By Any Means (2 page)

“You got any thoughts on this?” Alvarez asked upon opening his eyes.

Ash hesitated to voice his opinion. Alvarez needed to develop the ability to take in the crime scene himself and form his own opinions. Only then should he compare those opinions with those of other investigators. Still, he hadn't worked that many homicides solo yet; maybe he needed a jump start.

“We don't have a lot yet. First, your victims don't belong in the neighborhood, obviously, so you'll have to figure out why they're here. Second, you'll have to deal with the locals, which isn't easy because they don't really like us here. Third, you can't see the backseat well, but I think there's going to be some blood—”

“Detective!” It was one of the uniformed patrol officers rerouting traffic at the end of the street. He waved his arms at them frantically. “You need to hear this.”

“Can it wait?” shouted Alvarez.

“No.”

Alvarez shook his head and scowled. “We'll continue this conversation in a minute,” he said, already walking toward the officer. Ash followed a few steps behind. The patrolman's face had whitened several shades since Ash had last seen him, and his breath came low and slow.

“What's wrong?” asked Alvarez.

“The dispatcher just played me a nine-one-one call about a car accident that you need to hear.”

“We're here, so roll it.”

The patrolman leaned into his car and requested that the dispatcher replay the recording. Even though the volume had been turned high, Ash had to strain his ears to hear. The recording sounded distant and scratchy, making the voices difficult to understand. The caller sounded like a woman, though, and from what Ash could piece together, she had just come across a car that had run into a light pole. Assuming she had called about the Mercedes, they could use the time of her phone call to establish a timeline if nothing else. Ash almost stepped back, but then the woman's voice changed pitch and quickened.

“Someone just got out of the back. He has blood on his shirt and he's bleeding from his leg. We need an ambulance.” Ash held his breath. The dispatcher warned the caller to remain in her vehicle until a patrol officer could arrive, but she didn't listen. She unbuckled her seat belt with an audible click and then bobbled her phone as she opened the door.

Don't do this. Get back in your car.

Ash felt his heart rate increase as the pitch changed in the caller's voice. The world around him seemed to disappear.

“The police are on their way. Do you need my help? I'm a nurse.”

Her voice sounded tinny and distant. She must have been holding her phone away from her face.

“Get in the car.”

“I'm just trying to—”

Something, a body part likely, thumped against the car, and the caller grunted. Her phone clattered to the ground.

“I said get in the car.”

Ash couldn't decipher what happened next, but it sounded like someone might have kicked the phone. He then heard shoes shuffling across the asphalt and a series of high-pitched gasps followed by a few heavy thuds. The gasps shifted into guttural but still feminine grunts, and Ash found his hand covering his mouth before he realized it had moved. The scuffle ceased after that, and the car's door opened again, beeping intermittently. The dispatcher said something, but Ash couldn't understand the words over the roar of the car's engine.

Silence momentarily hung around the patrol vehicle as the recording finished. When Ash's breath caught up with him, he brought his hand to the top of the cruiser's door to keep from falling. He spoke before anyone else.

“Damn.”

T
wenty minutes. The phone call had come in twenty minutes ago. As soon as the initial shock faded, Ash pictured a map of the area in his head and mentally drew a ring around their search zone. The major roadways would have been clogged, minimizing the chance the shooter had left town. If the department moved fast and got lucky, they could find him before he killed their Good Samaritan. He glanced at Alvarez, expecting the detective to start barking orders, but he hadn't moved. Ash decided to give him a moment to think.

“Why didn't we have this earlier?” he asked, glancing at the patrol officer.

“The dispatcher only had the location of the cell tower the call came from. She mobilized as many officers as she could to search, but she didn't know where to send people. By the time I found the phone—”

“Wait a minute,” said Ash, holding up his hand. “You have the victim's phone?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, reaching into his vehicle and picking up a scuffed cell phone with a cracked screen. “I found it on the sidewalk.”

Ash closed his eyes and counted to five to keep from snapping at him.

“When the team from the forensics lab arrives, give them the phone and tell them exactly where you picked it up. Our victim fought with her attacker, so the phone might have his prints on it. After that, call the dispatcher and request that she send someone to relieve you because you're going back to your precinct and writing a report about why you picked up evidence barehanded at a crime scene.”

The officer straightened. “I didn't know what it was. It was just there, so I picked it—”

“I don't care,” said Ash, interrupting him again. “Write it down and put it in a report. The prosecutor's office will want to know why your prints are on evidence collected at the scene, and I don't want to see you right now. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

For most of his career, Ash had been on the receiving end of reprimands like that, so it felt strange to give one. Despite the momentary reprieve, Alvarez's mouth still hung open and his face appeared gray. He almost looked like a statue.

“We need help, and we need it right now,” said Ash.

Alvarez shook his head and took a step back, running his fingers through his wavy black hair.

“I don't know... I...”

Ash remained silent for another moment, hoping Alvarez would get himself together. He stood there with his mouth agape, continuing to shake his head in disbelief.

“Fine,” said Ash. “Call your lieutenant and tell him that we need as many people down here as we can get. Use cadets in the police academy if you have to, but I want checkpoints on every road leading out of town, I want officers knocking on every door in the neighborhood, and I want more detectives down here now.”

Ash motioned two uniformed officers near the crime scene's perimeter toward them. They jogged over, and he pointed at the first to arrive. “I need you to find out who our nine-one-one caller is and what she drives.” He looked at the second uniform. “And I need you to call every hospital and clinic in the area and tell them to be on the lookout for someone with a puncture or gunshot wound to his leg. Our victim said the man who abducted her was bleeding from his leg. If our suspect comes by, I want him taken into custody. Got it?”

The patrol officers nodded and then ran back to their cruisers, but Alvarez remained stationary.

“Move.”

Alvarez flinched and then started making calls. Ash's heart thudded against his breastbone, so he closed his eyes and counted to ten, hoping to calm it. His instincts screamed at him to run, as if doing so would somehow help the situation, so he had to force his mind to focus. With the entire patrol division on the lookout, they'd have a fair chance of finding their victim as soon as they got the make, model, and color of her car, but none of that would help if their perp ditched his car for another. In that case, they'd need to be able to track him down, and to do that they needed to discover everything they could about him, starting with the identity of his first victims.

While Alvarez called his boss, Ash called IMPD's dispatcher and read the Mercedes's license plate number. After some typing, the dispatcher informed him that the vehicle had been registered to Commonwealth Financial Services of Carmel, Indiana. A name would have been better, but they could work with a company; when backup arrived, Ash planned to send someone over there to roust information from their office.

To minimize the risk of contaminating evidence, department regulations forbade anyone but the coroner from touching a body at a crime scene, and as much as Ash wanted to dig through his victims' pockets for ID, it wouldn't be worth it. It also wouldn't be fair. Alvarez's lieutenant would assign a more senior detective to the case and send Ash packing for the evening; he had no right to make someone else's job harder just to satisfy his own curiosity. He paced near the Mercedes, trying and failing to see anything new through its windows. If there was something to find, they'd have to wait.

Given the circumstances, Ash expected a senior officer to arrive and relieve Alvarez, so it didn't surprise him when Captain Mike Bowers drove up. Bowers, the recently promoted supervisor of the entire Crimes Against Persons division, immediately began talking to Alvarez near the detective's cruiser, but he stopped and looked at Ash twice during the conversation. Eventually, he flagged him over.

“Eddie says you're calling the shots.”

Ash glanced at Alvarez but couldn't get a read on him. They didn't need a fight over control of the case; their Good Samaritan didn't have time for internal police politics.

“I was the first on the scene, but it's Detective Alvarez's case. I stepped in, but I shouldn't have. I apologize.”

“That's not—” began Alvarez.

“You probably shouldn't have, but you did,” Bowers interrupted, his expression dour. “You also kept things moving. What would you do next?”

“It's not my place to make those calls.”

“Forget your fake humility, Rashid,” said Bowers. “If this were your case, what would you do next?”

He glanced at Alvarez again. The detective nodded slightly for him to continue.

“We need information more than anything else. I've already asked an officer to find out who our nine-one-one caller was and what she was driving. If we get that information to patrol quickly enough, someone might get lucky and spot our perp before he ditches his car or kills our victim. In addition, I'd send somebody to Carmel to talk to the company who owns that Mercedes. They might be able to tell us who our shooter is.”

Bowers considered for a moment. “I can't help with the Mercedes, but the nine-one-one caller's name is Rebecca Cook, and she drives a red Toyota Camry that she bought new last year. I've already notified patrol.”

Why ask for my opinion, then?

“It sounds like you've got things in hand.”

“So far. Greg Doran and Tim Smith are coming in from the Aggravated Assault unit, but I need someone who knows what's going on to take point. Is your CO still Aleda Tovar?”

Ash hadn't expected the question, so he paused to think before answering. “Lieutenant Tovar, yeah.”

“You have anything pressing going on in Community Relations?”

“I'm scheduled to visit second-grade classrooms all week. It's part of the DARE program.”

“Anybody else who can do that in your unit?”

Ash shrugged. “Probably.”

“Good,” said Bowers. “I'll call Aleda and ask that she temporarily transfer you to my command.”

“Why?”

Bowers scowled and crossed his arms. “I hope you're not fishing for a compliment, Rashid.”

“I'm not,” said Ash. “I'm just not sure what you expect me to do. I give presentations in elementary schools and coordinate neighborhood watch programs now.”

“I don't care what unit you're in. You're a good detective, you've got a face the media knows, and you've got sergeant's stripes,” said Bowers. “You're taking point with this investigation. No arguments. I'm going to notify Rebecca's family about what's going on before it hits the news.”

Bowers started toward his car, but Ash put a hand on his shoulder before he could leave.

“I'll do it, but if I'm in charge, I should be the one to notify the Cooks.”

“You sure?”

“If I'm running this investigation, the victim's family needs to know me. I don't want them going on the news later because they think we're keeping them out of the loop,” said Ash, looking at Alvarez. “Alvarez can run the scene here. He knows what to do.”

Bowers looked from Alvarez to Ash and back before nodding.

“Let's go.”

It felt as if every neuron in Ash's brain had fired at once, compelling him to run in fifty different directions simultaneously. He needed someone from the forensics lab to check the Mercedes for blood or fiber evidence that might individuate the shooter, he needed someone from the coroner's office to check the victims, he needed officers from patrol to start knocking on doors, and he needed a media liaison for the inevitable onslaught of reporters. Already he felt a weight pressing down on his chest. It was probably nothing compared to what Rebecca, their victim, felt.

As soon as Ash strapped himself into Bowers's car, the captain floored the accelerator.

“Do Doran and Smith know I'm in charge of the case?”

Bowers shook his head. That would make things difficult. About a year and a half ago, Doran and Smith investigated one of Ash's former partners, Olivia Rhodes, for corruption. They were right about her, but things got messy before her arrest and Ash did some things he probably shouldn't have. The situation hadn't endeared him to either man.

While Bowers drove, Ash called both detectives. He ordered Smith to work the scene with Alvarez, pound on doors, and roust the neighbors. Doran, meanwhile, would coordinate the search for Rebecca's car with the Indiana State Police and IMPD's patrol division. Within fifteen minutes, every sworn officer within a sixty-mile radius would be on the lookout. Hopefully that'd be enough.

Ash leaned back in his seat, watching as the scenery changed around them and feeling the unease build in his stomach.

“You look tired,” said Bowers, pulling his vehicle to a stop at a light.

“It's Ramadan. I've been up since five this morning.”

“Are you going to be tired every day, then?”

“I can handle it.”

Bowers nodded as the light shifted to green.

“What does Ramadan entail?”

“I fast during the day and eat and drink only before sunrise and after sunset. If I'm on a case, though, I can do what I need to do and make it up later.”

He had left out the most important aspects of Ramadan, but Bowers didn't want to hear about the spiritual side of the month. He wanted to make sure Ash could still do the job, which wouldn't be a problem. God grants dispensations to the elderly and infirm, travelers, pregnant women, and children, allowing them to avoid fasting during Ramadan. God also grants a dispensation to those who are exhausted and can no longer continue without eating or drinking. If he absolutely needed a drink or something to eat, he could have something and then fast an additional day at the end of the month. It wouldn't be a problem.

The answer must have satisfied Bowers because he didn't ask any more questions, giving Ash a moment to call his wife and tell her that he had caught a case. She wished him luck and said she'd pray for everybody involved. About ten silent minutes after the phone call, Bowers stopped the car in front of a two-story craftsman home a couple of blocks from Butler University. The leaves from several nearby trees rustled in a warm breeze as Ash opened his door. A small, pink bike leaned against a light post in the front lawn and chalk drawings of flowers and houses adorned the sidewalks. Rebecca had at least one daughter, evidently.

“As far as we know, she's still alive,” said Bowers. “That's the story we need to stick to until we hear otherwise.”

“I agree.”

Despite the reassurances, Ash couldn't shake the feeling that Rebecca was already dead. Both officers started for the house, but before they even made it halfway, the home's front door opened and a little girl emerged. She wore a pink shirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. As soon as she saw the two men on her front walkway, she ran back into the house. Within moments, an older man with fluffy white hair, big meaty jowls, and a smile walked through the door.

“Can I help you?”

“Do you know Rebecca Cook?” asked Bowers.

“I'm her father,” he said, his eyebrows arched. “What's going on?”

“Can we come inside, sir?” asked Bowers. “We need to talk.”

The man took a step back and started to hold up his hands as if he were going to resist, but then the smile slipped from his face and the humor left his eyes. Ash saw the same look nearly every time he did a next-of-kin notification. He took a step forward and gestured toward the house, trying to make his voice as soothing and calm as he could.

“Please, sir, Captain Bowers is right. We need to talk inside.”

The man's shoulders hunched and the color ran from his face. He looked like a balloon that had just popped.

“Come in.”

He turned toward the house, his eyes never leaving the ground. Once they were inside, Rebecca's husband, her father, and her mother gathered around a table in the kitchen. Ash and Bowers sat across from them, their backs to an unadorned beige wall. Rebecca's family had hung drawings and art projects on the fridge, while photographs of vacations and framed portraits of two little girls in matching plaid jumpers adorned the walls. It looked like a loving, stable home; even after well over a decade in uniform, that never ceased to bother Ash. Out of everyone in the world, the worst tragedies always seemed to befall the people least deserving of it.