his low-target crouch, he saw—as in the burst of a light strobe—three people before him: two seated and one standing, the last holding a gun, pointed directly at him.

  That was all he needed to shoot first.

  Except that the balding man beat him to it.

  The muzzle flash was more surprising to Joe than the bullet punching into his vest. That hurt, and threw him off balance, but the image of this huge, hot, bright flower of flame—directed straight at him—caught him completely off guard and caused him to blink before he could respond.

  It was just enough time for the other man to cross the room, smack him across the head with his gun, and remove Joe’s weapon with his other hand.

  With the temporary blindness, the searing pain to his temple, and the knowledge that he’d just been shot, Joe was overwhelmed by his own failure and stupidity. After the life he’d been through, he was to end up in a pile on the floor, being killed by someone he didn’t even know.

  But not now—maybe. The man—whom he assumed to be Walter—retreated two feet, still aiming at Joe, and asked, “You have other weapons?”

  Joe winced, trying to clear his mind. He noticed that Dan and Sally had been zip-tied to their chairs, reducing them to targets only. “Of course I do,” he replied. “So do the people crawling all over this place.”

  Walter smiled. “Yeah. Well, you three’ll be more than I need to get by them. Especially you. Always nice to have a cop as a shield.”

  Those were his last words. With no warning, the door facing Joe flew open, and a black-clad Barb Zonay stepped in and shot Walter in the head with a single round. As if he’d been yanked offstage by a steel cable snapping tight, he landed in a heap against the wall.