by John A. Daly
“I didn’t want them following us,” said Lumbergh, working his hardest to keep the conversation light. “They’ve got a police radio and a warm car in the meantime. Someone will pick them up.”
Martinez asked, “So what does this mean for you now, Chief?”
“What does what mean?”
“This act of insubordination. How many laws did you just break? Will you lose your job? Spend some time in jail? That would be a shame to the fine people of Winston.”
The comment seemed sarcastic at first, but when Lumbergh stole another glance in the rearview mirror, he recognized what appeared to be sincerity—as deviant as its origins might be—in Martinez’s dark eyes.
It was above Lumbergh’s pay grade to even begin to understand what was going on inside the head of someone as mentally disturbed as Martinez. He was well aware of that. In the brief conversation they had had since the moment they left Redick, Martinez largely talked as if the two of them were still friends—colleagues sharing a casual, after-work conversation. Not at all enemies.
If the awkward cordiality would bring Lumbergh to Sean, the chief was more than willing to play along with it. The limits of his compliance, however, were tested with the next query out of Martinez’s mouth.
“Do you think I can get these handcuffs taken off? They’re a tad tight around my wrists.”
Lumbergh hesitated for a second before saying, “I can’t. They belong to the sheriff ’s department. I don’t have the keys to open them.”
It was a lie, one that Lumbergh hoped Martinez wouldn’t question. Being that the cuffs were taut behind his back and not subject to a close inspection, Lumbergh wasn’t worried about telling it.
Martinez simply nodded.
Seconds that seemed like minutes labored by without either man saying a word. An uncomfortable sense of anxiety floated inside of the car. The cruiser’s rapidly waving wiper blades emitted a persistent buzzing sound that seemed louder than it normally did due to the holes in the windshield.
Lumbergh ruminated on the questions Martinez had just asked about his career and what his fate would be once all was over. He didn’t know the answer. And for a distinguished law enforcement professional who once prided himself on his stellar record and reputation for following protocol, he was stunned by his own disinterest in the possible ramifications.
The past week had taken a toll on him. It had changed him. His fear for his family had prompted him to engage in actions he would have never before considered. His deputy had taken a bullet and Oldhorse had taken far more—both because of a personal vendetta of a deluded individual.
Laws and rules just didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Lumbergh drove slowly along Road 91 as Martinez directed him off the Interstate. The slippery conditions and narrow visibility tempered his thirst to go faster. The snow was like thick confetti dropped from a tall ceiling at a New Year’s celebration. The wind was still strong, pushing against the front of the car in an eerie effort to keep it from their destination. The car’s heater fought the chill pouring in through the windshield.
The flashers were off to avoid detection from anyone from the sheriff ’s department who might be out looking for him. His radio was powered off as well. He didn’t want Martinez to hear any chatter blare out from the speaker that would make him think twice about taking him to Sean.
Martinez finally cut through the silence with a question that gave Lumbergh pause: “Would you really kill a woman?”
“What?”
“A woman. There was a man and a woman who took Sean last night. When we get there, are you going to kill the woman? Are you going to kill the red fox?”
Lumbergh’s hand trembled and he gripped the steering wheel tighter to compensate. He wasn’t sure which answer Martinez was hoping for, so he iterated what he believed would be a safe response.
“I’m going to kill anyone who stands in my way.”
Martinez’s face twisted into near exuberance. He grinned from ear to ear.
What a sick fuck, Lumbergh thought to himself.
The truth was that Lumbergh didn’t know how he would approach the situation once they arrived at their destination. He didn’t understand the circumstances under which Sean was being held, and Martinez refused to give him any hints. It was possible Martinez didn’t even know.
What he had to know, however, was the lay of the land and the type of building they were in, if they were even in a building. The term “den” might have meant something entirely different. He might also know how many people Lumbergh would have to contend with at this den.
An endless number of possible scenarios stretched out before Lumbergh, and Martinez had no interest in narrowing that number down for him. Lumbergh’s discreet attempts to draw answers were met with irritation, and he understood that if he persisted, he’d risk validating Martinez’s earlier conclusion of him being a charlatan. If the state of the intern’s mind disintegrated back into the zombie-like display of glazed eyes and moaning, Lumbergh would never find Sean.
What Martinez wanted was a front row seat to a brutal confrontation between his hometown’s idol and very dangerous people who made men disappear in the middle of the night. As long as Martinez believed that was what he was getting, Lumbergh was convinced that he would find Sean.
There was one question that had been nagging him from the moment Martinez’s footprints were confirmed at the crime scene, a question that seemed fair game because it didn’t pertain to Sean’s abductors. After building up some nerve, he asked it.
“Why were you at Sean’s house last night?”
Martinez let a breath of air escape his lips. Though Lumbergh couldn’t see him now in the darkened reflection in the mirror, he could sense some disparagement brewing in the backseat.
He nearly withdrew the query when Martinez spoke.
“I thought he may have been another Ron Oldhorse.”
Lumbergh squinted and asked what he meant.
“Another of your guardian angels. Another parent.”
The chief glanced in his mirror. “Why would you think that?”
A touch of somberness accompanied Martinez’s words as he spoke. “I overheard the two of you talking the other day, in your office. You were arguing. He told you that you owed him for cleaning up your shit. Was he part of the Montoya cover-up?”
Lumbergh didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He would have felt mortified if the question had been asked by anyone other than a sick mind like Martinez, whose opinion meant nothing to him.
What the intern couldn’t have possibly known was that Sean’s statement hadn’t been metaphorical. It was literal; an embarrassing incident back at the hospital six months earlier, when Lumbergh was recovering from the Montoya shooting, was what his brother-in-law had referenced.
Against doctors’ advice, Lumbergh had changed from his hospital gown into street clothes to meet reporters and answer questions in the hospital lobby. The drugs he was on had been turning his stomach in knots all morning.
Sean happened to be visiting at the time while Diana was taking care of some long overdue errands. Lumbergh was running late for the press confere
nce and had only taken three steps outside of his hospital room into the hallway when a horrific sound and stench from Lumbergh’s pants locked both men’s eyes.
In a rare show of compassion—perhaps out of a silent understanding between men—Sean helped Lumbergh change and dispose of the badly soiled clothes before anyone came back to check on the chief. Not even the nurses found out what had happened, and the two men had never spoken about it until yesterday, when Sean held it over Lumbergh’s head to secure himself a favor.
Lumbergh shook his head. “God. Sean covered up nothing, and he’s not my protector, Martinez. Far from it. In case you haven’t noticed since you came to work for us, Sean and I don’t exactly get along.”
“Yet you’re risking your career to save him. Your life, in fact. Why?”
Lumbergh recognized the absurdity of having such a candid conversation with a nut-job, but he answered the question anyway. “He’s family, Martinez. When someone fucks with your family, you do something about it.”
The mirror revealed the contour of Martinez’s head as he nodded in understanding. “Take a left up here.”
“Crenshaw,” muttered Lumbergh, reading the small green mileage sign that sprouted out from a metal pole partially buried in a mound of snow. The sign hosted some dents and dime-sized holes from a shotgun round. Many road signs throughout the area did. The embellishments were a hallmark of mountain living.
“A little past Crenshaw,” clarified Martinez.
There wasn’t much in the town of Crenshaw, Colorado. Lumbergh had only passed through it once or twice before. It was really more of a rest area than a town, home to a few businesses that serviced travelers on their way down to Leadville, Granite, and Buena Vista along Highway 24. Few people actually lived there.
“How in the hell did you follow them so far without getting noticed?” Lumbergh asked before thinking to tamp down his tone.
“Impressive surveillance for a junior law enforcement officer, eh?”
Lumbergh said nothing.
“I turned off my headlights once we left the highway. Just followed their taillights from a distance. Avoided using my brakes. Did some coasting. It’s a great way to conserve gas, you know.”
Martinez laughed at himself and leaned back in his seat.
Lumbergh stared intently ahead.
Chapter 26
“D id you give him the last of the propofol?” asked the voice on the other end of the small phone Sean held firmly in his hand.
The sound cut in and out a couple of times, probably from the weather. The fact that any signal was getting through at all meant that Sean was likely no longer near Winston. Cellphones hardly ever worked there. He kept his eyes and his gun pointed at the open doorway of the small room.
“It’s done,” he calmly and quietly answered, having no idea what propofol was or who it was meant for. Still, he sensed it was the kind of response that this Dr. Phil wanted to hear. He was intent on running out the clock on the call with short, direct answers. He believed it would keep his identity from being questioned. It was a tip he had picked up from an old episode of Nero Wolfe.
“Good. I was worried he’d begin to stir again with us having to stretch out the dosage. What you gave him should last us at least until I get there. I’ll be back soon with the replacement stock for what he knocked out of Jessica’s hands. No worries. He won’t be giving anyone else a bruisin’.”
“Okay,” replied Sean, thinking of the black eye that Jessica wore when he’d seen her in the parking lot.
“Did the wanker in the basement give you any more shite?”
Sean had no idea what a “wanker” was, but he assumed it was something other than a term of endearment. “No,” he answered. “Sleeping.”
“The big bugger wore himself out, eh? Good. If he acts up again, you think about what I told you. Make it look like he came at you and that you had no choice. Him or you—that kind of shite. The others will buy it. Remember . . . we’ve come too far to turn back now.”
Sean let the man’s words sink into his gut. “I will. Bye,” he said soberly.
The line went silent for a moment, which made Sean nervous. He began to wonder if the reception had given out, or if the man had simply hung up. He nearly hung up when the voice suddenly returned.
“Are you okay?”
Sean winced. “Yeah. Just tired.”
More seconds of silence floated painfully by. It went against Sean’s better instincts to stay on the line, but he knew he had somehow aroused the man’s suspicions. He had backed himself into a corner with his indecisions, both figuratively and literally. He carefully lowered the phone from his mouth and examined its face. His eyes slid across each row of buttons until he spotted a red one with a white circle and a vertical line stabbed through its center.
“Who is this?” the voice suddenly asked in a blunt tone.
Sean’s heart stopped. He bit his lip and pressed the red button, cutting off the conversation. He held it down until the display light went off. “Shit.”
The man on the other end had said that he’d be back soon. Sean didn’t know if that meant twenty minutes or two minutes. Either way, it was time to leave while he could, put some distance between him and the building, and then use the phone to call in the cavalry.
With guarded movements, he briskly negotiated his way down the dark hallway. Hearing no sounds other than that of his own breathing and the discreet scuffing of his boots along the floor, he considered that it was possible that no one else was in the building. Still, there was no way to know for sure. He kept his gun pointed straight ahead.
There was only one door on the left side of the corridor. That meant that a large room was on the other side of that wall, one he hoped would lead to the outside. He twisted its knob carefully and found it unlocked. When he opened it, dim light edged the door’s frame.
He peeked through the narrow opening and saw a wide area with several wooden tables staggered out across a thin, multi-colored carpet. Wooden chairs were turned upside-down across the round tops of the tables. Large, flowery portraits decorated the pale-yellow walls and some fake plants hung from hooks along the ceiling. It appeared to be the dining room of a restaurant.
A single light along the far wall, probably positioned to illuminate some now-missing wall décor, let Sean see a thick layer of dust covering the tables and much of the floor. Though shoe prints of multiple sizes spotted parts of the carpet, it had clearly been a long time since the room had been used to serve patrons.
Along the windows of what Sean assumed to be a front entrance, thick wooden planks were secured, just like he had seen in the small room at the top of the stairs. If he needed to, he’d find a way to pry them open. Because it would make for a long, noisy escape though, he’d only try it as a last resort. He quietly closed the door.
He was nearly at the end of the hallway when he heard what sounded like another door shutting somewhere ahead in the dark. It felt like it came from only a few yards away. Sean froze.
The brushing soles of someone’s boots along a coarse mat and the loud clatter of footsteps soon followed it. Sean couldn’t tell if they came from multiple people or just one. T
he hallway’s overhead light suddenly flared on. Sean’s body clenched with tension. He was totally exposed. There wasn’t a single thing to take cover behind if the person or persons about to emerge from around the corner were armed.
He slid up against the wall beside him and felt the knob of another door press against his leg. Without wasting another second, he twisted it and felt the door release. In one quick motion, he opened the door, slid inside the darkened room, and gently closed the door behind him.
There was a single light source from somewhere inside the room and he caught a quick glance at an empty, unmade bed with colorful blankets. He heard the ticking of a clock somewhere in the room. He turned his attention back to the door. The light from under it filtered around the moving shadow of a single person whose casual pace meant it was someone other than Dr. Phil. This Phil would have surely burst through the building in a panic to confirm his suspicions from the phone conversation. It was someone else.
Sean gripped the doorknob, hoping to let the person walk on by before stepping back out and taking them down from behind. With a gun pointed at their back, he could quickly take control of the situation.
The person stopped right outside the door.
Two shadows from under the doorway, each from the person’s legs, held perfectly still.
Sean released the knob and backed away from the door, feeling carpet below his feet. He hoped that the howling of the strong wind outside would cover up any noise his movements made. He gripped the gun with both hands and pointed it toward the door. Jaw tensing, his finger hugged the trigger.
The shadows suddenly changed directions and disappeared back the way they had come. With the same casual stride as before, the footsteps echoed through the hallway, growing fainter with each passing second. Sean let himself breathe.
When he returned to the door, he could hear what sounded like a faucet running somewhere from down the corridor, as if a kitchen sink had been turned on. Pipes from under the floorboards hummed with activity.