The Runaway Reporter (A Police Procedural Mystery Series of Crime and Suspense, Hyder Ali #3)

by Thomas Fincham

  After completing his ablution, Hyder asked for something to place on the floor. Tiny gave him a bed sheet.

  Hyder wasn’t sure which way was East. He wanted to face the Kaaba, which was in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, but he wasn’t sure if they knew either, so he just continued with his prayers. It was his intentions to worship that were more important.

  When he had completed his prayers, he found DeShawn watching him by the door.

  “Sorry, if I scared you,” he apologized.

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “I met a lot of Muslims in prison, you know,” he said. “They tried to convert me, telling me Islam was the way to peace and Muhammad was the true Prophet, and through Islam I could get on the righteous path and all. But man, I tell you, someone of these guys were in prison for the worst crimes imaginable. They were hardcore believers, but were dangerous people. I was scared of them and stayed as far away as possible. No one messed with the Muslims, you know. They could end you in an instant.”

  Hyder didn’t know what to say.

  “Now, I’m not saying Islam is all that bad,” DeShawn continued. “I’m just saying these guys were not following it like they should. I just don’t think any religion would make you do something that would get you in jail, you know what I mean?”

  “I do,” Hyder said. “I remember reading a quote by George Bernard Shaw once, and he said, ‘Islam is the best religion, but it has the worst followers.’ I can’t speak for the people you met in jail, but I can say that Islam is misinterpreted and misunderstood.”

  “So are we,” he grinned. “We ain’t all that bad, you know.”

  “I know,” Hyder said. “I really appreciate what you’ve done for me, DeShawn.”

  “I really appreciate what you did for Jazmin.”

  Hyder nodded, said, “DeShawn, I don’t think I can stay here for long. Sooner or later the police will come knocking and I would hate for you or Tiny or Dante to get in trouble.”

  “Do you need money?” DeShawn asked.

  “What?”

  “If you need money to get out of Franklin, I can make it happen.”

  “You can?”

  “Sure, how much you need?”

  Hyder didn’t know. He hadn’t thought of running away. Where would he go? Where would he hide? How long could he even run for?

  His entire life was in Franklin. His mother’s family was here, his friends were here, and even his job was here. He couldn’t imagine starting all over again. But what other choice did he have?

  Hyder looked around and then said, “I was wondering, how do you get your money?”

  “Now you’re asking personal questions,” DeShawn said with a smile on his face.

  “Sorry, I’m a reporter. I’m wired to ask these types of questions.”

  “You really want to know?” he said.

  Hyder shrugged.

  “Ah, what the hell, I’ll show you.”

  SEVENTY-SIX

  Lopez was on Riverfield Street. The owner wanted to know when the investigation would be over. He was hoping to do something with the property, even though he wasn’t sure who would rent a place that had multiple murders take place.

  Lopez assured him it would be soon. That was why she was there now. She just wanted to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

  She went through each apartment until she had what she was looking for.

  Back in her Acura, she examined the courier boxes in detail. One was for Irma Ronston, the other for Brendan Haddon, and the last one was for Rudy Ross Jr. They had all come from Devon Pharma.

  She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary on any of them until she noticed something was wrong with the seal on Rudy Jr.’s address label. The outer layer looked stripped, as if someone had removed the original tape and then applied a new one.

  She quickly checked the box for Nolan. It too had been re-sealed.

  Both Rudy Jr. and Nolan’s packages had been tampered with.

  She then had an idea.

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  DeShawn took Hyder to a warehouse. It was not far from the apartment.

  When Tiny pulled up the metal grill, Hyder saw the interior was filled from top to bottom.

  There was a glass shelf filled with jewelry. Next to it on the shelves were laptops, DVD players, cameras, MP3 players, small and large televisions, plus many other electronic items. There was a section for bicycles, sports equipment, and even weight lifting gear could be seen. In the back were baseball caps, jackets, shoes, and many other clothing materials. It looked like it had everything for everyone.

  “Welcome to DeShawn’s Superstore,” he said with a laugh as he waved his arms around the room.

  “This is all yours?” Hyder asked, surprised.

  “I started it, but Tiny and Dante have been running it while I was gone.”

  Hyder went over and picked up a pirated DVD. “Is everything in here stolen?” He asked. Hyder knew DeShawn had been incarcerated for breaking and entering.

  “No, man,” he replied. “We bought them for very, very, very low prices. You could say they were a steal.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “So, you bought stolen goods?”

  “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “What do you do with the items?”

  “We’ve got some retail outlets who like to sell goods at bargain basement prices. For instance, these razors…” He picked up a pack of eight. “These would sell for… what? Sixteen to eighteen bucks at the brand name stores. Well, at the stores we distribute to, you can buy these for twelve bucks. That’s good savings for everyone. Who can argue with that?”

  “Yeah, but the company that they were stolen from will lose money, which means they will lay off employees, so I don’t see how this could be good.”

  “What you don’t know is that all this stuff came from employees of those stores.”

  Hyder was speechless.

  “Tiny, tell him.” DeShawn ordered.

  “Theft by employees cost businesses several billion dollars a year in America.” Tiny explained. “It is the number one cause of lost profits. But how can you blame the employees for what they are doing? With minimum wage what it is, it is no longer financially feasible to survive on the income these employees take home. If employers compensated their employees up to the standard of living, we would see losses like these decreasing substantially.”

  Hyder couldn’t argue with that. Plus, he wasn’t about to argue with someone Tiny’s size.

  Hyder walked around the warehouse.

  “You want anything, just say so, and it’s yours,” DeShawn said from behind Hyder.

  Hyder wasn’t sure what he would do with most of this stuff. He couldn’t carry any of it while he was running from the law.

  He then stopped at a shelf. He picked up a DVD cover and waved it at DeShawn. “What’s in here?” he asked.

  “An employee was dumb enough to get caught on camera taking goods out of the store, so he stole the recording too.” DeShawn laughed. “Some of his merchandise turned up bad, so we held on to the recording, until he settled his account, you know what I mean?”

  Something looked familiar about the label on the cover. “Can I see it?” Hyder asked.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  Lopez was at the courier company. She had already informed the person behind the counter that she was a detective. Lopez wanted to know who had tampered with the seal. The person looked baffled and denied any wrongdoing by the company. He scanned the package and gave the name of the driver to her. Maybe Lopez could ask him instead, the person insisted.

  Lopez waited for the driver to return from a delivery.

  She wasn’t sure what she would find, but it was worth a try. She was now certain there was a link between Rudy Jr. and Nolan. Both had received packages that were tampered with and both had attacked others with a knife. It was too much to be a coincidence.

  After she was done here, she would go and confirm something else.

 
; An hour later, a man walked through the door. He was medium height, medium built, with curly hair that stuck out from a cap that had the company’s logo on it. He was also wearing the company’s uniform.

  He spoke to the person behind the counter and came over.

  “You wanted to speak to me?” he asked.

  “My name is Detective Marina Lopez,” she said. “Do you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  “No, go ahead,” Francisco Luiz said.

  “How long have you been working at the company, Mr. Luiz?”

  He looked up as if counting the days. “About two and a half years.”

  “Did you deliver these packages?” Lopez held them up for him.

  He looked at them and shrugged. “Probably. I deliver a lot of packages each day. In fact, I’m already late by talking to you now.”

  “Who else would have access to the packages before they come to you?” she asked.

  “If it’s individual customers, then they would take it to one of our drop-off locations, and from there it goes to a distribution center, which sends it to us to deliver to the designated address.”

  “So, what you are saying is that a lot of people would have touched it before you?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “What about businesses, do they drop it off at your locations too?”

  “No, if it’s a big client then we’ll pick it up out of courtesy.”

  “Did you pick up these packages from Devon Pharma?”

  “Sometimes, but not always,” he said. “We have many drivers here, you know.”

  She knew she was fishing for information. Right now, she didn’t have any proof that he was guilty of anything.

  She couldn’t keep him away from his job for too long.

  “Alright, you can go,” she said. “Thanks for your time.”

  SEVENTY-NINE

  He watched her leave, snarled. That was too close, Francisco Luiz thought. How did she detect he was involved? It was impossible.

  He’d been careful. He had not veered off the plan one bit. When the instructions were given to him, he always stuck to them.

  He never asked any questions. He wouldn’t get any answers even if he did.

  It was better to complete the tasks and keep his mouth shut.

  The only thing that mattered was that they achieved their goals.

  If everything went according to plan, he would be a very rich man. He would then quit this shitty job and move to Brazil or Argentina. The girls were beautiful there, and with the money in his pocket, he wouldn’t have any trouble getting them.

  But he still had to be careful. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. He knew no one would pick up on the other end, but he would be able to leave a message.

  EIGHTY

  When Lopez reached the hospital, she found two people in Nolan’s room.

  “We were just leaving,” the woman said. She was short with gray, cropped hair. Next to her was a man, with full gray hair and a trimmed beard.

  “Please, don’t leave,” Lopez said. “I’ll come back.”

  “You must be, Marina,” the woman said with a smile. “Tom talks a lot about you.”

  “I’m sorry, but have we met?” Lopez was confused.

  “I’m Ethel and this is George. We’re Simone’s mother and father.”

  Lopez realized they were Nolan’s wife’s parents.

  “I’m sorry about your daughter,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Ethel said. “I’m not sure how any parent can get over the loss of a child, but we’re doing our best.”

  Lopez nodded.

  Ethel said, “George and I are very grateful that Tom’s found someone. After what happened to Simone, we wanted him to move on with his life, but instead he fell apart. Now, he seems genuinely happy. So, I guess we should be thanking you.”

  George nodded in agreement.

  “Tom was lucky to have Simone.” Lopez replied. “He still speaks highly of her.”

  The parents looked over at Nolan, who was sleeping silently.

  Ethel said, “Take good care of him.”

  “I will,” Lopez replied.

  “Come George, we should go.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Lopez said.

  When they had left, Lopez went over to Nolan. She whispered, “For a hard ass, you seem to have quite a few people that care about you.” She kissed his forehead.

  She then went out and asked to speak to his doctor.

  It took some time, but the nurses were able to locate him.

  “What can I do for you, Detective Lopez?” he said, coming into the room.

  “Doctor, when he was brought in, did you find anything on his body?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” he replied.

  “I mean something that looked like a patch.”

  He thought about it, nodded. “I wasn’t the emergency doctor when he was brought in, but I did remember reading something in his reports. It stated that there was something on his skin, specifically on his upper shoulder. They thought it was a nicotine patch. What about it?”

  “Do you still have it?”

  He shook his head. “We normally don’t keep anything like that, why? Was it important?”

  “It was,” she wanted to say, but instead, said, “No, that’s fine. Thank you.”

  When the doctor had left, she went through Nolan’s closet and pulled out a white plastic bag. It had Nolan’s personal effects from the time he was brought in. She rummaged through the bag and found his pants. There was still blood on them. She shoved her hand in the pockets and retrieved his cell phone.

  She checked it, made a face.

  The last caller’s number was blocked.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  Hyder sat on a stool as Dante hooked up the DVD player to a television.

  “What’re you looking for?” DeShawn asked.

  “I can’t say,” Hyder replied. “But the name on the cover sounds familiar. It’s for a high-end European clothing store. I know it was a big deal when they opened their first store in the city.”

  “Okay, so?”

  “Well, something happened right across from it.”

  “Like what?”

  “A friend was killed in an accident not far from there.”

  “Whoa, that sucks,” DeShawn said.

  “Yeah, it does.”

  Hyder wasn’t sure what he would find in the security footage, but something inside told him to check it out. It was a gut feeling, one that had served him well over the years.

  When Dante played it, Hyder’s heart sank. There were hundreds of hours of footage.

  “We don’t got the time to watch all that,” DeShawn said.

  Hyder knew he was right. He shut his eyes and tried to think of the exact date. He wished he had the newspaper clipping on him, but that was not possible anymore. Think, he said to himself. You should know this…

  “I got it!” He finally exclaimed.

  He told them the day of the accident.

  The camera was facing the entrance of the store, but through the store’s front windows, they could see what was happening outside.

  Dante fast forwarded the footage. People and cars moved in and out of view at a rapid pace. It was like watching a silent movie at high-speed.

  Several long minutes later, Dante said, “I think we are there.”

  “I hope so,” Tiny said. “My eyes hurt from watching that in fast-forward.”

  Hyder had to agree. He blinked and focused.

  “Stop right there,” he said.

  On the screen, they saw pedestrians walking down the sidewalk. Several people parked in front of the store and drove away. A few even came inside and then left a little later on.

  Hyder wasn’t sure how long it would be, or even if the camera caught anything, but he was willing to wait.

  And then he saw something, or more specifically, he saw a man. He couldn’t tell what he looked like because the man had his bac
k to the camera, but there was something oddly familiar about him.

  The man stood on the sidewalk as if he was waiting for something. On several occasions he even glanced at his watch.

  The man was wearing a baseball cap. Hyder wanted him to take it off, but he never did.

  A good twenty minutes later, Hyder spotted someone on a bicycle in the distance. Hyder had a strong feeling it was Francine Robeault.

  He couldn’t see her too clearly, but he had ridden his bicycle next to her enough times to know it was her.

  She slowly came toward the camera. Suddenly, the man with the baseball cap ran over and pushed her toward a parked van. She disappeared behind the van, but they saw the front wheel was still spinning on the ground. Then an arm appeared from behind the van. She was still alive. Hyder’s heart was beating so fast that he thought it would burst out of his chest. But then something horrible happened. The van reversed and stopped abruptly, as if it had hit something.

  “Did that guy just run her over?” Tiny asked, shocked.

  He had, but Hyder could not find his voice to confirm it.

  The van suddenly drove away, exposing what was behind it.

  On the ground was Francine’s body. It was terribly twisted and distorted. There was black liquid pouring out of her head.

  The man in the baseball cap reappeared. He looked down at her body and then walked away.

  “I don’t think your friend had an accident.” DeShawn said. “I think she was murdered.”

  “That’s some scary shit there,” Dante added.

  Hyder was in total shock. What else was he expecting anyway? Right from the beginning he had never believed that Francine had had an accident. He had smelled something foul. This was the proof.

  Regardless, it didn’t make the footage any easier to watch.

  “Can you rewind that?” Hyder said.

  “You wanna watch that again?” Dante was surprised.

  “You’re a sick man,” Tiny said.

  “No, I want to get the license plate number of the van,” Hyder said.