Finders/Keepers

Eight

“Jesus, Hank, why aren’t you at the hospital?” Jane Mayer said. Her early thirty-something face looked at least ten years older since the last time he saw her a few months ago. It might have just been because he was looking at a pixilated version of Jane on the tablet’s screen, but Hank was sure that wasn’t the only reason.

“I don’t need a hospital,” Hank said, and thought, Kent Whitman already gave me the good stuff, but of course he didn’t say that part out loud.

“Since when did you get a cell phone?” Jane asked.

“I didn’t. I’m just, uh, borrowing someone’s…phone, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“It’s like a tablet or something.”

He looked over at Lucy, sitting on the other side of the bed where Jane couldn’t see her. The sixteen-year-old nodded in affirmation and gave him an almost pitying smile.

Hank smirked back at her before returning to Jane’s furrowed face on the small screen. He wasn’t quite sure how far he should hold the device from his face since it was hard to make out his own features in the even smaller box-within-a-box at the lower right corner. Whose bright idea was it to let the caller see himself while talking?

“Hank Pritchard with a tablet,” Jane said onscreen. “As I live and breathe.”

“I’m not a Luddite, kid. Well, not entirely.”

Jane smiled. “No one’s called me kid in a long time.”

“Yeah, well, ten years from now, or twenty years from now, I’ll still be a lot older than you.”

“Thank God. Now what do you want?”

“This afternoon’s shooting…”

“Jesus, that was bad,” Jane said, and ran her hands over her face. “You heard about that, huh?”

“Hard not to; it’s all over the news.”

“Yeah, I guess it would be. Worse thing to happen to us since, well, you know.”

Hank nodded. Oh, he knew, all right. It was one of the reasons he was sitting in a motel with a sixteen-year-old kid and not on the other side of this phone call.

“What about it?” Jane asked.

“Where are you guys on that?”

“Hank, what are you asking me?”

“I just wanna know what you guys have on the shooters.”

“How did you know there was more than one shooter?”

“You mean there were?”

She nodded before glancing over her shoulder as if she were afraid of being overheard. Jane was sitting in her car in a parking lot, and by the angle of her face he guessed she had her phone resting on the dashboard pointed back at her. He recognized the background, and given the time of day, it wasn’t hard to surmise she was outside the main building. How many times had he parked at that exact spot?

“Two,” Jane said, looking back at the screen.

“What happened?”

“They were stopped for a speeding violation. Nothing major. They pulled over to the side, and while the troopers were getting information on their onboard computer, they were killed. Nine millimeter rounds. There were so many holes in the front windshield that we don’t know how the whole thing didn’t collapse in on itself. Both men were killed on the spot.”

“Suspects?”

“We don’t have any. Right now we’re busy setting up roadblocks, checking vans and even regular sedans, in case they might have switched vehicles.” She shook her head. “But we’re searching blind, Hank. The troopers only had information on a white van but nothing on the drivers before they were killed.”

“What did you find on the car?”

“That’s where things get weird.”

“Weird how?”

“The tag came back registered to a Gloria Donovan from two states away. The problem with that is, Mrs. Donovan is seventy-nine years old and living in a group home, and she has no idea she bought a used van nine months ago.”

“Identity theft?”

“Looks that way. Someone got a hold of her personal information, name, and Social Security Number. That’s why the license plate didn’t trip any warning flags when they were initially spotted. The troopers never saw it coming.”

“Did I know them, Jane? The men who died?”

Jane shook her head. “They came on the job after you left, Hank.”

He nodded, but instead of relief, it left more questions. Just because the men had entered the force after he retired didn’t mean he didn’t know them. He might have known their brothers, or fathers…

Jane was leaning slightly forward, as if she was trying to get a better look at him on the other side of the screen. “Hank, I have to ask, what’s going on? Is this just curiosity? And where exactly are you right now? That looks like a motel room…”

He felt a flush of pride. Besides knowing he could trust her, Hank had another reason for contacting her and not someone else: A little (Okay, a big part) of him wanted to stick it to John “Mr. Perfect” Miller.

“How did you know I’m at a motel?” he asked.

“The ugly curtains, the bare wall… Who’s there with you? You keep glancing over at them.”

Dammit; I forgot she can see me, too.

“Jane, I need to tell you something,” he said, “but you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone where it came from.”

“Hank…”

“No ifs, ands, or buts, Jane. Promise me, or I’m hanging up right now,” he said, wondering if you could actually “hang up” on someone through a tablet. How did phone calls even work on this thing anyway?

“Hank, you called me, remember?” Jane said.

“I know that, kid. I have information that might help you with the case, but if you’re not going to—”

“What kind of information?”

“Promise me, and I’ll tell you.”

Jane sighed. “Hank, you do know that I’m a detective with CID now, right? That it’s been a while since you bossed me around as a trooper? The shooting’s got us all on edge. The commissioner’s stuck on the phone with the governor’s office, and every detective and chief is fanning across the state. We’re pulling everyone from every section into this one, even the commercial enforcement guys. This is bad, Hank. Real bad. So you need to really think hard about what you’re asking me, because if you have something that can help us catch these motherfuckers…”

“Kid, I don’t know who they are,” Hank said.

He kept his voice calm and even, doing everything possible to let his sincerity come through. Diane would call it his “fatherly face,” except they’d never had kids so it was anyone’s guess if he was doing it right. But he could see it on Jane’s face and hear it in her voice that she was wired. It didn’t surprise him at all. State troopers didn’t die very often, and it was unheard of to have two killed in the same day in the same action.

“That’s the honest truth,” he continued. “But I have some information that could be useful.”

“You want to stay in the dark, is that it?”

“That’s exactly it,” he nodded.

“Okay. We’ll just call you my unnamed CI.”

“That’ll work.”

“So, let’s hear it. Why are you in a motel room this time of night, and am I going to regret asking that question?”

“Someone told me to come here, and I don’t know, maybe?”

“Who told you to go there?”

“You heard about the robbery at Ben’s Diner earlier today?”

“Are you kidding? Everyone was already going all-in on that one when the troopers got killed. That was the reason they pulled the shooters over in the first place. They had orders to stop any suspicious vehicles, and unfortunately for them two guys in a van with out-of-state plates stuck out.” She paused for a moment before leaning forward again. “Wait, are you saying the two things are connected?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus…”

She already knew about him being shot, so he told her about Allie Krycek (though he never said her name and only called her “one of the robbers,” and didn’t mention she was the one who had shot him) slipping him a piece of paper with a phone number on it. He finished by telling her about the motel and meeting with “the robber’s colleague,” who informed him about the human-trafficking operation currently moving across the state.

“Oh, fuck me,” Jane said when he was finished. “Are you sure about this?”

“Trust me, I didn’t want to believe it either, but it’s true. You need to have everyone looking for more than just the van.”

“A semitrailer hauling kids from South America?”

“Among other places.”

“But you don’t know what it looks like…”

“No. I just know it’s out there somewhere.”

“Hank, you know as well as I do that’s going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. Thousands of semis go through our state every day. Listen,” she said, turning her head slightly before looking back at him. “Did you hear that? That’s three more passing in less than three seconds. We can’t just randomly pull every one of them over. We don’t have that kind of manpower.”

“You’ve already set up roadblocks, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but we haven’t been looking for semis, just the van.”

“It’s time to expand your search, then.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yes, Hank, they’re going to ask me why should they expand the stop-and-search to every big rig going through the state, and I won’t have an answer for them.”

Shit, he thought, because she was right. The commanders weren’t going to put more men on the roadblocks to search semis without a damn good reason, and all he had was…

He glanced over at Lucy again, watching him back from across the bed. He couldn’t see the dog Apollo, but it was there somewhere lying next to her feet like a good guard dog. The animal rarely strayed from the girl, as if it had been ordered to stick close to her at all times.

He looked back at Jane. “You’ll have to convince them.”

“Hank, we’re talking about shuffling around a lot of manpower here. I can’t just tell them it’s because some unnamed CI said so. I’m not high up enough on the totem pole to have that kind of pull yet. You know how this bureaucracy works.”

“You gotta try anyway, Jane. Talk to whoever you have to — sweet talk them, bribe them, hell, blackmail them, if that’s what it takes. But you have to get it done.”

She sighed before pursing a smile at him. “Is that how you got things done in the old days, old-timer?”

He smiled back at her. “Mostly the second and third part, rarely the first.” He got serious again, adding, “Can you do it?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll try. If you’re right, and there are kids being smuggled across our state, then fuck it, I’ll make as much noise as I need to. Even if it means backing up traffic into the next ten states.”

Hank beamed with pride. He didn’t know what to say, but he could no more stop the big grin breaking out across his mug than he could push back the hands of time.

Jane saw it and laughed. “I’ll probably get demoted for this if we don’t find anything, you know that, right? If I’m lucky. Worst-case scenario, I’ll end up back in uniform, fetching coffee and checking for hookers at truck stops.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with working for a living, kid.”

“Yeah, but I really, really like coming to work in a suit.”

“Thank you,” Hank said, putting as much meaning as he could muster into those two very simple words.

“When this is over, let’s get together for some drinks again, huh? Maybe dinner too, this time. Your liver could use a break. Plus, Andy misses you.”

“That sounds good, kid. That sounds really good.”

“I’ll call you back when I get the chance, or if I have anything. Can I call you on this number?”

He checked with Lucy, and the girl nodded.

“Apparently, yes,” he said.

“Who is that with you?” Jane asked. “Does he have a name?”

“Later,” Hank said. “Go get ’em, kid. You can do this. I have faith in you.”

Jane sighed. “I hope you’re right, for all our sakes. I’ll see you around, old timer.”

The screen flicked to black, and it was just his big, old face staring back at him, except this time on the entire screen.

Hank handed the tablet back to Lucy. “She’ll do what she can, and if anyone can get it done, it’s Jane.”

“Do you trust her?” Lucy asked.

“With my life.”

Lucy nodded. “Who’s Andy?”

“Her daughter. Ten years old. You two could be friends.”

The girl made a face. “I’m sixteen. Do you really see me hanging out with a ten-year-old?”

“You could do worse.” He picked up the now-warm can of Coke from the nightstand and took a sip. “What now?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “I guess we wait for Allie to contact us.”

“Can you get in touch with her?”

Lucy shook her head. “We decided it would be too dangerous to keep an open channel between us. Allie’s trained me a lot over the last year, but I’ll never be as ready for any of this the way she was her first time.”

“Can you at least tell me what kind of training Allie had?”

“Let’s just say she can take care of herself.”

“You do realize that I know more people at the state police than just Jane? That I could ask any one of them to look into you and your friend?”

Lucy grinned at him.

“What?” Hank said, slightly annoyed.

“Nothing,” Lucy said. The girl stood up from the bed, said, “Come on, boy,” and walked to the door, with Apollo trotting anxiously alongside her.

“Where are you guys going?” Hank asked after them.

“Outside. Apollo’s been cooped up in here all day. I need to get him some exercise.”

“It’s dark out there, kid.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark, lieutenant.”

“Maybe you should be.”

The girl opened the door, then looked back and gave him another one of those grins that told him she knew something he didn’t before she turned around and slipped outside, the dog already a rocket of white fur under the parking lot lights.

“Weird kid,” Hank said to the empty room.