by EH Reinhard
The man stumbled backward into the dining room. David slid the patio door closed at his back.
“Sit,” David said. He pointed at the dining room chairs.
The man did as instructed.
David held the gun on the guy seated at the table. Behind the man was the living room and open bay window looking out toward the street. “Who else is in the house?” David asked.
“No one. It’s just me. I was taking a nap when I heard you talking.”
“What’s your name?”
“Mike,” the guy said.
“Do you have a car?” David asked.
“I have a Buick in the garage. Take it.”
David stood at the table’s edge. He contemplated the man’s offer. He shook his head in thought—he’d have to kill him before leaving. David wasn’t wearing his mask, and the guy would be able to identify him. A gunshot would be heard by someone. He thought about stabbing the man as he had Tim’s girlfriend, taking the car and driving off. David let the thought fade away. The same problem with him being picked up applied to him taking the man’s car and driving from the neighborhood. The police presence was far too thick, David could easily be stopped. His best option was to sit and wait. Yet the man still presented a problem. If David planned to wait, he’d have to keep eyes on the guy the entire time. If a cop came to the door, the guy could yell for help. David made his decision.
“Is there going to be anyone coming here, Mike? A wife? Girlfriend? Family stopping by?”
“No,” he said.
David looked at the man’s left hand. He spotted a wedding ring on the guy’s finger.
“You’re sure of that?” David asked.
“Positive.”
“What’s with the wedding ring?” David asked.
“My wife passed. I still wear the ring.”
“How sad,” David said. He watched the man, who glanced left and then back at him. David turned to see what the man had looked at. The only thing he saw was kitchen cabinets. His eyes dropped to the counter, where he saw a cell phone plugged into the wall.
“All right. Stay put.” David walked past him to the front window and pulled the blinds closed. He looked back toward the man, still seated. The guy stared at him. David returned to the dining room and pulled the blinds closed over the patio door.
“What’s going on here?” Mike asked. “Take my car.”
“You’d call the cops the second I left. I wouldn’t make it more than a couple of blocks.”
“You have my word. Tie me up, take my phone. Whatever you need to do.”
“I’m waiting here.”
“Waiting for what?” Mike asked.
David tapped on his ear and then pointed upward. “You hear that? Police helicopter. They’re looking for me. There are cops all over the neighborhood, looking for me.”
“What did you do?” Mike asked.
David walked backward to the kitchen, keeping the weapon aimed at the man. He pulled the man’s phone from the countertop, dropped it to the floor, and stomped on it. David’s eyes searched the brown laminate countertop for a knife block. He didn’t see one and began pulling open drawers in search of a knife. In the silverware drawer, he spotted a black leather wallet. David pulled it out and flipped it open. He glanced briefly at the man’s driver’s license. His name was Michael Roman. David dug the money from the center of the wallet and spread it out—thirteen dollars.
“Do you have any money here?” David asked. He jammed the thirteen dollars into his pocket.
“You were just looking at it,” Mike said. “You picked the wrong house if you were looking for cash.”
David leaned against the counter, holding aim on the man. He tossed the leather wallet onto the countertop and looked back down into the drawer. A paring knife caught his eye. He picked it up in his left hand and hip bumped the drawer closed.
David walked back toward Mike, who hadn’t budged from his chair.
“What do you need a knife for when you have a gun?” Mike asked.
David put the pistol into his back waistband and switched hands with the knife. “This,” David said. He delivered two quick strikes with the blade into the side of Mike’s neck. Blood spurted out with each pump from Mike’s heart. Mike lifted his hands to hold the side of his neck. As he did, David stabbed him repeatedly under his left arm. Mike slid from his chair to the floor. David took a step back and watched the blood pool under him as Mike pawed off of his dining room tile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Hey, Lieutenant, Sergeant!” Henry called from the street.
Hank and I looked toward him from the driveway.
“We got a neighbor with some info.” Henry waved us over.
Hank and I walked down the driveway to the street to meet Henry. He started walking up the block as soon as we got to him.
“What’s the info?” I asked.
“It seems the neighbor up the block here says that the black VW wasn’t there overnight,” Henry said. “Baker is with the guy now.” Henry jerked his chin at Baker and another uniformed officer and a man in street clothes. They stood at the base of the first driveway on the next block and across the street. “The neighbor’s name is Brett Parker.”
We walked up.
“These are Sergeant Rawlings and Lieutenant Kane,” Baker said to the neighbor. “Why don’t you just run through with them what you told us, Mr. Parker.”
“Um, sure,” he said. “Just Brett is fine.”
I took Brett in. He looked to be around twenty-five, was thin, and had on a backward baseball hat. He wore a hooded red sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. A pair of white plastic sunglasses wrapped his eyes.
“I got home from being out around three thirty this morning,” he started.
I interrupted. “Out where?”
“The Bull in Brandon.”
I knew of the nightclub. “Sure,” I said. “Continue.”
“And that Volkswagen wasn’t there.” Brett stopped talking.
“Anything to add to that?” Hank asked.
“Not really. I drove past coming home, and the car wasn’t there.”
“This was three thirty this morning, and you’re sure?” I asked.
“Yup and yup,” Brett said.
“Do you know the man or woman who live there?” Hank asked.
“Not the guy. I think he just moved in a couple months ago. I tried giving him a wave once or twice, and he just kind of hard assed me.”
“Hard assed you?” Hank asked.
“Yeah, just kind of a tough-head nod as opposed to waving back.”
“Sure,” Hank said. He motioned for Brett to keep talking.
“Hana has been there for a couple of years, though,” Brett said. “Nice woman. She worked in the medical field. She told me exactly what she did once, but I don’t really remember off the top of my head.”
“Did you and she talk much?” I asked.
“No. Not really. When we did chat, it was just neighbor stuff and small talk. That’s about the extent of me knowing her, to be honest. That and I knew she worked weird hours. Overnight mostly.”
“Okay,” I said. “What about visitors over there? Ever see any other vehicles coming or going?”
“I’m sure I’ve seen a different car there at one point or another. Ahhh…” His voice faded off, seemingly trying to recollect a vehicle.
“Does a gray 1980s minivan ring a bell?” I asked.
“You mean like an older Chevy Astro?”
“Correct.”
“Surprisingly, yes, it does ring a bell. I saw one parked right by where your crashed police car is over there. Just past their driveway.”
“You’re certain?” I asked.
“Pretty damn certain I saw it the other night.”
“What night?” I asked.
Brett adjusted his sunglasses. “Maybe two nights ago. The van was parked there, running. Two guys were sitting inside of it. I drove to the store around midnight or so to grab a
pack of smokes, and it was parked there.”
“With two men in it?” Hank asked.
“Yeah, driver and passenger.”
“Was one your neighbor, Tim Morgan?”
“Tim Morgan?” he asked.
“The boyfriend that lived at the house,” I said.
“Oh, sorry, I don’t know if I ever got the guy’s name. I just saw the guys for a second. I pulled out of my driveway, and my headlights were shining on them as I passed. I mean, I didn’t stop to see who they were or what they looked like or anything like that.”
“So you wouldn’t be able to recognize them if you saw them again?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Was that the only time that you saw the van?” I asked.
“That I can think of, yeah,” Brett said.
“Okay.” I turned toward Officer Baker, who’d been standing off to the side. “Do you want to grab us a statement of what he just ran through?”
“Sure, Lieutenant,” Baker said.
“Thanks, Mr. Parker. If you happen to think of anything else, give me a call.” I pulled a card from my wallet and passed it off to him.
Hank and I walked back toward the house and scene.
“So, another occurrence of the minivan,” Hank said. “Pretty much confirms that these guys are all connected, as well as our murders.”
“But why?” I asked. “And aside from Tim Morgan, who got shot and torched, who the hell are the rest of the guys?”
I saw the county coroner van rounding the corner and being allowed through the police tape.
“Why don’t you go and see if Ed or Rick are going to need anything from us. I need to make a couple of quick calls.”
“You got it,” Hank said.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Detective Jones. He picked up within a couple of rings.
“Jones,” he said.
“Hey, it’s Kane.”
“Lieutenant,” he said. “Are you guys all right?”
“We’re fine, Jones. Having any luck with these people our burned DB wasn’t supposed to contact?”
“I tried to contact each and couldn’t get any of them on the line. So I kind of did the next best thing as far as getting any kind of background on these guys. I just got off the phone with the arresting officer in the crime that got Tim Morgan sent up. The detective, Brian Minol, works robbery for HCSD. He gave me a little background on Tim Morgan. Basically whatever this guy could rob or steal, he did. We’re not talking about a smash and grab at a convenience store, though. We’re talking home invasions of the wealthy. High-cash-flow businesses, that kind of thing.”
“Okay, so Mr. Morgan sure as hell fits the kind of guy that we’re looking for on the gentleman’s club.”
“That he does.”
“I didn’t see any violent crime charges in this guy’s file. It’s a pretty big jump going from robbery to murder. Did you ask this detective what he thought of that?”
“That’s kind of the thing. The detective seemed to think that if Morgan was involved, he would have been part of a crew. Even if Morgan didn’t fit the bill for the murders, someone else on his team sure as hell could.”
“Got a point there,” I said. “But who is, or I should say was, in his crew?”
“I read off the names of the people that Morgan wasn’t to have contact with to the detective. He was familiar with a Brad Corley. Mr. Corley had a couple of robbery priors and a number of other offenses. Stolen vehicles making up a couple of our charges.”
“So this Corley could have been who acquired our van?”
“It’s a possibility,” Jones said. “When we start looking into people that have been arrested alongside Corley, we get some other things as well, drug charges, violent offenses, charges like that.”
“All right. Most of this at this point is speculation, but we should probably get this Corley in for a talking-to either way. Do we have an address on him?”
“Last known shows over by Land O’ Lakes. Did you want me to send someone out to go and try to get this guy to come in for questioning? I already tried calling him, but whatever number we had for him isn’t in service.”
“Yeah, let’s do that. If you get him brought in, you might have to run the interview solo. I’m not sure how long Hank and I are going to be on scene here.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Anything on the employees from the club?” I asked.
“I’m trying to call them in between doing this. I got a hold of a few but nobody who closed last night yet. Either way, I have two interviews set for tomorrow.”
“Okay, keep me updated with what you have going on.”
“Will do, Lieutenant,” Jones said.
I clicked off and dialed Bostok at his desk. He picked up right away.
“Bostok,” he said.
“It’s Kane.”
“News?” he asked.
I brought him up to speed with the news we received from the neighbor and what Jones had been working on back at the office.
“Still nothing on the search, though?” Bostok asked.
“Nah. Betting this guy is long gone by now. If our patrols and the bird aren’t finding him, he isn’t in the area.”
“Or he’s holed up in someone’s house or backyard.”
“Possibility. But you’d think that someone would have seen him somewhere if he was breaking into a home, lurking through yards, anything like that. He may have stolen a vehicle or carjacked someone where he dumped that truck. Hop in, drive away, no one is the wiser.”
“This is your show out there, but if it was me, I’d go to where the truck is and start knocking on doors and looking in windows and backyards. Patrolling the streets and searching from above is looking like it’s not the answer. From what Timmons said, they were on the area pretty damn fast. He would have had to be pretty slick to get out unnoticed.”
I nodded as I held the phone to my ear. “Let me see what Timmons can do about getting these guys out of their cruisers and starting foot patrols. Hank and I are going to be at this scene for a bit yet, but we can get over there to lend a hand as soon as we wrap up here. I wanted to get a look at the truck, anyway.”
“Sure. If you need anything from me, give me a call,” Bostok said.
“Thanks, Cap.” I clicked off and walked up the driveway toward the house. Hank was standing in the driveway in between Ed’s coroner van and the sideswiped Volkswagen. Hank had the passenger side door of the VW open and was leaning into the car.
I stopped at his open door.
Hank looked over his shoulder and up at me. “Rick is printing the inside of the house. Figured I’d start going through this thing.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“Standard glove box fare.” Hank pulled everything from inside of the glove box and stacked the items on the passenger seat that was covered in safety glass from the car’s shot-out windows. “Owner’s manual, an oil change receipt paid for by Timothy Morgan. Tire pressure gauge. Air freshener. And some napkins on top.” He jammed everything back into the glove box.
“Cups,” I said. I pointed at the matching take-out cups sitting in the cup holder.
Hank leaned into the car farther and pulled the Styrofoam cup from the nearest holder. He held it up at eye level. “Barrilleaux’s Pit Stop.”
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“No clue.” Hank set the cup back in the cup holder and stepped back from the car. I gave him room. Hank stood up straight and stretched his back before he knelt at the open car door to start searching the passenger side floorboards.
“I have extra gloves if you want to start on the other side,” Hank said.
“Sure,” I said. I took a pair of gloves from Hank, walked to the other side of the car and began searching.
“Not much in here,” Hank said. “If it wasn’t for the glass, this thing would be pretty clean. Rick is probably going to want to tow it back to the station either way to extract wha
tever bullets are in it and probably print it as well.”
I looked under the driver’s seat and then checked the back. There didn’t appear to be anything that stood out.
“About all I need to see,” I said. I rested my elbows on the VW’s roof and pulled my phone from my pocket. I brought up the Internet and started a search.
Hank closed up the passenger side of the car. “Who you calling?” he asked.
“Searching,” I said. “I want to see where this Barrilleaux’s Pit Stop is. How the hell do you spell Barrilleaux’s?”
Hank shrugged. “Just like it sounds.”
I gave him the finger and plugged my best guess of the name’s spelling into a search engine. Nothing came up. “Damn,” I said. I opened the driver’s side door and ducked into the car to get the spelling off one of the Styrofoam cups. I lifted the cup nearest me and turned it in my still-gloved hand to get the spelling. As I did, a noise that I wasn’t expecting caught my ear. I gave the cup a shake. The sound of ice rattled inside. I pulled the cup’s lid off and stared inside at some crushed ice at the bottom of the cup.
I came out of the car and stood up straight. I lifted the cup and gave it a shake at Hank. “Ice,” I said.
“No shit? So this thing was at that place today?”
“Styrofoam or not, this cup hasn’t been keeping ice since Tim Morgan was alive. I reached back into the car and set the cup back into the holder. I grabbed the other cup that Hank had originally picked up and gave it a shake. There was a bit of liquid inside. I pulled the cap and looked in—no ice. I got back out of the car and set the cup on the VW’s roof.
“One ice, one no ice,” I said. I got the proper spelling from the cup and punched it into my phone. A moment later, I got my results. The place was a gas station and diner in Saint Leo. “Saint Leo,” I said. “On the way to where his body was dumped. Or on the way back from where it was. The place looks like it’s not too far off the interstate.”
“Does it show their hours?” Hank asked.
“Nope,” I said.
“So our guy that was shooting at us was driving this thing and stopped for a soda on his way back here today?”
“Looks like it. We need to see if this place has video,” I said.
“Call or make the drive?” Hank asked.
