Without Warning (25 page)

“You know that I am officially telling you to turn yourself in,” Hank said.

“Yes, I know that. I’ll take it into consideration.”

“Where are you?” He then pointedly added, “So I can relay that information to the FBI.”

“I’m on my way to New York City. I thought I’d take in a show. Is
Cats
still playing?”

“Good idea,” he said. Then, in a serious tone, “You making any progress?”

“I think so,” I said. “But I could be crazy. We’ll know soon enough, and if so, I might be needing backup. Is the news about the warrant public yet?”

“No, I was just notified a few minutes ago. Bennett is going to issue a statement. I would imagine it would be pretty soon.”

“Hank, I need your help.”

“Anything,” he said, and I was relieved. I was putting him in a tough spot; I was a suspect in a mass murder asking for help from an acting chief of police. But if he had any hesitation, he was hiding it well.

“I want you to arrest Jimmy Osborne.”

“The photographer from the paper?” he asked, surprise evident in his voice.

“Right. Arrest him and hold him for twenty-four hours if you can find him.”

“On what charge?”

“Doesn’t matter; make one up. Do whatever you can to delay releasing him. But, Hank, I don’t want him or anyone else to know you’re coming after him until you have him. Okay? Do it as quietly as possible.”

“Okay, Jake; I’m sure you’ve got a good reason. At least I hope you do.”

I got off the phone and took a few moments to assess the situation. I was surprised that the mayor had been shot, although in light of what had been going on, it was certainly not completely unexpected. Nor were the reactions that followed.

Certainly such a high-profile killing would have generated a major firestorm, both from the media and from law enforcement. I hadn’t read Matt’s story, but the list of incriminating facts must have been devastating.

There were the perceived grudges against the victims, the fact that Granderson was murdered by a gun from our evidence room, my being present when Sandman was killed, my having been the last to see Katie after she threatened me with a negative story, my so called “threat” to the mayor and his being shot with my rifle … the list must have gone on and on.

If I were Bennett, I probably would have done exactly what he did. And if he were being pressured from above, he would have had no choice. By any standard, my exempt-from-suspicion status as a cop and war hero could only carry me so far.

The entire thing had been set up beautifully, and had obviously been planned over many years. And if I was right, then the person who had done it had plenty of time to do the planning.

Calling in law enforcement help to search for the cabin was now clearly out of the question, so I would have to do it myself. And it would need to be done quickly, before my name and picture as a wanted mass murderer was on every newscast in the country.

My next phone call was to Mike Hutner, at the Judge Advocate’s office in Quantico. He had gotten me information on Drazen, but now I was calling on him again. I just hoped he still thought he owed me for saving his life.

“You’re a goddamn fugitive,” he said, when he picked up the phone.

“The one-armed man did it,” I said.

“Shit, Jake. You going to be all right?”

“With your help. You up for it?”

“Why not? Aiding and abetting?” he asked. “What can they give me, thirty years hard time? I can do that in my sleep.”

I laughed, the first time I had done that in a while. “Here’s what I need, Mike. You remember a guy named Randall Dempsey?”

“Sounds familiar. Wait a minute…, that the newspaper guy that the Taliban caught and killed?”

“That’s the one. I need you to e-mail me his picture.”

“This another dead guy come to life, like Drazen? What the hell is going on with you, Jake?”

“I’ll explain it some time over a beer, Mike. Just do this for me, okay? There must be a million pictures of him in the archives.”

“I’m on it.”

“I need you to hurry; because I’ve got to get rid of my phone. It can be traced.”

“Ten minutes.”

The Dempsey thing was a hunch, but I thought an educated one. He is someone that would certainly have had a grudge against me; his family alleged in their lawsuit that I could and should have saved him, but opted instead to help my comrades in arms.

As Katie said in her phone message, he certainly would have had time in captivity to plan his revenge, and, after winning the large settlement, would have had the money to carry it out.

No one saw him killed, and his body was to my knowledge never found. He was merely announced by the enemy as having been killed, and that could have been a cover for the fact that he escaped. In any event, the Taliban are not exactly renowned for their honesty in dealing with the media.

The car in the parking lot that I believed belonged to Gail had Vermont plates, and I knew that was where Dempsey was from, because that’s where they brought their lawsuit.

It all seemed to fit, and when Mike Hutner sent me the photograph I would have my confirmation.

Or not.

Hank Mickelson didn’t want to go to the
Journal’s
office. Jake had asked that he arrest Jimmy Osborne, but wanted him to do so in a quiet manner, to attract the least amount of attention possible. Were he to show up there and march Jimmy off in cuffs, it would attract a media firestorm.

Instead he called the
Journal
, and asked to speak to Jimmy. The receptionist told him that Jimmy had not come in that day, so she put him through to Patti Everett, who was the number two to Matt.

He knew Patti; they had an easy relationship. “What can I do for you, Hank?”

“I’m looking for Jimmy Osborne; some questions have come up about some photographs he took at the capsule ceremony.”

“Jimmy’s not around. He called in yesterday morning, something about personal business he needed to attend to. I haven’t seen him since. Can I help you?”

“No, I really need to ask Jimmy, since he took the pictures. Could you have him contact me when you talk to him? Ask him to stop by here?”

“Sure,” she said. “No problem.”

Hank was going to wait on that for a while, but then decided that he should be more proactive. It had been important to Jake for him to make the arrest, so he planned to take another officer with him out to Jimmy’s house, to see if he were there.

He was just about to leave when Mary Sullivan came in and asked if she could talk to him in private.

“Can it wait?” Hank asked.

“It’s important,” Mary said. Over the years Hank and everyone else had learned to trust Mary’s judgment, so he decided to do so in this case.

She closed the door behind her, took a deep breath to calm her nerves, and began. “I’m the leak in the department,” she said. “I’ve been talking to Matt Higgins.”

The good news was I didn’t hear my name on the radio. I was on my way to Monroe to see Sharon Arroyo’s sister. I was concerned that the media word would be out that I was a wanted man, which would make my traveling around far more difficult. Not hearing it was a good sign; a bad sign would be if I saw a SWAT team camped out at the real estate agency waiting to greet me.

The entire downtown of Monroe was one block, and in the middle was Arroyo Real Estate. There seemed to be no unusual activity in the area, in fact, no activity at all. I had no choice but to assume this was typical for Monroe, so I parked my car and went in.

It was a very small office: either Arroyo Real Estate was a one-person shop, or all the employees shared the same desk. A person who looked exactly like Sharon Arroyo sat there, smiling.

“Chief Robbins?”

“You’re twins,” I said.

She laughed. “You noticed that.”

The chit-chatting portion of our conversation over, I got right down to business, and showed her a picture of Richie Drazen. “Do you recognize this man?”

She didn’t and said so.

There was a map of the area mounted on the wall in the office, so I pointed to the area that her sister Sharon had zeroed in on. “I’m trying to find a cabin in this area, here.”

“You mean to buy?”

I told her that I wasn’t, and that the cabin in question was probably unoccupied.

“Then it’s probably in this area here, along the lake.”

“Why?”

“Well, most people who live there are summer occupants. They would have left a few weeks ago. And then some are just vacant; a few were foreclosed on.”

“How many cabins would we be talking about?”

“Specifically cabins? Because there are some regular houses, and a few trailers.”

Gail Hendricks had said Richie described it as a cabin. I could see someone using the word “house” casually, but you wouldn’t say “cabin” unless that’s what it was. “Let’s stick with cabins.”

“Okay. Maybe a dozen. Fifteen tops.”

“Can you show me exactly where each one is?”

“Only if they’ve been on the market in the last ten years. I don’t think our system goes back further than that.”

“You don’t have to have had the listing for it to show up?” I asked.

“No, it’s all tied into one system. And it doesn’t have to have sold, just been listed on the market.”

“Any chance of it showing the current owner’s name for each listing?”

She nodded. “Definitely would. Give me a couple of minutes.”

I thanked her, and she went over to her desk to work on her computer. I walked toward the front of the small room, near the window to the street, and then turned away. It was my first realization that I had to avoid being seen, because I was a fugitive from justice.

It was a strange feeling.

She looked up from her computer and said, “Excuse me, Chief Robbins … did you say your first name was Jake?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re from Wilton?”

“Yes,” I repeated. My concern was that she was on a news website, and was reading about the arrest warrant.

But that wasn’t it. “This is weird,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Well, according to these records, you own one of the cabins.”

The revelation that there was a cabin in my name was shocking but not surprising. I was being played, and though I had been gradually understanding what was going on, the scope of it was now astonishing. The use of a gun registered to me to shoot the mayor was bad enough, but this maneuver with the cabin was way beyond that.

They were luring me to this cabin; they had practically drawn me a map to get there. I probably disappointed them by taking so long to figure it out. Katie was going to be there, and when they killed her, it was going to look as if I had done it.

They would no doubt kill me as well, and make it look like a murder suicide. The fact that it all took place in my cabin would add further credibility to their scheme, though it was unlikely that would be needed: they had set it up so well that no sane person would question my culpability.

I had two advantages, both of which I needed to play to the fullest in order to have a chance at getting Katie and myself out of this alive. First of all, they would not know that I had found out about the cabin being in my name. That was a lucky break, made possible by finding Lucy Arroyo.

They would have expected me to show up at each cabin in the target area, not knowing which one I was looking for. They’d be waiting for me and would surprise me.

The other advantage was a more basic one, and the proof of it was waiting for me on my phone. Mike Hutner had sent me a photo of Randall Dempsey, and it confirmed what I had strongly suspected.

Randall Dempsey and Jimmy Osborne were one and the same, so I knew exactly who it was that would be waiting for me. The only way that would not be the case would be if Hank had successfully arrested him, but my guess was that it was too late for that.

I needed to come up with a plan, and I did so quickly. I decided that while Dempsey had no way of being aware that I knew exactly what cabin Katie was in, I would give up that advantage. He would think I’d be wandering around, checking out various places, and therefore could surprise me.

But I had my own surprise; I was coming right after him.

Even though I wouldn’t be in the area long, I needed a base of operations. I was wanted by the authorities, and I couldn’t take a chance that a small-town cop would recognize me and try to make an arrest.

I checked in to a small motor lodge, one that was basically a series of individual small cabins. I noticed I wasn’t getting good cell coverage there, but the man behind the desk confirmed that the phones in the room worked. He warned me that long distance was fifty cents extra, beyond the phone company charges. Since I’d hopefully only be making three calls, I figured I could cover that.

My first call was to Matt Higgins. I went through the newspaper switchboard, and I could just about hear the operator gasp when I told her that it was Jake Robbins calling.

“Jake?” he asked, when he got on the phone, sounding as if he couldn’t believe it himself.

“Believe it or not,” I said.

He hesitated, probably not sure how to approach this. Finally, “What can I do for you?”

“You can be there when I free Katie.”

“You know where she is?”

“I do. She’s being held in a cabin, and I’m going to get her out.”

“Jake … you know there’s a warrant out for your arrest, right?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ve been set up from the beginning, which is why I’m calling you. I want you to be there when it happens.”

“Why?”

“Because I want a witness to what is going to go down. There could be violence, and I could be blamed for it. I’ll explain it in more detail when I see you.”

“You’re going to see me?” he asked.

“If not you, then some other journalist who wants the story of his life.”

“Where are you?”

“First let’s agree on the ground rules,” I said. “I want your word that you’ll come alone.”

“You have it.”

“Then you must promise me that you’ll write exactly what happens, no sugar-coating, no overdramatizing.”