by EH Reinhard
“What else do you know about his organization?” I asked. “Any clue how he could link up with our other dead criminals? Guerro or Treadwell?”
“Shit, nothing off the top of my head other than the profession. I mean, a rival dealer taking out all of the competition makes sense, but I haven’t really heard of anything like that going on.” King scratched at his cheek. “So we have three dead drug dealers and more dead members of their crews all inside of the last month or so. Let me call a couple of other precincts and see if I can come up with anything. We should probably find out if this is a localized thing or we’re looking at something a little larger. Who knows, we may have someone from Miami or something trying to take over the market up here.”
“Let me know if you hear anything,” I said.
“I will,” King said. He stood from my guest chair and started for the door.
A thought bubbled up in my head. “One second, King,” I said.
He stopped just before the doorway and turned back. “Something else?” he asked.
“Do you have anyone that you can think of that maybe has both drug and robbery charges in their history?”
“Um, no one jumps to mind, but I could definitely take a look. What kind of robbery are we looking for?”
“Anything. Armed would probably be a good starting point.”
“If we’re looking for something like that, there would definitely be time served involved. I’ll do some digging on that.”
“All right. Let me know if you hear anything. Who knows, maybe it will give us something to look into,” I said.
King gave me a quick nod and left my office. I dialed the number that Reynolds had given me for the employee. The phone rang three times and went to voicemail. I left my name, number, and a message to call me. I glanced over at the clock—a few minutes before eight. I needed to come up with some kind of game plan for the day. I was pretty certain the captain would be looking for one as soon as he walked in and heard that we had four more murders overnight. I started making a list.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The small tan single-story house, surrounded by a waist-high chain-link fence, wasn’t in the best area of town, but it had been nice enough inside—that was, until David got there and began searching for Tim’s money. The kitchen cabinets had been gone through, and most of the dishes that were inside had found new homes, shattered and scattered across the faux hardwood floor. The oven and dishwasher had been ripped apart. The pots, pans, and cleaning supplies that were in the lower cabinets were piled in the sink, and some had come to rest near the broken dishes on the floor. The rest of the home had received the same thorough searching. The master and spare bedrooms were torn apart, both mattresses and box springs cut open. Clothes from closets and dressers had been piled on the floor. David had even gone as far as punching random holes in the walls to search behind the drywall—he’d found nothing, not a single dollar.
David sat on the cut-up couch in the living room. The cushions had chunks of foam protruding from them. He leaned his elbow into a torn-open couch pillow and stared directly ahead at the front door. His phone rang in his hand. David looked at the screen for a split second before clicking Talk and bringing it to his ear.
“About damn time you call back,” he said.
“Sorry, we just got back to the house,” Brad said. “We didn’t take our phones. You never know. We didn’t want to be able to be traced to where we dumped the…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” David said. “You’re worrying about them tracking your phones, but then you’re going to say it on the phone, anyway. Use your head.”
“Sorry. So what’s going on over there?” Brad asked.
“Nothing. I’m waiting.”
“For?”
“The woman to get home. I’m going to need her assistance in finding what we were looking for.”
A pause came from Brad’s end of the phone. “Are you planning on…?” His question trailed off.
“I’ll see if she wants to be helpful first,” David said. “Maybe a bit of persuasion if she doesn’t, and then we’ll see. Don’t worry about it. I’ll probably just have you guys come out and pick me up when I’m finished, seeing as how you’re done with what you were working on.”
“Yeah, okay,” Brad said. “So it will probably be a bit?”
“I’ll let you know.” David clicked off from the call and went back to staring at the front door.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I sat in the chair across from Captain Bostok at his desk. He leaned back in his chair, rested his arms across his large stomach, and stared at the ceiling. He appeared to be in thought. “When is Rawlings coming in?” he asked.
“He should be here anytime now. I talked to him around forty minutes ago.”
“Okay. So what’s your first contact to be made?” Bostok asked.
“Ed, actually. I wanted to see if this guy that worked in the club came in to ID the bodies. From there, I guess I’m going to make stops at the two addresses that we have for the two security guards. I’ll probably be working the phones for the rest of the day or, shit, week. We’re going to need to get a list of the club’s employees and start conducting interviews as well.”
“And you said that King was going to look into a few things?”
“That’s what he said, yeah.” I heard my desk phone ringing in my office through the glass. “Let me go see who that is. Maybe it’s Rick with something.”
Bostok nodded and went back to staring at the ceiling.
I walked next door to my office and scooped up the phone. “Lieutenant Kane,” I said.
“Hey, it’s Timmons. We actually just got a call regarding your BOLO vehicle.”
“BOLO vehicle?” I asked.
“The 1980s minivan that Sergeant Rawlings had me put across the wire.”
The van had completely escaped my mind. “Right, sorry. A ton of stuff going on. What did you get?”
“A call from up by Brooksville. I guess they just found a van matching the description, torched and up by the Withlacoochee State Forest. They claim that they have a body inside.”
“Body?” I asked.
“That’s what the word was,” Timmons said.
“How old is this?” I asked.
“I just got the call. As far as I know, this is all pretty fresh.”
“Who did you talk to up there?”
“The call came from the patrol division at the Hernando County Sheriff’s Department. I spoke with a Deputy Mayer. I have a number here.”
“Let me get it,” I said.
Timmons gave it to me, and I wrote it down.
“Is that an office number or mobile?” I asked.
“Mobile. He said that he was heading to the scene.”
“Thanks, Timmons. Let me give this guy a call.”
“No sweat, Kane. Hope it pans out for you. I’ll keep the BOLO live just in case this isn’t what we’re looking for.”
“Sure,” I said. I clicked off and dialed the number for the deputy. Someone answered after a couple of rings.
“Deputy Mayer,” a man said. His voice was gruff, as if he was a heavy smoker or had been in years past.
“This is Lieutenant Carl Kane from Tampa Homicide. I’m calling in regards to a BOLO vehicle that you called us on.”
“Yeah, I just spoke with a patrol sergeant from the TPD. This might be your vehicle. I actually just got on site not more than a minute ago, and I’m walking toward the scene now. If you want to give me a second, I’ll know some more in a minute here.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “And this was an eighties minivan?”
“That’s what the call that came back was.”
“With a body inside?” I asked.
“Correct.”
“What do we know about the scene right now?”
“A woman walking called in the vehicle, which was still smoldering at the time of her call. We dispatched a few cruisers and alerted the fire department. The deputy f
irst on the scene called back to the station that there was a body in the vehicle, and it matched a BOLO that came through to our station yesterday. Hold on, I can see everyone through the trees up ahead. Yeah, here’s our spot, just on the back side of the park where it meets the field.”
I waited on the line, listening to the deputy breathe deeply as he walked. “Okay, the van is parked in the field behind the back of the park here. Looks like an older Astro or Safari minivan. Gray from what I can tell of the parts that aren’t burned. We have a sliding door open. I can see a body inside.”
“What do you know about the body? Male or female?” I asked.
I could hear the deputy talking with someone but couldn’t make out the conversation.
“Body size would lead me to believe that it was a male,” he said. “Some of the clothing looks still intact. About all that I can give you at this point.”
“Okay. How many people do you have on scene right now?” I asked.
“Two deputies and a couple of guys from our crime lab. They just made the call to get someone out here to tow it back to our shop.”
“Do you think you can put a hold on that for an hour or so? I’d like to come and have a look at the scene as is.”
“Um, I’m sure we probably could. We already roped off the area around here, so we don’t really have any prying eyes or foot traffic that we’d need to worry about.”
“All right. Where are you exactly?” I asked.
“Highway 50. East of 75 by around a quarter mile or so. The van is off Kettering Road but actually closer to the Withlacoochee State Trail than the road itself. Just make a right on Kettering and you’ll see some of our cars. Someone will bring you back to the van. It’s in the field, right at the back edge of the trees.”
“Got it,” I said. “I’m going to leave here now, downtown Tampa. You should see me there in an hour or so.”
“Sure. It was Lieutenant Kane, you said?”
“Correct.”
“I’ll make sure someone is watching for you,” Deputy Mayer said.
“Thank you.” I hung up and fished my keys from inside of my desk. I locked up my office and popped in next door to the captain.
“Cap, I’m heading out to the Brooksville area. I guess the sheriff’s department up there may have found our BOLO vehicle.”
“The minivan?” Bostok asked. “I take it you spoke to Rawlings about that last night?”
“Yeah, he filled me in and said that he was going to have patrol put the BOLO out. The deputy that I just got off the phone with said that there’s a body inside. The van was torched. Body as well.”
“What do you make of a body being inside of it?” Bostok asked.
“Don’t know. All they say is it looks like a male. We had a body missing from the scene at the gentleman’s club this morning, though.”
“Which, if that’s the case, these two investigations and all the murders are connected,” Bostok said.
“We won’t know anything until we figure out what, exactly, is going on with the van and who the person is inside of it.”
“Brooksville area?” he asked.
“I guess just off the interstate by the Withlacoochee State Forest.”
“Remote. Good place for a vehicle dump,” Bostok said. “When do they think it was lit up?”
“No clue on that right now.”
“Did you want to take Rick or someone from forensics with you?”
I shook my head. “I think that they have their hands full with everything that was dumped on them in the last two days. Let me see if this has anything to do with our cases before I start rattling their cages. Worst-case scenario, they can coordinate with the local guys if need be.”
“Okay. Take Rawlings. Let me know what you find.”
“Is he here yet?”
Bostok pointed out of his office window toward the bull pen. I turned to look and saw Hank standing near his desk—he must have just walked in.
“Did you want to leave something for Jones to do when he shows up?” Bostok asked.
“Have him call me.”
“No problem,” Bostok said.
I left his office and walked to Hank’s desk.
“So pounding the phones and making appointments or what?” Hank asked.
“Nope. We need to go out to Brooksville and look at a burned-out minivan with a body inside. It might be the BOLO vehicle we’re looking for.”
“No shit? What do we know about it?”
“It’s in Brooksville. There’s a body inside, and it’s burned,” I said.
Hank rolled his eyes.
“Just grab whatever you need. We’re leaving now,” I said.
Hank scooped his coffee from the surface of his desk and followed me out to the parking structure. We piled into an unmarked cruiser and drove to Brooksville. My ride was spent talking to Ed, Rick, and Detective Jones. Ed had told me that the employee was sitting in his office, waiting to identify the bodies as soon as they were ready. I told Ed to inform the man that I left him a message and would be waiting on his call. My talk with Rick contained less useful information—he basically said that he didn’t have anything new for me. They’d gone over the lamp and jewelry box but hadn’t found any prints that they received hits on. When I spoke with Jones, I gave him the instructions to get with Detective King on any people with both drug and robbery charges.
I exited the interstate, drove east on Highway 50, and made a right onto Kettering Road. Out of the windshield a couple of blocks ahead, I spotted Hernando County cruisers. Hank and I pulled to the left shoulder of the road, parked, and got out of the car.
A heavyset deputy, looking in his later forties with black plastic sunglasses covering his eyes, approached us. The name A. Remar was embroidered in white on the breast of his dark green uniform.
“Lieutenant Carl Kane. This is Sergeant Hank Rawlings,” I said.
“Deputy Alex Remar. We were told you were coming. The van is this way.” He gave Hank and me a wave over his shoulder and started walking through the knee-high grass toward a tree line in the distance, away from the roadway. Hank and I followed.
The deputy spoke over his shoulder as he walked. “We figure the van drove in off of Kettering Road where you parked. This is all pretty flat right here, so I’m guessing they didn’t have too much trouble getting the van back to where it is. We have some of our cruisers back there.”
“Which is where?” Hank asked.
The deputy pointed at the edge of the tree line where it appeared to end. “We have a ton of trails for hiking, mountain biking, off-road driving, horseback riding, whatever you could want, that span about sixty miles. The van is near where the park meets this field. The woman that called it in spotted it while she was walking one of the non-motorized trails at the back of the park.”
We continued walking, and through the corner of the tree line, I spotted a handful of vehicles and deputies milling about. We headed over. On a quick glance I spotted a coroner’s van, two patrol cars, a red pickup that I figured to belong to a fire chief, and sitting behind the other vehicles, our minivan that had been set ablaze.
“You’re looking for Deputy Mayer, correct?” Remar asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
Remar led us to a fifty-some-year-old salt-and-pepper-haired man in a gray suit and blue tie.
The man looked to be a good thirty or forty pounds overweight and stood an inch or two under six foot. He turned as we approached. “Tampa guys?” he asked.
I stood before him and reached out for a handshake. “Lieutenant Carl Kane. We spoke on the phone.” I shook his hand and pointed toward Hank. “This is Sergeant Hank Rawlings.”
“Lieutenant, Sergeant, good to meet you,” he said. “Deputy Cliff Mayer. We have a little more information for you. Let’s head to the van so you can get a look.”
We walked behind him the thirty feet and stood on the passenger side of the minivan. The van’s tires were melted, and it sat on its rims in the wet,
burned brush beneath it. The windows were gone. What I could see of the interior was mostly distorted metal framing with hanging melted plastic. The back of the van seemed as though it had received less of the heat from the flames. I could still see gray paint on the upper parts of the quarter panels and the open swinging rear door that faced us. It had a half-burned license plate, in a frame, that was still somewhat legible. Hank and I stood at the open passenger side sliding door, staring in at the burned corpse that lay on the van’s floor. Burned clothing stuck to the man. His face appeared to have melted fabric attached to it—a mask of some sorts, maybe. His hands appeared to be gloved and looked to be in better shape than the rest of his clothing and body. The soles of his boots faced us, both melted.
“What was the new information?” I asked. “Did you run the plate?”
“The van is stolen. We found a VIN still readable in the rear gate area. The plate is also stolen. It comes back to a van that’s a couple of years newer.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“About it at this point. We’ve been just sitting on it until you came and had your look.”
“Not much to see, unfortunately,” Hank said.
“Do we know where the plate or van were stolen from?” I asked.
“The van comes back as stolen from the Orlando area. The plate came from a van registered in Tampa.”
“What’s going on with the body?” Hank asked.
“Let me grab our coroner. Give me a second.” Deputy Mayer left us and walked to the coroner’s full-size black cargo van parked behind us near the sheriff’s department cruisers.
“So what do you think?” I asked.
Hank shrugged. “Matches the woman’s description of the vehicle she saw. We need to find out who our burned body is here.”
“And see if the body has a GSW and a twenty-two slug in it somewhere. If it does, we can connect it to the gentleman’s club,” I said.
Mayer returned with a short round man with a balding head and white mustache. The guy wore a dark blue jacket with the word “Coroner” in yellow across his right chest. I imagined it said it across the back as well. “This is Peter Sandford, our county’s coroner,” Mayer said.
