Edge of the Heat 5 (4 page)

Jerry heard movement inside the door. Gagne held his badge up beside his head. The door opened an inch. “Yes?” the voice called out. Gagne talked his way inside and shut the door loudly behind him.

Jerry sighed and leaned against the wall. He would just have to wait.

Gagne was only inside for a few minutes. Jerry thought that was strange. Probably she didn’t see anything or know anything. Gagne gave him a single dark glance before knocking on the next door in the hallway. He knocked again, but there was no answer at this door.

Gagne headed down the hall and knocked on the door directly across from Sara’s apartment. Jerry stayed where he was, not wanting to push his luck.

They both heard heavy sounds inside the apartment, like someone was knocking over tables or chairs. Jerry perked up and watched Gagne closely to see what he would do. Gagne stood, impassive, unmoving.

No one came to the door or said anything, and Gagne knocked again. More noises from inside. Then a deep male voice. “Who’re you?”

“I am Detective Gagne of the Westwood Harbor Police Department. I need to talk to you about a crime that was committed here last night. Please open your door.”

“What crime?” came the muffled voice through the door.

“Please open your door Sir, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Lemme see your badge.”

Stiffly, Gagne held it up to the peephole.

“I’m calling the cops to see if you’re for real, man.”

Gagne shook his head, then said “That’s fine. I’ll be right here.”

Jerry smiled. It was good to see Detective Gagne dealing with a little frustration.

After what seemed like a long time, Jerry heard noise behind the door again. It sounded like 5 or 6 deadbolts were being drawn back, and then 4 or 5 door chains being unhooked.

A man opened the door about 6 inches, and then tried to slip out the opening. Gagne stepped back and the man squeezed out, closing his door behind him. He was at least 40, with a heavily lined face. His brown hair stood up in small spikes, like the world’s worst case of bedhead. He wore dirty jeans, brown work boots, and a paint-stained white t-shirt.

“Whaddaya want, man?”

“Can we go back in your apartment? I need to ask you some questions.” Gagne said.

“You got a warrant?” the new guy asked.

Jerry could see Gagne’s pinched expression from where he stood in the stairwell and it almost made him laugh.

“No Sir, I don’t have a warrant. This isn’t about you at all. I just want to ask if you heard or saw anything last night at this apartment." Gagne motioned to Sara’s door.

“Oh yeah, I saw them.”

“Saw who?”

“The men. And then the cops.”

Gagne glanced back at Jerry, then shook his head slightly. He sighed and pulled a notebook out of his pocket.

“What’s your name, Sir?”

Jerry smiled and listened closely. This was going better than he could have hoped for. The man was Chester Wysong. He occasionally worked at the local temp agency, but mostly he just stayed in his apartment. It was a dangerous world out there, you know. No, he didn’t know the neighbor who lived across the hallway, although he could recognize her on sight. He had been in his apartment since 5 p.m. yesterday and he never saw Sara at all. He did, however, see a man enter her apartment just before midnight. He didn’t think that Sara had been with the man. By the time Chester had looked out his peephole, the man was already in the apartment and closing the door behind him. Gagne asked him why he had looked out his peephole - had he heard a noise? No, he hadn’t heard a noise, he just looked out his peephole every 10 minutes or so, or anytime he passed the door. He thought it was important to stay vigilant because of how the world was going to hell in a hand basket and you couldn’t even trust the cops these days. They were the worst criminals out there. Gagne stopped Chester’s rambling here and asked what the man had looked like.

“Like you,” Chester had said and Jerry’s eyes bugged out of his head. “What do you mean, like me?” Gagne asked tightly.

“You know man, like a cop. He had the crew cut and the beefy neck and he was wearing dark khaki pants with all the pockets in them and a tight shirt like the cops wear when they are on drug busts.”

Gagne touched his definitely not-beefy neck, wrote a few things down in his notebook, and asked a few more questions about what the guy looked like. Chester had only seen the back of his head, and that was unfortunate. The guy did have a tattoo on his right forearm though. It looked like an American flag, but it was in black and white. Gagne wrote all this down in his notebook and Jerry fixed it in his brain.

The next thing he had seen was Jerry. He’d heard Jerry first calling for Sara and then had looked out the peephole, and seen “a tall, bald man wearing a tuxedo.”

A wan smile skimmed across Jerry's face. This guy wasn’t just blowing smoke or making stuff up. He was describing what had actually happened. And that first guy had to be who they were looking for. Then his face fell.
If only Gagne had talked to this guy last night
!
The cops could have already been out looking for this guy
.

Chester said the next thing he saw out his peephole was the two uniformed cops coming and taking Jerry’s report. He’d gone to bed shortly after that.

“And then you woke me up at the crack of dawn,” Chester told Gagne reproachfully.

Gagne thanked him and said that was all he needed. Then he walked to the next door. Chester watched him go and then slipped back into his door, opening it as little as possible again.

I hope he wasn’t making that up about the first guy and he doesn’t have Sara tied up in his apartment right now
, Jerry thought. He shook his head. He sounded as paranoid as Chester did.

Detective Gagne knocked on the two other doors on the floor, but got no answer. He headed down the stairs on the far end of the building and Jerry ran down the hallway to catch up with him.

On the first floor, the detective knocked on every door and asked anyone who answered if they had seen the man Chester had described. Jerry stood next to the stairwell and thought to himself that at least Gagne was thorough.

When Gagne had hit every door on the ground level, he walked swiftly back to his black Suburban. Jerry caught him a few feet from it.

“Detective!”

Gagne kept walking.

Jerry ran in front of him. “Wait Detective, please, just tell me what you are going to do now.”

“My job, Mr. Mansko, my job.”

“But what does that mean? Are you going to put out an APB on this cop-looking guy?”

Gagne looked momentarily offended at this, but he quickly dropped his face back into a perfect mask of contempt. “No, no APB. I don’t have enough of a description to put an APB out on him.”

“A flag tattoo on his right forearm, beefy neck, and crew cut isn’t enough of a description for the cops on the street to at least be aware that you are looking for someone who fits that description?”

“No, it’s not.” Gagne spoke slowly, like he was talking to someone with a brain defect.

“Well what will you do then?”

Gagne glared at Jerry silently. “Look Mr. Mansko. I don’t follow you around in the ambulance and ask you what your next drug is that you are going to give your patient, do I? So what makes you think that I should have to tell you what my next move is? Police work is not up for public scrutiny. I will do what I am supposed to do.”

Jerry gritted his teeth and felt a muscle in his neck start to throb. So Gagne knew who he was, huh?

“I guess you don’t have to tell me anything. But why wouldn’t you? I am extremely worried about my friend and it would make me feel much better if I knew that her case was being actively investigated.”

Gagne raised his chin. “Of course it is being actively investigated. I’m here aren’t I?” Gagne turned to his vehicle and put his hand out to open the door.

Feeling desperate, Jerry grabbed his wrist. “Detective please, just let me-”

Gagne fixed him with a death stare. “Take your hand off of me.”

Jerry dropped his hand, but moved between the detective and his vehicle. “Sorry, but why won’t you just hear me out here? I really think something bad has hap-”

Detective Gagne interrupted him again. His voice sounded low and dangerous. “Move out of my way.” Jerry had a second to think he probably should move, and then Gagne thrust his hand behind his back, under his suit coat.
He’s going to shoot me
, flashed through Jerry’s mind and then Gagne’s hand was back out. He had his handcuffs and quick as a cat he slipped one over Jerry’s wrist.

“You’re under arrest.” Gagne growled it, pure anger shining out of his face.

Fuck
, Jerry thought.
A perfect streak, ruined. I haven’t been arrested in 18 years, and then I go and get Detective Short-Fuse and it’s all over
.

“Arrested for what?” Jerry managed to get out, as Gagne twisted his arm behind his back and pulled back the other one, cuffing them both together.

“Obstruction of justice. Harassment of a police officer. Is that enough for you or do you want more charges?” Gagne pulled Jerry to the back of the suburban and opened the door. “Get in.”

Jerry climbed in the vehicle, his mind racing. What was he going to do now? All he wanted to do was look for Sara, but admittedly, he didn’t have any idea where to start looking. And here he was, being arrested and taken to jail.
Well, I guess I can start looking there
, he thought crazily, and felt his brain slip a notch. His headache was pounding again.

S
ara Acosta came fully awake in an instant, like she always did. Her eyes snapped open and took in her surroundings. Clear. She looked at the clock. 4:30 p.m. Perfect. She’d gotten almost 4 hours of sleep, which would have to be enough. She snapped off the alarm before it could blare annoyingly and swung her feet out of the motel bed onto the floor. She looked down at her outfit. Her stretch pants were fine but her shirt was wrinkled. Well, she didn’t have anything to change into yet, so it would just have to do. She hated stretch pants, but they were the only pants small enough to roll up and fit in her small cross-body purse she always wore. When she ditched her dress last night, balling it up tight and hiding it under a large rock, she had already dressed in these clothes. At least they were comfortable.

She slipped her feet into her shoes, black satin slippers she also carried in her purse at all times. They were no good for fighting or kicking, but they were good for running as long as the ground wasn’t too rocky or covered with glass or something. And for stealing cars and driving all night? They were perfect. With her shoes on, she headed into the bathroom to make herself presentable. She had a lot of work to do.

Precisely 4 minutes later, thick, black hair (she had stopped about halfway the night before and dyed it in a gas station bathroom) pulled around her face, and her teeth scrubbed clean with her finger, Sara headed out the door to begin her life as Brooke Barnes. She dropped her motel key (she had paid cash a few hours ago, claiming to have lost her wallet and slipping the clerk an extra $20) in the drop box and walked the 8 blocks to Las Vegas First Community Bank, dodging the crowds on the sidewalk like an old pro.

Inside the bank, 8 minutes from closing, she gave her story again about losing her wallet, but she dangled the safety deposit key in front of the clerk’s eyes and said she had a passport inside the box that would verify her identity. She knew this close to the time when they could lock the doors and put this stuffy place behind them they were much more likely to just open the box and let her show them the passport than they were to demand identification up front. She could get identification if she had to, but it would take time.

The stuffy old-lady manager walked her into the vault, put in her key and then sat stiffly next to her while she opened the box and then showed the passport. Satisfied, the woman had sniffed, and left the vault, leaving Sara to retrieve her things. She pulled everything out of the box and stuffed it in her bag. She closed the box and called for the manager, both of them locking the empty box with their keys. She thanked the manager and walked out, feeling strangely light and heavy at the same time.

Light, because starting over always made her feel happy and excited. Light because she believed that this time it had been closer than ever, but she had managed to escape still. Heavy because she had really liked being Sara. She had loved being a physical therapist. For a while there she had felt normal. Heck, she’d almost had a ... (boyfriend) -
NO!
Her mind yelled at her before she could whisper the word to herself.
You had no such thing. You'll never have a boyfriend.

Sara set her mouth, turned her mind from thoughts of Jerry, and hailed a taxi on the busy street. She got one immediately. “The Encore, please.”

On the way, Sara let her thoughts wander. She tried not to let them wander to Jerry, but they did occasionally. She wondered what he was doing right now. She wondered if he was devastated when she’d left last night. Or if he was just pissed. He’d seemed to really like her a lot, although she wasn’t sure why. She had never tried to give him anything to like or be interested in. Not that any of it mattered anymore, she would never see him again. A small pang of something gripped her heart at that thought. She pushed it away. It wasn’t important.

The cab pulled up in front of the Thailana Luxury Apartments. She paid in cash and went inside, pulling her hair around her face. Until she had time for more concrete alterations, it was the best she could do for a disguise. At the front desk she handed over her new driver’s license and credit card in the name of Brook Barnes and tried to start thinking of herself as Brook. 

The slight woman behind the desk gave her a key and smiled stiffly, eyeballing her simple shirt, no makeup or jewelry, and stretch pants. Sara knew what she was thinking, and she was used to it. She took her keys and walked to the elevator. Her home for the next week, while she tried to figure out where she was going to go next, was a 4900 square foot luxury apartment that went for $5000 a night. She had picked this hotel specifically because the massive rooms had more than one exit. The cost was not important.