A Voice from the Field (15 page)

“Now, this is where it gets a bit dicey. We've had to keep a few things off the books. I'm going to ask that you do the same.”

Tia nodded. “Of course, sir.”

“Chief Sawyer told me about your run-in with Kane. He says there was a second man. The fella who drove off in the van?”

Tia nodded and spoke matter-of-factly. “Yep. Kane called him Jessup.”

The Sheriff picked up a file folder off the couch and pulled out a black-and-white eight-by-ten photo. He held it up so Ben and Tia could both see it. It looked like a surveillance photo and showed a group of men in a dusty parking lot. “That was taken two days ago outside the Roadhouse Score. Recognize anyone?”

Tia didn't hesitate in pointing to a man in the crowd. “That's him right there. The skinny, tweaker-looking prick. I landed a pretty good shot right in his nut sac. Any chance he's walking with a limp?”

Both men cringed. Solo said, “That's Jessup Tanner.”

“So who is he?” Tia asked. “Another outlaw biker turned businessman?”

“Not hardly. Tanner's NAF, but he's no Johnny-come-lately like Kane. Tanner's a true believer, drank the Kool-Aid a long time ago. Hard-core racist politics. Separatist ideology. Lives off the grid. Hunkered down on a few acres here in Waukesha County. It's been in his family for a hundred years. Used to be a lot more, but the dumb son of a bitch refuses to pay property taxes, so the state has taken most of it. In a few years he'll be nothing more than a white-trash squatter.

“Kane and Tanner are thick as thieves. The brain trust of the NAF, if you can imagine such a thing. In the past three months, they've taken two major road trips that we know of. Both times they hauled ass to California in less than twenty-four hours. Then they took about three weeks to get back to Wisconsin.”

“How do you know this?” Tia asked. “You got them on a tracker?”

The Sheriff looked down to his boots again. “Yeah, that's one of the things we need to keep kind of quiet.”

“So that's a yes on the tracker, but a no on the warrant to go along with it?”

“Exactly. My deputies were just trying to get a quick sneak peak. Turns out they got an eyeful.”

It made sense. Tia had used the same strategy on a few cases. Any cop can follow a crook around public places without a warrant, but if the bad guys start covering any kind of distance local agencies are hard-pressed to keep up. It takes resources to run that kind of surveillance. A good solution was to throw an electronic GPS tracker onto the crook's car and follow him by computer, but that requires a warrant. On occasion, cops would ignore the legal requirement and take a quick “sneak peak.” If things got interesting, then the cop would formally request a warrant. In the world of cop rule bending, Tia knew, a “black tracker” was pretty low-level stuff.

“Once my guys realized what was at stake,” Solo said, “they fell on the sword and told me what they were up to. I chewed their asses appropriately and we've moved on.”

Tia forgot about her stomach. She wanted to hear more. “What did they tell you?”

His voice sounded grim. “From the intel we got off the tracker, we know Kane and Tanner spent some time in LA and Vegas. After that, they hit a bunch of truck stops, low-rent hotels, some farms. We figured they were running dope, buying some pretty good weight on the West Coast, then doing nickel-and-dime deals all the way home. Course we can't use any of that because it's ill-gotten off the unwarranted tracker, but it all made pretty good sense. That is, until you arrested Kane in Milwaukee.”

Tia was confused. It didn't help that she had killed off a pretty good portion of her frontal lobe the night before, but she was still staggered by the picture forming in her mind. She refused to accept it. “I'm not following you, Sheriff.”

Solo stared at Tia; his voice seemed almost sorrowful when he said, “We can't be sure, but when we put together what we already knew, along with your run-in with Kane, we got to thinking maybe the dope angle might be all wrong.”

Ben added, “I told the Sheriff about Kane's assault on you. How he tried to pull you into the van. I told him about the girl you saw.”

Tia's head was spinning. Ben had said “the girl you saw,” not “the girl you thought you saw.”

“What? What are you saying?” She knew she sounded confused. She couldn't help that.

“It all makes sense now,” Solo said.

Ben spoke patiently. “Think about it, Tia.”

Tia shook her head. She couldn't think, didn't want to think. Her head was still pounding. Angry, she said, “Think about what?”

The sheriff answered, “We think Kane might be involved in trafficking.”

“Yeah, I heard you,” Tia said, desperate for some other truth. “Meth? Grass? What?”

“No, Tia,” Solo said. “
Human
trafficking.”

There it was. The thing she hadn't even acknowledged to herself.

Jesus Christ. And you let them drive away.

The office disappeared and everything went dark. Tia stared into the back of the van as if staring down a long tunnel. The face. The screams. The heat of the night. TJ's voice buzzing in her ear. Sirens wailing. The van door slammed shut and it all disappeared. Tia was back in Ben's office.

The chief was talking. “You said Kane figured you to be a wet, right? Just across the border?”

“Yeah.” Tia's mouth had gone dry and it was difficult to speak. “He asked me … if I'd just come up from Mexico. Something like that.”

“Like maybe he could snatch you up and not worry too much about anyone taking notice?” Ben asked. “You said the girl looked Latina, right? And she was pretty young?”

“Yeah. Fifteen, sixteen.” Tia's voice was a whisper. “Seventeen tops.”

Ben rounded out his explanation. “Well, what if they—Kane and Tanner, that is—what if they snatched her up just like they tried to do to you? Maybe out in California. Arizona. Somewhere down by the border, anyway. Then drove across country with her. Pimping her out all the way back.”

The sheriff said, “If they played it right, if they snatched up a streetwalker, somebody who was undocumented, nobody would notice. And even if she was reported as a missing person, it wouldn't garner much attention.” He shrugged. “Course just as likely, she didn't get reported at all. She just … went away.”

Tia stared out the window behind Ben's desk, the girl's muffled cry for help filling her head. Her brown terrified eyes. The duct tape across her mouth. Tia's stomach heaved and she almost reached for the trash can. She swallowed and willed the bile to stay down. She spoke to no one in particular, her voice barely audible. “So she was there.”

The sheriff confirmed what everyone was already thinking. “They haven't been tripping out west for dope. They've been tripping for people.”

The words hung over all three cops in the room. The gravity of the discovery wasn't lost on any of them. Tia asked the obvious question. “Now what?”

“That's why I'm here.” Solo leaned back, signaling the end of his tale. “Seems like somebody needs to make a project out of Mr. Gunther Kane and his dimwit partner, Tanner.”

“I absolutely agree, Sheriff,” Ben said. “What do you have in mind?”

“Seeing that Kane and Tanner operate out of that shit-hole strip club right smack in the middle of my county and five miles outside Newberg, I think a joint operation between our two agencies would be a good next step. I'd like to get things started with surveillance tonight, if you can spare Suarez.”

“It sounds like a lot to bite off,” Ben said. Tia noticed that he avoided the issue of surveillance and her availability. “Any thought to giving the feds a call? Maybe they'll throw some money and people your way.”

The sheriff waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Yeah, I called them. Got nothing but lip service. Bunch of excuses and double-talk, so the hell with them. If we make a human-trafficking case on Kane, we'll go with state charges for kidnapping. I don't doubt once all the work is done and the headlines are in the paper the feds will try to steal it away from us. Damn glory hounds. But that's a battle for down the road.”

Ben turned to Tia and she picked up the reluctance in his voice. “Well, what do you say, Detective? You clear to work a detail tonight?”

Tia was speechless. It was all too much, but she tried to push out an enthusiastic response. “Uh … yeah. I mean hell yeah, Chief. I'm all over it.”

The sheriff stood and turned to Tia. “I've assigned a couple of U/C detectives to work surveillance at the Roadhouse tonight. We'll start slow. Just try to get the lay of the land. Zero in on the comings and goings of our two main players. Try to ID some of the lower-level guys. Maybe we'll get lucky and find somebody we can put a twist on. Get somebody on the inside to wire up for us. Sound good to you folks?”

Ben answered for them both. “Sounds like a plan, John. Let me talk it over with Suarez and my detective sergeant. We'll work out the details, but count us in.”

The sheriff was headed for the door when Tia called out, “Excuse me, Sheriff?”

“Yes, Tia?”

“Uh, so where is she?”

Both men looked at her in confusion, so she tried again. “I mean the girl in the van. Where is she?”

The sheriff shook his head and his voice was solemn. “I can't answer that, Tia. I don't know.”

Tia looked at both men and found herself wishing she were like them. Their suspicions of what was happening were still nebulous and nonspecific. For Tia, the whole thing came with a face. Ben's voice brought her back to the moment.

“Thanks again, Sheriff. We'll get things rolling on our end.”

Solo nodded and left. The door closed and Ben and Tia were alone. The chief moved over to the couch, taking the Sheriff's place. He leaned forward and Tia wondered what form of an apology would come next. Finally he spoke.

“Before we go any further, Tia, you and I need to get something clear.”

Tia began to feel the inkling of some sort of retribution. “What's that, Chief?”

“Tia, I know things have changed between you and me. I figure it's probably hard for you to…” Ben hesitated. “Well, I guess it might be hard for you to think you can trust me.”

Ben paused, obviously waiting for Tia to say something. When she looked at him in silence, he went on. “But I want you to know something, Tia. You
can
trust me.”

Elbows on his knees, Ben went on. “Before anything else, you're my friend. A friend who was there for me when no one else was. Someone who stuck by me during a pretty rough time. That kind of friendship doesn't come along very often. When it does…” Tia watched as Ben's eyes darted around like he was expecting to find just the right words written on a wall or hanging outside the window. Suddenly he did find them and his tone changed. “You
damn well cherish that.
You know what I'm saying?”

Struck by his emotion, Tia could only nod.

“That's why, as hard as it is, I need to say something to you. I'm only going to say this once and I want a two-word answer.” He stopped as if to be sure she was listening. “Either ‘yes, sir' or ‘fuck off.' Your choice.”

Tia tilted her head, perplexed. After a long pause that grew uncomfortable, she spoke. “Say what you have to say, Chief.”

“Here's the deal.” Suddenly Ben was all business. “You flush the pills and lay off the booze. Keep taking the piss tests, but I'll be the one getting the results, not Gage.

“Agree to that or I'll find someone else to go after Kane. And if you can't live with this arrangement, then I'd like your resignation.” Ben put out his hands, palms up, and went on. “I want it to be your decision, Tia. Don't make me move forward on Gage's recommendation of a psychological retirement if you can't handle the job.”

Tia looked into his eyes, her heart pounding. She gave some thought to going with the more colorful of the two choices. Where was his apology for not believing her about the girl in the van? Who did this guy think he was, dictating terms? She'd been right all along. Now instead of apologizing, he was going to get into shit that he didn't understand and that was none of his business. When Tia didn't respond, Ben went on.

“There will be no hard feelings, Tia. Not from me at least. It's your call, but I need your decision right now.”

Tia stared at her boss. Her friend. She thought of their history, felt the pull of the affection that exists between people who have worked together to overcome insurmountable odds. She and Ben Sawyer once had that connection. She missed it. She wanted it back and this was certainly that chance. It might even be the last chance. She knew the right answer and her humble reply was barely audible. “Yes, sir.”

She saw relief flood his face before he spoke. “
Your word,
Tia?”

She answered, her voice strong and clear, “Yeah, Ben. You've got my word. But I've got some terms of my own.”

“Of course you do, Suarez. What are they?”

“I'm off light duty starting now and I'm on this case. No restrictions. We put together a team to go after Kane and Tanner. But the primary mission is finding that girl. If you can't give me that, then yeah, I'll walk. No hard feelings. But you should know, I'll just go all private-citizen vigilante and find her on my own.”

“Great.” He shook his head. “That's just what I need. Tia Suarez on the loose.”

Tia watched his expression grow serious and still. She knew that when Ben Sawyer mulled a decision, the bigger the issue, the harder it was to get a read off the man. Thirty seconds went by with his face looking like it was carved in granite. She was about to break the silent stalemate when he spoke.

“Go find Sergeant Jackson and get him up to speed. Let him know you're working a special detail tonight.” Ben stood and stuck out his hand. “You're reinstated to full duty.”