Death Never Lies

by David Grace

  The team twisted in their seats and Kane stood up.

  “There’s a mother out there whose son put on the uniform and climbed into a cruiser with this guy two years ago and was never seen again. Every day she wakes up and wonders, ‘What happened to my boy?’ If we kill Farber she’s never going to find out. We need him alive because she needs him alive. You all know what I’m saying.”

  Kane looked from man to man and six blank faces stared back at him.

  Shit! he thought. I guess it will be what it will be.

  * * *

  It was a little after eight and fully dark when the team was finally ready to go. Kane, Danny, Bernard and Kramer were seated in a black van around the corner and a block away from 817. Stottlemeyer was parked behind them in a blue Dodge Dart with a walkie-talkie lying on the passenger seat. Behind him in a third vehicle were Desimone and his two men.

  “Make the pass,” Bernard ordered.

  Stottlemeyer carefully pulled around the van then made a cautious turn at the next corner. He kept his head pointed straight ahead while below eye level he held the transmit button down.

  “I’m approaching the target.” Stottlemeyer’s voice was thin and scratchy over the speaker. “There’s a light-colored Camry in the driveway. One light is showing in the first floor south-side window. No activity.” There were a few seconds of silence then, “I’m off the block. Returning to base.”

  Bernard looked at Kane. He didn’t need to ask the question out loud. Farber was probably there but they couldn’t be sure. What time did he go to bed? Eleven? Midnight? They could wait and see if the light eventually went off. That would be a sign that Farber was home, unless it was on a timer, maybe automatically turning itself on at six and off at eleven. If they waited until the light went out then by the time they were inside Farber would have reached his bedroom on the second floor. That would give him enough time to grab a gun before they could clear the first floor and make it up the stairs, plus the stairs were a natural choke point and when climbing them the team would be exposed like tin ducks in a shooting gallery. If they went in now they stood a good chance of catching him in the living room, sprawled out in front of the TV. He’d possibly still have a gun but they’d be able to spread out and take him more or less by surprise.

  Kane looked at Danny. The kid seemed all right, more excited, at least, than scared. Screw it!

  “Let’s do it,” Kane said.

  Bernard picked up the walkie-talkie.

  “Team Two, move out for 794 then position yourselves by the rear fence and wait for my signal.” Bernard released the button and shoved the unit into his pocket. “All right, everyone knows their assignments. Stick to the plan.” He gave Desimone sixty seconds to get into position then motioned for Kramer to start the engine and move them out.

  Thirty seconds later the van stopped in front of the adjacent home, number 815. Unlike raids in the movies Kramer did not slam on the brakes and screech the tires. Bernard gently opened the side door and the team exited as quietly as possible. Once outside they trotted toward the target. As they started to jog up the front walk Bernard clicked the transmitter and whispered: “Team Two – Go! Go! Go!”

  Kramer held Kane and Danny halfway between the sidewalk and the front door while Bernard and Stottlemeyer waited on the porch for a count of five in order to give Team Two enough time to get over the back fence and across the yard. When Bernard heard Desimone’s CLICK in his earphone he pointed at the door and Stottlemeyer smashed the steel ram into the lock. The door flew back with a crash and an instant later they heard a similar sound ring from the back of the house.

  “Police!” Bernard shouted at the top of his lungs, already halfway through the living room. “Warrant! Police!”

  Kramer, Kane and Rosewood pulled their guns and anxiously waited for the signal that one of the entry teams had found their man.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Farber had briefly considered ordering a pizza but he didn’t like scattering his new name and address around where somebody might sniff it out, so he threw a couple of hamburger patties into a pan and toasted some bread. It wasn’t gourmet food but he wasn’t a gourmet kind of guy so he figured that it all balanced out. He had just flipped them over and was debating slicing off a piece of yellow cheese when his phone rang, not the regular one he would have used to order a pizza if he had decided to go that way, but the other one, the one that only Ryan Munroe knew about.

  The screen said “Blocked Caller” and for a moment Farber’s paranoia made him wonder if he should answer it but what the hell was the good of having the thing if you didn’t use it?

  “What?”

  “It’s me.” It damn well better be you since you’re the only guy who’s supposed to have this number, Farber thought, but he relaxed a little because he recognized Munroe’s voice.

  “What’s the street number of your house?”

  “Why do you want to know?” Munroe didn’t know where he lived and he wanted to keep it that way.

  “Just fucking tell me the number!”

  Farber thought about it for moment then mumbled, “817.”

  “Shit! The guy called.” Farber didn’t need to ask What guy? “They’re on to you. There’s probably a SWAT team headed your way right now. Get out! Run!” The phone went dead.

  Fuck! Farber turned the stove off and ran upstairs. He kept a “go bag” behind a false wall in his closet with clothes, a gun, a thousand bucks in cash, a clean phone, and the key to the safety-deposit box where he stored a hundred thousand more in cash, a clean ID and a virgin credit card. It took him only seconds to grab the bag and race down the stairs. He couldn’t resist a peek out the window. A dark-colored Dart was rolling past, moving too slowly for his liking.

  Farber grabbed his coat and ran out the back door. The yard was empty. He threw the bag over the back fence and scrambled over after it, cutting his palm in the process. The ground was soft from yesterday’s rain and when he landed he slipped and muddied his knees. He couldn’t worry about that now.

  He ran down the driveway, keeping close to the side of the house. He couldn’t see any lights from inside. Peeking around the corner the street looked empty. He turned right and headed up the block, then quickly crossed to the other side. He was almost to the intersection when the shadows lightened as a car turned the corner behind him. Farber hugged the bag to his chest and made a left on Polk. Once he was around the corner he took a peek back and saw a silver Ford Escape pull up next to the driveway he had just left. Three men in black uniforms with helmets and plastic face shields got out and jogged toward his back fence.

  Fuck! How did they find me? He needed to get the hell out of here. He wanted to run but that would only draw more attention. He thought for a moment and decided that the Fort Totten Metro station would be the closest one, about a mile and a half away. He’d take the train someplace where he could hole up in a no-name, all-cash motel then get his money and new ID from the safety-deposit box tomorrow. After that he’d take a bus to the airport in New York or Philly or someplace far enough away that they wouldn’t be running a facial recognition program on him. From there he could go anywhere he wanted. His new passport was pretty good. Maybe not the sort of thing that he might use to go to Russia or China or someplace like that but it wasn’t going to set off any alarms entering Mexico or the Cayman Islands. Hell, he could be using an expired passport and he probably could still waltz into one of those countries.

  By ten he had bought an anonymous room in a motel where credit cards were a rarity and nobody wanted to know your name. When he was finally able to sit down and take a breath he almost laughed. Fuckers, he thought, I beat you, again. Then he noticed he was hungry. And thirsty. Well, there were plenty of places in this neighborhood where a man could get a drink, and maybe a little more than a drink. The room looked lonely and suddenly he felt like celebrating. Hell, in a couple of days he’d be on a beach on some tropical island with money in his pocket. He’d be a brand new man
.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Shouts of “Clear!” echoed through Farber’s house and after a couple of minutes Bernard waved Kane and Rosewood inside.

  “He’s not here,” Bernard told them.

  “Then we’d better get the hell out of here before he comes back and spots us.”

  “I don’t think he’s coming back.” Bernard gestured for Kane to follow him. “It’s still warm,” Bernard said, pointing at the frying pan.” Kane broke one of the meat patties apart with his fingers.

  “It’s still pink inside. He couldn’t have left more than ten minutes ago.” Kane helplessly looked around the room. An empty plate and a still cold bottle of beer were on the table and a block of yellow cheese and a knife lay on the counter next to the sink. Farber had been in the middle of cooking dinner when something spooked him. “Is there any way he could have spotted us?” Kane asked.

  “I don’t see how. We were parked around the corner and Stottlemeyer didn’t even look at the place when he drove by. Who knew about the raid? Could someone in your office have tipped him off?”

  “Nobody knew,” Kane said, “just the judge who issued the warrant and your Captain.”

  “And your boss.”

  “No,” Kane said and then looked at Danny.

  “I didn’t tell anyone,” Rosewood volunteered.

  Bernard thought about that for a moment. “Maybe he planted a camera at the end of the block and spotted the van.”

  Kane shook his head. “He’d have to have had four of them, two at each intersection, each one pointing in a different direction. They’d have to be wireless which means he would have had to climb the power pole or streetlight every couple of days to change the batteries. No way that’s not going to be noticed. . . . We can check for cameras but we’re not going to find any.”

  “Then either he’s psychic or something spooked him,” Bernard replied. “What do you want to do now?”

  Kane thought for a moment then shrugged. “OK, let’s have a look around, see if we can find anything that’ll help us run him down. If his car has a GPS maybe that’ll tell us something useful. Danny, check that out. I’m going to grab up any paperwork I can find.” Kane turned back to Bernard. “Can you ask your guys to see if they can locate a cell phone or a laptop?”

  “Sure.”

  An hour later they assembled back in the living room to compare notes. Kane had found a package of garbage can bags, two of which they had stuffed with old water bills, cable TV invoices, and other worthless documents together with the contents of Farber’s wastebaskets. They had found no bankbooks, receipts for storage lockers, pieces of mail addressed to some other location, address books, or anything else of any obvious value. Kane had found three keys. One was a car key that started the Camry. One was to the padlock securing the rear access door to the basement and one a spare key to the house.

  “Our shift is just about over,” Bernard told Kane. “Unless Homeland wants to cover the overtime we need to call it a night.”

  Kane frowned and glanced around the living room as if he might find some inspiration in the worn couch or sagging club chair then, reluctantly, nodded.

  “Yeah, OK, let’s seal it up. I’ll get a team in here tomorrow to tear the place apart in case we missed something. Thanks.”

  “OK, guys, let’s wrap this up!” Bernard told his team.

  Half an hour later Greg and Danny were in the parking lot behind their office. Greg had been quiet the whole ride back. Danny couldn’t tell if he was angry or thinking or maybe both.

  “What do we do now?” Danny asked.

  “He can’t have gone far,” Kane said. “We’ve got his car. We’ve put his Conklin ID on the no-fly list and we’ve flagged his VISA card. He’s only got the money he had in his pocket when he bugged out. He’s not going anywhere until he can get a new ID and a new credit card.”

  “Wouldn’t he have them already, as a backup?”

  “I would if I were him. The question is if he had them on him or if he stashed them someplace. If he kept them in his house and anyone raided the place when he wasn’t home he’d be screwed so he’s probably stashed them somewhere. The question is where? I’d leave my back-up ID with a friend or put it in a storage locker or someplace like that where I could get at it if I was on the run. What about that mailbox store you tracked him to?”

  “You think he might have left another ID in his mailbox?”

  “Or in another mailbox he rented under another name.” Kane glanced at his watch. “They’re closed now. We’ll check them out first thing in the morning. How long will it take you to get the GPS log from his Camry?”

  “I’ve already downloaded it.” Danny held up a flash drive.

  “Can you print that out while I put together a press release?”

  “Sure. What are you going to say, in the press release?”

  “The headline at the top will be that the Office of Homeland Security is looking for Mearle Farber, AKA Paul Conklin on a matter of national security. Underneath that will be Farber’s Baltimore Sheriff’s file picture and Conklin’s DMV photo and below that will be our phone number. I’m going to plaster this guy’s face on every TV screen, newspaper and on-line media outlet on the east coast.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.” Kane pulled out his building access card. “Let’s get to work. If we’re lucky we might just make the eleven o’clock news.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The place was called “The Gentlemen’s Lounge” but there was no lounging going on inside and the customers were certainly no gentlemen. Farber paid the ten dollar cover, got his hand stamped, and pushed through a curtain of clacking glass beads. In some places the girls worked poles but here they shimmied three times around a raised, U-shaped walkway, dropping their top for the second circuit and their panties on the third. They would pause when a customer signaled his interest with the wave of a folded bill. A single would get you a smile and a shake of her tits. For a twenty the girl would squat down in front of you for a few seconds and grin in a sad imitation of a bride on her wedding night before tucking your money into her elastic belt and moving on to the next guy down the bar. Some of the girls ended their final circuit wrapped in a fluttering tutu of currency. Other less popular women sported only a sparse belt of greasy ones and fives like the crown of a bedraggled tree two weeks after the first frost.

  Farber ordered a scotch from the topless girl pouring drinks from inside the center of the “U”. The label said “Cutty Sark” but Farber would have bet money that the contents were originally sold under the name “Old Walmart.” Well, what the fuck did he care? Farber bought alcohol for what it did to him, not for how it tasted. He took a long sip and tried not to make a face.

  The first girl was white and skinny with tits that looked like fried eggs hanging from a nail. Farber ignored her and checked out the place, searching for anyone who looked like a cop or seemed to be paying him too much attention. It looked like a typical crowd, part losers whose only chance at seeing a real, live naked woman was a place like this, bunches of young studs out to get loaded and leer at some ass along the way, and a few guys like him who were shopping for some companionship. Nobody rang any bells.

  Skinny finished her tour and took over the cash register from the corn-fed blonde who had sold him his drink. The next one up looked promising – Asian, long black hair, small tits but everything was trim and well proportioned. He shook the ice cubes in his empty glass and Skinny poured him another shot. When the Asian girl reached his spot he waved a five and for a second she flashed him her pussy then turned away, her expression more a sneer than a smile. Fucking bitch! He banged his empty glass on the boards behind her but she didn’t turn around. Skinny pulled it from his hand and poured him another two ounces of booze. Farber sipped and noticed that now it seemed more like a cocktail of razor blades and rubbing alcohol than something designed to be consumed by human beings.


  The music changed into a tune with a beat that Farber’s heart strove to match and he anxiously watched for the next girl on the tour. This one was black with firm breasts and wide hips and a bored expression that her fake smile and darting tongue were unable to conceal. And she was old, early thirties at least. He pointedly stared into the crowd of hollow faces when she reached his spot. As she neared the far end of the “U” at the finish of her routine the next girl climbed the steps. Farber leaned forward and stared down the runway past the sweating faces. Now, this was more like it. Eighteen, nineteen, he figured, maybe even younger, dancing her ass off on a fake driver’s license and some desperate need to escape wherever it was that she had called home. Light brown hair, good firm tits. Something frightened and innocent seemed to huddle behind her baby blues. He liked her right away.

  The guy to his left was a putz who smiled broadly then held up two ones. Jerk. Farber flashed her a twenty and she gave him her full attention. When she was halfway through her routine he held up another bill and gave her a “you and me” gesture. The empty look left her eyes and for a second she seemed frightened then she put the mask back on and moved along. Ten minutes later she replaced the black woman at the cash register and he waved her over.

  “Let’s you and me get together for a few minutes,” he said, almost shouting to be heard over the throbbing music. “I’m thinking sixty.” She gave him a nervous smile and started to turn away. “A hundred?” She paused and thought about it, her eyes picking at his untucked black shirt and muddy jeans.

  “I’m not allowed,” she mouthed.

  “Two hundred,” Farber said just loud enough for her to hear.

  For a second she froze then glanced nervously at the exit sign at the back of the room.

  “Meet me out back,” she said then grabbed a bottle of Bud Lite and hurried down the bar. Farber stared after her and then pushed through the crowd toward the rear door. When he neared the hallway to the dancer’s dressing room he caught the black woman staring at him like he was some smelly rat that had escaped its cage. He gave her a Fuck you! stare and pushed out through the back door.