FireWatch

by Scott Blade

She nodded, slowly.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe two weeks ago?”

  “I want you to get dressed. You know where your clothes are?”

  She nodded.

  “Get them and put them on.”

  Widow waited.

  The girl was slow getting out of the bed. She looked at him, bashful, like she wanted to ask him not to look at her, but Widow had to look. He had known plenty of cops who had been fooled by decency, by youth, by innocence.

  She seemed like a lost girl, like a nice girl, who ran away from home. She seemed like she had just gotten mixed up in something that she shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in. Which was probably true.

  She seemed like a girl who was in way over her head, but she might’ve also been a junkie, not like the broom guy, but not far off either. Just around the corner and down the street, really. Going from a first-time user to a full-blown junkie was all relative for everyone. It came with different degrees. But in the end, meth usually won. Users, more often than not, turned into addicts before they knew it.

  Meth was a drug that seduced the impressionable. Teenagers are impressionable. And runaways are even more so.

  A teenage junkie can still hide stabbing weapons, same as anyone else. Widow didn’t watch her dress. He stared down at Capone as she dressed. But he did keep her in his peripherals enough to know what she was doing and where she stood.

  He waited, and she dressed. He said, “What’s your name?”

  “Samantha. But I go by Sam.”

  “Sam, wait for me outside. Just by the door. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t go off anywhere. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and she stumbled past him and out of the bedroom, no shoes. He figured she had lost them.

  Widow waited till she shut the door and then he looked down at Capone.

  “Take the girl. You can keep her,” Capone said.

  Widow stayed quiet.

  “Keep her. Seriously, man! I’m done with her anyway!”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  “Hey man! It’s all good! Do what you want to her! I’ll even give you some free samples, man! She loves the stuff!”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  “Talk to me, man! What? She’s not enough for you? You want another? I can find one, man!”

  Silence.

  “What? You want younger?”

  Widow said nothing.

  “I can get you younger, man! What do you want?”

  Widow said, “To be honest, I came here to show you the error of your ways. I came here to set you on the path to being a better person.”

  “What?”

  “I came here to tell you to stop pinching hardworking people for their money.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Widow shook his head and said, “I thought you were a two-bit gangster. Taking money from hard-working people.

  “But I gotta tell you. Now, I really wish that’s all you were.”

  Capone said, “What, man?”

  “I’m not happy with what I’ve found here. Not at all. I thought you were a wannabe gangster type, like your four boys. But you’re something worse. Something beneath that.”

  Capone started to scrabble away like a rat.

  Widow said, “You’re a lowlife piece of shit!”

  “Hey, I’m just doing what the system allows, man. You know? Trying to get mine! That’s all!”

  Widow thought for a moment, and then he asked, “I got a question for you.”

  “Yeah. Sure, man.”

  “I want a straight answer.”

  “Anything.”

  “Your life depends on it.”

  “Anything! You name it!”

  “Why don’t the cops bust you up?”

  Capone shrugged, “They don’t mess with us.”

  “But why? They know you’re here, right? They gotta know. You’re about the dumbest criminal I ever saw.”

  “They know I’m here. But they don’t dare come here. Nobody here is worth their time. They got other fish to fry, I guess.”

  Widow thought about it. Wasn’t happy with the answer, but it wasn’t new. American cities had their problems. Crime was high these days. Higher than the bums in Washington liked to admit.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Widow looked down at him, smiled, and shot him. Right there. Not a flesh wound. Not a warning shot. Not a shot to a limb. Not a shot in a shoulder. That would’ve been a waste of a bullet. No reason to waste a perfectly good bullet.

  Ten billion bullets are manufactured in America every year. One billion of those are fired. Forty thousand of those are used on human targets. Twenty-five thousand of those kill people. And the most common bullets are nine-millimeter.

  A bullet for everybody. Certainly one for Capone.

  Widow shot him right between the eyes. Maybe it wasn’t the most heroic thing he had ever done. But it felt good. It felt right. He wasn’t going to lose sleep over it.

  Widow had no idea how many other girls had ended up like Sam, or how they ended up after they had been used and discarded. But he had a pretty good picture of it.

  He looked down at the dead gangster wannabe who used to be named Capone, and then he looked back at the door. He walked to it. Stopping at the fireplace. He ejected the magazine and the bullets. He disassembled the Glock’s parts, quickly, and he tossed them into the fire. Keeping the bullets out.

  He looked over the carpet, near the body. Blood pooled around the head, soaking into the red fabric. He kept his shoeprints out of it. He found the brass from the bullet, and scooped it up. Slid it and the magazine into his pocket.

  Outside the door, he found Sam waiting there. Her eyes were wide, like she knew what he had done. And she did know. He turned back to the knob, took out the bottom of his shirt, and wiped his prints off.

  He took Sam by the hand, and they walked back down the pathway. Most of the junkies were so stoned that they didn’t look up to see what the gunshot was. Or they were used to it. Or they just didn’t care one way or the other. That was the nature of the urban jungle.

  Widow trudged past the junkie with the broom. Sam behind him. The guy looked like he was going to protest, but in the end, he stayed quiet.

  Widow led Sam to the Monte Carlo. He told her to wait on the curb.

  She looked on at him in complete shock as he popped open the passenger door and dragged out one of Capone’s thugs, laid him on the sidewalk. Then he walked around to the trunk, opened it, and hauled out two more guys. Both were unconscious.

  He dumped them behind the car, where she saw another guy, unconscious and already sprawled out on the concrete.

  Widow rolled them all away from the rear bumper and closed the trunk. He wiped his prints off with his shirtsleeve and walked around to the driver side, opened the door. He looked over the top of the car at her, and asked, “What’s your address?”

  She told him, a little slowly, a little hazily. But accurate, he hoped. They both got in the car and drove away.

  Widow drove the speed limit, stopping at traffic lights, making complete stops at stop signs. Making sure to follow the road signs and the local traffic laws as best he knew them. On the way out of the city, a couple of blocks later, Widow saw a police patrol car, which gave him pause. The car drove by. The light bar was lit up on top. They seemed to be going in the direction of the church. He saw in the front bench of the cop car, McDiggs and Jones, the two cops from the Korean store. The whole neighborhood must’ve been their usual beat.

  He hoped that they would do a better job this time. He also thought that it might be good to get out and stay out of the city for a while. They wouldn’t throw up roadblocks for a two-bit, child-molesting gangster like Capone, or would they?

  Where should he go next? Where was a good place to try and hide out?

  The answer didn’t matter, not yet, because first he had to bring Sam home to her parents.

  CHAPTER 10

&nb
sp; SPECIAL FBI AGENT JOANNA WATERMOTH pulled up in an airport-rented Chevy Caprice, blue exterior and a clean white interior, which was all that mattered to her. She parked the Caprice on the street. The visitor lot was blocked off.

  Several cops from the neighboring two counties were hovering around. A forensic team was taking photos and two plain-clothes detectives were standing around waiting. She killed the ignition and got out of the car, walked over to the crime scene.

  It was a county sheriff’s stationhouse, north of Seattle, in the country.

  One of the detectives in plain clothes walked over to her.

  “You the FBI?” he asked.

  She reached into her coat, inner pocket, and pulled out a leather billfold, flipped it and showed her FBI ID, behind glossy plastic, and her badge. He looked, read her name, read that she was a Special Agent.

  “Ms. Watermoth, I’m Detective Collins. With the state police,” the closest detective said. He was a young guy. Probably, only been at the state police for one, maybe two years. He had a mustache, nicely kept. He immediately struck Watermoth as some kind of hotshot.

  “I recognize your voice. Detective from the phone. So, what have we got here?”

  She walked past him, tucking her badge and FBI ID back into her pocket. She had done this many times before. A woman in her early forties, or not, was always going to get resistance from the local cops. Who were normally always men, and they normally always had a pissing contest with her about jurisdiction and state rights and blah, blah.

  Her FBI male counterparts insured her that it wasn’t a sexist thing. The local boys did the same thing to them. But her male counterparts were not females. And they had no idea that the local boys always tripled their pissing efforts when it came to a woman coming around and taking charge and stepping all over their toes.

  Watermoth offered her hand to Collins, which he noticeably had not done to her. And they shook.

  She asked, “Who’s your partner?”

  “That’s not my partner. I’m here alone.”

  “Then who the hell is he?”

  She looked at a tall, built cop. His back to her. He was in plain clothes, albeit expensive clothes. He had his back to them. She had seen Collins talking with the guy when she pulled up. She assumed he was also a detective.

  “Let me introduce you. Truth be told, ma’am. I’m not sure who is in charge here.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked, but she found out as soon as the cop-looking guy turned around.

  He had a pair of Ray-Bans hanging from the top of his button-down flannel shirt. His sleeves were rolled up over his elbows. And he definitely had a sidearm. It was a Glock 21, holstered at his right hip in a pancake holster.

  She also noticed a blood red teardrop tattoo, small, but noticeable, on his cheek, just under his eye.

  Collins said, “This is Ryman. This is Agent Watermoth.”

  Ryman looked at her. He chewed on a toothpick. He stuck his hand out, offered it for her to shake.

  “Nice to meet you,” Ryman said.

  “Who are you exactly?”

  “Why don’t you have them fill you in first? Then I’ll tell you who I am.”

  Watermoth said, “I am filled in. Dead sheriff’s deputy and some poor bum in the cells. The sheriff is missing. I got that. Why don’t you tell me who you are?”

  “Sure, my name is Danny Ryman. I’m a member of SWATter,” Ryman said, and he swiped the bottom of his shirt to reveal the same badge that he had shown Portman six hours earlier.

  Watermoth looked at him, then moved her eyes down to the badge.

  “DEA?” she asked, shaking her head.

  Ryman smiled and dropped his shirt. He fingered the toothpick with one hand, poked at the gap between his front teeth.

  “What the hell is the DEA doing here? This drug related?”

  “It is. In a way.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Today, I came by here.”

  Collins said, “You were here? You never said that to me?”

  “Sorry, mate. I’m not at liberty to share information with pigs.”

  Collins moved his hand to a Glock, holstered at his left hip. He didn’t touch it. Didn’t put his hands on it. Just made the gesture out of habit, Watermoth guessed. Like when some criminal calls him a name, then he goes for the gun to show them who’s boss.

  A hotshot and a hothead, she thought.

  But she wasn’t the only one to see it. Ryman saw it too, only he didn’t react to it. Not in an aggressive way.

  He said, “You going for your gun, lad?”

  Collins shrugged it off, like he was just adjusting his coat.

  “You go for your gun, you’d better be ready to use it, boy-o!”

  “I wasn’t. I was just taken off guard. You shouldn’t be calling cops pigs.”

  Ryman stared at him. Something sinister in those eyes. Watermoth had been at the FBI long enough to know the type. Only usually they were on the other side of the law. The only guys she’d ever met with those kinds of eyes who weren’t criminals were DEA agents. Which made sense, she supposed.

  The DEA was basically fighting a losing war. And to be in that world, you had to have one foot in the mud.

  She said, “Chill out, guys. You’re both on the same team so act like it.”

  Ryman smiled at Collins.

  Watermoth said, “Now, come this way.” She motioned for Ryman to walk and talk with her.

  Ryman left Collins standing alone and followed her.

  “What’s this about, you being here? Why is the DEA here?”

  Ryman’s eyes changed, right there in front of her. Mister badass had become mister sensitive.

  He said, “Last night there was a fire.”

  “Okay. Where?”

  “West of here. Inside the county. A man died in it. And a woman was taken into custody. His wife.”

  “The sheriff arrested her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go on.”

  “It looks like the wife either killed her husband and then tried to burn their house down, cover up the murder...”

  “Or?”

  “Or she burned the house down with him inside it to kill him and cover up the murder.”

  Watermoth asked, “And the wife, husband thing is drug related?”

  “The husband’s name was Mike Lee.”

  “Yeah?”

  “DEA Agent Mike Lee.”

  “Oh.”

  “He was my partner, lass.”

  Watermoth said, “I’m sorry for your loss. So, you’re here to see about that?”

  “I came here earlier to see Molly Lee, the wife.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Sheriff Portman. The sheriff here. He told me she was checked into county prison. He gave me some nonsense about he couldn’t keep her locked up here because they don’t have women’s facilities. He said she’d be there, where they had women’s facilities.”

  “Was she there?”

  “Portman told me right to my face, lass. I drove there. And no, they didn’t have her. She never arrived there.”

  Watermoth looked around the outside of the stationhouse.

  “She never checked in?”

  Ryman shook his head.

  “Portman lied to you.”

  Ryman nodded.

  “What happened next?”

  “Next, I came here and found the deputy dead, gunshot to the gut. A prisoner in the jail cell, dead. Shot in his sleep. Back of the head.”

  Watermoth looked at him, then up to the sky.

  “So we got a missing sheriff, a missing prisoner, and a murder suspect. And now somebody shot up the stationhouse.”

  Ryman nodded, took the toothpick out of his mouth.

  “You think this Portman killed his own guy? Killed a prisoner? And then took off with Holly Lee?”

  “Molly. Her name is Molly Lee, lass.”

  Watermoth said nothing to that.

  “That’s a plausible
theory. This is a small community. Big region, but small community. Best I could tell; Molly is from here. She’s a local girl. And Portman is a local boy.”

  “What about your partner?”

  “He’s not from here. He only moved here to keep her happy.”

  “What’s a DEA agent doing working and living way out here? You guys work out of Seattle, I presume?”

  “We do. And the answer to your question is Canada.”

  “Canada?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought most of the drug wars were fought in Mexico?”

  “The drugs come up out of Mexico. That there is a fact.”

  “But?”

  “But the US is only one of two markets the Mexican cartels sell to.”

  “Are you saying that you guys operated out of Seattle to fight the Mexican Drug cartels before they crossed over into Canada?”

  “Something like that.”

  Watermoth rolled her eyes, involuntarily, but she did it.

  “Hey, Canada has a major drug problem too. But the DEA doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Canada. But we do care about Alaska and taking out the cartels everywhere. Mike and I hit the cartels down in Mexico all the time. But we also monitor the traffic of methamphetamines crossing our border into Canada.

  “The cartels take a more lax approach when they ship to Canada. We don’t take out the ones crossing over, but we watch them. It helps us to track them back to Mexico.”

  She nodded. It made some kind of sense. With everyone else watching the Mexican border, the bad guys wouldn’t be so uptight at the Canadian one.

  “How bad is it?”

  “It’s not US bad, but it’s bad. It’s very cold in much of Canada. Cold weather leads to bored teenagers, who take to narcotics. Most of it is cannabis, which they can get themselves. But the best meth is still cooked south of the border.”

  Watermoth asked, “You mentioned Alaska? How bad is it there?”

  “Real bad. Alaska is very cold.”

  She nodded again. She had to take his word for it, she supposed.

  “Why did Molly Lee kill your partner?”

  Ryman looked away. He looked genuinely upset.

  He said, “They didn’t have the best marriage.”

  “What happened?”

  “Marriage stuff.”

  “She having an affair?”

  Ryman shook his head, said, “No way! Mike would’ve never allowed that.”