by Matthew Iden
. . .
Warren grumbled the entire way to the station. I stayed silent, worrying about Mary Beth. I understood Palmer wanted me out of his hair, and that some procedure had to be followed, but he didn’t seem to be doing anything to find her. I mentioned some possibilities to Warren, but he seemed to be done with going rogue.
“Leave it to him, Singer,” he said as we pulled into the station. “Now that the case is busted wide open, he can actually trust me and the other cops on the roster to start looking for her. Not to mention he’s got the DEA to help out now. I think you’ve started enough fires around here, bud.”
We went inside where he took my statement, then we got back in the cruiser and he took me out to the auto body shop to pick up my car. “Stay out of trouble, Singer,” he shouted to me as he pulled away. “It would suck to have to arrest you after all we’ve been through.”
I cleaned off the dirt I’d put on my own car, got in, and started the engine.
And I thought.
No way was I going to just pack it in and let the chief’s crew handle finding Mary Beth.
Palmer could threaten me from now until Christmas, but I wasn’t ready to cash in my chips and drive north or sit in my room until I heard they’d found Mary Beth’s body. It wasn’t against the law to knock on doors and ask some questions. But Palmer would no doubt run me out of town once he had his ducks in a row. So, I didn’t have much time. I headed back for the center of Cain’s Crossing, working through my options.
I was just about out of friends. Warren was out, Jay was out. Dorothea Hope, even if she didn’t blame me for leading to her daughter’s kidnapping, would be of little use. Sam Bloch could help me from a distance, but once he learned that the DEA had had a live investigation on the meth angle, he would probably want to back away and let them take care of things. He might sympathize with my interest in seeing through the original goal of finding J.D.’s killer, but there was no way for a DC cop to bulldoze a federal investigation. And I wouldn’t ask him to do it if he could.
That left Chick Reyes. I doubted he’d want to do anything that would jeopardize his long-term relationship with Palmer, but he wouldn’t be much of a reporter if he didn’t want at least a nibble about the extermination of the Brower gang. I grabbed my phone, brushed grass and dirt from the case, and thumbed through my recent calls. Chick’s number was near the top. He picked up on the second ring.
“You been pretty busy,” he said.
“News travels fast.”
“I told you, I got eyes and ears in this town.’
“You’ve got a police scanner is what you mean,” I said.
“That, too,” he admitted.
“I need a favor.”
“Again? You haven’t brought me much in the way of groundbreaking intelligence, man.”
“Yeah, well, that’s about to change,” I said. “You got something to write with?”
I proceeded to tell him everything that had happened at the Browers’, all the way to getting kicked off the case, if there’d ever been one, by the chief himself.
“Chick? You there?” I said. He’d gone completely silent after my five-minute narration.
“Sorry. I was just processing what you told me. There was a DEA probe going on? You’re sure?”
“Yeah. But don’t waste your time trying for confirmation from their office. They’ll just deny it.”
“Do I have the rest of this right? Hope and this guy Shero were both working undercover, trying to bust the ring from the inside, but they never found the guy who’s running the show?”
“Right,” I said. I was pulling into the outskirts of town, where life kept bumping along. It was an early Saturday afternoon, and people were out and about their business, despite the tremendous violence that had just occurred a few miles away.
“Jesus. But they don’t think the Browers killed J.D.?”
“Nope.”
“And they don’t know where the lady is?”
“Negative,” I said.
“They’re really batting a thousand, huh?”
“Yeah, and Palmer blames me for it.”
“They want you to stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong? Or they’ll cut it off?”
“You’ve got the gist,” I said. “That’s why I called you. I’m not going to get arrested over this, but I’m pretty damn interested in where Mary Beth is and I still wouldn’t mind finding the guy who offed J.D. It’s why I came to this stupid town in the first place.”
“What do you need from me?”
“With Palmer climbing Warren’s frame, I don’t even have a whiff of law-enforcement help on this,” I said. “You are now my only source of information in this town.”
“Yeah?”
“And I could use some help running down a few things. Somebody had to know how the pseudoephedrine got into town, saw a shipment, knows something. Those eyes and ears of yours might’ve picked up something that helps point us in the right direction. And that might help us find Mary Beth.”
“Palmer’s not going to be very happy when he hears you’re still hanging around. And not real happy with me for helping you, either.”
“I know,” I said. “So we’ve got to do whatever it is we’re going to do quick. Think you can help me?”
He hesitated. “Right now?”
“Are you listening? I’ve probably got until lunchtime tomorrow before I’m screwed,” I said. “Not to mention, Mary Beth’s still out there somewhere, scared or hurt or dead. And I’m going to find her.”
There was a pause, then, “Shit.”
“C’mon, Chick. That Pulitzer isn’t going to win itself.”
“All right, all right. Can you handle big numbers? Let me give you my address,” he said and rattled off directions to his house. “Just don’t make a big noise coming here, okay? I don’t mind kicking Palmer in the nuts for all the problems he’s given me over the years, but I don’t need to end up spending the rest of my life in a white man’s jail, either. You got me?”
“I got you,” I said.
Chapter Thirty
Chick lived in a single-level rancher outside of town. The house perched on a treeless rise overlooking hundreds of grassy yards in every direction. The lawn’s only interruption was a tall flagpole sprouting from a slate pedestal planted in the middle of the front yard like a challenge. Old Glory snapped and swayed in the breeze. A long, wet-looking driveway led straight from the road to a single-stall garage. Chick’s banana-yellow Camaro sat in front of the stall door, gleaming like a small sun.
I parked behind the Camaro and climbed out of my car slowly. The day had been long and at a level of activity I wasn’t used to. As I walked to the house, the front door opened and Chick poked his head out, glancing at, around, and past me. Even after I’d entered, he took a half step outside, scanning the road and front yard leading to his house. Satisfied, he came back inside, closed the door, and looked me over.
“Holy shit, man. You look like twenty miles of bad road,” he said when I came fully into the light. I glanced down at myself. I was covered in dirt, corn silk, blood, and one of my eyes wouldn’t stop weeping from where I’d taken a pine branch across the face.
“You should see the other guys,” I said. “But, yeah, I didn’t have time to change. Can’t take me out anywhere.”
“You want a drink?” he asked, moving towards what I assumed was the kitchen.
“Just water, if you got it.” I glanced around the living room. I’d expected a kitschy, 1970s décor judging from the outside. Or maybe a sloppy bachelor’s pad, filled with cheap furniture. But I was surprised to see a matching leather suite, a couple pieces of original art, and a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. Somewhere in the house, another TV blared loud enough to be distracting. “Nice place. Newspaper work must be more lucrative than I’ve been led to believe.”
I heard the faucet in the kitchen turn on. “I’m the only game in town, my friend. Pretty much in the whole count
y. When you’re a monopoly of one, you do pretty well. Plus what I saved in the Army.”
“You don’t even watch TV in here, do you?” I said. I almost had to yell.
“What? Oh, that. I got a man-cave in the basement. That’s where I go for football. The living room is for the girls.”
“Must be nice.”
He returned with a tall glass of water for me and a beer for himself. Putting the beer down on an end table, he headed down a hallway to the back of the house. “Hold tight. I want to get my laptop so we can take some notes.”
“Hurry up. Mary Beth’s out there somewhere,” I said, taking a long pull of water. I sighed as it hit my system, then paced around the room, looking at the sleek décor without actually seeing it. I was exhausted, antsy, my nerves jangling. To give my hands something to do, I pulled my out phone and checked the screen, thumbing through numbers, names, and menus. A voice mail from Sam Bloch was the only thing of note. I punched in the access number while I waited for Chick to come back.
“Marty, it’s Sam,” the message started. “I finally heard back from a contact in Customs over in Norfolk, trying to get some more background on Will Brower. He had a couple interesting things to say. Seems like it was well known Will got the job through some pal in the service. Apparently the door got slammed in his face because of a dishonorable discharge and this guy was there to help him.”
I kept up my circuit around the living room as the message continued, idly sipping water as I stared at one of the frames on the wall. “The hiring thing made a bunch of people unhappy, because the same guy brought on a third crony from the Army, bypassing standard hiring practice. Then things died down when Will and this other guy quit a few years ago. The third guy stayed on, but things have been running smoothly ever since. I know you’ll want names.” I heard papers being shuffled. “Will Brower, of course. The guy still at Customs is Junior Helmsley. And the last one, the one who quit, was one Ricardo Reyes. Haven’t been able to find anything on him yet, but we’ll get someone to pick up Junior later today or tomorrow—”
The glass of water fell from my hand as I spun in place, pawing at my gun.
I expected to see Chick drawing a bead on me with an M16, but there was nothing but empty hallway. I held my breath, listening. Sam’s message continued playing from the phone in a tinny falsetto. The ice cubes in my spilled glass slipped past each other and onto the rug. From somewhere deeper in the house, the second TV drowned out all the little sounds I so desperately needed to hear: footsteps, a cough, a creaking floor.
I raised my phone again and cut the voice mail off, then dialed Warren’s number, glancing at the hallway in between each press of a button. The phone rang three, four, five times, then went to voice mail. I cursed and waited for the beep.
“Warren, it’s Singer,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “I’m at Chick Reyes’s house. It’s him. He’s the kingpin. Haul your ass out here.”
I hung up and pocketed the phone. Still no sound from the hall or farther back in the house aside from the trumpeting of commercials from the second TV. The normally domestic swell of sound was incongruous and surreal.
I swallowed and crept down the hall, my gun raised and ready. The thought crossed my mind that I should wait for Warren to show, but I could wait all day for him to check his voice mail and by then it might be too late for Mary Beth, if she were even alive. I covered the doors with my gun, peering into spare bedrooms as I walked the length of the hall. At the midpoint, on the left, was a set of steps leading to the basement. The blare of the TV was deafening at the top of the steps. I considered. The stairwell was carpeted and drywalled, so I didn’t have to worry about being seen between the treads as I went down the steps, but there was a turn in the landing, so I’d be going down blind.
I took a deep breath and descended the steps, taking each one heel-to-toe. The TV covered any noise I might make, but caution is a habit that’s hard to break. When I got to the landing, I peered around the corner. The angle was too steep for me to see into the far corner of the basement, but the glance showed a couple of couches and an easy chair. I continued until I could see the entire basement. The décor was dark hues of brown and green, a hunting lodge style. The TV making all the noise squatted in one corner, blaring baseball scores at an empty room.
To the right of the steps was a small door. A utility closet or laundry room. The door was slightly open. I circled the room wide so that I wasn’t opening the door across my body, then opened it slowly and incrementally from the far side. When there was a gap big enough for my head, I peered in. It was the laundry room, unfinished and rough. It went back about twenty feet, then turned to the right in an “L” shape, essentially going under the first-floor steps. I couldn’t see past the angle of the turn, where a single bare bulb illuminated shelves of paint cans, brushes, and rags. I padded into the tiny room and turned the corner.
Tied to a kitchen chair was Mary Beth. Duct tape covered her mouth from ear to ear and her hands were lashed behind her so tight that she had to arch her back painfully. Her eyes were wide and white and she was breathing heavily. Standing behind her was Chick, his dark eyes boring into me. One hand pressed a large handgun to Mary Beth’s temple. The other was a fist twisted in her hair, keeping her head immobile and cocked at a painful angle.
Chick grinned, his trademark teeth flashing. “So, amigo. I guess you came into some information recently. Like, in the last five minutes.”
“I did,” I said, watching his eyes. “Not the information I was hoping for, though. Guess I should’ve figured it out earlier.”
“I really had you going, eh?”
“You did. Helpful small-town reporter, in touch with everything that’s going on. A walking, talking Who’s Who of Cain’s Crossing.”
He rolled one of those mints around his mouth and it made a clacking sound against his teeth. “I thought I’d started to lose my edge, you know, dealing with rednecks all the time. I wasn’t sure if I could pull one over on a big-city cop. I came pretty close, huh?”
“Real close,” I said, nodding slowly. Whatever it took to keep him talking. “The link to Customs was what did you in.”
“Ah, shit,” he said, almost jokingly. “You put it all together, then?”
“You and Will Brower were in the Army together. You hit it off and he tells you how his hometown is so far away from everything that it would make a great place to grow weed or start a meth lab. But you don’t know where to get the pseudoephedrine and without it, you’re like every other tweaker out there, making meth one plastic bag at a time. No money in that.”
Chick’s grin never wavered, but it was brittle and his eyes were too bright. I went on, keeping my tone conversational and steady, trying not to look at Mary Beth. The TV droned on inanely in the other room.
“You figure the problem isn’t making the deal to get the suzie, it’s getting it into the country. But Will knows this guy Junior Helmsley, who’s got a job just where you need him to, the Customs office in Norfolk. He brings you two on, you learn the ropes, then offer Junior a cut of the profits every time he gets a shipment of bogus electronic parts through. With—what? One in ten thousand containers getting inspected?—you were almost foolproof. And if by some miracle your shipment got inspected, Junior was there to stamp it okay. With that in place, all you had to do was teach the local yokels how to cook and, bam, brand-new source of meth on the East Coast.”
“You’ve really been doing your homework, Marty,” Chick said. “You sure you’re retired? You part of that DEA thing?”
I shook my head. “Didn’t even know about it.”
He laughed. “You’re shitting me.”
“I wish I were, Chick. I didn’t even finger Jay for undercover. Must’ve been a hell of a surprise for you.”
“I never really trusted him,” Chick said. “Just like I never trusted Hope.”
“That why you had him snuffed?”
“Hey, man. I can’t take credit for all the crime in
the county.”
“Come on, Chick. You expect me to believe you didn’t take J.D. out?”
Chick shrugged. “I would’ve, if I’d known. But I didn’t kill him and the boys never did anything that big Will didn’t tell them to do. And he didn’t do anything without asking me first. Sorry, amigo, you can’t lay that one on me.”
I stared at him, trying to decipher what he was saying. He had no reason to lie about J.D., but I had no reason to believe him.
“So, I guess we’re at an impasse,” Chick continued, cheerfully. “I can’t really go anywhere with you in my way. And I know you don’t want to let me past you. But that’s exactly what you’re going to do. The three of us are going to back out of this room, close as lovers, and you’re going to sit down in my man-cave and watch as I head out of here with the lady.”
I stared at him, frozen.
“Hey, you listening?” he asked. He grabbed Mary Beth’s hair tighter in his fist and shook her head, causing her to scream through the tape. “Don’t space out on me, Marty. I’ll shoot her in the fucking foot, if you need a little demonstration. Is that what you want, huh?”
I was looking at Chick, at Mary Beth crying, but what I saw was J.D.’s face in the courtroom, the look of judgment, the warning he gave the last time I saw him.
“Marty, don’t mess with this, okay? You, me, the lady here, we can all get out of this okay. I know you haven’t told the cops yet, you didn’t have a clue about me until you got here. I promise I won’t hurt her if you just back the hell up—”
“You’re not going to take this away from me,” I said.
His grin wavered a bit, not knowing what I meant. But he thought he was in control and relaxed, though the gun never left Mary Beth’s head. “Well, partner, you don’t really have a choice. You’re going to ask me to let the lady go. I’m going to refuse. Then you’ll back away, slowly. Even if you called Warren before you came out, you’re going to let me walk out of here. Either way, it doesn’t look good—”