David Putnam - The Replacements

Barbara pulled up on the one-car garage door. It came up a few inches.

“Hold it,” said Zack. He pulled his service weapon, backed up the drive, and got down on one knee, aiming his gun and his little flashlight under the door. “Go ahead.”

I didn’t think anything would be in the garage, but it did make me realize I didn’t have a gun. I took one side and helped Barbara lift the door open. Discarded trash bags went almost to the rafters. The sour reek backed us off. Nothing. I pulled the garage door back down.

“I guess we have to go check the Roswell street address.” The back gate caught my eye, and I looked down at the concrete walk leading to it. Nothing remarkable. “Come on, let’s check the alley.”

They didn’t argue or complain and followed along. Through the unlocked gate the alley contained degraded asphalt with weeds pushing up in untended cracks. Both sides of the alley had abandoned cars and trash cans but still left room, if need be, for one car to drive through. In the eerie darkness the cars looked like dead animals.

“You guys go that way,” I said. “I’ll check this way.”

Zack headed off.

Barbara stayed with me. Good thing, since I didn’t have a flashlight. “This is a dead end,” she said. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but it is. Let’s move on to something else.”

I stopped. “What? What else is there?”

She shrugged. “We could check-”

“Over here,” called Zack.

We turned and ran to him.

Zack pointed to a small bloody splotch, almost indiscernible on the broken asphalt with scattered tiny rocks.

“What do you make of it?” I didn’t want to hope too much.

Zack said, “If your assumption is correct and he did receive medical attention in that house back there, then he might have walked away with a freshly bandaged foot.”

Barbara finished it for him as she walked farther down the alley. “And if he walked away, it took until right there where that splotch is for him to bleed through the bandage.”

We walked faster down the alley. The dried blood spore grew in size and frequency as Jonas had walked faster. I looked up periodically, watching our forward progress, not wanting to walk fat, dumb, and happy, right into Jonas. He had been three steps ahead of us at every turn. Did he know we would eventually get this far and wait in ambush for us?

We came to the cross street, the first east-west street south of Mission, Howard Avenue. The blood trail stopped at the edge of the road. This time I didn’t have to ask Zack what he thought.

“Looks like he had a car waiting,” he said.

I sat down on the curb, put my head in my hands, and closed my eyes. I’d been so sure this would do it, but I couldn’t give up. Screw it. Zack and Barbara stood close by. Eyes still closed, I said, “There has to be a reason why he chose this area. Why Montclair of all places? What could possibly have drawn him to-”

I stood. Next to me, Barbara was nothing more than a dim shadow. “What do you have?” she asked.

“Do you have access to the county assessor’s office?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Get them on the phone.”

She pulled out her phone. “And ask them what?”

“Ask them if Bella Mabry or Micah had a house in Montclair.”

Barbara shook her head as she dialed and muttered, “Son of a bitch.”

“No, wait.” I pointed to Zack. “Call your people and have them check marriage records and get Bella’s maiden name. Then you,” I pointed to Barbara, but she was with me now and waved her hand.

Zack dialed. When the other end picked up, he said, “Priority flag, ASAC Chulack cleared. I need an immediate record check for a marriage license in the name of Micah Mabry.” He paused. “I don’t know, check Los Angeles County and San Bernardino.” He looked at me for confirmation. I nodded.

Barbara said into her phone, “This is Montclair Chief of Police. Stand by, I’m going to need an immediate record check on a residence in my city.”

“Dobbs, Bella Dobbs,” Zack said.

“Bella Dobbs,” Barbara said. “I need you to check the tax records for a Bella Dobbs.”

“Keep him on the line,” I said to Zack.

Zack nodded. “Hold on one.”

We waited, standing on the sidewalk, looking at each other. Barbara shook her head “no.”

I said to Zack, “On the marriage license, get the first name of Bella’s father.”

“Now the first name of Bella’s father,” he repeated into the phone.

“Jack,” Zack repeated to me.

Barbara paused a moment, confusion in her expression, and said, “Check Jack Dobbs.”

A long moment passed. She closed her phone and took off running. We caught up. She said, “One street over on Pipeline. I’m calling in for backup.”

“No, wait. There are three of us. Let’s scout it first. We don’t want-”

She hit speed dial. “This is Chief Wicks. I want three patrol units to stage at Mission and Central. I want them there now but without lights and siren. Call out the SWAT team and have them stage in the same place. No one moves without my go-ahead.” The last came out gasping as she ran and talked at the same time.

We turned left and ran up Pipeline. “It should be about halfway up,” she said. “It’s an even number, so it’s going to be on the left.”

The houses on Pipeline were different than the tract homes on Kadota. These were unique, custom built, but years ago, decades ago, with wide, deep lots. I looked halfway up the long block. Right in the middle stood a house wider, taller than the rest. Barbara saw the house at the same time. She stopped running. Her breath came hard. “Let’s go easy. Move in slow.”

I didn’t want to stop, I wanted to get there. My Marie was in that house, I knew it.

Barbara stopped two houses down, pulled her gun, and stood behind a tree with a wide trunk. “I know this house. Every cop in Montclair knows this house. When I heard the name, I wasn’t sure. Now I am.”

I didn’t want to ask. “Why?”

“I’ve never met Bella, and I didn’t put it together until right now when I heard Jack Dobbs’ name. It happened long before I came on the department.”

“What did?” I spoke but couldn’t take my eyes off the dark house. No light at all escaped, which didn’t bode well. Zack stood close with his gun drawn.

Barbara’s breathing returned to normal. “The house’s been vacant for forty, fifty years. All the rookies are driven by it and told that it’s haunted. You know, a rookie hazing kind of thing. I pulled the old report back when I was running the detective bureau. Forty years ago April, it was in the spring, Millie Dobbs walked into the police station and said her husband was molesting their daughter.”

All the air went out of me. I whispered, “Bella.”

Barbara nodded. “A detective and a uniform went out to contact Jack. He barricaded, held his daughter-”

“Bella,” I said again.

“He held Bella hostage. They negotiated for two hours while Jack held a gun to his daughter’s head. They didn’t have SWAT teams or trained negotiators back then.”

I finished the rest of the scenario because I had seen it before. “The cops shot Jack while he was still holding Bella. Her father, the one molesting her, died with his blood all over her.”

Barbara nodded. “Hit him with a shotgun close range.”

I looked away. Poor Bella.

I didn’t have time to commiserate over this. I had to shift my thoughts to tactical.

Two conical towers rose on one side of the Victorian with windows around all sides, a perfect place to observe. I pointed to the tower. “Look, Jonas picked the house on Roswell because he could watch it from up there. He knows we’re here. The lights are off to give them the advantage. We have to move.”