by Liz Bradbury
“Red.”
“Red? You’re kidding. Well that’s a coincidence, but it’s not your real name.”
He hesitated.
“You’re in a lot of trouble right now, Red. And you don’t have any friends. If you didn’t help to kill Frankie, then I’ll do what I can for you.”
“I didn’t kill him. I’d never.”
“Real name... right now.”
“It’s Sydney... Sydney Kibbey, but people call me Red.”
“Was Francis Kibbey your brother?”
“Yes... I didn’t kill him! I didn’t even know he was dead.”
“You saw him get shot! They reported he died on the news. How could you not know? Did you just not notice he wasn’t coming home for dinner?”
“I don’t watch news.” Red smelled like a clothes hamper in a men’s dorm during finals week. And though he was scared, he didn’t seem very upset about his brother’s death.
“OK, keep quiet and don’t move.” I tugged the chain of keys out of his pocket and unclipped it from his belt, then crawled back out of the van and took out my cell to call Sgt. Ed O’Brien, but the officer on duty told me it was his day off. So I asked for Sgt. Marc Freligh.
I’d known Marc on the force for longer than I’d known Ed. We’d gone through the academy together. He was a good cop and an ally and often Marc had more imagination when investigating a complicated case than Ed did.
“Marc? I’m bringing in that guy wanted for questioning about the shooting in the graveyard.”
“I didn’t kill him,” groaned Red from inside the van.
“Shhhh,” I said.
“What?”
“Not you, Marc.”
“Maggie, you mean the maroon sweatshirt perp with the red hair who shot that guy in the cemetery? The one that you and the Scottish woman saw?”
“Yes, right. His name is Sydney Kibbey and the one who was killed was named Francis Kibbey. They were brothers. Thing is, I don’t think he did it. And neither does the other witness... the Scottish woman. Neither of us saw a gun.”
“Yeah well, O’Brien does, and I was pretty much sold on him too. But, you say he didn’t have a gun? Oh man. Well, I’ll start processing his information either way. What’s your ETA?”
“About forty-five minutes.”
“What? Where the heck are you?”
“Peskeetotemburg.”
“Pesky? That’s not in our... Wait, forget I said that. In fact, forget we’re talking. Just get him in here.
“He was selling stuff that was worth a boatload of money, and he has no idea where it came from. He also tried to slash me with one of those old flip-open razors in front of witnesses.”
“Receiving stolen goods, attempted assault with a deadly weapon. Both felonies. Are you sure the stuff is stolen?”
“Suspicion of. I’ll see you in a little while.”
“Maggie, be careful OK? We’re looking at him for murder, so be sure he’s secure. You know what I mean?”
“OK. See you soon.”
I turned to Kathryn, who had the heavy bag over her shoulder and a bright gleam in her eye.
I smirked and tossed her the keys. “OK, OK, let’s go, Robin.”
She angled behind the wheel and turned the engine over.
Farrel drives slowly and evenly. Even her cats like riding with her. With Kathryn at the wheel we’d get back faster than Farrel any day, but I was a little sick just imagining what it would be like.
“Kathryn, take it easy on the gas. There’s nothing to hang on to back here.”
“Gentle as a kitten,” she said.
“Yeah, well, I had a kitten in grad school who knocked over a bookcase to get to the plants on the top shelf. As I recall she also used to pounce on me in the middle of the night and bite my neck.”
“I could do that,” said Kathryn, adjusting the mirrors and revving the engine. I heard the seatbelt click and her shift into gear.
It’s a manual, I groaned inwardly.
The old van bumped over the uneven parking lot and out onto the main road. I was watching Red. What I didn’t see was the full-sized white Econoline van with tinted windows fire up its motor and roll out of the parking lot ten car lengths behind us.
Even with gentle driving, this twenty-year-old engine would have groaned out a high-pitched whine. Going up South Hill, over a road that was potholed like a toaster waffle, the Astro’s engine sounded like an old kitchen blender crushing ice on high. Kathryn took the winding back route to Fenchester. She held the road fairly smoothly through hardwood groves and past two-hundred-year-old farms.
Red groaned. “Can’t you take the hand-cuffs off? I said I didn’t kill Frankie.”
“Look Red, you slashed at me with this,” I said holding the razor between two fingers, “and you’re a flight risk.”
“I’m scared. Those guys are after me cause I took their van.”
“What guys? Look, Red, I’m not a cop, and you don’t have to say a word to me, but if you really didn’t kill Frankie, I’m just about the only person who’s willing to listen. The cops are looking for someone to lock up and throw away the key. And there are other guys after you too? Maybe you’d better tell me what happened in the cemetery on Sunday.”
I stared at Red’s face pressed flat against the dirty carpeting while he made up his mind.
“I’ll talk about Frankie.”
He didn’t sound threatening or dangerous, but on the other hand he might be working with a murderer and he tried to slash me. This is the kind of situation that instructors at the academy caution rookies about. Don’t let your guard down. There’s nothing worse than having to explain how the perp got the upper hand when he’d been completely under control at the beginning of the interrogation. That was what Marc Freligh was hinting about on the phone.
But handcuffing a person is a risky thing to do, even in a citizen’s arrest. As a P.I. I’m not really supposed to do it unless the perp is dangerous or I’d witnessed him committing a crime and he was about to flee. Among other things, I would be legally responsible if he got hurt in any way. Red didn’t quite fit the profile of someone who had to be handcuffed.
I sighed and hauled him into a sitting position with his back against the side door as Kathryn slowed to rumble over the train tracks at South Fen Crossing.
“Don’t make me sorry I’m doing this,” I said to Red as I unlocked the cuffs and put them in my pocket.
“All this slow and even driving is wreaking havoc on my ability to travel at the speed of light,” called Kathryn above the whine of the Chevy’s neglected engine.
“What were you doing in the cemetery before Frankie got shot?” I asked Red.
“I... I had went there to meet him. To help get some stuff to sell.”
“He had it in the graveyard? Where was it? Where did he get it?”
“I don’t know,” whined Red, flailing one arm to keep upright as we went around the corner. “We found it.”
“You found it? You did? Where?”
“Well, Frankie told me he found it. He was with those guys that take things from people, but then Cue and Willie got arrested. So Frankie needed another job. He never went into the places like Cue and Willie. He just drove the van.”
“Cue.... Cue?... like Cue Ball? Was he bald? Were these the guys who dressed up like they worked at the water company and stole from old people? All this stuff you were selling is stuff they stole?”
Red nodded. “Yes... No this is Frankie’s stuff. Wait, they didn’t really steal; they just took things when people weren’t looking,” said Red innocently.
“That’s pretty much the definition of stealing, Red. So why are they mad at you?”
“Well, Frankie borrowed their van. And I still have it. See Frankie found a stash of some really old shit, like antiques and stuff. He didn’t tell nobody but me. He took some and then borrowed Cue and Willie’s van to go to a flea market on Sunday and it sold really good. So he wanted to get more and he neede
d me to help, so he texted me to meet him in Skeleton Park near that statue of the girl in the nightgown.”
“So you met him?”
“Yeah.”
“And? You went to get stuff?”
“Yeah, well no, see we started to. We went past these bushes and Frankie went in this cement house. It was dark... and he started to hold up his lighter...” Red began to shake. He swallowed a few times before he could go on. “But... there was somebody there in the dark. And Frankie freaked and yelled for me to run. There was a shot. I ran to the side and Frankie ran past me. Then there was another shot and Frankie spinned around, like he was doing a dance. He didn’t look hurt, just like he was spinning around, you know like when you’re a kid and you spin? And then he fell down. I ran over to him. There was blood and he whispered for me to run. So I did.”
“Who shot him?”
“Didn’t see.”
“You didn’t see? That doesn’t make sense, Red.”
“Frankie was in the way in front of me. He dropped his lighter. It was dark, like as dark as when you close your eyes at night.”
“But how did you get out of the graveyard without the cops seeing you?”
“I was running like freaking hell and I didn’t want to get caught, so I ran around and back past the bushes and to a little cement house. I hid behind a statue in the back of it. It was really tight, but I squeezed in and I waited there for, like, hours. I fell asleep and when I woke up it was dark and I was so cold. I pushed past the bushes and there was no one around, so I got out without no one seeing.” Red was shaking again.
“Why would you go back to the cement house when there had been someone with a gun in there?”
“Well, well see, I heard the police and I have a warrant. I didn’t want to run into the cops.”
“You were more afraid of the police than of someone who had just shot your brother?”
Red nodded. “I guess that was stupid. Frankie had said there was stuff in there... but there wasn’t nothing in the cement house to take, so I just hid. It was a good hiding place.”
I shook the disbelief out of my head. I’d heard stories like this a hundred times when I’d been on the police, especially from teenagers. Red felt he had nowhere else to go, and he’d wanted to find more things to sell. Simple as that. I sighed. “What kind of a warrant?’
“Failure to appear, for a shoplifting charge.”
“Doesn’t seem like you always make good choices, Red. Where was this crypt? Can you show me?”
Red shook his head again and pushed his bright red hair out of his eyes. “I looked for hours on Monday, but all those little freakin’ cement houses look the same.”
“Well, how did Frankie find it? Did he tell you?”
“Probably followed somebody. That’s what Cue and Willie do when they seen somebody old who looks like they had money. They just follow them to see where they live.”
“So where did you get this stuff you were selling today?”
“Frankie already had it in the van. See, I knew Cue and Willie would come looking for the van, since Frankie took it on Sunday. So I had to sell the stuff before they found it. I couldn’t bring stuff in the house or nothing because... well, it’s not safe where I live.”
I was thinking about a home that was less safe than an old van tied up with rusty wire and beginning to understand Red a little better when a huge crash lurched us forward. Red and I were sent ricocheting off the van’s wall. I held on to the seatbelt dangling where the passenger seat had once been as Red rolled all the way to the back. .
“What was that?” yelled Red.
I saw a flash of white out the back window, then saw Kathryn glance in the rear view mirror, grip the wheel, and stamp on the gas.
“Brace yourself,” yelled Kathryn. “We’re going to be rammed again!”
There was another crash. I’d been ready for it this time. I held on to the metal legs of the front seat. I’d felt the jolt but missed the secondary recoil. Not so for Red. He bounced off the inside of the back door and three of his boxes slammed against his ass.
Red groaned at the sight of the van gaining on us again. “Shit! What the...”
I was ahead of him, way past what, I needed to know who. This wasn’t a random act of road rage.
Kathryn was in her element. She took the curves, sped up, and left whatever was slapping our butts in her dust for a minute.
“Oh my! Hold on!” she yelled again. I heard the screech of tires and felt the van take a curve on two wheels. I managed to pull myself up to my knees so I could see out the back windows. A big white van with a dark-tinted windshield was racing up behind us, readying for another lunge.
Both Kathryn and I knew we were coming to the South Mountain cliffs that we had to skirt before driving down into Lenape Valley. Kathryn’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror again, then back to the road.
“We’re about fifty feet ahead of that van,” shouted Kathryn over the din of the straining motor.
I hoped fleetingly that the transmission would hold out, just as it popped out of gear. Kathryn jammed it back in, double clutching like a pro.
“Red, is this some pissed off friend of yours?” I yelled over the squeal of tires.
“Hell no! I don’t know anybody with a van like that. Holy Mother of God!” gasped Red as we hit a bump in the road and literally made air under all four tires.
The Astro’s front end bounced up, and when the back wheels struck the pavement again sparks flew from the tailpipe hitting the road, and we had a full view of the white van behind us. I peered hard, trying to see through the windshield, but it was covered with some kind of mylar reflective coating. All I could see was the reflection of the dented rear end of the minivan we were in and my own face.
Huh. So that’s what I look like when I’m in a life and death situation. My face looked far calmer than I felt.
We were now speeding along the cliff’s edge. Kathryn was doing her best to hold the Astro away from the forty foot drop as the road curved up the mountain, but she was going twice as fast as the posted speed limit. And the big Ford van behind us was going faster than that.
“It’s going to hit us again!” called Kathryn. Her voice was even, almost calm. Yet I didn’t have time to dwell on how proud I was of her.
“Hold it steady, Kathryn. I’m going to kick out a back window.”
“Hurry,” yelled Kathryn. “Here it comes.”
The back windows were hinged at the top. I kicked the lower edge of the one on the driver’s side and the plastic lock popped open. The window swung from the top but crashed back down. I grabbed the scissor jack that was in the wall pocket of the van, hefted it over my head, and hurled it at the top hinge of the window. The window broke out and the jack sailed out as well. Both hit the grill of the white van, which swerved and braked, slowing it down for a short moment.
It was a good thing it did. I could feel Kathryn taking a sharp outside curve. If we’d been hit then, we would have gone over. I grabbed one of the paint cans and shook it hard. Paint sloshed inside. I thrust my hand in my pocket for my keys and used one to pry open the lid. Swirling the paint in the open can, I crawled on my knees to the window and holding the can like a water bucket I tossed the liquid out. It covered almost all the van’s windshield in one broad splash. There was an immediate squealing of brakes as the white van desperately fought to hold the road.
“Kathryn, slow down. We’re losing ’em.”
The white van’s powerful windshield wipers came on. I saw an arm stick out the driver’s side. The hand held a gun. It fired one shot and then turned off on a side road. The shot from the white van had gone way wide over the cliff.
If Fenchester had had 500 police officers with nothing else to do, they could have combed the countryside for the slug. So long, slug.
Chapter 14
“Maggie says she found this guy Sidney Kibbey selling junk at a flea market...” Sergeants Marc Freligh and Ed O’Brien were briefing t
heir team and I was invited to put in my two cents.
I sighed inwardly at so many shaved heads. Fenchester Police Department was still following a paramilitary model. The paramilitary model hires officers based on rigid physical fitness requirements most easily achieved by large-sized males. Women applicants can score 100% on the written test, have a black belt in Karate, an IQ higher than Steven Hawking, be able to run fast enough to win Olympic Gold, and have x-ray vision, but if they can’t jump sixteen and a half inches from a standing position, they fail the entrance exam to the academy.
Now don’t get me wrong, I fully support the Fenchester Police, and I know a dozen officers, including both O’Brien and Freligh, who are as smart and wily as any star on a fictional cop show. But the two big problems with the paramilitary police model is that it doesn’t recognize that a diverse group of people with unique skills and attributes is a better team at complex problem solving than a group of people where everyone thinks, looks, and is even sized the same.
In ten years on the force, I never had to jump sixteen and a half inches from a standing position, but twice during a pursuit I squeezed through a tiny window to nab a suspect, leaving the rest of the bulkier police team behind. One time, when the rest of the squad was readying a battering ram, my smaller hand was able to reach through a mail slot and unlock a steel door, ending a hostage situation without anyone getting hurt.
The second reason the paramilitary model isn’t appropriate is that it doesn’t necessarily fill the police ranks with people who are the most likely to understand how to deter or solve crime. An applicant with a Ph.D. in criminal psych gets no more consideration than an applicant with nothing more than a lackluster high school education. Not saying that high school grads can’t figure things out, but they haven’t studied how to gather information from diverse sources. In my police experience, when it came to a complex case, uninformed preliminary conclusions were the biggest deterrent to solving it.
Cutting crime in a small city isn’t like fighting a war. The two most likely reasons for violent death in a small city are gangs, or domestic violence in families. Fighting most crime has a lot to do with working on stopping it before it happens. Calming community tension, getting the confidence of citizens so they’ll alert police to problems, getting young people to avoid gangs, figuring out how to stop gangs from forming altogether, gathering the best information in the fastest way, setting up programs to curb domestic violence, communicating with diverse cultures are not things that soldiers are trained to do. What’s needed for police in small cities is a social work model.