by Chris Culver
Even without traffic, it’d take me at least forty-five minutes to drive all the way out to Pendleton and then a good hour to get through the security checkpoints to see Salazar. I planned to visit him sometime, but I’d rather pick the low-hanging fruit first and that meant Danny Navarra. As soon as I got in my car, I called the dispatcher for Navarra’s address. True to Quesada’s word, he lived just a couple of blocks north of the Children’s Museum on Kenwood Avenue. The neighborhood had a lot of drugs and gang activity, which, unfortunately, meant it had a lot of violence and poverty as well. Having worked homicide, I knew the area fairly well.
I got onto I-65 at Michigan Street and then drove north, exiting a few minutes later on Twenty-Ninth Street. That took me directly to North Kenwood, a road on which I drove for a few blocks. I saw the street turn from a decent area to one that, even armed, I wouldn’t have felt safe traversing at night. In the two-block stretch north of Thirty-Second Street, I passed at least five abandoned homes with plywood sheathing for windows and ivy crawling in and out of the siding, slowly tearing the buildings apart. Tree roots had lifted and broken many of the sidewalks, allowing weeds to grow through the cracks, while potholes marked the streets. Even amidst the poverty, though, I saw occasional bright spots——homes the owners of which obviously took pride in, well-maintained gardens and yards, even a hand-drawn sign on a window that read, “Purdue-bound!”
Navarra lived in a Dutch Colonial with a cinder-block retaining wall out front and concrete steps overgrown with vegetation. Most of the windows were intact and there were lawn chairs on the front porch. Casement windows along the foundation would have allowed some much-needed light into the basement, but weeds had overrun the base of the house so thoroughly I could barely see them. As if daring the police to raid the place, someone had sprayed Barrio Sureño in large letters along the garage, letting me know I had come to the right spot.
I parked half a block from the house and took a quick look around. Normally in an urban neighborhood like that, I’d see several cars on the street and I’d probably even hear people talking or kids playing basketball on some far-off court. Here, no one had parked on the street for at least two blocks in either direction, and as I got out of my car, silence greeted me. It felt almost eerie, like I had stepped into one of the bad zombie movies my wife made me watch when the kids went to bed. Maybe, the residents around me had just gone to work or school. Or perhaps more likely, judging by the plywood covering the front doors of at least two of Navarra’s neighbors, maybe nobody lived there.
I took the sidewalk north to Navarra’s house. The closer I got, the more oppressive the silence became. This late in the season, I didn’t expect to hear birds or see squirrels scurrying about, but I thought I’d at least see or hear a few kids. Nothing seemed to move. Odd.
I didn’t hurry the rest of the way, but I didn’t stop to appreciate the landscape, either. Houses across the street and catty-corner to Navarra’s had an unobstructed view of the front door. Thick brush, however, entangled the rusted chain-link fence that separated Navarra’s property from his neighbors to the north, while pine trees out back shaded the rear yard and gave it privacy from the neighbors to the west. As with nearly every house on the block, nobody looked home.
I started to walk past the house so I could see if there were any cars around back, but something on the porch drew my eye. The front door hung open. In this weather, I wouldn’t have expected anyone to leave the door open. If someone was home, this whole thing would go to hell. I hesitated, and then started across the grass toward the door, feeling the dead lawn crunch under my footsteps. The front porch sagged under my weight, but I didn’t stop to wonder whether it would hold me. Instead, I removed my firearm from my holster. The wooden frame around the deadbolt was splintered, likely because someone had kicked the door open. We had a crime scene.
The open door and obvious break-in gave the police cause to perform a protective sweep of the house. That wouldn’t give them reason to search through drawers or take drug dogs through, but in court they could introduce what they found in plain sight. I started to take out my cell phone to call Paul Murphy, but I heard something that stopped me cold. At first, it started as a banging noise, like shoes in a washing machine. But then the banging stopped, and I heard a shrill, almost hysterical voice crying out.
Help us.
My heart jumped. Without thinking, I pushed open the front door and swept the entryway with my firearm. All four corners were clear.
The room smelled like urine. At one time, the walls had probably been white, but they had turned yellow with age. Open archways led deeper into the house. Over and above the urine smell, I caught a faint whiff of gasoline. That concerned me, but I had more pressing things to deal with first.
“IMPD. I’m performing a protective sweep of the house. If you can hear my voice, put your hands on you head and come out now.”
I didn’t have to wait for a response.
“Help us. Please. We’re in the basement.”
“Come get us.”
I heard two voices now, both calling in concert. One belonged to a woman, but the other could have been a child crying. My instincts told me to start throwing open doors so I could find the staircase that led to the basement, but my training and experience told me that even a soccer mom could hide in the corner and shoot me from cover. I readjusted my grip on the firearm and headed toward the hallway that led to the kitchen in the rear of the home, staying close to the wall the whole time.
Time had ravaged the back portion of the house as much as it had the front entryway. I could see water marks near the ceiling in the kitchen, and the floor felt almost spongy, indicating some rather serious structural damage. The cabinets had fared little better. The uppers tilted away from the wall at an angle, making me nervous to even stand near them, while the lower cabinets looked as if an entire youth soccer team had been given free reign to kick everything they wanted. Despite the lack of carpet, it smelled just as bad as the front room. An open doorway near the far wall led down a dark stairway.
If this was an ambush, the trap would have sprung by now. At least I hoped so. I took a cautious step forward and cringed as the floor joists groaned.
“We’re down here. Please.”
I could hear tears in that voice, and they sounded real.
“Are you alone?”
They both shouted again at the same time, and eventually I heard one of them say yes.
“I’m coming down,” I said, stepping onto the first wooden step down. The basement had rough stone walls and a poured concrete floor. Even from the top step, I could smell mold, unsurprising considering the water damage directly above it. Since I didn’t want to present a target to somebody any longer than I had to, I ran down the steps and then swept the room with my firearm.
Casement windows near the ceiling allowed a scant bit of light inside, just enough to penetrate the gloom a few feet. Two people, a woman and a young boy, huddled together near a support post in the center of the room. The boy looked older than my daughter but not by a lot. He had blond hair and a thin, narrow face. He wore black glasses. The woman, likely his mother, had a similar petite bone structure, long face, and blonde hair. Neither looked like a threat.
“Is there anybody else in the house?”
The woman cried, but I couldn’t understand what she said. The boy put his face between his knees as if he had assumed the crash position in an airplane.
“Are we alone?” I asked.
The woman nodded. “I think so. We’ve been here for a long time.”
I should have probably run to the second floor to clear it, but I didn’t think she could lie to me in her state. I holstered my firearm and jogged toward them.
“I’m Detective Ash Rashid with IMPD,” I said, kneeling beside them. The boy had a welt on his cheek and his mother had bruises on her forearms and wrists. None of the injuries looked serious, but sometimes the deepest scars form inside. Someone had secured the bo
y’s hands behind his back with black zip ties, the kind I used to secure cables behind my television. I couldn’t break them, but even a fairly dull pocketknife could probably cut them. We’d have more difficulty with his mom. Her captors had secured her arms with steel handcuffs. Most handcuffs use a standard key to facilitate prisoner transfer, so normally I’d simply take my key out and untie her. Unfortunately, her captors had filled the keyhole with glue. We’d have to get some tools for her.
“I’m going to call for backup,” I said, standing. “Give me just a minute.”
I pulled out my phone and called my dispatcher’s back line. I told him where I was, and about the people I had found in the basement. He promised to send backup immediately, but since neither of my two captives’ injuries appeared life-threatening, an ambulance would be at least ten minutes off. They’d be okay until then. I hung up with him, and then called Paul Murphy. He didn’t answer, but I left him a message asking him to get out there ASAP. Once I had finished the calls, I slipped my phone back into my pocket and looked at the two victims.
“I’m going to run upstairs and see if I can find a knife or scissors so I can cut your son’s restraints,” I said. “We’ll get some bolt cutters to get these cuffs off you as quickly as we can. Okay?”
The woman nodded and trembled. I tried to think of something comforting to say before I left, but nothing came to mind. After this, they might need therapy, but they should survive. I smiled at them both and then jogged upstairs, catching the faint whiff of gasoline once more. Normal people didn’t keep gallons of gasoline in their houses, and the more I stayed there, the more that worried me. I needed to get this family out of there as quickly as I could before the place went up.
The kitchen was a disaster. I pulled out the top drawer beside the sink only to have a cockroach run across my hand. I jumped involuntarily, throwing it across the room. Aside from cockroach crap, the drawer was empty.
I tried the one beneath it and found nothing again. In the bottom drawer, I found a paring knife, or what may have been a paring knife at one time. The plastic handle had a crack on one side, and the blade had so many nicks and notches that it looked like someone had tried to use it to cut down a tree. Hopefully it’d do.
I carried it downstairs and then knelt beside the boy again. His eyes bulged wide when he saw the knife in my hand, so I hid it behind my back. He had dirt on his face. Had he been Megan or Kaden, I would have licked my thumb and tried to wipe it away. Instead, I gently put my free hand on his shoulder and looked him directly in the eye.
“I’m going to cut your restraints with this knife, so I need your help for a moment. I need you to pull your hands as far apart as you can. You might feel a little bit of a pinch, but if something hurts, let me know. I’ll stop and wait for someone to get here with better tools. Is that okay with you?”
He nodded and then shifted his weight forward, exposing his wrists. As he did that, I heard a thwump coming from upstairs. My furnace made the same sound when it kicked on, so I didn’t think much of it. I started sawing away, but even with such a dull knife, the plastic restraint cut easily. I broke the last little bit, and the boy jumped up. I thought he’d make a break for it, but then he wobbled on his feet and sat down again.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He didn’t respond verbally, but he nodded.
“Did you feel dizzy and lightheaded?” I asked. He nodded again. “You’ve been sitting down for a while. I bet the blood was rushing to your head. Just take it easy for a minute. We’re going to have medical people here to check you out. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, breathless. I turned my attention to his mom.
“The handcuffs holding you to the post have been glued shut, so I can’t open them. We’re going to get you out of here as soon as we can, but we’ll have to wait for backup to do that. In the meantime, I’m going to stay and talk to you. Does that sound okay?”
“Please don’t leave me,” she said, her voice trembling almost as much as her body.
“I’m not going to,” I said, smiling and hoping it would calm her a little. “What’s your name?”
“Gail Pennington,” she said. “This is my son Mark. Do you have any water? We’ve been down here for three days.”
“I don’t,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. “But I’ll tell the officers to bring some when they come. Can you tell me how you two ended up down here?”
Gail started to talk, but then her son interrupted her.
“It smells like smoke.”
I hadn’t noticed Mark walk to the stairs, but he stood at their foot and looked up toward the kitchen. I walked to where the kid stood. He wasn’t lying. I smelled smoke. I should have checked out the second floor when I had the chance.
“We’ve got to move,” I said, putting my hand across the boy’s chest and lifting him off the ground. I looked back to his mom. “I’ll be right back.”
She said something, but I couldn’t make out what as I sprinted up the stairs. The smoke smell became stronger, but I couldn’t see where the fire was coming from yet. I carried Mark outside and then put him on the grass. He immediately stood up and tried running back into the house, but I caught him and held him there.
“My mom’s in there,” he said. “Let me go.”
“Get across the street. No arguments. I’ll get your mom.” He kept fighting me, so I pointed across the street. “Get over there right now or I’ll tie you to my car.”
That got his attention. He cried, but at least he had stopped fighting me to get back into the house. I ran back inside, but now I found smoke traveling downstairs. Gail wailed in the basement.
“Come back. Help me.”
I tried to tune her screams out as I ran through the house, to the kitchen and finally back to the basement. Gail writhed against the pole to which her captors had tied her, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Mark’s outside. He’s fine.”
She nodded, but it didn’t stop the tears streaming down her face. I didn’t get called out to many fires, but I knew a thing or two about older houses. A modern house would have firebreaks between the first and second floor to keep flames from spreading, but this place had to be eighty years old. By now, the second floor would be toast, and the first floor wouldn’t be far behind. If the fire reached the trusses in the attic, the weight of the roof would collapse in on itself, taking the house and everything inside it with it.
We needed to move.
“Lean forward,” I shouted, hoping to break through Gail’s emotional state. She did as I asked, so I pushed on the steel support beam to which she had been tied, hoping it would give a little. I couldn’t budge it, so I took a step back and kicked hard. The shock went up my foot and into my knee, almost knocking me down, but the beam didn’t move. I looked around the room one more time, hoping I had missed something, a tool that could either cut Gail’s cuffs or knock the support beam out, but I couldn’t see a thing.
“Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
She repeated it over and over, trembling and rocking back and forth. I tried to keep my composure as I bent to look at her cuffs again. When I handcuff a suspect, I typically put them on tight but not so tight that they’ll cut someone’s circulation or rub against someone’s wrists. Gail’s had been clamped all the way against her skin.
“Make your hand as small and narrow as you can,” I said, holding my hand out and pressing all of my fingertips together in a pyramid shape to demonstrate. “I’m going to pull on the cuff backward, and you’re going to pull forward. We’ll try to force your hand out.”
She nodded but didn’t stop the please-don’t-leave-me mantra.
I sat on the ground behind her and put my hands on the chain of the handcuffs and my right foot in the crook of her elbow.
“This is going to hurt,” I said. “It might even pull your shoulder out of socket.”
“Please don’t leave me.”
Sounded like consent to
me. I counted down to three and pulled as hard as I could. Her hand turned red as the hardened steel cuff bit into her skin, bloodying her wrist. Gail grunted, but the handcuff didn’t move. I stopped pulling, and in the silence that followed, I heard her sob and saw, for the first time, smoke coming down the stairs and congregating between the joist cavities above our heads. We didn’t have any time.
“Are you right- or left-handed?” She didn’t stop crying to respond, so I repeated the question forcefully.
“Right-handed,” she said between sobs.
“Then put your left hand on the ground.”
She did as I asked, tears streaming freely down her face. “Just don’t leave me.”
“I’m not, but this is really going to hurt. I’m sorry,” I said, picking up my foot and then smashing it down as hard as I could on her thumb. Her scream belonged to an animal.
Chapter 12
Gail’s screams hammered into my skull. In an hour, her hand would swell to the size of a baseball mitt, but for the moment, I had some time to work. I slid her broken thumb down and out of the way, allowing me to remove the handcuff and free her from the post. Smoke billowed through the doorway, threatening to engulf us both. Just as with her son, I didn’t give Gail the chance to get her bearings. I simply threw her over my shoulder and ran up the stairs to the kitchen. Black, foul smoke filled the room. I tried to crouch beneath it, but smoke filled every cranny in the room and poured into my lungs like water that no amount of coughing could expel.
I ran without thinking. As the floor transitioned from the kitchen’s cracked linoleum to the carpet of the front entryway, the smoke brightened. I emerged from the house coughing, but alive. Gail continued to scream. Heedless of the house we had just run out of, Mark sprinted toward us, crying for his mom. I took her from my shoulder and carried her in my arms, just as I had done with my wife on our wedding day. Gail’s cries shifted from pain to relief as she saw her son. I put her on the ground just across the street, and the two of them hugged each other. She cupped his face, so I turned away to give them some privacy.