Richard Doetsch - The 13th Hour

“May I ask what you are doing?” Brinehart asked.

Two fires trucks raced by, their sirens blaring, drowning out the moment.

Nick grew suddenly conscious of the weight of his own gun pressing at the small of his back. He could reach around and grab it in seconds but thought better of it. One mistake on his part and Julia was dead.

“Sir, may I ask you to turn around and place your hands on the roof of your vehicle?”

“Why? I haven’t done anything.”

“Please, sir, turn around and put your hands on the car.”

Nick slowly turned, cursing himself for being so foolish as to have lulled himself into a false sense of security, thinking Dance’s people weren’t watching the place after the robbery.

“Before you frisk me,” Nick said, looking over his shoulder, “I have a Sig-Sauer in the waistband of my pants. It’s legal and licensed.”

“May I ask why you’re armed?” Brinehart asked as he raised Nick’s jacket and removed the pistol.

“I carry it for protection.”

“In Byram Hills?”

“The city,” Nick said. He hated how comfortable he had gotten with lying. “I have some real estate in some rough areas.”

“Mmm.” Brinehart checked the safety, slipped the gun in his own waistband, and frisked Nick, running his hands from his ankles up to his arms.

“Do you mind emptying your pockets? Slowly, please.”

Nick reached in and pulled out Dreyfus’s wallet along with his own, placing them on the trunk of his car. He pulled out his cell phone and some spare change; he removed the two envelopes from Marcus and the European from his coat pocket, cursing himself for still carrying them.

“Is that everything?” Brinehart said, seeing a small lump in his left front pocket.

Nick reluctantly stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the gold watch and the St. Christopher medal, watching Brinehart’s eyes closely for any sign of recognition.

“Nice watch.” Brinehart’s focus was on the antique. “Don’t see too many of those.”

Brinehart’s eyes drifted over the two wallets, picking them both up. “Any reason you carry two?”

Nick remained silent as Brinehart opened the first, seeing Nick’s ID and credit cards. He put it down and opened Dreyfus’s. There was a subtle widening of Brinehart’s eyes. He quickly turned to Nick. “Please place your hands behind your back.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. What’s the problem?”

“I won’t ask again.” Brinehart laid his hand back on his holster for emphasis.

Nick shook his head as he threw his hands back, the cuffs instantly slamming about his wrists, feeling like a death sentence.

Brinehart stepped to Nick’s car, removed the keys from the ignition, and pulled the two-way radio from his belt.

“Dance?”

“Yeah,” the detective’s unmistakable voice answered back.

“Where are you?”

“Still at the airport, what the hell do you want?”

“We may have a problem. I found a Nicholas Quinn, snooping around Washington House.”

“Quinn? As in Julia Quinn?”

“Yeah, she was here separately but left.”

“Was he just watching her back?”

“He has Paul Dreyfus’s wallet.”

“How would he get that?”

“You want me to interrogate him?” There was glee in Brinehart’s voice.

“No.” Dance shot him down. “Take him to the station. Hand him off to Shannon. I want him questioned by someone with some experience.”

NICK LOOKED AROUND the room, at the sparse metal table he sat at. The chipped metal door with the porthole glass, the dark mirrored window along the wall. The power was on, unlike everywhere else in town. He had been here over nine hours ago as the gold watch read, at 9:30 P.M., in the future. He had met Dance then. He was kindly, caring, and, as he learned later, entirely full of shit.

It had all started here in the interrogation room of the Byram Hills Police Department when he was brought in on suspicion of murdering his wife. All a setup, as he came to see, by the very man who had interrogated him.

Brinehart had taken everything from his pockets: Paul Dreyfus’s wallet, his own wallet, his keys, his gun, Marcus’s envelope with his letter and the Wall Street Journal page, the letter from the European, the St. Christopher medal, and the thing that struck terror in him, the one thing he had been told not to let out of his possession if he was to succeed, if he was to save Julia: the watch.

He had taken it for granted. Where he had at first been a skeptic, laughing at the insanity, the impossibility, now, after nine jumps, he trusted it implicitly, without doubt. He trusted it like he trusted the sun to rise every morning, no longer holding it in awe, looking at it with reverence or wonder. He hadn’t pulled it from his pocket in hours to watch it tick down, believing in its sweeping hand, trusting its inner workings to pull him back through time.

It was his bridge, it was the light that would lead him to save Julia.

And now it was gone.

He looked at the clock on the wall: 12:30.

DETECTIVE BOB SHANNON came into the room carrying a small, shallow, wicker basket filled with Nick’s personal effects and two cups of coffee.

Shannon’s dark hair was pushed back, well groomed, his hands clean, no sweat or grime on his body. He looked fit and well rested, far different from when Nick had met him at the crash site several hours from now, when the horror of death could be seen in his eyes, when the stress of the crash had nearly broken his spirit.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Shannon said, a greeting far different from that of nine hours ago when they sat in this very room, when Shannon verbally assaulted him, accused him of killing his wife. He put a cup of coffee in front of Nick and sat down across from him.

“So you’re playing the good cop?” Nick said

“Believe it or not, there’s no one else here. Just you and me. I’m both good and bad,” Shannon said with a smile, which quickly faded as he became distracted. He ran his hand over his dark hair as he leaned back in the metal chair. “That damn crash is something awful. Every able body is out at the site. I’ve got the station all by myself, just me and the desk sergeant who’s handling phones for the moment. So no, I’m not pulling some cliché cop thing, it’s just a good cup of coffee on a really bad day.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on,” Nick said.

“You haven’t been charged with anything, Mr. Quinn. I just need to ask you some questions. Officer Brinehart’s a little green. With everything going on, we are beyond short-staffed. Detective Dance called, asked me to ask you a few questions before he got here.”

“Then ask your questions,” Nick said, looking at the clock on the wall, watching time slip away.

“Dance wants to know why you have this guy’s wallet.”

“You think I stole it?”

“No, Mr. Quinn. I’ve already checked you out. I know who you are, that you grew up in this town. I’m sure half the people in it would vouch for you. I know you’re licensed to carry that pistol-it’s locked away for the moment. So, no, despite what Dance may think, I don’t think you stole it. Dance said he is looking for its owner, Paul Dreyfus, in connection with some preliminary investigation he’s running.”

“I found it,” Nick blurted out the lie, hoping to get this over with.

“Where?”

“Outside Washington House, on the sidewalk.”

“May I ask what you were doing there?”

“My wife’s client is Shamus Hennicot, it’s his house. She thought his place might have been burglarized; I drove by for her.”

“Burglarized? What do you mean? We heard nothing of that.” Nick couldn’t tell if Shannon was screwing with him, whether he was one of Dance’s inside guys, but the surprise on his face appeared genuine.