by Dale Mayer
“Or,” Rodney said, “maybe it’s not that he’s way off the mark. Maybe we’re just not in a position to get the information yet.”
She shrugged. “Either way it’s not helpful.”
“Aren’t you in a fine mood today.”
“I’m frustrated, fed up, and I want these cases to close.”
“Well, I get you there,” he said. “You haven’t been on the team long enough to understand how many cases we never get closed at all.”
“That’s very depressing,” she said. “How do you stay positive if you can’t close any of these? If you can’t capture any of the criminals who are making life miserable?”
“We get just enough to keep ourselves happy.”
“It sucks,” she said, not pulling any punches.
He laughed. “Absolutely it does. Obviously we do our best for each and every one, but you have to understand and accept that not every case is closable.”
“Every case is closable,” she said, with a snap to her tone. “It just might take a little more work.”
“Well, I’m glad to have you as part of the team,” he said comfortably. “If nothing else, you’ll keep us all pushing harder.”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of not having pushed hard enough,” she said, immediately feeling bad for making that suggestion. “I think it’s more just a case of a fresh set of eyes and maybe a little more interest in some of these cases versus others,” she said. “These drive-by shootings will drive me crazy. The fact that he went quiet for a few years is enough to really get me.”
“Did anybody check recent parolees?” he asked suddenly.
She looked over at him, frowned, and said, “I did, but nothing popped. A relationship could easily be why he stopped. Although it often happens that when they get into a relationship with another person, their need to do whatever it is that they’re doing stops. Until they get angry over a breakup or something, and they start all over again.”
He shook his head. “I just don’t get that mentality.”
“Whether we get it or not doesn’t change the fact that it’s there,” she said.
“Agreed,” he said.
With that, they pulled up to their destination. The house had been sold the year after her husband’s death. As they got out, they went and checked with the neighbors on either side. There were only six houses on this block, with a corner store at the end. They checked with everybody, talked with whoever they could. Two of the people remembered the older couple; one remembered the truck.
“He was always playing with that thing. He’d spend every Sunday out there, tinkering around with it.”
“Did you go over and talk to him about it?”
The neighbor, who couldn’t have been more than fifty, nodded. “Yeah, my dad was a tinkerer too,” he said. “So it brought back memories every time I went over with a cup of coffee in my hand, just to see what George was up to.”
“What was he up to?” Rodney asked curiously. “I’m not a car junkie myself, so I never really understood what they did.”
The other gentleman laughed. “Sometimes he was just cleaning it. Sometimes he was changing the oil because it had been parked too long. Sometimes it was, you know, just brushing up on the lugs on the wheels. Sometimes he was tweaking away under the hood.” He shook his head. “He always just seemed happy doing it.”
“And what about other people? Did he often do this alone, or were there people who would come over and visit, besides you?”
“A couple of us used to hang around there. I think it was more a little like a men’s coffee-shop atmosphere that gave us an excuse to visit for a few minutes and to get out of the house, you know?”
From inside the house a woman’s laughing voice called out, “I heard that.”
He grinned. “A couple younger kids hung around every once in a while, but they just had no concept of the value a truck like that had for him.”
“Did anybody ever try to buy it from him?”
“Sure, one kid from the mechanic’s shop around the corner used to come by. I mean, I call him a kid, but he was probably twenty-seven, twenty-eight back then. He really wanted it. I think he also thought it should go cheap, and that’s where the discussion ended. Of course, old man George would never sell it cheap. This truck was the love of his life,” he said, with a big smile.
“Got it,” Kate said, with an understanding nod. “And, of course, for the youngster,” she said, with emphasis, “it would have been something cheap because it was old and something he could fix up.”
“Exactly, but George never did sell it.”
“Did they ever argue about it?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of, although the kid was a little bit more emphatic about wanting it than he should have been.”
“And what about selling it? Did George ever look seriously at selling it?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think he was at all interested in going that route. I know, when it was stolen, he was devastated, and that was hard on everybody. He was pretty upset.”
“And nobody saw anything? Nobody heard anything?”
“That was the odd thing because that truck, when you started it up, made a huge vrooming sound,” he said. “I mean, the carburetor system on it was huge. I’m pretty sure he had some straight-pipe modification in there because, when it turned on, it was noisy. So I don’t know how the thief got it out of the garage without half the neighborhood noticing.”
“Now that is an interesting point,” she said, staring at him. “How could they have gotten it out of there, without the owners hearing it?”
“Well, George was definitely short on hearing,” he said, “but you’ve got to consider that his wife should have heard it.”
“Yes, absolutely,” she frowned, as she thought about it and looked across the street to where the house was. The garage was right there at the side of the road. “I suppose somebody could have put the truck in Neutral, and they could have rolled it out into the street a couple houses down before starting it up,” she said.
He nodded. “It’s possible. I also figured that, if somebody knew anything about trucks, they might have done something about that noisy muffler before stealing it.”
“Most likely they would have,” she said, with a nod. She turned, smiled at the guy, and said, “I don’t suppose you know who the kid was who wanted to buy it?”
“Not by name. Only that he worked at the mechanic’s shop.”
“Does he still?”
“I don’t believe so, no,” he said, frowning. “But I’m not exactly sure. I don’t go to that one.”
“Any particular reason why?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said, “it just wasn’t my choice.”
She nodded at that and said, “Thanks very much for your time.”
When they got back into the vehicle, she drove forward and headed to the mechanic’s shop.
Rodney nodded. “Let me talk to him.”
“Oh, why this time?”
“Just because,” he said, with a grin, “sometimes you make me feel like I’m slacking.”
“You talked to a couple of the neighbors,” she protested.
“I did, but, for some reason, sometimes the guys at gas stations and mechanic yards treat women differently.”
With that, she hopped out, slammed the door shut, and said, “Well, we’ll fix that right now.”
He groaned. “Just joking.”
“I got it,” she said. “Let’s go take a look.”
As they walked in, the owner of the shop came out to talk to them, wiping at his hands with a grease rag. She pulled her badge, and he just nodded, didn’t show a positive or a negative response in any way. But he did turn and talk to Rodney. “What’s up? What can I do for you?”
“You had a kid working here for you a couple, three or four years back, in his late twenties or so.”
“I’ve only had three guys over the last four or five years, and only on
e of them has left, and that happened to be the youngest of the group,” he said. “Everybody else who works for me is forty plus.”
“What was his name?”
“Tex,” he said, “Tex Rambler. What’s this got to do with him?”
“We’re looking into the theft of an old teal blue truck from just around the corner here.”
“Well, I don’t know about him stealing the rig, but he was certainly fixated on that one. He tried to buy it off the old guy several times.”
“And yet the old guy never sold it, but it was stolen not very long afterward,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “Tex worked for me at the time, but then he left maybe four or five months later. I never saw any sign of the truck in all that time.”
“But then why would he?” Rodney said. “That would just let it out that he’d been the one to steal it.”
“He could have told me that he’d bought it though,” the owner argued.
“Do you have a forwarding address for him?”
“Um,” he thought about it and said, “let me go check. I’m not sure if I do or not.”
“What about his last paycheck?” Rodney asked.
“He picked it up,” he said. “He said he would go to another shop, one that had more business. Things here weren’t all that busy at the time, so he wasn’t getting as many hours as he needed.”
“Which is a good reason for moving on,” Rodney said. “Times are tough in some places.”
“They’ve been tough in a lot of places,” he said, with a frown. “You do your best, but you can’t force people to come to you just because you need them to.”
“No, of course not,” he said.
“So, let me go on in and take a look. I’ll be back in a minute.”
They followed him to the edge of the office, where they could stop and look around. One of the guys was standing off to the side, looking at them. She walked over and asked, “Hey, remember Tex who used to work here? Have you got any idea where he is now?”
“Probably at home,” he said. “That kid is freaking lazy.”
“No, he’s not at home,” the other guy said. “He got in trouble a while back. I thought he left.”
“What trouble?” Kate asked.
“I think he nicked something from somebody, but I could be wrong.”
“Interesting,” she murmured. “Something,” she said, “as in car parts?”
He looked over at the boss and nodded. “He was let go from here because of that. So, I’m not sure if he ended up getting a reference and going on to another place or not.”
“Yet, the boss didn’t mention that,” she said quietly.
“He didn’t want to ruin the kid’s life.”
“Maybe not, but it reflects on his character. We’re looking into the theft of an old truck from around the corner here.”
Both of the guys snorted at that. “That was like three or four years ago, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it was. Maybe he was generally a pretty good kid, but maybe he had big plans. He may have had ambitions, and he probably wanted to do things. And the money just wasn’t there to do them, I suppose.”
“Hey, the hours were all over the place,” he said. “We were lucky to get through that time. Things have improved a lot.”
“Could it be because you’re splitting the hours with one less guy?”
He nodded. “Can’t argue with that.”
She frowned, as she looked around. “Any idea where he lives?”
“Nope,” he said, “I’m not even sure he’s still around here.”
“Good enough,” she said, with a nod. “Thanks.” With that, she walked back over just as the boss man came out.
He said, “This is all I have for a forwarding address.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that you had trouble here with Tex over stolen parts?”
He flushed. “I didn’t have any proof,” he said, “and we couldn’t square it off when everybody here has access to everything, and I just got the wrong vibe off it. I wouldn’t go ruin the kid’s life when I didn’t know for sure.”
“I get it,” she said, “but it would have been nice if you’d at least given us a bit of a heads-up on that.”
“Again, I don’t know anything for certain,” he said, “and what if you went after this kid, but he hadn’t really taken anything?”
“And what if he did steal that truck?” she snapped.
“So, it’s an old truck, whatever,” he said. “It’s hardly like it’s a major deal.”
Rodney turned, looked at him, and said, “Except for the fact that it’s now been used in at least three very recent drive-by shootings with a death toll of four people. How do you think it looks now?”
*
Simon’s Wednesday
Simon wasn’t sure what to say to this poor woman in his visions. But today he’d stayed home, the pain racking through him as the vision kept coming back again and again. The more he fought it, the harder it was for him to get rid of. He didn’t understand, couldn’t fight it, and couldn’t do anything about it.
But if something didn’t happen soon, he would have a breakdown. Or at least everybody else would think he was having a breakdown. For his part he just wanted to let loose with a screaming fit and start ranting and raving to get this to stop. But nothing he did helped. He got up and walked over to a picture of his grandmother.
“Surely this isn’t what my life will be like,” he muttered. He sat back down on the chair, grabbed a pen, and started writing down all the details. If the only way to get out of this was to solve it, then he needed Kate to listen to him, and he needed this to provide enough information that she could do something with it. That seemed to be where the problem was. All he was getting were impressions, but what impressions though?
Lions Gate Bridge? Check.
Early morning, late evening, check.
White sneakers, check.
Seems to be female, check.
Hearing other voices in her head, check.
But it could easily be her own subconscious or some part of her telling her that life wasn’t worth living. He couldn’t guarantee that it was another person, like him; that’s not what he was saying at all. But it’s like this other part of her was saying it was better for her to do this, and she was fighting it. There was part of her that didn’t believe it, and that part desperately wanted to have this all go away.
He was rooting for that part to win, if it meant finding a solution other than jumping. The last thing he wanted was to have anything to do with somebody jumping. Even worse, he didn’t want to be connected to her when she did it. The helplessness he felt already made him feel like life wasn’t worth living sometimes.
He remembered the feeling with the boys from the pedophile case, knowing that he could do nothing but watch them and see the stupid rooms where they were being held or that black-and-white vision of a little man walking under the stupid lamppost. Simon had yet to even tell Kate that he was still seeing that one. He hoped they were just residual tidbits. Simon had nobody to call for help, nobody to ask, and his grandmother was long gone. And, damn it, at this point in time he wished he’d never even gone down this passageway. How was he supposed to function in real life? He was a businessman, with responsibilities and people depending on him. And here he was incapacitated because he was caught up in something that he couldn’t even begin to describe to other people.
He got up and made himself a very hot rich espresso, then sat back down again. “Kill myself with coffee, huh,” he said, shaking his head. When his phone rang, he looked down to see it was one of his foremen. He answered it and dealt with another series of problems that were starting to get to him today. Finally realizing that he couldn’t do anything more, he got up, changed into jeans, grabbed his jacket, and went outside. There he grabbed an Uber and got off at the Lions Gate Bridge.
It was hard to explain that compelling drive in order to be here, just in case she migh
t show up at some point in time. Surely she would come, but he couldn’t spend his whole time, sitting here, wondering and waiting, and how would he tell Kate that’s what he was doing? She’d asked him to leave it alone if he could, saying that she was working on it. But he also knew this wasn’t the only case she was working on. There were other cases, other things going on in her world, cases he had no connection to, nothing that led him in any direction. But this was something. And now he was sitting at the end of the bridge, looking up and down the walkway, wondering what the hell was going on and if this poor woman would even show, as he just waited.
He didn’t have long to wait. Several other people walked up and down the bridge. He walked all the way across to the other side, which took twenty-five damn minutes, then slowly walked back again. The wind picked up, as it crossed the harbor and slammed into the bridge and kept on going. He looked over the side a couple times and swore because the water churned with an ominous presence down below. He noted a couple standing there, looking over at the water.
The woman smiled at him. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” she yelled over the wind.
He nodded. “Stormy and crazy.”
“It is.” At that, she said, “We’ve never been to Vancouver before. We were told that this was one of the prettiest spots.”
“Well, it is,” he said in surprise. “It’s a popular tourist spot.”
“Yes,” she said, turning sad. “But we just heard that an awful lot of suicides were here.” He looked at her in alarm, and she laughed. “I’m a journalist. I’m just here to contemplate what it would take for somebody to do something like that.”
He shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said. “Not my wheelhouse.”
“Good,” she said. “I saw you walking up and down the bridge here.”
He looked at her in surprise; she was worried he was dealing with something difficult in his life. “Yeah, not me,” he said, with a smile. “I’ve got too many businesses and people depending on me to take an exit like that.”
“Not to mention the fact that there’s so much else in life to live for,” her partner said.
“That too,” he said. “And, besides, I have a special lady in my life. We’re not exactly a done deal, but I sure wouldn’t ruin it by cutting the opportunity short.”