by EH Reinhard
The man adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses and held out his hand, which I shook. “Lieutenant Carl Kane,” I said.
“Peter Sandford,” he responded.
Hank shook the man’s hand and introduced himself.
“Anything more that you can tell us about our mystery man here?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you much here. Male, maybe six foot and one ninety. Anything else will have to be found out at the office. His teeth still seem to be intact, so we can maybe go the dental-records route as plan B if plan A doesn’t pan out.”
“What’s plan A?” I asked.
“The gloves covering his hands appear to be in pretty good shape. Kevlar or something else that’s flame retardant.”
“Do you think you can get prints?” I asked.
“Maybe. We just need one,” Sandford said.
“When are you taking the body?” I asked.
“I’ve been waiting to for the last forty-five minutes. It’s going to take me an hour or so to get him loaded and unloaded. We don’t have any bodies on our tables at the moment, so we can get going right away. If I can get prints, I will know something later today.”
“Sooner rather than later would work for us,” I said. “I also need to know if this guy has a GSW. We’re trying to connect this guy and van to a number of homicides.”
“Sure. Let me get your number. You’ll be the first person I call.”
“Okay.” I gave Sandford my mobile number and watched him walk toward the rear of his van. I focused my attention back on Deputy Mayer. “Where’s the minivan going?”
“To our impound lot.”
“Okay. If we can connect this guy to the investigation that we’re working, we’ll need to send someone out to go through it.”
“Did you want us to hold off on processing it?” Mayer asked.
I thought about Rick and the amount of work that he had on his plate. “If your guys could just coordinate with mine, that would probably be all we need.”
“Absolutely,” Mayer said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We drove down the interstate, heading for the station. I could hear Hank’s phone ringing in his pocket. He slid it out and stared down at the screen.
“Karen,” Hank said.
I watched him click Talk and did my best to tune out him and his wife talking. I caught bits and pieces of his conversation. He told her that we were just leaving a scene. He said that he didn’t think that I was interested in a relationship. It seemed his wife was questioning him regarding me not wanting to date her friend.
“Hey,” Hank said.
I felt him jab me in the shoulder.
“What?” I asked.
“Karen wants to talk to you.” Hank held his phone out toward me.
“For what?” I asked.
Hank put the phone’s mouthpiece to his chest in an attempt to keep Karen from hearing him. “Just take the damn thing so she isn’t on my ass later about it.”
I stared at Hank, annoyed, and then took the phone. He shrugged and mouthed the word sorry as he passed the phone off. I prepared myself for the interrogation that I was about to receive from Hank’s wife and brought the phone to my ear. “Hey, Karen,” I said.
“On his ass later about it, hey?” Karen asked.
I took the phone from my mouth and looked over at Hank. “She heard you. You’re busted.”
“Shit,” he said. “Sorry, babe,” he said, louder. “Love you.”
I heard Karen laugh into my ear and brought the phone back up to my mouth. “What’s up?” I asked.
“What’s wrong with her?” Karen asked.
Apparently she didn’t feel like tiptoeing around the subject.
I grumbled. “There’s nothing wrong with her, Karen. I’m not in the market.”
“Maybe you should come out and tell her that.”
“I have. I think my exact words were ‘I’m not in the market for a relationship right now.’”
“Did you only say that once?”
“Is there a required amount of times that I have to say it?”
I received a moment of silence from Hank’s wife.
“Are you sure that you’re not playing hard to get?” she asked.
“No. I’m being honest.”
“So between you and me, what don’t you like about her?” Karen asked.
I chuckled, knowing that whatever I said would immediately be relayed to Stephanie, if there was in fact anything that I didn’t like about her, which there wasn’t.
“There’s nothing that I don’t like about her. She’s great. She’s nice, attractive, all of that.”
“Then what’s the problem?” she asked.
“There isn’t one.”
“Come on, Carl. You don’t need to spend your life at work. Stephanie is great. Plus she’s really interested in you.”
“I’m just not looking for the same thing that she is,” I said.
“What are you looking for?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Well.” Karen paused. “I highly doubt that she’s ever been rejected before.”
“Sorry,” I said. “And I’m not rejecting her, per se. I’m rejecting being in any kind of relationship.”
“That’s really how you feel?” Karen asked.
I let out a long breath, wondering how many times I’d have to repeat myself. I wouldn’t take out my annoyance on Karen. She was just trying to be a friend to Stephanie. “It is,” I said.
“Okay, well, sorry to bug you about it. It’s just that she’s my friend, and she likes you, and I told her I’d see what I could find out.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “Here’s Hank.” I passed the phone back to him.
Hank said a couple of words, mostly sorrys, and hung up. He looked over at me. “Grilling you about Steph?”
“Yeah. It’s fine. I should probably talk with Stephanie about it, as opposed to just dodging her calls.”
“What you should do is date her. You’re an idiot.”
“It is what it is,” I said.
I felt my phone vibrate against my leg. I slid it out and looked at the screen—my sister was calling. I sent the call to voicemail. After just dealing with the interrogation from Hank’s wife, I wasn’t in the mood for whatever my sister wanted to talk about, which I figured was going to be her yelling at me for not calling her back the previous night. I dumped my phone back into my pocket and grabbed the steering wheel with my right hand.
“You want to swing through a drive-through or something on the way back?” Hank asked.
“That’s fine. Did my calling you in this morning make you miss breakfast?”
“Um, not technically.”
I looked over at him. “How do you ‘not technically’ miss breakfast?”
“Karen and I decided that we should try out this all-natural instant breakfast shake in the mornings.”
“You mean Karen decided,” I said.
“It was her idea, yeah. But I told her I’d give it a shot,” Hank said.
“You mean she said, “You’re drinking this for breakfast’?”
Hank didn’t respond.
I smirked. “Don’t leave me hanging. Tell me more about your all-natural shake. What’s in it?”
“Um, it’s really not that bad. It just doesn’t fill me up. Basically it’s a bunch of spinach, vegetables, and poached eggs blended together with fruit juice. I think it has some kind of fish oil or something in it as well.”
I squinted hard. “Ugh,” I said. “That sounds horrible.”
“It’s really not that bad.”
“Yeah, I bet. So tell me again, why the hell would you agree to drink something like that? That sounds like something someone would dare you to drink.”
Hank shrugged. “Part of a happy marriage. You make compromises to keep one another happy.”
I shook my head. “And you wonder why I prefer to remain single.”
“So we can make a stop?”
&
nbsp; “Sure, Hank.”
After a quick dash through the drive-through of a burger joint, we pulled into the station. Hank took his bag filled with two cheeseburgers and a mountain of fries toward his desk. I unlocked my office door, walked in, and sat. The red light on the phone at my desk flashed. The machine showed three new messages. I reached out and clicked Play. The first message was from Melissa, telling me that I forgot to call her back and I should as soon as I got a chance. I clicked the button to erase it—I didn’t forget. The next message played. It was from Aaron McCall, the employee from the club. He left a number to call him back. I let the final message play, which was Ed at the medical examiner’s office saying that the employee from the club made identifications on the bodies. The message was just a couple of minutes old. I clicked Erase and dialed his office. The phone rang in my ear, and the receptionist picked up.
“Hillsborough County Medical Examiner’s Office. This is Brenda.”
“Hi, Brenda. Lieutenant Kane. Is Ed in?”
“One second, Lieutenant. I’ll transfer you.”
I waited as hold music played in my ear. A minute later the line picked up. “Kane,” Ed said.
“I just got back to the station and got your message. What’s up?”
“I just wanted to let you know that Mr. McCall gave us positives on all the bodies that we brought in from that gentleman’s club.”
“He just left me a message at my desk. I’ll call him back in a minute here. So the four confirmed IDs?” I asked.
“Hold on. I have it right here.”
I heard the rustling of papers come from Ed’s end of the call.
“We have a Steven Mitte, a Terry Brandt, a Curtis Elliot, and an Abel Solomon.”
“Okay. So that’s who we thought. We already had confirmed IDs on two of them.”
“About all I have for you at the moment, Kane,” Ed said. “I need to go glove up and get started here. I’ll give you a ring later in the day.”
“Thanks, Ed.” I clicked off from the call and dialed the number that Aaron McCall had left. The phone rang a couple of times before a man picked up.
“This is Aaron,” he answered.
“Hello. Lieutenant Carl Kane with Tampa Homicide. Looks like we were playing a bit of phone tag. I believe that you were just making some positive identifications, is that correct?”
“I was,” he said.
“And you worked last night at the club?” I asked.
“Until close,” he said.
“All right. I’d like to get something scheduled with you for a statement. I believe my detective that you spoke with this morning told you that this would be required?”
“Yeah, I planned to come in,” he said.
“And when could we do that?” I asked.
“I suppose I can come now, if that works.”
“That would be fine,” I said. “I’m at the downtown police station on the corner of East Madison and North Franklin.”
“I’m familiar,” he said. “I can be there in about twenty minutes.”
“Good. Just come in the front entrance and ask for Lieutenant Kane. I’ll come and meet you.”
“Sure,” he said.
I clicked off, set the phone receiver back on the base, and rocked back in my chair. I didn’t know what information the security guard could provide or whether we should look at him as a possible suspect. I had an idea that could give us an answer—the man’s response would tell me everything that I needed to know. I stood from my desk and walked down to the forensics unit. I found Rick standing at the table inside of one of the glass labs. Clothing was spread across the table’s surface. I gave the door a tap, and Rick waved me inside.
“What’s up?” Rick asked.
“We just got back from looking at a torched vehicle and torched body.”
“Related to all of this somehow?” he asked.
“Could be. I’m waiting to hear if they can get an ID on the body and also if the body has a GSW. How’s it coming down here?”
“Just going over the men’s clothing from the gentleman’s club. Rob went over the twenty-two we found on scene. Just the prints from Curtis Elliot on it. Some were smudged. I’m thinking the last person to fire the weapon was wearing gloves. When I talked to Ed, I told him to be on the lookout for a single twenty-two slug in one of our bodies. If he comes up empty on that, it’s pretty safe to say the round is in our body missing from the scene.”
“I asked the coroner that was going to be working on the burned body to be on the lookout for the same thing. Did you find anything on the clothing?” I asked.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Ed said that he had positive IDs on the two men we weren’t certain on.”
“I just spoke to him,” I said. “It’s kind of the reason for my visit. I might need you upstairs for a couple minutes in about a half hour.”
“What’s going on?”
“The guy who ID’d the bodies from the club is coming in for an interview. He worked there until close last night, just before the robbery and homicides. I wanted to see if you could swab the guy for GSR.”
“If he’s wearing the same thing he was when he left the club, and hasn’t washed his hands, there’s a chance. Kind of a shot in the dark. If he took a shower and changed, it will be highly unlikely that we get anything.”
I waved away Rick’s comments. “It’s not about getting anything. I just want the guy’s reaction when I tell him that we want to swab him.”
Rick nodded. “I see. Sure, just give me a call when you need me.”
“Sounds good, Rick,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
David heard the garage door open. He rose from the couch, where he’d been sitting for hours, and rushed to the front door. David stared out. Through the small door window, at eye level, he saw a black pickup truck turn into the driveway—a woman drove. The passenger seat was empty. He pulled the motorcycle mask from his neck back over his face. He snugged his ball cap low on his head. David walked to the doorway that led to the mudroom, which connected to the garage entrance. He stood with his back against the wall and waited. The sound of a vehicle door closing caught his ear. The noise from the garage door closing came next. He heard the sound of the door leading from the garage to the mudroom open and close.
As soon as he saw the woman’s patterned blouse pass by, he stepped toward her and shoved her into the dining room. The woman’s purse and bag flew from her hands. She screamed as she hit the dark laminate floor.
The woman was dressed in medical scrubs. She kicked her feet across the dining room floor, trying to back away from David. “Tim!” she screamed.
David took four quick steps toward her, reached back, and slapped her across the face. “Shut up!” he shouted.
She didn’t comply. She continued to scream. The woman scrambled to her feet and ran to the front door. David was on her in a second. He reached out and snatched her by the back of her black hair. She screamed for help at the top of her lungs, then she turned, swatted, and clawed at David’s mask-covered face.
“You’re making this harder than it needs to be,” David said.
He blocked her flailing arms with his left hand and grabbed her by the throat with his right. David pushed her backward to the front door. He took his hand from her throat and grabbed her by the face. She tried biting at his gloved fingers. David slammed her head into the front door, just below the window facing out.
“Calm your ass down,” David said.
She quit screaming momentarily before letting out another high-pitched wail. She flailed her arms in defense again. Her hand caught his mask and pulled it down, revealing his face.
“Quit with the bullshit,” David shouted. He slammed the back of her head into the front door again, hard. The woman went limp. David grabbed her under the armpits and carried her unconscious body to the couch.
He set her down and took a seat on the coffee table directly before her. David pulled the mask down around his ne
ck—she’d already seen his face.
He took his pistol from the back of his waistline and leaned forward. The woman’s head hung against her chest. David tapped her on the cheek with the barrel of his gun. “Wake your ass up,” he said.
The woman moved and mumbled.
David smacked her on the cheek again with his gun.
“Wake up,” he said.
She lifted her head.
David held the pistol inches from her face. The woman coughed and stared at him.
“Anything stupid and you’re dead,” he said. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to know where the money is.”
She lifted her arm.
David’s hand holding the gun tensed up.
She touched the back of her head and then looked at her bloody hand.
“The money,” David said. “Tim’s money. Where is it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
David stared at her. The woman’s straight black hair hung down to her chest. Her face was thin, her cheekbones high, her eyes dark. An attractive woman. “I’m going to make this very clear to you. That money is more important to me than your life. More important than anyone’s life. You’re going to show me where it is.”
She stared back at him but said nothing.
“What’s your name?” David asked.
“Hana,” she said.
“Hana, this is going to go one of two ways. Either you tell me where Tim’s money is, I take it and leave, or you give me a bunch of bullshit, I hurt you until you tell me, then take the money and kill you. So you tell me, how’s it going to go?”
“The money is in the bedroom,” she said.
“Show me.” David motioned with the barrel of his gun for her to stand. She did, and David followed her to the master bedroom. He watched her as they walked, seeing her glance over her shoulder at the kitchen and the destruction he’d caused.
She walked into the back bedroom and nodded at the nightstand. “It’s under the drawer in there,” she said.
David’s eyes went to the nightstand. He’d rolled the drawer out but hadn’t searched underneath it. “Get it,” he said. “I swear, if you pull out anything other than cash, you’re getting a bullet in your head.”
