Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries) (4 page)

10

Stanton came in to the precinct early
and already the noise was near shouting level. There was a drunk by the entrance in cuffs yelling about police brutality, behind him an old man that had wet himself, urine running down his leg.

Stanton walked to the front desk and saw Vickie starting her shift with a cup of Irish coffee, a small flask hidden in a pocket of her gym
bag that she brought every day. He’d caught her filling it once and never said anything to anyone and she had liked him ever since.

“Who’s the old man over there?” he said.

“One of Childs’ cases. He walked into a church and went to the pulpit and started masturbating. No ID or anything on him.”

“He doesn’t look like he knows what’s going on. Have you checked with
missing persons?”

“For what?”

Stanton glanced down to her coffee cup and noticed there was little coffee in it. “Nevermind.”

He walked over to the old man and knelt down to eye level. “Hello.”

“Hi,” the old man said.

“Do you know where you are?”

“I’m . . . I’m visiting my nephew. I’m visiting my nephew in Fort Lauderdale and he told me to come here and pick up his sister. That’s why I need to get my keys.” He looked around the precinct. “I don’t see him here but the man took my keys. The big black man took my keys.”

“Do you know your name?”

He thought for a moment and then a smile parted his lips. “Lawrence, um, Lawrence . . . I don’t, it’s Lawrence.”

“Okay, Lawrence, you stay right here for a minute.”

Stanton walked back to his office. He sat at his desk and tried Childs’ phone but no one answered. He called down to missing persons.

“San Diego PD how may I direct your call?”

“Is this Sandy? It’s Jon Stanton.”

“Johnny! Hey, how are you?”

“I’m good, how you doing?”

“Fine. You know we bought a house right?”

“No I didn’t know that. Congrats.”

“Thanks. We were thinking we’d have you and Melissa and the boys over some time.”

Stanton felt a small shock through his body, as if he’d been stung. “Yeah, anytime. Um, I’m calling on business though.”

“What’s up?”

“Got a guy here, looks to be in his seventies, maybe even eighties, says his name’s Lawrence. I don’t know if that’s a first or last name, but someone would have reported him missing in the last twenty-four hours. I was going to check with MP but maybe you could just pull it up for me?”

“Of course, hang on . . . okay, we got a Thomas Welch Lawrence, reported missing this morning from La Jolla.”

“What’s his date of birth?”

“Um, July 2, 19
42. That’s gotta be him.”

“Call back whoever reported it and tell them he’s here.”

“Gotchya.”

“Thanks, Sandy.”

“You’re welcome. Later.”

“Bye.”

Stanton turned and pulled out the three files again and placed them on his desk when Childs walked in.

“What the hell you
doin’ here so early?”

“Cleaning up your baggage. Old man out there is Tom Lawrence. Someone’s coming to pick him up.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“You doin’ okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You look tense, man. All stressed out’n shit, tied up in knots.”

“You
wanna give me a massage?”

“Ha, you couldn’t handle this sweet chocolate, brother.” Childs looked down to the folders on his desk but didn’t say anything. “Come out with me today.”

“Where?”

“Drug
buy. Our hero’s got a warrant out for rape and sodomy and I set up a buy for some weed. Gonna pop him on his porch in front of his buddies. Come with.”

“I don’t think so, Danny. I got a lot of work to catch up on.”

“Pss, fuck that, you can catch up on it later. Come with. It’ll be fun. When’s the last time you went out on a real bust?”

“If you insist, I’ll come. But I’m not going to be very helpful.”

“Just stand there and look pretty then.” He turned to leave. “Going ASAP, grab your vest.”

The van was hot and the air conditioner only cooled the two people seated up front. Stanton sat in the back with Childs and six members of SWAT. They were dressed in heavy black gear with thick helmets. Stanton and Childs wore simple Kevlar vests with their shields dangling around their necks on chains.

“SWAT’s
goin’ in hot,” Childs said. “As soon as the fucker answers the door they’re goin’ in. Another unit’s covering the back so you just gotta cover the side door on the east side of the house.”

“How many inside?”

“Just him and two friends. One of them’s an informant and the other’s too stoned to do much so I’m not expecting anything. Just cover the door and we’ll go get drunk afterward. Well, I’ll get drunk and you’ll sit there and judge me.”

“
Detective Childs,” the driver bellowed, “target acquired. Surveillance team saw him park and go in the residence.”

“Anyone with him?”

“Negative, sir.”

“All right, let’s do it.”

The van came to a stop thirty feet from the house. They waited for the signal from surveillance and both teams were given the green light.

Stanton hopped out of the back of the van. Childs took point as the SWAT members silently climbed the porch steps and stationed themselves on either side of the door. Stanton’s heart was pounding so loud he thought he could hear it in his chest. Many detectives were part of the gun culture
, ex-military men that came up through street patrol and SWAT or strike teams. He was an academic who, truth be told, didn’t like guns. It was alien territory every time he went out and this was no different.

Childs gave a signal indicating, “On my mark,” and SWAT lifted their rifles. Stanton went around the side of the old house across the lawn. A truck was there on the grass, its hood open,
parts strewn around it. He stationed himself in front of it and pulled out his sidearm.

He kept his eyes on the door as he heard Childs knock. Someone yelled, “Who the fuck is it?” from inside the house and Childs gave them the name he had been using. Stanton glanced away for a moment at an object that had caught his eye
, something yellow and red with stripes. It didn’t register immediately and so he looked back: a wagon. A child’s wagon.

“No,” he shouted. “Danny, there’s kids.”

The door got kicked opened and he heard Childs yell at the top of his lungs. Then more yelling and boots and then someone opened fire.

Stanton sprinted through the side door, breaking it open with his shoulder. He was in
an empty kitchen. He heard more shots from the living room and then crying. He sprinted out of the kitchen and turned down a hallway.

Peeking out of a room was a young boy
, tears streaming down his face. As if happening in slow motion he saw the SWAT officer turn the corner and raise his weapon. Stanton could see from his eyes he didn’t recognize that the boy was not a target. He was going to fire.

From the door next to the boy’s someone stuck out a gun and fired at the officer. The officer opened with his
semi-automatic rifle.

Stanton leapt in the way, wrapping his arms around the boy, feeling the impact of hot slugs imbed into his flesh as he fell to the floor
, covering the boy with his body.

The gun came out of the room again and the officer fired, hitting the arm. A man fell partially out of the doorway and the SWAT officer shot him just behind the ear; blood spattered over Stanton and the child.

“Hold your fire!” Childs was shouting. “Hold your fire!”

Stanton got up to his knees and checked the child
, who was hysterical. He stood and saw Childs turn the corner.

“What the fuck happened?”

Before he could think or answer, Stanton sprinted at the SWAT officer and tackled him around the waist. The officer brought up his rifle and Stanton swung down with his elbow, catching the officer in the exposed area underneath his helmet on the chin.

The officer swung with the butt of his rifle and it smashed into Stanton’s jaw, knocking him off and onto his back. The officer jumped up and pointed his weapon at
his face. Childs grabbed it and swung it away from him as a round went into the wall less than a foot from Stanton’s face.

Stanton was about to rise when he noticed something
, a sensation on his right side. He looked down to see blood pouring out in between the straps of his vest. He collapsed back down, the world spinning to black.

11

Lexi
Underwood stepped off the yellow bus near her friend Kalie’s house and waved goodbye to the bus driver. She was thirteen now and her mother allowed her to ride the bus alone, something she hadn’t been allowed to do last year. The other girls had teased her and she never had the chance to sit next to Chad on the ride home. He was tall and cute and played baseball and he’d once let her borrow his pencil in class when she needed it.

Kalie
ran out of her house and her mother shouted for her to be back in an hour.

“Why weren’t you at school?”
Lexi asked.

“I was sick. But it’s not bad. Just a sore throat.” She looked down the street as the bus turned a corner and disappeared. “They’re having baseball practice at Silver Ridge Park. You
wanna go watch?”

“Who’s
gonna be there?”

“You mean is Chad
gonna be there?” she said, grinning.

“Well is he?”

“I dunno. Let’s go see.”

They began walking down
the sidewalk and Lexi noticed that her friend was nearly skipping. She had seen her sick before and guessed this wasn’t one of those times.

“Hey guess what?”
Kalie said. “My parents are taking me to Hawaii this summer.”

“No way.”

“Yeah. We’re staying with my older sister ‘cause she lives there with her boyfriend. She said she was gonna teach me how to surf and that there’s sharks you can see even from the beach ‘cause they’re so big.”

“Whoa. I wish I could go to Hawaii.”

“Why don’t you come?”

“Would your mom let me?”

“I’ll ask her. But I heard her talking to my sister and they said they need something to keep me busy so I don’t get into trouble so I’ll tell them if you’re there I won’t get into trouble.”

Lexi
felt excited until she realized there was no way she would be going. Her father had lost his job recently and money was tight. She couldn’t even afford new clothes for school this year and had grown out of her old clothes. Her mother had taken her to a secondhand store and they’d bought one pair of pants and a couple of shirts for just a few dollars.

She would hear her mom crying at night and her dad would tell her that
everything was okay. That they were gonna land on their feet. Lexi had started saving any money she could find. She’d even sold her CD’s and her iPod and now had over a hundred dollars under her mattress. She was going to surprise her mom with it one day when she was crying again.

“I don’t think I can go.”

“Why not?”

“Um, I don’t know, I don’t think my parents will let me.”

“Who’s that?”

She saw her friend looking out to the street so she turned and saw a light blue Volkswagen Beetle slowly following them. The windows were dark, too dark to see inside
. The car was moving slowly, keeping pace with them.

She stared at it a long while and it revved its engine and then sped away down the street. It turned right at a stop sign and was gone.

“Weirdo,” Kalie said. “My mom says a bunch of weirdoes live in the neighborhood. Like drug addicts and stuff.”

“Where?”

Tires screeched on the road behind them and the Beetle crept slowly to them again. There was no one else on the street and no cars on the road. It took up the middle of the road, following just a little behind them.

Then it peeled out, its tires spinning on the pavement, and shot down the street.

“Leave us alone, asshole, or I’m calling my daddy to kick your ass,” Kalie shouted.

The Beetle slammed on its brakes.
Lexi inadvertently gasped and stopped walking. The two girls stood there and stared at it.

“If it backs up,”
Lexi said, “we need to run.”

They waited a few more moments and the brake lights on the back of the car turned off and it made another right hand turn at the stop sign.

The girls stood on the sidewalk and looked behind them to see if it would come back. They waited a long time, but it didn’t come. They turned and started walking toward the park again.