ON GOT UP, showered and dressed before the rest of the fam ily had roused. He wasn’t sure how long it would take to bike to work. He slipped into the kitchen to make his lunch as the rest of the weary troupe was joining Alan for prayer in the family room. Christina looked longingly toward her father, hoping he’d join them. He waved through the doorway. “See you all later.” He slung on his small backpack and walked out the door.
Christina ran to catch him. “Daddy, you forgot to kiss me goodbye,” she hollered. Don wheeled the bike around. “Are you going to ask your boss for some money?”
“I think so.” He gave her a peck on the cheek.
“I love you, Daddy.” She watched as he peddled away. The ride didn’t take as long as expected. Don was waiting at the
“You’re here bright and early.” Jeff unlocked the gate, and the two of them headed toward the building.
Don was feeling good. Today will be better, he thought. I’ll do powders until noon, then move to sales.
Almost one thousand missing persons’ reports, each painstakingly reviewed—pain being the operative word, here. Stacey pushed away from the computer and massaged the back of his stiff neck, rolling his head side to side, front to back. He pulled himself up out of the chair and staggered to the bedroom to get ready for work. The phone rang. “Stacey, here.”
“Stace, Deek. I remembered something that might help.” He
paused a moment, then plunged ahead. “The night I was shot and the captain got a call, I was able to read his lips before he turned his back to me. He told the caller not to call him at work. I thought it was strange, and wrote the time and date on a note pad and put it in my desk. He left the office in a hurry.”
“Good work, Deek,” Stacey replied. “I’ll see what I can find.” “Maryann can look up the call and find out where it originated. Tell her it was a call to me—that way she won’t wonder why we’re checking out the captain. How’re you going to get the sweats out of the evidence room?”
“I’m not sure. If I check them out, Bingham’ll know what’s going on.” Stacey shook his head and frowned. “If I don’t sign them out, it won’t be by the book—and we may lose the evidence in court....”
“You have to do it by the book,” Deek told him. “Just don’t give a clear explanation of why you need them tested. Make sure the captain doesn’t know you’re matching fibers from his car, either.”
“Bingham’s handling your shooting personally, you know. He’ll flip if he finds out I went over his head.”
“Barker’s straight as an arrow. He can get them out for you. Just ask him to keep it quiet. He doesn’t need to know you’re investigating our illustrious captain.” Deek didn’t have to tell him about Barker; he was Stacey’s best friend. The guy was always trying to set Stacey up with someone to date, considering it his sacred duty to help him get married.
“I don’t know how in the world I’ll get the fibers without Bingham’s knowledge. He’s a stickler about locking his car.”
“I think the maintenance garage keeps a set of keys on file for every vehicle in the fleet,” Deek said. “Ask Cartwright if he’ll lend you the captain’s keys. Tell him I sent you down—and that he needs to keep it quiet. He owes me one....When you take the evidence to Provo, tell Saunders in the crime lab to call me directly with the results. We don’t want any of this getting back to Bingham.”
“Sounds good. How’re you feeling?”
“Better. The doctors think I might get out of here earlier than expected. I do therapy three times a day—just about kills me. I’d rather be at work, believe me.”
“I do....Well, I’ve got a lot to do; best get to it.” He hung up the phone. Deek was everything Stacey wanted to be.
Stacey finished dressing, then led Sig to the garage, stopping at the faucet to fill a five-gallon bucket with water. “Come, Sig,” he commanded.
Sig followed at his human partner’s heel, his tail down. He didn’t want to spend the day in the garage again.
“I know boy, I wouldn’t want to stay in here either,” he sympathized. “But I have no choice.”
After locking Sig in, Stacey climbed into his patrol car and headed for the city garage. “One-thirty-nine, dispatch.”
“Morning, Stacey,” Maryann’s familiar voice responded.
“I’m on duty. Would you log me in?”
“Sure thing.”
“I’ll be running patrol for about an hour. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Ten-four.” The radio went quiet. The drive into town was almost uneventful. Stacey pulled over and ticketed an 18-year-old male tooling through a school zone at 20 mph over the limit.
Back in the car, Stacey lifted the radio. “One-thirty-nine, onetwelve.”
“One-twelve, go ahead,” Barker answered.
“What’s your twenty?”
“I’m in the office. What is it?”
“I need to see you in about 20 minutes. Will you still be in?” Stacey asked.
“Ten four, I’m following up on the leads for Deek,” he answered.
Stacey pulled up to the city garage. It wasn’t a big place. Various city vehicles and equipment were parked around the building. He knew most of the people who worked there. “Where’s Cartwright?” he asked the shop foreman.
“He’s working on the vac truck.” He pointed toward a big, yellow street cleaner, feet protruding out from under the rig.
“Cartwright, is that you?”
“Sure is.” He scooted out from under the beast. His pocked face and unkempt hair belied the heart of gold that beat beneath his greasestained “John” insignia.
“Deek needs a favor.”
“How’s he doing?” he asked, wiping his hands.
“We spoke this morning. They’ve got him in therapy three times a day. Thinks he’ll be out soon.”
“Good. He gave us all a scare.”
“I need to borrow the keys to car one-eighteen; can you keep it quiet?”
A hesitant scowl formed on the man’s protruding lower jaw. “What do you need with the captain’s car?”
“It’s better left unsaid.”
“I can loan them without saying a word, but I’ve gotta log it in. I’d lose my job if anyone found out, you know. I’ll do it for Deek if you need me to.” Cartwright finished wiping his hands and started for the office.
“How often do the logs get checked?”
“I ain’t never seen anyone check ‘em, unless something’s missin’. Or we’re gettin’ audited.”
“I don’t see a reason not to log it in then.” Stacey didn’t want the guy to lose his job, but what were the chances of the captain checking?
Cartwright opened the drawer, retrieved the large envelope marked #S118, and removed the keys, handing them to Stacey. Glancing up at the clock on the wall, he jotted down the date and time. “You have to initial here.” He pointed to the line.
Stacey drew a pen from his uniform pocket and wrote R. Stacey next to the date. “I’ll have them back in a few hours,” he said.
“You tell Deek next time you see him that we’ve been praying for him,” Cartwright exclaimed as he put the envelope back in the drawer and slid it shut.
“I will,” answered Stacey. I hope this doesn’t backfire on me, he thought as he drove off toward the station.
Melvin booted up his computer, bypassing numerous security checks. He scrolled through his files, made notes, logged on the Internet, and verified information. This wasn’t so different from most other days. Between his job at the county building and his part-time evening work at the bank, he had a lot of spare time at home. He’d retired from a special task force five years earlier, where he’d served as a communications expert. Surveillance was his speciality.
He, his wife and daughter had bought the house only a few months later. They had used both the upstairs and downstairs sections—until his daughter disappeared. The house was too big without her. He made a few changes by adding the laundry downstairs. He’d rented the place out off and on through the years. Once in a while he even found renters who actually liked him. Sometimes it was a pain, but the extra income, tucked away for a rainy day, came in handy.
Logged off the net, he picked up the phone, removed the application from his pocket and made a call.
“Cobblecrete, how may I direct your call?” a pleasant voice answered.
“I’d like to speak to Don Rodriguez.”
“I’m sorry, he can’t be reached until lunch time. Can I take a message and have him return your call?”
“This is Melvin Briggs.”
“Oh, hi, Melvin. This is Cecily. I was the one with Don the other day.”
“Yes, you’re the pretty little blonde. Will you tell him he can have the place if he can come up with the deposit? He checked out real good.”
“I’ll tell him when I see him. I’m sure he’ll call you this evening.”
“Good, thanks, Cecily.” Melvin hung up the phone.
Stacey warily drove into the station’s parking lot. Bingham’s car sat in its assigned spot. Stacey pulled up alongside, opened his door, glanced around, quickly unlocked the door, and returned the key to his pocket. His eyes furtively darting in both directions, he casually opened the door and reached in, jerking a few fibers from the seat. The fabric was tight, making it difficult to get a sample. He tucked the fibers into a small plastic bag, locked the door, and closed it behind him.
That wasn’t so bad, he thought. I should’ve been a detective. He strode to the back door and entered the squad room. Everyone was busy with their own problems. His clandestine actions had probably gone unnoticed.
Barker was at his desk on the phone, the receiver pressed tightly to his ear, a mask-like look of impatience and fatigue on his face. “Thank you, ma’am, we’ll follow up on that.” He hung up the phone, then glanced over at Stacey. “Everybody thinks noises in the night are peeping-toms, these days,” he smirked. His voice sounded tired. Way too much overtime. “We need real leads, the kind that can help us solve this case. The captain says we don’t have the budget for any more help. I’m supposed to do my own work and Deek’s, too.”
“How’s it going, anyway?” Stacey asked.
“No progress. Nothing new.” He shuffled the notes piled on his desk. “With Deek out and me in here, we’re one less officer on the force.”
“Has Howard confessed?”
He emitted a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, right. His attorney won’t let us get close to him. We moved him to county ‘cause we don’t have the manpower to watch him.”
“Think we should get the gun, clothing and bolt cutters over to the Provo lab and check them out?”
“Yeah. Soon as I finish the million other calls I need to follow up on....”
Stacey gave the corner of Barker’s desk a thump with his fist. “I’ll give you a hand. I could run them over now.”
Barker dragged the keys from his pocket and tossed them to Stacey. “Get the bag from lockup and bring it back for my signature.”
“Aren’t two of us supposed to do it?” Stacey questioned.
Barker shrugged. “I’ve got a lot to do,” he insisted. “You grab it and I’ll sign it with you.”
Stacey decided not to make a big deal out of the minor breach in policy; such things were done all the time. He took the keys, unlocked the evidence room, and looked around for the bag. Seventy-six kilos of cocaine sat on the shelf from his drug bust only a week before, a reminder that he would soon be testifying against the guy. Resting on a lower shelf lay the gun and the bag of clothing. Sticking a new seal on the bag next to the one applied when it was brought in, he signed the log file and started with it to Barker’s desk. He turned to lock the door behind him.
“What’s up, Stacey?” The captain’s gruff voice boomed from the end of the hall as he approached with the lumbering gait of a bear.
Stacey flinched, but kept his cool. His heart began to race. “Lieutenant Barker asked me to take these down to the Provo lab,” he stuttered. “Guess he’s been real busy.”
“He did?” Both men stood facing one another, two gunfighters staring each other down. “Here, I’ll sign with you.” Bingham took the bag from Stacey and scrawled his initials on the seal. “That ought to do it,” he said, handing it back. “Oh, is your dog locked up?”
“In the garage.”
“I don’t suspect we’ll need to keep him there too long. Just keep an eye on him a few more days and we’ll let him come back to work. But keep him out of the office.”
Stacey was relieved. The captain hadn’t seemed overly concerned by the thought of the evidence going to the lab. Piece of cake, he mused, returning the keys to Barker.
“Here,” Barker said, extending his hand to sign the bag.
“The captain already got it.”
“Did he sign you out of the evidence room, too?”
“No, I got that.”
“I’ll slip back in when I get down here and sign the other line,” Barker said. “Now get that over to the lab and let’s see if we have a match.”
Don finished all the orders by eleven and washed up for lunch. He changed his clothes and stopped to see Cecily on his way up front. The phone pressed to her ear, she gave him a wink. Don couldn’t help but smile in return.
“One moment, I’ll connect you.” Cecily pressed a button and sent the call to another phone. “Oh, Melvin called. He said you’ve got the apartment if you can come up with the deposit. Ralph’ll be back after lunch; you can ask him then.” The phone rang again, and Cecily went back to her work.
Melvin limped down the basement stairs, intent on fulfilling his promise to clean the place before his new tenants moved in. He made a quick pass around the kitchen, gathering up a few crumbs left behind. He opened the door to the furnace room and glared down at the slimy puddle under the water heater. “That’ll have to wait for another day,” he muttered, closing the door behind him.
A scruffy-looking old fellow wearing a crumpled lab coat sat working at a bench. His tousled hair flowed down onto his collar. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses hung at his neck. The light shining from an apparatus that perched on his head cast a luminous glow on an object he held with tweezers between his gloved fingers. A sea of small vials of liquid and strips of colored paper hovered in rows on a shelf to his right.
Stacey cleared his throat. “Is Saunders in?”
“Yeah.” The man, concentrating on his task, didn’t look up. Stacey paused, then asked, “Can you tell me where I can find him?” “Yeah.” But the man kept at his work, seemingly oblivious to his
“You’re looking at him.” The old fellow now stopped what he was doing and peered up over the miniature binoculars connected to the hood. He hadn’t taken offense at Stacey’s impatience. Why should he? Everyone treated him the same.
“Deek asked me to talk to you about the gun, sweats and bolt cutters found at the Reid home. He’s wondering if you’ll call him at the hospital with the results just as soon as you get anything.”
“Sure thing.” He’d already turned back to his work.Saunders signed the required papers and checked the seal like it was second nature. Stacey wondered if he’d heard a word he’d said. Still he pressed forward. Removing the small zip-lock bag from his shirt pocket, he nonchalantly placed it on the table. “We also need you to see if the fibers on the clothing match the fibers in this bag.”
“No problem.” Saunders took the bag and laid it atop the other one Stacey had brought.
Stacey gave a little shrug. “Please, make sure you call Deek directly with the results, okay?”
The man gave Stacey another cursory glance and nodded.
Several routine traffic stops later, he returned to the station, arriving around two. Barker, still on the phone, his tired eyes staring off into space, was at his desk. The pile of phone messages had only slightly diminished. “How’s it going? Can you use some help?”
He nodded, picked up a pile of messages and handed them to Stacey. “Yes, I know....” he spoke into the receiver. “We’re doing our best....We’ll call if anything turns up.” He hung up the phone. “All we get is a bunch of junk,” he spat, his frustration mounting. “Yeah, you can give me a hand with these calls. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be here all night. Now I wish the media hadn’t asked for help. Here,” he added, extending his hand to retrieve the messages, “you concentrate on the Ashley case, sort out the Derickson shooting, and I’ll give those calls to the captain.”
Ignoring Barker’s change of mind, Stacey sat down and began sorting through the light yellow slips of paper. Most seemed insignificant. Those he shuffled into one stack, while any good leads went into another. He continued rifling through the notes, leads sent in by overenthusiastic callers. An old Chevy stopped by the Levan Hotel Thursday night for about half an hour, read one. Stacey pulled it aside from the rest. “Barker, isn’t Levan about 50 miles away?”
“I think so. Why?”
“I just couldn’t remember.” He took another look at the message. Call the owner at 555-1121, Levan, UT....He slid the message into his top desk drawer and began calling on the first message from the “useful” pile.