Guilty Minds

The fat guy fired at me again, but the round clanged against the steel blade. I pulled it back and swung it at the guy, hard. Though I was intending to land the blow on his chest, hoping to knock him to the floor, he had suddenly tipped forward and the shovel blade slammed into his ear.

There was a geyser of blood and I knew it had sunk in deep. The man collapsed onto the floor, the blood pulsing from an opening in his skull.

I grabbed the key from the retractable reel on the left side of his belt and yanked it off. I felt the spray of hot blood.

Mandy was screaming, and my ears were ringing, and I staggered toward the cage.

Even with the soundproofing, I could hear the faint distant warble of police sirens.

81

The beaten-earth yard around Vogel’s compound was crowded with a fleet of police vehicles, mostly from the local Maryland force. Kombucha was standing next to his unmarked car in a black overcoat. He waved when he saw us emerge from the compound.

I was glad to see him. I never thought I would be.

“You look like you need medical assistance,” he said, approaching.

I shook my head. “I’m good,” I said. “Thanks.”

I was in a lot of pain, but only when I breathed. I knew the wise course of action was to get to a hospital and get checked out and make sure I hadn’t also injured my spleen or my lungs. I’d been shot while wearing a ballistic vest before. I knew what could happen.

The wise course of action wasn’t what I chose, and Mandy couldn’t persuade me otherwise.

She was okay, she insisted. She hadn’t been injured or abused, beyond the discomfort of having to sleep on the floor in what was, after all, a cage, and the degradation of being forced to use a commode in front of a guard. I noticed Vogel’s backup hadn’t arrived after all. Maybe they were scared off by the police presence.

“Rasmussen?” I asked Kombucha.

He nodded. “Giving us the probable cause we need to search the compound.”

“I think client files are in the basement,” I said. “Will you excuse me a minute?”

Merlin was in the back of the UPS truck, and he looked antsy. “Nick,” he said, “I need to return this thing.”

“The truck?”

“The stingray. And the truck.”

“Hold on. Help me up.”

He extended a hand, and helped me up into the cargo bay of the truck. I was gritting my teeth and moaning as I climbed up.

“You get shot?” Merlin said, noticing the hole in the shirt of my uniform.

I nodded.

“Shit,” he said. “I can’t return it with a hole in it.”

“How about, ‘You okay, Nick?’”

“You okay, Nick?”

I nodded my head. I was still amped from all the adrenaline. But that was all right. It was probably keeping me from feeling much of the pain from the bruised ribs.

Merlin had been closely monitoring the stingray. I’d given him Vogel’s mobile number, so he knew which of the many numbers the stingray had logged-including even distant neighbors-to lock onto. Once he did, he watched the list of numbers Vogel called grow.

“Seven numbers,” he said. “Check it out.”

I scanned the list of phone numbers.

One of them I recognized, as I was afraid I would, and I felt sick.

82

Mandy wanted to come with me, but I needed to do this alone.

Merlin gave me a ride back to his house, where I’d left the rented Chrysler. On the way we barely talked. I was tired. Vogel’s men had worn me out.

I stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts and tanked up on caffeine, popped a couple of Advil, and drove to DC.

On the way I played a tape-recording of Mandy’s interview in Anacostia. She’d recorded it on her iPhone and then sent me a link that, by means of some kind of iPhone wizardry, allowed me to play it.

I hit the ON button and put it on the seat next to me.

A very old man was speaking on the tape, an old man in a nursing home in Southeast Washington named Isaac Abelard. During the interview, she’d put the recorder on a bed tray next to the retired patrolman, she’d told me, with the result that her questions were hard to hear, but his answers were generally easier to make out.

Mandy: When did this happen?

Abelard: Oh, jeez, this must have been fifty, sixty years ago. Could it be sixty? I suppose that’s right. Sixty. I was a young officer-in my midtwenties, must have been.

Mandy: (inaudible)

Abelard: Oh, I knew him from the neighborhood. He was a good kid. We all knew he was a good kid. I always thought he’d either end up doing great things or wind up getting killed. [Laughs]

Mandy: (inaudible)

Abelard: Oh, I had no idea.

Mandy: Why are you willing to talk about it now?