by EH Reinhard
I clicked off.
The sound of a racing engine came from up the block. A marked TPD cruiser rounded the corner and slid to a stop at the base of the driveway. Officer Henry came from the driver’s door. Another officer, who I quickly identified as Baker, came from the patrol car’s passenger side.
“What the hell is going on? Everyone okay?” Henry asked.
“We’re fine. We were waiting on you guys to serve the warrant, and a man came from the garage. We took fire as soon as we tried making contact,” I said.
“ID on our suspect?” Baker asked.
“No clue. Masked male. Maybe six foot, one eighty,” Hank said.
“Shit,” Henry said. “Sorry, Lieutenant. We would have been here sooner, but our traffic citation turned into a debate.”
I waved his apology away. “No one got hurt. We just need to find this asshole.”
Henry’s shoulder radio came on. More units were reporting to the area. He called back that he was on scene and gave what we knew of the suspect. Henry took his hand from his shoulder radio. “What do you need us on? Are we joining the search?” he asked.
“Sounds like we’ll have the area covered in just a minute,” I said. “Timmons said he was getting a bird up as well. Let’s see what the hell we have going on inside until we get some kind of word from everyone else.”
“Sure,” Henry said.
We walked up the driveway and passed the sideswiped Volkswagen. The four of us approached the garage. I paused.
“Someone get the back of this place, and someone get on that front door. We don’t need another runner.”
Baker walked to the side of the house to take the back. Officer Henry went to keep eyes on the front. Hank and I entered through the garage into a small laundry room—a washer and dryer stood to our left, a doorway and what I could see of a dining room sat directly ahead. We continued. I swung my weapon to the right as soon as we entered the dining room. I saw a kitchen to my left and a living room beyond it. Plates and utensils from the countertop were strewn across the kitchen floor. Cabinets hung open, as did appliances. I spotted what looked like pooled blood on the floor, a few feet from the sink.
“Body,” Hank said. He stood farther into the dining room, looking toward the home’s front door. My view of the area was blocked by a wall. I took another step toward Hank and looked to my right. My eyes locked on a female body near the home’s front door. The handle of a knife protruded from her chest.
Hank went to the woman, who I ventured to guess was the girlfriend of Tim Morgan. Hank quickly confirmed her as deceased and met me back at the position I maintained while covering him. “Half of her damn hand is missing,” Hank said.
I didn’t respond.
We passed the kitchen, and I looked toward the empty living room to my left. The furniture had been ripped up. A couple of vases and faux flowers littered the wood floor. We continued to the hallway, past the living room. I took the lead, and we cleared a bathroom and two bedrooms before clearing the master bedroom and master bath. I holstered my weapon—the home was clear.
“Let Henry and Baker know we’re clear,” I said.
Hank walked from the home the way that we came in.
I stood in the living room and dialed Bostok. He picked up at his desk within a few rings.
“Bostok,” he answered.
“Cap, it’s Kane.”
“Get anything at the house?” he asked.
“Yeah, shot at and another DB.”
“What?” he asked.
“We took fire from a masked male before he took out our cruiser and fled in a truck. Timmons has cars searching.”
“I’m going to need more than that,” Bostok said.
I expanded a bit on the events that had transpired. “We need Rick or someone from forensics out here,” I said. “This place has been torn apart.”
“I’ll call downstairs and get you someone,” Bostok said.
“Thanks, Cap. I’ll give you a ring in a bit.” I clicked off from the call and walked back toward the kitchen to where I saw the blood, having a good idea of what I’d find. I stood a couple of feet from the blood pool and stared down at the counter. Beside a cleaver were four female fingers, all attached to an inch-and-a-half portion of hand. I turned away and surveyed the rest of the room.
Hank, Henry, and Baker walked into the living room from the garage.
“I found the missing section of hand,” I said. I jerked my chin toward the countertop. “Be warned if you’re feeling queasy.”
No one came for a look.
“All right. It looks like our guy was in here searching for something,” I said. “Let’s have a look around and see what we can find out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Officer Henry walked into the master bedroom where Hank and I were having a look around. “We got the truck,” he said.
If patrol had found our guy, I imagined he would have come in with a suspect in custody statement as opposed to one about the vehicle. “Where?” I asked.
“About a mile northeast. It was pulled into the driveway of a house. The homeowner is there, unharmed. Seems the vehicle was just parked there. Our suspect must have fled on foot.”
“Any blood in the truck?” I asked.
“It wasn’t mentioned.”
“Are we getting aerial support to the area?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Henry said. “All of our patrol cars that are out searching have moved to the area as well.”
I nodded but said nothing.
“Forensics just showed up,” Henry said.
“Okay,” I said.
Henry walked from the bedroom.
“What the hell was this guy looking for?” Hank asked. “He destroyed this place.”
I rose from my spot kneeling beside the nightstand with a drawer removed. I’d found nothing that even resembled a clue. I stretched my back, which cracked in protest as I did. “How the hell do we have this many bodies and still know precisely jack shit?”
“Maybe Rick will get some prints from this place,” Hank said.
“The guy had on gloves, I saw them,” I said. “Speaking of Rick, let me go talk to him.”
I snugged up the rubber gloves over my hands and walked to the door leading through the mudroom and out to the garage. I spotted Rick walking up the driveway, carrying a big gray tote. Behind him, more patrol officers had arrived and were closing down the street in front of the house.
Rick let out a big breath of air as he approached. “Someone wants to make sure I don’t have a home life,” Rick said.
“Appears so.”
“You saw this guy?” he asked.
Rick stopped beside the Volkswagen.
“As much of him as we could see. Mask and hat. Gloved hands. Height and weight estimates are about all that we got.”
“Race?” Rick asked.
“White, Asian, Hispanic, who knows. The only things that weren’t covered were his eyes. All I could see was that he wasn’t African-American. About it. We have rounds from his weapon in the Volkswagen here.”
“How many times did you guys fire?” Rick asked.
“I put two this way into the garage area. The rest of our rounds went in that direction.” I pointed.
“All right. And there’s a deceased female on scene?” Rick asked.
“Stabbed,” I said. “The woman’s body is just inside of the home’s front door. We have some blood on the thumb lever for the dead bolt. Maybe she was trying to get out when she was stabbed. Either way, you’ll have to enter through the garage.”
“Do we have an ID on her?” Rick asked.
“We’re thinking that it’s the girlfriend of our burned DB, Tim Morgan. Any word on that bullet yet?”
“The coroner was doing the autopsy the last I heard. I made contact, though. He was going to call me with an update.”
“Good,” I said.
“Anything else inside that stands out at you?”
“Blood in
the kitchen. Half of the deceased woman’s left hand was cut off.” I made a swipe with my right index finger across the area of my left hand that was removed on the woman’s body. “It looks like from a cleaver, of all things.”
“There’s a nice visual,” Rick said. “What do you make of that?”
“The state of the house says that our guy was looking for something. I’d have to think that this was some kind of torture to get her to talk. Who knows what our guy was looking for or if she actually gave up whatever it was. Or if she even knew.”
“All right. Let me get inside and get going.”
I followed Rick into the house, pointing to the right as we entered the dining room. I saw Baker off to our left, looking between the ripped cushions of the couch. Rick and I walked to the deceased female. One of the patrol officers must had brought a blanket in from one of their cars and laid it over the woman. The knife sticking out of her chest was causing the blanket to be tented in the center. Blood had puddled out from under the closest edge of the blanket. Rick knelt next to the female. I stood and stared down over his shoulder.
Rick set his kit next to him, opened the top, and removed a set of latex gloves. He pulled them over his hands and pulled back the top corner of the blanket. The dark-haired woman faced the ceiling. She was thin, her eyes closed but mouth slightly open. The black handle of a kitchen knife stuck up from her upper left breast. The brightly colored medical scrubs she wore were soaked in blood.
“Can you hold this up for me for a second, Kane?” Rick asked.
I held up the blanket as Rick grabbed his camera from his tote and snapped a few photos.
He hung the camera from its strap around his neck and pointed down toward some blood that seemed to be wetting the side area of her lower back that we could see. “Guessing we have some more knife wounds in her back. Looks like another in her stomach as well. Pull it back a little further for me.”
I did.
The woman’s hand with the severed fingers came into view. It was draped over her torso and resting near her right hip.
“Right across the center of her hand,” Rick said.
I nodded.
Rick motioned for me to replace the blanket. “I’ll give her a better look before we get her ready to be removed. Has Ed been notified?”
“I didn’t call him,” I said.
“Okay. I’ll give him a ring when I’m ready for him. Show me where the removal of the fingers took place.”
I walked Rick to the kitchen. He shook his head, staring down at the counter. “That’s some savageness right there,” he said.
I agreed but said nothing.
Rick began photographing what remained of the woman’s hand on the counter.
“Is anyone from the rest of the team coming to lend you a hand?” I asked. I let out a breath and squinted. “Sorry, poor choice of words, again.”
Rick didn’t take his eye from the camera’s viewfinder. “We have too much at the office to go through. It’ll just be me here.”
“How’s it coming back at the lab?” I asked. “Haven’t really heard much.”
Rick took the camera from his face and let it hang from his neck. “I wish that I had something to tell you. These guys just haven’t left us anything to work with. No prints. No bullets that we can match to anything. Nothing careless or forgotten whatsoever. They’re pros, whoever they are. We still have to process every last thing, though. You just never know.” Rick turned toward the dining area. “Did anyone touch or move the bag or the woman’s purse?”
“I don’t believe so,” I said.
Rick walked to them and snapped a couple of photos. He lifted the woman’s purse from the floor and set it on the dining table. Rick went into the purse, found the woman’s wallet, and fished out her driver’s license. He stared down at it as he held it. “Hana Wheeler. Was that the girlfriend’s name?”
“That’s the name, yeah. The photo is of our DB?”
“Looks like it to me,” Rick said.
He held out the ID, which I took and had a brief look at. The photo matched up with our dead woman on the floor. “That’s her,” I said.
Rick slapped his gloved hands together. “Guess I’ll dive in.”
I left him to it and walked out of the garage. In the distance, I could hear the blades of a helicopter slapping the air. Hank stood in the driveway, talking with patrol officers Henry and Baker. I joined the group.
“We have a couple of uniforms door knocking the neighborhood,” Henry said.
“And another couple making sure the media stays the hell away from our crime scene. Some dipshit reporter just tried crossing the police tape,” Baker added. He pointed toward the corner where a line of news vans were parked single file in front of the fence belonging to the autobody shop.
I stared over and could see reporters and cameras. “Good,” I said. “Get the word out over to the patrol units searching. I want anyone they see stopped and questioned—on foot or in car. If they don’t have the world’s most rock-solid alibi for where they were when this shooting took place, they go for GSR testing.”
“Sure,” Henry said. He and Baker walked to the street.
“The truck is hers,” Hank said. “Patrol called it back. They ran the plates after they found it.”
“Nothing on our guy, though?”
“Not a peep. Nothing from the helicopter, either,” Hank said.
“So we have a truck that belongs to our deceased female, and the VW belonged to our Tim Morgan,” I said.
“So how did our shooter and killer get here?” Hank asked.
“Good question. We should get patrol on running tags in the neighborhood.” I sat in thought. “To go along with that, how is the VW here? Did our guy get picked up last night prior to the gentleman’s club? Who took his body and the van out to Brooksville? Was our Tim Morgan in possession of the van? Was the guy who shot at us? Lots of questions,” I said.
“Agreed,” Hank said. He craned his neck and looked through the broken glass of the VW’s passenger side window. “We should probably go through this thing too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
David pulled his mask up over his head and tossed it on the ground in the corner of the lanai beside the chair he sat in. At his other leg was the bag of cash. He took his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Chris. The phone rang in his ear.
“Yeah,” Chris answered.
“Hey. You need to come and pick me up,” David said.
“What the hell is going on? What’s taking you so long?” Chris asked.
When Chris asked the second question, his tone registered as off to David, but he dismissed it. “She took forever to get home.”
“Did you find the money?”
“I have it.” David glanced down at it for a split second.
“What about the woman?”
“She isn’t a problem,” David said.
“Right. Where are you?” Chris asked.
“About a mile or so away from Tim’s house.”
A pause came from Chris’s end of the phone. “So, just a you need to pick me up as opposed to what the hell actually happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re all over the damn news and have been for the last twenty minutes. Every channel,” Chris said. “You can’t tell me that the shit wasn’t you.”
“It was unavoidable. What are they saying?”
“Shootout with police. Suspect at large.”
David walked out from the overhang attached to the house where it met the screened lanai over the pool. He looked up in search of the helicopter that he heard. He couldn’t see it. David walked back to the wicker chair next to the sliding glass patio doors and took a seat. “Nobody saw me. The truck that I was in was dying on me, so I had to dump it. I think it took a bullet to the radiator. We shouldn’t have any kind of issue with anyone being able to identify me, though.”
Chris said nothing.
“So are you coming or wh
at?”
“Where are you exactly?” Chris asked.
“In someone’s lanai. Seven or eight blocks away from where I ditched the truck.”
“So right where they are searching? And you want us to come there and pick you up? Come on, David. I can hear the damn helicopter in the background. We aren’t trying to get pinched by coming there.”
“Nobody is getting pinched. Just come and get me the hell out of here.”
“You can’t expect us to come to someplace crawling with cops. You’re just going to have to ride this out until things cool off. Or get the hell out of there and find a different place to get picked up,” Chris said. “As soon as you do, we can get you.”
“Just pick me the hell up,” David snapped.
“We’re not going there,” Chris said. “You need to get somewhere less hot.”
David ground his teeth together. Chris’s refusal to pick him up made his blood boil.
“Are you still there?” Chris asked. “Look, it’s not like we’re trying to leave you out there. You have to see our side of it.”
“Yeah, I do. Keeping your own asses safe.”
“Come on, David,” Chris said.
“I’ll call you from another spot. When I do, you will pick me up.”
“That’s fine,” Chris said.
David clicked off from the call and jammed his phone back into his pocket. He pressed down on the chair’s armrests to push himself from his seat. The sound of the patio door sliding open behind him grabbed his ear.
David snapped his head toward the sound.
A sixty-some-year-old tall and wiry man stood in the open patio doorway. The guy had short gray hair and a stubbly beard covering his sunken cheeks. “Who the hell are you?” the man asked. “And what the hell are you doing in my lanai?”
David yanked the pistol from his waistband and aimed it at the man. He spun out of his seat and rose to his feet.
The man slowly raised his palms. “We don’t need any trouble, son.”
“Don’t give me that ‘son’ shit. Get your ass in the house.”
David walked to the man. He pushed him into the home with his left hand while his right hand held his pistol at his hip.
