Death's Echoes

by Penny Mickelbury

  “What’s a roundup?”

  “They’re going to be picked up—”

  “Arrested?! My boys are going to be arrested?!”

  “Picked up, Alfreda, and taken to a juvenile facility where they’ll be held for forty-eight hours. Not arrested or charged—so not in the system—but away from Davis, at least for the time being. They’ll be safe and you’ll be safe—”

  “Until he comes back and finds the locks changed.”

  Bobby grinned. And after a moment, so did Alfreda.

  All day they had looked forward to this—finally a promise to be kept: a whole evening to themselves. First order of business, as always when they were at Mimi’s, was champagne in the hot tub. Mimi had converted the potting shed adjacent to her garage into a lush, warm space mostly taken up by a four-seater hot tub surrounded by an Italian tile floor. A small refrigerator took up one corner and provided an endless supply of water, seltzer, and champagne. Humidity-loving plants hung from the ceiling. Music was piped in via speakers connected to the system in the living room. The lighting could be increased or dimmed as required. It was the perfect place to wind down a work-intensive day or week . . . or to fire up a night of intense passion and lovemaking, and they’d made good use of it over the years, often reminding each other how embarrassing it would be to drown in a hot tub while attempting to make love. Tonight was no exception. Except it was.

  Gianna jerked awake when she slipped under the water. She righted herself and looked at Mimi who was fast asleep, her head lowered almost to her chest, the half-drunk plastic flute of champagne still in her hand. Gianna’s own flute was floating in the water, being roiled by the bubbles. She took Mimi’s glass, which awakened her.

  “Was I asleep?”

  Gianna giggled. “Ask the drool on your chin.”

  Mimi grabbed her drool-free chin. “Not funny, Maglione.”

  Gianna yawned widely. “How long did we sleep?”

  “Long enough for me to be starved! Let’s go eat,” she said, standing up.

  “Long enough for you to be wrinkled,” Gianna said, tweaking a nipple, then standing and pulling her into a warm, wet embrace. Their kiss further steamed the room. Then Mimi’s stomach growled, knocking all of the romance out of the moment. “You and your stomach,” Gianna groused, releasing her and stepping out of the hot tub.

  “You know you have to feed me on a regular basis,” Mimi said, following.

  “Yeah. You and the plant in Little Shop of Horrors.”

  “Feed me,” Mimi said in a deep-voiced imitation of the man-eating plant, and they laughed and cleaned up the area around the hot tub, turned off the jets, pulled the cover over it, and entered the door that led directly to the kitchen and the food from the Indian restaurant in the oven, growing cold. Mimi opened the bags of goodies, and fixed plates and bowls that she sent to the microwave while Gianna opened bottles of seltzer and grabbed placemats and silverware, all of which she took to the dining-room table. “You don’t want to eat in here?” Mimi asked, indicating the breakfast nook.

  Gianna shook her head. “We’re doing our ‘just like normal human beings’ imitation, remember? Who knows when we’ll have another opportunity?” The sadness that suddenly colored her voice kept Mimi quiet until they were seated and eating.

  “Isn’t this civilized?” Gianna asked through the mouth full of naan bread she was chewing.

  “You realize we’re practically naked,” Mimi said dryly.

  “We’re wearing towels,” Gianna said. “Besides, lots of civilized people eat in the nude.”

  “Did you hear what you just said?”

  It took her a second but Gianna laughed out loud. “Point to Ms. Patterson.”

  Mimi tried to stand up to take a bow but her towel fell off, and Gianna laughed some more and said something about the high birthrate in the places where people ate in the nude. Then they ate in silence for a while, enjoying the food and the quiet and each other’s company. Until Gianna broke the silence, the sadness back in her voice.

  “I don’t think I like my new assignment,” she said.

  “I can see how you’d feel that way,” Mimi said, not bothering to moderate the anger she felt. “He dropped you in the deep end of a pool of watery shit, and you’re supposed to swim your way out—which, of course, you’ll do—but the stink will be all over you! He can really piss me off!”

  “And here I was thinking I felt bad enough,” Gianna said, trying for levity.

  “I wish I’d never taken him that pile of stink called Sunset View.”

  “You did the right thing, Mimi.”

  “I know I did. Question is, did he, when he dumped it on you?”

  Gianna, who had been wondering the same thing, was quiet and thoughtful for a moment. “What do you think about what’s happening over there?”

  “I think there’s something very rotten in Denmark and it’s starting to stink. I’m just not sure of the source.” Mimi stopped talking and tried to organize her thoughts, but she hadn’t been able to make sense of all that she was thinking and feeling about the situation at Sunset View, to find the logic stream that she could follow to a newsworthy story. “Those women and their children are in a very crappy situation no doubt about it—”

  “But you’re wondering whether they’ve done enough to help themselves dig out of the hole,” Gianna said, and it wasn’t a question.

  “That’s part of it,” Mimi acknowledged, “but the part that really bothers me is Alfreda Tompkins letting that Davis asshole take her children. What kinda mother does that?”

  Gianna’s lieutenant face was now firmly in place as she said, “Exactly what Bobby said.” She stood up. “Let’s clean up and go to bed. The thought of more than four hours’ sleep—” She didn’t finish the sentence because of the wide-mouth yawn that cracked the lieutenant face.

  Bed that night meant sleep—they were too exhausted for anything else—but holding each other tight and close, knowing that they were together when sleep claimed them, was its own kind of passionate joy. So when Gianna’s phone rang at 3:15, Mimi released her and grabbed a pillow and put it over her head, muffling the sound. She hated the ringing of the phone in the middle of the night more than just about anything. Gianna, on the other hand, always awoke with crystal clarity and sounded awake and alert no matter what time the phone rang or how bone-weary she was.

  “Lieutenant Maglione,” she said because she didn’t recognize the name of the caller on her phone’s display: J. PATEL.

  “Boss, we got a problem.”

  One of her new team. She really needed to learn their names. “What kind of problem, where?”

  “At the warehouse. The perps are gone.”

  Gianna jumped to her feet. “How could they be gone? They’re under twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

  “I just came on duty, Boss, and there’s a parking lot full of johns trying to get in the door, and we don’t track any perp movement inside.”

  “What about the girls?”

  “They’re all still there—”

  He was talking to air. Gianna was dressing. She’d call Mimi later, at a more reasonable hour. Right now she needed to get downtown. She backed out of the garage, tires screeching, and drove the wrong way up the street, confident that she was the only cop on this tree-lined residential street at this time of the night. Or morning. Once she cleared the residential area she activated lights and siren, the only thought in her head: getting to her unit as fast as possible without endangering any civilians. Somebody’s car was in her parking space in the underground municipal garage, and she didn’t think twice about blocking it in. Whoever it was would have to find her in order to get out and they’d have a discussion about what “Reserved” meant.

  It was busy in the unit. There was a body at each of the computers, and the images on the wall-mounted screens constantly changed. Gianna entered on an image of the outside of the warehouse. The parking lot was full, cars entering, cars exiting, men pounding on th
e door when ringing the bell netted no results. She scanned the people in the room, searching for “J. PATEL.” Their eyes met and locked as they found each other simultaneously. He stood up and she walked toward him.

  “Thanks for the call. Update, please?”

  He nodded, sat back down, and his fingers immediately went to work on his keyboard. The image on the screen shifted, showing the inside of the warehouse. Many hours spent watching the surveillance videos had taught her to discern the source of the images—from the drones to the infrared cameras to the rooftop cameras on Dee Phillips’s warehouse next door, and what she saw confirmed what he’d told Gianna on the phone: The perps were gone; the girls were alone. Most of them lay inert on their pallets but three appeared to stealthily investigate their apparent new reality. Still, their investigation took them no closer than thirty or forty feet to the door.

  “Call the sergeants, please, Officer Patel and Detective Dudley.”

  “Already done, Boss. They’re on the way.”

  “Good work, Officer Patel, thanks. Now, show me what got you suspicious.” She sat down next to him. “But not on the big screen.”

  He nodded and turned his screen so that she could watch it with him: last night’s feed beginning shortly after midnight. It looked like business as usual: a steady stream of cars and men entering and leaving the warehouse, one man visible working the door, two more inside conducting the business of selling the girls and collecting the money. Then something happened. The three men talked among themselves and then began packing boxes and bags. One went to the door and waved all the potential customers away. They seemed to protest until the man brandished an assault weapon. Then the men began loading the boxes and bags into their panel van which was always in the parking lot. Then came the heavy stuff—credit card machines and video equipment and finally, a safe. It took them over an hour to load everything, and all the while prospective clients drove into the parking lot and were run off by the man wielding the assault rifle. Finally, at 2:30 a.m., the men climbed into their van and drove away. Then the clients began to arrive. Gianna recognized some of the same cars that had been warned off by the assault rifle. Had they merely driven a block away and parked, hoping they could safely return? Had they witnessed the departure of the white panel van and assumed it was safe to return?

  “You came on shift at three, is that correct, Officer Patel?”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  “And did you follow the change of shift protocol? Who did you relieve?”

  Patel suddenly got twitchy and nervous, looking everywhere but at Gianna. She was about to take his head off when he received the momentary reprieve of a distraction in the form of the arrival of Sergeants Eric Ashby and Tommi Bell and Detective Jim Dudley. They hurried across the room to Gianna and she filled them in. “Officer Patel was just about to stand up and explain—in detail—this morning’s lapse in protocol.”

  Patel jumped to his feet, stood at attention, and explained that he received no notes detailing the unusual activity in the warehouse because the duty officer he was to relieve had already left. His use of the term “duty officer” confirmed for Gianna that he was one of the new unit members who was ex-military.

  “Hey, Boss! Got it!” Kenny Chang sang out.

  “How did he get here?” A surprised Gianna asked Patel. “How did any of them get here?” she asked, finally fully understanding the importance of the presence of all the IT personnel on hand at 3:30 in the morning.

  “I called them when I knew for sure we had a problem,” he answered, “just after I called you. Then I called the sergeants and Detective Dudley.”

  Gianna touched his shoulder as she passed by him to reach Kenny, who was pointing to the big screen. They all looked up at it. “This is how it happened, Boss, and when it happened. Watch the john get out of his car and he just happens to look up—watch him!”

  When the john got out of his car he was facing the Phillips warehouse, and he just happened to look up—right into the bank of police cameras on top of the building directed at the sex-trafficking warehouse door. “And he thought they were recording their customers,” Gianna said, sounding as disgusted as they all felt while they watched the john ring the bell and pound furiously on the door and all but attack Larry. They’d named the three sex traffickers Larry, Curly, and Moe, with apologies to the hapless though harmless Stooge threesome; there was nothing funny about what these three were doing. They watched Larry try to convince his customer that he was not being recorded, and they watched the customer refuse to be convinced. He punched Larry in the chest and stormed back to his car, pulling open the door with such force that it rocked on its hinges. Then he raised the middle fingers of both hands to the cameras, got in his car, and peeled out of the lot.

  Larry watched him leave, fear, anger and worry taking turns etching patterns in his face. Finally, just as he closed the door, he stole a glance at the corner of the adjacent warehouse where the irate customer told him the cameras were watching. He blanched and slammed the door.

  “Go take that door, Jim,” Gianna said to Dudley. “Looks like it’ll be a rescue mission now.”

  He saluted and hurried off. Gianna walked over to Patel. “Who was on shift before you?”

  He got shifty and twitchy again, just as he had the first time she asked. “You’ll give me a name or you’re both out of this unit effective immediately.”

  “Taylor Johnstone,” he replied, shrinking a bit as he said the words.

  “That’s your roommate,” Sgt. Tommi said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Patel replied, shrinking a bit more.

  “Deep background him,” Gianna said to Tommi. To Eric: “Send somebody to get him.”

  “I’ll go get him,” Patel said.

  “No, you won’t,” Gianna replied.

  “Please! I want to bring him in!”

  “A minute ago you didn’t even want to tell me his name.”

  “I know. I was . . . I felt betrayed. I don’t know why . . . what he was thinking.”

  “I certainly intend to find out,” Gianna snapped. She turned to Eric. “Send somebody to get him and let Patel go along, but they’re not to be left alone together.” She walked back over to Kenny. “Where’s that van, Kenny? What has it done since it left the warehouse?”

  “Nothing but drive, Boss. It’s on 64. Went straight through Richmond without even slowing down, Charlottesville coming up.”

  “How far behind are we?”

  “Thirty minutes, maybe less the way Connally is driving. The Virginia Staties know we’re in pursuit, and they know why, and they’re okay with it as long as all we do is follow, even if we break the speed limit a little. And the speed limit on that stretch of 64 is seventy so . . .”

  So long as all they did was follow. Shit! “Keep me posted.” Then, “Kenny, Patel, everybody, good work. Thanks for coming in and saving our assses on this one.”

  “Our asses really aren’t saved, are they, Boss?” Patel asked, sounding sad.

  “We’ll get those girls out of that hellhole, and we’ll get the scum who put them there, and we’ll get a few of the lowlifes who abused them. I’d call that our asses in pretty good shape,” she said, heading to the far corner of the room where she’d carved out a mini-office for herself consisting of a desk with a phone and a computer, and three chairs, one behind the desk, two in front. Her two sergeants followed, sat down, and got busy on their notepads, while she woke up the Chief who, in a probably short-lived display of a new behavior pattern, listened quietly to everything Gianna said, asked two questions, thanked her for calling, said he’d see her in half an hour, and disconnected.

  “I didn’t hear him screaming,” Eric said.

  “Because he didn’t scream,” Gianna said.

  “Huh,” Eric said, and left it there.

  “Do you both agree that I should let Patel go pick up his roommate?”

  Both sergeants nodded, and Tommi spoke for them. “He did good work this morning, Boss
, and he showed a lot of initiative, calling everybody.”

  “I agree, but why didn’t he want to give us Johnstone’s name?”

  “’Cause they’re more than roommates, Boss,” Tommi said.

  No wonder the kid was twitchy, Gianna thought, feeling sorry for Patel, who no doubt was feeling emotions he probably couldn’t even name. Was his lover just a fuck-up, or was he something much, much worse?

  “I can go with Patel to grab Johnstone,” Eric offered, but Gianna shook her head; she needed him here to be the liaison with the Virginia State Police since they didn’t know what Larry, Curly and Moe’s end game was. Were they just making a run for it or were they connecting with more like themselves? And if they were part of a larger operation, Gianna wanted to roll up as much of it as possible. She made a note to have the Chief call his counterpart in the Staties.

  “Send somebody with Patel who’s not pals with them, Tommi, and let’s pick up the john who wrecked our op, see if he has anything we can use as leverage to squeeze him. Eric, check in with Dudley, make sure all his pieces are falling into place, especially the medical and translator personnel.” They both stood, saluted, and hurried to their tasks. Gianna opened the contacts list on her phone and hesitated only briefly before finding Dee’s name and hitting the call icon. It was a crappy time of morning to call somebody, but she knew Dee would not hold that against her.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “I’m sorry for the early hour, Ms. Phillips, but I wanted to let you know that there will be major activity at the warehouse location within the hour. I do not expect that any harm will come to your property.”

  “I’m not worried about my property, Lieutenant; it’s those girls I care about, you know that.”