Chapter 8
When Jack and Chaz arrived at the impound lot, Jack flashed his police ID to the gate attendant and entered without issue.
They parked far away from other patrol cars, some unmarked.
It was best to limit being seen by too many officers and personnel, which meant getting in and out as fast as possible.
“Any ideas?” Chaz asked. “Or do we just wing it?”
“Winging it is what got us in this mess in the first place,” Jack said. “We should’ve run the damn plates.”
“No use whining about it now. It’s done, but we’ve got a way to fix it.”
Chaz had the type of overconfidence that Jack typically despised, especially in a rookie, but also envied.
If he’d had Chaz’s confidence in high school, he might’ve asked a girl to prom, tried out for the baseball team, or run for class president.
Who knows, maybe Jack wouldn’t have become a cop.
Instead, he might’ve worked in finance, wearing three-piece suits and a Rolex, strolling down LaSalle in Ferragamo wing tips.
Who was he kidding? Being a cop was in his blood, his DNA. He wasn’t made to do anything else.
“So…?” Chaz asked.
“I’m thinking…”
Getting access to an impounded vehicle required authorization. Once a vehicle was logged in, an officer needed multiple sign-offs to access it, which was something Jack couldn’t fake.
“You know who’s on shift?” Chaz asked. “Maybe they’ll do us a solid.”
“Could be Santiago,” Jack said.
“You cool with him?”
“Went out with his ex-girl once or twice.”
“He knows that?”
“Doubt it.”
“Damn, Jack. Is there anybody’s ex-girl you haven’t put the squeeze on?”
Jack shrugged. “What can I say? The ladies love them some Jack D.”
“Well, if Santiago’s on duty, let me do the talking,” Chaz said. “He’s always been a stand-up guy with me.”
The two of them got out of the patrol car and headed toward the small office adjacent to the impound lot. They knocked on the steel door and waited. Jack noticed the security camera angled high above. He put his back to it and looked down at his boots.
The door buzzed. The men entered a narrow hallway and walked to a service window at the end, where an officer stood drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup.
“My man, Santiago,” Chaz said, oddly upbeat.
“What do you want, Chaz?”
“Long time no see. How ya been keeping?”
“Same as usual. Long-ass hours,” he said. “I’d say I miss patrol, but I’d be lying, especially on evenings like this. I bet you two are freezing your balls off. What’s it…thirty degrees outside?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I heard you guys had some action last night.”
“News travels fast.”
“Around here, we’ve got nothing better to do but jaw-jack.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Jack said. “The shooting was clean.”
“I hadn’t heard otherwise.”
“Good.”
“So, what’s up?” Santiago set his cup aside. The steam collected against the window, leaving behind a wet residue. “I know you didn’t come down here to shoot the shit.”
“We need to see the vehicle from last night’s 11-95,” Chaz said. “I left my phone inside.”
“Your cellphone?” Santiago looked skeptical and eyeballed Jack. “How’d your rookie leave his phone in a suspect’s car?”
“Hey,” Chaz said, “I’m not a rookie.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Accidents happen,” Jack said. “The phone must’ve slipped out of his pocket when we were tossing the vehicle.”
“Yeah, must’ve,” Chaz said.
“Two regular keystone cops. So what do you want me to do about it?”
“What do you think?” Jack asked. “We need access.”
“You know that’s against policy. If you don’t have a warrant, you ain’t getting back there.”
“We’re not asking to take it for a test drive,” Chaz said. “We just need a few minutes to find my phone. My old lady is up my ass about it. She can’t call and text me twenty times a shift, and it’s making her nuts.”
“We’ll make it worth your while,” Jack said. “You still a Bears fan?”
“Till the day I die.”
“Box seats. Bears versus Cardinals.”
“Box seats? Bullshit!”
“Did I stutter? I can get you two tickets, easy.”
“You guarantee I’ll be up in the box? Because stadium seats are like sitting on icicles.”
“The only thing cold will be the beers,” Jack said. “But answer me this: If you Puerto Ricans love warm weather so much, why the hell do you move to all the cold places? I mean Chicago, New York, Jersey?”
“Fuck you, Jack.”
“I’m kidding, man. Grow a sense of humor.”
“For that, you better throw in free parking at the stadium.”
“All right. All right,” Jack said, “I’ll cover your parking.”
Santiago sighed, torn between protocol and box seats. “What’s the make and model of the vehicle?”
“A gray late-model Ford Expedition.”
“Yeah, we got that,” Santiago ran his finger across a spreadsheet. “Aisle six. Spot twenty-four.”
“Got it,” Chaz said.
“So, when do I get my tickets?”
“I’ll swing by at the end of the week,” Jack said.
“You assholes better not be bullshitting me.”
“Jack’s good for it,” Chaz said. “You’ll get your damn tickets.”
Santiago pressed a button under his desk, and the door to the right of the window buzzed. “And make it quick,” he said. “I don’t need anybody asking what the hell you two are doing out there.”
They walked onto the dirt lot. Rows and rows of cars populated a few acres.
They turned on their flashlights and began making their way to aisle six.
Some vehicles still had yellow stickers on them.
Others had pink, which meant they’d been impounded for longer than three months and were slated to be sold at auction.
“I think that’s it,” Chaz said, shining his light on the Expedition.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Jack said. “Let’s make this quick.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He approached the rear of the SUV, flicked out the screwdriver from the red hub, and began removing the plate while Chaz kept a lookout.
Once the plate was off, Jack bent it twice longways in the center, forming a crease and making it difficult to read the red digits. “That should do it,” he said, screwing the plate back on.
“Easier than I thought it’d be.” Chaz grinned like he’d won something.
“Sure, candy from a baby and all that.”
“We better get back to the precinct and finish our reports,” Chaz said. “We still have IA to deal with.”
“Don’t worry about IA,” Jack said, putting the knife back in his pocket. “All we need to do is keep our stories straight. They’re going to try and pit us against each other, same with the other cops, but know this…we’re the only ones that can sink us.”
“I hear you, Jack, but what if the others aren’t on the same page we are and tell something different?”
“We made the traffic stop. What the hell do they know? The first responders own the scene…. That’s us. What we say happened is what happened. All they did was show up and facilitate the arrest.”
“They fired, too.”
“They were backup, and they did their jobs. Same as us.”
“Right,” Chaz said, hanging on Jack’s every word. “We own the scene, and we did our fucking jobs.”
“Good,” Jack said approvingly. “Now, let’s get back to the car. It’s freezing out here.”
They headed in the direction they’d come, walking fast between the frozen cars, moving as if they’d hit the jackpot, and for Jack, he had.