Frankly Speaking - A Frank Rozzani Detective Novel (#1)

by Don Massenzio

Frank and Lucy were already at an outdoor table when Jonesy, and then Anita joined them. Frank dove right in to business.

  "We know the following: Maggie Bullock is missing. Troy Compton may also be missing. Stanton Cobb is involved in this up to his wrinkly turkey neck."

  Frank and Jonesy reviewed the spider web of connections that had emerged around Cobb to fill in all of the blanks for Anita. Cobb was the spider at the center of the web that was threatening to spew his poison on anyone that challenged him. Frank warned Jonesy and Anita that the plan he had devised to trap Cobb would likely cross the line into being slightly illegal.

  Jonesy's reply was, "You say illegal. I say fun."

  "Great. I'm working with wise asses."

  Anita added, "Hey, if my boss can unleash snakes, fire and bricks, why can't I have some fun."

  “By the way,” Frank asked “Any sign of Billy Bob?”

  Anita hesitated.

  “No, I haven’t found him yet, but I don’t think he knows much more. He’s probably just hiding somewhere or ran back to his uncle turkey neck for protection. My guess is, if we find Cobb, we find Billy Bob”.

  “You’re probably right”, Frank admitted.

  They agreed to spend Tuesday gathering what they needed and then put this plan into motion that night.

  When Tuesday came, the three conspirators split up to gather the essential supplies for the coming night's festivities. Frank went to the mega hardware store for some rope, duct tape, electrical tape, and various tools, including a heavy-duty bolt cutter. The pimply faced cashier looked at the supplies and quipped, "Hey mister, what are you doin', breakin' somebody out of jail."

  "No, I have really bad toenails. The bolt cutters are the only thing that will do the trick."

  The confused cashier finished ringing up the order. Frank thought to himself, those two are turning me into a wise ass.

  He then put the purchases in the back of his Lexus and headed back home. He would call Travis Bullock Senior and then Junior with very different updates. He couldn't tell Senior the identity of the baby-daddy as he might go all Liam Neeson on the boy. He would, however, tell him about his visit with Cobb and the Dr. Wells connection. Because he planned on paying Junior that dollar he had promised when they had met, he was going to fill him in completely except for the little caper he had planned for tonight. His help might be instrumental later in the process.

  As he was driving toward home, he spotted a stand on the side of the road selling fresh-cut wild flowers. On impulse, he stopped and bought a colorful bunch. He immediately questioned his purchase, feeling like an awkward school boy. Then he thought, what the hell. I can't let them go to waste.

  He made a short detour to Nancy's office. He walked into the patient and master filled lobby and the immediate reaction from the receptionist was, "Is something wrong with Lucy?"

  Nancy heard this from a nearby exam room and came out to the reception desk as well. Now there was no turning back.

  Frank held out the flowers and eloquently said to Nancy, "These...you...flowers...thanks."

  His Tarzan-tongue was in full swing.

  Nancy turned red and so did Frank.

  Apparently Tarzan tongue is contagious. Her response was, "Thanks...beautiful...vase...water."

  The receptionist and the humans in the lobby erupted into a pack of cackling hyenas. The secret was out now. Nancy and Frank were publicly "in like.” If he had a tail, it would have been firmly tucked between his legs as he turned to leave.

  Jonesy's tasks for the day were a bit different. He had a good friend with a spy shop on Beach Boulevard. He let Jonesy borrow some night vision goggles and high definition camera equipment. He also borrowed a sturdy case with foam inserts molded to equipment. When he returned to the surf shop, the black Toyota Tundra pickup he was borrowing, complete with a Clay County tag, had been delivered. Everything was coming together.

  Anita was busy borrowing police equipment. With Bubba gone, the department wouldn't miss three Kevlar vests and some Tasers for the evening. She also borrowed some hardly-used all black S.W.A.T. coveralls.

  The three of them agreed to meet at a Wal-Mart parking lot just off I-295 and San Jose. Frank and Anita could safely park their vehicles there without arousing suspicion. Jonesy pulled up in the pickup and when he rolled down the darkly tinted window, he was wearing old school, mirrored aviator sunglasses and chomping on an unlit cigar. He was having way too much fun.

  Frank and Anita climbed into the pickup. The gear was stowed in the toolbox in the bed of the truck. The sun had already set. Darkness was a necessary ally for their venture. It was 10PM when they started out on their trip. Instead of the shortest route, they were taking a more indirect route. Cobb's property in Green Cove Springs was their objective. Their approach would be from the west so that they would be able to get to Cobb's property without going through town. This trip took twice as long, but the advantage of approaching the property undetected was well worth it. Once near the property, Jonesy pulled the truck down a dirt road behind Cobb's property. The road was essentially a deserted logging trail in the woods. They stopped on the road about a half mile from the back perimeter of Cobb's property which could be approached through the woods. Once the truck was in place, the three of them prepared for their trek through the woods. They had split up the duties that they would carry out once they got onto the property. Frank would check out the estate's out buildings which were toward the back of the property. Jonesy and Anita would hit the main house. Cobb's office was in the back of the house and a window to the office faced the woods.

  While Frank and Anita were on the property two days earlier, talking to Cobb was one of their objectives. The other objective was to assess security. Other than the guard shack at the gate, the property was bordered by a standard eight-foot chain link fence. It was not electrified, but did have some barbed wire at the top. The house itself, and, they assumed, the outbuildings were alarmed with a residential alarm system that could easily be thwarted. There was a video camera on the guard shack and one at the main house front entry, but none at the rear of the building. In terms of security, Cobb's estate would not prove to be much of a challenge. With any luck, no one would know they had been there and they would have enough leverage to get Cobb to talk.

  After pulling on the black coveralls, securing the night vision gear, and stowing the other things they needed in black duffle bags, they were off through the steamy, damp woods. The night air chirped and buzzed with the sound of various creatures. They could see and feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on them as they made a path during their short trek to the chain link fence that cordoned off the back of Cobb's property. After about 20 minutes, they reached the fence. Frank quietly used the bolt cutters to open a seam in the metal links. He was worried about the noise this might create, but luckily the chorus of night creatures that surrounded them provided adequate cover.

  Once the opening in the fence was large enough to squeeze through, the team stealthily entered the property and quietly separated in the direction of their tasks. Jonesy and Anita headed toward the back of the main house. Cobb's office was on the left with a window facing the back. The window was dark, but with the night vision goggles they were wearing, they would have no difficulty seeing. Once they reached the window, Jonesy took out a special tool from his duffel and slid it between the upper and lower panes easily unlocking the window. He then went to work bypassing the contact circuit for the alarm so that opening the window would not set it off. With this done, the window easily opened and he and Anita slipped into Cobb's office.

  They would be looking for some type of paper trail. Cobb did not have a computer. Any evidence they might find would be stored the old-fashioned way. Jonesy went to work on Cobb's desk. There were three drawers on each side with a pencil drawer in the middle. On the left side he found documents related to the property including insurance policies, property tax records and other routine information. He did make a note that the house
and outbuildings were insured for unexpectedly high amounts. He photographed the figures. The top drawer was locked. He easily picked the desk lock and found Cobb's check book.

  Moving to the right side of the desk, the only incriminating thing that Jonesy found was an array of liquor bottles in various states of emptiness. So far, not much luck.

  Anita was concentrating on the file cabinet. It was locked which was only a temporary setback. The top drawer contained what appeared to be routine files related to bills. The second drawer also contained routine files hanging vertically from metal bars. Anita was just about to close the drawer when she noticed what appeared to be a gap in the drawer's bottom. When she pulled up on the bottom platform, it gave way and she discovered a small storage space. In the space was an old-fashioned ledger book of the type used in accounting. She motioned to Jonesy who pointed to Cobb's desktop where they would have room to open it.

  The ledger contained several entries, each with three columns with the headings AP, DD, and AMT. The AMT column had numbers that ranged from the tens to hundreds of thousands. It was clear that this was an amount field. The D field appeared to have dates that spanned from the 1980's to the present year in a mostly chronological order. The AP column had strings of capital letters. By the look of the ledger, there appeared to be well over 500 entries filling about 20 pages of the 50 page book. Jonesy quickly photographed each page and Anita closed the book and replaced it.

  Just as they were getting ready to leave, they heard voices in the hallway outside of Cobb's office. They couldn't make out what was being said, but they could tell by the increasing volume that they were getting closer. Jonesy and Anita crouched behind the desk. The voices trailed of and they then heard the sound of an electronic motor. It appeared that a vacuum cleaner was running. They took this as their cue to exit back through the window. Jonesy closed and relocked the window and reengaged the alarm contact. They had searched as much as possible and would later examine what they had found with Frank.

  Meanwhile, Frank was investigating the outbuildings starting with the one closest to the rear of the property. This happened to be the largest and seemed to be deserted. The rear entry door was cast in heavy metal and had a lock on the doorknob as well as a sturdy deadbolt. Frank pulled a lock pick gun from his duffel and held it to the dead bolt. The pins from the gun quickly adjusted and the lock turned and opened. He did the same with the doorknob lock which gave way much more quickly.

  When the door opened, Frank found himself in a room that contained a refrigerator and other appliances, a kitchen. The sink was a restaurant type and a half dozen cafeteria trays were drying on the counter. There were also recently used pots and pans.

  Frank left the kitchen and found himself in a hallway with three doors. He opened the first door and found an examination table not unlike one found in a physician's office. Next to the table was a large monitor and equipment that Frank recognized as the components of a sonogram machine similar to the one used when his own wife was pregnant. He pushed the memory out of his mind.

  He left this room and went on to the next door. It was an exam room complete with a table, supply cabinet, sink, and menacing stirrups connected to the table. The third room was identical to the second.

  Frank went back through the kitchen and out the door into the night. There were two other outbuildings that were identical to each other. Both had a small amount of light shining from their front windows indicating activity. The way these buildings were laid out, Frank couldn't risk entering them, but he could sneak around the back and try to catch a glimpse through the windows. There were three windows in the rear of each building.

  Frank crouched low so that he couldn't be spotted by anyone that might happen to peer out a window while he was moving past. He stood up slightly and looked in the first window. What he saw was another piece of this quickly assembling puzzle. He thought, at first, that he was simply looking at an empty bedroom. Because the room was unoccupied, he had a chance to look carefully at the fixtures in the room. It was not a simple bedroom; it was a birthing room complete with technology that would rival any hospital. There were two more windows along the back of the building. Frank crouched once more and moved to the second window. This room was occupied by a sleeping young girl. She had long straight hair and by the bulge in the bed's comforter, looked to be at an advanced stage of pregnancy. The third window also revealed a similar result except the occupant of this room had a short pixie-like hairstyle. Based on their appearance and advanced state of pregnancy, neither girl was Maggie Bullock. On to the next building. This building had windows as well. The first appeared to be some type of recreation room with a television, books, and board games. The second room looked like a college dorm unit with two beds and two small desks and dressers. It was unoccupied. The third room was the same dorm-like configuration as the second with one young girl, again not Maggie Bullock, asleep in one of the beds.

  Based on what he had seen, Frank was starting to piece together what Cobb was likely up to. Of course, there were still missing pieces and many possibilities regarding his end game, but the chance of Cobb being coincidentally involved was quickly disappearing. It was now time to exit the property and compare notes with Jonesy and Anita.

  When Frank reached the breach in the fence, he slipped through quickly. They had made sure that the hole in the fence was in a spot that was heavy with vegetation. It might be discovered eventually, but hopefully long after it mattered.

  Frank emerged from the woods and found Jonesy and Anita already in the truck looking at Jonesy's i-Pad. It was time to head back to Jacksonville following the same circuitous route that got them here. They would debrief during the drive home.

  "Cobb is running a maternity ward on his property," Frank began. He described what he had seen in the outbuildings. "All of the reasons that I have come up with for him doing this point to something less than benevolent."

  "That explains the high coverage and extra riders he has in his insurance policies," Jonesy added. "The guy is running a baby factory and the ledger Anita found might be a list of his customers."

  "I thought so too," Anita said. "Until we looked at the photos of the ledger more closely. That AP column that I thought was a list of names has just strings of characters that don't make sense."

  "They might be in some type of code," Frank said. "I'll take a crack at it tomorrow."

  "The ledger is key," Jonesy said. "Without it, we have no proof of any wrongdoing"

  "Not even with the maternity ward?" Anita asked.

  "No," Frank said. "Cobb could be running a private clinic. If he's done all the right things in terms of regulations, we have nothing."

  "Not to mention we cut a hole in his fence, disabled his alarm, and picked his locks to find the evidence," Jonesy said. "They would laugh us out of court and into jail."

  "We have to get someone who knows about Cobb's little operation to flip," Frank said.

  Then, almost in unison, they said, "Dr. Wells!"

  "We just need a piece of concrete information so that we don't tip Wells off about our little adventure tonight," Frank said. "If we can convince him that we know more than we do, it just might work."

  By the time they returned to the Wal-Mart parking lot, it was well past midnight. Jonesy dropped them off and Frank and Anita drove their own vehicles home. When Frank got back to the trailer, he was exhausted both physically and mentally. Cobb was certainly turning out to be an enigma. He refuted any involvement in the disappearance of a pregnant young girl, yet he seemed to have a penchant for taking them in and caring for them. Why? These were among his last thoughts as he drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN