Wrath (The Lieutenant Harrington Series Book 1)

by E. H. Reinhard

  “More like a search warrant to me,” Dave said. “Maybe an arrest warrant. That.” He pointed at the board where Wade had written down the text messages. “That message where she says she’s going to call. She says she hopes everything is okay. She’s worried. Her not calling him, then no-showing for work, then her husband standing in the yard in his underwear and rubber gloves. Sounds pretty damn out of the ordinary to me.”

  “We also have the fact that his whereabouts were unknown at the time of Ludwig’s murder. Even hours after the murder,” Steve said. “Shit, even right now.”

  “He probably killed them both,” Dave said. “Mercer found out about her cheating and killed the boyfriend, went home, killed his wife. Him standing in the yard in his gloves and underwear was probably him cleaning up.”

  I shrugged. The theory made sense and was pretty much what I’d been thinking for most of the day. Yet we didn’t have a stitch of evidence that the husband was the one responsible. I looked at the captain. “What do you think?”

  “The simplest and most logical theory is usually the correct one,” he said. “Except that’s all it is, a theory. Why do we think she’s in any kind of immediate danger? Besides a hunch?”

  “She didn’t call the boyfriend, didn’t show for work, and isn’t at home,” Steve said.

  “And has her phone off,” Wade added. “We tried searching earlier. I left the search open but haven’t got an alert.”

  “What about BOLOs on the vehicles for her and her husband?” Garcia asked. “At least if we can get them stopped somewhere, we can talk to them and see what, if anything, is going down.”

  “Okay. Here is what we’re going to do,” the captain said. “Garcia, get with patrol and get some BOLOs cooking on both of the vehicles belonging to the Mercers. Hell, get some on the Mercers themselves as well.”

  “All right,” Garcia said.

  “I’m going to call the Miramar PD and have them stop in for a door knocking on our behalf. If they make contact, I’ll have them let us know. If they can’t or still don’t get an answer at the door, I’ll see if they can run patrols past the place throughout the evening—stop in when they see lights on.”

  While the captain’s plan wasn’t going to get us inside the house, it would be another attempt at contact. That sounded as good as we were going to get at the moment. I would have much rather heard the words “Go back, get inside, and see what you find.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Chris slowed at the base of his driveway and hit the button for the garage door. It began to lift. His neighbor, John, was standing in the front yard and watering some bushes. Chris pulled into his garage beside Grace’s car and clicked off the ignition. He opened the door and stepped out.

  “Is Grace here?” Chris heard.

  He spun around to see John standing outside of his garage, a few feet away from the back of Chris’s truck. The sight of the neighbor annoyed Chris. Why the hell he was asking for Grace, he didn’t know—maybe he was sleeping with her too.

  “It’s just that her car is here is why I’m asking,” John said.

  “Yeah, she’s here. She’s been here all day. Why?”

  “The police were over here earlier looking for her. They came to my house asking where she worked. Where both of you worked, actually.”

  The police visit in search of Grace obviously had something to do with the dead boyfriend. Chris wondered what they knew and what specifically was asked. He was intrigued by why the cops would ask about his work. “Did you talk to them?” Chris asked. “What were they asking about?”

  “As I said, they were looking for Grace,” John said.

  “Yeah, I know. You said that.” Chris swung his door closed and took a couple of steps along the side of his truck to the edge of the garage where John was standing. “Why were they looking for her?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  Chris needed to know more, and it didn’t seem as if the neighbor wanted to give him any information. Chris couldn’t figure out why John was standing outside of his garage and asking questions. As much as he wanted to tell him to pound sand back over onto his own damn property and mind his own business, Chris figured he’d try to kill him with kindness—at least for the time being.

  “Hmm,” Chris said. “That’s weird. I wonder what they wanted. Did they try knocking? Because, like I said, she’s been here all day. We’re spring cleaning. That’s why I was out back this morning like that. Maybe she had her headphones on or was lying down taking a break or something. Speaking of this morning, I have to apologize. You happened to catch me at my worst. We’ve been having some financial problems. It’s hard. We’re actually cleaning the house up to sell it. We can’t afford it anymore. That being said, there was absolutely no reason for me to act like that toward you. And I have no excuse for even mentioning your daughters. I’m embarrassed. I mean, I don’t even know what the hell came over me. I told Grace what I said, and she went off on me, deservingly so.”

  “It’s fine, Chris. Don’t give it another thought,” John said.

  “I’m sorry. Again, that’s just not the kind of person I am. Hard times or not, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I truly apologize.”

  John waved away the apology.

  “Did the police give you a card or anything? A name or a number that I can have Grace call?”

  “I have a card back at the house. The cop was a lieutenant. Harrington, I think he said his name was.”

  “I never heard of him,” Chris said.

  “They were going to try to stop in at your work and see if they could catch up to you there, but I guess that didn’t pan out if you guys didn’t go in today.”

  Chris shook his head. “Yeah, we’ve had this whole week planned off for a bit. Hell of a way to spend a vacation, getting a house ready to sell before it gets foreclosed on. So they didn’t say at all what they wanted to talk to us about?”

  “Nope,” John said.

  “Hmm.” Chris shrugged. “Why don’t you bring that card over, and I’ll have Grace call them to see what she can find out.”

  “Sure. Let me go grab it. I’ll be back in just a few.”

  Chris nodded, and John walked back to his house. It didn’t appear as if Chris was going to get any more information on the topic unless he made a phone call.

  CHAPTER 16

  We wrapped the meeting up around five thirty. Ryan had made contact at the airport with Mathers, who’d confirmed that Chris Mercer had taken a trip—he’d been gone from Friday until Sunday around noon. He was back in plenty of time to commit the crimes. Before we broke, we’d briefly discussed the prostitute and the scene that we’d reported to a few hours earlier. I’d made contact with Patricia Alba, a Vice officer, who said she would do a little asking around for us overnight. I’d also filled in Dave regarding the night shift motel worker we’d wanted to question, Brad. Dave said that he would send the guys out to talk to him.

  We’d gotten our BOLOs out across the airwaves on both Mercer vehicles. The captain had made contact with the Miramar PD and asked if they could send a patrol car over to the Mercer place. The word back was that no one answered the door. They would continue to patrol the area throughout the evening. Between the BOLOs and the patrol units watching the house, if either of the Mercers turned up, the officers had instructions to detain them until they could be questioned by our department.

  I’d locked up my office and walked from the back of the station a few minutes after six. After a couple of cranks, my patina’d Bronco fired up, and I drove the mile from the station to my house. The radio didn’t want to tune in to a station and played a constant buzz through the speakers. I clicked it off and listened to the wind inside the cab and the knobby tires against the road.

  I made a right onto NW Ninety-Seventh Avenue then a quick left three blocks up the road. My house was the third one on the right. From the street, it didn’t look like much more than an average tan-colored ranch with a single-car garage and a terracotta
roof. A small space next to the garage held my boat on its trailer. The horseshoe-shaped driveway was stamped concrete with a few palm trees in the center patch of grass. The side yard was fenced so no one could see into the back. That was it. I was fortunate enough to buy the place in need of a little TLC a few years back. In the three years that I’d had it, I’d completely remodeled the place inside. The kitchen was redone top to bottom, all the flooring in the home was replaced, and both bathrooms were gutted to the studs and modernized. The back patio and bar area were straight out of a magazine.

  The house was currently worth about double what I paid for it. I’d tossed around the idea of selling it a couple of times. The problem was, it was only a mile from work, and I’d never find anything that I liked better. Every last detail of the place was exactly as I wanted it. Plus, since it was so close to work, my team and others would often stop by to grill out, watch the games, and have beers. I’d miss the camaraderie if I sold the place and moved away.

  I pulled the Bronco around to the front door and shut it off. My garage had become property of the girlfriend. While I used to park my Bronco in it just to keep the rainwater out, Amy leased a newer Volkswagen that was far nicer than my vehicle. I gave her the garage to keep her car nice and opted to deal with the occasional waterlogged truck. It did okay at keeping the water out while it was just sitting still—a downpour on the freeway was a different matter altogether. I jumped out, swung the door closed, and walked to the house. I opened the door and got mauled by the world’s happiest dog. Lucky jumped, ran in circles, pawed at me, and yipped.

  “Hi, girl,” I said. I crouched and petted her while she licked away at my hands and face. She got the name Lucky because of how I’d found her—she was lucky she hadn’t ended up as roadkill. I saw her when I was taking my generator up to my parents’ house in Mount Dora, a little lake town on the outskirts of the Orlando area. We’d been smack in the middle of a tropical storm, and the power at my parents’ place was out. The power company wasn’t sure when service would be restored. I drove down Orange Blossom Trail a few miles from the house and near the end of my five-hour drive. That stretch of road was basically a divided highway, two lanes in each direction with a big grass median. Woods and cow pastures took up the sides of the roads. The speed limit was fifty-five, and even with the rain, I was probably doing the limit. My windshield wipers could barely keep up, but I wanted to get the trip over with. I was soaked from water getting through the top and every gap possible in the truck’s bodywork. Then, just as the wipers swept a sheet of water from the windshield, I saw something shoot out from the tree line toward the highway.

  I locked up the brakes. Through the thumping wipers, I saw a puppy stop dead in the street and stare at me. I had my foot to the floor on the brake pedal. Fifty feet, twenty feet, ten feet, five and the dog disappeared under my line of sight over the hood. Surprisingly, the truck came to a stop a few feet later. But it wasn’t soon enough that I was certain there wasn’t something bad under the front bumper. I worked the knob for my flashers and jumped out. As I rounded the front of my truck, I saw a cowering, soaked-to-the-bone, tan-and-white puppy staring back at me. She was young, just a couple of months old, and had no tags. I scooped her up and set her on the wet passenger seat of my truck. She curled up and lay there. I could see the pads on her paws were ripped up from walking—she’d been outside a while.

  At my parents’ place, we got her cleaned up and wrote a few posts online that we’d found a dog. My father called the local humane society and shelters. No one responded. She was too young to have been microchipped, but we checked with the vet, anyway. No chip. My parents nursed her back to health, and after about three weeks, they said it was time to find her a home. My mom was going to place some ads, but my decision had already been made. I went back and claimed her as my own the next weekend. I figured Lucky was a good name for her. She ran out in front of the right truck in the middle of a rainstorm, didn’t get run over, and found a home in the process.

  “Go on inside,” I said.

  She went in but stayed close. I swung the door closed behind me. To my right and ahead was the living room. To my left was the door leading out to the garage and a hallway that led to three bedrooms and a bathroom. The kitchen was just beyond the hall. Lucky sat behind the couch and stared at me. I glanced at the clock. It was time for her dinner, which I was pretty sure she knew. I fed the dog and went for a glass in the cupboard. An after-work beverage was in order.

  CHAPTER 17

  I changed from my suit to cargo shorts and a ratty old T-shirt. While I’d been told that I cleaned up well and had to wear a suit for work, I was much more comfortable when not in one. I always felt as if I was pretending every time I snugged a tie around my neck. The real me didn’t wear suits. Without the sleeves that a dress shirt provided, the tattoos covering both my arms were visible.

  I’d started getting tattoos around age twenty. They started with a bulldog on my shoulder then some barbed wire around my other bicep. With a roll of his eyes, my father said something to the effect of, “I hope you really like them now because you’ll hate them in ten years.” I had no idea at the time how wise my father had been. After those first couple of tattoos came some miscellaneous tribal-themed tattoos scattered about my arms and chest. It was one bad tattoo decision after the other until I was just shy of thirty. Thankfully, I’d never gotten anything that couldn’t be covered up by a dress shirt. When I turned thirty-five and was more mature, I found a good artist who covered up all the garbage with some uniform pieces. My right arm was now mostly thick horizontal bands in varying widths. My left arm was all geometrical black tattoos in a full sleeve. When off work and out and about in short sleeves, I got quite a few comments on them. Apparently I chose a good tattoo artist, and she did her job well.

  With an ice-filled pint glass in hand, I flipped on the outdoor lights and walked through the patio doors into my fenced backyard. Lucky had already gone into the back and was currently pushing her face through the grass, trying to scratch an itch or something. My grill, bar, and fire pit area out back had taken the better part of fall and winter to complete. Amy asked why I didn’t put in a pool, and my response was fairly simple. I couldn’t swim, and I’d rather have a bar, outdoor kitchen area, and fire pit. After it was complete, she came around on the idea, and we spent countless hours every week enjoying the backyard.

  The main area, off the back of the house where I stood, was a big concrete and redbrick patio about forty by thirty feet. The entire area was covered by a tin roof but open on the left side and back. The right side, which held the tiki bar that Steve and I had built, was mostly sealed in with tin walls. The U-shaped bar was fully stocked. It sat twelve people and had a big grass top that almost touched the underside of the tin roof. A fifty-inch television hung in the corner of the bar area. Old tin signs were bolted to about every spot that could hold one.

  I’d copied the look of a bar at an old Florida campground that I used to go to with my parents when I was a kid. For some reason it always stuck with me, and I did my best to recreate the look. The first time my father saw it completed, he said, “It looks like that place in the Glades that we used to take you kids,” so I guess I got the look right.

  Directly to my left, the motors of my boat were peeking out from the side of the house. Even closer to me was the outdoor kitchen. A wall about waist high went from the edge of the house to the back of the patio. In the center of the wall was a big redbrick barbecue that matched the brick on the patio floor. When the guys from work would come over, we’d build a wood fire in the barbecue and load up the grates with steaks. It usually made for a good time. Beside the brick barbecue was a gas grill that we used as a stovetop, and next to that was a built-in mini fridge.

  Off the back of the covered area was a pavered path that led to the fire pit and continued on to the storage shed. The shed was roughly ten by fifteen feet and held one of Garcia’s various motorcycles that I’d told him he could
store at my place, plus some of my miscellaneous yard equipment and lawn chairs. The fire pit area, a five-foot-wide and two-foot-deep hole, sat in the center of a big pavered twenty-foot circle. In the winter, I’d have fires fairly regularly. There was something about sitting around a fire and staring at the flames flicking the air that was soothing.

  I took my pint glass to the bar, walked behind it, and made a rum and Coke. I had plans of putting in an ice chest, but if I did, I would have to run plumbing out there. And if I did that, I would probably want to put in a sink as well. It was something that I still toyed with, so as it was, I had to walk to the kitchen for ice. During parties, I stocked coolers.

  I sat on a barstool at the bar, spun around, and flicked on the television. A sports channel was on. I let it play the highlights and zoned out, deep in thought about the case. Lucky came running around the corner from the backyard and jumped on the wicker love seat in the bar area against the side of the house—it was one of her spots. She plopped down and stared at me. I would have told her that I’d take her for a W-A-L-K in a few minutes when I was done with my drink, but she could spell, and I didn’t want to make her wait if I brought it up. She stared at me with her best puppy dog eyes. I took a big gulp of my drink, finished it, and clapped my hands. Lucky perked up, first lifting her head then standing on the love seat.

  “Walk?” I asked.

  She jumped down and ran over to me.

  “Go get your ball.”

  She ran inside the open patio door into the house. Lucky didn’t need a leash and would never run off, yet I tried to respect my neighbors and the neighborhood dog-leash rules. I leashed her up and walked her three blocks down. The sun had set probably an hour earlier. The last bits of daylight were mostly gone. Streetlights lit our way. Lucky, her ball in her mouth, followed at my ankle until we cut through the side yard of Chuck’s house. Chuck was a fellow dog owner who didn’t seem to mind people using his property as a shortcut to the big wide-open field of brush and sand behind his house. The land belonged to the cemetery off to the east, which was the size of a couple of city blocks. The field was for the cemetery’s expansion. A street, turnaround area, and streetlights were already put in. As it sat, the streetlights provided the perfect amount of light, and the size of the area, even with a paved street running down the center, was perfect for letting dogs off their leashes so they could run and get some exercise.