by Rachel Ford
We wanted to wind up in the room next door. Not in the hallway. The hallway would mean immediate exposure. Even if no one heard it – and the risk increased exponentially, since we wouldn’t be behind a closed door anymore – the instant one of Joey’s crew came up the stairs, they’d know what we were up to.
The adjacent room gave us options. It meant we could plan our next move. We had no reason to suspect the door would be locked; the bathroom hadn’t been. But even if it was, we’d be okay. We could chisel through to the next room, or signal for help from one of the windows.
Or, all of that failing, we could time our exit into the hall, on our own terms.
* * *
Deputy Austin Wagner, 2:38 AM
I was still awake as the clock ticked around toward three. I’d slept for maybe half an hour, brokenly and unevenly. Then I’d blinked awake, as restless as ever.
I kept turning Joey Rabbitt’s career over in my head. He’d flown under the radar for about a year, somehow. Which was no small feat; not with the kind of response his crimes generated.
Not many guys could pull off a getaway like that once, never mind repeatedly. And even if they did, most of them would be ID’ed in hours, or days at best. Somehow, he’d gotten away with it for months. The cops and FBI hadn’t had a clue.
I thought about the DNA they’d found. Not Joey’s. Someone else’s. Someone the FBI hadn’t identified yet. Or if they’d identified it, they hadn’t released that information yet.
Some unknown cohort, whose DNA had been detected at multiple scenes. Someone who had messed up, time after time.
Just like Joey messed up with the traffic stop. That’s how they’d connected him to the robberies, after all. No doubt they’d accumulated mountains of evidence afterwards, once they had their suspect. But the fateful ticket and the guy Joey had left for dead were his undoing.
A lot of bungling, for a guy who had stayed off radar for so long. Too much bungling. It didn’t add up. It didn’t make any kind of sense.
Just like it didn’t make sense that the FBI didn’t know who the other guys were. Even if the DNA was a bust, and even if the traffic cop who stopped Joey couldn’t remember who else had been in the car, they’d have pulled the dashcam footage, and the bodycam too, if the cop had been wearing one at the time.
That I couldn’t be sure of. Some departments mandated it, some didn’t. Some departments had it as a rule on the books, but didn’t take action when officers forgot, or “forgot,” with the whole air quotes and wink, wink attitude. Some departments took it seriously, and some thought it was bullshit. Some took it personally, as if the public felt they couldn’t be trusted.
And some couldn’t be trusted, which is why they would air quotes “forget” in the first place.
I didn’t know what kind of department the traffic cop worked for, but it didn’t really matter. Bodycams or not, there’d be dashcam footage for sure. And that would turn up something – some kind of physical description at least.
And even if the FBI and the cops got nothing from the footage, they would have asked around. They would have canvassed Rabbitt’s entire neighborhood.
They would have talked to everyone who had ever worked with him, or lived near him, or went to school with him. They would have talked to anyone who had so much as laid eyes on him. Hell, they probably would have talked to the nurses who pulled him out of his momma in whatever hospital he’d been in.
They would know everyone he ever spoke to, or planned to speak to, or thought about speaking to.
They would know who his associates were, probably within hours of ID’ing Joey himself. Certainly within days.
Which meant only one thing: the FBI did know. They knew all about Joey’s crew, but they were keeping it to themselves. They’d probably put taps on their phones and alerts on their credit cards, and tails on all their relatives and friends.
But they were playing it close to the vest, so Joey’s cohorts would slip up again. So they’d lead the FBI straight to Joey himself.
A good strategy.
But it hadn’t worked yet. Which didn’t make sense either. It went back to the dichotomy I’d already noticed. On the one hand, Joey was no smarter than your average stupid criminal. On the other, he operated like some kind of criminal mastermind.
He could avoid detection for months on end; but he gave himself away over a speeding ticket.
It wasn’t unheard of. Stupid mistakes took down smart criminals all the time: famous criminals, ones with decades-long careers of brutality.
Half the serial killers I’d ever heard about were taken down by blind luck and their own stupidity. Guys like Randy Kraft, the Scorecard Killer, who drove drunk with the body of his sixty-fifth victim in the passenger seat; guys like Ted Bundy, whose career of terror ended due to erratic driving in a stolen car.
Even the smartest, most cunning criminals did stupid things sometimes.
So maybe that was it. Maybe Joey was smart about planning, but stupid about execution. Or maybe he was smart about the big things, where he remembered to cover his bases, but stupid about the little things, the things he took for granted. He could plan where to hide and how to live, but he didn’t think about watching his speed.
Maybe. It made a kind of sense. But somehow it didn’t feel right.
And what the hell would bring him to Milwaukee?
The kind of criminal who could plan the way Rabbitt did didn’t just do things willy-nilly. They had a reason for most things. They sure as hell would have a reason for picking up and moving a thousand-plus miles.
So what’s in Milwaukee?
Anonymity, maybe? Milwaukee was the largest city in the state of Wisconsin, and the fifth largest in the Midwest. There was lots of room to disappear inside it.
But why Wisconsin? Why settle for the fifth largest, when you could just as easily go for the largest? Why not go to Chicago, or Indianapolis, or Columbus or Detroit?
Why Milwaukee?
I grabbed my phone again and brought up Safari. I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly, but I typed in Milwaukee and hit Go.
My top result was a map preview, telling me it would take about forty minutes to reach the city. Then came a Wikipedia article, with a preview that listed some basic facts about the city. Like, that it was the largest in Wisconsin, and the fifth largest in the Midwest.
“Why Milwaukee?” I asked again, aloud this time.
I scrolled the results. I saw travel information from the state, advertising the city’s charms. I saw a page for the zoo, and ads for the tool company of the same name. I saw headlines about the Milwaukee Bucks, and a special election slated for later in the year.
None of it explained why Joey Rabbitt would show up, though.
Chapter Sixteen
We got through the first side before breakfast. We took turns, with one of us working with the bar and the other capturing the waste. Unlike the closet, where we could shut the door to hide the evidence of our sabotage, we needed to collect the plaster and laths here.
So we used the drawers of the dresser. We filled it with broken wood, and chunks of plaster, and ancient horsehair and copious amounts of dust.
Then Paige started to worry about timing. We didn’t know when, exactly, breakfast would come. She didn’t want us to be in the middle of working when it happened. We wouldn’t have time to put everything back. Cody wouldn’t have time to get back to the room.
I figured we had a few hours left. But Paige didn’t, so pretty soon Cody didn’t either. And I figured maybe she was right. I didn’t have a watch or my phone. My sense of time might be all screwed up by now.
So we lifted the dresser, so no one below would hear furniture legs scraping over the floor. We set it in front of the hole and put the drawer back in place. We headed back to the closet and did what we could to remove the plaster dust from ourselves.
Mostly, we used old clothes and blankets from the dressers and beds, and brisk brushing motions. It took care
of the worst of it. We still looked a mess, but the kind of mess that looked like we’d spent the night on a dusty floor instead of pulling walls apart.
Then, the kids and I crawled back to our side. He shut the closet door on his, and we headed back to our room, closing our own closet.
We gave ourselves time to adjust to the absolute darkness again. Maisie said, “When are we getting out of here, Uncle Owen?”
“Soon, sweetheart. As soon as we can.”
We settled back on the blanket and waited. Time crawled by. No one showed up. Daniel shifted and rearranged himself. He was getting antsy.
“Wait it out,” I said. “We’ve got to pretend we’re doing what they say, Dan.”
“So they don’t know you’re going to kill them?”
“So they don’t know anything.”
He laid back down. I watched the door, listening and waiting. Time continued to crawl, and no one showed up.
I wasn’t aware of drifting off to sleep, but I woke up some time later – how long, I wasn’t sure. But I heard footsteps on the stairs, and Jimmy’s voice. “Wakey wakey.”
I heard a thump on a distant door, and the cry of a baby beyond. They were going to Cody and Paige’s room first, then.
I heard lots of footsteps and voices after that. Jimmy didn’t sound happy. I couldn’t make out everything he said, but I did catch a few complaints about the baby. I heard Paige’s voice, high and concerned in reply, and Cody’s, low and strained.
I had the impression she was saying that Jimmy had been the reason Avery woke at all. Jimmy was saying to shut the baby up. And Cody was urging calm. “He’s not going to stop crying if there’s shouting.”
Feet marched up and down the hall, as the Carters took a turn in the bathroom. Then their door closed, and a moment later someone thumped against ours. It sounded like they were slamming a fist on the wood. Jimmy, I figured.
As if to confirm it, Jimmy’s voice called out, “Wakey wakey.” The door opened, and light flooded our enclosure. “Eggs and bakey.”
Daniel sat up at my side. “Bacon?”
Jimmy laughed. “Sure kid.”
A second man’s voice sounded from just out of sight, the way Shannon’s had the night before. “Bathroom time: let’s go. One at a time.”
It was low and controlled, the way he’d been the day before. Not Joey’s smug tones, or Jimmy’s mocking ones. And it was not a woman’s voice. So, Tyler, then.
Daniel went first this time, then Maisie, and then me. I took the opportunity to wash my hands again, and my face this time. Then I headed back. Jimmy was watching, gun in hand. Tyler stood to the side of the door, a tray in hand.
He told me to leave yesterday’s tray and cans at the door, which I did. He swapped it for his tray and shut the door.
Jimmy called, “Enjoy.” Then two sets of footsteps receded down the hall and squeaked and creaked down the stairs.
Then I went to the food. They’d left us three cans of cold beans.
Which went over with the kids like a lead balloon. Maisie tried one taste and made a gagging sound. Daniel said it tasted like shit. I pretended not to notice the word choice.
“You got to eat up,” I said. “We don’t know when our next meal is going to be. And you need to be strong to get out of here, right?”
I was still working on it when I heard shuffling in the closet. A moment later, the door opened, and a ribbon of light spilled into the room.
Cody’s voice followed, low and cautious. “Owen?”
“Yeah,” I said. “All clear.”
He stepped into the room a moment later: a pitch-black silhouette against the light. I saw him lift his arm to scratch his head. Then he said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said in return. He was getting at something. That was obvious. But I had no idea what.
“Did they bring you anything to eat?”
“Yeah.”
“Us too.”
“Okay.”
“Beans. Baked beans.” He shrugged now. “The thing is…Paige can’t stand beans.”
“That’s all we got too,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“They’re disgusting,” Daniel said. “I don’t want to eat them.”
“Me either, bucko. But, it doesn’t look like we have any choice.” Then, to me, he said, “Thanks, man. I’ll go let her know.”
“Sounds good.”
* * *
Deputy Austin Wagner, 6:55 AM
I didn’t get to sleep after that, and I didn’t come up with any breakthroughs, either. I spent the night staring at the ceiling, feeling more and more pissed off about the whole situation. Then I got up, showered, dressed, and headed out.
I felt about as sociable as a grizzly bear. Everything annoyed me. And the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got.
I was pissed at the morning radio hosts I was listening to on my drive. They were trying too damned hard to be cheery, to sound like they were glad to be up and at work.
I was pissed at Travers and the FBI for making this so damned complicated. Why so much cloak and dagger? We were all playing for the same team, weren’t we?
I was pissed at Rabbitt, for picking Wisconsin. I still didn’t know why, but it didn’t really matter. There was an entire country full of banks and armored trucks. He could have gone anywhere else, without making himself my problem. But he hadn’t.
I was pissed at Owen Day, for calling in a body, and then ignoring my calls afterwards. Why start all this trouble if he was just going to ignore it afterwards?
And I was pissed at Jade, for being so damned unreasonable. I had a job to do. She had to understand that. She knew what she was getting into when she started dating a member of law enforcement. Didn’t she?
But mostly, I was pissed at myself. All it would have taken was one text. A few words. A dozen or two letters. Ten seconds of my time. But I’d been too wrapped up to send it.
And now Jade was gone, and what did I have to show for it?
Not a goddamned thing. That’s what.
Joey Rabbitt might be a thousand miles away by now. Curt Travers wanted my help but didn’t bother to tell me what was actually going on. And Owen Day didn’t even bother to return my calls.
Bastards.
I stopped at a drive through for a lousy coffee and an egg and sausage breakfast biscuit. I got hash browns with it. I didn’t need hash browns. I didn’t need any fried food at all. My doctor had given me a whole big talk about cutting fat and reducing carbs at my last physical.
But I didn’t care. Not this morning. So I got the breakfast combo. Large, thank you very much.
The girl at the window smiled broadly and took my money. She told me to pull ahead. My breakfast would be right up. She told me to have a good morning.
I snorted to myself as I drove to the second window. Not much chance of that. That was for damned sure.
The kid at the second window ignored me. He was busy filling cups. The radio announcers prattled on. It was going to be a warm day, they said. “High eighties in the morning, and low nineties this afternoon,” the woman chirped out.
“It’s a day for staying in the house,” the guy said. “In the air conditioning.”
“Oh John,” she said, a whole dose of faux exasperation in her voice. “It’s a day to be outside. At the beach. In your garden. Enjoying the weather.”
“I’ll enjoy it from inside, in the air conditioning, thank you very much,” John said.
“I can’t believe you,” she said.
“You forget, Amy, that not all of us tan like you do. Some of us have Scandinavian roots. Some of us burn to a crisp when it’s hot.”
“There’s this thing called sunscreen…” Amy said.
“That doesn’t work when you look like Casper the Friendly Ghost.”
The kid at the second window stuck his head out. “We’re just waiting on the biscuit. If you could pull up to the space up there, we’ll run it out to you.” He pointed to a space just ahead, mark
ed for pick up.
I nodded and drove on. The radio announcers went on prattling. She was saying he needed sun, because he looked like a vampire. He was saying the sun did nothing for vampires.
I checked my phone. No missed calls from Owen Day. No missed calls from Curt Travers. No missed calls from Jade.
No missed calls from anyone.
John and Amy wrapped up their banter and moved to a commercial break. There’d be music up after that, they said.
About time.
A kid in a polo with the company logo on the collar ran up to the car, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag in the other.
“Sorry about the wait,” he said.
I took the food and the coffee, and told him, “No problem.”
He’d already started hustling back to the building, though. I shook my head and rolled up the window, and pulled out of the parking lot.
The radio was playing an ad for a local car dealership. There was a big sale going on: the biggest sale in a lifetime. It was Christmas in July, with prices never to be seen again, and so on.
I merged in traffic and pulled the biscuit out. It was piping hot. Even through the greasy paper, it burnt my fingers. So I went to the hash browns instead and started grazing on them.
The ad switched, but not to music. Another ad started, this one about a real estate auction. “Fifty-plus separate properties. Empty lots, new construction, residential homes and commercial real estate. Build the house of your dreams, or move in tomorrow: whatever you’re looking for, whatever your budget, it’ll be on the block.”
I took a sip of my coffee. Just a sip, as it was still scorching hot.
The ad was wrapping up. “This Saturday at 10:00 AM at Frank and Ken’s Miltown Auctions, in downtown Milwaukee. Cash down payments required at time of winning bids. See website for full details.”
It gave a URL, and then ended. Yet another ad started, this one for a bank that promised a hundred dollars for opening a new checking account and setting up a direct deposit, and a hundred and fifty dollars for referring someone who set up direct deposits.