Suddenly, something occurred to me. “Riker? “ I asked. “Where’s Orson?”
“Who, ma’am?”
“Orson Sparrow. Monstrously huge man, you can’t miss him.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know about that, ma’am.”
“Is he in one of the other cars?”
“Nope. Know that for sure. I’m the only one with civilians.” He turned and eyed me more directly. “And remember, when I give the word, you two ladies need to get out fast, right?”
We both nodded. That was the only option, since all cars and officers were needed for the take-down, should everything go as planned.
“You sure you’ll be okay out here? It’s awfully cold.”
“We’ll be fine,” I said.
Back on the video, we saw Rick look toward the ceiling. He seemed to be talking, probably to Erik and Howard, but why couldn’t we hear anything?
“Where’s the sound?” I asked, starting to panic a little.
Riker tapped his speaker. “Don’t know.” He got on his radio. “We don’t have audio here, over.”
“Roger that,” someone responded. “Number three dead on audio as well, over. Number one?”
“It appears we have an audio malfunction.”
Now I wasn’t just a little panicked, I was starting to shake. “That’s bad, right? Don’t you need audio for this to work?”
“If we want to make an arrest, audio would be good, that’s true,” said Riker.
He got back on his radio. “Solution, over?”
“We’re workin’ on it,” responded one of the cars. “We’re workin’ on it.”
My pulse raced and I kneaded my hands like balls of dough while Peggy rubbed my back. This couldn’t be happening, I thought. Howard didn’t need another mission to go badly. Our family couldn’t take another wrong turn.
On the video screen, we watched as Rick disappeared from sight then returned just a moment later with a ladder. He pulled something from his pocket, climbed the ladder, lifted the item into the ceiling, descended, and then moved the ladder away.
“What did he just do?” asked Peggy.
I was about to offer my guess when the radio squawked again. “Audio won’t resolve. Marr is recording with a cell phone. Male on the floor will signal by cough when the deal is confirmed. Wait for my order to proceed.”
Just as Rick returned, his attention swung fast toward the rear door. He threw a look to Rita, waited, shook out his hands in what I assumed was a release of nervous energy, reached for the doorknob, and opened. The two Koreans who had flanked Kyung Kong in Rick’s bar earlier that night stood sturdy and erect, with their hands clasped in front of them like a pair of very serious and official-looking identical twins. It looked like some words were being exchanged, then the twin thugs entered and patted both Rick and Rita just as predicted. They then began moving through the restaurant, at which point they were out of view for almost a full minute.
The two suits returned in the shot and opened the door, revealing Kyung ‘Thunder’ Kong, who proceeded forward. More discussion, from what we could see. The lack of sound made it seem more ominous. My palms sweated so profusely that I was leaving a trail on the back of Riker’s vinyl seat.
Finally Kyung signaled to his henchmen, who opened the door. Rick stepped outside, lifted the large bucket that I had used as a seat earlier when sick, and placed it against the door to hold it open. At this point, the camera angle only allowed us a half-view of the back of Rick’s truck, placed there smartly by the very-absent Orson. Rick lowered the tailgate and took a step back, allowing the thugs to view inside. It was too dark to see inside the truck bed, so we had to guess they were looking at gold. Kinda wish I could have seen that.
Kong gave a nod, which, roughly translated, probably meant, “looks good to me.”
As if on cue, his men stepped to the back of the white delivery truck they’d arrived in, flipped over two locks, and tugged hard on a pull. The door slid up like a shade. Our view of the white truck’s interior was far better than that of Rick’s truck, mostly because of lighting and proximity. It was still pretty dim, though, and while I clearly could see a huddle of poorly-clothed, disheveled, thin men, the boxes piled high to the ceiling behind them were harder to make out.
“What are those?” asked Peggy.
“I’m guessing cigarettes and slaves,” said Riker.
A radio squawked. “This is number one. We have a problem. A man at my window says he wants his wife right now, over.”
“Oops.” Peggy put a hand to her mouth. “I told Simon I’d be home soon. Sorry!”
I looked at her incredulously. “How did he know you were here?”
“Orson let me call him. He’d been calling hospitals and everything, poor guy.”
“But you told him where we were?”
“He promised he wouldn’t come.”
Riker rolled his eyes and answered the call. “She’s here. Tell the husband to stand back and let us do our job.”
She pushed open her door. “I’ll just get out of your way...”
At that very moment, Rick Ash looked like he made the cough-signal. Riker pointed to me. “Out!”
The radio squawked. “Move in!” shouted Number One.
Peggy slammed her own door as I was opening mine to obey the good officer. But at that precise moment, my eyes caught sight of the video screen.
Howard had fallen from the ceiling.
“Out!” Riker shouted again while my eyes remained frozen on the image.
Peggy had dashed to my side of the car and pulled hard on my arm. “Barb!” she yelled while yanking. I tumbled out and landed on top of her. When sanity took control of my frazzled brain, I rolled over and shoved the door closed with both of my feet. Howard’s only hope for a safe return now would be for Riker to get his hiney over there fast. The car peeled out.
“Howard fell, Peggy!” I yelled. “Howard fell out of the ceiling! They’ll kill him!”
She grabbed me and hugged me tight. “He’ll be okay. I know it.”
There we stood, clutching each other, two soccer moms on a glacial, black fall morning in the middle of a deserted parking lot waiting for a major bust that would make the news in just a very short time. I wondered, just for a nano-second, what Dandi Booker would say about that.
The squad cars had sped toward their targets without sirens or flashing lights. Silent seconds turned into minutes while we shivered, wondering if the news was good or bad or ugly. We never heard a gunshot fired, so that had to be good, we reasoned.
Time kept rolling by unmercifully slow, without word or any sign. Then, just when I thought I might shrivel up from worry and frostbite, more squad cars flew down the road behind us, sirens screaming. A moment later, a dark SUV that I immediately recognized as Simon’s rolled up. He motored his window down and flashed Peggy a frown that didn’t require a statement for back up.
She was about to open her mouth to explain herself, but was interrupted by the squealing sound of tires spinning and a loud engine revving. Tearing from the other direction at a very dangerous speed, was Rick Ash’s pick-up truck. But Rick wasn’t driving. Orson was behind the wheel and he had company.
Howard.
I thought I’d faint from relief.
The truck skidded to a stop right next to me and Howard opened the door. “Going my way?”
I waved goodbye to Peggy and hopped in. “Where are we going?”
“Rustic Woods,” Howard said. “Rick and Rita Ash’s house.”
Chapter Eighteen
Orson raced Rick’s massive pickup so fast I thought the poor thing would collapse like an over-ridden horse. I grasped the dash with one hand and Howard with the other for support, but never asked my new farmer friend to slow down.
>
It turned out that Orson had never planned on sharing the gold found on his land with anyone. He’d kept Rick’s keys after conveniently offering to move the truck, then stowed himself inside the empty dumpster just a few yards away. During the confusion of Howard falling from the ceiling and the mayhem that ensued, he managed to steamroll his way in, lift Howard from the fray, run him to the truck and speed off with the treasure still safe in the back.
The poorly clothed and disheveled men we had spied on the video feed, Howard said, were in very bad condition, but took advantage of the distraction by storming Kong and his men.
“We’ve seen this before,” he said. “It’s not pretty. Men and women are promised a better life by men like Kong who bring them here, then turn them into slaves to work off their passage. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out they’ve been hooked on drugs to control them better.” He shook his head. “Makes me sick.”
“Then we did a good thing, right?” Orson asked.
“We did a good thing,” Howard assured him. “We did a really good thing.”
“Officer Riker thought the truck was loaded with cigarettes,” I said, still wincing every time we made a fast turn.
Howard nodded. “It’s big business. They run them up to New York where the cigarette taxes are so high. Black market cigarettes bring in good money.”
I turned to Orson, Colt ever on my mind. “You were in their house? You saw the dead body?”
“That I did.” He cringed. “Nasty. Just plain ol’ nasty.”
“How about Colt?”
He shook his head. “Not a sign of no one else. Sorry. I hope you find him, I really do, but I ain’t sure why they’d admit to one dead body, and not up and confess to another.”
“Maybe he slipped into the house, searching for something on Rita since he’d been following her, and...I don’t know, hurt himself, got locked up somewhere. You know, like when kids accidentally crawl into empty refrigerators...” I knew it was a stretch, but despite Orson’s doubts, I believed Colt was there. Everything pointed in that direction. I could tell, though, from his posture and silence that Howard had his doubts now as well.
Soon we were roaring down the toll road. The clock on the truck’s dash read 5:29. The sun would be up in a few more hours and Colt would have been missing three days.
Coming off the ramp onto Rustic Woods Parkway, we hit a red light. With not a car in sight on that early Sunday morning, Orson barely tapped his breaks and kept on moving. Two lefts, a right, another ignored red light, another left, two more rights and finally, we reached our destination, but not before Fairfax County Police. The street was ablaze in flashing red, white, and blue lights of police cruisers, fire trucks, and ambulances. A very large forensics van topped off the fleet.
Neighbors stood in robes and slippers on their lawns, some even took pictures with their cell phone cameras. The road had been cordoned off and they weren’t going to let us through until Howard saw an officer he knew and explained the situation. That only got us as far as the sidewalk in front of the house however, and because of the Drano mess found inside, no one no how was letting us any nearer. We stood there, helpless, unable to glean any information whatsoever.
Minutes later, a cruiser arrived at the end of the street and Erik flashed a badge. He stopped and talked to two different people before landing by Howard’s side. “They’re searching the house now,” he said. “We should know any minute if they’ve found Colt.”
“They’re looking for Colt, right?” I asked. “I mean, they understand a man might be dying in there?”
“Yes, Barb, they do.”
Howard pulled me in with his arm and reassured me with his warmth and confidence. “He’s okay. This is Colt. We will find him, and he will be okay.”
“He’s right, Barb,” Erik agreed. “Colt will outlive us all.” He patted me on the back, then strode across the lawn toward the house.
I tried to believe their words, but my heart was sinking like the Titanic with each passing minute.
Twenty minutes had passed, and now I could see that Guy had arrived with his crew set up outside the barricades. Bright lights on booms illuminated him and his fedora. Off to the side of the crew’s work area, was Clarence and Orson leaning against Rick Ash’s truck.
Hints of daylight were creeping into the landscape when Erik arrived, a solemn look on his face. Fearing the worst, that Colt had been found lifeless, I started weeping before he could even talk.
“Howard, Barb, he’s not there. I’m sorry. There’s just no evidence at all that he’s been in there.” He rested a warm hand on my shoulder. “Now, they did make out some unidentified footprints, probably made by a male shoe, outside near a window in the rear, so I’m trying to talk them into authorizing a canine unit, but they’re not very receptive to the idea.”
The fact that they’d found no Colt rather than a dead Colt raised my spirits a millimeter or two. I dried my eyes and tried to calm down. “Convince them, Erik, convince them.”
“I’m working on it, but I think we need to start looking elsewhere for him. I’m not sure this is the place. I’ve requested that a team head over to his car and start working up fingerprints and other data. Where is it parked?”
I gave him the address and he disappeared again.
I wondered how Christina Fetty would react to police descending upon the street in front of her house at dawn like this. The dogs would probably go berserk if they were anything like Puddles.
Then it hit me: Frank and Stein. Those dogs had noses just as good as any canine shepherd, I was sure. They sure had the tenacity.
“I need to sit down,” I told Howard. “I see Clarence and Orson over there. I’m going to see if I can rest in that truck for a while.”
“Have Clarence take you home. I’ll let you know how it’s going.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe.”
Now the thing is, I was pushed to the limit. Not only had I bounced off the hood of a car in motion, but I’d also been off my Slay Menopause diet for a couple of days, so my hormones were probably more erratic than Kim Kardashian’s marital status. I’m just setting the stage for the next, very bizarre choice I made, which was not to ask Orson if I could rest in the truck, but instead, to cut through the yards of two complete strangers to Sassafras Street, knock on Christina Fetty’s door, and ask her if she wouldn’t mind loaning me her dogs to help me find my lost friend, Colt. I never considered she wouldn’t be happy to oblige.
As I dashed through the yards, I practiced the wording of my request: “Hi Christina, how are you this morning? Hey, can I borrow Frank and Stein for just a few minutes? I’ll bring them back, I promise.” I tried to put a less frantic, more logical me in her place and realized that approach probably wasn’t the best. I worked another line: “Christina, do your part, save a life, give me your dogs.” No, I didn’t like that one, either.
I pulled up, panting in front of the Fetty home and saw that Christina was awake. The police had set up camp around Colt’s car and one of the officers was questioning her at her door. Christina’s brown hair was smooshed to one side as if she’d had a run-in with a failing student at the local beauty school and her pink robe was so bright I’m sure aliens were spotting her from space. She was already having trouble keeping the two mountainous mutts from nosing their way to the policeman’s precious cargo. This, I realized, was my perfect chance to help Christina and myself without coming across like Courtney Love on a half-day excursion from the looney bin.
The officer slid me a concerned glance as I stepped past him. “Here, Christina,” I said, pushing Frank and Stein back with my whole body. “Let me help you with these dogs. Please, tell this kind officer anything you can remember—he’s trying to help us find my friend Colt.”
Christina’s face shifted from utter bafflement to relieved
awareness. She bobbed her head. “Uh huh, uh huh, yup, yup. I see. You haven’t found him yet?”
I wanted to slap her silly and scream “What did I just tell you, you silly twit!” but I knew that was just the hormones and possible concussion talking. She was such a nice lady and didn’t deserve me even thinking of doing such a thing.
“I’ll take Frank and Stein to your backyard for you. Please, continue with the police.”
Bobbing her head again, she focused on the uniform in front of her. “Yup, yup, yup,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I know, uh huh, uh huh.”
I wouldn’t say that I escorted Frank and Stein to the backyard so much as they hauled me there themselves. With my hands grasped as firmly as possible, one around each leather collar, I guided them to the fence gate at the side of the house. The gate was tall, as it obviously had to be, and the latch was higher than I expected. If I let go of a collar, I might not get the dog back. I’d seen Christina command the dogs to sit before, so I gave it a try and hoped for the best. “Sit!” I whispered to Frank. He only panted, his dish-towel sized tongue hanging out of his mouth. I’m pretty sure he was laughing at me with his eyes. I didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention, so I raised my voice only slightly. “Sit!” His obedience wasn’t immediate, but eventually, after what I think was a test of my patience, he plopped his bottom down.
“Good,” I said. “Stay...” I removed my hand slowly from his collar. “Stay...”
As I reached for the latch, Frank stood and nosed my hand away, while Stein pulled me backwards. Undaunted, I gave it another go. Actually, that’s not true. I was daunted. I was daunted big time. My nerves were frazzled, and I was stealing someone’s dogs. I still gave it another go, although it was just more of a Lucille Ball go at it rather than a Lara Croft attack of the situation.
“Sit,” I said, whimpering now. “Sit, Frank, sit. Do this for me buddy.”
Saturday Night Cleaver (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #4) Page 15