Stafford needed to calm down.
It had been a rough morning. The poor shooting, the lack of sleep, and the police interrogation all rattled his nerves.
He knew just the remedy.
He stashed the truck in his favorite downtown hidey-hole, an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the commercial district. Then he inspected the vehicle one more time, making sure he’d covered all of his bases.
All good. Identifying marks, all scrubbed.
He walked a few blocks and rode up to the top of one of Clayton’s few high-rise commercial buildings. This one featured a rooftop patio for a posh restaurant that wouldn’t open until dinner. He’d pinched an electronic key to the place a month before from a loser at the dojo, and the guy must not have reported it, because it still worked. There he gazed out over the city’s west side, preferring its lush greenery over the east side’s industrial decline and suburban sprawl. The rolling hills featured a mix of evergreen and deciduous trees changing color, signaling greater changes to come. The view refreshed his soul, settled his nerves.
Aided by a quick shot of whiskey he’d stashed in his lunch bag.
The break calmed him, settling his stomach enough so he could wolf down the pastrami sandwich, extra mustard, he’d packed for himself that morning. Along with a side of barbecue chips and a Coke. The original, not that new zero-sugar crap.
The city busied itself thirty stories below him, the slow-moving traffic seeming not to annoy the zombie-like drivers of all those shiny little Volvos and Toyotas. Not the way it bothered him, anyway. They’d swallowed the blue pill, so to speak, numbing their brains so they could continue to live in ignorant bliss.
“Prepare yourselves,” he said to the zombie-like masses, though they couldn’t hear him. “The red pills are coming.”
The pills, though, would take the form of bullets. Many, many more bullets, raining down upon their heads. It would shock them at first, but it would also break them out of their euphoric haze. Then they would awaken. Discover the Truth. Realize the changes needed and beg for a leader to make it all happen.
A bold leader. One who took action.
By the time he finished lunch, his mood improved enough to restore his confidence and enable him to engage in the confrontation that lay ahead.
With Cap. That fucking asshole. With all the trouble Cap had caused, he should’ve thrown him under the bus instead of protecting him. Let the bastard rot in jail. No way he could prevent Stafford’s rise in the organization then. Hell, Stafford might not even need Torrington or Fairview. He could take over the Clayton cell.
In a buoyant mood, he completed his afternoon rounds early and parked in an alley behind some dumpsters a half-block from the safe house. He peeled off his company shirt in the back of the truck, replacing it with a crisp, pale blue button-down. He donned a navy blazer—it would make him look managerial. No tie, though: the organization didn’t go for Wall Street formalities. He combed his hair, replaced his comfortable walking shoes with some Dockers, and checked his reflection with the selfie setting on his phone’s camera. Perfect: business casual.
He strolled to the safe house building, taking the stairs up to the second floor with confident ease. Listened at the door, finding silence, then rapped the safe knock pattern just in case. Still no sounds inside. He slipped his key into the lock.
It wouldn’t turn.
He tried the key in the door handle. Wouldn’t even slide all the way in, even when forcing it.
Damn these cheap locks in these ancient buildings! He removed the key, wiped it clean, slipped it back in to the deadbolt. Again, it wouldn’t budge.
Drawing the key out again, he noticed the color of the lock core: antique brass. Not the shiny brass of the lock housing. Ditto for the door handle.
Someone changed the damned locks.
He speed-dialed Cap, preparing his angry tirade against this indignity. Three rings, then voicemail. Except, as the robotic voice informed him, “The voice mailbox for this number has not yet been activated.” Because Cap never bothered with voicemail.
He called back. Voicemail in less than two rings. Fucking Cap was ignoring his calls!
In the distance, a siren, getting louder. Had they followed him? He needed to get inside.
Tried a third time, a fourth. Same result.
His fingers shaking, Stafford texted Cap:
WTF? I’m locked out.
A minute ticked by. No answer. He sent another text:
Need in at the SH.
Again, nothing. He sent texts to every number he had for Cap and everyone else in the organization: cell phones, burners, even landlines. Left no stone unturned.
Finally, his phone rang—an unfamiliar number. He picked up.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cap’s voice showed irritation, building to rage at mach speed.
“Trying to get into—”
“Yeah, well, you can’t. That space is only for soldiers of the cause in good standing.”
Stafford let that sink in a moment. “Who,” he said, fighting to control his tone and failing, “would better qualify as a soldier in good standing than me? Did I do something wrong?”
“Wrong? Ha!” Cap said. “You set this movement back ten years with your stupidity. Because of you, I spent the better part of an hour getting my ass sweated by a roomful of morons in blue, who all but accused me of murder. Your murders!”
“Sacrifice in service to the cause—”
“Stop it! Stop saying that right now,” Cap said. “Nobody ordered you to attack civilians on the street by yourself. You acted alone—not once, but twice, even after I told you to stand down. You, following your own crazy agenda, for God-knows-what reason, but not for us. Not for the betterment of man. You acted on your own, claiming to operate under our banner—”
“Claiming?” Stafford shook his head in disbelief. “Everything I do is under our banner. The banner of freedom and valor. It’s everything I stand for!”
“You’ve set back the cause twenty years.” Cap’s angry breaths seethed in Stafford’s ear.
“Set it back?” Stafford nearly threw his phone. “I embody this cause. And I am following the playbook we established together, months ago. I—”
“No,” Cap said. “Not our playbook. Not part of any strategy or tactical plan we’ve ever devised. No, you went rogue, and you fucked up. Big time. We can’t have that in our organization any longer. You’re done, Stafford. Hear me? Done. Out. Do not call me again.”
Stafford grew dizzy, his body swaying in the building’s musty hallway. He rested an arm against the wall for support, his throat constricting in frustration. “You don’t have the authority to kick me out,” Stafford said. “You don’t own this group. We have rules and—”
“Rules? Ha!” Cap’s harsh laugh hurt Stafford’s ears and echoed in the hallway’s dank shadows. “Don’t talk to me about rules, Mr. Shoot-from-the-rooftops. And who did you hit? A pregnant woman, and an old lady, and—whoever else, it doesn’t matter. It was stupid, and you’ll answer for this yourself.”
Those words his Stafford like a punch to the gut. “You mean…you’re ratting me out? After all I’ve done?”
“After all you’ve done.” Disgust weighed down each mocking word Cap uttered, as if he’d shed them like a heavy backpack. “You think you’ve done so much? You’ve done nothing. Nothing positive, anyway. Whatever you do, you fuck up. And what’s the result? You draw attention to yourself, which draws attention to us, which makes it infinitely harder to take covert action. Which you might recall is how we prefer to operate?”
“No one saw me.”
“Because of you, innocent people are getting blamed for your stupidity. And Stafford? None of this is your damned job. None of it!”
“I just wanted to help…” Stafford leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, fighting tears.
“You want to help?” Cap’s voice calmed. “Do what we asked of you. Which is nothing.”
“Not true,” Stafford said, his voice breaking. It took all of his energy and courage to talk back to Cap at that moment. But what did he have to lose? “You asked me to recruit that cop. And I did.”
A pause. “Okay, that’s true.” Another pause. “Still, we’ve gotten nothing from him. Other than a bunch of empty words, saying how committed he is to the cause. Blah, blah.”
“W-what do you want me to get from him?” Stafford’s hopes rose. Maybe he still had a role in the group after all.
“Information,” Cap said. “Insider dope on what these idiot cops are up to. Because our other guy isn’t giving us near enough. One of them should’ve warned me they’d be coming after me. Instead, they caught me off-guard, unprepared. That’s not good, Stafford. Not good at all.”
Stafford nodded, pressed the phone closer to his ear. “It’s coming. I already pressed him for that. Gave him a deadline—six o’clock tonight.”
“Or else what?”
“I…don’t follow.”
Cap laughed. “Kryzinski’s girlfriend is on the case. We can milk that. Make him understand the price of membership.”
“I will. You’ll see.”
“Yes, we will. And Stafford?” Another long pause. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to keep the ‘price of membership’ in mind, too.” Cap broke the connection.
Stafford dropped the phone to his side, fought the tears brimming at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t succeed. Hot tears wet his cheeks, ran down to his chin. Without thinking, he wiped them away with his sleeve, along with a pillow of snot that hung from his nose.
Then he remembered his clothing. He looked at the sleeve of his blazer, covered in the goo of shame and sadness.
Not exactly management material.
Jan and Val presented their case for an arrest warrant of Stevie Ray to Petroni in the sergeant’s private office early Thursday afternoon. It didn’t go well.
“So, let me sum this up for you,” Petroni said when they finished. “You already hauled in one suspect, Tank Steiger, with plausible alibis for both shootings—yes, I understand the corroborating witnesses may not be reliable. Hang with me.” She held off their protests with a raised hand. “And he walked a few hours ago, right?
“Because of his alibis, yes,” Jan said.
Petroni’s disapproving glare spoke volumes. “Now you have another suspect with no clear motive, no connection to the victims or the crime scenes. A guy who drives one of thousands of delivery trucks in the area, that you’re also unable to link to the one in the video. And you want to approach a judge with that for a warrant?”
Val couldn’t let that stand. “Stevie Ray was one of Tank’s corroborating witnesses, and vice versa. They both have obvious reasons to lie.”
“You want to arrest Stevie Ray for murder based on ‘he might have lied’?” Petroni said. “Have you done this warrant thing before?”
“How about permission to search his vehicle?” Val said.
Petroni shook her head. “You’ve still got too many loose ends to run down: the truck, prints, DNA…That’s the type of evidence we need to convince a judge. Lots of questions. Come back to me with answers.”
Jan and Val shuffled out to their adjoining desks and divided up the follow-up tasks. Val called her buddy Fletcher in Forensics to check on their progress.
“Should I start with the good news or the bad news?” Fletcher said.
Val sighed. “I guess the good news. I need some hope.”
“Sorry. The good news isn’t very good. The analysis of the DNA you took from the suspect’s water bottle isn’t done. We sent it out to the lab and it’ll be twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
“Can’t you put a rush on it?”
Fletcher laughed. “Everyone thinks their case is top priority. Anyway, I did put a rush on it. Otherwise it’s three days or more, maybe a week.”
Strike one. “Crap. Any other ‘good’ news?”
“It only gets worse.”
Val hung her head, but kept the receiver against her ear. “Give me the bad news, then.”
“You’re a glutton for punishment,” Fletcher said. “Okay, I’m looking at a photo of the truck and the jewelry store video side by side. The license plates and vehicle IDs printed on the rear of the vehicles don’t match.”
“Crap.” Strike two. “Any chance they were forged?”
“Strong chance. Or stolen. Until we get the physical items in our hands, though, we can’t be sure.”
“Right. Oh, what about the water bottle? Any gunshot residue or prints? And if so, did it match the residual powder on that shell casing?”
“GSR? Nope. Prints…um, not yet. Sorry.”
Strike three. Val thanked him, hung up, and met Jan’s expectant eyes. “I hope you’re doing better than I am.”
Jan shook her head. “So far as I can tell, RS Security doesn’t exist. The phone number is out of service and appears to have been a burner. Their website has vanished, if it ever existed, and Google can’t find them, either. Even on the Wayback site. The emails I sent all bounced—‘No such server.’ It’s a ghost.”
“So, we’ve got nothing.”
“So far,” Jan said. “We’ve got a long shot on that DNA matching what they found on the crime scenes. And Nora.”
“Nora?”
Jan flashed a Cheshire-cat smile. “She recommended this RS Security. So let’s see if she can’t lead that horse to water.”
Val grinned. “I knew there was a reason we needed you on this case. And I never thought I’d say this, but—let’s go to VeroniCare. It might be fun.”