The Ten-Mile Trials (24 page)

‘No . . . not really. Anyway she's just going to sit in a car. Rosie'll do fine. Let's get her going.'

Kevin gave her the bullet-proof-vest lecture and the call-the-minute-you-see-them lecture, and Rosie said ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah' and headed for the stairs. But a memory had floated to the surface of my brain, and just before she started down I said, ‘Whoa. Hold up a minute.'

I went over and stood beside her and said, ‘Used to be a funny little alley in back of that store. It's narrow and not used much any more, but why don't you take a look before you hand over the car – see if you can drive along there and look at the back of the store?'

‘You're really having a worm about that place today, aren't you?'

‘Don't hang around too long and let them spot you,' I said, and right away I knew I'd said one thing too many. Her eyes flashed and she tossed her red curls and stomped down the stairs. She is the daughter, niece and sister of cops, and she hates any implication that she is not as good at the job as any one of them. Well, rightly so – but she makes me anxious sometimes, she's a little bolder than I want her to be.

She did exactly what I asked her to do that day, though, circling the block discreetly before she pulled into the lot by the restaurant. Then she turned over the keys of her unmarked squad car to Wally Krogstad, got in beside Gary on the old quilt that had taken the place of seat cushions in the ancient Jeep, and phoned Kevin.

He came trotting across the hall to my office, carrying the phone in his hand, with a little film of excited sweat on his upper lip. ‘Rosie says that before she gave Wally the car she drove down the alley behind the Reddi-Kash, and there's an eighteen-wheeler in there by the back door. And those big cars we saw out in front before, they're in there too.'

I reached, and he handed me the phone. I said, ‘You think they're loading up?'

‘Yeah, the back door of the store is open, and the van's ramp is down. It's happening right now.'

‘Good job! This is just what we've been waiting for. Now listen, the two of you sit tight there, you hear? I need you to be eyes and ears. Tell Gary to stay on the radio. You hang up and call me back in five minutes on my own cell. I'm going to ask Dispatch to send the ERU team now. Stay in that car, Rosie.'

‘All
right
, I
hear
you,' she said, and hung up.

‘Get Ray,' I told Kevin and called the duty sergeant to deploy the ERU squad. They were patrolling in their own sectors, but none of those Type-A guys wanted to take a chance on missing this gig, so they had not gone any farther off than they had to. Within minutes, they were all in the basement gearing up. Helmeted, encased in body armor and carrying shields and a steel ram, they'd gladly take down anything I asked. I've seen the mess they can make, so I don't ask often – but when you need them, there is nothing like an Emergency Response Unit to lift the spirits of an overworked investigator.

They got ready fast, but not fast enough to suit Ray and Kevin, who spent the intervening minutes jittering over the radio, picking the brains of their detectives on stake-out and agonizing over the chance that the clever burglars we'd been chasing all week might still somehow slip away. When they'd had all the anxiety they could stand, they dispatched Andy Pitman to check on the action around the store. ‘Just stay on the radio and circle the block,' they said. ‘Let us know if you see them around there.'

Andy clipped his Glock on to his belt and clattered out. Ray and Kevin were in my office by then, so we could all listen to the radio together. After three or four minutes of traffic stops and a fender-bender, the monotone voice of the 911 operator came on the radio. She said, ‘Car 41, see the man at the Reddi-Kash pawnshop.' She gave the address and added, ‘He's reporting an armed robbery in progress.'

Vince Greeley's voice came back from Car 41 saying, ‘Copy, the Reddi-Kash.' And a second later Andy identified himself and said, ‘I've got it too. I'm right there.'

My phone rang. I said, ‘Yeah?' and Rosie said, ‘Greeley's just pulled up, and now Pitman's here too. They're both headed into the store right now.' I heard the sirens below me, as the ERU boiled out of the basement in three cars. They can make a silent approach when they need to – but when, as now, noise works to clear their way, they make plenty of it and flash a dazzling array of strobes. They went screaming south on Broadway, stalling traffic for a couple of blocks around them as they went.

I opened my mouth to tell Rosie the team was on its way, but she cut me off, saying, ‘Gunshots in the store! Two . . . no, three . . . now three more together . . .'

Then Greeley's voice on the radio, a little blurred, said, ‘This is Greeley, ten-ninety-nine—'

There was silence on the phone and then a little thud. I said, ‘Rosie?'

After a couple of seconds, Gary Krogstad said, on the phone, ‘Rosie's out and running toward the store. Shall I go help her or—'

‘No, Gary! Listen! The ERU's almost there. Stay on the phone and tell us what's happening.'

‘OK.' He breathed hard, three times. Involuntarily, the three of us began to adjust our breathing to his, but then he rapped out, ‘There's an officer down, did you hear that? OK . . . now the ERU's pulling up to the store, they're all running toward the store . . . they just threw in the flash-bang . . . now they're all going in.'

‘Where's Rosie?' I asked him.

‘She's behind them. She only made it halfway before they got here, so now she's stopped, she's waiting to see . . . Oh, wait, a car's coming out from behind the store. I guess that's what she heard. It's . . . uh . . . the Ford Excursion. She's firing at it! But they're not stopping, she hit the cornerpost of the windshield but it bounced right off . . . they're turning, I gotta get out to see this, just a min—' In a few seconds he was on the radio, giving the license number and requesting that officers in the area pursue and stop the Ford Excursion heading north on Broadway.

As soon as he stopped talking, one of the ERU team – Burnap's voice I thought – came on the radio giving the address of the store and saying, ‘Start meds code three, I have an officer down here.'

Then Gary picked up the phone again and said in my ear, ‘There's gunfire out in back of the store now, Jake, and I can see a big . . . it's an ABC Movers van . . . coming out. Rosie's behind one of the ERU cars, she's firing at it but it's going right on . . .' He was back on the radio then, calling in the license number of the van, also reporting that it was turning north on Broadway. ‘Driver's talking on a cell. I think them three vehicles are all talking to each other.' There was more transmission from other cars, very fast, including two that were following the van, reporting it turning west on Twelfth Street.

Gary's voice came right in behind them, giving the license number and description of the Escalade. ‘Big red SUV, pulling out of the parking lot behind the store. Need cars to follow . . .' But then he was back on the phone to me, saying, ‘Jake, there's a man running alongside the Escalade on the far side. Rosie can't see him but he's coming right at Rosie and the driver's firing at her now, she's down behind the car, I gotta go—'

Then there was silence on the phone, silence on the radio. An eternity of silence went by before Gary's breathless voice on the radio reported that the two men from the Escalade had disarmed Rosie Doyle and were driving away with her in the back of their vehicle. ‘They're going east on Twenty-First Street. I am in pursuit,' he said. ‘Looks like they might be turning north on Third Avenue . . . Yes, turning north on Third Avenue now. I'm in pursuit. Request assistance from all cars. We must apprehend, repeat, must apprehend this vehicle! Suspects took Doyle, they have Rosie Doyle on board.'

I still have the impression that the lights dimmed while he talked. In the dusk of our dread, Ray and Kevin and I stared open-mouthed at each other, momentarily brain-dead as we listened to the hellish screaming of sirens all over town.

Hanenburger called in at once to say he was joining the chase. He was part of the ERU, had detached and come over from the store, was passing the Jeep and gaining on the Escalade.

As Hanenburger reported them crossing Sixteenth Street, Car 45, one of the two squads chasing the ABC van, came on and said they had been joined by a third car coming south on Highway Fifty-Two and were ‘making a box around the suspect vehicle in the parking lot at Apache Mall.' We could hear all their sirens wailing as he spoke, then there was a brief silence until he came back on to say, ‘Car 45, we have the suspects from the ABC van in custody.' The sirens seemed to go right on screaming, though. Some of them stopped a minute later when a matter-of-fact transmission from Car 62 reported the Ford Excursion had been stopped on Southwest Sixth Street and the driver was in custody.

We had three thumbs in the air in my office now, Kevin was muttering praise words about the ‘home team'. Then Hanenburger was reporting the Escalade ‘blowing through the red light on Twelfth Street, we're going to try to follow.' It's a big major intersection on what's called the Beltline, a busy bypass around the edge of town. The commotion from all this chasing, you'd think, should have alerted every driver in town to pull over, but there's always somebody listening to tunes on the radio and blissfully unaware.

Three of these dreamers piled up, with a great screaming of brakes and blaring of horns, in front of the crossing when the Escalade parade rolled through. And it
was
a parade by now, the Escalade being chased by an ERU car driven by Al Hanenburger, a squad driven by somebody he called Buzz, and Gary lumbering along behind in the old Jeep, determined to stay in the game and rescue Rosie.

The squads were faster and much more maneuverable than the Escalade, which had bulk and power but turned like a tank. What the Cadillac's driver had going for him, though, was utter disregard for anybody's life but his own. He just bombed through everything, going flat out, counting on the vehicle's size to clear out the laggards. But the officers following him had to dodge around bikers and seniors, and housewives sporting little signs saying ‘Baby on Board'. Knowing that, Dispatch broke in to say gravely that they should consider abandoning the chase.

Hanenburger answered with a firm ‘Negative, an officer's life is in danger here.'

He was back on his radio frequently from then on, calling out his position – he had taken charge of the pursuit. Anton Hruska, on patrol west of Broadway, announced that he was now heading east below the golf course and would intersect the chase at Broadway. Ruskie was driving one of the three new squads, we all knew, and it had a pretty good kick. I heard Al say quickly, to the car beside him, ‘Buzz, drop back and let Ruskie up here.' The black-and-white beside him said, ‘Ten-four,' and faded back. And in a minute, Ruskie said quietly ‘Coming right up behind you, Al' and then ‘Sixth Street coming up', and I heard Al say something fast, like ‘Try at (blank) Center.' I thought what he was trying to do was position Ruskie alongside the Escalade and a little ahead, get Buzz right behind him, and make a box with Hanenburger in back of the Escalade, so they could force the Escalade left into the Government Center parking lot.

It might have worked, too. I'll never know. I ran downstairs fast, clipping my Glock on my belt as I pushed out the door, and got ready to help if I could. I was ten feet into the parking lot when the cars screamed past, the Escalade still a car's length ahead on the right, Ruskie and Buzz coming up fast in the left-hand lane. Plainly, the plan had been to make for the Civic Center parking lot on the other side of the street. I stood watching, knowing Ruskie's car had the poop to overtake the Escalade and get enough ahead of it in time if the traffic would get out of his way. But I saw there was a minivan dithering just ahead.

Ray and Kevin rolled up by my left elbow in an unmarked squad. I jumped in back. Winnie opened the door on the other side and climbed in too. I yelled, ‘Winnie, what?'

She yelled back, ‘They've got Rosie!' Which seemed a bit unnecessary, why would we all be out there otherwise? But Winnie had been in the ladies or somewhere and had only just heard it. Anyway, Ray had already released the brake and was rolling forward, so she was coming along whether I liked it or not. Inside Government Center, Dispatch was suggesting again that the pursuit should be abandoned. Hanenburger said back, ‘Negative, they've got Rosie!' and we heard no more about that idea.

Ahead of us, as we all streamed on to Civic Center Drive, we could see the Escalade pulling away from the other cars. Failing to catch it in time to mousetrap it as they'd hoped, the police vehicles were all hitting their brakes and slowing down now, because they knew about the sudden rise over the railroad tracks just ahead.

The Escalade's driver did not know about it, or he forgot. He hit that tremendous speed bump doing almost eighty miles an hour, and went airborne. It was a gleaming spectacle for a heart-stopping few seconds, the crimson behemoth throwing off sparks, wheel-well debris, and a spectacularly spinning hub cap, which clattered down the street bouncing off half a dozen vehicles before it collapsed in the gutter. The Escalade came back to earth with a sound like trains colliding.

Its expensive suspension system delivered, though. The car held together and went on, a little slower, till the driver's vision cleared. Then he began to pick up speed again along Silver Lake Drive, but Al Hanenburger, seeing his chance to catch up after he'd crossed the tracks, sped up in the right-hand lane, and Hruska stayed with him on the left.