by EH Reinhard
“All right. Looks like no one is home, or they’re just not going to answer. Let’s head on back to the trailers,” I said.
We walked back to the car. I looked left at the carport as I ducked back into our cruiser. The carport held no vehicles, just a balled-up tarp that sat next to a pile of old firewood and some rusted metal appliances. My eyes went back to the house. I watched the two windows that weren’t filled with air conditioners to look for any kind of movement in the curtains. No one looked out.
Jones backed from the driveway onto the main dirt road and made a U-turn. We drove for the trailers. As we neared the first one, on our left, I could see more trailers behind it.
“Start at the first one here on the left?” Jones asked. “It looks like we have a couple of people outside.” Jones pointed straight ahead through the windshield at the single-wide trailer. A woman stood near the front door. I saw two men at the front of a car parked in the trailer home’s short dirt driveway. Both guys stared at us as we drove up. The vehicle they stood by was up on jack stands with the hood open.
“Yeah, let’s start here,” I said.
I looked past the first trailer and could see another four or five on both sides of the dirt road until it ended a hundred yards ahead. A couple of vehicles were parked at their respective trailers, and a number of people milled about. As Jones pulled off into the grass just before the first trailer’s small driveway, I could see some of the people walking in the distance, pointing at us. I looked back out of the windshield at the first trailer—the woman who’d been standing near the front door walked inside.
“Let’s split up,” I said. “You guys go find some people in the back to talk to. Ask if they know a Tim Morgan, or have seen the van, or black VW, or our baseball-hat guy with the beard. I think if we stay in a group, we’re going to be kind of one and done here.”
“Now why wouldn’t anyone want to talk to us?” Hank asked sarcastically.
“I’ll hop out. You drive on back, Jones. We’ll huddle up in a minute.”
“Sure, Lieutenant,” Jones said.
I stepped from the car and walked to the two men. Jones pulled back onto the dirt road and continued back toward the other trailers.
As I walked, both of the men stood as still as statues and stared at me.
“Afternoon, guys. Tampa police,” I said. I pulled out my badge from my inner suit pocket and flashed it at them.
Neither said anything. For a moment I thought that there was probably a good chance that one was about to make a break for it.
“Hey,” the guy standing nearer to me said. The man wore a dirty flannel shirt and a pair of jeans. He appeared to be twenty years or so older than the guy in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans that stood just behind him. The older man, thin, with gray in his black hair, took a pair of gloves off his hands and set them down in the car’s engine compartment. He stepped from under the cover of the car’s hood and walked toward me. He waved for the younger man, who remained at the vehicle, to do the same.
“Jeff Larson. What can I do for you?” he asked.
I put my badge back into my suit jacket pocket. “I’m Lieutenant Carl Kane. TPD. We’re looking for anyone who has seen a certain man or vehicle.” I figured if I let him know right out of the gates that I wasn’t there for him, there was a chance he’d be more cooperative.
“Sure,” he said. The younger man came to his side. “This is my son, Spencer,” he said.
I gave the younger guy a nod. The sound of tires on dirt and gravel caught my ear. I looked over my shoulder to see a Pasco County sheriff’s cruiser approaching. The car passed and continued toward where Jones had parked our car a few trailers down.
“So who’s the man and what is the vehicle?” the father asked.
I thought I’d try Tim Morgan first since I had a photo of him. The more dots that I could connect, the better. “Do you know a Tim Morgan?” I asked. “Maybe just a Tim that has been around here?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” he said. He looked at his son, who shook his head.
“Here, I have a photo of him. Maybe that will help.” I pulled it up on my phone and showed the father and son. They both claimed that they’d never seen the guy. “What about an older black minivan? Chevy from the eighties or nineties?” I again received shakes of their heads, indicating that they hadn’t seen it.
I glanced off to my right, over the open hood of the car that the men were working on, and could see Jones talking with a guy in the distance. Hank was nowhere to be seen.
“What about a guy with a thick beard. Average height and weight. Baseball hat. White. Maybe forty.”
The father cocked his head in thought. “Could be one of the guys up at the front house. I think one of them could fall under that description.”
“Yeah,” the son said. “I’ve seen someone who’d match up with that up there.”
“Front house?” I asked. “The one you pass to get back here?”
“Yeah,” the father said.
“What about a black Volkswagen sedan? Maybe ten years old or so.”
“I think that I’ve seen that there as well,” the father said.
“You’re sure, or think?” I asked.
“Pretty sure on both accounts.”
“Okay,” I said. “Appreciate the help.”
I walked to the dirt road.
“Lieutenant!” I heard.
I’d just put feet on the dirt road and was walking to the parked car and sheriff’s department patrol car a couple of trailers down. I looked up to see Jones walking in my direction. Behind him, at the back of the patrol car, a uniformed deputy stood at the trunk.
“We have a homeowner that says that they’ve seen the VW at the house that we stopped at,” he said.
“I know.” I pointed back at the car. “I got the same thing. As well as possibly spotting our mystery man from the gas station at the house where the VW was seen. Let’s take a ride back up to the main house. Did you talk to the deputy?”
“Just briefly,” Jones said.
“Okay. Where’s Hank?”
Jones turned and pointed toward the other side of the street. “Trailer over there.”
“Get him. I’ll fill the deputy in, and we’ll get back up there.”
Jones jogged to the trailer that he’d said Hank was at. I walked to the deputy as I called the captain back at the station.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Brad, driving Chris and David in his five-year-old Toyota Corolla, pulled up next to David’s Cadillac and killed the motor. The three got out of the car and walked to the front door. David carried the bag of money that he’d acquired at Tim’s house. He pulled his keys from his pocket and opened the front door’s lock. They walked in. David set the bag of cash on the dining room table. “Split that cash up three ways,” he said.
Chris walked to the table and started taking money from the bag. He began setting the cash in three even stacks.
David walked straight to the refrigerator. He opened the door, pulled out a beer, cracked the top, and took a drink. “Where do you guys want to go?”
“I thought we were thinking Texas?” Chris asked.
“Where in Texas?” Brad asked from the living room.
“Maybe Austin. Good nightlife,” Chris said. “Music and all of that.”
David looked off to the right. All he could see was the top of Brad’s head in the recliner. “What do you think, Brad? Austin?”
“Yeah, Austin would be cool,” Brad said.
“Thirty-two each,” Chris said. He pulled a stack from each of two piles and set it on top of the third. “That’s for you, David. You went through the trouble of getting the cash.”
“Appreciate that,” David said.
Brad rose from the chair and walked to Chris at the kitchen table. He grabbed his stack of the money, smiled wide, and walked it back to the living room, where he put it on the floor in a plastic bag that was sitting near the coffee table. On the coffee table’s su
rface, David could see the duffel bag full of guns and gear. A couple of bags and a pair of suitcases sat beside it. David saw Brad lean forward and grab a pair of headphones from one of the bags.
“You guys have all of your stuff set. Is that what that all is?” David pointed toward the coffee table with his hand holding the beer. “We’re not coming back for a while.”
“We’re good,” Chris said. “All packed up. We were just waiting on you.” Chris took the money from the table, placed it back into the bag, and walked it to the living room. “We should probably get a move on.”
“Okay. Let me go and get my things packed up, and we’ll get the hell out of here,” David said. He took the beer in his hand and walked through the living room, past Chris and Brad. Brad leaned back in his chair, his headphones over his ears. David turned right and walked down the short hallway to the back bedroom. He entered his room and looked around. His eyes went right, and the top dresser drawer sat a bit open. His eyes went left, seeing the mattress on his bed sitting a bit off the bedspring. David walked to the closet and opened the door. The boxes at the bottom of the closet had been moved around. Either Brad, Chris, or both had been rummaging in his room, looking for his money. David figured they must have thought he wouldn’t be able to get out of the earlier situation.
“You slimy little bastards,” he mumbled under his breath. “Okay,” he said to himself quietly. “That’s going to be it for you two.”
David walked back to the bedroom door and glanced down the hallway. He didn’t see Chris or Brad.
David closed the bedroom door and locked it at his back. He grabbed a chair near the door and propped it underneath the knob for a second level of security.
His eyes darted around the room, landing on the window. David set his beer on the old nightstand next to the window, glanced back toward the door of the room, and lifted the window as quietly as he could. One leg after the other, David slipped through the opening into the back yard of the house. He walked along the back of the home to the edge and glanced around the far side of the house closest to the tree line—he saw nothing.
David lurked to the front edge of the house and pulled his pistol from his waistline. The gun at his hip, he kept low and stayed beneath the front windows of the home as he approached the front door. David looked back over his shoulder. Spotting no one, he reached out and twisted the front door handle. The second he felt the latch disengage, he pushed the door open. His eyes shot right toward the kitchen, and neither Brad nor Chris were there. His eyes went left toward the living room. He saw the top of Brad’s head in the chair and the bar of the headphones above his hat. David walked directly behind him and brought his gun barrel inches from the back of his head. He squeezed the trigger. A mist of blood shot out in front of the chair, spraying the couch. Brad slumped over to his side. David took two quick steps and raised his weapon to the hallway.
“What the hell?” he heard Chris yell.
A second later, he saw Chris burst from the hall and snap his head to David. David fired two shots into Chris’s chest. Chris stumbled backward and disappeared into the hall. David made fast steps toward the hallway and panned his gun to the right. A blood smear covered the hallway wall. David looked down at Chris, seated on the hall’s carpet. He took aim on his head and fired another two rounds.
David glanced back at Brad and then looked down at Chris. He scratched his beard. “Thanks for all of the help, fellas,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure working with you.” He turned his head right and left, looking at their bodies for another moment before he casually went to their bags in search of their money.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The deputy, named Collard, stood next to me at the trunk of his sheriff’s department cruiser. He was dressed in the standard Pasco County deputy’s uniform consisting of a drab green shirt and pants. His last name was embroidered on a black patch attached to the breast pocket of his shirt. Collard had a peach-fuzz beard sitting on the bottom of his chin. His face still had a layer of baby fat. I didn’t imagine he was much older than his early twenties.
Jones approached with Hank.
“Sergeant Rawlings,” Hank said. He shook Deputy Collard’s hand.
Collard introduced himself.
I looked at Hank. “Get anything?”
“The owner of the trailer I was at says no habla ingles,” Hank said. “But it took five minutes of me knocking and her looking out of her windows to tell me that.”
“Doesn’t matter. Jones filled you in?” I asked.
“Possible eyewitness to the man at the gas station and car. The guy said that he saw both at the house that we stopped at on the way in.”
“Okay,” I said. “Deputy Collard called it in to his station, so we’ll have a couple more guys coming. Bostok is seeing what he can do about getting us a warrant to search the property. Until then, let’s get back up there and have a better look around.”
“Sure,” Hank said.
“I turned to the deputy. “Did you just want to follow us back to the…?” A sound broke up my sentence. I stood quietly. “Did you guys hear that?” I asked.
Everyone’s heads were looking in the direction of the house at the front of the property. A split second later, I heard the sound again, twice. The noise was unmistakable.
“That’s gunfire,” I said.
“How far away do you think?” Deputy Collard asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“It came from that direction,” Hank said. He pointed back up the dirt road and off to the south. “Do you get a lot of people shooting for sport out here?”
Collard shook his head.
Another shot sounded.
“That’s close,” Jones said.
“Let’s get back up to that house,” I said.
I jumped in through the passenger door of Jones’s cruiser. Hank took the back, and Jones took his seat behind the wheel.
Jones turned the car around in the dirt road and pointed us back to the front of the property. I glanced back over my shoulder, through the cage and out the rear window. The deputy’s cruiser was already on our tail.
We drove from the trailers toward the house, which came into view a moment later. “Slow down,” I said.
I stared at the ranch. The front door was open. A couple-of-years-old Toyota Corolla, which wasn’t there when we had stopped earlier, sat parked near the blue pickup truck.
“We have someone here,” Hank said from the backseat. “Do you think this is where the shots were coming from?”
“We’re about to find out,” I said. “Pull up over here, Jones.”
Jones slowed and pulled just off the dirt road at the end of the home’s driveway. He pointed the car nose in.
The deputy pulled up alongside us.
We stepped from the cruiser and gathered on the passenger side of the car.
I glanced at Jones and Hank, taking my eyes from the open front door of the house for just a split second. “Be ready for anything,” I said.
I reached into my jacket and popped the snap on the thumb break for my shoulder holster.
Deputy Collard stepped from his vehicle and joined us. “Two more cars should be here within a couple minutes,” he said. “What’s the plan?”
I turned toward the deputy. “Run the plates on the vehicles parked at the house. We’re going to make contact with whoever is inside.”
“The shots?” he asked.
“If they didn’t come from inside this house, we’ll get one of your other deputies to investigate it when they arrive.”
“Sure,” Collard said. “Um, how are you going to know if they came from inside the property?”
“I’m going to ask,” I said. “And have a look inside as soon as I get a warrant in my hand.”
“Right,” Collard said. He walked back for his cruiser.
“Hey.” Hank nodded at the house.
I turned to look. A man walked from the home. He took two steps, stopped, and stared at
us.
As the man stood a few feet from the door, motionless, his identity registered in my head. Hat, red beard, average height and weight, wearing black. I was looking at the guy from the gas station surveillance video—the guy that we believe drove Tim Morgan’s car, killed his girlfriend, and shot at Hank and me.
I wasn’t taking a chance. I drew my service weapon and took aim. “Tampa Police! Down on your knees!” I shouted.
I could see Hank and Jones at my side, drawing weapons and taking aim.
The man put his hands in the air, his palms facing us.
“Knees!” I shouted.
I took a single step from the side of the car to advance. The man took a step backward.
“On the ground!” Hank shouted.
The guy spun into the doorway of the house.
“Shit,” I said. Not a second after the word came from my mouth, I heard the first shot and saw a hand holding a pistol in the home’s doorway. “Gun!” I shouted.
The three of us crouched, holding aim on the doorway, retreating backward to the rear of the car for cover. The man fired a full magazine blindly from inside of the house. I could hear the sound of bullets flying overhead. I stayed low at the right edge of Jones’s trunk. Hank and Jones had looped around me and had taken up the other side, nearer the deputy’s cruiser. Rounds pinged and thumped into the grass, dirt, and our cars. A bullet that hit the light bar on the top of Collard’s car sent pieces of blue and mirrored plastic into the air. I didn’t have a target to fire upon, aside from a hand holding a pistol. The man was shooting left-handed, using the home for cover.
I brought my weapon around the rear of the car and took aim on the house, a foot left from the doorway. I squeezed off a group of shots into the exterior of the house. I heard the rounds from Hank and Jones firing as well.
The man’s gunfire stopped.
We kept aim on the home.
“Collard, call the shots fired in!” I shouted.
I heard an unusual sound come from my left—the noise was somewhere between a moan and a cough. I looked over my shoulder at Collard’s car. Through the windows, I could see the driver’s door was open.
