Chapter 49
Thanks to Isabella, it wasn't hard to get tracking data on Officer Howell's patrol car. I tried to remain inconspicuous as I followed him around for the evening.
Officer Howell mostly cruised the strip around the clubs, pulling over people for DUI. It wasn't tough work watching someone stumble from the club to their car and climb behind the wheel. I had no doubt he drummed up a lot of revenue for the city.
All in all, Howell gravitated toward pulling over attractive young ladies. Depending on the infraction, sometimes he’d let them go. Sometimes he wouldn't.
The first night I followed him around, he didn't cross any lines. He played it by the book.
Paris buzzed my phone while I was on my stakeout. “Looks like Eric Stahl is back in the news.”
I groaned. “What did he do this time?”
“Apparently, that’s the subject of much debate.” She gave me the details of his situation. “You served in the Navy with him, right?”
“He was briefly assigned to my unit for a few ops.”
“I was hoping to score an interview with him. Are you still in touch?”
“I haven’t talked to him in a long time.”
“He’s currently living in Sapphire Shoals in Emerald County.”
”I wouldn’t even know how to get in touch with the guy.”
“I’ve got his number, but he hasn’t returned my calls. I was thinking maybe you could put in a good word.”
“In his current situation, he’d be foolish to talk to the press.”
“Do you think he’s guilty?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“What do you think about the prior allegations?”
“Is this off the record?” I asked.
“Of course. This is just a call between two friends.”
I hesitated for a moment. “Look, I really don’t know. He handled himself well under fire. Kept focus on mission priorities. He risked his life to save Team members. In my book, he’s a hero. But not everybody reintegrates well into the world.”
“That’s a political answer.”
“No, it’s not. It’s an assessment based on a guy I knew for a minute a long time ago.”
“If you talk to him, tell him to call me back.”
I laughed. “I’m not going to give him bad advice.”
Paris gasped and feigned offense. “Talking to me is not bad advice.”
“If he wants to stay out of jail, he won’t talk to anyone.”
She sighed. “You’re no fun.”
With a smile in my voice, I said, “I think you know better.”
“Well, maybe you need to remind me.”
Paris and I had shared some fun in the past.
“Listen, I gotta run. I’m in the middle of something.”
“I’m sure you are. Think about it,” she said. “We’ll talk later.”
I ended the call and continued following Howell for the rest of the evening.
The second night, things got dark. He pulled over a girl, initiated a field sobriety exam, and when she failed, he stuffed her into the back of his patrol car.
I followed him as he pulled away from the scene. I kept my distance. Officer Howell took a few turns, but didn't head back to the station. Instead, he pulled into an empty parking lot and pulled into a space.
I knew what was going to happen. He was going to give the girl an option of getting out of the arrest in exchange for certain favors.
This was the exact scenario that Zoe had described. There was no telling how many women Howell had done this to over the course of his tenure.
I contemplated my next move. I hadn’t followed him into the parking garage. I stayed on the street, not wanting to be too obvious about it. I pulled off my helmet and gloves and climbed off the bike. That was about the time that two patrol cars screeched up to me, boxing me in, lights flashing.
Officers hopped out with their weapons drawn. Twitchy barrels staring me down.
"On the ground, scumbag!”
Surrounded by four eager officers, it was in my best interest to comply.
"I'm a cop!"
"I don't give a shit who you are! Get on the ground, now! Put your hands behind your head and interlock your fingers."
I complied and ate the pavement.
The cops pounced and slapped handcuffs around my wrists. They wrenched my arms behind my back and weren’t too gentle about it.
"My badge is in my pocket," I said.
One of the dipshits pulled it out. He studied the shiny gold thing, then said, "What the hell are you doing?”
"Just cruising around, having a good time."
"You having a good time following around one of our officers?”
"You want to tell me why he just took a detainee into a parking garage? Do you have a new substation around here that I'm not aware of?" I said in a snarky voice.
"I'm going to ask again. What are you doing here?"
"It's a free country."
"You’ve been following around one of our officers for two days now. Is the county investigating the PBPD? I know you’re not working with internal affairs."
I knew where this was going, and it wasn't anywhere good.
"Am I being arrested?”
He said nothing.
"Name the charge," I demanded.
"I'll think of something.”
Two officers yanked me to my feet and stuffed me into the back of a patrol car. I thought about putting up a fight, but it was probably best to let this play out for another moment to see where it went.
I sat in the back of the squad car as the four officers huddled in front of the vehicle, discussing the situation. The headlight beams illuminated their uniforms, red and blue lights still flickering.
Cars passed on the streets, and people gawked. Nothing unusual on a Saturday night near the strip in Pineapple Bay.
After the brief conference, two officers returned to the patrol car and climbed inside. They pulled away from the curb and left my bike where I had parked it.
"Want to tell me where we’re going?" I said.
It was apparent before long that we weren’t heading back to the station.
The car rattled as they drove across town. We ended up in the warehouse district near the wharf. At this time of night, the place was desolate.
We pulled into the lot of a rundown brick warehouse. The headlights raked across the graffiti-covered brick. Several milky windows had been broken out. Tires crunched across gravel in the lot as the squad car came to a stop.
The officer threw it into park, killed the engine, and hopped out. He opened the door to the backseat and pulled me out of the vehicle while his partner kept his gun at the ready.
"Don't do anything stupid, or I'll drop you right here," Twitchy said, aiming his black 9mm at me.
"Good luck explaining that one,” I said.
"Don't worry. No explanation necessary. Nobody will ever find you.”
I didn’t think he was lying. There was no doubt in my mind that these guys had made plenty of people disappear.
The two officers escorted me up the steps to the loading dock, then forced me inside the abandoned warehouse. Shafts of moonlight spilled in through the windows, illuminating the cavernous space. The floor was littered with papers and debris.
The other officer clicked on his tactical flashlight, and the beam cut through the dusty, dark air.
More graffiti tagged the interior walls. A soiled mattress in the corner with a few tattered sheets offered a place to sleep for vagrants. Someone had tried to make a home of the place at one point in time.
There were empty beer cans and bottles, along with empty soup cans and spent Sterno cans.
A few hypodermic needles littered the ground.
No doubt junkies had gotten their fix in the relative privacy of the abandoned warehouse.
It had a musty, moldy smell, mixed with the remnants of spilled beer and urine.
I'm sure there was asbestos all throughout the building—in the insulation around the piping, in the mastic underneath the snowflake tiles that were broken and torn away from the floor.
The two officers forced me to take a seat in a rickety office chair.
One of them shone a flashlight in my eyes, while the other one kept his pistol aimed at me.
"Well, this is fun," I said.
The two officers said nothing.
“You know, if I go missing, people will come looking for me.”