“But no explosives?” Even the threat of a bomb can change everything.
Hank holds up his hands. “Not that we’ve heard so far.” Hope knows that in a situation like this, anything could come up. Expect the unexpected.
“So I don’t guess anyone has made contact with the suspect?”
“Not yet. They’re getting our guys ready to approach, just to get a visual, confirm what the witnesses are saying if we can, but we can’t do much past that without backup.” He grimaces. “We’re, uh, a little out of our depth with this one.” He looks away from her, out the window beside his desk, as if he can see the post office from there, which he can’t. “That’s why it’ll be good to have you over there.”
“Thank you,” she tells him, “for trusting me.” He shrugs as if it is nothing, and perhaps it is for him. But it is a lot for Hope. Her mind goes back to the flowers left behind on her kitchen counter. Happy birthday to her. If she’d come into work in Philadelphia today, she would’ve found all kinds of nonsense waiting for her, meant to tease and taunt her, all part of tradition, all in good fun. There would be jokes and gag gifts and, eventually, cake. For a moment she feels homesick.
“I know you walked to work, so I’ve arranged for an officer to give you a ride over there.” Hank rises from his desk and Hope heads toward the door.
Hank pauses before he opens the door, looking awkward as he says, “Good luck out there.” He waves his hand in the air. “Orwhatever you’re supposed to say at times like these. Like I said, we don’t have them very often.”
Hope manages another thank you before he opens the door to reveal an officer waiting in the hall, a woman with her hair slicked back in a no-nonsense blonde ponytail, whose name tag reads “Brower.” The two nod in greeting before Brower waves at Hope to follow her, so she does. They walk out to a marked SUV and wordlessly drive over to the post office. At less than a mile away, it is a quick trip.
Brower puts the car in Park and looks out at the scene, then over at Hope, speaking for the first time. “Weird, huh?” she says. Hope nods in agreement. It is, indeed, weird.
Brower cuts the engine and opens the driver’s side door. “I’m supposed to take you over to talk to the witnesses.”
“Okay,” says Hope, feeling her nerves sparking just below the surface of her skin. She hopes all of this will be like riding a bike. And that could be the case. Just as long as she doesn’t let herself think about the last time she did this, all should be well. “I’ll follow you,” she tells Brower.
Brower’s blonde ponytail bounces girlishly as they cut through the clusters of cops milling around. Brower explains as they walk that they have two witnesses on the premises, women who work at the post office who had, according to their story, gone out to get lunch when everything occurred. “They moved them over here,” Brower says, gesturing toward where they’re headed, another office building several hundred yards away with a separate parking lot.
They cross blacktop and ragged strips of grass before stopping at the civilian car with the front and back doors open and two figures visible inside it. A uniformed officer hovers nearby, his car parked behind theirs, blocking them in. Whether that’s on purpose or just happenstance is unclear.
“This is going to be the staging area,” Brower adds, pointing at the building and the empty parking lot. “The chief says it’s a good place for the NOC and equipment and such.”
Hope nods and does not say she’d already assumed that. “I guess we should see what they have to say,” she says instead and walks over to the two women who are smoking cigarettes and watching the goings-on in the post office parking lot like some might watch a sporting event. The deputy who seems to be guarding the women nods at Hope and Brower as they approach, allowing them to pass. Hope raises her hand to the two women, hoping to appear friendly. She sees them sit up a little straighter.
One, as if caught doing something wrong, drops her cigarette to the ground and grinds it under her shoe, then looks up at Hope and sheepishly picks the butt up again, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger uncertainly. Beside her, Brower sticks out her hand and the girl drops it into her palm, looking relieved.
“Don’t want to be a litterbug,” the sheepish one says. Brower walks away, probably to dispose of the butt, as Hope asks for their names. The girl who dropped her cigarette says, “Stacy.” The one who holds on to hers says, “Martha,” exhaling a plume of smoke as she does.
“I’m Officer Sherwood,” Hope says. She almost saysDetective, out of habit, but catches herself. She had gained the rank of detective in Philadelphia. But here, by choice, she is just a part-time patrol officer.
Brower appears again at her side, so Hope yanks a thumb in her direction. “And this is Officer Brower.
“Can you tell me about what happened today?” Hope asks. They both start answering at the same time. Stacy, the younger one, talks faster and has a higher pitch to her voice, while Marthais lower and slower with her words. Hope holds up a hand and points to Martha. “Why don’t you go first?”
Stacy looks dejected but keeps quiet as Martha continues, detailing how they’d hatched a plan to go get hot dogs over at Burg-Dog in Shallotte for lunch. Martha admits it was totally against the rules, and they’d talked the young postal clerk, who is now trapped inside, into staying behind so they could go. Hope can feel the guilt emanating from her as she speaks.
Stacy interrupts Martha. “But have you ever had a Burg Dog?”
Hope has not and says so.
“Best hot dog you’ll ever eat.” Stacy nods to herself like this is justification of their unauthorized errand, but something about her face tells Hope she doesn’t really believe that.
Hope turns to Martha. “Let’s get to the part where you returned from lunch,” she prompts, an attempt to move the story along.
“Right,” says Martha. “We went around to the back like we’d usually do, but the door was bolted. We thought maybe Nadine got scared, you know, being there all alone, and locked herself in.” She pauses to light a new cigarette and inhales as she says, more to herself than to Hope, “She hasn’t been there all that long. We shouldn’t have left her.” She exhales and continues. “Then we figured we’d just go around to the front.”
Martha looks over at Stacy, then down at the ground. “Stacy had Nadine’s hot dog in her hand and was doing this silly little dance until... until we went in, and, well, we saw all the shi—I mean, the stuff he’d pulled in front of the doors. We looked through the glass and we could see all of them in there. And they just looked so... terrified.”
“How many hostages did you see?” Hope asks.
Martha shakes her head. “Two, maybe three customers? It all went down so fast. And of course Nadine—” Martha’s voicebreaks, and she stops speaking long enough to swallow back tears before taking another drag from the cigarette to steady herself. “Next thing we knew, he had a gun pointed at us. And I ran for my life even though I wanted to stay. I wanted to push through that barricade and wring his ever-loving neck.”
“Who ishe?” Hope asks Martha. She’s been told this is likely a domestic situation, but she wants to hear it from an eyewitness.
