Authors: Victor Methos
29
Nearly an hour passed before Stanton heard footsteps in the corridor and the door opened.
Orson Hall stepped in and stood by the doorway.
“Let’s go, Jon.”
Stanton
stood and followed him outside to a police cruiser with a uniform in the driver’s seat.
They stood on the sidewalk as Hall lit a cigarette and offered
one to Stanton, who turned it down.
After three p
uffs, Hall spoke. “You’re leaving right now, Jon. This has gone too far. I can’t have fucking detectives associated with my department kidnapped. Can you imagine how that’s going to look in the papers?”
“I’m sorry. It was stupid of me to go in there without any backup.”
“Backup nothing, Jon. You’re not a cop out here. You put lives in danger by pulling that shit.”
Stanton turned away and watched the traffic
as the lunch crowd headed back to work, their cars seeming lethargic.
“What happened at the house?” Stanton asked.
“SWAT went in. They didn’t find anything. They did get the ropes in the basement. Kept your hand locks, too. We’ll send ’em to the lab. Other than that, there was some furniture in a bedroom, and that’s it.”
“Who’s the owner?”
He blew a long stream of smoke through his nose. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Orson, who’s the owner?”
“Daniel and Emily Steed. It was a vacant rental property.”
Stanton glanced away, processing the information. “I’m close. I can feel it. He didn’t mean to take me there. He panicked and didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t kill me when he had the chance. He’s losing his grip.”
“I doubt that. I’m starting to accept that we’re not going to catch this fucker. He’ll slip away and be picked up now and again for petty crimes. We’ll have him in our jail and not even know it.”
“It doesn’t need to be that way. Give me a week.”
“To do what?”
“Just follow up. You brought me out here for a reason. I’m too close. You can’t cut me off now, Orson. He’ll see it as a win if I leave. You can expect more from him.”
“What do you mean ‘cut you off’? You’re too involved in this, Jon. It’s just another case. You’ll have a hundred more like it.”
“No, something’s different. I don’t know how to explain it, but something’s different about this guy. If you don’t help me
, I’ll stay here on my own. You know how stubborn I am.”
Hall threw the
cigarette butt down on the sidewalk and stepped on it. “One week. I’m booking your flight home now. That’s all you get.”
With a massive pounding headache, Stanton went back to his hotel. He went to the gift shop to pick up extra-strength ibuprofen and a Diet Coke before returning to his room. It had been cleaned well, and there were creases in the sheets from a recent wash and folding. He slipped off his shoes, turned off his phone, and got into bed without taking off his clothes.
When he woke three
hours later, the headache had turned into a migraine. His vision was filled with colored dots, and the pain came in waves that emanated down his neck and into his back. He suffered from migraines since he was a child. He had been to every specialist his parents could find—one even suggested that a hyperactive spleen might have been responsible for the migraines—but in the end, no one could find anything wrong with him.
He lay in bed almost an hour, his eyes closed and the blinds drawn. He calmed his breathing and pretended that a cooling relief was washing over him
, starting with his head. Slowly, the migraine began to fade then went away.
Stanton rose from
the bed and turned his phone back on. He had two messages from Mindi, one from his ex, and one hang-up. He dialed his ex.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey.”
“I called a while ago. Where you been?”
“Busy. How are the boys?”
“They’re good. Matt’s here. Do you want to talk to him?”
“Yes.” Stanton heard shuffling, followed by the unmistakable voice of his oldest son. His mother asked him to speak to his father, and he asked, “Do I have to?”
Stanton felt pain in his chest. It was so pronounced, so sudden, that he could’ve sworn it was a physical pain, although he knew it wasn’t.
“Mel, it’s okay if he doesn’t want to. You don’t need to force him.”
“It’s just that he’s going over to Rhett’s house
, and they need to get ready for their Little League practice and—”
“It’s okay. You don’t need to spare my feelings. What eleven-year-old wants to spend time talking to his old man? I’ll call back tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Oh, I almost forgot—the reason I was calling was because I need the child support check early this month. We’re going on a trip, and I’ll need some extra cash.”
“That’s not what the check’s for, Mel.”
“They’re coming with me. We’re going on a cruise for seven days. They’ll have a blast.”
“What about school?”
“It’s just a week. They’ll be fine. I’ll get their homework before we leave, and we can do it on the boat.” There was a long pause, and Stanton could tell she was walking into another room. “This hasn’t been easy on them, Jon. They’re really confused. Matt’s old enough that he can read the newspapers. Kids at school tease him. There was an article in the
Trib
saying you’ve had more shootings than any detective at the police department. Matt remembers Noah, too—or Eli or whatever the hell that thing’s name really was. He still calls him Uncle Noah, and the other day, he asked why he hurt all those girls. What do I tell them, Jon? Do you even have the faintest clue what your job does to them?”
“I work the worst of the worst, Mel. The ones nobody else wants.”
“I know that better than anyone. I’m just telling you when kids tell the boys that their uncle who came over every week and took them to baseball games is a murderer, they don’t know how to respond.”
Stanton could feel the frustration and anger as he spewed out, “I see things people aren’t meant to see. Crackheads who stick their babies in the microwave
’cause they won’t stop crying. Pedophiles who rape one-year-olds in the aisles of grocery stores. I see that every day, and everybody I see on the street tells me that the government has too much power, that I’m intruding in their lives. And when the junkie who’s been up for a week on a meth binge comes breaking into their home in the middle of the night, suddenly, I’m a hero. I’m the knight in shining armor only to be forgotten as soon as the memory fades.”
“I don’t feel bad for you, Jon. I’ve told you to quit a thousand times. You broke up our family because of that job. I hate that job.” She hesitated. “And I’m learning not to care about you. I know I’m going to get the call from the department telling me you’re lying in the morgue
, and they need me to come identify you. I’m preparing for that. I’m treating you as if that’s already happened. I’m sorry, but I don’t know any other way to do it.” A man’s voice spoke to her, sounding as if it came from another room. “I gotta go. Call tomorrow in the afternoon.”
There was a click
, and she was gone. Stanton hung up the phone. The migraine had returned, and he lay back down, staring blankly up at the ceiling as drums rumbled to life outside his window from a street show.
Cal Robertson walked
slowly on the treadmill, watching a presidential debate on CNN. He flipped through the channels for a few seconds as he wiped his face with a towel, then he turned off the television. The country club gym was nearly empty at ten o’clock at night. That was his favorite time to be there.
He walked over to
a rack of weights. He took the five-pound barbells and did a few lateral raises to work his shoulders. He had recently had rotator cuff surgery, and the physical therapy was going slowly. Still, he had to admit, it was staggering how far medicine had come. He remembered accompanying his father during his father’s doctor appointments in the 1950s. A cigarette dangling from his mouth, the doctor would feel around for a couple of minutes then prescribe pain pills. The doctor had missed his father’s cancer for ten years, and by the time the doctors did catch the cancer, it was too late. Cal’s father passed away in a filthy bed at a free clinic, unable to afford an extended stay in a hospital because his family didn’t have health insurance.
It was then that Cal
understood the importance of money. People who denied that were deceiving themselves, or they had never been poor enough that their lack of money put their life at risk.
He finished three sets and headed to the showers.
Another man, a banker named Damien Woodward, was already there. Cal said hello to him as he undressed and went to the shower next to him.
“How’s the gambling business?” Woodward asked.
“Maybe I should be asking you that.”
Woodward laughed and went on to describe the sex he
’d had that weekend with his twenty-four-year-old girlfriend, despite being well into his late sixties. Cal listened politely as he washed up. Sex interested him only to a certain degree. He didn’t let it run his life. It was sloppy and awkward as far as he was concerned. What was a few moments’ pleasure during sex compared to the thrill of making money or buying a rival company? In comparison, sex was fleeting and a waste of strength. He had read recently that it took a full steak and two eggs’ worth of protein to make up for one ejaculation. Still, he loved the young women who flocked to him. In bed with the lights off, he felt twenty years old. That was the real power of sex—feeling young again.
Cal dressed in a sweatsuit with a white stripe down each
leg and put on his new sneakers. He left the gym, nodding goodbye to the teenaged girl behind the counter, and climbed into his Lincoln Town Car that was parked near the front entrance. He pulled out onto Desert Foothills Drive, heading back into the city. Frankie Valli was on the radio, and he turned it up.
His home was twenty minutes away
, and he rolled down the windows for the drive. He pulled into a gated community and drove up a winding driveway. He scanned an access card at another gate, which opened with a loud, sustained creak. He would have to make sure to have that fixed.
His
home was situated on two acres of lush grass and red rocks. Occasionally, he saw ducks and geese in the small pond in front of the house, the geese driving away the ducks with their larger girth.
The
attached three-door garage held his prized automobiles, each imported and specifically tailored to his tastes. He pressed the button on his visor, and one of the doors began to rise. Then he heard the first pop.
A sound like a buzzing bee whizzed past
his ears. At first, he looked around to make sure an actual bee hadn’t made its way into his car. The clinks against the frame of the car drew his attention to the right, where he saw small flashes in the darkness. He still wasn’t sure what was happening until a slug smashed through the passenger window and punctured the car seat.
He screamed as shards of glass flew over him. Cal unlocked the driver’s side door and fell out as another slug hit the tire
, releasing a loud hiss. His hands were bloody, and he felt the sting of glass embedded in his face. He began to crawl toward the open garage. He waited a moment at the hood of his car then got up on his knees. He ducked his head underneath the car and saw a pair of legs in jeans running toward him. Adrenaline and fear coursed through him. His hands were trembling as he rose and ran for the garage.
A
burning sensation in his shoulder preceded an impact that knocked him off his feet. He felt no pain at first, and he managed to rise and get into the garage. He ran to the steps leading inside and pressed the button to lower the garage door. It began its slow, ponderous closing, and he saw the legs pick up speed as they sprinted towards him.
The legs were close, no more than a few dozen feet away, and the garage door had another couple of feet to lower. He couldn’t make out a face, but he
saw the man raise his weapon and fire. The slug dented the thick garage door.
A hand
reached under the door as it neared the ground. But the door’s descent didn’t slow, and the hand pulled away as the door pressed against the cement. Cal’s heart fell into his stomach, and his knees buckled. He sat on the steps leading to the kitchen door behind him and began to weep. Blood began to pour from his shoulder, though there was no pain. Then he heard the sound of his car door opening, and a moment later, the garage door started to rise.
He jumped up, panicked, and turned the doorknob. He had left it unlocked as he always did. He shut the door behind him and locked it. Past the living room
, a staircase led up to the bedrooms. He ran for the stairs, his legs burning, and sprinted up them as quickly as he could. He heard an impact against the kitchen door. The shooter was breaking in.
He made his way to the master bedroom on the right
.
His wife
looked up from the book she was reading. “Cal? What’s all that noise?”
Without answering, h
e ran to the closet and flipped on the light. In the back corner was a gun safe, and he put in the combo—the date he had officially made his first million. He took out a Smith & Wesson .44 caliber handgun. It was large and heavy; he had bought it immediately after seeing
Dirty Harry
.
“Cal! What the hell is going on?”
As footsteps ascended the stairs, Cal ducked and pointed the weapon. He had never fired it. He hadn’t even held it since the day he bought it. Now, heavy in his hands, it felt like the best friend he had ever had.
His wife screamed as a figure in a black coat rounded the corner. The man pointed his weapon at Cal’s wife
just as a boom echoed through the home, as if a car had collided into the house. Cal flew off his feet, and the gun dropped to the floor.
The man was lying on his back; a spray of blood covered the hallway. Cal managed to get to his feet and pick up
the man’s weapon. He held it with both hands as he walked over to the man. He was younger, maybe in his thirties, and the large wound in his chest was making a sucking noise. Cal aimed the barrel at the man’s head as his eyes glazed over and went blank.
He lowered the weapon, exhausted, his whole body in pain. He turned to his wife
, who was sitting in shock on the bed.
“Don’t just fucking sit there,” he said. “Call the police.”