John Gilstrap - Nathan’s Run

His assignment until further notice was to sit in an unmarked car out in front of Mark Bailey’s house, waiting for someone to arrive. Harry prayed that that someone might miraculously turn out to be Nathan Bailey, but such things didn’t happen outside of the movies. He’d be lucky if he could get a glimpse of the elusive Uncle Mark, whom no one had seen since his nephew’s disappearance. It certainly was interesting how both Baileys disappeared at the same time, Harry thought. As he sat alone and bored in his car, Harry began to wonder if perhaps they hadn’t disappeared together. If he got the chance before he was fired, he’d mention it to Lieutenant Michaels.

Harry closed his eyes and read the description sheet on Mark Bailey without looking at it. White male, 175 pounds, with blond hair, blue eyes and a mustache. Drives a late-model red Bronco, license plate WLDMAN. Wanted for questioning. Not a suspect at this time. He opened his eyes to check his recall and smiled. He had missed a few words, but the essentials were all there.

And so was Mark. Or at least the red Bronco. Harry watched as it nosed into the driveway and parked. Out of the car came a white male, about 175 pounds with blond hair and a huge bandage on his hand. The man moved as though he were in considerable pain, every movement slow and deliberate.

Harry slipped out of the car and jogged across the street. “Excuse me!” he called. “Mr. Bailey!”

Mark turned at the sound of his name, then quickened his pace toward his front door. Before he could take three steps, Harry was next to him.

“Excuse me, sir,” Harry said. His voice was polite, but his eyes were not. “You are Mark Bailey, aren’t you?”

Mark tried to look bored as his mind raced to figure out what the cop could possibly know. “Yeah. What do you want?”

“I want to ask you a few questions. Why are you trying to run away from me?”

Mark glanced down at his arm, and hefted it up as if making an awkward toast. “Do I look like a man who could do much running, away or otherwise?”

Harry knew right away that he was hiding something. Perhaps it was a boy? “Maybe I was mistaken,” he conceded, preferring to discuss the real issues at hand. “It looked like you might be trying to avoid me. Where have you been all night, sir?”

“Have I done something wrong, Officer?”

“Could you answer my question, please?”

“Is that a request or a demand?”

Harry considered another officious exaggeration, but, remembering the beating he took on the radio, thought better of it. “It’s merely a request, sir,” he replied, adding the sweetest of insincere smiles.

Mark smiled back. “In that case, Officer, I’ve been in the hospital all night.” He again gestured delicately with his mangled hand. “I had a bit of an accident. A car fell on me while I was working on the brakes.”

Harry couldn’t have cared less about how Mark had been injured, and his practiced caring nod showed it. “Are you aware that your nephew escaped from the Juvenile Detention Center night before last?”

“I said I was in the hospital, not a cave. Yes, I’m aware.” The realization of Harry’s suspicions hit Mark suddenly, and felt better than a cool breeze on this blistering day. He smiled broadly. “Are you thinking that I might have Nathan here?”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Should I be thinking that?” he asked.

Mark tossed back his head and laughed loudly, genuinely amused. “Not if you know anything about Nathan and me. Look, Officer… uh…”

“Thompkins,” Harry offered.

“Thompkins. Yes, of course. I didn’t even look at your name tag there. Officer Thompkins, my nephew and I hate each other. I sent him away—asked him to be jailed—mainly just to get rid of him. This is the last place Nathan would go.” It was refreshing to tell the whole truth for a change, Mark thought. “And rest assured,” he added, “if Nathan shows up here, he’ll wish he hadn’t.”

As they conversed, Harry edged toward the door. “Then you wouldn’t mind letting me in to look around, would you?”

“Actually, I would,” Mark said coolly, the image of the broken TV and God only knows what else he had left behind flashing through his mind. “I would mind that very much.”

Harry looked as though no one had ever said that to him before. “But why?” he asked. “You said you have nothing to hide.”

Mark studied the policeman’s face for a long moment. “No, we all have something to hide, don’t we? Even you, I wager. What I said was I have nobody to hide. And that is the honest to God truth.”

“Then why won’t you let me in?”

“Because you don’t have a warrant, and because I don’t have to.” Mark’s tone was suddenly flat. “I spent some time in prison. When I was in the joint, I had to put up with you assholes searching my asshole, and anything else you wanted to peek into, night or day, whenever it floated your boat. I’m back in the world now, and you have to play by the rules.”

Harry smiled the way a poker player smiles when he’s caught bluffing. “Fair enough, Mr. Bailey,” he said, turning back toward the street. “You’re a man who knows his civil rights. Thank you for your time.” As he stepped onto the street, he heard the front door to the house open.

“Mr. Bailey!” he called out, wheeling around again.

Mark turned in the open doorway, leaning against the jamb. “Yeah?”

“You said a car fell on your hand. Where did that happen?” “Right at the end of my arm.” Mark disappeared inside the house, and the door closed behind him.

Alone again in his car, Harry considered Mark’s last flippant remark in the context of their entire discussion. He looked nervous as hell until he started talking about Nathan. Then he got cocky and talkative. When the subject of his injury came up, he got nervous again.

Harry turned his head to face the house and the Bronco in the driveway. Had to hurt like hell to have a vehicle that size fall on your hand.

Wait a minute! There’s only one car here! If it fell off its blocks, who put it back together for him to drive to the hospital?

No doubt about it, Mark Bailey was guilty of something. Whatever it was, it had something to do with his injury.

Harry checked his watch again, and was relieved to see he still had three and a half hours left in his career. He thought he’d spend part of it down at the hospital. Maybe one of the ER docs would know something helpful.

Michaels was the first investigator to arrive at the Nicholsons’ house, just behind the satellite van from a local television station.

My, but word travels fast, he thought. Neighbors and assorted onlookers—children and their mothers, mostly—had begun to gather in tight clumps in the street, drawn to the scene either by word of mouth or by the presence of the barricade tape whose sole purpose, ironically, was to keep people away.

According to the dispatcher, officers were originally sent to the house in response to a burglary call, but when they arrived on the scene, they radioed back for a senior presence.

As Warren approached the front door, he recognized a familiar face from the first night at the JDC. “Good afternoon, Officer Borsuch,” he said as he approached. “Got you working days now?”

The cop guarding the door looked proud that he’d been recognized. “Nah,” he said with a smile. “Workin’ double shift. I need the money. Tryin’ to buy a boat.”

Warren clapped him on the shoulder. “Boat, huh? Haven’t you heard that there’s only two happy days in a boat owner’s life?” “What’s that?”

“The day he buys it and the day he sells it.”

Officer Borsuch had heard the saying a hundred times but laughed anyway as he stepped aside to usher Michaels through the front door into the enormous foyer. “Quite a place, huh?”