Fatal Escape, page 13
At least 6 foot. Wore a ski mask.
Damn! “Race?”
Not sure. Brown eyes. Skin around them whitish. Gloves, but saw his wrist. More a beige color.
I scrolled through pics on my phone, found the mug shot of the possible hit man, whom the judge had so graciously allowed back on the street. He was far swarthier than beige, but to be thorough I held it out for her to see. “This guy?”
She started to shake her head, caught herself. No, she wrote on the pad.
Great! I thought. We have yet another evil dude out there, wreaking havoc.
Is Alejandro okay? Donna wrote. The guy was trying to find out where he is. She looked up at me, fear in her eyes.
“You didn’t tell him anything?” I tried to keep my tone neutral, but the words came out slightly rushed.
Of course not, she wrote.
I gently patted her left shoulder. “We have Alejandro and his foster family under police protection.”
Although I was no longer sure that one cruiser sitting in front of their house would be enough. We probably needed to get them into a safe house.
“What happened, ma’am?” Cruthers asked.
I was watching TV. Door burst open. I jumped up but then froze for a sec. He locked the door. I took off for the fire escape but he caught me, told me he wouldn’t hurt me if I told him where Alejandro was.
Her handwriting was deteriorating as she scribbled.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Take your time.”
She took a deep breath, shuddered, then winced. He hit me several times, she wrote, a little clearer. I was struggling to get away. Then the other man kicked the door in. Ski-mask guy hit him. And I passed out.
Donna drew something on her pad and scribbled some words above it. She held it up for me to see.
He was hitting us with this.
The line drawing resembled a canoe paddle, an oval that was thinner on one end than the other.
Cruthers squinted at the pad. “Some kind of club?”
Donna closed her eyes, her face tense. She took in a long, slow breath. Then her eyes opened and she wrote, No. Maybe a foot long. Black leather. Something hard inside.
“A blackjack?” Cruthers said, at the same time as I said, “A sap!”
I flashed to the parallel contusions in the autopsy reports on Tatiana and Caroline. A sap, leather tightly wrapped around packed sand or metal pellets to make an incredibly painful weapon—it would definitely leave railroad-track bruises like that. And some were stitched along the sides, which could be what caused the scalloped edge on the bruises.
Also called blackjacks, saps had once been standard equipment on a police officer’s duty belt. Now they were banned in most departments, because they could easily do more damage than intended. They’d been replaced by extendable metal batons.
A sap might be the weapon of choice of our alleged hit man. The injuries it caused could easily be mistaken for those incurred in a fall.
I turned my attention back to Donna, intending to ask her if she could tell us more about her assailant. But her head was drooping to one side, eyelids fluttering at half-mast.
A nurse bustled in.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “We’re leaving.” I gently lifted the pad from Donna’s lap and tore off the top page, with the picture of the weapon.
Once back in Cruthers’s car, I called the watch desk.
“Sergeant Lewis.” His tone was clipped. The other sergeants immediately acknowledged me with Chief since my name appeared on their caller ID. But not Lewis. I suspected he wasn’t too happy that I was the Chief. Well, I wasn’t too happy with him either.
“Sarge, I need two more people on Ada Johns’s house. One in front, one in back, one inside.”
“I don’t have that kind of personnel to spare,” he said, then belatedly added, “Chief.”
I counted to five. “Pull them off patrol for now, then contact the off-duty officers. Pull three in and identify any others who are willing to work overtime today.”
My inner accountant winced, but the overtime budget would just have to be stretched to cover this. I wasn’t letting anyone else get hurt, or worse.
“That’s still–”
I cut him off. “If need be, call up the auxiliary folks for minor calls.”
“What do you consider minor?” again the slight delay before, “Chief.”
I ground my teeth. “Cats in trees, loud music, minor car accidents…And I’ll need one other officer. Have him or her report to my office in half an hour.”
I disconnected before Lewis could object again.
Cruthers’s phone rang and Collins flashed on his dashboard screen. “He’s working the case now,” Cruthers said. “He skipped the second day of that training to help out.”
I groaned inside. I would be hearing about that from the brass. Collins had recently been promoted to detective and was in the middle of a two-day mandatory training that covered all things cops weren’t supposed to be doing these days, such as sexual harassment and racial profiling.
While I understood and agreed that the training was necessary, I also secretly sympathized with the cops who tried to get out of it. Collins was no doubt ecstatic that we had a big case, requiring all hands on deck.
Wait a minute! Who’s going to get on me about him skipping the workshop? I’m “the brass” now.
It was a state requirement, but somehow I didn’t see Dot Wilder bawling me out over half a workshop. I’d get him into the thing again, next time it was offered. And as punishment for skipping out on it without my permission, I’d make him take the first day over again.
I chuckled softly to myself.
Cruthers had accepted the call and he and Collins had exchanged greetings. “The chief is with me,” Cruthers said.
“Hey, Chief,” Collins’s cheerful voice rang out from the speaker. “I’m making headway on locating the boy’s dad. There are three villages near the place where Tatiana most likely crossed the Rio Grande. Well, there are more than three, but you said the victim had implied her husband was an important man. These three towns have some rich people living in or near them.”
“We’re not sure it’s her husband she was running from,” I pointed out. “It could’ve been her employer, or boyfriend. See if any of the rich people are missing any members of their households, including employees. And good work, Collins.”
“Thanks, Chief.” He disconnected.
Back at 3MB, I stopped to check in with my second in command. “Did Pirolnik agree to protection?”
Bradley pushed back from his desk and looked up at me, standing in his doorway. He sighed. “He did, but Sergeant Lewis informed me he couldn’t spare anyone else for protection duty.”
Oh he did, did he?
“I wasn’t sure how to respond to that,” Bradley continued, “since he and I are technically the same rank.”
“Let it slide, this time. I already have a solution.” More like a work-around, but I shouldn’t have to “work around” my own watch commanders. I gestured toward the paperwork on Bradley’s desk. “When you come to a good stopping point in whatever you’re doing, come over to my office.”
Cruthers had wandered off to talk to Collins, who was at his desk in the bullpen, squinting at his computer screen.
Barnes followed me into my office. She plopped down in the comfy visitor’s chair.
I filled her in on Patterson’s condition and the interview with Donna Glaser, then told her we were adding protection for Ada Johns’s family and for Gabe Pirolnik.
“I’m going to need you to help out with him.” I paused. “Where’d you get such a big bag from PetSmart?”
She blinked, caught off guard by the abrupt topic change. Which had been my intention.
“Um, I bought some things for the cat.”
“What things?”
“Some toys.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Toys for a two-pound kitten required a bag that big?”
“Well, I got her a scratching post too.”
I sat back in my chair. I had to admit, that was a good idea. Once I was sure she would only scratch the post, not my furniture, I could let her out in the rest of the apartment.
“Why does a cat need toys?” I asked.
“Because she’s a baby cat,” Barnes said, with exaggerated patience. “A child, and children need toys.”
“Uh, huh.” I watched her for a beat. Something was off. But what? “Well, thanks for getting those things. How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. You’re, um, doing me a favor to keep her.”
“Temporarily,” I reminded her.
“Sure, Chief.”
A high school student in an SPD uniform appeared in my doorway, stood at attention. “You, uh, wanted to see me, Chief?” His voice cracked a little. He cleared his throat.
It took me a moment to realize this was the officer that Sergeant Lewis had sent me. “How long have you been with us, Officer…?”
“Thompson, sir, I mean ma’am, I mean…”
“Just call me Chief.”
“Right, uh, Chief. I’ve been on the force two months.” He proudly threw his shoulders back even farther than they had been.
“At ease, Thompson, before you dislocate something.”
He shifted into parade-rest position, which wasn’t exactly at ease.
“I have a protection assignment for you. Are you available 24/7 for the next few days? You’ll get overtime pay, of course.”
“Yes, ma’am. Uh, I mean Chief.” The shoulders went back again.
“Officer Barnes here is going to take you to the assignment, introduce you to the person you will be protecting. You are not to allow anyone but me, Barnes, or Detective Bradley into his apartment, no matter what they tell you. And you are not to tell anyone, not even the watch commander, what your assignment is or the address of said assignment. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am, Chief.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
Barnes started to follow him out.
I said, “Hang on a sec, Gloria.”
Her shoulders tensed and she turned slowly, a touch of apprehension on her face.
“Are you okay with doing night duty at Pirolnik’s place? You and the rookie take turns sleeping for a few hours each.” I figured if I was shelling out overtime pay, Barnes should get some of it.
The relief on her face was unmistakable. “Sure, no problem.” She turned and hustled after Officer Thompson.
What the hell is she up to?
I shook my head, then using my private line, I called Dot Wilder’s office. Her assistant informed me she was gone for the day. “Can I help?”
“Maybe. Does FDLE have safe houses in this area?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Could I borrow one?”
“Is this related to the trafficking case? Because Special Agent Wilder said we were to give you full cooperation with that.”
“Well, maybe. We’re not sure yet if the cases are related.”
“Good enough for me. Hang on.” Keyboard keys clicking. “The nearest one available is in Clover County. Sheriff Pierson has a key to it. Have you met him yet?”
I swallowed a chuckle. “Yes, I have.”
“I’ve assigned it to you for a week. Is that long enough?”
“Should be. Thanks.” I disconnected and called Sam’s cell number, explained my need for the safe house.
“Stop by the department and get the keys from the front desk…Hey, I was about to call you.”
“Oh yeah,” I said in a softer voice.
“Yeah, but it’s business, not pleasure, sadly. You familiar with the Clover Sinkhole?”
“No, afraid not.”
“It’s in the northern part of the county. Fenced off, but kids still get in there and like to poke around. Two of them found a body, at the bottom of a dropoff. Guess who?”
Several flip answers came to mind. I didn’t say any of them.
After a beat, he said, “It’s Pedro Juarez, that guy we caught beating up your video game genius.”
A gasp escaped before I could catch it. “What the hell is he doing way out there? He didn’t strike me as the hiker type.”
“Me neither, and most people don’t take hikes in a business suit.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I was torn.
I really wanted to get Alejandro and Ada Johns’s family into that safe house. But I also really wanted to get to Sam’s crime scene and see the body in situ before the ME’s people moved it. And before it got dark.
Cruthers was on his way to check out Donna Glaser’s apartment and reconstruct what went down there.
We’ve got a few too many crime scenes at the moment.
Hell. We’ve got a few too many crimes at the moment! And it was looking more and more like they were all related, to some degree.
Well, I needed to get the key to the safe house anyway, so might as well head for Clover County. I’d call Jenny Coleman at DCF on the way and get things rolling on her end.
I retrieved Derek’s printouts, which I’d locked in my desk earlier, and stuffed them in my laptop case. They were going with me.
Bradley was coming into the bullpen as I was going out. “You busy at the moment?” I asked.
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Come with me then, and can you drive? I need to make some calls.”
We swung by my car so I could retrieve the sneakers I keep in my trunk—much better for climbing around sinkholes than my low-heeled pumps.
Once in Bradley’s car, I called Jenny Coleman. After explaining the situation, I asked, “Can you convince Ada to go into the safe house?”
“Maybe. She’s hypersensitive about anything that disrupts the kids’ routines.”
“As she should be, but they are in real danger.”
“My guess is she’ll want to leave the other kids with her husband and go with Alejandro to the safe house.”
I stifled a groan. “Jenny, I would still have to have protection on the rest of the family then. And my department is getting stretched thin. I need some of my cops left to actually solve the case so everybody can get back to normal.”
“You think the threat is that great?”
I sighed. “Keep all this to yourself please, but the guy who’s looking for Alejandro beat up Mr. Pirolnik last night. We now have protection on him as well.”
Jenny sucked in air. “Is he okay?”
“Yeah, he held his own, and we caught that guy. Unfortunately, a judge granted him bail.” I left out the part that he was now dead. “And this afternoon, someone else beat up a sixty-four-year-old retired teacher and attacked my detective when he came to the rescue.”
Why is it that our people are showing up just after these guys get there? I asked myself.
Because they’re one step ahead of us, that’s why!
“Are they okay?” Jenny was saying.
“Not okay, but they’ll both recover.”
“I’ll talk to Ada right away. I may even go over there and help her pack.”
“To convince her the whole family has to go, you might point out that whoever’s looking for the boy will be more than willing to harm her husband and the other kids to get answers.”
I signed off and turned to Bradley to tackle the real reason I’d asked him along. “We’ve got a new development regarding the former chief.” I had decided that I needed to trust him. He’d never been in Black’s inner circle, and I needed at least one ally inside the department.
I filled him in on what I’d found in Derek’s printouts so far, finishing with, “I’ve got another ten pages to go, but there’s definitely enough there to show he was corrupt. And several places that imply there were others in the department in on it.”
“Want me to make some educated guesses about who was in on it in our house?”
“Nope, ’cause I’m probably thinking the same people, but let’s not jump to conclusions.” I pulled the papers out of my laptop case. “I’m going to sit here quietly and read while you drive. Then on the way back, if you’re okay with me driving your car, you can read these for yourself.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Bradley said, his voice and face grim as he stared out the windshield.
It was a great place to dump a body.
Juarez was on his back, and even from the top of the cliff, I could tell that his eyes were open, staring unseeing at the sky. If not for two inquisitive boys—standing nearby with a woman, most likely the mom of one or both of them—the critters in the surrounding woods would have made short work of the corpse within days, leaving little behind but remnants of clothing and a few bones.
Sam’s solo crime scene tech and a couple of deputies were in the ravine created by the sinkhole. The former was taking pictures, the other two carefully crisscrossing the ground, heads down, scanning for evidence.
A portable ladder, made of chains and metal steps, dangled over the side of the drop-off. It was anchored to a nearby live oak’s three-foot wide trunk and was certainly sturdy enough. Still, my stomach tensed at the idea of climbing down it.
“Only other alternative,” Sam said from beside me, “is a one-mile hike along the ridge to where the ground slopes up. There’s a trail there. That’s how the boys got in and out.”
In office clothes, the idea of a two-mile hike, round trip, was even less appealing than repelling down the cliff on a swaying ladder. And dusk was moving toward dark faster than I wanted it to.
The mom cleared her throat.
Sam glanced her way. “Let me talk to the boys again, so they can go.”
Bradley eyed me up and down, frowning. I had remembered to change into my sneakers, so what was he looking at?
“I can go down,” he said.
I intentionally returned the up and down scrutiny. Bradley’s partner was an accountant, made good money, and they had no kids, so Bradley could afford to spend a good chunk of his own salary on clothing. His gray suit probably cost more than my entire work wardrobe.
Of course, that wasn’t saying much. I had a half dozen pantsuits, all black, and a dozen white shirts. Kept decision-making in the morning down to a minimum.
