No End of Bad Guys

by Jeff Buick

  “Did you sell your boat about fourteen months ago?”

  “I did. What’s going on?”

  “The woman you sold it to, could you describe her?”

  “Is she in trouble? Is she dead?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, Mr. Ambrose. Please describe the woman who bought your boat.”

  “Well, she was white, maybe forty years old and wearing about ten grand worth of clothes and jewelry. Very pretty, with a thin face and blonde hair. I couldn’t get her out of my mind for weeks after.”

  Bobby’s heart was beating faster now. “Was she alone?”

  “No, she had a girl with her. Cute little thing, about six or seven.” There was a pause, then, “Molly. Yeah, that’s her name. Molly.”

  “You asked if she was in trouble or dead, Mr. Ambrose. Why was that?”

  “You’re with the homicide division.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No, not really,” he said, tension creeping into his voice. “She struck me as the kind of person who could make enemies easily enough. It was obvious she had lots of money, but she hammered me on the price. It was like a fair deal wasn’t good enough—she had to win.”

  “So she was difficult.”

  “More than that.” There was no mistaking his anger now. “I don’t think she really cared about the boat. Kept cutting me off when I was showing her around and explaining how things worked. Honestly, I don’t think she was all that interested. I didn’t want to sell it to her.”

  “Did she say where she lived?”

  “I know she registered the boat in Florida. I had to sign the transfer documents in addition to the bill of sale.”

  “Frontrunner,” Bobby said.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Crazy name. I asked her about it.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Told me it was none of my fucking business. Can you believe it? I’m eighty and she talks to me like that. I wanted to tear up the bank draft.”

  “Thank you, sir. This has been very helpful.”

  Bobby hustled off to the Incident Room where Stacey was directing the Buchanan investigation. “I think I found Van Warner.”

  “Seriously?” she asked and he nodded. “Good work, Bobby. Where is she?”

  “Tampa. She has a boat moored there. We need to get her before she leaves.”

  Stacey dropped her papers on the desk. “Call Tampa, they can get someone to the boat faster than we can.”

  Bobby shook his head. “I want her, LT. Tampa’s an hour and a half. It’ll take that long to figure out which marina she’s moored in, so why don’t you guys nail that down while I drive?”

  She stared hard at him, trying to figure out what he was going to do to Van Warner when he found her. Finally, she said, “Remember to keep her head from hitting the roof of the car when you put her in the backseat.”

  Bobby grinned and started for the door. “Sure.” He glanced back and looked around. The place was bustling. “Anything new?”

  “Not much,” she said. “We like your idea of Jocelyn being close by. We’re pulling CCTV from every house and business within two miles. It’s got us all running around like the proverbial chickens.”

  Bobby laughed and headed out. He stopped for a second in his cubicle to grab his cell phone from the charger and ran for his car. It was time to bag a very bad gal.

  chapter eleven

  Bobby was twenty minutes out of Tampa, flashing lights on and cruising at eighty miles an hour when his phone rang. They had found the boat. Frontrunner was moored in Dunedin Marina. He cut off the freeway and slowed as he neared the harbor, cursing under his breath as he wove through the congestion.

  The waterfront came into view and he called Stacey.

  “Two patrol cars are waiting about a block south of the marina,” she said. “They’ll escort you through security.”

  “Excellent. Can they see it? Is the boat still there?”

  “Not from where they are, but the harbormaster says it’s still moored.”

  “Unless she snuck away somehow.”

  “Exactly.” A moment of dead air, then, “How close are you?”

  “Almost there. I’m on Main Street and can see the water,” he said as he crawled along. The area was thick with people out walking and shopping, and even with his flashing lights on the going was slow.

  “Call me.”

  “Will do.” Bobby hit the end button, tucked the phone in his pocket and felt for his gun. It was tight to his hip, exactly where it should be.

  He passed the sign pointing to the marina and followed the road as it curved toward a forest of sailboat masts bobbing in the water. There was a parking lot on the edge of Marina Plaza where two police cruisers were sitting, and Bobby pulled in beside them and jumped out.

  “Bobby Greco,” he said, flashing his badge. “You guys ready?”

  “Ready,” one of the uniforms answered. “The boat is in number 542. I know where it is.”

  “Our perp is a woman,” Bobby said.

  “Hanna Van Warner,” the officer said, glancing at his notes.

  “She’s dangerous.”

  “Got it.” His hand instinctively touched his gun.

  “You lead,” Bobby said, then added, “When we get there, one of you guys should escort her daughter off the boat while the other goes below and checks for anything that could be trouble.” Bobby nodded to the officer who said he knew where the berth was located. “Once we’ve got her, you stay with me. Hang back a few feet and make sure you record the conversation on your phone. Don’t let Van Warner know it’s being taped.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  Bobby slipped into the front seat of the lead cruiser and they pulled out, sirens and lights off. It was only two blocks to the marina entrance and a couple of minutes later they were at the gate. They piled out, yelling at the guard to open the door, and the four of them sprinted down the length of the pier. Bobby’s legs were pumping hard, but he was a good distance behind the young, athletic uniform cops. He slowed to a jog as he neared the berth and the yacht came into view.

  Frontrunner was docked and Hanna Van Warner was standing on the aft deck, watching them. She was caught and knew it, her cold blue eyes filled with contempt. She stood unmoving, not giving them the satisfaction of trying to run for it. Her perfectly tanned skin was golden brown against her white shorts and tank top, and Bobby figured that while the look might work on other guys, all it did was piss him off.

  The uniforms waited until Bobby caught up and let him head up the gangway first. Van Warner hadn’t moved a muscle. Molly poked her head out of the cabin and she waved when she saw Bobby.

  She grinned and glanced around. “Is Sarah here?”

  Bobby returned the smile. “No, Molly, she’s still in Orlando. Actually, I need to speak with your mom for a minute if that’s okay.”

  He slipped his arm around her shoulder, and the warmth from her skin sent a shiver up his spine. She was alive. Van Warner had lost this one.

  The little girl spotted the police behind Bobby and the smile faded.

  Bobby gently steered her toward the waiting cop. “I need you to go with this officer. You can wait at the end of the pier for us.”

  “Mom?” she said, looking at Hanna Van Warner.

  Her eyes never left Bobby. “Go on, honey, it’s okay.”

  They stood staring at each other for the better part of a minute. When it became obvious Van Warner wasn’t going to ask why the police were on her boat, Bobby said, “We found your axe.”

  Her face almost remained impassive, but not quite. Bobby saw a momentary flash of emotion, then the stoic Van Warner was back.

  “It’s in Phoenix, waiting in an evidence locker.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Bobby smiled. “Oh, you can do better than that, Hanna. You disappoint me.”

  Her jaw tightened. “This coming from you? A two-bit cop?”

  “We have a DNA mat
ch on Molly. We know the girl is Olivia Tanner. We know the axe is yours.” Bobby shook his head. “Left the axe in her head.” Still no reaction, and he added, “What kind of moron would do something like that?”

  “I want to call my lawyer,” she snapped at him.

  Bobby closed the distance between them until they were only a couple of feet apart. “You fucked up, Hanna, and I got you.”

  She glared back at him, shaking slightly and stunned at being caught.

  The officer who had gone below deck reappeared carrying a heavy sack. He set it on the wood. “I found this. There are three more.”

  Bobby took one look. It was a fifty-pound bag of cement. He turned his back on Van Warner and nodded to the officer who had found the cement. “Get this sick piece of shit out of my sight. She’s not to have any contact with the girl.”

  Bobby dropped into one of the deck chairs and stared at the bag of cement. Another hour and Hanna Van Warner would have been on her way, eventually showing up somewhere on her own with a backstory that had nothing to do with a young daughter, and Olivia Tanner would finally have disappeared for good. But that hadn’t happened. Van Warner was in custody and on her way back to Orlando where her story would slowly unravel. Even expensive lawyers weren’t going to get her out on bail. She would languish in jail until Annette Carter and the Arizona legal system finished the paperwork that would move her back across State lines. Carter had her for murder and they could tack on kidnapping as well. Life as she knew it was over for Hanna Van Warner.

  Bobby wondered how the little girl they all knew as Molly was going to handle this. The woman she thought was her mom had taken her and murdered her real mother. She was seven years old—the same age as Sarah. Kids that age weren’t equipped to deal with shit like that. Hell, adults weren’t. Child services would sit her down and explain she was actually Olivia Tanner, then get her back to her real family. There was little doubt that she would suffer the undercurrents of Hanna Van Warner’s treachery.

  The sun was warm and the water calm, but there was no solace in any of it. Bobby willed himself to get up and walked down the gangplank. There was a whack load of paperwork to get through and the adrenaline rush of grabbing Van Warner was wearing off. As he plodded down the pier, his thoughts shifted to Jocelyn Buchanan. Another case. Another damaged girl. Another bit of proof the world was a mess.

  chapter twelve

  Three days and nothing.

  All avenues on the Buchanan file were dead ends and no new leads were showing up. The Incident Room was like a morgue, the men and women staffing it all beginning to wonder if Cedric White was actually the guy. Consensus was that if White had grabbed Jocelyn Buchanan, she was either dead or wasting away somewhere with no food or water. White had broken his routine one more time and made an additional trip to the grocery store, but the notes from the surveillance team indicated he had driven directly home with his purchases.

  Stacey was going to reduce the manpower on the case any day now and Bobby was feeling the heat. Someone had grabbed the Buchanan girl and if it wasn’t Cedric White, then who was it and what were they doing to find him? Those were the questions Stacey Daniels was facing from her superiors and she didn’t have any answers. The whole case was falling apart and he felt entirely to blame.

  Bobby finished his after-work beer and set it on the kitchen counter. He needed something to get his mind off the case and settled on doing a bit of housework. It took an hour to scrub the kitchen, including the inside of the fridge, and another beer went down as he dragged the vacuum cleaner out and set the power head to the right level. Halfway through the house the red light on top of the canister started blinking.

  “Shit,” he said, and went in search of a new bag. He found the package, opened the canister and pulled out the full one, which was jammed to the brim with dust and hair and other disgusting stuff. He threw it in the garbage, wondering if having a full vacuum bag was a sign of a clean house or a dirty one.

  “Clean,” he decided. “The dirt’s in the bag, not on the floor.”

  He switched the machine on again and kept at it. Cedric White had a Dyson vacuum, the kind with a clear plastic container for the crud that gets sucked up off the floor. Bobby closed his eyes and thought back to the time he had glanced at it while he was sitting in White’s living room. The canister was empty, spotless in fact. When he had returned with the warrant, there was dirt in the canister. Actually, there was more than dirt.

  Slowly, he stopped what he was doing and stood completely still, trying to remember exactly what was in the forensic report on White’s condo. There was something in the report, he knew it but couldn’t get all the pieces to fall in place. He switched the vacuum off, left it in the middle of the floor and grabbed his keys and hurried to his car. He made good time to the station and headed straight for the Incident Room. The lab results from the contents of the canister were there and he pulled them out and scanned them.

  …wood fragments, possibly from the bark chips in the landscape beds…

  Bobby flipped through the pages until he found the comments from the tech who had searched the upper floor.

  …attic has undisturbed wood chips…

  He signed onto the Land Titles database and pulled up the ownership files for the six other units that were in the row attached to White’s condo. Two were women, three were couples, and one was a single male. He zeroed in on the male owner. Roger Baker. He opened a new window and entered the name into the police database. Nothing. He signed into the Florida DMV and entered the name and address. A picture came up on screen, a Caucasian man in his early seventies. He studied it intently for a minute, then sent it to the printer.

  Bobby walked over to the map and studied the neighborhood between where they suspected Jocelyn had been abducted and White’s condo. He ran his finger along the red lines that marked the roads that bypassed any CCTV locations, then picked up his phone and called Vern Foster.

  “Hey, do you have a bicycle?” he asked when the other detective answered. In the background he could hear a TV with the basketball game blaring.

  “My kid does. Why?” Vern muted the television, which generated a few hoots of disapproval. “Quiet,” he yelled at someone in the room, “it’s Bobby.”

  “Throw it in your car and meet me where Jocelyn Buchanan disappeared.”

  “You got something?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Bobby said. “I’ve got something.”

  Twenty minutes later the two detectives were standing in the dark on a quiet residential street a couple of blocks from the Starbucks where Jocelyn worked. It was well treed and had a long, slow curve that made it impossible to see more than a couple hundred yards ahead. This was where her phone had gone silent. This is where she’d been taken.

  “What’s up?” Vern asked, setting the bike on the asphalt. It was a BMX and looked like a dinky toy next to him.

  “I think I know how he did it and where she is. I just need to confirm one thing.”

  “What the fuck, Bobby. Seriously?”

  “Seriously, man.”

  “White?”

  Bobby nodded. “White.”

  Vern glanced at the bicycle. “This is going to involve me riding this thing, isn’t it?”

  Bobby couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “It is, but don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you in my car.” He started laughing at the look on Vern’s face.

  Bobby handed Vern a copy of the route. “Pedal hard, and stop about half a block from White’s place. I don’t want him seeing us.”

  Vern got on the bike, his knees jammed up against the handlebars. “Fuck, Greco, I was watching the game.”

  Bobby started the stopwatch on his phone as Vern wobbled off on the bicycle, then pulled in behind him. The trip to White’s condo took just under eight minutes and Vern was breathing hard when he got off the bike a block shy of the condo.

  “Crap,” Vern said. “I need to get to the gym.”

  “You did good,
” Bobby said, checking how much time had elapsed.

  “Does your idea still work?” Vern asked. He couldn’t mask the excitement in his voice.

  “Perfectly” Bobby slipped out his phone and dialed Stacey Daniels.

  “This better be good, Bobby,” she said, rather than hello. “It’s late.”

  It wasn’t that late, and Bobby figured he’d interrupted a date with her new man. “Oh, it’s good. Cedric White. We got him. I know how he did it and where he’s keeping Jocelyn.”

  “What? Are you sure?” There was a hint of disbelief in her voice.

  “Positive. How soon can you make it in?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “See you then.” Bobby slipped his phone into his pocket and grinned at Vern. “Are you coming with me to the station or do you have to take that thing home?”

  “Fuck you, Greco.”

  Stacey Daniels beat them to the station and was poking around the Incident Room when they piled in. “Is she alive?” she asked.

  “My best guess is yes, but no guarantees,” Bobby said.

  “Okay, tell me what you’ve got.”

  Bobby started right in. “Cedric White wants Jocelyn Buchanan, that’s been clearly established. But this wasn’t just a spur of the moment abduction. He’s been planning this for a long time.”

  Both Vern and Stacey were listening intently.

  “I had this nagging feeling,” Bobby said. “Then I was at home tonight vacuuming and it hit me—White’s house was spotless, and the vacuum was empty the first time I visited, but had dirt and stuff in it when I returned with the warrant. I could see what was in there because he has a Dyson with a clear plastic canister.”

  “I know the type,” Stacey said, perching on the edge of a desk.

  “Along with the dirt were some tiny fragments of wood.”

  “That’s important?” she asked.

  “It is,” Bobby said, walking over to the map. “To pull this off, he needed two residences and two vehicles, both SUVs so he could transport a bicycle without anyone seeing it. The vehicles were registered to different addresses, let’s call them the primary and secondary vehicles. The primary one is registered to White, at his home address. Okay so far?”