“Sam McRae’s Day Off” (A Short Story)

Okay, you may recall this story (the second story I wrote for the anthology A Bag of Dick’s).

Well, this is the one that actually made it in.

It’s called “Sam McRae’s Day Off.”

Sam McRae’s Day Off
by Debbi Mack

“So, Sam,” Andrea said. “How do you like the Northwest, so far?”

I’d had maybe four waking hours to adjust to the three-zone time change from Eastern to Pacific. I was still in a minor fog as we pulled into the lot at a drive-in diner that looked like a relic from the movie American Graffiti.

“Well, it was dark when I flew in,” I said. “But what I’ve seen of it since breakfast has been pretty impressive.”

It was the mountains. Andrea’s condo had a view of Mount Rainier that would’ve looked like a picture postcard, if it hadn’t been mostly shrouded in clouds. Even so, the size of the mountain took my breath away.

The intensity of my emotion could probably be explained not only by the time change, but by the fact that I’d overcome a nearly debilitating fear of flying to visit Andrea in Spokane. When I was nine, my parents died in a plane crash. So, despite the physics of aeronautics and the many statistics that said otherwise, I had a deep distrust in the whole concept of large metal objects actually defying gravity long enough to safely get me anywhere.

Had it not been for meeting Andrea Cousins at a recent public defenders’ conference, where we’d quickly bonded as former public defenders, I might never have ventured this far across the continent.

A group of friends had also helped pay for the plane ticket: Walt Shapiro, my mentor from the PD’s office had contacted another lawyer, Jamila Williams, who also brought in Reed Duvall, a private eye I worked with. Duvall got my neighbor Russell Burke involved. They’d each contributed toward a ticket I never thought I’d buy.

This all started because Jamila had expressed concern that I might be burning out, especially after I’d been forced to shoot someone. It was self-defense, but still. They don’t teach you this stuff in law school. Or any school I went to.

When I told Andrea I’d be visiting, because I was overdue for a vacation, leaving out the apparent need for an intervention, she invited me to stay in her guest room. I decided to spare my saviors the cost of a motel room, but insisted on paying for meals.

Andrea’s cute little Prius seemed at odds with the retro feel of the diner where lunch was in full swing. We left the car and joined the crush of burger fans forming rough lines before a phalanx of cashiers.

A young, clean-cut man with kind eyes buried within rough features maneuvered between the lines as he approached us. He stopped beside Andrea and placed a quiet word in her ear. Andrea turned to look at him, her eyes widened to roughly the size of silver dollars. Really large ones.

I wondered about that, but didn’t say anything. Figured it was none of my business.

However, once we got our food and sat down, Andrea opened up.

“I just heard the craziest thing,” she said. After throwing a quick glance about, Andrea leaned toward me. “There’s this guy on the Spokane police force. His name is Morgan. Anyway, the guy’s like a real-life Dirty Harry.

“I just heard that someone saw Morgan make a deal with a guy who’s seen the inside of a jail cell a few times. A local junkie. You know, the type. Someone the world doesn’t give a shit about. The way I heard it, Morgan saw a man leave here holding a Dick’s bag and wanted this loser who just happened to be eating here to find the guy and bring him the bag.”

I had to agree. That was weird.

Andrea sighed. “Here’s the thing. You know as well as I do that cops have to make certain quotas. Like a certain number of arrests. So here’s where it gets really interesting. Not only does Morgan want whatever is in that bag, but he makes a deal with Loser that gives him a kind of insurance-a ‘free pass’ on being arrested, if he gets the bag. But that’s not the weird part.”

I nodded. Not at all weird. More like business as usual.

“Somehow or other, Loser manages to get Morgan to agree to give him multiple ‘free passes’ if he can bring him more than one bag. And he gave him a deadline, midnight tomorrow.”

Now, my eyes bulged from their sockets. “Are you kidding me? You realize what he’s probably gonna do, right?”

“Well, unless he wants to be killed or beaten within an inch of his life, he’s not gonna rat on anyone. This isn’t DC, Sam. It’s a small town. I figure he’ll get a bunch of bags, put whatever shit he’s got in them, and plant some of the evidence on people.”

“And not just any people,” I said. “The kind the world doesn’t give a shit about.”

Andrea looked disgusted. “This is exactly why I became a public defender. The whole vicious cycle. Guys like Morgan keep making the problem worse. Claiming to do it for justice, when they’re actually looking out for themselves, in a system that doesn’t work. I mean, should work.”

She lapsed into silence. After a moment, she added, “Sorry. I’m not usually this preachy.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Does this Loser have a name?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to think of his name. I’ve seen him around. He’s been in and out of the system. Maybe Utz?”

My mouth involuntarily tilted into a smirk. “How about we take a little tour of Spokane? Maybe look for Mr. Utz or whoever he is? Maybe have a talk with him?”

Andrea gave me a look that suggested I might be losing it. “Sam, this is supposed to be a vacation.”

“And it is,” I said, my smirk stretching into a smile. Doing exactly what I love. Messing with the man.

She tilted her head, eyes radiating skepticism. Maybe she was a mind reader.

“So what do you want to do?” She threw out the question like a challenge to a duel.

“I think we should start by talking to the people who work here.”

We finished our burgers and got right to it.

As we were dumping our trash, I asked Andrea, “Did your source say anything about what the guy with the Dick’s bag looked like?”

She shrugged. “The way he was described, could be anybody in this town. Just a guy with longish hair wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. Real distinctive.”

“Hmm. There must be a way to identify him. I take it your source didn’t know him?”

She shook her head. “Apparently, he’s a stranger.”

I headed toward the cashiers, who were still busy, but slightly less so. “Excuse me,” I said, raising my voice enough to be heard over the sizzling, deep-frying, and food ordering noises. “Has anyone working a register served someone you didn’t recognize? If so, raise your hand.”

Of the seven cashiers present, five raised a hand. Really narrowed things down.

“Have any of you served a man today with longish hair, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans?” I asked.

A thoughtful expression rippled across their features. The still-raised hands wavered a bit, but didn’t go down.

I glanced at Andrea, whose mouth hung open. “Sorry,” I mouthed.

“Hang on.” One of the cashiers approached me. The girl was in her late teens going on thirty. She wore a name tag that read “Molly”. “I’ll get someone to cover for me here. Then, we can talk.”

When I looked back at Andrea, she was smiling. After Molly arranged for a replacement, we met her in the back room behind the kitchen.

“I think I know who you’re looking for,” Molly said. “Black T-shirt? Hair grazing his shoulders?”

I nodded. “You waited on him?”

Molly shook her head. “I didn’t wait on him, but I noticed the guy because he was acting kinda strange.”

“In what way strange?” I asked.

Molly hesitated. “First, he had some kind of special order. He made a huge big deal about getting it right.”

Like he wanted to make sure he had the right bag? Should I just ask? I didn’t want to ask too many questions, for fear of seeming too inquisitive.

“He also seemed nervous, looking around,” she added. “And I saw him take off running when he left.”

Andrea nudged my arm. “That’s right. The man with the Dick’s bag did run away, possibly because he saw Morgan. Given the cop’s reputation, that didn’t seem surprising.”

Okay, so maybe the man had something illegal in the Dick’s bag. Or maybe he just feared the police, in general. But, apparently, avoiding the cops might qualify as grounds for what? Suspicion? A Terry stop, that briefest of arrests allowed if there’s “reasonable suspicion” (whatever that means)? A search incident to running? How about grounds for a warrantless search and seizure?

I thought fondly of the days when the Fourth Amendment might have meant something.

“Do you know a guy named Utz?” I asked.

Molly jerked her chin up in a nod. “You mean Utt? Name’s Roy Utt. I’ve seen him around. Why?”

“Where does he hang out?” I asked, ignoring her question. We needed to find Utt, see what he was up to ourselves. At this point, all we had were secondhand accounts of various incidents by people who may not be recalling or sharing everything. “Where have you seen him?”

“You could try CD’s,” she said. Smirking, she added, “It’s a dump, but they have pool tables and dartboards.”

When we found CD’s Lounge, it turned out to be quite the dump indeed. The lighting was, thankfully, almost nonexistent. I’m sure the darkness hid a multitude of visions I had no desire to see. Unfortunately, it couldn’t mask the odors of cigarette breath and B.O., with a faint undertone of vomit, the remains of which we could be walking on. I was afraid to enter the place, not due to the murky and odiferous interior, but due to the fact that it looked like it might collapse at any moment.

Naturally, the jukebox was blaring music so loudly, a simple stroll through the room felt like marching into a sonic wind blast. Judging by the feeling beneath my shoes, we seemed to be marching over flypaper.

There were also only three women in the room. Not counting Andrea and myself. One of them, in a floral print dress, looked like someone’s alcoholic grandmother. Another was pasty-faced and wore an oversized Seahawks jersey that hung loosely over her stick figure frame. Her arms were likely covered with track marks. The third one looked like a Sluts-R-Us wannabe. She sauntered out the door, which left us Granny and Junkie. My guess was Junkie would be the better source.

The men I could make out looked almost identical. They all wore threadbare clothing and expressions that seemed to hover somewhere between boredom and exhaustion. Even their once-overs of Andrea and myself were brief and uber-casual, as if it took too much effort to ogle us outright. Across the room, pool tables were barely visible in the gloom.

After a quick chat, Andrea and I approached Junky Girl. Basically, we concocted a story and hoped it would fly. She looked half-asleep, so it shouldn’t have been hard to convince her.

I let Andrea take the lead. “Excuse me,” she said. “My name is Andrea Cousins. I’m a local attorney. There’s a matter my associate and I are looking into.”

That was my cue. “We’re trying to confirm the identity of a possible heir to some money,” I said. “The heir’s name is Roy Utt. We understand Mr. Utt has been known to frequent this establishment.”

Junky Girl suddenly snapped awake. “What is this? This is the second time Utt’s name has come up in the last five minutes.”

I wondered if that were true. Was her perception of time screwed or was someone else looking for Utt?

“Who spoke to you about Utt?” I asked.

Junky Girl began to snicker. She also started to nod off again.

I positioned my mouth beside her ear. “Hey,” I half-shouted over the musical din. She snapped to alert again.

“Who talked to you about Utt?”

Junky Girl waved a frail hand about as if shooing off mosquitos. “This babe came in here, dressed like a freaking escort or something. She said Roy Utt might be her baby daddy. And she had to talk him about his responsibilities.” Her bony frame shook with laughter. “If you knew Utt, you’d know how funny that one is.”

I recalled the overdressed woman who’d beat a retreat at the time Andrea and I had arrived. Did the Third Woman know something we didn’t?

“Do you know where Utt is?” I asked.

The junky appraised me. “What’s it worth to you?”

I offered her forty bucks, when she would’ve taken half that. As a result, she got real chatty about Utt. And Morgan.

“Utt’s a total loser. Kinda sad, really. I heard he was in construction, got hurt, and developed severe back problems. He was legit, but had a hell of a time getting any compensation. Ended up becoming a pill head. I think between lack of decent work or pay and the pills and the pain, the guy just bottomed out. Anyhow, last I heard, he was on the street.”

Andrea nodded. “The city has recently developed a visible homeless problem.”

“He was living in a trailer park, at one time,” Junky Girl continued. “Check around under the bridges, too.”

And as for Morgan, Junky Girl was less than kind. “Oh, that guy’s just an asshole cop,” she said. I won’t repeat the long litany of clever ways the man had developed to avoid observing the Bill of Rights.

Before Andrea and I moved on, Junky Girl (whose name I never asked) said, “You’ll know by his fashion sense. He always wears red Converse shoes. And carries that stupid Chicago Bulls jersey, which for some reason he never puts on.” She shook her head. “You’ll also know him by his incredibly sunburned back. Damn thing looks like a pizza.” She laughed again. “You’d think he’d put that stupid jersey on.”

Andrea and I made our exit at that point. As we made our way to the car, a woman clearly past-thirty but dressed like a teenager sauntered our way.

“You ladies want to contribute to my fund,” she sang.

As she told the story, someone answering the Third Woman’s description had asked her about Utt’s whereabouts and paid her twenty bucks. I doubled the donation and got the name of the trailer park where Utt once lived.

Before we left, we located the trailer park using Google Maps. The place was tucked into a tree stand just outside the city limits.

“Seems awfully far from that burger place,” I said.

“People around here love those burgers,” Andrea explained, as we traveled toward our destination.

We eventually pulled into a small gravel-covered lot upon which a few single- and double-wides were scattered about. The only sign of habitation was an elderly man, eyes buried within aging flesh. He sat before a trailer in a deck chair, dwarfed beneath a huge faded yellowish-tan-and-white umbrella, sipping from a brown bottle.

Andrea pulled the car up near him. Though the open window, I said, “Hi. I’m looking for Roy Utt. Have you seen him?”

The old fellow squinted, I think. “Never heard of him.”

“Someone told us he lived here.”

The man smiled. “He might have. Once.”

“Leon. Don’t be a dick.” A woman’s voice rang out. She appeared from around the corner of the trailer. She was a pretty young girl with eyes like steel.

“Can you help us find Utt?” I said, trying my best to look pathetic. “We really need to talk to him.”

The steel in her eyes melted a bit. “Utt did live here, but he couldn’t afford to stay. I hear he’s living out of a car now.”

She gave us directions to the car. I wondered how she could be sure the vehicle would be there, until we arrived and saw that it had no wheels. It sat in a small dirt lot near a junkyard.

Andrea and I each surveyed the interior. No sign of the bag in question. Just a few items of old clothing and a miscellany of crap.

“Hello.” The voice came from behind us. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Turning to look, I saw the Third Woman. Who the hell is this?

“What are you doing here?” I asked her. Andrea stole a quick glance at me.

The woman smiled. A becoming smile, one I didn’t quite trust. “I’m just taking a walk.”

Sure. Who wouldn’t want to take a walk near an old junkyard?

The Third Woman cocked her head. “Weren’t you two just at …?”

I smiled. Yes?

“Yes, we were,” Andrea said. It was my turn to shoot her a look. “Now, what are you doing here?” she added.

The woman paused a fraction before responding. “Is this about the guy with the Dick’s bag?”

What on earth? “What is up with that?” I asked. “Have you heard about the deal with the cops?”

The woman smiled and nodded, as Andrea and I gave her a quick summary of our concerns. “Something stinks about the situation,” I concluded.

The woman’s smile remained fixed. “It is odd,” she said.

Yeah. A lot of things are odd.

“Look,” she said. “Why don’t we work together to find that bag? Or Utt?”

She told us her name was Laura Flitcraft and shared what she knew about Morgan, Utt, and the third man who ran away. Apparently, the woman outside CD’s had given us good, but incomplete information. To my chagrin, I wondered if Ms. Flitcraft simply asked better questions.

“What’s your interest in this?” I asked.

“Well … it’s a bit personal.” Her face reddened considerably.

I decided not to go there. Thing is, I couldn’t help thinking, Now that’s a handy excuse.

However, this Flitcraft lady seemed to have an advantage on us, in terms of information. Even as I wondered about her motives and methods, I found myself drawn into planning a search for Utt.

We divided the city and surroundings up, then divided each section into thirds. Each of us searched one of the thirds. And it was to proceed that way until we either found Utt, with or without Dick’s bag, or ran out of places to look for him.

Since it seemed only fair for Andrea to use her own car, I ended up Ubering for the first time. Spokane also has a much better bus system than I’m used to.

As I searched my area, I pondered what could possibly be in the bag we sought. Could it be something other than drugs? Something really dangerous?

What happened next was more than a bit weird. Andrea and I received a text from Laura Flitcraft. She sent a location and asked us to meet her there. It was a block away from a low stone wall bordering the corner of a mid-sized office park. She explained that a seemingly-reliable source had told her the bag could quite likely be in a dead drop in the stone wall.

“I figured it best to meet at a discreet distance from the dead drop,” she said. “Keep an eye out as we approach. If it looks like trouble, we can stop. If not, let’s cross the street and look for the bag inside the dead drop.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s just go for it.” I wanted to find answers and be done with this … whatever this was.

We crept toward the intersection with stealth worthy of cartoon characters. But the place looked almost abandoned. Not a soul in sight.

“You see that?” Andrea said. She nodded toward to a narrow, charcoal-colored patch in the lighter gray hues of the rock wall.

“That’s it,” Laura said. The streets were quiet, with no one in sight. We hurried toward the wall and checked what turned out to be a deep crack in the mortar between two stones.

Laura Flitcraft reached inside the hole and pulled out a fast-food bag. Just not a Dick’s bag.

Then, a black limo appeared at the curb. The back window eased down. A woman’s face appeared where the window had been. She had ink-black hair and wore a pair of Jackie O-style sunglasses that failed to mask her hawkish features.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her tone frosty.

I wondered the same of her. I checked the car over. Saw the tag. Diplomatic. What was that about?

“We’re looking for Utt,” Laura uttered. I felt my eyes widen and could sense Andrea’s tension. What had we gotten involved with?

The woman in the limo seemed to look askance at our new-found companion. Hard to tell with those glasses on. “Who?”

“So he has nothing to do with a certain … bag?” Laura pressed on. I wanted to beg her to STFU.

“Like the one you’re holding?” A handgun rose into view, pointed at Laura. “Hand it over,” she ordered.

Laura threw the bag at her like a pitcher hurling a 99 mile-an-hour fastball down the middle. The woman opened it, examined the contents, scrunched the bag closed, and tossed it back to Laura.

Then she opened a pricey-looking satchel and dropped the gun in it, before setting it aside.

The woman peered over her sunglasses at Laura Flitcraft. “I have no idea who Utt is. As for the bag, I’d forget about it.”

She’d stowed the pistol by then, so I risked posing a question. “What’s going on?” Well, someone had to ask.

The woman turned my way and I matched her metallic-blue-eyed gaze. Do not show fear when facing wild animals.

“Are you familiar with the CIA? The NSA?” she said.

“Well, are you familiar with them?” she snapped, when no one answered.

“Yes, of course,” I said, trying for nonchalant. Andrea and Laura indicated that they, too, knew of the agencies.

She nodded. “Well, so are we. And you lot should stay out of this.” Then, she smiled and gave the driver’s backrest a few taps. “Let’s roll,” she said. The window rose, and the limousine slid off.

Andrea said, “Sam? You catch the tags?”

I nodded. “Yep. Diplomatic.”

“Well,” Laura Flitcraft said. She began to open the bag.

“Hold on,” I said. “I’m thinking maybe this isn’t really our business.” And maybe I’m better off not knowing.

Andrea nodded. “I’m inclined to agree. Sounds pretty serious, too.” She jerked her chin sideways. “We were going to take a hike. Remember?”

Delightful. Tromping for miles through woods. Sticky with sunscreen. Irish skin sucks. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s take a hike.”

“Okay.” Laura’s eyebrow cocked in a thoughtful expression. “I need to see this through. Like I said, for me it’s personal. And I’m … curious, I guess.”

I, too, was curious. What was her real agenda?

After exchanging some polite farewell chit-chat, we moved off. But not so fast that we missed hearing the agonized groan Laura Flitcraft issued behind us.

“What do you suppose that was all about?” Andrea muttered.

I shook my head. “Whatever it is, it’s not our problem.”

But now, at least, I had a story to tell everyone once I got back home.

THE END

PS: Little did I realize when I wrote this series that I was just beginning. 🙂

You can read my Sam McRae novels (and Erica Jensen novels) in serialized format, if you become a Patreon supporter! That and much more! 🙂

Originally published at http://randomandsundrythings.wordpress.com on August 11, 2023.