The Boat Man: A Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1)

by Dustin Stevens

  In front of him was a small office, barely large enough for a desk, a computer, and a file cabinet. Behind it was a short man who looked to be from somewhere in southwest Asia or the Middle East, his skin dark brown. Most of the hair on his head had migrated out to the sides, though it still appeared dark, his features dominated by a pointed nose and chin.

  On the wall above him was a pair of security monitors, showing everything occurring inside the shop in muted black and white.

  “Fareed Rasul?”

  “Yes?” the man repeated, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Who are you?”

  Raising the badge from inside his hooded jacket, Reed wagged it once and said, “Detective Reed Mattox, Columbus PD.”

  Rasul nodded once, unease on his face, and motioned across his desk. “I would ask you to sit, but as you can see, there is no room for a chair in here.”

  “That’s alright,” Reed said, resting his shoulder against the doorjamb. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

  The look of discomfort remained on Rasul’s face as he nodded.

  It was a reaction Reed was familiar with. Just the way every driver who ever saw a cop in the rearview mirror became nervous, he had found the vast majority of people he spoke with to be uneasy, even when there was no call for it.

  That was one of the chief reasons Reed preferred wearing his badge inside his sweatshirt.

  “I’m from the 8th Precinct,” Reed said, “covering the part of town known as The Bottoms. I understand you’re familiar with the area?”

  Reed sensed the wheels turning in the man’s head as he tried to determine where this was going.

  “I am,” Rasul said, adding nothing more.

  Reed decided to nudge things along so he could get to the information he needed.

  “Mr. Rasul, I am not here because of you or anything you have done. I am simply here to ask about an incident that occurred while you conducted business in The Bottoms.”

  Another moment passed as Rasul stared at him, a bit of color returning to his cheeks. Reed could see his chest begin to rise and fall as he resumed breathing normally.

  “You’re here because of the complaint I filed against them,” Rasul said, his voice low.

  Reed felt a shot of adrenaline as he stared at the man, fighting to keep his features even. Not once had he made any mention of why he was there beyond mentioning a prior complaint, but already the man knew what he was referring to. “I am.”

  “So am I,” Rasul said, extending a hand toward the door, folding his fingers back to himself. “Please, come in.”

  Reed cast a glance over his shoulder to see the girl behind the counter still engulfed in her electronic toy, the remainder of the store lifeless. Shifting himself inside the door, he swung it closed behind him, resting his back against it.

  “What do you mean, so are you?”

  One at a time Rasul brought his hands up onto the desk and laced his fingers together. “Tell me, what did you see when you drove in here this morning?”

  The word traffic was the first thing that came to mind, but Reed let it pass, content to allow Rasul to continue.

  “Or perhaps, what didn’t you see?” Rasul asked.

  “I’m not sure what...” Reed managed, letting his voice trail off, uncertain where the question was meant to go.

  “Crime,” Rasul answered for him, the word coming out harsh and bitter. “Poverty. Vagrancy.”

  He rattled the terms off one at a time, each with more bitterness than the one before.

  “Those are the reasons I am here, on this side of town, a long way from The Bottoms and everything there. The higher rent, the nervous staring, the snickering at my accent, all worth it to be here.”

  Finally, what the man was saying fit into place in Reed’s mind, bringing with it understanding of what he was being told, why Rasul seemed so angry.

  “At night I leave, I lock one door, I walk to my car and I drive home. No looking over my shoulder, no wondering if this place will be here in the morning.”

  It was apparent from the growing animosity, from the rapid-fire cadence, that it was a speech he had said many times, one with no apparent end in sight.

  “What happened in May of 2011?” Reed asked, hoping both to stem the monologue before it went any further and to channel the already apparent frustration into answers.

  At the mention of the incident, Rasul paused, his mouth still open, ready to deliver more, before a sour look passed over his face. He worked his mouth up and down as if trying to take the taste from his tongue before beginning again.

  “Gangs weren’t new to me, you know,” he began. “I had been told many times when I decided to open the shop that they were down there, but the city was so eager for businesses to come in that they were practically giving floor space away.

  “I figured if I could just make a go of things for 8, 10 years, I would have enough put back to go elsewhere, pay cash for something better, maybe even open a couple of shops.”

  Again, Reed waited as Rasul collected himself, content to let the man finish whenever he was ready.

  “The first 5 years or so, there were incidents, sure,” Rasul said, scrunching his face and wagging a hand at Reed in a dismissive nature, “but nothing too bad. A few sodas here, a candy bar there. The occasional bum wandering in looking for a handout.”

  It was apparent the man was working up to something, his meandering backstory headed to information Reed needed.

  “Little less than a year before I shut down, those bastards started showing up,” he said, a harsh scowl crossing his face.

  The feeling in Reed’s stomach kicked up at the mention of the men in question, his senses rising, fueled by the carbonated caffeine. “And?”

  “And...” Rasul said, muttering to himself, collecting his thoughts. “At least most of the people who stole tried to hide it, you know? These guys just walked in and grabbed whatever, started saying they were the Kings, could do as they wanted.”

  As he spoke, Rasul waved his hands in front of him, his expression becoming more animated.

  “At first it was just one or two of them, but pretty soon it was all of them, grabbing things by the handful, threatening the girls behind the counter if they said anything. Got to the point where I couldn’t even find people to run the register. Was just me and my wife, and she was afraid to be there alone.

  “They made me a slave to the place.”

  With each sentence, Reed forced his expression to remain even, allowing his brain to soak up the new information, fill in the cracks of everything he already had.

  “Is that why there aren’t more complaints against them?” Reed asked. “People were afraid to say anything?”

  “You damned right!” Rasul shouted, the words sounding distorted through his accent. “After my inventory started coming up so short, my suppliers thought I was lying to them, I had no choice but to file an insurance claim. They said I needed a police report to process it, so I called the station and asked someone to come out.”

  He paused there, his gaze turned to the wall beside them. “Best and worst thing I ever did.”

  This was the part of the story Reed had come for. He kept his hands balled into the front pockets of his jacket and moved an inch away from the door, anticipation gripping him.

  “What happened?”

  Rasul glanced up at him and back again, shaking his head from side to side. “One of them happened to be driving by, saw me talking with the cops. That night they came by just before closing time, trashed my store, threatened to kill me, have their way with...”

  He stopped midsentence, Reed knowing where he was going with the statement, not willing to make the man say it aloud.

  “And so a few weeks later you moved out?”

  Once more, Rasul shifted his attention to Reed before looking away, the corners of his eyes now damp. “A few hours later I moved out. It was just a few weeks before I stopped having to pay rent.”

  More questions came to Reed�
�s mind, but he let them pass. There was no point to inquire why the man had not filed another report or done anything else, Rasul’s shame already apparent. Instead, he extracted a hand from his sweatshirt and reached into his rear pocket, pulling out a thin stack of papers folded into quadrants.

  Smoothing them out against his thigh, he turned the stack upside down and spread them out in front of Rasul, five sheets of paper in total.

  The crime scene shots of Mentor, Wright, and Durell were too gruesome to show an informational witness, so Reed had pulled DMV photos for the three of them, along with Pryor and Knighton. Lined up together they resembled mug shots, all five young men in their mid-20s, menacing looks on their faces.

  “Are these the young men you named in the complaint?”

  Shifting his attention from the wall to the desk in front of him, Rasul raised himself to a standing position, pressing his palms on the desk and looking down at the photos.

  “This one, this one, these two,” he said, moving all pictures except for Knighton. “This last one I recognize, he was with them, but nobody knew his name at the time so we didn’t include it.”

  Reed nodded, the data fitting with why Deek found Pryor’s name in the file but not Knighton’s.

  “But you’re missing one,” Rasul said, lowering himself back into his chair and looking up.

  “I am?” Reed asked, looking at the sheets, running over each one in his mind.

  Pearlman had said the number was something like a half dozen, though no mention of a sixth member had ever been made.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very,” Rasul said, nodding his head in an exaggerated fashion. “I know this because he was the only one who was white.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Mrs. Chamberlain was dressed the same exact way she had been the night before, the same faded red bathrobe hanging from her stooped body, the same fuzzy slippers covering her toes. She shuffled as she moved, their soles scraping against linoleum, announcing her presence long before she got to the door.

  It took her a moment to place Reed despite their recent interaction, standing and blinking into the morning light. “Can I help you?”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Chamberlain, Detective Reed Mattox,” Reed said, reaching into his sweatshirt and exposing his badge. “We met last night.”

  She stood and stared at him, her eyebrows pulled together in thought, trying to place him.

  Not 14 hours had passed since their last encounter, though to watch her try to remember was something akin to seeing a teenager attempt to decipher trigonometry.

  “I came by for Deek’s help?” Reed added, the words coming out as a question, meant to jog something in her memory.

  Another moment passed before she pulled her mouth into a tight circle and said, “Oh, yes, that’s right, I remember now,” though it was apparent from her tone that she didn’t.

  Despite the obvious lie, Reed used the opening, “Is he home this morning? I know it’s early, but I really need him to take a look at one more thing for me.”

  For the first time Reed saw some semblance of the woman he had spoken to the night before, the same look of pride sweeping over her features. “Oh, yes, yes. You go right on down. My Deek’s such a good boy, always ready to lend a hand to the police when they need it.”

  She added a wink to the last line, letting Reed know it was a playful jab. Out of courtesy he offered a small chuckle.

  The basement was dark as Reed descended the stairs, running a hand along the walls, groping for a light switch. When none came, he removed his keys from his pocket and snapped on the penlight clipped to them, the glow doing little to penetrate the vast space.

  “Deek? You down here?” Reed called, raising his voice a bit more than necessary, making sure to be heard. “It’s Detective Mattox, I need another favor.”

  The neon lights from the night before were blacked out, the scent of whiskey thick in the air. Remembering the gift he brought, Reed shook his head, only hoping the whole bottle wasn’t now working its way through Deek’s system.

  “Deek!” Reed called once more, his voice gaining a few more decibels.

  A moment later a groan came from deep in the recesses of the room, the sound of the water bed sloshing as Deek rousted himself from the depths of slumber. “Good Lord man, what time is it?”

  The words came out low and raspy, the sounds of someone clearly in pain.

  “It’s going on 10:00 now,” Reed said. “You decent? I’m going to turn on a light.”

  “For the love of God, no,” Deek said, his voice still contorted. “And why the hell are you here so early?”

  There were a dozen retorts Reed could have used in reply, but he held back. He knew he was seeking the help of someone who didn’t have to, this time coming empty handed, hoping that residual goodwill from his previous offering was enough to cover the slight gaffe in protocol this morning.

  “I need you to go back into those files,” Reed said. “You’re the only one I know who can get in there or who knows I found them.”

  “Christ,” Deek muttered, lying silent for a moment before rolling across his bed, the sound of his bare feet thumping against the floor.

  Remaining in place, Reed stood and waited as a silhouette emerged from the darkness, a thin pair of shoulders with an oversized head, a hand outstretched before him. The stench of booze seemed to hang around him like a halo.

  More than once he had the thought of inquiring how much of the bottle Deek had put down the previous night, but opted against it.

  “Please kill that damn light, will you?”

  A click of the plunger extinguished the bulb as Deek moved past him, using the same shuffling gait as his grandmother until dropping his weight unceremoniously into his desk chair. A moment later the monitor before him came to life, pulling a wince to his face as it bathed him in light.

  “This better be important,” he muttered in a mock whisper, pretending his voice was lowered but purposely leaving it loud enough to be heard.

  “Extremely,” Reed said, choosing to say as little as possible, not trusting what might come out if he began commenting on the man or his lifestyle. Instead, he stood and waited, watching as Deek slowly went to work.

  “Okay,” Deek said, “what am I looking for?”

  Reed felt his eyebrows rise on his forehead in surprise. “Just like that?”

  “It’s a lot easier when you’ve already been inside,” Deek answered, lacing his fingers and stretching his arms up high, both shoulders letting out a series of popping noises.

  “I need a name,” Reed said, taking a step forward and immediately regretting it as the stench of stale booze rolled off of Deek’s body.

  “I gave you the only name there was last night,” Deek said. “Prince or Peters, something like that.”

  “Pryor,” Reed corrected. “And I don’t mean in the complaint, I need to know who entered it in the system.”

  Stifling a yawn, Deek shrugged his shoulders and typed in a few keystrokes, his eyes pinched to almost slits as he read. “Nothing doing, man. If it was ever here, it’s gone now too.”

  “Damn,” Reed muttered, shaking his head, staring over into the darkness that he knew housed a giant television and gaming system. He remained that way a long time, thinking about everything he knew, about the gaps that still existed.

  Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to keep a simple complaint out of the books, so much so that even the officer filling it out had been redacted as well. To pull off something like that took a lot of juice, clout that originated pretty high on the justice system food chain.

  High enough that somebody would remember something from the incident, no doubt finding it as odd then as he did now.

  “What about a judge?” Reed asked. “Does it say who ordered the records sealed in the first place?”

  Another clatter of keystrokes could be heard in the darkness as Deek went to work, stopping a moment later, his voice just audible as he mumbled
to himself, reading off the screen.

  “Good call, man,” Deek said, stopping and looking up at Reed. “Looks like some guy called the Honorable Jackson Bennett.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  In the time since the complaint was expunged from the record, Jackson Bennett had moved on from presiding over the Franklin County Municipal Court. Appointed a year earlier by sitting United States District Judge Bryan Hansen, he had become the newest United States Magistrate Judge in the state, sailing through the confirmation vote from the other judges in District Six.

  After moving over, he had served strictly in an overflow capacity from Hansen, seeing almost no new business, being used only to cull the mass of cases that were hitting the federal desk. A quick search had shown many of them to be fairly benign in nature, agriculture and interstate commerce being the biggest two. Only a few were even remotely interesting, though Reed found nothing in them that connected to his case in the slightest.

  The information on Bennett, including the case files, was printed out and sitting on the passenger seat as Reed drove. Every few moments he glanced over, somehow hoping a breakthrough would work its way to the surface, shouting for him to notice it.

  Instead, it remained dull and lifeless. Deek had worked his magic again but made it very clear when Reed left what he considered acceptable business hours.

  In the backseat Billie had regained a bit of spring, a nap while Reed was tucked away in Deek’s basement having rejuvenated her. Reed could hear paws scratching against the plastic as she moved about, her constant motion arising from a host of possibilities, the top two on the list being hunger and the need to relieve herself.

  Reed felt the same two pangs as he maneuvered his sedan back across town, pulling up in front of the U.S. Southern District Court.

  Just one block down from the CPD headquarters, it had the same style architecture, cut from grey stone. A little boxier in shape, it stood four floors in height, even rows of windows lining each side. A pair of gleaming brass flagpoles extended up from the roof, the United States flag on one, the Ohio state flag on the other.