by Tim Kizer
After he watched the house for fifteen minutes, Vincent got out of his car and placed a GPS tracker under the rear bumper of Camp’s Ford F-150. When he returned to his Toyota, he pulled out his cellphone, turned on the Wi-FI, and waited for the list of available wireless networks to appear on the screen. Of the five wireless networks on the list, Angela025 had the strongest signal, with the signal strength indicator showing three out of four bars. Vincent figured it belonged to the house in front of which he was parked. All five networks except for the one named Spiffy were protected by a password. Vincent walked over to Camp’s house and looked at his phone. Now, it was belkin.e26 that had the strongest signal, with all four bars lit on the indicator. It was reasonable to assume that belkin.e26 was Michael Camp’s Wi-Fi network.
Vincent climbed behind the wheel and called Jerry Aversten, an IT expert with great computer hacking skills, whose services Vincent had used many times before. After hacking into Camp’s wireless network, Jerry would be able to access the shared files and the Internet history on all computers connected to that network. Vincent was especially interested in Camp’s Internet history: the websites Camp had visited and the searches he had performed might offer clues suggesting that he was involved in Annie’s kidnapping.
Jerry agreed to come to Houston tomorrow. He said he was going to book a room in the hotel where Vincent was staying.
Half an hour later Vincent checked into the Holiday Inn on Federal Plaza Drive. After the desk clerk gave him the keycard, he went to the rental agency and picked up the Chevrolet Express Van he had reserved earlier. He was going to use the van, which provided better protection from prying eyes than his Toyota, tomorrow night.
3
Vincent came back to Michael Camp’s house at seven o’clock the next morning. At seven-thirty, a tall dark-haired man, who was not Michael Camp, walked out of the bungalow and got into the silver Chrysler 200 parked at the curb. Vincent grabbed his camera from the passenger seat and took a picture of the Chrysler’s license plate. It must be Camp’s roommate, he thought. The man started the car and drove off. Camp left the house five minutes later. Vincent followed him, staying two hundred yards behind, with the GPS tracker keeping him informed of the subject’s location. At eight o’clock Camp parked his truck behind the building of Universal Restaurant Supply and went inside.
While waiting for Camp to come out, Vincent ran the license plate number of Camp’s roommate’s Chrysler through the Texas DMV database and found that the car was registered to Anthony Figueroa. According to the DMV records, Anthony Figueroa lived at the same address as Michael Camp. Figueroa had no criminal record except for an arrest for drunken driving, which had not resulted in a conviction.
It was unlikely that Camp was holding Annie in his house because he shared it with Figueroa.
Camp left Universal Restaurant Supply at five pm (Vincent figured he worked there). After visiting a strip mall at the intersection of West Little York Road and Interstate 45, he drove to a house in Magnolia, a town thirty miles north of Houston, where he stayed for fifty minutes. Then he returned home.
When he was in Magnolia, Vincent received a text message from Jerry saying that Jerry was in the lobby of his hotel. Vincent told him to get ready.
At a quarter to nine, they got into the rented Chevrolet Express Van and headed for Camp’s place.
4
Camp’s F-150 was in the driveway when Vincent and Jerry arrived at his house.
“Looks like he’s home,” Vincent said, plucking the keys from the ignition.
They moved to the back of the van, and Jerry got to work. It took Jerry thirty minutes to crack the Wi-Fi password. He found no shared folders on Camp’s computer. After an hour, Jerry began copying Camp’s Internet history to his laptop. When he was finished, Camp’s roommate’s Chrysler pulled up in front of the house.
“Who is it?” Jerry asked after Anthony Figueroa went inside.
“I think it’s his roommate.”
“Do you want his Internet history, too?”
“Yeah, why not.”
Figueroa turned on his computer at ten past eleven. When Jerry gained access to Figueroa’s Internet history, Vincent asked if he could crack the password to Camp’s email.
“I’ll work on it at the hotel,” Jerry said.
A quick glance revealed that Michael Camp was a big fan of porn: he seemed to have watched adult videos every day. The names of the videos indicated that they were of the straight porn variety.
Among the keyword phrases Michael Camp had searched for in February were: “David Miller,” “David Miller prosecutor Pima County,” “David Miller address,” “David Miller address in Dallas.” In late February, Camp visited a website called peoplesearch.com, which was a place where you could get virtually anyone’s address and phone number for a small fee. The website also allowed you to search criminal records and various public records. Vincent was familiar with peoplesearch.com because he had been its regular customer for the last ten years.
Did Camp go to peoplesearch.com to obtain David’s address? Apparently that was the case: shortly after visiting peoplesearch.com, Camp looked up David’s address on Google Maps and got driving directions to it from his house in Houston.
There was nothing of interest in Anthony Figueroa’s Internet history.
Vincent checked the Montgomery County property records and found that Michael Camp owned the house he had visited in Magnolia. The previous owner was his father, Frank Camp, who had died a year ago. Did Camp keep Annie in that house? It was a suitable place for holding a kidnapped child since the nearest neighbor was about one hundred and fifty yards away.
He had to search it.
5
Vincent went to Magnolia the next morning in a rented Ford Focus. When he got to the house Camp had inherited from his father, he opened the glove compartment and took out his pistol, Glock 30. Then he grabbed his suit coat from the passenger seat, hung it over his arm, covering the gun, climbed out of the car, and started for the house, which was a hundred feet from the road.
He scanned the front yard for an alarm company sign and found none. There were no alarm company stickers on the windows. With its grimy walls, cracked and peeling paint, dusty windows, and yellowing lawn, the house was in need of some tender loving care. One of the porch balusters was missing. About fifty feet from the house stood a large shed.
“Hello!” Vincent called. “Is anyone home?”
There was no response.
As he climbed the steps, a mockingbird began singing in a nearby elm tree. A gust of hot wind flapped his shirt against his back, which was damp with perspiration. Looking around, Vincent wiped sweat from his temples with his hand and put the Glock in his pants pocket.
“Hello!”
Not a sound came from inside the house. Vincent pulled his lock-pick set out of his suit coat pocket, picked the lock, and entered. The front door led into the living room, which had white walls and a stone fireplace. There was a musty smell of old furniture in the air. Holding the gun at his side, his finger on the trigger, Vincent quickly surveyed the empty room.
“Annie! Annie!” he shouted. He received no response, the soft ticking of the wall clock the only sound. Camp might have taped Annie’s mouth shut or might be giving her sleeping pills to keep her from yelling for help.
He walked past the brown upholstered couch and went into the dining room, then opened the door to his left. Behind the door was a large bedroom, which was silent and empty.
“Annie!” he called. No one answered.
He looked in the closet and the bathroom, and then left the room. He crossed the living room to the hallway, which had two doors on the left and three doors on the right. The first door on the left was a bathroom; there was no one there. The first door on the right opened into a bedroom, which was smaller than the one Vincent had just been in. It crossed Vincent’s mind that there was no TV in any of the rooms he had checked. The absence of a TV in the house or the apart
ment usually meant that no one lived there.
When he lifted his foot to step in, he felt something hard and cold press against the back of his head. Then a man’s voice said, “Drop the gun.”
That’s why I don’t like to break into other people’s homes, Vincent thought.
He tried to turn his head to get a glimpse of the man standing behind him but had to abandon the idea when the guy prodded him with what Vincent assumed was the barrel of a pistol, and growled, “Don’t you fucking move! Drop the gun now or I’ll blow your brains out!”
It must be Michael Camp.
Did he take a day off today?
Vincent wasn’t in the mood to gamble that the cold hard object jammed against his head was something innocuous, so he threw his Glock on the floor. The pistol landed on the carpet with a thud.
“Let me explain,” Vincent said.
The man took away Vincent’s suit coat and said, “Put your hands up and don’t move.”
Vincent obeyed. The man patted him down with one hand, pulled out the wallet, and said, “Go sit down on the bed. Slowly.”
Vincent walked over to the bed, turned around, and saw that it was indeed Michael Camp. In his right hand Camp held a Beretta. Vincent’s suit coat lay on the floor. When Vincent sat down, Camp picked up the Glock, shoved it in the pocket of his shorts, and closed the door.
“Can I put my hands down?” Vincent asked.
“No.”
With the Beretta pointed at Vincent, Camp flipped the investigator’s wallet open, looked at it for two seconds, and then said, “You name’s Vincent Daley?”
“Yes.”
Camp grabbed the only chair in the room, put it by the door, and eased onto it. “What are you doing here?”
“I got lost. Is this your house?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Vincent forced a smile.
Was Camp going to shoot him?
Would the neighbors be able to hear the gunshot? Vincent doubted it.
They would surely not hear the gunshot if Camp used a pillow as a silencer.
“You broke into my house, Vincent. And the law allows me to kill you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Only if you feel a threat of death or serious injury.”
“Oh, I do feel a threat of death. Isn’t it obvious?” Camp waved his pistol slowly from side to side, as if limbering up his wrist. “I could kill you or I could hand you over to the cops.”
“Or you could just let me go.”
“You’re a joker, aren’t you?” Camp smiled. “What are you doing in my house, Vincent?”
Vincent clenched and opened his hands and said, “I’m a private investigator. I’m working on an infidelity case.”
“An infidelity case? Interesting. And what does my house have to do with it?”
“I had information that my client’s wife and her lover meet here to have sex.”
Camp looked angry but not nervous.
Maybe Annie wasn’t in this house?
Maybe Michael Camp was not the kidnapper?
“Oh, really?” Camp sniffed at the air and said, “I smell bullshit. If you don’t start telling me the truth, I’ll shoot you.”
“Can I put my hands down? Please?”
“Okay. Keep them where I can see them.”
Vincent placed his hands on the edge of the bed. “I am a private investigator. I can show you my business card.”
“I believe that. But I don’t believe the part about the cheating chick. Who sent you and why?”
Did Camp suspect he was looking for Annie in this house?
He probably did.
And he’s going to kill me just to be on the safe side.
Pointing at Camp’s pistol, Vincent asked, “Where did you get the Beretta?”
“That’s none of your business. Answer the question.”
“Do you know that in Texas ex-cons are not allowed to possess a gun for the first five years after their release? You can’t claim self-defense if you illegally possess a firearm. If you kill me, you’ll go to prison for murder. Do you want that?”
“I’ll kill you with your gun. That should solve the problem.” Camp took out the Glock and put the Beretta in his pocket. Then he asked, “How do you know I was in prison? How do you know I got out less than five years ago?”
Dammit! He should have kept his mouth shut.
Trying to come up with an answer, Vincent scanned Camp’s legs, arms, neck, and face for prison tattoos. There were no tattoos on the visible parts of Camp’s body, so he decided to tell the truth. “I did a background check on you.”
“A background check? Why?”
“Because you’re the owner of the house.”
“For your information, my conviction was overturned.”
A few weeks ago Vincent had seen an ad in the PI Magazine for a .22 caliber single-shot pen gun. Harmless as they might seem, pen guns were powerful enough to kill a human being. Now Vincent wished he had one on him.
“Who sent you?” Camp asked. “And don’t give me that bullshit about the infidelity case.”
“Listen, this is all just one big misunderstanding. Let me go, and I promise you’ll never see me again.”
“Do you work for the cops? Did you plant something in the house?”
“No, I don’t work the cops and didn’t plant anything. I just wanted to take a look. And this house turned out to be the wrong place to look. Please accept my apologies, and let’s get on with our lives.”
“First you need to answer my question. Who sent you? What were you looking for?”
“You’re not the subject of this investigation, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Here’s what I’m going to do: I’ll turn you in to the cops.” Camp pulled his cellphone from his pocket, dialed a number, and a few seconds later said, “Hi, I’d like to report a burglary.”
He gave the operator the address. There was a pause, and then Camp said, “I’ve arrested him. He had a gun, but I took it away from him.” Another pause. “When are they going to get here?”
Vincent’s uneasiness began to give way to cautious optimism.
It appeared that Camp wasn’t going to kill him. Also, the fact that Camp had called the police suggested that Annie wasn’t in this house (assuming Camp was capable of understanding the risks of involving the cops).
“Okay, thank you. Bye.” Camp hung up and pocketed his phone. “The cops will be here in ten minutes.”
“Good.”
Vincent believed he’d be able to avoid a burglary charge, so the worst that could happen to him was that he’d be convicted of criminal trespass, which was a misdemeanor. Since he was carrying a pistol, he could be punished by a fine of up to four thousand dollars or confinement in jail for up to a year or both. Vincent fully expected to get off with a fine and no jail time. He might lose his private investigator’s license, but that didn’t worry him much at the moment.
“This is a nice gun,” Camp said.
“You want to keep it?”
If Annie wasn’t in this house, then where was she? Was she in some cabin in the woods? Was she dead?
“No. What I want is for you to go to jail.”
Did Camp realize he might tell the police that Camp had kidnapped Annie?
Perhaps Camp didn’t think he was looking for Annie.
Or maybe Camp was sure that he had gotten rid of all incriminating evidence and therefore wasn’t afraid to attract the attention of the police.
Did he forget the saying: “You can’t be too careful”?
Maybe Camp really had nothing to do with Annie’s kidnapping?
“I’d let you go if you told me who sent you here and why.” Camp looked at his watch. “You’ve got about eight minutes to start talking, bro.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Do you work for a gang?”
“No.”
Ca
mp tapped his foot a few times, and said, “Show me your business card.”
“The cards are in the inner pocket of my jacket.”
Camp stood up, picked up Vincent’s suit coat, then fumbled in its inner pocket and brought out a business card. Examining the card, he said, “So you’d rather go to jail, huh?”
“This is not about you. You have nothing to worry about.”
Camp slipped the business card into his pocket and said, “Tell me who sent you, Vincent. I won’t tell anyone, I give you my word. I can keep secrets very well.”
“My employers are not after you, Michael.”
“Who are they after?”
Vincent looked at his watch. The cops should be here in about five minutes.
When seconds count, the police are minutes away.
Vincent pressed his lips together to suppress a smile.
“I’d rather go to jail,” he said.
“Why can’t you tell me who your employers are? Are they going to kill you if you do?”
“No.”
“Are they going to beat you up?”
“No. They’ll sue me. They have very good lawyers.”
“Sue you?” Camp began to drum his fingers on his left knee.
A long silence followed. Vincent started to wonder if Camp was having second thoughts about turning him over to the police.
“Get up,” Camp said at last.
Vincent rose to his feet. With the Glock pointed at Vincent, Camp opened the door, backed out of the room into the hallway, and said, “Go to the front door. Slowly.”
Was Camp taking him to the shed? Had Camp decided to kill him?
When they were in the living room, Vincent asked, “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. Would you like to tell me who sent you? It’s your last chance, Vincent. You don’t have much time left, you know.”
Vincent stopped at the front door. “I’ll tell you who sent me if my clients give me permission. Can you wait till tomorrow?”
“No, I can’t. Open the door and step outside. Don’t try to run.”
Vincent went out onto the porch and looked at his watch. The police were going to come any minute now.
Maybe Camp wanted to lock him up in a cellar in the shed?
