by Ramy Vance
Tom shook his head. “It was all part of some big operation, they think. Fucking Canadians, man.”
“Fucking Canadians,” the ginger officer echoed. “Fake Americans. I tell you, we fight all the wars for them, keep the whole continent safe. They just sit there freezing their asses off with their damn mooses and shit, thinking they can fly under the radar saying ‘eh’ and ‘aboot.’”
Tom furrowed his brow at the ginger-headed officer. “Shit, Mark. Calm the fuck down. I served with Canadians in Afghanistan. They have their own military and were part of all major operations in the last hundred years. What the fuck did they teach you at school, man?”
Mark smiled sheepishly, studied the ground, and flicked his cigarette. “Are you kidding? I was too busy having sex in high school. I didn’t have time for that shit.”
Martha didn’t believe that for a second. He said what was needed to fit in. Sadly, it worked.
The trio laughed and whistled, and Tom just shook his head. “Your generation scares me.”
“Dude, we don’t need a history class to go down there and bust some cop-killing, white trash bootleggers!” the dark-haired cop growled. “These colors don’t run!”
Then he made a gun shooting motion toward the ground and explosion noises with his mouth. “I’d like to see them go down. Anybody wanna road trip it?”
Martha shook her head. These guys called themselves cops? They did their job, but at times like this, they gave the precinct a bad name.
“I’d be down for that.” Mark took a drag on the cigarette in his hand.
“Hey,” Tom saw Martha standing on the sidewalk. “You should come with us.”
“What?” Martha raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” the dark-haired one jeered. “You can make some pancakes with all the maple syrup we’re going to save.”
The whole group dissolved into laughter.
“Yeah.” Tom shook his head back and forth like a wet dog. “We’d stick her in the back with an apron. I’d bet she’d look totally fucking hot.”
The others whistled and laughed, and Martha just groaned. “You guys are real classy, you know that?”
“Aww, come on,” Mark jeered. “We’re just having a little fun. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be down for it?” He shimmied toward the ground, and the rest of the group laughed.
Martha grimaced. “Is that the best innuendo you’ve got, Mark? Is that what ‘she said?’”
The other cops burst into laughter. “She got you, Mark. She got you.” Tom even gave her a thumbs-up.
“Good one.” Mark nodded. “We’re grabbing an early lunch at the bar across the street. You in?”
So she’d gotten through, if only a bit. However, as much as Martha wished to fit in, she had bigger shit to deal with. Martha shook her head. “And embarrass your asses at pool? Nah. For a bunch of swinging dicks, you all suck at handling sticks and balls.”
The trio burst out into laughter as Martha walked away.
Small steps, she thought. Small steps.
When Martha arrived back at the police station it was bustling with sharp and put-together officers darting in and out. She entered the well-lit high rise, then took the elevator to the fifth floor where she worked.
It was a little quieter up here, with most of the officers out on patrol. With straight posture and a smug expression, she strolled through the blue-carpeted halls and half-empty cubicles, expecting to be congratulated any second.
She assumed Jake had done his homework with the photos and license plates and was ready to dive into whatever that had produced.
But Jake wasn’t in, and before she could say anything, Captain Kenneth found her. “Hey, where have you been?” he asked. “That flasher case on Fifth was at it again. We got him.”
Martha forced a smile. “Ah…wow. How?”
“Citizen’s arrest.” The captain cocked a thumb toward the holding cells. “I need you to take statements from those involved and get this guy booked. They’re in the waiting room.”
“But I have—”
“Now, rookie. Now.” Captain Kenneth walked away before Martha could protest any further.
Martha—Thursday, February 9, 4:31 p.m.
Fuck, those witnesses could talk. Martha looked at her watch, lamenting how it had taken her almost five hours to interview the six witnesses, process the perp, and type up her reports. If someone had only warned her how much red tape there would be in police work, she would have donned a cape and cowl and taken the vigilante approach to crime.
Sighing in relief that it was over, she walked over to Jake. “Hey, did you get my texts?”
He looked up. “About the license plate?”
“Yeah.” She placed her hands on her hips. “And the…never mind. What did you find on the plates?”
Jake pursed his lips and shrugged. “Nothing. That van’s clean as a whistle.”
“You mean you found nothing on that van?” Martha was surprised, to say the least.
Jake stared at her. “Should I have? I mean, what’s going on?”
Martha told Jake about her unusual morning.
Jake pursed his lips. “So let me get this straight. You followed a random van on a hunch, saw a well-dressed man not doing anything illegal, and then followed him to his office? A well-dressed man who, might I add, is one of New York City’s wealthiest members.”
Fuck. Martha could see where this was going.
“Is there an official case on Pout?” Jake asked. “Is he a suspect in an ongoing investigation?”
“Well, no…”
Jake groaned. “The only law I see broken is the one you broke yourself.”
Martha blushed red with frustration. “But don’t you see?”
Jake chuckled with disbelief. “Look, you might be right that there’s something shady going on there. But in police work, ‘probably’ and ‘something shady’ aren’t going to cut it. I appreciate the effort and the dedication, but next time you want to take initiative, try not to do something that will get the precinct sued.”
Jake reached out a hand to touch Martha’s shoulder.
“Don’t patronize me,” Martha growled.
“I’m not; I’m trying to save you. Shit like this gets you on the—”
“The what?” she cut in. “I’m already on the tampon squad, aren’t I?”
Jake didn’t say anything.
“And now that I have an actual lead, you want me to, what? Bury it? Unsee what I saw?” She realized her voice was rising.
“There’s protocols that must be followed,” Jake told her.
“Got it.” Martha was so frustrated that she knew she needed to leave before she said something to get her into more shit. She took a deep breath and said, “Look, I got to go.”
He frowned. “Go where? You’re still on duty.”
“No,” she answered coolly without even checking the clock. “I’m taking a personal day.”
Martha—Thursday, February 9, 4:49 p.m.
Stepping outside the precinct, she fought the urge to scream. She knew Jake was right. But there was right, and then there was right.
“Fuck, that didn’t go well,” she muttered. Looking at her watch, she saw it was almost the end of the shift. She didn’t need to take a personal day. She could have just stepped outside for a bit. “One less day off for me,” she lamented.
She pulled out her phone and dialed an intern at the precinct who she'd worked with in the past. He'd been instrumental in helping her close an important case, and oddly enough, she felt like she'd worked with him on the Pout case too.
But she hadn't, had she? Déjà vu, much?
Sanctioned or not, she was going to follow this lead. Zach answered the phone.
“Hey, I know it's been a while, but can you do me a favor?”
There was a pause before he answered, “Will it get me in trouble?”
“Only if you tell anyone.”
“I don’t know about this.”
“L
ook, it’s a little thing,” she promised. “If we get caught, I’ll say that I lied to you. But we’re not going to get caught. Promise.”
Another long pause before Zach said, “OK, fine. What is it?”
Martha smiled. “I just want someone's schedule, that’s all.”
“Who?” There was a wariness in his voice.
“Alister Pout,” she told him.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck,” she echoed. “Please?”
Zach groaned before letting out a long sigh. “Fine, I’ll do it. But you owe me. Big time.”
“You got it, Zach. Big time.”
With that done, Martha took long, freezing strides to the train station. Right now, she needed to calm down. She needed a long, hot bath, hot chocolate, pizza, and a romcom to distract her.
This was one fucked-up day. She should have taken a sick day the second she found herself following some random white van.
What the fuck was she thinking? She wasn’t. She was just following her gut, and it turned out to be right. There was some shady shit going down, not that she had any idea what it was.
There was the Canadian. Seven different crimes, including murder, attempted murder, robbery, assault, all tied together by this phantom. They all had similar patterns: burner phones, no real contact. But there was no real connection to explain any of it. Then there was this white van that seemed to be connected to something.
Then there was Alister Pout… A Canadian who had a burner phone.
She knew she had some of the answers rolling around in her subconscious. She just didn’t know how to connect the dots and turn her intuition into something tangible.
Martha arrived at the train station and stood in line. While she waited, she pulled out her phone and looked up the maple syrup bust that the guys were talking about.
One of the hospitalized cops had died, which meant everyone would be on the case.
A case she knew she could crack. If only…
She needed to talk this out with someone who wasn’t going to laugh at her or tell her to get back to the beat. Someone who would actually listen. Someone who knew a thing or two about following your instincts.
There was only one person she knew who could totally understand her—her old mentor. He had retired years ago, but he was good in a pinch.
She changed her train ticket and decided to pay him a little visit.
Martha—Thursday, February 9, 6:19 p.m.
Martha sat in the small living room, settled into the plush orange couch, and attempted to ignore Bill O’Reilly miming politics on mute on the 52-inch plasma screen. Ignoring O’Reilly proved to be more difficult than she would have liked, which she figured was largely his goal in life. Mission accomplished, she mused, and Marshall Peet grabbed the remote and switched it off.
“Yeah, I’d heard about the Canadian syrup bust,” he said as he grabbed a beer out of the fridge. He held up a chilled brown bottle. “You want one?”
Martha nodded. “Sure.”
He grabbed two bottles, then opened the freezer door and gestured inside. “Don’t ever buy these hash browns.” He held up a small, shrink-wrapped box. “They’re shitty, and Reuben always burns them.”
“Duly noted.”
He handed her the drink, and they both twisted off the tops and simultaneously threw the drinks back.
Marshall plopped down on the couch opposite her and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “All right, so tell me what’s going on.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Reuben—Thursday, February 9, 6:29 p.m.
Reuben hadn’t seen Martha in years, and he certainly didn’t expect her to be sitting in the living room that day. Not when the world was on a ticking time bomb.
She offered him a smile. “Hi, Reuben. Good to see you. How long has it been? Two, three years?”
He forced a smile. “Something like that.”
He had still been with Rachel then. Rachel had never liked Martha because she wasn’t “our kind of people.” Reuben had interpreted that to mean gritty and mission obsessed.
Reuben wasn’t like that back then. If it wasn’t for the time warps, he wouldn’t be like that now.
How things change when you die a bunch of times…
“You still with…” Martha’s voice trailed off.
“No,” he answered quickly. Too quickly.
“Like Reuben could hold onto a girl. She slipped through his fingers like that maple syrup crook slipped through those border cops,” Marshall muttered as he shuffled to the bathroom.
“Ignore him.” Martha walked over to Reuben. She gave him a quick hug. “I’m sorry to hear about the breakup. She was a nice girl.”
Reuben grimaced. “No, she wasn’t.”
“You’re right, she wasn’t,” Martha agreed, and they both laughed. “To tell you the truth, I never saw you with a girl like her.”
“Yeah?” Reuben crossed into the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. “What kind of girl did you see me with?”
He popped the top on the beer bottle, flicked it into the garbage, and joined her back on the couch. He didn’t particularly want to rehash the old days, but he was interested in her analysis of his love life.
Or lack thereof.
She stared off for a moment, then back at him. “I always saw you ending up with someone random, who none of us in the old gang would have ever thought of.”
“Random, huh?” Reuben smirked and sipped the beer bottle. “Like what?”
“Like…some Asian hottie over on Exchange. Someone sassy. You need sassy to keep you in line.”
“Is that right?” He laughed. If only she knew.
“See, that’s your problem,” she continued. “We’ve got to get you out there. You’re not going to find a girl like that at some tech job.”
“He’s not going to find a girl anywhere if he doesn’t stop dressing like that.” Marshall had emerged from the other room with his arms full of boxes. “You look like Bill Nye the Science Guy.”
“Hello, Dad.” Reuben eyed the boxes. “What’s all this?”
“Evidence files.” Marshall grinned from ear to ear and dropped the files ceremoniously on the coffee table. They fell with a loud bang, accentuating their importance to the household.
“Is this what you were telling me about?” Martha tentatively opened one of the boxes.
“Evidence files?” Reuben furrowed his brow. “You’ve never let me see any of the evidence files.”
“That’s because you never work on anything worth investigating,” Marshall said as he sorted the boxes. Some he put on the floor to be forgotten, and a couple he left on the table to be opened and sorted. “Martha here, she’s got a big case she’s working on. I wanted to show her all the loose ends I’ve got from Operation Old MacDonald.”
“Operation Old MacDonald?” Reuben repeated. “The Canadian raw milk smugglers?”
The tall tale of his childhood. It got bigger and better every year.
The raw milk smuggling ring had originally supplied unregulated jugs to farmers’ markets in upstate New York. The milk stayed under the radar for years, and they probably would have stayed that way. However, the milk became so popular that they got bigger and started taking in more farms. When both demand and supply rose, more distribution outlets had opened, and the suppliers got cocky. That was when the unpasteurized milk somehow wiggled its way into a local grocery chain. The details were all a little fuzzy, but it was worth noting that the owner of the grocery chain was married to the sheriff, whose uncle ran the farmers’ co-op.
So the milk went public, and in the space of six months, thirty people died in one town. The only thing connecting them was that milk.
But when the police came in to investigate the deaths, no one knew anything. Marshall spent years trying to get to the bottom of it and went around in circles. He never was able to solve it. It had all the elements of a great crime. A sick town with the dead and infirm piling up, and each week t
he papers printed the rising numbers.
Outraged mothers had been crying for justice over the corpses of the young, leading to a class-action suit battling through political gridlock. Meanwhile, farmers had protested against government overreach.
They launched whole milk education campaigns that stole the tired line from the drug war about making illegal products legal for the purpose of regulating them.
In the middle of it all were the small-town country folk who trusted no one in uniform. All the while, a stream of dirty money flowed through the whole mess like…well...bad milk. All in all, it was a juicy story, Reuben had to admit. If he hadn’t heard it all his life.
It had become Marshall’s enduring mission to find justice for the victims, but it had been over thirty years, and he was still no closer to an answer than he was when the case was finally closed.
“Yep, Canadian raw milk smugglers.” Marshall unboxed files and pages.
“Dad, you will never solve that case.” Reuben leaned back into the couch. “I don’t know why you keep that old stuff around.”
“Maybe I won’t.” Marshall grinned at Martha. “But Martha just may be able to. So, I’m going to let her in on all the old players. See if we can match up some notes.”
Marshall moved about with the excitement of a child with a new toy as he set out his notes. He filled up the coffee table with photos and piles of documents. Reuben had vivid recollections of being a kid and being punished for even touching those photos.
“Now,” Marshall handed Martha a carefully selected pile, “read that. Those are the basics of this case. We’ll get into specifics as we get more into it.”
Martha carefully read the papers while Marshall continued to lay out piles.
“You know, Dad, if you’d ask once in a while, you’d find I’ve got something big I’m working on, too,” Reuben told him.
“Yeah, what’s that?” Marshall asked around a pencil in his mouth. “A fried circuit board?”
“Forget it.” Reuben turned to Martha. “So, what’s this big case?”
“This past year,” she set the pile on her lap, “we’ve had seven different deadly assaults or homicides all tied to a mysterious crime boss named ‘the Canadian.’”