by Chris Culver
“Wow,” said Ash, exhaling slowly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Back then, I couldn’t have done anything, but now I can. If Rebecca is in there, I’m getting her back. I don’t care what I have to do.”
Ash took a moment to respond. Before being hired, Alvarez would have gone through a mental health evaluation, an evaluation he should have flunked with something like that in his past. The admission changed the situation, made Ash realize for the first time how volatile it could become. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking. For all they knew, it could be a couple of teenagers who snuck in looking for somewhere to fool around without their parents’ watchful eyes; they’d be in enough trouble as it was. They didn’t need a detective with something to prove and a score to settle chasing after them.
“Unless we hear someone screaming or another indication of imminent danger to a bystander, we’re staying out of the house,” said Ash. “We go in only as an absolute last resort. Are you okay with that?”
“If this guy’s got Rebecca in there, I say we charge in before he knows we’re coming.”
Ash shook his head. “This can’t work like that. If we charge in there, he’s going to shoot her and us. We have to be smart. Are you okay with that? If not, I will get someone who is.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“I want to walk around the house and find out how the people inside got there. As soon as we find a broken window or a door that’s been kicked down, we’ll call for backup. They’ll handle the extraction.”
Alvarez took a deep breath. “What if we don’t find anything?”
“If there are people inside, we’ll find something.”
“But what—”
“That’s enough,” said Ash, interrupting him. “I understand your frustration. If I could, I’d kick down that door and drag our suspect out by his hair. We’re not bulletproof, though, and neither is Rebecca. If she’s in there, we need to get her out safely. I’m not going to hear any arguments on this.”
“All right, then.”
Ash watched his partner for the next few seconds, trying to get a read on him.
“What?” asked Alvarez.
“Nothing,” said Ash, turning his eyes to the front. “Let’s just be careful.”
Alvarez opened his door first, but Ash followed shortly thereafter. The evening air was cool and thick, and a slick sheen of moisture reflected off the grass beside their vehicle. Ash had parked three houses away from their target. Between them and it stood two hundred yards of grass and shrubbery. Even with a partially clouded sky, enough light reflected from the moon to silhouette them both against the sidewalk. If someone happened to look out the window of their target home, they’d be easy to spot.
Ash pointed to the side yard between two of the nearest houses and ran forward with Alvarez a few feet behind him. The rain earlier had left the ground spongy and wet. Trees filtered the moonlight in the home’s backyard, casting long shadows on the grass. Ash stayed in those shadows and ran west, toward the partially fenced backyard of their target house, but stopped on the edge of the property and knelt in darkness beside a tree.
“You hear anything?” asked Ash.
“Just crickets.”
The house had two rear doors and half a dozen windows, none of which were open or broken. Whoever had broken in hadn’t come that way.
“There’s nothing here. What do you want to do?” asked Alvarez.
“We just got here, okay?” asked Ash. “We’ll check out the property and report back to Captain Bowers once we find something. If we can’t find anything, we’ll wake up the neighbors. They might have seen something.”
“If Rebecca’s in there, I’m not walking away from this,” said Alvarez, raising his voice and shaking his head. “We need to get in there ourselves. We can go through the back door.”
Ash tried not to grind his teeth. “We’ve already gone over this. We have no idea what’s in that house. Even if Rebecca is in there, we don’t know what the guy who kidnapped her is carrying. Are you comfortable going in there if our suspect has an assault rifle and body armor? I’m not. And if it’s not Rebecca, I don’t want some stupid kid to get hurt.”
Alvarez shook his head and looked at the house. “From the stories I’ve heard about you, I thought you’d be the first one through the door.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“I don’t like this.”
“You’re not supposed to,” said Ash. “If this is our guy, he murdered two people and kidnapped a third. You’re supposed to be pissed, but you can’t be stupid.”
Alvarez looked away but finally nodded. “All right. We’ll do it your way. I don’t want this to go bad.”
It’s already bad.
“Good. Let’s move.”
Both men crouched low and crept toward the front of the house. Their target home had a long, narrow lot, so only about ten feet of shadows and grass stood between it and the home next door. It hid them well. Just like the windows on the rear of the house, the windows overlooking the side yard were securely fastened. Ash crept toward the home’s front corner but stopped when he caught sight of an overgrown evergreen bush in the front yard. He had told countless homeowner associations to have residents trim their evergreen bushes well for just this reason: Someone had broken into the house and used the thick, needlelike leaves of a Yew to cover his entrance point. Ash put a finger to his lips and then pointed it out.
“Slowly move to the backyard and call Captain Bowers. Tell him we need backup immediately.”
Alvarez licked his lips and then nodded. He slipped into the night. Ash heard his voice, but he couldn’t make out the words. If someone in the house heard, hopefully he’d think it was the wind. When Alvarez came back again, he was breathing hard.
“We’ve got SWAT coming in.”
“ETA?” asked Ash.
“They’ve been on standby all night, so ten to fifteen minutes. We’ll have patrol officers here in five.”
Normally it’d take at least half an hour to get the entire SWAT team together, so ten to fifteen minutes was a great response time. Even still, a lot could happen in ten to fifteen minutes, much more than he cared to think about.
“All right. Call the dispatcher and tell the patrol units to maintain their distance from the house. We don’t want to spook our suspect.”
“I already did.”
Ash glanced at him and nodded. “Good. Thank you.”
He settled his back against the house. The night air was thick from the storm earlier, and it didn’t fill his lungs the way it should have. He couldn’t get a deep enough breath to relax. That wasn’t such a bad thing, though; he didn’t need to relax given their situation. Ash glanced at his watch, noting the time before leaning his back against the house and planting his feet in the grass. Silence descended upon them.
In that quiet stillness, he heard it for the first time, faint, like a branch rubbing against his window on a cold winter night. A voice. Ash closed his eyes and held his breath. He heard it again, fainter this time.
“Don’t say a word.”
Ash glanced at Alvarez and motioned toward the window with his head.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered.
Alvarez nodded. “Yeah. What do we do?”
“We wait for our team. Meantime, send Bowers a text message with an update. Tell him we might have a hostage situation.”
Alvarez’s index finger flashed across the screen on his phone. Ash could have done it himself, but he wasn’t nearly as fast. Within thirty seconds, he glanced up at Ash.
“It’s done.”
At that time of night, their backup wouldn’t run into much traffic. Ash nodded and glanced at the house. Hold on, honey.
Time rarely played by the rules out in the field. A single moment could feel like a year or it could pass so fast you barely had time to register that it was gone. Ash didn’t know how long he waited outside for
the first patrol officers to hurry toward the house—it could have been a minute, or it could have been five. However long it took, the patrol officers parked far enough away from the house he couldn’t see their car. Unfortunately, they didn’t try to hide; they simply walked to a neighbor’s yard and stood still. As soon as he saw them, Ash heard a familiar noise from inside the house, a muffled thud followed by a sliding, scraping sound. The home evidently had wooden windows. Like the wooden windows on his own house, they contracted and expanded with changes in humidity, meaning they didn’t fit tight in the frame like a more modern, vinyl window. Their suspect had just opened one.
“Who’s there?”
One of the patrol officers started to walk forward, but Ash stepped into the front yard, his hand held in front of him, stopping the officer. The front of the house had a neatly trimmed lawn and freshly mulched flowerbeds. A FOR SALE sign hung beside the driveway with a black bar along the bottom announcing it as a foreclosure. Their suspect had opened a window on the second floor, but Ash couldn’t see him in the evening light. Alvarez followed a step back, his firearm held at his side.
“We’re police officers. We’re just here to talk.”
“I don’t have anything to talk about.”
“I think you do,” said Ash, crossing toward the sidewalk where the patrol officers stood. They needed cover in case their suspect had a rifle, so he told one of the officers to get his car before turning his attention back to their suspect. “I know you’ve got someone in there with you. Who is it?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It is my business,” said Ash. “Is it Rebecca Cook?”
Ash counted to five, waiting. “No, it’s my daughter.”
Ash’s heart sank at the admission, but it didn’t change the job in front of him. Like many of the officers in his department, he had sat through seminars on hostage negotiation before, so he knew the basic dos and don’ts. Hopefully they could get a professional quickly. “I’ve got a little girl of my own. What’s your little girl’s name?”
The man’s voice wavered. “Madison.”
“Madison. That’s a pretty name. Is Madison okay?”
“She’s fine.”
The patrol vehicle rolled forward, and all four officers stepped behind it, putting it between them and the house and giving them some cover. There was no sign of Bowers or the SWAT team yet.
“We’d really like it if you and Madison would come out and talk to us face-to-face. Can you do that for me?”
“No. We’re staying here.”
“Okay,” said Ash. “Can I talk to Madison?”
“Why?”
“I want to make sure that she’s doing okay.”
“She’s fine. I already told you.”
Hopefully he was being honest because Ash didn’t want to push him more than he already had.
“I’m glad. Here’s what’s going on. I’m Sergeant Ash Rashid with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. I’m here to talk to you and make sure everybody stays safe. We’re going to get through this, and everybody’s going to be fine. I want you to know that. What’s your name?”
The guy in the house didn’t answer for a moment. “Jonathan.”
“Do you mind if I call you that?”
“Go ahead.”
“Good,” said Ash, nodding and glancing at Alvarez. “Get the plate number from the Pontiac in the drive and see if it’s registered to anyone named Jonathan. Find out what we can about him.” He looked back at the house. “First of all, Jonathan, are you okay? If you or anyone else in there needs medical attention, I can call an ambulance.”
“We’re fine.”
“Good deal. I want to thank you for keeping your cool. Nobody’s hurt, and we want to keep it that way. That counts a lot, and we all appreciate that. Right now, this is just a trespassing situation, and we can all walk away from this. My goal is to make that happen. Do you believe me?”
He didn’t respond.
“Do you believe me, Jonathan? I want to end this before anyone gets hurt. Only you can make that happen.”
“Just leave us alone.”
“That’s the one thing I can’t do,” said Ash. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
Again, Jonathan didn’t respond. Alvarez leaned close. “The Pontiac is registered to Jonathan Hartley at this address.”
“So this is his house,” said Ash, nodding. That potentially told them a lot about their hostage taker’s mind-set. It also told them how dangerous he was. Losing a house to foreclosure would depress even the most cheerful person. And if he was depressed, he might not think he had much to live for, giving him little reason to hesitate to kill himself, his daughter, or others. Ash lowered his voice and looked at Alvarez. “How far out is the SWAT team?”
“Should be here any minute now.”
Ash looked at the house again. “A lot of police officers are on their way. Is that okay?”
“I didn’t ask for this,” said Jonathan, his voice high. “Just leave us alone.”
“I know you didn’t ask for this, but the police officers are coming. They won’t do anything without my say, so you don’t have anything to be afraid of. And if you want, I can call them and tell them to stay away. I can do that, but only if you do something for me. Let Madison go.”
“She’s staying here.”
Ash hadn’t expected that to work, but it was worth trying. “If you don’t let her go, the SWAT team will come. There’s nothing I can do to stop that. Do you understand?”
“I didn’t want any of this to happen.”
Ash thought he could hear an engine somewhere in the distance, so he looked at one of the patrol officers. “Get on the radio and tell the SWAT team to roll in slowly. I don’t want to spook this guy.” He looked at the house again. “I know you didn’t. This is just a misunderstanding. I don’t think you intended to hurt anyone. I still don’t think you intend to hurt anyone. Can you tell me what’s going on? Is this your house?”
“The bank took it.” Ash grimaced as Jonathan spat the words out. That was obviously a touchy subject. As Jonathan spoke, the SWAT team’s black armored van crept toward the scene with a row of patrol vehicles behind it. A hostage negotiation could take hours or even days, but certain times during the negotiation were more dangerous than others. The chaos of the first few minutes were usually the worst, but any change in the environment could precipitate a violent response from a hostage taker. Ash held his breath as the truck pulled to a stop. Thankfully, the men inside didn’t pop the doors and spring out. Instead, they opened them slowly and stepped out like a bunch of kids testing the thickness of the ice covering a pond before going skating. Ash nodded toward Captain Bowers as he strode toward him. The captain leaned close.
“We’ve got a negotiator coming in. Is the hostage taker talking?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if he’s armed, but he’s got his daughter with him. I think he’s depressed, but I don’t know if he’s violent.”
One of the SWAT team members came to the cruiser, carrying a briefcase. He set it on the hood and removed a thermal imaging camera. Its attached video screen showed the hot spots in the house, including the position of their hostage taker and his daughter. Jonathan paced a room in the center of the home while Madison huddled in one corner. They were alone in the house.
“Keep talking to him.”
Ash nodded again. “The SWAT team is here, Jonathan, but we can all still walk away from this. You haven’t hurt anybody, and we appreciate that. Did you come here because the bank took your house?”
“It’s my house. I bought it. I raised my kids in it,” shouted Jonathan, his voice almost hoarse. “They had no right to take it.”
“I’m sorry they took your house,” said Ash, forcing his voice to remain even. “I can’t help you if you’re upset, though. Okay? If you’re calm, we can talk our way through this.”
Ash waited and watched the thermal imaging monitor. Jonathan had
stopped pacing and stood near his daughter with his arm outstretched. Ash couldn’t see a firearm, but Jonathan very well could have been pointing one at Madison at that moment. His heartbeat increased in tempo, and he glanced at Alvarez and Bowers.
“Is anybody looking for this girl’s mom?”
“Her name’s Amy Hartley, and she lives in an apartment a couple of blocks away,” said Bowers. “I’ve got uniforms picking her up.”
“How’d you find her?”
Bowers’s eyes flicked to the house. “BMV records. She’s listed as his next of kin, and she updated her driver’s license information.”
“Where’s our negotiator? We need somebody who actually knows what he’s doing.”
Bowers shrugged. “He’s coming from Mooresville, so it’s a half-hour drive. That’s all I know.”
Ash swore under his breath and then wiped sweat off his forehead. “Can I get some water?”
Bowers looked at Alvarez. The detective nodded and jogged off. The SWAT team had positioned themselves around the front of the house, but everyone remained behind a vehicle for cover. If Jonathan started shooting at them, they’d probably be fine. Madison had no such protection. Ash watched the thermal monitor. Jonathan still stood over his daughter. She hugged her knees to her chest, forming a ball. Aside from their names, he didn’t know the first thing about either of them. If he was going to talk him down, he needed more information than he had.
Alvarez jogged back to the cruiser carrying a half-empty bottle of water.
“This was Carmichael’s. It’s all I could find,” he said, handing the bottle to Ash. “I sent her to a convenience store to get some more.”
Ash unscrewed the top and took a long gulp. Jonathan didn’t seem to be in the talking mood, so Ash didn’t say anything. He didn’t know if that silence was a good sign or not. His hands shook, so as soon as he finished the water, he threw the empty bottle inside the nearest cruiser and put them in his pockets, hoping no one else had seen. Within five minutes, a gray Crown Vic joined the procession of vehicles in front of the house. A uniformed officer stepped out and opened the rear door for a petite blonde in jeans and a T-shirt. Her brown eyes were wide and her brow furrowed. The officer directed her toward Ash and Captain Bowers.