Day 269 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 14.5 (1929 Words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 14.4

“I swear to god he sounded just like you, like he could be your brother. Except I've met your brother and frankly... one of you must be adopted.” Joe Bell was trying ton convince George that the man on the phone was his doppelgänger. Joe did not think for a second that what he was about to walk into involved a real doppelgänger, instead it was a way of passing the time. Ribbing a colleague and psyching him out was a precinct pastime, and even on serious cases like this one, no opportunity was missed out.

“Kiss my ass.” George came back with, it was hardly original but then again being the butt of the joke was not something he was used to being. George was more senior, he had the upper hand in the office and not many would try and lay anything on him. Joe and he went back a long way, they hard almost the same length of service, but George was definitely the more senior, the more respected of the two.

Joe did not get chances to make George the one to be uncomfortable very often and this was a thin excuse on a case that was extremely important to get right, but if he could solve the case, make fun of Detective Samuels and bring a cop-killer in within twenty four hours? All good for Detective Bell.

Technically they were not solving the case so much as chasing down a lead from a rat, a rat that squealed to George and not him. So there was another excuse to take Samuels down a couple of pegs, he was infringing on Bell's case. It was not like George would have stolen credit or taken the win in the 'closed' column for himself, but this was a big case and Bell had been having a dry time of it recently. He could use the win and he could definitely do with a little more respect from the others on the team, so beating George to the punch would be a good thing. And a little humiliation would not be bad for the detective's reputation as a no-nonsense stickler for the rules.

George always did the right thing, he was known for it to a fault. You never told Detective Samuels about cutting corners or doubts in your case, he would not let the little things slide, he'd always be on the side of the law, the right and the justice they served. Joe thought that George would shop his own grandmother if she broke the law. He could imagine him declaring it necessary, and then telling her of his disappointment in her breaking the law in the first place.

“Is this it? Does not look like much of a hideout, looks a bit industrial, quiet.” George cast a sideways look at Bell as he said that, now that it had been spoken it made a lot more sense. “Yeah, yeah, I can see it now.”

“Good to see you catching up Detective.” Joe smiled, this was going his way spectacularly.

They parked the car around the corner from the building, set the car alarm and walked the next few hundred feet in relative caution, watching the various windows and corners for signs of life and activity. The building itself was lit up from the inside, a series of windows that ran the length of the roof, high off the ground showed there were lights on inside what looked to be a high ceilinged warehouse space. Joe walked the length of the alleyway that ran the side of the building and found the door in the side wall near the docking bay or roller door entry point. He walked casually by it and then a few feet away turned around and walked back equally at ease and for all the world looking like he was just strolling by for a walk.

“Do you think they saw?” Joe said as he regrouped with George at the entrance to the alleyway on the dark street, out of the flood of light from a street lamp across the road. The street was poorly lit on their, and so the only light sources were on the opposite side of the road, any pedestrians wanting to be seen would be on the other side, not where the cops were casing the building.

“Camera?”

“Yeah, above the door and to the side, Infra Red too, I could see the make, I know it.” Joe had clocked the security camera above the doorway, too high from the ground to be disabled or interfered with easily.

“Pretty expensive kit for a warehouse, in a … well let's just call it not well maintained, area of town.” George picked up his radio and called dispatch and made a quiet call for back up.

Joe was eyeing up the building across the alleyway and was getting an idea. “You see what I see?”

“Dead People?”

“What?”

“Jesus Joe, it's a joke. The sixth.. oh forget it, what?”

“There.” In front of them and out of sight of the door cam was a fire escape on the building that was opposite the warehouse. The ladder ran to the roof of the building, which looked abandoned with the graffiti and boarded up windows. They could easily get on the ladder with the help of a nearby dumpster. Given the amount of slogans, tags and obscenity plastered up and down the walls of the building, it was obviously good enough to carry their weight like it had the vandals 'redecorating' the walls.

In a minute they were on the fire escape stairs and they made the way slowly up the levels of the four storey building and eventually clambered up the final ladder to the flat roof with a perfect view into the next building, seeing directly into a part of the room, where they could see machinery and two people standing near it.

“Bingo.” George was looking at Ivan Two, with the fresh scar cut into his face and his hands raised as if someone was training a gun on him. This did not look like a slice of life they were prying into, this looked like a criminal enterprise, they had seen their fair share. That cut was not accidental, there had been violence done here and it looked like there was violence to be done again.

“Who is he talking to?” Joe could see that Ivan Two was saying something, though he looked far from frightened despite his 'held up' pose.

“Whoever has the gun I assume.” George said, not knowing that at the moment the person who was at the other end of the stick up was actually himself.

“We need a better look.” Joe was muttering to himself and looking about the roof for an advantage of some kind. The angle they were at meant they could not see into the other half of the room to get the whole picture. The building they were on was half the length of the warehouse and the roof next to them further down the alleyway was actually shorter than the warehouse by a few feet and would not have given them the height they needed.

“Wait for back up and then we can figure all this out.” George had an ill feeling about what was going down, his cop sense working over time and giving out warnings.

“I've got a plan.” Joe said suddenly rubbing his hands together.

“Save me from your fucking plan, please... oh you have got to be joking!” George started off with sarcasm but it turned quickly incredulous as he saw what the plan was. “No, no, no. Don't be an idiot Bell.”

And that was all Joe needed to convince himself to do it. The disapproval of the person he had a vested interest in showing up tonight, he had to be better than George on this one, it was going to be a big win. Thinking outside the box and taking risks, that would be the key to cracking this and getting the credit. Waiting for back up, following the procedure and being sensible would be forgotten in the heat of collaring a cop killer. They had no evidence that this man with the fresh scar was the one they were looking for, maybe it was whomever was holding him at gunpoint, but they needed to know more before the booted thuds of uniforms disrupted proceedings.

“Fuck you, going to do it.”
There was a long aluminium ladder and some painting gear on the roof, rollers and tarpaulins, maybe a forgotten effort to curb the graffiti and cover the walls again. The tarp was rotted and the paint cans rusted but the aluminium ladder looked sturdy and structurally sound. The alley was small enough to brace the ladder across the gap and then it was a perilous crawl across the gap to the roof of the warehouse, and then a clear and unobstructed view.

“We don't have a warrant.” George put an arm out to stop Joe but he knew the argument before Bell even raised it.

“An obviously, and more importantly freshly, injured man, appears to be being held at gunpoint, and we have an informant telling us a cop killer is in there? Exactly how much more 'exigent' do you need circumstances to be?”

George nodded and stepped aside, taking the end of the ladder and helping Joe carry it to the gap. They worked to put in place silently as possible, causing a little rattling as it settled across the gap. Subtle movements were impossible with the amount of torque on the far end of the ladder, with a single person it would have made much more noise, George was resigned to helping out his colleague's insane plan. He put his weight on the end that was resting on their rooftop and held the ladder firmly as the other detective made his way slowly across.

Joe got off the other end of the ladder and waved back across the alley way to signify his arrival. He walked to the nearest skylight and knelt down, looking into the depth of the room below and then George saw him sit down, heavily on the rooftop.

What had he seen? When Joe knelt forward again he leaned in closer to the glass of the skylight and peered long and hard before pulling his mobile phone from his pocket, disabling the flash and carefully, not showing the glowing screen to the skylight, taking the picture at an oblique angle and then looking at his phone for a long time before looking back to George.

“What?” George mouthed and shrugged. He pointed at the ladder and indicated that Joe should come over and hold the base for him to come across and join him. Joe looked a bit panicked then and waved him back. Instead he shook his head and then rechecked his mobile, looked back at George and then back at the screen.

A few button presses and then two things happened at once.

His mobile phone went off and he saw that Joe had sent him a picture text. He was about to open it when they heard the gunshot and the ricochet. Joe pulled his own weapon and George Samuels clambered across the ladder unaided, fuelled by adrenaline and forgetting about checking the picture on his phone.