“Be the pain, grasshopper,” Dan advised him, then knelt over his victim.
Within seconds Dan had used plastic-tie handcuffs (he never went anywhere without them, including on dates) to bind the guy’s hands behind him.
When Dan finally pulled the ski mask off, the moment of potential drama fizzled, because he didn’t recognize the guy, a young-looking but chiseled character who Dan immediately made as ex-military.
By this time the guy’s screams had dissolved into howls of pain. You could be a Marine or a Green Beret or a Navy Seal, it didn’t matter—a kick in the balls was the great leveler.
“Nice meeting you, too,” Dan said.
Then he got back on his cell phone. The intruder was only moaning now, but that still meant Dan had to work a little to get his voice up over it and be heard.
“Me again, Ms. Tree—got interrupted by a guy lookin’ for a ski lift.”
“You all right?”
“Fine. Took several highly skilled martial arts moves to bring this boy down.”
“Martial arts?”
“Yeah. First move, kick him in the ass. Second move, kick in the balls. Pretty much all you need to know in the ancient discipline I follow.”
“Anybody we know?”
Dan paced as he spoke, watching his captive but keeping a certain distance. “Not from my social circle. Of course, you draw from a wider range of assholes, Ms. Tree, than a clean-cut kid like me.”
“Want me to call Rafe?”
“Naw, I’ll do it. Funny thing, Masked Marauder had a chance to leave, but changed his mind and came back for something.”
“Back for what?”
Dan paced with purpose now, looking at the floor, seeking the object in question. “Something he brought with him, something small and solid, metal maybe. He threw whatever the hell it was at me, when I got the drop on him and...whoa.”
“Dan?”
Dan knelt over something that looked very familiar: a small shiny deco clock radio.
“Dan?”
“Hang with me, Ms. Tree.”
Dan and his cell phone moved quickly to the bedroom and in seconds he was holding the clock radio he’d just recovered up next to its identical twin on the nightstand.
“We got that rare kinda B & E guy, Ms. Tree,” he said.
“What rare kind is that?”
“The kind that brings a
Dan Green and I were in the small, dimly lit observation booth looking through our side of the half-silvered mirror onto the brightly lit interview room where Rafe Valer—in shirt sleeves, loose tie and empty shoulder holster —prowled like he was the one caged.
Meanwhile, his suspect sat calmly at a small table, on which—like an odd centerpiece—rested a transparent evidence bag holding a metallic deco clock radio. A uniformed officer stood guard in one corner.
The intruder from the Addwatter apartment, still attired in black but sans his ski mask, stared unknowingly at Dan and me, blank-faced; he’d been stonewalling for the fifteen minutes we’d been watching this.
His features were a little too bony to be handsome despite light blue eyes; his blond hair was in a military crew; and his age was hard to make—somewhere in the no man’s land between twenty-five and forty. He kept his arms folded and he rarely blinked and eye contact with his interrogator was also rare.
We did know that his name was Ron Grubb—he hadn’t given it up (his vaguely military bearing did not extend to offering name/rank/serial number); but several bullpen detectives seeing the perp hauled in had recognized him from other busts, as the homicide lieutenant was referencing right now.
“This isn’t just another B & E collar, Ron,” Rafe said, still prowling one side of the table in the little room. “This time you’re cutting yourself in on murder.”
That finally got a reaction out of Ron, though not anything desired: he laughed, once. Still not looking at Rafe.
Rafe stopped pacing and planted himself next to the suspect. “You find that funny, Ron?”
Looking at himself in the mirror (and inadvertently at Dan and me), Ron said, “It’s funny, you waving murder at me.
Rafe’s eyes and nostrils flared. “Spare me that story again....”
But Ron did not spare Rafe or us.
As we’d heard three times, in rote response, Ron said, “Got a friend in the building. Got off on the wrong floor. Saw a door ajar and heard suspicious noises and checked it out.”
“In a ski mask and gloves.”
“It’s winter, in case you didn’t deduce that yet, Detective.”
Now Ron’s face swung to look up at Rafe and a small trace of a sarcastic smile was there if you tried hard enough to see it.
“And anyway, did I have a ski mask on when your boys found me? On the floor? Roughed up by that snotnose P.I.? Maybe you’re cutting
Rafe drew a breath, expelled it, then began to pace again.
And Ron just sat there smugly at the table, arms folded, face stony.
In our dark little observation booth, Dan said to me, “Rafe says my buddy Ron’s at the head of his class in B & E busts, over the last decade or so.”
“Yeah, and only one conviction.”
“Desert Storm vet.”
I nodded. “No question the guy’s a pro. And watch him ride
Over on the bright side of the glass, Rafe leaned in and plucked the bagged radio from the table and thrust it in his guest’s face.
“You know what this is, Ron? This is the radio you brought with you.”
Again, Ron was not returning Rafe’s gaze, nor was he acknowledging the object waved in front of his face.
The perp said, “So owning a radio’s a crime now? Wow. Gotta write that one down.”
“The other radio’s in the lab, who already confirmed finding a transmitter inside it.”
“Inside what?”
“The other radio!”
“Other radio?
“The one on the nightstand in Marcy Addwatter’s bedroom.” Rafe shook its bagged twin at Ron. “The one you were planning to swap out with this one!”
Ron’s brow tightened. He actually looked at the bagged radio. And he thought for several long moments.
Then he said, “Let’s say—hypothetically—I knew that the lady of the house whacked the man of the house, the other day.”
“Let’s say.”
Ron shrugged. “And, so, you know, it was common knowledge nobody was home. A guy with a rap sheet like mine might go in for a look around, right? Nothing to do with the hubby’s murder, other than it cleared the path for a little plunder. Hypothetically.”
Rafe’s eyes were tight as he leaned in over the suspect. “You’re right, Ron, nobody was home...’cause the lady of the house killed two people, including the man of the house. Safe to go in and remove
