by J. A. Kerley
“Krupnik, you in there?”
Sinclair was banging on Liza’s door, the man’s voice a basso roar. “Krupnik?”
Trotman screwed up the courage to address Sinclair. “I haven’t seen Liza all day, sir,” he called out the door. “It’s unusual. She’s not even answering her mobile phone.”
Trotman heard an electronic key slide into the reader on Liza’s door. As departmental heads, Sinclair and the absent Bramwell had passkeys to all teaching-assistant offices. Trotman heard his colleague’s door open, followed by pages pushed around, as if Sinclair was scrabbling through materials on Liza’s desk and looking for something.
“Trotman!” Sinclair bayed. “Come here, would you?”
“What can I –?”
“Goddamit, don’t question me … come here.”
Trotman shut off his computer and closed the lid. He poked his head out the door to see the outsized Sinclair on Liza’s threshold. Heart pounding, he inched his way across the hall.
“What is it, sir?”
Sinclair jabbed his finger at Liza’s wall, the two posters of Rosie the Riveter flanking Liza’s heavily noted calendar. “What do you make of all this shit, Robert?”
“Sh-shit, sir?”
“These goddamn posters. That woman there … does she look like some kind of dyke? She does, doesn’t she? Those clothes, that hair? Trying to do a man’s job?”
Trotman pushed hair from his eyes. “I … guess so. If that’s what you think, Doctor.”
Sinclair wheeled to Trotman and studied the grad student as if he was a newly emerged form of life. “Don’t feed me what you think I want to hear. I need to hear your truths. Let’s start with Krupnik. Do you like her? Really like her?” Sinclair thought for several seconds, held up a massive palm. “No, wait … don’t tell me. This is not the venue. I want you to come to my house for dinner this weekend, Robert. We’ll drink fine liquor and eat good, honest red meat.”
“D-dinner?” Trotman stammered.
Sinclair glanced down the hall as if making sure they were alone. He put his hand on Trotman’s shoulder and lowered his voice to a whisper. “This department is eighty per cent female, Robert. And all the other men are goddamn fruitcakes. Emasculated. I’m a lonely man with no one to talk to, Robert.”
Trotman looked weak in the knees. “You want to t-talk to m-me?”
Sinclair’s voice continued its conspiratorial whisper. “I want to hear what fortunes led you to this university. To this very department. Why we were selected in your university search. I want to hear about your graduate thesis. I want to hear your history, Robert. I’ve been remiss in my duties and need to talk to a man.”
Sinclair slapped his thick chest with his fist, eyes glittering like a man in the throes of a vision. “Things are changing around here, Robert. Evolving. Let us drink brandy and smoke cigars and scratch our balls, as unashamed as simians. Can you come tell me your tales, my young friend?”
Sinclair took Trotman’s dropped jaw as assent and wrapped the dazzled Trotman in a hug, the grad student’s pale and scrubby face buried in the professor’s dense beard. Sinclair released the woozy student, patted his skinny hindquarters like he was a football player who’d just made the big catch, and turned toward the elevator, clapping sonic booms of delight from his palms.
Treeka bit one side of Rein’s panties and pulled them down three inches, squirmed to the other side, teeth-tugged the panties lower. The jeans were snap-closed, a piece of luck. Treeka paused, puffing after the effort.
“That’s as far as I can get unless I pull your jeans down more.”
“Let me try this …” Rein called upon moves from her gymnastics classes, planting heels and head on the floor, bowing upward in an arc. She bounced her feet, heels thumping the floor. Her pounding shook the windowpanes.
A clatter as the small black phone slipped free and skittered on the floor. Rein caught her breath as Treeka wormed to the phone.
“There’s a smear of blood on it.”
“I’m, uh, starting my –”
“I understand,” Treeka said. “What do I do?”
Rein thought through the sequence. “Press Contacts. There are three: AC, CR and HN. Press …” It didn’t matter who she called, if the message got through, it would get to all of them. But if it got through, Harry needed it the most.
“Press HN,” Rein said. “Then press Call, that’s it. I’ll take it from there.”
Treeka pressed at the phone with her face, licked at it. “I can’t push the buttons. My nose is too soft, so is my tongue. Let me see if there’s anything around here to use.”
“Hurry!”
Treeka spotted the bottle cap from Tommy’s beer. She flipped it into her mouth with her tongue, wiggled it until tight in her teeth, pecked at the phone.
“It’s too short. I can’t see what to press.” She spit out the cap, rolled across the floor, stopping after each roll to scout the darkened floor. Dust motes sparkled in the blue twilight.
“Fuck! I can’t see nothing.”
“The fireplace,” Rein said. “The wood.”
Treeka rolled to the hearth. “I got a piece of kindling,” she said, excitement in her voice. She wriggled back to the phone. The stick was the size of a pencil. She held it in her teeth and pressed Contacts.
The screen lit, flickered. Went black. Flickered on again.
“Hit Call,” Rein said. Treeka pressed Call. “Push it here,” Rein said. Treeka chinned the phone across two foot of floor.
“It’s ringing,” Treeka said.
There was no time for conversation and Rein had nothing but slender facts to present. Hopefully they would put Harry and Carson on to Tommy Flood.
“Another ring,” Treeka said. Rein counted heartbeats. Ten beats passed without a ring. Then another.
Rein heard Harry’s voice. “Yes?” he asked, a whisper.
“Held by a Thomas Flood,” she said at auctioneer speed. “In Colorado, probably by Boulder. Armed and dangerous and –”
Treeka stared at the phone, looked up. “It’s dead, Rein.”
“Do you think he ran?” Hargreaves asked, spooning sugar into a cup of coffee. “My buddy Bromley?”
A confused Larry Krebbs was in the Mobile county jail. He’d called a lawyer, not Nathaniel Bromley. Nautilus and Hargreaves had done two checks of Bromley’s home, the man had disappeared. After putting a surveillance unit down the block from the lawyer’s house, the pair had retreated to the comfort of Nautilus’s home, the dining-room table overlaid with copies of files.
Nautilus thought a moment and shook his head. “Bromley thinks the Krebbster is still his good buddy. Less than ten people know Krebbs turned.”
“That was scary. Krebbs could have clammed up any moment. I’m surprised he came to the station.”
Nautilus laughed darkly. “Larry Krebbs is one-half pure ego, and one-half pure stupid. He really thinks he’s gonna get a couple years because he didn’t strangle the poor woman with his bare hands.”
Hargreaves cradled the mug in both hands and shook her head. “Well, she’s just a woman, after all.”
Nautilus’s phone rang from the table. He lifted and opened it in one move. He said, Yes? then said, Rein? Rein? He stared at the phone. “It was Rein. Her phone cut out.”
“My God. What’d she say?”
Nautilus looked bewildered. “Held by Tah …” he said. “Then it went out.”
“Tod?” Hargreaves said. “Tom?”
“I’ll get the phone techs on the location,” Nautilus said, snapping into action and dialing furiously.
Chapter 55
Harry called with the news that Rein’s fading sprinkle of electrons had originated from a cell tower north of Boulder, a last-outpost spire before the Front Range of the Rockies vaulted from the earth. Rein was alive and knew the name of her captor. Her truncated call was either shutting the phone down out of fear of discovery or the battery dying.
Harry and Sally had broken K
rebbs, a phenomenal piece of work. Krebbs had implicated Bromley, whereabouts unknown, but by proximity alone ruled out from being Rein’s captor. Harry and Sally had put Bromley’s vehicle on alert-notify status, meaning if it was spotted, take no action except for notifying Harry.
Cruz and I were in Boulder at nine a.m., courtesy of Hal Lewis, a private-pilot friend of Chief Teemont, an ex-cop making a lot more money running a security firm in Branson. Lewis turned a twelve-hour drive into a four-hour flight. The light of the day was behind the plane and, had I not been so worried, it might have been a beautiful sunrise.
After touching down in Boulder, Cruz detailed events to her overseers and APBs were sent out. Within an hour we had hundreds of eyes searching for Reinetta Early. There was an officer in trouble and jurisdictional boundaries meant nothing. Cruz grabbed a new ride, a blue Crown Vic just like Harry and I had in Mobile.
“First stop is the Boulder women’s center,” Cruz said, jamming the big car into gear. “Right?”
“Past due,” I said.
“The woman who runs the place, Carol Madrone, will be there. I believe you two have met.”
“I’m sorry the place is so small,” Carol Madrone said when Cruz and I stepped inside the Women’s Crisis Center of Boulder. The sun approached the ten a.m. mark and streamed into the window. Meelia Reston was the only other person there. “We could go across the street to the Beacon. They have room to –”
“It’s fine, Carol,” I said. “officer Early mentioned being with another woman on the run. They’d crossed paths in the system. Is that common?”
“No. At any given time, we estimate three to five women in the system. That’s nationally, with perhaps eighty to a hundred safe houses and handlers.”
I leaned against the desk and nodded; slim chances indeed. “So the other woman didn’t come from here?”
“Probably not, though we did put a woman into the system four days prior.”
“Treeka?”
Madrone’s eyes went wide. “She said her name was Treeka Lane.”
I shot a hopeful glance at Cruz. “Was Lane her real last name?”
“A lot of abused women give us false names. We don’t discourage it. We’re here to help, not identify. We assign a travel name, Darleen was hers.”
“Shit,” I said. “Layer after layer of deception.”
“We’ve had people in the system killed, Detective,” Carol said gently. “Just knowing a name can –”
“I know, I’m sorry. Tell me anything you can about Treeka.”
“Treeka lived up north, I think. She came to town on the bus because her husband took her car away. She said she lived … on a sad little ranch in the country.”
I turned to Cruz. “Bus line any help?”
“If we had a photo we could show it to bus drivers, but getting them together quickly would be problematic.”
“Treeka came in on a bus the day she left?” I asked.
“In her husband’s truck,” Meelia said. “He was away and she took it and came here. Everything was ready and we –”
“The truck … did you get the license plate?”
“No. We just, uh …” Meelia looked to Madrone.
“I don’t care if you blew it up or sunk it in a river,” Cruz said. “What happened to the truck?”
“I drove it to Denver Airport,” Meelia said. “Long-term parking. Another staffer brought me back to Boulder.”
Cruz pulled her phone. “Connect me to Vehicle Theft, please.” She hung on the line and waited for the information. Cruz snapped her phone shut. “A Ford F-150 was reported stolen the day after the Treeka woman went underground. The truck was found at Denver Airport and returned to its owner.”
“Who is …?” My heart was suddenly in my throat.
“Thomas J. Flood.”
Tom. My knees almost buckled. “Particulars?”
“You got a computer I could use?” Cruz asked Carol Madrone.
“Let me log on for you.”
Carol opened the computer. Cruz pulled up the local law-enforcement database. “Address puts Flood outside of Meeker Park, about eighteen miles north of here, near Estes Park. It would be near a regional bus line, by the way.”
“Your SWAT folks up for some action?” I asked.
Chapter 56
Our caravan rolled down the labrynthine canyon guided by a helicopter fly-by from a distance, transmitting photos of terrain to the SWAT commander, a hulking red-faced guy named Strather. We stopped for a last-minute meeting, Strather and Cruz addressing six men and three women in armored gear, pistols strapped on thighs and assault rifles slung over shoulders.
There’d been discussion of a low-key action, but photos put the house in an open area where an unhappy guy with weaponry could do a lot of damage before being nullified. We all knew the first damage was often to the captives.
Twenty minutes later we were in position, the troopers moving like dancers while bristling with firepower. Even crossing jagged terrain the noise level never overrode the breeze in the pines. When everyone was ready, Strather, crouching behind a boulder the size of a bulldozer, lifted his bullhorn.
“Thomas Flood! This is the Colorado State Police. Come out with your hands high, no weapons.”
Nothing.
“We know you have prisoners, Flood. Come out now and no one gets hurt.”
A flash of motion behind a window. Then a voice from the cabin.
“She’s MINE! Get the fuck away.”
“Come on, Flood,” Strather called. “Make it easy on yourself.”
“Traitor! Eunuch! What did they do to your balls?”
“Come out, Flood. Don’t make us have to come in and get you.”
“Go away or I’ll KILL the bitch.”
“Give up, Flood.”
“Come closer and she’s DEAD!”
Cruz and I were a hundred feet from Strather, tucked behind another boulder, peering around its edge. Flood was using the singular, scaring the hell out of me. And I’d heard that kind of voice before – at the outer edge – when the last strands of wiring melted away and perpetrators began considering martyrdom preferable to their shabby little lives.
“Flood …”
“I’LL KILL HER IF YOU DON’T LEAVE!”
I looked toward Strather, saw him lowering the bullhorn while considering his next move. I poked my head around the rock.
“Who fucking cares, Flood?” I yelled.
Strather spun my way, did the throat-chop motion: Shut up!
“Who gives a shit, Flood?” I continued, riffing on themes Harry relayed from Krebbs. “She’s just a woman. Boy, you sure can pick ’em, can’t you?”
“Who the FUCK are YOU?” Flood called.
Strather was glaring daggers until he saw Cruz pointing at me, mouthing Let him talk.
“You’re gonna die over some whore?” I yelled. “You call that a fair exchange: Thomas J. Flood equals one woman? What the hell’s wrong with you, boy – you crazy? You got a whole band of brothers waiting to help you. What’s one more damned bitch in the scheme of things?”
Nothing. It was like time froze. “Tom!” I prompted. “Yo, Tom?”
“What?”
“Is the slut alive?”
A beat. “Kind of.”
I looked at Cruz, breathed out. Took another breath. “Look at it, Tom. Take a long look at the woman. Are you looking, Tom?”
“Yes.”
“Look at her carefully.”
“I AM!”
“Do the fucking math! Is she – it – worth the life of a man?”
Seconds ticked by, the only sound the breeze in the trees. I saw the door open a crack. A white rag shook in Flood’s hand, surrender.
“I’m coming out,” he yelled. “I want a good lawyer.”
Flood stepped outside with hands on his head and was immediately trussed like a turkey, screaming about knowing his rights. Team members rushed the cabin, Cruz and I on their heels. We saw only one woman on t
he floor, eyes swollen shut and her mouth a purple bruise. Her blouse was shredded and her torso was beaten and bruised. But it was rising and falling with ragged breaths.
“Treeka?” I said, kneeling beside the woman.
The purple mouth whispered, “Who a-are …?”
“The police,” I said, taking her hand. “There was a woman with you, right?”
“R-rei-Rein. Sh-she got t-taken away last night.”
“Last night?”
“T-Tommy dragged her outside and came back ten minutes later. We n-never saw who got her, only heard him drive up a few minutes later and yell. He sounded real happy.”
“What did he say?” A medic rushed in with a gurney. Cruz waved him back, mouthed Hang on.
Treeka opened one eye to a slit, her hand tightening on mine. “Rein was going to b-be his best example, his … I don’t know, he said something weird.”
“What?”
“Rein was going to be his PA’s restaurants. Something like that.”
I frowned in thought. “Pièce d’résistance?” I said, inflecting the accent.
She nodded. “Please help her.”
Reinetta Early’s eyes opened again. They had opened before but her head screamed in pain and she closed them, drifting back into unconsciousness. But the ache had dissipated and she saw shapes of black and yellow and gray, smelled dirt and damp. Her memory was returning: Tommy getting a phone call, eyes on Rein as he spoke, the towel – a makeshift hood – wrapped around Rein’s face as Treeka stared in horror. Tommy leading her into the chilly outside as she stumbled for two hundred and five steps as if the counting had mattered.
She’d been tied to a tree, wrists behind the trunk. Tommy’s laughter melted away with his footsteps. It had been cold and she’d been gripped with pre-menstrual cramps.