A Field of Red (24 page)

Near the back of the place, were several couples making out in the darker confines of the bar, ignorant of the shouting match and the rest of the world around them. One of them looked familiar.

Frank turned to see that the skinny guy, one of the guys who had entered the place with Derek, had broken loose from being pinned against the bar and shoved the fat guy, who moved only a few inches. His arm went up into the air, and he swung, punching the guy in the face. The skinny guy fell backward against the bar and leaned there. Derek and his friends stepped up to help.

“Come on, Taylor,” the fat man shouted. “Say it again!”

Taylor, the skinny one, reached for a beer bottle and swung it crazily. Out of luck—certainly not skill—it connected with the fat guy’s head and shattered, sending glass flying. Other patrons ducked to avoid the glass, or at least those sober enough to understand what was going on ducked.

The fat guy staggered, his hands at his bleeding head. Three other big guys joined him from the crowd, and they stepped toward Taylor. Derek shielded him, and Frank could tell that, while he was drunk, Derek looked sober enough to be primed for a fight.

Frank shook his head and stepped between them.

“That’s OK, he’s learned his lesson.” Frank said loudly, his hands up. Frank turned and took the broken bottle out of Taylor’s hand and set it on the bar. “He’s done.”

The fat guy looked at Frank.

“We’re just getting started, friend. I’d suggest you move along.”

Frank nodded, smiling. “I understand. Let me take Taylor and his friends out of here and get them off to home and then—”

The fat guy swung at Frank.

Frank had been waiting for it—the muscle flex in the fat man’s right shoulder had telegraphed the swing a full half-second before the beefy arm even started moving.

Frank put up his left arm and blocked the roundhouse punch. At the same instant, he spun and slapped an open, flat palm hard into the bloody wound on the man’s temple. Frank felt the glass grinding under his fingers. Then he brought both hands down, keeping them together, and shoved at the fat man’s neck, aiming him backward into one of his approaching friends.

Derek and another friend stepped up and started punching one of the fat guy’s friends, and Frank knew this would quickly devolve into a nasty bar fight, if he didn’t incapacitate some of them quickly.

Another friend of the fat guy’s stepped around the pair and kicked at Frank, but Frank spun away and caught the foot in midair. Using the foot’s momentum, he pulled upward on the foot and leg, sending the third assailant to the floor. Leaning down, he punched the man on the ground hard across the jaw, knocking him out, hurting his own hand in the process.

The hardest part was keeping track of everyone in his head. Situational awareness.

Okay, it was the fat guy and his three friends versus the skinny guy Taylor, Derek, and two other friends. Four on four, with Frank in the middle.

Derek had gotten one of the fat guy’s friends into a bear hold, choking him.

While he was counting, the fourth friend of the fat guy circled around Frank and landed a punch into Frank’s back, and it hurt like hell. Frank turned and used an upward strike to hit the man’s crotch twice in rapid succession. As the man bent over, Frank turned and grabbed the man’s arms, pulling him down to the ground. With a rolling motion, Frank was back up on his feet.

The second guy had climbed out from under the fat guy, and he and the third guy approached together. They were moving together, getting smarter.

Frank moved to the side so that one was closer than the other. Krav Maga taught several basic tenants, among them never fight more than one person at a time, and get away as soon as possible. Frank slid to the side, so the second guy was closer, and Frank was five feet closer to Derek’s group.

By now, the place was silent and an open space had miraculously cleared out in the middle of the bar. No one was jumping in to help Frank, but, then again, no one was coming to the aid of the four fat guys either. And one glance told Frank that the couples making out hadn’t yet noticed that anything was happening.

The two friends of the fat guy charged him together.

Frank calculated the possibilities. Derek’s group was complicating things, but the four larger men, the friends of the fat guy, were the primary threat. Derek and Taylor and their two friends were smaller and scrawny. But Frank needed to end this quickly, before someone really got hurt.

The two men ran at Frank, and he, again, shifted sideways, so that one would get to him first. Frank ducked the first punch and lowered his head, sliding to the side and pushing the rushing man down and to the side, using his momentum to trip him.

Frank turned and caught the second guy low in the stomach with a pointed elbow—the man had punched at the open air where Frank’s head had been a moment before. That was always one of the hardest lessons to teach his students—Frank had always stressed the point. It was not logical, but you didn’t punch where your assailant was at the time. Instead, you needed to predict the future location of the assailant and aim there. It took some practice to get good at it.

Frank had had plenty of practice.

The man doubled over just as Frank stood up quickly, head-butting the man under his chin. Blood exploded from the man’s mouth as Frank landed another hard punch to the man’s stomach. Getting an assailant to bite his tongue could end their fervor in an instant. Frank helped the man into an open chair and turned.

Two of the well-dressed men Frank had seen before snapped photos of the fight in progress from a safe distance, and he knew he’d been right about them being press.

Derek still had one arm tightly around a man’s neck, and Rosie was scrabbling at his back, trying to get him to loosen up. Frank stepped quickly over and punched Derek in the kidney, just hard enough to break his stranglehold on the man, who collapsed to the floor.

Taylor and the other three men were fighting—the fat guy, still bleeding from his head, was pounding on Taylor, and one of Derek’s friends had the last fat guy on the ground, punching his face into the floor.

This was going to get out of control, and then someone might really get hurt. Frank took out his gun and waved in the air. He gripped the gun tightly, even though his right hand was screaming with pain.

“Stop,” Frank said loudly. “Or I will shoot.”

The fat guy turned to see the gun pointed at him and backed off—for a moment—one fist hung comically in the air. The guy on the floor stopped punching, and the sounds of shouting and breaking glass were replaced with moaning from Derek on the ground, along with the raspy breathing of the man he’d been strangling.

Christ, Frank thought. What a mess.

The man stood by the window of his apartment, looking out over the downtown scene. Lights and sirens and several cop cars parked in front of Ricky’s—just another night.

The man had a cell phone propped up on the window sill, talking to someone over the speaker.

 “Good, that’s really good to hear.”

A deep voice came back, made tinny by the phone’s small speaker.

“That’s a great property. After a certain amount of time has passed, we’ll get you back involved, on a consultancy basis,” the man with the deep voice said. “No way I’m leaving Vegas and moving to that hick town of yours.”

The man smiled, not wanting to answer at all, but he needed to acknowledge what the man was saying, even if he didn’t agree. Vegas didn’t know he wouldn’t be around to manage the location for them.

“Sounds good. Glad the FedEx came through.”

“Yup,” the man on the other end said. “Anything else?”

The man looking out the window was sweating. This wasn’t a conversation he’d been looking forward to having. But the question needed to be asked.

“Yes, one more thing,” he said gingerly.  “With that delivery, we should be square.”

There was no response from the other end. The man looking out the window could hear nothing except for the tall grandfather clock that ticked away in one corner of his apartment.

“Yes,” the deep voice finally answered. “You’re all paid up.”

The man by the window thanked the man with the deep voice and hung up, his hands slick with sweat.

Free and clear.

The man smiled and looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked downtown Cooper’s Mill. This really was a great apartment—it was one of the few things he would miss about this town.

The streets were dark and shiny from the recent rain—it seemed like it had nothing but rained for the past week. The only things he saw of interest were the spinning lights of several police cars and an ambulance in front of Ricky’s, two blocks down Main Street.

Saturday morning, the sun shone brightly into Frank’s hotel room window. He’d gotten home late and stood by the window for a long time, looking out over the highway. And when he’d finally gone to bed, he’d neglected to close the blinds.

He sat up groggily and looked around. The room was a mess, with papers and files strewn over every flat surface in the half of the room next to the window. The table was covered with six stacks of papers, notes, and files, and the two boxes sat leaning up against the wall, empty except for some pens, a roll of clear tape, and a pair of scissors.

Chief King was pissed at him.

The fight hadn’t been Frank’s fault. In fact, he’d argued with King and Graves that Frank had been the one to keep it from escalating out of control.

They didn’t seem to buy it. Frank didn’t have a scratch on him, but everyone else on both sides of the fight was hurting, moaning to the EMTs. Rosie had backed his story, and King had carted everyone outside for processing. But, after everything was wrapped up, King had pulled him aside and accused him of drinking again.

Frank shouldn’t have been surprised. He was in a bar, after all. But Frank had patiently explained what he’d learned over the afternoon from his trip to New Stanton and his time in Ricky’s, and King had finally come around. It hadn’t hurt that Frank was stone cold sober.

But Frank wasn’t too sure how long he’d be in King’s good graces. The man had taken a chance on Frank, risking alienating his entire staff to play a hunch and bring in an outsider. And, so far, Frank had produced nothing, other than a bar fight, a policeman with a broken arm, a pissed-off psychic, and exactly zero new leads.

Frank hadn’t shared anything with Chief King yet about theory #3.

To burn off some of his aggression, Frank climbed out of bed and worked out. He flipped on the TV and watched the morning news shows. Different ones ran on Saturday mornings, but they were equally as pointless and insipid as the weekday shows.

Frank rewrapped his right hand again—the bandages were just to keep the swelling down. It wasn’t broken, just sore. He needed to be icing it; instead, he worked out and showered, then headed across the parking lot to get breakfast.

The waitresses and greeter were happy to see Frank, and seated him in the usual booth—he’d been in here almost daily since arriving in town—but Frank noticed a change in their treatment of him. Since the incident with Gina’s husband, they treated Frank like a rock star, bringing him anything he wanted. Dessert had been on the house every meal since. And, without fail, someone would recount the story for other patrons, making Frank squirm.

Apparently, Gina got first dibs on Frank’s table, as she was his waitress now every time she was in. She made faces at his hand and the scrapes on his face from last night’s fight.

“Oh, Frank,” she said, setting down coffee and water and the day’s paper. “What did you do to your hand?”

“Thanks, Gina,” he said. “Ah, broke up a bar fight last night in town. How are you?”

She rubbed her arm where Stan had tried to wrench her from behind the counter. Frank could see a large black bruise in the shape of a hand.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m just glad you were here that day,” she said. She always said the same thing, and she meant it, every time.

He said what he always said.

“I was glad to help—actually, I talked to Stan yesterday on something unrelated,” Frank said. As part of the investigation, he’d talked to all the on-duty officers, including Stan, who had been returned to duty to assist with the kidnapping investigation. Even though he was still under observation, he was helping out with the tip line. “I think he’s calmed down. Have you talked to him?”

She shook her head. “No, just that day in the ambulance, when he apologized. I think…I think he’s taking some time.”

Frank nodded. “Probably not a bad idea. Just keep an eye on your doors and windows.”

The smile faded from her face. Again, he couldn’t just give her the comforting words that someone else would have. Even before they were out of his mouth, he heard himself being overly honest with the woman.

She nodded and quietly took his order, then left him alone. They somehow sensed how much he liked his quiet time, and even his newfound celebrity status wasn’t an excuse to interrupt him too often. The wrapping on his right hand made it hard to eat, so he unwrapped it before digging into his ham and cheese omelet. He was happy to see the swelling was going down.

An hour later, he drove to the location of the second ransom drop, parking where instructed.

The second ransom drop was taking place at the high school football field. Oddly, the high school itself was located in another part of town, up on North Hyatt, a mile north of town and surrounded by corn fields. But the football team still played at the old downtown field next to City Park. It was located between the tall trees of the park and the new Cooper’s Mill Pool to the north. To the east sat the extensive parking lots built for the new pool and, beyond the parking lots, a row of tall pines that lined the banks of the river beyond.

For someone trying to retrieve the ransom money, it would have been difficult to choose a worse location.

There were clear views of all approaches from the park, the pool, and the parking lot. The field was surrounded on all sides by tall bleachers. The center of the field would be impossible to reach without crossing at least thirty yards of open grass. It was a police sharpshooters dream, if the Cooper’s Mill Police Department had been able to bring in a sniper to incapacitate whoever showed up to retrieve the ransom.

No one in their right mind would pick this as a ransom drop, and Frank said so to Chief King, Graves, Barnes, and the others when he arrived. To a man, they all agreed.

The group of men waited in the park under a line of trees, watching the field. Nick Martin was walking back from dropping off the satchel of money, which was now sitting in the middle of the sunny, grassy field, right on the 50-yard line. The grass was beat down from last night’s football game.

“This is never going to happen,” Graves said under his breath. “Why would someone pick this location?”

“I don’t know,” King said. “But we still have to go through the motions,” he said, taking another sip of his coffee. “I didn’t put all my eggs in this basket, though—I’ve got patrols stationed at all the major exits from town, looking for anything suspicious.”

Agent Shale stood next to them, watching the money through a set of binoculars. “Whoever this is, we’ll catch them.”

Frank wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t say anything. His back was still smarting from the fight last night, where that fat guy had suckerpunched him. Frank thought he might be slowing—the guy had caught him by surprise.

A few more minutes passed.

Frank had another donut from the box that Deputy Peters had passed around earlier. They were excellent. The box lid said “Tim’s Donuts, Vandalia” on the top, and Frank made a mental note to check that place out at some point in the future. He sipped at his coffee, holding it in his right hand, rewrapped with the bandage.

A black leather satchel, identical to the first one, sat in the middle of the sunny field, untouched. White stripes marked out the lines on the football field.

Frank wondered why they were being played. Clearly this whole thing was a big distraction, a pointless exercise. But was it to distract them from something going on elsewhere? Frank couldn’t see the point. He noticed a stretch of asphalt on the other side of the field.

“What’s that?”

King followed his eyes.

“Bike trail. Goes south to Kyle Park and north along the river, all the way to Troy. I had it closed. We’ve got men on bikes on either side, out of view. I thought maybe that was the play, someone on a motorcycle could swoop in and out of here pretty easily by taking the bike path, but they’d still have to get across the field to get the money. And without a pretty girl in a low-cut top to distract us.”

They waited another half hour, but nothing happened. Nick Martin was getting increasingly agitated, but there was nothing that Frank or anyone else could say. Finally, King called them all together and announced they were canceling the drop.

“Now what?” Nick Martin asked.

King shook his head.

“First, we wrap up here,” the Chief said. “We’ll retrieve the money and lock it up. If they don’t call soon, we’ll get the money back to you. As for how we proceed from here, we need to regroup. Let’s get back to the station and sit down and talk out our options.”

King turned to Sergeant Graves. “Can you take Nick and secure that satchel? I want it locked away for now.”

Graves nodded, and he and Martin walked off, passing the squat modern building that housed the park’s bathroom facilities.

Frank was thinking and shaking his head.

“What?” King asked.

Frank glanced around, and the others were all out of earshot. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he said quietly. “It’s all just been about wasting our time.”

 King nodded for him to follow. The two of them started across the park to where King’s police cruiser and Frank’s Taurus sat parked. As they crossed the park, they passed a strange building that appeared to be eight-sided. Beyond were tennis courts and playground equipment.

“Chief, I’ve got a theory, but you won’t like it,” Frank said as they walked.

“Go on.”

Frank glanced over at him—they were alone, and it was time for him to speak his mind.

“I feel like we’re being played,” Frank began. “And always two steps behind. Now, with every lead turning up dry, and this wasted morning, I’m starting to think that the kidnappers are getting information ahead of time. It’s not good to think about, but they might have a source in your department.”

King stopped walking and looked at Frank.

“Look,” Frank said, “I know that’s not something you want to hear—”

King put up his hand, stopping him.

“Actually, it’s been on my mind too,” the Chief said. “A lot. It would explain a few things.” Chief King turned and kept walking. “The fact that I’ve been through the case files so many times without coming up with a decent lead might mean something’s been left out of the files. If that’s the case, it’s someone on my staff.”

Frank walked along, not sure what to say. No one wanted to think they had been betrayed, but—

“Who do you trust?” Frank asked quietly.

King glanced at him, then back at the others across the park. “Peters, of course. He’s my cousin. And Graves—he’s the best I’ve got. And Barnes. And you, when you’re not in the bag.”

Frank looked at him. “Hey, things were screwed up before I got here.”

“True, true,” King agreed, smiling.

“Then have Graves look into it,” Frank said. “Barnes has his hands full. If it were me, I’d have Peters and Graves dig into the records, see if any files have gone missing, or anything has leaked that shouldn’t have.”

They got to the cars.

“Where to?” Frank asked.

“Well, we should be going back to the station and get updates,” the Chief said. “Then I can talk to Graves and Peters in my office. Then go through the files again? It seems like we’re just spinning our wheels,” King said.

“I know what you mean,” Frank said. “I did that again last night—found a couple new things, but nothing that would break the case open. But if you talk to Graves or Peters, do it out of your office. Take them for a stroll.”

“You think my office is bugged?”

Frank shrugged. “Better assume so.”

The Chief nodded, thoughtful. “But first, I’ve got to go check on Glenda Martin and her psychic down at Kyle. Wanna tag along?”

Frank grimaced. “I guess I have to.”