Frozen Stiff

by Patrick Logan

  Martinez shrugged and rolled down the window.

  A police officer shone his flashlight inside the vehicle and Martinez shielded his eyes with the blade of his hand. Then he pulled out his FBI badge and showed it to the officer.

  “Agent Martinez,” the man said, lowering his flashlight. “Chief Downs said you’d be arriving.” He flicked the light quickly in Chase’s direction. “Who’s this?”

  “FBI Special Agent Adams,” Martinez replied. “The van here?”

  The officer nodded.

  “Just up the road, parked on the street. Waiting for you guys to arrive, as per the Chief’s instructions.”

  “CSU here?”

  “Yeah, waiting.”

  “Alright, let us through then,” Martinez said, and the officer stepped away from the car.

  Chase stared out the window at the police officers, most of them leaning up against their vehicles, hands crossed over their jacket-covered chests, bored expressions on their lined faces.

  They were all waiting for them… they were waiting for the FBI to swoop in, confirm that this was the same van that was used to kidnap and torture the girls, and to put the final nail in Brent Pine’s coffin.

  Please… we’ll do anything. If you let us go, we’ll do anything…

  A shudder ran through her as the van loomed into view. Illuminated with large, bright lights that CSU had erected, it looked like some sort of prehistoric relic instead of just a shitty white van, cursed by the elements.

  “That’s it,” she whispered.

  Martinez nodded and slammed the car into park.

  “That’s it,” he confirmed. “That’s Brent Pine’s van, the last place that Yolanda and Francine saw.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “Open it,” Agent Martinez instructed.

  The man in the thick gloves and navy coat emblazoned with “Crime Scene Unit” on the back nodded and stepped forward. He grabbed the door handle and pulled it wide.

  Chase inhaled sharply.

  The interior of the van was almost exactly as she had seen it in her visions.

  The metal floor was covered in brown stains—Yolanda’s blood… Yolanda’s and Francine’s—and there was a rudimentary stove affixed to one side.

  Martinez flicked on his flashlight and strode forward, fully illuminating the interior.

  “Van is registered to Brent Pine,” an officer behind them stated. “And the neighbors confirm that they’ve seen him driving it. Says that he lends it out quite a bit to friends who want to go camping, but not recently.”

  Martinez grunted. His flashlight revealed a heavy cast iron pan tucked behind a large stove.

  “This is his van, all right.”

  “Neighbors say it’s been parked here since Tuesday.”

  Chase’s thoughts turned to the no parking signs she had seen as Martinez had pulled onto the street.

  “Any tickets?” she asked quietly as she continued to search the van with her eyes.

  “Two; for parking violations. Was scheduled to be booted with a third.”

  Martinez shone the light on the stove, and then followed a series of a metal tubes that ascended upward before leaving out the side of the van.

  “Where’s the propane?” he asked.

  “Dunno. There’s a spot for them on the side, but they aren’t there. Neighbors heard some noise the other night—likely someone came and took them.”

  Chase shook her head and blinked rapidly.

  This doesn’t make any sense. Brent kidnaps the girls, drives out to the deserted road and maims them, dumps their bodies in the snow. Then he comes back here, parks the van illegally, and goes back to work only to return later. He sees the tickets and instead of moving the van, he just removes the propane?

  No, something definitely wasn’t adding up. Brent might be a demented psychopath, but from even their brief encounter, Chase knew that he wasn’t this stupid.

  No one was this stupid.

  “Alright, let’s get—” Martinez began, but then stopped. He pulled off one of his gloves and reached into his pocket and removed his cell phone.

  He brought it to his ear and Chase observed him say a few words, nothing of substance, before hanging up.

  Then Martinez turned to her, a scowl on his face.

  “I have to go,” he said bluntly.

  Chase gawked.

  “What? What do you mean, you have to go?”

  “I have to go,” Martinez repeated. Then to the others, he said. “CSU, I want the van to be analyzed with a fine-toothed comb. Go over everything, I want DNA, anything that you can find. Nothing gets through here. We need Brent and Yolanda and Francine to be placed in the van at the same time. Got it?”

  There was a series of affirmative grunts, and then Martinez started back toward his car.

  It took Chase a few seconds to break out of her stupor.

  “Wait up!” she hollered as she hurried after him. She caught him as he was opening the door.

  “What… what should I do?”

  Martinez chewed his lip.

  “Process the van, then interview Brent again. Chief Downs will take care of the rest.”

  He lowered himself into his seat as Chase watched on, confused.

  Martinez closed the door, and had already put the car into drive before Chase finally brought herself to ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  But Martinez was already gone.

  CHAPTER 23

  “I’m trying to understand this, Brent. I really am. But… it’s your van and their blood is in it. All over it. And unless you can explain that, then…” Chase let her sentence trail off.

  Brent Pine took a deep breath, and then rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically.

  “I—I don’t—” Brent’s lawyer gently grabbed his arm.

  “You don’t have to answer any more questions,” he said.

  Brent shook his arm free.

  “But I want to. I mean, this is ridiculous. I didn’t do any of this… Yolanda and Francine, they were my friends.”

  Chase heard Chief Downs breathing on the back of her neck become more rapid.

  “This how you treat—”

  Chase shook her head. It was bad enough that he was in the room, but with these regular outbursts, they were going to lose Brent. He would just collapse into a shell and then only his lawyer would be doing the speaking, which would get them nowhere.

  But it had been like pulling teeth for Chase to even convince the big Police Chief to let her interview the man, despite Martinez passing the case on to her.

  “Okay, fine, let’s talk about something else, then? How did you know Yolanda and Francine?”

  Brent looked at her with rheumy eyes. He licked his lips, and she grabbed a glass of water and offered it to him.

  “Here, drink this.”

  She heard Chief Downs grunt, and knew what he was thinking: let the bastard dehydrate… let him suffer the way he made those girls suffer.

  Brent drank hungrily, the liquid splashing down his bearded chin.

  When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his wrists, which were now chained together.

  “Tell me how you knew the girls.”

  Brent spoke slowly and clearly.

  “I met them about a year ago. They came into the bar and I struck up a conversation with Yolanda, and some of her friends.”

  “That’s it?”

  Brent shrugged.

  “Well, we had a few drinks and then I gave—”

  He stopped mid-sentence and then glanced nervously at his lawyer.

  “What? You gave them what, Brent?”

  The lawyer, a hairless creature with thick black spectacles, held up a finger as he leaned close to his client’s ear and whispered something.

  Brent nodded, then whispered something back. The lawyer interlaced his fingers.

  “My client is exercising his right for silence a
t this point.”

  Chase’s eyes narrowed.

  “Why now? What did you give them, Brent?”

  “Again,” the lawyer repeated in a monotonous drone, “my client is exc—”

  Chief Downs suddenly slammed his hands on the table.

  “What did you give them, you little shit? You give them their feet back, huh? No, you didn’t give them back, because we never found them. You twisted bastard. You give them a nice grope before you killed them? We know you couldn’t get it up enough to—”

  “This is borderline harassment, and if you continue—”

  “Shut up! Tell us what—”

  Brent’s face suddenly went red.

  “I gave them a fucking bump, that’s all. Goddamn it, I didn’t do this!”

  Chase felt her body tense.

  He gave them some coke, that’s why they became friends. That, and his charm… his charisma.

  The lawyer reached out and tried to quiet his client, but Brent had been pushed too far.

  “That’s it! One bump!”

  Chief Downs piped in.

  “Oh, I bet—”

  “Brent, I don’t care about a little bit of coke. Really, I don’t. I’m FBI, and I’m investigating a double-homicide. And Chief Downs,” she turned and looked up at the man, surprised that his fat face had turned deep red, “well, he doesn’t care either. So you gave them a bump? So what? They’re college girls, if they don’t get it from you, they’ll just get it from some other shady character.”

  The words triggered something in Chase’s mind then, and she was suddenly transported back to a different time.

  The room was dark and dank, reeking of sweat and sour alcohol. Her clothes stank, as did her hair, both of which retained the caustic smell of smoke.

  She wasn’t alone, Chase knew this, and yet it was difficult for her to make out anything in the dimly lit room.

  “Chase? You want a hit of this?”

  A meaty palm came down on Chase’s shoulder and she jumped.

  “I, uh, was that the only time that you gave the girls drugs?” she asked quickly, hoping that the others, unlike Chief Downs who had deliberately touched her shoulder, hadn’t noticed her mind drifting.

  Brent’s lip curled, but he eventually answered.

  “No, maybe… maybe once or twice more, but that’s it, I swear. Their friend…” he shook his head. “No, that’s it.”

  Chase stared intently as the man spoke. His eyes drifted up and to the right, just a little, indicating that he was recalling rather than fabricating a memory.

  “Alright, fine. We got that. But the van… why was their blood in the van?”

  Again ignoring the urgings of his lawyer, Brent answered the question.

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. I lent the van out… didn’t even know it was back yet.”

  “Who’d you lend it to?” Chief Downs hissed over her shoulder.

  Before Brent answered, Chase felt the phone in her pocket buzz. She reached in and rejected the call without looking at who it was.

  “I don’t… I don’t know,” Brent said, sounding dejected.

  “You don’t know?” there was a hint of sardonic humor in the Chief’s tone now. “Let me get this straight: you lent your van to someone, but you don’t know who?”

  Brent’s body sagged.

  “It was a friend of a friend… I don’t mind lending it out, it’s great for camping and—”

  “Camping in the winter, Brent?” Chase asked.

  Her phone buzzed again, and she frowned, ignoring it once more.

  Brent tried to throw his arms up, but he had forgotten that they were handcuffed and he winced as the metal bit into his wrists.

  “I don’t know! I didn’t ask!”

  Chase hesitated, eyes still fixed on the young man across from her. When he had said he didn’t know, that he didn’t ask, he had glanced at his lawyer again.

  It was the same look he had given when he had first hesitated before telling them about the coke he had sold to Yolanda and Francine.

  And then it clicked.

  Chase stood, and looked over at the Chief, tilting her head toward the door to indicate that they should take a break.

  “I need to use the rest room,” she told Brent and his lawyer. “Do you want anything? Coffee? Snack?”

  Brent shook his head softly.

  “Just some more water, please.”

  “Sure.”

  With that, she left the room, thankful that Chief Downs followed her out. When the door closed behind them, she turned to face him.

  “He lent the van out either because it was being used to ship drugs, or he was trading its services for drugs,” she whispered. “Either way, drugs are the reason why his van went missing.”

  The Chief’s thick eyebrows furrowed.

  “You’re not buying this shit, are you? The little fucking twerp—”

  “I didn’t say that Brent didn’t kill them,” she said curtly. “Only that the reason why the van was gone was because it was being used to move product.”

  “And how could you know that?”

  Chase opened her mouth and then closed it again.

  She knew because she had seen it in the man’s face, but she couldn’t say that. Especially given the way Downs had looked at her when she had touched Yolanda’s leg and then asked them to search for tire tracks belonging to Brent Pine’s van.

  Agent Stitts might believe in intuition and gut feelings, but the only gut feeling that Chief Downs got was indigestion.

  “I used to be a Narc,” she said, “I know how dealers behave.”

  This wasn’t entirely true, at least not in this context. She had been a Narc, but her true insight into the workings of dealers and addicts had come from—

  Her phone buzzed and this time she took it out of her pocket, thinking—hoping—that it might be Brad finally returning her call.

  “One sec,” she said, turning her back to the red-faced police chief.

  It wasn’t Brad; the number was unlisted.

  She answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “Agent Adams, it’s Martinez. I need you here.”

  Chase plugged her other ear to block out the Chief’s mouth-breathing, and hunched over.

  “What? Where? What’s going on?”

  “Can’t tell you over the phone. Floyd will pick you up, take you straight to the airport.”

  Airport?

  Chase’s head was spinning. She was just starting to get somewhere with the case, and now this.

  How can the FBI work this way? Swoop in, lay some groundwork and then just leave the inept local PD in charge?

  “Leave the case to Chief Downs. He and his men can handle it. It’s a slam dunk.”

  Chase’s eyes flicked to Downs, and doubt didn’t so much as creep over her as it blanketed her soul.

  “I’m not sure that—”

  “Finish up there, Floyd will arrive in twenty.”

  And with that, the line went dead, leaving Chase to stare at the blank screen.

  Where the hell is going on? What the hell have I gotten myself into?

  CHAPTER 24

  “W-w-we need to h-hur-hurry,” Floyd said, as he waited for Chase to enter through the door he held open. “You’re f-f-flight is in an hou-hou-hour.”

  Chase nodded and tucked the front of her red jacket closed before stepping inside.

  All she had with her was her purse, filled with a couple of extra things—toothbrush, hairbrush, perfume—that she had picked up from the local pharmacy and the gun box that Martinez had given her.

  She tossed both onto the seat and buckled up as Floyd shut the door and hurried around to the driver seat.

  Chase stared at the shitty hotel through the falling snow. It was not a place she was going to miss.

  Neither was the cold.

  “Delta f-f-f-light 0231 to Logan Ai-ai-ai-ai-,” he knocked the side of his head with the palm of his hand, “Airport.”

>   “Thanks, Floyd.”

  For once, Floyd was relatively quiet as they drove, and it dawned on her that he was probably going to miss her.

  And as a strange as it sounded, Chase thought she was going to miss him too.

  But what was she to do? Take him with her? She didn’t even know what the hell was going on half the time, how was she supposed to bring someone along for the ride?

  And could she even do that? Have her own personal chauffeur? She thought not, but the truth was Chase had no idea how things at the FBI actually worked.

  It’s just a test… like with Agent Stitts. Martinez is testing you, and if you pass all shall be revealed.

  Chase shook her head and turned her thoughts to the strangeness of the case that she was abandoning. Brent Pine had allegedly murdered those two girls, and Agent Martinez had promptly skipped town, leaving it up to an ill-tempered and reactionary Police Chief to wrap things up.

  At least in New York, she got to see things through. It often took a long time to get there, but Chase would eventually testify on the stand. In fact, this had been the case in both New York and Seattle.

  But this… this just nab the bad guy and get up and leave?

  This was new.

  And she hated it.

  Agent Martinez, on the other hand, didn’t seem at all bothered by it.

  I’ve been doing this a long time, Chase. A long, long time.

  Chase recalled the expression on his face as they stood behind Brent’s kill van, the way he had frowned as he answered his phone, the call that had drawn him away, evidently to Boston.

  Had it been a frown? Yes, she was fairly certain that it was. But there was something else in that expression, something in the way his lips twisted at the corners.

  But what?

  Satisfaction?

  Relief?

  “Hey Floyd?”

  “Yes, m-m-ma’am?”

  “You told me before that Chief Downs and Martinez go way back?”

  “Yes ma’am. Like I said, M-M-Martinez used to live here a c-c-couple of years ago.”

  Chase chewed her lip.

  “But he’s not original to Alaska, is he?”

  She wasn’t certain, but Chase thought she detected a hint of a mid-western accent in her partner’s voice.

  “No, he moved here with his sister.”

  This took Chase by surprise, and she blinked.