24. Bear
TWENTY-FOUR
Bear
The Night Before
T he precinct is quiet as I walk in just before 3:00 A.M., my shift over. Besides Detective Rhodes, no one’s at their desks. The police on duty in the jail tonight are all that’s left, Captain Jacoby gone home to be with his family. Nothing unusual about this evening, except I can’t get it out of my head that The Ciphers are more than they seem to be.
I interrogated The Spiders, who are still in custody, and the Judge gave them no bail until their preliminary hearing this Monday. Regardless of them being stuck where they don’t wanna be, no one was talking about The Ciphers.
Not even Briar.
When he and I were alone, two officers watching closely on the other side of the glass, I asked him how he saved Sage. He explained it to me. What he wouldn’t say is why, other than, “I owed Honey Badger a favor for my sister.”
I gathered that from the night of our brawl, and from this enigmatic statement, that Honey Badger had somehow helped his sister.
But how?
So I did some digging and found her. She has a record, but reports from her parole officer note that she’s been sober some six months now. Got back custody of her three children reportedly sired by three different men, just two months ago. Is living with her sister, working at a local grocery market as a manager but it doesn’t give the location — logged in as kept secret for her safety. That she’s in a position of management raised my eyebrows and I thought to myself, that’s some miraculous improvement right there…over what her record has her down for. Prostitution. Drugs. Dealing and Using. Also said she was a member of The Spiders.
Was.
I sit at my desk with nothing to report for the night. Not even a traffic ticket. With time on my hands I could go home and get some sleep. I have that date with Sage tomorrow night. I’d like to sleep in, get some laundry done, work out in my home gym, before I go pick her up for our reservation at Montecellos.
Tapping the computer to life, I do a search on the Internet for The Ciphers and come up with nothing but a movie called Cipher, a business by that name and the definition:
Cipher: A secret or disguised way of writing. A code.
It could also mean a zero.
As in nothing.
Not existing.
The Ciphers…
I dig deeper, page after page of garbage until finally on the eighty-seventh page I find a blog that says simply: If you need help or are in danger, call The Ciphers.
I spin back and forth in my rolling office chair while looking at the mysterious message. No number. Scrolling the blog’s pages, I find an message window, give my personal email as a return address, and type the message:
I need help. How do I get a hold of The Ciphers? And how do I know if it’s the kind of help they give?
“Bear,” Detective Rhodes calls over from his desk. “Got something on those Ciphers you were asking about.”
I stand up, chair rolling away in my haste. “What’d you find?”
“Have a case in another county where they helped capture a serial pedophile who was killing the kids. Says here Luke and Atlas Martinez gave their number as a contact. Look…” Rhodes scrolls through the report and shows pictures of the crime scene.
I curl away from the images, “There’s a special hell for the people who hurt children. Find anything else?”
“Says they reported being suspicious of the guy after seeing him with a kid that didn’t look like him. When the officers on the scene asked why they didn’t call the cops first, before going in and taking the guy down, they said they watch too many T.V. shows and got a little amped up. Says a Sofia Sol Cocker explained that they were afraid the guy would escape before police arrived.”
“Why didn’t we find this before?”
“Over ten years old. Guy’s dead. So much evidence against him the case got closed quickly.”
I nod, and look to my phone as a beep comes through. New email. “Good work,” I mutter to Rhodes, leaving him to read in private a telephone number along with two words:
Call me.
“Hey Rhodes, I’m headin’ home. Have a good one.”
“Night Bear,” he nods, sipping coffee and loosening his tie before returning to his computer.
Out into the crisp of night I stride to my truck, past my abandoned patrol car, and glance up as an owl hoots from a nearby tree. His head spins around, and his wings spread wide before he takes off into the silvery moonlight. I squint, watching him until I can’t see him anymore. Not every day I see an owl up close.
Tapping the phone number, I slide into my truck, start the engine and pause as a female voice answers, “Yes?”
“I’m the one who messaged you about The Ciphers.”
Her voice warms, like she’s concerned for me. “What do you need help with?”
“What can they do?”
“Anything. They got me away from a human trafficking ring when I was only sixteen. Now I help spread the word to people like me. They can do anything.”
I blink at the quiet police station, wondering what the hell I just heard. A human trafficking ring? That’s not normal motorcycle club behavior. “You’re okay now?” I ask, because it’s all I can think of.
“More than okay. I have my own business. A family of my own. I’m doing well, thank you. They took care of everything.”
“How?”
“They took the traffickers’ money and used it to put us all through college. If we wanted. Some just used it to get back home to their countries. Start over.”
Feigning being impressed, which I kind of am, I say, “Wow. That’s incredible. They took the traffickers’ money? How did the cops feel about this?”
“There were no cops,” she says as if it’s exciting. “You call The Ciphers when the cops can’t help you. If the cops had come, you tell me… where would that money we had earned have gone?”
Stunned, my mouth cracks open. I manager to mutter, “Right.”
“Do you need me to call them for you?”
I have their number, isn’t something I can say right now. But I don’t want her alerting The Ciphers that someone called who didn’t need help. “I’m not ready for them to come just yet.”
“Listen, I don’t know what you’re going through, but please don’t keep yourself in danger, if that’s what you’re in. You don’t have to wait for it to get really bad before you ask for help.”
“And they’d help me,” I mutter.
“Yes,” she replies.
“What’s their fee?”
“They don’t have a fee.”
“You’re saying they don’t charge for their services?”
“Helping people is what they were put on Earth by God to do.”
“Thank you for talking with me,” I tell her, and decide not to ask her name. For what reason, I don’t know. Do I want her to stay anonymous? To keep doing what she’s doing? Using some hard-to-find blog with a vague message, to help people?
“Call when you’re ready. God bless you,” she whispers, and hangs up.
“You too,” I exhale to myself, tossing my phone on the passenger seat, and putting the truck in gear.
The streets are deserted at this hour, as I drive home, and it’s all I can do to not drive by The Cipher’s crazy old mansion and see if there are lights on. Part of me wants to sit in my truck out front and stare at it, process what I just heard. And what Rhodes showed me. But I don’t wanna risk being seen.
At my house, the lights are dark. Forgot to leave the porch lamp on again. Not that I need it with this moon out tonight. Sliding my key in the deadbolt I step inside, lock up, and head for my kitchen to stare into the refrigerator. For a long time I stare until I realize I haven’t really been looking at anything in here. Got a stocked fridge but my mind is on that human trafficking ring.
“They took the traffickers’ money and gave it to the slaves?” I process aloud. Because that’s what human trafficking is. Just a fancy name for slavery. People held against their will, made to do things they don’t want to do, their very lives threatened if they try to escape.
Shutting the fridge door, I spin around and hold onto my kitchen island, staring into the darkness. “They took the traffickers’ money…and gave it to that woman so she could go to college.” Tapping the counter with my thumbs I mutter, “Now she owns her own business. And what would we have done? Taken the traffickers away and let the people fend for themselves.” Pushing off the island, I pace my clean tile floors, running thunderstruck fingers through my hair. “They gave them the money. What happened to the traffickers?” Stopping by the sink I say, louder, “What do I care what happened to the traffickers?” My frustration of five years of being a beat-cop explodes from me. “And now The Spiders are going to go after Briar for helping Sage and we can’t do anything about it. We’re not even going to try. And they’re going to be back on the streets on Monday. Nothing’s gonna stick!” I almost punch a hole in my wall, but stop just shy of it, opening my fist and dragging my hand down my face instead. “I’m so tired of feeling this way.”
The bed does little to relax me, and I toss and turn, falling in and out of sleep. Exhausted. Nightmares of getting there too late to save my woman, haunt me. In a cold sweat I wake up shouting, “Sage!” panting and looking around, realizing she’s not with me and wishing again, like I do every night since I met her…that she were.
At half-past noon I wake up for good, and reach for my phone. “Left it in the truck,” I mutter, throwing my legs over the bed and into some jeans.
Squinting against the stark mid-day sun, I reach into my truck, snatch up the forgotten phone and dial their cases’ judge. We only have two and I’ve got both in my contacts from past cases. Can’t believe what I’m about to do. And that I didn’t think of it earlier.
“Judge Hartford!”
“Bear, everything okay?”
“We’ve gotta let Briar leave before the other Spiders leave, Judge.”
“And why is that?”
“You saw the report?”
“I did.”
“The woman they kidnapped. He did everything he could to ensure she wasn’t hurt.”
“Except help her escape.”
I blink into the sun. “Maybe he would’ve if he’d had more time.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Why act like he’s hurting her, making her fake the sounds, when he wasn’t? It’s not like he was going to change his mind. He might have had a plan.”
“Hmm…”
“If you set them free?—”
“—It will be because I’m acting in accordance with their rights, and the law.”
“I get it. But if you set them free at the same time, it’s like we’re an accessory to a crime we know they’re going to commit… against him. He did the right thing, and he’s going to get hurt for it. Maybe even killed.”
“Hmmm…” Hartford is silent, then, “I could postpone their hearing until Tuesday.”
“But keep his on Monday…”
“That’s the idea,” Hartford mutters, thinking about it. “Nobody would have cause to wonder at my decision, what with the busy docket I have for this coming Monday. I would like to look at their files again, these Spiders , take another day…”
A grin spreads on my face. “You’re doing the right thing.”
Hartford replies, “Feels that way, doesn’t it?” as somber as he always is, but if I were in his chambers, I might have seen a smile in his eyes.
We hang up, and for the first time ever, I do a little dance in my driveway. Feels good to do good.
I know from his record that Briar is a bad guy, but he did a right thing.
He kept my woman safe.
And for that…
I owe him a chance.