The Innocent

Chapter





28


THE BUCARS PULLED up in front of the Premium Pawnshop and Robie and Vance stepped from one, while two other FBI agents climbed out of their vehicle. There were bars across the front door and windows of the pawnshop. The door had three serious locks. The businesses next to it were gutted, with blackened plywood nailed against their fronts. Trash littered the streets and Robie spotted a couple of druggies stumbling along.

Vance sent the other two agents to check the rear of the building while she and Robie approached the front. She shaded her eyes and peered inside. “Can’t see anything.”

“Can you knock down the door or do you need a warrant?”

“Rick Wind’s house was less problematic. We suspected he might be hurt. This place is obviously closed.”

“He could be inside, hurt or dead,” said Robie, joining her at the front of the shop and peering between the bars into the darkened interior. “That should be enough.”

“And if we find evidence he committed the crime and his defense lawyer gets it thrown out because our search was determined to be unlawful under the Fourth Amendment?”

“I guess that’s why you FBI agents get the big bucks.”

“And the big career derailment.”

“How about I kick open the door and search the place?”

“Still have the same evidentiary problem.”

“Yeah, but it’ll be my career that’s derailed, not yours.”

“I’m here with you.”

“I’ll tell them I did it all on my own, against your express instructions.”

He examined the door and the framing around it. “Steel on steel. Tough stuff. But there’s always a way.”

“What kind of Fed are you?” she asked, her eyebrows hiked.

“Not the career-kissing type obviously. Stay here.”

“Robie, you can’t just—”

He drew his pistol, fired three times, and the trio of locks fell out onto the sidewalk.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed Vance as she jumped back. They heard running feet, as the other two agents were no doubt coming to find out what had happened.

“An alarm will probably go off,” said Robie calmly. “You might want to call the cops and tell them not to bother.” Before she could say anything, he opened the door and stepped inside.

No alarm went off.

Robie did not take that as a positive sign. He kept his gun out, felt for the light switch, hit it, and the pawnshop was quickly draped in weak light. Robie had been in pawnshops before and this looked pretty typical. Watches, lamps, rings, and an assortment of other items were stacked neatly in bins or inside glass cabinets. All had tags with numbers written on them. The man’s military background, thought Robie. You never lost that precision. Or at least most didn’t.

But the floorboards smelled of urine and the ceiling was blackened with decades of grime. Robie didn’t know what the place had been before it was a pawnshop, but it had not worn well.

There was a cash register cage. Robie noted the bulletproof glass. There were scratches on the glass and what looked to be two dents from gunshots. Upset customers or people looking to rip the guy off. Ex-military Rick Wind probably dealt with that with his own hardware. Robie figured there were at least two guns in that cage somewhere.

He looked toward the ceiling corners and saw the camera mounted in one. It had a direct shot of the cage. That might come in handy.

Robie moved forward, doing visual sweeps. He heard nothing except the sounds of life outside. A breeze pushed through the open door, rustling lampshades and lifting tags on the merchandise. When he heard footsteps behind him he turned to see Vance there, gun out, her expression seriously pissed off.

“You’re an idiot,” she hissed.

“I told you to stay outside,” he whispered back.

“You don’t tell me to do anything. Not unless you want your ass—”

Robie put a finger to his lips. He’d heard it before her.

A squeak. And then another.

He pointed to the back of the shop. She nodded, her angry expression gone.

Robie led the way, turning down one aisle, and rode it back to a pair of swinging doors with a gap between. The doors were moving slightly, but that was not the source of the squeak.

He looked at Vance, pointed to himself and then the door, and then motioned to the right. She nodded in understanding and took up position on his right flank.

Robie lifted one foot, kicked one of the swing doors open and bulled inside, his gun making arcs and ready to fire as he stepped to the left. Vance followed on the right and cleared that part of the room.

Nothing.

She looked down and grimaced as the gray critter skittered into a darkened corner.

“Rats.”

Robie looked down and saw the animal’s tail before it whisked out of sight.

“I don’t think rats squeak like that,” said Robie.

“Then what?” she asked.

“That.”

He pointed to one darkened corner of the room on the left side.

Vance looked that way and caught a breath.

The man was hanging upside down from the exposed rafter.

They approached. His body was swinging slightly. And the rope was squeaking against the wooden beam. Robie looked at the slit between the pair of swing doors.

“Acted like a funnel with the front door open,” he said. “With the wind outside. Got the body to move a bit.”

Vance looked at the dead man. He was black.

And green. And purple.

“Is that Rick Wind?” asked Robie.

“Who the hell can tell?” replied Vance. “He’s been dead a while.”

“Didn’t kill himself. Hands are bound. Not strangulation.” He touched the man’s arm. “And he didn’t kill his wife and kid. Condition of the body means he was dead before they were. Rigor’s long since passed.”

Robie bent over and looked at the man’s open mouth. “And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“It seems they cut out his tongue.”