Joseph Finder - Guilty Minds

Eventually — it may have been another three quarters of an hour — I was close enough to the desk that, by thrusting my hands back and over, I was able to grab hold of the center drawer’s handle and yank it open a foot or so. Slowly I turned around to look.

And the drawer was empty.

I cursed aloud.

I was frustrated and annoyed and out of ideas. The best I could hope for was that someone would come along, one of the Centurions, and I could attempt to strike a deal.

Then I noticed something interesting. The corner of the metal drawer came to a sharp edge. It was a design flaw, and no doubt it had, over the years, inflicted countless injuries upon anyone bumping into the open drawer.

But sharp edges were good.

I shoved the chair back another couple of inches. Finally the backs of my wrists rested against the steel drawer and I slowly maneuvered my hands around until a length of nylon strap rested against the sharp burr. Then I moved my hands back and forth, back and forth, rubbing against the burr. I continued like this for maybe two minutes more, the steel edge abrading the nylon, until the strap had been worn through enough that I was able to jerk my wrists apart and snap the plastic strap open, and my hands were free.

I pulled them out from behind my back and massaged each hand with the other until the numbness began to recede. Then I reached down and pried open the locking bar on each loop around my ankle. Pulled each zip tie open.

Then I stood up. Free. And as I reached into my pocket to retrieve my phone it started ringing again.

Mandy.

I answered it.

“Oh, thank God ,” she said. “You’re there. Where are you?”

I told her. “Where are you?” I asked.

Another call was coming through now. Washington MPD homicide. I let it go to voice mail.

“On my way to talk to that retired police detective. Remember—?”

“Wait. Meet me back at the hotel. We’ve got to talk.”

“After I’ve talked with him.”

“No. Before. Now.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not safe,” I said.

“Heller, I... Okay, thanks.” And she ended the call.

I had three voice mails on my phone: from Mandy, from Dorothy, and from Balakian, the hipster cop I’d started to think of as Kombucha. I’d already talked to Mandy, and I knew that if there was anything urgent, Dorothy would have texted me. So as I pulled the silver Chrysler into traffic on Rhode Island Avenue, I called Kombucha back.

“There you are. Heller, we need to talk.”

“I’m kind of busy. What’s this about?”

A pause. “We may have a suspect.”

“Who is it?”

“We need to talk,” he repeated.

“Give me an hour.”

“Sooner if you can, please.”

“Okay. Homicide branch in Southwest?”

“Uh, no. Let’s not meet at headquarters.”

“Okay.” Strange, I thought. “Who’s the suspect?”

“We can talk about that when we get together,” he said. “The sooner the better.”

Kombucha was maddeningly cryptic. It occurred to me, fleetingly, that the suspect he had in mind was me. But he wouldn’t handle it this way, with a polite request to come in. He’d have shown up at my hotel with a squad of officers.

Then what questions could he possibly have? And why did he not want to meet at police headquarters?

Back at the hotel suite, I arrived to find Dorothy beavering away on her laptop. She was wearing jeans and a blouse in a deep shade of oxblood. Her fingernails were the same color. Her bracelets rattled as her fingers flew across the keyboard.

“Where’s Mandy?” I said.

“I think she’s at her apartment,” she said, not looking up. “She called me looking for you.”

“Shit.” I’d asked her to meet me at the hotel, where I could feel confident she was safe.

“Hey, what happened to you?” she said, staring at me. “My God.”

“I had a disagreement with one of the Centurions. Name of Curtis Schmidt.”

“Can I get you something?”

“I’ll grab some Advil. I’m okay.”

“You wanted me to find Thomas Vogel’s home address.”

“You got it?”

“It’s a hell of a thing. No, I can’t find it.”

“That’s impossible. He’s got to live somewhere.”

“There’s one Thomas Vogel in Virginia, and he’s not the one. Three in Maryland. None of them is an ex-MPD cop.”

“He has to own a house or an apartment. A mortgage, a lease, utilities — you’ve checked all the usual places?”

“Nick, give me a little credit.”

“Sorry.”

“I assume his house is in the name of some corporation. The guy’s a ghost.”

“He’s got to have a PO box somewhere.”

“Probably, but I can’t find it.”

“I have his phone number. On his business card.”

“Then you have more than me.”

I handed her the metal card. She looked at it, then typed some more. After a few seconds, she said, “Nothing.”

I looked for a phone number on my phone, then touched the number and the phone started dialing.

“Garvin.”

“Art, Nick Heller again. I’m looking for Thomas Vogel’s address.”

“The man himself?”

“We’re not turning up anything on the Internet.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. He keeps a very low profile.”

“Why?”

“The story he puts out is that the narcos he busted have friends who want to track him down and give him his own personal retirement package. So he keeps himself unfindable.”

“The department must have a good address for him somewhere.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“Can you look?”

“I’ll look. No promises.”

“Thanks.”

I ended the call, gave Dorothy a glance, shook my head. “That was my retired detective friend, Art Garvin. Doesn’t look good.”

“I’m not giving up.”

I hit the speed dial number on my phone for Mandy Seeger.

“Nick,” she answered. “You back at the hotel?”

“But you’re not here.”

“I had work to do. Where my work stuff is. My little home office.”

“I need you to transport your work stuff over here. Just until we’re done.”

“How do you define done?”

“Until we get an arrest in Kayla’s murder.” I thought, if Kombucha was on the right track, that could be soon. But I didn’t want to tell her yet. Not until I talked to Kombucha.

“I think you and I are working on different things. I want to know who was behind this Claflin hoax that snared me. Who hired the Centurions.”

“We may never know that.”

“Speak for yourself.”

I smiled with admiration. “Listen. I don’t think it’s safe for you to be out there investigating.”

“Safe? Who’s talking about safe? I didn’t go into this line of work to be safe.”

I heaved a long sigh. I thought: soft target . That was the phrase Vogel had used. Guys like us, we take care of the sheep. We protect them and make sure they live quiet, safe lives .

“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying,” I said. “Vogel’s people have already killed one person, and I honestly don’t think they’ll hesitate to kill another one if they decide they need to.”

She was silent for a few seconds. “And you think they’re following me?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. I’ll bet they’ve set up tripwires out there. Certain people, if you go and visit them, talk to them, a wire gets tripped, a bell goes off somewhere, and the Centurions go into action.”

“It doesn’t sound like you to admit defeat.”

“I’m not. I’m not giving up.” I hesitated, and then said it: “I’m talking about you. I can take care of myself.”