| |
Mac was dressed in black trousers, and a medium gray, long-sleeved shirt. This wasn’t his first ride-along, and he wanted to blend in without looking like a cop. He was an observer.
Once he’d been with some cops who had been called to a knife fight at a bar. Two cars of cops rush into the bar, leaving him standing in the parking lot. One cop called, ‘stay there’ over his shoulder as he hit the door. And there Mac was, alone in the parking lot, when all of the bar occupants poured out of there, wanting to escape the cops. Not a cop, he projected at them, hoping for the best. Just a guy.
Some just pushed past him. Most had taken one look at him and gone a different direction. But hell, most people did that anyway — the smart ones.
Mac parked in the public parking lot this time and went through his backpack. Laptop under the passenger’s seat. His gun went into the lock box under his seat. He left the video camera there too. He wasn’t sure the last time it had been backed up, and he didn’t want to risk Angie’s footage of the protest. Would a cop take his camera and erase what was on it?
You betcha.
He stashed his phone in his pocket, put car keys and wallet in another pocket, and headed inside the precinct building. The building was quiet and felt empty. A middle-aged woman sat at the front desk, with Sgt. McBride leaning against the cubicle divider behind her. Her eyes met his, and he knew then. Shit.
But he played it straight. “Captain Abrams made arrangements for me to do a ride-along with one of the patrols tonight,” he said with a nod to Sgt. McBride. “Can you call them for me?”
“You’re going to be riding with me,” McBride said, straightening up.
“I didn’t know you did your own patrols, sergeant,” Mac said.
“I made a special exception just for tonight,” McBride said, smiling. “Unless you want to back out.”
That wasn’t an option. It would get around, and Mac knew he would lose credibility with other officers. “No problem,” Mac said. “I’ve got a lot of questions for you, actually.” McBride lost his smile at that.
Mac patted his pocket as if his phone had buzzed. He pulled it out and pretended to look at the texts. “Got to return this one,” he said apologizing. “Where should I meet you? Car out back?”
“I’ll pull it around,” McBride said. “Be out front in 5!”
When he left, the woman said, “Don’t go. You were supposed to ride with Deacon.”
Mac smiled at her. “Doesn’t work that way,” he said, and figured she knew. Being a woman in the police department in any role was tough. They all knew how the game was played. “But you might want to give Captain Abrams a heads up that his order was overruled.”
She nodded slowly. “I can do that.”
Mac stepped outside, and quickly called Shorty on his work cell phone. He explained the change in plans. “I’m going to leave this phone line open,” Mac finished. “It will be in my pocket. Record it, will you?”
“Mac, this is insane. That man was behind a plot to kill you less than a year ago, and you’re going to get in a patrol car with him?” Shorty protested. He paused, then added, “You can record things on your own phone, you know.”
“I do,” Mac said, ignoring the rest. He didn’t have a lot of time here. “But if you record it, and I know about it, it’s a legal tap. If I record it without telling McBride, it’s illegal. Not only could I face charges, Janet would have my ears.”
Shorty laughed at that.
“So, just set it up and let it record,” Mac continued. “It may not be a thing at all, you know? But in case I need backup and proof, I’ll have it.”
“I’ll hook it up to the computer, and block out ambient noise,” Shorty promised. “You don’t mind if I listen in, do you?”
“Don’t you have something better to do on a Friday night?” Mac teased. When Shorty protested, Mac laughed. “Feel free. Backup feels good.”
“Not that I could do anything if you get yourself into trouble,” Shorty muttered. “Do not make me sit there and listen to your death, you hear me?”
“Give me some credit,” Mac said. “I think I can take an aging cop, don’t you?”
“Mac, take care,” Shorty said quietly. “I don’t like this.”
Me neither, bro, me neither, Mac thought. “Got to go,” was all he said out loud. He dropped the phone into his pocket, then went to meet McBride.
“What’s in the backpack?” McBride said as Mac got into the car. “You a school kid or something?” He snickered. “Need snacks?”
Mac laughed. “Snacks wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he admitted. “But you guys get to wear your gear on a belt and look cool. I pack my gear in this — notebook, pens, a camera sometimes. Joe Conte even keeps a tie in his, but I figure you all would die of shock if I showed wearing a tie.”
McBride grunted. He backed the patrol car out of its assigned spot and pulled out of the parking lot.
“So, what’s the plan?” Mac asked. “You doing a regular patrol route?”
“Yeah,” McBride said. “We’re short a man anyway. And I didn’t want you harassing some street officer for all of our secrets or something.”
Mac shrugged. “Most of the cops I’ve ridden with seemed to find it tolerable,” he said. “So why are you all so short staffed?”
“Can’t pay them enough,” McBride said. “Officers don’t make enough to want to stay. And it’s hard to recruit replacements when you don’t offer enough for them to live on in the district.”
“Starting pay is around $100K, isn’t it?” Mac asked. “More or less?”
McBride glanced at him. “Hard to support a family on that.”
Mac didn’t point out that it was almost twice what he made as a newspaper reporter — television reporters made more, but not print — and that he was buying a house on those wages. He knew most reporters couldn’t — he was lucky to have an aunt who wanted to sell. And he and Angie split expenses.
“I hear you,” Mac just said. “Do most cops have families? Wives who work?”
McBride looked at him quizzically. “This really what you wanted to talk about?”
Mac nodded. “We got a couple of hours, right? So yeah, I usually just let the conversation wander. See what is on the mind of the officer I’m with. See what they do, how they spend their time. It’s always been enlightening.”
McBride grunted. “We’ve got a lot of young officers,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of turnover. So some of them are single and might even share an apartment to make ends meet. But that isn’t what they want out of life. And that’s the problem — pay raises are hard to come by. Step increases, yes. Rank is tougher. But if you move up in rank you might not be assigned up here — probably won’t be, actually. So most men want to marry, have a family, buy a house. And if you can’t offer that, you’re going to have turnover, vacancies, inexperienced officers.”
Men, Mac noted, but didn’t ask about it. He supposed a woman officer’s goals were similar, but it was telling that McBride didn’t think in those terms. An officer was a young man.
“Isn’t that what you want?” McBride asked. “A wife and family?”
Mac shrugged a bit. “Sure,” he said. “But I make less than your officers do. So I’m in no hurry.”
“That little gal with the camera is your girl, isn’t she?”
Mac nodded. He couldn’t wait until Angie heard that part of the recording. “Been together almost a year,” he said. “What about you? You married?” Mac knew he was. He had two teenaged sons.
“Yeah,” McBride said. “Married, kids, a house, with a yard to mow and a mortgage to pay.”
“So cops supplement with overtime shifts, and outside security gigs, I take it?” Mac said.
“Pretty standard,” McBride said, sounding somewhat defensive. Mac just nodded.
They were driving through a part of the district west of I-5. Mac didn’t get the sense that McBride had any destination planned, just taking a look around. They talked about what McBride looked for as he drove. Mac kept the conversation going, and gradually McBride relaxed.
“So I saw a cartoon this morning — Joe Conte had it,” Mac said. They’d dropped down to Green Lake, made a swing through the ritzy neighborhood there, and around the lake. Now they were heading east, under I-5. “It showed what a cop dressed like in the ‘60s, uniform, belt, weapon, and a club, another cop from the ‘90s, with a bulletproof vest added, and some mace and a stun gun, and one now — looked like you and your men the other day with helmet, visor, shield, boots, all the gear. Made me envious — we could have used some of that while I was serving in Afghanistan,” Mac said. “You’ve been around awhile. Is the world that much more dangerous than it used to be for a cop? I mean the ‘60s had the war protests, and the ‘90s had WTO.”
“It’s dangerous,” McBride said. “And it only makes sense to have the best protection you can. Yeah, we didn’t have the visor and shield when I started out. But I feel a hell of a lot safer behind one, I’ll tell you that.”
“Do you have call to use them much?” Mac asked.
McBride shrugged. “No. But it’s nice to know they’re there if you need one.”
“Do officers carry all that gear all the time? Like tonight?” Mac continued. He was looking out the window, not at McBride directly. But he could see McBride’s reflection in the glass. McBride started to respond, then stopped, and took a breath. So Mac wasn’t the only one who was projecting nonchalance.
“No, I don’t have one in the trunk tonight,” McBride said. “On a routine patrol? Probably not. They’re more effective for crowd control, really. Puts the fear of God into a bunch of protestors at the U, for instance. I’m not expecting that kind of issue tonight.”
“What are you planning tonight?” Mac asked.
“Got some reports of drug dealing,” McBride said. “So beyond the routine, there’s a place we’re going to check out — another patrol unit will join us there. But mostly, it’s just showing up. Making sure that people see us.”
Mac nodded. McBride was giving all the right answers. Mac didn’t believe a word of it.
McBride’s handheld crackled. McBride pulled over to take it.
“We have a call for backup from the university police, sergeant,” the dispatcher said. She gave an address. “Do you approve a re-assignment?”
Mac jumped. The address was that of Fairchild House. What the hell?
“Tell them I’ll assign someone as soon as we have the manpower,” McBride said. “We’re shorthanded tonight, otherwise I wouldn’t be out here.”
Lie, Mac thought.
“So tell them they’ll have to make do with their own men,” McBride continued. “They’ve got more resources than we do, anyway.”
“I’ll tell them,” the dispatcher said. “Any chance you might head their way?”
“We’ve got a possible drug deal location to check out. As soon as I meet up with the other officers, I will,” McBride said. “Probably 30 minutes or so. They can hold out that long, surely.” McBride’s tone was disparaging.
“Thirty minutes,” the dispatcher repeated. “I’ll tell them.”
McBride pushed the end-call button. “You do that,” he muttered.
Mac’s mind was racing. He hoped Shorty had picked up the address and knew its significance. But damn it, Rand was there. He was supposed to be there, anyway. What could be going on that was more than he could handle? “I wouldn’t mind observing you collaborating with university police,” Mac said casually. “That would be interesting, actually.”
“Not tonight,” McBride said flatly. He pulled the car back onto the road. “I have this site investigation planned with another officer, and we’re not going to leave him hanging because the university wannabes can’t do their job.”
Mac chewed on his cheek. Thirty minutes, he thought. Surely Rand was good for that.
“Where are we going?” Mac asked.
“Green Lake Reservoir,” McBride said, and it sounded like there was real malice in his voice. “Heard of it?”
Shit, Mac thought. “Yeah,” he said. “The dumping ground for police’s botched arrests, right? Isn’t that what they say?”
“Not to my face, they don’t,” McBride said. “I can’t help it if it’s a known location for drug dealers to meet up. And I can’t help it, if some people want to commit suicide in public. It is what it is.”
Mac snorted. “Known location for drug dealers to meet up? Did that get passed on to the DEA? Or Narcotics?”
McBride shrugged. “Everybody knows it. It’s why people don’t come out here late at night. It’s a tough area.”
Mac rolled his eyes and dropped the pretense that this was just a normal ride-along. “How much did you charge them, McBride? I can’t imagine you didn’t get a take of some kind for it. Let them dump there, send out some of your men to botch the scene, and make sure the body got to the right medical examiner. Isn’t that what the prosecutors are alleging? And you think you’ve got drug dealers using the area for something?”
“I know they are,” McBride said with a slight smile. “The main supplier uses the reservoir park to parcel out the goods.”
“And you chose tonight to bust him for it?” Mac asked. He was pretty sure that the supplier was the Burmese man who had paid him a visit this morning.
“No,” McBride said pulling into the lot. He parked and shut off the car. He turned to face Mac, and he had his gun in his hand. “We’re here tonight because I know he isn’t. He’s busy elsewhere.”
Mac looked at the gun. “So there really is a look-away list,” Mac said. “What’s the take for looking away while drug suppliers out of Canada bring it down I-5 to Green Lake Reservoir?”
“I’ve got the drop on you, and that’s what you’re asking me?” McBride laughed and shook his head.
“I’ve had guns pulled on me before,” Mac said dryly. “That’s nothing new. Getting to ask a dirty cop about how much he makes from drug dealers, however, is a novelty.”
McBride laughed again. “You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that,” he said.
“So am I a paid-for favor? Or this personal?” Mac asked.
“Both,” McBride said. “You’ve annoyed the wrong people, and I’m probably the least dangerous of them. But there are going to be more people celebrating your death than mourning you at your funeral.”
Mac shrugged. “I only piss off the best,” he said. “So this is how a cop really supplements his income? Being on the take from drug suppliers?”
“My job is to keep the law-abiding people of this precinct safe,” McBride said coldly. “Been doing it for over 20 years. Everyone wants us cops to play by all the rules, but the bad guys aren’t playing by rules, Mac. So I’m a big proponent of shoot first. No catch and release for lowlifes in this neighborhood.”
“And yet you look the other way when drug suppliers come down I-5 and spread drugs all over the city including to the kids? How’s that part of keeping people safe?” Mac asked.
McBride grunted. “You tell me. My client for the evening says you’ve got ties to a Mexican cartel, yourself.”
Mac laughed. “You need to update your sources of gossip, Sergeant.”
McBride got out of the car, came around to Mac’s side and beeped the door locks open. “Get out of the car.”
Mac used his elbow to push the latch down and then push the door open. He wanted to keep his hands free, if he could. He didn’t take his backpack. No point — maybe he should have figured out a way to carry tonight. Too late for that.
“Over there,” McBride ordered, gesturing with his head toward the darker end of the small parking lot. Mac moved slowly in that direction. There was no one else out here. Well, this wasn’t one of the better known natural areas in the city. That’s why the police had been dumping bodies out here in the first place after all.
And it was getting dark, so it was unlikely anybody was coming out here this late. It had to be close to 10 p.m.
Not all the bodies had ended up here. They’d actually been pretty smart about it. But over a dozen years, 20 people of color had been found in the north precinct and ruled to be suicides, committed in public places. Several of them had been found here.
McBride grabbed the backpack, however, when he followed Mac out toward the wilder area. “You got a weapon in here? I hear you carry,” McBride said.
“No,” Mac said sourly. “Early on as a reporter, I forgot I had one in my backpack. I went into the SPD downtown office and set off all the alarms. Had to call a friendly cop down to vouch for me. Got razzed about it for weeks. I leave it in my rig when I’m going into a cop shop.”
McBride chuckled. “Heard about that,” he said. “Pity, though. That would have made this easy.”
Mac didn’t ask what he meant; another car was pulling into the lot. A second cop car. When McBride glanced over at the car, Mac bolted for the trees.
***
Shorty wasn’t happy about what Mac was doing. A ride-along was one thing, but with McBride? Jesus, Mac.
So he decided to listen in. His phone was plugged into his computer so it could record. Mac could be really smart for a man who hated technology. Shorty had looked it up, and Mac was right. Mac couldn’t record without informing McBride he was being recorded. But he could agree to allow a third party to record him talking to someone who didn’t know about the recording — essentially Mac was wearing an ad hoc wire.
And Shorty was the narc. He shook his head.
For a while the conversation just ambled about how hard it was to recruit cops. Shorty thought McBride should try living on a teacher’s wages. Starting pay for a teacher was $80K — and that was with a master’s degree. A cop just needed an AA and the police academy.
And there was no overtime for teachers, not like what cops got. Well, coaches, Shorty conceded. But that wasn’t the kind of overtime the police union had negotiated for officers.
Shorty agreed with Mac that the police union had too much power in Seattle — most cities, he suspected. But in Seattle it was particularly true. It was why there was federal oversight of the police department when you came right down to it — cops were getting away with murder. Literally.
And Shorty thought Mac might be right that the lack of speed on the criminal cases from last fall, and the lack of pursuit of McBride, had to do with the police union flexing its power.
But unions were a good thing, overall, Shorty thought stubbornly. Teachers had been paid crap until they unionized. When district administration had all the power, they’d also gotten all the pay increases. Still did, although it was better now, pitiful as that was.
A beginning assistant principal made $150K. Assistant principal. A school superintendent made two or three times that. So you had teachers making $80K, and administrators making two or three times that much.
For a lot of teachers, they couldn’t live in the district they taught in, not on $80K. Shorty often joked he was the only teacher in the Bellevue school district who could afford to live in Bellevue — but he suspected it was probably true, unless the teacher’s spouse made better money. A lot better money. Shorty could do it because he still took on clients for data mining, and he’d gotten good at investing in the stock market for himself and a few others like Mac.
But it was just plain wrong. He had students whose allowances were as much as most teachers made in a week. They got a Mercedes convertible for their 16th birthday while their teachers were driving used Toyotas. And hell yes, it did matter. The kids were raised to only respect success — and for most of the families in Bellevue that meant financial success — and they could calculate the pecking order to the nth degree. Why respect someone who obviously didn’t reach very high on that success ladder?
Sometimes the contempt dripped off the young assholes — and the apples didn’t fall far from the trees. Shorty had been in on some teacher-parent conferences where the fathers — and sometimes the mothers — had that same contempt for the teachers.
It was destroying the schools, and the kids were the ones who suffered.
But it would be a whole lot worse if it wasn’t for the unions. Journalism was a good example of that actually — Mac made a third less at the Examiner than Shorty did teaching. Pretty pitiful when you made less than a teacher. But the Seattle Times was different. It was a union shop, and reporters there made almost as much as the cops.
Shorty sighed. He was doing research on these burning questions while he listened to Mac and McBride talk. It was interesting, but Mac was right — he could think of better things to do on a Friday night.
He was always intrigued listening to a reporter gather information. Watching Janet Andrews do it at the Parker House had been particularly illuminating. Mac didn’t always ask the questions Shorty would have. A couple of times tonight he wanted to prompt a follow-up question. But Mac made it into a conversation, and he was getting McBride to share more than Shorty would have expected.
Then he heard the radio — and the dispatcher was talking about an address he knew — the Fairchild House. What the hell? He reached for his phone, and then grimaced, afraid he might lose the call if he fiddled with it. So he used his computer to send a text message to Rand and Naomi.
And then the conversation turned into a nightmare.
“So there really is a look-away list. What’s the take for looking away while drug suppliers out of Canada bring it down I-5 to Green Lake Reservoir?
Dear God Mac, what are you doing?
I’ve got the drop on you, and that’s what you’re asking me?
I’ve had guns pulled on me before. That’s nothing new. Getting to ask a dirty cop about how much he makes from drug dealers, however, is a novelty.
McBride laughed. You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that. Get out of the car.
Balls and no brains, Shorty thought. What the hell was Mac thinking?
And what was Shorty supposed to do now? The phone was silent, and Shorty held his breath, waiting for a shot to be fired. But there was just silence.
“Shorty?” Mac said quietly. “You there?”
Shorty snatched up the phone, disconnecting it from the computer. “What the hell?”
“I got away from him, them — some other cops just showed up. I’m out at Green Lake Reservoir. Call Dunbar — he’ll know where. Tell him to come get me and bring backup.”
“Can’t record you and make calls at the same time,” Shorty said. He was jotting down notes, mostly just to keep from freaking out.
“You didn’t keep any of those clean phones from last fall?” Mac demanded, still remembering to keep his voice low.
“We went through clean phones almost as fast as we went through toilet paper,” Shorty responded, somewhat defensive. Say what you would about Win Whalen’s ethics or even his sanity, he did good tech. Or his people did.
“We went through a lot of toilet paper,” Mac agreed. Shorty snorted.
“Do you know what’s going on at the Fairchild House?” Mac asked. “McBride refused to provide backup. I think he took a bribe from the Burma guys to put them on a look-away list.”
“I sent out a text to Rand and Naomi,” Shorty said, glancing at his computer screen. “No response.”
Mac grunted. “Might give Janet and Stan Warren a heads up.”
Shorty added it to his list.
“Gotta go,” Mac said abruptly. “I wanna get close enough to hear what they’re saying. Call me back when you can.”
That did not sound like a good idea, Shorty thought with alarm. Before he could say anything, Mac had ended the call.
Shit.
Shorty called Dunbar’s number, but it went straight to voicemail. Shorty left a message to call him ASAP. He called Janet Andrews, voicemail. And Stan Warren, voicemail again.
Sure seemed like everyone besides him was having a good time on a Friday night. Unfortunately, he didn't think that was the explanation. What was going on at the Fairchild House?
That question would have to wait, he decided. He needed to get backup out to Mac. Mac might be able to take care of himself, but it was a long walk home. He tapped his fingers. Maybe that other cop reporter? He couldn’t remember his name. Joe somebody. He scrolled through his contacts. Nothing popped out at him.
Finally, he sighed and called Angie. He didn’t want to worry her, but he had run out of names. She would have more.
“Where is he exactly?” Angie asked, after she listened to his stammered explanation.
“Green Lake Reservoir,” Shorty repeated. “He said Dunbar would know it — that’s the place they were dumping their ‘suicides,’ isn’t it?”
“One of them,” Angie agreed. “All right, I’m headed out there. You keep trying to find out what’s happening at Fairchild House.”
“What?” Shorty yelped. “No way. Angie, you can’t go out there! I thought maybe you’d have Joe Conte’s telephone number or something. Mac will kill me if you go out to rescue him!”
“I’m not going to go alone,” Angie assured him. “And I’ll take a gun along. But I’m going. If you get a hold of Dunbar, you can send him out too. Or Stan Warren. But I’m going.”
She hung up on him. Shorty stared at his phone for a moment. Call Mac back and tell him? Nah, he thought it might be at a bad moment out there. Finally he did what Angie told him to do and tried to get a hold of Joe Dunbar one more time.
***
Mac put his phone back in his pocket. He’d gone to ground in the woods between the parking lot and the reservoir. Thankful for his dark clothes, Mac squatted down behind a tree, and watched the parking lot. Two cops got out of the new car. With a lot of hand gestures, McBride seemed to be telling them to hunt him down.
They were arguing, which surprised Mac. He thought McBride’s officers pretty much did what he told them. He wanted to hear. Studying the woods, he identified a location that was closer but equally protected, and he low-walked toward it. Head below the fire zone, he reminded himself.
Fortunately for him, they were shouting. Not hard to hear at all. Mac pulled out his phone, and now he did record them. Being hunted changed things, he thought with amusement.
“I’m not going in there after a former Marine, Sarge,” one man said vehemently. “This was nuts to begin with!”
“I didn’t sign up for this,” the other officer muttered. “No one told me we’d be doing this. Dumping an already dead body is one thing — killing someone? I’m not down with that.”
Mac rolled his eyes. Yeah, that’s how it works, bro. You do a little bit, and then you’re asked to do a little bit more, and then you can’t back out. This was why McBride’s men were so ‘loyal’ to him. He’d ensured everyone would go down with him if it came to it.
“So you don’t want a part of the money we’re getting paid for disposing of this guy?” McBride sneered. “Grant you, I would’ve done it for the pleasure of taking out that smug bastard. But $100K isn’t pennies to be sneered at.”
The older of the two officers, who had been reluctant to go in after a Marine, whistled. “Split three ways? Not bad.”
“Split half between you two, half for me,” McBride corrected. “I make the contract deals, remember?”
Mac wondered what the original amount really had been. Had they come directly to McBride, or was he using Josh Hill as a cutout? He suspected he knew who had ordered the hit — the Burmese drug suppliers who had visited him this morning. He could even see their reasoning. Putting it out there that he’d been taken down by disgruntled cops would eliminate possible cartel retaliation. Mac didn’t think his father would care either way, but his pride might make him do something. Proud men could be unpredictable, and Hector Del Toro already faced dissatisfaction from his men that he didn’t have the guts to be brutal when necessary. So who knows? Obviously the Burmese suppliers were hesitating because they thought Del Toro would do something. He wondered if McBride knew why the price was so high? Did he know he was taking on the Del Toro cartel?
Not that it mattered. Mac had no intention of ending up in a body bag.
“We should have stuck to look-away tasks,” the older officer muttered. “Plenty of money, and we flew under the radar. Left the high-flying gigs to Rourke — and see what that got him?”
“Got him a hell of a lot of money,” McBride said coldly. “Don’t count Captain Rourke out. He hasn’t gone to court yet, has he? And I’m betting he won’t go down for anything. In the meantime, those jobs are out there for the taking. We just won’t get caught.”
“And you think taking out a journalist is the way to do that?” the cop demanded. “Hell, they’ll never quit tracking us down for that!”
“Mac Davis isn’t just a journalist,” McBride said. “His father is a drug cartel capo out of Mexico. He’s dirtier than we are. So we take him out for a competitor of his father. Plant some drugs, and a gun. It gets framed as a drug dealer getting what he deserves when he gets caught in the crossfire between two drug suppliers.”
Well, apparently the Burmese had coughed up his background. McBride’s twist on it was interesting.
“He’s what?” the younger cop said slowly. “Davis deals drugs?”
“Nah,” the older cop said. “I don’t buy that.”
Well, thank you for that at least, Mac thought with disgust.
“But could we make others believe it?” the older cop continued thoughtfully. “Maybe. Diligent investigative work, because we’re as appalled as his newspaper is by his death? And lo and behold.”
Mac was pretty sure Janet wouldn’t buy it. But would it provide the cover these three needed? Possibly. Of course, they still had to make it happen. Mac silently moved away from the parking lot. He’d heard all he needed to hear.
He visualized a map. They’d driven all around the area, but really this reservoir wasn’t all that far from the police station. Two miles? Three at the most. Mac oriented himself, and headed north, but he quickly ran out of woods. The reservoir backed up to the Maple Leaf neighborhood, a ritzy area where residents were going to notice a man running in street clothes after dark. Mac frowned, studying the situation. Walk, he thought, just a man out for a late walk. There was no hurry, just a confident, well-dressed man who was taking advantage of the cooler temperatures in the late evening.
Sure, he thought, as long as they don’t get too close and see the wrinkles in your clothes from cutting through the undergrowth. But why would they — unless they too were out for a late night stroll? You nodded at each other and kept going.
He squared his shoulders, and dropped them out of the hunched, hunter posture. But as he started out of his hiding spot, a car turned down the street. Mac faded back into the woods. The car was moving slowly — too slowly, he thought, his eyes narrowing. And as his eyes adjusted from the glare of the headlights, he could see the light bar across the top of the car.
A cop.
Had he seen Mac duck back into the woods? Mac watched, ready to run deeper in, but the car didn’t pause. Mac watched it drive farther east, then turn north. He frowned. Coincidence? He doubted it.
He dropped back farther into the woods and headed west instead. The reservoir was probably six blocks from I-5. If he could reach that underpass, and angle north from there, he’d reach the North Seattle College campus. Hopefully it wouldn’t be as deserted as the Maple Leaf neighborhood.
He was grateful for his knowledge of the streets of Seattle. He’d roamed them as a teen, either scoping out cars with Toby and his friends, or ducking cops who were chasing them all. Or just cruising through them, drinking, smoking weed, looking at how the rich lived. He’d imagined the lives of the people in these big houses, wondered at the trendy people who sat outside cafes and laughed with friends, or stood in line to get into whatever bar was ‘the place’ this week.
Toby had especially liked the big houses with their imposing entryways, and multiple car garages. “I’m going to have a place like that someday,” he had vowed more than once.
“And the lady and two kids to go with it?” Mac had teased.
“Damned right.”
And he had, Mac thought. Drug lord of Vallejo, Lindy used to call him. Until one day his daughter looked at him, and said, “Daddy? What do you do for work? We’re having show-and-tell at school.”
He admired the hell out of Toby for taking that to heart and getting the hell out. He hoped he had enough money set aside to fund his new life. His old life would suck him back in, if he didn’t.
He shook his head and focused on his surroundings. Seattle had changed in the last decade. But his job as a cop reporter had made him familiar with these streets in a different way — where was a crime located? What were the hot spots? Now he navigated by the stories he’d done, the scenes he’d been called to. It felt weird.
Mac could hear men crashing through the underbrush to the south of him. McBride’s men, he assumed. How many men could McBride call in for this manhunt? Did they know who they were hunting?
The two who had answered McBride’s call to the parking lot had. But putting a BOLO out wouldn’t require that much information. There were about a dozen patrol officers on duty in the north precinct at any one time. And nothing said he couldn’t call on off-duty personnel.
How badly did McBride want him?
Really, $100K was a lot of money, and if what he suspected was true, McBride had already taken a cut off the top. That was a lot of incentive. Add in the fact that McBride was done if Mac got to safety. He could smear Mac all he wanted, but the truth was he’d taken a man out to the reservoir intending to kill him for money.
Mac crouched down at a different edge of the woods. A car drove by. Not a marked car, but Mac had a well-honed sense for a cop — those teen years hadn’t gone to waste, he thought with amusement. A Chevy Impala? What was the joke? Buy American, the government does. The police were moving to Ford SUVs, he’d been told. But that would phase in over the next couple of years.
That was a cop. Mac waited as the unmarked car drove past. Well, shit.