Blood tracks, p.21
Blood Tracks, page 21
Finally the workers began to leave, the lights went off behind the barred windows, and a steel shutter was lowered over the entrance doors. An old guy in coveralls ambled out and secured the gates with a solid padlock and chain, before he drove away.
‘Locked down as tight as a beaver’s butt,’ Po announced.
‘Empty,’ Tess said.
‘No. Not empty.’ Po adjusted in his seat so he could face her. He pointed at a van sitting in the compound. It had arrived earlier and disgorged two Latino women and a black man. ‘There’s a cleaning crew still inside. Probably a night watchman as well, who’ll let them out when their work’s done.’
‘Do we wait until the cleaning crew leave?’ Tess asked.
‘That’d leave only the watchman.’
‘Yeah. Easier to control if necessary.’
Po shook his head. ‘It’s best to enter while the workers are still there. It’ll be noisier, and the watchman will be less vigilant while the others are still there.’
‘It sounds as if you’ve done this kind of thing before?’
‘I plead the Fifth,’ Po said.
‘Fair enough, I don’t really want to know.’
By the time the sun had dropped below the horizon, and Po shifted wordlessly to get out the car, Tess was shivering with anticipation.
TWENTY-FIVE
Keeping it cupped in her palm, Tess aimed her pen light into the darkened space ahead. Subdued as it was, the beam barely caressed the walls, but there was enough of a gleam to tell the corridor was empty of obstructions. Po followed close on her heels, allowing her to take the lead as he scanned both front and back. Outside, while gaining entry to Rutterman Logistics, he’d taken charge, but was happy now to revert back to his guard role, and that eased her too. Under these circumstances there was no place for jostling for control as they’d done in the past.
They’d come over the perimeter fence, then angled towards the nearest structure, a single-storey addition to the larger main building, where Po boosted Tess up to the roofline. Po scrambled up by his own power, and together they crept along the sloping roof to a window on the upper floor. The window was barred, but they used it as a stepping-stone to get higher. Once on the roof of the building proper, they tiptoed to a skylight, and Po had it open in seconds. Tess didn’t comment on the knife he slipped from his boot to lever the catch from the frame, but wondered how long it had been secreted there. There were things about Po she didn’t know, and some things she’d best never ask about.
They dropped into an empty storeroom. Using her flashlight, Tess found the place deserted but for cobwebs and dust balls. Po opened the door and craned out. From a distance came the strains of music, thin and reedy, and an incessant whir that Tess identified as a floor-polishing machine. The cleaning crew was being industrious. Po led the way down a narrow stairwell lit by the faint glow of emergency lights. They gained the first floor unchallenged. Hopefully things would stay that way, though the odds were against them.
A cramped corridor allowed access from the stairwell alongside a set of four offices. Down it they moved with Tess cupping the flashlight so that the beam wouldn’t carry inside the offices. In one of them the night watchman could be sitting, and an errant flash of light might be enough to alert him.
‘Where now?’ Po whispered.
‘We might as well start here.’
Po remained in the corridor while Tess entered each office in turn. They were the usual cramped spaces found in most workplaces, packed with what you’d expect in a logistics hub. Given weeks, Tess might find something useful, but the workload was too much. Returning to the hall she shook her head in the negative at Po’s raised eyebrow.
‘Let’s see what else there is through here.’ He’d discovered an access door to the warehouse. It was a cavernous space, but they didn’t have a great view of the floor plan because of the nearest row of shelves, stacked high with boxes. Identical rows of shelves formed serried ranks in the echoing warehouse. The music was louder now, emanating from somewhere on the other side of the building. The polishing machine fell silent. Voices batted back and forth, laden with humour, but distant.
They moved down the aisles, pausing to check boxes. Primarily the goods stored on the shelves were bathroom furniture, appliances, and accessories. They ignored them and moved on. On the next aisle they found household goods, on the next sports equipment. Arriving at aisle four, Tess held up a hand to halt Po in his tracks.
‘Will you take a look at that?’ she said, breathless.
Po craned past her. The shelves were stacked with boxes containing random electrical devices, from kettles to waffle makers to George Foreman Grills. But Tess had paused at one box on which the tape had been sliced open, and one flap was bent back.
Po shook his head in incredulity. ‘I’ll be damned. What are the chances of finding these? Remind me to buy a lottery ticket once we’re out of here.’
Tess leaned over the open box, using her flashlight to flip aside some shredded packing paper, disclosing a gap where a smaller box had been removed from the larger one. She swept the beam over the others still inside, and a grin of triumph flared on her face. The consignment held the same type of tracking devices that had been fixed to their Honda by Sower’s people. Tess would bet her hide that the missing device was the one still in their car up in Baton Rouge. Showing that it was the same device didn’t prove who Crawford Wynne’s murderer was, but it vindicated Tess’s actions in coming here.
Fixed to the box was a semi-opaque document pouch, and when the tracker had been removed, the delivery manifest had been left inside. The manifest listed twelve ‘GPS locator devices’ and each came with a sequential serial number. She tucked the papers inside her pocket, then took out her phone. She pulled out two of the smaller boxes, arranged them atop the larger one and snapped a series of photographs, ensuring that the serial numbers on the sides of the boxes were clear. It showed that there was a break in the chronological sequence, and Tess was positive that once they returned and retrieved the one from their Honda it would sit numerically between the two.
‘Ideally I’d prefer to take the entire box with us,’ she whispered, ‘but it’s best left here.’ She carefully repacked the box, pushing down the flap, then took a final photograph to show the box’s position on the shelf. While she did so, Po moved away, and before she understood why, a flashlight beam blazed over her.
In her urgency to record the evidence she’d grown snap-happy with her phone. The camera’s flash had drawn the attention of the night watchman. Her saving grace was that he had no idea who she was, or why she was standing in the aisle taking pictures. He might’ve assumed she was one of the cleaning crew: until he played the light over her.
‘Hey! What you doing over there?’
Tess was caught red-handed and acted like it. She turned towards him, mouth open in shock, her phone held out to one side as if she was about to drop it and run.
‘Don’t move!’ He’d made her as a stranger. ‘What are you doing? You’ve no right to be here.’
‘That’s fine,’ Tess told him, slipping the incriminating phone into a pocket. ‘I’ll happily leave.’
‘You’re going nowhere ’til you give me some answers.’
Behind the bright torch the guard was a silhouette. But Tess could tell he was muscular, tall, and from his voice, young enough that he’d catch her in a foot race. It made no difference; she spun and raced away along the aisle. A bark erupted from the guard, and the slap of his boots announced the chase was on. From elsewhere, voices lifted in query as the workers recognized something was amiss. All Tess needed was for them to join in the chase and she was done for. Where the hell was Po? Just when she needed him most, he’d freaking disappeared!
She hurtled out the end of aisle four, skidded right, and headed for the only exit she knew of. The guard charged round the corner, dogging her trail, one hand reaching for her collar. His fingers snagged the cloth, and only a yank of her shoulders freed her. She almost fell, her soles squeaking harshly on the floor as she fought for balance. The guard snapped a hand on her shoulder. Tess fought for her freedom, wrenching against his grip, lurching low to gain power. But the guard had her now, and he wrestled her to one side, her shoulder slamming the shelves. A tremor went through her, an echo of the one that set the shelves rattling. She half-turned, getting her hands between her and the guard, palms thrusting at his chest. He felt as solid as sun-baked clay. His face was set in triumph as he thrust his right arm up, knocking aside her arms and jamming his elbow under her jaw. He hadn’t relinquished his flashlight, and the backwash of its beam flared in her peripheral vision, half-blinding her. Scarlet shapes swarmed, ghost images burned on to her retina.
At first she didn’t notice the figure looming behind the guard: it was one of many swirling shapes. In the next instant the figure moved to one side, leaning in close to the man. Was it one of the cleaning crew coming to the guard’s assistance?
No.
A sinewy forearm encircled the guard’s neck, burying it deep in the crook of an elbow. Tess gagged as the pressure went from her throat, and there was a corresponding gasp from her would-be captor. He was hauled backwards, and as Tess rose up, she saw Po twist so that he was back to back with the guard, his hip jamming into the man’s lower spine. Po hauled with his bent arm, pressing back and upwards with his hips, and the guard catapulted over the fulcrum, completing a full somersault and crashing head first to the floor. Such a throw was banned in judo and wrestling competitions, and for obvious reasons; there was no safe way of breaking the fall. Face, chest, knees, and ankles, all took the force, and the guard hollered in agony. His flashlight skidded under the shelves, its beam playing over his contorted features. Po stood over him, fists cocked, but the fight had left the guard: the man rolled into a foetal position, cradling his injuries, moaning in anguish. Po looked at Tess. She looked back.
She looked again at the injured man. He was hurt and needed help. She wondered why she was relieved, and understood that the alternative was it should have been her lying there.
‘Let’s move,’ Po snapped.
Tess ran.
TWENTY-SIX
‘You do your thing, Tess. I’ll just be over there.’ Po waited for Tess’s nod before moving.
It was almost an hour since fleeing Rutterman Logistics. Po had parked Pinky’s SUV out of sight of the nearby highway, beneath a graffiti-scarred underpass – the underside of a bridge that spanned a tributary of the Mississippi. Trash had accumulated in the angle between hard-packed dirt and concrete, a shopping cart piled high with cans and bottles marking it as a hideout for some homeless person. Broken glass littered the sloping bank, and the reeds poking up from the diseased earth were sickly and stunted. Even the lily pads on the river looked diseased, like purple scabs on the surface. There was a stink off the sluggish water that was acidic and agitated Tess’s sinuses. She needed to sneeze, and her roiling stomach contents also demanded some kind of release, but more than anything she absolutely had to pee. While she’d been flooded with adrenalin the desire to empty her bladder hadn’t troubled her, but now she was finally calming down it had become a necessity. Po did the gentlemanly thing, walking away to give her some privacy while she peed behind the SUV. After she was finished she walked to the front of the SUV, to get away from the incriminating puddle. She heard the crunch of Po’s boots on the gritty earth.
‘Done?’
‘Much better, thanks. But can we talk about something else?’
‘F’sure.’ Po waited. ‘Maybe we should just get moving again. We can talk while I’m driving.’
Po drove out from beneath the underpass, following a levee road that stood fifteen feet above the riverbank. He was driving by instinct, heading for Baton Rouge. ‘So what would you rather talk about, Tess?’
She touched the folded delivery manifest in her pocket. ‘We have evidence that ties Rutterman Logistics to those who rammed our car, the same ones who undoubtedly fitted the tracking device to it. But does it really help? It doesn’t prove that they were the same men who abducted Crawford Wynne, and certainly doesn’t prove they had any part in his murder. It’d have been much better if we’d found something more damning in that warehouse. Illegal guns, drugs, a cell full of sex slaves. I don’t know what I expected to find, but I was hoping for more. Maybe if we’d more time …’
‘We didn’t. So it’s not worth getting pissed about again.’
‘Again?’
‘You’re often pissed at me, and for the life of me I can’t figure why.’
‘I’m not pissed; I’m disappointed.’
‘With me?’ He frowned.
‘No …’ she said. ‘With the lack of evidence.’
‘It’s good that we got away with what we did. The guard almost got the drop on both of us.’
‘You heard him approaching. Why the hell didn’t you warn me?’
‘It worked out better in the end. If I’d warned you, he’d have probably come running and caught the two of us. I moved away to get round behind him. Luckily when you ran, you went the right way.’
‘So I was bait?’ Tess shook her head. ‘Nice.’
‘You were never in any real danger.’
‘I wasn’t? Having his elbow jammed in my throat wasn’t exactly comfortable.’
‘He saw you as easy meat and underestimated you. It meant he didn’t bother drawing his sidearm. If he had, things might’ve ended much worse.’ Po twiddled with the air-con buttons. ‘Anyway, you were just gathering yourself: I trust you’d have handled him even if I hadn’t intervened.’
‘I ran.’ Tess felt a prick of shame. ‘In all my years as a deputy I never feared anyone; hell, back then I was the one doing the chasing.’
‘It’s psychology at work, Tess. You felt you were up to no good, and the natural instinct was to run away when cornered. Under the circumstances anybody would do the same: it’s only once you began thinking straight, forced down the natural instincts that your training would’ve kicked in. I had the benefit of forewarning, and was able to take the initiative sooner.’
‘I have to admit that was a crazy move you used. What was it, some kind of jiu-jitsu throw?’
Po frowned in consideration. ‘I guess. But I never took martial arts classes, not in the usual sense. You ever heard of Jailhouse Rock?’
‘Elvis, right?’ She curled up the corner of one lip, mimed a couple of hokey karate chops. ‘Uh-hu-hu.’
His mouth pinched in humour and she felt immediately foolish at her antics. ‘I guess that’s where the name derived, if not the moves,’ said Po. ‘No, I’m talking about the fighting style formulated by inmates. It’s down and dirty, and not pretty to look at. Designed for fighting in close quarters, and it’s about life or death. In prison, someone comes at you, well, they’re going to stick you with a shank or worse. There’s no place for fancy techniques: it’s you or it’s them, no mercy. Job done.’
‘Nasty.’
‘Necessary,’ he countered, and she was reminded of the scars on his forearms and conceded his point.
‘Still, you showed that guard mercy. You could’ve done him real harm but didn’t.’
‘It’s been a while,’ he said, ‘I guess I’ve grown rusty. You’d prefer if I’d hit him with a finishing blow?’
Actually, she believed there was more to his reluctance to permanently maim the guard. For all they knew he was an innocent party, simply performing his duty, and Po had tempered his response with that in mind. He wasn’t a hard ass all the time, just some of it.
‘A soon as he recovered he’d have reported the incident to his bosses. And once they realize what I was photographing they’ll put two and two together. They’ll guess it was us, and probably let Sower’s people know.’
Po pulled the Mercedes-Benz over at the side of the track. He pulled his phone and hit buttons. ‘Yo, Pinky!’
Pinky’s reply was a thin whistle to Tess, but Po kept his phone pressed to the side of his head.
‘Need you to do something as a matter of urgency, my friend,’ said Po. The high-pitched voice raised a decibel or two. ‘It won’t take you more than an hour. Yeah, sure, I know you already gave up last night for me, but this is urgent. Uh-huh. I need you to go retrieve the tracking device off the Chicken Shack. It’s served its purpose, and I’m concerned someone is going to come and take it away before we get back. Trust me, buddy, we need that thing in our hands. I don’t want you getting hurt, but if anyone’s there when you arrive and they try to take it, you don’t let them. You get me?’ Po laughed at Pinky’s response. ‘Just do what you have to do, OK?’
‘That was good thinking, Po,’ Tess said when he’d cancelled the call. ‘The evidence we got at Rutterman’s is worthless without the tracking device. Of course, they could always claim we stole the tracker from the box when we broke into their warehouse. Their word against ours. Considering we were conducting an illegal search I guess I know whose side a jury would take.’
‘We’ve no reason to set them up, but, yeah, you’re probably right.’ Po got the SUV moving again. ‘But let’s go get that tracker from Pinky. Who knows, maybe those guys weren’t too careful when they placed it. I don’t recall Blondie wearing gloves when we caught him in the act; we might get a fingerprint or DNA or something.’ He looked hopefully at her, Tess being the expert. ‘You’ve contacts for that kind of stuff, haven’t you?’
‘Once we’re back in Maine, I’ll get Emma Clancy’s office on the case.’ Supposing that Clancy had come out of hiding, of course. There was something troubling about Clancy’s disappearing act, and this wasn’t the first time she’d wondered about the unusual circumstances behind it: Tess was starting to believe something was wrong with the entire scenario.
‘I promised I was driving back, but I guess there’s a matter of urgency to all this now.’ Po exhaled deeply.
‘Not looking forward to the flight, huh?’
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘But I’ll persevere.’
