by Chris Culver
“Okay,” said Paul. “What’s the story? You still got a badge?”
“It’s complicated.”
He grunted. “They didn’t put you on probation, did they?”
“No,” I said, straightening. “They offered me a promotion.”
The word hung in the air for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a young boy carrying a balloon as he stared out the window and walked crookedly toward me. I stepped to the side and tried to smile at his mother as she took his hand and directed him toward the center of the room. Evidently, I was only partially successful, because she hurried back to her husband, clutching her kid like I was some kind of monster.
“So you’re Lieutenant Rashid now? How do you go into a disciplinary hearing and leave with a promotion?”
“Like I said, it’s complicated,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t even know if I’m going to take it. I wanted to tell you before you heard the rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“The inevitable ones,” I said. “You’re going to hear that I’m on the take, that I’ve got incriminating evidence against somebody important, or that a gangster made all this happen.”
“Any of those true?”
I held the phone against my ear with my shoulder and buttoned my coat, pretending not to have heard the question. He repeated it.
“I’ve never taken a bribe in my life.”
Paul whistled. “But the other two?”
“Just drop it, buddy. I’m on Washington Street, so I’ll see you in about ten minutes. Try to think of some way we can close this case before somebody else dies.”
“Is that an order, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, it is,” I said.
Chapter 27
I hung up my phone and slipped it back into my pocket. As soon as I did, I looked around and caught the crowd’s vibe for the first time. The Artsgarden connects directly to Circle Center mall, and normally, people leave there reasonably happy. Today, though, people moved a little too fast, and curiously, they seemed to be giving me an even wider berth than normal. Outside as well, I saw two marked police cruisers beneath the awning of the Conrad Hotel and another two parked at the intersection of Illinois and Market Streets. I followed the crowd down the nearest set of steps to Washington Street and then jogged east. The City-County Building was only four blocks away, and by the time I arrived, four news vans had parked in spots out front. All four had their antennas up to broadcast a live feed. A crowd had begun to form on the front pedestrian area.
I skipped the crowd out front and walked to the Alabama Street entrance. Four uniformed officers stood out front, blocking entrance to anyone but authorized personnel. I flashed my badge, walked inside, and took the stairs to the homicide unit’s floor rather than wait for the elevator. Bowers must have called in everybody from every shift, because I found twenty or thirty detectives there and more were arriving every few minutes. Paul sat on his desk with Emilia Rios beside him. I walked through the crowd and joined them.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Paul shook his head. “I’ve been digging through public records all morning, so I haven’t got a clue.” He nodded toward Officer Rios. “Emilia says we’ve got fires all over town.”
I looked at her and furrowed my brow. “What kind of fires?”
“The kind with—”
A booming voice from the door nearest the exit interrupted whatever Emilia had planned to say next.
“I need everybody’s attention.”
The voice belonged to Mike Bowers. He wore a navy pinstriped suit, light blue shirt, and coordinated blue tie. He looked as if he had shaved as well. Normally, Bowers didn’t care about his appearance, so whatever had happened, he planned to go on TV.
“I assume most of you have heard rumors about what’s going on. For those who haven’t, calls started flooding in approximately eighteen minutes ago about a significant quantity of gunfire in the Broadripple Village area. After that, we received news of an explosion on the east side of town and major residential fires at four separate locations around town. We now know that we have six mass-casualty situations involving somewhere between sixty and seventy victims. We expect that number to rise.”
He paused to let that sink in. In an average year, Indianapolis had between a hundred and a hundred twenty murders. If these numbers kept going up, we could come dangerously close to meeting that in a single day.
“We don’t know what’s going on, and we don’t know if these events are connected, but we are not taking chances. Word’s coming down from the mayor’s office that we are locking the city down. The State Emergency Operations Center is already up and running and coordinating with appropriate agencies, federal and local. We are calling in every single officer we have, including reserves. Once I receive orders, I will share them with your lieutenants and sergeants who will alert you to your assignments, but we are all going to hit the streets shortly. I stress that we don’t know what’s happening, but I don’t think I need to tell you how dangerous this situation could become. There are going to be a lot of frightened people out there, and frightened people do stupid things. Everyone use your heads, use good judgment, and stay safe out there. ”
When Bowers stopped speaking, the room erupted into conversation, and I felt my heart sink. I closed my eyes.
God, don’t let this be a Muslim terrorist.
I’m sure every Muslim who had heard the story shared the same thought, and I hated that. I hated that my kids would have to grow up in a world that demanded they apologize for their beliefs and explain constantly that they didn’t believe the same things as the Taliban or al-Qaeda or whatever other extremist self-proclaimed Islamic groups were in vogue. I hated everything about it, but I also knew my hate wouldn’t solve a thing. If I wanted the world to be a better place, it started at home and in my heart. I had to teach my kids to respect everyone—even those who believed differently than they did—and to stand up when they saw ignorant thugs teaching hate in the name of God. I also had to have the courage to do the same.
Already, I could feel eyes upon me and see the men and women around me edging away. Most of them probably meant nothing by it, but I could see anger in others. The room felt smaller than it had just a moment earlier.
I leaned closer to Paul Murphy so he could hear me over the ruckus.
“I think I need to get out of here.”
Paul looked around us and nodded, catching the vibe. “I’ll run interference. Take Emilia and meet me in the men’s room by the elevator.”
Normally, I would have questioned his choice of meeting place, but I didn’t think it mattered now. I nodded to him and then turned, apologizing as I forced my way through the crowd. I had almost made it to the door before a young detective stepped in front of me. He had dirty blond hair that had just begun graying at the roots, a cragged, pitted face, and the pitiless eyes of a man staring at something he despised. He started to say something, but then I felt a rough, strong hand prod me to the side. I looked over in time to see Paul Murphy push past me, heading directly toward the detective in front of me.
“Hey, Silverman,” said Paul, patting me on the back as he pushed past me. “How’s your sister feel about sleeping with big men? I hear she’s a wildcat in bed.”
I took the hint and hurried past as Paul distracted Detective Silverman. More than likely, Silverman would simply say something stupid and bigoted, but I had enough going on at the moment. We didn’t need to add a fight to it. With Paul blocking, I left the office and then opened the men’s room door near the elevators. Empty. Good.
“In here,” I said, holding open the door. Emilia hesitated and pointed to her chest.
“You want me to go into the men’s room with you?”
“Yes,” I said, motioning her forward. “Come on.”
The bathroom had gray-tiled walls, a rough-textured tile floor, and a white ceiling. The chrome fixtures where I could see them gleamed, and I could smell the cleanse
r the janitorial staff used to clean the toilets. Paul Murphy stepped through the door a moment later and then twisted the deadbolt, locking the rest of my department out and giving us some privacy.
“Lot less impressive than the ladies’ room, isn’t it?” asked Paul, raising his eyebrows as he turned to Emilia.
“Cleaner than I expected, though,” said Emilia. “Growing up, my little brother could barely hit the bowl. Your aim must get better as you get older.”
“Actually,” said Paul, puffing out his chest. “Some of us just get bigger—”
“Let’s stop right there,” I said, interrupting him. “That guy in the office need something?”
Paul waved me off. “He’s fine. Just wanted to get something rude off his chest. You don’t need to worry about him.”
“Anybody else I should worry about?”
Paul took a moment to think, but then shook his head. “No. Those of us who know you and your family have your back. Others are terrified that you’ll shot them in their sleep. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody talks to you seriously about radicalism amongst Indianapolis’s Muslim community, though.”
That’d be a short conversation, at least. Maybe we do have Muslims in the area willing to take up arms and abandon the basic tenets of their faith to murder other people, but I don’t know them. I don’t want to know them.
“Thank you. I appreciate the heads-up and the help,” I said, nodding to him. “We’ve got to keep working. Xavier Jackson is dead. How do we move forward?”
Emilia looked at me, and then back to Paul, and then to me again. “I thought you were on leave.”
“He was on leave,” said Paul before I could say anything. “But he’s back, and now he outranks everyone on this floor but Captain Bowers. It’s a rarified world of palace intrigue that Ash inhabits.”
“I’m impressed you know what the word rarified means,” I said, glancing at Paul. Before he could respond, I started talking again. “Let’s talk about the case. Did you ever find Santino Ramirez’s kid?”
Paul looked at Emilia and gestured for her to speak. She blinked a few times and then sighed. “I asked around. One of my grandmother’s friends said his name is probably Jacob Valdez. His mom ran around with Santino Ramirez in high school, but her parents shipped her off to live with her cousins in Cleveland after he got her pregnant.”
I almost closed my eyes and exhaled in relief. “That’s good work. We know anything else about him?”
She looked at Paul again, evidently unsure about answering my questions. Hopefully her diffidence would wear off soon because Paul, once again, nodded.
“I heard a rumor that he’s been staying in a house in Beech Grove. Nobody seemed to know exactly where in Beech Grove, though.”
I didn’t know that part of the county well, which meant we didn’t get too many serious crimes out there. That told me something interesting, though. I had read a book a couple of years back about Eastern European organized crime in the New York area. I expected the gangsters to hang out in bars or social clubs all day. Some of them did that, but others looked and acted just like normal immigrants. They bought homes on Staten Island or in New Jersey and commuted to the city to do whatever the hell they did. They shopped at Whole Foods. They walked dogs. They bought health insurance for their employees. It shouldn’t have surprised me to see organized criminals in Indianapolis move to middle-class neighborhoods, but it still felt wrong.
“Before you get too excited, he hasn’t been back to that house for a while and we haven’t been able to track him down,” said Paul.
“If he lives there, he will be back,” I said, settling down a little. “What about Carla? Did you find her?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding. “Our surveillance team found her at a gym she owns. She had her receptionist send out bottles of water and a note that said they were welcome to use the locker rooms if they needed to use the restroom.”
If she knew we had guys watching her, hopefully that would keep her from doing anything.
“Good. Call your surveillance team and tell them to pick her up for the ten-year-old murder of Angel Hererra. We’ll use that as leverage to get her to roll on whoever she’s working with now.”
Paul squinted. “You run this by the prosecutor’s office yet? Because if we pick her up for Angel Hererra’s murder, Santino Ramirez’s lawyers are going to raise a shit storm.”
“I suspect they’re raising a shit storm anyway,” I said. “This isn’t going to change that.”
“It’s your call, Lieutenant,” he said, already turning away. “I’ll call my team and have her brought in. You got somewhere you want to take her? Because we’re kind of busy here.”
“We’ll find somewhere.”
Paul nodded and then started his call. I leaned against the sink and looked down at my feet. It didn’t take Paul long to start swearing. Both Emilia and I looked at him at the same time. His face had gone red, and a vein throbbed in his forehead.
“Please don’t tell me we’ve got another body,” I said.
He tilted his head to the side. “No. The brass pulled everybody in for this fire thing, including our surveillance team. They left her twenty minutes ago. She’s in the wind.”
“Didn’t they say they were on an assignment?” I asked.
“Deputy chief himself called their lieutenant and said to bring in everybody unless they’re currently making an arrest. Our surveillance teams are now patrolling as part of the show of force.”
My hold on my temper began to fray, so I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself down and give me a moment to think. “Okay. You two, go do whatever you need to do with this fire business, but stay near a phone. I might need some help.”
Paul stood a little straighter. “And what are you going to do, Lieutenant?”
“I’m going to find Carla Ramirez, and it’d be best if you guys didn’t see how.”
Chapter 28
I left the bathroom with my cell phone already pressed to my ear. In a normal case, I’d call up a detective from the gang squad or a confidential informant and ask him or her to set up a meeting with a Barrio Sureño member who might know Carla’s location, but I didn’t need to do that today. We already had a member in lockup, just waiting to talk to us: Danny Navarra. He might not know exactly where Carla was, but he’d know about the gang’s safe houses. Finding them would at least give us somewhere to search.
I called a buddy of mine with the sheriff’s department and arranged for a meeting. My buddy couldn’t guarantee that Danny would talk, but I’d have him in an interrogation room to myself as soon as I reached the jail.
I walked south on Alabama Street for a couple of blocks until I arrived at the jail. Security wasn’t quite as tight as it would be at a maximum-security facility, so it only took me ten minutes from my arrival to the time I walked into the interrogation room. Danny Navarra met me inside, wearing an orange jail-issue jumpsuit. He had closely cropped hair, light brown skin, and bright, almost chipper green eyes. The tattoo of a woman adorned his right forearm, and three teardrops in green ink seemed poised to slide from his left eye and down his cheek.
I had seen that teardrop tattoo on a lot of gangbangers, and it had a number of different meanings. Some guys tattooed them on as a symbol of the men they’d killed, while others put one on for each year they spent in prison. I had read Navarra’s jacket, so I knew he hadn’t ever been convicted of a serious crime. He had spent time behind bars, usually in two- to three-month increments. I thought he intended the teardrops to show his toughness, but in my experience, the really tough guys didn’t need to tell anybody anything. One look at any of them, and you knew you didn’t want to mess with that guy. Navarra, on the other hand, probably needed all the help he could get.
I wanted to get in there, throw him against a wall, and demand he tell me everything he knew. A TV cop would have done it, but in real life, that wouldn’t get me anywhere. It’s easy to earn an inmate’s fear, but I needed
trust, and that meant sucking up my anger and frustration.
“How you doing?” I said, sitting across the table from the prisoner. “I don’t think we know each other. I’m Ash Rashid, and you’re Danny Navarra, right?”
He looked me up and down and then smirked. “You don’t look so tough.”
“You’re the only tough guy here, I assure you,” I said. “I’m just a guy here to talk to you.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms. “I hear you talked to Tristan Salazar at Pendleton.”
So word was getting around about me. I could use that. “He and I had a conversation, yeah. What’s it to you?”
Navarra uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. “You try to entrap me, I’m gonna mess you up. How’s that sound?”
He might have heard of my encounter with Tristan Salazar, but evidently he hadn’t learned the right lesson. Threatening a police officer is a bad idea.
“I’m just here to talk, kid,” I said. “You’re in here for what, B and E?”
He looked at me again and shrugged, trying to look cool but barely able to maintain eye contact. “That’s what the cops say, but you can’t trust Five-O. Ass holes are always after us.”
I took a notepad from my inner jacket pocket and laid it in front of me. “I know. We’re horrible human beings for arresting you. I appreciate the dignity you bring to your situation, though. I came here to talk to you about your future.”
“Whatever you got to offer, I’m not interested.”
I leaned back. “I wouldn’t be so sure. We both know what’s going on with your gang. Santino Ramirez hasn’t named a successor, and Barrio Sureño is tearing itself apart.”
He put his hands on the table. They trembled ever so slightly. The guy was obviously nervous about something, and normally, I would have let him sit in jail for a few days to think things through. Time mattered here, though. I needed to find Carla before she killed anyone else.
“Barrio Sureño is fine,” he said.