Chapter 30
Jesse Bass lived on Lewiston’s Oxford Street, in an apartment building that was over a hundred years old and looked every bit its age. The white paint was peeling, the wooden balconies sagged, and the units probably featured threadbare carpets and rust-stained toilets. It was just the sort of place a man like Bass would end up in.
It had not taken long for Maggie and her friends to compile an extensive dossier on Bass. They knew he was a thirty-eight-year-old white male with light-brown hair and blue eyes, five foot ten and 160 pounds. At least, that’s how much he weighed when he was released from the MCI-Concord prison two years ago. For such a young man, he had already racked up a rap sheet that included criminal possession and trafficking of class B drugs, battery, burglary, and illegal firearms possession. Those charges had resulted in several stints in prison, which should have inspired him to consider one or more legitimate occupations. But no, Jesse Bass had not been reformed by the justice system; instead, he’d simply moved on to blackmail.
From their parked car across the street from Bass’s apartment building, Declan and Maggie monitored the front entrance, waiting for their subject to emerge. On Maggie’s lap was a mug shot of Bass, and it unsettled her to see the resemblance to Callie, who had inherited her father’s narrow jaw and high forehead and pronounced widow’s peak. While Callie bore the physical evidence of their shared genetics, Maggie did not see the sweetness, the kindness, of the girl she’d come to care about in Bass’s cold-eyed stare. This man could poison the girl’s life, and like Luther, Maggie didn’t want Jesse Bass anywhere near Callie, who deserved a few more years of innocence. She was too young to learn about her father and how he’d contributed to the death of her mother. In time, perhaps, she’d be able to handle it, but not now. Not if Maggie could help it. Which was why she was now sitting in a car on a sweltering afternoon, watching a ramshackle apartment building.
“There. That’s him,” said Declan.
Jesse Bass had just stepped out of the building. He was dressed in a gray T-shirt and sagging blue jeans, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. He paused outside on the sidewalk, squinted up at the glaring sun, and slipped on dark glasses.
Maggie pulled on her headset microphone and said: “Ben, our boy just stepped out of the building. He’s now moving north, on Oxford Street. Heading straight toward you.”
Bass sauntered away from them, clearly in no hurry, walking down the center of the sidewalk as if he owned it. A woman in a hijab, pushing a toddler in a stroller, approached from the other direction, but Bass just kept hogging the sidewalk, forcing the woman to move aside.
Through the earpiece, Maggie heard Ben say: “I see him. On him now.”
With Bass out of the building, it was time for Maggie to move. She donned a ball cap, pulled the brim low over her forehead, and reached for the red DoorDash delivery bag.
“I’m not sure about this,” said Declan.
“We all agreed it has to be me.”
“ I didn’t agree. Let me go in.”
“They’d remember someone like you . But me, they won’t even notice. It’s my superpower, Declan.”
She stepped out of the air-conditioned car, into heat so thick it felt like she was wading through molasses. She slung the delivery bag over her shoulder and gave her shirt a tug, to make sure it covered the Walther that was tucked into her waistband. She hadn’t planned to carry a weapon, but Declan had insisted. A gun sometimes complicated things. It could set off metal detectors, alarmed anyone who spotted it, and made you memorable when you were trying to fade into the woodwork. It also made you overconfident, and that might be the most dangerous complication of all.
She felt Declan’s gaze on her as she walked to the front door. She had several strategies to breach the entrance, from randomly pressing the door buzzers to waving her DoorDash bag at any tenant who was exiting or entering the building. They’d look at her and no doubt assume she was just a clueless granny hard up for cash, earning a few bucks toward her retirement. None of these strategies turned out to be necessary, because the door was conveniently propped open with a rock.
So much for security.
There was no one in the lobby to ask her questions, no one to witness her clueless-granny act. It was almost a letdown, how easy this was. She kept her head dipped, to avoid having her face recorded by any surveillance camera, but judging by the Out of Service sign on the elevator, any cameras she did encounter would probably be out of service as well.
She climbed the stairs to the third floor.
On this suffocatingly hot day, many of the tenants had propped open their doors, hoping for a cross breeze to cool their stifling apartments, and the sounds of private lives spilled into the hallway: whining children and blaring televisions and running water. She arrived at Apartment 3F. Glanced up and down the hallway. No one was in sight.
The door was cheaply constructed, probably flimsy enough to give way with a few hard kicks, but the lock was surprisingly sturdy. It took her a full minute to pick it open. Either she was losing her touch, or Jesse Bass had invested in a far more expensive lock than his neighbors had. She slipped inside and closed the door behind her.
“I’m in,” she said into her headset. Both Ben and Declan were listening in on the channel. “Where’s our boy now?”
Ben answered, “He’s in a park by the river. It’s about a half mile from you.”
“Doing what?”
“Just sitting there. You’re good for now.”
Declan’s voice came over her earpiece. “Just make it quick, okay?”
She set down the DoorDash bag containing a sacrificial hamburger, which by now was probably cold and inedible, and quickly scanned the apartment. It was as depressing inside as she’d imagined. The living room was littered with pizza boxes and beer cans, and under the coffee table was a clump of dirty socks. He was a criminally horrible housekeeper, but so far, she didn’t see anything that could be used against him in a court of law. She snatched up a discarded pair of jeans from the sofa and combed through the pockets for contraband, but found only a half-smoked joint. Legal, these days. There had to be more here. A leopard didn’t change its spots, and she doubted Bass had transformed into a law-abiding citizen.
She moved into the grease-splattered kitchen and opened the refrigerator. In the freezer, she found a brick of cash, wrapped in multiple layers of plastic. Now it was getting interesting. Was this the money Luther had paid him? She was tempted to steal it back, but she was not a thief. She placed the cash back in the freezer.
“Maggie?” It was Declan’s voice in her earpiece.
“Nothing yet. What’s our boy up to?”
Ben answered her question: “He’s meeting someone in the park. Male, shaved head, about Bass’s age. They’re making an exchange.”
“Sounds promising.”
“Got it all on camera.”
She moved out of the kitchen and headed into the bedroom. There she found a toxic waste dump of dirty underwear and socks on the floor. The place reeked of cigarette smoke and old shoes. She went to the closet and quickly pawed through the shirts and jackets on the hangers, then reached up to the top shelf and pulled down a box of ammo, nine millimeter. Naughty boy. While gun laws might be lax in Maine, convicted felons like Bass weren’t allowed to own firearms. Still, this wasn’t enough to put him away for very long. They needed something more serious.
She reached farther back on the shelf and pulled down a plastic bag. At first it seemed empty, but then she noticed the residue of blue powder inside. More interesting. Could it be from contraband drugs, or was it just excipient, the inactive binder used to manufacture pills? Either way, it was a clue that she was on the right track. She turned to the bed and sighed. God knew what filthy surprises she’d find under there. She dropped to her knees, peered under the box spring, and gave a laugh of triumph when she saw what was hidden there.
It was a pill press, for making counterfeit tablets.
She pulled on gloves to avoid exposing herself to whatever chemicals might be on the press, and as she took photos, she noticed that the same blue residue was coating the machine. Fentanyl? MDMA? Whatever the drug, there was a good chance it would put Jesse Bass back behind bars for a very long time.
A sound in the next room made her snap to attention. Someone had just entered the apartment. She heard the door swing shut. Heart banging, she sprang to her feet.
“Hey, Jesse?” a man called out. “You back yet?”
Frantically she scanned the bedroom for an escape route. There was no way out, and there was not enough room for her to squeeze under the bed. She had only one option: hide in the closet. She slipped inside and closed the door, huddling beneath the hanging shirts. In the kitchen, the refrigerator door thudded shut, and a beer can popped open.
Footsteps moved toward the bedroom.
Over her earpiece came Declan’s voice: “Mags, time to leave. Bass is on his way back from the park.”
She didn’t dare answer him because the visitor was now in the bedroom, close enough to hear her voice. She shrank smaller and clapped her hand over the earpiece to block any noise that might escape from it.
“Mags, do you copy?” said Declan. “Leave now.”
I can’t. I’m trapped.
The footsteps walked by the closet door, passing only a few feet from where she was crouching, and the man moved into the adjoining bathroom. The walls were so damn thin she could hear him grunt. Urine splashed into the toilet.
“Mags, do you copy?” Declan repeated, urgency now in his voice. “You’ve got about two minutes. Get out of there now .”
She heard the man’s fly zip shut before he emerged from the bathroom. Of course he didn’t wash his hands; he didn’t even bother to flush the toilet. What delightful friends Jesse Bass had. He walked out of the bedroom and back into the living room. That’s when she remembered the red DoorDash delivery bag she’d left on the floor. If Jesse saw it, he’d realize someone had been in the apartment, someone who hadn’t left.
In the living room, the TV turned on. She heard men shouting, gunfire, the screeching tires of a car chase. Enough noise to mask her voice.
“Declan,” she whispered. “I can’t get out.”
“Situation?” he snapped.
“Someone else just walked into the apartment. I’m in a closet. Need a diversion ...”
In the living room, a key grated in the lock, and the apartment door thudded shut. Jesse Bass was back.
“Got it,” Bass said to his visitor.
“How much?”
“Enough for another run. What’re you watching?”
“I dunno. It’s lame.”
The TV shut off, and in the sudden quiet, she could hear the blood rushing through her ears. She was trapped in an apartment with two men, and at least one of them was most likely armed. So was she, but a gun battle was not the way she wanted this to go down. Someone would get hurt, and there’d be consequences that would go beyond mere bloodshed.
And she would have blown the mission and failed Luther.
She thought of all the times in her career when she’d stood on the edge of catastrophe, but she never imagined that this was how she would finally fail, in a battle with two losers in a run-down apartment.
“You ready to head out?” said the other man.
“Let me change my shirt,” said Bass. “It’s like a fucking oven outside, and I’m drenched.”
And here it would end. Her muscles tensed. The one advantage she had against these two young men was the element of surprise. Leap out of the closet, dart for the door. If she was quick enough, she could be out of the apartment before they reacted. Before anyone managed to fire a shot. But would she be able to stay ahead of them down two flights of stairs?
Bass’s footsteps paced into the bedroom, moved toward the closet. She heard the doorknob turn. She raised her weapon.
Somewhere, a fire alarm screeched.
“Now what the fuck?” Bass said.
A fist pounded on the apartment door, loud and insistent. She heard a shout: “There’s a fire on this floor! Everyone get out now!” Declan.
“Hey, man,” Bass’s friend yelled. “We better get outta here!”
Bass’s footsteps retreated from the bedroom. The apartment door slammed shut.
She waited ten seconds for the men to clear the hallway; then she was out of the closet and crossing the living room. Her DoorDash delivery bag was still on the floor where she’d left it, apparently unnoticed by the brilliant duo who’d just exited. She grabbed it and slipped out of the apartment.
In the hallway, she joined the other tenants migrating toward the stairs and down to the exit. By the time she stepped outside, there was enough of a crowd to camouflage her retreat. Not that anyone would notice her; she was just the granny in the blue ball cap. Bass and his buddy didn’t even glance her way as she walked past them and climbed into the car, where Declan was waiting.
“That was fun,” she said.
“You scared the bejesus out of me.”
“Thank you for the diversion. I wouldn’t have gotten out of there without a firefight.”
“I can’t handle this kind of stress anymore. Next time, I’m the one who goes in, and you run backup.”
“Is there a next time?”
“If we live long enough.”
She gave him a triumphant grin. “We’ve got him, Declan.”
He looked at her. “Do we?”
“They’ll have him on class A possession and sale. The evidence was under his bed. I’ve got the photos.” She looked out the car window at Jesse Bass and saw the distinct bulge of a firearm tucked in his belt. “Toss in a firearms charge, and he won’t be bothering Luther for a long time.” She pulled out her phone to call Ingrid. By that evening, an anonymous tip, accompanied by incriminating photos, would find its way to the Lewiston PD and the Maine State Police. It was time to get the ball rolling.
But before Maggie could dial, Ingrid called her first.
“It just came over the police radio,” Ingrid said.
“What did? What’s happening?”
“They found Zoe Conover.”