-- DAN
CHAPTER 23
For close to an hour Matt crouched on the roof of a Wal-Mart, grinding his teeth and hurting and hating.
What if it was actually a special circumstance? He had no proof the child’s captivity was long-term, he’d only seen her this once.
Except that she’d been encrusted with dirt, and unable to speak.
But maybe...maybe she needed to be kept down there, maybe she was a psychotic killer, maybe she’d murdered people or something.
Sure. That explained her timidity.
He turned the Glock over and over in his hands, and imagined what it would have felt like, punching a hole right through the man’s head as the gun bucked in his grip. But what if the man didn’t know about it? What if a neighbor, or someone else, kept her there, chained up like that?
With only one access, through the house. Sure.
He turned the gun over and over and over.
Eventually he remembered a name, and made a decision, and vanished into a patch of dark.
# # #
8:07 a.m.
Zach Feygen’s apartment was a modest townhouse on Briarcliff Road, narrow and squeezed into a line of six identical units. Matt stepped out of the shadows into Feygen’s living room.
A light burned in the kitchen, and Matt slowly moved closer to it. Upstairs a radio played. A pass-through bar linked the kitchen and the living room, and Matt stooped to look through it. A bowl sat on a counter next to a box of Grape-Nuts and a drinking glass.
A board creaked over his head, and Matt’s pulse sped up. Either Feygen had come downstairs, started to prepare breakfast, then gone back upstairs for something, or there was someone else in the apartment. Feeling stupid that he hadn’t considered that, Matt leaned against the wall and tried to decide on the best course of action.
A door off the kitchen popped open, and a slender young woman wearing only a pair of white lace panties stepped out into the room, carrying a shirt and a pair of slacks that looked as though they’d come straight from a drier. Her skin was very dark, as dark as Feygen’s, but her eyes and cheekbones indicated Asian blood, probably in the immediate family. She missed Matt entirely, hung the clothes over the back of a chair, and poured the cereal bowl full of Grape-Nuts.
Caught flat-footed and embarrassed beyond belief, Matt was set to flicker right back out of the townhouse when he heard a handgun cock about three feet behind his head. Simultaneously the living room’s overhead light flipped on. Matt slowly raised his hands, fingers splayed.
“Heather, put my shirt on.” It was Feygen’s voice, and from the sound of it Matt thought Feygen might shoot him in the back of the head without further preamble. He didn’t try to turn around.
Heather came out of the kitchen, still mostly nude and holding her bowl of Grape-Nuts, and said, “Why, what’s—” Then she saw Matt, set the bowl down on a counter, wordlessly snatched up the shirt and covered herself with it. She stepped back into the kitchen to put it on.
Matt remained motionless, hands in the air, and fervently wished he could go back out and do this over again.
“All right, asshole,” Feygen said. “When I tell you, you’re going to take two steps forward, real slow. Then you’re going to reach across with your left hand, with two fingers, and you’re going to pull out that gun and toss it on the couch. Nod if you understand.”
Off the top of his head, as he nodded, Matt thought of eleven different ways to disarm Feygen. Still, he took the steps forward, drew the Glock, dropped it onto Feygen’s couch. “This isn’t necessary. I’m here to talk to you.”
Heather came back out of the kitchen, practically swimming in Feygen’s shirt, and edged past Matt with wide eyes. She stood behind and to one side of Feygen. Matt said, “May I turn around?”
“No, motherfucker, you may not. I’m trying hard to think of a reason not to put five or six big holes in your ass. Fucking peeping Tom.”
Matt closed his eyes and let his shoulders slump. “I can only ask you to believe me on this. I came here to talk to you. I didn’t realize you weren’t alone. I didn’t mean to see anything I wasn’t supposed to.”
“Heather, baby, call 911, all right? Get the phone and dial the number, then hand it to me, all right?”
Matt heard her take a few steps and pick a phone off its cradle. He said, “Wait, wait a minute, please. I’m here asking for your help. There’s a little girl who desperately needs help, and much as I’d like to be the one to give it, the kind of help I can give isn’t the kind she needs. Please hang up that phone and listen to me.”
He waited, still with his back turned to them, and when he didn’t hear the beeps of a phone being dialed he took a deep breath and carefully turned around.
Heather stood poised by the phone, uncertain, and kept shooting glances back and forth between him and Feygen. She had long black hair in loose ringlets, and looked just as appealing in the shirt as she had without it. Matt figured her for early twenties, maybe twenty-two. Feygen stood like a mahogany carving, thick arms locked forward and feet set apart at shoulder-width. He wore a pair of pajama bottoms with little sailboats all over them, and no shirt. Matt would’ve smiled about the sailboats if Feygen hadn’t looked so competent with the gun.
“Please. I’m not kidding about this. There’s a small girl, and she needs help, and I’m only asking you to listen to me for two minutes. I’m serious. She could die.”
The detective held a Beretta nine-millimeter. The Vylar would stop the rounds effectively enough, but Matt really didn’t feel like getting shot again. He kept his hands up and waited.
Finally Feygen said, “Put the phone down, baby. Let’s hear what the man has to say before we haul his ass in.” His eyes were solid black and cold and sharp, and Matt hadn’t seen him blink yet. “So go ahead. Talk.”
Now that he had the chance, Matt couldn’t think of where to start. He tried twice before he got it right. “I want to see some justice done,” he said. “And I want it to be final. I don’t want even the slightest chance of this situation happening again.”
Feygen didn’t lower the gun, and Matt started to get annoyed. “Could you just put that thing down? I’m sorry I saw your girlfriend naked, I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, but in case you haven’t made the connection, I’m the guy who saved your thick neck at the Hargett Theatre. The same guy you saw bring that clerk to the hospital. You could at least give me the benefit of the doubt here.”
Feygen studied him with slitted eyes, and finally uncocked the gun and lowered it. Matt crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the edge of the pass-through bar. Heather said, “This is him? This is the guy from the theatre?”
Feygen’s eyes never left Matt. “...Could be.” Then, to Matt: “The guy who showed up at the theatre that night kept me and a friend of mine from getting cut to pieces. If that was you...all right. I’ll listen. Talk.”
Matt told them about the little girl. He fudged on a few of the particulars, but didn’t hold back on the details of the girl’s living conditions.
Feygen shook his head when Matt finished.
“Well, that’s just about the most full-of-holes story I’ve ever heard,” he said. “Now, granted, if you are who you say you are, I’m in your debt. But why should I believe a guy who wears a mask?”
Matt sighed, exasperated. “That’s why I came to you in the first place. That was me in the theatre, and I’ll give you any kind of detail you want about the scene to prove I was there. I figured I could come to you, since I’d already saved your life once, and maybe you’d be a little more inclined to believe what I say. Listen, I swear to you, I’m telling you the truth. I couldn’t just take the girl away. There’d be no way to prove her family had done that to her. People would think I’d taken her and abused her myself. The only way to help her is through Family and Children’s Services, or some other agency with the proper authority, somebody to go through the right channels.”
He leaned forward, his voice rising in intensity. “I don’t want that girl near those people anymore. Not ever again. I want them in jail, for the rest of their lives if possible, but more than that I want that girl taken care of. Cared for. Educated. They’ve already taken away most of her childhood. I don’t want to let them have any more of her life.”
Silence fell on the three of them. Feygen stared at Matt, Matt stared back at him, and Heather’s eyes flitted from one to the other.
“All right. There was some weird shit at that scene, stuff we kept out of the papers. You tell me what that was, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Matt laughed once, short and sharp. “You mean the disappearing act, or the ice?”
Feygen’s dark brown skin went a little gray around his face. He said, “Give me an address.”
# # #
At 9:30 that morning, a patrol car pulled up in front of the home of Reggie Troland. Troland sold wholesale air conditioner parts and had already left for work. So had his wife June, a health care specialist at a nearby nursing home. Their son Chet was already at school, and that left only the daughter, Yvonne, still in the house.
Zach Feygen, along with a well-dressed, dark-haired woman and a uniformed officer, got out of the car and walked up the front steps. Feygen knocked on the door.
A minute later the door swung open and Yvonne greeted them, pasty-faced and in her bathrobe. “What do you want?” she asked through a cough. “You got me out of bed. I’m sick.”
Feygen showed her his badge. “I’m Detective Zach Feygen. This is Officer Cardi and Kate Rodekr from the Department of Family and Children’s Services.”
Yvonne Troland’s eyes got huge, and her face drained of what little color it had to begin with.
Feygen continued, “We’d like to ask you a few questions. About a little girl.” He handed her a search warrant and walked past her into the living room as he spoke, so he didn’t see her face and the further effect his words had on her. Kate Rodek did, and knew in an instant that everything Feygen had told her was true.
Without any further prodding, Yvonne Troland slumped to the floor, pulled her knees to her chest and curled her arms around them, hid her face. She started crying. Feygen glanced at Rodek and Cardi, motioning with his head for Cardi to look around. Feygen found the door to the cellar himself, in the floor of a utility room at the back of the house. Taking a deep breath, he opened it, pushed down the short wooden steps, and descended.
Kate Rodek stayed with Yvonne in the living room, in front of the open door, as the girl cried. Yvonne tried to say something through the tears, but she couldn’t stop sobbing long enough to speak clearly. Rodek looked up as Feygen came back into the room and pulled out his cell phone.
# # #
An ambulance and two more squad cars arrived a short time later. The paramedics brought the little girl—Yvonne said the child’s name was Laura Jean—up out of the cellar on a stretcher. Laura Jean’s arms and legs were restrained, but still she kicked and thrashed and howled, partly at the strangers, but mostly at the light. Her eyes stayed screwed tightly shut. Kate Rodek stood close to Feygen as they took the girl away.
“It was just like you said,” Rodek murmured.
Feygen’s low voice rumbled just loud enough for her to hear. “The Redeemer’s a good man, Kate. I can feel it.”
Rodek was silent for a moment. “Good or not, he’s still a vigilante. Still a criminal.”
Feygen didn’t answer her.
At ten minutes after ten o’clock, in response to a call from one of her neighbors, June Troland arrived at her home to be met by Zach Feygen and six other members of the law enforcement community. Slamming her car door, she stormed up the sidewalk and shouted, “What the hell is going on here? Who’s in charge?” Officer Cardi met her and tried to read her her rights, but she cut him off with, “Get off my lawn, you assholes! You’re screwing up my grass!”
Feygen approached her and said, “Mrs. Troland.”
June Troland rounded on him. “Are you in charge here? What the hell are all these people doing at my home? Where’s Yvonne?”
“We have your granddaughter, Mrs. Troland,” Feygen said.
He found June Troland’s reaction to that immensely satisfying. All the blood drained from her face, seeped away down into her neck and disappeared. Her mouth hung slackly open. Feygen stepped forward, took her hands, cuffed them together, and finished reading her rights. She didn’t reply or make any sound as he put her in a patrol car.
As the car with Mrs. Troland in it pulled away, a Channel 5 news van turned the corner and bore down on them. Feygen scowled and made a small growling sound. Vicki Chamberlain would be in that van, and a bigger pain in the ass he’d never encountered. He turned and started toward the house, away from her and her microphone and her questions, when a thought popped into his head. He glanced around until he saw Cardi standing by the side of the house. God knew what the kid was doing there.
Cardi was twenty-three, baby-faced, a decent cop for a rookie. A good target for somebody like Chamberlain. Feygen ambled over near the young officer, then turned partly away from him, pulled out his cell phone and leaned against the house.
“No, listen, that’s what I’m saying,” he said softly into the inactive phone. He figured Cardi could hear him if he strained at it. “I got it from higher up... No, seriously, we got this tip from the Redeemer.”
He heard a small intake of breath from over his shoulder, and smiled a little, out of Cardi’s sight. “That’s right. He called somebody, brass I guess, and he gave the guy this location. Told ’em about the little girl. ...’Oh shit’ is right, man. ...All right, thanks.”
Feygen pocketed the phone again, leaned his head back against the wall, then turned and looked at Cardi as if just noticing the younger officer’s presence.
“Hey, Cardi,” he said, and motioned him over. “Listen, we got these reporters out there. Head out to the front, keep ’em out of the house, all right?”
“Ah, yeah, yeah sure,” Cardi said, the impact of Feygen’s one-sided phone conversation practically stamped on his face.
“Good, thanks.” Feygen put a hand between Cardi’s shoulder blades and gave him a gentle shove to send him on his way. He ducked quickly inside the house.
Through the window in the front door he saw Vicki Chamberlain and a cameraman coming up the sidewalk, saw Chamberlain call out to Officer Cardi. Cardi turned around and froze like a deer on the road. Vicki Chamberlain powered up her stadium-lights smile—which Feygen knew camouflaged a personality like a shark’s—and started asking Cardi questions.
Feygen chuckled and moved farther into the house.
# # #
At 11:15 that morning, Matt Sinclair rolled leisurely down the Trolands’ street in his Monte Carlo, the driver’s side window down and Bruce Springsteen on the stereo. He saw the squad cars clustered around the Troland house, piercing blue lights aglitter. Neighbors congregated to crane their necks and ask questions of uniformed officers. A news van sat at the curb.
Allowing himself his first totally unreserved, unselfconscious smile in two years, Matt rolled up the window and sang along with the Boss.
AUTHOR’S NOTES FOLLOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION
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2 comments:
This is another difficult week to come up with any kind of articulate chapter commentary. I'm back in Hapkido now, going three or four times a week, and today's class was filled with ground defense and knife-disarming techniques. On top of that, I've got to finish up a short Warriors manga thing tonight, dive into the rest of the Death Knight chapter tomorrow night, and disappear completely into the YA novel adaptation for Lerner by week's end.
Or, to put it another way, my brain is still on overload, and now I'm tired on top of that.
I liked this chapter. Feygen's actions with Officer Cardi and Vicki Chamberlain were definitely inspired by the Lucas Davenport character in John Sandford's PREY novels. I'm pretty happy with it. Plus Feygen's apartment is the townhouse I lived in for a while in Athens, GA.
Things will get better around April 10, when I put the last of my current three deadlines to bed.
Okay. You got me. That was better than blowing the creep's brains out. MUCH better. Probably hurt him worse, too.
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