Wrong Turn

by Diane Fanning

  ‘Oh, yeah, lieutenant. I guess you’ve gotten cautious after all your screw-ups.’

  ‘Jake!’ Lucinda said and thrust the dog into his arms. She stepped up, face-to-face with the sergeant, her nose nearly touching his forehead. ‘I would love an excuse to screw you over. Make one wrong move, violate just one of my orders and your ass is mine.’

  He waited until she backed off and said, ‘No need to pull rank, lieutenant. We’re all on the same side here.’

  ‘Just don’t forget it,’ she snapped. Turning to Jake, she recovered the dog and walked down to the manned patrol car and handed Prissy to the officer for safe keeping.

  She started her return trip, realizing that all eleven pairs of eyes – the ten-man team and Jake – were staring in her direction. ‘What?’ she shouted. ‘You can’t make a move without me?’

  They moved around in place in a definite state of unease. When she got closer, Jake said, ‘These are all police officers, Lucinda. You call the shots this time – not me.’

  The sergeant quickly added, ‘Just waiting for orders, lieutenant.’

  ‘Holy crap, sergeant. You know how to deploy your men in preparation for a takedown. Just do it. Maintain your positions and hold your fire till I say otherwise.’

  FORTY-TWO

  Everyone moved into place, including snipers perched high atop nearby houses. Patrol officers evacuated the homes within two rooftops of the location of the fugitive. Others circled the home on a reconnaissance mission, checking any possible means of entry and egress, looking for weaknesses to exploit in an aggressive maneuver and those that needed coverage in a defensive action. Thirty minutes had passed without a single shot fired.

  A negotiator called the telephone in the house but it rang until it flipped over to voicemail. A message was left for Mack but they had no way of knowing if he listened to it.

  The reconnaissance team reported back that they’d seen no signs of life within the home, prompting the negotiator to ask if it were possible that Jake missed the chimney and hit Rogers instead.

  Jake stared at him dumbfounded. ‘He wasn’t on the roof. Do you really think I’m that inept, that I’d aim way up there and hit someone inside the house?’

  ‘Sorry, Agent Lovett, but I’ve seen stranger things.’

  ‘Could he have committed suicide with the last shot he fired?’

  Jake insisted that it wasn’t possible since they saw the results every time he pulled the trigger. Nonetheless, the speculation didn’t end. Jake and Lucinda were guessed and second-guessed in one discussion after another, making them both frustrated and a bit testy.

  The negotiator pulled out the megaphone and delivered the standard, scripted speech about the force surrounding the building, the desire for a peaceful ending without any deaths and the plea to surrender. When no response came from inside the house, the sergeant from the extraction team argued, ‘It’s time to go in and pull him out whether he’s dead or alive. If he had a hostage, he would have responded, using the captive as a bargaining chip. We need to go in now, without warning.’

  ‘No,’ Lucinda said. ‘A forced entry is premature at this time. We’ve been assembled and in our places for what? An hour now? Patience is a vital part of a successful effort – haste is a recipe for disaster.’

  ‘You have learned that the hard way, haven’t you, lieutenant?’

  Lucinda reminded herself not to say what was in her mind; strip the personal out of his attack and lob back a gentler ball. ‘Sergeant, you don’t want – no one here wants – to go home wondering if something was done differently, would an innocent person still be alive? You do not want to carry the burden of knowing that the capture could have been done without the taking of life, if you’d only taken your time to do it right. Patience, sergeant, we’ll move when we feel we know all we can possibly know. We will not make a foolhardy rush into the house simply because we are growing antsy.’

  The sergeant walked away grumbling. Lucinda believed she heard him threaten to call his captain to set her straight. It was his right to contact his superior officer under any circumstance but she hoped office politics wouldn’t inflame an already volatile situation.

  For an hour, positions shifted as the team worked to find out what they could about the situation inside. Repeated attempts to communicate by telephone or megaphone produced no results. Movement was spotted from time to time and directional mikes picked up the sound of someone inside. But no voices were heard.

  Lucinda was contemplating the firing of a flash-bang grenade followed by a forced entry, when a voice in her ear said, ‘Lieutenant, this is Briggs. I have a clear view of the subject. I see no one in the immediate vicinity.’

  ‘Take the shot. But shoot to wound. Everyone else, hold fire.’

  Glass shattered. Followed by a loud crash. And then nothing.

  ‘Briggs, did you get him?’ Lucinda yelled in her headpiece.

  ‘Don’t think so, lieutenant. Sorry.’

  ‘Look for another opportunity.’

  Snipers crawled across roofs and other team members checked windows. For five long minutes, no sound came from the house. Then, the back door opened ever so slightly and a white T-shirt moved up and down in the crack.

  ‘Hold fire,’ Lucinda said as she scrambled over to the negotiator with the megaphone. She held the device to her face and said, ‘Rogers. Mack Rogers. Throw out your weapons and come out with your hands up.’

  The door opened further and a shotgun thumped on the grass four feet from the house. Crouching, a black-clad man raced up, grabbed the weapon and backed away.

  The door slammed into the wall and Mack Rogers, hands held high, walked through the doorway. He stumbled, his hands dropped down as if to steady his balance but when they came back up, he had a revolver in his hand. He fired and hit an extraction team member’s bulletproof vest, sending him falling backwards, stunned but unharmed. Without Lucinda’s order, an immediate volley of fire opened up, making Rogers’ body dance before falling face first into the yard. Lucinda screamed, ‘Hold your fire! Hold your fire!’

  Quiet roared in the aftermath. Then, sirens shrieked in the distance, coming closer with every second. Lucinda held her gun on Rogers as she carefully approached and kicked the man’s revolver out of the way.

  Jake bent down and checked the body. He shook his head.

  Lucinda blew out a sharp exhale. ‘Damn.’

  The team swarmed around and past them, entering the home to search for any others inside, dead or alive.

  ‘Too many questions left, Jake.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. We’ve backtracked up till his last prison stay. Checked out every place he lived. Never was in one place for long before he rented from Plum. No signs of foul play at any of the others.’

  ‘So, if there were other victims, he must have killed them and dumped bodies away from his residence. How many families are missing someone because of Mack Rogers? How many will never get resolution because the only person with answers is now dead? I wonder if I should have sent the team in sooner.’

  ‘It probably wouldn’t have mattered, Lucinda. He was hell-bent on avoiding capture. Up-close contact with him could have resulted in an officer’s death. You never know. You used your best judgment and now, you’ll deal with the consequences. Looking back, no takedown is flawless. No sense in second-guessing your actions when it’s over.’

  Lucinda only sighed in response.

  From the house, a man in black hollered, ‘Lieutenant, the house is clear but there’s something you should see.’

  Lucinda and Jake followed the officer into the kitchen. A spiral notebook lay open on a small breakfast table. Handwritten on the exposed page were notes about a girl: ‘Short, long blonde hair, blue eyes, very pretty. Leaves the school, walks down Campbell, turns right on Greene and then a left on Sycamore. House third on right. Arrives 3:45. X=thick shrub and overhanging trees at corner of Greene and Sycamore.’

  Lucinda pulled a pen out of her pocket and fli
pped the page. ‘Average height, baby-fat pudgy, short brown hair, brown eyes, cute. Gets off school bus at Trinity and Glass. Walks down Glass to eighth house on left. Uses key to open door. X=inside the shrubbery encircling property.’

  Lucinda kept flipping pages. One after another filled with notes of young women he stalked as he searched for his next victim. Each one with X= at the end, indicating, it seemed to Lucinda, the place he’d make the snatch. A couple of the entries had a question mark rather than a specific location.

  Jake, looking over her shoulder, whispered, ‘Holy shit,’ several times as each page turn revealed yet another girl. ‘Wonder if any of these notes apply to bodies we’ve already found? Or are they all safe because he’s dead?’

  ‘There’s also the question of whether or not all of his victims were planned. Emily, for example, appeared to be spontaneous.’

  ‘Unless she agreed to meet him,’ Jake said.

  ‘Another question without an answer,’ Lucinda said. ‘At least no one else will die at his hand.’

  ‘And you rescued the only hostage.’

  Lucinda furrowed her brow. ‘Hostage? Oh no, Prissy. I forgot all about her.’ She rushed up the street to the patrol car where she’d left the little dog. The driver’s door was open. A few feet away, an officer held a clothesline tied loosely around the dog’s neck as she squatted in the grass attending to an urgent need.

  ‘Thank you, officer. I’ll take her off your hands now and get her back to her owner.’

  ‘She wasn’t much trouble. But when one of the guys brought me a burger, I thought she was going to steal it out of my mouth so I shared it with her. Didn’t seem like she’d been fed for a while.’

  ‘Probably hadn’t,’ Lucinda said. ‘Thanks again.’ Lucinda took the rope and led the little dog back to the side yard, where she untangled the leash and collar from the chain and replaced the rope around her neck. She walked her over to the evacuated house next door and secured her in the fenced back yard while she took care of processing the scene.

  Dr Sam arrived to take possession of the body. When he looked down at the bloody corpse, he said, ‘Pierce, did you do this?’

  ‘No sir, I didn’t fire a shot. Multiple weapons were engaged. If you find any bullets in the body, I’m sure they’ll match the weapons of the extraction team.’

  ‘I’m seeing a lot of exit wounds, Pierce. Might not find any inside.’

  A team of FBI forensic techs arrived and started to process the scene, collecting evidence to add to what they’d recovered earlier from the rental house where Rogers once lived. They found bullets in the side of the house, embedded in the dirt, and then went inside where they recovered several more. Before they were done with the house, they removed everything that seemed to belong to or had been used by Mack Rogers.

  With the departure of the black-clad team, the police presence dropped down to a few officers, giving Lucinda a moment to call Helen Johns. ‘Ms Johns, this is Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce. We found Prissy.’

  ‘Oh, my, is she OK?’

  ‘She certainly is. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get away from here and bring her to your place.’

  ‘Can I come and get her?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucinda said, giving her the address.‘The area is taped off but if you tell an officer, they’ll find me and I’ll bring Prissy to you.’ Lucinda got busy at the house again, supervising the removal of the Hyundai on a flat bed tow truck. She signed the paperwork, sending it to the forensic garage to be processed under the oversight of an FBI tech. That made her remember how grateful she was that the person in charge of the local federal law enforcement office was Jake Lovett. A lot of the others would have shut her out of the case, leaving her on the sidelines wondering what was happening.

  She’d have to remember to let him know how much he meant to her professionally. And what about personally? she thought. Isn’t it about time I let him know how I feel? She pushed that subject firmly out of her mind; she had work to do.

  A half hour later, her cell rang. ‘Lieutenant, there’s a woman at the barricade who said you told her to come get her dog.’

  ‘Keep her there. I’ll be right out,’ Lucinda said. As she walked over to the porch next door, the little dog made excited yips and turned in circles as she bounced up and down. ‘It’s all over now, Prissy,’ she said, scooping her up in her arms.

  As she neared the barrier, Helen lurched forward, stopped only by the arm of an officer. ‘Prissy, Prissy, Prissy,’ she cried. ‘Come to Mama, Prissy.’

  Lucinda handed over the wriggling gray ball of fur. Helen squeezed her and kissed her face. Prissy licked Helen’s lips, nose, chin and eyes.

  ‘Eww!’ Helen said. ‘She smells like onions.’

  Lucinda laughed. ‘An officer shared his burger with her.’

  ‘A hamburger? You fed little Prissy a greasy hamburger?’

  ‘She was hungry, Helen.’

  ‘Poor little babe-ums,’ Helen said, snuggling her face in Prissy’s fur. ‘Poor little thing. You gonna have an upset tum-tum for days, aren’t you, baby? Nasty old policeman.’

  Oh, Jeez, Lucinda thought and turned away from the barrier, shaking her head at Helen’s non-stop string of baby talk. If I treated Chester like that, he’d run away from home.

  It was after ten that night before Jake and Lucinda could leave the scene. On the drive home, Lucinda said, ‘I’m not good for anything but sleep tonight but I can offer you a warm, comfy spot beside me and fresh coffee in the morning.’

  ‘You got a deal,’ Jake said. ‘Just so long as your only expectation is sleep. I’m beat.’

  As Lucinda lay in bed, drifting away, she thought about how nice it was to have him lying there beside her.

  FORTY-THREE

  Lucinda woke first to find Chester wedged between them with his head on her pillow. She hoisted him up and carried him into the kitchen. She started the coffee brewing and filled Chester’s bowl with dry food and placed a spoonful of tuna feast on his plate.

  She fixed two cups of coffee and carried them into the bedroom where Jake still slept deeply. She poked his rump with a toe and then her whole foot while balancing the two mugs in her hand. ‘Sleeping Beauty, arise. Coffee’s served.’

  Jake grunted, rubbed his eyes, rolled over and smiled. ‘I could get used to this,’ he said, reaching for the coffee.

  ‘Don’t think this service in bed establishes a precedent, Mr Special Agent man,’ she said as she smiled and climbed back into bed.

  Jake and Lucinda went off to their respective offices to drown in an ocean of paperwork and face scrutiny about the death of Mack Rogers. Jake got dressed down by the wicked witch who made a special trip just to give him a hard time. Lucinda faced Internal Affairs who questioned every decision reached and every move made. Near lunchtime, Lucinda picked up a phone call from Jake.

  ‘Word is that Martha Sherman is going to be rearrested.’ Jake said.

  ‘What? On what grounds?’

  ‘They found one of her credit cards in the excavation of Rogers’ basement graveyard.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Apparently there are those who believe that indicates that she was involved.’

  ‘You mean Andrew Sherman thinks she was involved.’

  ‘Well, I also heard that your DA is taking him seriously.’

  ‘Damn it,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to run.’

  ‘Lucinda, I don’t know this all for a fact. It’s just what I’ve heard.’

  ‘Later, Jake,’ she said, disconnecting the call.

  She flew up the three flights of stairs to DA Reed’s office. Once again, his door was shut tight. ‘Cindy, am I still barred from his office?’

  ‘No. Not unless you’ve done something new to get him annoyed.’

  ‘My breathing annoys him.’

  Cindy chuckled. ‘He’s got someone in his office right now and he said he should not be disturbed.’

  Lucinda took two steps toward the door.

  �
��C’mon, lieutenant, you’re putting me in a difficult position.’

  Lucinda sighed and dropped her shoulders. ‘OK. Who’s in there with him?’

  ‘You’re not going to like this . . .’

  ‘Who is it, Cindy?’

  ‘Andrew Sherman.’

  ‘You’re kidding me. Damn it,’ she turned toward the door, stopped, looked at Cindy and stormed out of the office. She went to her desk, grabbed her car keys and tore out of the parking lot. She pulled into the long circular drive leading up to the Shermans’ home. Three stories of brick topped with gables rose up above her. White columns marched across the edge of the porch.

  She walked about the steps, smoothed her skirt and rang the doorbell. A woman in a simple green shirt dress answered. ‘Dora Sherman, please.’

  ‘May I say who’s calling?’

  Lucinda whipped out her badge. ‘Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce.’

  ‘One moment,’ the woman said and shut the door in Lucinda’s face.

  She was about to press the doorbell again when the door opened and Dora stood framed behind it. She was a striking woman with carefully coifed jet black hair and unusually brilliant green eyes. Lucinda wondered if they were naturally that color or enhanced by tinted contact lenses.

  ‘Good day, lieutenant,’ Dora said. ‘I really can’t speak with you without my attorney present. I’ve called and he’s on the way.’

  ‘Ma’am, if you’re not willing to answer my questions here, then maybe we should go down to the Justice Center and you can wait for your lawyer there.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, lieutenant. That is so unnecessary. Besides, he’s already on his way to the house. We’ll all be more comfortable here. Marcie, please take this person to the kitchen to wait.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Lucinda said with images of film clips running through her mind, where beggars and other undesirables were sent to the back door and into the kitchen to await the pleasure of their betters.

  Marcie appeared out of nowhere and snapped, ‘You can’t expect to be treated like an invited guest, miss. This way, please.’