The Ten-Mile Trials (13 page)

‘No. Jeez, she's wasting the whole day, isn't she? It's always like this when Kevin mixes in.' He frowned, and the room seemed to darken. ‘Tell her to come back here and get her new assignment.'

I told Kevin, ‘The new burglary's taken care of. You three wait there for me.' They described where they were parked, half a block from the pawnshop, and I told them I'd park around the corner and walk to the back of the van. ‘Watch your rear-view and open the back door when I get there.' I put down the phone and told Ray, ‘She's got no way back till I get there. I'll go there right now and send them back as soon as I see what they're so excited about – it won't be long.'

The old Dodge van was parked a couple of car-lengths from the corner, on the right-hand side of the street heading west. The Reddi-Kash sign was big and red, above a dingy storefront across the street, half a block ahead. I stepped into the gutter when I got even with the van's back doors, and the right one opened before I could knock. I ducked inside, made my way forward through the seats and squatted beside Gary, back of the console. Kevin and Winnie were sitting in the two front seats, Winnie hunkered down so only the top of her head showed from outside.

Three chunky guys with whiskery growths that didn't quite manage to be beards were leaning against the iron window grate and pacing the dirty sidewalk in front of the store. Two of them were talking loudly, nonstop, on cell phones. The third was turned toward the shop, talking to a grubby-looking man with one squinty eye who stood in the half-open doorway.

Gary and Winnie were in the middle of an argument. ‘No, it isn't,' Gary said.

‘Yes it is,' Winnie said. ‘That's the one I hocked the jewelry to.'

‘He must be part-time help,' Gary said. ‘I know this pawnbroker, he's an old guy with sore feet.'

I said, ‘Winnie, are those the guys you wanted me to see?'

‘Yes.'

‘Any of them inside?'

‘I'm not sure. But do you see how they're dressed?' Two of the three wore velour exercise suits in sickening colors – one puce and the other a dark mustard like vomit. The third man, the one talking to the shopkeeper, wore jeans and the kind of clingy striped Ban-Lon shirt I thought went off the market some time in the late seventies.

‘OK, they're not the fashion-forward set, what else?'

‘I'm pretty sure they didn't buy those clothes here,' she said.

‘Perish the thought,' Kevin said. ‘Rutherford is legendary for the good taste of its male population.'

‘Whatever.' She dropped her eyelids and flared her nostrils, the way she does when small jokes make her impatient. I forget sometimes how devastatingly humorless she is. ‘But I don't believe they would find those particular clothes in stores here. And see the jewelry, Jake?'

All three wore heavy gold pieces – neck chains with pendants, pinkie rings, and the kind of massive watches sometimes favored by divers, that tell the time on four continents.

‘Uh-huh,' I said, ‘I think I see their cars, too.'

‘That's right. The Cadillac Escalade and the Ford Excursion'

They loomed at the curb, glowing like beacons in a row of dingy older cars parked there. ‘Man, that Escalade is some kind of red, huh?'

‘It's called Infra-red,' Winnie said, ‘I looked it up.'

While we watched, another bulky man in a baggy velour track suit, this one the purple of fresh bruises, came out of the pawnshop. He exchanged brief, surprisingly quiet, remarks with the three men lounging there. Then he and the man in jeans got into the Ford, drove toward us and on to the end of the block, turned right, and headed north.

‘OK, I've seen enough,' I said. ‘We can take down this shop any time, right?'

‘Yeah,' Kevin said, ‘but let's hold off till we figure out the connection with these workout enthusiasts we see here.'

‘I agree. So let's all get back to the station. My car's around the corner, Kevin. Drop me there.'

My message light was blinking when I got back to my desk. ‘What else is new?', I thought, and stood beside it, leafing through the new pile of memos and reports in my In Basket. Nothing there that couldn't wait. I'll go get a cup of coffee before I settle down, I decided, and turned toward the door just as Ray walked in, looked at my blinking phone, and said, ‘You thinking of answering your messages any time soon?'

‘Oh . . . is that you blinking? I haven't— What is it?' He looked kind of fired up.

‘I called the Phoenix PD about the Smith & Wesson. I found a People Crimes guy out there named Amos Healy, you know him?'

‘No.'

‘You heard about the kidnappings and shit they been having?'

‘Sure.' The Phoenix crime wave had been making the national news for months. ‘Mexican drug cartels, I thought they said.'

‘Well, a lot of it is. But lately they've been seeing this rash of burglaries that seem to be more
refined
 . . . that's the word Amos used. I said what the hell's a refined burglary and he described some details that sounded familiar . . . Is Kevin back yet?'

‘I think I just heard . . . here they come.' The voices of Kevin, Gary and Winnie reached the top of the stairs. I poked my head into the hall and said, ‘Gary, come tell Ray what you told me yesterday about the burglaries you've been seeing.'

‘That they're so fast and neat, you mean?'

‘Yeah, that.'

In almost exactly the same words he'd used the day before – he must have had his written report memorized – he told Ray how quickly this band of thieves was getting into houses and finding the loot they wanted then getting out.

‘Like they got some little helpers?' Ray was wearing his beagle look.

‘That's what we been thinking,' Gary said.

‘So I sent Chris and Julie out yesterday to interview some victims,' Kevin said. ‘Looking for home services they might have in common.'

‘Good. Good!' Ray said.

We all stared at him – Ray Bailey, beaming with enthusiasm. Was the moon blue?

‘Gee, Ray,' Kevin said, ‘I'm glad you're pleased.'

‘I think you're absolutely on the right track,' Ray said, oblivious to the irony. ‘This guy I've been talking to in Phoenix says they've started doing the very same thing. He said those Mexican drug cartels been keeping them so busy with kidnappings and drive-bys, shit like that, that for some time they missed the fact that a whole separate string of burglaries was being pulled off by what they now believe is a different gang. Very quick entries, precisely targeted on big-ticket items. Sounds familiar?'

‘Oh, crap,' Kevin said. ‘You mean these pests have cousins in Phoenix?'

‘And maybe not only in Phoenix. My friend Amos out there says he's heard rumbles about a nationwide ring of East European immigrants – he's calling them the Mad Russians, but they're getting tips that they're probably from half a dozen countries in the old Soviet Union – that are into every kind of crime that will raise ready cash. Says he's got his lines out to narcs in other cities, guys he knows in Seattle and San Francisco, trying for more information. Out there they think this may be a nationwide thing, a group of East Europeans trying to muscle in on the drug trade, take some of it away from the Mexicans. It sounds kind of crazy, but— What have Chris and Julie found so far?'

‘I don't know,' Kevin said. ‘I just got back myself. Let's see if they're . . .' He strode down the long middle aisle of his investigators' work stations, stopped between two empty ones midway, and came back. ‘I'll give 'em a call,' he said. ‘I'll let you know.'

‘Fine,' Ray said. ‘Winnie, I think since the boy in the latest home invasion can talk now, you and I should go and ask him some questions.' He eyed the many bags and bundles she carried. ‘What is all that?'

‘The equipment you asked me to bring you,' she said.

‘Oh yeah, at the house we're not going to any more.' He sighed. ‘Stack it by LeeAnn's desk, we'll sort it out later. Come on, let's go.' He charged down the stairway, all his cheerfulness gone. Winnie dumped her bags, enlarging LeeAnn's trashy island, and trotted after him, inscrutable again inside her Awesome Asian persona.

Kevin got double-teamed right there in the hall by a couple of his auto-theft guys, determined to talk to him about a fresh pair of car-jackings. I heard him in his office asking plaintively, ‘Both victims have what? Jesus, what now? A vampire?' He closed his door then and shut off the noise, and for an hour my office was so quiet I could hear LeeAnn hit the space bar on her computer. I powered through phone messages and put some details about the latest break-in into our daily journal. By four o'clock, I was looking at an almost clean desk.

Then Milo Nilssen walked in and said, ‘Aha!' It's one of his favorite things to say.

‘What?' I said, wishing I didn't have to hear his answer.

‘Clearly, the city can make its first cuts right here. Look at that desk, there's hardly anything on it.'

Milo's alternative needling tactic, if he catches me in the middle of a work spasm, is to rant about the piles of paper all around me, that prove I can't organize my job properly. He has picked up a lot of self-confidence since the scandal that catapulted him into the County Attorney's job he was never going to get otherwise, but he's still got a little edge of uncertainty that makes him need to plant a gotcha on somebody before he can start a conversation.

‘You're too late,' I told him. ‘I already lost three detectives. You?'

‘Only one attorney, so far. But then I only had three to begin with. Oh, and one of my stenos has to go to four days. I'll lose her if she can find a decent job someplace else.'

‘The upside is, she won't be able to.'

‘Isn't that a splendid path to workplace stability? We're keeping people in their jobs because otherwise they'd starve.'

‘They're no worse off with us than with anybody else,' I said. ‘The county can't put the next two years on its Visa card, Milo.' I was getting so schooled in this debate I could automatically switch to the opposite side of whoever started it.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just came by,' he said, getting a little gleam on, ‘to tell you that the Funk woman is getting all the mercy you requested, and a spot over.'

‘She is? I thought— I heard that Bo . . .'

‘Tried to throw a great big monkey wrench in the plan. You heard right. What the hell's he doing in that job, anyway? Talk about a square peg in a round hole.'

‘He's maybe having a little trouble adjusting . . .'

‘You think?' Milo rolled his eyes up.

‘But he'll get the hang of it. Bo's a very capable officer.'

‘Right. But just as a policy matter from now on, Jake, any screw-ups you're inclined to treat kindly, I suggest you send them to court with Bo Dooley.'

‘OK. What about Gloria?'

‘She made out like a bandit. Her boyfriend got his bail set at half a million dollars, but the judge was so annoyed by Bo's performance in court that he dismissed Gloria's marijuana charge entirely on the spot. Anyone could see, he said, that Ms Funk was not reaping any handsome profits in the drug trade. He gave her three years suspended on the meth rap on condition she immediately be remanded to a treatment center in the custody of the supervisor. Visitation rights with her daughter to be adjudicated as soon as the mother's recovery is deemed to be well in hand.'

‘That's what he said – “deemed to be well in hand”?'

‘His very words. You know Judge Tollefson. Why issue a pompous opinion when with just a little more work you could make it truly grandiose?'

‘So she's going right into detox?

‘Yup. Drying out at Fountain Center at the taxpayer's expense so she can get her groove back and try it all again with somebody new.'

‘You seem a touch more cynical than usual this afternoon, Milo. Anything in particular eating on you?'

‘Nah.' He shot his cuffs, smoothed his hair, and tightened the knot in his tie – a replay of his old bag of tics that I hadn't seen in a while. ‘It's just . . . when the pie starts getting sliced a little smaller, the motivations show up plainer, I guess.'

‘You think I had something to gain by recommending leniency for Gloria Funk?'

‘I didn't say that.'

‘You seem to be implying it.'

‘Jeez, don't be so touchy. No, in your case I just think maybe having a baby has softened your brain a little.'

‘In my case? Am I on trial for something?'

‘No, Jake.' He got up and buttoned the ridiculously dignified double-breasted jacket of his suit, shrugged a couple of times to settle it smoothly over his broad shoulders, and picked up his briefcase. ‘You are not on trial, and neither am I. See you.' He strode out with his cheeks a little pinker than usual.

I looked after him wondering what the hell that was all about.

Milo and I used to mix it up like this all the time. Lately we'd been getting along better, but something about the Gloria Funk hearing had put us both on the defensive. That was pretty stupid – neither one of us had a dog in her fight.

Except, come to think of it, maybe Milo didn't appreciate getting second-hand suggestions from the investigative division about the disposition of a prisoner. Especially when they got transmitted by a detective whose pay grade was several ranks lower than his, and who was not renowned even in her own department for exceptional tact and diplomacy. Why the hell hadn't I thought to phone Milo and share some information in advance, instead of getting him steamrollered by Rosie in court in front of a judge who I now remembered always did his best to make Milo look like a turkey?