Hocus ik-5

by Jan Burke

  “Who was Johnnie Lee?” I asked.

  “The woman of my dreams,” he said dryly. “Literally. The dream I had this morning.”

  “She was the teller? You knew her?”

  “Yes. The negotiation part of the dream — that never happened. I was just a kid, just out of high school, trying to decide if I would survive my first year of college without her.

  “That summer, I tried to see her every chance I got. She worked in the bank. She’d get a fifteen-minute break at ten-fifteen in the morning. I’d go over there, spend her little break with her, cool my heels until lunch, show up again, and take her to lunch. I did that every day, waited around that damn town for every minute I could spend with her.”

  He paused and swallowed hard. “Except — that last morning, when I showed up, the bank was surrounded by cops — wouldn’t let me near it. Local sheriff was a hothead,” he said. “Went in with guns blazing. Used to brag that thanks to him, the robbers didn’t get a dime out of that bank.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “She was a remarkable young woman,” he said, but nothing more.

  “I’ll talk to Bredloe,” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  When I abandoned arguments he simply would not respond to and began to plead frantically with him to fly back with us, he said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make this any harder than it already is.”

  Calm.

  I went into the kitchen, talked to Bea, and made a phone call to Cecilia. I gathered my belongings and waited in Bea’s car while she gave Cassidy instructions on locking up.

  I should have been glad to know that they had located Frank, but I was filled with uneasiness. He was still in the hands of Hocus. The man who best knew Hocus, who was best prepared to meet them, was left behind, packing up his gear in Bakersfield. Our disagreements meant nothing. I trusted Thomas Cassidy, would trust him with Frank’s life.

  Now I was sailing off without an anchor.

  “When do you suppose you’ll get around to telling me what this evening’s performance was all about?” Bea asked, snapping me out of my self-pity.

  Leaning close so that I could be heard over the engines, I told her all I knew about why her son was a hostage.

  We were met at the airport by a black-and-white and rushed to the scene or, I should say, the outskirts of the scene. The only people who were kept farther away were media and the public. We were only slightly closer than the media. Very slightly.

  All attention was focused on the windowless face of a warehouse about a block away from us, all four sides of the square building lit up by police arc lights. A dull, ocher-colored building, hardly worthy of any notice, it now stood front and center, a solo act on a dilapidated stage.

  The whole area hummed with the sound of generators, truck motors, voices.

  We were in an older part of town, on a stretch of wide boulevard that was once a commercial district but was now falling into ruin. Easily a quarter of the buildings on this same block were abandoned. There were a couple of old hotels turned into low-income apartment buildings; almost all the other doorways had locked grating pulled in place. From where we were stationed, I could see two or three other warehouses mixed in with a storefront church, a pawnshop, a thrift store, and a used-record shop. Not much new merchandise for sale.

  The Las Piernas Police Department had apparently reacted swiftly. The phone call from Samuel had ended just two hours earlier, and the neighborhood surrounding the warehouse was clearly under police control. On the inner perimeter a command post and primary negotiators’ area had been set up, and SWAT team members were already in position. Nearby, there were ambulances, a fire truck, a HazMat vehicle — for the hazardous materials team from the fire department — a bomb squad truck, and a number of other specially equipped vehicles. Some belonged to SWAT, others obviously contained communications devices.

  All buildings adjoining the warehouse property were evacuated. Not many folks were displaced.

  Pete, Rachel, and Jack were waiting for us in our area, one set aside for Frank’s close friends and family. Guarded by a pair of uniformed officers — whose job it was to keep us separated from press and action — I found it difficult not to feel that we were hostages of another sort. Forbidden to take part in the activities, Pete was distraught that Cassidy would not be handling negotiations. When I asked him who would be taking Cassidy’s place, he said, “Guy by the name of Lewis. He’s good, but….”

  “Cassidy’s better.”

  Pete nodded.

  Henry Freeman came over to our area. He was looking tired.

  “Hi, Hank,” I said.

  He smiled. “You’ve been around Detective Cassidy too long. How is he?”

  “Not too good, last time I saw him.”

  “Don’t let Captain Bredloe know I said this, but I think he should have given him another chance.”

  “Me too. But I guess we’ll have to accept Detective Lewis. You work with him, too?”

  “Yes. If this lasts much longer, they’ll get someone to give me a break. That’s all they needed to do with Detective Cassidy.”

  “Think Lewis will come back here to talk to us?” I asked.

  Freeman ran a finger around the inside of his collar. “Not really,” he said.

  “Well, I won’t second-guess him,” I said. “I’d prefer he stays busy helping Frank. Can you tell us anything about what’s going on?”

  I heard a voice shout, “Freeman! Get your ass over here!”

  Freeman turned red.

  “Lewis?” I asked.

  He nodded quickly and left.

  Thirty minutes passed, with no apparent change in the activities. Feeling penned in, I told the others I was taking a walk over to the media corral and started to leave, only to be halted by one of our keepers. A little testy, I fished press credentials out of my purse, flashed them under his nose, and told him to live with it.

  I approached the press gathering cautiously, thankful that attention was on the building, where a helicopter had moved in and was hovering overhead. I felt strange, maybe like the first salamander or whatever it was that originally ventured onto dry land. The water would never look the same.

  Taking the plunge all the same, I walked up to Mark Baker, who, to my great fortune, was near the back of the pack. I tapped him on the shoulder — a reach — and he turned to look at me.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I whispered.

  He frowned, but nodded and followed me. When we were beyond the outer perimeter, he said, “Look, I can’t get too far away from the action.”

  “What action?”

  “There’s a rumor that the roof is soaked with gasoline. SWAT team could smell it from other rooftops. Building was built in the 1930s, has a tar-paper roof. They’re saying the place could go anytime.”

  I stared at him.

  “Sorry — sorry. I didn’t mean to just say that—”

  “You’re stealing my lines, Mark. I came over to offer you my humble and abject apology. My sincere and humble and groveling—”

  “Stop,” he said. “Just stop that nonsense.”

  “Let me say it, Mark. I’m sorry I even thought of blaming you for what’s happened. It doesn’t have anything to do with you or your story, and never really could have. I guess I wanted to find some reason for it, and before I had one — I’m sorry. It wasn’t right.”

  He sighed. “Irene, you think I didn’t understand that? I wish to God that John had put someone else on this story—”

  “I don’t. No one else would tell me what’s going on without trying to pry a quote out of me.”

  He smiled. “No quote? Why the hell did I follow you over here?”

  “Hope springs eternal, I guess.”

  He looked toward the building, solemn now. “Got to have hope.”

  “What’s happening in there?” I asked, trying to sound braver than I was feeling.

  “The police have cut the phone lines and power, had SWAT del
iver a throw phone. But the takers aren’t talking on it yet. There’s some kind of backup generator that’s supplying power to some of the floors. The team in the helicopter has used a FLIR — forward-looking infrared devices — you know about them?”

  I nodded. “Thermal sensors, right? The devices that can pick up body heat?”

  “Yes. They’re also called thermal imaging devices. They can pick up anything that gives off more than two degrees of heat.”

  “The building is about five stories high, though—”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’ve got them so sensitive now, multiple stories are no problem. You’d have to go to some extreme measures to defeat them.”

  “What have they picked up?”

  “Two people in the building, on one of the upper floors — third floor.” He hesitated, then added, “One lying prone. Hasn’t moved much.”

  I bit my lower lip. He put a hand on my shoulder.

  “These guys are the best,” Mark said. “I’ve seen them pull off some amazing shit.”

  “Thanks for telling me, Mark.”

  “I wasn’t sure I should. I figured I’d want to know, if it was my wife in there.”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, I’ve got to get back over there. You want me to walk you back?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’ll be all right. Go on ahead.”

  Reluctantly he started to go. He paused, then turned back. “That other business — I just want you to know, Hocus wasn’t my source. I won’t say who it was, but it wasn’t them. I didn’t want you to think… well, it wasn’t them.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It wouldn’t matter to me anyway.”

  “No, I guess not. See you.”

  He hurried off.

  Slowly I walked back. The cop who had hassled me had been replaced, and I hoped I hadn’t caused him to get in trouble. The new cop apparently recognized me, because he didn’t keep me from walking into the roped-off area.

  Jack took one look at my face and said, “My God, what’s happened?”

  I didn’t have to answer. We were distracted when everyone who was watching the building gave a collective shout — as the roof burst into flames.

  33

  WE STOOD IN A HUDDLE, clutching one another, looking and not wanting to look, as flames spiked up into the building’s smoky crown. Black and billowing clouds rose from the roof, carrying ashes that fell on us as swirling, papery rain. The helicopter pulled sharply away. Over nearby police radios, we heard the crackle of voices raised — the staccato of urgent commands.

  Get him out of there, I prayed silently. Please, please, please.

  “Why aren’t they going in?” Bea asked angrily.

  “SWAT team has to clear the building,” Pete said. “Can’t risk the firefighters’ lives. If they can’t get the taker out of there, they may just let it burn.”

  To our horror, for long moments it seemed that was exactly what would happen.

  The roof suddenly collapsed with a loud boom. The walls of the upper story gave way — bricks flew outward, plummeting to the street in a hot and deadly rain. At the top of the building sparks outdistanced flames, rising orange and bright even as the fire fell. More smoke followed as the blaze began to devour the next floor of the building.

  Apparently a signal was given by the SWAT team soon after the roof collapsed, for a great rush toward the building began — orderly but rapid movement by men dressed in yellow slickers and masks, carrying heavy hoses and equipment.

  As the interior fire-fighting team went in, another group worked from the exterior of the building. The streets below became slick and shiny with water. Sirens sounded as more trucks arrived.

  At one point a set of television lights turned our way, and others soon followed, stark and bright. We turned from them like cave creatures, unused to the sun. Lewis barked some orders and the police moved us out of range. Denied the treat of capturing our tense faces, cameras and lights swung back to the building.

  The fire burned for over two hours. Bea and Pete were in bad shape by the end of that time, both weeping openly. As the rest of us tried to shore them up, I found myself outwardly numb, unable to display my emotions. Within, I was not far from collapsing like that roof.

  Firefighters were still moving in and out of the building when I saw one of their officials walk up to Captain Bredloe, glance at us, and turn his body so that we could see only his back. I recognized the signs.

  “No,” I said aloud as I watched Bredloe cover his eyes. “No….”

  The others followed my gaze. Now Bredloe was talking to someone in a blue jacket, a man who used his radio. The man turned toward the building, began walking toward it. The bright yellow letters on his jacket said “Coroner.”

  Bredloe began walking toward us. Bea grasped my hand. I wanted Bredloe to stop, to never reach us — but he kept drawing closer, and now I could see his face was drawn into a terrible frown.

  “We don’t know where Frank is,” he said. “I want you to understand that before you hear anything else. Do you understand? We don’t know where he is.”

  We all nodded.

  “There’s a body in the building,” he said. “We don’t know who it is. Coroner is going in there now.”

  I felt myself sway. Jack moved closer, let me lean on him. Bea was trembling.

  “It’s not Frank!” Pete half shouted. He walked off, reached the limit of the police tape around us, and began pacing, swearing to himself in Italian. Rachel watched him in silence.

  “Perhaps we should all sit down,” Bredloe suggested. Pete and Rachel stayed standing; everyone else moved to a chair. Bea began crying quietly again.

  Think, I told myself. Think. You’ll have all kinds of time to panic later, hours and hours to fall apart. Right now, just think.

  “Only one body?” I asked.

  “Yes — so far. It may take us a day to sift through the debris. But we were watching the building with thermal sensors before the fire broke out, and there were only two people in the building — one who moved about and one who stayed stationary. What’s more, the body is in the part of the building where Ryan and Neukirk had special construction done.”

  “The soundproof room?”

  He nodded. “We asked the fire department to try to get to that area first, because we assumed that might be where they were keeping Frank.”

  “And that was the area where….”

  “Where the remains were found,” he finished for me. “Yes. The fire department believes a separate fire was started in that room — using an accelerant, perhaps gasoline — that’s what was used on the roof. The chemical analysis will take time. And while it will take some time to make any final determination, they believe the fire in that room may have started after the roof fire. It fits with the last thing the helicopter saw — the person who was moving around in the building left that area not long before the rooftop fire started. Otherwise, the men in the helicopter would have detected the fire in the room before they had to pull out.”

  “Any sign of that person?” I asked. “The one who was moving around?”

  “No,” Bredloe said. “But we’re searching the area.”

  “The arithmetic is all wrong, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” Bea asked. She had stopped crying, was wiping at her face.

  “There should have been four people in that building,” I said. “Frank, Bret Neukirk, Samuel Ryan, and a woman — Faye Taft — Samuel’s girlfriend.”

  As I said her name, I thought of Samuel’s voice as he’d spoken to us during the last phone call, of his chilling lack of regard for her.

  “Yes,” Bredloe said. “Two of them were out of the building before we arrived.”

  “And at least one of the other two knew you were coming.”

  “Why do you say that?” Bredloe asked.

  “They were ready with the gasoline on the roof, and had some method of igniting it without going up there, right?”

  “Yes. T
he arson investigators will find the ignition device, I’m sure.”

  “Unless it leads them to Frank, I’m not sure I care.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “There are other signs that this was all set up in advance,” I said. “Ryan and Neukirk have contacted me by phone several times in the last few days. They never once allowed themselves to be traced — until now. I think they wanted to be traced. Ryan picked a topic that was bound to elicit an emotional reaction from Cassidy. Maybe they even wanted you to do just what you did — remove him, at least temporarily, from the case.”

  “Why would they want to do that?” Bredloe asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe because Cassidy is getting a feel for them, is starting to anticipate them to some degree. Maybe if he had been here, he would have reacted differently from Lewis. I don’t know.”

  “The negotiator was never really allowed to get involved in this one,” Bredloe said.

  “No, I guess not.” I reconsidered. “Maybe it wasn’t to get Cassidy off the case. Maybe it was a distraction — they knew you’d be concerned with Cassidy’s reaction — and might not stop to think about the length of the call, about the fact that they were letting you trace them.”

  “You underestimate the ego of this type of taker,” a voice said.

  I looked up to see a balding man of medium height standing nearby. He was thin, wearing a brown suit that looked a little too big for him. He had a pleasant enough face.

  “Detective Lewis,” Bredloe said, and made introductions all around.

  “Takers tend to fit certain profiles, Ms. Kelly,” Lewis went on, even though no one asked him to. “Paranoid schizophrenic, psychotic depressive, antisocial personality, or inadequate personality. We’ve already seen that Neukirk and Ryan are not true political terrorists, as are their friends in jail. Lang and Colson believed all along that they were part of an anarchist organization. Neukirk and Ryan gave them an outlet for their needs.”

  Pete, who had moved nearer and listened to this, made a snorting sound. “Didn’t take you long to figure everything out, did it?”

  “How do you know what Lang and Colson’s motives are?” I asked. “Have they talked?”