You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and looking at the water.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Indian poet
Jeff O’Brien sat in his quiet Detroit police car for fifteen or twenty minutes, just letting his eyes get accustomed to the darkness.
He pulled straight in under a large overhanging tree branch full of leaves, camouflaging the short LED light bar on the top of the unmarked black traffic car. His windows were all down and there wasn’t a sound, no late summer breeze to stir the turning leaves, not even crickets.
In Hollywood movies, that was supposed to be a sign of danger.
He unbuckled his Sam Browne and quietly eased the rattling equipment belt off and to the rubber floor mat on the passenger side. Habitually ensuring the iPhone was on vibrate, O’Brien unbuttoned his right shirt pocket, tucked in the flap and inserted the phone upside-down, with the mic facing up. He had preselected Tracey’s Call Back number from her last inbound call. All of her questions would be answered tonight.
The phone buzzed again. He didn’t need to look at it to know who was calling. Patience, honey, he thought to himself, silencing the vibration. I’m moving as fast as I can here.
He picked up his service weapon from the passenger seat and popped his car door as quietly as he could. The interior light in his squad car had burned out months ago and never was replaced. He stood next to the police car and pressed the door closed until it clicked once, just enough to not risk it blowing open if a random wind arose.
He reached up with his left hand and pressed the Call Back button on the phone.
In Amber’s Corvette, Tracey’s phone rang. She saw who was calling.
“Hey Jeff,” she said casually. “How the heck are ya?”
“Hey sarge,” O’Brien said. His voice was low, but clear. “Saw you were trying to reach me.”
“No kiddin’, huh? You know why I’m trying to reach you, shithead.”
“Oh Trace, is that any way to talk to the man who might have been the father of your children?”
O’Brien could hear her plainly in the still night with the phone volume up to about half, but his speakerphone function was not on and the sound didn’t carry more than a foot or two. With his phone upside-down in his shirt pocket, the small mic was pointed just about directly at his face. Tracey could hear everything as clear as a bell.
“Not a chance in hell, man. But that’s a topic for another time. Why did you kill al-Taja? Why did you flake that weed and guns onto poor Cortez? He ain’t got enough of life stacked against him already?”
Tracey was getting angrier by the word. She was bitterly disappointed in her friend, and separately, in her police colleague.
“You’re a cop, fercrissakes! You’re supposed to look out for people, not screw them over. Not friggin’ kill people.”
“Assumes facts not in evidence, sergeant. I expect better police work from you than a slavish devotion to the superficial.”
O’Brien walked slowly, silently through the freshly mown grass, keeping to the shadows. His dark blue police uniform made him nearly invisible in the night.
“I didn’t kill al-Taja. If you knew all the facts, you would understand like I do.”
“Then try telling me the fucking facts!” Tracey yelled into her phone. “Believe me, I have a few thousand questions I need to ask you. Where are you right now? We’ll come to you.”
“Well, I’m kinda busy right now, but I am, in fact, going to help you get your case file right, and I need you to shut the hell up for a miraculous change and just listen, okay? Promise me you will stop talking now. You’ll hear everything, but you really gotta shut the hell up now. Or you’re gonna get my ass killed.”
“Where are you? Do you need backup? We’re in Dearborn. Just tell me where you are.”
“I’m meeting the guy who got me involved in all this crap. All shall become clear soon. I want you to hear what goes on, so mute your phone but leave the call open, okay? You’ll understand. You won’t approve, but you’ll understand. That’s the best I can hope for now.”
“Amber,” Tracey said. “Get your phone out and record what comes out of my phone, okay?”
“You got it.” Amber reached into her purse and withdrew her cellphone.
“All right, Jeff, we’re listening. But don’t get friggin’ murdered out there, because I intend to kill your ass myownself.”
The two set their phones up. Tracey muted her mic, placed the speakerphone to Amber’s mic, and Amber secured the phones with a length of duct tape from a roll behind her seat. She opened her voice memo app and pushed record.
“Amber,” Tracey said, “please stay here and listen? Imma step out for a sec.”
“Hell of a time for a potty stop, hon,” Amber said.
Tracey got out of the car without responding, taking her Detroit Police handset radio.
“Two-six-six-three calling radio,” Tracey said into the device.
“Go ahead two-six-six-three,” dispatch said.
“Yes ma’am, could you have Six-70 change to echo-5-bravo, please?”
“Radio calling Six-Seventy. Change to Echo-5-bravo for two-six-six-three.”
“Six-Seventy, radio. Copy.”
Tracey changed the radio frequency to an encrypted off-dispatch channel so that only she and the Sixth Precinct desk sergeant were in on the conversation. Anyone else hearing the call with an encrypted radio could also listen in, but at this time of night, that possibility was unlikely. And it didn’t matter, anyway. She counted to five and keyed her radio.
“Two-six-six-three.”
“D-Six-Seventy here, go ahead, sergeant.”
“Jay, I need a fast favor. Please call up Jeff O’Brien’s location on your CAD and send me a snapshot of his coordinates? Just grab a photo with your phone and text it to me ASAP, okay?”
She gave the desk sergeant her personal cellphone number. Receiving the photo on her phone wouldn’t interfere with monitoring Jeff’s broadcast with her work phone.
“Copy that. Standby.”
“Thanks, Jay. I owe ya,” Tracey said.
A moment later Ivy came back on the radio.
“Sending it. His icon is pink, so he’s been stopped longer than ten minutes and that also means he hasn’t checked in to OpsCenter.”
He paused, not knowing whether he should ask anything more.
“Hey Tracey, what the hell’s goin’ on out there? You guys need cavalry? I ain’t got much to send, but I can send what I got.”
“Not sure. I’ll let you know more when I know it. Thanks, though. Out here, brother.”