The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (23 page)

              Pinned to the corkboard above the desk were family photos of someone’s kids- maybe Klein’s- and a receipt.  One photo was of a boy about ten posing in a little league uniform with a baseball bat resting on his shoulder and another was of the same boy and a girl a few years younger posing for a recent holiday photo. 

The receipt was for two storage units purchased at Treasure Island Storage in Paterson.

SIXTY ONE

I took a picture of the receipt on the corkboard then unpinned it and slipped it in my pocket.  Just for kicks I rummaged through the filing cabinet on the left but didn’t find much beyond old medical bills and tax returns in the one cabinet.  The cabinet to the right of the desk was locked but it didn’t take me long to bust it open.  The top two drawers were filled with more hanging folders of documents.  I didn’t bother to spend time reading them.  The bottom two drawers were filled with handguns of a wide variety and boxes of ammunition, a sawed- off shotgun, a bulletproof vest, and a passport with Klein’s picture but a different name.  Someone was preparing for an invasion of the Al- Qaeda.  I took a picture.

              In the car I called Fitzgerald to give him an update.  He picked up on the first ring.

              “What’s going on, Mr. Barnes?” he said.

              “I’ve got something good working over here,” I answered.  I told him about the stockpile of drugs, the arsenal of weaponry, the passport, and the receipt from the storage unit in Paterson.  “There was also a list of names.  Esteban was listed and it looked as if Malcolm Freeman had been recently added.  I think it’s a running list of captured drug runners that have been taken.” 

              “We now know what Esteban was involved in.  It’s highly likely that Malcolm and the other kids were in over their heads with the same shit, which means Malcolm, Manuel, and Philip were probably snatched up by Klein or some of his goons the same way Esteban was,” Fitzgerald said. 

              “We gotta find Klein and take his ass down,” I said.  The words made me feel like a poor- man’s James Bond. 

              “I won’t even touch how you obtained this information, but good work,” Fitzgerald said, referring to my illegal search and seizure of the solid evidence against Klein.  I laughed and figured it’d only be illegal if I were still employed by the PPD and didn’t think much more of it.  That was the beauty I was starting to realize about private investigation, the rules of a cop don’t directly apply.  Klein was a proven thug and a bullying drug dealer and something needed to be done about it.

              I sent Fitzgerald some of the photos I’d taken and told him I’d find some time to stop by and develop a plan of action about Klein.  Since it was pushing ten in the morning, I needed to eat.  On my way out of Ringwood I found a deli to get an egg sandwich and a Snapple.  The bagel was mediocre at best but I ate it anyway.  While I ate, I watched a group of teenaged kids rumble into the deli and try to shortchange the middle- aged Italian man behind the counter. 

              After the teenaged hurricane finally blew through I had time to think.  I had to think about the right way to take down Klein.  And Garvey.  It just dawned on me that I forgot to mention the connection between Klein and Garvey to Fitzgerald.  I’d tell him when I stopped by later on. 

              If you haven’t caught on yet, I like Snapple.  Particularly Diet Peach.  I finished the one I bought with my sandwich and purchased another on my way out.  I popped the top and learned from the Snapple Fact that penguins can jump higher than I thought.  Snapple Facts made me feel smart.  I took my drink back to my car, sat in the driver’s seat, and watched the steady flow of traffic move along Skyline Drive. 

              Like most of my ideas, this one came to me when I least expected it.  I took another swig of Snapple and pulled my phone out of my pocket.  I called Fitzgerald and told him I was on my way.

SIXTY TWO

It always amazes me how we get an incredible amount of self- gratification from simply catching a glimpse of the slow or poor driver around us on the highway.  It’s probably just me and another one of my social quirks.  We, or at least I, tend to speed up if someone cuts me off, goes too slow, or does something we don’t agree with and crane our necks just to glance at the profile of that driver.  I love doing this.  It makes me happy.  I’m not sure why but I feel satisfaction, vindication, and a sense of accomplishment in identifying the culprit.  There’s never an ill intent or malicious follow- up behavior but just the simple gratification of glancing at the driver is enough in itself. I wouldn’t classify it as road rage but more so at my desired intent to socially observe.

              On my way into Paterson to meet with Fitzgerald, I found an old lady in a Buick from the Reagan administration in the left lane in front of me driving like she was leading a funeral procession.  When I passed her on the right I felt a great deal of self- worth when I caught a glimpse of her barely being able to see over the steering wheel.  I thought about pulling over and offering her a phone book to sit on.  Then I decided to let it be.  The rest of the drive in was not so cumbersome.

              Fitzgerald was on the phone and held up a finger when he saw me through the glass windows.  While I waited I roamed the office and chatted up a few people I hadn’t seen in a while.  Being back in the office should have made me feel awkward, uncomfortable, and grotesquely nauseous but none of that occurred.  The only thing I felt was shock.  Shocked at how normal it felt to be back. 

I looked for Drew, my old partner, but he was nowhere to be found.  Someone said he’d taken the day off when I was milling around his desk.  It reminded me that I had to call Drew the next free moment I had.

              “Barnes!” Fitzgerald yelled from his office across the room.  I hadn’t heard him yell my name like that in months and it actually felt good.  I took a seat in his office before he could offer me one. 

              “People over sixty- five shouldn’t be allowed to drive,” I said.

              “Still complaining about the drivers of the road, huh, Barnes?”  Fitzgerald used to detest my complaining when I’d come in from a tour on the streets.  Apparently he still does.

              “Something should be done.  Maybe they can put electric shock on the roads in the fast lanes for those that drive under sixty.”

              He disregarded my comment.  “Anyway,” he said, “let’s discuss this Klein character.”  I pulled out my phone and showed Fitzgerald the pictures I took.  I don’t know why I didn’t bring in the hard copies of the storage unit receipt and the list of names I’d left in the car.  I pinched my fingers and spread them out on my iPhone screen to enlarge the image of the receipt. 

              “See, it shows it was purchased two days before Esteban was reported missing,” I said, using my finger to slide the screen to the purchase date.  “And conveniently enough, this place is down the road from School Five where Klein is principal.  It’s also in Esteban’s neighborhood.” 

              “This might be enough for me,” Fitzgerald said.  “But I don’t think we have enough for the DA.”  Fitzgerald was known to bend the rules on pursing criminals but that was before Charlie Willingham, the District Attorney, made Fitzgerald feel pretty stupid and utterly embarrassed him in public after a bogus bust a couple of years ago. 

              Fitzgerald had overseen a bust of a local pedophile that was cruising the parks to snap a few photos of some future prospects.  David Burke had been seen by several parents sitting on a bench casually snapping photos.  A sting operation was set up over the entire summer and Fitzgerald attempted to build a case against Burke just because he had seen him taking pictures at a park.  Willingham laughed at Fitzgerald and told him it wasn’t nearly enough to bring Burke in.  When they eventually did, the great majority of photos on Burke’s memory card were scenery shots of the park’s ambiance with the kids playing just a secondary role in the photo shoot.  It was Fitzgerald’s first big case as the captain, which Willingham took into account and cut him some slack but made Fitzgerald the laughing stock of that year’s Christmas party.  Fitzgerald learned his lesson from that point forward and knew not to bring anything to Willingham unless it was an absolute slam dunk. 

              “I don’t think it’s enough for the DA,” Fitzgerald said again.  “Willingham is a real pain in the ass.”  Repeating anything that he mentioned about the DA was a habit he developed since the Burke case. 

              I rubbed my chin in thought.  “Yeah, I know.  But I have something that might,” I said, referring to the hard copies of the documents I ripped off Klein that were sitting in my car. 

              “These photos of the receipt and the list are great but we need something more just to get a meeting with Willingham.  We can’t prove these actually belong to Klein,” Fitzgerald said.  “Even if we can prove the storage unit is in fact Klein’s, we don’t know if he’s using it as a makeshift prison or as a place to store his childhood memories.”  I could tell he was frustrated so I couldn’t hold him in limbo any longer. 

              “That’s not what I was talking about,” I said.

              He looked up with a puzzled look and said, “Then what?”

              “I have these papers sitting in my car right now.”  I went out to my car.

              “How’d you get these, Barnes?” Fitzgerald asked after I returned with the hard copies in my possession.

              “Willingham isn’t going to go for this without proof of a search warrant,” Fitzgerald said, rubbing his temples.  “However, Judge Riley might be able to finagle one for us.  We have to be able to prove these actually came from Klein’s house,” he added.

              Judge Riley was a local judge that was a friend of the Fitzgerald family and had done Captain Fitzgerald a few favors in the past.

              “Can’t we chalk it up to unorthodox justice?” I asked.

Fitzgerald eyed me up and shook his head.  Before I left, he told me a call would be made to Judge Riley and he’d work the official police angle the best he could.  He also told me to sit tight until I heard more from him. 

              Once I left Fitzgerald’s office, Paterson was starting to pick up the pace.  Saturday morning in downtown Paterson reminded me of Midtown New York on any given day.  The streets lined with crowds of people.  Some window shopping while others gently strolled the city blocks like they were secluded pathways of Central Park.  Car horns obnoxiously blaring at others attempting to illegally double park and clog the already narrow, dense streets.  The town was buzzing with all of the sights, sounds, and smells of a major city. 

I cruised around the inner parts of Paterson for a few hours, not really sure what to look for.  Regardless, nothing turned up.  Certainly, there were many questions still to be answered both about the case and about myself.  Why and how were Klein and Garvey connected?  What the hell was the connection between the boys being taken and Treasure Island Storage?  Was there even a connection at all?  I was convinced there had to be because of the location in which I found the storage unit receipt.  If Klein had purchased the unit for traditional and legal purposes, wouldn’t he have pinned it to the corkboard in the kitchen or stuck it to the refrigerator?  The fact that it was in his basement under his basement led me to believe Klein was living in a world of shadiness.

              The only question that was tweezing at the flesh of my brain was not about Garvey or Klein or even the boys.

              I went home and found Lindsey planting some flowers in the front garden.  She immediately noticed the disheveled look on my face.  I didn’t know why I carried such a glum demeanor either, especially after the key findings I made earlier in the day.  Lindsey and I sat on the front steps and I ran through my entire morning in Klein’s house and my meeting with Fitzgerald.  She sat next to me and listened, offering a periodic sympathy pat on my back or leg.

              Lindsey forced me to help her in the garden.  As much as I enjoyed it on any other day, I really wasn’t in the mood.  I did anyway because it meant time spent with Lindsey.  We planted tulips along the front row of the garden and azalea bushes staggered behind.  I stopped suddenly once the realization of fresh flowers were a symbol of spring- a fresh start.  A new beginning. 

              Something that Jake will never get to experience.  As much of a crossroads as I thought I was at with this Esteban ordeal, I still did feel like I was making progress.  I was starting to learn more of the truth, which was forcing me to believe that it was time Lindsey deserved to learn the whole truth about Jake.