“I supposed they could be paying a professional hit man.”
“That would cost a fortune. The guy would have to be really good and they don’t come cheap. Most of them are not sharp enough to get away with it six times.”
“Then it has to be either one of them or a relative,” I said.
“That still leaves us with zilch. That means it could be anyone of a hundred people.”
“I know but I still think Brandon could be the key to all of this.”
“Why?” Dan asked.
“I don’t have a real reason. It is just a gut feeling. He was so sure of himself. His parting shot of ‘good luck with that’ just caused my radar to go off.”
“That isn’t much to go on,” Dan insisted.
“You’re right but I’ve had a lot less to go on.”
“Still Angie, I just can’t see his dad letting him take that kind of risk.”
“Maybe his dad doesn’t know. Kenny may not be aware of what Brandon is up to once he is down for the night,” I told him.
“I guess. It still seems like a very long shot.”
“What else have we got to go on?”
“Nothing.”
“There you go.”
**
We were back in the captain’s office once again. It seems like I spend half my life in here.
“So you are going to stakeout Brandon Miller and see if he is involved in this?” McGregor asked.
“That is about all we can do at this point,” I replied.
“And if that doesn’t work out?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“And you have no idea where James is hiding out.”
“We don’t. Once we talked we didn’t bother to follow him. That was the idea. Let him get lost. If Brandon is the person behind all of this, he may have followed James. It would make sense that since James is the last one he would want to finish the job as quickly as possible.”
“And you have already been to every flop house and can’t find James?”
“We hit twenty-five all total. Not a single one had seen him.”
“Alright. I guess it is worth a try. I don’t think it will get you much but like you said, what else do you have to go on at this point?”
“We’ll keep you informed,” I told him before he could tell us to get out.
**
Dan was behind the wheel eating a burger and dribbling the secret sauce down the front of his shirt. What a slob.
“Man I would love to wrap this up tonight,” he said letting a piece of lettuce drop in his lap.
“I think there is a good chance of that happening,” I said carefully taking a bite.
“Want to bet a ten on it.”
“I’ll bet you ten that at some point tonight we find our friend sneaking out of the house.”
“You’re on,” Dan said taking a ten dollar bill out of his wallet and placing it on the dash.
I took one out and laid it on top of his.
“Make sure you understand. I’m not saying he will lead us to James. The bet is that he will leave the house at some point in time.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m saying that he isn’t about to leave his dad unattended.”
“I just wanted to make it clear so you don’t whine when I take your money.”
“You will be the one crying. Are you eating your fries or what?”
“Go on, take them Mr. Insinkerator.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean.”
“An Insinkerator is the type of garbage disposal I have in my kitchen sink. It can devour anything.”
“Ha ha. Very funny now hand them over,” he said holding out his big hand.
**
It was going on 12:45 a.m. and not a thing was stirring in the Miller house. I was starting to think maybe Dan was right. Maybe he wouldn’t leave his dad alone. I could see Dan checking his watch in my peripheral vision. He was thinking the twenty bucks was his.
I was just about to say something when I saw the front door to the Miller house open. A man in a dark hoodie with dark pants and dark shoes stepped out on the porch. There was no way to recognize him from where we were parked.
The figure started up the street away from where we were parked.
“You want me to follow him?” Dan asked.
“I’ll follow him. You just be ready to come if he is going to a car. I don’t want to lose him.”
“Be careful. He could be very dangerous,” Dan said in his mother hen voice.
I slipped out of the car and started up the street staying in the shadows as much as possible. I was almost a block behind the retreating figure. I hurried as quickly as possible without making noise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Following as fast as I could and still being quiet was putting me further behind the figure. He was walking pretty fast and had a long stride. He was almost a block and a half ahead of me and I was starting to think about calling Dan.
Suddenly he stopped and turned around. I had just stepped into the alley or he would have seen me for sure. It was pure luck, nothing more.
He waited for several seconds before finally starting off again. If anything he was walking even faster. I finally decided I would never close the gap at this rate without running and that would give everything away.
“Dan. He is getting away. We are headed north on Broadway. I’ll be crossing Dover in a block. Come pick me up, he is too far ahead.”
“Copy.”
I could just see him turn the corner heading east when I heard Dan come driving up. I jumped in and Dan took off.
“Turn right, two blocks up,” I told him.
Dan floored it and turned the corner. Nothing. He wasn’t anyplace to be seen. It didn’t seem possible. It had taken Dan all of maybe two minutes to get to me and for us to turn the corner. Dan drove slowly down the street but we could find no trace of him.
“How the hell did he get away that fast,” I said frustrated.
“The damn guy is a ghost,” Dan replied.
“Maybe he saw me following him. I thought I was far enough back but what else could it be?”
“X-Ray vision? Maybe he is Superman.”
“Right and I’m a fan of Danica Patrick.”
“You don’t like anything about her,” Dan said.
“Tell me about it.”
“So what now?”
“We go back and wait for him to come home. When he does we grab him up and haul is butt down to the station.”
**
We waited the rest of the night and at six o’clock we decided we had had enough. Either he had slipped in somehow or he didn’t come back. Neither one made much sense.
“So what now?”
“Well let’s go to his work place. We are going to pull him in for questioning and I don’t plan on being quite so nice this time.
“He isn’t going to tell us anything, you saw how smug he was.”
“Angie is pissed this time so it will be gloves off.”
“Okay but I’m just going on record as saying it will be an effort in futility.”
“So was the loss of your money,” I said as I grabbed the money off the dash.
“Hey, no fair. We don’t know that was Brandon for sure.”
“Quit crying, man up. You lost fair and square.”
**
I think Dan was a little irritated. He drove with more aggression than normal and that was hard to do. He always drove like everyone was in a race against him. There is something about a man and a car. It becomes a part of their personality.
“Are we in a hurry?”
“Please, don’t start in on me. I’m doing just fine.”
“You’re driving like a manic.”
“At least I haven’t totaled three cars,” he shot back.
Oooh. He was mad. That was below the belt. I decided to just shut up and let him get it out of his system.
We pulled up in the lot of the lumber company and Dan walked
about ten feet in front of me. Obviously driving didn’t get it out of his system.
I saw Brandon almost immediately. He had a clipboard and some kind of scanning gun in his hand. I pointed Dan in the right direction.
“Brandon.”
“Oh. If it isn’t the good Detective Bartoni and her sidekick.”
“Detective Roberts,” Dan said forcefully.
“Right. To what do I owe this visit? We just had a nice little conversation yesterday? Did something turn up from the lab?”
“I’ll tell you what this is all about. We saw you leave your house last night and slink off into the night. You never came back that we saw. We are all going to go down town and talk about where you went and why.”
“Why? Is it against the law to leave at night? I mean is there some curfew that I don’t know about?”
I was starting to really, really not like this guy. He was such a little shit.
“It isn’t about curfew. It’s about lying to the police.”
“Lying? And just how did I do that?”
“You said you always stayed home at night after you got your dad down for the night.”
“No, I said I usually stayed home. Usually means there are times when I do go out.”
“So it was you we saw,” Dan asked.
“I’m not sure I understand. You said you saw me. Does that mean you just think you saw me? That you don’t know if it was me or not? Perhaps you couldn’t get a good look at the person to see who it really was.”
“You know Brandon you are digging a pretty deep hole for yourself. We can either help you or bury you. The last thing you want to do is piss us off,” Dan said.
“Look detectives, you are the ones that are doing the pissing off. I came down and we talked yesterday. I didn’t have to do that. Now here you are at my place of work harassing me about what you may or may not have seen. Now here are you choices. You arrest me right now or beat it and let me get back to work. From this point on, you can talk to my lawyer,” he said handing us a card with his attorney’s name.
“This is really stupid on your part Brandon,” I said. “We just want to know why you left last night and didn’t come back. Why make that adversarial? What good does that do?”
“I’ll tell you why. I don’t like your Gestapo tactics. Asking is one thing, accusing is another. You don’t have a clue if it was me that you saw and yet you come in here and act like you caught me with a smoking gun. That doesn’t sit very well with me. Since that is the way you are going to operate then I need to make sure I am protected. That is what my attorney will ensure. Now as I said earlier, I have work to do,” he said and stepped around us and walked off.
“Do you want me to stop him?” Dan asked.
“No, he is right. We only think it was him. We have no real prof.”
“Awe Angie, who the hell else could it have been? Of course it was him.”
“Dan, if his attorney asked us under oath ‘can you positively recognize Brandon as the man you saw last night’ what could we say?”
“So we just let him go?”
“We have no choice at this point. We are just going to have to find a different way at coming at this.”
“We have been trying to do that since day one and it has gotten us any place.”
“Then we try again. Dan, this is what real police work is all about. We go down one street and if we hit a dead end we go back and try another avenue. We will get whomever it is that is doing this,” I told him.
I don’t think it helped much but at least he drove a little more sanely back to the station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We debriefed with the captain and he actually insisted that we take the day off. That was a shocker. Maybe he could feel the tension oozing out of both Dan and I. Whatever the reason I wasn’t going to argue for once.
I climbed into my new Austin Healy and just drove. I didn’t even mind the brainless morons I was sharing the road with. The people texting, talking on the phone, and the ones with their pets in their laps were morons all; but today it didn’t bother me.
The Healy hummed along and my stress soon faded away. It was amazing how many thumbs up I got as I drove. It went across all age groups. Old, young and everything in between would smile or honk and give me a thumbs up.
It also gave me time to think about this case and to analyze why we were making so little progress. There was a whole list of excuses but in the end they were just that. Excuses.
Granted we had no DNA, no physical evidence and every potential witness turned up dead. As bad as that was, we still had no real ‘person of interest’ with the exception of Brandon Miller. Even that was shaky. I knew we were stretching it to think Kenny would allow his son to take that kind of risk for revenge. Could it be one of the others we just hadn’t run across yet? Of course it could but the problem was where to start? We had already looked at the most likely and so far they looked damn clean. So here I was once again. Back at the starting point.
My phone rang and I flipped it open to see who was calling. It was Ben. I never talk and drive so I found a place to pull over and answered.
“Angie. Ben”
“Yes Ben, I know.”
“Right. Sorry. I just called to tell you that there was a car cover for the Healy. The lady called and asked if you wanted it. It is part of the car so it’s free.”
“Heck yes. That would be great.”
“Why don’t you come by the hospital and pick me up and I’ll take you to her house.”
“You can just give me the address. I have GPS.”
“Well, honestly I was hoping to get a ride and maybe grab lunch with you.”
I thought a minute. What the hell was I afraid of?
“That sounds wonderful. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”
“Great. I’ll be in the lobby waiting,”
“See you soon.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“Just thanks,” was all he said as he hung up.
**
Ben came bounding down the stairs as soon as I pulled up.
“This car looks good on you,” he said leaning over to give me a kiss on the cheek.
“Ben,” I exclaimed.
“What?”
“Your co-workers.”
“So what? If anything they will be jealous.”
“I hardly think so.”
“You know that is one of your problems,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you never see yourself as others see you. Your beauty is not just in your outward appearance. You have an inner beauty that radiates.”
“Oh crap Ben. I’m a cop. I see the dregs of society. I think my inner beauty is pretty much worn out.”
“That’s what you think. Not what others see.”
We drove along in silence for several minutes.
“I don’t want to open a can of worms but I just need to know something. Honestly,” Ben said.
Yikes. Here it comes. I knew it was more than just the car cover.
“Go on,” I finally said.
“I need to know what direction our relationship is taking or even if we have one.”
“Ben. How can I answer that? You know me well enough by now to know I drag my feet at in that area.”
“Why? What are you afraid of?” he asked.
“I’m afraid of me. Not you. I’m afraid I won’t be able to give you what you need. I’m self-sufficient, a tad overbearing and so damned honest in my answers that it hurts people’s feelings pretty often. Ben, I really like being around you. I enjoy our time together. You are good looking, smart, and fun to be with but can I sustain a relationship? I honestly don’t know. That isn’t very fair I know, but it is the truth.”
“So you are never going to just let yourself go? Make a commitment and see what happens?”
“I want to but I’m afraid of how I may screw it up. The last thing I would want to do is hurt you
.”
“I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself Angie.”
“Can you? Against my strong will? Against my assertiveness? Look, when I get on a case everything in my life is focused on just one thing. Solving the case. Everything and I mean everything, goes on the back burner. Do you know why I don’t even own a pet? I don’t have the ability to take care of one and I know it.”
“Am I hearing you right? You are saying this is as good as it gets? The way we are right now?” Ben asked.
I could hear the hurt in his voice. What do I do now? I mean I really like Ben. Hell, maybe more than that but I also know I don’t want to hurt him by screwing everything up.
“Ben. I don’t know what I am saying. I like being with you. I want to spend more time with you and see what develops and I am willing to do that. The problem is that just about the time we get comfortable together another case will come along and I’ll be off in my own little world again,” I told him.
“Geez Angie, that makes it as clear as mud. Yes you want to commit to a relationship but no you don’t. I don’t even know what to think about a statement like that,” he said.
I looked over at him and saw the confusion on his face. He was right. That wasn’t an answer. It was skirting the issue and I never do that.
“Here is what I am saying in a nut shell. Yes I want to continue to see you. To spend more time with you as long as you understand that if a case rears its ugly head it will have to take precedence over our personal relationship. If you can handle that then I’m willing to let events take their course. That’s as clear as I can make it,” I said.
“I can live with that. I have times when I am so immersed in my work that you may get the same treatment. Doctors put in a lot of hours and are on call quite often so we have to break off dinners, dates, and all kinds of things and just run. It will pretty much work both ways.”
“That seems fair,” I said.
Bartoni, Bartoni. I sure hope you aren’t making a stupid mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Captain, can I borrow a couple of people to do a search of records.”
SHADOW MAN - Angie Bartoni Case File #6 (ANGIE BARTONI CASE FILES Book 1) Page 9
