“I remember hearing that,” Hicks says.
“This boy finishes the call and enters the house. After about half an hour he leaves. I watch him get in the car and head out. I wait about twenty minutes, try to look through some windows, and don’t see shit. Actually, I do see power tools on the floor in the kitchen, but that didn’t mean anything to me anymore. I walk to the front door, ring the bell a few times. Nothin’. I knock hard and still nothin’. That’s when I decide, based on everything I heard and what little experience and intuition I have left, that I’m going in. So I did.
“I find her in the upstairs bathroom. She was handcuffed to a chain that was secured to the floor with a heavy eyebolt. She was handcuffed in the front, and that made me think they knew she wouldn’t try to escape because she was brainwashed or some shit like that. All she was wearing was her underwear. She was terrified. I didn’t know what she was thinking about me being there, so I told her I was a cop and showed her my badge but covered the part that said ‘retired.’ All I wanted to do was make her feel comfortable. Would you believe, she didn’t want to go with me at first?”
Davidson shakes his head. “Why?”
“She was convinced they’d kill her family if she left, said that they knew where she lived.”
“She told us that, too.”
“So then you have someone sitting on her house?”
“We have it handled. But why did you just drop her off at Leslie Costello’s?”
“I’ve been retired for close to two years now. I don’t know what I was thinking ’cept to get her someplace safe and where I knew she’d get help. I knew Costello would do everything right, so that’s where I took her.”
“But still, man, you should know better than that. You take a victim like her to a hospital, right? You remember that much, don’t you?” Davidson says.
“I’m not a cop anymore, and I wasn’t thinking straight. Now, I sure as hell know the boys you locked up ain’t gonna put any charges on me and neither are you, so why are you beating me down like this?”
“I’m not trying to beat you down, Frank. I just have to ask. You should know that. Hell, you’re a hero. The chief might even give you an award.”
I seriously doubt the chief would consider that, but I say, “Don’t even think about writing me up for an award. I’m serious, Scott.”
“You’re something else, Frank.”
Ain’t that the truth, but I don’t say it.
Sixteen
I usually go out of my way to find good grapefruit. They gotta be fresh, though. They’re tougher to find when they’re not in season, but you can still find them at some of the better grocery stores, like the Whole Foods on P Street. I always keep a couple in the car. They’re good for days like this, when my immune system needs a boost. I cut into one with my knife, suck the juice out, and chew the pulp. It’s like my body knows when it’s in need, because most of the time I have to force myself to eat, but not when it comes to grapefruit. I devour everything but the skin, which I drop out the car window. I feel like my body’s been washed afterward.
The temperature is dropping every day. Winter’s closing in. I push the button to raise the car window and recline in the seat. I watch the pedestrians passing by on the sidewalk. Most of them are law enforcement, uniform and plainclothes; attorneys; and other folks who work in this area. There are a few homeless people, though, moving like zombies. Crackheads, junkies. They’re letting out from the shelter on 2nd and D, just a couple blocks away. I watch them and I gotta think the only thing that separates me from their kind is a meager pension, an occasional paycheck, my drug of choice—and, of course, grapefruit.
I light a cigarette. I inhale. I come back to reality.
The meeting with Davidson didn’t go so badly. I’m thinking it was a damn good story. He even said he was sorry that I couldn’t get the tools back for my bogus client and that if he had known about it beforehand, he might’ve recovered the power tools he saw on the kitchen floor when they were executing the search warrant. I thanked him anyway and told him my client would be all right, that I might just buy him the tools myself in exchange for his labor.
I start the car, don’t even know where I’m going, but I got a couple hours to kill before I have to meet with Claypole at DC jail.
My hand on the shifter, my phone rings.
Screen shows that it’s Luna.
I put the car back in park and answer, “What’s up, Al?”
“Just that good hit you passed our way. How the hell’d you stumble onto that?”
“Man, don’t make me go into all that again. Davidson’s got all the details. Let’s just say right place, right time, and leave it at that.”
“I’ll be getting a copy of his write-up, then.”
“What’d you get there?”