Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay

by Gordon Carroll

  I prayed they were going to where Tom and Amber Franklin were being held.

  23

  These boys were rank amateurs, they never checked for a tail or pulled over or even tried a wrong turn. They went straight to the drive-through at Del Taco, got their stuff and then sat in the car in the parking lot eating their food, drinking their drinks and smoking their cigarettes. Pimples ate and smoked at the same time. He even drank through a straw with a lit cigarette between his lips. When they were done, Baldy dumped their trash on the asphalt and Pimples stuck one leg out the passenger side window. One of them cranked on the stereo and a current screamo band, maybe Wolf:Speak or Too Close to Touch, poured from the car so loud that I could feel the pulse of the bass from across the street.

  They were waiting for someone. I waited with them. Forty minutes later a car pulled up next to them and two black guys wearing red and black and sagging pants got out. Bloods. They both wore their baseball caps to the side and one of them sported a lot of bling. The guy wearing the bling wore an oversized black Raider’s Jersey and red shorts. The other guy wore an un-tucked, sleeveless, red button up shirt that was unbuttoned all the way. He had prison tats running both arms, his neck and chest, and couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.

  Bling shook hands with Pimples, a complicated series of movements that would require cryptographic gear to decipher, and then engaged in a few minutes of small talk. After that came the exchange. Drugs of course. I couldn’t tell what kind from here, meth was the biggest sell in this part of the city, but Crips and Bloods tended to lean more to the crack side of the drug trade. Either way the deal was done, right there in broad daylight in a busy parking lot with no attempt to hide what they were doing. That made me a little mad. They should have at least a little fear of the police, after all this was Aurora, and Aurora is contiguous with Cherokee County, my old stomping grounds.

  The Bloods got back in their car and drove off. I took down the plate and called another buddy of mine, Stan Lipton. He’s the lead trainer of Aurora’s K9 unit.

  “Officer Lipton.”

  “Stan the man,” I said, trying my best Michael Scott from The Office.

  “Gil the pill,” said Stan. “What’s the hotshot PI up to these days?”

  “I just watched a drug deal go down in your town.”

  “Got some info for me?” I gave him the description of the car, its occupants, the plate and direction of travel.

  Stan said, “I just sent out a BOLO to the cars in the area and I’m gonna start that way. My dog’s getting antsy, he could use a good drug sniff.”

  “Let me know if you pop them, they sold to some guys who’re involved in a case I’m working.” He said he would and hung up as Baldy and Pimples drove out of the lot. I gave them a little space and followed.

  They went north on Havana to 6th Avenue, took a left and drove into what used to be Lowery Air Force Base. The base was closed in ninety-four and some of the buildings and land have been redeveloped for residential and commercial use. But there are still a lot of the old hangars and buildings still in use. Baldy pulled into one of them. Big Bear. It’s a huge hangar that used to be designated as Building 1499 (isn’t the government inventive) but in 1997 was converted into Big Bear Ice Arena complete with two ice surfaces to help fill the rising demand in Colorado for hockey rinks once the Avalanche became Stanley Cup winners.

  They both got out of the car. Baldy had a bruise on his forehead where I’d hit him with the shotgun, as well as a bandage that slipped below the sleeve of his short-sleeved shirt, thanks to Max’s bite. They went inside.

  I parked a few cars over, left the engine running for Max and walked over to their car. They’d left both windows down and the doors unlocked so I figured they had the drugs on them. I wasn’t looking for drugs anyway. I got behind the steering wheel and closed the door. I didn’t know how long I had so I searched fast. I looked under the passenger front seat, found a beer bottle, two crushed beer cans, lots of cigarette butts, junk paper like fast food receipts and mangled pamphlets, moldy fries, a beer stained pink thong — stuff like that. There were a couple of blunt butts (blunts are hollowed out cigars or cigarettes filled with marijuana) in the ashtray along with a few pennies and a nickel. In the glove box was a beautifully crafted blue and gold glass pot pipe with burned residue in its bowl. There was a tattered owner’s manual, a screwdriver, two Mild Taco Bell hot sauce packets, and three .38 caliber bullets.

  I leaned over the back seat and searched through the trash on the floorboards. Nothing useful. I checked under the sun visors — nada under the passenger’s — an insurance card and the vehicle’s registration under the driver’s — who’d a thunk? I checked the insurance; it was two years out of date. I smiled; the world was making sense again.

  Opening the driver’s door I got out and leaned down. Under the seat I found a bunch of junk like under the passenger’s side — minus the panties — and one thing the passenger’s side didn’t have. A crumpled up traffic ticket with an address in Colorado Springs.

  24

  I was back in my car by the time they came out of the Ice Rink. Only they didn’t come out alone. There was a new guy and a girl with them. They all piled into the car. The new guy was tall and thin with big gauges in his earlobes making them stretch down about three inches. The girl was around nineteen and wearing a tight halter top and cut-off short-short jeans. Her hair was a reddish-blond mixture cut as short as her jeans, and she had pierced eyebrows, nostrils, lips and I didn’t even want to guess at what else.

  Gauges and Short-Shorts got into the back together and Baldy and Pimples took their assigned places in the front. They left the area of the old Air Force Base and headed east on 6th. They took a left hand turn, without signaling, on Havana and then a right when they got to Colfax. I followed back about three car lengths as we passed the Anschutz Medical Campus. It used to be Fitzsimons Army Medical Center until the base was closed in 1999. During the nineties a lot of military bases were closed around the country. Aurora PD still uses a few of the old Army buildings on the base. One of their district sub-stations is housed on the east side of the base near Potomac. Their K9 Unit is based out of there. They have a total of seven teams. Three for each side of the house and a sergeant with a working K9 as the team supervisor. All of their dogs are dual purpose, meaning they work either narcotics and apprehension, or explosives and apprehension. Either way, you get one of those land sharks on your tail and you might as well kiss your rump roast goodbye, because they’ll tenderize you right proper.

  Baldy pulled into the drive-thru of a Dairy Queen a little ways beyond the interstate overpass. I drove on to the next left, turned, pulled a quick U-turn and waited. Smoke rolled out of both open windows. All four of them were smoking. I wondered how anyone could breath in that atmosphere. If they could survive that, NASA should enlist them for the Mars Mission. What’s a ninety-eight percent mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen compared to a hundred percent mixture of tar, nicotine, toluene, formaldehyde and a dozen other toxic ingredients?

  Once they had their sundaes, malts, and Star Kisses they made like a banana and split. They cruised back the way they came until they passed 6th on Havana going on to Iliff where they made a right heading west. Twice cars pulled out from between us leaving me exposed. It didn’t matter. I probably could have hung a sign on my windshield saying “I’m following you boneheads” and honked my horn in a continuous blare and they still wouldn’t have caught on. It’s not that I’m complaining, but a guy likes to know that all the effort he’s taking not to be spotted isn’t wasted. Tailing is a difficult and dangerous art that takes years to perfect and these guys weren’t even trying. It was sort of insulting.

  By the time we got to Hampden and Grape I was about ready to hook a towrope to their bumper and take a nap until we got to wherever they were going.

  I looked back at Max for some compassion, but he was crashed out on the back seat, snoring.

  We went nor
th on Grape a few blocks and I got the feeling they were close to stopping. I pulled over to the curb and let them move on another block. They took a left and I lost sight of them. I stayed where I was.

  This area was all residential. Older homes, small with no garages. There were a few carports but they looked to be additions. I gave them another five minutes, then I took out the GPS screen I had sitting on the seat next to me. I’d stuck its magnetized counterpart under Baldy’s driver’s side rear wheel well after searching his car. The GPS screen showed a small map with a car stopped at a location that was highlighted in bright numbers and letters. If I pushed a little block on the touch screen it would have said the address out loud for me.

  I guess I could have just waited until they parked and not followed them at all, but like Napoleon Dynamite, I like to keep my skills sharp. Duh!

  They parked roughly two blocks north and one block west. I drove down the street at a nice residential twenty miles an hour, dropping down to about one point five miles per hour as I crossed through the moat dug across each intersection that the Denver crews mislabel as “DIPS”, so as not to bottom out my SUV that has the clearance level and steel construction of a tank, but can still barely survive them. I saw Baldy’s ride parked in a driveway right where Spy-Spy said it would be. The house was nearly as rundown as Pimple’s place out in Aurora, but at least the front door didn’t have a hole punched in it. I parked a block down, facing them. Nothing moved anywhere.

  It was almost one and the sun was bright and high in the sky. The wind blew out of the west and held just enough coolness to keep the car from being stifling once all the windows were down. I unwrapped two sandwiches, PB and Js, offered one to Max, which he refused to even look at, and ate them both, slugging down a soda with them. I listened to some radio while I sipped water and watched the house. It was one-twenty. Time flies.

  Traffic picked up in the neighborhood around three o’clock, kid traffic that is, and then again around five, this time real traffic. But nothing moved at the house. Tom and Amber might be inside. The smart move would be to wait until night.

  I waited.

  At seven-thirty I felt it was dark enough and I got out of my car. I’d been sitting there for over seven hours. A stranger — alone in a car. I watched children playing in their yards, people walking their dogs, joggers, teenagers, old people, and no one called the cops to even have me checked out. So much for Neighborhood Watch.

  I dropped the leather key-holder I keep on my belt, in front of the passenger’s side rear tire, then strolled up the block. There were lights on inside the single story house, but all the curtains were pulled closed. No carport, just a driveway with Baldy’s car resting on it. I noticed the windows were rolled up now and the doors were locked. Hmm. A change of behavior from earlier at the Ice Rink? Perhaps something inside of value? I figured they’d hooked up with Gauges and Short-Shorts to do some drugs, but maybe they didn’t want to share all their drugs with them. In which case the only place to hide the rest would be in the car.

  The house faced west. I slipped to the north side and found a five-foot tall, rickety wooden fence with a gate. The bottom hinge was broken, but by pulling up on it I was able to get it open with no noise. I checked for window wells. There were none. That meant no basement. The back yard was in need of a mowing but otherwise fairly nice. There was an ancient cement incinerator at the end of a short sidewalk that started at the back porch. Two clothesline poles, bereft of clotheslines, stood opposite each other like old west gunfighters ready for a quick draw. A rusted sheet metal shed slumped in the far corner of the yard with a lawn mower parked inside, its handle sticking out past the open doors.

  At the back door of the house I looked through the window and saw four people sitting in the kitchen just to the right. It was Baldy, Pimples, Gauges and some fat guy I hadn’t seen before. Short-Shorts wasn’t visible. They were sitting around a table drinking whisky and rolling dice. Heavy ribbons of blue smoke hung in the air of the kitchen like building storm clouds. Pimples sucked a long drag from a clear glass crack pipe, held it in, his eyes moving back and forth under his lids, before letting the smoke dribble slowly out his nostrils. He grinned and it reminded me of Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker.

  Gauges rolled the dice and laughed. Baldy and Fat Guy didn’t laugh with him.

  “Yeah! That’s what I’m saying. Pay up,” said Gauges, still laughing as he said it and motioning for Pimples to pass him the pipe. Pimples did and Gauges flicked his Bic under the bowl, its long flame licking the burnt glass and melting the small rocks of crack cocaine inside. Now there were two Jokers.

  Pimples stood up. “That’s enough for me. Where’s Trish?”

  Fat Guy snorted, it was high pitched and whiny. “She’s toast.”

  Pimples was still smiling. “I like toast.”

  “Come on, man, she’s totally out cold,” said Fat Guy.

  “What’s it to you?” Pimples was still smiling but there was a nasty edge to his voice.

  Fat Guy must have heard it too because he quickly looked down and shook his head. “Nothin’ — it’s nothing,” he said.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Pimples. “I like em when they’re out.” He grinned real big. “Less fighting that way.” He laughed hard and walked out of the room.

  The house was small: one bedroom, a kitchen, one bath and a small living room. No dining room. I moved over to the bedroom. There was no curtain but a yellowed shade covered the window. I could see just a little around the edge of the shade. I saw part of a thigh and the rounded cheek of a bare buttock. Apparently Short-Shorts wasn’t wearing her short-shorts anymore. Pimples came into the room.

  I went back to my car. Unless Tom and Amber were stashed in the bathroom they weren’t in the house. I picked up my leather key-holder and put it back on my belt. I opened the back door and let Max out. He’d been cooped up a long time. He hopped down, went to the car in front of mine and lifted his leg, urinating on the back fender.

  What a clown. I shook my head.

  When he was done I gave him the fooss command and he fell in step. We went back to Baldy’s car. I put Max in a sit and walked to the back bumper. I pointed to the car and said kilo. It isn’t a German command or even Dutch, but I use it for narcotics searches because that’s what I hope to find, a kilo of drugs. Max went up to the car and began sniffing, starting at the rear license plate and working around the passenger’s side toward the front. He passed the passenger’s front door — made it to the tire — did a head check back toward the door — stopped — went back to the door — sniffed hard at the crack between the door and the front quarter panel — sat down and stared at it.

  Max is a passive alerter, which means when he finds where the drugs are he sits and stares at where the odor of the narcotic is strongest. An aggressive alerter, like Pilgrim, scratches at where the drugs are. I decided at the beginning to train Max as passive for two reasons. First, it’s easier to train because you can hide the drugs anywhere on anything without fear of damage, whereas with an aggressive alert you have to be careful where you hide the drugs because the dog is going to scratch up whatever the drugs are hidden in. The second reason I trained Max to be passive is because as fierce as Max can be I was afraid he might just rip car doors off their hinges to get to the drugs. Car doors get pretty expensive, besides, he might hurt a tooth.

  Max looked back at me as if to say, “What’s the hold up, I’m showing you where the drugs are, dumbo? I ain’t sittin’ here all night.” I held my hands out palms up. “I’m thinking.” Max blew air out his nose and looked back at the car. It was probably just my imagination but I could swear he rolled his eyes.

  With Pilgrim I would have thrown him a rolled up towel as a reward for a positive indication on narcotics, but that’s not how Max rolls. So I just nodded and said “Good boy.” He looked at me as if I were nutty and went back to staring at the car after blowing air out his nose again in a close approximation to a human’s version
of harrumphing.

  I foossed him back to me and took him to the car.

  Okay, Tom and Amber weren’t in the house, but Baldy and Pimples still might know where they were. They had drugs in their car; they were doing drugs in the house; there were three new people in the house who might or might not have information about Tom and Amber.

  Hmm. Not a lot to go on.

  I pulled out my phone and punched in star six seven so my number wouldn’t show up on caller ID then dialed 911. A female Denver Dispatcher with a three pack a day smoker’s voice answered after five rings.

  “Denver 911 emergency. Do you have an emergency?”

  “I think a man and a woman are having a terrible fight across the street from me,” I said.

  “What’s the address?” asked the dispatcher. Her voice was so gruff it sounded like she gargled with glass. I gave her the address.

  “What makes you think they’re fighting?” My own throat was starting to hurt just listening to her.

  “Well, I heard a lot of yelling and banging around, and then a woman screamed for some guy named Gage or something not to hit her anymore. It sounded pretty bad.”

  “How long ago was this?” she asked, and I had to wonder if it was possible to sandpaper the inside of someone’s esophagus.

  “It started about ten minutes ago, but it’s still going on. Oh, did you hear that? The woman just screamed something about the man having a gun, or a bun. Something like that. I can’t be sure, but it sounds bad. You better send two cars.”

  “We have cars on the way,” said acid voice. “Do you want to be contacted?”

  “No, I’d rather remain anonymous, thanks. I do hope that poor woman is okay. Bye.”