Chapter Twenty
John Madison missed his little girl, not that she was still little… or a girl. All woman and an FBI agent, Charli would always be his precious baby granddaughter. And they had a routine he happened to cherish.
But it had been a long time, almost two weeks, since she’d contacted him. That had never happened before. She’d always managed to call every few days, even when she was undercover. He missed hearing her voice teasing him with her usual opening line, “Hey Popsicle. How’s things?”
The fact that she hadn’t called this time, even though she’d warned him she couldn’t, gave him even more reason to worry. After a couple of glasses of wine to loosen the man’s tongue, he’d set up traps to pry information from Mark Crawly. From his careful answers, John surmised that Charli’d taken on a witness protection gig. At least, that’s what he’d guessed and Crawly hadn’t refuted it, just changed the subject.
Having listened to a lot of audio suspense books and watched a lot of his favorite cop shows on TV, he decided to follow up on his instincts. He took one of the younger lodgers, a guy in his late seventies, aside. “Brad, you used to be an editor for one of the big newspapers, right?”
“Yep, those were the fun days, before my heart attack. Now, I’m just getting over my pneumonia, and still dealing with my Plantar Fasciitis and that makes walking as painful as hell.”
Thinking to butter him up, and against his better judgement because he knew the man to be a boring, whining hypochondriac whose every ailment became solely his own property, he dutifully said, “Sorry to hear that, Brad. You better now?”
“Better than my doctor.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“Well, a week ago I went to see him, and he said I had pneumonia. Told me we had to be careful because it killed old people like me.”
“Guess you beat it?”
“I did, but when I went back to see my doc earlier this morning, the nurse said he’d died yesterday… from pneumonia. Shook me up, I tell ya.”
John hid a grin. “How old was he?”
“Oh, just a youngster, maybe fifty. A pity.”
At Brad’s reply, John broke down and he laughed until he noticed Brad didn’t get the joke. His sour expression warned John to get serious. “So, what do you need to see me about?”
John sobered, not wanting to put Brad in one of his moods. “If I wanted to look up a certain day on the internet, involving stories about police activities, what’s the easiest way?”
Brad’s features became all business-like. “You mean ordinary break-ins and thefts or felony criminal cases like murder?”
“I’m thinking the bad shit. Can you show me?”
“All you’ll get from newspapers is what the police have offered to the reporters, not any in-depth explanations. You know that, right?”
“Sure, sure. I’m thinking something happened the night or two before Charli took off, and she’s involved in some way. I’m just being nosy.”
“Okay, it’ll be easy. And if you want more, I can always call in a few favors from the guys I know who still work at the paper.”
Soon, they sat together at his desk while Brad’s still limber fingers worked magic with the keys on his laptop. Together, they searched various newspapers and went back to the last few nights that Charli had been in town. Brad filtered through all the police posts and tragedies that took place in Seattle and eventually they hit the mother-load. They found what they sensed might bethestory.
A woman in an apartment across from Charli’s had been found shot, and there were no suspects yet. Which had to mean that the killer was still on the loose. Maybe someone had witnessed the shooting and could identify him? That’s if this story ran along the same lines as one of the old cop series,In Plain Sight, John had faithfully watched a few years ago.
Every week, they’d have to protect a witness, and so they’d moved him/her away until the killer was taken into custody. On one show that stood out in his memory, they’d intended to hold a trial so the witness could put the killer away for good. Except that’s not what happened.
The killer had found the victim’s family and taken them hostage. When the witness learned the truth, through social media leaking the story, he’d slipped away from his protectors to save his wife and child. If John remembered correctly, this had led to a huge battle where, of course, the law had arrived in time to shoot the killer. Other than the witness getting shot in the arm, the law had prevailed.
Great! He liked an ending where the good guys won – maybe because he was ferociously proud of his Charli and the role she’d chosen as an FBI agent, to help others and uphold the law.
“Hey, John, is this enough for now? Its dinnertime and they’re serving stuffed chicken breasts tonight. You know, I need to keep my strength up.”
“No problem, you go ahead. And, thanks, Brad. You’ve been a big help.” He fetched Brad’s walker that had been moved to the side.
Once Brad had his wheels, he left John to ponder over what they’d found. So, if Charli was involved in something like this, where would she go? Would they give her a choice? If he knew his Charli, he’d bet the farm she’d opted for Fort Lauderdale. Would they allow the protector to choose their own hiding place?
Damned if he knew the answer.