by Terry Keys
“Look at what you’ve done!” Caleb screamed again as he jumped back into the truck. Caleb slammed the door to the truck and pounded the steering wheel.
Right now every cop in this little hole-in-the-wall town would be heading this direction. He only had a few minutes to get the hell out of there.
But now he also had Yvette and not enough time to do anything with her of consequence. And her family was bound to be looking for her by now.
What made the most sense was dragging her out, putting one in her head, and leaving her with Officer Jimbo. He wanted Porter to know it was him. He had to know; otherwise, what the hell was the point of it all?
Caleb turned back onto the main road and sped toward I-45. Two minutes later, three squad cars passed him heading in Jimbo’s direction. It’d take them another three minutes before they knew what happened. Caleb would be on I-45 headed north and scot-free by then.
Chapter 54
Hill and the FBI decided it was time to share Caleb’s picture with the public. The thought process was simple: we’d not only have police eyes on him but the public’s eyes too. Lots of crimes were solved because eyewitnesses picked up the phone. It was the old “if you see something, say something.”
As a courtesy, I’d sent Hill a text letting him know where my team was headed. DeLuca and Lafitte followed behind me. We had a twenty-minute head start before we’d be overrun with help I didn’t want or need.
Just as I’d suspected, Caleb had been hiding in plain sight in an apartment in South Houston. It was late, but I sent a text to Miranda too.
Heading to end this. Kiss the girls for me tell them I love them. I love you
Other officers played it differently, but I knew attempting to bring Caleb in had high risks. It was like walking into a lion’s den.
I looked over at my vest and sighed. This isn’t how anyone should have been spending Christmas Eve, eve. I should have been with my wife and my girls.
I parked about a half mile away, and Paul and DeLuca turned in behind me. I threw my truck into park and buried my face in my hands. I said a quick prayer. I wanted everyone to walk away from this alive.
Paul startled me by knocking on the window. I grabbed my vest and stepped out.
“You okay, Knuckles?” Paul asked.
“Not really. Got a whole slew of emotions, thoughts going through my head.”
“We don’t have to do this. We can sit this one out. Let Mullinski and Baines close this thing out,” DeLuca said.
“No. If I can, I’m going to talk him down. I still have a ton of unanswered questions. Caleb is the only one left who can actually fill in some of the blanks.”
“Why wouldn’t Caleb have the same death pact the others did?” Paul asked.
“He may. It’s possible . . . hell, probable,” I said, buckling my vest.
We kept our weapons holstered as we walked toward Caleb’s apartment.
“Listen, don’t let whatever it is you got going on put you in danger. This kid—”
“I know. He’s dangerous,” I said.
“Yeah, and when Baines and company show up, he’s just a cop killer. They aren’t going to let you tool around with this for long,” Paul added.
He was right. This was precisely why I didn’t need to be involved. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I might not be able to stand there and squeeze one off into Caleb’s chest.
“No turning back now,” I said, staring at the apartment complex directly in front of us. I pointed to the brown minivan we’d linked to Caleb.
We’d already decided that Paul would bring up the rear.
“I love you, brother,” Paul said in my ear as we exchanged a quick hug
“You two done? We gonna go catch a bad guy now?” DeLuca said.
Before I knew it, Paul laid one on her lips, silencing her at the same time.
“What was that?” I said with a smile. I shook my head and started toward the building. “Let’s lock and load. I want to get back to my girls for Christmas.”
I pointed to the back of the building and Paul took off. We waited thirty seconds and made our way up the staircase.
We made it to Caleb’s front door. I held my service weapon steady as DeLuca jimmied the lock. She pushed the door open and we crept inside. Most of the lights were on. The place was tidy. A laptop sat on a wooden table just inside the doorway. There was a handgun on an end table by the couch. Otherwise, the living room was empty. The kitchen was all but bare, which didn’t surprise me. I didn’t imagine he’d been doing much cooking here. We’d cleared two rooms and no sign of Caleb. Other than our footsteps, I hadn’t heard any other noise either. The van was outside, so he had to be here. Maybe he was asleep, which would be even better. Maybe this whole thing would end more peacefully than I’d hoped.
We made it to the bedroom. The door was open, and we had a clear line of sight to the bed. Nothing. We cleared the restroom too. Caleb wasn’t here. Where the hell was he?
I sent Fingers a text to let him know our current status and to see if he could help.
No Caleb. Van still here. See if there are any cameras close
“So, what now?” DeLuca said while dialing Lafitte.
“Let’s poke around and see what we can find. I don’t want to stay long. He has to come back at some point. He left his gun and his backpack. Don’t make a mess and put back anything you move,” I said.
I walked over to the table and rifled through papers. I found 11 x 17 blueprints of my house, HPD headquarters, and a few other places. I would have expected nothing less.
We kept Lafitte hidden out front to alert us if Caleb returned. I felt my phone vibrate. It was a text from Finger’s.
Left on foot 2 hours ago. Trail goes cold. Ideas?
I didn’t have any ideas. Where are you, Caleb? What the hell is this kid up to? He knows Marci is dead. He knows I’m closing in on him. He knows it could almost be over. Had he killed again? Would he? I had so many questions and no answers.
I slammed my hand into the wall.
“Hey, you okay?” DeLuca asked.
“No. We’re so close, but I’ve been this close before and came up empty-handed. That can’t happen here.”
DeLuca was staring intently at a piece of paper she’d picked up.
“What you got there? Anything worth my time?” I asked.
She looked up at me. There was a look in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before from her. Almost a look of fear. Or maybe it was angst. I couldn’t be sure.
“You might want to come take a look at this.”
She handed the paper to me. It was a handwritten note titled Mein Kampf. My Fight. The same title as Adolf Hitler’s autobiography.
I’ve been invisible until now. I was born to a young mother a former stripper that got pregnant when she was gang-raped by an entire football team. I wish I could make this up but I couldn’t – no one could have. I was literally born into sin. How the hell was I supposed to grow into anything productive? Who wanted to be a law-abiding citizen anyway? Cops were all no-good liars and kiss-asses. Only good cop is a dead cop. When I was five my mother, Lisa, told me I was destined for greatness but that nobody would understand me but her and Marci. No one would care about me. My own father didn’t even care about me. She showed me copies of all of the letters she’d sent him. He never called on one birthday, one Christmas, NOTHING. He never sent Lisa any money . . . not that we needed it, but he could’ve offered. He wrote me back one time. Actually, he didn’t write me back. He wrote Lisa and told her to tell me. He said I was a mistake, and she should have aborted me like he told her to and not to contact him again. She’d sent him my grades. I was a straight-A student. He didn’t care. He called me a geek and said no child of his would be a bookworm. I HATE him. I will kill everyone close to him. His wife, his daughters, his mom and dad, EVERYONE! He wanted me aborted!! Then he made me a bastard. I had a picture of him on my wall growing up that I threw darts at every day. David Porter thin
ks I’m a bad guy. He has no idea. I’m worse than a bad guy. One day he will find out how his enemy Prodinov knew so many things about him and his routine. About his brother’s routine, his brother’s murder. I watched him cry like a baby at his brother’s funeral. I was there. No one even knew who I was. Seeing his pain felt so good. But now Lisa is gone and so is the love of my life, Marci. All because of Porter. I will kill his friends and his coworkers too. He has no idea how hard my life has been. The hell I had to endure. Lisa made me read his letter every day. And every day my hate grew and GREW! What kind of person says a kid should’ve been aborted? But none of it compares to what his letter ended with, the things he said to Lisa. One day I will cut his tongue out and cook it. I will eat it in front of him. I’ll never forget those words. “You were nothing but a piece of ass to me. I should’ve gotten the basketball team to run through you too. Terrible lay, to top it off. Go back to stripping if you need money for the kid, hooker.” Now he smiles and hides behind that badge, but I know who he really is and what he really is. Make sure this letter reaches out far and wide. I want everyone to know what a piece-of-shit human being he is. I want his daughters to know. I want the world to know. The devil is here in the flesh. I am the reckoning. My pain will soon be his pain, until death takes his pathetic body. I’ve been invisible my whole life but not anymore. Everyone will see me now. Everyone will know my name!
Caleb Crease Porter...
I stood there, shaking, and I had tears in my eyes. I was angry and hurt. The lies Stacy told Caleb fueled him every day and in the worst way humanly possible. She’d painted a picture of me that couldn’t be further from the truth, a terrible reality that was all a lie. And it would always be Caleb’s truth no matter how hard I tried.
And now I had a choice to make. If I took the letter with me, Caleb would know someone had been here. If I left it, I risked the chance of him actually sharing it. And even if I took this one, he probably had a copy. The pain I felt took me to a low I’d never been to. In that moment, I knew another human being felt things about me that weren’t true and were deplorable. Not to mention this person was my own son.
DeLuca place a hand on my shoulder. “Porter, we’ve got to go. Been here way too long already.”
She was right. I snapped a picture of it with my phone, and then handed it to her.
“Let’s go.”
It was late, but this was too much to hold in. I sent the picture to Miranda.
“Found Caleb’s hideout–no sign of Caleb found this. . . heartbroken.”
How could I hurt a kid who’d been lied to and brainwashed his entire life? To everyone else, he was a cop-killing maniac who they’d drop in an instant. He’d done some terrible things, but I might have done the same had I been in his shoes.
We headed back to our vehicles to regroup. My mind raced. I was already torn and guilt-ridden. Whether I’d known about Caleb or not, he existed. He was mine, and I hadn’t been there for him.
I climbed into my truck and threw my vest across the passenger seat. Before I could crank up the engine, my cell phone buzzed at me. It was a text from Miranda.
“Oh God this is awful! So sorry call me when u can.”
Before I could text her back, my cell phone buzzed again. This time it was a text from Fingers.
Good news call me ASAP found him!
I punched in Fingers’ number and pulled out of the parking lot.
“Where is he?” I asked the second the call connected.
“Killed a cop in Dickinson. Been listening to the airwaves. They ID’d him from the dash cam and the APB we put out on him. A husband called in a missing person report on his wife about forty-five minutes ago. Dickinson PD is out looking for witnesses now.”
“No way he’d kill a cop without leaving a clue to let me know he’d done it. Had to be a desperation move.”
“So what now?” Fingers said.
“We head south. I’m calling Dickinson PD now. Hopefully they’ve set up roadblocks. Depending on response time to that officer being shot, he might not have gotten too far. Also I’ll get you the plates and vehicle description from that dash cam. Use Vyspy and see if you can zero in on it.”
“It’s dark. You know it’s a lot harder to use at night.”
“I know, but maybe you’ll get lucky. We could use a little luck right now.”
I called Dickinson PD and spoke with Lt. Jermaine James, who informed me a perimeter had indeed been set up. They had responded to their fallen officer within three minutes of the shooting. This was good news. Actually, it was great news.
We had Caleb boxed in, it seemed. According to my GPS and Google Maps, Dickinson was full of bayous and creeks, so we had our work cut out for us.
Lt. James had graciously given me the information regarding the owner of the stolen truck. I dialed the number and waited.
“Hello?”
“Hello. This is Detective David Porter with the Houston Police Department.”
“How can I help you?” I could hear the worry in his voice.
“I have some bad news for you. I believe your truck has been stolen.”
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“No, sir. I wish it was. Why don’t you take a minute to go out and check for me.”
He agreed to check it out, and I stayed on the line as he headed for the parking lot. It didn’t take long for him to confirm what I’d told him.
“I guess this isn’t a joke. My truck is gone.”
“I’m sorry. We’ll do everything we can to recover it. The good thing is, we know who took it. And we’ve narrowed down a likely area where it may be. But I need your help.”
“Shit! I just remembered there are—”
“What is it?”
“I left my laptop in the truck. I’m an engineer for a local refinery. We just finished a new product design, and I hadn’t saved anything to the server. Everything is on that computer. Months and months of work and research. It’d cost us . . . a lot. I gotta get it back.”
“Like I said, we’ll do everything we can to help you. That laptop may actually help us out.”
“How?”
In law enforcement we had a number of software devices that could track the IP addresses of computers. We could also turn on a laptop’s webcam remotely. This was fairly new technology that could still be hit or miss, but at least we had options available—if he used the computer.
“Please call your employer and get that laptop’s numbers. All of them. Serial numbers, IP address, make/model, everything. The number I called you from is my cell. Please text me everything as soon as you get it. I know it sounds cliché, but there are lives at stake.”
“The refinery never shuts down. I bet I can get you something in the next fifteen minutes or so.”
“Thanks. Again, I’m sorry about your truck. We’ll do our best to get it back to you.”
I got Baines and Chief Hill on a three-way call and filled them in. I don’t know why, but I even told them about the letter we found from Caleb.
“How you holding up with all of this?” Hill asked.
“Well, about as good as a guy could in this situation. Don’t even think about it; I’m finishing this one out.”
“Baines, I need your FBI buddies to help with this. I should have the stolen laptop identifiers here shortly. Maybe we get lucky, and this kid finds the laptop and turns it on.”
“Text them to me when you get them,” Baines said.
“I will.”
“Don’t put your life at risk because of that letter. Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. We’ve already lost Wilcrest and Patton. I don’t need to lose you too,” Chief added.
I disconnected with them and called Laffite and DeLuca, who were following me, to get them up to speed. As I approached the exit for FM 646, I could see the roadblock up ahead. Ten minutes later, we were at the police station.
It was close to midnight, but Lt. James was there to greet us. I reached out to shake his hand.<
br />
“Pleasure to meet you, Detective Porter. Your reputation precedes you. We need more African American men like you in our community. Strong, positive role models for our youth to look up to.”
“You must have me mixed up with someone else,” I said, laughing. It felt good to laugh.
“Humble too, I see,” James added.
“Is there an office we can use for a few hours?” I asked.
He led us down a long corridor to a conference room, unlocked the door, and flipped on the lights.
“This work for you?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said as we settled around the rectangular table that all but filled the room.
“Were you able to get ahold of the stolen truck’s owner?” James asked.
“Yes. Got a solid lead too. If we get a bead on this kid, I’d like one of your officers to go with us. Be a tour guide of sorts.”
“Of course. You let us know if you need anything, Detective.”
Chapter 55
An hour went by before I finally got the numbers from the laptop. I forwarded them to both Fingers and Baines. I wanted to work it from both sides to speed this up some if we could. It was a long shot, but if Caleb ran into a roadblock or two, he might get desperate. Stranger things have happened. Besides, if he knew his time was ticking away, he’d make a last-ditch effort to get his letter out to whomever he intended to send it to. I didn’t want that, but I’d take it if it meant finding him.
“So what’s the play? We just sit back and hope he turns this laptop on?” Lafitte asked.
“Yes and no. Local PD is closing in on his location by shrinking the roadblock area. They don’t think there’s any way he could have gotten past it. It’s still a lot of area to cover, and darkness isn’t helping anything.”
“I don’t know. I feel like we should be out there knocking on doors or something,” DeLuca said.
“We’re going to get him. He doesn’t escape this time. By noon tomorrow he’ll be sitting in a jail cell. And by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be back in Montana celebrating Christmas with my family.”