They were first led to him by an anonymous call; a woman gave them Seever’s name and address, said he was up to something, that she’d seen people going into the house and never coming back out. So they’d started watching him go to work and go to the bar and go home, peering at him through binoculars while he sat on the lip of his bathtub and clipped his fingernails into the toilet bowl. They started watching Seever because they had no one else to watch, no other leads, and they had to do something; the city was screaming for an explanation. Twenty-three disappearances reported in the last seven years in the Denver-metro alone. People disappeared all the time, but not like this, without witnesses or bodies, and there were stories about cults and Satan-worshipping floating around, of white slavery. Hoskins had heard the stories himself, and he’d laughed, because it was all so stupid. There had to be an explanation for all the missing people, he can remember thinking. Something sane and reasonable.
So they started following Seever, because of that one call, and they could’ve stopped at any time, but there was something that kept them after him. Because Seever was weird, there was something off about him, something wrong. It was Loren who said this, who said Seever was hiding something, that he was up to no good, he wasn’t sure Seever was behind all the missing people, but the dude was bad news. And Loren was to be trusted, he had a nose for the work, he knew how to read people. Loren didn’t like Seever, didn’t like the way he’d shake hands and hold the sweaty grip for a moment too long, didn’t like the way he’d gel his hair so the rows left behind by the comb’s teeth were still plainly visible. Loren wanted to bust Seever for something, anything, even if it wasn’t anything big, because he wanted to see the guy squirm, wanted to laugh in his face when they shoved him into a cell in his fancy suit and left him there to sleep on a cot and shit in a toilet with no seat. Oh, they could’ve busted him anytime for drinking—Seever liked to toss back a few at the bars most nights before heading home, they could’ve pulled him over a dozen different times—but Hoskins made Loren wait.
“I don’t know,” Hoskins had said. He was usually the one who plowed forward without a second thought—prepare for ramming speed, look away if you’re squeamish—but this was different, there was some niggling doubt, a pricking in his thumbs that told him to slow down, to wait. To watch. If Seever was guilty of something big—and as they spent more time watching him, Hoskins was sure this was the case—and they jumped on him too soon, he’d be lost. Seever had money, he had friends; people liked him. They could slap him with a DUI, but then they’d have to back off, because otherwise he could claim they were harassing him, that the police department was out for blood on an innocent citizen, and they’d never be able to get him for anything else. “It would probably be better to wait.”
“Bullshit,” Loren had said, smacking his palm hard against the steering wheel. They were in his car, parked outside one of Seever’s restaurants, watching the shadowed figures moving behind the glass, eating and laughing and sometimes doing nothing at all. “We could have him behind bars tonight.”
“That won’t get us into his house,” Hoskins said, drumming his fingers on the dashboard and staring out at the white stripes painted on the asphalt, as if he were bored. “Let’s say he is the one behind all these missing people. We’ll never know if we never step foot in his place. Then we’ll be the assholes who let this dipshit slip through our fingers.”
Loren wouldn’t take orders, he didn’t like to be told what to do, Hoskins had learned that not long after they became partners. Loren would only go along with something if he thought it was his own idea, so Hoskins played the game; he was the one yanking the puppet strings, although it had to be done softly, with care. None of Loren’s other partners had figured this out; Loren had stomped all over them and none of them had lasted, not until Hoskins. Because a partnership can’t work with two snarling pit bulls—one of them has to play the part of the leash.
So Loren considered, spent a day mulling the whole thing over, then went to Chief Black, said he’d thought about it, and he’d decided the best thing to do would be to wait, to keep watching Seever and look for a good time to sweep in and nab him, and the boss man agreed to give them more time. Later, people would congratulate Loren on having that kind of foresight, on knowing when it was best to pull back, on having such good instincts, and Loren never once tried to correct anyone. Hoskins wasn’t mad—that was life with Loren, what he’d come to expect. You had to give a lot to Loren to get a little, and the glory wasn’t as important to Hoskins as it was to do his job the right way. The ends justify the means, or, like his father used to say, it doesn’t matter what you put in your mouth, it’s all shit in the end.
Be vewy, vewy quiet, Loren would whisper when they were parked across from Seever’s house at night, struggling not to fall asleep. We’re hunting wabbits.
It was funny at first, and then later, not so much.