Hall adjusted again and as he did he looked out his window to the left as the van backed into the rental house across the street. The house had been vacant for the past six months with a For Rent sign in the front yard. The sign disappeared a few weeks ago, maybe longer, Hall thought. He just noticed it missing one day when he came home from work. He’d seen very little activity at the house, other than vans of different colors coming and going for the last couple of days. It was, the more he thought about it, kind of odd behavior.
Never one to cause trouble, Hall was not the type to call in on his neighbors. But the behavior was just off enough that it was worth a phone call. If nothing else, it would provide a potentially entertaining diversion from the heat and boredom.
Lucy’s was a sandwich joint located in the Payne and Arcade area on St. Paul’s working-class east side. A true hole-in-the-wall, the restaurant was a welcome change from the sterile chain sandwich places going in all over town. At Lucy’s, if you were smart, you ordered the Juicy Lucy, which was a hot hoagie sandwich piled high with a mountain of pastrami, completely smothered in melted American cheese, and served on a fresh-baked bun. The sandwich came with homemade pickles and kettle chips so greasy the sheikhs from OPEC were seeking drilling rights. The whole concoction was served on an oversized red-and-white checkered tray.
Lucy was short for Lucius, a robust black man who’d eaten a few too many of his own sandwiches. Big Lucius worked the register and made the occasional sandwich if his son working the back got too busy. Lucius bullshitted Mac, who twirled a toothpick from side to side in his mouth, awaiting his sandwich order.
Mac looked at his watch while Lucius chewed the fat. It was 4:15 PM. The day was ticking away far too fast.
“You and the boys in a hurry there, Mac?” Lucius asked. Lich, Riley, and Rock were in a booth in the back of the sandwich shop, out of public view.
“Not so much that, Lucius. It’s just this case, the time is tickin’ away.”
“Well, let me check on that food for you boys,” Lucius said and then turned to yell at his son in the back. “Where the hell are those Juicy Lucys, boy?”
As Mac waited for his order, he felt a light tap on his back. He turned to find Heather Foxx smiling at him.
“Heather Foxx, we meet again.”
“Thanks for the tip this morning,” she whispered. “I appreciate it.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Why did you give it to me?” Heather asked, curious. “Typically, you’re loath to help us out.”
“I helped you because you didn’t swarm us last night like the rest of your media friends,” Mac said.
“That’s good to know,” the reporter replied. “In any event, maybe I can return the favor at some point.” She pushed a strand of her brown hair back behind her left ear.
Mac snorted, his inherent distrust of reporters showing through. “It’s not too often you guys do us any favors.”
Paddy McRyan took his bottle of water out of the vending machine. Generally, he was morally opposed to paying money for water, but with the heat, a soda just didn’t sound or even feel like it would taste remotely refreshing. Besides, once he polished off the contents, he’d just refill it out of the water fountain. As he took a sip, he saw Bonnie Schmidt, a uniform cop working the tip line, sprinting toward him. “What’s up?” he asked.
“We’re getting tons of stuff on the tip line, most of which is garbage, but this sounded interesting,” Schmidt said, handing him a note. Paddy took a look at it and walked into the conference room to Burton.
“This might be worth a look.”
“What do we have?” Burton asked, as Duffy, Peters and the mayor approached. The rest of Burton’s team and cops in the room pulled in behind them.
“A guy in a neighborhood off of West Seventh, down by the old brewery, claims that for the last couple of days there have been vans, our kind of vans, coming and going from a house across the street.”
“So?” Burton asked, mixing a cup of coffee.
“Well, the house is a rental and nobody was at the house for months until a couple of days ago. Now vans are coming and going. Again, our kind of vans.”
“Let’s go take a look then,” Burton replied, looking at his watch: 4:25 PM. “Where’s McRyan and the rest of those guys?”
“They went to get a bite to eat at Juicy Lucy’s,” Paddy answered.
“That’s over on the east side, right? Payne and Arcade?”
Paddy nodded. Burton pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
“Mac? Burton. I need you to check something out.”
“ Get out! House blown! ” the text message read.
Smith flipped the cell phone closed, looked at his watch — 4:28 PM — and then to Dean. “We’ve gotta bail,” he said.
“What’s going on?” Dean said, seeing Smith’s ashen face.
“I don’t know for sure, but we’re blown,” Smith said, running for the back door. “The police have the safe house. They’re on their way.”
“H… h… how?” Dean Stammered. “How?”
“I don’t know,” Smith answered, in the garage now, at the far van. “I don’t even know what the police have. All I know is, I got the text message and the house is blown.” He jumped into a van. “Stay on your cell. I’m going left and you go right. I’m going to go south on 35E, you go north and take it from there.”
The garage door opened and Smith pulled out and turned hard left, tires squealing. Dean followed and turned right.
19
Mac parked behind the detached garage in the alley behind a well-kept blue rambler with white trim. The owner of the home, and the man who called in, was Patrick Hall. Others would be joining the party shortly, but for now Burton was holding them back several blocks, letting Mac and the rest in first to get the lay of the land. Riley and Mac called from the Explorer, and Hall picked up on the second ring. The homeowner was in bed with a broken leg, but directed them to a spare key underneath the bottom of his “piece-of-shit” air conditioner.
Riles found the key in a little black magnetized key box. The detectives let themselves in the back door and entered the kitchen. They noticed the heat immediately.
“Now I know why he called the AC a piece of shit,” Riley noted.
Mac called out to announce their presence, and they heard an “in here” from the front of the house. There they found Hall, lying in bed, a cast encasing the entire length of his left leg. To say the man looked uncomfortable was an understatement.
“Man, you have got to get your air conditioning fixed,” Mac said, noting both Hall’s sweaty appearance and the impact of the heat on his own body after just a few minutes in the house.
“I hear ya,” the man answered. “I really need a new one, but with me laid up and all, we’re trying to watch what we spend.”
“Try Craig’s List. You could get a window unit for cheap at least.”
Riles got down to business. “So what’s the deal with this house across the street?”
“Like I said to the gal on that tip line, these guys have been around, ok, I’d say the last four or five days, I guess. My wife said they started showing up the day I got hurt. I broke this leg of mine five days ago and got back home three days ago. I haven’t been out of the bed much since.”
“So you’ve been watching these guys across the street then?” Mac asked, casually pulling the curtain back to sneak a peek out the window.
“I wouldn’t say watching,” Hall said, shaking his head. “I’d say I’ve noticed them coming and going in vans is all.”
“How often?” Riles asked, walking over to the other side of the window. The house was across the street and to the right, a single-story home similar to Hall’s in a neighborhood of similar homes. It was gray, with faded burgundy trim and shutters and a high wood privacy fence around the backyard.