Threshold

by G. M. Ford

  The cop computer geeks were housed in the basement of the Public Safety Building, the rationale being that it was cheaper to keep the computers cool down there, and that underground installations were more likely to survive a disaster, natural or otherwise. These days, life was cheap, but information was not.

  Dolan rode the elevator to the bottom, credentialed his way through the security checkpoint, and then hoofed it over to the door marked INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY. Originally, the section had been named CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE, an oxymoron if ever there was one, but saner heads had prevailed and bestowed its present moniker.

  Dolan knew the drill. He headed right over to the side table, found an Information Request form and filled it out. He copied the names from his notebook. Linda Karston, Barbara Davinci, Raymond Williams, Shirley Bossier, Merla Fritchey, Andrew Wright, Lutz Kramer, Mary Rose Ross. Everything they had on everybody. See what the Feds had too. Under “Authorization” he wrote the Chief of Detective’s name and extension.

  The beehive of activity buzzed for a full minute before anybody spotted Dolan standing at the counter. A stocky African American officer finally ambled his way. Her name tag read H. Jenkins.

  Dolan watched her mental computer reset itself as she read his ID badge and recognized the name. Or at least, he thought she did. It was hard to tell. He’d reached the point where he was perfectly capable of imagining such things. When that happened, he reminded himself that just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, and he somehow felt better.

  “Whatcha need?” she asked affably.

  Dolan handed her the Information Request. “Expedite it, if you can.”

  She barked out a single-syllable laugh. “Feds are three weeks out, unless it’s terrorism. Then they’re five weeks out.”

  They shared a chuckle.

  “Put the C of D’s name on it.” Dolan said. “Maybe that’ll light a fire under them.”

  She eyed him closely. “You sure you want to do that?”

  Dolan understood her reluctance. The Chief of Detectives seldom . . . read never . . . got directly involved in investigations. Dolan showed two fingers. Scout’s honor. “Feel free to call upstairs,” he said.

  “Man’s got friends in high places.”

  Dolan’s turn to laugh. “And it’s a good thing, too.”

  As Dolan walked the three blocks to the City Administration Building, boxcar clouds rumbled across the horizon. He’d convinced himself he could use the exercise. Not only that, but walking that far took about a third of the time needed to sign a car out of the police garage and about one-eighth the time required to find a parking space in that part of town.

  Half a block from his goal, his cell phone began to buzz in his pants pocket. Reminded him of that old Rodney Dangerfield line about how if it wasn’t for pickpockets he’d have no sex life at all. He kept walking as he fished for the phone. He winced at the sight of Jennifer’s photo on the screen. He held down the power button until the phone cycled off, and stuffed it back into his pocket. She’d leave a voice mail. She always left a fucking voice mail.

  Social Welfare had the sixth floor to itself. Family Court and Child Protective Services were side by side on seven. Since Royster’s main bone of contention seemed to have been the children, Dolan opted for CPS.

  Dolan shared a manly cop nod with the security guard sitting on a chair in the hallway and stepped inside. The old-fashioned Roman-numeral clock on the back wall read twelve-o-five. A petite woman in a tan Hillary Clinton pantsuit was working feverishly at the counter. Stuffing things back into folders. Tamping everything down. Getting the edges all neat and tidy. She looked up myopically at Dolan, realized her glasses had migrated to the end of her nose, and pushed them back up where they could be of service. She smiled.

  “Oh, hello,” she said. “How can I help you, Sergeant?”

  “I need to see some Family Court files.”

  “Parties’ names?”

  “Royster. Edwin and Cassie Royster.”

  Didn’t take Dr. Phil to see he’d hit some kind of nerve. No, as a matter of fact, Little Miss Paperwork suddenly looked as if Dolan had just tried to hand her a dog turd. She took a step back from the counter, squared her shoulders inside the jacket and said, “You’ll have to talk to my supervisor.”

  “Okay,” Dolan said affably.

  “I’ll see if she’s available.” She threw a hand in the direction of the chairs lined up along the wall behind Dolan. “Perhaps you should have a seat,” she suggested.

  “I’m fine,” Dolan assured her.

  He watched as the young woman started off and then suddenly changed her mind. She walked back to her desk, pulled a key from the top drawer, throwing a glance back in Dolan’s direction, as she walked over and locked the second filing cabinet.

  Dolan watched as she picked her way through the maze of cubicles, stopping once to whisper in another woman’s ear and then continuing on, all the while checking back over her shoulder, as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her Manolo Blahniks.

  The sitting-down thing turned out to have been good advice. They kept him cooling his heels for twenty minutes before she reappeared with a pair of scowling civil servants in tow.

  The woman was maybe fifty-five or so, salt and pepper hair, good haircut, and a flinty gaze that exuded all the warmth of a wrecking ball. She introduced herself as Janice Robertson. The rat-faced guy was ten years younger and already going threadbare at the cuffs.

  “All Royster files have been sealed by the court,” Robertson said.

  Over Ratface’s shoulder, Dolan watched as the younger woman returned the file cabinet key to the desk drawer.

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “Judge Nalbandian deemed it to be in the best interest of the children.”

  “Why was that?”

  The guy piped up. “You’d have to ask her,” he said.

  “And who might you be?” Dolan inquired.

  “I’m Robert Piper, Judge Nalbandian’s clerk,” he said.

  “How do I get them unsealed?”

  “You’d need a court order,” the Robertson woman said.

  “I can probably manage that,” Dolan said.

  Piper smirked. “Somehow, I don’t think so,” he offered.

  The woman checked her watch. “It’s a Family Court matter. Since Judge Loomis retired, Judge Nalbandian is the only sitting Family Court judge. The request would automatically come right back to her, and I seriously doubt she’d consider vacating one of her own judicial orders.”

  Before Dolan could decide what his next move was, the woman said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Dolan quipped. “I’m armed.”

  That’s when the recorded message began to play through the overhead speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, by order of the mayor and the City Council, this office closes every day between 12:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. If you will come back at that time . . .”

  Dolan remembered now. The city’s austerity program. Shorter work hours, monthly furloughs. Shit like that. The unions had gone nuts, but when you’re broke, you’re broke, so the program had gone into effect.

  The clock on the wall read twelve twenty-eight. Everyone in sight was packing up and getting ready for their fiscally forced midday furlough. Behind the deadly duo here, Little Miss Paperwork shouldered her purse and started for the door.

  “Alright if I use the men’s room?” Dolan inquired.

  “You’ll have to hurry,” the woman said, as she turned and walked away with Piper the court clerk in hot pursuit.

  Dolan wandered down the narrow corridor, found the facilities and stepped inside. It looked like an old-fashioned train station bathroom. An ocean of little white octagonal tiles, urinals along one wall, stalls along the other, a couple of sinks, and
a pair of those hot-air hand dryers. Dolan walked over and pushed the chrome button. The machine began to roar.

  It was still roaring as he stepped back into the hallway and noticed a door to his left. Must lead back into the central hallway. Backward, through the etched glass, he read the words: NO ADMITTANCE.

  “Sir.”

  The security guard from the hall was coming his way. Gold name tag read D. Williams. “Sorry, Sergeant, but you’re gonna have to go. I gotta lock up.”

  “No problem,” Dolan said. “Just needed to tap a kidney.”

  As he started for the front door, he glanced back in time to see the guard kick open the door to the restroom, throw a cursory glance inside, and then follow along as Dolan headed for the door.

  The man in the passenger seat pushed the green button and spoke into the microphone. “Subject has exited the building,” he said. “Looks like he’s headed back to the cop shop.”

  The dashboard speaker squawked, “Roger that.”

  His counterpart in the driver’s seat straightened up and started the car.

  He pushed the green button again. “Richard.”

  “Here.” A new voice from the speaker.

  “You and Jerry station yourselves on Hobart Street, facing north, just in case he gets a car, we’ll have somebody in place.”

  “Got it,” came back.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Mickey Dolan was lost in thought. Driving on radar, seeing nothing but the blips inside his own head as he tried to decide whether or not everybody in the DA’s office had known exactly who he was and exactly what was going on with Jennifer, because it sure had seemed that way to him. Seemed like everywhere he went, conversations stopped in mid-sentence, and the carpet suddenly became interesting. He had to keep reminding himself that there was a decent chance he was making it all up. Maybe better than decent. He silently cursed the uncertainty.

  Either way, he’d struck out. What he’d hoped would be a simple, straightforward investigation, destined to make him look good and get him back on regular duty, was proving to be gnarly. Despite the Deputy Mayor’s assurance that his office would get them whatever they needed, whatever apparently didn’t include any of the paperwork connected to the Royster family. Not the court records, not the family’s medical histories, not the girls’ report cards, not Bobo the dog’s veterinary records. Nothing. Judge Nalbandian had sealed all of it, and according to the DA’s office, short of divine intervention, it was very likely to stay that way.

  So, on one level, at least, it should have come as no surprise when Dolan failed to notice the red light on the corner of Hobart and West Twelfth Street and damn near plowed his unmarked car into the back of a DEX van.

  Wasn’t till his world turned bright yellow that Dolan snapped out of his stupor, swerved violently to the left to avoid tagging the van, and then fishtailed back and forth through the six-lane intersection three or four times, dodging cross traffic like a drunken matador, leaving a chorus of angry horns howling in his wake, and his arteries filled with enough adrenaline to float a canoe.

  The rhythm of his heart thumped in his ears; his stomach was lodged somewhere high in his throat. Reflexively, he threw an apologetic glance at the rearview mirror. The sheepish grin, however, quickly disappeared. Unbelievably, he hadn’t been the last car through the intersection.

  A gray Lexus, with two guys hanging on for dear life, had rolled through after he had, bobbing and weaving through half a dozen lanes of road rage and obscene gestures before emerging unscathed on the far side.

  Dolan took several deep breaths, trying to get his heart rate down to something manageable, then turned left on Strander Avenue, heading south into the city’s Gaslight District, a part of town where the traffic didn’t thicken until after dark.

  When he made another turn, and the Lexus stayed right on his tail, Dolan was certain. He grabbed the radio.

  “Lemme have patrol dispatch,” he said into the microphone.

  Five seconds later, “Dispatch” crackled through the speaker.

  “This is Sergeant Michael Dolan.” He gave his badge number.

  “What can we do for you, Sergeant?”

  He told the dispatcher.

  “On the way, Sergeant.”

  “I’m going to see Joseph,” Grace said, zipping her jacket and turning up the collar.

  Eve arched an eyebrow. “That may not be a good idea.”

  “It’s a rotten idea, but I’m going to do it anyway.” Grace heaved a sigh. “I was up half the night. I just don’t feel right about where I left him. Something wasn’t right.”

  “It’s a difficult transition,” Eve said. “Why don’t you give it a few days.”

  Grace shook her head. “Right before I left the hospital . . .” She hesitated. “Joseph’s mother came . . . she came storming into the hospital and then went into his room and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “And she wasn’t happy he was awake.”

  Eve opened her mouth to speak. Grace cut her off.

  “More than that. She hated it. I could feel her anger. Just absolute rage seeping out of her. Something’s not right,” she said again. “Joseph needs me now. I can feel it.”

  Eve knew better than to doubt her.

  Tailing someone through a city isn’t easy. When professionals find themselves tasked with that sort of surveillance, they use four to seven pursuit vehicles, and even then, with aerial surveillance compromised by the height of the buildings and the sheer volume of traffic, the odds of pulling it off are generally less than fifty-fifty.

  The guys in the Lexus were doing it just like they saw on TV, poking their noses cautiously around corners, then making up distance in the straightaways. The old Jim Rockford special. Anybody with eyesight and a double-digit IQ would have made them in a block and a half.

  The police radio crackled. “Fifty-two sixty in place.”

  “Roger,” Dolan replied.

  He put on his turn signal and wheeled left onto Church Street, then leisurely turned right onto Roland Avenue, a narrow cobblestone loop that ran along the back of Hardwick’s Hardware and an Evangelical Chinese church. Back when he was in uniform, Roland Avenue had been a fair-weather shooting gallery for the local heroin set and had thus been part of his nightly patrol route.

  Dolan gave it some gas and ran the length of the alley. He wheeled the Chevy around the lazy corner, braked to a halt where it couldn’t be seen from the mouth of the alley, slammed the car into park, and got out. Hurrying to the rear, he popped the trunk, unzipped the plastic gun case, and pulled out the 12-gauge Mossberg pump shotgun. He fed it half a dozen shells and then slammed one into the breech.

  By the time he’d finished, he could hear the Lexus rolling his way, hear the tires popping on the rough stones as it negotiated the alley. He dropped to one knee and peeked around the corner. The Lexus was thirty yards away, coming at a good clip. Just then, a black-and-white police cruiser turned into the mouth of the alley and fired up its light bar.

  The Lexus skidded to a halt. Started to back up, then rocked to a halt.

  Dolan stepped around the corner of the building and leveled the shotgun at the windshield. “Out of the car,” he yelled. “Out of the car.”

  The flowers were fifteen minutes late.

  With her hair pushed up under a Red Sox baseball cap and a pair of Italian Riviera sunglasses the size of hubcaps, Grace blended right in with the slice of humanity occupying the hospital waiting area.

  The kid who arrived with the flowers was wearing the kind of bike shoes that connected you to the pedals, but made walking problematic. Hard as she tried, Grace couldn’t come up with a mental image of how you delivered flowers from a bicycle. Just wouldn’t compute. She watched as he clomped over to the information desk.

  “Joseph Reeves?” he said.

 
; The old lady behind the desk tapped at her keyboard.

  “He’s on family visits only,” she said. “You can leave the flowers here.” She tapped the corner of her desk. “I’ll get them sent up.”

  Three minutes later, a teenybopper slouched up to the information lady.

  “Yeah.”

  The old lady jerked a thumb at the flower arrangement. “Take these up to five seventeen,” she said.

  Little honey heaved a “this is just soooo lame” sigh and picked up the flowers.

  Grace watched as the girl shuffled into the elevator, then she left her seat and headed for the stairs.

  “Get out of the car,” Dolan bellowed. “Hands on your head.”

  Neither man moved a millimeter. The guy in the passenger seat kept speaking into a microphone, completely ignoring Dolan’s commands. Dolan felt his ears getting red. “Turn off the car. Get out with your hands on top of your head.”

  Again, neither of them moved. Again the passenger brought the microphone to his lips. Again, it really pissed Dolan off.

  Dolan pointed to the uniformed officer leaning on the passenger side of the car.

  “You got your baton?” he asked.

  The guy was a monster. Some kind of South Sea Islander. Tongan, Samoan, something like that. Neck the size of a trash can. Fingers like bratwurst. His sisters would kick your ass. He pulled an expandable baton from his belt system and snicked it out to its full length.

  “Get Chatty Cathy out of there,” Dolan directed.

  He didn’t have to ask twice. There’s something about breaking glass hardwired into male genes. The big cop grinned and gave it his best Louisville Slugger two-hander. The side window evaporated in a hail of safety glass and the big cop leaned in, popped the seat belt, and grabbed the passenger by the lapels. One heave from his massive arms extruded microphone man out through the saw-toothed window. Looked real uncomfortable to Dolan.

  The driver got the message. He turned the car off and raised his hands.

  Ten seconds later, the uniforms had them both on the pavement, handcuffed, feet spread, nose to the asphalt. Dolan returned the shotgun to the trunk of his car, where he unloaded it and slipped it into its case.