Ambush

by Barbara Nickless

  I dropped my elbows to my thighs as I ran down a mental list of possibilities.

  “What if we’re making the wrong assumption?”

  Taft cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “What if the guy isn’t homeless?”

  “That would make him a hell of a good method actor.”

  “Maybe it’s a good costume. Maybe he even spent a few months building the persona—the dreads, the beard, that shuffling walk. If he did that, he would have created a completely different avatar from his normal one.”

  “Meaning he’s been on RTD property in the past, but we’ve got him marked as a different person.”

  “Right.”

  “Why would he go to such lengths?”

  “So he could scope out the place. He might be a local who rides the trains and knew he could be recognized. Or . . .” A little buzz built in my skull. “Or he didn’t want to be tracked once he left the station. Maybe he didn’t disappear. Maybe he became someone else.”

  Taft rubbed his jaw. “You’re talking a lot of work and some serious premeditation.”

  “But it’s possible? The hunch and the shuffle, the heavy clothes—those might be enough to fool the software?”

  “Maybe. Our software doesn’t look at externals, so the hair and beard don’t matter. But those other things . . .” His voice trailed off as he replayed the tape. “It’s possible to create a gait that can fool the system. But it’s not easy. Our killer would have to know specifically what elements to adjust. Just switching from a walk to a shuffle wouldn’t do it.”

  “What if his backpack was weighted? Would that matter?”

  “Probably not. It changes your walk, but in ways we can predict and correct for.”

  “How’s that?”

  “When people gain weight naturally, over time, their body adjusts, and they maintain their normal stride. Thus, if a man went from a hundred and fifty pounds in January to two thirty the following December, he’d still have the same gait. But a person’s walk changes if they suddenly pick up a heavy load. Their feet strike the ground harder. It’s physics, and it’s not something you can easily compensate for. Our cameras will catch the change. It’s how we watch for backpacks with bombs.”

  “So not easy. But doable.”

  “In theory. If our guy was a pro, he could have practiced carrying the load off camera or even gradually increased the load, again off camera, without giving himself away. Now you’re back to premeditation.”

  I considered the Alpha and the resources he might have. “If you figured the guy knew exactly how to fool the system, would your software be able to accommodate for that?”

  Taft’s eyes went soft. “I know you want this to be more than a random tragedy, Sydney. We all do. But what you’re suggesting sounds like a conspiracy. Or a professional hit. Why would Kane be a target for something like that? It’s ugly and pointless, but the homeless angle makes a lot more sense.”

  “Can we take ten minutes to play pretend?”

  If the look in his eyes went any softer, I’d be tempted to hit him. I told myself it was sympathy, not pity.

  He shook his head. “It’s not that simple. We can build the avatar based on certain assumptions—weight, height, skeletal structure. But if you want us to build a database of possibilities, we’ll have to go through thousands of data points.”

  “When you created your avatar and ran it, did you find any outliers? People the computer pinged on but rejected?”

  “I’ll ask our analyst, Meredith. And I’ll run your idea by her. But if she didn’t find any outliers, I don’t see how we could do this.”

  “Can you at least try?”

  “It isn’t the best use of our resources.”

  I made my voice as soft as the look in his eyes. “This guy killed one of ours, Ryan. This man pushed Kane—”

  “You’re preaching to the choir. We’ll look. We’re all hands on deck with this, Sydney.”

  I looked down at my feet for a moment, then stood. “Thanks, Ryan. Let me know what you find.”

  Back outside, instead of getting in the truck, I grabbed Clyde’s dish and some water from the cooler and took him into the shade beneath a small grove of dispirited sumac entrenched at the far end of the asphalt lot. I poured water for him and, after a moment’s hesitation, dug out a cigarette from my rainy-day stash in the glove box and lit up. Two steps forward, ten back.

  While Clyde enjoyed the water and the breeze, I worked to annihilate my lungs as I watched the street for a brown sedan and checked my phone for a message from Cohen. Nothing.

  He was busy, I told myself. He’d call later.

  Clyde finished drinking the water, then stretched out in the shade, his tongue lolling. I stuck the cigarette in the corner of my mouth and squatted beside him. I reached under his vest and scratched. His tail thumped. I scratched harder, and his tail matched my tempo.

  “Good boy!” I said in the high-pitched voice he loved.

  Nothing like a little dog therapy.

  I stopped after a moment but stayed on my haunches while I smoked and thought. Clyde gave me his pitiful look.

  “Later, buddy. I can’t think and scratch at the same time.”

  He huffed and rested his head on his outstretched legs.

  I’d learned a few things. Kane’s killer wasn’t homeless, whatever the Denver PD might think. And I’d be willing to bet he wasn’t Muslim, either. My guess was the tattoo was another distraction, on top of the homeless ploy.

  What I couldn’t figure out was why the Alpha would go to such lengths to kill Kane in public when it required so much subterfuge. There would be a hundred ways to murder Kane quietly. Maybe even in a way that didn’t look like murder.

  I wondered if the Alpha was sending someone a message. Or making a point.

  I had two things to hope for. That Taft’s analyst would find some possible matches to the Pushman. And that whoever had caught Kane’s attention long enough to cause him to keep his back to his killer would give me a lead.

  I ran over the names again in my mind. Laura Almasi. Sonia Lopez Martinez. Kenneth Riley Napierkowski. Leroy Parker. Thomas Wilson.

  Nothing shook out. Maybe it would once we had more information about them.

  I finished smoking and stubbed out the cigarette on the ground. I pocketed the butt and stood, stretching out the kinks in my back. Clyde watched me through one eye, waiting to see if we were really going anywhere.

  Overhead, puffs of clouds wafted by. Traffic rumbled on the nearby road. The roots of the trees around us had broken through the concrete, creating a series of cracks in the asphalt.

  “It’s like a ball of yarn,” I said to Clyde. “We’ll just keep pulling on threads, seeing where they take us. But why do I feel like there’s a bomb ticking at the center of this particular ball of yarn?”

  Clyde yawned. Perspective.

  “Yeah, I know. All in a day’s work for you. Let’s go, boy.”

  We were thirteen hours in.

  CHAPTER 13

  Sometimes you have to define yourself outside the expectations of the system.

  —Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.

  “You want what?”

  Detective Bill Gorman gaped at me across the restaurant table. He had a beer bottle halfway to his mouth, his hand paused in midair as if someone had shouted “Freeze!” during a game of statue.

  I repeated myself, but spoke more slowly this time.

  “I want to help with the investigation,” I said. “I know a lot of the homeless. If Kane’s killer is really living on the street, I have a shot at finding him. Just bring me up to speed so I’ve got some background.”

  “Yeah?” Gorman’s hand finished its trajectory, and he took a swig. “I already talked to every ‘person without residence’ in a two-mile radius of Union Station. Half swear they know the guy, half swear he’s never been around. And all the bastards want money to talk.”

  Act like a dick, it’s what you get b
ack. “Can’t hurt for me to try, right?”

  We were sitting at an upstairs table at the Irish. I’d called Gorman an hour ago, reminded him who I was, and offered to buy him a late lunch and a beer. He’d told me he was buried with the Kane case, but agreed he did have to eat.

  The Irish was a police hangout, but right now we had the upper floor to ourselves. This time of day fell in that no-man’s-land between the end of the lunch rush and the start of happy hour. Seemed like Gorman was willing to sneak up on happy hour. I was happy to oblige.

  The light was dim, and the only sounds were piped-in Celtic tunes and an occasional bang from the kitchen downstairs.

  Could be that today it was extra quiet because the air conditioner was on the fritz. Bill Gorman’s face was shiny with sweat. He’d shed his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves. Under his arms, damp darkened his light-blue button-down.

  Gorman was in his late fifties, but my guess was he’d started going to seed years back. The softening came from within, like an apple left too long in the bin. Still nice and shiny on the outside, but it gave under a gentle squeeze.

  The flat expanse of his square face and heavy jaw was just this side of a caricature of a 1940s screen idol a few decades past his prime. Thick black hair swept back from his forehead in a flourish. His teeth were commercial-grade white. He even had a dimple in his chin. It was the eyes that ruined the effect—they were small and speculative.

  He jerked his chin toward my face. “What happened?”

  “Racquetball. So about Kane . . .”

  “Shame to see a shiner on a pretty face.”

  “The case,” I said.

  He sighed. “Look, Cohen told me I should talk to you, but I don’t have much to share.”

  “Start with what isn’t in the papers.”

  “There’s nothing.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Nothing?”

  He shrugged and spread his meaty fingers apart, as if to prove he wasn’t hiding anything. “Asshole’s a white rabbit who popped up out of nowhere, then disappeared down his rabbit hole. Nothing useful on the cameras. Knife was the kind sold by every damn sporting-goods store in the city. Witnesses got nothing to add to what the cameras caught. And I already told you how it went with the tramps.”

  The waitress approached with Gorman’s burger and fries and another Michelob. Clyde sat up, thrusting his nose into the hamburger’s scent cone. His nostrils flared. I gestured him back down.

  “Sure you don’t want anything to eat?” the waitress asked as she set my seltzer water on the table.

  “I’m good.”

  Gorman watched her leave, then rolled his eyes at my glass. “Last time I saw you, you were drinking whiskey like it was water. Now you’re just drinking water?”

  “Times change.” I pulled my glass toward me, as if protecting it. “An RTD guard named Sadler went after the killer. What did he see?”

  Gorman pounded ketchup onto his fries. “I’m telling you, rabbit. Witnesses told Sadler the asshole took off northeast, heading along the tracks. Sadler went in the same direction. Traffic cams tracked the suspect to that construction area along Wewatta Street. Then he just went . . . poof.”

  “Not like a slow-moving homeless man to be that good at disappearing.”

  “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts these guys have hidey-holes we can’t even guess at.”

  I pulled up a mental map of the area around Union Station. “What if someone picked him up? He disappeared near all those office buildings and parking garages. And he wasn’t that far from Commons Park.”

  “That’s exactly why I talked to the homeless there. And why I had patrol go door to door. Hell of a lot of doors, too. No one saw anything. For all I know, he might have made it to the Platte River and thrown himself in. I should be so lucky.”

  I propped my elbows on the arms of my chair. “Did you look in the trash cans? If the clothes and hair were a disguise, maybe he dumped them.”

  “A disguise?” Gorman’s breath wheezed in and out as he laughed. “You think he took a shower and picked up a pair of shoes, too? Maybe stopped for a shave?”

  “Or maybe he had a car stashed. Did you look at cameras in the nearby garages?”

  Another wheeze. “Now you think this joker had a getaway vehicle?” He leaned back and rubbed at his chest as if he had heartburn. Half his burger and all the fries had disappeared. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “The correct question is why.” He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and used a corner to pick at his front teeth. “Let’s take a walk down fantasy avenue and say this nutcase has a hard-on for cops. Let’s even say he’s been eyeballing the security guys and Kane gave him the chance he’d been dreaming of. Okay, maybe. But if you walk a little further out on that limb and say it was so preplanned he had a disguise and a getaway car? That he’s Mr. Sophisticated? Then you’d at least figure the guy had been to Union Station before to scope out the place, right? Am I right? But no.” Gorman looked triumphant. “He’s never been there. Trust me, I checked.”

  I ignored that. “Did you run down any vehicles that were nearby when it happened? They’d be on camera, wouldn’t they?”

  Something dark slithered into Gorman’s eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to tell me how to do my job.”

  Seemed like someone had to. “I’m just throwing out ideas.”

  “Genius choo-choo cop, is that it?” He laughed and relaxed. “Look, I’m sure you’re good at what you do. Guarding trains and chasing trespassers and all. But this is a little outside your ball-i-wick.”

  “Bail-i-wick,” I enunciated, unable to resist.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  He flushed. “Whatever.” He finished with the business card, started to put it back in his shirt pocket, then glanced at it and changed his mind. He slid it into the inside pocket of his suit coat.

  I finished my water.

  “My opinion,” Gorman said, “it’s just a tragedy. One of those pointless things. Cases with these fucking religious freaks usually is.”

  I perked up at this tiny tidbit. “What makes you say he’s a religious freak?”

  “His tattoo. That wasn’t in the paper. Some Muslim shit.”

  “You mean the star and crescent?”

  His small eyes went smaller. “How’d you know about that?”

  “I just came from RTD. So you figure the tat makes him a zealot?”

  “How would you interpret it? You see his picture? The guy is a few pubic hairs short of a full snatch.” He winked. “Not that that’s always a bad thing.”

  I resisted the urge to ask him if he made his mama proud. “Plenty of people have religious tattoos. Crucifixes. Bible verses. It doesn’t make them zealots.”

  “Look, I got nothing against being devout,” he said. “I’m on Team Jesus myself. But these Muslims, they’re a whole different breed. Cop killers.”

  I didn’t grab the bait.

  Gorman pushed his empty plate aside and wiped his fingers on a napkin. His eyes went past speculative and turned suspicious. “So level with me. What exactly is your interest in this case?”

  “He was a cop, Gorman. And a veteran. He deserves the best.”

  Gorman’s eyes showed a spark, like an arsonist’s match. “And you don’t think that’s me.”

  I swallowed my own anger. “That’s not what I mean. Kane was a Marine. I owe him.”

  The match flared, then went out. “Semper Fi, eh?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. So now I got some questions. You probably think I met you out of the goodness of my heart, right?”

  And here I thought it was for the free meal.

  “But what I want to know is, what does it mean that your number showed up in Kane’s phone records? Is that some Marine shit, too?”

  The sweat cooled on my neck. “Kane tried to call me?”

  “Check your phone. I got his number here.
” Gorman pulled a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and pushed it across the table.

  I powered up my phone and went to the list of recent calls. There it was. Not once, but five times. The calls had come while I was on the run in Mexico City. I’d never even noticed.

  “He tried to call me when I was on vacation,” I said.

  “You want to tell me why?”

  “Six months ago I helped a friend of his beat a murder rap. Maybe it had something to do with that.”

  “I remember that case.” Gorman nodded. “You chased down a rattler’s nest of assholes. Shot most of them. I heard about that, and I’m thinking, this chick never heard of due process? So did Kane leave a message?”

  “No.” If I’d noticed the call and picked up, would it have made a difference in what happened? Would Kane still be alive? I touched my temples, fighting the headache that comes with feeling like a screwup.

  “Look, the guy can’t hide forever. And when he comes back out—” He made a fist with his right hand and slammed it into the palm of his left. “We get him.”

  That was Gorman. A lot of theoretical gung ho.

  He finished his second beer. “I gotta shake the hog’s leg. Be right back. Then it’s off to the salt mines.”

  As soon as he disappeared down the stairs, I reached over and grabbed his suit coat. I pulled out the card. Three of the four corners were blunt from toothpick duty. On the face was printed VALOR INDUSTRIES.

  The address was in the Denver Technological Center in the southeast part of town.

  On the back, someone had written in black ink 100K.

  A hundred thousand what? Maybe it had nothing to do with the case, but I’d take a look at Valor Industries. I replaced the jacket and sat back in my chair as Gorman reappeared.

  “Thanks for the food and the beer.” He grabbed his jacket. “Let me know if you ever want to do it again. Could be fun. Oh, and if you figure out why Kane called, let me know.”

  I watched him make his way down the stairs.