Behind the Closed Door: A Detective Series of Crime and Suspense Thrillers (The Jacob Hayden Series Book 2)

by Charles Prandy

  “Take them now,” she commanded.

  Out of nowhere, FBI agents swarmed onto the front lawn with guns raised. They shouted commands for the two intruders to fall to their knees. The two figures in black looked around as if they were confused about what was going on.

  Agent Davis and I hopped out of the car and ran towards the front yard with our weapons raised.

  “FBI,” Agent Davis shouted, “raise your hands over your heads and lay on the ground.”

  The commands were coming from all of the agents. The voices barked orders in different octaves but it was clear that the two dark figures were to raise their hands and lie on the ground. They both did so without a fight. They raised their hands and fell to the ground belly first. Agents quickly hopped on them and strapped their hands together behind their backs with zip ties. Once they were secured, they were raised to their feet and patted down for weapons.

  I stood behind Agent Davis just feet from the two intruders as their masks were taken off of their heads. I’ve mentioned before that not many things surprise me in this business. But I’ve got to admit, this one took the cake.

  “What the hell is this?” Agent Davis said.

  Underneath the masks stood two boys who couldn’t have been older than nineteen years old. Their eyes were wide and glossy. Not the kind of wide-eyed look you’d get from fear, but from being stoned. Their mouths were covered with masking tape that had handwriting covering it. Agent Davis ripped the tape off of one of the boys and looked at the writing.

  Now you’re playing my game.

  Forty-eight

  Max and his associates spread throughout the house. There were four targets that needed to be taken down. He reached the first one who was asleep in his bed. He didn’t bother turning on the lights like he did in the past. There was enough light from the moon that shone through the bedroom window. Max squeezed off two shots that hit his target with ease.

  He stepped back into the hallway and heard other muted shots go off. He and his associates reconvened in the kitchen.

  All four men dropped the duffel bags they carried in. Three were empty. The fourth had tools. The kitchen floor was a mixture of marble and ceramic tile that would cause an interior decorator to question their profession. Two of Max’s associates moved a circular kitchen table. Max pulled out a chisel and hammer and placed the chisel in the direct center where the table previously stood. He raised the hammer and slammed it against the chisel until the floor cracked. He continued chiseling until there were enough broken pieces of marble that revealed the wooden subfloor.

  Next, Max took out a hand held circular saw. He cut a large rectangle into the subfloor and pulled the subfloor floor back. He stood up, stepped back and looked at the safe that was buried in the floor. The four men slapped five with each other. Max looked at his watch. It was now two in the morning.

  “One million dollars,” Max said.

  More hand slapping amongst the others.

  “Not bad for a night’s work,” he said.

  A sound came from the hallway, like a creak in the floor. Max turned around. He looked in the direction of the sound for several seconds. The hallway was dark. He pulled his Beretta from its holster. He looked back to one of his men and nodded his head. “Check it out.”

  One of the men moved into the hallway with his weapon raised and looked around.

  “Anything?” Max asked.

  “Nothing. This is an old house. Sometimes houses make noise.”

  Max nodded and agreed. Old houses can creak if the wind blows hard. But there wasn’t any wind tonight.

  “Everyone sure they took out their targets?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “All right.”

  Max turned around just as a loud boom came from the hallway. There was a thud. Max’s associate hit the wall and then the floor.

  Seconds later, the sound of a shotgun being cocked caused everyone to duck for cover.

  Forty-nine

  The two boys were sitting in the middle of the lawn with their hands strapped behind their backs. I shone my flashlight in their faces and noticed that their eyes no longer appeared as glossy. The commotion with the FBI must be causing them to lose their high quicker than normal.

  Agent Davis had been questioning them for the past ten minutes, but they kept giving the same answers.

  “Tell me again,” Agent Davis said.

  “Like we told you ten times already,” the kid named Teddy said. He was taller than the other kid and had long brown locks of hair that was disheveled because of the ski mask he wore.

  We verified through his driver’s license that Teddy’s name was Theodore Moore and he was from Bethesda, Maryland. He was nineteen and just completed his first year of college at American University. The other kid’s name was Kevin Wood, also nineteen and also from Bethesda, Maryland. He also just completed his first year at American University.

  “So tell me again,” Agent Davis demanded.

  “We were at a bar drinking with some friends and this guy came up to us and asked if we wanted to make some easy money. He said all we had to do was wear this silly outfit and put this tape over our mouths and he’d pay us five hundred dollars.”

  “Did he pay you?”

  “Of course. We’re not idiots.”

  Agent Davis looked at me. I just shook my head.

  “You’re under age. How were you drinking at a bar?” Agent Davis asked.

  The kid hesitated like he was thinking of a way to get out of answering, but finally he shrugged his shoulders and responded. “Fake I.D.s.”

  Another agent came up to us and said, “We found their car a few blocks away. Besides a little marijuana, nothing’s inside. They’re clean.”

  “Look, are we in trouble?” Teddy asked. “Because we haven’t done anything wrong. You’re not going to tell our parents, are you?”

  “The guy who came up to you, what did he look like?”

  “I don’t know, he looked like any other guy. Tall, short brown hair, pretty strong from what I could tell.”

  I was holding my two-way radio when I heard dispatch from my precinct say, “Shots reported fired at 1344 Gorman Street.”

  The address sounded familiar to me. I wasn’t sure why it sounded familiar but it did. It took a few seconds to register, but then I thought I knew who lived there. I raised the two-way, “Dispatch this is Detective Jacob Hayden. Who lives at that address?”

  “The address is registered to a Louis Gomez.”

  My eyes grew wide. The Gomez family. Earlier in the year, I had a run in with one of the nephews named Hector Gomez. He ran from me when I tried to question him about a murder and got hit by a car. He died on site. The Gomez family is known for their connections with drugs, prostitution and weapons smuggling. They’re also known to keep large amounts of cash in their houses.

  Agent Davis saw me thinking and came over. “What is it?”

  “All of the other branch managers have been secured? There haven’t been any incidences at their places, correct?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  I looked around. FBI Agents were looking around for clues. Two teenagers were sitting in the front lawn with their hands tied behind their backs. Whoever had been committing these crimes knew we were going to be here. They sent two dummies to a trap fully knowing that we’d be waiting. Because this time instead of kidnapping a bank manager and robbing a bank, they were going to rob a crime family.

  “Damn. We’ve been played.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “No time to explain.” I started heading for Agent Davis’ car. “I know where they’re at.”

  Agent Davis started sprinting to her car. She turned around and put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. She pointed at two agents, “Take those two in custody. The rest follow me.”

  Engines came to life and sirens blared. In a matter of seconds, tires peeled against the pavement.

  Fifty

  The shotgun cocked and
then fired into the kitchen. Max took cover around the opposite kitchen wall. The blast didn’t hit anyone and Max figured whoever was the shooter just opened fire blindly. His Beretta was raised and he squeezed off three shots in the direction of the shotgun. The shooter made a gurgling sound and fell to the floor with a thump. No one moved for a few seconds.

  Max turned the corner and saw a man lying still near the entrance of the kitchen. He squeezed off another shot to the man’s head just to make sure he was dead.

  “Hurry up and search the house again,” Max demanded. “The shotgun probably woke up the neighbors. We need to get outta here fast.”

  The two men in black ran through the house. Max bent down and looked at the man he shot. He recognized him. He cursed himself for not thinking that this guy could be here.

  Next, Max went to his fallen associate who had been shot. He pulled off his mask and saw that his eyes were opened wide but blank.

  “No one else is here,” one of the men said.

  Max stood up and turned around. “Open your bags. We need to get the money fast.”

  Max kneeled next to the safe. It had a combination lock like you’d see on any standard gym locker. Max reached down, turned the nob a few times and the safe’s door clicked open. The safe was filled with bricks of hundred dollar bills. The three men started filling their bags. When they finished, the safe was empty.

  “What do we do about Sam?” one of the men said.

  “Nothing we can do.”

  “We can’t just leave him here.”

  “Sure we can. He can’t be traced back to me.”

  There was a brief pause of silence.

  “Why’d you say me and not we?”

  “Because I’m the only one leaving here alive.”

  Before the other two could react, Max’s Beretta was already in hand. He squeezed off two shots to their heads and both men fell to the ground.

  In the distance, Max heard the faint sound of police sirens. He picked up the duffel bags which now felt like they were filled with sand. He went out the backdoor and ran along the shadows of the neighboring yards until he got to his car. He knew he needed to hurry. Once the police arrived, they’d block off any possible exits. Max flung the bags in the car and fired up the engine.

  This particular neighborhood was full of side streets that lead to Connecticut Avenue. If you weren’t familiar with the neighborhood, it could easily feel like a maze. Max kept the headlights off and drove slow enough to use the emergency brake lever to slow him down around turns. The police sirens were getting louder, but they were now coming from the opposite direction to Max.

  Plan B was almost complete. Once he makes it to Connecticut Avenue, he can blend in with the other cars, and then let out a little breath. Then he can start the process for Plan C which will finally close the circle of his life’s quest.

  Fifty-one

  Uniforms had already entered the house and from what I could tell from radio contact. It appeared that a massacre had taken place. There were a total of eight dead bodies in the house and an empty safe in the middle of the kitchen floor. I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  “Fill me in on this Gomez family,” Agent Davis said.

  “They came into the city about ten years ago from Mexico. Louis Gomez is the senior member of the family. He brought his wife and two kids with him. Then slowly other family members started matriculating.”

  “Do they have papers?”

  “Most of them do.”

  “Go on.”

  “Since their arrival, we’ve seen an increase in illegal weapons and prostitution. We’ve raided several of their houses over the years but we’ve only been able to bust them on minor charges: a gram of coke here or marijuana there. Seems like whenever we get close to a raid, they all of the sudden become clean and we can’t find anything.”

  “Inside help.”

  “That’s been the standing theory.”

  “So why this house? Why now?”

  “This is Louis’ house. The Don, if you will. If ever there’s a house you’d want to hit, it’s this one. Word on the street is that he keeps hundreds of thousands of dollars stored somewhere in the house.”

  “Jesus,” Agent Davis said, “he’s his own personal bank.”

  “So now we know two things about these robbers: one, they’re methodical. They have patience. To do what they’ve done over the past couple of days probably took anywhere from six months to a year to plan.”

  “And two?”

  “They don’t have a care in the world. They just robbed a major member of the Gomez family and I’m pretty sure they knew it.” I gathered my thoughts and sighed. “We won’t be the only ones looking for these guys.”

  We stayed quiet for a minute.

  “Maybe there’s more to it than that,” Agent Davis said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “These guys just robbed two banks and got over a million dollars in cash. That’s a lot of money. We don’t have a clue of their identities. Why not just take the money and go overseas somewhere and let this thing blow over. Why take a chance at robbing a known criminal?”

  I pondered the thought.

  “I think something else big is going to go down which might make this look like child’s play.”

  Fifty-two

  Pat was in front of the house when we pulled up. When she saw me, she headed over to our car with a despondent look in her eyes. I quickly introduced her to Agent Davis.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.

  She turned around and headed back to the house. We followed. Even though it was close to two-thirty in the morning, neighbors from the neighborhood were out and standing behind the police tape. As I stepped on the front yard, I heard my name being frantically called from someone in the crowd. I turned around and saw one of the Gomez family members calling me.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath.

  I headed for the police tape. Ricky Gomez was one of the younger cousins in the Gomez tribe. They don’t have a fondness for me because they blame me for Hector Gomez’s death. Earlier in the year I wanted to question Hector about a murder that I was investigating. When I got to the apartment where he was staying, he started firing at the front door and then ran through the back door. I chased him through Adams Morgan where he ran into a busy intersection and got hit by a car. He died on the spot. Toxicology later confirmed that he had high amounts of cocaine in his system.

  I approached the police tape. Ricky’s eyes were flaming with both rage and sadness. He was wearing a white tank top. His arms and chest were covered with tattoos. His dark hair was gelled back and a thick goatee covered his face. He had the demeanor of a bull about to be let loose on a matador.

  “Who did this?” He could barely hold back his rage.

  “We don’t know. I haven’t even been inside yet.”

  “Is my uncle in there?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  His eyes started tearing. He pointed his finger at me. “We’re going to find whoever did this. And they’re going to pay.”

  “Ricky, I need to ask you not to do this. Let us handle it.”

  He spit near my feet. “You putos couldn’t find your own thumb if it was stuck up your asses.”

  “Ricky, let us handle it.”

  “Fuck you, puto. Whoever did this is dead.”

  He turned and stormed off through the crowd knocking people out of his way.

  I met Pat and Agent Davis back at the house.

  “A friend of yours?” Agent Davis asked.

  “Hardly. One of the Gomez clan.”

  “He looked pretty upset.”

  “That’s an understatement. We’re going to have to find these guys before they do.”

  We entered the house. In my ten years of being on the police force, I’ve never seen anything like this. Four bodies were dead in their beds. One was dead in the hallway. Three wer
e dead in the kitchen. From the looks of it, the four who were dead in their beds appeared to have been sleeping. Of the three in the kitchen, one was a Gomez family member, the other two weren’t. Same with the one in the hallway.

  Two of the men in the kitchen were wearing black ski masks over their heads and black clothes. It’s easy to surmise that they were a part of the robbery team. But something must have gone terribly wrong. They both had bullet holes in their heads. Through the ski masks, they appeared to be staring at nothing. The guy in the hallway was wearing black too although his mask was partially taken off his face.

  “What do you think happened?” Pat asked.

  I looked at the positions of the bodies. The two wearing the masks were lying on their backs. The one with the shotgun in his hand was lying on his stomach. The one in the hallway was lying on his side. I stood by the guy in the hallway and looked down the hall.

  “This one was taken by surprise,” I said. “The guy with the shotgun took him out and then came into the kitchen where he was shot and killed by one of these men.”

  “So then who killed them?”

  “There’s a fourth one. Look at the safe, the money’s gone. If it were just the three of them, there’d still be a safe full of money.”

  I knelt down next to one of the masked men and removed his mask. He didn’t look familiar. We’d be able to get a positive I.D. once we run prints, assuming they’ve been printed before. I turned to the next one and removed his mask. I stared for a few seconds not believing what I was seeing. I looked up and Pat and Agent Davis were looking at me.

  “What is it?” Agent Davis asked.