A Field of Red (8 page)

Frank resisted the overwhelming urge to say something nice. To get involved. To get back on that horse and have something in his life that didn’t come out of a bottle. But he couldn’t. He was here to see Laura and that had to be the only thing in his life right now. Laura, and Jackson, and getting his shit together. Not getting involved in another messy case that would probably end badly.

Frank looked up at Burwell.

“Sorry,” Frank said. “But I can’t help you.”

Burwell looked at him. His face was hard, disappointed.

“Those girls are going to die,” the sergeant said quietly, just between the two of them. Two professionals, standing in a hotel hallway late at night and assessing the case and the likelihood of a positive outcome. To Frank, it sounded almost like a plea.

He nodded somberly.

“Well, it’s always something,” Frank said, and slowly closed the door.

It was Tuesday morning, and Frank was back in his booth at the Tip Top Diner.

He was trying to read his free copy of the Dayton Daily News. There was a big article on the front page about the ransom call and the kidnapping case and another article out of D.C. about an assassination plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States.

He’d tried to read both articles three or four times now, but his mind kept wandering back to the conversation last night with Sergeant Burwell. Frank knew that not getting involved was the right thing to do, and yet, it still bothered him.

The restaurant door jingled again. Frank forced himself to keep his eyes on the paper. Situational awareness was overrated.

Plus, he had his gun, just in case.

Frank suddenly remembered another one of his old partners, Steve Furrows, who had just up and one day decided to quit smoking. The guy had acted like a class “A” prick for about three months, but Steve got through it and never smoked again. Frank just needed to get past the need to always know everything that was going on around him. He needed to relax, make “not looking” his priority. If Frank could stick with it, like Furrows, maybe he’d break the habit.

Frank’s breakfast was gone and now he was having a piece of pie and finishing up the paper. Pakistan and Afghanistan were going at it again, according to the International section of the Dayton Daily News, arguing and threatening to invade each other over some random patch of scrub. That region, along with the Middle East, had been in bad shape for millennia, and nothing that had happened over the past twenty years was going to make anything better.

Frank knew the region well. During his six years in the Marines, he’d never been deployed overseas, but it had been the focus of all of their training.

And 1983–1989, the years he’d been in, had been a tense period in the region: Iran and Iraq were duking it out along their border, bombing pipelines and shooting down aircraft. Lebanon was undergoing “difficulties,” and Libya was on the warpath.

Incidents came to mind: 220 Marines killed when Hezbollah bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut in ‘83; the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian passenger jet; 270 people dying when that flight went down over Lockerbie, Scotland. Too much killing. Too much death.

Reagan and the U.S. stood by, tensely monitoring the situation and getting involved when necessary. Frank had trained for a war in the Mideast, a war that didn’t come until after he’d gotten out in ‘89. But he knew lots of people who ended up in Kuwait, rolling into Iraq with Desert Storm in ‘91.

By then, he’d been back in the bayou, getting on with the NOPD and trying to forget his time in the military. He hadn’t enjoyed his time in. He’d felt like an instrument of death that was never used, a weapon that had been loaded and aimed but never fired. It made him feel even more helpless, useless, to be fully trained and seeing all of the things that were going on in the world, and he couldn’t do anything about any of them. It had been a big part of the decision to become a police officer.

Trudy hadn’t been behind the idea. They’d married in 1985, and she was happy to get out of the service and move back to Louisiana. But she’d fought him on joining the force. She wanted him home, safe, especially with Laura being only two at the time.

Frank shook his head and went back to the paper.

In Afghanistan, the Soviets hadn’t been able to fix it in the ‘80s, and he doubted that the current U.S. war in Afghanistan would end any better. A hundred tiny fiefdoms, overseen by a hundred leaders, all squabbling to get a little more land or—

“I don’t CARE!” a male voice shouted, breaking the quiet of the restaurant. Frank looked up.

Gina, the waitress, was standing behind the counter near the door, where customers paid their bills on the way out.

So was her soon-to-be ex-husband.

Stan was a short man with a thick neck and big arms, wearing civilian clothes. But Frank could tell by the haircut; the man was definitely a cop.

Gina had been Frank’s waitress the first time he’d been in here, and he’d had most of his meals either here or at the Bob Evans across the way. She’d been crying that first day, and he’d asked about it. And Frank had heard the whole story.

He knew it was a mistake, as soon as he’d considered opening his mouth, but he hated to see a nice woman swinging from the gallows.

Of course, he should’ve left it all alone.

Stan was, according to her, an idiot. He drank and stayed out all night. And routinely and regularly kicked her ass. Frank had heard the same story a hundred times.

Instead of leaving it alone, he’d called her aside the next day and given her some advice. Stan and Gina were separated, but she was having trouble getting him to stay away. She’d been worried about his temper. Frank’s list was easy, non-confrontational. But it looked like the husband had found an opportunity to discuss it with her.

“Stan, you have to leave,” Gina hissed at him. “This is where I work.”

“You won’t talk to me anywhere else,” Stan said loudly. “You got me SUSPENDED!” His face was red, flushed—either the guy was embarrassed to be talking to her in public, or, more likely, he’d been drinking. Liquid courage, Ben Stone had called it.

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” Gina answered, standing her ground.

“Yes, we do,” Stan said, his eyes wide, and lunged at her. Gina stumbled backward, knocking a paper calendar off the wall. Stan’s hand swiped the air where she had just been.

Frank was on his feet.

Gina moved to the side and backed up against the window that looked out over the parking lot.

Stan stepped around the small counter and grabbed at her, latching a beefy fist onto her thin arm.

Frank knew he had two choices.

One, he could step up to the counter and chat the man up, try to get him to back off. Or, two, he could skip that and attempt to incapacitate the man immediately, though that would be difficult. They were in a very confined space. And Stan was a cop. And probably armed.

Frank decided to take option one.

“Hey, man,” Frank said from across the counter. He kept his voice light, happy, non-confrontational. “The lady doesn’t want any trouble. What do you say you let her go?” Frank said, smiling.

Stan turned and looked at Frank.

“Screw you, man,” Stan said, spitting his words at Frank like bullets. “This is none of your business.”

Frank pointed a thumb over his shoulder.

“They’ve got excellent coffee here,” Frank said, smiling, keeping it light. A part of him was screaming to walk away, let it go. “I was enjoying a cup—actually, my fourth cup—when I heard you. It sounds like you’re mad about something.”

“Damn straight I’m mad,” Stan yelled, gripping Gina’s arm tightly. “She’s leaving me!”

Frank caught the smell of alcohol on his breath and noticed the man’s bloodshot eyes. Stan wasn’t drunk, but he’d had a couple. Ben Stone had been right. He’d gotten an early start, kinda like Frank, but this guy obviously couldn’t handle it.

“It’s OK,” Frank said calmly. “Sit down and have a cup of coffee with me. I’ve got some free time—tell me what’s going on.”

Gina piped up at that moment. And she managed to say the exact wrong thing.

“Let go of me, Stan,” she said, struggling to break free of Stan’s grip. “You’re hurting my arm. This is Frank. He’s been helping me figure out what to do.”

Frank turned slowly and looked at her, shaking his head slightly. Seriously? Was she just trying to escalate this?

 “So,” Stan shouted, really looking at Frank for the first time. “You’re the one that’s been telling Gina to leave me, clear out my stuff?” Stan shouted at Frank. “I’m a cop! And now she had the locks changed. My keys don’t work anymore! She’s just not listening, and she’s still my wife!”

Well, maybe it was better this way. At least Stan was mad at Frank now, focusing all of his anger on him. At least his grip on Gina seemed to have loosened.  

Frank decided to take a gamble. He changed tactics midstream.

“Yeah, Gina is a peach,” Frank said, smiling and turning to look at Gina. He ran his eyes up and down her body, smiling appreciatively, then nodded at Stan. “We’ve only been out a few times. But I’ll tell you, she knows how to treat a man—”

Stan’s face turned red, faster than Frank thought possible. Stan let go of Gina and turned, charging around the glass counter, coming at Frank like an angry bull seeing red.

Krav Maga was not a complicated martial art to master, but there were certain moves that worked better in tight, confined spaces, such as this one. Much of Krav was designed for fighting multiple foes at once, but some of the more acrobatic moves were centered around spinning. In fact, the martial art was similar to the Brazilian “capoeira” style, which involved so many spins and acrobatic moves that it looked like dancing.

Frank had trained others in Krav Maga for over ten years.

As Stan came around the counter, Frank stepped back to make room. It came as second nature, running through the checklist in his head. Assess the threat, verify the space requirements, check for bystanders. He’d taught it so many times, the patter of words was as familiar as an old song.

In just under a second, he grabbed Stan’s arm and pivoted, backing away, using the man’s forward momentum to spin Stan around, then using his free hand to grab Stan and shove him downward. In one smooth motion, Frank spun around and dropped the man and landed a knee square in the middle of Stan’s spine, pinning him to the floor.

Stan screamed, probably a combination of surprise and the sudden pain from the twisted arm and hand. He struggled to turn over, kicking his legs and trying to buck Frank off, but the weight of Frank’s body held him down.

“Settle down, now,” Frank said quietly. He leaned in a little more, digging his knee into the man’s spine, feeling the bones grind.

Stan let out a loud shriek, and the struggling ceased. One of Frank’s hands was on the back of Stan’s head, pushing his face down into the carpet. Frank’s other hand was pulling upward on Stan’s wrist, twisting it.

Frank let go of Stan’s head and felt around to the back of his belt for where the cuffs should be, where they’d been for so many years, kept in a little pouch next to the gun on his belt. He felt at his belt for a moment, before he realized they weren’t there anymore. It had been years since he carried cuffs, but the habit was hard to break.

Frank shook his head and looked up at Gina, who was staring down at Frank on top of her incapacitated, soon-to-be ex-husband.

“You better call the cops,” Frank said.

It didn’t take long before Frank could hear the sirens—this was one of their own. Frank waited patiently, one knee on Stan’s back, until the police car and EMTs arrived.

Sergeant Burwell walked in, gun drawn, and assessed the situation. Frank nodded at him and put his hands up, then slowly stood up off of Stan, who rolled over loudly and began complaining to everyone within hearing distance.

Burwell looked from Stan back to Frank, who waited. Burwell escorted Stan outside—the man was rubbing his wrist and cradling one arm.

After a few minutes, Burwell came back inside the restaurant, his firearm back in the holster. He glanced in Frank’s direction and then began taking statements. Frank had been talking to Gina, comforting her, but Burwell soon led her outside to get checked out by the EMTs. After Burwell got Gina settled in the ambulance, he waved in the window at Frank to come outside.

The parking lot of the Tip Top Diner was a hub of activity. The ambulance was treating Gina, and Stan was strapped to a stretcher inside the vehicle. Burwell directed Frank over to a patrol car, while another cop, a young deputy, was waving traffic out of the parking lot and keeping the area clear.

Stan saw Frank passing the ambulance and sat up, apologizing loudly. The fight was gone out of him, evaporated. Now the man was just flustered and sorry. Frank had seen it a thousand times—the fight was gone now, the fire in his blood quenched.

Gina didn’t look like she was buying Stan’s protestations and apologies. Another waitress stood with her, as the EMTs wound a bandage around her bruised arm. Her skin was already starting to turn blue.

Burwell stood by his car, working on the report.

“Did you have to break his arm?” Burwell asked.

Frank shrugged at the burly sergeant.

“He was making trouble,” Frank said. “If I hadn’t stopped him, he might have hurt the woman, or bystanders.” He glanced up and saw Gina was sobbing while she talked to the female EMT.

“Stan’s a cop,” Burwell said defensively. “So technically, you’ve assaulted a police officer. That’s a year, at least.”

Frank nodded, thoughtful. He thought he detected a hint of bemused camaraderie in the man and took a chance.

“Yeah,” Frank said. “But the guy’s a real dick.”

Burwell looked up, and a grin broke out on his face.

“That’s true,” he said.

Burwell went back to the paperwork, writing up the report. Frank watched, unsure of what to do next. He didn’t want to be involved, of course, but it was true – he’d assaulted a cop, and in front of witnesses. While he wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk away, he couldn’t afford to get thrown in jail, even for the day. Nothing could get in the way of his lunch with Laura.