The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (27 page)

              After my visit with Drew, I returned home.  I needed some time to decompress and process what he had just told me.  As angry as I wanted to be with him for withholding this information from me as long as he did, I forced myself to understand why he had.  I still kept my newly surfacing suicidal thoughts to myself and also my new nickname floating around the Paterson squad room from Lindsey.  I knew I was in no position of keeping things of this caliber from her any longer but it suddenly became second nature. 

I felt like I was neck- deep in this Esteban Machado thing and was killing myself trying to pick up the scent of his trail.  There wasn’t any more I could gather from sifting through his paper work from school.  There wasn’t any more I could gain from staring at the papers I lifted from Klein’s house.  There sure as hell nothing I could solve painting a linen closet. 

Time was becoming my worst enemy.  Esteban was gone just about a full week now.  The longer he was gone the more he became a fresh memory in my mind, which is bizarre to me because the longer Jake’s been gone I feel like he’d become more of a distant memory.  Not that Jake’s memory will ever completely erase itself from my brain and I’m not sure if it’s a forced movement on my part to let him rest in peace but I’ve been thinking of him less often with each passing day.  I couldn’t fathom the fact that Esteban could be lost forever on my watch.  Trying to block the worse- case scenario out of my mind, I kept convincing myself that Esteban was much better off than Jake at this point because he still could potentially to return home alive and safe.  However, a week of being where ever he may be was still entirely too long.

I finished the first coat of the linen closet and hoped to the high heavens that that would do the trick and pass Lindsey’s inspection.  As therapeutic I found painting and some moderate housework to be, nothing was going to settle my mind after what I learned from Drew.  I knew I had to push forward and I should be out on the streets searching high and low for Esteban but my body, my mind was becoming so resistant. 

              I didn’t hear my phone buzz from where it rested on the kitchen table while I was in the basement washing out the brush.  For as little as the brush was and as tight the space I painted was there sure as hell was a ton of paint rinsed out in the sink.  I changed out of my painting clothes and washed up before I realized I had four missed calls.  All were from Fitzgerald.

              The number of missed calls in a three minute span told me it was urgent enough to return the call without having to listen to the messages.  “Where the hell have you been, Barnes?” Fitzgerald said by way of a greeting. 

              “I’ve been out back planting dandelions.  Why what’s up?” I could sense the level of urgency in his voice but could never pass up an opportunity to slip in a wiseass retort. 

              “I got something here I think you might want to take a look at,” he said.  He told me a surveillance tape just surfaced that showed a black van screech to a halt, two guys dressed in head- to- toe black, string up what looks like a young adolescent boy to the metal fencing of the caged backstop of a baseball field on some street somewhere.  I asked him if it had anything to do with Esteban and he told me he was pretty confident it did.

              I asked, “Why the hell is this only showing up now, a week later?”

              Fitzgerald was silent for a while then said, “I don’t know.  I’m pissed about it, too.  I sent out a couple of guys to do a surveillance sweep the day the call on Esteban came through but nothing turned up until now.  I don’t even know when it came in today.  We have it now and that’s all that matters.”

              I told him I’d be over there to check it out.

SEVENTY

I suddenly felt like I was on a weight- loss diet.

              When we try to lose weight we tend to repeatedly step on the scale until we see the results we expect.  If the first attempt shows we gained weight for the week we get frustrated and step back on just the right way to convince our minds that we actually did lose even just an ounce.  But if the first weigh- in shows we were a little slimmer for the week, even if just a couple of ounces, then the scale immediately goes back in the closet until next week.  That’s kind of how I felt this case was going for me. 

In the beginning, about a week ago, I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted so I was trying to tweak the scales and slide it around the floor to find that right spot to give me positive results.  But since my meeting with Jamal I knew things were swinging in my favor but I had difficult time feeling it.  Between finding the hidden file on Esteban, which still hasn’t revealed any reason as to why it was hidden in the first place, now knowing that Klein and Garvey were working in tandem to recruit their own students to promote their illegal drug business, and my own version of a search and seizure of Klein’s house I was feeling like I lost ten pounds over the weekend.  But this new surveillance tape made me think I’d hit my goal weight. 

              An hour later, I sat with Fitzgerald and a guy named McDonald who was one of the department’s tech gurus.  We sat in a cell- block sized cement room with a cafeteria- like table pushed up against the rear wall.  Sitting on the table were two computers, both with twenty- seven inch screens.  Fitzgerald turned the lights off then we each pulled up a metal folding chair to watch the tape. 

              “Why wasn’t this tape discovered a week ago?” I asked the question again but this time to both men.  I was hoping either McDonald could give me a technical response or Fitzgerald could give me a believable cop response.  Something in layman’s terms.

              McDonald didn’t have a response because that wasn’t his area of expertise but Fitzgerald said he learned that it was a feed from a nearby grocery store parking lot and the owner doesn’t check the tapes but every few days.  And at the time the guys Fitzgerald sent out to do the sweep of the area said they missed that camera.

              We watched a grainy video reveal a dark colored van pull up to the curb on Lafayette and a plume of smoke permeate around the back end of the van.  “Now you see here,” Fitzgerald narrated, “the driver gets out then the passenger.  The passenger lets the dog out, looks to be a pit bull, and quick step to the back doors of the van.”  I looked on like I was watching a black and white silent film, trying to interpret the plot just by watching.  The back hatches flung open so hard that they repelled back and nearly clipped the dog in the head.  The two men dragged a smaller body from the back seat of the van and I watched the horizontal body violently flail and fight for its freedom but the grasp on the ankles and wrists appeared to be just too powerful.  I had to ask McDonald to gradually zoom in from this point on because the men carried the body father away from the camera.  I heard the faint clicking as McDonald rolled the dial on the mouse to zoom in. 

              “This is where the goons string up the kid to the fence of the backstop,” Fitzgerald said.  McDonald zoomed in as far as the software program would allow but the images on a screen were too blurry to make out.  They looked like reflections in a muddy puddle.  McDonald resumed the tape after zooming to a clear view only to watch the van pack up and speed away, leaving the boy dangling from the chain link fence like a wet swimsuit. 

              “That’s definitely Esteban,” I finally said. 

              “How can you be so sure?” Fitzgerald asked.  “It could be any one of the kids that are on Klein’s list.  Or any other missing kid in this country for that matter.  Regardless, I think we got these bastards on tape.  Even if it isn’t Esteban.”               

              I unexpectedly left the room and ran to my car to retrieve a photo that Esteban’s mother had given me during our first meeting.  I returned to the room before Fitzgerald could figure out why left. 

              “This is how,” I said, handing Fitzgerald the photo.  He took the photo from me and analyzed it.  Eventually, he held it up to the computer screen, asking McDonald to get the best shot of the boy on the screen he could.  “His mother told me this photo was taken on her camera phone the day before he disappeared and he’s clearly wearing the same jeans and sneakers.”  I caught myself, realizing that millions of kids in today’s world could have the same jeans and sneakers as Esteban.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Fitzgerald said.  He kept the photo side by side with the computer screen much longer than I thought he would.  I wondered what he was looking at.  I came to stand behind him trying to gain the same vantage point. 

“What do you see, Fitz?” I asked. 

“It seems pretty convincing to me that it is Esteban.  Looks to be the same height as reported even though he’s stretched out horizontally rather than vertically,” he answered.

“What about the comparison gives it away?” I asked, attempting to quiz him.

“The sneakers.”  The sneakers were the same give away for me too.  Despite the grainy black and white quality of the video there was no disputing the moon boots that modern- day society called sneakers. 

“Anything you can pick up on the two goons that are manhandling the kid?” I asked the guy called McDonald.

“It’s hard to tell.  Not much I can get from them considering they are dressed in black from top to bottom,” McDonald answered.  As we were discussing the possibilities he was fingering the keyboard like an experienced secretary.  We watched on in curiosity.  It felt like hours had passed since McDonald last spoke and started pounding the keys.  I watched the screen zoom and swivel at a variety of angles.

“Bear with me just one second and presto!” McDonald said, leaning back in his chair as if he were satisfied after a Thanksgiving meal.  Fitzgerald and I leaned in over each of McDonald’s shoulders and stared at the computer screen as if we were squeezing in for a selfie photo.  The screen showed a mid- level quality image of the license plate. 

SEVENTY ONE

Fitzgerald put in a call to have the license plate traced.  It came back that the van was stolen two weeks ago from a shipping yard in Jersey City.  The car thieves stole a pair of uniforms and posed as dock loaders.  They loaded crates from the trucks to the boats until their opportunity to boost the truck became available.  Fitzgerald said the call came in that two guys disappeared during their coffee break, taking the van with them. 

We were back in his office when Fitzgerald started asking me about my thoughts.  He wanted my thoughts on Klein, my thoughts on Garvey and which one might be a bigger threat.  He also wanted my thoughts on Esteban’s current state.  As well as my thoughts on how to blow up this whole operation.  In the midst of all of my thought sharing, Fitzgerald told me that the check- ups on Felix Cabrera and Joey Alvarez came up empty.  He ran them through the system again just to be sure.  Something he always did.  In a way, I was kind of glad that there was nothing on either of them.  Just another avenue I didn’t have to travel down.  However, he could see how frustrated I was growing and it brought me back to my very first arrest as a rookie beat cop. 

It was spring, April of 2012.  Drew and I were stopped at a local deli grabbing a quick sandwich.  Drew had a coffee and I had a Snapple.  I leaned against the hood of a car while I ate my ham and Swiss cheese sandwich.  We were checking out a few ladies that were strolling into a pub on the corner. Drew and I debated over who had the shortest skirt and the nicest ass for several minutes.  It was clearly a slow night. Just as they were drifting into the darkness of the poorly lit street I heard a piercing scream from their direction.  Drew took off first but I got there before him after taking a more logical angle of pursuit across the street.  I stomped my feet into the pavement too quickly stop my stride before running over the girl on the ground.  It was the blond that I found more attractive.  She appeared to have a gash over her left eyebrow that was slowly trickling blood down her temple. 

When I asked her what happened she reported through her nervous gasps that she was knocked down from behind and someone stole her purse.  Drew interviewed the brunette and got a pretty solid description of the perp and what he was wearing.  It took a little while but we’d eventually found him buying a six pack of beer from a bodega a few blocks away.  The rainbow colored belt, which was a certainty by Jennifer, the brunette, clued me in to this guy being our suspect.  I tried to enter the bodega as casually as possible, as if I were just looking to purchase a drink, but the suspect quickly took off out the back door.  Giving chase, I closed in pretty quickly until I tripped off the curb two blocks later and could only watch the perp fly away into the wind. 

Fitzgerald saw how frustrated I was when I reported back to headquarters after my shift.  He made a poor attempt to console me by telling me another cop brought him in an hour prior.  I was so infuriated with my poor attempt to bring down my first criminal that I took my frustrations out on my locker door and threatened to quit right on the spot.  From then on, Fitzgerald guided me through strategies on how to handle and subdue my frustrations when a perp slipped through the cracks.  Come to think of it, Fitzgerald made a much better shrink than Dr. Sharper.