Vanishing Point: A Warner & Lopez prequel novel

by Dean Crawford

  ‘So,’ Bailey began after again advising Ethan of his rights, ‘tell me what happened on the bridge.’

  Ethan took a breath.

  ‘My partner and I were tracking Dwayne Austin out of Chicago. He’s jumped bail and was heading south for Missouri. We wanted to grab him before he made it across the state line and pick up the bounty. So far, so normal. Nicola cut off the bus he was travelling in here at Kankakee, I was already aboard. Austin must have smelled a rat and made a dash for it, got off the bus and ran for the bridge. I pursued, armed with nothing more than pepper spray. Austin stops, gives up, but then he hurls himself off the bridge, just like that.’

  Bailey and Rikard stared at him for a moment, as though waiting for more. Ethan said nothing.

  ‘Just like that?’ Bailey said finally.

  ‘Just like that,’ Ethan replied. ‘Surprised the hell out of me. He gonna be okay? Did you guys find him?’

  Bailey did not answer the question. ‘What happened after Austin jumped off the bridge?’

  ‘I dialled nine–one–one to call an ambulance but you guys showed up before the line even connected. How’d that happen?’

  Bailey looked down at some notes.

  ‘You’re bail bondsmen out of River Forest, Chicago.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ethan replied. ‘Warner & Lopez Incorporated. Is Austin okay? I don’t know why he ran and jumped, it wasn’t like he was on the hook for homicide, just aggravated assault and burglary. Three to five and he’d have been out again.’

  Rikard peered at Ethan.

  ‘We have witness reports that you were carring a weapon at the time.’

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. ‘Can of pepper spray, and that was Nicola’s. She tossed it to me when I went after Austin. He’d managed to get past her and winded her with a punch, so I took over.’

  ‘Pepper spray,’ Bailey echoed with interest.

  ‘Legal in Illinois for self–defense,’ Ethan replied. ‘Both Nicola and I are licensed to carry weapons but we stopped last year. Too risky.’

  Bailey blinked as though surprised.

  ‘And you were carrying no weapons at all other than this can of pepper spray?’ he pressed.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ethan confirmed. ‘Handcuffs, pepper spray, our licenses as bail bondsmen and that’s all.’

  Bailey nodded. Rikard likewise. They both stared down at their notes.

  ‘Austin?’ Ethan tried again. ‘Where is he?’

  Bailey sucked in a deep breath as though it was hard work.

  ‘Dwayne Austin’s body was found a half hour ago in reeds downstream of the I–57 bridge. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head, fired at close range.’

  Ethan’s heart almost stopped in his chest and he leaned forward. ‘He jumped. He was alive when I last saw him.’

  Bailey smiled without warmth.

  ‘We have multiple witnesses who are right now recording sworn testimony that they heard Dwayne Austin begging not to be shot right before he went over the edge of the bridge. We have Dwayne’s body with a nine–millimetre slug buried in his skull. We have passing motorists saying they saw a man fitting your description pointing a weapon at Dwayne Austin right before he disappeared.’ Bailey leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his flabby chest. ‘How about we stop dancing here and get to the smooch? The DA will probably cut a deal for self defense given that Austin was not exactly a model citizen and has a record for violence a mile long and…’

  ‘You can stop right there,’ Ethan snapped.

  The two police officers looked back at him expectantly, Rikard glowing with excitement. Clearly it was his first interview with what he presumed was a killer and he was hungry for the confession, the victory, the tell–all.

  Ethan sighed.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on here but I neither carry a weapon nor did I shoot Dwayne Austin. You’re right, he was yelling at me not to shoot. I pointed the pepper spray can at him and held it like a gun in the hopes he’d fold and I could cuff him real easy. It was dark on the bridge so he couldn’t easily see what I was carrying. Maybe he really did think I was going to shoot him, that’s why he took a dive.’

  Bailey raised the eyebrow once again. Rikard grinned in delight.

  ‘You think he hit a random bullet on the way down, Mister Warner?’

  Bailey coughed, his belly shaking with silent mirth.

  ‘You two think this is funny?’ Ethan asked, true anger now boiling through his veins.

  Rikard’s humor dried up as he saw whatever fury was radiating from Ethan’s expression. Bailey suddenly appeared cautious as Ethan leaned forward again on the table.

  ‘Austin went over the side and you guys turn up moments later, before anybody could have called, even from that bus. Even if a gun had been fired, there’s no way you could have got there that fast. Who tipped you off, and when did they make the call?’

  Bailey peered at Ethan.

  ‘Are you accusing us of something, Mister Warner?’

  ‘I’m asking a question,’ Ethan replied. ‘Someone must have called you guys in, right? Stands to reason, you couldn’t have been there otherwise. You all got out of your vehicles with weapons already out, so the caller must have warned of possible armed perpetrators of some kind or other.’

  Bailey and Rikard exchanged a glance. ‘So?’

  ‘So,’ Ethan uttered back, ‘unless someone, somewhere has learned to transcend space and time they were calling you about an event that had not yet happened. Austin was unarmed, as far as I know, and though he could have been carrying a weapon I never saw one. I had no weapon on me. How could anyone have called the police to warn of an armed criminal aboard that bus?’

  Bailey’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘The call was made from the bus,’ he replied finally. ‘Suspicious member of the public. They recognized Dwayne Austin and called the police, said he might be armed as he was a known felon with a history of violence.’

  Ethan thought for a moment. ‘And my name was not mentioned at that point?’

  ‘No,’ Bailey shrugged. ‘So what?’

  You sure earned those sergeant’s stripes.

  ‘When you arrived, you went straight for Nicola and myself. What changed, if the caller made no mention of our names?’

  Bailey sat up straighter as Rikard looked at his superior to see what he would say.

  ‘A second call came in from a passing vehicle reporting that a man with a gun was threatening another man on the bridge.’

  ‘You couldn’t have got there that fast,’ Ethan persisted.

  ‘The original call came in eight minutes before the second,’ Bailey shot back, ‘we were already in transit and only a half mile away. Dispatch called the Greyhound office and they identified the passengers on the bus from the driving licenses and other paperwork. You showed up, so we knew who you were when we saw you and you were standing right where the witnesses said they’d seen the altercation taking place.’

  Rikard leaned in close, confident once again.

  ‘Two more calls came in moments later from drivers of passing vehicles, reporting a possible shooting of a man near the side of the bridge who was seen to fall into the water right before we arrived.’

  Ethan’s mind raced. Somebody had called the police before any altercation had taken place, and he had been watching Austin while on the bus for many miles. Not once had the bail runner showed any inclination to be dangerous, armed or anything else. If Ethan had not known who he was, he would have taken him for nothing more than another passenger making their way south.

  ‘You’re missing the elephant in the room,’ Ethan said.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Motive,’ he replied. ‘I had two grand riding on bring Austin in to Cook County Jail. Why the hell would I kill him?’

  Bailey and Rikard looked at each other.

  ‘We don’t need to know about motive right now, we have enough evidence to charge you,’ Bailey blustered. ‘You can talk about motive t
o a judge.’

  ‘The caller,’ Ethan insisted. ‘They’re the key. Whoever set this up was on that bus.’

  Rikard glanced at Bailey, who shook his head.

  ‘Stop the fantasy Warner, you think we don’t see this stuff every day? You’re on the hook for homicide and no tall stories are going to get you out of it. I’m charging you with first degree murder. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an…’

  Ethan didn’t bother listening to the rest. Whatever the hell was going on here, he knew that his only way to get out of it was to talk to Lopez and get her on the case. Trouble was, he had no idea where she was or even if she was being charged too.

  ***

  IV

  ‘You’re free to go.’

  Nicola Lopez collected her belongings at the front desk of Kankakee Police Station. She glanced at the clock and saw twelve past two in the morning. There was no sign of Ethan anywhere, and she knew that she couldn’t just walk back in and find out what had happened to him. As she turned to go, she saw the two arresting officers walk out into the station lobby, talking among themselves.

  ‘Hey,’ she called.

  The big one with the moustache glanced across at her and saw that she had been released. Lopez strode across to him.

  ‘Where’s my partner?’

  ‘He’s being processed.’

  ‘He’s being what?’

  ‘He’s charged with homicide,’ the thinner of the two replied with a proud grin. ‘He’s going to Jerome Combs Detention Center.’

  Lopez’s mind spun in her head. ‘You’re sending him to jail?’

  ‘That’s what we do with convicts,’ the fat policeman replied. ‘Strange world.’

  Lopez squared up to the sergeant, fury leaking from every pore like molten magma.

  ‘I served eight years with Metro PD in Washington,’ she growled, ‘not your comfy little backwater. I saw everything that happened on that bridge and I sure as hell told the interviewing officer that at no point did Ethan have a gun on him. I tossed him the pepper spray, he wasn’t carrying anything else the whole time.’

  ‘So he said,’ the sergeant replied. ‘But you would defend your partner and we have to follow due process. We suspect he’s lying to us and probably to you too, hence he’s been charged.’

  ‘He had no gun,’ Lopez repeated.

  ‘There are a dozen witnesses who said they saw Warner shoot Austin,’ the thinner policeman replied.

  ‘Did any of them report hearing a gunshot?’ she challenged.

  ‘Well, no, but it was a busy road and the traffic…’

  ‘Dump the BS,’ Lopez snapped. ‘This all fits together too neat. You’re missing something. Who’s the detective assigned to the case?’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Sure, we’ll get one but it won’t be tonight, probably in the morning. Warner’s gonna have to get comfortable overnight at the jail.’

  ‘You’re locking up an innocent man,’ Lopez snapped. ‘Someone’s out there and they just got away with murder and you’re doing nothing about it.’

  ‘Why don’t you do something about it?’ the younger officer quipped as the two men walked away from her. ‘Seeing as you’re an expert?’

  Lopez grit her teeth but said nothing more as she turned and stalked from the station into the cold night air. She knew that she faced a bill to get her Corvette out of the pound, but there was no way she was taking a cab back into Chicago and she didn’t feel much like grabbing a motel until the morning. Her blood was up and there was no way that she would sleep easy knowing that Ethan was headed to jail. There was a crime scene out there that was being left to the elements and anything that could clear Ethan’s name might be lost by the morning.

  It took her an hour to get her Corvette back, and despite being tired and frustrated she dutifully drove back to the bridge where Dwayne Austin had taken his spectacularly stupid dive over the side. There was a police cordon in place, and to her relief she saw that the local PD had at least been smart enough to put two patrol officers in place to keep watch.

  She cruised past, then got off the I–57 and switched back, driving north across the river again and taking the off ramp into Kankakee. Austin had taken his dive near the north shore, where a golf course stood on the west side of the interstate and a leafy housing estate on the east. She rolled the events of the night through her mind as she drove, thinking about what she had seen.

  She had cut the bus off on the river, as they had done on similar busts in the past, simply because it reduced the places where a perp could flee too. Stranded above a deep body of water in the dead of night in winter, jumping was virtually suicide and not on the cards for most bail runners. Ethan would keep tabs on Austin in case he made a run for it, but they’d expected to corner him on the bus and overpower him before he had the chance to flee.

  She’d got to the bus just as Austin had come flying out of it. Ethan, playing smart, had let the jerk run for it to get him away from the civilians still on the bus. Austin had hit her, she’d tossed Ethan her pepper spray and then watched him sprint after Austin, back up the freeway.

  That was the first question she had. Why did Austin run back up the freeway, when the river’s south shore had been much closer? He could have made it off the bridge and at least have a chance of getting away. Maybe he didn’t know the lay of the land too well and had simply followed instinct, but it only took a moment to realise that he’d have been better running south than north.

  Lopez drove to the edge of a darkened residential area and pulled into the sidewalk. She killed the engine and got out, crossed the street and vaulted a chain link fence into the golf course. She followed the distant whisper of occasional traffic on the I–57 and within a few minutes she was standing on the river’s north shore, just below the bridge.

  As she had expected, the police cordon was only in place above the bridge, where they supposed the crime itself had taken place. There were no cordons down here below the bridge, nor where the body had been found further down river. Lopez knew that it was down here that the homicide must have occurred, although how the hell it had happened she couldn’t hope to fathom right now.

  The river shore was dark, wet and cold as she made her way to a spot beneath the bridge. The foundations of the bridge itself were surrounded with piles of small boulders, the river flowing silently past them. Carefully, she made her way beneath the bridge in the darkness, her eyes adjusting to the inky blackness as she stepped across the boulders and out the other side.

  A path beside the river wound its way through trees that surrounded a private residence, and ahead of her she could see a small jetty and hardstanding, where a single boat was moored. She climbed up the bank to the path and followed, then turned onto the jetty.

  The boat was privately owned and looked like it had not been used for some time. The cabin was covered with a blue tarpaulin and that was sheathed with a layer of old pollen and leaves that had obviously been there since the fall. Lopez made her way past the boat, and ahead she saw a couple of lines coiled up on the end of the jetty. She eased her way toward them and crouched down.

  Both of the lines were damp, which could have suggested use although recent rain would also have moistened them. What convinced her otherwise was the presence of reeds and other riverbed debris tangled within the coils. Lopez knew in an instant that another boat had been tied up here recently, and she began to wonder what else might have happened to Austin after his dive from the bridge.

  She turned and looked at the house nestled between the trees behind her. There were no lights on, but her keen eyes detected a rhythmic flicker, a tiny point of red light flashing on and off. The light was a warning that an alarm was in place on the house, and she figured that if she was lucky there was a good chance that the house would have a camera security system in place.

  And that would tell her what had really happened to Dwayne Austin.

  ***

  V


  Jerome Combs Detention Center

  Kankakee

  ‘Got new blood, Homez!’

  The call went up as Ethan stepped through the metal gates of the sally port and into D Block. In his hands he held a blanket, pillow, roll–up mattress and a few scant toiletries. He had a prison scrip allocation and wore an ill–fitting orange jump suit with white sneakers that had no laces, to prevent distressed inmates from hanging themselves.

  D Block was a long, twin–tiered hall of gray misery, the air stained with the shameful scents of body odor, faeces and stale clothing. Dark eyes glared out as they were led into the block toward a waiting cell.

  ‘I got first on the boy!’ shouted another inmate.

  In front of Ethan was a scrawny blond meth addict by the name of Jones, with whom Ethan had been forced to share a cell at Kankakee while they awaited transportation to the jail. A weary two–time loser out of Toledo, Jones had fed his addiction with burglaries on the road, headed west out of Ohio and into Illinois, never the same place twice to avoid detection. Unfortunately, a DNA database and Jones’ own desperation for his fix had led to sloppiness and his arrest in Kankakee. Slim, shy and covered in scabs from poor hygiene, Jones was none the less a high prize in the prison system.

  ‘Gimmie that ass, homey!’

  Jones kept his head down. Ethan looked straight ahead and said nothing as the cat calls and shouts followed them to a cell. Ethan turned in as the screw pointed him into the cell, and came face to face with two hulking inmates who glared at him as though he had horns. Then they both saw Jones and their hatred turned to barely concealed lust.

  The screw slammed the cell gate shut behind Ethan, and then grinned at him.

  ‘You’ll be let out for lunch,’ he said, ‘if you last that long.’