Campanelli: Sentinel by Frederick H. Crook Page B

barriers.”
                  “No problem, we do that all the time,” the passenger, an older man of about sixty answered gruffly but somehow pleasantly. “Clear da way!” he called out the open window to the gaggle of policemen.
                  Standing aside, Frank and Marcus watched with the waiting uniforms as the ancient and beaten vehicle rolled out into the street and backed its tail to the barriers. Getting out, both men took down the tailgate and retrieved rusty chains from its bed. The older man wrapped one end of the chain upon the tow hooks of the truck’s frame while his younger, larger partner fed his end underneath and over the first barrier, hooking the end of the chain back on itself. Getting into the driver’s seat, the younger man guided the truck as it labored noisily to pull the barrier away. The concrete mass scraped the sidewalk yet again, almost exactly along the grooves that it had made previously. They repeated the procedure for the other barrier.
                  “You guys have any tools for takin’ this down?” Campanelli asked of the older street department employee as he gathered his chain. He dropped the chain noisily to the sidewalk and stepped to the wooden wall.
                  “I don’t have no power drill for the screws,” the burly old man said, “but we got axes an’ picks.”
                  “Let’s do this,” Frank said and followed the man to his truck. In the back where the chains had lain were a collection of hand tools including shovels and brooms. “Officers?!” he called as he took up an axe and handed it to the first. “Take these and get that open.”
                  The four uniforms took the offered tools and went to work. A couple of them looked to each other as if to question whether or not it was their job, but a hard stare from Campanelli and the fact that Williams was the first one taking a whack at the board-up convinced them.
                  “’Scuse me, detective,” the older street worker said to Campanelli, “but you guys are goin’ in dere?”
                  “That’s the idea,” Frank answered a bit annoyed at the apparently silly question.
                  “I think ya should know dat the place is crawlin’ with squatters. They get in by peeling the boards from the shop windows or from the back doors at the alley. At night you can see their campfires.”
                  Frank had anticipated this, which is why he had called for backup. In a city full of abandoned apartment buildings and surrounding suburbs with empty single family homes, places like the parking garage still attracted the homeless for some reason.
                  “Thanks for your help and for the warning, friend,” Campanelli said and shook the man’s hand.
                  “No prob,” he said and added, “Just so you know, don’t expect to get to da top. Word has it that part of the structure has fallen in somewhere past the fifth or sixth floor.”
                  Frank thanked him again and turned his attention to his men. In just under two minutes, the great panel of wood was reduced to splinters. Only the parts at the screws remained attached to the walls.
                  While the men returned the tools to the truck, he briefed the uniformed officers on what they were looking for and led the patrol cars inside. Frank guided the cruiser manually around the first upward bend to the right. All three cars washed the graffiti-covered concrete walls with headlights and searchlights as they rolled cautiously and slowly forward.
                  Their path widened once it met the second floor, opened as it was to accommodate parking spaces on either side of them. It was here that the first abandoned vehicles were discovered. Covered in thick layers of dust and dirt, they lay between