Judged

by E. H. Reinhard

  “So close, but yet so far,” Tim said. “I see you got your hands free. Here, let me help you.”

  Tim kicked the man in the side of the face. Tony groaned and spat blood on the tile but remained conscious. Tim kept an eye and his gun on Tony as he searched the kitchen for something to restrain Tony with again. He found a plastic tube of cable ties under the kitchen sink and walked back over. Tim popped the plastic top off the container and ordered Tony to place his hands together outstretched in front of him. Tony didn’t obey.

  “Look, idiot, you can keep the bullshit up, and you’ll die here like an asshole hanging out of this wall. That, or you can let me tie you up again.”

  Tony grumbled something under his breath and placed his hands out flat, palms down on the tile.

  Tim zipped multiple cable ties around Tony’s wrists and then yanked and pulled until the man was free from the wall. Covered in white dust, Tony lay on the foyer tile. Tim pulled the man to his feet and then used a few more cable ties to secure the man’s hands to his belt and a couple more connected cable ties to go around the man’s ankles. As Tim went to secure Tony’s ankles together, something caught his eye. Tim lifted one of the man’s pant legs, looked, and then continued to secure his legs.

  “Hop your ass to the kitchen and sit down,” Tim said.

  Tony, like a bunny, did as instructed, hopping the twenty feet to the kitchen table.

  “Sit,” Tim said.

  He did.

  Tim took a seat next to him. “Almost a good vanishing act, Houdini. Good try, I’ll give you that. Though I think you missed the part of playing it cool, and in return, I’d play it cool. Now that I know that I can’t trust you if you’re out of my sight. We’re going to sit here. You’re going to look at my face until I decide that you no longer have to.”

  “Whatever, man,” Tony said. “Break into my house, hold me at gunpoint, and tie me up. You expect me to just go along with that?”

  “I one-hundred-percent expect you to go along with that.”

  “Yeah, okay. You give me another chance to escape, and I’m gone.”

  “So what you’re saying is that I should just kill you so I don’t have to worry about you?”

  “If that’s what you’re going to do, then do it. If you’re not, then take whatever the hell you want and be gone.”

  “Are you learning challenged or something? I have my gun, as well as your gun, and you’re tied up. Do you not see the situation here?”

  “I see it just fine. You’re hiding from the cops for probably stealing a car or some other weak-ass crime and break into my house to hide like a bitch. I’ve been to jail. I’ve seen killers. You don’t strike me as one.”

  “Right,” Tim said. “Well, seeing as how you’ve brought up jail.” Tim kicked one leg up over his other knee and rested the gun on his thigh, pointed at Tony. “I saw your house arrest monitor on your ankle there. Tell me, what did you do that got you sent to jail?”

  “Huh?” Tony asked.

  “I want every last detail about your crime.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  My phone rang on the desk of my hotel room. I scooped it up and clicked Talk. “Yeah, Couch. What’s up?” I answered. I brought my coffee to my lips and took a sip.

  “You guys are up?” he asked.

  “I haven’t seen Beth yet this morning. I’ve been up for a bit—figure I should probably see what her status is.” I looked at the clock on the nightstand of my hotel room. “I told her that I wanted to be back over at the office at eight thirty. I spoke to Linda Blackwell, the woman from the Jensen house. She said she’d be in around nine thirty to leave her statement.”

  “Okay. Did you get enough sleep?” he asked. “You sound a little rough.”

  “I’ll be fine. I got just enough sleep to function.”

  “Okay. I’m just getting to the office now. We got everything from Wendell’s house brought over. Hell, I didn’t get home until around four this morning. We’re going to dig into these files and try to find our Black Mercedes SUV. We’ll probably have to get into the DMV database to check for past ownership. You can give me the details of the Doug Jensen place when you get here.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Let me go rustle up Beth. We’ll be over shortly.”

  I clicked off, took another sip of my coffee, and crossed the hall to Beth’s door. I gave it a knock and waited.

  “Yeah?” She called from the other side of the door.

  “It’s Hank. Are you almost ready?”

  “I’ll be over in a second.”

  “Okay.” I headed back to my room and took a seat on the chair next to the small table. I dialed Karen, who picked up right away.

  “Hey, babe. Late night?” she asked.

  “I think the clock said four thirty-six when I closed my eyes, so yeah.”

  “Ugh. You tired?”

  “Yup, but I’ll manage. I’m on my fourth or fifth cup of coffee now, so I should be okay. What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing. Headed to work. Nothing too exciting. Oh, um, when are you going to be done down there?”

  “A couple days, probably,” I said. “I don’t really know right now. I guess there’s no real time frame yet. We got a little bit of new evidence, so we’ll have to follow up on that and see where it leads us. We have our guy’s name. We have control of his home and vehicle. I’m guessing that we’ll be spreading the word about him to the public, and if we don’t catch up to him in another day or two, we’ll have to assume that he fled and wait for him to get tripped up somewhere.”

  “Well, that all seems like good news. I mean, last time you went down, you didn’t get much. Now that you know who he is, it should only be a matter of time.”

  “We’ll see, I guess.”

  “So, no concrete return date set yet?” she asked.

  “No. Why? What’s up?”

  “Well, I was talking to Callie, and if you’re done down there over the weekend, maybe I could fly down, meet up with you, and we could spend the weekend with Callie and Kane.”

  “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see if it works out. I guess a handful of different things would have to fall in place for it to work, but I’m definitely not against it.”

  “Okay, we’ll play it by ear. Just let me know.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I heard banging, presumably by Beth, on my hotel-room door.

  “Hey, babe, I’m going to have to run. We need to get over to the field office and get started.”

  “Sure. Give me a call when you can.”

  “I will.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Have a good day.”

  I clicked off and went to the door. When I pulled it open, Beth was standing in the hall, jabbing away at the screen of her phone. She said the word asshat and dumped her phone into her purse.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “Asshat?” I asked.

  She shook her head and grumbled. “Yeah, Scott is. I guess he figured he’d start his day by being a jackass to me. I’ve had about enough of it.”

  “You know, you could just stop talking to the guy. I’m pretty sure you could find someone out there that doesn’t suck.”

  She cleared her throat. “It’s getting there.”

  “Yeah. You’ve said that.”

  “It’s hard, Hank. I really thought we had a chance this time. But I think I’m going to have to just end it.”

  I didn’t respond. Beth had been talking about dumping her ex-husband, now current boyfriend, for months. I’d believe it when I saw it.

  “So are you ready to go or what?” she asked.

  “I’m ready. I just talked to Couch. He just got to the office and was going to start looking through the files for the black Mercedes. I figure we’ll give him a hand, check in with the forensics department, and maybe try to come up with what we want to do about a press conference.”

  “Okay.”

  We left the hotel, made the short trip ov
er to the Miramar FBI building, and passed through security. We made our way up to the serial crimes unit and found Couch holding a briefing in the large meeting room. When Beth and I entered, I spotted a handful of familiar faces: Colt, the forensics lead; Rivera; Pottsulo; and a few others.

  Couch waved us to the front and two empty chairs nearest him.

  “Why don’t you guys go over what the scene was at the Jensen place last night,” Couch said.

  We gave the ten or so agents our account of what we’d seen, and they gave the speaking duties to Colt, to let the room know what he and his forensics team had gathered.

  The forensics guys distributed some copies of photographs that had been taken from Wendell’s and went over what they’d found there with the agents and forensics guys that hadn’t been at the scene.

  I looked over some of the photos from Wendell’s home and spoke up. “Have we confirmed that everyone he had pegged up on this wall is deceased?” I asked.

  “It was the first thing that we went over last night,” Couch said. “We did it as we removed each piece from the wall. Everyone that was up there is already deceased.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Once everyone had some time to look over the information presented and get familiar with what we’d found in the two locations the previous day, Couch brought out some copies of the accident reports and passed them out.

  “I just want everyone here to read the witness statement for themselves,” he said.

  The room went quiet for a moment while the agents read.

  “So this Tim Wendell actually witnessed his own sister die in a fatal car accident?” Rivera asked.

  “Seems so,” Couch said. “And claims that another vehicle, this black Mercedes SUV ran her off the road. We want to find out if any name we have in any of the file boxes, or anyone from his wall of people, owns or has owned this vehicle—past or present.”

  “All we have to go by is black Mercedes SUV and Florida tags?” Pottsulo asked.

  “That’s it,” Couch said.

  “Says here that the witness, Wendell, was cited for DUI at the scene. Could be why the police at the scene didn’t buy his story. Do we know if the officers at the scene knew that he was related to the deceased?”

  “I’m assuming so,” I said. “I mean, I guess we don’t know for sure, but how could they not? You would think that Wendell would have given that information. Speaking of the officers at the scene though, we should get some of those guys in to get their accounts of the accident.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Couch looked at me. “Did you want to handle that?”

  “Yeah, I have to call Harrington in a little bit here, anyway. I’ll get some information on the officers that were on scene, and then I’ll make contact with them individually.”

  “Okay,” Couch said.

  “What do we want to do about circulating this guy to the public?” I asked. “Are we going to get a press conference set up here?”

  “I think you guys came in right after we went over that. I put something together for noon today. We have a couple of stations coming. We’re going to give the media a brief statement, but Wendell’s face should be everywhere by this evening. I was going to ask if you and Agent Harper wanted to join me on that.”

  “Yeah, we will,” I said.

  “Okay. Everyone else, it’s time to start digging through files. Use the DMV database and let’s find this SUV if it’s in there.” Couch looked at the two men seated on the far side of the table, whom I hadn’t met before. “Brown, Thompson, I discussed what I needed from you guys earlier. I want records of every last Mercedes SUV in the area. Delete every entry where the vehicle is newer than when the accident happened. I don’t care how you guys get the list of registered vehicles—just get it. I want every owner’s name in a seventy-five-mile radius of where the accident occurred.”

  The room cleared—the agents and tech team went to take care of their assigned duties. Colt and the other member of the forensics team at the Wendell house went back to the lab, I assumed. Beth and I headed to Couch’s office and had a seat. We spent the next twenty minutes going over what needed to be included in the press conference and planned out the rest of our day after the Linda Blackwell statement and dealing with the media. While the forensics team had been through Wendell’s house and removed all the files and information he had pegged to the wall, I still wanted to take a drive back and have another look around.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Linda Blackwell had come, given us her statement, and left. Her memory of the events that transpired hadn’t gotten any better overnight—she basically knew nothing about her assault or the assailant. The only new information we picked up was the tox screen from the medical examiner and an identification of the long aluminum rods Jensen had in his bag. The toxicology report stated that Jensen had been overdosed with the same drugs he’d confessed to giving to the elderly under the table. They were the same drugs from the empty vials found on scene. Forensics informed us the aluminum rods were jab sticks—used to administer tranquilizers on game farms and zoos. Neither piece of new evidence put us any closer to hunting down Wendell. When I spoke with Harrington briefly, he’d said he was going to see when he could get the officers from the scene of the Carrie Baker accident—as well as her old partner, Isaac Sellers—in for interviews.

  I was sitting at the front of the Miramar field office’s packed media room. Reporters sat shoulder to shoulder in folding metal chairs—those who couldn’t find seats lined the walls. From the left wall to the right, each person was taking notes or using a voice recorder. A handful of camera crews took up the back corners of the room.

  Beth was sitting to my side, and Couch was standing at the podium, giving the name of our suspect and asking the press to distribute the photos of Wendell that he’d passed out at the beginning of the press conference. The plan for the press release was Couch giving a brief overview of the case and our suspect and then introducing Beth and me. My segment would be to give the media the details of the prior evening and some more about our suspect. Beth’s part of the plan was to not get stage fright while she delivered a couple sentences aimed at asking the public for help.

  Couch was wrapping up, about to pass the speaking duties to me. I looked down and read over the bullet points I’d written in my notepad, things I wanted to touch on. My phone vibrated in my pocket, so I slid it out and glanced at the screen. The message was from Harrington. I opened it, read it, and showed it to Beth so she could have a look.

  “Tell Couch,” she said quietly.

  I stood and went to his side.

  “One second guys,” Couch said to the room.

  I showed him the message from Harrington.

  Couch returned to the podium. “That’s going to do it for us, folks,” he said. “We’d like to thank you for coming. Make sure we get his photo distributed to everyone. As soon as we have more, we’ll issue a statement.”

  The room rumbled with questions. Reporters raised hands and fired off question after question, but they received no answers. Couch held up his hand and said we wouldn’t be answering any questions at that time. He motioned Beth and me from the room through the side door.

  We followed Couch into the hallway.

  “Call him,” Couch said. “See what exactly is going on there.”

  I dialed Harrington.

  “Lieutenant Harrington,” he answered.

  “It’s Rawlings. What did you guys get?”

  “I’m on my way over there right now. The extent of what I know was what the message was. A guy, a little less than a mile away from Wendell’s home, claims he was held hostage by an intruder last night.”

  “Wendell, I assume,” I said.

  “I have a DL photo of Wendell. I’ll get the guy to confirm or deny as soon as I get there. I should be over at this guy’s house in about twenty minutes.”

  “Send me the address. We’ll be on our way in a minute or two here.”

&n
bsp; “You should see it in a second,” Harrington said.

  “Thanks for the call.”

  “Yup. See you guys in a bit.” Harrington clicked off.

  I hung up.

  “Well?” Couch asked.

  “Pretty much all he knows right now is what the message said. He’s on his way there and is sending me the address.” I stared at the screen of my phone and saw the icon for a new text message show up in the top-left corner. I tapped the screen and read off the address.

  “Let’s get over there and see what we get,” Couch said.

  The three of us left the building and headed back toward Wendell’s neighborhood and the address we’d been given. Ten minutes out, I received a message from Harrington that the intruder was in fact Wendell and that he’d stolen the man’s vehicle. Harrington said he’d issued a BOLO already. I shared the information with Beth, who called Couch, driving ahead of us, and relayed the information. We pulled up to the address a couple minutes before one thirty. A pair of patrol cars and Harrington’s gray unmarked Crown Victoria were parked along the curb in front of a beige single-story home with gray shutters. The three of us got out of our vehicles and approached the house. The lawn of the home was overgrown, more weeds than grass. The garage door was open and empty. Couch led us to the front door and knocked.

  “Come in through the garage,” someone said from the other side of the door.

  We did and entered the home through a small laundry room and then into the kitchen. Three patrol officers stood around, and Harrington sat with a man at the kitchen table.

  Harrington glanced back toward us. “Agents.” He then pointed toward the doorway.

  Near the front door was a hole in the wall, and the tile of the foyer was covered in broken drywall chunks, dust, and what looked like handprints.