Crescent City Murder

by Alec Peche

  Chapter 27

  When Jill heard her alarm ping, she called 911 and then went over to her screen to look for whatever activity set off the alarm. Once in a blue moon, she had tourists who would park in the road lay-by and either try to sample her grapes or would position themselves next to her grapevines for a photo shoot. She installed a sophisticated alarm system two years previous when she'd began to have her first trouble with bad dudes associated with her cases, then later she'd upgraded it further to have a camera on the lay-by. The cameras were painted the same color as her grapevines and were hard to detect.

  She watched a man exit his car on the lay-by. He likely wasn't a tourist as they came in pairs at a minimum. He had a baseball cap on and stood looking downhill toward her house. It wasn't a steep downhill, rather a gently sloping row upon row of grapevines. She could see part of his face as her cameras were shooting up but his eyes were shaded by the cap. Hopefully as he got closer, a different camera angle would get his full face. She looked at his hands to see if he was carrying a gun, and his hands appeared empty. He was wearing a lightweight black jacket and she studied those pockets when he moved, but didn't see anything of weight moving. He could wear a shoulder holster under that jacket, but it would be for a small caliber gun.

  He was getting close to the house, when she saw a sheriff's car turn in her drive. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She had options to defend herself, but nothing like the firepower of that squad car. She watched the man peer around the corner of her house to see the car's approach, and he exited her property in a far greater hurry than he'd approached it. He reached his car as Jill opened her door to the deputy.

  “Hello ma'am, I'm Deputy Mason. You called about an intruder on your property?”

  “Hello Deputy, come on in and I'll show you the footage on my security system. The intruder must have noticed your car and hastened back to his car.”

  Jill pulled up the footage on her monitor for the deputy to view.

  “We were briefed that you might have activity on your property and our patrols in this area were increased for the time being. Is this intruder, related to your case in Louisiana?”

  “I don't know. Can you run his plates to determine who he is? I have on occasion, tourists that step onto my property but they come in pairs or more and they pause to take pictures with the grapevines. This guy didn't take any selfies.”

  Jill returned to the beginning and looked for a good view of the car's license plates and froze the frame with the best shot. The officer wrote it down and returned to his car to do a search on it.

  He returned to her in no time and said, “It's owned by a rental agency near the Los Angeles airport. It will take us some time to identify who the renter is. Ma'am, I'm unable to stay with you for my shift; I need to be on patrol. Is there somewhere you could move in town to take you out of the immediate danger of this individual? Your security system can be viewed from anywhere, right? I will return if you stay and call for help, but I can't guarantee a response time that may be less than the time it takes for this man to move onto your property.”

  Jill thought about her options for a moment. She wasn't one to hide, but this man appeared to be an 'active security risk' and it would make sense for her own safety to move out of the way rather than being a sitting duck for him. She dropped Nathan a quick text to say she was moving in due to problems at her house. Overall, he'd likely be happy with that strategy as he saw her taking too many risks and he wanted to naturally protect her.

  While the Sheriff waited, she packed a bag, grabbed Trixie's stuff, checked her land to make sure all cameras were working and her software system loaded onto her laptop and then the deputy waited for her as she closed and locked her driveway gate. They parted ways and Jill arrived at Nathan's about fifteen minutes later. When she pulled up to his house, she dropped her bag inside the door and left Trixie in his house with Arthur, Nathan's cat. She then walked the quarter mile on his land to his studio. Sure enough there was a car parked there that she didn't recognize. That meant he was still with his afternoon appointment, so she planned to walk over to chat with the employee that ran the printing side of his business, but was stopped when her phone vibrated. It was an alert from her security system that someone had briefly stepped on her property. She paused and looked up for shade in the area around her. The sun was too bright on her screen for her to see clearly. She walked over to a tree in the shade and was standing there watching the action at her house when Nathan walked his client out. He finished seeing the client to his car and then walked over to where Jill was standing.

  He'd studied her as he walked and said, “Are you watching your security system at your house? Did you make the wise decision to move to my house for a while?”

  Not looking up she said, “Yes and sort of.”

  Nathan leaned in and studying her phone's screen asked, “A lost tourist?”

  Without looking up she said, “Nope, a man who approached my house via the vineyard after renting a car five hours ago from a car agency near Los Angeles Airport. A single tourist would never choose to stroll my vineyard as their likely first activity upon reaching this wine growing area. Also just as he reached the side of my house, Deputy Mason arrived and he changed his mind about that stroll and hightailed it to his car.”

  “So what is sort-of?”

  Jill looked blankly at him for a moment and then smiled, “Deputy Mason convinced me to move here for the interim, it wasn't a thoughtful, wise decision on my part, more like complying with the deputy's wishes.”

  “He sounds like a good man.”

  “Yes he responded quickly and was informed and helpful. Now my worry is that I bring danger upon you and your business. Do you have all of your professional stuff backed-up offsite somewhere? I'm worried about this guy and the organization behind him.”

  “Not to worry, everything including my recent meeting with a client that ended ten minutes ago is backed up offsite. I think I told you once about the loss of a drawing early in my career and ever since, I've never lost a single piece of business data.”

  “What's your alarm system like here? I know what it was like two years ago, but I don't know if you made any upgrades. Are any of your cameras aimed at the boundary of your property so we can see who enters?”

  “Yes, while I was meeting with the client, I got an alert on my cell phone that you had entered my property. Even the back area, where there is no wall, there are cameras on it. We're good here. If your bad dude manages to shoot up my printing equipment, that will set me back a month or so while I get replacements, but it's not the end of the world and it's covered by insurance. Is Trixie settling in with Arthur?”

  “She's probably terrified up at your house. Now that that client is gone, I can probably let her out, as soon as you close the gate.”

  Nathan pulled out his cell phone, tapped the screen a few times and said, “Done. The gate is closed and the front door is presently open if Trixie and Arthur want to come outside.”

  The couple had started walking back toward his business as he wanted to say a few words to his printer. From there, they spotted Trixie heading their way as they walked towards Nathan's house. Her arrival was acknowledged by both of them, and she moved off the road to explore Nathan's property as they walked.

  Once they entered his house, Jill showed him the video coverage from her security system.

  “I wonder how long it will take for him to follow you here? I'm more worried about protecting you than myself or my property. I suppose someone could have snapped my picture while we were in New Orleans and since identified me. If they didn't, you're safe here for the foreseeable future. Let's put your car in my garage so it's not visible and I think you should avoid leaving my land until this man is caught. What would you like for dinner?”

  Nathan was a great cook and that was always an advantage when she stayed at his place. She felt that he prepared anything she ate at a restaurant.

 
“Since I sprung myself on you, I'll leave the choice to you. Whatever you make, I'm sure it will be delicious.”

  As they approached his front door, Arthur was guarding it and swishing his tail to indicate his displeasure with Trixie's arrival. It was always that way with these two animals. They entered the house and headed into his kitchen where he had a massive kitchen island. Jill grabbed her laptop and settled in at the island. She loved watching Nathan work and just stayed out of his way.

  He looked in his refrigerator deciding about dinner and then left and went to his wine cellar for a bottle of wine. He came back with a bottle of red which gave her insight into their dinner.

  Her phone sounded the alarm again that she had a visitor. It was getting dark and she knew that the light went on automatically. She wondered if he'd come back looking for her to return. Once he started down the vineyard, she called 9-1-1 to get a Sheriff to come to her property. Dispatch stayed on the line with her giving feedback on the intruder's movements. There were two patrol cars a minute away and she requested one head to the lay-by where the man's car was parked. Jill sent a link to the dispatcher so she could relay the man's actions to the officers. Jill stayed on the line and winced as she saw the man break a window in her garage and enter it.

  “Crap he just busted the side door window of my garage. He must think that will give him entry into the house.”

  Nathan asked, “Do you have cameras inside your garage?”

  “I do and I can open the garage door from here, so as soon as the Sheriff parks and takes a position behind their patrol car, I'll lift the door. That is as long as he doesn't manage to break into the house. It's a solid door with deadbolts, hopefully it will keep him occupied for another ninety seconds which is the ETA of the patrol car.”

  Jill had a camera in the garage but since it was dark, she couldn't see anything until the suspect turned on the face of his cell phone; not the flashlight function, rather the light cast by the home page. Wise man as there was less light from that source. She and Nathan were watching the activity of different monitors around her property. They could see the Sheriff's car arrive at the lay-by, and then they saw the car pull into Jill's driveway. Using the coordination of the dispatcher and the deputy on-site, Jill opened her garage door once the deputy was armed and protected behind his patrol car.

  They watched the suspect look surprised when the door began to open. Then he assumed the shooter's stance ready to blast Jill as she parked her car in her garage. Except it wasn't Jill pulling in.

  The deputy was ready, using a public address system to tell the suspect, "this is Deputy John Mason, come out with your hands up, do not make any sudden moves, and when you reach the end to the garage, kneel on the ground, and keep your hands in the air."

  Jill and Nathan were holding their breath watching the deputy on one screen, and the suspect on another. Jill could almost see the wheels turning in the suspect's brain.

  She said to Nathan, "He's going to bolt, I can just see it."

  Seconds later she was right. The suspect approached the edge of her garage and made a sharp turn on the side he'd broken the window, and soon he was in the dark.

  "I assume he's running back to his car," Jill said to the dispatcher with an edge of excitement in her voice.

  She switched over to the camera covering the area where the suspect's car was parked as was a Sheriff's car. The deputy parked close enough to the suspect's car that he couldn't enter on the driver's side. The deputy had his gun out of the holster, using the car for protection.

  "I've never seen all the bells and whistles on your system, it's really impressive," Nathan said.

  "Then you'll be really impressed by this next option. When I installed the system, I knew there would not be much natural light in the vineyard at night and I also knew it's one of the greatest vulnerabilities of my property. So I have low light cameras staged there and we should be able to see if the suspect is returning to his car."

  Jill switched to another screen of her security system and sure enough spotted the suspect moving through the grapevines. She gave that information again to the dispatcher.

  Nathan was tracking the screen that had shown her garage and said, "Looks like the first deputy is leaving your house to go to the aid of the second deputy up on the road."

  "Good idea," and then the dispatcher let Jill know that a third deputy was arriving on the scene, "That's two good ideas."

  Jill had sent a second link to the dispatcher so that she now had the same view as Jill of her vineyard and could direct the deputies on scene as to the suspect's movements.

  Fifteen minutes later, the three deputies had corralled the suspect and had him in handcuffs in the back of one of their patrol cars.

  Jill's heart had been pounding since she had watched the suspect break the window into her garage. She wasn't in danger, but criminals always made her heart beat faster. She made arrangements through the dispatcher to meet the deputies at the Sheriff's station to see if she recognized the man and hear what he had to say. Of course he could refuse to tell them anything pending an attorney arriving on the scene.

  Chapter 28

  Angela had been searching satellite images for the Louisiana coast and documenting the locations the images could be found on the Internet. It felt like redundant work to then have Jill go back and retrieve each image that Angela had just retrieved. So she came up with an idea to make it go faster. Jill gave her access to her computer, so that as Angela found the images she could run it through the software to look for marijuana plants. So far it was working splendidly, although Jill had texted her that there was police activity at her house and her security system screens would be consuming a lot of her RAM which might prevent Angela from using the identification software. Jill had indicated that the police activity would go on for an hour at the most. So Angela checked with Marie to see if she was available for dinner figuring the two of them could discuss the case and perhaps come up with some new angles for Jill.

  After a hug, they sat down to dine. The restaurant was nearly halfway between the two of them. It always had excellent wine and a menu to cover any level of hunger. Best it had a couple of tables for two, that were in alcoves with swag drapes. There was not a romantic dinner for the two women rather it was a great way to have privacy while talking about murder.

  Marie had chicken zucchini enchiladas while Angela chose spaghetti squash with meatballs. It was a great way to mix nutrition and taste. They started with a side salad of mixed greens with a vinaigrette dressing. Angela described her work documenting the marijuana fields of coastal Louisiana. She'd found eight pot fields and knowing their retail value, she marveled at looking at $24 million of farmland production. Marie spoke of the sophisticated spiderweb of corporations that Jill was tangling with. Angela described the story of the police activity occurring at Jill's house at the moment.

  "Does she have any low-key cases anymore?" Marie asked. "It seems like every case in the past year has turned violent on her. I remember the good old days where she went in and did an autopsy found some weird diagnosis, gave it to the cops and that was that. There was no work for us and her cases were open and shut. Now she's tangling with foreign criminals, or hidden corporations, or psychos. Maybe that's the cost of fame."

  "Maybe... Or the world has become a lot darker and more violent."

  "I've finished researching the first couple names she gave me and to me just the mere set-up of the secrecy of these corporations makes me suspicious. I'm guessing that now you've identified another eight pot fields, that I'll have another new bunch of corporations to research. What do you think the turnaround time is for Jill to identify the property owners?"

  "I think she has to coordinate that with the police from a timeliness perspective. If she went after the information herself she could get it, it's public information after all. However by the time they responded to any of Jill's requests it would be one or two months from now and she might well not be alive."


  "True," Marie agreed. "However, my money's on Jill. She now has a sophisticated security system and she has Nathan and she finally got her black belt in Tai Chi."

  "Besides she survived all these other murderous crooks we've been running down."

  Angela got a text then informing her that the police activity was over and she could again use Jill's laptop remotely to look for pot plants in Louisiana. She texted back for details on the police activity and Jill wrote back.

  'Had guy try 2 break into house 3 times today. W/ help of my security system, deputies corralled him in vineyard & he's at the police station waiting 4 questioning. No hair on my head or Nathan's harmed during event. I've got fab security system & if either of you have trouble w/ bad people let me know & I'll duplicate system at ur homes.'