by Diane Kelly
Once the paint had dried, he rolled up the wide bay door and carried the sign outside. Metal brackets left over from a former tenant remained affixed to the outside wall over the door. He found a ladder and carried up the sign, planning to fasten it to the brackets. Before he could get to it, he felt his cell phone jiggle in his pocket and heard his ringtone. He wrangled his phone out of the back pocket of his coveralls. He didn’t recognize the number, but it had an 817 prefix, meaning it was local. Is someone finally calling to hire me?
He jumped down from the ladder, nearly busting his ankle in the process. He scrambled to accept the call. “Hello?”
“Is this King Midas Metalworks?”
Dammit! He needed to remember to answer with his business name. “Yes, this is King Midas. How can we help you?”
The caller was the owner of an auto body shop. They had some jobs they needed welders for.
“I got three cars needing work,” the man said. “How many guys can you send me?”
“We’ve had high demand lately,” the Poacher lied. “But I’ve got one guy I can spare.” Me. “Good guy. You’ll like him.”
“When can he start?”
“Right away,” the Poacher replied.
“Send him on, then.” He proceeded to provide the address of the shop.
The call completed, the Poacher pumped his fist. The job would be temporary, but it was better than nothing. It had taken longer than he’d liked, but it looked like the new year was bringing him a fresh start, after all. Just in time. The money was running low again.
He carried the sign back into the garage. He’d hang it later, after he finished at the body shop. He locked the place up and drove off.
The collision-repair business was in a low-rent area on the east side of town, where Fort Worth bordered Arlington. The body shop was housed in a brick building painted black with the name of the shop in big yellow letters on the side.
The Poacher wandered into the small office area to the side of the three bays and addressed the man who sat at the counter, ordering parts on a computer. “I’m from King Midas Metalworks.”
The man turned out to be not only the owner, but also the manager and chief mechanic, all in one. He led the Poacher into the bay, where a rock station played through speakers mounted overhead. Thank goodness it wasn’t country music. His supervisor at the gas company had always played country and the Poacher couldn’t hear it now without thinking about how the man framed him and wanting to punch something.
The boss introduced the Poacher to the other two guys on his crew and directed him to a crumpled Nissan 350Z parked in the last bay.
“Whoa,” the Poacher said. “Someone did a number on this car.” The front end was smashed in a foot or more, and the back end was crushed twice that much.
“Eighteen-wheeler in front,” the boss said. “Postal truck at the rear. He got sandwiched between them. Lucky to be alive.” The man gestured to a row of mangled cars sitting behind the garage. “Those need work, too.”
Good. These banged-up cars will keep me busy a while.
The Poacher retrieved his tools from the covered bed of his truck and set to work. It felt good to be putting his skills to use, to be earning honest money. For the first time in a long time, he felt a tiny tingle of pride.
FORTY-FOUR
PLEA DEALING
Megan
After loading Colt into his cruiser last night, Detective Bustamente and I had spent an hour collecting evidence. While we’d found nothing in the lodge or on the ranch grounds, Colt’s cell phone and wallet had given us some damning proof that he’d engaged in felonious behavior.
The cell records showed an incoming phone call from Broadwell. It also showed two incoming calls prior to New Year’s Eve from a phone number with a 210 area code, which indicated the calls had come from the San Antonio area. The calls were made two days apart. Our guess was that the first call was a cold call by the poacher to assess potential interest in the springbok. The second was likely to arrange the terms of payment and delivery. The second call took place on December 31, New Year’s Eve. Dinari had disappeared from the zoo that night.
When considering ex-cons as suspects earlier, I’d dismissed Bruno Molina. He’d been convicted of illegally trafficking in reptiles smuggled into the country from Brazil. Stealing animals from zoos didn’t seem to be his modus operandi. The fact that he was a four-hour drive down the road in San Antonio had also led me to believe he was not likely involved. Given the San Antonio phone number on Colt’s phone, however, the detective and I were rethinking Molina as a suspect. Unfortunately, the 210 phone number was linked to a prepaid, untraceable phone. We’d attempted to ping the phone last night, to no avail. Whoever had used the phone had either destroyed it or removed the battery so cell towers couldn’t locate it.
We’d contacted the San Antonio Police Department and they’d sent a detective out to speak with Molina, but the guy claimed he had nothing to do with the zoo heist. His live-in girlfriend vouched for his whereabouts on New Year’s Eve, when Dinari had been stolen from the zoo. Their bar tab and pics on her phone proved Molina had spent the entire evening with her at a nightclub on San Antonio’s River Walk, remaining until well after the midnight countdown, providing him an irrefutable alibi.
Colt’s wallet, on the other hand, contained two bank slips that were highly incriminating. One was dated New Year’s Eve with a time stamp only an hour after the second phone call from the untraceable phone. The slip documented a cash withdrawal of $4,000 from Colt’s bank account. The second bank slip showed that he’d made a cash deposit of $6,000 yesterday.
When Colt failed to return for his whiskey, the waitress had summoned the owner of the hunting ranch. The man had been none too happy to find out his game manager and top hunting guide was doing off-the-books, under-the-table deals with clients and pocketing the profits.
It was Thursday morning now, and the detective and I were at the district attorney’s office, holed up in a small conference room with a senior prosecutor, Colt, and his criminal defense attorney, our notepads and pens at the ready. We performed a delicate dance. Colt and his attorney didn’t want to admit too much and cause him to incriminate himself in case the deal fell through. But before the prosecutor agreed to anything, we had to know he actually had valuable information to offer.
The prosecutor pointed out to Colt and his attorney that we had plenty of evidence to nail him, including the testimony of Philip Broadwell and the owner of the ranch. We also had a zoo animal whose death needed to be avenged, both for the animal’s sake and to satisfy the public. “Full immunity is off the table,” he said, “but we’d be willing to waive jail time and impose a reasonable fine if you’ll name the person who sold you the springbok and agree to testify against that person in court.”
Frankly, if it were up to me, I’d insist the guy spend some time behind bars. One night in the police station’s lockup was too little for a creep like him. But this was legal warfare, not my battle to fight. Besides, I was so filled with anticipation I could hardly sit still. Every nerve ending in my body buzzed with excitement at the thought of finally finding out who’d been behind the animal thefts, of arresting the bastards and parading them past the press and taking their mug shots, of watching them be convicted and sent to prison.
Colt and his attorney exchanged glances before the lawyer turned back to address his counterpart. “My client can’t provide a name or a detailed physical description. Only a vehicle make and model.”
Wait. What? “Not even a license plate?” I asked.
Colt looked sheepish. “There weren’t any. They’d been taken off.”
The buzz in my nerves intensified, but not in a good way. It felt as if I were on the verge of being electrocuted by frustration.
After a bit more haggling, they agreed Colt would pay a fine of two grand in addition to forfeiting the six grand he’d been paid by Broadwell.
The price agreed upon, my impatience got the bes
t of me. I fluttered my hands in front of me, as if they could draw unspoken words out of Colt. “Tell us! Tell us everything!”
Bustamente and the prosecutor both cut me a look, but said nothing.
Colt finally spilled what few beans he had, confirming our conclusions about the phone calls. “A guy came by before sunup on New Year’s Day. He didn’t come onto the ranch property but just pulled onto the grass next to the road outside the gate. I met him out there and handed him the cash. He was wearing a ski mask, so I can’t tell you what he looked like other than that the little bit of skin I could see around the eyes was white. His voice wasn’t the same as the guy I had spoken to on the phone.”
I wondered why only one man delivered the animal, but I realized it could be any number of reasons. The guy on the phone might want to lie low, keep his potential exposure to a minimum. Or maybe he had a date on New Year’s Eve. Maybe he was down in San Antonio arranging the deals and had someone up here in north Texas taking care of the dirty work, stealing the animals and delivering them. Maybe Molina is in this, after all.
Bustamente continued his interrogation. “What did the man say to you?”
Colt raised his shoulders. “He asked if I was Colt and if I had the money. That was it.”
Bustamente asked, “Anything distinctive about his voice? An accent maybe?”
Colt shook his head. “Just a normal voice.”
“Okay. Go on.” The detective cocked his head, ready for Colt to continue.
Colt sat up a little taller in his seat and rested his elbows on the conference table. “The guy had the springbok in a white trailer.”
“An animal trailer?” Bustamente asked.
“No,” Colt said. “An enclosed one, like the kind used to haul equipment.”
“How big was it?”
“A ten- or twelve-footer maybe?” Colt surmised. “Anyway, it had dents all over it, major hail damage.”
The detective and I exchanged glances. The dents could be a helpful clue. After all, white trailers were fairly common. But one with extensive hail damage would be less so.
“Anything on the trailer?” Bustamente asked. “A logo or a company name?”
“No. Just a plain trailer. He opened the back and I climbed inside and brought the springbok out. It was spooked and tried to jump, but I know how to handle these animals and was able to get him inside our high fence without too much trouble.”
I felt my eyes narrow as I reflexively glared at the man. Gee, jackass, I’m glad you didn’t have too much trouble leading a stolen zoo animal to his death!
He wrapped things up. “The guy drove off and that was it.”
“What kind of vehicle was he driving?” Bustamente asked.
“Dodge Ram pickup. Solid black. I’m not sure of the year, but it looked like a base model. No fancy chrome or anything on it.”
Bustamente jotted a note on his pad, as did I, before asking, “Anything distinguishing about the truck? Wheels? Bumper stickers? Parking decals? Maybe some hail damage, too?”
“No,” Colt said. “The truck didn’t have any hail damage, and I didn’t notice any stickers, but it had a camper top on the bed.”
Another glance was exchanged between me and my mentor. While there were likely dozens of black Dodge Ram pickups in the area, maybe even hundreds, there probably weren’t many with a camper top on them. Of course I was assuming that whoever had stolen and delivered the animals lived in north Texas. That may not be the case. He could live down in San Antonio, too. The guy on the phone could be the second guy we’d seen on the security camera footage from the houses by the zoo. Maybe the two of them intentionally targeted a zoo far from their home to throw off suspicion. Regardless, the camper top was a significant clue.
When we’d obtained all the information we could, the detective, Brigit, and I left, telling Colt and his attorney we’d be in touch if we had any follow-up questions. The detective and I paused by our cruisers in the parking lot to discuss the information Colt had provided and debate how to proceed on what we’d learned.
“First thing we do,” Bustamente said, “is share the vehicle description with the media outlets. The press and the public can help us track down that truck and trailer. I’ll contact our public relations department so they can get moving on it. I’ll also put the word out across law enforcement networks. It wouldn’t surprise me if we heard something very soon.”
Bustamente wasn’t generally the type to count chickens before they hatched, so I took his prediction seriously. My spirits soared. This case could be solved quickly! As soon as we arrested the Poachers, we could set about bringing Sarki, Fabiana, and Fernando home.
Although we anticipated someone calling in with a tip that would lead us to the vehicle and thieves, it couldn’t hurt to remain proactive. “I’ll search the DMV records for black Dodge pickups in the area.” The DMV records wouldn’t note whether the truck had a camper top, but I knew I was looking for a pickup potentially owned by a welder. After finding the names on the DMV site, I could run the names through my browser, see if any of them were identified online as a welder, maybe on a social media or job-related profile. “I’ll try to determine if anyone who owns a black Dodge pickup is also a welder.”
“It’s a plan,” Bustamente said.
We climbed into our respective cruisers. A glance at the clock on the dash told me it was nearly lunchtime. I figured I’d run by the fire station, give Seth the big news about the break in the case and see if he could take a lunch break with me. The two of us had hardly spent any time together lately. Our work schedules seemed to be in constant conflict, and I’d been running extra patrols by the zoo on my own time, too.
We pulled into the fire station a few minutes later. It was a chilly day, so the bay doors remained closed. I led Brigit in the front door and we made our way down the hall, glancing into the various rooms looking for Seth. When we reached the rec room, I peeked through the doorway. There he was, sitting on the end of a couch, staring at the station’s big-screen television, Blast lying next to him. Although there were two other couches in the room, both of them empty, Alex was seated on the same sofa as Seth. She sat on the other side of Blast, who had his head draped over her thigh. She ran her hand down the dog’s side and cooed sweet nothings to him.
My hand reflexively went to my baton. This doesn’t look good. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Alex and Seth were a couple.
I forced myself to remove my hand from my nightstick. Seth and Alex were coworkers, and Blast was an irresistibly sweet dog. There was nothing here to worry about. Was there?
Brigit’s tags jingled as we stepped into the room and both Seth and Alex looked up. But while Alex’s face reddened with what I assumed was guilt, Seth’s brightened.
“It’s my girls!” he said, rising from the couch and coming over to give me a kiss on the cheek.
Blast remained on the couch, going only so far as to lift his head and send a look Brigit’s way. That didn’t sit well with her. She issued a soft growl and an accusatory yap!
I gave her leash a discreet tug. Don’t demean yourself, girl. If he’s going to toss you aside for a belly rub, he doesn’t deserve you.
“We got a break in the zoo investigation,” I told Seth.
“You did?” This came from Alex, who’d evidently been eavesdropping from the couch. She sat bolt upright. “Did you find the animals?”
Might as well include them both in the conversation. She seemed genuinely concerned.
“We found the springbok,” I said, looking from one of them to the other.
“That’s great!” she said.
“Not really,” I replied. “He’s dead. Shot by a hunter at one of those canned hunting outfits.”
Her free hand went to her mouth in horror. “That’s awful!”
“Damn,” Seth muttered. “That’s all kinds of wrong.” He reached out and gave my hand a squeeze, seeming to realize how frustrated and upset I must feel.
“The
good news is that the guy at the ranch who bought the springbok gave us some valuable information. The man who delivered the antelope was driving a black Dodge Ram pickup with a camper top. He had Dinari in a commercial utility trailer that was covered in hail dents. The chief is going to put the word out. In fact, there it goes right now.”
I pointed to the television screen, where a red banner with the words BREAKING NEWS scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Photos of Fabiana, Fernando, Sarki, and Denari appeared over the anchorwoman’s shoulder. As we all watched and listened, she reported essentially the same information I’d just given them, except she added the fact that a local government official had unknowingly killed the animal at a trophy hunting ranch. She didn’t name the official, promising more details to come on the five o’clock news.
“Had lunch yet?” I asked Seth.
“I was just thinking about it.” He gestured to the door. “Let’s go. Your choice.”
Ten minutes later, we were seated in a booth at Spiral Diner, an eatery that mixed classic 1950s style diner décor with a menu of up-to-the-minute vegan cuisine. After seeing all the dead animals at the trophy hunting ranch, I was in the mood for a plant-based meal. Brigit sat next to me on the booth seat, while Seth and Blast sat across from us.
After we placed orders for both ourselves and our partners, Seth eyed me intently across the tabletop. “You were right about Alex.”
“Of course I was,” I replied. “I’m always right about everything.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he teased.
I took a sip of my drink. “So you realized she’s got a crush on you.” A queasy feeling churned in my stomach. “What finally clued you in?”
“She did.”
“Outright? She told you she was interested?”
“Not in so many words. But she asked me about you, about our relationship. How we’d met. How long we’ve been dating. Whether it was serious.”
He left the obvious question unanswered. And what did you tell her? I wanted to scream. But I wasn’t about to play the role of jealous, insecure girlfriend. It would be beneath me. In fact, I decided to take a totally different tack. I shrugged. “Could be innocent questions. Maybe she was only trying to make conversation.”