by Rob Ashman
‘Say what you want, Walker, because I don’t think he listens to you. I’m going to accept the job and when you’re here you’ll work for me.’ Mechanic placed her hands on the arms of the chair and leaned her face in close.
Walker spluttered another incoherent protest.
Mechanic cut him off.
‘You and I need to be clear. I don’t do sloppy. And last night was very sloppy. I figure your game was kidnapping with a sizeable ransom.’ She stared into his eyes and they flickered. ‘Thought so. But it was a shambles, even if you discount the fact that I was there to put a spanner in the works. Your guys were sloppy and so were you.’ She paused allowing Walker to digest what was being said.
‘I know how to do this stuff and I won’t stand for shoddy work. Are we clear?’ She stepped away and stood up straight. ‘So when this goes down again, it will be on my terms. And please don’t labour under any misapprehension, this is not a discussion. You have no option. Are we clear?’
Walker stared at her, open-mouthed.
‘It doesn’t look like I have a choice,’ he said. She smiled and walked back to the other room where Harry had now emerged from the bathroom.
‘Mr Silverton,’ she offered him her hand, ‘in principle, I say yes.’
Mechanic had been taught that all war is based upon deception. When she locked eyes with Walker, what passed between them told her it was time to go to war.
Now was the time to deceive.
12
Rebecca Moran’s first day at work was nothing like she’d imagined. The normal routine for starting a new job was always a parade of inductions and paperwork, drinking coffee and trying to remember people’s names. She’d done none of that.
She’d filled in one form to confirm her new address, signed her name five times, corrected her bank details and said ‘Hi’ to a handful of people whom she wasn’t introduced to. At least she had a badge, a gun and a desk. Presumably the phone would be coming later.
Moran recognised her new boss across the office, he’d interviewed her when she came for the assessment day. Captain Brennan was pushing fifty with craggy features and wore suits that were too big for him, probably the product of renewed gym membership and a reluctance to buy new clothes.
He marched up to her.
‘Morning, Rebecca, welcome to LVPD.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ She shook his hand.
‘Do you have everything you need? Is the day going well for you?’
‘Well, sir, I was wondering if I could meet some of the—’
‘Good, glad that’s going well.’ He handed Moran a plastic folder. ‘Go to the mortuary, they are about to do an autopsy on three drug dealers. See what you think.’
‘Thank you, sir. Is there any chance I could meet a few of the t—’
‘Better get your skates on, they’re going under the knife anytime now. Grace said something about it being unusual. See you later for a coffee.’ He strode away in a whirlwind of urgency.
Forty minutes and three requests for directions later, Moran stood in the reception area of the city mortuary clutching the plastic file. She’d signed herself in and was waiting for Dr Jonathan Grace.
A door opened and a tall middle-aged man with a shaved head and large round glasses breezed in.
‘You here to see the three guys? LVPD?’
‘Yes. I’m Detective Moran. I have some papers.’ She flashed her new badge and waved the file in front of him.
‘I’m Jonathan Grace, the medical examiner. I thought it would be good for one of you lot to take a look at this before we do our thing.’
‘Okay, well what am I looking at?’
Grace handed her a white coat, overshoes and a hairnet.
‘Put these on and I’ll show you.’
They walked down a narrow corridor bathed in the sanitised glow from the fluorescent lighting. Grace skimmed a card through a slot in the lock and the door marked Forensic Autopsy Lab clicked open.
Moran entered and was hit by the smell of ammonia, disinfectant and rotting chicken. The room was large and bright with tiled walls and floor. There was a low humming noise from the refrigeration units keeping the guests cool.
‘These vics came in a few days ago. All found at the same location, all involved in the selling of narcotics and all with a rap sheet as long as my arm.’
Grace ushered Moran over to three stainless steel tables, each with drain holes at the one end. Hanging from the ceiling were chrome plated weighing scales and water nozzles. On the tables were three dead bodies covered with blue sheets.
Grace stepped forward and drew back two of the covers, one in each hand.
‘In the file are the personal details of each vic. It looks like a drug-related hit – you know the form, where one crew decides to muscle in on another.’
Moran’s eyes were fixed on the unveiling of the two bodies. This was not what a first day should be like, but she was already feeling the tingling rush of adrenaline.
‘The reason for the call is this one.’ Grace threw back a third sheet to reveal a large white male, his head pinned back, with a knurled iron bar sticking out of his mouth.
‘What the hell is that!’
‘At this stage we’re not certain, but from what I can tell it looks like the type of metal rod used to reinforce concrete. I think it’s called rebar in the trade.’
‘Have you seen it before?’
‘Yes, there’s plenty of it around Vegas with the amount of construction going on, but never seen it used in this way before.’
Moran moved closer. ‘What happened to the other guys?’
‘That’s the interesting thing. This guy died of asphyxiation and blood loss when his throat was ripped out and the other had his skull split in two. They both suffered major blunt-force trauma ante-mortem. And my guess is they were both struck with the same implement. Steel reinforcing bar, here take a look.’
They moved over to the first body, a stocky guy with tattoos.
‘See the pattern of bruising. It’s the same on both men. I figure when we extract that spike from the big man’s mouth we’ll find it’s got the same pattern as the ridges around the wounds.’
‘So whoever did this used the same weapon to kill all three.’
‘Looks that way, which, if this is a drug-related turf war, is unusual. Drive-by shootings are the normal way to settle disputes around here, not this.’
‘Was any other weapon found at the scene?’
‘A handgun. It hadn’t been fired. It was found next to this guy.’ Grace pointed to the second body, a tall man with a yawning hole where his throat should be. ‘We’ll know more when we run prints.’
‘To have killed all three in this way would require somebody getting up close and personal. This is more like a street brawl than an execution.’
‘I agree. The other thing is this.’ Grace went to the fat guy and tilted his body sideways. ‘Puncture wounds to his upper back. Two of them. Made with a short blade with cutting edges on both sides.’
Moran took a closer look.
‘They don’t look deep enough to kill him.’
‘That’s what I figure but until I do more work I can’t say. But I think whoever did this …’ he pointed to the metal bar, ‘… did so when he was alive.’
Moran was buzzing. As first days go, this beat the shit out of meeting the team.
13
The journey back to Tallahassee was grim. Lucas’s expectations had been dashed to pieces to be replaced with despondency and rage. Days spent chasing down every café and bar to the point of embarrassment had taken its toll.
Several times he lost track of where he had been and visited establishments for a second and third time. He was always greeted politely by staff, who exchanged knowing glances across the coffee tables.
‘Weren’t you here the other day, sir?’ one young man asked him. Lucas stared at him without a shred of recognition. The young man shook his head and smiled. ‘I still don’t know t
he woman in the photo, sir, and we still don’t stock plain white sugar packets.’ Lucas turned and left without uttering another word.
It was an exhausting and humiliating experience.
Harper was right to leave him to it. Despite the complete failure of his wild goose chase, Lucas had to get it out of his system. He had to explore every possibility and if that meant turning up at cafés and asking the same people the same questions he’d asked two days earlier, then so be it. His legs ached, his head hurt and he was dog-tired. But most of all he was fucking furious.
Then things got a whole lot worse. He arrived home to find his wife, Darlene, gone.
Every woman who marries a cop accepts there will be three in the relationship: her, him and the job. The problem for Darlene was there were four: her, him, the job and Mechanic.
Mechanic was like a mistress she could never hope to compete with. Most men who cheat on their wives tend to keep the other woman under wraps. In Lucas’s case he flaunted her in front of his wife every waking minute of every day. Darlene had recognised the gradual slide into unhealthy obsession – as Lucas’s physical health improved so his mental health took a dive. He thought of nothing else and certainly didn’t think of her.
She stuck with him through his recuperation but was squeezed into playing a bit part in their marriage. It was ironic to think she’d come so close to losing her husband to Mechanic, nursing him back to health only to lose him all over again – to the same damn woman.
Lucas arrived home to a brief note on the dining room table. It said, ‘I’m staying with Heather. Call only in an emergency. If not an emergency, don’t call.’
Lucas considered the breakdown of his marriage constituted just that, so called immediately.
Neither Darlene nor Heather was impressed with his urgency, especially at one thirty in the morning. And despite his protestations to the contrary, his wife did not share Lucas’s assessment that her leaving him was an emergency.
She hung up in tears.
Lucas replaced the receiver and went back to planning what to do next to catch Mechanic.
Lucas swung his car into the parking bay and bumped the front wheels against the kerb. He reached over, grabbed a brown paper bag from the front passenger seat and stepped out into the Florida mid-morning sun. He felt like shit.
Crossing the road, Lucas headed for yet another café. This time he was sure he’d find what he was looking for.
He shoved open the heavy door and the toxic atmosphere clogged the back of his throat. He put his hand up to his mouth and stifled a cough. His eyes took a while to adjust to the smoky gloom. It never ceased to amaze Lucas how many people frequented this place by choice. Their pasty faces turned to look at the stranger standing in the doorway. Harper spotted Lucas and raised his hand.
Lucas picked his way around the jumble of chairs and tables and sat next to him in the half-moon booth.
‘Hey,’ said Harper.
‘Hey yourself.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘That sounds intriguing. You look dreadful, where the hell have you been?’
‘All over.’
‘I thought you’d give it one more day at most. You’ve been gone four days.’
‘It looks like you were right. I returned to the bank several times and spoke to different people. The story was the same. No, you can’t have access to our CCTV and no, we don’t recall the transaction.’ Lucas was drumming his fingers on the table.
‘That figures.’
‘I carted around the photograph but not a single person recognised Mechanic. It was as if she was never there.’ Lucas continued to drum.
‘Well we know she was there because she withdrew the money from the account. We even know which bank.’
‘Yes, but that’s a long way from her “being there” isn’t it.’
‘I don’t get you.’ Harper frowned.
‘What I mean is,’ he paused, ‘she could have driven through Baton Rouge on the way to somewhere else, stopped off at the American Gateway Bank, withdrawn the cash and left.’ The drumming on the table grew louder.
Harper nodded his head. ‘Yeah, so what? I suppose she could have breezed through.’
‘Only she didn’t, did she,’ Lucas said with a slight edge to his voice, ‘because I got the letter posted from Baton Rouge containing the sugar packets. She withdrew the cash from the bank eight months ago and I received the letter three weeks ago. So that would suggest she was in town for the best part of seven months, wouldn’t it?’ Lucas’s fingers were drumming hard.
‘Well yes I suppose it—’
Lucas cut him off.
‘But not a single person recognised her photo. Not a single café, bar, supermarket, gas station or corner store has any recollection of seeing her. Seven months and not a single sighting.’
‘What did you expect, man? Baton Rouge is a big place and you were stretching it if you thought you were going to get a hit.’ Harper was getting annoyed with the drumming when it suddenly stopped.
‘That might well be true, but it got me thinking. He reached down and picked up the paper bag. ‘It got me thinking about these …’ He upended the bag and hundreds of sugar packets scattered across the table and onto the floor.
‘Hey, what the …’
‘Take a look at them,’ Lucas said holding up a handful. ‘They all have print on them. Take a look.’
He scooped up a handful and thrust them at Harper, turning them over and over in his hands. They were all covered in writing, some emblazoned with the name of the establishment, some saying brown or white, some with fancy scrolling around the edges.
‘See what I mean?’ said Lucas holding them at eye level. ‘Take a look.’ He thrust them into Harper’s face.
‘Okay, man, I get it!’ he said pushing them away. ‘So they all have writing on. I get it … Jesus Christ.’
‘Yes, they all have writing,’ Lucas said bulldozing the entire tabletop of sugar packets into Harper’s lap.
‘Hey! What is wrong with you, man?’
‘But they don’t all have fucking writing on them, do they?’
Lucas reached across and grabbed the sugar pot from the next table and slammed it down in front of Harper. He grabbed a handful of packets and spread them out. Harper looked down at the cluster of plain white sugar packets. Lucas produced the evidence pouch from his inside pocket and slid it next to them – they matched.
‘I couldn’t get my head around how Mechanic knew my return-to-work date. I invented all sorts of convoluted explanations in my head and made it possible. After all, she had a direct line into your investigation and into mine, so who’s to say she didn’t have another link into the station. But it wasn’t convoluted, it was straightforward. She didn’t know when I was going back to work, cos it was you. You sent the fucking letter, didn’t you? You took the sugar packets from here, sent the letter to some long-lost cousin in Baton Rouge and asked them to mail it to me.’
Lucas was shaking with rage.
Harper raised his head. ‘I drove there,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a cousin in Baton Rouge. I drove there and posted it myself.’
‘You fuck!’ Lucas shouted, banging his hands down and pushing himself away from the table. ‘What the hell made you think that was a good idea? I’ve been trekking around every joint in Baton Rouge asking people if they remember a woman who probably stopped there for thirty minutes to withdraw cash.’
‘You trekked around because you wanted to,’ Harper snapped back. ‘And you wanted to because you got your fight back. You might want revenge now but let’s face it, until you received that letter you were checking out. You were ready to throw in the towel.’
‘What!’
‘After the first Mechanic case, I slid so far down into a black hole I couldn’t crawl back out. I had every bit of fight kicked out of me and had nothing more to give. I was broken and had jack shit to live for. I stopped caring, man. Have you a
ny idea what that feels like? When you don’t care about the job, about your friends, about your family, you don’t even care about yourself. I didn’t care about nothing. I hit the booze hard and my life dissolved into an alcoholic mush. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to you. I didn’t want you to stop caring. You needed something to fight for. So I gave it to you.’
‘You mean you did this …’ Lucas said holding up the sugar packets, ‘for my own good!’
‘Yes, I suppose I did.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘I didn’t want you to go the same way. I knew about the cash transaction in Baton Rouge and mailed the letter from there. Simple as that. You did the rest.’
The room was silent.
‘I don’t fucking believe this.’ Lucas kicked the table away and left.
A dozen disappointed faces watched him storm out. After all, it’s not every day you get a front-row seat to watch two guys fighting over sugar.
14
Mechanic escorted her new boss as he created havoc in a host of casinos, though most of the time it felt less like escorting and more like chasing after.
It occurred to her that today must be can’t-make-my-mind-up day. As soon as Harry got himself comfortable and started throwing chips around, he was talking about where to go next.
Mechanic advised Harry not to talk about the carjacking as the police were still investigating the case. He nodded and tapped the side of his nose, then shouted about it to anyone who would listen.
The day was uneventful. A couple of drunks took offence at Harry so Mechanic stepped in and with good humour moved them along. A fifty-dollar chip to say sorry helped them on their way. An older woman, who had dressed herself from the wardrobe of a teenager, thought it was fine to sit next to Harry and siphon chips into her purse. Mechanic pointed her out to hotel security and they took care of the rest. The chips were returned without Harry even noticing they were gone.
He was still loud and he was still brash. But, on the whole, the fact that he’d almost been killed had the effect of making Harry a nicer person, and as such there was less requirement to keep him out of harm’s way. That allowed Mechanic ample time to think about Walker.