by Matt Lincoln
“Jake, is there something else going on with you? I mean, I know that you have your secrets, but, hey, if you think there’s more to this, you should tell me.” I watched him struggle internally with whatever was going on. I wasn't going to push, but if he was working on something, I thought that I needed to know about it.
“It’s probably nothing,” Jake started, “but there was something, there is something happening in tandem with this case of yours.” He sighed before continuing. “So, you know about the Judge Fu thing my team just handled, right?”
I knew only what he’d told me and what Arik had mentioned during our sessions. I nodded.
“Well, a contact of mine told me that the Judge had put a hit out on me. Maybe the whole team, too, but mostly me for now. And last night, one of the attackers said, right before he shot me, ‘The Judge sends her regards.’” Jake stopped speaking for a moment but didn’t seem finished.
“Damn. I had no idea. Are you alright? Is there anything that I can do?” That must be a helluva thing to have that hanging over him with everything that I was asking him to do on top of this. I wondered if it was all just too much. Everyone had a limit, after all.
“No, there’s nothing, but thanks for asking.” He smiled, and that seemed to help him, to know that someone was willing to help out if they could. “Logically, I don’t know which lead to follow. He mentioned the Judge, but that could be a scare tactic or a misdirect, I suppose. I don’t know how anyone else would know about it unless they were connected, though.”
That could open a whole new can of problems, I knew. “In your gut, right now, do you feel like your Judge case is connected to these overdose cases?”
Jake looked me in the eye. “Yes. The Yabut were working with designer drugs, and this is starting to look like that. The doctor that fixed me up? He deals with a high-end clientele, and he has some patients that might be victims of the drugs, too, but his patients are still alive. I need more evidence to find out for sure, but yeah, in my gut, it feels all part of the same case.”
I nodded, thinking it through. “So, then, are you thinking that whoever is involved or controlling this has extra ears and eyes on the street?” That’s where my head was going. “It makes sense. Using the local as scouts.” I sighed, just thinking about all of it again and what that could mean for us going forward. “I’m sorry to have put you in that position, Jake. I should have thought it all through better.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He shrugged it off. “The way I look at it is, we’re doing something to get noticed by the creeps behind it, no matter who they are. Besides, what’s a few gunshot wounds between friends, huh?” He wasn’t going to blame me, but he could surely give me a little hell about it.
I grinned, knowing that we understood where we both were coming from. “What’s the next move then?” I was glad to know that he was okay with moving forward in the investigation.
He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. “I’ve been thinking about that, and honestly, I think we may need to make some contacts down at the Police Department. It certainly wouldn’t hurt us on the information end of this if we could have some real intel.”
I trusted Jake to make the right choices about what he felt was most important to this, and that made a lot of sense, anyway.
“Yeah, I thought that too,” I nodded. “I normally stay away from involving the police because I have some regulars around here that… get worried if the counselors start getting too buddy-buddy with anyone in law.” That usually bothered me, but I knew where a few of them were coming from. I couldn’t help how people felt about others or change their personal experiences. I did add in my two cents, though. “But this is too important not to use anything that we can to find out what’s going on.”
“I’m right there with you. Going about it might be tough. Do you have any ideas?” Jake eyed me expectantly. Since I had been in Miami for a lot longer than he had, he probably thought that I had a friend or colleague available, or at least in mind. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.
So, I was blunt. “I’ve always been a fan of the straightforward approach. It couldn’t hurt, right?” All I knew to do was to try.
“Alright then, you want to just hit the station and try to what? Absorb information by osmosis?” Jake was teasing, but I didn’t have a clear plan yet going forward either. He did mention something, if only reluctantly. “I did have an angle that I thought about using last night. We could pass ourselves off as private investigators, looking into the deaths from a confidential perspective?”
I smiled, but I knew that wouldn’t work this time. “No, that won’t fly at the precincts, Jake. We could probably use that for the unaware at night, but the MPD will want to check our credentials with that kind of story. Let’s just---”
There was another chime that led me to respond by instinct. I got up from my chair and moved to the doorway. I looked out down the hall toward the entrance. I saw two individuals entering, and I could see that they meant business.
“Hold up. I think that we may be able to save ourselves the trip.” I glanced back at Jake to add a little warning to him, “Just stay put, don’t leave the room, okay?”
I walked down to meet the two newcomers, and Cing joined me at about halfway. Both of these people appeared to be serious and on a professional mission. The man was of average build and height, with a light blue button-down and khaki slacks on. He had a buzz-cut of gray hair, a warm skin tone, and he was pulling out a small pad of paper as he walked forward.
The woman with him also wore khaki slacks and a pale-yellow button down. She had deep brown hair, which she had pulled up and back. She had a medium-brown complexion, and she wore a pair of red plastic-framed glasses. I smiled to myself, thinking how much of a matched set they made walking in here together. Especially after I noticed the metallic Detective badges that both of them wore clipped to their belts.
Knowing what had taken place in an alleyway not twenty-four hours ago, I prayed that Jake would take my advice and stay in the lounge. The acoustics in the hallway were pretty good, so maybe he could listen from where he was in the lounge and follow the conversation without being seen. I guessed but didn’t know exactly why the Detectives were here tonight.
“Evening. I’m Detective Musik, and this is my partner, Detective Pompeo,” the woman started off. She had a nice voice meant for authority. “We’re just following up on some information given to us by a couple of witnesses. They both mentioned The Edler Center in their statements. As well as an employee or two.” She was doing all the talking at this point, as her partner was already making notes on his pad. Then she nodded at me, and I caught a subtle glance down at my left hand from her eyes. “Particularly you, Mr. LaShawn Spindle.”
I was more than a little confused as to why I was being singled out by name, but I tried not to show it. “I see. May I ask what this is in regard to exactly?” I attempted to keep my normal, collected self and tone of voice. I’d been the objective of questions from police officers before, just due to this line of work and place of employment, but with Jake not too far away and the incident of last night very clearly in my mind, it worried me.
“There have been some assaults in the area. You might have seen the reports on the news?” Detective Musik addressed Cing and me. “Some individuals involved haven’t been able to give us locations in which to reach them, but they have cited this place and you as a reference for them. Now that I see it, I can understand. Your facility offers counseling and civic help, doesn’t it?”
It wasn’t like she didn’t already know. Any detective worth their salt would have already found out what they could before heading our way. But I answered as politely as I could.
“We do.” I motioned for Cing to leave if she liked to, as this was probably going to focus on me. She nodded and excused herself back into the room where she’d been before. Whatever the officers needed was going to have to come from me, it seemed. “I’m willing to help out in any
way I can. I know that the attacks have a lot of people around here worried.” I meant that too. It wasn’t just our patients that worried.
“Some of the homeless population in the area have reported being approached for experimental drug use by certain individuals,” the detective continued. “Tracking them down has been a difficult task. Not just the dealers, but the witnesses to anything.” The detective was looking a bit tired of having to explain this. I could imagine that this wasn’t the first time she’d been down this road with a community center. Most of them were fiercely protective of their clients’ privacy.
She was watching me intently, and it took a minute for me to realize that I was staring back, too.
She pressed on. “We were hoping that you’d be able to help us out with that. Maybe one of your visitors to the center has mentioned something out of the ordinary lately? Or some strangers approaching them about, well, usage?” She didn’t wish to offend me, and I could appreciate that.
I would tell them what little I already knew, what Jake and I were working with. “Yeah, a few nights ago, a regular visitor of ours brought in this young man, one I’d never seen before. The regular guy’s name is Lyriq Hargis, by the way.” I glanced at Pompeo, who was still writing things down. “But this new guy, he said that he’d been assaulted in an alley and injected with something. It gave him a major high, and he may have passed out. He wasn’t entirely sure.”
“Lyriq found him in the alley and saw that he was still alive, so he brought him here. Dragged him or carried him a couple of blocks in.” I paused, making sure that I wasn’t leaving anything out. “Once we made sure that the guy was okay, meaning I checked him for injuries, that sort of thing, we called for an ambulance and the police.”
“We never got a report on that. What happened?” Musik was interested and maybe a little flustered at not having heard about this before. She shook her head gently, as if this weren’t the first time that information had been lacking between areas in a case. But she played it off well. I liked the way her eyes lingered on my face, watching me even when I’d finished speaking. Something about her drew me to her, as well. I knew that at this point, I hadn’t just imagined the drawn-out gazes between us. I was having a hard time focusing on what I was trying to say.
“He left,” I replied, shaking my head slightly to clear my thoughts. “When the ambulance arrived, he refused care and then took off before the responding officer could even get here. Um, I got a name, but that was it. Colby Tamez.” I gave them a description that I hoped would help. Pompeo was scribbling away, looking pleased with this new info.
“So, has there been anything else going on?” Musik asked. “Any other walk-ins with strange stories?” I knew that she couldn’t have known, but Musik’s question was one of the worst I’ve ever heard asked of me. I didn’t mind the chance to prolong this, though. I got the impression that she was stringing out the conversation, too.
“Detective,” I replied, “I get visitors all night, every night. And each one of them has a story or seven that they want to tell us. We listen to them all, but sometimes, they aren’t even real.” That was the sad reality of what we did here. “Sometimes, they just don’t want to be alone, and they need someone to listen to them. They need to feel that they matter, that what they tell someone still has value.” It was a human condition.
I continued. “But in a place like this, sometimes people will say what they think you want to hear. It takes a long time to learn the truth from the stories. It takes a lot of trust-building to let them see that someone does care and that there are people looking out for them.” I stopped because I knew that I was getting up on my soapbox and about to preach my good word. “Sorry, but please believe me, that when and if I hear something that worries me, I will definitely pass it on to you officers. I want the streets here to be as safe as they can be. It makes my job easier, too.”
I hoped that they could see that I was sincere because I meant every word. And I wanted her specifically to believe me.
Musik proceeded to pull out her card and flipped it over. She wrote something down on it and handed it to me. “I appreciate your honesty and willingness to help. Please, if you think of anything else, or if one of your guests tells you something that you’d like to relay to us, don’t hesitate to call.” She nodded over to her partner. “I’d tell you to call him, but he has a severe case of laryngitis, and the doctor’s forbidden him to speak, so yeah. I wouldn’t bother with him.” She smiled over at him teasingly.
Musik motioned to the card in my hand. “That’s all my info there, and my personal number, if it’s after hours.” I caught a glimpse from her partner that she felt the need to cover for. “What? He’s on the overnight shift. Not everything of importance happens eight to five, Pompeo.”
I smiled at the recovery, but I got the meaning, which was good because I was kind of trying to find a way to slip her my number too. Those glasses were doing her brown eyes all kinds of favors in my book. I looked over both sides of the card, memorizing her name and the correct spelling for future reference.
“Thank you, officers,” I replied warmly. “We appreciate all that you’re doing for the community.”
I shook both of their hands, Pompeo’s first, because I kind of wanted to prolong Musik’s handshake for as long as I could. Our eyes met, and I thought that I was gone. Her smile lingered on her face, and there was a stroke of a few fingers between us that would carry me all through the night. Then I realized how stupid I was being, and I shook myself back into reality.
The detectives left the center, and I went in to let Cing know what had happened. No doubt she had heard everything, but it wouldn’t do for me not to check in with my work partner. After a quick rundown, I hurried back to Jake in the lounge while Cing promised to handle any guests that might show up in the next few minutes.
I found Jake sitting down at the table, waiting for me.
“You heard everything?” I asked him.
“Yep,” Jake nodded. “Not a lot for us to move with, but at least that took care of our MPD connection problem, maybe? You got their numbers. Maybe we should cultivate this and stay in touch with them.”
I realized that he hadn’t seen any part of the conversation. He just had the audio versions to go on.
I took a seat with probably a giant, goofy grin on my face. “I intend to.” It must have been completely obvious by now.
Jake gave me a peculiar glance, then saw that I was still holding a business card in my hand. “I take it you got a little further ahead than that, though.”
“I might have.” I pulled out my phone and started to enter the digits. Under that precinct number, I added, ‘Det. Musik,’ but under the personal number that I was going to call up as soon as decency allowed, I typed in ‘Cecily.’
9
Jake
After the night spent partly with LaShawn at the Edler Center, running down video clips, news, and rumors online about the assaults, I retired to my condo to catch a little rest or maybe even some sleep. My stay at George’s place had allowed my body to store up some of this pent-up energy that I now needed and wanted to get rid of. After a shower, a change of clothes, and a little fuel, I was ready to go by mid-morning.
I headed down to the marina where I was currently concealing Wraith. As I thought about the rest of the day, I realized I needed to put in a few calls to my money situation and move some stuff around. I’d need to call up Mr. Padilla, later on, to see if he were willing to sell his marina to me for the offered price. That would give me a chance to relocate Wraith and finally have a secure and set place to keep her.
But for now, I needed to get out of the city and get on to the open water. I knew that it was dangerous to move Wraith in broad daylight like this, but it was a chance I was willing to take. I wanted to see how the ports and harbors were acting and try to locate anything odd that might be going on.
George’s news about the compounds for this drug or drugs being manufactured outsid
e of the US meant that they had to be coming in from somewhere else, obviously. I could at least check into the wet side of the delivery options. If they were being smuggled or brought in by air or over land, that would be a whole other thing that I’d worry about when I had exhausted the water options.
I settled up with the marina, paying a little extra for the security that I needed to house Wraith there until my other plans worked out. With any luck, this wouldn’t be an issue much longer. I was careful to judge the traffic and watchful eyes around and picked a now or never approach to taking her out.
With the plan of being out on the water for most of the day, I brought along a small pack of goods, just some food, water, that sort of thing. I didn’t want to return to the marina until nightfall, under cover of darkness if I could help it. It was going to feel so great to be out once more, and I could barely wait to open her up and let fly.
I got a text from Verity that certainly was a welcomed surprise. Once I was out away from the city, and in open water, I made a call to her. That was after I took a few minutes to savor being on Wraith once more and being back where I belonged. I would never get bored with easing on that throttle and feeling the speed beneath my feet rising to soar along the water. A more poetic man might use that as a metaphor for my own spirit, but for now, I’d just enjoy this for what it was, pure release.
“Hey, Verity. How’s it going with you today?” I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to hearing her voice until she actually answered the phone. It was nice to hear from someone that wasn’t all involved in the cases and might just want to talk about normal things.