Measureless Night (Ash Rashid Book 4)

by Chris Culver

  I reached the tree line and privacy fence separating Carla’s house from the neighbor’s, without incident or notice. From what I could see of Carla’s backyard, she had a sliding glass back door that opened onto a concrete patio. Carla—or whoever owned the house—didn’t have furniture or anything else to obstruct her exit. That didn’t leave me with a lot of hiding places, but hopefully she’d be so busy trying to escape that she wouldn’t look around too well.

  I hopped the fence and then immediately crouched and jogged toward the house. As per the plan, I heard Emilia’s siren kick on about a minute later. It sounded distant at first, but she closed that distance remarkably quickly and then slammed on her brakes, causing her tires to bite into the concrete. I held my breath, waiting.

  Then I heard it.

  The back door slid open. I reached for my Taser, took a breath, and then stepped out into the lawn. For a brief moment, my eyes locked with Carla’s. She looked surprised, but then she smiled slightly and I heard a deep, guttural noise and I realized she hadn’t come to the door alone. A dog the size of a miniature pony trotted out of the house. He had a black snout, a fine chestnut-colored coat, and clearly defined muscles.

  “Oh, shit.”

  The dog snarled and sprinted toward me, while Carla sprinted toward the back fence. I could probably hit her with the Taser from where I stood, but I only had one shot. Some of my colleagues might have used that one shot on the dog, but I didn’t even consider it. Instead, I just turned and sprinted back toward the fence. I cleared it, but just barely before the dog slammed into the wood. The slats shuddered, and for a moment, I thought he’d break right through. Thankfully, it held.

  “Carla’s heading south,” I shouted, hoping Emilia had gotten out of her car. I sprinted along the property line, feeling the branches of fir trees hit me in the face. When I emerged into the clearing of another neighbor’s backyard, I could see Carla running. She wore gray sweats, a white shirt, and black tennis shoes. Several dogs around us barked, and I took off running. The houses around me blurred. I exercise regularly, and I can do pretty well for short bursts, but long distances kill me, and as I ran and as the landscapes and yards around me blended into one another, I felt my lungs start to burn. I passed swing sets and barbecue pits and more patio furniture than I usually saw outside a home center, but after fifteen or twenty houses, I could feel my feet already slowing.

  Carla hadn’t even lost a step.

  I jumped over one last fence—a six-footer with slats nailed close to give the owner privacy—and found myself in the last yard before the end of the street. It was a corner ranch house with a storage shed in the backyard. A car waited on the road, maybe ten feet from Carla and seventy from me. I wasn’t going to make it. She looked over her shoulder, and I could almost see the smug look on her face. I dug into my gut and pushed as hard as I could, but it wasn’t enough. I barely made it halfway through the yard before Carla dove inside the car, and I barely made it five steps beyond that before I heard the engine turn over and the tires squeal as she floored the accelerator.

  I pounded to a stop at the end of the lawn and could only watch as Carla turned, looked over her shoulder, and gave me the finger.

  But then I saw her face shift. She put her hand down slowly and braced herself for an impact. I felt the wind whip past me almost before I heard the car. Emilia’s cruiser slammed into the rear quarter panel of Carla’s vehicle, causing it to spin like a top. The car crashed into a light pole with a wrenching sound of metal crunching on metal and moved no more. I sprinted once more toward the now crashed vehicle. Carla’s head lay back against the headrest, but she blinked slowly. I threw open the passenger door and shoved my Taser right at her.

  “Put your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them right now.”

  Carla blinked several more times and then looked at me. Slowly, recognition sprouted on her face as her wits came back to her, and she shot her hand to the seat beside her, presumably for a weapon.

  “Wrong move,” I said, squeezing the trigger on the Taser. Two electrodes shot out, hitting Carla in the neck. I squeezed the trigger again and her entire body went rigid as 50,000 volts coursed through her. I hate to say it, but I found it a little satisfying.

  After the first jolt with the Taser, she got out of the car willingly, and Emilia immediately cuffed her and threw her in the back of the cruiser.

  “I’ve got backup on the way,” she said, shutting Carla inside the vehicle. “Should be here within a minute or two.”

  “Good. Tell them to bring somebody from the Humane Society for a dog. I’m going to go back to the house and check it out.”

  Emilia nodded and then climbed back into her car to place the call. I walked five or so blocks back to Carla’s house. The dog was still in the backyard. The neighbors wouldn’t like it, but I found a rubber kid’s ball on their grass and threw it over the fence. Immediately, Carla’s dog gave chase, picked the ball up, and then brought it back to the fence. He didn’t growl this time. Instead, he just dropped the ball and wagged his tail, patiently. Maybe the guy just needed a friend. I walked to the gate at the side of the house and let myself in. The dog looked at me and then nosed the ball. I could appreciate a single-minded fellow. I threw the ball to him twice more, and by that time, he lost interest in me, allowing me to go into the house unmolested. Just the same, I shut the glass sliding door behind me and stepped into the kitchen.

  The room smelled almost overpoweringly of incense and raw marijuana. Danny Navarra hadn’t lied to me. This gave us more than enough to hold Carla—and him. I didn’t open any of the kitchen cabinets, but I doubted I’d find much interesting in them. Too obvious. The front room had beige carpet and faux oak paneling. Carla had layered blankets on the floor near the front window, creating somewhere soft to sleep. I saw no other furniture at all. I cleared the rest of the first floor and found nothing.

  With the house secure, I took the basement stairs down and found grow lights in rows on the ceiling, and so many plants that I might have stepped into the greenhouse at the botanical gardens. Not only did I find marijuana plants, though, I found six burlap sacks full of it as well. I kicked one, and it barely moved. If they weighed fifty kilograms—a common weight for burlap sacks full of marijuana—they’d go for a good hundred grand each on the street. Next, I accessed the attic via a folding ladder in the main hallway and found rows of grow lights and a couple dozen plants. All told, it promised to be one of the bigger drug busts the department has had this year, but I hadn’t come for drugs. It did give us some leverage, though, and I liked that.

  I started to exit the house a few minutes later, but I paused at the threshold, listening for the sound of sirens. They sounded distant still, but they grew stronger the longer I paused. We’d have help soon. I pulled the door shut behind me and walked back to the scene of Carla’s accident. Emilia walked toward me, glancing back at her cruiser, where Carla sat on the back seat.

  “What’d you find?” she asked.

  “Enough marijuana to supply every college campus in the state for a week or two,” I said, nodding toward the cruiser. “She say anything?”

  “No.”

  I looked at the cruiser and saw Carla through the window. Despite being handcuffed in the back of our cruiser, she had the same smug look on her face as she had had when she gave me the finger. We had a good case against her for murder and an even better case for the marijuana, and she didn’t seem the least bit concerned. She had something planned, something that would hurt. I had a bad feeling growing in my gut.

  “As soon as patrol arrives, we’ll get her downtown, then.”

  Chapter 30

  Getting downtown took a little longer than expected because Emilia had flattened one of her cruiser’s tires when she hit Carla’s car; but once we got that sorted out, we drove to my building on Alabama Street. Along the way, I called Paul Murphy and asked him to meet us. With everything else going on, even the prosecutor’s office had shut down fo
r the day, leaving the floor virtually abandoned. Paul met us outside the storage room the department called my office, a dour expression on his face that brightened only somewhat when he saw us lead Carla ahead of us in cuffs.

  “I commandeered the conference room,” he said. “It’s got video, so we can interview her in there on the record.”

  I nodded to Emilia, and she began leading the suspect to the open door. Paul, then, stepped closer to me.

  “We haven’t found Jacob Valdez. Not that anyone’s been looking.”

  I nodded, having learned early in my career that I couldn’t rely on lucky breaks. “I’m betting Carla knows where he is, and even if she doesn’t, I bet she’s got a way to contact him.”

  Paul looked over his shoulder at the conference room. “You think she’d be willing to help us?”

  “Not without some pressure,” I said, walking past him toward the open door. “But she’s planning something. Let’s keep the cameras off for this one until we can figure out what she wants.”

  Paul hurried to walk beside me. “If that’s how you want to play it, that’s how we’ll play it.”

  The conference room had a wall of windows overlooking Alabama Street and the parking lot of AAA Bail Bonds. Sunlight filtered through black blinds, lending the room a bright, almost cheery feel. Had we conducted this interview in the City-County Building, we would’ve used an interrogation room barely bigger than the interior of an SUV, and we’d have secured Carla’s hands to the wall via a steel ring screwed directly into the concrete. I liked the rooms over there because they reminded inmates that I controlled their fate, at least for a time. It let me manipulate most suspects, but I doubted it’d do much for Carla. She seemed a little slick for simple tricks.

  I smiled at her when I walked in. She still had her hands secured behind her back, so she had to sit toward the end of her chair, her back straight. She wore the same sweatpants and shirt she had worn earlier and no makeup. I could see defiance in her eyes, but also something else, something far colder. I would have shuddered had I not seen similar eyes so often on the men and women I had put in prison.

  “Mrs. Ramirez,” I said, upon entering the room. “I apologize for what happened earlier. We don’t normally Tase suspects while bringing them in.”

  Despite her hands being pulled behind her back, she shrugged nonchalantly. “I would have shot you had you not Tased me first. Hope you don’t harbor hard feelings.”

  I looked down at her restraints. “Considering the circumstances, not at all. Has anyone advised you of your rights?”

  She pushed her chair back from the table with her feet and stood up. Emilia started toward her, but I shook my head, wanting to see what Carla had planned. She walked straight toward the bank of windows and looked out as if she were an office worker in the midst of a particularly insufferable meeting. In my experience, men and women facing the kind of charges Carla faced did one of two things: they broke down and cried, or they shut up and asked for a lawyer. Her obvious confidence worried me.

  “I’m an attorney, Mr. Rashid. Like yourself. I know my rights.”

  I hadn’t known that, but I pretended as if I did. “Then you know you have the right to remain silent, but if you choose to speak to us, we can use what you tell us in court. If you want, we can bring in an attorney. That’s your right, too. We can even stop this discussion right now if you want that. Bearing all that in mind, would you mind talking to us?”

  She turned around and smiled at me. The fading sunlight caught off her skin, almost making her appear to glow. Funny how often the most beautiful things in nature turned out to be the deadliest.

  “The colloquial Miranda warning. That’s cute. For the time being, I choose to waive my rights.”

  “Good,” I said, taking a seat at a black leather chair a little more comfortable than the ones IMPD usually supplied. “You want those cuffs off?”

  She nodded, so Emilia undid them. Carla pulled out a chair across from me at the table, folding her hands together. I’ve sat across from a lot of suspects in situations like this. Men and women who make their living on the street think they’re tough, but you slap some cuffs on them and threaten them with a life sentence, they usually break. Carla, though, had the cool, calm, and collected demeanor of someone who knew she’d walk right out at any moment. She should have been terrified.

  “I assume you know why you’re here,” I said.

  “Because I killed Michelle, and Gail, and Mark, and those two police officers. I never learned their names.” Emilia tensed and brought her hand to her waist, near her weapon. She didn’t draw it, but she looked as if she wanted to. Carla looked at her and smiled. “I’d feel a lot more comfortable if you took your hand away from your sidearm.”

  I would have felt more comfortable too, so I coughed to clear my throat. “Officer Rios, would you mind getting us some water? My throat’s dry.”

  “Lieutenant?” she asked.

  “Water,” I said. “I can handle Mrs. Ramirez on my own.”

  Emilia hesitated before leaving the room.

  “You’re a guy who can take charge,” said Carla. “I like that. Congratulations on the promotion to lieutenant, too. This morning, Kristen Tanaka called you a lowly sergeant. The promotion must be exciting.”

  “Yeah, I’m ecstatic,” I said. “I noticed you didn’t mention Tomas Quesada.”

  “No,” said Carla, nodding. “I didn’t mention Tomas. Jacob killed him. I drove the car.”

  That explained why he outran me so easily. He was a kid. “It’s unfortunate he’s not here. You know how I can get in touch with him?”

  Her smile could have charmed Oscar the Grouch. “I do know how to get in touch with him, as a matter of fact. In fact, I know where he is right now. He’s entertaining a pregnant young woman named Valerie Perez.”

  I sat up straighter and blinked. She was one of our eyewitnesses. “Excuse me?”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed as if she were exasperated. “I told him not to take her, but you know how kids are. They get something in their minds, nothing will get it out.”

  I looked at Paul and tried not to express my sudden worry. “You mind checking up on this?”

  “I’m on it,” he said, nodding, his voice uncertain.

  “Don’t bother checking her house,” said Carla. “She’s long gone.”

  “If you’ll indulge us just the same,” I said. “He’ll be back in a minute.” I looked at Paul. “And have Emilia check the hospitals. If Valerie’s pregnant, she may be in the hospital.”

  Paul inhaled and nodded, looking from me to Carla and back. Carla waved at him.

  “Good luck,” she said, smiling broadly. Paul left the room without a word, leaving me with just Carla. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything for the next few minutes until Paul stuck his head back in the room. He motioned me out, so I stood and followed him into the hallway, joining Emilia.

  “I called Valerie’s cell phone, but she didn’t answer. We had a black and white a couple of blocks from her house, so I had him swing by. Somebody kicked in the back door.”

  “She’s not in the hospitals, either,” said Emilia. “She’s gone.”

  I brought my hand to my mouth and sighed. “Damn.”

  “Yeah,” said Emilia, nodding.

  I took another breath and then sighed. “Carla knows where she is. We’re going to make a deal, and it’s not going to be pretty. If you guys aren’t up for that, stay in the hallway.”

  Paul looked at Emilia. “We’re good, I think.”

  She nodded again, so the three of us walked back into the room. Now I knew why she smiled so smugly. She thought she had us.

  “What do you want?” I asked. “I can’t guarantee you immunity, but if you talk to us now, I’ll put in a good word with the prosecutors.”

  She shook her head. “As much as I love helping other people out, I’m not interested in being prosecuted. I’d rather you let me go right now. I think it’s in your best intere
st, too.”

  I crossed my arms. “Okay. I’ll play along. What would we get?”

  “You’d save twenty-three lives.” She tilted her head to the side. “Twenty-four if Valerie gives birth.”

  I blinked. “Whose lives are these?”

  Carla stood up again and once again walked toward the window. She motioned me over. Emilia had patted her down for weapons earlier, and she hadn’t grabbed anything, so she didn’t pose a threat. I joined her at the window.

  “Do you see the smoke?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. We’ve had a number of incidents around town.”

  She chuckled. “Incidents? That’s what you call them?” She shook her head, allowing her hair to brush against her shoulder. “The word incident is so clinical. I’d say you’ve got what, a hundred dead so far? I’d call that a massacre.”

  That did feel like a better word. “What about it?”

  “Your victims are all illegal immigrants smuggled from Nogales, Mexico to here in semitrailers. Sometimes Miguel puts forty of them in one truck with one bucket for a toilet. Winter’s not so bad with that many people because they can huddle together for warmth. Summers are rough, though. In August, a couple of them die on the way usually, but I guess it’s like carrying produce. You’ve just got to expect some rot.”

  She wanted to shock me. I breathed out through my nose and nodded as if comparing human beings to apples made sense. “So you know Miguel Navarra.”

  “Yes,” she said, turning to me. “I assume you’re acquainted?”

  “I know of him. I didn’t realize he smuggled people. I heard he just killed people for the Zetas.”

  “He does what his employer needs,” she said, shrugging. “He used to just bring people up and let them go, but he keeps some now. The prize fish, he calls them. When they arrive, they call their families, and those who can pay a little extra are released. Those who can’t, he holds until their families pay. Sometimes he has to send them a finger or two in the mail, but they all pay in the end.”

  “Who’s killing them now?”