Buried Prey

“What’s happening?”
    “Still in there,” Jenkins said. “They got a negotiator on the phone; he says the guy sounds pretty high.”
    “Probably flushing all their junk down the toilet, what they can’t get up their noses,” Del said. “How many are in there?”
    “A guy named Donald Brett and his old lady, Roxanne. Maybe a kid. Probably a kid.”
    “I know that guy,” Del said.
    “Asshole?” Shrake asked.
    “Oh yeah,” Del said.
    Lucas: “Crazy enough to kill a cop?”
    “Probably,” Del said. “He’s your basic hometown psycho who’s been self-medicating with crank and cocaine for years.”
    “Can’t see anything from here,” Lucas said, peering down the street at the target house.
    “Couple guys went up and were getting ready to take the door down, a pit bull came around the house and started tearing up their ass, and they shot it. Dog’s still there,” Jenkins said. “When they went back to the door, Brett had pushed a table in the entryway. They can’t get the door open now.”
    “That’s a handy table,” Del said.
    “Probably done it before,” Shrake said.
    Lucas: “I’m gonna go find the guy in charge.”
     
     
    THEY FOUND the guy in charge, a Xavier Cruz, sitting on a tripod stool behind a SWAT van. Inside, another guy was sitting on the floor of the van, talking into a telephone, a finger in his off-ear: the negotiator. Cruz saw them coming and said, “Davenport. Del.”
    “How’d you figure the guy out?” Lucas asked.
    “Got a nine-one-one tip,” Cruz said. “Guy said he was bragging to friends over at the White Nights.”
    “You got the nine-one-one guy?”
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “He said he didn’t want to be involved,” Lucas suggested.
    “Something like that,” Cruz said. “Why?”
    Lucas said, “Because the guy on the phone was the killer. He did the same thing to us back on the Jones case. Did it twice; we still got the recordings.”
    Cruz said, “Huh,” like, maybe yes, maybe no.
    The negotiator was saying, “You gotta man up, Don. You gotta man up. You got responsibilities, you got a wife, you got kids. If you’re not involved, it won’t take long for us to figure it out.”
    Del said to Cruz, “If you put me on the phone, I can probably get him out of there in a couple of minutes.”
    Cruz studied him for a few seconds, then asked, “You pals?”
    “Not exactly. But he knows me. I don’t bullshit him.”
    Cruz shrugged: “Gotta ask the man,” and flipped a thumb at the negotiator.
     
     
    WHEN THE MAN TOOK a short break, they asked him, and he said, “I’m working him around. I don’t need somebody setting me back.”
    “If you think I’ll set you back, then let’s not do it,” Del said. “But I wouldn’t. I think I could get him to come out.”
    The man looked at Cruz, who shrugged again and said, “Brett’s got us by the nuts—we can’t get in, we can’t shoot in, we can’t even gas in, without knowing who else is in there. We know there are at least two more. . . .”
    They both looked at Del, and then the negotiator said, “I’ll give you a couple minutes with him, if he comes back on the phone.”
     
     
    THEY GOT BRETT BACK on the line, and after a little back-andforth, the negotiator gave the phone to Del.
    Del said, “Hey, Don, this is Del. Yeah, it’s Del. I saw you at Einstein’s a couple weeks ago, you were getting a bag of bagels, and we bullshitted for a while. Yeah, the Jewish chick. Yeah, yeah.” He listened for a minute, and then said, “Listen, Don, I know you didn’t do it. I know you didn’t. We’re looking for a guy, and it ain’t you. Not only are we looking for him, the guy was shot in the arm yesterday, and if you don’t have a bullet hole in your arm, you’re good. And we’re getting DNA from the blood from his bullet wound, and if it ain’t your DNA, then it wasn’t you. Yeah, yeah, hey, it was on TV. You been watching TV, haven’t you? Yeah, it’s been on TV.”
    After a moment, Del took the phone away from his ear and said, “He’s talking to his old lady. She was watching TV.”
    He listened on the phone for another minute, then said, “They’re not gonna shoot you. If you want, I’ll come up there, and you can come out behind me. We already told the SWAT boss that you didn’t do it. Yeah, yeah. We told him. He’s right here. Who’s that crying?”
    Another few seconds, then, “Of course she’s scared. She’s probably scared shitless. No point in