by DL Barbur
Rose City Free Fall
DL Barbur
Cougar Rock Press
Copyright © 2017 by DL Barbur
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
7-20 Manuscript revision.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Rose City Renegade Chapter 1
Rose City Renegade Chapter 2
Chapter One
As soon as James Wendt finished having sex with his girlfriend, I was going to arrest him or kill him. It would be up to him, which happened. I sat there listening to the sounds of creaking bedsprings and slapping flesh coming from cheap speakers.
My partner Mandy and I sat in a dusty storeroom over a Korean market in Northeast Portland. Mounted on a tripod between us was a laser microphone. As long as I kept it aimed at the window of the house across the street, we could hear what was going on inside.
I put my magazine down, checked my watch. They'd been at it for four minutes.
"Soon. He won't last much longer." Mandy nodded, a little pink under her freckles.
She was ten years younger than me. I sometimes felt like I was toting a high school kid around, but she was a good partner. I went through partners quickly. Not that we didn't get along, just that I wore them out. They couldn't keep up.
The noises from across the street came to a crescendo. To my ear, Brenda, James's old lady, sounded like she was faking it. She should have plenty of practice. James came by every month like clockwork, made her cash her state checks and give him half the money.
I stood, wincing at the pain in my knees. Who knew that when I jumped out of airplanes more than fifteen years ago, the wet Oregon winters would make me pay for it now? I took a few seconds to limber up. It might be important later.
As we walked down the steps, I made sure my radio earpiece was in place and unzipped my raincoat so I had free access to the Glock on my right hip. I could practically feel the enthusiasm washing off Mandy. She was still young enough to get excited by this sort of thing.
In the store's back room, Mrs. Park was sitting at the desk, pecking away at a computer with one hand, rocking her baby grandson in his little carrier with the other.
"Hello, Detective Miller." She waved at me, not looking up from her math. "Hello, Detective Mandy." For some reason, she refused to call Williams by her last name.
"Hello, Mrs. Park. Might want to stay back here for a little while. Things might get exciting across the street."
She nodded. "We’ll be ok." Mr. Park had scavenged some sheet steel and bolted it to the wall between the office and the rest of the store. An SKS rifle leaned in the corner. I had met the Parks one night when I responded to a brief, futile and lethal robbery attempt on their store. They were nice folks.
Mr. Park was cleaning the already spotless counter. The store was empty. I checked my watch.
In half an hour the store would be full of kids coming home from school. If I didn’t make my move on Wendt by then, I’d have to wait until after the kids cleared out.
Wendt was a bad man, a meth addict and dealer, in his mid-twenties, young enough to engage in violence for the fun of it, old enough to be good at it. He had a long record, stretching back to when he was a juvie. At fourteen, he'd beat another kid with a bat.
I had two good homicides on him. The first one didn't bother me much. He'd killed a man named Lenny Vaughn over a dope deal. As near as I could reconstruct things, Lenny shorted Wendt, causing Wendt to pull out a 9mm and spray the inside of Lenny's apartment with a full magazine, hitting Lenny incidentally in the process. In police work, we called that a "twofer." One criminal dead, another going to jail for a long time, maybe forever.
The problem was that Lenny lived in a duplex. Those fifteen 9mm rounds had gone through the sheetrock common wall without even slowing down. The responding patrol guys hadn't thought to check next door until I got there. I found Mrs. Rosenburg in her living room, lying in a puddle of sticky blood. Her glasses had fallen off her face and her cat had been sitting on her chest. She'd been in her mid seventies, lived alone, liked to take care of the neighborhood children.
Outside of the Parks's store, Mandy stayed in the spot we'd pre-arranged, hanging out in front of the store, right across the street from the apartment building's front door. Brenda lived in a giant old Victorian house converted to apartments. Four apartments upstairs, four down, hallway and stairway down the middle. Front door, back door, both on the first floor. Brenda lived on the second floor. There was a fire escape, but I didn't think Wendt would use it.
I walked around to the apartment building's backyard, a narrow strip of mud with the odd tuft of brown grass scattered here and there. I stood with my back to the wall, right next to the back door.
I'd been looking for Wendt for two months. His fingerprints were all over the shell casings in Lenny’s apartment. These days everybody watched CSI and knew to wipe down the outsides of their weapons, but nobody ever remembered to wear gloves when they loaded their magazines. Word on the street was that Wendt had bragged about wasting Lenny. The detective work had taken no startling leaps of deduction. I’d had him pegged as my primary suspect in a few hours. The problem was finding him.
The bastard was sly. He didn't stay in one place for too long, didn't hang with his usual running buddies. But he needed cash from somebody, and I finally found out who he was getting it from.
I knew when November's electronic benefit money would land in Brenda’s account. I'd watched him walk up, go in Brenda's place. I'd watched them walk to the corner store and buy a couple of tall Pabst Blue Ribbons before going back to Brenda's. I could have taken him then, but he'd made Brenda carry the beer so his hands were free. I didn't put it past him to screw a gun in her ear if he saw the heat coming. No, I wanted him with a fat roll of twenties in his pocket, with a beer in his belly and still warm and fuzzy from a roll in the hay with Brenda. He would be distracted, making it more likely that I could take him without gunfire.
I didn't care about shooting Wendt, but I knew he liked to spray bullets around. I worried about who else might get hit, like the Parks and their grandkid.
The back door hung crooked on its hinges. You had to walk up a few narrow wooden stairs to get to it. I stood there with my back to the wall, my Danner boots squelching in the mud. When he came out, I would be standing to his right.
I imagined what it would look like if Wendt came running out the door and saw me. He'd reach across his body for his piece, and arc all the way back over to his right before h
e could bring it to bear. If I stood to his left, he could just pull it out and blast me. Little things like that matter.
If I played my cards right, he would never know what hit him. I checked the hinges of the screen door. It would open out and to Wendt's left, away from me. Marvelous.
I was supposed to have all sorts of back up on an apprehension like this. My supervisor would have to be involved, we would most likely use the SWAT team. But stuff like that took time to set up. I'd tried it their way already. Weeks ago, I’d tracked Wendt to an abandoned building. By the time all the ducks were in a row, he was long gone. He must have smelled us or something. This time we were doing it my way.
It was a gray and drizzly day. It wasn't raining but it was November in Portland, so I was sure that would change. I was just cold enough that I wanted a coat when I was sitting around, just warm enough to sweat if I had to exert myself.
"Dent? You there?" Mandy's voice crackled in my earpiece. She had only called me Denton once. I hated my first name, kept threatening to change it. We weren't supposed to use first names on the radio, but I had my way of doing communications too. Our radios could use almost a hundred channels. Today we were using the Multnomah County Drainage District Levee Flood Patrol tactical channel. Since the river didn't look high today, I figured we'd have it all to ourselves. If the office wanted to get in touch, they could call my cell phone.
"What's up Mandy?"
"I just saw somebody through the window, moving through the second-floor hallway."
"Cool. Stay frosty."
"Damn!" She sounded breathless. "He just stepped out front, looked at me and went back in. I think he made me."
Mandy looked like a cop. She was a fireplug of a woman, with her hair done up in a sensible braid that wouldn't give anybody a handhold in a fight. Today she was wearing tan Royal Robbins "tactical" pants, a polo shirt and a black vest with a bunch of pockets to cover up all her cop crap. She might as well have put a sign around her neck that said "Plain Clothes Cop." There was a reason I wore faded jeans, an untucked Hawaiian shirt and a raincoat that had seen better days. We had talked about this, but like I said, you could only teach somebody so far. Then they had to learn for themselves.
"Hold on," I said. "I need you to keep the front locked down for me. Watch those second-floor windows."
Now Wendt would do one of two things. Maybe he would run upstairs and barricade himself in Brenda's apartment and take her hostage. If he did that, he would probably end his day with a .308 caliber hole in his head, courtesy of a police sniper.
The second possibility was that Wendt would run out the back. Since running had worked for him before, I guessed that he would do it now. I pulled my ASP expanding baton out of my back pocket. In its collapsed form it was a metal cylinder, about eight inches long. I knew Wendt would be packing heat, so I was technically bringing a metal pipe to a gun fight. Not too smart under normal circumstances, but I was planning an ambush, so normal rules didn't apply.
I heard him coming, heard the squeak of his sneakered feet on the curling linoleum of the apartment hallway, heard him panting as he ran. Meth is bad for your cardio fitness, I guess. The screen door flew open and I got a flash of a scrawny white dude in a blue satin tracksuit two sizes too big for him, baseball cap backward. Scruffy attempt at a beard. Wendt for sure.
I don't like to brag, but I timed it perfectly. I flicked my wrist out and up, and the ASP went from being eight inches long to twenty-one in an eye blink. The telescoping metal shafts locked into place and the round steel tip landed exactly on the tip of Wendt's elbow with the sweet smack that I associated with a baseball heading for the fence. I heard bones crack. Out of the park, baby.
I brought the ASP back for another shot, then yelled, "Portland Police, get down on the ground!" Wendt gave an inarticulate little moan and grabbed his suddenly non-functioning right arm with his left hand. Perfect. He wasn’t even thinking about his gun.
"Stop resisting!" I yelled as I unloaded the second blow, lower this time. His knee cap popped with a sound like a coke bottle breaking. He bounced down the steps and onto his face before I could get the ASP back for a third blow. Two shots would have to do. I'd ambush a guy, but hitting him while he was down wasn't right, unless he looked like he was thinking about getting back up.
Wendt showed no sign of going anywhere. He was lying face down in the dirt, making mewling kitten noises.
When I grabbed his right arm and bent it back behind his back, it felt like it was full of broken glass and gravel.
He screamed. I ignored him and cuffed him up, then patted him down real quick, arms, legs, the back of his waistband. I found nothing, but I could tell the elbow and knee were already swollen. Looked like we would stop at the hospital before we went to jail.
"Oh, man, you broke my arm. My knee," Wendt whined.
"Quit your bitching. You’re under arrest." I rolled him over on his back. Now his weight was on his broken arm and he screamed again.
There it was, tucked in his waistband, a cheap Brazilian 9mm, bright chrome, fake ass mother-of-pearl grips, fifteen round magazine.
"Dent? Dent?" It was Mandy's voice in my ear again.
"I got him. Come on around."
She popped around the corner a second later. She looked a little annoyed when she saw Wendt trussed up on the ground. I hoped she didn't think I'd cut her out of the action on purpose. I'd talk to her later. The irritation only lasted for a second, then she broke out in a grin.
"We got him," she said.
"Right on. Good work." I handed her the Taurus carefully. I hadn't cleared it. She took it and laid it on the steps.
I had a certain amount of disdain for Mandy's black vest, but I had to hand it to her. She somehow crammed the contents of your average police cruiser's trunk in the damn thing. She pulled out two evidence baggies and a pair of nitrile gloves. She donned the gloves, then unloaded the 9mm with precise motions. The gun went in one bag, the magazine and a stray round of ammo from the chamber went in another.
I nodded my approval. "Do me a favor and whistle us up a medic and a patrol car for our friend here."
She nodded and pulled out her radio to change the channel. I finished searching Wendt while he cried and moaned. I dumped the contents of his pockets into the dirt beside his head. A roll of twenties, I made a mental note to give those back to Brenda; a crumpled up bus pass; three knives, one in each front pocket, one in his left sock, all of them cheap; then in the bottom of his right front pocket I found a little plastic baggy full of what looked like wet, dirty sugar. Methamphetamine.
Mandy was watching me search as she talked on the radio. She held out a gloved hand and I put the bindle of meth in it. That went in another evidence bag. Compared to the two murder charges, it was like an overdue library book, but we had to be thorough.
Wendt was doing plenty of pleading right now. "Man, you gotta get me a doctor," he whined. "My arm hurts. My leg hurts."
I rolled my eyes. I walked over and pulled him upright, so he was sitting on the dirt on his ass instead of lying on his busted arm.
"Sit still. The medics will be here soon."
I was over in the weeds collecting my baton when the fire truck rolled up out front. I heard the heavy engine come to a halt. I walked around the corner of the house to wave them in, remembering to pull my badge out from under my shirt and let it hang on the chain around my neck. I collapsed the baton and put it back in my jeans pocket.
The patrol car Mandy had asked for rolled up as the firemen were getting their medical gear off the truck. I didn't recognize the kid driving. He was a white guy, tall, blond hair in a high and tight haircut. He wore those wraparound sunglasses I hated so much. I wondered at what point the Bureau quit hiring new cops and just started cloning them up at the research hospital on the hill.
Mr. Park was standing in front of his store, arms across his chest. I saw him speak to the officer, saw the officer nod curtly back in reply and keep walking. Punk. Unless
there was shooting going on, you should always stop and talk to the citizens. Part of the salary that kid got paid every year came out of Mr. Park's pocket, so the least he could do was shoot the breeze for a few seconds. Besides, you never knew when you might need to set up surveillance over a man's convenience store.
The Fire Bureau paramedic that went to work on Wendt was young too, lanky, had a little diamond stud in the side of her nose. When did the hose draggers start allowing stuff like that on duty? She was a little snotty when she asked me to take the cuffs off. She kept looking at Wendt's scrawny little crankster ass, then back at me.
I run about 6'4", two fifty if I've been watching the cheeseburgers and beer. I had about eight inches and probably an easy hundred pounds on Wendt. After I took the cuffs off, I made a big show of holding Wendt's gun up in its plastic baggie. It must have looked impressive, all big and shiny because she knocked it off. Geez, you go out of your way to keep from shooting a guy and nobody appreciates it. They think you picked on some little guy just because you like it.
The young patrol cop ambled over, his face impassive, his eyes unreadable behind the glasses. He took in the scene: the paramedics working on Wendt; Mandy cataloging evidence; me standing there in my scruffy clothes. I stuck out a hand.
"Dent Miller, Major Crimes." We didn't have a "homicide" division in Portland per se. This would imply that our fair city had enough homicides to warrant its own unit. Which it did. But besides murders, we handled rapes, robberies, most any violent felonies.