Protector (52 page)
Authors: Laurel Dewey
Tags: #Police Procedural, #Denver (Colo.), #Mystery & Detective, #Psychic ability, #Women detectives, #Crime, #Suspense, #Women Sleuths, #Children of murder victims, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural, #Espionage
“Talking on the pay phone outside The Pit Stop after everyone is in bed,” Jane said, finishing his sentence.
Dan nodded. “Look, there’s a couple things goin’ on here. The first one has to do with me. I was just worried that you were callin’ your husband and fixin’ to meet him or get back with him.”
“I was not calling my husband and I have no intention of going back to him.” Dan looked relieved. “You said there’s a couple things?”
“Oh, it’s just stupid, that’s what it is. The Sheriff seems to be under some false impression that you’re . . .” Dan couldn’t get the words out.
“That I’m what, Dan?” Jane knew the answer but she wanted to hear it from Dan’s lips.
“Somehow he thinks that you’ve harmed Patty. It’s just all twisted! But that’s a small town for you!” Jane figured she had Kathy to thank for the call to Sheriff George after their tense visit to her house and abrupt exit. “I can’t be sure, but I think the sheriff is gonna do some checkin’ on you—”
“Oh, shit,” Jane said under her breath and nervously lighting a cigarette.
“I think you oughta bite the bullet and come clean with him!”
“I can’t!”
“I know your husband’s a cop and that talkin’ to the sheriff could put out some sort of alert that would tip him off to where you are. But, I think if you talk to Sheriff George and explain the situation, he could protect you and Patty from retribution—”
“No! I absolutely cannot involve the sheriff!” Jane buried her head in her hand. “God, what a mess! Exactly what is he planning on checking?”
“I would imagine arrests for abuse or warrants out on you.”
“Well, he won’t find any of those,” Jane said, taking a drag on her cigarette.
“He’ll find your name attached to the abuse report against your husband.”
“There is no abuse report.”
“You didn’t tell the cops what he did to you and Patty?”
“I would have but it was more important that we just throw what we could in the car and get out of town,” Jane said, stumbling over her words.
“Look, I know the cops are worthless, but you should have at least reported what he did to you to get it on record in case he finds you.”
“Well, I didn’t!” Jane said irritated, crossing into the kitchen as she considered her options. “The sheriff can’t do much of anything without a driver’s license or social security number,” Jane mumbled more to herself. “He could run my license plate . . . Oh, shit!” Jane said, realizing that the plate would either trace back to the original owner—a felon for meth trafficking—or to the Denver PD who acquired the vehicle in the drug seizure. Either way, she was screwed. “Shit!” Jane said, pissed at Weyler and DH for choosing not to alert the local sheriff and making her job more complicated. “I gotta buy myself some time,” Jane said decisively, squashing out her cigarette in the sink.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve gotta figure out a way to take the heat off myself for just a little longer. I can’t have the sheriff digging around or certain things could get very compromised.” She turned to Dan. “Maybe you could talk to him. Vouch for me—”
“I can’t just walk up to him cold turkey and start stickin’ up for you. He might wonder what I was up to.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Jane paced back and forth. “Maybe you could make up some story about Patty. Tell him she’s sick or has some kind of disease.”
“What disease?”
“A blood disease. That’s vague enough. Tell him that she’s in remission but I’m real clingy around her because I’m afraid she’s going to relapse. Tell him I told you the story in confidence but you figured he should know the truth just to stop the rumors.”
“What if he doesn’t buy it?”
“He’ll buy it if you sell it good enough.”
“I don’t know, Jane.”
“Dan, you stood right there and told me not too long ago that you would do anything you could to protect Patty and me. Now, I’m just asking you to tell a little white lie to buy me some time. Talk to the sheriff, Dan. I’ll take care of the rest.”
For the next few days, Jane felt as though a fire was lit underneath her feet. The more she considered her situation, the angrier she became. In her mind, for the past three and a half weeks, she’d become a sitting duck, held hostage to the whims of the Denver PD and, soon, to the microscope of a small-town sheriff. Never in her life had she rolled over so easily and allowed herself to be played like a puppet. As far as Jane was concerned, those days were over. “Fuck ’em,” became her mantra. She didn’t feel that she could trust Weyler, although her concern regarding his ethics and integrity were murky. Her mind kept going back to his statement about discovering “internal problems downstairs.” While Weyler had assured her that those problems had nothing to do with her case, her gut told her differently. And she always listened to her gut.
She had to figure out a way to call Ron Dickson. Then she had to convince him to check the Property Report Form for that elusive silver cigarette case that somehow jumped from the crime scene photo and into the hands of the homeless man. It went against the rules of the game but Jane knew she had to start making her own rules.
At least, that’s what she told herself as she stood in front of the pay phone outside The Pit Stop. Jane knew that the evidence room was usually quiet in the late afternoon. Fortunately, she remembered the direct line to Ron’s phone. She also remembered that Ron took breaks around 11 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. She figured she could catch him coming back from his break around 4:00 and cut a deal while he was still giddy from the candy bar and bottle of pop. While Emily stood outside the Subaru, practicing her line dancing steps in the parking lot, Jane dialed the number. It rang twice before someone picked up.
“Evidence, Johnson.” Johnson? Jane was taken aback. Johnson was a lackey who worked the back room. “Hello?” Johnson said. “Is someone there?”
Jane’s first reaction was to hang up the phone but she’d gotten this far and she needed to keep going. She lowered her voice in a weak attempt to alter her voice. “I need to talk to Ron Dickson.”
“Ron’s not here. Can I help you?” Johnson asked.
“No. I need to talk to Ron. When is he back from his break?”
“Who is this?”
“When is Ron back from his break?” Jane said, undeterred.
“Ron’s on suspension.”
“Suspension?” At that point, Jane heard Chris’ voice in the background. She knew it went against policy, but she had to find out what was going on. “Put Detective Crawley on the phone!”
Jane felt her heart race as Johnson handed the phone to Chris.
“Who’s this?” Chris asked in his usual gruff tone.
“It’s me.”
Chris quickly spoke to Johnson. “Hey, I need privacy for a bit. Thanks . . .” Chris waited several seconds, then pressed his lips into the receiver. “Jane, where the fuck are you?” he asked in a thick whisper. “I need to talk to you in private. Give me your phone number and I’ll call you back from the pay phone down the street. That way, no one here can trace the call.”
“Chris, I can’t! I’m not supposed to be talking to anybody!”
“Then why are you calling Ron Dickson? Anything you can tell Ron, you can certainly tell me! I’m still your partner, for God’s sake!”
Jane felt the walls closing in on her. She quickly regretted concocting this wild scheme. “Goddamnit, Chris. Why is Ron suspended?”
“It seems that your sweet little Christian pal has a pesky cocaine habit!”
“What?” Jane was floored.
“And guess where he was scoring his coke?”
“From evidence?” Jane said, skeptically.
“You got it!”
“Has everyone down there lost their mind? Ron is not a coke addict. He wears a D.A.R.E. button on his collar—”
“When did you become so fucking ignorant?” Chris said. “I don’t give a shit if he drives around in a mother-fuckin’ van with big D.A.R.E. letters plastered across the side! He’s been pinching the evidence to the accumulated tune of over five ounces! God only knows what else he’s been pocketing. All that time you were talking to him and buying into his Christian do-gooder bullshit, he was a cokehead and you couldn’t even see it! I told you that night when we saw him in the hospital after your little ward fell off the roof of her house that something wasn’t quite right with him! He was sweating and shaky. Hell, he was probably coming down and jonesin’ for some powder!”
Jane thought back to that awful night nearly one month ago. Ron approached Chris and her in the hospital with his finger bandaged—the result of nearly cutting off his left finger while chopping beeswax for his wife’s herbal salve. She recalled his pale complexion and shaken appearance. She also remembered Chris jumping to the illogical conclusion that somehow Ron’s demeanor was connected to Emily’s case. “It’s not true!”
“Pull your head out of your ass, Jane! I kept an eye on Ron ever since that night and I did my own little investigation. I know drug addicts. I know how they think. Ron stands in that cage every day knowing that literally pounds of coke are sitting right behind him in little plastic K-Pak bags. ‘Who the hell’s gonna miss it?’ he thinks. And he would have gotten away with it if I hadn’t convinced Brass about my suspicions. They agreed to do a surprise audit of the property room and what do you know, Joe, but the blow was missing! I’m a fuckin’ hero around here, Jane! A fucking hero! With the amount of coke Ron took, Brass figures he’s been dipping into the powder since May!”
Jane factored the information. “May? How would they know that?”
“They just do, Jane.”
“They just do? What kind of answer is that?”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you! Shit is going down here, Jane!”
“What about Johnson? Did you question him? Maybe he pinched the coke!”
“Ron had blow in his pocket! He was caught red handed! Deal with it!”
“You’re enjoying this. What is it about Ron that you hate so much?”
“What is it about him that you like?” Jane turned toward the sound of the chugging coal train as it inched up the mountain to pick up the day’s black harvest. “What in the hell is that?” Chris asked.
“The coal train.” With that, the train rumbled past The Pit Stop. Once it cleared the area, Jane continued. “Ron didn’t do it, Chris. I don’t care how much you try to convince me. He’s innocent of that and of whatever else you think he did.”
“Whatever else? What exactly do you mean by that?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“You sure are one cocky little bitch!”
“There are some things that you don’t know. And this is one of them.”
“Don’t hold out on me, Jane! You called here for a reason. What do you know? Has that kid been talking?” Chris’ tone was slightly intimidating.
“Maybe. But, if you think I’m telling you, you’re more fucked up than I thought.”
Chris lowered his voice. “Let me pass on some friendly advice. Whatever you do, don’t even think about sharing your information with Weyler.”
Jane’s ears perked up. It was completely against Chris’ character to suddenly become so forthcoming after puffing himself up and dishing out the insults. “Why?”
“You talk to Weyler about anything you know . . . anything . . . and you’ll have another dead kid on your hands. I’m not bullshitting you, Jane. You can’t trust him.” Jane felt her heart skip a beat. “Someone’s coming,” Chris whispered. “I gotta go.”
And with that, he hung up.
Chapter 23
For the rest of that day and most of the night, Jane could not shake Chris’ voice in her head. “You’ll have another dead kid on your hands” played repeatedly in her mind. Of course, Chris was referring to Amy Joan Stover. Jane knew if she thought of Amy too much, the nightmares would start again.
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