Distortion (Moonlighters Series)

by Terri Blackstock

  “No, I can’t. Is there anyone working tonight you could contact to get that information?”

  She waited for a long moment. Finally, she said, “Yeah, there is somebody. Let me make a call and I’ll get back to you. Give me the phone number.”

  He gave it to her. “I really appreciate it, Bette. Thanks a lot.”

  While he waited, he opened his database of car tag registrations and typed in “white Camaro” for Bay County. Two hundred came up, of all model years. How would he ever narrow it down?

  He rubbed his eyes and tried to think. It was possible that the U-Haul store had security cameras in its parking lot, but he doubted it, since the lot was so poorly lit. Max had probably already gotten the video from the gas station. If he could see the white Camaro, they might be able to narrow down the model year and any markings on the vehicle, and possibly the tag.

  The phone rang, and he snapped it up. “Hogan.”

  “Detective, it’s Bette.” She sounded perkier. “I got the info you wanted.”

  He almost jumped out of his chair. “Great. Let me have it.”

  “The person who activated the phone was a George Hadley. Activated it with a Visa card under that name, but I couldn’t get the number. The billing address is 2133 Tidewater Road, Panama City. Does that help?”

  “Tremendously. Thank you so much, Bette. I really appreciate it.”

  “Don’t tell where you got the info, okay? I don’t want to lose my job. My husband just got laid off, so we need it. But to solve a homicide . . . well, you know how I feel.”

  “I do. There’s a grieving family who thanks you.”

  When he hung up, he called his brother. Max was already at Juliet’s. When he gave him the name and address, Max sounded impressed. “How in the world did you get that?”

  “Called in a favor.”

  “You and your favors. Well, I would have gotten to it, but you saved me some time.”

  “Yeah, let’s just hope the guy used his real name. I’m about to cross-check it with property records, see who owns that house.”

  “Could be renting.”

  “Yep. We’ll see,” Michael said. “I’ll let you know what else I come up with. How’s Juliet?”

  “Shaken. They’re about to leave the house. Probably a good idea.”

  “I agree. This is getting more and more interesting.”

  “Yeah, too bad. I like boring on weekends.”

  When Michael hung up, he pulled up his database of property records and found the owner of the address on Tidewater. It was owned by an Erica Harper. Further checking revealed that she was fifty-two, divorced, and lived in the home. No one by the name of George Hadley had ever lived there that he could tell. Erica had raised three boys there—Steven, Caleb, and David, all of whom had been Marines and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. All three of them had rap sheets since getting out of the service—all drug offenses—and two had been dishonorably discharged.

  It wasn’t clear if any of them still lived there. He checked the auto registration under each name. No white Camaro. There was no George Hadley with a Bay County tag. Either the name was an alias, or someone who didn’t live there had used that address.

  It was a start.

  His e-mail program chimed. Who would be writing him at 3:00 a.m.? He checked and saw it was a notice from Cathy’s blog, Cat’s Curious. He might have known she was still up.

  He clicked the link and read her new post.

  Unbelievably, I come to you today buried deep in another personal tragedy. Like we were two years ago when Joe was murdered, my family is mired in shock.

  As much as I’d like to dissect the events here, I can’t yet. All I know is that evil is rampant in this world. No one is immune. Psychopaths, sociopaths, and scores of people who assign no value to life are stalking their prey, with chilling agendas. Survival in these times requires much vigilance. Be careful out there.

  And if you pray, pray for my family. We’re in desperate need. I’ll write more about it later.

  Michael rubbed his eyes and drew a long breath. Tomorrow this post would go viral, but no one had weighed in on it yet. He put his cursor in the comment box and typed, “Go to bed, Curious Cat. Lots to do tomorrow.”

  In seconds, he saw her answer. “I will if you will.”

  He smiled for the first time since before the murder. Knowing these exchanges in the comment section of her blog were public, he chose not to answer again. But Cathy knew better than to think he’d go to bed. He had to dig for answers, and if he found them, maybe the pain in her family wouldn’t keep her up nights. If any of what he found could bring her and her siblings peace, then it was worth the sleep he sacrificed.

  It was an honor to do that for her.

  CHAPTER 8

  Morning came too soon for Holly. After moving with her family to Jay’s big house at three thirty in the morning, she’d finally settled into a fitful sleep. The baby kicked as if he knew something was drastically wrong in his family. Now she felt weak and exhausted.

  Since Jay was taking the day off to stay with Juliet, Holly left at around eight to check in with Michael and see if there was anything she could do to help. He sent her across town to begin surveillance of David Harper, one of the three brothers whose mother lived at the address on Tidewater Road. Although the person who’d activated the phone didn’t seem to exist, Michael had done a detailed data search about the three brothers. Today he would follow Steven, and Cathy would tail Caleb. He gave Holly David’s address—a run-down house on Mongrave Street—and she sat on his street for an hour. No movement.

  Each of the three brothers, Michael had explained, had rap sheets that included distribution of drugs and petty theft. David also had an arrest for auto theft, but he’d somehow squirmed out of that conviction. Even though his black Ford truck was a recent model, it looked as if it had seen better days. Its front fender was dented, and the back bumper was crunched. Scratches and scrapes marred the paint.

  When the driver finally came out and climbed into the truck, he didn’t fit Juliet’s vague description of the shooter. He was huge, probably six-five, and he wasn’t pale. She had mentioned greasy hair, but this guy had a buzz cut. But Holly hoped that one of the brothers would lead them to the shooter with the white Camaro.

  “Turning right on Walton Boulevard. Left on Marina at 9:23 a.m.” Michael had taught her to dictate the route she followed into a voice recorder when doing surveillance, just in case she had to retrace her steps. To him, writing a detailed report for their clients was almost as important as doing the investigative work itself. Without it, he said, none of what they uncovered would stand up in court. He’d stressed this morning that the same thing applied here too, even though they didn’t have a client to please.

  She stayed back—two cars between them—as he headed into an area where she’d been many times before. It was a high-crime area, but she often had fares here—people who didn’t own cars or who’d had their licenses suspended. A lot of the cabdrivers in town avoided this area, but she knew these people had to get places too. She had once been one of them.

  She dictated every turn, distances driven, landmarks. So far, she didn’t think David had spotted her, even though her cab stood out like a helicopter in a parking lot. As he took a long stretch without turning, she went over what she knew about him. Twenty-eight years old, unemployed. The truck had probably cost a lot new. How would an unemployed guy have bought such a vehicle, unless maybe he’d bought it used, already beaten up?

  He turned down a street she knew to be a short residential street, so she hung back at the stop sign, watching to see where he would go. He slowed at a house, parked on the street. He got out, pulling a baseball cap low over his forehead as he crossed the lawn to the front door.

  Someone drove up behind her and tapped their horn impatiently, so she drove straight, bypassing that street and going around the block to come up the back way. The house he’d entered looked abandoned, but there were cars park
ed in the yard. Windows were boarded shut, glass broken. The front porch steps had long ago rotted out, but there were two other cars in the driveway. No Camaro. Did someone live here?

  As she passed the house, a girl bounced out the front door. Holly looked away, hoping she wouldn’t realize that Holly had been casing the house. The girl yelled, “Hey!” and ran toward the street, waving her arms.

  Holly groaned. As she slowed, she tried to think up a good story.

  The girl ran out in front of Holly’s cab, putting her hands on the hood. “Hey, I need a ride. I have money.”

  Holly closed her hand over the gun in her door pocket. “Where you want to go?”

  “Gulf Highway,” the girl said. “I thought I was gonna have to walk or hitchhike. You’re a godsend.”

  Holly wanted to laugh. She’d never been called that before. “Okay,” she said. “Get in.” As the girl got in the backseat, Holly glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

  “This is too good to be true,” the girl said. “Literally, I’m walking out thinking I’d give my right arm for a ride, and there you are.”

  “I saw cars at that place. Nobody there could give you a ride?”

  “I’d be scared to ride with any of them. Besides, the dudes in there are only interested in scoring.”

  So it was a drug house. “So can you be more specific with the address?”

  “The Admiral Motel, 54 Smith Road, right off the highway. Near Walmart.”

  Holly jotted down the address and headed that direction. “How’d you get over there if you don’t have a car?”

  “I had a ride there, but my boyfriend took off without me.”

  Holly framed her in the rearview mirror. The girl was clearly high on something. She jittered like she’d just had fourteen cups of black coffee. Or one hit of crack. A thin sheen of perspiration covered her skin.

  “Cramer,” the girl read from the license on Holly’s visor. “That your name?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  “Bree. How does that thing work?” She was pointing at the meter attached to the dashboard. Holly told her a little about it. Bree moved across the backseat, rolled the window down, let it blow her hair, then rolled it back up. She slid to the center and put her arms up on Holly’s seat. She was like a child, distracted by shiny objects.

  “So how come you were there? Did somebody call you?” the girl asked, rapid-fire.

  Holly shrugged. “Couldn’t find the address of the guy who called. Just as well.”

  “My mother prays for me all the time and says that when things like this happen it’s because God is looking out for me.” Bree laughed bitterly.

  “She’s right.”

  In the mirror, Holly saw Bree’s narrow gaze. “You don’t look religious.”

  Holly chuckled. “Pink hair, tattoos, pregnant. I know, right? But I do believe that stuff.”

  The girl still jittered, but she kept her eyes on Holly.

  “So . . . back at that house where you were,” Holly ventured. “I saw a truck I know. My friend David’s. Big guy. You know him?”

  The passenger wiped the sweat off her forehead. “Yeah, I know Dave. How do you know him? You go to school with him?”

  “No,” Holly said, “but we’re the same age.”

  “He’s all right when he’s not too jacked up. He’s worse than me.”

  Holly glanced at her again. “Crack?”

  “Yeah, mainly. Hey, do you have any smokes on you?”

  “No, I quit smoking when I found out I was pregnant. Hardest thing I ever did.”

  “Figures,” Bree said. “I left mine in my boyfriend’s car.”

  “So he just dumped you there?”

  “Sorta. Took me over there and stayed in the car, and when I stayed too long, he took off. Jerk.”

  Holly pulled a business card out of her purse and handed it to her. “You can call me anytime. You shouldn’t walk home from that area.”

  “I don’t always have money, especially when I come out of that place. I have it today because I just got my disability check.”

  Disability? The girl didn’t look disabled.

  “So that guy Dave,” Holly tried again. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. What’s he been doing?”

  “Got me.”

  “He lose his job?”

  The girl laughed. “Which one?”

  “The last one. Didn’t he used to work over at . . .” She hesitated, as if she couldn’t think of the name of the place.

  “Big Ten Tires?” the girl asked.

  Holly nodded. “Yeah, that was it.”

  “No, he got fired. Stole money from them. Said they weren’t paying him enough. He smokes everything he makes.”

  Holly frowned and stared through the windshield as she drove. So this guy was a dope addict who couldn’t hold a job? He’d spent every penny he had and then stolen to get the drugs he needed? Did this guy and the guy who shot Bob just need money?

  “Hey, you know anybody who has a white Camaro?”

  The girl shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Nobody?”

  “None of my friends do, I know that. Why?”

  “I just remember Dave being friends with somebody who had one. I can’t remember his name.”

  “Got me.” The girl seemed distracted, anxious. She hadn’t hooked her seat belt, and she was moving across the seat, getting up on her feet, turning to look out the back window, leaning up on the front seat, like an undisciplined child.

  “You should really hook your belt,” Holly said with a smile.

  “Yeah, okay.” The girl fiddled with the belt, as if she couldn’t remember how to hook it.

  Wishing she’d gotten more information out of her, Holly dropped her off at the Admiral, a hole-in-the-wall motel, then watched her go up the stairs and into a room. It looked a little like a place Holly had lived last year.

  She checked her watch and decided to head back to the drug house to see if David was still there. If she watched him long enough, maybe he’d connect with the guy in the white Camaro. Otherwise it might be days . . . weeks . . . before they figured out who killed Bob. Juliet needed answers before then, especially with these mysterious threats hanging over her head.

  Holly felt that she’d done pretty well as a private investigator. Michael had taught her a lot since she first started working for him months ago. She’d helped him solve a number of cases—even though they were boring, mundane ones. She felt like a spy, driving her cab and working as a PI behind the scenes, but she liked it that way. It fit her.

  The extra money Michael paid her came in handy, especially at a time like this, with a new house and the baby on the way.

  She found the street again, but David’s truck was gone. Great. She should have come up with a reason to not give the girl a ride. Now she’d lost him.

  She headed back to his house, hoping he had gone home and she could start over with her surveillance, but his truck wasn’t there either. It was just as well. There was only so much she could do in a bright yellow cab.

  CHAPTER 9

  The voice mail left on Bob’s cell phone had given Michael and the police a few leads, but as hard as he tried, Michael couldn’t find any patterns or connections that clicked things into place.

  He’d left home early this morning to follow Steven Harper, the middle brother who still used the address on Tidewater. During the night, Michael had texted Juliet the driver’s license pictures of all three Harper brothers, but she didn’t recognize any of them. That didn’t mean one of them wasn’t the killer.

  The blue sedan Michael was following pulled into the parking lot of an out-of-business fast food restaurant. Michael made a quick left into the parking lot of a liquor store across the street and two doors down. He idled there a moment, picking up his camera and zooming in. But Steven just sat in his car, smoking a cigarette with his window down. Was this a dead end? Was the guy jerking him around? Had he spotted him?r />
  Just in case Steven was watching, Michael went into the store and peered out the tinted window.

  “Help you?” the cashier asked.

  “Just a minute.” Michael put his phone to his ear as if listening to a call. The clerk went back to whatever he was doing and ignored him.

  A car pulled into the parking lot where Steven sat and crept up beside him. It was a navy blue minivan. Michael quickly turned his phone on video camera and zoomed in as he watched them exchange something through the windows.

  Man! If only he had his real camera with the zoom lens that would capture their faces, but he’d left it in the car. This was clearly a drug deal. Was Steven buying or selling? It was hard to tell.

  The minivan drove off, but Steven stayed put, toking on another cigarette.

  “You gonna buy something or what?” the clerk asked Michael, irritated.

  Michael turned back to him, glanced around the store. “I don’t think you have what I came in here for,” he muttered. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  Michael pushed through the door and, without looking across the street, got back into his car. He adjusted his rearview mirror, grabbed his camera, and caught Steven in his viewfinder.

  And then he saw it. A white Camaro, turning in. Michael’s heart pounded. He zoomed in and started snapping, desperate to see who was behind that wheel as Steven and the driver talked and exchanged something. He pulled the Bluetooth out of his pocket, stuck it in his ear. He tapped it, turning it on, then pressed Max on speed dial.

  His brother didn’t answer, so Michael waited for voice mail. “Max, it’s Michael. Call me. I found the white Camaro.” The Camaro was facing him, so he couldn’t get the tag number. He waited until they’d finished making the exchange, then pulled out to the street. When the Camaro pulled out, Michael followed as soon as there was a break in the traffic. He set down his camera, got his flip cam, and began videotaping as he drove.

  There were two cars between them, but he passed one. “Come on, man,” he said to the car in front of him. “Move!” The white Camaro turned, and Michael followed. Now it was just the two of them on the street. He kept taping. The tag was XFM 320. He set the camera down, grabbed a pen, and wrote it on his hand without looking. Then he called Max again.